Commentary - Psalm 103:6-14

Bird's-eye view

This central section of Psalm 103 is a magnificent exposition of the character of God, grounded in His historical actions. David moves from personal praise for forgiveness and healing to a corporate celebration of God's covenant faithfulness. The theme is God's steadfast love, His hesed, which stands in stark and glorious contrast to our sin and frailty. The psalmist anchors God's mercy not in a sentimental abstraction, but in His righteous acts of judgment for the oppressed and His self-revelation to Moses. The core of the passage is a quotation and expansion of God's own declaration of His name from Exodus 34. This is a God who is both just and merciful, whose anger is real but temporary, and whose forgiveness is absolute and total. The psalm uses a series of soaring metaphors, the height of the heavens, the distance of east from west, and the compassion of a father, to help our dusty minds grasp the immensity of a grace that does not treat us as our sins deserve.

This is the heart of the gospel, preached centuries before the cross. It describes a relationship with God that is not based on our performance but on His character. The foundation for this lavish mercy is God's intimate knowledge of our weakness. He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. This is not an excuse for our sin, but rather the backdrop against which His grace shines all the more brightly. It is a call to worship the God who deals with us not according to our iniquities, but according to His abounding, covenantal, fatherly love.

Outline

Context In Psalms

Psalm 103 is one of the best-loved psalms of praise, a personal and corporate hymn celebrating the benefits of God. It begins and ends with the psalmist exhorting his own soul, "Bless the Lord, O my soul." The psalm moves from the personal benefits of forgiveness, healing, and redemption (vv. 1-5) into the broader, corporate, and historical realities of God's character as revealed to Israel (vv. 6-18). This section (vv. 6-14) is the theological core of the psalm, grounding the personal experience of grace in the objective reality of God's covenant name and actions. The psalm then concludes by calling upon the entire created order, from angels to all His works everywhere, to join in this chorus of praise (vv. 19-22). It is a comprehensive movement from the individual heart, to the covenant community, to the entire cosmos, all united in blessing the Lord for who He is and what He has done.

Key Issues

The Gospel According to David

It is a profound mistake to think that the gospel was a New Testament invention. The good news of God's grace to sinners is the central thread of the entire Bible, and we see it here in Psalm 103 with blazing clarity. This is not a psalm about how good we are, but about how good God is, in spite of how bad we are. David is not celebrating his own righteousness, but rather the glorious fact that God has not dealt with him according to his sins. This is the doctrine of grace.

The psalmist defines God's character by His actions. He is the God who executes righteousness, makes His ways known, and shows compassion. But the pinnacle of this revelation is the monumental truth that He removes our transgressions from us. This is not a minor adjustment or a sweeping under the rug. This is a removal as far as the east is from the west, an infinite distance. How can a just God do this? The Old Testament saints looked forward in faith to the answer that we now look back to. This infinite forgiveness was purchased at an infinite cost. The chasm between east and west was crossed by Christ on the cross. God can treat us with such fatherly compassion because He did not spare His only Son. He poured out the full measure of His eternal anger on Christ, so that for us, His anger is but for a moment. This psalm is a celebration of the cross, written a thousand years before it happened.

Verse by Verse Commentary

6 Yahweh performs righteous deeds And judgments for all who are oppressed.

The praise here broadens from the personal to the general. The God who forgives my iniquities is the same God who governs the world in perfect justice. His character is consistent. He is not just a private Savior but a public King. Notice that His righteousness is not an abstract concept; it is demonstrated in deeds and judgments. God does righteousness. And He does it on behalf of the oppressed, those who are beaten down and have no other court of appeal. This is a foundational truth of the biblical worldview. God is not neutral in the contest between the proud and the humble, the oppressor and the oppressed. He takes sides. This sets the stage for the mercy that follows, because we who are sinners are the ultimate oppressors, and we are also oppressed by sin. God's righteous judgment is what must fall on us, but in a great reversal, His righteousness comes to our defense.

7 He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.

God's character is not a matter of human speculation. He has revealed Himself. The psalmist grounds his theology in history, in God's great redemptive action. The primary reference is to the Exodus and the giving of the Law at Sinai. To Moses, His special servant, He revealed His ways, the principles and character behind His actions. To the people, the sons of Israel, He revealed His acts, the mighty deeds of deliverance and judgment. God has not been silent or hidden. He has spoken and He has acted, and by these things, we are to know Him. Our knowledge of God is not a leap in the dark; it is a response to His self-revelation in history and, supremely, in Scripture.

8 Yahweh is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

This is the heart of that revelation. David is quoting directly from God's own declaration of His name to Moses after the golden calf incident in Exodus 34:6-7. This is God's own summary of His character. He is compassionate and gracious, full of pity for our miserable state and disposed to give us good things we do not deserve. He is slow to anger. This does not mean He is never angry. His anger is real and holy, but it is not His default disposition toward His people. He is patient. And He is abounding in lovingkindness. The word is hesed, that great covenant term that combines love, loyalty, faithfulness, and mercy. It is not just that He has some lovingkindness; He is abounding in it. It is an overflowing fountain, a treasure that cannot be depleted.

9 He will not always contend with us, And He will not keep His anger forever.

Because God is slow to anger, that anger has a limit when it comes to His covenant people. He will contend with us, which refers to a legal dispute or charge. He brings His covenant lawsuit against us when we sin, and He chastens His children. But He does not do so forever. His goal is restoration, not destruction. His anger is a temporary, corrective measure, like that of a loving father. It is not a settled, permanent state of hostility. For the reprobate, God's anger is eternal. But for His own, He will not keep His anger forever. The cross is the ultimate proof of this, for there His eternal anger was exhausted on our substitute.

10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, And He has not rewarded us according to our iniquities.

This is the glorious consequence of God's character. Here is the gospel in a nutshell. If God were to deal with us on the basis of strict justice, on the basis of our performance, we would all be condemned instantly. Our sins and iniquities have earned a reward, and that reward is death and damnation. But the testimony of every believer is this: He has not given us what we deserve. He has withheld the judgment we have earned. This is mercy. And He has given us blessings we have not earned. This is grace. The entire Christian life is lived in the happy valley between what our sins deserve and what God's grace provides.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.

David now grasps for metaphors to describe the magnitude of this grace. How great is His hesed? It is as high as the heavens are above the earth. This is a measure of immeasurable distance. It is an infinite, vertical separation. His love for His people is not a small or containable thing; it is vast, transcendent, and overwhelming. Note the object of this love: those who fear Him. This is not a servile, cowering fear, but a reverential awe and trust, the filial fear of a child for a loving father. It is the posture of a creature who knows his place before his Creator and Redeemer. To those who fear Him, His mercy is astronomical.

12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

If the previous verse gave us the vertical dimension of His love, this gives us the horizontal. How far has He removed our sins? As far as the east is from the west. This is another picture of infinity. If you travel north, you will eventually reach the North Pole and begin traveling south. But if you travel east, you will always be traveling east. East and west never meet. This is what God does with our sin. He does not cover it up temporarily. He does not ignore it. He removes it. He banishes it to a place from which it can never return to be charged against us. When God forgives, He forgives completely and eternally. Our sins are gone.

13 As a father has compassion on his children, So Yahweh has compassion on those who fear Him.

The third metaphor brings the infinite down to the intimate. God's love is not only as high as the heavens and as wide as the east from the west, it is as tender as a father's compassion. A good father pities his children. He knows their weaknesses, their immaturity, their foolishness, and he does not crush them for it. He deals with them tenderly. This is how God deals with those who fear Him. He is not a distant, impersonal force. He is a Father. This is one of the most precious revelations in all of Scripture, and it is the foundation of our relationship with Him. We come to Him not as slaves to a tyrant, but as children to a compassionate Father.

14 For He Himself knows our form; He remembers that we are but dust.

What is the basis for this fatherly compassion? It is His perfect knowledge of our creaturely frailty. He knows our form, our frame, how we were fashioned. The Creator knows His creation. He remembers that we are but dust. This is a direct allusion to the creation account in Genesis, where God formed man from the dust of the ground. We are fragile, weak, and mortal. Our proudest moments of rebellion are nothing more than a dust devil in the wind. God knows this. He takes our weakness into account. This does not excuse our sin, but it magnifies His grace. He knows exactly what He is getting when He saves us, a handful of dust, and He loves us still. His compassion is not based on our strength, but on His awareness of our profound weakness.

Application

The central application of this psalm is to bless the Lord. We are commanded at the beginning and end to bless Him, and this central section gives us the doctrinal fuel for that fire of praise. We cannot praise a God we do not know, and these verses give us a portrait of our God that should leave us staggered with gratitude.

First, we must ground our faith in the objective character and actions of God, not in our subjective feelings. Our assurance does not come from the quality of our performance but from the quality of His promises, which are rooted in His unchanging name. When you are oppressed by sin or circumstance, remember that He executes righteousness for the oppressed.

Second, we must learn to think rightly about our sin and God's forgiveness. Our culture alternates between trivializing sin and being crushed by guilt. The Bible does neither. It takes sin with utmost seriousness, acknowledging it deserves God's wrath. But it proclaims a forgiveness that is absolute and infinite. When you are tempted to despair over your sin, preach this text to yourself. Your transgressions have been removed as far as the east is from the west. Do not go trying to fetch them back.

Finally, we must embrace our identity as children of a compassionate Father. This means we can come to Him in our weakness. He already knows we are dust. We do not need to pretend to be marble statues. Our frailty is the very stage upon which He displays His fatherly care. This should free us from pretense and fill us with a humble, grateful, and fearful love for the God who is high as the heavens, but who bends down to pity dust.