The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"have mercy," Hebrew chonneni (חָנֵּנִי), be gracious to me. David makes no excuse and offers no bargain; he appeals only to mercy. The psalm opens not with a defence but with a beggar's word, asking to be dealt with graciously by One to whom he can bring no claim of his own.

"lovingkindness," chesed (חֶסֶד), steadfast covenant love. This is the ground David stands on: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness." He does not plead his past service or his royal office, but God's chesed, the loyal covenant love that keeps faith with those who have broken faith.

"tender mercies," rachamim (רַחֲמִים), compassions, from the word for a mother's womb. Beside God's covenant love David sets God's womb-deep compassion, and he asks for it not by the drop but by "the multitude" of it. He does not ask for a little mercy to cover a little sin; he asks for a great multitude of mercy to cover a great debt.

"blot out," mecheh (מְחֵה), wipe away, erase. The first of the three things David asks God to do with his sin. It is a word from the world of writing and accounting, to wipe the ink off a page: sin is a charge written against him, and he asks God to cancel the entry.

"wash me throughly," hereb kabbeseni (הֶרֶב כַּבְּסֵנִי), wash me much, launder me. The second request, and it comes from the laundry, the hard treading and beating of a stained garment until the dirt is pounded out. Sin is a stain soaked into the fabric of him, and he asks God to scrub it clean.

"cleanse," tahareni (טַהֲרֵנִי), make me pure. The third request, a word from the priest and the temple, to make ceremonially pure. Sin is a defilement that shuts him out of God's presence, and on the ground of God's chesed and rachamim alone he asks God to purify him back in.

Explanation

Notice that David reaches for three different pictures of forgiveness, because no single image is large enough to hold what he needs. "Blot out my transgressions" is a word from the world of writing and accounting, to wipe the ink off a page, to erase a record of debt; sin is a charge written against him, and he asks God to cancel the entry. "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity" is a word from the laundry, the hard treading and beating of a stained garment until the dirt is pounded out; sin is a stain soaked into the fabric of him, and he asks God to scrub it clean. "Cleanse me from my sin" is a word from the priest and the temple, to make ceremonially pure; sin is a defilement that shuts him out of God's presence, and he asks God to purify him back in. A debt to be erased, a stain to be scrubbed, a defilement to be purged, David piles the three together because he has felt sin in all three ways at once, and he knows that pardon must be as many-sided as the guilt. And under all three lies the same foundation: not his worthiness, but the "multitude" of God's tender mercies. He does not ask for a little mercy to cover a little sin; he asks for a great multitude of mercy to cover a great debt.

Gospel Focus

"Blot out my transgressions... wash me... cleanse me", every one of these pleas is answered at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The record of debt David asked God to blot out is exactly what Christ "blotted out... nailing it to his cross" (Colossians 2:14). The washing he begged for is granted in Christ, who "loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood" (Revelation 1:5). And the cleansing he sought is ours through the Saviour, for "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). David could only cry for mercy and trust that God had a way; we look back and see the way, a Lamb slain, blood shed, the debt cancelled and the stain removed. And the ground is still the same, "according to thy lovingkindness... the multitude of thy tender mercies", the free grace of God, "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5). No sin is too deep for this mercy, for David's was adultery joined to murder, and yet he was washed. Come as he came, pleading nothing but the multitude of God's tender mercies, and be blotted clean in the blood of Christ.

Word Study

"purge me," Hebrew techatte'eni (תְּחַטְּאֵנִי), literally "un-sin me," from the same root as "sin," to cleanse from sin. The verb is striking. David does not ask to be excused or overlooked, but to have the thing itself taken out of him; the very root of the word "sin" is turned into his plea, "un-sin me."

"hyssop," ezov (אֵזוֹב), the small plant used to sprinkle blood or water in the rites of cleansing. David reaches for a vivid image from the law: "Purge me with hyssop." Hyssop was the little bunched plant dipped in blood or water and used to sprinkle it, at the Passover (Exodus 12:22), in the cleansing of a healed leper (Leviticus 14), and in the purifying of one defiled by death (Numbers 19).

"clean," et'har (אֶטְהָר). The word of ceremonial purity, the settled condition the leper and the corpse-defiled man were restored to once the hyssop had been applied. David expects the rite's own promised outcome for himself: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean."

"wash me," tekabbeseni (תְּכַבְּסֵנִי). The laundry word again, as in verse 2, the beating and treading of a stained garment. Having asked for the sprinkling that belongs to the priest, he asks in the same breath for the thorough scrubbing that belongs to the launderer.

"whiter than snow," misheleg albin (מִשֶּׁלֶג אַלְבִּין). And the promised result is dazzling. David does not stop at "clean" but presses on to "whiter than snow", not merely acceptable but radiant, not scrubbed grey but blazing white, because the outcome depends not on how small his sin is but on how strong the blood is.

Explanation

Think about which rites used hyssop, because David's choice of that one plant is a confession in itself. Hyssop was not the instrument of ordinary worship; it was reserved for the most defiling conditions a person could fall into, the cleansing of a healed leper (Leviticus 14), and the purifying of anyone who had touched a dead body (Numbers 19). To ask, "Purge me with hyssop," is to place yourself in that category, to say, "Treat me as a leper; treat me as a man defiled by a corpse." And it fits, for David's sin had produced both a kind of living death in his own soul and a literal corpse, Uriah's. The king of Israel does not ask for a gentle religious rinse; he asks for the cleansing given to the untouchable and the unclean. Yet notice what that cleansing always required: hyssop was never dipped in nothing, it was dipped in blood or in the water mixed with an offering's ashes, and applied. David is asking to be cleansed by blood he cannot see, on the ground of a sacrifice, and he is so sure it works that he leaps past "clean" to "whiter than snow", not merely acceptable, but radiant, not scrubbed grey but blazing white. The most defiled man in the kingdom expects to come out the brightest, because the cleansing does not depend on how small his sin is but on how strong the blood is.

Gospel Focus

"Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow", the hyssop and the blood point straight to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood alone can un-sin a sinner. All those Old Testament cleansings were shadows; the substance is Christ, for "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4), but "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). It is fitting that at the cross, when Jesus said "I thirst," the sponge of vinegar was lifted to His mouth "upon hyssop" (John 19:29), the very plant of cleansing present at the true purification of the world. And the promise "whiter than snow" is God's own word to sinners: "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). This is the gospel's astonishing exchange: the scarlet guilt of the worst offender is not merely lightened but turned dazzling white in the blood of the Lamb, "they... have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 7:14). Bring your deepest defilement to Christ; His blood will not merely improve you, it will make you whiter than snow.

Word Study

"create," Hebrew bera (בְּרָא), from bara, the verb of Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created"; its subject is always God, and it means to bring into being what was not there. This is the turning point of the psalm, and the choice of verb is everything. David does not say "mend my heart" or "improve my heart," but "Create in me a clean heart, O God." The word is bara, the Genesis word, used in Scripture only of God, only of what He alone can bring into being from nothing.

"clean heart," lev tahor (לֵב טָהוֹר). Tahor is the same purity word David used of himself in verse 7, "and I shall be clean", now asked not for his record but for the inward man. He is not requesting a tidied heart but one that is pure at its source, which is why he must ask the Creator for it.

"renew," chaddesh (חַדֵּשׁ), make new. Set alongside bera, this second verb keeps the same note: what David needs is newness, not repair. A heart "shapen in iniquity" (v5) does not need renovation; it needs to be made new.

"a right spirit," ruach nakhon (רוּחַ נָכוֹן), a steadfast, firm, established spirit. What he asks for is not a burst of feeling but a steadfast spirit, a heart not only cleansed but made firm, so that the man who fell so far might stand.

Explanation

Everything hangs on that one verb, "create." In all the Hebrew Bible the word bara has only one possible subject: God. Men can make, shape, build, and repair, but only God can create, call into being what simply was not there before, as at the first, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). David has now looked long enough at his own heart to reach a devastating verdict: it cannot be fixed. He does not ask for his heart to be cleaned up, patched, reformed, or turned over a new leaf, because he has concluded that his problem is not on the surface but in the very make of him, "I was shapen in iniquity" (v5). A heart like that does not need renovation; it needs a new creation. So he asks for the one thing no priest, no resolution, no amount of effort could supply, a fresh act of the creating God, the same power that made the world now turned inward to make a clean heart where there was none. This is the deepest cry a sinner can pray, and the most hopeful, for it despairs entirely of self-improvement and casts the whole matter on the Creator. And what he asks for is not a burst of feeling but a "right spirit", a steadfast one, a heart not only cleansed but made firm, so that the man who fell so far might stand.

David's confession, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," raises a question every thoughtful reader asks: does this mean a newborn is already guilty and condemned? We must read it as David meant it. He is not blaming his mother, nor calling the marriage bed sinful, nor saying an infant is personally guilty of sins it has never committed. He is confessing that sin reaches all the way down -- that he did not become a sinner only when he sinned with Bathsheba, but carried a fallen, sin-bent nature from the very beginning of his existence. This is the inherited corruption every child of Adam receives, for "by one man sin entered into the world" (Romans 5:12). Yet Scripture never charges a child with guilt for Adam's sin, and it speaks tenderly of little ones who as yet have "no knowledge between good and evil" (Deuteronomy 1:39); the Lord Jesus said of small children, "of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14). Guilt is reckoned where there is knowing rebellion. So David confesses not that he was damnable in the womb, but that the root of sin was in him from the start -- and a problem that deep is why he must beg the creating God for a heart that is wholly new. The verse humbles us: our need is not reformation but the new birth.

Gospel Focus

"Create in me a clean heart, O God", this creating work is the very heart of the gospel, accomplished in Jesus Christ, who makes His people new creatures. What David could only pray for, God performs in Christ: "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The clean heart is given in the new birth, "a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you" (Ezekiel 36:26), fulfilled when a sinner is "born again" (John 3:3) by the Spirit. This is not self-reform but re-creation, "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:10), the same word create, now done in us through the Saviour. And David's next breath, "take not thy holy spirit from me" (v11), reaches toward the gift the gospel secures, the indwelling Spirit who cleanses and upholds. So the sinner who despairs of mending himself may pray David's prayer with full assurance, for God stands ready in Christ to do exactly what it asks: to create, out of a ruined heart, a clean one, and to make the fallen stand. Do not try merely to improve your heart; ask the Creator, through Jesus, to make you new.

Word Study

"sacrifices," Hebrew zivchei (זִבְחֵי). The ordinary word for the offerings brought to God's altar, here transferred from the animal to the man. David has learned what God most desires from a sinner: not the blood of animals, "thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it" (v16), but something offered from within.

"broken spirit," ruach nishbarah (רוּחַ נִשְׁבָּרָה), a spirit shattered, broken in pieces. This is the offering God asks for: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." Every animal laid on the altar had to be whole and unblemished, yet the sacrifice God wants from the inner man is precisely a shattered one.

"contrite," nidkeh (נִדְכֶּה), crushed, beaten small. A second word for the same brokenness, and a stronger one: not merely cracked but pounded fine. Together the two describe a heart that grieves for its sin and casts itself on mercy.

"thou wilt not despise," lo tivzeh (לֹא תִבְזֶה), thou wilt not hold in contempt or reject. The tender promise attached to the offering: "a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Such a heart is the one sacrifice God will never turn away.

Explanation

There is a striking reversal buried in this verse, and it overturns everything the law seemed to teach about sacrifice. Every animal brought to God's altar had to be whole, unblemished, without spot or defect; a broken, damaged, crippled offering was expressly forbidden and would be refused. But now, when it comes to the heart, God asks for the exact opposite: the acceptable offering is precisely a broken one, "a broken and a contrite heart", shattered and crushed small. The one sacrifice that must never be blemished in the outer court is the very sacrifice that must be broken in the inner man. Why the reversal? Because a whole, unbroken heart before God is not innocence but pride, a heart still intact is a heart that has not yet felt the weight of its sin. Only the broken heart is honest. And see the tender promise attached: God "will not despise" it. Men despise broken things and throw them away; a cracked cup, a ruined tool, we discard. God does the opposite: the one heart the world would count worthless, the broken one, is the one He treasures and will never reject. So the sinner who feels his heart is in pieces holds in his hands the very thing God is pleased to receive. Your brokenness is not what disqualifies you; it is the offering He has been waiting for.

Gospel Focus

"A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise", this is the doorway of the gospel, and it was opened by One whose own body was broken for us. The Lord Jesus came "to bind up the brokenhearted" (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18), and He declared, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matthew 9:13); the broken, not the whole, are the ones He receives. His own parable set it in stone: the Pharisee, heart intact, went home unjustified, while the publican who would not lift his eyes and cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner," went down "justified" (Luke 18:13-14), a broken and contrite heart God did not despise. And the reason a broken heart is welcomed is that Christ's body was broken to welcome it, "this is my body which is broken for you" (1 Corinthians 11:24); He was crushed, "he was bruised for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5), so that our crushed hearts might be healed. So do not wait until you have mended yourself to come to God; come broken, for the broken heart is the only kind He has ever received, and He will not despise it. The blood of the broken Christ is the answer to the broken sinner's cry.