Create in me a clean heart...

Ps 51:10
Create in me a clean heart , O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
ASV

Genesis 1 tells us that God "created" the heavens and the earth. The Hebrew word for create here is bara'.* This means in a nutshell to create from nothing. Only God can create from nothing! In the beginning God created from nothing, using no tools or raw materials, the heavens and the earth.

Gen 2:7
the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
NIV

The word for "formed" is yatsar which means to mould into a form; especially as a potter.* In other words when God created Adam he used existing materials: the dust of the ground and the breath of life.

What does this have to do with Psalm 51:10? The Hebrew word for create in Genesis 1:1 is the same word used in Psalm 51:10! It does not say form in me a clean heart as you formed the first man but CREATE in my a clean heart as you created the heaven and the earth! The clean heart I receive from God will be a new creation! He will not form it from existing materials, it will be brand new and pure. And, just as there was nothing I could do in the creation of world there is nothing I can do in the creation of my clean heart except this one thing: submit. When I submit God will create.


*(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)