Regarding Psalm 51:5
I had posted this in another thread, I'll repost it here.
Psalm 51:5 - "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (English Standard Version)
This is a Hebrew poetic parallelism, with the second line of the verse saying the same thing as the first line in a slightly different way. The other form of Hebrew parallelism has the second line saying the opposite of the first. It is was is considered good poetry in Hebrew. (They didn’t use rhyme or meter).
The first verb, of which David is the subject, is in the “pulal” tense (as is "made" in Job 15:7 ), which is an idiom used to refer to creation or origins, and is the 'passive' form of polel ("formed" –see also Psalm 90:2, Proverbs 26:10 ).
The subject of this verse is NOT the state or constitution of David's nature as a sinner at, or before, his birth. The subject is, as the verse clearly states, the `circumstances' of his conception- the sexual union which produced him was an act of sin, and addresses the unrighteousness of his mother's act, not anything (such as a sin nature) inherent within himself.
Why was his mother’s act considered sinful?
A) David had two half-sisters (Zeruiah, Abigail).....:
1Chronicles 2:13-16 “Jesse fathered Eliab his firstborn, Abinadab the second, Shimea the third, Nethanel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, Ozem the sixth, David the seventh. And their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail. The sons of Zeruiah: Abishai, Joab, and Asahel, three.
B) ....and the father of David's half-sisters was not Jesse, but Nahash:
2 Samuel 17:25 “Now Absalom had set Amasa over the army instead of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra the Ishmaelite,[who had married Abigal the daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother.”
C) Nahash, the father of Zeruiah and Abigal, David's half-sisters, was an Ammonite king:
1 Samuel 11:1 “Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, ‘Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.’”
1 Samuel 12:12 “And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us,' when the LORD your God was your king.”
D) David's father was Jesse, not Nahash. Zeruiah and Abigal were David's half-sisters through his mother's previous marriage to Nahash. This would also help explain why Nahash showed kindness to David, perhaps out of respect for David's mother, Nahash’s former wife and the mother of two of Nahash's children. (2 Samuel 10:2)
David's mother was most likely the second wife of Jesse, the first wife being the mother of David's half-brothers. Jesse’s first wife's standing before the 'righteousness of the law', (her not having been married to, or the concubine of, a heathen king, as was David’s mother), would have been superior to that of David's mother, and explains why David's half-brothers, Jesse's other sons, would have felt they were superior to David, and why he would be accused of being prideful, for thinking he was as good as them, (1 Samuel 17:28-30) and why David was not considered, by his father Jesse, as `true' a son as his half-brothers. Samuel had called Jesse and his sons, and thus expected all his sons, to the sacrifice (1 Samuel 16:5,11). Jesse, having been told to bring his sons by a prophet of the Lord everyone feared (1 Samuel 16:4), was confident he had obeyed the prophet, even knowing he did not bring David, (1 Samuel 16:11) which would be consistent with God's sometimes choosing that which men esteemed as worthless (the least) to be the greatest.
E) David's mother was apparently a Jewish woman, because “no Ammonite shall enter the congregation of the Lord to the 10th generation” (Deut 23:3), and yet in Psalm 86:16 and Psalm 116:16, David refers to himself as "the son of thy handmaid", which would seem to testify to his mother's relationship with the Lord. David's mother was, in the eyes of Jewish law, considered “defiled” by her previous relationship to an Ammonite.
