Purge me with hyssop,.... Or "thou shalt purge me with hyssop" ; or "expiate me"; which was used in sprinkling the blood of the paschal lamb on the door posts of the Israelites in Egypt, that the destroying angel might pass over them, Ex 12:22; and in the cleansing of the leper, Le 14:4; and in the purification of one that was unclean by the touch of a dead body, &c.
Nu 19:6; which the Targum on the text has respect to; and this petition of the psalmist shows that he saw himself a guilty creature, and in danger of the destroying angel, and a filthy creature like the leper, and deserving to be excluded from the society of the saints, and the house of God; and that he had respect not hereby to ceremonial sprinklings and purifications, for them he would have applied to a priest; but to the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, typified thereby; and therefore he applies to God to purge his conscience with it; and, as Suidas from Theodoret observes, hyssop did not procure remission of sins, but has a mystical signification, and refers to what was meant by the sprinkling of the blood of the passover; and then he says,and I shall be clean; thoroughly clean; for the blood sprinkled on the heart by the spirit clears it from an evil conscience, purges the conscience from dead works, and cleanses from all sin;wash me; or "thou shall wash me" ; alluding to the washing at the cleansing of a leper, and the purification of an unclean person, Le 14:8; but had in view the fountain of Christ's blood, in which believers are washed from all their sins, Zec 13:1;and I shall be whiter than snow; who was black with original corruption, and actual transgressions; but the blood of Christ makes not only the conversation garments white that are washed in it; but even crimson and scarlet sins as white as wool, as white as snow, and the persons of the saints without spot or blemish, Re 7:14 Eph 5:25; "whiter than the snow" is a phrase used by Homer , and others, to describe what is exceeding white.
ynajxt "purificabis me", Pagninus, Montanus; "exiabis me", Vatablus, Musculus, Cocceius, Gejerus. In voce usswpov. ynobkt "lavabis me", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Musculus, Cocceius. Iliad. 10.
v. 437. So Martial. l. 7. Epigr. 27. Ovid. Amor. l. 3. Eleg.