Ps. 51.5 (the birth of rebellion)

Indeed / I was born / in waywardness
and my mother / conceived me / in sin,
though you wanted faithfulness / even in the womb
and while in the uterus / you caused me to know wisdom.  

There have been several ways of interpreting this verse. Rather than parse through them I want to offer here one that coheres with the sense of the psalm we have already traced, specifically that aspect of David that is, through an appropriation and ownership of his sin, is, in a way, ‘filling it up’ in himself (and, thereby unmasking it and making himself an object of mercy). Interpretations that waiver from this very personal sense of ownership are going to be rejected. David is not blaming his mother for his acts of rebellion. Rather, he sees the entirety of his life as this ‘filling up’. He has, from the very core of his being, engaged in conscious and willful rebellion against God; indeed, to such an extent that he sees it at the very moment of his conception. The sense is total: conception—womb—birth. Each moment is marked by sin and rebellion. In addition, these acts of rebellion are aimed at two things: faithfulness and wisdom. David envisions his guilt as involving both covenantal breach and acts of folly; he not only breaches his relationship with God but he also acts completely out of accord with a wisdom that is manifest to everyone. Both of these signal a knowing and conscious violation (the biblical ‘fool’ is a person who knows what is right (wisdom) and refuses to follow it). David solidifies this understanding by highlighting the fact that God wanted faithfulness and caused wisdom. Again, David’s act of rebellion is not at an abstraction. “Against you, you alone have I sinned.” (vs. 4). David has, in a sense, spat in the face of God from his origin. This approach is the most coherent, I think, way of approaching this verse. That said, it is also the only portion of the psalm like it. It is brief, accomplishes the purpose of totalizing the sense of rebellion envisioned in the opening, and then it moves on. David extends his rebellion to his depth, but his focus will shift back to the particular act that he is confessing for the remainder. This brevity is important to note; it should not be the magnet of the entire psalm.