First in a series of studies on Psalm 51
by Keith Bassham
I love the Bible. And not just for its spiritual value. That is a given, of course. We are enjoined to consume the words of the Lord. It is food for the believer. Matthew 4:4 says, “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” and 1 Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” And the Bible is essential reading for knowing what we can about God and His salvation: 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
But I love the mechanics of the Bible as well — the way the words and ideas fit and are expressed, and the use of figures of speech. Read aloud and with expression these words from the Epistle of Jude regarding those who pose as believers and yet are working against God: “… clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” That is not only truth, but it is truth expressed beautifully.
I love that when you work with Psalms, you don’t come at the text the same way you would with Romans or Acts. The strophes and stanzas of the Proverbs and Psalms, even though presented with English words and syntax, are almost a different language.
I am supposing we all know that a psalm is a song. There are songs scattered throughout the Bible, but we have 150 songs gathered together into one book, or scroll, if you lived in biblical times. Among the Jews and the early church they were sung or recited much the same way we would use a hymnbook or a prayer book — although not many Baptists in the West use a prayer book. In fact, some prayer books used in liturgical churches recite all the Psalms in a little over a month. You don’t have to use a formal prayer book fortunately, because they are numbered. You could use the book of Psalms as a standalone. Read five a day, and you get through them all in a month. And at any rate, if you flipped through any standard Christian hymnbook, you would find the Psalms contributed significantly to the work there.
The Psalms are generally attributed to David, the second king of Israel, and he wrote a good number of them, but not all of them. David was a renaissance man — a warrior, a philosopher, a poet, a musician, a king. He was a man who had risen from a fairly low place to a very high place. He had God’s favor, and God’s ear. His Psalms are often prayers, sometimes complaints, many times praise. But occasionally, you read a Psalm like the 51st. It is one of a group called the Penitential Psalms. These (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) are Psalms of confession, and repentance, and brokenness, and cries for mercy and forgiveness. Another of the Penitentials, Psalm 32, sounds much like Psalm 51, but it does not share the same kind of detail.
You get the idea sometimes that many of the Psalms have stories behind them. For instance, Psalm 23, the Psalm of the Good Shepherd, must have something in the background of the composer. You can see how a man who had been leading sheep, who knew their needs, who understood the relationship between the shepherd and sheep, could be inspired to write, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Some of David’s Psalms are based on specific events in his life. You can hear the trouble in David’s voice in Psalm 3: 3: “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God.” Most Bible students think this was written about the time of the rebellion of Absalom, David’s son. David spent so much time in similar situations, it would only be natural he would express himself in a song.
Many Psalms have big picture stories in the background. There is a lament for a persecution, a sickness, a calamity, and in those Psalms there is the idea that God is the protector of the weak and the helpless. He is a defender of the oppressed, and He will not leave his people in their tragic circumstances … “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” That kind of thing.
But the Penitential Psalms have a different kind of story in the background. Here it is not, “O God protect us, defend us, avenge us, deliver us…” Here there is moral failure, covenant failure, sin. There may be a cry for deliverance, but before that, and at the heart of the Psalm, there is a prayer for forgiveness.
And that is what you must understand about Psalm 51. This Penitential Psalm has a story. Probably the biggest back story in the book of Psalms.
And that story is given to us briefly in the inscription: “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Ordinarily, I don’t spend much time reading or teaching on the inscriptions in the Psalms. They were likely not there at the time of the actual Psalm’s composition, but added later to give context. But here, the inscription is significant. And here is why.
King David is like a sports hero in an almanac whose record is marked forever with an asterisk, because of some anomaly or misstep. David’s asterisk is recorded in 1 Kings 5:5: “David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” And the “matter of Uriah the Hittite” is related to us in 2 Samuel 11 and the first part of chapter 12. Ordinarily, I would paraphrase a longer passage and retell the story in my own words, but the Bible is both explicit and elegant, and so I reproduce the passage here:
And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried still at Jerusalem.
And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?
And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.
And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.
And David sent to Joab, saying, Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David.
And when Uriah was come unto him, David demanded of him how Joab did, and how the people did, and how the war prospered.
And David said to Uriah, Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet. And Uriah departed out of the king’s house, and there followed him a mess of meat from the king.
But Uriah slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord, and went not down to his house.
And when they had told David, saying, Uriah went not down unto his house, David said unto Uriah, Camest thou not from thy journey? why then didst thou not go down unto thine house?
And Uriah said unto David, The ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.
And David said to Uriah, Tarry here to day also, and to morrow I will let thee depart. So Uriah abode in Jerusalem that day, and the morrow.
And when David had called him, he did eat and drink before him; and he made him drunk: and at even he went out to lie on his bed with the servants of his lord, but went not down to his house.
And it came to pass in the morning, that David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah.
And he wrote in the letter, saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die.
And it came to pass, when Joab observed the city, that he assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men were.
And the men of the city went out, and fought with Joab: and there fell some of the people of the servants of David; and Uriah the Hittite died also.
Then Joab sent and told David all the things concerning the war;
And charged the messenger, saying, When thou hast made an end of telling the matters of the war unto the king,
And if so be that the king’s wrath arise, and he say unto thee, Wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall?
Who smote Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? did not a woman cast a piece of a millstone upon him from the wall, that he died in Thebez? why went ye nigh the wall? then say thou, Thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
So the messenger went, and came and shewed David all that Joab had sent him for.
And the messenger said unto David, Surely the men prevailed against us, and came out unto us into the field, and we were upon them even unto the entering of the gate.
And the shooters shot from off the wall upon thy servants; and some of the king’s servants be dead, and thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.
Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it: and encourage thou him.
And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband.
And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
Chapter 12 continues …
And the Lord sent Nathan unto David.
And he came unto him, and said unto
him, There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.
The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.
And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.
And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die:
And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
For thou didst it secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.
This last phrase reminds me of the Gospel passage that tells how Simon Peter wept bitterly at his realization that he betrayed Jesus. Something like that realization has occurred here with Nathan’s accusation.
Let me make a few observations, and then we can work through some questions.
- All humans, even the best of them, and even the most converted of the children of God, are also children of Adam. All have sinned. We don’t all sin the same, and we do not sin as much after we become the children of God, but we do sin.
- God is omniscient. Hebrews 4:12: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
- When we do blow it with God, it is better that we deal with Him first. And quickly. Without excuses. Without argument. And the only appeal that carries weight with him is a cry for mercy. That is the key to understanding and applying Psalm 51.
Some things to think about:
When you are caught, I mean really caught, what is your first impulse? What do you eventually do? Do you accept the blame and the guilt, or do you try to put it off on someone or something else?
Why is it important that David ask for mercy and not justice? What would pure justice entail for David?
Bathsheba is a part of the story, of course, but the event is referred to as “the matter of Uriah the Hittite” What are we to make of that?
The prophet Nathan is called by God to bring a hard truth to the king. Today we talk of “speaking truth to power,” referring to the responsibility of bringing gospel values to the marketplace and challenging our leaders when necessary. While we are not prophets in the sense of Nathan, what is our responsibility to bring the truth to bear on our own situations, and how can we do that?