Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.
Parallel translations
- WEB Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
- KJV Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
- BSB Who can discern his own errors? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
- NKJV Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret 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 90:8You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
- Ps 139:23–24Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.
- Job 6:24“Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred.
- Jer 17:9The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
- Ps 40:12For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.
- 1 Jn 1:7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
- 1 Cor 4:4For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.
- Ps 139:6This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.
- Ps 51:2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.
- Isa 64:6For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
- Heb 9:7but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people.
- Lev 4:2–35“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘If anyone sins unintentionally, in any of the things which Yahweh has commanded not to be done, and does any one of them:
- Ps 65:3Sins overwhelmed me, but you atoned for our transgressions.
- Ps 51:5–10Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me.
- Ps 139:2You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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.