Psalms 25:11

25:11 For the sake of your reputation, ¹  O Lord,

forgive my sin, because it is great. ² 

Psalms 25:18

25:18 See my pain and suffering!

Forgive all my sins! ³ 

Psalms 51:7-10

51:7 Sprinkle me ⁴  with water ⁵  and I will be pure; ⁶ 

wash me ⁷  and I will be whiter than snow. ⁸ 

51:8 Grant me the ultimate joy of being forgiven! ⁹ 

May the bones ¹⁰  you crushed rejoice! ¹¹ 

51:9 Hide your face ¹²  from my sins!

Wipe away ¹³  all my guilt!

51:10 Create for me a pure heart, O God! ¹⁴ 

Renew a resolute spirit within me! ¹⁵ 

Psalms 51:14

51:14 Rescue me from the guilt of murder, ¹⁶  O God, the God who delivers me!

Then my tongue will shout for joy because of your deliverance. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 65:3

65:3 Our record of sins overwhelms me, ¹⁸ 

but you forgive ¹⁹  our acts of rebellion.

Psalms 130:8

130:8 He will deliver ²⁰  Israel

from all the consequences of their sins. ²¹ 

Micah 7:19

7:19 You will once again ²²  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ²³  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ²⁴  sins into the depths of the sea. ²⁵ 

Matthew 1:21

1:21 She will give birth to a son and you will name him ²⁶  Jesus, ²⁷  because he will save his people from their sins.”

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ²⁸  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ²⁹  who are eager to do good. ³⁰ 

[25:11]  ¹ tn Heb “name.” By forgiving the sinful psalmist, the Lord’s reputation as a merciful God will be enhanced.

[25:11]  ² sn Forgive my sin, because it is great. The psalmist readily admits his desperate need for forgiveness.

[25:18]  ³ tn Heb “lift up all my sins.”

[51:7]  ⁴ tn The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “cleanse me with hyssop.” “Hyssop” was a small plant (see 1 Kgs 4:33) used to apply water (or blood) in purification rites (see Exod 12:22; Lev 14:4-6, 49-52; Num 19:6-18. The psalmist uses the language and imagery of such rites to describe spiritual cleansing through forgiveness.

[51:7]  ⁶ tn After the preceding imperfect, the imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates result.

[51:7]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:7]  ⁸ sn I will be whiter than snow. Whiteness here symbolizes the moral purity resulting from forgiveness (see Isa 1:18).

[51:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “cause me to hear happiness and joy.” The language is metonymic: the effect of forgiveness (joy) has been substituted for its cause. The psalmist probably alludes here to an assuring word from God announcing that his sins are forgiven (a so-called oracle of forgiveness). The imperfect verbal form is used here to express the psalmist’s wish or request. The synonyms “happiness” and “joy” are joined together as a hendiadys to emphasize the degree of joy he anticipates.

[51:8]  ¹⁰ sn May the bones you crushed rejoice. The psalmist compares his sinful condition to that of a person who has been physically battered and crushed. Within this metaphorical framework, his “bones” are the seat of his emotional strength.

[51:8]  ¹¹ tn In this context of petitionary prayer, the prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive, expressing the psalmist’s wish or request.

[51:9]  ¹² sn In this context Hide your face from my sins means “Do not hold me accountable for my sins.”

[51:9]  ¹³ tn See the note on the similar expression “wipe away my rebellious acts” in v. 1.

[51:10]  ¹⁴ sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s motives and moral character.

[51:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and a reliable spirit renew in my inner being.”

[51:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from bloodshed.” “Bloodshed” here stands by metonymy for the guilt which it produces.

[51:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “my tongue will shout for joy your deliverance.” Another option is to take the prefixed verbal form as a jussive, “may my tongue shout for joy.” However, the pattern in vv. 12-15 appears to be prayer/request (see vv. 12, 14a, 15a) followed by promise/vow (see vv. 13, 14b, 15b).

[65:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the records of sins are too strong for me.”

[65:3]  ¹⁹ tn Or “make atonement for.”

[130:8]  ²⁰ tn Or “redeem.”

[130:8]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew noun עָוֹן (’avon) can refer to sin, the guilt sin produces, or the consequences of sin. Only here is the noun collocated with the verb פָּדָה (padah, “to redeem; to deliver”). The psalmist may refer to forgiveness per se (v. 4), but the emphasis in this context is likely on deliverance from the national consequences of sin. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 192.

[7:19]  ²² tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ²³ tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

[7:19]  ²⁵ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).

[1:21]  ²⁶ tn Grk “you will call his name.”

[1:21]  ²⁷ sn The Greek form of the name Ihsous, which was translated into Latin as Jesus, is the same as the Hebrew Yeshua (Joshua), which means “Yahweh saves” (Yahweh is typically rendered as “Lord” in the OT). It was a fairly common name among Jews in 1st century Palestine, as references to a number of people by this name in the LXX and Josephus indicate.

[2:14]  ²⁸ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ²⁹ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ³⁰ tn Grk “for good works.”