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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Psalms 51:11:
Psalm 51:7-12
Excerpted from: Psalm 51 (Part Three): Verses 5-12These hang together, these six verses, 7 through 12, in the structure of Psalm 51. It is a second plea for mercy in the first coupled verses here. And then the second part, let us just call it, David's prayer for restoration. So you have these two things. He is asking for cleanliness here. He is asking to be cleaned up and he is asking for restoration. So David prays for God's forgiveness in verses 7 and 9. He asked for in verse 8, a renewal of joy. And then he asked for full restoration to God's favor with the focus on God working in him through His Spirit. That is verses 10 through 12. Now, let us take each verse as it comes.
Verse 7 is another standard parallel couplet, where the first and second halves mirror each other. "Purge me with hyssop" and "wash me" are equated, and "clean" and "whiter than snow" are also equated. Isaiah uses a similar metaphor in Isaiah 1. Let us just read that quickly.
Now what David does here back in Psalm 51:7, is that he is using the language of ritual washing. Remember, this is the Old Testament Tabernacle and later the Temple would be there for people to make themselves clean by doing certain things so that they would become ritually clean. David compares himself here to someone unclean. He is a leper or he is one defiled by something unclean, like a corpse. If you want to go look at that one, that is in Numbers 19:18. That a person who touched a corpse would be unclean.
And what he is doing here is he is asking these things of God because he sees God as his priest. He is the one that he would confess his uncleanness to. And He is the one, then, that would cleanse him from his defilement. If you would look in Leviticus 14:4-7, you will see there that lepers had to present themselves before the priest for purification. In Luke 5:12-14, this is what Jesus told the leper that he healed to do. In that ceremony of purification, the priest, satisfied that the leper had met all the requirements for purification, would take a bunch of hyssop (and hyssop is an aromatic plant similar to marjoram or perhaps thyme), and he would dip that in water and sprinkle that water on the person as an act, a ritual act of cleansing. And then he would declare the formerly unclean person to be clean.
Now, David, in this verse, shows his awareness that the ritual was just an outward expression of the spiritual act of God. That is, his cleansing and forgiving spiritually. But he goes right past the physical priest and goes straight to God to remove his guilt and declare him clean. He wants to be made new.
Let us go on to verse 8. "Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which You have broken may rejoice." Here, David contrasts the purified state with this sinful state. Sin brings no joy. (Remember Casey when he struck out, no joy in Mudville.) David has said thus, that he has struck out in a bad way and there is no joy in his life. Just brokenness. And this brokenness, he says, is a result of God's displeasure with him, God's displeasure with the sin in him. And it can be seen in the automatic curses and effects that sin activates. We sin and these things come upon us. There is no way to stop it. When we sin, bad things just follow. It cannot produce good things and it is certainly not going to produce any joy.
Real joy only comes through living in peace and goodness with God, walking side-by-side with Him. Or we might say, walking in His steps. Doing what is right. And this is the reason why joy is more than an emotion. More than just happiness or a good feeling. You know, our feelings can betray us. We can take what we call joy in evil things. But that is not joy, that is self-deception. Joy is being at one with God and doing the things that produce goodness. Joy is a fruit of God's Spirit at work. Not just that it is in you, but at work. It is at work in a person's godly life. It comes by resting in the Lord, you might say. Something that comes out of Psalm 37:7, which if you follow the … . . .
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