Bible Strands
Psalms 51:5
Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David, after Nathan's confrontation over Bathsheba and Uriah, confessing to YHWH. The moment is raw penitence, not liturgical recitation.
The words — חֵמָה (chēmâ, "she conceived") pushes the claim back to the instant of conception, not merely birth; עָוֹן ('āwôn, "iniquity") and חֵטְא (chēṭāʾ, "sin") are stacked to say the condition is total.
The thread — Job 14:4 asks who can bring clean from unclean; Psalms 58:3 says the wicked are estranged from the womb; Romans 5:12 traces sin's entry through one man to all.
Why it lands — It forces the reader to decide whether sin is something that happens to a person or something a person is, and to stop treating repentance as mere behavioral correction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Cross-references
- Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.
- Job 14:4 Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!
- Psalms 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; the liars go astray from birth.
- Job 15:14 What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?
- Ephesians 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.
- John 3:6 Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.
- Genesis 5:3 When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth.
- Genesis 8:21 When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.