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I erased your transgressions like a thick cloud, and like a cloud have I erased your sins; return to Me for I have redeemed you.  Isaiah 44:22  Chabad

Erased – māḥâ.  God’s solution to our transgressions.  As you recall, David asked for his guilt and his misdeeds to be washed away.  God has another word for the same action.  māḥâ, a verb about correcting the entry on a scroll.  “ . . . erasures in ancient leather scrolls were made by washing or sponging off the ink rather than blotting. ‘Wipe out’ is therefore more accurate for the idea of expunge.”^[1]  Not erased, but washed off.  Kaiser offers a summary:

The sinner prays as David did that God will blot out, i.e. erase his transgressions and iniquities (Ps 51:1 [H 3], 9 [H 11]). God does so for his own sake and remembers those sins no longer (Isa 43:25). Thus sins which loomed as a thick cloud were blotted out (Isa 44:22). While God is omniscient, these sins he deliberately remembers against us no longer. The reverse action can be seen in Ps 109:14, and Neh 4:5 [H 3:37]. māḥâ is also used to describe the lifestyle of an adulterous woman who eats, wipes her mouth, and protestingly claims that she has done no wrong (Prov 30:20).^[2]

Isaiah isn’t the only prophet to proclaim the good news of God’s laundromat.  Consider Ezekiel:

Do I desire the death of the wicked? says the Lord God. Is it not rather in his repenting of his ways that he may live?  Ezekiel 18:23  Chabad

Here we find the significant and frequent idea of returning.  Repenting isn’t quite the answer.  I can regret my error, feel remorse about its outcome, even wish it had not occurred, but unless there is a change in direction, unless I walk out of the laundry with thoroughly cleaned clothes, my regret and remorse mean little.  The Hebrew verb, šûb, requires a return to the right way.

The Bible is rich in idioms describing man’s responsibility in the process of repentance. Such phrases would include the following: “incline your heart unto the Lord your God” (Josh 24:23): “circumcise yourselves to the Lord” (Jer 4:4); “wash your heart from wickedness” (Jer 4:14); “break up your fallow ground” (Hos 10:12) and so forth. All these expressions of man’s penitential activity, however, are subsumed and summarized by this one verb šûb. For better than any other verb it combines in itself the two requisites of repentance: to turn from evil and to turn to the good.^[3]

Nothing matters if you don’t get back to the right way.  As we’ve learned over and over, what counts is the subsequent behavior, not the psychological adjustment.  Nothing gets wiped away unless there’s a change.

Topical Index: māḥâ, šûb, erased, return, Isaiah 44:22, Ezekiel 18:23

^[1] Kaiser, W. C. (1999). 1178 מָחָה. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 498). Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 2340 שׁוּב. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 909). Moody Press.