Psalm 51:7

Verse 7. Hyssop. Between twenty and thirty different plants have been proposed, but no one of them comes so near the above requirements as the caper plant (Capparis spinosa). It grows "out of the wall;" its stalks supply both bunch and rod admirably fitted for the ends indicated; and it has ever been esteemed in the East as possessing cleansing properties. John Duns, D.D., in "Biblica; Natural Science."

Verse 7. Hyssop. What a pity that Solomon's botany is lost, in which he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall! The cedar we know, but what is the hyssop of the royal botanist? Mr. B---, French consul of this city (Sidon), and an enthusiastic botanist, exhibited to me two varieties of hyssop; one, called ztar by the Arabs, having the fragrance of thyme, with a hot, pungent taste, and long, slender stems. A bunch of these would answer very well for sprinkling the paschal and sacrificial blood on the lintel and posts of the doors, and over the persons and houses cleansed from the leprosy. Mr. B---, however, thinks that a very small green plant, like a moss which covers old walls in damp places, is the hyssop of Solomon. This I doubt. The other kind also springs out of walls, those of the garden especially, and was much more likely to attract the attention of the royal student. W. M. Thomson, D.D., in "The Land and the Book."

Verse 7. The paraphrase of this verse in the Chaldee is: "Thou wilt sprinkle me like the priest, which sprinkleth the unclean with the purifying waters, with hyssop, with the ashes of an heifer, and I shall be clean." John Morison.

Verse 7. I shall be whiter than snow. But how is this possible? All the dyers on earth cannot dye a red into a white; and how, then, is it possible that my sins which are as red as scarlet should ever be made as white as snow? Indeed such retrogradation is no work of human art; it must be only his doing who brought the sun ten degrees back in the dial of Ahaz: for God hath a nitre of grace that can bring not only the redness of scarlet sins, but even the blackness of deadly sins, into its native purity and whiteness again. But say it be possible, yet what need is there of so great a whiteness, as to be "whiter than snow"? seeing snow is not as paries dealbatus, a painted wall, white without and foul within; but it is white, intus et in cute, within and without, throughout and all over; and what eye so curious but such a whiteness may content? Yet such a whiteness will not serve, for I may be as white as snow and yet a leper still; as it is said of Gehazi that "he went from Elisha a leper as white as snow:" it must be therefore whiter than snow. And such a whiteness it is that God's washing works upon us, makes within us; for no snow is so white in the eyes of men as a soul cleansed from sin is in the sight of God. And yet, a whiter whiteness than this too; for being purged from sin we shall, induere stolam album, put on the whiter robe; and this is a whiteness as much whiter than snow as angelical whiteness is more than elemental. Sir Richard Baker.

Verse 7. In the Hebrew language there are two words to express the different kinds of washing, and they are always used with the strictest propriety; the one, to signify that kind of washing which pervades the substance of the thing washed, and cleanses it thoroughly; and the other to express that kind of washing which only cleanses the surface of a substance which the water cannot penetrate. The former is applied to the washing of clothes; the latter is used for washing some part of the body. By a beautiful and strong metaphor, David uses the former word in this and in Psalms 51:2 : "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin;" wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. So in Jeremiah 4:14 , the same word is applied to the heart. Richard Mant.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 7. Here is,