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Psalm 51

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence

and blameless when you pass judgment.

Indeed, I was born guilty,

a sinner when my mother conceived me.

You desire truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you have no delight in sacrifice;

if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;

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

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;

rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,

then you will delight in right sacrifices,

in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;

then bulls will be offered on your altar.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation He cannot dismiss his grief of mind until he have obtained peace with God. This he declares once and again, for David had no sympathy with those who can indulge themselves in ease when they are lying under the divine displeasure. In the latter clause of the verse, he prays as in the verses preceding, that the Holy Spirit might not be taken away from him. There is a slight ambiguity in the words. Some take תסמכני, thismecheni, to be the third person of the verb, because רוח, ruach, is feminine, and translate, let the Spirit uphold me. The difference is immaterial, and does not affect the meaning of the passage. There is more difficulty in fixing the sense of the epithet נדיבה, nedibah, which I have translated free As the verb נדב, nadab, signifies to deal liberally, princes are in the Hebrew called, by way of eminence, נדיבים, nedibim, which has led several learned men to think that David speaks here of a princely or royal spirit; and the translators of the Septuagint rendered it accordingly ἡγεμονικον. The prayer, in this sense, would no doubt be a suitable one for David, who was a king, and required a heroical courage for the execution of his office. But it seems better to adopt the more extensive meaning, and to suppose that David, under a painful consciousness of the bondage to which he had been reduced by a sense of guilt, prays for a free and cheerful spirit. ²⁶⁹²⁶⁹ Some commentators refer the clause, upon which Calvin is here commenting, to the Holy Spirit, and others to the qualities of mind with which David desired to be endued. The translators of our English Bible understand the expression in the first sense, reading, “thy free Spirit.” The word thy is a supplement, but it does not appear to be liable to any material objection. Fry, who adopts the same view, reads, “bountiful or spontaneously flowing Spirit;” and observes, that the word נדיבה, nedibah, “is more still than spontaneously flowing: it signifies to flow both spontaneously and plentifully: ‘prae uberitate succi sponte fluens.’ This epithet of the indwelling Spirit will be best explained from our Lord’s own words, John 4:14, and 7:38.” Others refer the expression to the mind of the Psalmist. Mudge reads, “And let a plentiful effusion of spirit support me.” Dimock, “Let a free spirit sustain me;” “that is,” says he, “let me not be enslaved, as I have been, by my sinful passions.” Green, “And support with a cheerful spirit.” French and Skinner, “And may a willing spirit uphold me;” by which they understand, “a spirit devoted to the service of God.” Walford, following the Septuagint, reads, “And with a princely spirit sustain me.” “David,” says this critic, “was so overwhelmed by the consciousness of his extreme iniquity, so broken in spirit, courage, and fortitude, as to feel altogether incompetent to the discharge of his office, as the King of Israel. He therefore addresses this petition to God, in the hope that he would grant to him a renewal of that powerful energy by which he had at first been fitted for an employment so every way unsuitable to his lowly descent, and his employment as a shepherd.” This invaluable attainment, he was sensible, could only be recovered through divine grace.

²⁶⁹ Some commentators refer the clause, upon which Calvin is here commenting, to the Holy Spirit, and others to the qualities of mind with which David desired to be endued. The translators of our English Bible understand the expression in the first sense, reading, “thy free Spirit.” The word thy is a supplement, but it does not appear to be liable to any material objection. Fry, who adopts the same view, reads, “bountiful or spontaneously flowing Spirit;” and observes, that the word נדיבה, nedibah, “is more still than spontaneously flowing: it signifies to flow both spontaneously and plentifully: ‘prae uberitate succi sponte fluens.’ This epithet of the indwelling Spirit will be best explained from our Lord’s own words, John 4:14, and 7:38.” Others refer the expression to the mind of the Psalmist. Mudge reads, “And let a plentiful effusion of spirit support me.” Dimock, “Let a free spirit sustain me;” “that is,” says he, “let me not be enslaved, as I have been, by my sinful passions.” Green, “And support with a cheerful spirit.” French and Skinner, “And may a willing spirit uphold me;” by which they understand, “a spirit devoted to the service of God.” Walford, following the Septuagint, reads, “And with a princely spirit sustain me.” “David,” says this critic, “was so overwhelmed by the consciousness of his extreme iniquity, so broken in spirit, courage, and fortitude, as to feel altogether incompetent to the discharge of his office, as the King of Israel. He therefore addresses this petition to God, in the hope that he would grant to him a renewal of that powerful energy by which he had at first been fitted for an employment so every way unsuitable to his lowly descent, and his employment as a shepherd.”