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51. Psalm 51

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.

    3 For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.

5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
   sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
   you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

    7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins
   and blot out all my iniquity.

    10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

    13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   so that sinners will turn back to you.

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
   you who are God my Savior,
   and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

15 Open my lips, Lord,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

17 My sacrifice, O God, is Or The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.

    18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
   to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
   in burnt offerings offered whole;
   then bulls will be offered on your altar.


19 Then shalt thou accept sacrifices of righteousness In these words there is an apparent, but only an apparent, inconsistency with others which he had used in the preceding context. He had declared sacrifices to be of no value when considered in themselves, but now he acknowledges them to be acceptable to God when viewed as expressions or symbols of faith, penitence, and thanksgiving. He calls them distinctly sacrifices of righteousness, right, warrantable, and such as are offered in strict accordance with the commandment of God. The expression is the same employed in Psalm 4:5, where David uses it with a tacit condemnation of those who gloried in the mere outward form of ceremonies. We find him again exciting himself and others by his example to the exercise of gratitude, and to the expression of it openly in the solemn assembly. Besides sacrifices in general, two particular kinds of sacrifice are specified. Although some consider כליל, calil, and עולה, olah, to be both of one signification, others maintain with more correctness, that the first is to be understood as meaning the priest’s sacrifice, because in it the offering was consumed or burnt with fire. 274274     Ainsworth reads, “the burnt-offering and the whole oblation;” and observes, that “The whole oblation, the calil, was a kind of oblation that was wholly and every whit given up in fire unto God, and differed from the ghnola, or burnt-offering, which was only of beasts or birds, Leviticus 1; whereas the calil was also of flour, called the meat-offering, but burned altogether, which the common meat-offerings were not, Leviticus 6:20, 22, 23. It was also of beasts, 1 Samuel 7:9.” In the enumeration which he makes, David designs to teach us that none of all the legal rites can find acceptance with God, unless they be used with a reference to the proper end of their institution. The whole of this verse has been figuratively applied by some to the kingdom of Christ, but the interpretation is unnatural and too refined. Thanksgivings are indeed called by Hosea “the calves of the lips,” (Hosea 14:2;) but it seems evident that in the passage before us there are conjoined along with the frame or disposition of the heart those solemn ceremonies which constituted part of the ancient worship.


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