Bible Strands
Psalms 51:3
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David addresses God in a penitential moment, positioned between his initial plea for cleansing and his subsequent declaration that his sin was ultimately against God alone.
The words — The Hebrew pĕshāʿay (transgressions/my) denotes willful rebellion, while tamîd (continually) establishes an unbroken temporal frame for the speaker's awareness.
The thread — This persistent acknowledgment of guilt runs through Proverbs 28:13, Isaiah 59:12, and Psalm 38:18, where unhidden iniquity is consistently contrasted with concealed sin.
Why it lands — The text states that the speaker recognizes his transgressions and keeps his sin constantly in view, demanding that a reader stop minimizing personal rebellion and maintain an ongoing, unflinching awareness of moral failure.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
- Isaiah 59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities:
- Psalms 38:18 Yes, I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.
- Psalms 32:5 Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
- Leviticus 26:40 But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—
- Luke 15:18 I will get up and go back to my father and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
- Jeremiah 3:25 Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”
- Job 33:27 Then he sings before men with these words: ‘I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.
- Psalms 40:12 For evils without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, so that I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed within me.
- Nehemiah 9:2 Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all the foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.