7 Don't remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness' sake, Yahweh.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Remember not the sins of my youth. As our sins are like a wall between us and God, which prevents him from hearing our prayers, or stretching forth his hand to help us, David now removes this obstruction. It is indeed true, in general, that men pray in a wrong way, and in vain, unless they begin by seeking the forgiveness of their sins. There is no hope of obtaining any favor from God unless he is reconciled to us. How shall he love us unless he first freely reconcile us to himself? The right and proper order of prayer therefore is, as I have said, to ask, at the very outset, that God would pardon our sins. David here acknowledges, in explicit terms, that he cannot in any other way become a partaker of the grace of God than by having his sins blotted out. In order, therefore, that God may be mindful of his mercy towards us, it is necessary that he forget our sins, the very sight of which turns away his favor from us. In the meantime, the Psalmist confirms by this more clearly what I have already said, that although the wicked acted towards him with cruelty, and persecuted him unjustly, yet he ascribed to his own sins all the misery which he endured. For why should he ask the forgiveness of his sins, by having recourse to the mercy of God, but because he acknowledged, that by the cruel treatment he received from his enemies, he only suffered the punishment which he justly merited? He has, therefore, acted wisely in turning his thoughts to the first cause of his misery, that he may find out the true remedy; and thus he teaches us by his example, that when any outward affliction presses upon us, we must entreat God not only to deliver us from it, but also to blot out our sins, by which we have provoked his displeasure, and subjected ourselves to his chastening rod. If we act otherwise, we shall follow the example of unskilful physicians, who, overlooking the cause of the disease, only seek to alleviate the pain, and apply merely adventitious remedies for the cure. Moreover, David makes confession not only of some slight offenses, as hypocrites are wont to do, who, by confessing their guilt in a general and perfunctory manner, either seek some subterfuge, or else extenuate the enormity of their sin; but he traces back his sins even to his very childhood, and considers in how many ways he had provoked the wrath of God against him. When he makes mention of the sins which he had committed in his youth, he does not mean by this that he had no remembrance of any of the sins which he had committed in his later years; but it is rather to show that he considered himself worthy of so much the greater condemnation. In the first place, considering that he had not begun only of late to commit sin, but that he had for a long time heaped up sin upon sin, he bows himself, if we may so speak, under the accumulated load; and, in the second place, he intimates, that if God should deal with him according to the rigour of law, not only the sins of yesterday, or of a few days, would come into judgment against him, but all the instances in which he had offended, even from his infancy, might now with justice be laid to his charge. As often, therefore, as God terrifies us by his judgments and the tokens of his wrath, let us call to our remembrance, not only the sins which we have lately committed, but also all the transgressions of our past life, proving to us the ground of renewed shame and renewed lamentation. Besides, in order to express more fully that he supplicates a free pardon, he pleads before God only on the ground of his mere good pleasure; and therefore he says, According to thy compassion do thou remember me When God casts our sins into oblivion, this leads him to behold us with fatherly regard. David can discover no other cause by which to account for this paternal regard of God, but that he is good, and hence it follows that there is nothing to induce God to receive us into his favor but his own good pleasure. When God is said to remember us according to his mercy, we are tacitly given to understand that there are two ways of remembering which are entirely opposite; the one when he visits sinners in his wrath, and the other when he again manifests his favor to those of whom he seemed for a time to take no account.
Remember not the sins of my youth - In strong contrast with God, the psalmist brings forward his own conduct and life. He could ask of God Psalm 25:6 to remember His own acts - what "He himself" had done; but could not ask him to remember His conduct - His past life. He could only pray that this might be forgotten. He did not wish it to come into remembrance before God; he could not ask that God would deal with him according to that. He prays, therefore, that he might not be visited as he advanced in life with the fruits of his conduct in early years, but that all the offences of that period of his life might be forgiven and forgotten. Who is there that cannot with deep feeling join in this prayer? Who is there that has reached the period of middle or advanced life, who would be willing to have the follies of his youth, the plans, and thoughts, and wishes of his early years brought again to remembrance? Who would be willing to have recalled to his own mind, or made known to his friends, to society around him, or to assembled worlds, the thoughts, the purposes, the wishes, the "imaginings" of his youthful days? Who would dare to pray that he might be treated in advancing years as he treated God in his own early life? Nay, who would venture to pray that God would treat him in the day of judgment as he had treated the friends of his childhood, even the father who begat him, or the mother who bore him? Our hope in regard to the favor of God is that he will "not" summon up the thoughts and the purposes of our early years; that he will "not" treat us as if he remembered them; but that he will treat us as if they were forgotten.
Nor my transgressions - The sins of my early years.
According to thy mercy remember thou me - Deal with me, not according to strict justice, but according to mercy. Deal with me indeed according to thy nature and character; but let the attribute of mercy be that which will be the guide rather than the attribute of justice.
For thy goodness' sake - In order that thy goodness or benevolence may be displayed and honored - not primarily and mainly that I may be saved, but that thy character may be seen to be good and merciful.
Remember not the sins of my youth - Those which I have committed through inconsiderateness, and heat of passion.
According to thy mercy - As it is worthy of thy mercy to act according to the measure, the greatness, and general practice of thy mercy; so give me an abundant pardon, a plentiful salvation.
For thy goodness' sake - Goodness is the nature of God; mercy flows from that goodness.
Remember not the (e) sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.
(e) He confesses that his many sins were the reason that his enemies persecuted him, desiring that the cause of the evil may be taken away, so that the effect may cease.
Remember not the sins of my youth,.... Original sin, in which he was born, and the breakings forth of corrupt nature in infancy, he brought into the world with him, together with all the youthful lusts and vanities to which that age is addicted; and sometimes the sins of youth are in some persons remembered by God, and punished in old age; and if not, they are brought to remembrance through the dispensations of Providence: and the people of God are chastised for them then, and are ready to fear it is in a way of wrath; see Job 13:26; which the psalmist here deprecates; for this is not said in order to extenuate his sins, they being but youthful follies, imprudencies, and inadvertencies, sins committed through ignorance, when he had not the knowledge of things he now had; nor as if he had lived so holy a life, that there were no sins of his to be taken notice of but what he had committed in his younger days; but rather this is to be considered as a confession of his having sinned from his youth upwards unto that time, as in Jeremiah 3:25; and therefore entreat, that God would not remember his sins, so as to correct him for them in wrath and hot displeasure; neither the sins he had formerly been guilty of, nor those of a later date; which he next mentions;
nor my transgressions; his more notorious and glaring ones; such as murder and adultery, in the case of Uriah and Bathsheba, and which now stared him in the face; and on account of these, and as a chastening for them, this unnatural rebellion of his son's, which was now raised against him, was suffered to befall him, as had been foretold to him, 2-Samuel 12:11;
according to thy mercy remember thou me, for thy goodness' sake, O Lord; he pleads no merit nor goodness of his own, but casts himself upon the mercy, grace, and goodness of God; in which he was certainly right; and on that account prayed and hoped for deliverance from his present troubles, and for discoveries of the pardon of his sins unto him, which is what he means by remembering him.
May Jahve not remember the faults of his youth (חטּאות), into which lust and thoughtlessness have precipitated him, nor the transgressions (פּשׁעים), by which even in maturer and more thoughtful years he has turned the grace of God into licentiousness and broken off his fellowship with Him (פּשׁע בּ, of defection); but may He, on the contrary, turn His remembrance to him (זכר ל as in Psalm 136:23) in accordance with His grace or loving-kindness, which אתּה challenges as being the form of self-attestation most closely corresponding to the nature of God. Memor esto quidem mei, observes Augustine, non secundum iram, qua ego dignus sum, sed secundum misericordiam tuam, quae te digna est. For God is טּוב, which is really equivalent to saying, He is ἀγάπη. The next distich shows that טוּב is intended here of God's goodness, and not, as e.g., in Nehemiah 9:35, of His abundance of possessions.
*More commentary available at chapter level.