Covenant Renewal
Psalm 51 (RCL 51:1-12)
Tony’s Overview Video
How to Use
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- Read the Bible Lesson by Tony Cartledge in this month’s issue of the Nurturing Faith Journal
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- Select either the Adult or Youth teaching guide and follow the directions
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Key Verse: Psalm 51:1 –
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
You know how it feels: you did something you knew was wrong, maybe more than once, and you got caught. You were embarrassed, mortified, ashamed. More than anything, you wanted to feel forgiven. You knew that you need to “come clean,” but even more you wanted to feel clean. You needed to do some serious repenting.
Psalm 51 is the quintessential psalm of repentance. [DD] A superscription preserves a tradition that the psalm was David’s prayer of repentance after the prophet Nathan confronted him about his utterly sinful actions in committing adultery with Bathsheba and plotting her husband Uriah’s death in battle. That would certainly be cause for the type of penitent pleading we find in Psalm 51, but the use of several expressions characteristic of exilic prophets and a reference to the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls make it likely that the psalm was composed at a later time. (See “The Hardest Question” online for more on this.)
Have mercy on me! (vv. 1-6)
The psalm begins with a cry for God to show mercy grounded in faithful love, to “blot out” the penitent’s wrongdoing and wash his soul clean from guilt (vv. 1-2). The poet’s profligate language employs the entire Hebrew vocabulary for religious, moral, or ethical offenses: “transgressions” (pesha‘), “iniquity” (‘avōn), and “sin” (hatt’āt).
“Transgressions” implies rebellion against what is expected in a relationship, “iniquity” has the connotation of crooked or wicked behavior, and the word often translated “sin” means “missing the mark” or “falling short.”
Have you felt guilty in any of these areas? The poet had, and his prayer moves immediately to abject confession: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (v. 3). He might try to forget or put his bad actions behind him, but they do not disappear. He knows he won’t find peace until he finds forgiveness.
Verse 4 seems to imply that sin is against God alone, rather than others, but that can’t be the case. We know that we can do wrong to others. Our bad decisions and wrongful actions can cause pain and harm to our families, our friends, or to others. [DD]
The penitent’s implied assertion that his sin is toward God reflects the context of an intensely personal prayer addressed to God. Though his actions have no doubt hurt others, his first business is with God, who is the ultimate determiner of right and wrong. If God’s way is the measure of acceptable behavior, then he has first fallen short before God, so that “you are justified in your sentence, and blameless when you pass judgment.”
The following verse is even more subject to misinterpretation: “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” (v. 5, NRSV) is a better translation than the familiar King James Version’s “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The verse does not suggest that the penitent’s mother conceived him through illicit intercourse, or imply that all sex is sinful. Neither does the verse support the practice of baptizing infants to cleanse them from “original sin” lest they be condemned.
A literal reading of the text might lead one in those directions, but poetry is, by nature, rife with metaphorical language. The poet is using hyperbole: to express the depth of his sin, he declares that he has been sinful since birth, even since conception. This does not mean he was a nefarious fetus, but simply expresses his sense of being sinful to the core, the product of a sinful world. [DD]
The poet understands that God both desires and reveals the real truth, even in the “hidden part” of our inner being, in our “secret heart” (v. 6).
Cleanse me! (vv. 7-12)
Having established and confessed his wretched state, the psalmist seeks inner cleansing that can come only through forgiveness, and launches into a series of metaphors for cleansing. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (v. 7a) may sound like the administration of an unpleasant medicinal draught, but it draws on the priestly practice of dipping a sprig of the hyssop plant into both clean water and the blood of a sacrificial animal, then sprinkling it on a person or building to impute ritual purity. [DD]
Cleansing on the deepest level can come only from God: thus the psalmist prays “wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (v. 7b). [DD] Such forgiveness restores joy and gladness to one who has experienced the metaphorically bone-crushing weight of guilt (v. 8), for he or she can believe that God has blotted out one’s sins so they are no longer seen (v. 9).
An important shift occurs with v. 10: the psalmist recognizes that it’s not enough to be clean: he needs to be changed. Most psalms of lament pray for God to deal with problems caused by illness or enemies. The author of Psalm 51 knows that the needed change is internal rather than external: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.” [DD]
The psalmist knows he cannot have an open heart and a steady spirit without God’s help, and so he prays for God’s abiding presence: “do not take your holy spirit from me” (v. 11). He holds to a belief that, despite his sinfulness, God has not yet deserted him. As he prays for God to put a new and right spirit within him, he likewise pleads for God’s holy spirit to remain present within his life. [DD]
With a clean heart and a renewed spirit, the psalmist could regain the joy of God’s salvation, and with the promise of God’s holy spirit within, he could find support for a “willing spirit” committed to following God’s way rather than his own (v. 12).
Do good for us! (vv. 13-18)
With verse 13 we get another indication of how serious the psalmist is: he has framed his prayer as a vow. Hebrew vows were by nature conditional promises. In narrative texts, they take the form of “O Lord, if you do such and such for me, I will do such and such for you.” [DD]
Vows also occur in the psalms, where the form is adapted to the needs of poetry. Instead of the narrative introduction “If you …,” poetic vows simply begin with the psalmist’s request for deliverance, healing, or (in this case) forgiveness and renewal, then shift to a promise to be fulfilled if and when the plea is granted.
In this case, the psalmist promises that when he experiences God’s cleansing and spiritual presence, he will joyfully testify to God’s gracious acts, drawing other sinners to join him in repentance: “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you” (v. 13).
The following verse repeats the vow in condensed form: “Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance” (v. 14). The reference to “bloodshed” may hint that the psalmist had been guilty of murder, but not necessarily. The word damîm (the plural form of “blood”) was sometimes used in a figurative sense to indicate guilt, especially in a corporate sense. [DD]
One could argue that v. 15 is yet another repetition of the vow: the psalmist has made it clear that he would offer vocal praise to God in response to divine grace and sustaining presence. Thus, “O Lord, open my lips” is yet another plea: God’s cleansing spirit would be the key to opening the psalmist’s lips in fulfillment of his vow, so that “my mouth will declare your praise.”
In vv. 16-17 we find a theme common to the psalms: after the destruction of the first temple (586 BCE) and before the construction of the second one (515 BCE), the Hebrews had no place to offer animal sacrifices. Perceptive worshipers also knew that physical sacrifices could be ritualized and empty: Samuel had told Saul that God desires obedience more than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22), and the prophets had often insisted that God did not accept the ritual sacrifices of those who oppressed others (Amos 5:21-24, Isa. 1:11-16, Mic. 6:1-8, Jer. 14:12).
The psalmist believed that it wasn’t broken animals burned on the altar that pleased God, but broken hearts and spirits laid before God in repentance and a desire for reform.
The psalmist’s praise of penitence over animal sacrifice may have disturbed some traditionalists who longed for the restoration of the temple and did not want to see animal sacrifices devalued, at least when offered in the right spirit. Thus, many scholars think it likely that vv. 18-19 were added by a later scribe who prayed for God to “Do good to Zion” and “rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,” for “then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.”
Christians, of course, believe that Christ’s sacrifice for our redemption needs not be repeated – but our need for personal repentance and renewal remains ever-present. This is why Psalm 51 remains such a popular and appropriate text for reading during the season of Lent.
Can you identify with the psalmist? Has there been a time when you felt wholly guilty and desperately in need of spiritual cleansing through divine grace? Could that time be now?
Adult Teaching Resources
Download the PDF of teaching resources for this lesson.
This PDF contains the Teaching Guide, Digging Deeper, and Hardest Question pages.
Read Scripture online: Psalm 51
Youth Teaching Resources
Parent Prep
How do you react when your student comes to you and apologizes for what has happened? Do you validate their apology or do you pick at it and make them feel worse for coming to you? Apologizing takes humility and humility is not what teens have the most of. Teens are trying to boost themselves up, at the heart of it, because they are trying to validate who they are in their own head. When you don’t even acknowledge their apology, and the humility that goes along with it, they will be less likely to come to you the next time to apologize. Accept your student’s apology.
Additional Links/Resources
Read Scripture online: Psalm 51
Download the PDF for youth teaching resources using the button below. This PDF contains the Teaching Guide for this lesson:
Video
Encourage youth to check out this video ahead of the lesson.
“I Forgive You” from Spider Man 3
Via www.youtube.com
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