Psalms 32:6

For this. Or, “because of this.” Forgiveness bestows on the one forgiven the divine compulsion of telling others (see Acts 5:42).

When thou mayest be found. The statement of the psalmist implies that there will be a time when men will seek forgiveness and will not find it. How can this be true if God is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering” (Ex. 34:6), and willing to “abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7)? Naturally at the end of human probation such a condition will exist (see Amos 8:11, 12; Rev. 22:11). But the experience may come earlier to individual sinners. Many feel that they can indulge in sin, for a time at least, without serious consequences to themselves, and then, at a convenient moment, repent and obtain forgiveness. But the tragedy of sin is that it fastens itself so securely upon the soul and becomes so firmly a part of the life pattern, especially when perpetrated in the light of full knowledge, that there is often no desire later to give it up. Without such a basic desire there can be no forgiveness. In many such cases there may arise an outward desire for salvation and a seemingly sincere request for riddance of sin, but if, fundamentally, there is no desire to give up the cherished sins of the heart, the search for salvation is vain.

Sometimes the fear of consequences drives the sinner to seek pardon, as was the case with Judas (Matt. 27:3–5); or the goal of material advantage lures him, as it did Esau (Heb. 12:16, 17). But if the threatened consequences had been removed from Judas, or the birthright restored to Esau, each of these men would have pursued his old sinful course. Such seeking God cannot honor (see on Ps. 32:1).

However, the sinner may rest assured that God will not turn a deaf ear to any sincere pleading for pardon. At the same time let him be warned that willful sin, persisted in, may bring a condition in which there is no longer a desire to be cleansed of the defilement. It is this kind of condition that is described in Heb. 10:26, where the tense of the verb allows the following translation, “If we persist in wilful sin … there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.”

In the floods. The forgiven soul will stand secure, high upon the rock of God’s salvation. The figure was impressive to the Hebrew, who was familiar with the sudden rise of water in ravines and gullies after heavy rain, and its attendant terror to the inhabitants.