Discovery BoxNumbers 5:23
Context5:23 “‘Then the priest will write these curses on a scroll and then scrape them off into the bitter water. 1
Nehemiah 4:5
Context4:5 Do not cover their iniquity, and do not wipe out their sin from before them. For they have bitterly offended 2 the builders! 3
Psalms 51:1
ContextFor the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. 5
51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of 6 your loyal love!
Because of 7 your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! 8
Psalms 51:9
Context51:9 Hide your face 9 from my sins!
Wipe away 10 all my guilt!
Isaiah 43:25
Context43:25 I, I am the one who blots out your rebellious deeds for my sake;
your sins I do not remember.
Isaiah 44:22
Context44:22 I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud,
the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. 11
Come back to me, for I protect 12 you.”
Acts 3:19
Context3:19 Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out,
[5:23] 1 sn The words written on the scroll were written with a combination of ingredients mixed into an ink. The idea is probably that they would have been washed or flaked off into the water, so that she drank the words of the curse – it became a part of her being.
[4:5] 2 tn The Hiphil stem of כָּעַס (ka’as) may mean: (1) “to provoke to anger”; (2) “to bitterly offend”; or (3) “to grieve” (BDB 495 s.v. Hiph.; HALOT 491 s.v. כעס hif). The Hebrew lexicons suggest that “bitterly offend” is the most appropriate nuance here.
[4:5] 3 tn Heb “before the builders.” The preposition נֶגֶד (neged, “before”) here connotes “in the sight of” or “in the view of” (BDB 617 s.v. 1.a; HALOT 666 s.v. 1.a).
[51:1] 4 sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586
[51:1] 5 tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”
[51:1] 6 tn Or “according to.”
[51:1] 7 tn Or “according to.”
[51:1] 8 tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”
[51:9] 9 sn In this context Hide your face from my sins means “Do not hold me accountable for my sins.”
[51:9] 10 tn See the note on the similar expression “wipe away my rebellious acts” in v. 1.
[44:22] 11 tn Heb “I blot out like a cloud your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud your sins.” “Rebellious deeds” and “sins” stand by metonymy for the guilt they produce. Both עָב (’av) and עָנָן (’anan) refer to the clouds in the sky. It is tempting for stylistic purposes to translate the second with “fog” or “mist” (cf. NAB, NRSV “cloud…mist”; NIV “cloud…morning mist”; NLT “morning mists…clouds”), but this distinction between the synonyms is unwarranted here. The point of the simile seems to be this: The Lord forgives their sins, causing them to vanish just as clouds disappear from the sky (see Job 7:9; 30:15).
