Line up modern Bibles at Psalm 51:6 (Heb v. 8) and you will be pointed in four directions. The NIV has God desiring faithfulness “even in the womb.” The ESV wants truth “in the inward being.” The JPS 1985 renders it as truth “about that which is hidden,” teaching wisdom “about secret things.” And a French Bible, the TOB, places it all “in the darkness.”

The trouble is two Hebrew words: tukhot (טֻחוֹת) and satum (סָתֻם). The second is manageable — its sense of “closed off,” and so “secret,” is reasonably clear. But tukhot (טֻחוֹת) is one of those words that barely surfaces in the Hebrew Bible. Its only other appearance, in Job 38:36, is even murkier; scholars there have proposed “darkness,” “clouds,” “inner parts,” and — remarkably — the Egyptian god Thoth, keeper of the gods’ secrets, from whom the Hebrew word may descend as a term for hidden knowledge.

So the translator faces a double problem. First, decide what tukhot (טֻחוֹת) means. Then, even once the meaning is fixed, decide what it points to. Are the “hidden things” body parts — the kidneys, the inward organs the ancients located the conscience in — and so, by extension, a person’s inmost character? Are they the hidden place of the mother’s womb, God desiring faithfulness before birth? Or are they the secret contents of divine wisdom, mysteries only God can disclose?

Each reading has ancient company. The Targum went with the kidneys, the inner person. The Septuagint, the Peshitta, and Jerome all took it as the secret things of God’s wisdom. The modern translators inherited the same fork and made the same range of choices, and many of them flag their unease openly: the NRSV, the JPS, and several French and German versions attach footnotes admitting the Hebrew is uncertain.

Scriptura’s analysts lean toward the inward being — the reading that best fits a psalm consumed with sincerity and inner cleansing. But the honesty of the enterprise shows in those footnotes. Every translator who reaches this verse has to render a word that no one is quite sure of, and then quietly decide how much of the doubt to let the reader see.

Read more on psalms.scriptura.org → The Meaning of טֻּחוֹת and סָתֻם in Psalm 51:8