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  • From: ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk (Ben Crick)
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Psalm 51:5
  • Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 21:54:20 +0000


On Mon 10 Jan 2000 (11:16:28), wross AT farmerstel.com wrote:
> I have a question regarding the proper translation (and hence,
> interpretation) of Psalm 51:5. Here are some popular translations:
> [snipped]
>
> My theory is that this verse is not teaching anything about David, but is
> rather David expressing loathing for himself by criminalizing his own
> birth. I would paraphrase it:
>
> "My mother screwed up when she had me - it was a sin for her to conceive
> me!"
>
> ...and thus David "curses his day" as did Job in Job 3:
> [snipped]

Dear Bill,

You must be aware that the interpretation of Psalm 51:5 is a theological
and doctrinal minefield. I'll try to tread carefully...

The normally accepted "Sitz im Leben" of Psalm 51 is that it is David's
repentance of his guilt concerning his adultery with Bathsheba, and the
murder of her husband Uriah the Hittite, as the Title indicates. David
is not trying to excuse himself by blaming his mother for his sinful
nature; on the contrary, he is bewailing his own waywardness from his
mother's womb upwards.

This is a very /personal/ Lament. "Have mercy upon ME... blot out MY
transgressions. Wash ME throughly from MY iniquity, and cleanse ME from
MY sin. For I acknowledge MY transgressions: and MY sin is ever before ME.
Against thee only have I sinned...". He is bewailing his real sins; not
Birth Sin or Original Sin or Imputed Sin. From as early as he can remember,
from his mother's womb, he had a "bent" for doing evil. He is not talking
about any imagined sin on his parents' part. Compare Psalm 58:3, "The wicked
are estranged *from their birth*: they go astray as soon as they are born,
speaking lies".

You mention Job 3. I would refer you to Job 14:1-4. Here Job muses on the
shortness and brutishness of life: "Man that is born of a woman is of few
days, and full of trouble.... Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
not one". Like begets like; ever since Eve and Cain, sinners beget sinners.
In Job 3, Job is maintaining his innocence; in Psalm 51, David is wallowing
in his guilt.

IIRC, it was Hugo Grotius, 1583-1645, who first suggested that Psalm 51:5
meant that David was the son of Jesse and an unnamed harlot. That's why
David was sent out of the way looking after the sheep whilst his legitimate
brothers were paraded before Samuel. According to 1 Samuel 17:12-14, David
was the youngest of eight sons of Jesse. But nowhere is any slur cast on the
legitimacy of any of them. Saul called his own son "son of a perverse woman"
(1 Samuel 20:30); if he could have said the same of the son of Jesse, he
surely would have done so!

If Psalm 86 is Davidic (L:DaWiD), then David prays in verse 16 "...save the
son of *thy handmaid*". This does not square with Grotius' interpretation of
Psalm 51:5 concerning David's mother. David clearly respected his mother
in accordance with the Fifth Commandment.

Shalom,
Ben
--
Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
<ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk>
232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm







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