Psalm 51:7-10
(7) Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
(8) Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
(9) Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities. (10) Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
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David grasped the major difference between the hearts of God and humans. He uses the same Hebrew term for “create” as Moses uses in Genesis 1:1, when God created the heavens and the earth. Man's heart does not have the foundational goodness of our holy God's heart.
His primary request in the psalm concerns his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the arranged murder of Uriah. He first craved forgiveness and cleansing of those sins, but he also undoubtedly wanted his heart to be created anew so that he would never repeat such sinful conduct. He desired the nature of his heart in pristine condition so he could truly glorify God. David is asking God to fulfill in him what Paul speaks of in II Corinthians 5:16-17:
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
This renewal of the heart is not simply godly righteousness legally added to a carnal human heart. The new heart is not merely a repair of the old one. David speaks of an entirely new, clean heart and of a mind generated and motivated by God's Holy Spirit. It is a completely new creation of God, paralleling what Adam underwent as God created him in Genesis 1. Was not Adam a new creation at that time?
— John W. Ritenbaugh
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