Deliver me from all my transgressions - Recognising, as in Psalm 38:3-5, his sins as the source of all his troubles and sorrows. If his transgressions were forgiven, he felt assured that his trouble would be removed. His first petition, therefore, is, that his sins might be pardoned, with the implied conscious assurance that then it would be consistent and proper for God to remove his calamity, and deliver him from the evils which had come upon him.

Make me not the reproach of the foolish - Of the wicked; of those who are foolish, because they are wicked. See the notes at Psalm 14:1. The prayer here is, that God would not suffer him to become an object of reproach to wicked and foolish men; that is, as the passage implies, that God would not so continue to treat him as if he were a sinner as to justify to themselves their reproaches of him as a wicked man. In other words, he prays that God would forgive his sin, and would withdraw his hand of affliction, so that even the wicked might see that he was not angry with him, but that he was an object of the divine favor.

Deliver one from all may transgressions - I seek the pardon of my sins; I expect it from thy mercy. Grant it, "that I be not the reproach of the foolish," (the godless and the profane), who deride my expectation, and say no such blessings can be had. Let them know, by thy saving me, that there is a God who heareth prayer, and giveth his Holy Spirit to all them that ask him.

Deliver me from all my transgressions,.... Which were the cause and occasion of all his distresses, inward and outward; and the deliverance prayed for includes a freedom from the dominion of sin, which is by the power of efficacious grace; and from the guilt of sin, which is by the application of the blood of Christ; and from obligation to punishment for it, or deliverance from wrath to come, which is through Christ's being made a curse, and enduring wrath in the room and stead of his people; and from the very being of sin, which, though it cannot be expected in this life, is desirable: and the psalmist prays that he might be delivered from "all" his transgressions; knowing: that if one of them was left to have dominion over him, or the guilt of it to lie upon him, and he be obliged to undergo due punishment for it, he must be for ever miserable;

make me not the reproach of the foolish; of a Nabal; meaning not any particular person; as Esau, according to Jarchi; or Absalom, as others; but every foolish man, that is, a wicked man; such who deny the being and providence of God, make a mock at sin, and scoff at the saints: and the sense of the psalmist is, that the Lord would keep him from sinning, and deliver him out of all his afflictions, on account of which he was reproached by wicked men.

Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the {f} foolish.

(f) Do not make me a laughing stock to the wicked, wrap me up with the wicked when they are put to shame.

8-10. Patiently submissive, he prays for the removal of his chastisement, and that he may not be a reproach.

39:7-13 There is no solid satisfaction to be had in the creature; but it is to be found in the Lord, and in communion with him; to him we should be driven by our disappointments. If the world be nothing but vanity, may God deliver us from having or seeking our portion in it. When creature-confidences fail, it is our comfort that we have a God to go to, a God to trust in. We may see a good God doing all, and ordering all events concerning us; and a good man, for that reason, says nothing against it. He desires the pardoning of his sin, and the preventing of his shame. We must both watch and pray against sin. When under the correcting hand of the Lord, we must look to God himself for relief, not to any other. Our ways and our doings bring us into trouble, and we are beaten with a rod of our own making. What a poor thing is beauty! and what fools are those that are proud of it, when it will certainly, and may quickly, be consumed! The body of man is as a garment to the soul. In this garment sin has lodged a moth, which wears away, first the beauty, then the strength, and finally the substance of its parts. Whoever has watched the progress of a lingering distemper, or the work of time alone, in the human frame, will feel at once the force of this comparison, and that, surely every man is vanity. Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, we may hope that God will hear our prayer. The believer expects weariness and ill treatment on his way to heaven; but he shall not stay here long : walking with God by faith, he goes forward on his journey, not diverted from his course, nor cast down by the difficulties he meets. How blessed it is to sit loose from things here below, that while going home to our Father's house, we may use the world as not abusing it! May we always look for that city, whose Builder and Maker is God.