What Does Psalm 51:10 Mean in the King James?
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse asks for an inner act of creation: a clean heart and a breath made steady within.
THE MEANING
God creates a clean heart in you and renews a steadfast breath within. The request reaches beneath outward behavior to the inner source of life.
THE ROOT
בְּרָא
bera
GROWS FROM
ברא
bara
Create, bring forth.
“create” in this verse is bera. This root speaks of creating and of creation itself. The request frames a clean heart as an act of creative making within, joined in the verse to ruach, the breath within.
ALSO GROWS
bore: Creator; one who creates.
בּוֹרֵא
The active form keeps the verse’s request connected to the act of creating.
beri'ah: Creation; a created thing.
בְּרִיאָה
This noun echoes the verse’s image of the heart as something brought forth anew.
חַדֵּשׁ
chaddesh
GROWS FROM
חדש
chadash
Make new, renew.
“renew” in this verse is chaddesh. The verb means to make new, and the same root names the new moon and the month. Renewal carries the sense of newness arriving again, so the request reaches toward fresh life within.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: New.
חָדָשׁ
This adjective makes explicit the newness carried inside the request to renew.
chodesh: New moon; month.
חֹדֶשׁ
The recurring month connects renewal with newness that arrives again.
נָכוֹן
nakhon
GROWS FROM
כון
kun
Be firm, established, or prepared.
Nakhon comes from the root for being firm or established. With ruach meaning breath, “a right spirit” also opens as an inner breath made steady and firmly set.
ALSO GROWS
hekin: Prepare; make ready or establish.
הֵכִין
This form shows the root’s sense of making something ready and established.
mekhonah: Base; stand or foundation.
מְכוֹנָה
The word for a firm base echoes the steadiness described by nakhon.
THE PATTERN
Renewal is an inward creative work whose life is continually sustained.
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.THE THREAD
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.The verse joins the same creation root, bara, with ruach, the breath sent forth, and the same renewal root, chadash. Here, as in you, creation and renewal move together through breath.
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