ASH WEDNESDAY (Beginning the Lenten Journey) - May God Cleanse Us “Through and Through”

Numerous translations or interpretations of the Bible exist today.  As do many pastors, I love those versions that, although sometimes awkward in their English translation, most accurately reflect the original.  It is then up to the reader and studier of the Scriptures to determine what the Holy Spirit was inspiring the Scriptures writers to pen in those sections for God’s people to understand and apply to their life.

The King James Translation of Psalm 51:2, if read correctly, is surely awkward, accurate, and anything but ambivalent.  As the reader studies King David’s sincere prayer of repentance, with the Holy Spirit’s help and the sure voice of other Scriptures, the awkward rendering of the King James, once understood, is pregnant with meaning.

The King James Version of Psalm 51:2 reads, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”  “Throughly” not “thoroughly”.  Other Bible versions make it easier to understand:  “Wash away all my iniquity,” (NIV); “Wash me thoroughly from all my iniquity,” (ESV); “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” (NASB, NRSV).

At first you have to wonder if “thoroughly” is a typo, word processing error, or type set error from long ago.  If you look into it a bit, however, you discover that it is an Elizabethan English way of saying “through and through.”  Simply put, then, you could translate Psalm 51:2:  “Wash me through and through from my iniquity.”

I have to tell you that the King James Version is not my preferred version for reading, although a number of the Scriptures that I have memorized, especially from my earliest years, are from this version.  But uniquely, for this passage, I truly love and appreciate the King James rendering:  “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”

When we turn to God in sincere repentance truly sorry for our sin, recognizing our sinful nature and its complete corruptness, and looking to God alone in Christ Jesus for forgiveness, healing, strength, victory, etc., I don’t want God to merely scrub me good on the outside.  I need Him desperately to wash me clean, clear through – or “through and through”. 

The word “throughly” really isn’t used and doesn’t really doesn’t exist anymore in our use of the English language.  In fact, everywhere I’ve written it above is highlighted in red by my automatic spell check.  In each case it wants to change it to “thoroughly.”  In this particular case, though, I’ve stopped to meditate on and appreciate the KJV interpretation.  With King David in this great penitential psalm I don’t want God to do a surface cleaning on my character; I want – NEED – Him to get rid of every vestige of deep-down, death-bringing, life-destroying, sin.

1Thessalonians 5:23  reads, “May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.  May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (NIV)

“Through and through,” or “throughly”.

May this Lenten season be for you a time of humble, godly, sincere repentance where, because of God’s perfect, amazing love seen in the death of the sin-bearing Christ for you and me – indeed, for the world! – our lives are truly transformed into the forgiven wonders that God intends for them to be. 

From what sin, hidden and secret, can you ask God to wash from you “through and through”? 

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