← INDEX FONTIUM

Psalm 51:4

The New Testament’s use of Psalm

2 places · 2 kinds of echo

The source

Against you, and you only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

The Greek the author follows

Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee: that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

⛓ Read Psalm 51 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →

Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.

Quotation1

A formal citation — high verbal volume, often introduced by a saying-formula.

Rom 3:1-8

Verbatim citation introduced by 'as it is written' in 3:4: 'that you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment' = LXX Psalm 50:6, David's confession in the Miserere. Paul deploys it to vindicate God's righteousness against human faithlessness: God is justified (proven right) precisely when humans are shown liars.

High confidence

Allusion1

A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.

Luke 15:17-19

'Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight' supplies the language of sinning before God's sight that the son rehearses. As the paradigmatic penitential psalm it carries high recurrence in Jewish repentance piety, cohering with Luke's repentance theme (vv.7,10). Distinctive 'in your sight' overlap.

Medium confidence
Elsewhere in Psalm 51
Psalm 51 2Psalm 51:1 4Psalm 51:5 2Psalm 51:7 3Psalm 51:10 4Psalm 51:16-17 2