"Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins."
Psalm 25:18
In Psalm 25, David is generally pleading with Jehovah to protect him from his enemies. As he prays, he is concerned with his sin as he openly talks to the Lord about it. He confesses his sin to the Lord as he is seeking for God’s forgiveness as our verse for today says.
“Look upon mine affliction and my pain;”
In essence, David is laying his soul bare before the Lord. He is inviting God to “look down” upon his soul. In verse 1 he is “lifting up” his soul for the Lord to look on it.
“Unto thee, O LORD, do I ‘lift up’ my soul,” (Psalm 25:1).
He wants his God to see what is going on in his soul, and all the “affliction”1 (“affliction, poverty, misery”) and “pain”2 (“toil, trouble, labor, mischief”) that is there. In his humility, he is willing for God to see him the way his heart really is, not in a fake, duck and cover sort of way. David is being very open with the Lord. In verse 16, he asks God to have mercy on him, but he honestly wants God to see his real heart as it is, “desolate and afflicted,” (verse 16).
“Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted,” (Psalm 25;16).
In asking for mercy he is acknowledging that only God can help him, and he is asking the Lord to show him kindness. Indeed, this is not what he’s seeing from his enemies.
“And forgive all my sins.”
As David asks for forgiveness, he is asking God to “bear away his sins.” “Take them from me!” His “sins…as the word signifies; sins are burdens, and they lay heavy at this time on David’s conscience, being brought to mind by the affliction he laboured under, not only his sin with Bathsheba, but all others; and these were on him as a heavy burden, too heavy to bear…”3 (Gill). Sin is always a heavy weight, and we need the help of our God to be forgiven and to bear away our sin.
Are you trying to ignore your sin, or cover it up, or just hope it will go away on its own? It won’t! Sin must be handled, dealt with God’s way. We must honestly and humbly bring our sin to the Cross and leave it there with the Lord. Let Him forgive your sin and bear it away! This is one weight you can get help right now. Don’t wait, don’t put it off till later.
1. “Affliction,” Brown, Driver, Briggs. Brown-Driver-Briggs’ Hebrew Definitions, the electronic version in eSword.
2. “Pain,” Brown, Driver, Briggs, Ibid.
3. John Gill. John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, the electronic version in eSword.