Big Idea: The story of saving grace begins with the confession of a repentant heart and climaxes with joyful witness in the congregation of God’s people.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 32 is generally classified as an individual psalm of thanksgiving, a genre that incorporates the report of a crisis and the account of deliverance as an accomplished fact.[1] The crisis (32:3–4) is nondescript and could stem from a physical, psychological, political, or spiritual trauma, or all of the above. In this psalm the brief account of deliverance follows immediately and partially comprises a key to the crisis (32:5), which stemmed from the suppliant’s sin, unacknowledged and unconfessed (see “Theological Insights”).

This psalm is also sometimes classified as a wisdom psalm, based on the wisdom-like …