51:9 Hide your face 1 from my sins!
Wipe away 2 all my guilt!
51:10 Create for me a pure heart, O God! 3
Renew a resolute spirit within me! 4
51:11 Do not reject me! 5
Do not take your Holy Spirit 6 away from me! 7
51:12 Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!
Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey! 8
51:13 Then I will teach 9 rebels your merciful ways, 10
and sinners will turn 11 to you.
1 sn In this context Hide your face from my sins means “Do not hold me accountable for my sins.”
2 tn See the note on the similar expression “wipe away my rebellious acts” in v. 1.
3 sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s motives and moral character.
4 tn Heb “and a reliable spirit renew in my inner being.”
5 tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”
6 sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”
7 sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).
8 tn Heb “and [with] a willing spirit sustain me.” The psalmist asks that God make him the kind of person who willingly obeys the divine commandments. The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.
9 tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. This may be a vow or promise. If forgiven, the psalmist will “repay” the Lord by declaring God’s mercy and motivating other sinners to repent.
10 tn Heb “your ways.” The word “merciful” is added for clarification. God’s “ways” are sometimes his commands, but in this context, where the teaching of God’s ways motivates repentance (see the next line), it is more likely that God’s merciful and compassionate way of dealing with sinners is in view. Thanksgiving songs praising God for his deliverance typically focus on these divine attributes (see Pss 34, 41, 116, 138).
11 tn Or “return,” i.e., in repentance.
12 tn Grk “And he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
13 sn The proverb Physician, heal yourself! means that Jesus should prove his claims. It is a “Prove it to us!” mentality that Jesus says the people have.
14 sn The remark “What we have heard that you did at Capernaum” makes many suspect that Luke has moved this event forward in sequence to typify what Jesus’ ministry was like, since the ministry in Capernaum follows in vv. 31-44. The location of this event in the parallel of Mark 6:1-6 also suggests this transposition.
15 tn Grk “answered and said to them.” The expression, redundant in English, has been simplified to “replied.”
16 tn Grk “Jesus I know about.” Here ᾿Ιησοῦν (Ihsoun) is in emphatic position in Greek, but placing the object first is not normal in contemporary English style.
17 tn BDAG 380 s.v. ἐπίσταμαι 2 has “know, be acquainted with τινά…τὸν Παῦλον Ac 19:15.” Here the translation “be acquainted with” was used to differentiate from the previous phrase which has γινώσκω (ginwskw).
18 sn But who are you? This account shows how the power of Paul was so distinct that parallel claims to access that power were denied. In fact, such manipulation, by those who did not know Jesus, was judged (v. 16). The indirect way in which the exorcists made the appeal shows their distance from Jesus.