Today’s Passage: Psalm 25
This is a prayer that lifts the whole soul up to God before it asks Him for anything. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul, it begins, and then it asks two things in the same breath: show me Your ways, and forgive my iniquity, for it is great. The same mouth that asks to be taught also asks to be pardoned, and these are not two different gospels, for the ways of the LORD have always had His mercy folded into them. Psalm 51 made its plea according to God’s loving devotion, and this psalm makes its plea for the sake of His name. It is the same ground under both of them, and the same gospel.
As you read, hold this: Show me Your ways, O LORD.
Context Of David, letter by letter
The heading tells us only that this is a psalm “of David,” naming no occasion and no instrument for the music. What it does have is a hidden shape: its lines open with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet, moving from aleph on toward tav. The pattern is not a perfect one, for a few of the letters do not land quite where the sequence would place them, and then verse 22 adds one line more after the alphabet has already run its course. It is as though the prayer needed that last line more than it needed a flawless pattern.
Psalm 25:1-3 (BSB)
¹ Of David. To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul; ² in You, my God, I trust. Do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. ³ Surely none who wait for You will be put to shame; but those who engage in treachery without cause will be disgraced.
Notice that the hands go up before any request is even named. First comes the trust, then a plea against shame, and then a wider claim that reaches past himself: none who wait for You will be put to shame. The hope here is already a relationship with God, not a technique for getting something out of Him.
Psalm 25:4-5 (BSB)
⁴ Show me Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths. ⁵ Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; all day long I wait for You.
Show me, teach me, guide me, teach me again. He is not asking for a map he could copy from someone else. He wants Your truth and Your paths, the ways of the God of his own salvation, and he says he will wait for them all day long.
Psalm 25:6-7 (BSB)
⁶ Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and loving devotion, for they are from age to age. ⁷ Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my rebellious acts; remember me according to Your loving devotion, because of Your goodness, O LORD.
Three times over he says remember. Remember Your compassion, remember not my sins, remember me. He is not asking God to forget that he exists; he is asking that mercy be the memory that lasts.
Psalm 25:8-10 (BSB)
⁸ Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He shows sinners the way. ⁹ He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way. ¹⁰ All the LORD’s ways are loving and faithful to those who keep His covenant and His decrees.
It is God’s own goodness that is the reason sinners are shown a way at all. The ones He guides are not the deserving but the humble, and the way is held out to whoever will actually let himself be taught.
Psalm 25:11 (BSB)
¹¹ For the sake of Your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, for it is great.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, David prays, asking Him to salach, pronounced sah-LAKH. Strong's H5545, to forgive, pardon. In the Old Testament this verb is never used of one person forgiving another. God alone forgives in this sense. So David is not asking a friend for a favor here; he is asking for the one thing that only God can do. And the ground he stands on is not his own record but the name of God: for the sake of Your name. Psalm 51 said the same thing in another way, according to Your loving devotion. A plea built on a person’s own file will eventually run out, but a plea built on the name of God never does. an iniquity he calls great.
Psalm 25:12-15 (BSB)
¹² Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the path chosen for him. ¹³ His soul will dwell in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. ¹⁴ The LORD confides in those who fear Him, and reveals His covenant to them. ¹⁵ My eyes are always on the LORD, for He will free my feet from the mesh.
Here the lens widens for a moment. Anyone who fears the LORD is taught, and the covenant is confided to him like a secret kept between friends, not merely announced from a distance. Then the psalm comes back to one pair of eyes, still fixed on the LORD, even though the mesh around his feet has not yet gone.
Psalm 25:16-21 (BSB)
¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious, for I am lonely and afflicted. ¹⁷ The troubles of my heart increase; free me from my distress. ¹⁸ Consider my affliction and trouble, and take away all my sins. ¹⁹ Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with vicious hatred. ²⁰ Guard my soul and deliver me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in You. ²¹ May integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for You.
Lonely, afflicted, surrounded by many enemies and by real hatred. Verse 20 reaches all the way back to verse 2 with the same words, do not let me be put to shame. The same waiting that opened the psalm is still here at its close, and the posture has not moved.
Psalm 25:22 (BSB)
²² Redeem Israel, O God, from all its distress.
Study notes After the alphabet, the prayer widens
For twenty-one verses the prayer has said my soul, my enemies, my sins. Then it adds one more line, and the words turn outward: redeem Israel. Psalm 51 turned at its own close toward the walls of Zion, and this prayer does the same work here. One man’s plea is handed on to the whole people who will pray it after him.
Show me Your ways, O LORD.