the Week of Proper 22 / Ordinary 27
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New Living Translation
Psalms 51:5
Bible Study Resources
Concordances:
- Nave'sDictionaries:
- AmericanEncyclopedias:
- InternationalDevotionals:
- DailyParallel Translations
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,And in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Beholde, I was ingendred in iniquitie: and in sinne my mother conceaued me.
Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.
I was born to do wrong, a sinner before I left my mother's womb.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquitie: and in sinne did my mother conceiue me.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Beholde, I was borne in wickednesse, and in synne hath my mother conceaued me.
I was brought forth in [a state of] wickedness; In sin my mother conceived me [and from my beginning I, too, was sinful].
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.
Truly, I was formed in evil, and in sin did my mother give me birth.
Look, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.
I have sinned and done wrong since the day I was born.
For I know my crimes, my sin confronts me all the time.
Beholde, I was borne in iniquitie, and in sinne hath my mother conceiued me.
For behold, I was formed in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive me.
For I know my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me.
See, I was born in sin and was in sin from my very beginning.
For, behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
Lo! in iniquity, was I brought forth, And, in sin, did my mother conceive me.
(50-7) For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me.
Behold, in iniquity I was born, and in sin my mother conceived me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.
I was brought into this world in sin. In sin my mother gave birth to me.
I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
Y was conseyued in wickednessis; and my modir conceyuede me in synnes.
Lo, in iniquity I have been brought forth, And in sin doth my mother conceive me.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Contextual Overview
For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time Nathan the prophet came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. 2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. 3 For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. 4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. 5 For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
shapen: Psalms 58:3, Genesis 5:3, Genesis 8:21, Job 14:4, Job 15:14-16, John 3:6, Romans 5:12, Ephesians 2:3
conceive: Heb. warm
Reciprocal: Leviticus 12:2 - If a woman Leviticus 13:45 - Unclean Leviticus 15:18 - unclean 2 Samuel 11:27 - displeased Job 11:12 - man be Job 14:1 - born Job 25:4 - how can Job 40:4 - Behold Psalms 19:12 - cleanse Proverbs 20:9 - General Proverbs 20:11 - General Proverbs 22:15 - Foolishness Ecclesiastes 9:3 - also Isaiah 7:15 - know Isaiah 48:8 - a transgressor Isaiah 64:6 - are all Jeremiah 17:9 - General Matthew 11:11 - born Matthew 15:27 - Truth Mark 9:21 - How Luke 1:35 - that Luke 11:13 - being John 9:34 - wast Romans 7:18 - that in me Romans 9:11 - the children
Gill's Notes on the Bible
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,.... This cannot be understood of any personal iniquity of his immediate parents; since this respects his wonderful formation in the womb, in which both he and they were wholly passive, as the word here used is of that form; and is the amazing work of God himself, so much admired by the psalmist,
Psalms 139:13; and cannot design any sinfulness then infused into him by his Maker, seeing God cannot be the author of sin; but of original sin and corruption, derived to him by natural generation: and the sense is, that as soon as ever the mass of human nature was shaped and quickened, or as soon as soul and body were united together, sin was in him, and he was in sin, or became a sinful creature;
and in sin did my mother conceive me; by whom cannot be meant Eve; for though she is the mother of all living, and so of David, yet could not, with any propriety, be said to conceive him: this only could be said of his immediate parent, not even of his next grandmother, much less of Eve, at the distance of almost three thousand years. Nor does the sin in which he was conceived intend any sin of his parents, in begetting and conceiving him, being in lawful wedlock; which acts cannot be sinful, since the propagation of the human species by natural generation is a principle of nature implanted by God himself; and is agreeably to the first law of nature, given to man in a state of innocence, "increase and multiply", Genesis 1:28. Marriage is the institution of God in paradise; and in all ages has been accounted "honourable in all, [when] the bed is undefiled", Hebrews 13:4. Nor does it design his being conceived when his mother was in "profluviis", of which there is no proof, and is a mere imagination, and can answer no purpose; much less that he was conceived in adultery, as the contenders for the purity of human nature broadly intimate; which shows how much they are convicted by this text, to give into such an interpretation of it, at the expense of the character of an innocent person, of whom there is not the least suggestion of this kind in the Holy Scriptures; but on the contrary, she is represented as a religious woman, and David valued himself upon his relation to her as such, Psalms 86:16. Besides, had this been the case, as David would have been a bastard, he would not have been suffered to enter into the congregation of the Lord, according to the law in Deuteronomy 23:2; whereas he often did with great delight, Psalms 42:4. Moreover, it is beside his scope and design to expose the sins of others, much less his own parents, while he is confessing and lamenting his own iniquities: and to what purpose should he mention theirs, especially if he himself was not affected by them, and did not derive a corrupt nature from them? Nor is the sin he speaks of any actual sin of his own, and therefore he does not call it, as before, "my" iniquity and "my" sin; though it was so, he having sinned in Adam, and this being in his nature; but "iniquity" and "sin", it being common to him with all mankind. Hence we learn the earliness of the corruption of nature; it is as soon as man is conceived and shapen; and that it is propagated from one to another by natural generation; and that it is the case of all men: for if this was the case of David, who was born of religious parents, was famous for his early piety, and from whose seed the Messiah sprung, it may well be concluded to be the case of all. And this corruption of nature is the fountain, source, and spring of all sin, secret and open, private and public; and is mentioned here not as an extenuation of David's actual transgressions, but as an aggravation of them; he having been, from his conception and formation, nothing else but a mass of sin, a lump of iniquity; and, in his evangelical repentance for them, he is led to take notice of and mourn over the corruption of his nature, from whence they arose. The Heathens themselves affirm, that no man is born without sin c.
c "Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur". Horat. Sermon. l. 1. Satyr. 3.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity - The object of this important verse is to express the deep sense which David had of his depravity. That sense was derived from the fact that this was not a sudden thought, or a mere outward act, or an offence committed under the influence of strong temptation, but that it was the result of an entire corruption of his nature - of a deep depravity of heart, running back to the very commencement of his being. The idea is, that he could not have committed this offence unless he had been thoroughly corrupt, and always corrupt. The sin was as heinous and aggravated “as if” in his very conception and birth there had been nothing but depravity. He looked at his, sin, and he looked back to his own origin, and he inferred that the one demonstrated that in the other there was no good thing, no tendency to goodness, no germ of goodness, but that there was evil, and only evil; as when one looks at a tree, and sees that it bears sour or poisonous fruit, he infers that it is in the very nature of the tree, and that there is nothing else in the tree, from its origin, but a tendency to produce just such fruit.
Of course, the idea here is not to cast reflections on the character of his mother, or to refer to her feelings in regard to his conception and birth, but the design is to express his deep sense of his own depravity; a depravity so deep as to demonstrate that it must have had its origin in the very beginning of his existence. The word rendered “I was shapen” - חוללתי chôlaletiy - is from a word - חול chûl - which means properly, “to turn around, to twist, to whirl;” and then it comes to mean “to twist oneself with pain, to writhe;” and then it is used especially with reference to the pains of childbirth. Isaiah 13:8; Isaiah 23:4; Isaiah 26:18; Isaiah 66:7-8; Micah 4:10. That is the meaning here. The idea is simply that he was “born” in iniquity; or that he was a sinner when he was born; or that his sin could be traced back to his very birth - as one might say that he was born with a love of music, or with a love of nature, or with a sanguine, a phlegmatic, or a melancholy temperament.
There is not in the Hebrew word any idea corresponding to the word ““shapen,”” as if he had been “formed” or “moulded” in that manner by divine power; but the entire meaning of the word is exhausted by saying that his sin could be traced back to his “very birth;” that it was so deep and aggravated, that it could be accounted for - or that he could express his sense of it - in no other way, than by saying that he was “born a sinner.” How that occurred, or how it was connected with the first apostasy in Adam, or how the fact that he was thus born could be vindicated, is not intimated, nor is it alluded to. There is no statement that the sin of another was “imputed” to him; or that he was “responsible” for the sin of Adam; or that he was guilty “on account of” Adam’s sin, for on these points the psalmist makes no assertion. It is worthy of remark, further, that the psalmist did not endeavor to “excuse” his guilt on the ground that he was ““born”” in iniquity; nor did he allude to that fact with any purpose of “exculpating” himself. The fact that he was thus born only deepened his sense of his own guilt, or showed the enormity of the offence which was the regular result or outbreak of that carly depravity. The points, therefore, which are established by this expression of the psalmist, so far as the language is designed to illustrate how human nature is conceived, are
(1) that people are born with a propensity to sin; and
(2) that this fact does not excuse us in sin, but rather tends to aggravate and deepen our guilt.
The language goes no further than this in regard to the question of original sin or native depravity. The Septuagint agrees with this interpretation - ἰδού γὰρ ἐν ανομίαις συνελήφθην idou gar en anomias sunelēfthēn. So the Vulgate: in iniquitatibus conceptus sum.
And in sin did my mother conceive me - Margin, as in Hebrew, “warm me.” This language simply traces his sin back to the time when he began to exist. The previous expression traced it to “his birth;” this expression goes back to the very beginning of “life;” when there were the first indications of life. The idea is, “as soon as I began to exist I was a sinner; or, I had then a propensity to sin - a propensity, the sad proof and result of which is that enormous act of guilt which I have committed.”
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Psalms 51:5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity — A genuine penitent will hide nothing of his state; he sees and bewails, not only the acts of sin which he has committed, but the disposition that led to those acts. He deplores, not only the transgression, but the carnal mind, which is enmity against God. The light that shines into his soul shows him the very source whence transgression proceeds; he sees his fallen nature, as well as his sinful life; he asks pardon for his transgressions, and he asks washing and cleansing for his inward defilement. Notwithstanding all that Grotius and others have said to the contrary, I believe David to speak here of what is commonly called original sin; the propensity to evil which every man brings into the world with him, and which is the fruitful source whence all transgression proceeds. The word חוללתי cholalti, which we translate shapen, means more properly, I was brought forth from the womb; and יחמתני yechemathni rather signifies made me warm, alluding to the whole process of the formation of the fetus in utero, the formative heat which is necessary to develope the parts of all embryo animals; to incubate the ova in the female, after having been impregnated by the male; and to bring the whole into such a state of maturity and perfection as to render it capable of subsisting and growing up by aliment received from without. "As my parts were developed in the womb, the sinful principle diffused itself through the whole, so that body and mind grew up in a state of corruption and moral imperfection."
