Psalm 51 explained

In Hebrew, "Purify me with hyssop" (51:7) is the verb of "I have sinned" (51:4). And "Create in me a clean heart" (51:10) uses the verb of "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1): nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible is a heart what it creates.

The psalm's title says when: "A Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba" (51:1). 2 Samuel 11 and 12 tell those events, and these notes don't retell them. 2 Samuel 12 begins, "The LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him" (2 Samuel 12:1). In Hebrew the title's came to him and that verse's He came to him are the same verb with the same word for to him, and the title uses the verb again for what came before: "after he had gone in to Bathsheba" (51:1). Then the prayer begins: "Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness" (51:1) (tap mercy). Inside the psalm the psalmist speaks to God from first to last and names no one else, and the psalm never says what he did or names anyone he wronged; the nearest it comes is "Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God" (51:14), and it doesn't say whose blood. 2 Samuel 12's notes set some of the psalm's words beside Nathan's and David's; these notes add the Hebrew they share (see The words of Nathan's visit, below).

The WEB prints the title as the start of verse 1: "For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba" (51:1). Inside the psalm, the psalmist speaks only to God and names no one else.

Psalm 51:1

בָּרָאbara'say ba-RAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "shape, create". Strong's: "(absolutely) to create". "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (51:10). It is the verb of the Bible's first sentence: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), and Genesis 1's notes say who does it. The Psalms have it six times in Hebrew, as in "You send out your Spirit and they are created" (Psalm 104:30). In the Hebrew Bible, this is the only verse where what it creates is a heart.

"For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me" (51:3). What makes it hard to say plainly to God what you have done wrong, and what helps?