Psalms 51:10

The verb is create, and it is the strongest word available. In Hebrew this particular verb is used only with God as its subject, and it is the word in the first sentence of Genesis. David does not ask to be cleaned up. He asks for an act of the same order as the making of the world.

That is an accurate reading of his own situation. He had arranged the death of a loyal soldier to cover an affair with the man's wife, then lived with it for the better part of a year. There is no version of that which repair language covers. He does not ask for improvement because he has understood that improvement is not on the table.

And then the second half asks for something different: renew a right spirit within me. Create, then renew. One is a making; the other is a restoring of something that had been there and had gone. Both are needed, and the psalm does not treat them as the same request.

What he does not ask for is the removal of consequences. He knows they are coming, and they come — the rest of his family life is a slow catastrophe. Nothing in this psalm attempts to negotiate that.

What he asks for is a heart he does not have and cannot manufacture, from the only one who has ever made anything from nothing.