Jon Ericson asked this question on the Biblical Hermeneutics site:

To what extent is Psalm 51:4 poetic exaggeration?

The context of Psalm 51 is clear:

To the choirmaster. A psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

These events are described in 2nd Samuel 11–12. In summary, David essentially murdered Uriah the Hittite in order to cover up an affair with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. So this verse causes me trouble:

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
—Psalm 51:4 (ESV)

David did sin against God, but it seems a stretch to say that he sinned against God only. Surely he sinned against at least Uriah, the soldiers who died with him (and their families), Bathsheba, his current wives, and even his unborn child. In addition, he probably sinned against Joab too by abusing his authority to settle a personal matter.

The logical connector “so that” seems out of place. Whatever connection there might be between a person sinning against God and God being blameless in judgment, I can’t see how justice could be the purpose or explanation of sin.

Is there some way to understand this Psalm that resolves this conundrum? What am I missing?

The best answer (I believe) comes from Qoheleth-Tech:

Not a Hyperbolic Expression

The Text of Psalm 51:4:

לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ ׀ חָטָאתִי וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי
לְמַעַן תִּצְדַּק בְּדָבְרֶךָ תִּזְכֶּה בְשָׁפְטֶֽךָ׃

Explanation

1) “Against you alone” (לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ): This is a prayer of David for repentance (a penitential psalm), and while he sinned against many others in the affair with Bathsheba, this is just not where he handles them (possible reasons are many). He says it is “in your [God's] eyes [בְּעֵינֶיךָ] that I have done this” , further indicating that this is a personal prayer (which was later set to music). Interestingly, having looked at most of the “so that” (לְמַעַן ) phrases in the canon to this point, I found at least two where a sin condition was “so that” God would be glorified; and both are instances where enemies are hardened or defeated (Ex.10:1, Dt.2:30). If anything can be drawn from that syntactical similarity, it would be that David see himself who has been completely undone, so that God can be shown victorious (LXX) in his judgements. In any case, this is how he uses the preposition “so that” (לְמַעַן).

2) We should not read the verse with an emphasis on purpose as if David’s purpose in sinning was so God would be glorified (cf. Rom.3:5-8). Rather, it is the second part of the verse which dictates the first: it was all against Him alone, “(so) that” God will be victorious. The purpose of this verse in the Psalm is to declare that God will be victorious/justified in His judgement of David’s sins. The second line of the verse is the point. In this sense, it is the purpose of the preceding verse. To understand this better, read the second line first. Try and think of it again with the second line first.

Interpretation

In this penitential prayer, there is no sin to be reserved, as if it was not against God, it was all against God. Every bit of it. God is just in judgement in all of it. The same portion against Uriah, was also against God. David must answer to God above all.

Likewise (as is evident in this Psalm) when God pardons David’s sins, he washes away all of David’s sins – there is no sacrifice to Bathsheba. David’s forgiveness was entirely with God. Whatever else was needed for the personal restoration/reconciliation with those against whom he sinned would also be in primary obedience to God.

or Mr White and the Black Hat

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

King David committed far worse sins than did King Saul. Saul was not an evil man, yet his judgments caused the deaths of many people, including Jonathan, his other sons and even the priests of God. Why did a reign that began so well end in such tragedy?

David, for all his sins (adultery, murder, trusting in armies), was not disqualified, yet Saul was rejected by God for lesser sins. What was the difference between them? Besides the fact that David owned his sin and Saul blamed everybody else, the difference was that David understood that his rule as a king over God’s Covenant people would only ever be on God’s terms. He could never be a king like those of the Gentiles.

Although his power was sourced in Israel’s priesthood, David was to embody the Covenant in a greater way than the priesthood. He was to be “Pentecostal” in the sense that he was to be not only under the Law, he was to embody, open and expound upon the Law for his people. He was to be the Law of Moses incarnate, and from David’s anointing by Samuel we see his soul broken as a priestly sacrifice, exalted in kingly fire, and finally taking on a prophetic nature. The fundamental point here is that the Law was a light to David’s path. He saw the future through God’s eyes, which means he could see a lot further ahead, by faith. He had a wisdom beyond his years.

“I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.” (Psalms 119:100)

Saul’s victories led to a misguided belief in his own divinity, which is possibly why he honoured Agag by sparing his life. As kings, they had something in common. They trusted their own judgment. Saul’s “Pentecost” became instead the ministry of an evil spirit, and the anointing of David by the Holy Spirit. Saul was a wily warrior king, but his was not the serpentine wisdom that is harmless as a dove. His judgments were based on the pragmatism of the flesh, which can only see so far. Guided by his own wisdom, rather than becoming a “Covenant shelter” for his people, Saul’s manipulation of and meddling in the Covenant processes of God put at risk those in his care. Like Walter White, those for whom he fought were the very ones he put at risk, alienated, grievously harmed and eventually lost.

David’s various sins still brought tragic consequences, but when challenged he crossed the courtroom floor to stand with God against himself and received mercy. He listened to God. Saul refused to listen, and when God stopped speaking to him he sought guidance through witchcraft. God simply repeated, through Samuel, what He had said before. The voice of Samuel was “deuteronomic” but not in a good sense. It was a legal witness against Saul from the courts of God and would end his tyranny. Saul’s own blood atoned for his kingly sins. Obedience (prevention) would have been better than sacrifice (cure).

In hindsight, Saul’s unwillingness to be a living sacrifice and place himself in the hands of a faithful, just and merciful God, is easy for us to condemn. But in so many ways this is exactly how we live our lives. Saul loved the gifts of God more than God Himself, which is an incredibly subtle form of idolatry when it is the good things that we love. If we attempt to preserve the mind of the flesh (false Altar), we will then turn to a false spirit (false Lampstand) and the spirit of prophecy, the legal witness, will not be for us but against us. The outcome of our “Covenant” missions will be plagues instead of plunder.

This Saul versus David, first Adam versus last Adam pattern was replayed in the first century. Saul’s sins were lesser than those of David, but we must remember that the anointing of David is what put the brakes on Saul’s reign. It was the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost which empowered those Jews and Gentiles who were “after God’s heart.” But the events of Pentecost also “enlightened the eyes” of many who saw Jesus for who He is and yet rejected Him, blaspheming His Spirit. From that day on, the Rabbinic Judaism of the rulers of Jerusalem, with its pragmatic compromises and manipulation of the priesthood and Temple, became entirely demonic. The persecution of the saints by the Jewish leaders was inspired by the same jealousy that filled Saul. As Saul employed Doeg the Edomite to slay the priests who had fed the Showbread to David and his followers, so the Edomite Herods slew Christ and then set about wiping out the New Covenant priesthood.

The Herodian “voice of God” which they listened to (Acts 12:22) was Covenantal sorcery, and it was the prophetic witness of the apostles which condemned them to the great Day of Coverings. Unwittingly, the Herods had offered Christ as the Head of the sacrifice and His Church as the Body, making their own Temple redundant. Like Saul and his sons, Jews attempting to escape the Roman armies were “lifted up” for the birds and the beasts in mass crucifixions. Like David, Christ became a Covenant shelter and an eternal table for the remaining sons of Saul. [1]

The Jewish compromise was born of earthly pragmatism, a short-sighted wisdom. They sat in the seat of Moses but they trusted in their own wisdom. Their “Pentecostal” Lampstand eyes were filled with darkness. God’s ways are not our ways, and they are most often veiled to us, but we can trust Him, and walk in His ways, in the knowledge that He knows the end, and our end will not be the end of Saul.

[1] Walter White has a crippled son. And his lawyer’s name is Saul Goodman.

See also Spiritual Power.

There’s a way of reading [the Bible] with your eyes open and a way of reading the Bible with your eyes closed. Your spiritual eyes are closed when you have a stingy heart. If you have a heart that’s like a bit of beef jerky left in the bottom of the bag when you’re done with it, you’re not going to be able to read the script no matter how many times you read the script.

What kind of man is David? Why is David able to trust God like this?…

A despot knows how to work with bribes and influence peddlers. A despot knows how to work the system. A despot knows how to pay people off. If you flip back to 1 Samuel 22:7, we see Saul’s idea of generosity. Saul is complaining about David.

Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, “Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds…”

“Don’t you understand? I gave you all this stuff. Where’s my loyalty!”

When our despotic federal government is dispensing money, throwing it away by the trillion, they are doing exactly this. But what are they doing it with? They are doing it with other people’s money.  They are buying off one group with what they pillaged from another group.

David, however, is generous with material goods which he gained lawfully. Saul is accruing all sorts of things to himself in the spirit Samuel warned Israel about in 1 Samuel 8. Saul is violating the Deuteromonic standards for the king of Israel, and David is not. David’s role in gaining the plunder was so obvious, David was so magnificent, that all the men rightly said, “This is David’s spoil. It all belongs to David.”

David knew it was his because God had been generous to him, and David resolved to be generous to others.

When Saul tries to work the system by bribing people, that is not the same thing as imitating the generosity of God. Someone who is buying loyalty is certainly giving something, but the heart doesn’t understand the nature of true generosity. The cosmos does work according to the law of reciprocity, but it does so without becoming a vending machine. You can trick a vending machine. You cannot trick a God Who is not mocked, Who says that a man reaps what he sows. God is not a game that can be played. God is not a system that can be worked. God is a God whose mercy overflows, but he sees when you are being like him and when you are only pretending to be like him.

When 200 of his men grow faint, David was an understanding leader. David entrusted his suffering men with the care of the supplies, with some responsibility. When he returned, he gave them a full share of the spoil.

When they came upon the Egyptian slave which the Amalekite master had abandoned to die in the wilderness when he had grown sick, they fed him before they knew whether his information would be of any use to them.

David had it written into law that the supply corps should share in the spoils. Compare this with the sons of Belial who thought they were being generous. “We let them have their own wives and kids. What more could you want?” When David returns to Ziklag, he takes all the spoil that he has recovered and sends gifts all over the region.

They key principle found in the heart of David is here in v. 23:

Then said David, Ye shall not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord hath given us, who hath preserved us, and delivered the company that came against us into our hand.

The Lord is giving to us. How can we not be giving. The Lord has forgiven us. How can we not be forgiving?

God’s mercy is overflowing, but it does not extend everywhere. There is one place to which God’s mercy does not extend for the same reason that circles cannot be square. God cannot save you from drowning by leaving you in the water. God cannot show mercy to you and at the same time leave you on the bottom of the lake of your own mercilessness.

David was an open-hearted, merciful king. This is the open hand ruling. Consider that Jesus rules the universe this way, and the rule of every government is founded on this principle. Kings rule this way. Fathers rule in their homes this way. Mayors rule this way. Elders and pastors rule this way. When government is blessed by God, it is this kind of rule.

God loves mercy. The merciful heart is open, honest, generous, glad and much more. If God rules the universe that way, all that the control monkey has, in his efforts to get things going his way, is the illusion of control.

Excerpt from The Open Hand Rules, January 17, 2012.

T R A N S C E N D E N C E
Creation : Day 1 – Spirit/Ark – Genesis
The Lord commands Samuel to fill his horn with oil

H I E R A R C H Y
Division : Day 2 – Firmament/Veil – Exodus
The Lord sends Samuel under the pretense of making a sacrifice.

E T H I C S – 1
Ascension : Day 3 – Land & Sea – Grain & Fruit/Altar & Table – Leviticus
Samuel obeys and travels to Bayith-Lechem (House of Bread). He commands Jesse and his sons to consecrate themselves. The first son is presented as the “Head,” the firstfruits, but is rejected.

E T H I C S – 2
Testing : Day 4 – Ruling Lights/Lampstand – Numbers
Jesse’s seven sons pass before Samuel. The Lord rejects them all.

E T H I C S – 3
Maturity : Day 5 – Swarms/Incense – Deuteronomy
Jesse reveals that there is an eighth Son, David (“Beloved”), who is keeping the flocks, the “Body.” Samuel commands him to bring him in, or there will be no rest.

S A N C T I O N S
Conquest : Day 6 – Mediators/High Priest – Joshua
David has bright eyes, (literally) a blood-filled face, and is attractive. He is the Facebread (Ethics 1) and the Lampstand (Ethics 2), and the Incense (Ethics 3). The wilderness has made him into a Holy Place.

S U C C E S S I O N
Glorification : Day 7 – Rest/Shekinah – Judges
Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints David. The Spirit rests upon the Beloved from that day on.

A few notes:

1. Read the passage for yourself and see it you can see the 7-fold structure of each of the seven sections.
2. Both Samuel and John the Baptist were Nazirites from birth. In a greater sense, all the “sons of David” passed before John as he was baptizing in the Jordan. All were rejected until Jesus presented Himself “to fulfill all righteousness.” The Spirit descended, and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
3. Perhaps this is the background to the phrase in Ephesians 1:6, “accepted in the Beloved.” Israel could not truly cross the Jordan, could not truly “enter into rest” until her Captain arrived.
4. Read Peter Leithart’s A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 and 2 Samuel, for some background on Samuel as Saul and David’s “father.”
5. Notice that the next passage concerns a spirit coming upon Saul. These two “sons” become two atonement “goats.”

2 Samuel 12:20

*The fifth speech in Exodus 25-31 concerns the garments of the High Priest. This is also the point at which Adam clothes himself in Cainite “plant” clothes, and Esther put on her royal robes to approach the Emperor. Perhaps there is a connection to the atoning “vegetable” linen which gets left behind in the tomb, sprinkled in the blood of Abel.

The Mosaic Tabernacle was silent. It was a place of mysterious words, dark sayings, carried out in secret. Eventually, it was violated, torn apart. It was the body of death, with sacrifices of blood carried out by Israelite priests. Like circumcision, it was a place of silent witness (the tablets) and the cutting off of the old leaven. (The fact that Hannah was not drunk makes this her holy war – the OC ministers of death could not drink wine in God’s presence.)

The tent was resurrected as the Tabernacle of David, an open place of dancing and loud music, with a new body of worshippers, both Jews and Gentiles. It was a new body of life, the flesh and the blood reunited in an impossible hybrid, with sacrifices of praise. [1] Like baptism, it was a place of reunion and bold testimony.

Hannah’s prayer was silent. She mouthed the words with a despair that felt like death. But after the miraculous delivery of the desired son, (offered to the Tabernacle as a symbolic ascension) she prayed aloud.

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“Now Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven. And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.” 2 Samuel 21:10

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

At the heart of the Bible Matrix is Testing. Although all the major narratives follow the pattern, many of the minor ones do too. If Adam had not failed his initial “qualifying round,” he would have progressed to the next stage of dominion. We know this because we see others later in the Bible move beyond this first round to greater glory. For instance, Daniel’s first challenge mirrors Adam’s challenge exactly. He was offered kingdom food and refused it.

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[1] Notice that God’s purifying judgment upon King Nebuchadnezzar was to make him a kind of Covenant-curse-hybrid: both a beast and a bird. He was being transformed into a guardian for God’s people—a cherubim.
[2] In the Creation week, God formed the house over three days, then filled it over the next three. The filling begins at Day 4, feast 4, Pentecost, Testing.

The Creation matrix begins with a single mediator and ends with a corporate mediator-nation. The judges were single mediators, corporate only in a progressive way: a new creation.

But there were seven ‘elected’ judges (seven is 3+4 [betrothal] at the centre of a greater pattern). The basic themes of their respective narratives illustrate a new creation, with Gideon’s ‘Pentecost’ flames at the centre, and the great solar bridegroom at the end.

All this adds deeper meaning to the role of Samuel as the last judge, the eighth judge — the one who carried Israel from tribes to kingdom. Son of a barren woman, he was the beginning of a new week.[2]

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[1] This also explains the 42 children mauled by Elisha’s bears, 12 x 3 1/2. See Elisha’s Short Fuse.
[2] This fact is slightly more narrative than historical. James Jordan observes that Samson and Samuel, two Nazirites from birth, and Obed, son of Boaz and Ruth, were all born around the same time: two shoulders and a new head. The Nazirites were miraculous births, and Obed was born to Naomi by a Gentile surrogate. See Judges: God’s War Against Humanism [PDF]. Eli the High Priest was also a judge, whose tenure overlapped that of Samson and Samuel. See the chronology in Peter J. Leithart, A Son to Me: : An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel.

The Nazirite Vow

(Article requested by Drew J.)

This vow in Numbers 6 follows the “inspection of jealousy” in Numbers 5. Mark Horne observed that, just as the woman in Numbers 5 was to be inspected for harlotry with her hair untamed, so the Nazirite (whether male or female) was not to cut his or her hair. A Nazirite is a human picture of the church as a warrior bride. Hair is glory. Hair is the cloud of angels (and now, saints) surrounding the throne of God.

“Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” (1 Cor. 11:10)

A woman is the glory of her man. A woman’s hair is a symbol of submission, but also a symbol of her own “cloud of angels” – her godly offspring (See Ezekiel 5 for the children of Israel symbolised as the prophet’s hair, Micah 1:16, Matthew 10:30 and also my comments on Nehemiah and his hair-pulling). In battle, a Nazirite was like a blazing torch (the Ark-chariot/Adam) and smoking firepot (the smoke clouds of the incense altar/Eve army), parting his enemies like the pillar of God.

The hair is her “crop”, the twelve stars around her head (Rev. 12), and the question constantly posed to Israel concerns her role as God’s mediatorial Land. Is her crop one of thorns and thistles, or is it godly grain? This is also the question in Numbers 5, and the Lord put Israel to this exact test after the idolatry with the golden calf. The “harlots” were slain with the Levitical sword.

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