Psalms 51 Footnotes

51:10 The heart is the spiritual nature of a person, the center of the will, the capacity for making choices. The prayer is for God to re-create (renew, as the parallelism in the verse shows) that spiritual side, lest he continue to make wrong choices. Forgiveness may not be enough to solve the problem; there must be a complete spiritual renewal. The forgiven worshiper is not the old person cleaned up; he is a new person (Ezk 18:31; 1Co 5:17).

51:11 At Pentecost the risen and ascended Christ sent his Holy Spirit (Ac 2:32-33) to abide with every believer. But before the incarnation and resurrection of the Son of God, the Spirit appears to function differently in the life of the people of God. The Spirit “came upon” or “indwelt” people responsible for administering the rule of God: prophets, priests, and kings. The presence of God’s Spirit set them apart and enabled them to lead (Is 61:1), but his indwelling was not always permanent as it is in the NT. Thus, when Saul sinned against the Lord and was rejected from kingship, the Spirit left him (1Sm 16:14). David the king probably had this possibility in mind. His prayer is a typical OT petition that he not be removed from service because of his sin. Christians would not express this thought in the same way; since Jesus Christ lives and reigns, his Holy Spirit indwells them permanently as the seal of eternal life. Still, NT believers can pray the same thing David meant: “Do not banish me from your presence.” (On the Holy Spirit in the OT, see Jdg 3:10; 1Sm 18:12.)