Psalm 51

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To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had come to Bathsheba.

 1-3  Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving kind-ness; according to Your abundant mercy wipe away my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! ³ For I know my trans-gressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Transgression   פשע (pesha)  =  “wilfull sin, crime”

Iniquity   עון (avon)  =  “guilt”

Sin  חטאת (chatat)  =  “error”

3-9  Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment. ⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. ⁶ Behold, You desired truth in the inward being, and in the concealed depths You teach me wisdom. ⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that You have broken rejoice. ⁹ Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

אזוב (eizov)

10-13  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. ¹¹ Fling me not away from Your presence, and take not 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 return to You.

14-17  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness. ¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. ¹⁶ 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 a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

18-19  Do good to Zion in Your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; ¹⁹ then will You delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.

כבש (ceves) = “lamb”  –  1^st: Ex. 12:5

כבס (cavas) = “wash”  – 1^st: Gen 49:11

REFERENCES:

Approbation

2Samuel 12:13-14  Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Adonai.” And Nathan said to David, “Adonai also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of Adonai to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”

R’ S.R.Hirsch: “…Nathan made it clear to David that, because he had sinned, he had given cause to the enemies of God on earth to scoff at God. The only way in which this situation could be rectified would be to have David atone for his guilt by being made to suffer disaster so that the scoffers would know that God does not leave such sins unpunished.’ (The Hirsch Tehillim, p. 427)

1Kings 15:5  Because David did what was right in the eyes of Adonai and did not turn aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

Verse 2

Genesis 49:10-11 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed (כבס, cavas) his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. [1^st occurrence]

Exodus 12:5-7  Your lamb (כבש, ceves) shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. [1^st occurrence]

Verse 6

Job 38:36  Who has put wisdom in the inward parts (טחות, tuchot) or given understanding to the mind?

Verse 7

Exodus 12:22  Take a bunch of hyssop (אזוב, eizov) and dip it in the blood that is in the basin and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. [1^st occurrence]

Numbers 19:17-18  Then for the unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt sin offering from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. A clean person shall take hyssop (אזוב, eizov) and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there, and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave.

Exodus 15:13,16  “You have led in Your steadfast love this people (עם זו, am zu) whom You have redeemed. You have guided them by Your strength to Your holy abode…Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of Your arm, they are still as a stone, till Your people, O Adonai, pass by, till this people (עם זו, am zu) whom You have purchased pass by.”