The same depreciation of the external sacrifice that is expressed in Ps 50 finds utterance in Ps 51, which supplements the former, according as it extends the spiritualizing of the sacrifice to the offering for sin (cf. Psa 40:7). This Psalm is the first of the Davidic Elohim-Psalms. The inscription runs: To the Precentor, a Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. The carelessness of the Hebrew style shows itself in the fact that one and the same phrase is used of Nathan's coming in an official capacity to David (cf. 2Sa 12:1) and of David's going in unto Bathsheba (בּוא אל, as in Gen 6:4; Psa 16:2, cf. 2Sa 11:4). The comparative כּאשׁר, as a particle of time in the whole compass of the Latin quum, holds together that which precedes and
