Double Cycle

In a classic essay on the defiling force of sin in Studies in Sin and Atonement (258-9), A. Buchler observes that David asks twice for Yahweh to wash Him in Psalm 51 (vv. 4, 9).

The reason has to do with the ritual background to David’s plea for cleansing. When he asks to be made whiter than snow, he uses the verb kavas, which “is never applied to the body but only to clothes.” David’s sin has defiled his garments as well as his person – the garments that mark him as king.

He uses the verb form of hata’ to request purgation, a word that “when referring to a ceremonial procedure of purging, means purify in connexion with the defilement of a person by a human corpse, and is every time to be followed by the washing of his clothes and his immersion” (Numbers 19:12-13). David’s reference to hyssop also goes back to the rite for corpse defilement (Numbers 19:18).

All this explains the double cycle cleansing: Purification from corpse defilement required a washing on the third and seventh days. (He finds a reference to cleansing form corpse defilement in the phrase “for sin and for impurity” in Zechariah 13:1 as well.)

As Buchler points out, David’s request is not for ceremonial purging. He will only be satisfied if Yahweh serves as his priest to purge him. 

David has not been in the presence of a corpse. In fact, he has taken careful steps to avoid contact with the corpse of his victim, Uriah. Yet he is infected as if Uriah had died in his presence. Murder is here treated as a form of corpse defilement, but one that acts even at a distance. Only a double cure can purify.