EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

Verse 7.—In the Hebrew language there are two words to express the different kinds of washing, and they are always used with the strictest propriety; the one, to signify that kind of washing which pervades the substance of the thing washed, and cleanses it thoroughly; and the other to express that kind of washing which only cleanses the surface of a substance which the water cannot penetrate. The former is applied to the washing of clothes; the latter is used for washing some part of the body. By a beautiful and strong metaphor, David uses the former word in this and the second verse: “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin;” “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” So in Jer. iv. 14, the same word is applied to the heart.—Richard Mant.

Verse 8.—“Make me to hear joy and gladness.” This is the exceeding great love of the Lord toward his children, that he hath not only provided a sure salvation for them through the remission of their sins in Christ Jesus, but also seals up in their heart the testimony thereof by his Holy Spirit of adoption, and that for their present consolation, lest they should be swallowed up of heaviness through continual temptations. Though he speak not to all his children as he did to Daniel, by an angel, “O man, greatly beloved of God,” nor as he did to the blessed Virgin Mary, “Hail, Mary, freely beloved,” yet doth he witness the same to the hearts of his children by an inward testimony: when they hear it they are alive; when they want it they are but dead; their souls refuse all other comfort whatsoever.—William Cowper.

Verse 8.—“Make me to hear joy and gladness.” As a Christian is the most sorrowful man in the world, so there is none more glad than he. For the cause of his joy is greatest. In respect his misery was greatest, his delivery greatest, therefore his joy greatest. From hell and death is he freed, to life in heaven is he brought.... The person from whom he seeketh this joy is God: “Make me to hear,” saith he; whereby he would teach us that this joy cometh only from God; it is he who is the fountain of joy and all pleasure, for “all good things come from above.” Natural joys proceed from a natural and fleshly fountain; spiritual joys spring only from God: so he who seeketh those joys beneath seeketh hot water under cold ice.—Archibald Symson.

Verse 8.—“Make me to hear joy and gladness.” Another reference to the expiation of the leper, whose ear was to be touched with the blood of the trespass-offering and the oil, as well as thumb and toe, to show that his faculties were now prepared for the service of God; so David prays that his ears may be sanctified to the hearing of joy and gladness; this an unsanctified heart can never receive.—W. Wilson.

Verse 8.—“The bones which thou hast broken.” God, in favour to his children, doth afflict them for sin; and the very phrase of breaking his bones, though it express extremity of misery and pain, yet it hath hope in it, for broken bones by a cunning hand may be set again and return to their former use and strength; so that a conscience distressed for sins is not out of hope; yet upon that hope no wise man will adventure upon sin, saying, though I am wounded, yet I may be healed again; though I am broken, I may be repaired; for let him consider—1. Who breaks his bones—Thou; he that made us our bones and put them in their several places, and tied them together with ligaments, and covered them with flesh; he that keepeth all our bones from breaking; it must be a great matter that must move him to break the bones of any of us. The God of all consolation, that comforteth us in all our distresses, when he cometh to distress us, this makes affliction weigh heavy.... 2. The pain of the affliction exprest so feelingly in the breaking of bones, which, as is said, is the anguish of the soul for sin, and fear of the consuming fire of God’s wrath, and the tempest, as Job calls it, of anger. 3. The pain of setting these bones again: for, though bones dislocated may be put in joint, and though bones broken may be set again, yet this is not done without pain and great extremity to the patient.

Repentance setteth all our broken, pained bones; it recovereth the soul from the anguish thereof; but he that once feeleth the smart of a true repentance, will say, the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, are as hard a bargain as ever he made, and as dear bought; they cost tears, which are sanguis vulnerati cordis, the blood of a wounded heart; they cost sighs and groans which cannot be expressed; they cost watching, fasting, taming of the body to bring it in subjection, even to the crucifying of the flesh with the lusts thereof. Therefore, let no man adventure his bones in hope of setting them again.—Samuel Page.

Verse 8.—“That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” The displeasure which God expressed against the sins he had been guilty of, and the deep sense he had of the aggravated nature of them, filled him with those pains and agonies of mind, as that he compares them to that exquisite torture he must have felt had all his bones been crushed, for the original word דִּכִּיתָ, signifies more than broken, namely, being entirely mashed; and he compares the joy that God’s declaring himself fully reconciled to him would produce in his mind, to that inconceivable pleasure, which would arise from the instantaneous restoring and healing those bones, after they had been thus broken and crushed to pieces.—Samuel Chandler.

Verse 9.—“Hide thy face from my sins.” The verb סִתֵּר properly signifies to veil, or hide with a veil.—Samuel Chandler.

Verse 9.—“Hide thy face from my sins.” He said in the third verse, that his sin was always in his sight; and now he prays that God would put it out of his sight. This is a very good order. If we hold our sins in our eyes to pursue them, God will cast them behind his back to pardon them: if we remember them and repent, he will forget them and forgive: otherwise, peccatum unde homo non avertit, advertit Deus: et si advertit, animadvertit—the sin from which man turns not, God looks to it; and if he look to it, sure he will punish it.—William Cowper.

Verse 9.—“All mine iniquities.” See how one sin calleth to mind many thousands, which though they lie asleep a long time, like a sleeping debt, yet we know not how soon they may be reckoned for. Make sure of a general pardon, and take heed of adding new sins to the old.—John Trapp.

Verse 10.—“Create in me a clean heart, O God.” O thou that createdst the first heaven and the first earth of nothing! O thou that createst the new heaven and the new earth (wherein dwells righteousness), when sin had made the creature worse than nothing! O thou that createst the new creature, the new man, fit to be an inhabitant of the new world, of the new Jerusalem! O thou that hast said, “Behold, I make all things new:” create thou in me, even in me, “a clean heart; and renew a right spirit within me.”—Matthew Lawrence.

Verse 10.—“Create in me a clean heart, O God,” etc. David prayeth the Lord to create in him a new heart, not to correct his old heart, but to create him a new heart; showing that his heart was like an old garment, so rotten and tattered that he could make no good of it by patching or piecing, but even must cut it off, and take a new. Therefore Paul saith, “Cast off the old man;” not pick him and wash him till he be clean, but cast him off and begin anew, as David did. Will ye know what this renewing is? It is the repairing of the image of God, until we be like Adam when he dwelt in Paradise. As there is a whole old man, so there must be a whole new man. The old man must change with the new man, wisdom for wisdom, love for love, fear for fear; his worldly wisdom for heavenly wisdom, his carnal love for spiritual love, his servile fear for Christian fear, his idle thoughts for holy thoughts, his vain words for wholesome words, his fleshly works for sanctified works.—Henry Smith.

Verse 10.—“Create in me a clean heart.” Creating, to speak properly, is to make of nought, and is here used improperly. The prophet speaketh according to his own feeling and present judgment of himself, as though he had lost all, and had no goodness in himself. No doubt the prophet’s heart was in part clean, though not so much as he desired. These things thus opened, here cometh a question first to be answered. Quest. Whether David could have lost the cleanness of heart, having once had it? Ans. No. The gifts and calling of God, that is (as I take it), the gifts of effectual calling, are such as God never repenteth of or taketh away. Faith, hope, and charity are abiding gifts, as sure as the election of God, which is unchangeable. Indeed, the children of God, if we only considered them in themselves with their enemies, might fall away, but being founded upon the unchangeable nature of God, and immutability of his counsel, they cannot, the gates of hell shall not prevail against them, the elect cannot be deceived or plucked out of Christ’s hands. Nay, certain it is that David did not actually leave his former cleanness. For sure it is, his heart smiting him (as here it did), so doing before in less matters, it was not wholly void of cleanness. And again, it could not pray for cleanness if it were not somewhat clean. This is most sure, that by grievous sins much filthiness cometh to the soul, as by a boisterous wind a tree may lose his leaves and some branches, so as that the party sinning may be brought into as great passions almost as if he had lost all, but the desire of grace is an infallible certainty of some grace of that kind. The prophet therefore desireth not a clean heart because he had it not in any sort, but because he could not so well perceive it in himself, and take such comfort in it as he had done before, and for that he desired it a great deal more than now he had it. So learned, so rich men, think themselves not learned, not rich, in respect of that which they do desire, and when the sun is up, the moon seemeth to have no light.—George Estey, in “Certaine Godly and Learned Expositions,” 1603.

Verse 10.—“Create in me a clean heart, O God,” etc. This “creation” is from nothing. David uses the same word of our creation which Moses uses of “the creation of the heaven and the earth.” Our creation “in Jesus Christ” is no mere strengthening of our powers, no mere aiding of our natural weakness by the might of the grace of God, it is not a mere amendment, improvement of our moral habits; it is a creation out of nothing, of that which we had not before. There was nothing in us whereof to make it. We were decayed, corrupt, dead in trespasses and sins. What is dead becometh not alive, except by the infusion of what it had not. What is corrupt receiveth not soundness, save by passing away itself and being replaced by a new production. “The old man” passeth not into the new man, but is “put off.” It is not the basis of the new life, but a hindrance to it. It must be “put off” and the new man “put on,” “created in Christ Jesus.”—E. B. Pusey, D.D., 1853.

Verse 10 (first clause).—He used the word create (Heb. bara), a word only used of the work of God, and showing that the change in him could be wrought only by God.—Christopher Wordsworth.

Verse 10.—“A clean heart.” The priest was required to make a strict examination of the skin of the leper before he could pronounce him clean; David prays God to make his heart clean.—W. Wilson.

Verse 10.—“A right spirit.” A steadfast spirit, i.e., a mind steady in following the path of duty.—French and Skinner.

Verses 10-12.—Who was to do this work? Not himself; God alone. Therefore, he prays: “O God, create—O Lord, renew; uphold by thy Spirit.”—Adam Clarke.

Verse 11.—“Cast me not away from thy presence.” David lamented before that sin had slain him, and made him like a dead man, wanting a heart or quickening spirit; and now he fears lest, as the dead are abhorred by the living, so the Lord should cast him as a dead and abominable thing out of his presence. Whereof we learn this is one of the just punishments of sin; it procures the casting out of a man from the face of God; and it may let us see how dear bought are the pleasures of sin when a man to enjoy the face of the creature deprives himself of the comfortable face of the Creator; as David here, for the carnal love of the face of Bathsheba, puts himself in danger to be cast out for ever from the presence of the Lord his God. If a man could remember this in all Satan’s temptations, what it is that the deceiver offers, and what it is again that he seeks, he would be loth to buy the perishing pleasures of sin upon such a price as Satan selleth them, but would answer him as the apostle did Simon Magus. “Thy money, with thyself, go into perdition;” thy gain, thy glory, thy pleasure, and whatever thou wouldst give me to offend the Lord my God, go with thyself into perdition, for what canst thou offer unto me comparable to that which thou wouldst steal from me?