Psalm 32 is about the joy of being forgiven, and of feeling forgiven. This runs all the way through the psalm in various ways, first, in being in a state which can receive forgiveness; next, in describing the anguish of keeping silent about our imperfect state or denying there might be any wrong in us; and then in a section on the power of releasing ourselves to the Lord and acknowledging our wrongs.

Then comes the idea that in approaching the Lord we become protected and preserved. After this, it is the Lord who speaks about us being taught the way we should go. Finally the psalm ends by describing how someone who trusts the Lord and lives from him will find gladness in the Lord.

We shall look at the spiritual meaning of each of these parts of the psalm. Before that, let’s briefly describe ‘forgiveness’. To forgive is to release feelings of resentment and anger and to experience the change that comes. To be forgiving can go further, and mean to have an accepting attitude to life itself. God’s forgiveness is constant but it is purposeful, not sentimental. (Arcana Caelestia 6559 end )

The first two verses, Psalm 32:1-2, talk about the lightness that comes in feeling you are forgiven. Such a person feels blessed in no longer carrying the heavy burden of guilt or shame. The two verses are divided up into two pairs, first, involving transgressions and sins, secondly in iniquities and guile.

The spiritual meaning here in each verse is to do with wrongs done to what is true, and then wrongs done to what is good. The second type are more serious. To attack truth does not alter whether a truth is true or not. If anything is harmed, it is the attacker within himself. But to attack what is good is to harm and hurt something of the will, of affection, and of love.

The psalm begins by describing the feeling of being blessed by the Lord even though a wrong was done, and then moves into the more ideal picture of someone who does not do wrong because he turns from it and keeps a pure spirit. Then the tragedy of holding back our wrongs from the Lord is described, and the penalty that we pay in keeping silent. This is followed by the release of confessing and of feeling forgiven. The spiritual meaning here is all to do with repentance and recognising our need of the Lord (See the explanation in The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 159-165)

Next comes the realisation that all of us need to have this experience of feeling the Lord’s forgiveness. When we bring ourselves to the Lord in faith and trust we are protected from the deluge of despair, guilt, shame or however our grief presents. There is assurance and experience of the Lord’s safekeeping and deliverance.

The next verses point out that we need to be instructed and taught so that we know for sure the way we should go, and we know why. We should not be like an animal which must be harnessed in order to travel; we should travel because we have understood and therefore we choose this direction. (Conjugial Love 498)

The psalm finishes with a kind of logic, that trusting the Lord brings us the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness, and therefore that we should be glad, and live uprightly, keeping the Word of the Lord.

6559. 'And will fully return to us all the evil with which we repaid him' means that a punishment as merited is therefore impending. This is clear from the meaning of 'returning the evil with which they repaid him' as a punishment as merited; for the return of evil that is done to someone is the punishment that is duly merited. What the returning of evil is, or what the nature of punishments in the spiritual world is, must be stated because it will show what the internal sense is of the words under consideration here. If in the world of spirits evil spirits do anything evil that exceeds the evil they assimilated by the life they led in the world, those who administer punishment become present in an instant and chastise those spirits in exact accord with the degree of their transgression. For the rule in the next life is that no one should become more evil than he had been in the world. Those who suffer punishment have no knowledge at all of how the ones who administer such punishment know that the evil they do exceeds what they assimilated in the world. But they are told that the nature of order in the next life is such that evil itself carries its own punishment, so that the evil that is committed is completely bound up with the evil inflicted as punishment, that is, within the evil itself lies its own punishment. It is therefore in keeping with order that those who repay with punishment should be instantly present.

[2] This is what happens when evil spirits in the world of spirits perform evil. But in their own hell one spirit chastises another in accord with the evil they assimilated by their actions in the world; for they take that evil with them into the next life. From all this it may now be seen how one is to understand the statement that a punishment as merited is therefore impending, meant by 'will fully return to us all the evil with which we repaid him'.

But as for good spirits, if by chance they utter what is evil or do what is evil, they are not punished but are pardoned and also freed from blame; for it is not their intention to utter what is evil or to do what is evil. And they know that such evil words and deeds were aroused in them by hell and for that reason were not their own fault. This fact can also be recognized from their action against that evil and subsequent grief.