After King David had his faithful servant Uriah murdered in an attempt to conceal the origin of her pregnancy (2 SAMUEL 11), which displeased God (1 KINGS 15 : 5), God sent Nathan to confront David by presenting the situation to the king in the form of a story of a man who had committed the same type of sin.
A Contrite Heart
PSALM 51 is David’s expression of repentance after having sinned greatly with Bathsheba and being confronted by Nathan the prophet. The account can be found in 2 SAMUEL 12-13. In PSALM 51 : 17, David acknowledges that “A broken and contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise.” Recessional’s second stanza begins with the lines: