← INDEX FONTIUM

Psalm 51:7

The New Testament’s use of Psalm

3 places · 2 kinds of echo

The source

Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

⛓ 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.

Allusion1

A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.

Titus 3:4-7

Purge me and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow voices the cleansing-by-washing that Titus names the washing of regeneration. The penitential plea for inward purity prefigures the saving bath grounded in mercy, not works.

Medium confidence

Echo2

A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.

1 John 1:6-7

'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow' voices the cultic cleansing from sin that 1 John ascribes to the blood. The plea for thorough purification is echoed.

Medium confidence
John 13:4-11

'Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow' supplies the imagery of moral cleansing behind 'you are clean.' The penitential washing register coheres with Jesus distinguishing the bathed-and-clean from the betrayer. Wording overlaps in the wash/clean pairing.

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