12. Who can understand his errors? Cleans thou me from secret faults. 13. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. 14. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength, and my redeemer.
Understanding Presumptuous Sin and Why David Prayed Against It
Jesus taught us to acknowledge the Father with the disciples’ prayer. Paul taught the early church to pray for spiritual wisdom and for love among brothers and sisters in Christ. David’s prayers in the Psalms cover a wide range of emotional and spiritual needs, but in Psalm 19 his focus is on being cleansed from sin — and in particular, from presumptuous sins. But what exactly does David mean by “presumptuous sins”? How do they differ from any other sins? And should believers today be concerned about committing them?
Believers should always be concerned about committing sin, no matter what label is attached to it. Not because we are under the law as David was, but because we are created in the image of God, and are called to live righteously in Christ Jesus. Psalm 19:12 gives us a true sense of Jesus’ words in Matthew 26:41: “The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” We all encounter moments of weakness when we can physically feel the tension between our spirit and our flesh as we fight not to give in to the flesh. And when we do give in, we often do not understand the error in our judgment. Ironically, Matthew 26:41 begins with the words “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation” — temptation being the entrance to sin, and prayer being the defense against it.
Psalm 19:12 also prompts us to hearken to the words of Paul in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” David is asking God, “what man can understand the errors of his own ways?” Although separated by centuries, David recognizes the same exact struggles Paul describes — having a spirit aligned with God’s law, but flesh that is sinful by its very nature. The exact same struggles that we face today, some 2,000 years after Paul’s writing.
The Hebrew Meaning of “Presumptuous Sins”
Verse 13 shows David’s understanding that God is all-knowing and his willingness to be fully vulnerable — spiritually “naked” before Him. In the original Hebrew, the words “presumptuous things” are not used. The proper English translation is “from proud things.” The single Hebrew word for this translation is miz-zê-ḏîm, the plural form of the word zêḏ, which means arrogant or proud. With this in mind, we understand that “presumptuous sins” are willful acts of disobedience committed against God’s law — sins fueled by pride and arrogance, exactly as the Hebrew text suggests. David is acknowledging that a prideful heart leads to sin and risks falling away from God — what he calls “the great transgression.” But a humble heart is one that seeks God, aligns with Him, and finds righteousness.
Seeing Sin as God Sees It
What God considers sin is often much different from what we believe to be sin. As such, there are times when we are not even conscious of our sins. This may be what David is referring to when he writes, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” A clearer understanding might be, “Declare me innocent of sins I am unaware of.” It also has to be considered that David may be asking forgiveness of sins only known to him and God — faults known to the Lord but may never be known by others.
Throughout Scripture we are taught to be mindful of our tongues, to speak with clean conversation, and to guard the thoughts of our hearts. In this way, as followers of Christ, we become examples of what being Christ-like looks like — and this is acceptable to God. How fitting that David closes his prayer with words that echo this very truth: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”
All sin begins in the thoughts of our hearts, and proverbial fires are kindled by the sparks of our tongues. Proverbs 23:7 teaches us, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so he is.” And Jesus warns us in Matthew 12:36, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” These two verses strike at the very heart of the origin of sin — how we are shaped by thoughts we dwell on, and the weight and gravity of what we choose to speak — both inwardly and outwardly.
David’s Psalms embody the meaning of God’s words “A man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22), and Psalm 19:12-14 is no exception. In this passage we learn that pride and arrogance often lie at the root of sins we are aware of, and that there are sins we are not aware of. We see that we can pray for protection from a prideful heart and ask forgiveness for the sins we do not recognize. And when these are our prayers, the Lord is faithful to strengthen us, cleanse us, and redeem us.