Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Parallel translations
- WEB Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
- BSB Who can discern his own errors? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
- NKJV Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.
- NASB Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
- NLT How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Confronted by God's perfect law, David asks who can perceive his own faults and prays for cleansing from hidden sins. The Word exposes sin we cannot even see.
Overview
The searching purity of Scripture leads David to recognize that he harbors errors beyond his own awareness. He pleads for forgiveness of 'hidden' faults, sins unknown even to himself. This honest confession shows that the law's true work is to drive us to seek mercy, a mercy fully provided in the atoning work of Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 90:8Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
- Ps 139:23–24Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
- Job 6:24Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
- Jer 17:9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
- Ps 40:12For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
- 1 Jn 1:7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
- 1 Cor 4:4For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
- Ps 139:6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
- Ps 51:2Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
- Isa 64:6But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
- Heb 9:7But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
- Lev 4:2–35Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:
- Ps 65:3Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.
- Ps 51:5–10Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
- Ps 139:2Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 19:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.