Bible Strands
Psalms 51:9
Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God directly in a moment of repentance, situated between a plea for restored joy and a request for inner renewal. The speaker is the one who has been crushed and now seeks cleansing.
The words — The imperative הַסְתֵּר (has.Ter) means "hide," and מְחֵֽה (me.Cheh) means "wipe out." The text commands God to conceal His face from the speaker's sins and erase all iniquities.
The thread — The request to hide God's face contrasts with Jeremiah 16:17, which states guilt is never concealed from His eyes. The command to wipe out iniquity parallels Micah 7:18's description of God pardoning transgression and Colossians 2:14's account of debt cancellation at the cross.
Why it lands — The text demands a direct appeal to God to remove the barrier of sin and cancel moral debt. A reader must acknowledge personal guilt and seek divine action rather than self-justification.
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
Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 16:17 For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from My face, and their guilt is not concealed from My eyes.
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- Colossians 2:14 having canceled the debt ascribed to us in the decrees that stood against us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross!
- Psalms 51:1 For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving devotion; according to Your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.
- Isaiah 38:17 Surely for my own welfare I had such great anguish; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of oblivion, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.