Psalm 25:1

The heading calls this “A Psalm of David”, and its requests fit a life lived under pressure. David was the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), and he was also hunted by Saul (1 Samuel 19), fell into sin with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), and was driven from Jerusalem by Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15), the flight remembered in the heading of Psalm 3. This psalm carries both kinds of burden at once, enemies around him and the memory of his own sin within. Which moment of his life gave rise to it is left unsaid, and so the prayer fits many.

Psalm 25 is an acrostic, in which each verse, or pair of verses, begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, though the pattern is kept only loosely. A design like this was likely an aid to memorizing the prayer and meditating on it, and it shows a carefully made composition. The psalm follows Psalm 24, which praises the King of glory, and comes before Psalm 26, a prayer for vindication. The rest of Psalm 25 returns to what these opening verses set out: deliverance from enemies (Psalm 25:19–20), a plea that God keep his soul (25:20), and at the close a prayer that God redeem all Israel (25:22).

“Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul” sets the direction for everything that follows. “LORD” stands for Yᵉhôvâh, the personal, covenant name by which God made himself known to Israel. David prays to the God who has bound himself to his people and keeps his promises, and that is why he can come so directly.

The verb nâsâʼ means to lift, carry or bear. David uses it for something no hand can do, raising his soul to God. The word for soul, nephesh, covers the breathing creature, its life, the self, the person and even the appetite, so “my soul” here is the whole of David: his life, his will, his desires, his fears and his hopes together. Lifting it to the LORD is a picture of prayer in which a man brings all of himself and places it in God’s care. Lamentations calls Israel to the same act, “Let us lift up our heart with our hands” (Lamentations 3:41). Psalm 62:8 tells God’s people to trust in him at all times and pour out their hearts before him, and Paul gives the same counsel when he tells believers to make their requests known to God in everything and promises that God’s peace will keep their hearts (Philippians 4:6–7).

To lift up the soul is an act of worship and an act of trust at once. The one who does it leans on the LORD with all his heart and lets go of his own understanding, as Proverbs 3:5–6 teaches, and he looks to God to direct his paths. That is the posture in which David goes on to ask for protection, guidance and pardon.

“O my God, I trust in thee” is the ground of every request in the psalm. The word for God is ʼĕlôhîym, and with “my” David claims him as his own God, the one he is bound to. “I trust” is bâṭach, a word for confident reliance that leaves a person secure and bold, the trust of Proverbs 3:5. The verb stands in the Hebrew perfect, which speaks of a trust already settled and still continuing. David puts his whole weight on God before he asks him for anything.

Then comes the plea: “let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.” To be ashamed, bûwsh, properly means to turn pale, and so to be ashamed, disappointed or confounded. To triumph, ʻâlats, means to jump for joy or exult, and over a fallen man it is the gloating of his enemies, ʼôyêb. The two lines belong together, because the shame David fears is the shame of seeing his enemies celebrate his downfall. Among the nations a man’s public defeat was taken as a sign that his god was weak or unwilling, so David’s prayer for himself is also a prayer for the honor of the LORD’s name. He asks God to show his faithfulness openly, as he does again at the start of Psalm 31:1.

David’s enemies may have been political rivals, foreign nations or rebels within Israel. The prayer fits every opponent of God’s people, human or spiritual, that would bring dishonor on God through the apparent failure of his servant.

Having put his trust in God, David asks to be taught by him. “Shew me” is yâdaʻ, the verb “to know”, here in its causative form: “make me know”. David asks God to make known what he could not find out by his own reasoning.

“Ways” is derek, a road, and figuratively a course of life or manner of acting. “Paths” is ʼôrach, a well-trodden road or path, and also a course or way of life. The two words mean much the same, and the second line repeats the first in Hebrew fashion to give the request its full weight. God’s ways are the way he himself acts and the way he calls his people to walk. For Israel they were set out in the covenant and the law of Moses, and the law tells Israel to walk in all the ways the LORD has commanded, so that it may go well with them (Deuteronomy 5:33).

“Teach me” is lâmad. In its simple form the verb means to learn, and in the form used here it means to teach, instruct or train, to cause another to learn. Strong’s gives “to goad” as the proper sense of the root. David asks to be made a learner under God, who says through Isaiah, “I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go” (Isaiah 48:17). God’s word is the lamp for this road (Psalm 119:105), and the learner comes to it humbly, quiet before God like the weaned child of Psalm 131:2.

Verse 6 turns from what David needs to what God is. “Remember” is zâkar, to remember, and in another form to mention or bring to remembrance. Scripture often speaks of God remembering, as when God remembered Noah (Genesis 8:1), and Moses pleaded in the same way, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants.”

Verse 7 is the confession that verse 6 prepares for. “Sins” is chaṭṭâʼâh, the common word for sin, which is also used for the sin offering. “Transgressions” is peshaʻ, a word for rebellion against God, a conscious breach of his covenant. “My youth” (nâʻûwr) reaches back to David’s early years. With the two words he owns the whole span of his wrongdoing, from the follies of his youth to the rebellions of his later life.

The same verb, zâkar, appears twice with opposite requests. “Remember not the sins of my youth” asks God not to bring those sins to mind for judgment. “Remember thou me” asks God to bring David himself to mind for favor, compassion and help. The ground of both requests is God’s own character: “according to thy mercy”, cheçed, the loyal love of verse 6, and “for thy goodness’ sake”, ṭûwb, God’s goodness. David offers no merit of his own. He asks to be forgiven because God is good, the same mercy and goodness God proclaimed to Moses. The LORD has not dealt with us after our sins, and as a father pities his children, so he pities those who fear him (Psalm 103:10–14). He says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25).

What David prays here, Jesus lived perfectly. He lifted up his soul to the Father all his life, and in Gethsemane he prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). On the cross he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). He now lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), and he is the way by whom we come to the Father (John 14:6).

Jesus trusted the Father through mockery and the shame of the cross, which looked like his enemies’ triumph. He “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), and he was declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). He was hated without cause and was never put to shame, and on the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). Because of him, those who trust in him will be presented faultless before God’s glory (Jude 1:24).

Jesus is also the answer to David’s request to be shown God’s ways and led in his truth. He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), the one whose words are the rock to build on (Matthew 7:24), and he sent the Spirit of truth to guide his people into all truth (John 16:13). Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk as he walked (1 John 2:6).

The mercies David asked God to remember are seen in Christ. He was moved with compassion for the crowds (Matthew 9:36), he wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35), and he received sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1–2). He is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29). God commended his love toward us in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), so that God is just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:26). He forgave our trespasses and nailed the handwriting against us to the cross (Colossians 2:13–14), and he made Christ to be sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many and will appear a second time for those who look for him (Hebrews 9:28), so our waiting now is a patient hope for his return (Romans 8:25, Philippians 3:20–21). He is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8), the mercy of old in person.

These verses give us words for our own prayers. We can bring all of ourselves to the LORD, our fears and plans included, and tell him plainly that we trust him. We can ask him to keep his people from disgrace and to deal with treachery as he sees fit. We can ask, every day, to be shown his ways and taught his paths, and we can wait on him all the day without losing heart.

When the past troubles us, the same prayer holds. We bring our sins to God, the old ones as well as the new, and we ask him to remember us according to his mercy, for his goodness’ sake. Our hope rests on his character from first to last, and his tender mercies and lovingkindnesses have been ever of old.