¹Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. ²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. ⁴Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.

Well worn in many Bibles, this psalm is needed for all who have a heart for the Lord yet recognize how far short they fall from holiness. As we read this confession of David, we cannot get away with shaking our heads at him, for if we truly understand holiness we are all liable for falling short of God’s standard. This man’s story should cause us to pause.

God characterized him as a godly man. When the prophet Samuel delivered the Lord’s termination message to the foolish, spiritually disobedient King Saul, he described God’s choice of a successor:

“But now [King Saul] your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart [David], and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” (1 Sam. 13:14).

This description was reaffirmed centuries later in the New Testament, Acts 13:22. So this description was King David’s legacy long after the Bathsheba and Uriah affair.

How, then, could he have sinned with Bathsheba, essentially raping another man’s wife? God never holds her as a willing partner in the immoral escapade, never assigning any blame to her, which is probably due to the power differential between the two. As if that were not enough, David arranged for her husband, Uriah, to be killed in a battle so he (David) could quickly take the woman as his wife, attempting to pass off her pregnancy as legitimate. If we add to these two actions, his living the lie for nine months and carrying on the façade of spirituality and faithfulness to the Lord, then he broke at least three or four of the 10 commandments! And God called him a godly man!

So what gives with that? How dare this man ask for God to be gracious to him? The answer to this question reveals the true nature of what it means to be godly. It is a given fact that we all continue to sin, even as believers:

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8–9)

The question of godliness on this side of death’s door is not a matter of attaining sinlessness here on earth. Instead, we see David’s godliness showing in how he dealt with his sin; this is the lesson for us. Storytellers often use characters of outsized proportions exhibiting behavior extremes to capture our interest and convey a message in an interesting way. That is indeed what God is doing here in preserving for us the story of David’s moral collapse and this psalm. In the tragic, compounded failures of an enormously great man, we see a lesson for all who would never sin as he did.

Jesus taught that our sins are no less grievous to God than David’s:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” (Matt. 5:21–22)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:27–28)

So, we who are sinners just like David, believers in Jesus Christ, cleansed from our sin (1 John 1:9), and positionally righteous (to use theological terms), need to go deeper in our understanding of godliness. It is not how much less sinning we do; it is what we do with our sin that determines our godliness. We must not cover up our sins, no matter how small or routine we think they are, for the Lord can see and hear our God-dishonoring thought and motive. We learn from the man of God how to deal with our sins. That is what this psalm is all about.

If this were not inspired Scripture and we didn’t know of God’s assessment of David, we might try psychoanalyzing him, reading between the lines and assigning his confession to a manipulative attempt at avoiding punishment. After all, as the inscription in verse zero indicates, he didn’t own up to his sin until after he was confronted by the prophet Samuel, the same one that confronted King Saul. However, David’s response was much different from his predecessor’s. We cannot afford to second guess God or assign this to be merely an interesting story about David.

Yes, David sinned, but he didn’t try to soft-pedal this. He was unfaithful to God by forcing himself on Bathsheba and in his terrible treachery against Uriah, a non-Jew who joined Israel, presumably as a proselyte and came under the protection of Israel’s God, Yahweh. He undermined the protection of God, which was his responsibility as king of Judah to uphold. (For the back story, see 2 Sam. 12:11-12.

Lord, I confess that I am no less a sinner than David, for as the NT writer James says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). I own this truth and open myself to becoming more like David and humbly, abjectly acknowledge my sin before You.