Psalm 51:5 NKJV
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
A Lesson on Original Sin
MY NOTES
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” — Psalm 51:5 (NKJV)
Let’s be honest: Psalm 51:5 isn’t exactly the kind of verse you’d print on a “Welcome, New Baby!” greeting card. It feels heavy, maybe even a bit dark. When David says he was “brought forth in iniquity,” he’s not insulting his mother or implying he was the result of a sinful affair. He’s doing something much more radical and uncomfortably honest.
He’s performing a spiritual biopsy.
The “Tinder” in the Heart: Matthew Henry used a brilliant illustration for this: he said that if David had realized how much “tinder” he had in his heart, he wouldn’t have played so close to the “sparks” of temptation.
Most of us treat sin like a specialized mistake—a one-off software glitch. But David realizes it’s actually a hardware issue. He’s looking at his adultery and his lies and saying, “This wasn’t just a bad day. This was the natural fruit of a very old, very deep root.” He traces his sin back to the very beginning of his existence. As Charles Spurgeon famously put it: “In our shaping, we were put out of shape.”
The Anti-Excuse: In our modern world, we love to use our “nature” or our “upbringing” as an excuse. We say, “Well, I’m just a hothead—it’s in my DNA,” or “I was born with this personality, so God understands.” David does the exact opposite. He doesn’t mention his sinful nature to whitewash his guilt; he mentions it to persecute it. He’s telling God, “Lord, it’s worse than You think. I don’t just do bad things; I have a rebellious nature. I am a sinner at the root level.”
The Need for a New Life The reason this realization is actually “good news” is that you can’t fix a hardware problem with a software update. If we were just “good people who occasionally trip,” we’d just need a little more willpower. But if we are “brought forth in iniquity,” we need something far more drastic. We don’t need a self-help coach; we need a Creator to give us a brand-new heart.
Recognizing that our “bent” is away from God is the first step toward the grace that can actually straighten us out.
Key Takeaways
- Sin is a Nature, Not Just an Act: We aren’t sinners because we sin; we sin because we are (by nature) sinners. Recognizing this stops us from being surprised when we fail.
- The “Tinder” Principle: Knowing you have a sinful nature should make you more cautious. If you know your heart is highly flammable, don’t hang out near the fire.
- No Blame-Shifting: David doesn’t blame his mother or Adam. He owns the fact that his “house” was built on a faulty foundation from day one.
- The Depth of the Cure: If the problem goes back to our conception, the solution must go just as deep. Only a “new birth” can fix an “original” problem.
Cross References (NKJV)
Romans 5:12
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—”
Job 14:4
“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!”
Ephesians 2:3
“among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
Psalm 58:3
“The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.”
A Closing Prayer
Abba, I admit that my problem isn’t just what I do, but who I am apart from You. Thank You for the honesty of David’s prayer, which reminds me that I was “misshapen” from the start. I thank You that Your grace is deeper than my DNA. Don’t just patch up my old nature, Lord—give me a new one. Replace the ‘tinder’ in my heart with the fire of Your Spirit. I ask for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Some Things to Think About:
- The “Tinder” Test: What are the “sparks” (temptations) you tend to play with? How would realizing your heart is “flammable” change how you spend your time this week?
- Beyond the Surface: Think of a recurring struggle. Instead of just asking for forgiveness for the action, how can you ask God to heal the inclination behind it?
Proverb for Today
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the hearts. Proverbs 21:2 NKJV
Daily Scripture
Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:36 NKJV
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Summary of Commentaries:
David identifies a “constitutional disease” rather than a mere mistake. The commentaries below clarify he isn’t blaming his mother but acknowledging “original sin”—a natural propensity to evil from birth. This is no excuse; it’s an aggravation. He realizes his heart is “tinder” for temptation. By admitting this “misshapen” nature, David shows that personal transgressions are the inevitable fruit of a fallen identity requiring a Savior’s transformation, not just a simple software update.
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity.” He is thunderstruck at the discovery of his inbred sin, and proceeds to set it forth. This was not intended to justify himself, but it rather meant to complete the confession. It is as if he said, not only have I sinned this once, but I am in my very nature a sinner. The fountain of my life is polluted as well as its streams. My birth tendencies are out of the square of equity; I naturally lean to forbidden things. Mine is a constitutional disease, rendering my very person obnoxious to thy wrath.
“And in sin did my mother conceive me.” He goes back to the earliest moment of his being, not to traduce his mother, but to acknowledge the deep tap roots of his sin. It is a wicked wresting of Scripture to deny that original sin and natural depravity are here taught. Surely men who cavil at this doctrine have need to be taught of the Holy Spirit what be the first principles of the faith. David’s mother was the Lord’s handmaid, he was born in chaste wedlock, of a good father, and he was himself, “the man after God’s own heart;” and yet his nature was as fallen as that of any other son of Adam, and there only needed the occasion for the manifesting of that sad fact. In our shaping we were put out of shape, and when we were conceived our nature conceived sin. Alas, for poor humanity! Those who will may cry it up, but he is most blessed who in his own soul has learned to lament his lost estate.
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Enduring Word
I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me: David wasn’t born out of a sinful relationship; that isn’t his idea. Neither is his idea to excuse his sin by saying, “Look how bad I started out – what else could be expected?” The purpose was to show the depths of his sin, that it went beyond specific sinful actions all the way to a stubborn sin nature, one he was born with. (Guzik)
i. “The act of sin is traced back to its reason in the pollution of the nature.” (Morgan)
ii. From this and similar passages we gain the Biblical idea of original sin – the idea that all humans are born sinners, receiving a sinful nature as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. “This verse is both by Jewish and Christian, by ancient and later, interpreters, generally and most truly understood of original sin.” (Poole)
iii. “It is a wicked wresting of Scripture to deny that original sin and natural depravity are here taught. Surely men who cavil at this doctrine have need to be taught of the Holy Spirit what be the first principles of the faith.” (Spurgeon)
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Albert Barnes
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity – The object of this important verse is to express the deep sense which David had of his depravity. That sense was derived from the fact that this was not a sudden thought, or a mere outward act, or an offense committed under the influence of strong temptation, but that it was the result of an entire corruption of his nature – of a deep depravity of heart, running back to the very commencement of his being. The idea is, that he could not have committed this offense unless he had been thoroughly corrupt, and always corrupt. The sin was as heinous and aggravated “as if” in his very conception and birth there had been nothing but depravity. He looked at his, sin, and he looked back to his own origin, and he inferred that the one demonstrated that in the other there was no good thing, no tendency to goodness, no germ of goodness, but that there was evil, and only evil; as when one looks at a tree, and sees that it bears sour or poisonous fruit, he infers that it is in the very nature of the tree, and that there is nothing else in the tree, from its origin, but a tendency to produce just such fruit.
Of course, the idea here is not to cast reflections on the character of his mother, or to refer to her feelings in regard to his conception and birth, but the design is to express his deep sense of his own depravity; a depravity so deep as to demonstrate that it must have had its origin in the very beginning of his existence. The word rendered “I was shapen” – חוללתי chôlaletiy – is from a word – חול chûl – which means properly, “to turn around, to twist, to whirl;” and then it comes to mean “to twist oneself with pain, to writhe;” and then it is used especially with reference to the pains of childbirth. Isaiah 13:8; Isaiah 23:4; Isaiah 26:18; Isaiah 66:7-8; Micah 4:10. That is the meaning here. The idea is simply that he was “born” in iniquity; or that he was a sinner when he was born; or that his sin could be traced back to his very birth – as one might say that he was born with a love of music, or with a love of nature, or with a sanguine, a phlegmatic, or a melancholy temperament.
There is not in the Hebrew word any idea corresponding to the word ““shapen,”” as if he had been “formed” or “moulded” in that manner by divine power; but the entire meaning of the word is exhausted by saying that his sin could be traced back to his “very birth;” that it was so deep and aggravated, that it could be accounted for – or that he could express his sense of it – in no other way, than by saying that he was “born a sinner.” How that occurred, or how it was connected with the first apostasy in Adam, or how the fact that he was thus born could be vindicated, is not intimated, nor is it alluded to. There is no statement that the sin of another was “imputed” to him; or that he was “responsible” for the sin of Adam; or that he was guilty “on account of” Adam’s sin, for on these points the psalmist makes no assertion. It is worthy of remark, further, that the psalmist did not endeavor to “excuse” his guilt on the ground that he was ““born”” in iniquity; nor did he allude to that fact with any purpose of “exculpating” himself. The fact that he was thus born only deepened his sense of his own guilt, or showed the enormity of the offense which was the regular result or outbreak of that carly depravity. The points, therefore, which are established by this expression of the psalmist, so far as the language is designed to illustrate how human nature is conceived, are
(1) that people are born with a propensity to sin; and
(2) that this fact does not excuse us in sin, but rather tends to aggravate and deepen our guilt.
The language goes no further than this in regard to the question of original sin or native depravity. The Septuagint agrees with this interpretation – ἰδού γὰρ ἐν ανομίαις συνελήφθην idou gar en anomias sunelēfthēn. So the Vulgate: in iniquitatibus conceptus sum.
And in sin did my mother conceive me – Margin, as in Hebrew, “warm me.” This language simply traces his sin back to the time when he began to exist. The previous expression traced it to “his birth;” this expression goes back to the very beginning of “life;” when there were the first indications of life. The idea is, “as soon as I began to exist I was a sinner; or, I had then a propensity to sin – a propensity, the sad proof and result of which is that enormous act of guilt which I have committed.”
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John Gill
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,…. This cannot be understood of any personal iniquity of his immediate parents; since this respects his wonderful formation in the womb, in which both he and they were wholly passive, as the word here used is of that form; and is the amazing work of God himself, so much admired by the psalmist, Psalm 139:13; and cannot design any sinfulness then infused into him by his Maker, seeing God cannot be the author of sin; but of original sin and corruption, derived to him by natural generation: and the sense is, that as soon as ever the mass of human nature was shaped and quickened, or as soon as soul and body were united together, sin was in him, and he was in sin, or became a sinful creature;
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Matthew Henry
He confesses his original corruption (v. 5): Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. He does not call upon God to behold it, but upon himself. “Come, my soul, look unto the rock out of which I was hewn, and thou wilt find I was shapen in iniquity. Had I duly considered this before, I find I should not have made so bold with the temptation, nor have ventured among the sparks with such tinder in my heart; and so the sin might have been prevented. Let me consider it now, not to excuse or extenuate the sin-Lord, I did so; but indeed I could not help it, my inclination led me to it” (for as that plea is false, with due care and watchfulness, and improvement of the grace of God, he might have helped it, so it is what a true penitent never offers to put in), “but let me consider it rather as an aggravation of the sin: Lord, I have not only been guilty of adultery and murder, but I have an adulterous murderous nature; therefore I abhor myself.” David elsewhere speaks of the admirable structure of his body (Ps. 139:14, 15); it was curiously wrought; and yet here he says it was shapen in iniquity, sin was twisted in with it; not as it came out of God’s hands, but as it comes through our parents’ loins. He elsewhere speaks of the piety of his mother, that she was God’s handmaid, and he pleads his relation to her (Ps. 116:16, 86:16), and yet here he says she conceived him in sin; for though she was, by grace, a child of God, she was, by nature, a daughter of Eve, and not excepted from the common character. Note, It is to be sadly lamented by every one of us that we brought into the world with us a corrupt nature, wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude; we have from our birth the snares of sin in our bodies, the seeds of sin in our souls, and a stain of sin upon both. This is what we call original sin, because it is as ancient as our original, and because it is the original of all our actual transgressions. This is that foolishness which is bound in the heart of a child, that proneness of evil and backwardness to good which is the burden of the regenerate and the ruin of the unregenerate; it is a bent to backslide from God.
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