For the honor of your name, O Lord, forgive my many, many sins.
Parallel translations
- WEB For your name’s sake, Yahweh, pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
- KJV For thy name’s sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
- BSB For the sake of Your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, for it is great.
- NKJV For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
- NASB For the sake of Your name, Lord, Forgive my wrongdoing, for it is great.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David pleads for pardon of his great iniquity for the sake of God's name. He appeals to God's honor as the ground of forgiveness.
Overview
Strikingly, David asks pardon precisely because his guilt is great, appealing not to the smallness of his sin but to God's name and reputation for mercy. Forgiveness magnifies the glory of God's grace. This anticipates the gospel, where God forgives even great sinners to display the riches of his mercy in Christ, for his own glory.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Ps 79:9Help us, God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.
- 1 Jn 2:12I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.
- Isa 43:25I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.
- Ps 31:3For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.
- Rom 5:20–21The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly;
- Ezek 20:9But I worked for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, among which they were, in whose sight I made myself known to them, in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
- Isa 48:9For my name’s sake, I will defer my anger, and for my praise I hold it back for you, so that I don’t cut you off.
- Ps 143:11Revive me, Yahweh, for your name’s sake. In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble.
- Ps 109:21But deal with me, Yahweh the Lord, for your name’s sake, because your loving kindness is good, deliver me;
- Ezek 36:22Therefore tell the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: I don’t do this for your sake, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations, where you went.
- Rom 5:15But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
- Num 14:17–19Now please let the power of the Lord be great, according as you have spoken, saying,
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 25:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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