Five-minute study · Day 29 · Psalms 51
Psalm 51:10
A word worth stopping on: create בָּרָא bara
David has been caught. Nathan the prophet has walked into the palace and told a story about a rich man who stole a poor man's only lamb. David, furious, demanded justice. Nathan pointed at him: you are the man. Psalm 51 is what David wrote afterward. In verse 10 he uses a Hebrew verb that appears only with God as the subject. No human, no angel, no force of nature ever performs this action in the entire Old Testament. David is asking for something only the Creator can do.
Word study: create
- Hebrew
- בָּרָא
- Pronounced
- bara
- Strong's
- H1254
- Definition
- To create from nothing, to bring into existence by divine power alone. Used exclusively in the Old Testament with God as the subject.
Bara occurs 54 times in the Old Testament. In every instance, God is the one doing it. No human ever bara. No angel. No king. The verb is reserved. Genesis 1:1: God bara the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:27: God bara humanity. Isaiah 43:1: God bara Israel. The word marks actions that belong to God alone.
David knows other Hebrew words for making things. Yatsar means to form or shape, like a potter. Asah means to make or produce. Both can have human subjects. A craftsman yatsar a pot. A builder asah a house. David reaches past both of those words and uses bara. Create in me a clean heart, O God.
The request is an admission. David bypasses repair entirely. The clean heart he needs cannot be renovated from the dirty one he has. It must be created. And only one Person in the universe has the authority to do that.
Historical context · Approximately 1000 BC onward
The Psalm That Changed Worship
The superscription of Psalm 51 ties it to a specific event: 'when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.' Second Samuel 11-12 provides the narrative. David saw. David took. David covered it up with a murder. Nathan exposed the entire sequence.
The psalm became central to Jewish and Christian penitential practice. In the Jewish liturgical tradition, Psalm 51 is recited on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The early church adopted it as the first of the seven Penitential Psalms. Augustine wrote an entire commentary on it. The Reformers quoted verse 10 constantly.
Verses 16-17 contain a claim that would have been radical in David's context: 'You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.' The Temple sacrificial system was the mechanism for dealing with sin. David, the king who would commission the Temple's construction, wrote that what God actually wants lives deeper than any altar. A broken and contrite heart, he says, God will not despise. The verb bara in verse 10 is the prerequisite. Only God can create what only God will accept.
For reflection
David did not ask God to improve his heart. He asked God to create one. Sit with the difference. Where have you been asking God to fix something that may need to be made new entirely? Write it down. Then read the verse aloud as your own prayer.
Bara is about origin, not renovation. Let the word carry its full weight.
Sources: BDB Lexicon; Goldingay, 'Psalms' (Baker Commentary); Kraus, 'Psalms 1-59' (Continental Commentary)