blot out my transgressions now.
My pastor is going through Psalm 51 every first Sunday of the month, when our church partakes in the Lord's Supper. One of my favorite hymns is also based on this beautiful penitential psalm ("God, Be Merciful To Me," #486 in the red), thus this series of posts began to ruminate in my mind.
The music:
Firstly, a word on the song's musical and lyrical quality before delving into the text. The music is the tune "Redhead," in the key of E♭ Major, has four notes in a measure to the beat of the quarter note, and begins & ends in the standard song fashion of a full key chord triad for the lower three vocal parts (E♭, G, B♭) and the root as the soprano's (E♭). It's only a three (or six) line song in the red, as opposed to a four (or 8) line song, but it still follows roughly the same pattern of a hymn. A four line song usually follows musical pattern AABA (lyrical rhyming notwithstanding); a three line song usually follows musical pattern ABA.
My pastor is going through Psalm 51 every first Sunday of the month, when our church partakes in the Lord's Supper. One of my favorite hymns is also based on this beautiful penitential psalm ("God, Be Merciful To Me," #486 in the red), thus this series of posts began to ruminate in my mind.
The music:
Firstly, a word on the song's musical and lyrical quality before delving into the text. The music is the tune "Redhead," in the key of E♭ Major, has four notes in a measure to the beat of the quarter note, and begins & ends in the standard song fashion of a full key chord triad for the lower three vocal parts (E♭, G, B♭) and the root as the soprano's (E♭). It's only a three (or six) line song in the red, as opposed to a four (or 8) line song, but it still follows roughly the same pattern of a hymn. A four line song usually follows musical pattern AABA (lyrical rhyming notwithstanding); a three line song usually follows musical pattern ABA.
I'm going to focus on the middle ("B") section of this song, and take the Psalm 51 verse each verse this song references and point to both the beauty of the forgiveness of God as well as the significance the songwriter places the Psalmist's words at that junction.
But first! My attempt of writing the coolness that is "B."
The "B" section of this song does something unusual in the first half of the second line (the 3rd of 6 rhyming couplets). The first measure works out great: E♭, C♮, B♭, E♭. The second measure is the super coolness. The notes jump from A♭ + C♮ to this really cool chord: A♭ bass + D♮ + F♮ + C♮. My sparse music theory knowledge is drawing me a blank to identify this chord or the big words that explain why it sounds funny. Thanks, Vicki Johnson! Vicki says that the weird chord is a D half diminished, which is the 7 chord of the key of E♭ Major. Turns out it's not so out-of-place in function, just in sound. (If you know what it's called, leave it as a comment below. Muchas gracias.) In any case, it sounds weirdly out of place. In typical hymn form, it doesn't match the progression of the ending measures of lines 1 or 5. It's my theory that the musician wrote this out-of-place chord in between the bland A♭ and the following E♭ to drive home a point. The singers, if they sung slowly and softly enough, would be well aware of the dissonance in the middle of those three syllables, and would experience a brief catharsis in the middle of the song after finishing that measure. This makes me scrutinize and love the portion of Psalm 51 all the more that lands in this spot.
God, be mer-ci-ful to me; on Thy grace I rest my plea:
plent-eous in com-pas-sion Thou! Blot out my trans-gres-sions now,
wash me: make me pure with-in, cleanse: O cleanse me from my sin.
The psalm:
Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
---Psalm 51:1-2
---Psalm 51:1-2
David pours his soul out before God in a plea for mercy, like a man before a king who is ready to sign a decree of judgment. Pastor Gorrell said that the Hebrew teaches us a nugget of wisdom in the urgency of David's begging heart: the very first word is the word for "mercy" (חנני chonneni), such that David wastes no time on the footstool of the king. "Mercy!" is the first word from his mouth. David, being king of all Israel and sitting enthroned in Jerusalem, doubtless saw this very drama play out before his very eyes when he was called upon to deliver judgment against other sinners.
Beyond King David's own ability to empathize with other men in this situation, Spurgeon sheds some insight on David's first words in this prayer for pardon, or rather the lack of certain words: nowhere, Spurgeon says, is the name of David mentioned.
"He does not say 'Lord remember David:' he is ashamed of his name. And he does not seem to want God to remember that, but to remember mercy: and to have pity on this nameless sinner. He does not say 'Save the son of thine handmaid,' or 'Deliver thy servant,' as he was wont to do; he just appeals to mercy, and that is all" (2).
David here is like the prodigal son, returning in shame and disgrace, who cries "I am no longer worthy to be called your son." (Interestingly enough, that parable Jesus taught does not usually end with the father's forgiveness. It usually ends up with the father killing his son. This result David knows to be just.)
The words he begs of God increase in their feverish intensity-- "mercy" (חנני chonneni), loving-kindness (חסדך chasdecha), tender mercies (רחמיך rachameycha). These words are referring to divine compassion, according to Adam Clarke. The first word for mercy means natural mercy. The sort of mercy even the ungodly have over their children, or the more base creations show for their young. Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 7:9-11 and Luke 11:11-13 when he makes the rhetorical juxtaposition that if sinful men can be merciful in their giving gifts to their children, how much more God, being good, can give good gifts [the Holy Spirit] to His children? Clarke says this word invokes the idea of moaning over that object of love/pity-- the multitude of sounds and cooing we make over young children. The second word, called "loving-kindness" in the NKJV, "denotes a strong proneness, a ready, large, and liberal disposition to goodness and compassion, powerfully prompting to all instances of kindness and bounty; flowing as freely as waters from a perpetual fountain" (1).
The third and last word David uses in this introduction is translated "tender mercies." It merits its own paragraph, for reason of its content and a story. A pastor, while preaching at my campus Bible study, once said that if/when a Christian guy asks one of his sisters in the Lord out on a date, then he should remember to pray aloud for the cultivating of God's tender mercies in his life before dinner. Apparently Christian girls worth their salt would recognize how profound such a prayer is, and would definitely go on a second date with said guy! :)
Hah. Anyways, the third word, according to Clarke, "denotes what the Greeks called σπλαγχνίζομαι, that most tender pity which we signify by the moving of the heart and bowels, which argues the highest degree of compassion of which nature is susceptible" (1). We use this same phrase when we refer to something "pulling our heartstrings," or that we are "deeply moved." Not to be confused with bowel movements, this phrase is also used in the King James quite commonly, which later is translated into "heart."
And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. (Gen. 43:30)
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. (Psalm 22:14)
My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. (Jer. 4:19)
Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. (Jer. 31:20)
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies... (Phil. 2:1)
For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother [Philemon]. (Philemon 1:7)
Whom [Onesimus] I [Paul] have sent again: thou [Philemon] therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: (Philemon 1:12)
But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (I John 3:17)
So then. Assuming that Jeremiah wasn't suffering indigestion, Paul wasn't naming his colon "useful" and performing a first-century medical organ transport, and God is spirit, we can understand the depth of the meaning of this word for "tender mercies." David knows this too. In summary of the meaning of these words, David purposefully crescendos his cry: Mercy on me, Lord! As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those that fear Him. The Lord is a stream of living water, proceeding from the face of God in His holy dwelling, rushing forth into the desert to cleanse and purge the Dead Sea, this filthy sinner's leprous heart. God, nothing less will do than the power of YOUR tender mercies.
Blot out my transgressions
I do this all the time as a teacher of memory verses and names of God and other cool things on Thursdays. I use a white board; David and the king's men 3000 years ago used ... papyrus? stone slates? pottery shards? It doesn't matter. The ink they used lacked the acidic binding properties we add to our inks today, such that ink could merely be wiped away as easily as dry erase marker can be wiped away with a hand or rag. Blotting out, according to Spurgeon, is like cleaning a plate: "wipe it out, turn it upside down, and turn out all that is in it, sweep it away" (2). However, I like the analogy probably more suited for this penitent psalm: that of a courtroom. The analogy is the same Paul uses in Colossians 2: 13-15----
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him [Christ], having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
David prays once again using language with which he doubtless was familiar-- he begs that the court writing be defaced, "that no record of it may ever appear against him: and this only the mercy, loving-kindness, and tender compassions of the Lord can do" (1). Calvin says something profound about the nature of David's request:
"Had he [David] prayed God to be favorable, simply according to His clemency or goodness, even that would have amounted to a confession that his case was a bad one; but when he speaks of his sin as remissable, only through the countless multitude of the compassions of God, he represents it as peculiarly atrocious. There is an implied antithesis between the greatness of the mercies sought for, and the greatness of the transgression which required them" (3).
David knows he is guilty. I like what Relient K says in Be My Escape (acoustic)
This life sentence that I'm serving
I admit that I'm every bit deserving
but the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Spurgeon tells the reader to note: "Nothing about the punishment observe-- he [David] does not mention that. The true penitent, though he dreads punishment, much more dreads sin. It is sinfulness--sin that he would be delivered from" (2). John Calvin translated this verse in the literal Hebrew phrase: "multiply to wash me." He declares this to be an emphatic expression which carries the same meaning in English-- wash me thoroughly, over and over again (3). Like a person afflicted with OCD, David cries with Lady MacBeth "Out, damned spot!" He feels the weight and guilt and presence of his sin so deeply he calls for multiple washings to remove his stains (1). Ever write a note on your hand with a Sharpie? Same idea.
However, this is not to downplay the power of God. Calvin warns against this, and provides a reasonable explanation the psalmist would write this: "Not as if God could experience any difficulty in cleansing the worst sinner, but the more aggravated a man's sin is, the more earnest naturally are his desires to be delivered from the terrors of conscience" (3).
Sin is filth and uncleanness. This picture needs no explanation given the extensiveness of God's commands in the Old Testament regarding uncleanness, but reminders haven't hurt for a while. The word for "hell" in Hebrew was a physical place in this life-- the valley at the base of the hill of Jerusalem. This place, the Hinnom Valley was where the scum and the garbage and the unclean people went to burn and rot and die. Furthermore, this meant that these people were banned from contact with the people of God or with the very presence of God.
Let us be estranged from sin lest our uncleanness estrange us from the presence of the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the presence of God!
"This is a truth which should both commend the grace of God to us, and fill us with detestation of sin. Insensible, indeed, must that heart be which is not affected by it!" (3)
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
1. Clarke, Adam. Commentary on the Bible. 1831. Sacred-texts.com.
http://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/clarke/psa051.htm
2. Spurgeon, C. H. An Exposition: Psalm 51. 1999. The Reformed Reader. http://www.reformedreader.org/spurgeon/ex05.htm
3. Calvin, John. Commentary on Psalms, Vol. 2. 1999. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.biblestudyguide.org/ebooks/comment/calcom09.pdf
Beyond King David's own ability to empathize with other men in this situation, Spurgeon sheds some insight on David's first words in this prayer for pardon, or rather the lack of certain words: nowhere, Spurgeon says, is the name of David mentioned.
"He does not say 'Lord remember David:' he is ashamed of his name. And he does not seem to want God to remember that, but to remember mercy: and to have pity on this nameless sinner. He does not say 'Save the son of thine handmaid,' or 'Deliver thy servant,' as he was wont to do; he just appeals to mercy, and that is all" (2).
David here is like the prodigal son, returning in shame and disgrace, who cries "I am no longer worthy to be called your son." (Interestingly enough, that parable Jesus taught does not usually end with the father's forgiveness. It usually ends up with the father killing his son. This result David knows to be just.)
The words he begs of God increase in their feverish intensity-- "mercy" (חנני chonneni), loving-kindness (חסדך chasdecha), tender mercies (רחמיך rachameycha). These words are referring to divine compassion, according to Adam Clarke. The first word for mercy means natural mercy. The sort of mercy even the ungodly have over their children, or the more base creations show for their young. Jesus alludes to this in Matthew 7:9-11 and Luke 11:11-13 when he makes the rhetorical juxtaposition that if sinful men can be merciful in their giving gifts to their children, how much more God, being good, can give good gifts [the Holy Spirit] to His children? Clarke says this word invokes the idea of moaning over that object of love/pity-- the multitude of sounds and cooing we make over young children. The second word, called "loving-kindness" in the NKJV, "denotes a strong proneness, a ready, large, and liberal disposition to goodness and compassion, powerfully prompting to all instances of kindness and bounty; flowing as freely as waters from a perpetual fountain" (1).
The third and last word David uses in this introduction is translated "tender mercies." It merits its own paragraph, for reason of its content and a story. A pastor, while preaching at my campus Bible study, once said that if/when a Christian guy asks one of his sisters in the Lord out on a date, then he should remember to pray aloud for the cultivating of God's tender mercies in his life before dinner. Apparently Christian girls worth their salt would recognize how profound such a prayer is, and would definitely go on a second date with said guy! :)
Hah. Anyways, the third word, according to Clarke, "denotes what the Greeks called σπλαγχνίζομαι, that most tender pity which we signify by the moving of the heart and bowels, which argues the highest degree of compassion of which nature is susceptible" (1). We use this same phrase when we refer to something "pulling our heartstrings," or that we are "deeply moved." Not to be confused with bowel movements, this phrase is also used in the King James quite commonly, which later is translated into "heart."
And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. (Gen. 43:30)
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. (Psalm 22:14)
My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. (Jer. 4:19)
Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. (Jer. 31:20)
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies... (Phil. 2:1)
For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother [Philemon]. (Philemon 1:7)
Whom [Onesimus] I [Paul] have sent again: thou [Philemon] therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: (Philemon 1:12)
But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (I John 3:17)
So then. Assuming that Jeremiah wasn't suffering indigestion, Paul wasn't naming his colon "useful" and performing a first-century medical organ transport, and God is spirit, we can understand the depth of the meaning of this word for "tender mercies." David knows this too. In summary of the meaning of these words, David purposefully crescendos his cry: Mercy on me, Lord! As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those that fear Him. The Lord is a stream of living water, proceeding from the face of God in His holy dwelling, rushing forth into the desert to cleanse and purge the Dead Sea, this filthy sinner's leprous heart. God, nothing less will do than the power of YOUR tender mercies.
Blot out my transgressions
I do this all the time as a teacher of memory verses and names of God and other cool things on Thursdays. I use a white board; David and the king's men 3000 years ago used ... papyrus? stone slates? pottery shards? It doesn't matter. The ink they used lacked the acidic binding properties we add to our inks today, such that ink could merely be wiped away as easily as dry erase marker can be wiped away with a hand or rag. Blotting out, according to Spurgeon, is like cleaning a plate: "wipe it out, turn it upside down, and turn out all that is in it, sweep it away" (2). However, I like the analogy probably more suited for this penitent psalm: that of a courtroom. The analogy is the same Paul uses in Colossians 2: 13-15----
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him [Christ], having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
David prays once again using language with which he doubtless was familiar-- he begs that the court writing be defaced, "that no record of it may ever appear against him: and this only the mercy, loving-kindness, and tender compassions of the Lord can do" (1). Calvin says something profound about the nature of David's request:
"Had he [David] prayed God to be favorable, simply according to His clemency or goodness, even that would have amounted to a confession that his case was a bad one; but when he speaks of his sin as remissable, only through the countless multitude of the compassions of God, he represents it as peculiarly atrocious. There is an implied antithesis between the greatness of the mercies sought for, and the greatness of the transgression which required them" (3).
David knows he is guilty. I like what Relient K says in Be My Escape (acoustic)
This life sentence that I'm serving
I admit that I'm every bit deserving
but the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
Spurgeon tells the reader to note: "Nothing about the punishment observe-- he [David] does not mention that. The true penitent, though he dreads punishment, much more dreads sin. It is sinfulness--sin that he would be delivered from" (2). John Calvin translated this verse in the literal Hebrew phrase: "multiply to wash me." He declares this to be an emphatic expression which carries the same meaning in English-- wash me thoroughly, over and over again (3). Like a person afflicted with OCD, David cries with Lady MacBeth "Out, damned spot!" He feels the weight and guilt and presence of his sin so deeply he calls for multiple washings to remove his stains (1). Ever write a note on your hand with a Sharpie? Same idea.
However, this is not to downplay the power of God. Calvin warns against this, and provides a reasonable explanation the psalmist would write this: "Not as if God could experience any difficulty in cleansing the worst sinner, but the more aggravated a man's sin is, the more earnest naturally are his desires to be delivered from the terrors of conscience" (3).
Sin is filth and uncleanness. This picture needs no explanation given the extensiveness of God's commands in the Old Testament regarding uncleanness, but reminders haven't hurt for a while. The word for "hell" in Hebrew was a physical place in this life-- the valley at the base of the hill of Jerusalem. This place, the Hinnom Valley was where the scum and the garbage and the unclean people went to burn and rot and die. Furthermore, this meant that these people were banned from contact with the people of God or with the very presence of God.
Let us be estranged from sin lest our uncleanness estrange us from the presence of the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the presence of God!
"This is a truth which should both commend the grace of God to us, and fill us with detestation of sin. Insensible, indeed, must that heart be which is not affected by it!" (3)
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
1. Clarke, Adam. Commentary on the Bible. 1831. Sacred-texts.com.
http://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/clarke/psa051.htm
2. Spurgeon, C. H. An Exposition: Psalm 51. 1999. The Reformed Reader. http://www.reformedreader.org/spurgeon/ex05.htm
3. Calvin, John. Commentary on Psalms, Vol. 2. 1999. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.biblestudyguide.org/ebooks/comment/calcom09.pdf
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