Psalm 51 - Sin, How Original?

　

TEXT (Hebrew text at end)

1. For the leader. A psalm. Of David,

2. when Nathan the prophet came to him after he had come to Bathsheba.

3. Have mercy upon me, O God, as befits Your loving-kindness; in keeping with Your abundant compassion, wipe away my transgressions.

4. Thoroughly wash me of my iniquity, and purify me of my sin;

5. for I recognize my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

6. Against You, only You, have I sinned, and done what is evil in Your eyes; so You are just when You sentence, and right when You judge.

7. Indeed I was born with iniquity; with sin my mother conceived me.

8. Indeed You desire truth 1-in the inward being-1; teach me wisdom about secret things.

9. Purge me of sin with hyssop that I may be pure; wash me that I may be whiter than snow.

10. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that You have crushed exult.

11. Hide Your face from my sins; all my iniquities wipe away.

12. Create a pure heart for me, O God; place a new resolute spirit in me.

13. Do not cast me away from Your presence, or take Your holy spirit from me.

14. Return to me the joy of Your deliverance; sustain me with a generous spirit.

15. I will teach transgressors Your ways; sinners will return to You.

16. Save me from bloodshed, O God, God of my deliverance, that my tongue may sing forth Your 2-just beneficence-2.

17. O Lord open my lips, and let my mouth tell Your praise.

18. You do not desire that I bring sacrifice; You take no pleasure in a burnt offering.

19 God’s sacrifices—a broken spirit; a broken and crushed heart, God, You do not despise.

20. May it please You to show goodness to Zion; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

21. Then You will desire just sacrifices, burnt and whole offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your sacrificial altar.

Notes

1. Meaning uncertain. Others, "concerning that which is hidden."

2. That is, “beneficence. “Just” reflects the root of the word, as used in vv. 6 and 21.

COMMENTARY

Caveat: When using other translations and commentaries, note that some do not number the first two verses, so that there may be a two-verse difference in reference numbers.

Introduction

Psalm 51 is known for its denial of one’s ability to overcome human sinful nature, for its expressions of contrition, and for its desire for a “rebirth.” Concentrating on “original sin” (discussed below), rejection of sacrifice, and total dependence on God, Psalm 51 has become a focal point for theological debate over the centuries. My purpose, however, is to help the reader confront the poetry, not to extrapolate a theology or faith prescription. Other biblical passages will be cited only in the context of this primary purpose.

I proceed as follows: the speaker’s statement; the biblical references; the proposed structure and the meaning it implies; “original sin;” the rejection of sacrifice; the date and unity of the text; and additional notes.

The Statement

(Here I treat the psalm's ascription, vv. 1 and 2, as a later addition, and the last two verses as an original section. I justify those choices further on.)

The speaker of Psalm 51, aware of his sins, but even more of his iniquitous nature, desperately pleads for God to cleanse him. In intimate conversation, he seeks transformation, not just some change of circumstance. Articulating total contrition (as per God’s desire), he pledges to share the good news once he is changed. The psalm ends with a request for a rebuilt Jerusalem.

Intimacy reigns. All is in direct address, with over forty-five appearances of either the pronoun “You” or an imperative verb (directed to God) plus seven uses of the term “God.” The emphasis on talking to God is reflected in verses 4 and 5: in the former, there are four consecutive rhyming terms in Hebrew, each ending with the first-person singular (me, mine), all set against the beginning of verse 5, “You and only You.”

In the course of the poem, the speaker has occasion to highlight his feeling of being born in (or to) sin and a dismissal of sacrifice in favor of contrition. To both of these subjects I devote special sections below.

Biblical References

Verses 3 and 4 evidently echo the classic expression of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Exodus 34:6: “A God of loving-kindness and mercy… extending compassion … forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”

Verse 9 recalls ceremonies removing physical impurity: the hyssop used for sprinkling in cases of an eruptive plague in a house (Lev. 14:49–51) or contact with the dead (Num. 6:18–19). There may be creative use of terms (“wash,” v. 4, and “white,” v. 9) taken from other texts dealing with purging of impurity (see Lev. 13:13, 58). These purifications are used in Psalm 51 as a metaphor for renewal.

The Structure

Though some deny a structure to Psalm 51 (no theme is confined exclusively to one group of verses), word repetitions indicate a possible pattern. There is an internal frame of “wipe away,” “iniquity,” and “sin” (vv. 3–4), which appear in the Hebrew in reverse order in verse 11, thus creating a separate first section. (Within that section, “wash” and “pure” appear in reverse order in vv. 4 and 9.) In the second section, “heart” and “spirit” appear in reverse order in verse 12 and 19. Verses 20 and 21 form a third section, involving a later time frame and a national emphasis.

The first section (vv. 3–11) requests a personal cleansing. The speaker does not relate to specific sins, but to a collective group of transgressions, which are a result of his nature, his sinfulness, which can only be overcome by God. This is not a "good" human being who has erred or lost his way, but someone "born" into a harness over which he has no control. Were it the former, we might find here detailed confession and atonement, a request for forgiveness, and a commitment to better behavior in the future. Instead, the sole action of the speaker is contrition. His recognition of sinfulness and his turn to God for correction are deemed sufficient. (The two noted reverse framings highlight the center of the section, the opening of v. 7: “Indeed I was born with iniquity.”)

The second section (vv. 12–19) focuses on the future, emphasizing total transformation; hence the emphasis on the frame words, “spirit” and “heart.” In the beginning, the new spirit is defined: it is resolute, holy, and generous. In the wake of change, others will hear the message and will join, as God “returning” the speaker to Him will cause others to “return” (vv. 14–15). (True to form, the speaker makes this, too, dependent on God’s intervention. After declaring in v. 15 that he will teach transgressors, in vv. 17 and 18 he clarifies that God must open up his mouth for him to do that.)

The first two sections are connected. Emphasizing the change from one section to the other are the uses of two terms appearing seven times each. As Schaefer points out, “sin” appears six times in the first section and once in the second; “God” once in the first section and six times in the second. In Schaefer’s words, the speaker “literally and literarily is emptied of sin and filled with grace.” The second section adapts the achieved “purity” of the first into a “pure” heart (v. 12) and the sections share “joy” (vv. 10 and 14).

The clearest continuing emphasis, reaching its peak in the second section, is the act of contrition. The “heart” and “spirit” of the frame are now “broken” (v. 19). The prior metaphor of sadness, “crushed” bones (v. 10) becomes more spiritualized, a “crushed” heart (v. 19). There is no escaping the exclusive reliance of our speaker on recognition and proper attitude, a confrontation with his inherently marred state of being human, with reliance on God to “create” (v. 12 – a verb used only of God in the Bible) something new. The term “deliverance,” used for a variety of specific acts elsewhere in the Bible, is here re-applied to this re-birth.

Original Sin, Original Interpretations

Verse 7 reads, “Indeed I was born with iniquity; with sin my mother conceived me.” There are seven (a “full” biblical number) uses of the root “sin” in Psalm 51, and three more each of “transgression” and “iniquity.” There is broad consensus, spanning Jewish and Christian interpreters, that the speaker thus articulates his feeling of sinfulness, but there is disagreement concerning nuance. For some this is simply an acknowledgment of an ongoing life of sin, as long as the speaker can remember, and the reference to birth is hyperbole. As interpreted above (and by most modern commentators), the reference is to a shared, inherent human condition (though the speaker obviously deals specifically with his own nature).

This verse is perhaps best known for the application given it by Augustine (c. 400) expanding on Paul’s doctrine of original sin (i.e., since Adam and Eve). This is related to man’s inherent status, disobedience resulting in sexual reproduction and transfer thereby of the sinful nature to all future generations. (Later, some re-assign original sin from a genetic to an environmental inheritance―“It is the tragedy of man that he is born into a world full of sin” [Weiser]). Independent of any judgment on this doctrine, its connection to this particular verse is denied by most modern interpreters, who accept it as poetic expression rather than theology.

Some classical Jewish interpreters also associated the verse with sexual activity, citing either sexual passion, which automatically leads to lust, which replaces childbirth as a motive for intercourse, or an inherent fault dating genetically back to Eve.

Some of these interpretations rest on the understanding that the speaker seeks to minimize his present sin here (i.e., “it’s not me, it’s my inherent sinfulness), but this approach does not befit the deep guilt and full contrition of the psalm.

As a poetic articulation of an inherited human condition (independent of its origin and connection to sex), the psalm blends with a number of similar biblical statements (cf. Gen. 8:21, Jer. 17:9, and Job 14:4). That is not to say that these represent the main line of biblical thought, only that this approach is articulated.

Sacrifices – No and Yes

Read alone, verses 18 and 19 reject sacrifice in favor of contrition. The final two verses seem to contradict that, and many (even a few medieval Jewish commentators) conclude that they were added after the psalm was written, either to undo the anti-sacrificial emphasis or to take into account the later destruction of the Temple (thus redefining verses 18 and 19 as a statement of accommodation to the impossibility to sacrifice, rather than an absolute undesirability of sacrifice). Moreover, verses 18 and 19 might be less a rejection than a hyperbolic statement made in order to give priority to proper affect (cf. Jer. 7:22f.).

For those reading the psalm as a unit, the last four verses are consistent either because: (1) the whole psalm is a post-Temple-destruction text, and verses 18 and 19 reflect an accommodation to the impossibility of sacrifice (as above); (2) verses 18 and 19 express prioritization, not rejection (as above); or (3) the emphasis of verses 20–21 is on authentic sacrifice (note the word “just”), which is only possible after proper contrition and intervention by God, as seen in the psalm.

As I have discussed elsewhere, one finds reflected in various places in the Bible a value hierarchy according to which the merit of sacrifices were subject to the moral context, which was, frankly, more important. One can draw no more specific conclusion than that from Psalm 51.

Unity and Date

The opening and ending of Psalm 51 simply do not match. The first two verses refer to King David (d. 960 BCE), before the First Temple was built, and the last two to the period after the Temple was destroyed (586 BCE). Discounting explanations based on David’s prophetic ability, one must conclude either that one set of verses or the other was an addition, or that a later author did attribute his psalm to David in the cited circumstance, as an act of literary imagination.

In all probability the ending is original to the poem. Arguing for this conclusion are the following factors.

(A) The third section is strongly linked to the second through terminology: “please,” “desire,” “just,” “sacrifice,” and “burnt offering.” Indeed, if one accepts either of the explanations noted above, there is no inherent conflict between the two sections. They meld smoothly. (Of course, one appending a line to the text might be skillful enough to use linking terminology.)

(B) To quote Dahood, “since most of the psalm headings are demonstrably late, sound method counsels the retention of these [last] verses as authentic and the ascription of the psalm heading to a later hand.” (But again, both might be added.)

(C) Psalm 51 shows similarities to prophets of the end of the first Temple period and the exile. Note the idea of a "new heart," so emphasized in Jeremiah (24:7; 31:33; 32:39–40) and Ezekiel (36:24–32), and note second Isaiah’s frequent use of “create” in this regard (41:20; 45:8, 12; 65:17–18). Further, God’s “holy spirit” appears elsewhere in the Bible only in Isaiah 63:10–11.

It is probable, then, that Psalm 51 was written after the first Temple’s destruction. One can still appreciate the attribution to David and the cited circumstances (for details, see II Sam. 12). Perhaps the later psalmist himself included the attribution. David was indeed caught in a trap of great sin in the case of Bathsheba, and even if the story as told in Samuel lacks the tone of this psalm, it would only be an indication that the psalmist had another view of the story. Magonet finds an interesting psychological resonance, suggesting that here David exhibits a “projection onto his origins of his own guilt about intercourse with Bathsheba” (p. 120).

Psalm 51 presents a speaker who offers a very effective poetic contention, one that has resonated with many and drawn sharp reservation as well. A reader would be hard put not to confront both the speaker and his theses.

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Additional Notes

1. This is one of the seven Psalms of Atonement, frequently expounded together in early Church history (Pss. 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143). The Jewish prayer book uses verse 17 as the opening invocation of the daily silent devotion, and verse 20 in the service when the Torah is taken from the ark.

2. There is a clever play in verse 2, using “come” with two of its meanings, one "arrival" and the other "sexual intercourse." The implication is that crime leads to rebuke and that there is just punishment.

　

The author of these essays is Rabbi Benjamin Segal, former president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem　and author of The Song of Songs: A Woman in Love (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2009). This material is copyright by the author, and may not be reproduced. If you are interested in using the texts for study groups, please be in direct contact with the author, at psalmblog@gmail.com.

　

　

HEBREW TEXT

(א) לַמְנַצֵּחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד:

(ב) בְּבוֹא אֵלָיו נָתָן הַנָּבִיא כַּאֲשֶׁר בָּא אֶל בַּת שָׁבַע:

(ג) חָנֵּנִי אֱלֹהִים כְּחַסְדֶּךָ כְּרֹב רַחֲמֶיךָ מְחֵה פְשָׁעָי:

(ד) הרבה {הֶרֶב }כַּבְּסֵנִי מֵעֲוֹנִי וּמֵחַטָּאתִי טַהֲרֵנִי:

(ה) כִּי פְשָׁעַי אֲנִי אֵדָע וְחַטָּאתִי נֶגְדִּי תָמִיד:

(ו) לְךָ לְבַדְּךָ חָטָאתִי וְהָרַע בְּעֵינֶיךָ עָשִׂיתִי לְמַעַן תִּצְדַּק בְּדָבְרֶךָ תִּזְכֶּה בְשָׁפְטֶךָ:

(ז) הֵן בְּעָווֹן חוֹלָלְתִּי וּבְחֵטְא יֶחֱמַתְנִי אִמִּי:

(ח) הֵן אֱמֶת חָפַצְתָּ בַטֻּחוֹת וּבְסָתֻם חָכְמָה תוֹדִיעֵנִי:

(ט) תְּחַטְּאֵנִי בְאֵזוֹב וְאֶטְהָר תְּכַבְּסֵנִי וּמִשֶּׁלֶג אַלְבִּין:

(י) תַּשְׁמִיעֵנִי שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה תָּגֵלְנָה עֲצָמוֹת דִּכִּיתָ:

(יא) הַסְתֵּר פָּנֶיךָ מֵחֲטָאָי וְכָל עֲוֹנֹתַי מְחֵה:

(יב) לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא לִי אֱלֹהִים וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי:

(יג) אַל תַּשְׁלִיכֵנִי מִלְּפָנֶיךָ וְרוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ אַל תִּקַּח מִמֶּנִּי:

(יד) הָשִׁיבָה לִּי שְׂשׂוֹן יִשְׁעֶךָ וְרוּחַ נְדִיבָה תִסְמְכֵנִי:

(טו) אֲלַמְּדָה פֹשְׁעִים דְּרָכֶיךָ וְחַטָּאִים אֵלֶיךָ יָשׁוּבוּ:

(טז) הַצִּילֵנִי מִדָּמִים אֶלֹהִים אֱלֹהֵי תְשׁוּעָתִי תְּרַנֵּן לְשׁוֹנִי צִדְקָתֶךָ:

(יז) אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶךָ:

(יח) כִּי לֹא תַחְפֹּץ זֶבַח וְאֶתֵּנָה עוֹלָה לֹא תִרְצֶה:

(יט) זִבְחֵי אֱלֹהִים רוּחַ נִשְׁבָּרָה לֵב נִשְׁבָּר וְנִדְכֶּה אֱלֹהִים לֹא תִבְזֶה:

(כ) הֵיטִיבָה בִרְצוֹנְךָ אֶת צִיּוֹן תִּבְנֶה חוֹמוֹת יְרוּשָׁלָםִ:

(כא) אָז תַּחְפֹּץ זִבְחֵי צֶדֶק עוֹלָה וְכָלִיל אָז יַעֲלוּ עַל מִזְבַּחֲךָ פָרִים: