Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Psalm 51:10-12
Grace is getting what you don’t deserve; justice is getting exactly what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you really deserve. David knew that, and that’s why, following his affair with Bathsheba, he pled with God for mercy. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions,” he cried.
Those are the opening words of David’s prayer found in Psalm 51, the most emotion-laden and yet tender plea for forgiveness for the sin of infidelity in all of literature—both secular and biblical.
David begins assuming full responsibility for what happened. When confronted by Nathan, David immediately confessed, “I have sinned!” One commentator put it: “There is no evasion of responsibility here on the grounds of chance circumstances or an instinctive urge; no blaming of ignorance, necessity or evil agency; no attempt to make Bathsheba share the guilt of adultery and murder.”
“Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin,” he cries out. What David felt, millions today, striving to come back from an adulterous relationship with somebody, lack: genuine repentance and sorrow for wrongdoing. That’s much different than feeling bad that you got caught, or being embarrassed by the gossip that has gone the rounds.
The verbs that David used speak of the depth of emotional feeling and repentance. They include, “blot out, wash, cleanse, create, renew, restore, save”—all powerful words that speak of forgiveness and cleansing.
There are at least eight separate petitions in David’s prayer. He begins by praying, “Purge me with hyssop; and I shall be clean.” Hyssop was a brush-like plant, used to sprinkle blood on the doorframes during Passover, a practice that began in Egypt. Then he says, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” There were two words in Hebrew which could have been used. One is a simple washing such as you would use of a dirty dish or a pan. The other was the word used of a soiled garment which you would take down to the river and beat it on the rocks until the stain comes out entirely. It was this word that David used. Isaiah later wrote, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
Knowing that there is no singing or joy in the home injured by an affair, David asks, “Make me to hear joy and gladness.” He continues, “Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.” There’s an interesting thing here. David called it what it is—not a moral failure, not a poor choice, not a mistake—but sin, using the terminology that God uses, the only one for which there is forgiveness. Be done with the psychological babble that refuses to recognize adultery than anything less than sin, first against God, as David saw it, then against our wives, our husbands, our children—the other person: ourselves too.
“Create in me a clean heart,” he prayed, “and renew a right spirit,” realizing the issues of life, including temptation and how we deal with it, come from within the heart.
And then David asked that God would not cast him away from His presence, or take away His Holy Spirit, but restore again the joy of his salvation. And did God answer David’s prayer? Yes, He did! David wrote, “There is forgiveness with thee, that you may be feared.” (Psalm 130:4).
If you find yourself in an adulterous relationship and want healing, go to Psalm 51. It’s God’s roadmap back home.
Resource reading: Psalm 51:1-19
