David reaches for three Hebrew words for wrongdoing in the first two verses, transgression, sin, and iniquity, and pairs each with something God does: forgiven, covered, not counted. This is a man circling one relief from every angle he can find words for. 1"Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Paul quotes this opening in the middle of his argument that righteousness comes by faith apart from works (Romans 4:6-8). A man whose sin God refuses to count is a man whose standing never rested on his performance.
Before he reaches the blessing, David describes the cost of the alternative: 3"When I kept silent, my bones wasted away," and 4"day and night your hand was heavy upon me." Many readers hear Bathsheba and Nathan's confrontation behind these lines (2 Samuel 11-12). Whether or not that history sits directly behind the psalm, the psychology is unmistakable. Guilt carried in silence does damage that guilt confessed does not.
Then the turn, in the fewest words possible. 5"I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity," and God 5"forgave the iniquity of my sin." The sin was the same in the wasting of verse 3 and the forgiveness of verse 5. What changed was whether it stayed hidden or was spoken. Confession never informs God of anything he did not already know. It moves the one confessing out of concealment and back into the light he was hiding from.
David does not keep his discovery to himself. 6"Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found." The isolation unconfessed sin produced, bones wasting in silence, is answered by a different kind of shelter: 7"You are a hiding place for me." A hiding place protects. Psalm 32 reads like the settled teaching of a man already forgiven, and Psalm 51 like the raw cry made in the moment of exposure. David promised in Psalm 51 that he would teach transgressors God's ways (Psalm 51:13), and this psalm, labeled a maskil, a teaching song, reads like that promise being kept.
Then God himself speaks: 8"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you." And the gentle mockery that follows: 9"Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding." A horse understands nothing about why its rider turns, and only force moves it. God offers something better, an eye kept on David, counsel in place of compulsion. He invites David to move because he has learned to trust the hand on the reins.
The psalm that began with bones worn down by silence ends in shouted joy: 11"Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice." The whole distance between those two states was crossed when David stopped covering what God had already seen and started confessing it. The God he feared uncovering his sin to was the one already waiting to cover it.
If something has been carried in silence, this psalm is a permission slip to say it. The relief David describes came on the far side of the words.
Prayer
Father, we have kept silent more often than we have confessed, and let our own bones wear down. Thank you that when we stop covering our sin, you cover it yourself. Instruct us and teach us in the way we should go, and keep us from needing bit and bridle to stay near you. Surround us with your steadfast love, and let us shout for joy as only the forgiven can. In Jesus' name, amen.