I have written a great deal about the sacrifices and festivals in the Old Testament over the years and one word, one name, comes up in many places such as in David’s Psalm of repentance …
Ps 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ESV
I looked up hyssop and the pictures of what we call it today does not look exactly like the plant found in the Old Testament; the plant growing on the Temple wall today. In my mind I had picture of what it looked like as part of the brush used in blood sacrifices throughout Levitical worship. A piece of wood was used for the handle and the hyssop was tied to it with a scarlet cord and it hung by the at the side of the altar and used for the sprinkling of the blood on the person who was to be cleansed (I think there is a picture there for us to consider). If we go back to our verse what David is saying is “deal with me on the basis of the blood sacrifice.” That is all that I ever understood about hyssop, until I read about hyssop’s relation to faith …
1 Kings 4:33(a) He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall … ESV
Today, if we look at the Temple wall we can see a long plant trailing down the wall, which is nothing remarkable except when you consider that its root is sometimes no longer than one-half inch. Yet it clings to the surface of the wall where it gets its sustenance from what is carried on the wind and rain and whatever particles of nourishment there are in the rock itself. From that tiny root the plant sometimes grows to a length of twelve to fourteen feet.
What a picture of faith!
When we cling to The Rock, even when our faith is very small, it can be strong. Consider that our faith is nothing, is worthless, just like the hyssop root is nothing if it is unattached; pulled away from the rock it will die. And so our faith, to be of any value, it must cling to Jesus, our rock. When it is … our faith becomes everything.
Faith without a foundation is nothing, but true faith, like the hyssop with its short root, will produce great fruit if it is fastened to The Rock. That’s what David understood. The hyssop applied redemption to the one who needed salvation; a prefect picture of faith. Faith takes hold of the promise of God through the cross and grows, because the strength of faith, as I’ve said before, is the reality of believing on God’s promise with all our heart and acting on that belief.