John Gill Commentary Psalms 51:7

"Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." — Psalms 51:7 (ASV)

Purge me with hyssop
Or "you shall purge me with hyssop" {f}; or "expiate me"; which was used in sprinkling the blood of the paschal lamb on the door posts of the Israelites in Egypt, that the destroying angel might pass over them, (Exodus 12:22Exodus 12:23); and in the cleansing of the leper, (Leviticus 14:4–7); and in the purification of one that was unclean by the touch of a dead body (Numbers 19:6Numbers 19:18); which the Targum on the text has respect to.

And this petition of the psalmist shows that he saw himself a guilty creature, and in danger of the destroying angel, and a filthy creature like the leper, and deserving to be excluded from the society of the saints, and the house of God; and that he had respect not hereby to ceremonial sprinklings and purifications, for them he would have applied to a priest; but to the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, typified thereby; and therefore he applies to God to purge his conscience with it; and, as Suidas ^F7 from Theodoret observes, hyssop did not procure remission of sins, but has a mystical signification, and refers to what was meant by the sprinkling of the blood of the passover; and then he says,

and I shall be clean ;
thoroughly clean; for the blood sprinkled on the heart by the spirit clears it from an evil conscience, purges the conscience from dead works, and cleanses from all sin;

wash me ;
or "you shall wash me" ^F8 ; alluding to the washing at the cleansing of a leper, and the purification of an unclean person, (Leviticus 14:8) (Numbers 19:19); but had in view the fountain of Christ's blood, in which believers are washed from all their sins, (Zechariah 13:1) (Revelation 1:5);

and I shall be whiter than snow ;
who was black with original corruption, and actual transgressions; but the blood of Christ makes not only the conversation garments white that are washed in it; but even crimson and scarlet sins as white as wool, as white as snow, and the persons of the saints without spot or blemish, (Revelation 7:14) (Isaiah 1:18) (Ephesians 5:25–27); "whiter than the snow" is a phrase used by Homer ^F9 , and others, to describe what is exceeding white.

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FOOTNOTES:

• F7: In voce (usswpov).
• F8: (ynobkt) "lavabis me", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Musculus, Cocceius.
• F9: Iliad. 10. v. 437. So Martial. l. 7. Epigr. 27. Ovid. Amor. l. 3. Eleg. 6.