Psalms 51:1

Have mercy upon me Or, Be gracious unto me, as the word is rendered in 2 Samuel 12:22. It suggests the free bestowal of favour rather than the exercise of forgiving clemency, and is connected with the word rendered graciousin Exodus 34:6. Cp. Psalms 4:1; Psalms 56:1; Psalms 57:1.

thy lovingkindness The origin and the bond of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel.

according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies Or, according to the abundance of thy compassions. Cp. Psalms 25:6; Isaiah 63:7; Lam 3:32; 1 Peter 1:3.

The prayer for pardon is thus based upon God's revelation of His character as "a God full of compassion and gracious, abundant in lovingkindness and truth; keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty" (Exodus 34:6-7); a passage which seems to have supplied the Psalmist's language. Cp. Psalms 86:15; Joel 2:13.

Sin is described, as in Exodus 34:7 (cp. Psalms 32:1-2), in three different aspects, as transgression, iniquity, sin:the Heb. words thus rendered meaning respectively, (1) defection from God or rebellion against Him: (2) the perversion of right, depravity of conduct: (3) error, wandering from the right way, missing the mark in life.

The removal of guilt is also triply described. (1) Blot out(cp. Psalms 51:9): sin is regarded as a debt recorded in God's book which needs to be erased and cancelled (cp. the use of the word in Exodus 32:32; Numbers 5:23; and see note on Psalms 32:2): or the word may be used more generally (wipe out) of cleansing away defilement so that no trace of it remains (2 Kings 21:13). Cp. the promise in Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 44:22; and also Nehemiah 4:5; Jeremiah 18:23. (2) Wash me: the word means properly to wash clothes, as a fuller does (LXX correctly, πλῦνον, cp. Revelation 7:14; Revelation 22:14), and is frequently used of ceremonial purifications (Exodus 19:10; Exodus 19:14, &c.): here it denotes that inward cleansing of which external washings were the type. Cp. Jeremiah 2:22; Jeremiah 4:14. He prays, -wash me thoroughly," or, abundantly, for "the depth of his guilt demands an unwonted and special grace." But if transgressions abound (Lamentations 1:5), so does mercy. (3) Cleanse me(cp. be clean, Psalms 51:7); like wash, a common term in the Levitical ritual, especially in the laws concerning leprosy, meaning sometimes to cleanse, sometimes to pronounce clean. This use of it suggests the comparison of sin with leprosy. Cp. Leviticus 13:6; Leviticus 13:34, &c.; 2 Kings 5:10; 2 Kings 5:12-14.