The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"iniquities," Hebrew avonotai (עֲוֹנֹתָי). David reaches for two pictures of guilt in a single verse, and both of them are pictures of his own iniquities -- not his enemies, not his circumstances, but the sins he himself has committed.

"gone over mine head," avru roshi (עָבְרוּ רֹאשִׁי), passed over my head, like floodwaters. The first picture is of a drowning man: the waters closed over him, sin risen above his height until he cannot touch bottom or catch breath.

"heavy burden," kevad (כָבֵד), weighty, heavy. The second picture is of a crushing load: his iniquities are "as an heavy burden", a weight pressing him into the ground. Drowning and crushing at once -- guilt experienced both as engulfing flood and as unbearable weight.

"too heavy," yikbedu (יִכְבְּדוּ), they are too weighty. The same root is pressed a second time to make the point personal: the load is not merely heavy in itself but "too heavy for me." He has measured it against his own strength and found he cannot lift it.

Explanation

What David traces here is the way guilt gets into the body. The rest of the psalm is a catalogue of physical ruin, "no soundness in my flesh," wounds that "stink and are corrupt," a heart that pants and strength that fails (vv3, 5, 7-8, 10). He does not draw a neat line between his sin and his sickness; he feels them as one crushing thing. This is honest about something we prefer to keep separate: unconfessed guilt is not weightless. It sits on the shoulders, presses on the chest, and drains the body. And notice the two verbs the metaphors turn on, to pass "over" the head and to weigh one "down": sin both rises above us until we are out of our depth and bears down on us until we cannot rise. A man in that state has run out of his own resources, which is precisely where this psalm means to leave him, with nowhere to look but up.

Gospel Focus

"As an heavy burden they are too heavy for me", the burden too heavy for David was lifted by Jesus Christ, who invites every crushed soul, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). The very weight David could not carry, Christ took upon Himself: "the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6), so that the load which drowns and crushes the sinner was piled instead upon the Saviour at the cross. And the flood that went over David's head went, in full, over the head of Christ, "all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" (Psalm 42:7), for He was baptized into the deep waters of judgment that we might be brought up onto dry ground. There is therefore a place to take a guilt too heavy to bear: not to hide it, not to carry it, but to bring it to the One who carried it first. The burden that presses you into the dust is not too heavy for Him; lay it on Jesus, and find rest.

Word Study

"desire," Hebrew ta'avati (תַּאֲוָתִי), longing. When sin and suffering have worn a man down to the point that he can barely form words, this verse is his comfort: "Lord, all my desire is before thee." What he cannot say, he still longs for, and the longing itself is what he brings.

"before thee," negdekha (נֶגְדֶּךָ), in full view of thee. His longing lies open in God's full view. Nothing has to be explained to God; it is already in front of Him.

"groaning," anchati (אַנְחָתִי), a sigh, a groan. And even his groaning is heard -- the sigh that is not language at all. God does not need the prayer to be articulate; He reads the groan as plainly as speech.

"not hid," lo-nistarah (לֹא־נִסְתָּרָה). "And my groaning is not hid from thee." What a man in this condition could never make plain to another, he does not need to make plain to God; nothing of it is concealed from Him.

Explanation

Set this verse against the one that follows it. In verse 11 David says, "My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off." The people who should have drawn near have backed away; suffering has emptied the room. And that is exactly what makes verse 9 shine. The one relationship that has not withdrawn is God's: when even his kinsmen keep their distance, his groaning "is not hid" from the LORD. There is a mercy hidden in the ordering here. Human sympathy runs out; it grows uncomfortable with a grief that lasts too long and pulls away. But the attention of God does not tire, does not flinch, and does not need the sufferer to explain himself. The soul that has become unintelligible to everyone else, reduced to a groan, is still perfectly legible to God.

Gospel Focus

"My groaning is not hid from thee", the God who reads the groan has come near in Jesus Christ, and gives His Spirit to carry the prayers we cannot form. When we are so weighed down that "we know not what we should pray for as we ought," the promise is that "the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" (Romans 8:26); the very sigh too deep for words is taken up and carried to God. And we have a High Priest who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15), for Jesus Himself groaned, wept at the grave, and "offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears" (Hebrews 5:7). He knows the wordless prayer from the inside. So the burdened believer need not wait until he can pray well before he prays at all; the groan is enough, for it is not hid from a Father who hears, a Son who sympathizes, and a Spirit who intercedes. Bring your groaning to God; it is already before Him, and already understood.

Word Study

"declare," Hebrew aggid (אַגִּיד), tell out, make known openly. David names the two halves of true repentance, and this is the first: "I will declare mine iniquity", open confession, bringing the sin out into the light rather than hiding or excusing it.

"mine iniquity," avoni (עֲוֹנִי). What he declares is his own, owned as his and named as iniquity. Confession that will not use the word has not yet begun.

"be sorry," ed'ag (אֶדְאַג), be anxious, grieved, troubled. The second half: "I will be sorry for my sin." The word da'ag carries the sense of anxious, weighted concern; his sin genuinely troubles him.

"my sin," chattati (חַטָּאתִי). The grief is over the sin itself, not merely regret at its consequences. That is what makes it repentance and not simply misery.

Explanation

Look at where this confession falls in the psalm. Just before it, David has spent six verses on his enemies, people who "lay snares," "speak mischievous things," and "render evil for good" against him (vv12, 19-20). He has every excuse to spend the rest of the psalm on their wrongdoing. Instead, in the middle of being sinned against, he turns the spotlight back onto his own sin: "I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin." That is a rare and searching discipline. It is easy to let the sins of others crowd out any reckoning with our own; a man surrounded by enemies feels justified in looking only outward. David does the harder thing. And notice the verbs are future and deliberate, "I will declare... I will be sorry", sorrow here is not a mood that happens to him but a course he chooses. Repentance is a decision before it is a feeling.

Gospel Focus

"I will be sorry for my sin", this is the godly sorrow the gospel calls for and that Christ makes fruitful. Paul distinguishes two sorrows: "godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death" (2 Corinthians 7:10). Worldly sorrow only grieves at being caught or at the consequences; godly sorrow grieves at the sin itself and turns to God, and it is this second sorrow David chooses. Such sorrow is not the payment for pardon but the mark of a heart the Spirit is turning back to God, and it always finds mercy in Christ, for "a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17). The tears of true repentance are never wasted; they run straight to the feet of the Saviour, as the weeping woman's did, and hear His word, "thy sins are forgiven... go in peace" (Luke 7:48, 50). So the way through a guilt too heavy to bear is not to bury it but to declare it, and to be truly sorry for it, and to bring that sorrow to Jesus, who receives the contrite and turns their sorrow into the joy of forgiveness.