PURGE ME WITH HYSSOP, AND I SHALL BE CLEAN: WASH ME, AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW

This is another of the penitential psalms of David, in which he faced the repercussions of his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder by proxy of her husband Uriah, 2 Sam. 11. Almost a year after the events, he considered the past, vv. 1-5, present, vv. 6-12, and future, vv. 13-19, of his life before God.

When he considered the past, David realized that forgive­ness could never come through his personal or official merit. He cast himself on the mercy and lovingkindness of God. He did not confess in general terms but spoke of his transgressions, his iniq­uity and sin, vv. 1-3. He went further and spoke of an act of evil that had sprung from a sinful nature. David had traced the source of his actions back to the moment of conception, when a sinful nature was first imparted to him, vv. 4, 5. He made the great discovery that he had sinned because he was a sinner!

When he considered the present, David understood that only sacrificial blood could cleanse his guilt, ‘Purge me with hys­sop and I shall be clean’. Hyssop was used to ceremonially apply the blood of the sacrifice, Exod. 12. 22; Lev. 14. 6, 7. But he also asked for a washing that would make him ‘whiter than snow’. God has always maintained a distinction between the blood and the water. Blood meets the demands of God and water meets the need of man. Blood is for judicial cleansing; water is for moral cleansing. That is why John bore witness to the fact that ‘one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water’, John 19. 34.

When he considered the future, David desired that others would be preserved from sinning and so he affirmed that he would ‘teach transgressors thy ways’, v. 13. The sin of blood guiltiness pointed forward to Israel’s national guilt at Calvary. The man who had kept silent about his sin would open his mouth to sing praise to his God, vv. 14-15. He recognized that behind the ceremonies of the law there was a spiritual reality, vv. 16, 17. He was also keenly aware that he had lost moral rights as Israel’s king, so he commended the nation into God’s hands and looked to a future of spiritual prosperity, vv. 18,19.