“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Parallel Translations
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“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
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Blessed are they whose vnrightewesnes are forgeven and whose synnes are covered.
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Blessed are they, whose iniquities are forgiuen, and whose sinnes are couered.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Romans 4:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit.
- Psalms 130:3-4 If you, Yah, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared.
- Luke 7:47-50 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Those who sat at the table with him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
- Psalms 85:2 You have forgiven the iniquity of your people. You have covered all their sin.
- Micah 7:18-20 Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
- Psalms 51:8-9 Let me hear joy and gladness, that the bones which you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all of my iniquities.
- Isaiah 40:1-2 “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak comfortably to Jerusalem; and call out to her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received of Yahweh’s hand double for all her sins.”
- Jeremiah 33:8-9 I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’ ”
- Matthew 9:2 Behold, they brought to him a man who was paralyzed, lying on a bed. Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, cheer up! Your sins are forgiven you.”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,…
7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Ver. 7. Are covered] Sic velantur ut in iudicio non revelentur; so covered as that he never see them again, but as the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead on the shore.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain This testimony is taken out of Psa 32:1, and…
This testimony is taken out of Psa 32:1, and it is well enough accommodated to the occasion, for those two, to remit sin, and to impute righteousness, are inseparable. The one is put here figuratively for the other. They mistake, who take occasion from hence to make justification to consist only in remission of sin: the text will not bear it. The apostle’s design is, not hereby to declare the full nature of justification, which he had done before; but only to prove the freedom of it from any respect to works, in the instance of this principal and essential part of it. Remission of sin and the imputation of righteousness differ, as the cause and the effect. Remission of sin presupposeth imputation of righteousness; and he that hath his sins remitted, hath Christ’s righteousness first imputed, that so they may be remitted and forgiven to sinners.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Saying, blessed are they,.... These words are cited from…
Saying, blessed are they,.... These words are cited from Psa 32:1, and contain the proof of the happiness of justified persons. In this citation the singular number is changed into the plural, to take in all sorts of men, Jews and Gentiles, and very agreeably to the sense of the original; for the word may be rendered "blessed are they", or, "O the blessednesses"; that is, of everyone of them,
whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered: such whom God justifies by imputing the righteousness of his Son to them, he removes their iniquities from them, which is meant by their being "forgiven", and that "as far as the east is from the west", Psa 103:12; he casts them behind his back, Isa 38:17, and into the depths of the sea, Mic 7:19, so that they shall never be found more: such whom he clothes with the robe of righteousness, and garments of salvation, Isa 61:10, "their sins are covered"; from the eye of divine justice, and shall never be seen more, or be brought against them to their condemnation, and therefore must be happy persons. The (e) Jews tell us, that
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"on the day of atonement Satan comes to accuse Israel, and he particularizes their sins, and the holy blessed God he particularizes their good works, and takes a pair of balances, and puts their sins against their good works, and weighs the one against the other; and when the two scales of the balances are alike, Satan goes to bring in other sins to overweigh; what does the holy blessed God do? he takes the sins out of the scale, and hides them , "under his purple garment"; and when Satan comes and finds no iniquity there, as it is said "the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none", Jer 50:20; and when Satan sees this, he says before him, Lord of the world, "thou hast taken away the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin", Psa 85:2. Selah.''
The purple garment they explain by , "his garment of mercy"; which is true of the mercy of God covering the sins of his people, through the purple blood of his Son; which is the purple covering of Christ, Sol 3:10, under which the saints go safe to glory, and by which blood their crimson and scarlet sins are blotted out, so as never to be seen more.
(e) Caphtor, fol. 59. 1, 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Happy are they whose sins are covered - With…
Happy are they whose sins are covered - With the veil of divine mercy. If there be indeed such a thing as happiness on earth, it is the portion of that man whose iniquities are forgiven, and who enjoys the manifestation of that pardon. Well may he endure all the afflictions of life with cheerfulness, and look upon death with comfort. O let us not contend against it, but earnestly pray that this happiness may be ours! Psalm xxxii, 1, 2.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven]…
Verse 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven] That is, the man is truly happy whose iniquities αιανομιαι, whose transgressions of the law are forgiven; for by these he was exposed to the most grievous punishment. Whose sins, αιαμαρτιαι, his innumerable deviations from the strict rule of truth and righteousness, are covered-entirely removed out of sight, and thrown into oblivion. See the meaning of the word sin in Clarke's note on "Ge 13:13".
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Blessed - Happy are they: they are highly favored;…
Blessed - Happy are they: they are highly favored; see the note at Mat 5:3.
Whose sins are covered - Are concealed; or hidden from the view. On which God will no more look, and which he will no more remember. “By these words,” says Calvin (in loco), “we are taught that justification with Paul is nothing else but pardon of sin.” The word “cover” here has no reference to the atonement, but is expressive of hiding, or concealing that is, of forgiving sin.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose…
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. That is, blessed are those who, by doing penance, have obtained pardon and remission of their sins, and also are covered; that is, newly clothed with the habit of grace, and vested with the stole of charity. (Challoner) --- When it is said that the sins of man are covered, we must not imagine that they still remain, but on account of the goodness of God will not be punished, as the Lutherans contend; for the justice of God could not suffer this: but by it we must understand that they are entirely blotted out, and neither exist, nor are considered any longer by God. Still, we must not conclude that man is blessed, as soon as sin is remitted; since the same psalmist, in another place, ascribes happiness to man when he walks in the law of the Lord, and when he keeps judgment and does justice. (Psalms i; cv; and cviii.) And our Saviour says, If you know these things, blessed shall you be if you do them. (St. John xiii.) (Estius) --- Moreover, if sins were never blotted out, but only covered, why did the royal prophet pray to the Almighty, saying: blot out all mine iniquities; and in different parts of the 50th psalm and psalm cviii, speaking of the egregious sinner, he says: let the sin of his mother not be blotted out; which would mean nothing at all, if sins were never blotted out? (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Saying, Blessed, &c.-- (Psa 32:1-2). David here sings in…
Saying, Blessed, &c.-- (Psa 32:1-2). David here sings in express terms only of "transgression forgiven, sin covered, iniquity not imputed"; but as the negative blessing necessarily includes the positive, the passage is strictly in point.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 7. Forgiven… covered—A parallelism expressing the same thing in…
7. Forgiven… covered—A parallelism expressing the same thing in varied language. Covered, as it were, from God’s sight by Christ’s mediation and God’s mercy.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 7. Blessed, &c.] The Gr. is verbatim from LXX.…
7. Blessed, &c.] The Gr. is verbatim from LXX. It is worth remarking that the words (in the Psalm) following this quotation (“and in whose spirit is no guile”) are in full accord with its application here. The “guile” there is evidently “insincerity in coming as a penitent to God.” The “blessed” are they who are really forgiven—who have really sought forgiveness.
are forgiven] Gr. aorist; were forgiven. The probable reference is to the definite act, past and complete, of remission. So just below, were covered.
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covered] The literal translation of the Hebrew word very often translated “atoned for.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (7) Forgiven.—The stress is upon this word; “whose sins…
(7) Forgiven.—The stress is upon this word; “whose sins are not abolished, but forgiven; not annihilated, but covered up, removed from sight, hidden by the absolving grace of God.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 7. Blessed are they. The class described as blessed…
7. Blessed are they. The class described as blessed are those whose sins are forgiven, counted righteous because their sins are blotted out.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain saying [ Psa_32:1-2 ], Blessed are they whose iniquities…
saying [ Psa_32:1-2 ], Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered .
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain iniquites, sins
iniquites, sins
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:7-8 This quotation from Ps 32:1-2 follows the Jewish…
4:7-8 This quotation from Ps 32:1-2 follows the Jewish custom of supporting a reference to the Law with a reference in the Prophets or the Writings. Paul also uses a Jewish exegetical technique of linking unrelated quotations with a key word. Here, record . . . has cleared translates the same Greek word as “counted” in Rom 4:3.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.