Psalm 25 · a question people ask
"Don’t remember the sins of my youth" (25:7). Can God not remember sins?
The psalm doesn't explain it; it asks. "Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions" (25:7), and in the same verse it gives its grounds: "Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness’ sake, LORD" (25:7). Elsewhere the LORD says it of himself. Through Isaiah: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins" (Isaiah 43:25), with the verb and the noun of Psalm 25:7's remember and sins; and its for my own sake has the Hebrew word behind the sake of Psalm 25:7 and 25:11. Through Jeremiah: "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34), where forgive is salach, Psalm 25:11's pardon. These verses say that the LORD will not remember sins, and none of them explains how; these notes don't add to them.
The verses
“Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness’ sake, LORD.”
“For your name’s sake, LORD, pardon my iniquity, for it is great.”
“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.”
“They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.””