Psalms 86:5

Ready to forgive is one word in Hebrew, and it appears nowhere else in the Bible. David seems to have needed a word that did not exist, and made one.

What it describes is not the willingness to forgive when asked. It is a disposition already in place before the asking — leaning toward it, prepared, the way a doctor is on call rather than merely competent. The difference matters to anyone who has delayed an apology because they were rehearsing how it would be received.

That is the practical weight of this verse. Most of the distance people keep from God after failing is not about whether forgiveness is possible. It is about the imagined reception — the pause, the cooling, the sense of having used something up. This word rules out the pause. There is nothing to be talked round.

And the qualification at the end is unusually wide: to all those who call on you. Not to the deserving, not to the consistent, not to those with a good record of calling. The only condition in the sentence is that you call, and calling is what someone does when they have nothing else left to offer.

David opens this psalm describing himself as poor and needy. He is not writing from a position of strength, and the verse is built to be usable from where he actually was.