Psalms 19:13, commentary and pictures

It is a prayer asking God to hold His servant back from willful sins and not let them rule over him, so that he may be upright and clear from great wrongdoing. It grows out of seeing the Lord's law and testimonies as perfect, sure, right, pure and righteous, converting the soul, making wise, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes, warning the servant and bringing great reward in keeping them. Presumptuous sins are deliberate, self-willed choices against known duty, especially errors continued after light has exposed them and shown the reforms required. The keeping asked for joins dependence on God with active cooperation, as the one who prays sincerely and consecrates himself puts himself where God can work through him in humility rather than self-esteem and self-confidence. With it belongs asking to be cleansed from secret faults and errors not recognized, that the words of the mouth and meditation of the heart may be acceptable to the Lord as strength and Redeemer.

Prayer and Its Setting

The verse is a prayer for God to hold back His servant from presumptuous, deliberate, willful sins and not allow them to rule over him, so that with God's restraining help he will be upright and innocent of the great transgression. Freedom from their dominion is what leads to uprightness and innocence from great transgression. The prayer confesses need of God's help both against hidden faults and against willful sin.

The prayer grows out of the law, testimony, statutes, commandment, fear and judgments of the Lord, which are perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, true and righteous altogether. They convert the soul, make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, and endure forever. They are more to be desired than gold and sweeter than honey, warning the servant, with great reward in keeping them.

The verse belongs to the psalm's teaching that God's law warns and guides people and that obedience to divine law is part of the higher education humanity needs. It is part of a lesson to examine oneself by God's law and seek conformity to it, and it presents God's law as a warning that calls for cleansing from sin, including sins a person may not recognize. The psalm joins God's law with His created works. Its warnings stand among the beacons of warning and guiding lights placed by His Word along the whole way of life His children must pass.

The prayer for restraint from presumptuous sins belongs together with asking to be cleansed from secret faults and errors and seeing one's errors. It joins the plea for cleansing from hidden faults with the desire for acceptable words and thoughts, that the words of the mouth and the meditation of the heart may be acceptable to the Lord as strength and Redeemer. By ever looking to Jesus and beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, a person reflects His character and is changed from glory to glory and from character to character.

Meaning of Presumptuous Sins

Presumptuous sins are deliberate, willful, self-willed sins, done in full choice against known duty. Mistakes arising from blindness of mind are sins of ignorance and errors of judgment, but presumptuous sins are those same errors continued after light has exposed them. That exposure comes when God stretches out His hand showing duty and obligation, and when light shines making manifest and reproving undiscovered errors. With increase of light, duties change in character and require a corresponding change in life and character, with decided reforms in accordance with the light given.

Without that reform the same mistakes become presumptuous, bringing denser moral darkness and a harder and harder heart. They become offensive in God's sight, with peril that light will become entirely obscured in complete darkness. When the light is received and acted upon, the person is crucified to sin, dead indeed to the world but alive to God, with idols abandoned and example placed on the side of self-denial rather than self-indulgence. Presumptuous sins are pride, selfishness and covetousness, held back only by the restraining grace of Christ, for which ingratitude and contempt prevail on every hand.

To be presumptuous is also to fail to appreciate the life God has given as Giver and Preserver with deep interest in human happiness. It is to take on so many burdens that strength is overtaxed until heart-weary and brain-weary, chafing and fretting and scolding, which does not glorify His name. It is to abuse the precious gift of speech by finding fault and by expressing gloomy sentiments of unbelief. Neglecting a known duty and letting opportunities for good pass weakens good purposes and leaves a person less able to resist presumptuous sins, yet yielding to them can be resisted by God's help, and breaking free from worldly influences and habits requires Christ's grace.

Kept Upright in Practice

Protection from having presumptuous sins rule is both dependence on God and active cooperation with Him, for the one who prays sincerely and consecrates himself to answer his own prayer puts himself where God can work through him. The prayer asks for humility and dependence on God instead of foolish self-esteem, self-confidence and self-exaltation. Safety does not come from doing some great thing in proportion to a supposed great position, nor from trying to work the Holy Spirit, but from being as less than nothing unless worked by the Holy Spirit.

The prayer is for each person, and especially for men placed in responsible positions who are in danger from self-esteem and self-confidence. It stands as both a warning and a precious promise, calling for humility before God and alertness to spiritual danger. It calls people to wake up to their spiritual condition and to the danger of indifference to their eternal welfare.

When grievous and presumptuous sin gains dominion within the church, it is evidence of backsliding and separation from God, even while people believe the church is flourishing and at peace. The verse is to be prayed in humble confession and earnest seeking of God in preparation to meet Christ. It calls each person individually to heed a Thus saith the Lord and to know what is truth.

That heeding means refusing disloyalty by transgressing the holy Sabbath, caviling over plain statements, misinterpreting and wresting the Scriptures from their true meaning, making desperate efforts to harmonize disobedience with the Scriptures, and turning from the greatest Teacher to the traditions and maxims and sayings of men as the Pharisees did. Innocence from serious sin means being free from guilt of the wrong one has been accused of, even when afflicted by those who should have helped. Such innocence is cause to thank the Lord, to refuse retaliation and control by natural feelings, and to commit the case wholly to Jesus who died, who pities sufferers, and who is sufficient in every hour of trial rather than letting go of faith in Him.