Psalms 51:4 BSB — MannaFest

Psalms 51:4

Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.

BSB

Parallel translations (2) ▾

ASV

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest.

KJV

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

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Commentary

4 voices

Ambrose of Milan

Concerning Repentance 2.3.17 (397)

"I [the prodigal son] have sinned," he says, "against heaven and before you." He confesses what is clearly a sin to death, that you may not think that any one doing penance is rightly shut out from pardon. For one who has sinned against heaven has sinned either against the kingdom of heaven or against his own soul, which is a sin to death, and against God, to whom alone is said: "Against you only have I sinned and done evil before you."

The record, by era

The Church Fathers1 voice

Jerome

LETTER 122.3 (420)

Psalm 50 [51] shows the complete repentance of a sinner when David, who had gone into Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite and was rebuked by the prophet Nathan, said, "I have sinned." Immediately he deserved to hear "The Lord has removed your sin from you." For he, who had added homicide to adultery and was moved to tears, said, "God, have compassion on me according to your great pity, and according to the multitude of your mercies take away my iniquity."

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)

Thee only - Which is not to be, understood absolutely, because he had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, and many others; but comparatively. So the sense is, though I have sinned against my own conscience, and against others; yet nothing is more grievous to me, than that I have sinned against thee.

The Nineteenth Century1 voice

Charles Spurgeon

1834–1892

The Treasury of David, Vol. 2 (1870)

Against thee, thee only have I sinned. The virus of sin lies in its opposition to God: the psalmist's sense of sin towards others rather tended to increase the force of this feeling of sin against God. All his wrong doing centred, culminated, and came to a climax, at the foot of the divine throne. To injure our fellow men is sin, mainly because in so doing we violate the law of God.

Voices on this verse

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Original language & word study

11 tagged words

Original	Transliteration	Meaning	Word study
לְךָ֤	le.Kha	to you
לְבַדְּךָ֨׀	le.va.de.Kha	to alone you	H905 →
חָטָאתִי֮	cha.ta.Ti	I have sinned	H2398 →
וְהָרַ֥ע	ve.ha.Ra'	and the evil	H7451 →
בְּעֵינֶ֗יךָ	be.'ei.Nei.kha	in view your	H5869 →
עָ֫שִׂ֥יתִי	'a.Si.ti	I have done	H6213 →
לְ֭מַעַן	Le.ma.'an	so that	H4616 →
תִּצְדַּ֥ק	titz.Dak	you may be just	H6663 →
בְּדָבְרֶ֗ךָ	be.da.ve.Re.kha	when speaking you	H1696 →
תִּזְכֶּ֥ה	tiz.Keh	you will be pure	H2135 →
בְשָׁפְטֶֽךָ׃	ve.sha.fe.Te.kha	when judging you	H8199 →

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

The walk

The walk8

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
Romans 3:4
Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”
leads to
- Psalms 116:11
  In my alarm I said, “All men are liars!”
- Galatians 2:17
  But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, does that make Christ a minister of sin? Certainly not!
- Hebrews 6:18
  Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.
- Titus 1:2
  in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.
- Deuteronomy 32:4
  He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
Through
Luke 15:21
The son declared, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
leads to
- Luke 15:18–19
  I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
Through
Genesis 39:9
No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin…
leads to
- 2 Samuel 12:13
  Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” “The LORD has taken away your sin,” Nathan replied. “You will not die.
Through
Genesis 20:6
Then God said to Abimelech in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against Me. That is why I did…
leads to
- 1 Samuel 25:34
  Otherwise, as surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, who has restrained me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, then surely no male belonging to Nabal…

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About Psalms

Saul attempts to kill David (the harpist of Israel) — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

Psalms: the study guide →Read chapter 51 →The featured study →

Continue: Psalms 51 →

01Commentary

The record, by era

Voices on this verse

02Original language & word study

03The walk

Where the connections lead

04Related verses

05Featured studies on this passage

06About Psalms

The record, by era

Where the connections lead

Commentary

Original language & word study

The walk

Related verses

Featured studies on this passage

About Psalms