Today’s Passage: Psalm 103
In this psalm David turns and speaks to his own soul, telling it to bless the LORD and not to forget. Then he begins to count what God has done, and the very first kind deed he names is forgiveness, followed by healing, and rescue from the pit, and a crown of loving devotion. He speaks God’s own name the way Israel had long known it, compassionate and gracious and slow to anger, and he sets a fragile human life, brief as grass, beside a love that outlasts it from everlasting to everlasting. When he has finished, the last line comes back around to the first: bless the LORD, O my soul.
As you read, hold this: Do not forget: He forgives all your iniquities.
Context Of David, aimed inward
The psalm carries the heading “Of David,” and that heading is part of the text we receive. What is striking is where David aims his words. The psalm is not addressed first to God, nor to a gathered crowd, but to his own soul, a soul that is prone to forget. And forgiveness leads the whole list on purpose, set at the very front before anything else.
Psalm 103:1-5 (BSB)
¹ Of David. Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name. ² Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds— ³ He who forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases, ⁴ who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion, ⁵ who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The command here is turned inward, spoken by David to himself: do not forget. And then comes the work of remembering, said out loud. God forgives, and heals, and redeems, and crowns, and satisfies, and the order of that list is itself the argument. Before the rescue from the pit, before the crown of compassion, the first kind deed David names is forgiveness.
Study notes First in the list
The list could have begun at any point, and yet it opens with pardon, because nothing else on it would stand without forgiveness underneath it first.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 (BSB)
It is a different covenant, and yet the same God stands behind both. Forgiveness is not an afterthought that God reaches only once the real work is done. It is the very place where His care begins.
Psalm 103:6-10 (BSB)
⁶ The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. ⁷ He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel. ⁸ The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. ⁹ He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever. ¹⁰ He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities.
Psalm 103:11-14 (BSB)
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. ¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. ¹³ As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. ¹⁴ For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
East and west are directions that never meet, and that is the measure of how far He has carried our sin away. He has removed it, not merely covered it over for a season. And He is not startled into forgiving, as though He had forgotten what we are. He knows our frame, and He remembers that we are dust.
Psalm 103:15-18 (BSB)
¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field; ¹⁶ when the wind passes over, it vanishes, and its place remembers it no more. ¹⁷ But from everlasting to everlasting the loving devotion of the LORD extends to those who fear Him, and His righteousness to their children’s children— ¹⁸ to those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts.
Here two clocks are set side by side. A human life is like grass, blooming for a morning and gone when the wind passes over it. But the chesed, pronounced KHEH-sed. Strong's H2617, steadfast love, loyal kindness, covenant faithfulness. This is covenant love, the steadfast kindness that keeps its promise. The words of verse 8 are not new. They are what God said about Himself to Moses after the golden calf, and by David’s day Israel could reach for them the way one reaches for a song already known by heart. He will not always accuse, and He does not repay us according to our iniquities. It is this word that makes it possible for a forgetful soul to be told, once again, to remember. of the LORD runs from everlasting to everlasting, reaching even to children’s children. Our security, then, is not found in a life that lasts, but in a love that already has.
Psalm 103:19-22 (BSB)
¹⁹ The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. ²⁰ Bless the LORD, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command. ²¹ Bless the LORD, all His hosts, you servants who do His will. ²² Bless the LORD, all His works in all places of His dominion. Bless the LORD, O my soul!
At the close the psalm widens out as far as it can reach, to the throne established in heaven, to the angels mighty in strength, to all the hosts and every work in every place of His dominion. And then, having swept across the whole creation, it comes home again. Bless the LORD, O my soul. The last line is the first line returned, and a forgetful soul is told once more to do what all of heaven is already doing.
Do not forget: He forgives all your iniquities.