David recognizes his utter helplessness to make himself righteous in the eyes of God and he turns to the Lord who is the only source of forgiveness and righteousness. "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:7) There is nothing David can do to atone for his sins. He can be sorry for his sins. He can confess his sins. He can make sacrifices for his sins. But it is the Lord who accepts his repentance and pardons him for his sins, so he appeals to Him. Only the Lawgiver can forgive the transgression of His laws.
The weight of David's sins is too heavy to bear. He's tried to ignore this crushing weight for months and can no longer take another step underneath such a burden. He knows that until things are made right between him and the Lord, there will be no true joy in his heart. The child of God can never feel satisfied with sin standing between him and God. "Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity." (Psalm 51:8-9) David isn't asking the Lord to turn a blind eye to sin. He's asking Him to accept his repentance and to forgive and forget his sins. A later king, Hezekiah, refers to this forgiving and forgetting as the Lord casting his sins behind His back. (Isaiah 38:17b) That's what David wants when he says, "Hide Your face from my sins. Blot out all my iniquity." If you've confessed and repented of something, it's behind the Lord's back! It's not where He's looking at it and thinking about it every day. It's not something He's reminding you of or flinging into your face. It's behind Him---in the past! It's been dealt with. It's been forgiven. You will not have to stand before His judgment seat and face charges for it.
David knows he is powerless to live a perfect life. He knows that, if man is left to his own devices, he will sink further and further into sin. If man is left to his own devices, his heart will grow more wicked as time goes on. Therefore, he asks the Lord to create in him a heart that longs to do what's right. He asks the Lord to remake him, to turn his heart away from the things he finds tempting, and to turn his heart toward those things which please the Lord. "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)
David witnessed the heart of King Saul moving further and further away from the Lord. He saw how the Lord finally said to Saul, in a sense, "Have it your way, then." Saul hardened his heart against the pleading of the Holy Spirit for so long that the Holy Spirit apparently stopped speaking to him, for we were told in 1 Samuel 16:174 that the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul. David doesn't ever want to get in the same condition as Saul. He can't imagine anything worse than not being able to hear the Lord's voice anymore. "Do not cast me from Your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." (Psalm 51:11-12)
In order to obey the Lord we have to be willing to obey the Lord. Because we are human we will still mess up from time to time no matter how willing we are to do what's right, but without a willingness to do what's right we are going to find it impossible to maintain an obedient attitude. This willingness is extremely difficult to generate on our own in our weak mortal flesh with our fallen natures. So David asks the Lord to make him willing. He goes to the Lord, who is the source of all power, and asks Him to generate this attitude of willingness toward righteous living. David recognizes in himself a willingness to do wrong but he knows the Lord is able to overpower that with a willingness to do right.
David wants to be able to set a godly example for his family, his friends, and the people of his nation. He knows he can't do that without the Lord's help. If the Lord creates in him a willing spirit to do what's right, he can encourage others to seek the Lord and obey Him. "Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, so that sinners will turn back to You. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, You who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of Your righteousness. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare Your praise." (Psalm 51:13-15)
This next portion of our passage is not to be taken as an indication that David disrespects the required sacrifices of the law. He is in no way saying there's no value in bringing offerings. What he's saying is that offerings brought in the wrong spirit are meaningless. In fact, later in the Old Testament we'll find the Lord so upset by offerings brought in the wrong spirit that He'll say He wishes the people would just shut the temple doors and stop making meaningless offerings on His altar. (Malachi 1:10) What David is saying in these next verses is that no amount of offerings he could bring would mean anything if he wasn't truly sorry in his heart. "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise." (Psalm 51:16-17) We'll find the Lord despising offerings later in the Old Testament---offerings that are brought by those whose hearts are far from Him. But He accepts the sacrifices of repentance and confession. Even if the penitent confessor has nothing in his hand to bring, the Lord accepts the sorrow in his heart over his sins. A person can say and do all the right things outwardly while not being right with the Lord inwardly. It's what's in the heart that matters to Him.
In closing, David asks the Lord's blessing on Israel and on the capital city of Jerusalem. He doesn't want his sins to affect more people than they already have. He loves his family, his friends, and all the citizens of his nation. He knows he set a bad example for them. He knows he let people down. Now that he has repented and confessed and has been restored to a close feeling of fellowship with the Lord, he wants to move forward and be able to do good things for his nation. He wants the nation to prosper under his leadership, not to go backwards spiritually or materially. He knows sin is capable of causing "collateral damage" to everyone around the sinner; his sins have already caused grief for other people. The final verses of Psalm 51 are about other people and not about himself. It's hard to pray for ourselves or for anyone else when we're living in disobedience, isn't it? But now that David has been restored to the joy of his salvation, he is able to pray for the people he let down while he lived in disobedience. "May it please You to prosper Zion, to build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on Your altar." (Psalm 51:18-19) He closes by saying, "Bless Your people and we will never fail to praise You for it!"
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