Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Prayer for forgiveness and for the Spirit.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. A man ceremonially unclean (for instance, one who has touched a corpse) was 'purged' by the sprinkling of water, with ashes of the red heifer in it, from a bunch of hyssop (Numbers 19:18). Also a cured leper was cleansed with water and blood sprinkled from hyssop (Leviticus 19:4-7). This shadowed forth the antitypical "blood of sprinkling" of Messiah, whereby the uncleanness of the soul is purged (Hebrews 9:13-14; Hebrews 9:19; Hebrews 12:24). As the cedar was the emblem of loftiness, so the hyssop of lowliness, and so of the divine condescension (1 Kings 4:33; Psalms 18:35). The extremes of divine majesty and lowly condescension meet in God's pardon and justification of sinners (Isaiah 66:1-2).