Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Psalm 51:7
Give me the reality which legal ceremonies symbolise.
Nothing but blood can take away my blood stains...
Thou wilt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Foul as I am, there is such power in the divine propitiation, that my sin shall vanish quite away.
---Like the leper upon whom the priest has performed the cleansing rites, I shall again be admitted into the assembly of thy people and allowed to share in the privileges of the true Israel.
---Wash me. Let it not merely be in type that I am clean, but by a real spiritual purification, which shall remove the pollution of my nature.
---And I shall be whiter than snow. None but thyself can whiten me,....Snow soon gathers smoke and dust, it melts and disappears; thou canst give me an enduring purity.
Adam Calrke:
Purge me with hyssop - תחטאני techatteeni, thou shalt make a sin-offering for me; probably alluding to the cleansing of the leper: Leviticus 14:1, etc.
....and the ceremony above mentioned was for the purpose of declaring to the people that the man was healed, that he might be restored to his place in society, having been healed of a disease that the finger of God alone could remove.
This David seems to have full in view; hence he requests the Lord to make the sin-offering for him, and to show to the people that he had accepted him, and cleansed him from his sin.
John Wesley:
Hyssop — As lepers, are by thy appointment purified by the use of hyssop and other things, so do thou cleanse me a leprous and polluted creature, by thy grace, and by that blood of Christ, which is signified by those ceremonial usages.
Matthew Henry:
The expression here alludes to a ceremonial distinction, that of cleansing the leper, or those that were unclean by the touch of a body by sprinkling water, or blood, or both upon them with a bunch of hyssop, by which they were, at length, discharged from the restraints they were laid under by their pollution... If we be washed in this fountain opened, we shall be whiter than snow.
John Calvin:
All which David here prays for is, that God would effectually accomplish, in his experience,
--what he had signified to his Church and people by these outward rites; and in this he has set us a good example for our imitation.
--It is no doubt to the blood of Christ alone that we must look for the atonement of our sins; but we are creatures of sense, who must see with our eyes, and handle with our hands; and it is only by improving the outward symbols of propitiation that we can arrive at a full and assured persuasion of it.
What we have said of the hyssop applies also to the washings referred to in this verse, and which were commonly practiced under the Law.
