Ps. 32.5 (confession and forgiveness)

“I have / made known / to you / my sin – and I have / not covered / my iniquity. – I have said / “I will confess / against myself – my transgressions / to Yhwh.” In many ways, these verses mimic the opening. They both speak about sin, iniquity, covering, and transgression and, importantly, the name of Yhwh. Between these two sections lies the silence of verses 3 and 4. There, the psalmist expertly avoids using any of the above terms, and, likewise, Yhwh’s name is not mentioned. It is as if the psalmist is showing that in that time of silence he cannot bring himself to name what he has done (sin, iniquity, transgression). By avoiding using these terms we see how the psalmist ‘silences’ his inner covenantal conscience. These verses also mimic the opening verses by the fact that they reengage the dialogue with Yhwh—the opening verses are marked by Yhwh’s action toward the psalmist; here, the verses are marked by the psalmist’s actions toward Yhwh (in confession). Understanding the logic of ‘covering’, we now find ourselves in these verses, at the point of nakedness before Yhwh. Here, the psalmist removes his silence, allows what was ‘groaning’ inside himself to escape—now, no longer in inarticulate groans but in intentionally formed (and, therefore, responsibly accepted) words of confession. In so doing he has become a man “without deceit” as the opening describes. He has, in effect, become unified once more. “Confessing against myself”—this embodies what we have just described. Here, the psalmist takes to himself his own sin, recognizes it (and names it), and then speaks it back against himself in an act of confession to Yhwh. He has done what Yhwh will not do—counted it against himself—and, in so doing, Yhwh erases (or, refuses to print it) in his ledger. Likewise, just as he ‘uncovers’ his sin, Yhwh will not ‘cover it’. It is in the act of ownership and revealing that the sin is now placed before Yhwh for him to ‘do with it what he pleases’. The transition is remarkable, short and eloquent: “And then / you forgave / the iniquity / of my sin.” This is the hinge of the entire the psalm. Its brevity is important—as prolonged as his anguish was in refusing to admit his sin, is Yhwh’s swiftness and totality in forgiving it. It becomes something almost unmentioned. This verse is Yhwh’s ‘covering’, ‘lifting’ and ‘not counting’ of the psalmist’s sin. And, in this brief manner, we see how such actions, when forgiven by Yhwh, are as if nothing in his sight; it deserves nothing more.