Psalms 51 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1000 BC, the middle of David's forty year reign, with the psalm collected and used in temple worship for centuries afterward
Location
Jerusalem, the walled hill city David had captured and made his royal capital, where the tent holding the ark stood before the temple was built
Audience
Israelites who sang and prayed the Psalms in public worship, and later Jewish readers of the collected Psalter after the exile to Babylon
Situation
The heading ties this prayer to the moment the prophet Nathan confronted David over his adultery with Bathsheba and his arranged killing of her husband Uriah. David asks God to wash him clean, create a new heart in him, and not take his Spirit away.
Key Background
Israel's sacrificial system had no offering that covered deliberate, premeditated sin of this kind, which is why the psalm says God does not delight in sacrifice and offers a broken spirit instead. The washing language borrows from the ritual cleansing of someone declared unclean, including hyssop, the small bushy plant used to sprinkle blood or water in purification rites. Kings in the surrounding nations were treated as above the law, so a king publicly confessing wrongdoing in a song used by the whole nation was unusual.
Show me God, because of your Because your runs so deep, wipe away every act of I've committed.
me from my Wash away the stain of my
I know exactly what I've done wrong — it's right there in front of me, always.
Against you — you alone — I have done this. What you call wrong, I did, right in front of you. So you are completely right when you speak, and no one can question your
Look — I was a tangled in failure from the moment my mother carried me.
But what you actually want is — so in the most hidden part of me, teach me
Cleanse me with and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and celebration again — let the you dance once more.
from my failures. Wipe every stain of guilt.
something inside me, God. Put a new, steady in me.
Don't throw me out of your Don't take the of away from me.
Give me back the joy of being by you. Hold me up with a
Then I will teach people who've rebelled how you work, and those who've lost their way will come back to you.
Free me from the of God — God who rescues me — and I will sing about how right and good you are.
Open my lips, and my mouth will declare how you are.
You don't want — I would bring them if you did. don't make you happy.
What God really wants is a — a heart that's been and God, you will never turn away.
Do good things for — be generous to her. Rebuild the walls of
Then you will be pleased with — with whole burnt and complete sacrifices. Then bulls will be offered on your