Psalm 51:1-19 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness… These words, "According to Thy lovingkindness and tender mercies," may be taken not only absolutely but respectively in reference to his own former experiences of the goodness of God towards him. David had found and felt how gracious God had been to him in former time, in divers mercies which He had bestowed upon him in several kinds and ways; and more particularly in the pardoning and forgiving of sin unto him, and in the assuring of him also of this pardon; and now he deals with God upon terms of His wonted goodness, which he desires still may be continued to him. This shows us the advantage of God's children in this particular, that they can deal with God upon the account of former goodness; that having justified their persons in general, He should remit their special transgression to them; and having forgiven them the sins of their nature, He should therefore consequently forgive to them likewise the sins of their lives. The reason of it is this, because He is still like Himself, and changes not, so that he that hath done the one, will not stick to do the other with it; God's mercies are so linked and chained together that we may reason in this manner from them. (Thomas Horton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.} Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. |
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