A warning voice against the spirit, which, ignorant of its own guilt, is forward to condemn others.

Who can say, I have made any heart clean - No man. But thousands can testify that the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed them from all unrighteousness. And he is pure from his sin, who is justified freely through the redemption that is in Jesus.

Who can say, I have made my heart clean,.... The heart of than is naturally unclean, the mind, conscience, understanding, will, and affections; there is no part clean, all are defiled with sin; and though there is such a thing as a pure or clean heart, yet not as made so by men; it is God that has made the heart, that can only make it clean, or create a clean heart in men; it is not to be done by themselves, or by anything that they can do; it is done only by the grace of God, and blood of Christ: God has promised to do it, and he does it; and to him, and to him only, is it to be ascribed;
I am pure from my sin? the sin of nature or of action: such indeed who are washed from their sins in the blood of Christ; whose sins are all pardoned for his sake, and who are justified from all things by his righteousness; they are pure from sin, none is to be seen in them, or found upon them in a legal sense: they are all fair and comely, and without fault in the sight of God; their iniquities are caused to pass from them; and they are clothed with fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness of the saints: but then none are pure from indwelling sin, nor from the commission of sin; no man can say this, any more than the former; if he does, he is an ignorant man, and does not know the plague of his heart; and he is a vain pharisaical man; yea, a man that does not speak the truth, nor is the truth in him, 1-John 1:8.

Some can say, Through grace, we are cleaner than we have been; but it was the work of the Holy Spirit.

The interrogation in the affirmative strengthens the implied negation (compare Job 15:14; Ecclesiastes 7:20).

9 Who can say I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sins?
It is the same thought that Solomon expresses in his prayer at the consecration of the temple, 1-Kings 8:46 : there is no man who sinneth not. To cleanse his heart (as Psalm 73:13), is equivalent to to empty it, by self-examination and earnest effort after holiness, of all impure motives and inclinations; vid., regarding זכה, to be piercing, shining brightly, cloudlessly pure, Fleischer in Levy's Chald. Wrterbuch, i. 424. The consequence of זכּות is, becoming pure; and the consequence of זכּות לב, i.e., of the purifying of the heart, the being pure from sinful conduct: I have become pure from my sins, i.e., from such as I might fall into by not resisting temptations; the suffix is not understood as actual, but as potential, like Psalm 18:24. No one can boast of this, for man's knowledge of himself and of his sins remains always limited (Jeremiah 17:9.; Psalm 19:13); and sin is so deeply rooted in his nature (Job 14:4; Job 15:14-16), that the remains of a sinful tendency always still conceal themselves in the folds of his heart, sinful thoughts still cross his soul, sinful inclinations still sometimes by their natural force overcome the moral resistance that opposes them, and stains of all kinds still defile even his best actions.