My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 51

1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!

David was so New Testamental!

I have this picture in my mind of an Old Testament saint, after committing sin, getting a sacrifice in order, finding a priest and providing the sacrifice to the priest in order to absolve the saint of sin. After all the sacrificial system was set up in order to take care of our sins, right?

When David is confronted by Nathan, and he comes to realizing the depth of his sin, how in his desire for another man’s wife, God’s laws were trampled on, how his action caused the complete decimation of God’s second tablet of the law, including his acts of murder, adultery, theft, lies and coveting, his reaction is not what I would have considered typical for the Old Testament Saint.

No, he takes the sacrificial system provided by God, and transforms it from a physical approach to an altar to an personal inner approach directly to God.

His first thought is to depend on the living God, and not on a system of sacrifice, a set of rules that the living God provided. He goes directly to the source, not depending on any human intermediary. In approaching God (full of sin) he asks for mercy first and up front. He has just committed a minimum of breaking six of God’s laws, and has the audacity to request mercy.

This speaks of the nature of mercy, does it not? For mercy to be exercised by the giver, it implies the mercy giver is in the position of strength, that is that the one offended has the right to exercise his justice upon the one who is in the wrong.

God is a righteous judge, and David knew this, yet his request for mercy is actually an effort to disarm God of his rightful choice of demanding retribution upon a sinful and thankless saint, a rebellious man who had experienced being personally lifted by God from being a lonely shepherd in the back 40 of his fathers ranch into the highest office of the land. Beyond this, God promised David an eternal Kingdom through his Son, a covenant referred to as the Davidic Covenant. No small commitment! And after all these expressions of love God showers on David, he goes off and runs ragged over the commandments of God.

And then seeks mercy! Let’s take a moment to understand what he is asking for from God. Three Hebrew terms are translated as mercy in the Old Testament.

כַּפֹּרֶת kappôreth refers to the mercy seat, originally defining a “covering”. The mercy seat was the top of the ark and emphasized, not the judgement that may be due, but the mercy afforded to the one who approached, though it be infrequent (yearly) and by the high priest only.

רָחַם râcham is to be compassionate, or to show compassion. The term is not restricted to God showing compassion or love, for David himself, in earlier days expressed his râcham to God in Psalm 18:1.

Psalm 18:1 … who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said: I love you, O LORD, my strength.

חָסִיד châçîyd is often translated as steadfast love in the Old Testament, and refers to a faithfulness in showing love. A love that is shown at the worst of times, Consider

Isaiah 54:10 For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

When our limits of expressing love ends, this steadfast love continues

Lamentations 3:31-32 For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;

This last one is the term David uses in relating to God’s character. It is not referring to the mercy seat, as I may have expected, or to compassion as the second term emphasizes. David goes to the character of God, the very heart of the One who he has to face. David is looking to the One who is steadfast love. It is who God is, and David understood this. Oh that I would understand God as the One who is steadfast in His love.

Yet I have missed the first term David used when requesting mercy, for when David states “Have mercy”, he uses the Hebrew term חָנַן chânan. This term is often translated as gracious, as in 2 Samuel 12:22

2 Samuel 12:22 He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’

David, in Psalm 51 seeks grace from God in relation to his sin before God. Months later, when the child who is the result of this sin is born very sick, David again reverts to asking for grace in relation to this child. Boy oh boy – David had hutzpah, nerve, gall! How dare he continue to ask for mercy, for grace. Maybe he knew something we sometimes forget about the God we serve.

In closing, as I opened up this post, I mentioned that David was so New Testamental. Lets take a few moments to remind ourselves of the grace we live under.

Matthew 9:13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

James 2:13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

In adding Matthew 5:7, I want to leave my readers with the challenge of expressing mercy to those around you in your daily lives. Let us be like the God David called out to, and show mercy to those who do not deserve mercy, for that is the very nature of mercy!

Be blessed and walk in peace towards those who you come in contact with!

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