Psalm 130:3

Verse 3 is a condition followed by a question: “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” The psalmist pictures God keeping strict account of every sin and then asks who could face him on those terms. The question expects an answer that every hearer already knows, and that answer is nobody.

The verb for “mark”, shâmar, is the ordinary word for keeping and guarding. Its root picture is of hedging something about, as with thorns, and so it means to watch over, attend to and keep. Here it means keeping careful note of sins, as if God were holding each one in store for a day of reckoning. God does know every sin, for all our actions, thoughts and intentions are open to him. The psalmist asks what would become of us if God dealt with us by that record alone, by the full measure of his justice.

“Iniquities” translates ʻâvôn, which comes from a root meaning to bend or twist. It is moral crookedness, the twisting of what is right, and the same word can mean the guilt that follows and even the punishment for that guilt. So the psalmist is speaking of sin as it makes us guilty before God.

To stand, ʻâmad, is simply to stand. In the question mi yaʿamod, “who shall stand?”, the picture is of a person standing before a king or a judge, whose life or acquittal depends on being found blameless. To stand in that place is to come through the judgment and go free. The psalmist knows that his own merits will never carry him through it, and his question takes in every one of us.

He calls on God by two names. “LORD” here is Yâhh, a short form of God’s covenant name, and “Lord” is ʼĂdônây, the sovereign Master. The God who would judge is the Master over all, and he is also the God who has bound himself to his people, and the psalmist speaks to him as both.

The rest of Scripture says the same about our standing before God. Job asked, “how should man be just with God?” (Job 9:2). David prayed, “And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalm 143:2). Paul writes, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10), and “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This verse leaves us with every claim of our own taken away, so that we look for another ground on which to stand, and verse 4 gives it.

Verse 4 opens with “But”, and that one word turns the psalm from despair to hope. Having confessed his guilt, the psalmist says, “But there is forgiveness with thee”. Forgiveness is “with” God. It belongs to him and is part of who he is, so the hope of the psalm rests on God’s own character. The patient waiting of the next verse is built on it: “I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope” (Psalm 130:5).

The word for forgiveness, çᵉlîychâh, comes from the verb salach, to forgive, and it means pardon. Scripture uses it of God’s forgiveness alone, and never of one person pardoning another. Forgiving sin is God’s own right, and he gives it as a free gift of his grace, out of his compassion and by his power to take guilt away.

This is how God made himself known to Moses: “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6–7). Micah praises the God “that pardoneth iniquity”, because “he delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18). Paul speaks of the blessing of the forgiven: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:7–8). The God who could mark iniquities is the God who delights to forgive them.

The verse gives God’s purpose in forgiving: “that thou mayest be feared.” A God who only condemned would leave people in despair and dread. A God who pardons the guilty shows a grace and a power that move them to awe, and his mercy is itself an expression of his holiness and power. So the more fully a person knows how much he has been forgiven, the more he reveres the God who forgave him, and the more he wants to honour him with his life.

Paul makes the same connection when he writes that “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Romans 2:4). A forgiven person is humbled by his pardon and wants to live in a way that pleases the One who gave it, out of gratitude.

Psalm 130 is one of the fifteen Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134), which were likely sung by pilgrims as they went up to Jerusalem for the yearly feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. These psalms speak of the journey, of longing for God’s presence, of trust in his protection and of worship together as his people. The going up was also a picture of cleansing, of laying other things aside to draw near to the holy God in his Temple. These two verses gave the pilgrims words for that: a confession that their own record could never bring them through God’s judgment, and an assurance that forgiveness is with him. The Temple was the place where atonement was made, and the psalm says that forgiveness itself is found with God.

It is also one of the seven penitential psalms, with Psalm 6, Psalm 32, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, Psalm 102 and Psalm 143. Each of them confesses sin, pleads for mercy and trusts God to forgive. The depths the psalmist cries from in verse 1 may have been personal sin or a calamity on the nation, and these verses show that the deepest of them is guilt before God. Sin broke the covenant and brought God’s judgment, so for Israel forgiveness mattered above everything.

These verses find their fullest answer in Jesus Christ. Verse 3 shows our need, which is why the Son came and died. Verse 4 is fulfilled at the cross, where Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ, who knew no sin, bore God’s judgment against our sin in our place: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). God showed his love in this, “that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Christ offered himself once for all, and “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10–14).

In him “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7). God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13–14). Those who trust in Christ are clothed in his righteousness, credited to them. He is the High Priest who was tempted as we are, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), and our “advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1–2). So the question of verse 3 now has its answer, because in Christ the forgiven stand before God in the assurance of his grace. The fear of verse 4 is deepest here too, in the awe of knowing that the Son of God paid the price for our rebellion.

These two verses hold together what we most need to know about ourselves and about God. He knows every iniquity, and by our own record we could never stand before him. Forgiveness is with him, as part of who he is, and he gives it freely. The psalmist’s hope rests there, on God’s character, and so can ours. The fruit of that pardon is the reverence God himself named as his purpose, a grateful awe that worships him and wants to honour him.