Psalms 51:8

A series of prayers for forgiveness and purifying. Purge . . . hyssop--The use of this plant in the ritual (Ex 12:22; Nu 19:6, 18) suggests the idea of atonement as prominent here; "purge" refers to vicarious satisfaction (Nu 19:17-20).

Make me to hear joy and gladness. He prays about his sorrow late in the Psalm; he began at once with his sin; he asks to hear pardon, and then to hear joy. He seeks comfort at the right time and from the right source. His ear has become heavy with sinning, and so he prays, "Make me to hear." No voice could revive his dead joys but that which quickeneth the dead. Pardon from God would give him double joy—"joy and gladness." No stinted bliss awaits the forgiven one; he shall not only have a double blooming joy, but he shall hear it; it shall sing with exultation. Some joy is felt but not heard, for it contends with fears; but the joy of pardon has a voice louder than the voice of sin. God's voice speaking peace is the sweetest music an ear can hear. That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. He was like a poor wretch whose bones are crushed, crushed by no ordinary means, but by omnipotence itself. He groaned under no mere flesh wounds; his firmest and yet most tender powers were "broken in pieces all asunder; "his manhood had become a dislocated, mangled, quivering sensibility. Yet if he who crushed would cure, every wound would become a new mouth for song, every bone quivering before with agony would become equally sensible of intense delight. The figure is bold, and so is the supplicant. He is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God! Preposterous there most of all but for the cross where Jehovah Jesus bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

BACKSLIDING is a most common evil, far more common than some of us suppose. We may ourselves be guilty of it and yet may delude our hearts with the idea that we are making progress in spiritual life. As the cunning hunter always makes the passage into his pits most easy and attractive, but always renders it most difficult for his victim to escape, so Satan makes the way of apostasy to be very seductive to our nature, but alas, the path of return from backsliding is very hard to tread and were it not for Divine Grace, no human feet would ever be able to make progress in it. If I should be successful, this morning, in calling attention to decline in the spiritual life, especially in calling the attention of those to the matter whom it most concerns—I mean those who are themselves declining—I shall feel happy, indeed. At the same time, if I should so speak that those who have backslidden may be encouraged to hope for restoration and to seek, with earnestness and eagerness, that they may even now be restored, a second good result will have followed and unto God shall be double praise! Dear Friends, we make little enough advance in the spiritual life, as it is—it were a thousand follies in one to be going back. When I look at my own standing on the road to Heaven, I am so dissatisfied with that to which I have attained, that to give up an inch of what I have gained would be excess of madness! A rich man may lose a thousand pounds or more and not feel it—but he whose purse is scant cannot afford to lose a shilling.

BACKSLIDING is a most common evil, far more common than some of us suppose. We may ourselves be guilty of it and yet may delude our hearts with the idea that we are making progress in spiritual life.

Make me to hear joy - Let me have a full testimony of my reconciliation to thee; that the soul, which is so deeply distressed by a sense of thy displeasure, may be healed by a sense of thy pardoning mercy.

Make me to hear joy and gladness - That is, the voice of forgiveness, causing joy and rejoicing. What he wished to hear was the kind voice of God in pronouncing his pardon; not the voice of anger and condemnation. God now condemned him. The law condemned him. His own conscience condemned him. The result was anguish and sorrow. The burden was great and overpowering - such as to crush him; to break all his “bones.” He longed to hear the sweet voice of forgiveness, by which he might have peace, and by which his soul might be made to rejoice. Compare the notes at Psa 32:1-2. That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice - That is, which have been crushed or broken by the weight of sin. Compare the notes at Psa 32:3. See also Psa 6:2; Psa 22:14; Psa 31:10; Psa 38:3. The word “rejoice” means here, be free from suffering; the prayer is that the burden which had crushed him might be removed.