Psalm 51:10-12 vs. “Create in Me a Clean Heart”

Keith Green · checked 2026-08-01

What we checked

PassagePsalm 51:10-12 chapter ↗ 1 more proof on Psalm 51 →

Translation shownKJV (public domain) · fixed (the finding depends on this wording)

Presents itself asquotation

Categoryadditions / omissions

AlbumJesus Commands Us to Go! · 1984

Words addressed toGod, person unspecified

Teaching or experiencescripture set to music

Graded against the standard

Quotation criteria this song presents words as scripture, so these apply

✓Text-faithful

✗Translation named

✓Context kept

Applies to every song the Name held holy · God shown holy · true of God · the standard

✓Reverent treatment

✓ What's good

Every phrase in it is Psalm 51 in the King James wording, with no paraphrase and nothing spliced in from elsewhere
The petitions it does sing arrive in the psalm's own order, verse 10, then 11, then the opening of 12
It keeps the psalm's direction. Every line is addressed to God, and God is the one asked to do the work in all of them
The one addition is an address to God. It makes no statement and changes nothing that is requested
The rights holder's listing on the official upload credits the words as traditional and Keith Green as arranger, which is the honest credit for a text lifted from scripture

⚠ Cautions

Verse 12's closing petition, to be upheld with God's free spirit, is never sung. The chorus repeats verse 10's second line in its place
Because the substituted line is itself from this passage, the omission is close to inaudible. Nothing sounds wrong, because nothing is wrong except what is absent
No translation is named anywhere, so the King James (KJV) wording has to be recognised rather than verified
A short address to God is added inside verse 11 that the King James does not have at that point
The psalm's heading ties it to one named occasion in David's life. Sung as a general prayer, verse 11's fear of the holy spirit being withdrawn loses the situation it was spoken in
Authorship of the chorus is genuinely unsettled. It is widely credited to Keith Green, and the label's own metadata on his recording credits him only as arranger

Verse Proof

Psalm 51:10-12

The text in KJV (public domain)

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

Psalm 51 carries its occasion in its own heading. The King James prints it above verse 1: “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” So the speaker is a king, the moment is after a prophet confronted him over an adultery and a killing, and the whole psalm is one man's confession. Verses 10 to 12 sit near the turn of it, after nine verses of asking to be washed and cleansed. Verse 11's request is specific to that situation: this is a king asking not to have God's holy spirit taken from him, and he had watched exactly that happen to the king before him, since 1 Samuel 16:14 says the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul. A congregation praying these words is doing something the psalm allows. It is worth knowing what the second petition meant where it stands.

What the song says, described not quoted

The song is the psalm's words and almost nothing else. The verse section is Psalm 51:10, both halves, sung and then repeated. The chorus takes verse 11's two petitions, with a short address to God added inside the first one that the King James does not have there, and then verse 12's opening petition about the joy of salvation being restored. Where verse 12 ends with a request to be upheld, the chorus does not sing it. It goes back and repeats the second half of verse 10 instead. No chapter and verse is spoken in the recording and no translation is named.

Two things shifted, and both are small on the page. First, an address to God is added inside verse 11's opening petition. The King James has no such address at that point, and it alters nothing that is asked. Second, and larger, verse 12's closing petition is not sung at all. In its place the chorus repeats verse 10's second line, which it has already sung twice. So the span the song is named for arrives intact through verse 12's first half, and then loops back rather than finishing.

~ Faithful & Labeled: The chorus follows the King James of Psalm 51:10 through the first half of verse 12 without alteration. It adds a short address to God inside verse 11. It then closes by repeating verse 10's second line in place of verse 12's. So the passage's final petition is never sung.

▸ Official upload. Now listen with the proof in mind.

Everything in this chorus is Psalm 51. One line of Psalm 51 is not in it.

Why it matters

An omission is easy to hear when a song stops early. It is very hard to hear when the gap is filled with a line from the same passage, because every word you are singing is still scripture and still this psalm. Psalm 51's last petition is the one that looks forward: the psalmist asks to be cleansed, then restored, then held up afterward. A congregation that has sung this chorus for forty years has asked to be made clean and has not asked to be kept.

Is it safe to dwell on?

Sung on repeat, this song moves between God and the singer.

This is close to the best case for repetition, because what it plants is the psalm. Sing it a hundred times and what you have by heart is Psalm 51:10-12 in King James English, less one clause. The dwelling tag is mixed, and the mix is the psalm's own: God is the actor in every petition and every line is spoken to Him, while the subject throughout is the singer's own heart and spirit. That is not a fault. It is what a confession is, and asking God to change your heart is the right way for words to be about yourself. What is worth noticing is what a long habit of singing it leaves out. The psalm asks to be cleansed, then restored, then upheld, and the third of those is the one that carries a person into the next day. If this is a song you return to, read verse 12 whole before you sing it, and let the last clause be part of what you are asking.

Helpful comparison

Two settings of the same three verses are worth putting side by side, because both are documented and they end differently. The older one is the Lutheran offertory, printed in The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941 and still in the Lutheran Service Book at number 956, sung between the sermon and communion. It carries verse 12 to its end. The chorus in wide use since the early 1980s keeps everything except that clause. Nothing about the newer setting is dishonest, and the line it substitutes is real scripture from the same prayer. But the two settings send a singer away with different last words, and only one of them is the psalm's.

The missing clause is also the reason this page is pinned to the King James. “Thy free spirit” is the King James rendering. The World English Bible has “uphold me with a willing spirit” and the Berean Standard Bible has “sustain me with a willing spirit,” so the phrase a reader would go looking for changes with the translation, while the song's wording does not.

Sources

Keith Green — Create In Me A Clean Heart (Keith Green - Topic, the rights holder's upload) · (the recording checked for this proof; the listing reads “Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group … The Ministry Years, Vol. 2, ℗ 1999 Sparrow Records, Workarranger: Keith Green, Composer Lyricist: Traditional”)
Wikipedia — Jesus Commands Us to Go! · (Keith Green's 1984 posthumous album, on which this song is the closing track)
Hymnary.org — Create in Me a Clean Heart · (the text listed as anonymous, sourced to Psalm 51:10-12 and to The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941; 38 hymnals)
Hymnary.org — Lutheran Service Book 956 · (the older offertory setting of the same three verses, which keeps verse 12's closing petition)
Hymnal.net — Create in me a clean heart, O God (NS51) · (the chorus text as commonly printed: verse 10 twice, verse 11, the opening of verse 12, then verse 10's second line again)
Chord chart of the Keith Green arrangement, CCLI Song #27666 · (the section order, the added address to God inside verse 11, and the repeat of verse 10's second line at the close)
GodSongs.net — Create in me a Clean Heart · (the unsettled authorship: Keith Green as arranger on the 1984 album, a 1982 hymnal crediting Brown Bannister, a 1983 Maranatha chorus book listing the author as unknown)
BibleHub — Psalm 51, King James Version · (the King James superscription printed above verse 1, tying the psalm to Nathan's confrontation)

Corrections

2026-09-05 The criteria grid said the text criterion failed while the badge said faithful, and the two contradicted each other on the page. The text criterion now passes. Every word the song sings is Psalm 51:10-12 in the King James wording, and that is what the criterion measures. The added address to God and the unsung closing clause of verse 12 were already recorded in the verdict, the cautions and the category, and they stay there unchanged. The tier did not move.

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