Psalms 51 · ESV Study Bible

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

PSALM 51 [†] w Have mercy on me, [1] O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your x abundant mercy

y blot out my transgressions.

2 z Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and a cleanse me from my sin!

3[†] b For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

4[†] c Against you, you only, have I sinned

and done what is evil d in your sight,

e so that you may be justified in your words

and blameless in your judgment.

5[†] Behold, f I was brought forth in iniquity,

and in sin did my mother conceive me.

6[†] Behold, you delight in truth in g the inward being,

and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

7[^][†] Purge me h with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

z wash me, and I shall be i whiter than snow.

8[†] Let me hear joy and gladness;

j let the bones k that you have broken rejoice.

9[†] l Hide your face from my sins,

and y blot out all my iniquities.

10 m Create in me a n clean heart, O God,

and o renew a right [2] spirit within me.

11[†] p Cast me not away from your presence,

and take not q your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and uphold me with a willing spirit.

13[†] Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will r return to you.

14[†] Deliver me from s bloodguiltiness, O God,

O t God of my salvation,

and u my tongue will sing aloud of your v righteousness.

15 O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

16[†] w For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are x a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

18[†] y Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;

z build up the walls of Jerusalem;

19 then will you delight in a right sacrifices,

in burnt offerings and b whole burnt offerings;

then bulls will be offered on your altar.

To the choirmaster. A Maskil [1] of David, when c Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:14 bloodguiltiness. Probably a reference to the slaying of Uriah (cf. 2 Sam. 12:9). The faithful may not have committed this particular sin, but should instead take heart: if God can forgive David this evil, he can certainly forgive all else!

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:16–17 These verses seem to make sacrifice and burnt offering relatively unimportant for the faithful, even replacing them with the inner disposition (a broken and contrite heart). However, since v. 19 goes on to speak of offering physical sacrifices, it is better to take these verses as implying that the animal sacrifices look to the worshiper offering himself to God (cf. notes on vv. 1–2 and v. 7) as “a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1), and without this they forfeit significance.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:4 Against you, you only, have I sinned. Of course, in doing wrong he has hurt others; the point here is that God is the ultimate judge for all sin (thus harming others is given not less weight but more). Cf. David’s response to Nathan, 2 Sam. 12:13. so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. The psalmist acknowledges his guilt before God “so that” God’s justice in all he does will be clear. In Rom. 3:4 Paul cites this part of the verse from the Septuagint in support of his argument that God is just and is entitled to judge.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:9 Usually when God is said to hide his face from someone, it means that he will no longer look upon that person with favor (cf. 13:1; 22:24; 27:9; 88:14; 102:2; 143:7; Deut. 31:17; 32:20; Isa. 8:17; 54:8; 59:2; 64:7). Here the singer asks God no longer to look upon his sins. To blot out (cf. Ps. 51:1) is to remove completely from the record book; cf. Ex. 32:32.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:8 bones. The feeling of God’s displeasure, and of his favor, penetrates into the whole person; cf. 32:3.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:6–13 I Seek Restoration and Renewal. The proper posture of the penitent is to crave a fresh sense of God’s presence (vv. 8–9, 11), a deeper purification of the moral life (vv. 6, 10, 12), and a credible witness to the unfaithful (v. 13). The focus is on the inmost self, from which obedient actions flow: inward being, secret heart (v. 6); clean heart, right spirit (v. 10). The goal of this confession is not self-abasement but a renewal of the joy and gladness (v. 8) that the faithful have in God’s presence.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:5 I was brought forth (that is, from the womb) in iniquity. David thinks of himself as a sinful person from the time of his birth. in sin did my mother conceive me. The idea is not that the act of conception was itself sinful, but (as the parallel first line shows) that each worshiper learns to trace his sinful tendencies to the very beginning of his existence—not only from birth but even from before that, to conception. (This certainly attributes moral accountability, the most important aspect of “personhood,” to the developing baby in the womb. This is why many see this passage as implying that an unborn child should be thought of as a human person from the point of conception in his mother’s womb.) See The Beginning of Life and Abortion.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:1–2 Have Mercy on Me. The psalm opens with an appeal to God for forgiveness. The terms mercy and steadfast love, as well as transgressions, iniquity, and sin, all evoke God’s proclamation of his own name (Ex. 34:6–7), with its focus on his grace and kindness. The plea for mercy here is a humble one, based entirely on God’s mercy, frankly recognizing that the worshiper does not deserve it. The terms wash (cf. Ex. 19:10) and cleanse (cf. Num. 19:19) come from the ceremonial system, where they refer to rites that allow a person to come safely into God’s presence. Here the psalm focuses on the inner condition that the ceremony points to.

PSALM—NOTE ON Psalm 51. This is probably the best known of the “Penitential Psalms” (Psalms 6; 25; 32; 38; 51; 130; 143). According to the title, David composed this psalm as a result of Nathan the prophet convicting him of his sins, both in his committing adultery with Bathsheba and in his arranging for the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 12:1–14). At the same time, this is more than David’s personal prayer: its instructional elements (e.g., Ps. 51:16–19) show that, though the situation that led to the psalm was intensely personal, the psalm in its current form is well-suited to be a hymn by which the members of the worshiping congregation confess their own sins. As is the case with Psalms 25 and 32, the psalm enables its singers to appeal to God’s own gracious character as the grounds for their cry for forgiveness, echoing Ex. 34:6–7 (see note on Ps. 51:1–2). The psalm also reinforces the view, found in the Levitical system itself, that the sacrifices bestow their benefits only on those who use them in humble and penitent faith.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:11 take not your Holy Spirit from me. Some have taken this to imply that the Holy Spirit can be taken from someone, at least in the OT; others have suggested that the Holy Spirit is viewed here in his role of empowering David for his kingly duties, and that this is a prayer that God not take the kingship and the divine anointing for kingship from David as he did from Saul (see note on 1 Sam. 16:14; cf. 1 Sam. 16:13). To evaluate these views, one should observe that the OT rarely discusses the Holy Spirit’s role in cleansing the inner life (besides here, Ezek. 36:27 is the main OT text on the subject), and certainly does not enter into technical questions of the Spirit’s permanent indwelling. Further, the fact that this is a psalm for the whole congregation argues against the idea that this is David’s personal prayer about his kingship. The whole tenor of this psalm is that, if strict justice were God’s only consideration, he would have the right to bring dire judgment on those who sin (which includes all of his own people), and that the only possible appeal is to his mercy. The function of the psalm, as a song sung by the entire congregation, is to shape their hearts so that they feel this at the deepest level, lest they ever presume upon God’s grace.

PSALM—NOTE ON 51:14–17 Then I Will Worship Truly. The terms in this section, such as sing aloud (v. 14), declare (v. 15), and sacrifice (vv. 16–17), all point to activities of public worship. The person who has used this psalm to confess his sins and to receive God’s assurance of pardon is the one who can genuinely worship the gracious God of the covenant.