Introduction

“Welcome to Torah Today Ministries, our continuing series Tehillim Talks, our studies in the Psalms. And if you’ve been following along, you know that the previous 10 Psalms, Psalms 22 through 31, I believe give us an intimate look into the heart and mind of Yeshua as he suffered on the cross to bear our sins. Because after all, Psalm 22 begins with the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And in Psalm 31 verse 5, we find the words, into your hands I commit my spirit. And these are the first and final words of Yeshua on the cross. So again, I believe these 10 Psalms do give us a magnificent picture into the heart and the mind of Yeshua as he bore our sins on the cross.

So the question is, how do you follow up these 10 incredible Psalms? How do you follow up these 10 Psalms that give us such an intimate picture into the heart of Yeshua as he suffered for you and me? Well, let’s look at the opening words of Psalm 32.”

Verses 1–2: Forgiveness and Contentment

“Contented is the one whose transgression is borne away, whose sin is covered. Contented is the man against whom Adonai counts no iniquity.

What a perfect way. What a perfect way of bringing to a conclusion these 10 Psalms. And then starting with something new, your sins are forgiven. Your transgression is borne away. God has dealt with your sins.

These two verses, by the way, are quoted by Paul in Romans 4, verses seven and eight. As he talks about the powerful accomplishment of Messiah on the cross on our behalf.”

A Maskil of David – Teaching Psalm

“This Psalm is called a Moskill of David, a Moskill. This is the first of 13 Moskills found in the Book of Psalms. And we’ll be looking at each one in turn. But this is the first one.

Now, what is a Moskill? Well, the word a Moskill comes from this root right here, sechal, or sechal, which means to gain intelligence. The first place this word is used is in Genesis 3, 6, where Eve and Adam had been tempted by the serpent, and it says that she saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes, was good for food, and desired to make one sechal, to make one intelligent.

I know we generally translate it to make one wise, but the word for wisdom is the word chokhama, but the word for to be intelligent is the word sechal. And these two are very different things. I know people who are uneducated, yet are very wise. On the other hand, I know people who are very intelligent, but they’re fools.

So we want both intelligence and wisdom. So this psalm is a moskill, which means it’s a teaching psalm. David wants to teach something. God wants to teach us something through this psalm.”

Ashrei – Contentment and New Beginning

“Your translation may say blessed is the one whose transgression is borne away. But the word for blessed is from the root barach. But this is the word ashrei.

In fact, this is the very first word found in Psalm 1, where it says, ashrei ha’ish, contented is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornor. But his delight is in the Torah of Adonai, and in his Torah, he meditates day and night.

So the very first word of the Book of Psalms is the word ashrei. And that is the same word we find here. It’s almost as if David or Solomon, who arranged the Psalms, we believe, is saying there’s a new beginning here. This Psalm 32 is going to be a new beginning, a new beginning for songs of praise and of prayer and gratitude to God.

So ashrei, contented is the one whose transgression is borne away, whose sin is covered. Contented is the man, there’s the word ashrei again, against whom Adonai counts no iniquity.”

Three Words for Sin

“We have three different words here for sin. We’re gonna look at those for just a moment. But I want us to look at this word for covered. We’re gonna see this again in a moment.

And we always think that whoever covers his sin will not prosper. And yet here we see God covering sin. What does that mean?

So hold on to that just for a moment. We’ll see this word again. We’ll look at it in more detail.

But the rabbis stress that when God forgives our sins, when we repent, when we turn to him, confess our sins, we must do that with a pure heart, with no deceit in our hearts. And so I’ve underlined this phrase, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Because too often, what we can do is we take God’s grace for granted, and we treat it as if it’s something cheap. And we excuse our sin thinking, oh, God will forgive me. And we think it’s easier just to ask for forgiveness tomorrow than to abstain from sin today.

But if that is your attitude, they say God’s forgiveness is withheld. You will not experience the blessing of his forgiveness. And you’re going to bring a lot of pain and distress into your life if that is your attitude.

True repentance is not just being sorry for what you did or failed to do. True repentance is a determination with all of your heart and all of your will that I will never repeat that error. And if you have that attitude when you confess your sins to God, then you can truly experience the relief of his forgiveness of them burying away your transgressions.”

The Scapegoat and Bearing Away Sin

“And the word that is used here for to bear away or borne away is the same word used over in Leviticus, chapter 16, that discusses the scapegoat.

You know, the Jewish people have never looked at the sacrifices as a way of dealing with sin and taking away sin. They never have. Sacrifices, the sin and guilt offerings in particular, were seen as a way of me confessing sin and giving myself to God and saying, what is happening to this animal? I deserve to have that happen to me.

And so we bring the animals away of confessing, acknowledging, and repenting of our sin. But there’s only one animal in the entire Torah that was said to bear away the sins of the people, and that’s the scapegoat.

And in Leviticus 16:22, it says, the goat shall bear away (nasa) all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.”

Khatat, Avon, Pesha – Sin, Iniquity, Rebellion

“Now, these three words that are used for sin, I’ve put them here. The first one is the word khatat, which is the general overarching word for sin and error. The word khatat basically means to miss the mark.

But something more serious than that is the word avon. This is what can sometimes lie behind the sin, and then what is the, you might say, the residue of our sin. It means the iniquity that can lead to error and the guilt that resides after the error.

But worse than that is the word pesha. Pesha is rebellious sin. It’s transgression. It’s a willful sin.

The way you can think of these three words, the analogy I always use, and maybe someday I’ll come up with a better one, is this. Let’s say you invite me to come into your home, and you give me your address and directions as to how to get there.

And so I’m driving to your house and I accidentally pass your street. So I’ve made an error. But I didn’t break any laws. I did commit an error, and so I may have to circle the block and come back around for a second attempt to get it right. But there’s no laws broken.

But when we come to avon, you can think of it this way. I’m driving to your house, I come to your street, and I turn. And once I turn, I realize I’m going the wrong way on a one-way street. Now, I didn’t intend to do that, but once I turned onto that street, I broke the law.

And if there’s a policeman standing by, he will probably pull me over and give me a ticket for having violated a traffic law. So now I’m guilty of breaking the law.

But then pesha is this. I’m going to your house for the first time, I come to your street, I see it’s a one-way street, but I just turn on it anyway, go in the wrong way, because I don’t care. I just want to get to your house. Now I violated the law, but I did it with knowledge. I did it out of rebellion.”

The Burden of Silence

“Now verses three and four say, for when I remain deaf.
Now your translation may say, when I was silent. Well, it’s the same word in Hebrew, but oftentimes our silence is a result of us just having our fingers in our ears and not listening to what God has to say.

For when I remain deaf, my bones wasted away through my groaning. And that word for groaning can be groaning or roaring.

And we find this back in chapter 22 in Psalm 22 verse one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my sha’agah, my groaning or my roaring?

And groaning and roaring may seem like very different words than they are in English. But when we roar out, it’s basically expressing a groan in a very loud way. Because it’s an expression of pain, whichever way you look at it. It’s just that rumbling inside, this groan, this pain is expressed.

If you’ve ever been in serious pain and serious illness, you know what I’m talking about.

For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My sap was dried up as by the summer heat.
In other words, all my vital juices were just like dried up. I had no energy, I had no strength.”

Psalm 32 – Verse 5

Confession and Forgiveness

“Then we come into verse five. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.

When I merely said, I will confess my transgressions to Adonai, you had already borne away the iniquity of my sin.

Now, notice the words in red. He’s using these words at the top, khatat, avon, and pesha, and then he does them in reverse, avon, khatat.

I acknowledge my sin, and I did not cover my iniquity. When I merely said, I will confess my transgressions to Adonai, you had already borne away my iniquity and my sin.

So he goes through the list from mildest to most serious, and then back. He’s being so thorough in showing how thorough God’s forgiveness and deliverance truly is.

And down here it says, you had already borne away the iniquity of my sin. I’m following the translation of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. This is how he renders the verse.

And when you read it in this way, doesn’t it picture what Messiah did for us? John the Mercer beheld Yeshua and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

But until you confess your sin to Messiah, you confess your guilt to the Lord, you don’t experience what He’s already done for us.”

The Godly Pray

“Now, verse six is kind of out of sync with the rest of the Psalm. The rest of the Psalm is very poetic. But verse six kind of stands alone as a parenthesis, so to speak.

And some people have wondered, did Solomon add this verse to the Psalm? Or is it kind of a footnote? What note David included? We don’t know.

But verse six says, for this every godly person prays to you at a time when you may be found, only that the rush of great waters will not reach him.

So why this particular verse is here, I don’t know. But this is one of the few times we find the word pray in the Psalms. And I think it’s important for us to look at this word pray.”

Psalm 32 – Palal: The Meaning of Prayer

“So let’s move to the word pray. We’ll come back to verse 7 in a moment.

The word to pray in Hebrew is palal. Palal. But the word palal doesn’t really mean to pray as we think about it.

I was raised in a Christian tradition where prayer was talking to God and requesting things from him. But that is not what the Hebrew word palal really means. That is not what the Hebrew prayer and the Jewish understanding of prayer is at all.

Of course, we’re invited to make requests, but making requests is not considered prayer.

Palal means to judge. And what it really means is to judge accurately, to see something accurately for what it is, to see it exactly, to see it clearly. That’s palal.

And hitpalal means to make myself see clearly.”

Psalm 32 – Example of Phineas (Psalm 106:30)

“We’ll look at this in a moment. But look at Psalm 106, verse 30.

Remember the story of Phineas. Phineas saw the Jewish man and the Gentile woman sinning right there at the entrance of the tabernacle, and openly sinning. And so he took a spear, went up, and he ran through both of them.

Killed them both, and the plague that was sweeping through the camp at that time stopped immediately. And God praised Phineas for what he did. He said he was zealous with the zeal of God, and God gave him the covenant of Shalom.

Now, Psalm 106 gives us a little insight into Phineas. It says that Phineas stood up and executed judgment, and the plague was stayed. That word for executed judgment is the word palal.

What it means is that when Phineas saw this situation, he saw it clearly. He saw it clearly in the context of what God thought about it, of what needed to be done, of what God wanted to be done.

And Phineas, because he was so in tune with the heart of Adonai that he took action and God stopped the plague. And he praised Phineas and made a covenant with Phineas.

So Phineas palaled the situation and acted accordingly.”

Psalm 32 – Example of Jacob and Joseph (Genesis 48:11)

“One of my favorite uses of this word is in Genesis 48:11.

This is when Jacob is an old man. He’s been separated from Joseph for over 20 years. And then he finds out that Joseph, his son, is alive.

And he goes down to Egypt and he sees his son Joseph. He sees Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

And in Genesis 48:11, Jacob, who is now going by the name Israel, and Israel said to Joseph, I never envisioned to see your face.

And that’s the word palal. I never palaled to see your face. I could never imagine and see clearly the fact that I would see you again, that I would see your face.

And behold, God has let me see your offspring also. He says, I could never envision that.”

Psalm 32 – True Meaning of Prayer

“When we look at this word that has also translated pray as it is here in Psalm 32, we should get a different idea of what it means to pray.

We should begin to understand prayer and a Jewish understanding as Paul understood prayer and describes it here in Philippians 4:6–7.

He says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Notice the four areas. The first one is prayer. The fourth one is request. Because requests are not exactly the same thing as prayer.

This is the beauty and the wonder and the wisdom of the liturgical prayers. The liturgical prayers contain very few requests.

In fact, when we do the Sabbath liturgy at our congregation, in any synagogue, there are no requests.

The Jewish people have figured, we have six days to ask God for things. On Shabbat, let’s not ask him for anything. Let’s pray instead.”

Psalm 32 – Liturgical Prayer as Palal

“In other words, the prayers consist of praise of God, rehearsing his attributes, remembering his mighty acts of what he’s done, of reminding ourselves of his love, his grace, his devotion and provision for us.

We go over all these things about reminding ourselves about who God is and what our relationship with him is. That’s real palal. That’s seeing clearly.

That’s envisioning clearly who God is, who we are, and our love for one another.

So Paul says this is where you start. And you know, if you do start with this, how could you possibly be anxious about anything?

When you’re picturing who God is and his love and his grace, anxiety melts away.

So by prayer, and then with supplication, and of course with gratitude and thanksgiving, and let your requests be made known to God, go ahead and feel free to ask him for things.

And I guarantee you if you are palaling as you should, your requests are going to be in line with God’s will. You’re not going to be asking for peanuts and for trivial things.

But when you really begin to behold who God is and remind yourself of who He is and who you are, somehow your requests become clarified and they become wiser.”

Psalm 32 – Verse 7

“You are a hiding place for me. And that word hiding place is the word seter. That’s where we get the word Esther, whose name means hidden.

You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance.”

Psalm 32 – Deliverance: Palet vs. Yasha

“Now this word for deliverance that we find here is the word palet. Let me just write it for you.

Palet is different from the word Yasha, where we get the word Yeshua, salvation.

Palet is, and I’m doing a horrible job writing this in Hebrew. I’m not very good with this eye pencil here, Apple pencil, but it’s spelled there. Pe-lamed-tet.

And I’ll clean this up before I put it on our notes, on our website. But this kind of deliverance really means escape.

There are two ways God can deliver. He can destroy the danger and the threat, and then you’re delivered. Or He can remove you from the threat.

And that’s another kind of deliverance. Yasha means to rescue by destroying the enemy, destroying the threat. Whereas palet means to rescue and take you out of the threat.”

Psalm 32 – Example of Exodus

“When we think of the salvation, the redemption of the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt, God did both. He took them out of Egypt, and that was palet. They escaped Egypt.

But then later, he drowns the Egyptian cavalry there on the shores of the Red Sea. That was Yasha. He destroyed the threat.

So his salvation, his rescue, is so utterly complete.”

Psalm 32 – Connection to Psalm 22

“So this is deliverance through escape. We find this word a couple times also in Psalm 22, the Psalm that began the series of ten Psalms about Yeshua on the cross.

In Psalm 22:4 it says, In you our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered, you palet, you delivered them through escape.

And then in verse 8, this is where the people at the foot of the cross are mocking him, saying he trusted Adonai. Let him, let Adonai palet him, take him off the cross, let him escape from this. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him.

What I find interesting is that Yeshua on the cross was not delivered. He could have called 10,000 angels down to rescue him, and he could have escaped the whole thing, but he didn’t.

And as someone once said, it wasn’t the nails that held him to the cross, it was his love for us that held him to the cross.”

Psalm 32 – God’s Deliverance for Us

“So he says, you delivered our fathers, but I’m not being delivered. He wasn’t escaping, but we do get to escape.

We are delivered through escape from sin, from Satan, from so many things.

It doesn’t mean we will never have pain and suffering in our lives, and who knows, we might die as martyrs someday.

But on the other hand, God takes us out of the troubles that are so common to people who don’t know Him.

So He is a great deliverer. And it says, You surround me with songs of deliverance by means of escape. He surrounds us with songs.”

Psalm 32 – Transition to Teaching (Verse 8)

“So, well, let’s pick it on up at verse 8. Now, so far, we’ve seen three sections in this psalm that each end with the word Selah.

But now when we come to verse 8, now the teaching part begins. So verses 8 through 11, He says, I will instruct you,and there’s our word Sachal again.

Remember, this is a maskel. This is a teaching psalm.

So now when we get to verse 8, we see the teaching begin. Because here’s the word Sachal, and that’s where we get the word maskel.

So what is it with all of this preface, this prelude to the teaching, what is it that God wants to teach us through this psalm?”

Psalm 32 – God’s Instruction After Forgiveness

“Through David, he writes, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.

In other words, now that you’ve been delivered, your sins have been forgiven, they’ve been borne away, your transgressions are covered, you’re free, you’ve repented, you’re a new person.

How do you live life? How do you move forward?

And this is so important. What is about to be written here, as we’re about to read, is so, so vitally important.

This is a lesson I just want to shout from the rooftops, and I hope you hear what is being said in this psalm.”

Psalm 32 – What Not to Be Like (Horse & Mule)

“It says, Be not like a horse or a mule. Don’t be like a horse or a mule. Without be-nah, without understanding. Ornamented with muzzle and bridle so that they do not come near you.

So first of all, he tells us what we should not be like, and then he’s going to tell us what we should be like. So let’s look at what we should not be like.

We should not be like a horse or a mule. How is a horse or a mule controlled? Well, with a horse, you’ve got a rider on its back, kind of behind its head, behind its eyes.

And he can put a muzzle on the horse to keep the horse from biting, but he can put a bit and bridle on as well to control it. And so you see this physical control, this domination of the waywardness of the mule or the horse.

And we as believers, we can be like mules. We can be like horses who are not sensitive to the will of God, and he has to take charge and control and sometimes muzzle us.”

Psalm 32 – God’s Desire for Us

“Now your translation may say bit and bridle instead of muzzle and bridle, but Rashi uses the term muzzle here, as do some of the other ancient commentators. And I think muzzle is probably the best translation.

What’s interesting is this word for muzzle, the word metek, is the modern Hebrew word for light switch.

In other words, you can flip the light on, but you can flip it off. And sometimes God just has to muzzle us to turn us off.

And he can muzzle us through illness, through people just saying, I’m tired of this guy, “I just don’t want to hear him anymore”

And he has a way of shutting us down. He also has a way of putting a bridle on us to control us through circumstances and to force us in places we don’t want to go and to keep us from going places we shouldn’t.

But this is not the way God wants to deal with us. He doesn’t want to use a muzzle and a bridle on us. It’s not the way he wants to operate with us at all.”

Psalm 32 – Counsel With God’s Eye

“But it does say many are the sorrows of the wicked.

But steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in Adonai.

He says, be glad in Adonai and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Oh, and here’s the part I want us to get. How does God want to direct us?

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye. I will counsel you with my eye.

What does that mean? Instead of being like a mule, being like a horse where physical control has to be imposed, God says, I just want to counsel you and direct you with my eye.

How does that work? Well, we have two ways of moving forward.

When it comes to spiritual things, when it comes to walking through this life with wisdom and with discernment, do we walk by what we see, or do we close our eyes and we hear the word Shema Yisrael, hear Yisrael?

Do we walk by our own understanding, or do we trust in his understanding?

We’re the body of Messiah, but he’s the head, and in him dwell the eyes and the ears. And so God sees things as they are. We often do not.

He says, I’ll direct you with my eye. In other words, don’t try to figure this out where we’re going. I see clearly, I see perfectly, and I will direct you with my eye.

Don’t trust what your eye sees. Just listen to what I say. And he’ll tell us, this is the way. Walk in it, and we’ll say, well, that doesn’t look like the right way.

He says, shh, close your eyes. Listen to me. I’ll direct you with my eye, because I can see. Trust what I’m telling you.”

Psalm 32 – Walking By Faith

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God.

We’re to walk in faith, not by sight. That faith comes by hearing. As I often say, physical light comes in through the eyes. Spiritual light comes in through the ears.

So we can be like the mule or like the horse that says, this is the way I want to go. I’m going to go this way. I want to go that way.

And God has to take control. And it’s painful, as it says later. Many are the sorrows of the wicked.

Or you can say, okay, Father, I trust you. I know you can see what I can’t. And you understand perfectly.

And not only can you see the circumstances in which I live, you can see the future. So you tell me how you want me to proceed, where you want me to go, and I’ll be guided and counseled by your eye, not by mine.”

Psalm 32 – Conclusion

“Does that make sense to you? This is a powerful instruction. And this Psalm is a teaching psalm.

This is the teaching God wants to give us as those who have been forgiven, whose sins have been borne away, have been covered by the depths of the sea.

We are now a free people. He’s taken away our guilt.

He says, now this is the way you walk. Don’t be like a mule or a horse, or I’ve always got to be wrestling with you to get you to go the right way.

Just trust my eye and my voice. Let me do the seeing for both of us. You just keep your ear attuned to me. It’s going to be good.

Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in Adonai. So you can trust in what you see, or you can trust in what he says. What is it going to be?

Well, we trust in the Lord. We can be glad and rejoice, so righteous and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. I want to be glad and rejoice and shout for joy.

So let’s be a righteous person. Let’s be upright in heart. Let’s keep our hearts attuned with God’s, and let’s walk the straight way he’s given to us.

I hope this Psalm has been at least partially as much of a blessing to you as it has been to me over the last week or so as I’ve just meditated on the Psalm. It’s just an excitement and a joy does well up in me.

Because what an amazing book the Book of Psalms is. What incredible insights God has given us through Psalms 22 through 31. But the cherry on top is Psalm 32.

And we can rejoice and be glad because our sins have been dealt with and God is now teaching us this is the way you walk now.

When you did things your way and you followed your own sight, it was sin and guilt and transgression and iniquity. Okay, I’ve dealt with that. Let’s walk on a new way now.

So my prayer is that God will help me and you as well to walk and be counseled by his eye as we listen to his voice.

So until next time, I wish you shalom and may God bless.”