Bent

So David has two things said over him in one breath. Forgiven, and covered.

And they are two different things, and the words say so. Forgiven is a lifting word. Lift, bear, carry away, take away. Covered is a hiding word. To clothe. To conceal. To fill in a hollow.

So one of them is carried off, and the other one is put out of sight. Carrying a thing away and hiding a thing are not the same work, and David put both words in one line.

Here is where he is standing when he says it. He is under the old covenant, where the sacrifices were brought again and again.

So covered is a heavy word in his mouth.

And Isaiah puts somebody under both of those words.

Two words again, and two different things done with them. Wounded for the transgressions. Bruised for the iniquities.

Isaiah is not quoting David and David is not quoting Isaiah. I am the one setting them beside each other, and I am doing it because they are handling the same two words.

Now a word people trip over. Impute. To impute a thing to a man is to charge it to him. To write it on his account and hold him to it.

So David is blessing God for not charging something. And the thing not charged is iniquity.

The verse says one more thing about that man. In whose spirit there is no guile. Guile is deceit. And what I hear in a deceit is a hiding and something kept back.

Iniquity is its own word. My book gives it as perversity, depravity, fault, moral evil, and it carries guilt and punishment along with it. So the word does more than one job. Then it says where it comes from, and the older word behind it means to crook, to bend, to twist, and that older word is also turned into iniquity in the King James four times.

Out of all that, the part I am following in this piece is the depravity. The bent part. I am not saying the word only means that. I am saying that is the one I am walking with.

So I am holding the two words this way. Sin is what I did. The bend is what I carry.

And David says that about himself.

Shapen. The verse puts iniquity at his conceiving, before he had done anything at all. That is what I am calling the bend.

Before I got saved, I was a liar. After I got saved, I was saved. My sins were forgiven. But the lying didn’t go away on its own. That bent thing kept pulling me back into the darkness.

I came home from work one evening. My nephew called me. Aunty, I want you to pray for me. I asked why. He said, because I does lie too much. I looked at him and said, well just stop lie. Needless to say, he is still lying.

Israel was delivered from Egypt, but each time they became dissatisfied they wished they were back in Egypt. Egypt for me represents darkness for Israel in those days. Lying was that darkness in our life. And each time we reach back into that darkness to tell a lie, we are reaching for the bent thing inside of us. Iniquity.

And David kept silence about his.

Kept silence. And the word under that silence is a secrecy word. Its own entry gives conceal, and practise secretly.

It is a different word from covered in verse 1. But covered in verse 1 is a covering for clothing or for secrecy. And silence in verse 3 is silence that comes out of secrecy. Two different words, and secrecy standing in both.

And it cost him. His bones. His roaring, all the day long. Dried out like ground in the middle of summer.

And the psalm names what was pressing on him. Thy hand was heavy upon me. So it was God bearing down on him while he stayed quiet, and God did not leave him alone in it.

Hid, in verse 5, is the same word as covered in verse 1.

In verse 1 God covers the sin. In verse 5 David will not cover the iniquity. One word, twice in one psalm. God does it to the one thing, and the man refuses to do it to the other.

And he says it two ways inside that one verse.

When he speaks of not hiding it, he says MINE INIQUITY.
When he speaks of God forgiving it, he says THE INIQUITY OF MY SIN.

I am reading those as two things, and the reading is mine.

The bentness of the sin is the crooked thing that was inside what he did. God forgave that.
The bentness of the man is what he was carrying before he did anything. He did not cover that one. And God did not charge it to him.

Two bends, and he does something different with each.

And the order is the order in the verse. He acknowledged. He did not hide. He said he would confess. And then God forgave. The uncovering came first, and uncovering is the right word for it, because it is the covering word with a not in front of it.

In that same psalm where he calls himself shapen, he asks for three different things in two lines.

Blot out. Wash throughly. Cleanse. Three asks for three words, and the words are three different things. A transgression is a revolt. And iniquity is the one I have been calling the bend.

Blot out is a removal word. Erase. Wipe out. Abolish. Put out.

And the word he uses for washing is a treading word. To wash by stamping with the feet, the way a fuller works cloth underfoot. And the word he puts beside it is an increase word. Multiply. Many a time.

So it is himself he asks to have washed, and the iniquity is what he wants washed out of him. A working word, and an increase word, and both of them stand in the line about the iniquity and in neither of the other two.

He gave himself for it. Then the verse says what for. That he might sanctify and cleanse it.

Paul does not use the word bend and he does not use the word iniquity. What he says is that the cleansing is what the giving was for. So the washing is not something added on after Calvary. The washing is part of what Calvary was for.

Jesus prays it, and He names the thing that does the sanctifying. Thy truth. Then He says what the truth is. Thy word is truth.

And the word Paul writes is the word Jesus prays. Sanctify. One word, in both mouths.

And Paul says where the changing happens. The mind.

Conformed is to be fashioned to a pattern. Transformed is to be changed in form. One shape pressed on you from outside, and one shape worked in you instead. And renewing carries the weight. It means a renovation. A complete change for the better.

Renewed, again. And this time Paul puts a clock on it. Day by day.

And it is the inward man he says it of.

Now none of those passages names any of the others. I am the one putting them side by side, and I am doing it because each one answers a question the others leave alone. Paul in Ephesians says what it cost. Jesus says what it runs on. Paul in Romans says where it lands. Paul writing to Corinth says it keeps happening.

And the bend I have been following is a shape, and the words in Romans are shape words. So that is where I take it.

Truth in the inward parts. That is what God wants inside a man, and truth is what He washes him with.

So here is where it comes out.

The sin was covered.
The bentness in the sin was forgiven, and somebody was bruised for it.
The bentness of the man was brought out into the open, and it was never written on his account.
And the man is still being washed. Paul says the inward man is renewed day by day, and that is where my still comes from. The washing word is out of Ephesians and the day by day is out of Corinthians, and putting those two together is mine.

And Isaiah ends his verse on the word healed, and bringing that word over to this is my doing too.

One giving paid for both of them. He was wounded and bruised for what was charged, and the washing came out of that same giving. Paul puts the giving and the cleansing in one sentence.

And the washing was aimed at the inside of a man. Romans says the mind. Psalm 51 says the inward parts. My spirit man is how I say it, and that is my own word set beside theirs. That is where the reaching starts.

He is not after the headache. He is after what caused the headache.

David is a man who stopped hiding, and God went to work on the shape.

He stopped hiding, and what came out of him was the truth about himself. And truth in the inward parts is the thing God said He wanted.