Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
David prays this after his sin with Bathsheba, and he asks God for two things he cannot do himself. What is hyssop, why that plant, and how can a guilty man end up whiter than snow?
David brings no sacrifice with his prayer. Under the law his sin had no offering attached to it.
When you come to Psalm 51 you find the sin of presumption. There is no question that David knew the awful character of the sin he was committing... Then he felt the weight of that sin, after God touched his conscience through the prophet Nathan. He could not plead ignorance, so he does not presume to bring an offering. The law provided trespass offerings and sin offerings, and offerings for the sin of a ruler too. But he could not bring one. He says God does not desire sacrifice, or he would give it. How could he bring a sacrifice for a sin that God said had no sacrifice?
Notice what the verse does not name. It names the little brush, not the blood.
Here the psalmist mentions nothing that had real power to cleanse, even in the ritual of Moses! The hyssop, of course, was only the tool for the sprinkling that really cleansed. It was used to sprinkle the Passover blood on the doorposts (Ex. 12:22). With cedar and scarlet, it was dipped with the living bird in the blood of its fellow bird. That blood was then sprinkled on the leper to cleanse him (Lev. 14:6-7). It was used in the case of someone defiled by contact with the dead, to sprinkle the water of purification on him (Num. 19:18). There is no other use of hyssop given us in the Old Testament, and it must refer to one of these.
Commentators differ over which of those three ceremonies stands behind the prayer. One writer narrows it to the ordinance of the red heifer, the rite for someone defiled by touching a dead body:
In the ordinance of the red heifer (Num. 19) the hyssop again stands out clearly as the means of sprinkling the blood. And unlike the Passover, here the blood is sprinkled on the person, to cleanse him. So the reference in the psalm would naturally be to this.
Another reads it of the leper's cleansing, and draws out the two halves of the verse — blood first, then water:
He speaks of hyssop, the plant that sprinkled blood on the leper, and then he refers to washing with water. Under the law each sin called for a fresh sprinkling of blood. For us the sacrifice has been offered once for all. But beyond this the believer's soul needs the constant washing of water by the Word. Our High Priest applies it to the defilement we pick up as we walk.
Hyssop sits at the bottom of the plant world, and that is the point of choosing it.
Solomon spoke of all things, "from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springs out of the wall." Hyssop is a little thing. It does not even take root in a decent way, but springs out from between two stones! The cedar and the hyssop are the two extremes in nature, the highest and the lowest. You must take the blood up with a bunch of hyssop. That is, you must go and shelter under that precious blood. And you must go knowing full well that you are a lost soul, without a particle of worth or goodness of your own.
David asks God to do the washing, and rests the outcome on Him. One writer also warns against reading more into the words than they say.
All the psalmist can say is that if God washes him, he will be whiter than snow. In that passage it is not a question of washing with the blood of Christ. What I insist on is this: do not put into a passage what you cannot get out of it.
David names a standard higher than anything in nature.
"Wash me," he prayed, "and I shall be whiter than snow," because the purity needed for God's presence is far greater than earth's cleanest, purest, whitest covering. And he did not pray in vain. God heard his cry and answered him in grace, as he lay in the dust of self-abhorrence.
- No offering. David's sin was deliberate, and the law had no sacrifice for it — so he comes with a prayer instead of a lamb.
- Hyssop, not merit. The little plant never cleansed anything; it only applied the blood that did.
- Lowest first. Hyssop is the opposite of the cedar, so the hand that reaches for the blood is a hand that owns it has nothing of its own.
- God's verbs. "Purge me… wash me" — he asks God to do it, and the whole result rests on God.
- Whiter than snow. David does not ask to look decent. He asks to be fit for God's presence, which is cleaner than the whitest thing on earth.
Make me to hear gladness and joy; [that] the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
David's prayer names who broke the bones: God Himself. That raises two questions the commentators press — what are the broken bones, and why must a forgiven man ask to hear joy?
The verse does not blame David's enemies or his circumstances for the pain. One writer traces the breaking to God's faithful dealing with sin found in a believer's life, and reads the bones as the strength a man trusts in apart from God:
Unrepented sin in a believer gives occasion for God to deal faithfully with him, judging that sin where He finds it in the lives of His saints. This is how He breaks the bones and sinews of self-confidence. The soul learns to judge itself rightly, in the light of God's holiness and the power of His immediate presence. That prepares it for deeper lessons of divine wisdom and knowledge.
The ear that had been listening to temptation is the ear that must hear joy. And bones are not one limb — they hold the whole body up:
David also asks God to replace his hearing of temptation with the hearing of joy and gladness (v. 8): "let the bones that you have broken rejoice." The bones are the framework of the body. So the person, not his actions, is judged as a whole.
David is not working up gladness. He asks God to do everything, from clearing his conscience to reopening his ear. The prophet Nathan had already confronted him over his sin:
God must do it all. He must purge his conscience, open his ear again to the notes of joy and gladness, and open his mouth to tell transgressors of His ways of love and mercy. He must create a clean heart within him, restore to him the joy of His salvation, uphold him by His free Spirit, and deliver him from bloodguiltiness. In short, Nathan's words fell on David's heart with divine power. He cast the crushing weight of his burden on infinite grace, which works through the precious blood of atonement. So he was brought humbly to rejoice, because the question his sin had raised between his conscience and God was now perfectly settled.
What David asks to hear has a name: good news. One commentator notes that at this point David has only asked for it:
This is gospel, and he knows it as gospel: "Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice." So far it is only a prayer, but it is a prayer God Himself taught him. We too, if the gospel is "good news," should have the joy of the gospel. It is healthy and healing, even for crushed bones. "The joy of the Lord is your strength."
The joy David asks for is measured at the cross. There it is both purified and lifted higher:
The cross is the truth which sets and keeps the tone of all true spiritual feeling. Sin judged there is hated completely. Joyful and happy emotions, on the other hand, are cleared of everything fleshly. They are made sober, and at the same time raised to a still higher level of pure blessedness. This comes by looking at that wonderful truth in which the God of grace and holiness comes nearest to the soul.
God breaks, and God makes the broken rejoice. So this is a state to pray for, not to dread. One writer prays it for a whole company of believers:
May the Lord grant us broken bones, which He makes rejoice; a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart — the sacrifices of God, which He will not despise. (Ps. 51)
- Broken by God — no enemy or accident snapped these bones. Unrepented sin in a believer draws God's faithful dealing, and what breaks is "the bones and sinews of self-confidence."
- Broken whole — bones are the body's framework. The breaking reaches past the deed to the man. God judges the person, not just his actions.
- Given, not worked up — David cannot restore his own gladness. He asks God to do it all, even to reopen the ear that had been listening to temptation.
- Healed by good news — the joy he asks to hear is gospel. It works like medicine even on crushed bones, for the joy of the Lord is strength.
- Higher than before — the cross clears joy of everything fleshly and lifts it higher. That is why broken bones that rejoice are worth praying for.