Psalm 130 "Plentiful Redemption"

Psalm for Today = 130:3-4, 7-8

³ If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared...

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
⁸ And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

Comments:

After making a request of the Lord in v.1-2, the psalmist makes a confession in 3-4 that there is a great difference between the Lord and the people. Rhetorically, he admits that if God is keeping track of our screw-ups then no one can stand before God. This is bad news because God is omniscient—he knows everything about us. Read this as “He is keeping track.” Yet he is also the one who desires to forgive us.

Because the Lord is the source of forgiveness the psalmist looks for him more than a watchman for the dawn 5-6, and in 7-8 exhorts the people of God to put their hope in Yahweh. Two parallel characteristics are used to support Israel’s putting their hope in the Lord. With him, there is:

1.    Steadfast love, and

2.    Plentiful redemption.

And as a result, he will redeem Israel (his people) from all his iniquities. How many will he forgive? All. Not some, but all! But sin must be confessed to the Lord. Confessing is a simple agreement with God's righteous judgment that we are not God and that He is. He is holy and we are not.

 

We need to be willing to confess our own sins and be forgiven rather than denying our sins and dying in them. The New Testament complement to this psalm is 1 John 1:8-9, which says,

^“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-9)