Some Old Testament texts critique what the whole system of ritual sacrifice had become: an exercise in piety that’s without true repentance. But in Psalm 51, the psalmist acknowledges that God doesn’t want sacrifices; he wants the psalmist’s broken heart.

Psalm 51 is one of the few to begin with a heading that associates it with a specific historical event; in this case, it’s David’s sin with Bathsheba. Some tellings of that story get it drastically wrong. We need to tell the story rightly to understand the depth of David’s guilt, and the corresponding depth of his repentance and the grace of God that met it.

When we were two years old, we may have gone through a period of stubborn rebellion. And even as adults, some of us may not be done rebelling. We don’t know why the author of Psalm 32 hid his sin from God. But he learned a great lesson from the love and grace he found after he confessed. The final verses read like a wisdom psalm, in which the psalmist tries to help God’s people to not make the same mistake he did.

You may know the story of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch evangelist who miraculously survived a Nazi concentration camp. Her biography, The Hiding Place, echoes the Psalms, including Psalm 32. Throughout the collection, God is described as place of shelter and safety. The psalm is not just about confessing sin; it’s about running to God to security.

Like the author of Psalm 32 (it’s attributed to David), we probably all have our private sins, things we’ve done that nobody about knows except God. He tried to cover it up, but suffered when he did. Finally, he confessed his sin to God—and in grace and mercy, God covered it.

Some psalms emphasize the psalmist’s confession of sin; these are known as penitential psalms. Psalm 32 is a good example of this type. The first part reads like a wisdom psalm, and is quoted by the apostle Paul. These early verses raise an important question: why do we stay silent about our sin, and what happens when we do?

In this episode, we come to the end of our examination of the Egyptian Hallel. We don’t know for certain who wrote Psalm 118 or why. But apparently, by the time of Jesus, it was understood as pointing forward to the coming Messiah. This is important to understanding why Jesus quoted the psalm to the Jerusalem leaders—and what he seems to have intended by doing so.

Most of us probably go to church in our own cars, by ourselves or with our families. We enter the sanctuary, perhaps greet some friends, and find a seat. But what if everyone gathered in one place, then went together in a procession into the sanctuary instead? The second part of Psalm 118 pictures something like this. The passage contains words that will be familiar to readers of the gospels, and we’ll examine those more closely in the next episode.