Psalms 51

Have mercy on me, God, because your love never fails. Because your tender mercy is so great, wipe out the record of the wrongs I have done.

1Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Note"Lovingkindness" translates the Hebrew *chesed*, a word for loyal, committed love, the steady faithfulness expected of someone bound to you by a promise or a family tie. "Tender mercies" translates *rachamim*, which comes from the Hebrew word for a womb; it carries the sense of the feeling a parent has for a child. "Blot out" is the image of erasing writing from a scroll: ink was scraped or washed off the surface, so the plea is to remove a charge from a record.

2Wash me completely clean from my guilt, and wash away my sin.

2Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

NoteThe psalm uses three different Hebrew words in verses 1–3, and the King James Version keeps them distinct. "Transgression" (*pesha*) is rebellion, breaking faith with someone you owe loyalty to. "Iniquity" (*avon*) is what is bent or twisted, and also the guilt that clings to it. "Sin" (*chatta't*) is missing a mark, falling short of a target. The word for "wash" here is the one used for laundering cloth, which was cleaned by beating and treading it, not the word for bathing a body.

3I admit the wrongs I have done. My sin is always there in front of me.

3For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

4You are the one I have sinned against, you alone, and I did this evil thing while you watched. So you are proved right when you speak, and blameless when you judge.

4Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Note"Justified" and "clear" are courtroom words. To be justified is to be declared in the right at the end of a case; "clear" means found blameless. The line is not about God forgiving, but about God's verdict against the speaker being shown to be the correct one.

5Look at me: I was guilty from the time I was born. I was sinful from the moment my mother became pregnant with me.

5Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Note"Shapen" is the King James rendering of a verb meaning to be brought forth or born. The two halves of the verse are Hebrew poetic parallelism, one idea stated twice, the second line pushing the timeframe further back, from birth to conception. Grammatically the guilt in both lines belongs to the speaker, not to his mother; the point is how far back his own condition reaches.

6Look, what you want is truth deep inside a person. In that hidden place inside me, you teach me wisdom.

6Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

NoteThe two Hebrew words behind "inward parts" and "the hidden part" are rare and their exact sense is uncertain; both point to the concealed interior of a person, what no one else can see. The second line can be read either as a statement ("you teach me wisdom there") or as a request ("teach me wisdom there"); the Hebrew allows both.

7Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

NoteHyssop was a small bushy plant with hairy stems that held liquid well, used as a sprinkler in Israelite purification rites, for daubing blood on doorposts at the first Passover, for cleansing a person or house after a skin disease, and in the water used to purify anyone who had touched a corpse. The request is to be put through that ritual cleaning.

8Let me hear joy and gladness, so that the bones you crushed can be glad.

8Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

NoteIn Hebrew, bones stand for the whole physical frame and by extension the person's strength and vitality. "The bones which thou hast broken" is not a literal injury but a way of saying that God has crushed him bodily and completely.

9Turn your face away from my sins, and wipe out all my guilt.

9Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

NoteElsewhere in the Psalms, God hiding his face means abandonment and is something the speaker begs against. Here the object is different (it is the sins God is asked to look away from, not the person), so the phrase means to refuse to look at the offense rather than to withdraw from the offender.

10Create a clean heart in me, God. Put a new and steady spirit inside me.

10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

NoteThe verb translated "create" is one that the Hebrew Bible uses only with God as its subject, the verb of the opening of Genesis. It is used of making something new, not of repairing something. "A right spirit" translates a word meaning firm, steady, set securely in place.

11Do not throw me out of your presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me.

11Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

NoteThe Hebrew reads "the spirit of your holiness", God's own presence and power at work in a person. This exact phrase appears in only one other place in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 63). Readers in different traditions have understood it differently; the Hebrew wording itself says no more than that the spirit is God's.

12Give me back the joy that comes from being saved by you, and hold me up with a willing spirit.

12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Note"Free" in 1611 English means willing or freely giving, not unconstrained. The Hebrew word is related to the term for a freewill offering, something brought because the giver wants to, not because it is required. The spirit asked for is one that is glad to comply.

13Then I will teach people who break your law the way you want them to live, and sinners will turn back to you.

13Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Note"Converted" in 1611 English simply meant turned around or brought back; it did not yet carry the modern sense of changing religion. The Hebrew verb is the ordinary word for returning, going back the way you came.

14Free me from the guilt of shedding blood, God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing out loud about how right you are.

14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

Note"Bloodguiltiness" translates a Hebrew plural, literally "bloods," which is the standard idiom for the guilt incurred by causing someone's death. The Hebrew heading that stands above this psalm links it to David after the prophet Nathan confronted him about Bathsheba, whose husband Uriah was killed on David's orders.

15Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will speak your praise.

15O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

16You do not want a sacrifice, or I would bring one. You take no pleasure in burnt offerings.

16For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

NoteA burnt offering was an animal placed entirely on the altar fire, with no part kept back for the priests or for a shared meal, the most costly and complete of the regular offerings. "Sacrifice" in the first line is the broader word covering offerings generally.

17The sacrifices God wants are a broken spirit. A heart that is broken and sorry is one you will not turn away, God.

17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Note"Contrite" translates a Hebrew word meaning crushed or pulverised, the same imagery as the broken bones in verse 8, now applied to the inner person. "The sacrifices of God" means the sacrifices God accepts, not sacrifices offered by him.

18In your good pleasure, be good to Zion. Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

18Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

NoteZion was originally the fortified hill David captured in Jerusalem; the name came to stand for the whole city and especially its temple. Verses 18–19 turn to the city's walls needing rebuilding and to sacrifice being welcome again, where verse 16 said God did not want sacrifice. Many readers, ancient and modern, have taken these last two verses as an addition made after Jerusalem's walls were destroyed in 586 BC; the text itself gives no signal either way.

19Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered the right way, with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar.

19Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Note"Sacrifices of righteousness" means offerings made properly, in the right manner. The King James distinguishes "burnt offering" from "whole burnt offering" because the Hebrew uses two words; the second stresses that the animal is consumed entirely. "Bullocks" are young bulls, the largest and most expensive animals that could be offered.