Psalm 32:8

Psalm 32 is a Maskil, a psalm of instruction, with David’s name at its head, and it has long been counted among the seven penitential psalms. It opens by calling blessed the man “whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). David tells how his strength wasted away while he kept silence about his sin (Psalm 32:3–4), and how the LORD forgave him when he confessed it (Psalm 32:5). He urges every godly person to pray to God in a time when he may be found (Psalm 32:6), and he calls God his hiding place (Psalm 32:7). Verse 8 is God’s answer to that contrite heart.

The occasion of the psalm is often linked to David’s sin with Bathsheba and Nathan’s rebuke (2 Samuel 11–12), and it belongs beside Psalm 51 as a psalm of sin, confession and restored fellowship with God.

What God promises here is the next step after pardon. Forgiveness has freed David from his guilt, and now God undertakes to show him how to live, so that the forgiven man walks in righteousness and is kept from going back into the sin he has left. Three verbs carry the promise, each with “I will” before it, and together they put the whole work in the LORD’s own hands.

“I will instruct thee” uses sâkal, which means to be wise or have understanding, and in this form to make wise, to instruct, to consider and to prosper. When God instructs someone, he gives them the understanding to act wisely. “And teach thee” uses yârâh, a word that can mean to throw or shoot, to water or rain, and to point out or teach. It is often tied to the giving of the Law, whose name, Torah, means “instruction” or “teaching”. God points out the path so that the steps are plain. “I will guide thee” uses yâʻats, to advise or counsel, and in other forms to deliberate or resolve. God’s guidance is his counsel, coming from his wisdom and his good purposes for the one he leads. Isaiah gives the same promise with the same picture of a road: “I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go” (Isaiah 48:17).

“The way”, derek, is one of Scripture’s great pictures for a person’s life, taking in conduct and destiny alike, and it runs through the wisdom books and the histories. “The way which thou shalt go” is the actual road in front of the forgiven person, with its daily decisions, relationships and work and the walk with God himself. Proverbs gives our side of the same promise: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Verse 9 turns from promise to warning, and it speaks to everyone who hears the psalm: “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding.” Everyone in Israel knew these animals, because they did the work of farming, carrying and war. The horse, çûwç (also written çûs), was prized for strength and speed and could be spirited and hard to manage. Its name comes from a root meaning to skip or leap. The mule, pered, was known for strength, endurance and stubbornness, and its name is traced to a root meaning to separate, perhaps from its lonely habits. Both needed a bit and a bridle to be directed, and either could be a danger to its handler or to itself.

What they lack is understanding, bîyn, the ability to understand and discern. A horse answers pressure on its mouth, and that is how it is turned. People can understand what God says and choose to follow it. God made us able to take in his instruction, and the psalm calls us to use that gift, which begins in reverence for him: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Proverbs uses the same comparison to shame the fool: “A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool’s back” (Proverbs 26:3).

The bit, metheg, is the piece placed in the animal’s mouth and joined to the bridle, and it is the means by which a rider controls the animal’s head and so its direction. The bridle, reçen, is the headgear that holds it. Named together they describe complete control from outside, applied at the mouth, which is exactly where a horse is turned, as James says: “Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body” (James 3:3). Set beside verse 8, the contrast is plain. God offers a look, and the beast needs a bit.

Verse 10 gathers up the psalm’s teaching in a single contrast: “Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about.” Two kinds of people and two outcomes stand side by side.

The word for sorrows, makʼôb, comes from a root meaning to be in pain, and it covers pains and griefs of body and of mind. David knew them well, for this is what unconfessed sin did to him when his bones waxed old and God’s hand was heavy on him day and night (Psalm 32:3–4). The sorrows of the wicked are “many”, multiplying and reaching into every part of life: guilt, anxiety, emptiness, broken relationships, and in the end separation from God for ever. Some come as the natural fruit of sin, and all of them come within the moral order God has set.

The wicked, râshâʻ, are those who are guilty before God and whose lives are set against what is right. The word describes a settled direction of life, marked by persistent rebellion and a refusal to repent, more than an occasional failing. Israel knew from the covenant that obedience brought blessing and disobedience brought suffering and judgment (Deuteronomy 28). Proverbs says, “Evil pursueth sinners: but to the righteous good shall be repayed” (Proverbs 13:21), and Paul warns of indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that does evil (Romans 2:8–9).

The other person “trusteth in the LORD”. The verb bâṭach means to be confident and secure, to rely on someone and lean one’s whole weight on him. It stands against self-reliance and against reliance on what the world offers, as another psalm says: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20:7).

Around that person is mercy, hesed, God’s covenant loving-kindness and steadfast love. To “compass him about”, çâbab, is to surround or encircle. God’s mercy stands on every side of the one who trusts, like a shield or a fortress, guarding, comforting and keeping him through all that comes. Another psalm of David says the same: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6).

The psalm that began in the misery of hidden sin ends in a shout: “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.” This is the natural and commanded response of a heart set free from the weight of guilt and reconciled to God, and it carries the psalm from distress through deliverance to praise.

Three verbs build the call. Sâmach means to rejoice or be glad, to feel and show great joy. Gîyl also means to rejoice and be glad, and the lexicons give its root sense as “spin round”, which suits the strength of feeling in it. Rânan means to give a ringing cry or shout, usually for joy. It belongs to victory, deliverance and glad worship, and Scripture often calls for it or resolves on it, as in “let us sing”. Israel’s joy in worship was heard aloud, in shouting, singing and dancing, above all when God had delivered his people. Here that joy is commanded, as a privilege for those who have known God’s forgiveness and a discipline for the days when feeling comes slowly.

What makes this gladness holy is its object. The verb for gladness is used of other kinds of joy as well, and this joy is “in the LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God. He is its source, its object and its foundation. Gladness that rests on circumstances rises and falls with them, while gladness in the LORD rests on his unchanging character, his faithfulness, his saving work and his presence.

The promise to teach the forgiven in the way is fulfilled in Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1:14), who reveals the Father’s will and teaches with authority and grace. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). His life shows the way walked in perfect obedience, and he sent the Spirit of truth to guide his people into all truth and remind them of all he taught (John 16:13). So we follow by “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Jesus is also the willing Son that verse 9 longs to see in us. He came saying, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God” (Hebrews 10:7). In Gethsemane he prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and he “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). His heart was always one with the Father’s. Through his sacrifice God gives the new heart and new spirit he promised through Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:26–27), so that his people are led from within: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14).

The many sorrows of the wicked are the just wages of sin, and by our own strength we are helpless to escape them. Christ, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), took them on himself: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3–5). He was “made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), so that the covering for sin celebrated in Psalm 32:1 is ours, and God says, “their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). This is how mercy comes to surround the one who trusts. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), for he is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4–5).

The righteous whom verse 11 calls to rejoice are made righteous by God’s grace through faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice (Romans 3:23–26), for God “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). Their gladness is the joy of salvation, and it will reach its fullness at the marriage of the Lamb: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him” (Revelation 19:7).

These four verses describe the life that follows forgiveness. The God who covered David’s sin went on to teach him, and he offers the same to us: his Word, his Spirit and his eye upon us along the road we have to walk. He would sooner lead us by a look than by a bridle, and he has given us understanding so that we can follow. When the way is hard, his mercy is on every side of us. And because the LORD himself is our joy, we have every reason to be glad in him and to say so aloud.