the general statement: Behold he shall travail with, i. e. bring forth with writhing as in the pains of labour, JIN, evil, as the result which proceeds from his wickedness. Then, by this thought being divided into its two factors' (Hupf.) it goes on to say: that is, he shall conceive (concipere) hcy^ and bear *1pt^. The former signifies trouble, molestia, just as TiovYjpia signifies that which makes uovov; the latter falsehood, viz. self-deception, delusion, vanity, inasmuch as the burden prepared for others, returns as a heavy and oppressive burden upon the sinner himself, as is said in ver. 17; cf. Isa. lix. 4, where ]1N instead of "iptf/ denotes the accursed wages of sin which consist in the unmasking of its nothingness, and in the undeceiving of its self-delusion. He diggeth a pit for himself, is another turn of the same thought, lvii, 7, Eccl. x. 8. Ver. 16 a mentions the digging, and 16# the subsequent falling into the pit; the aorist?W\ is, for instance, like ver. 13&, xvi. 9, xxix. 10. The attributive bv^ is virtually a genitive to nni^", and is rightly taken by Ges. § 123, 3, a as present: in the midst of the execution of the work of destruction prepared for others it becomes his own. The trouble, ^py, prepared for others returns upon his own head (1E&12, clinging to it, just as 1#tfV^y signifies descending and resting upon it), and the violence, DOT, done to others, being turned back by the Judge who dwells above (Mic. i. 12), descends upon his own pate (TlDTp with b by q, as e. g. in Gen. ii. 23). Thus is the righteousness of God revealed in wrath upon the oppressor and in mercy upon him who is innocently oppressed. Then will the rescued one, then will David, give thanks unto Jahve, as is due to Him after the revelation of His righteousness, and will sing of the name of Jahve the Most High (]1^}7 as an appended name of God is always used without the art., e. g., lvii. 3). In the revelation of Himself He has made Himself a name. He has, however, revealed Himself as the almighty Judge and Deliverer, as the God of salvation, who rules over everything that takes place here below. It is this name, which He has made by His acts, that David will then echo back to Him in his song of thanksgiving.
How excellent is Thy name in all the earth, Who hast covered the heavens with Thy glory!,
founded a power, Because of Thine adversaries, To still the enemy and the revengeful.
4 When I see Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, The moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained:
5 What is mortal man, that Thou art mindful of him, And the son of man that Thou carest for him!
6 And hast made him a little less than divine, And crowned him with glory and honour.
7 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of
Thy hands, Thou hast put all things under his feet:
8 Sheep and oxen all together, And also the beasts of the field,
9 The fowls of heaven and the fishes of the sea, Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.
How excellent is Thy name in all the earth 1
Ps. vii. closed with a similar prospeel of his enem being undeceived by the execution of the divine judgu to Ps. vi. The former is the pendant or companion I latter, and enters into detail, illustrating it Now if at the same time we call to mind the fact, th >•• if it be not a morning hymn, at any rate Loot sleepless nights of weeping, then the Idea oftheai becomes at once clear, when we find a hymn of the following Ps. vi. with its pendant, Ps. vii. D even at night; Jahye'a son-, as a Korahite | himself in xlii. 9, was his companionship e?en in th ness of the night. The omission of any reference to the sun in ver. 4 shews that Ps. viii. is a hymn of this kind composed in the night, or at least one in which the writer transfers himself in thought to the night season. The poet has the starry heavens before him, he begins with the glorious revelation of Jahve's power on earth and in the heavens, and then pauses at man, comparatively puny man, to whom Jahve condescends in love and whom He has made lord over His creation. This Psalm, like Ps. civ. and others, is a lyric echo of the Mosaic account of the creation. Ewald calls it a flash of lightning cast into the darkness of the creation.
Even Hitzig acknowledges David's authorship here; whereas Hupfeld is silent, and Olshausen says that nothing can be said about it. The idea, that David composed it when a shepherd boy on the plains of Judah, is rightly rejected again by Hitzig after he has been at the pains to support it. (This thought is pleasingly worked out by Nachtigal, Psalmen gesungen vor David's Thronbesteigung, 1797, after the opinion of E. G. von Bengel, cum magna veri specie?) For, just as the Gospels do not contain any discourses of our Lord belonging to the time prior to His baptism, and just as the New Testament canon does not contain any writings of the Apostles from the time prior to Pentecost, so the Old Testament canon contains no Psalms of David belonging to the time prior to his anointing. It is only from that time, when he is the anointed one of the God of Jacob, that he becomes the sweet singer of Israel, on whose tongue is the word of Jahve, 2 Sam. xxiii. 1 sq.
The inscription runs: To the Precentor, on the Gittith, a Psalm of David. The Targum translates it super citharay quam David de Gath attulit. According to which it is a Philistine cithern, just as there was (according to Athenaeus and Pollux) a peculiar Phoenician and Carian flute played at the festivals of Adonis, called if^ypa;, and also an Egyptian flute and a Doric lyre. All the Psalms bearing the inscription rvnirr^ (viii. lxxxi. lxxxiv.) are of a laudatory character. The gittith was, therefore, an instrument giving forth a joyous sound, or (what better accords with its occurring exclusively in the inscriptions of the Psalms), a joyous me-
Kurtz makes this Psalm into four tetrastichic strophes, by taking ver. 2 a b and ver. 10 by themselves as the opening and close of the hymn, and putting ver. 2 c (Thou whose majesty...) to the first strophe. But ^Bfc is not rightly adapted to begin a strophe; the poet, we think, would in this case have written mn run "lEte PinK.
Vers. 2—3. Here, for the first time, the subject speaking in the Psalm is not one individual, but a number of persons; and who should they be but the church of Jahve, which (as in Neh. x. 30) can call Jahve its Lord O:\T\X, like *;->\\ from DtflKjrftfr, excellentice, Ges. § 108, 2); but knowing also at the same time that what it has become by grace it is called to be for the good of the whole earth? The Dtf of God is the impress (cognate Arabic wasm, a sign, Gn o9jjj.a) of His nature, which we see in His works of creation and His acts of salvation, a nature which can only be known from this visible and comprehensible representation (nomen = g?iomen)* This name of God is certainly not yet so known and praised everywhere, as the church to which it ha made known by a positive revelation can know and prai it; but, nevertheless, it, viz. the divine name uttered in creation and its works, by which God has made II known and capable of being recognised and named, is THH amplum et gloriosum, everywhere through out the earth, if it were entirely without any echo. The clause with "JN mustnotberendered:Who,doThoubeplca^ itoputTh] upon the heavens (Gesenius cvon: quean liuun m pone in ccelis), for such a use of the imperat after HtfH is unheard of; and, moreover, although it is true a thi siblein its connection with the redemptive history i h ii. 6, is thus obtained, it is here, however, one thai runs to the fundamental tone, and to tin- circum Psalm. For the primary thought of the I'salm is thi the God, whose glory the heavens reflect, has also glorified Himself in the earth and in man; and the situation of the poet is this, that he has the moon and stars before his eyes: how then could he wish that heaven to be made glorious whose glory is shining into his eyes! It is just as impracticable to take TIjJ) as a contraction of rpn:, like nm 2 Sam. xxii. 41, = nr,ro, as Ammonius and others, and last of all Bohl, have done, or with Thenius (Stud. u. Frit. 1860 S.712f.) to read it so at once. For even if the thought: "which (the earth) gives (announces) Thy glory all over the heavens" is not contrary to the connection, and if iy jHJ, lxviii. 34, and 11D3 jrD, Jer. xiii. 16, can be compared with this jriJ Tin, still the phrase b)l Tin)H3 means nothing but to lay majesty on any one, to clothe him with it, Num. xxvii. 20, 1 Chron. xxix. 25, Dan. xi. 21, cf. Ps. xxi. 6; and this is just the thought one looks for, viz., that the name of the God, who has put His glory upon the heavens (cxlviii. 13) is also glorious here below. We must, therefore, take n^P, although it is always the form of the imper. elsewhere, as infin., just as PIT1 occurs once in Gen. xlvi. 3 as in fin. (like the Arab, rxda a giving to drink, It da a bringing forth — forms to which TVO and the like in Hebrew certainly more exactly correspond).?nin n^H signifies the setting of Thy glory (prop, to ufrsvai T7]v S6;av aou) just like TTfiH HJH the the knowledge of Jahve, and Obad. ver. 5,?pp D^, probably the setting of thy nest, Ges. § 133. 1. It may be interpreted: 0 Thou whose laying of Thy glory is upon the heavens, i. e. Thou who hast chosen this as the place on which Thou hast laid Thy glory (Hengst.). In accordance with this Jerome translates it: qui posuisti gloriam tuam super ccelos. Thus also the Syriac version with the Targum: dejabt (ronH) shubhoch al sTfmajo, and Symmachus: o? exaSa? tov grcaivov aou oTTEpava) tu>v oupavaiv. This use of the nomen verbale and the genitival relation of 185^ to?|"Tin PlJr, which is taken as one notion, is still remarkable. Hitzig considers that no reasonable man would think and write thus; but thereby at the same time utterly condemns his own conjecture ]n *p.inn (whose extending of glory over the heavens). This, moreover, goes beyond the limits of the language, which is only acquainted with jn as the name of an animal. All difficulty would vanish if one might, with Hupfeld, read nrm But run has not the slightest appearance of being a corruption of nnra It might be more readily supposed that run is an erroneous pointing for n:P, (to stretch or extend, cf. Hos. viii. 10 to stretch forth, distribute): Thou whose glory stretches over the heavens, — an interpretation which is more probable than that it is, with Paulus and Kurtz, to be read nsr,: Thou whose glory is praised (pass, of the Hjn in Judges v. 11, xi. 40, which belongs to the dialect of Northern Palestine), instead of which one would more readily expect P?3n\ The verbal notion, which is tacitly implied in cxiii.4, cxlviii. 13, would then be expressed here. But perhaps the author wrote "j~in H^H instead of ""in PHj, because he wishes to describe the setting out of the heavens with divine splendour* as being constantly repeated and not as done once for all.
There now follows, in ver. 3, the confirmation of vcr. 2 a: also all over the earth, despite its distance from the heavens above, Jahve's name is glorious; for even children, yea even sucklings glorify him there, and in fact not mutely and passively by their mere existence, but with their mouth. hb)V (= ^foft?) or bb)V is a child tnat is more mature and i pable of spontaneous action, from bbty (Pool of bby ludere),* according to 1 Sam. xxii. 19, xv. 3, distinct from p:v, r. a suckling, not, however, in fans, but, — since the Hebr
* In the first Sidonian inscription WN occurs as a by-nam heavens (DTIK odk>). l,
** According to this derivation bb'V (cf. Bednin L ox) is related to W?SPi whereas b*V as a synonym of pW who is supported, sustained. For the radical signification ing to the Arabic Jls ful. o. is "to weigh heavy, I upon;to have anythingincumbentuponone'sself, to carry. >uj.] whence "affil the maintained child of the %ela) he who is dependent upon one for support and fchj ing upon the paterfamilias for sustenanc ner JU
JU fut. i. usually applied to a pregnant woman wh the direct signification to snckle. Moreover, the del receive its name from swallowing up or BttCl destroying (JLc ful. o.)
women were accustomed to suckle their children for a long period, — a little child which is able to lisp and speak (yid. 2 Mace. vii. 27). Out of the mouth of beings such as these Jahve has founded for Himself)]}. The LXX. translates it the utterance of praise, alvov; and T'y certainly sometimes has the meaning of power ascribed to God in praise, and so a laudatory acknowledgment of His might; but this is only when connected with verbs of giving, xxix. 1, lxviii. 35, xcvi. 7. In itself, when standing alone, it cannot mean this. It is in this passage: might, or victorious power, which God creates for Himself out of the mouths of children that confess Him. This offensive and defensive power, as Luther has observed on this passage, is conceived of as a strong building, iy as TtyO (Jer. xvi. 19) i. e. a fortress, refuge, bulwark, fortification, for the foundation of which He has taken the mouth, i. e. the stammering of children; and this He has done because of His enemies, to restrain (rtCSBfrl to cause any one to sit or lie down, rest, to put him to silence, e. g. Isa. xvi. 10, Ezek. vii. 24) such as are enraged against Him and His, and are inspired with a thirst for vengeance which expresses itself in curses (the same combination is found in xliv. 17). Those meant, are the fierce and calumniating opponents of revelation. Jahve has placed the mouth of children in opposition to these, as a strong defensive controversive power. He has chosen that which is foolish and weak in the eyes of the world to put to shame the wise and that which is strong (1 Cor. i. 27). It is by obscure and naturally feeble instruments that He makes His name glorious here below, and overcomes whatsoever is opposed to this glorifying.
Vers. 4 — 6. Stier wrongly translates: For I shall behold. The principal thought towards which the rest tends is ver. 5 (parallel are vers. 2 #, 3), and consequently ver. 4isthe protasis (par., ver. 2&), and >3 accordingly is — quum, quando, in the sense of quoties. As often as he gazes at the heavens which bear upon themselves the name of God in characters of light (wherefore he says spots'), the heavens with their boundless spaces (an idea which lies in the plur. D*CtP) extending beyond the reach of mortal eye, the moon (iyi', dialectic mij perhaps, as Maurer derives it, from pn1 = p"V subflavum esse), and beyond this the innumerable stars which are lost in infinite space (0*2213** DD333 Pr<>P- round, ball-shaped, spherical bodies) to which Jahve appointed their fixed place on the vault of heaven which He has formed with all the skill of His creative wisdom (p'jD to place and set up, in the sense of existence and duration): so often does the thought
The most natural thought would be: frail, puny man is as nothing before all this; but this thought is passed over in order to celebrate, with grateful emotion and astonished adoration, the divine love which appears in all the more glorious light, — a love which condescends to poor man, the dust of earth. Even if tp'faN does not come from tt:x to be fragile, nevertheless, according to the usage of the language, it describes man from the side of his impotence, frailty, and mortality (vid. ciii. 15, Isa. li. 12, and on Gen. iv. 26). D1&n3, also, is not without a similar collateral reference. With retrospective reference to CpftDv7Wi C~>T'- is equivalent to PlC^tTTI^ in Job xiv. 1: man, who is not, like the stars, God's directly creative work, but comes into being through human agency, born of woman. From both designations it follows that it is the existing generation man that is spoken of. Man, as we see him in ourselyes and others, this weak and dependent being is, nevertheless, not forgotten by God, God remembers him and looks about after him (ipD of observing attentively, especially nsitatii and with the *accus. it is generally used of lovingly provident visitation, e. g. Jer. xv. 15). He does not leave him to himself, but enters into personal intercourse with him, he the special and favoured object whither His turna I
It is not until ver. 6 that the writer glances bacl tion. irnpnni (differing from the fut. consec. Job describes "that which happened formerly. |C 101 to cause to be short of, wanting in somethi any one of something (cf. Eccl. iv. 8). | comparative (paullo inferiorem eumfecisti (paullum derogasli ei, ne esset Deus), but partil derogasti ei divines naturce); and, without Q'rfrx being on that account an abstract plural, paullum Deorum, = Dei (vid. Genesis S. 66 sq.), is equivalent to paullum numinis Deorum. According to Gen. i. 27 man is created cn'^N D^2, he is a being in the image of God, and, therefore, nearly a divine being. But when God says: "let us make man in our image after our likeness", He there connects Himself with the angels. The translation of the.LXX. YjXdtTTwaac; auxov ppa^u xt irap' &Y7eXoo<;, with which the Targum and the prevailing Jewish interpretations also harmonize, is, therefore, not unwarranted. Because in the biblical mode of conception the angels are so closely connected with God as the nearest creaturely effulgence of His nature, it is really possible that in cn'SNO David may have thought of God including the angels. Since man is in the image of God, he is at the same time in the likeness of an angel, and since he is only a little less than divine, he is also only a little less than angelic. The position, somewhat exalted above the angels, which he occupies by being the bond between all created things, in so far as mind and matter are united in him, is here left out of consideration. The writer has only this one thing in his mind, that man is inferior to God, who is J7H, and to the angels who are nirm (Isa. xxxi. 3, Heb. i. 14) in this respect, that he is a material being, and on this very account a finite and mortal being; as Theodoret well and briefly observes: tw Ovyjtu) to>v a^i'kwv TjXatKoiai. This is the Joyp in which whatever is wanting to him to make him a divine being is concentrated. But it is nothing more than Eyp. The assertion in ver. 6 a refers to the fact of the nature of man being in the image of God, and especially to the spirit breathed into him from God; ver. 6&, to his godlike position as ruler in accordance with this his participation in the divine nature: honore ac decore coronasti eum. "1123 is the manifestation of glory described from the side of its weightiness and fulness; "fin (cf. "in, TT>n) from the side of its far resounding announcement of itself {vid. on Job xxxix. 20); n~n from the side of its brilliancy, majesty, and beauty. TtHl "Iin, xcvi. 6, or also 71 "Tin 7i33 Tin, cxlv. 5, is the appellation of the divine doxa, with the image of which man is adorned as with a regal crown. The preceding fut. consec. also stamps tiTjggF] and inWzpn as historical retrospects. The next strophe unfolds the regal glory of man: he is the lord of all things, the lord of all earthly creatures.
Vers. 7 — 9. Man is a king, and not a king without territory; the world around, with the works of creative wisdom which fill it, is his kingdom. The words "put under his feet" sound like a paraphrase of the rm in Gen. i. 2G 28. 73 is unlimited, as in Job xiii. 1, xlii. 2, Isa. xliv. 24. But the expansion of the expression in vers. 8, 9 extends only to the earth, and is limited even there to the different classes of creatures in the regions of land, air, and water. The poet is enthusiastic in his survey of this province of man's dominion. And his lofty poetic language corresponds to this enthusiasm. The enumeration begins with the domestic animals and passes on from these to the wild beasts — together the creatures that dwell on terra fir ma. PUS (*<JS
Num. xxxii. 24) from rtfS (MS) ^JLo (Llo), as also ^Lo fut. o., proliferum esse is, in poetry, equivalent to jN% which is otherwise the usual name for small cattle, crs (in Aramaic, as the name of the letter shews, a prose word) is in Hebrew poetically equivalent to lp2; the oxen which willingly accommodate themselves to the service of man, especially of the husbandman, are so called from PpN to yield to. Wild animals, which in prose are called p>N'~ """• (rrp7\) here bear the poetical name ntif n1orj2, as in Joel ii. 22, cf~ i. 20, 1 Sam. xvii. 44. Hfr(in pause Hfe) is the primit form of mi$>, which is not declined, and has thereby obtained a collective signification. From the land animals the d< scription passes on to the fowls of the air and the fish the water. 115? is the softer word, instead of P)1]j; and DO0 ia used without the art. according to poetical u DV) without the art. would have sounded I:1,1 not sufficiently measured. In connection with Dn?] th< tide may be again omitted, just as with C lective participle. If the following were intend since he), viz. man, passes through the |
(Bottcher, Cassel, and even Aben-Ezra and Kimchi), then it would not have been expressed in such a monostich, and in a form so liable to lead one astray. The words may be a comprehensive designation of that portion of the animal kingdom which is found in the sea; and this also intended to include all from the smallest worm to the gigantic leviathan: OTTTToaa TuovToiropou? 7rapSniaTsij3ooai xsXsuOoo? (Apollinaris). If man thus rules over every living thing that is round about him from the nearest to the most remote, even that which is apparently the most untameable: then it is clear that every lifeless created thing in his vicinity must serve him as its king. The poet regards man in the light of the purpose for which he was created.
Ver. 10. He has now demonstrated what he expressed in ver. 2, that the name of Jahve whose glory is reflected by the heavens, is also glorious on earth. Thus, then, he can as a conclusion repeat the thought with which he began, in a wider and more comprehensive meaning, and weave his Psalm together, as it were, into a wreath.
It is just this Psalm, of which one would have least expected it, that is frequently quoted in the New Testament and applied to the Messiah. Indeed Jesus' designation of Himself by 6 olo; xou av&pa>irou, however far it may refer back to the Old Testament Scriptures, leans no less upon this Psalm than upon Dan. vii. 13. The use the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. ii. 6 — 8) makes of vers. 5 — 7 of this Psalm shews us how the New Testament application to the Messiah is effected. The psalmist regards man as one who glorifies God and as a prince created of God. The deformation of this position by sin he leaves unheeded. But both sides of the mode of regarding it are warranted. On the one hand, we see that which man has become by creation still in operation even in his present state; on the other hand, we see it distorted and stunted. If we compare what the Psalm says with this shady side of the reality, from which side it is incongruous with the end of man's creation, then the song which treats of the man of the present becomes a prophecy of the man of the future. The
Psalm undergoes this metamorphosis in the New Testament consciousness, which looks more to the loss than to that which remains of the original. In fact, the centre of the New Testament consciousness is Jesus the Restorer of that which is lost. The dominion of the world lost to fallen man, and only retained by him in a ruined condition, is allotted to mankind, when redeemed by Him, in fuller and more perfect reality. This dominion is not yet in the actual possession of mankind, but in the person of Jesus it now sits enthroned at the right hand of God. In Him the idea of humanity is transcendently realised, i. e. according to a very much higher standard than that laid down when the world was founded. He has entered into the state — only a little (ppa^u xt) beneath the angels — of created humanity for a little while (ppa^u ti), in order to raise redeemed humanity above the angels. Everything (b'3) is really put under Him with just as little limitation as is expressed in this Psalm: not merely the animal kindom, not merely the world itself, but the universe with all the ruling powers in it, whether they be in subjection or in hostility to God, yea even the power of death (1 Cor. xv. 27, cf. Ephes. i. 22). Moreover, by redemption, more than heretofore, the confession which comes from the mouth of little children is become a bulwark founded of God, in order that against it the resistance of the opponents of revelation may be broken. We ha example of this in Mat. xxi. 16, where our Lord points the pharisees and scribes, who are enraged at the Hosanna of the children, to Ps. viii. 3. Redemption demands of man, before everything else, that he should becomi I littk child, and reveals its mysteries to infants, which are hidd from the wise and intelligent. Thus, therefore, if xal vyjmoi, whose tongue is loosed by the Spirit L who are to put to shame the unbelieving; and all that thia Pa says of the man of the present becomes in the light New Testament in its relation to the history of redempti a prophecy of the Son of man xax* ttoxfa and of th humanity.
2 N* I WILL give thanks to Jahve with my whole heart, K I will recount all Thy marvellous works —
5 For Thou hast maintained my right and my cause, Thou hast sat down on the throne, a righteous Judge.
6 a Thou didst rebuke peoples, Thou didst destroy the wicked, Their name didst Thou blot out for ever and ever.
11 Thus shall they trust in Thee who know Thy name, Because Thou hast not forsaken them who ask after
12 7 Sing praises to Jahve, who dwelleth in Zion,
13 That the Avenger of blood hath remembered them, He hath not forgotten the cry of the sufferer.
from them that hate me, "My lifter-up from the gates of death,
"That in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in Thy salvation!"
16 to The peoples have sunk down in the pit they have made, In the net, that they hid, were their own feet taken.
20 p Arise, Jahve, let not mortal man be defiant,
Let the heathen be judged in Thy sight!
Just as Ps. vii. is placed after Ps. vi. as exemplifying it, so Ps. ix. follows Ps. viii. as an illustration of the glorifying of the divine name on earth. And what a beautiful idea it is that Ps. viii., the Psalm which celebrates Jain name as being glorious in the earth, is introduced betw< a Psalm that closes with the words UI will sing of the na of Jahve, the Most High" (vii. 18) and one which begins: l will sing of Thy name, 0 Most High!" (ix. 3).
The LXX. translates the inscription \& mD^J) bj t&v xpo<pto>v too otoo (Vulg. pro occultis filii) as though it w niD^-bg. Luther's rendering is still bolder: of (perhaps properly: lily-white) youth. Both rendei opposed to the text, in which by occurs only on© Targum understands p of the duellist Goliath | C.J2" and some of the Rabbis regard;ru even as a I of bzy. on the death of Nabal. I! this view, regarding L2: as a collective d( Nabal-like fools. All these and other curio* from the erroneous idea that these Wi referring to the contents of the Psalm. But, on the contrary, they indicate the tune or melody, and that by means of the familiar words of the song, — perhaps some popular song, — with which this air had become most intimately associated. At the end of Ps. xlviii. this indication of the air is simply expressed by niEr^y. The view of the Jewish expositors, who refer p^» to the musician |2 mentioned in 1 Chron, xv. 18, has, therefore, some probability in its favour. But this name excites critical suspicion. Why may not a well-known song have begun rzb niD "dying (is) to the son"..., or (if one is inclined to depart from the pointing, although there is nothing to render this suspicious) rzb fil.E "Death makes white"?
Even Hitzig does not allow himself to be misled as to the ancient Davidic origin of Ps. ix. and x. by the fact of their having an alphabetical arrangement. TJiese two Psalms have the honour of being ranked among the thirteen Psalms which are acknowledged by him to be genuine Davidic Psalms. Thus, therefore, the alphabetical arrangement found in other Psalms cannot, in itself, bring us down to "the times of poetic trifling and degenerated taste." Nor can the freedom, with which the alphabetical arrangement is handled in Ps. ix. and x. be regarded as an indication of an earlier antiquity than these times. For the Old Testament poets, even in other instances, do not allow themselves to be fettered by forms of this character (vid. on Ps. cxlv., cf. on xlii. 2); and the fact, that in Ps.ix. x. the alphabetical arrangement is not fully carried out, is accounted for otherwise than by the license in which David, in distinction from later poets, indulged. In reality this pair of Psalms shews, that even David was given to acrostic composition. And why should he not be? Even among the Romans, Ennius (Cicero, Be Divin. ii. 54 § 111), who belongs not to the leaden, but to the iron age, out of which the golden age first developed itself, composed in acrostics. And our oldest Germanic epics are clothed in the garb of alliteration, which Vilmar calls the most characteristic and most elevated style that the poetic spirit of our nation has created. Moreover, the alphabetical form is adapted to the common people, as is evident from Augustine's Retract, i. 20. It is not a paltry substitute for the departed poetic spirit, not merely an accessory to please the eye, an outward embellishment — it is in itself indicative of mental power. The didactic poet regards the array of the linguistic elements as the steps by which he leads his pupils up into the sanctuary of wisdom, or as the many-celled casket in which he stores the pearls of the teachings of his wisdom. The lyric writer regards it as the keys on which he strikes every note, in order to give the fullest expression to his feelings. Even the prophet does not disdain to allow the order of the letters to exert an influence over the course of his thoughts, as we see from Nah. i. 3 — 7.* Therefore, when among the nine** alphabetical Psalms (ix. x. xxv. xxxiv. xxxvii. cxi. cxii. cxix. cxlv.) four bear the inscription T)"6 (ix. xxv. xxxiv. cxlv.), we shall not at once regard them as non-Davidic just because they indicate an alphabetical plan which is more or less fully carried out.
This is not the place to speak of the relation of the anonymous Ps. x. to Ps. ix., since Ps. ix. is not in any way wanting in internal roundness and finish. It is thoroughly hymnic. The idea that ver. 14 passes from thanksgiving into supplication rests on a misinterpretation, as we shall presently see. This Psalm is a thoroughly national song of thanksgiving for victory by David, belonging to the time when Jahve was already enthroned on Zion, and therefore, to the time after the ark was brought home. Was it composed after the triumphant termination of the Syro-Ammonitish war? — The judgment of extermination alrea executed, ix. 8 sq., harmonises with what is recorded in 2 Sam. xii. 31; and the D^, who are actually living within the borders of Israel, appear to be Philistines according to the annalistic passage about the Philistine feuds, 2 Sam. ixi. 15 sqq., cf. viii. 1 in connection with 1 Sam. xm. I
Vers. 2 — 3. In this first strophe of the Psalm, which is laid out in tetrastichs, — the normative strophe, — the alphabetical form is carried out in the fullest possible way: we have four lines, each of which begins with n. It is the prelude of the song. The poet rouses himself up to a joyful utterance of Jahve's praise. With his whole heart (cxxxviii. 1), i. e. all his powers of mind and soul as centred in his heart taking part in the act, will he thankfully and intelligently confess God, and declare His wondrous acts which exceed human desire and comprehension (xxvi. 7); he will rejoice and be glad in Jahve, as the ground of his rejoicing and as the sphere of his joy; and with voice and with harp he will sing of the name of the Most High, p'^j; is not an attributive of the name of God (Hitz.: Thine exalted name), but, as it is everywhere from Gen. xiv. 18 — 22 onward (e. g. xcvii. 9), an attributive name of God. As an attributive to sjpty one would expect to find ]Vb])T).
Vers. 4 — 5. The call upon himself to thanksgiving sounds forth, and the 2-strophe continues it by expressing the ground of it. The preposition 2 in this instance expresses both the time and the reason together (as in lxxvi. 10, 2 Chron. xxviii. 6); in Latin it is recedentibus hostibus meis retro. THN serves to strengthen the notion of being driven back, as in lvi. 10, cf. xliv. 11; and just as, in Latin, verbs compounded of re are strengthened by retro. In ver. 4& finite verbs take the place of the infinitive construct; here we have futt. with a present signification, just as in 2 Chron. xvi. 7 we find a,prcet. intended as perfect. For the rendering which Hitzig adopts: When mine enemies retreat backwards, they stumble... is opposed both by the absence of any syntactic indication in ver. 4& of an apodosis (cf. xxvii. 2); and also by the fact that lefts' is well adapted to be a continuation of the description of" n^nx ZMtP (cf. John xviii. 6), but is tame as a principal clause to the definitive clause HBO THIN 'CIN. Moreover, TinK does not signify backwards (which would rather be rvnhx [Gen. ix. 23, 1 Sam. iv. 18]), but back, or into the rear. The p of?|09d is the jp of the cause, whence the action proceeds. What is intended is God's angry countenance, the look of which sets his enemies on fire as if they were fuel (xxi. 10), in antithesis to God's countenance as beaming with the light of His love. Now, while this is taking place, and because of its taking place, will he sing praise to God. From ver. 2 we see that the Psalm is composed directly after the victory and while the destructive consequences of it to the vanquished are still in operation. David sees in it all an act of Jahve's judicial power. To execute any one's right, i2Bu/r2 (Mic. vii. 9), to bring to an issue any one's suit or lawful demand, pi (cxl. 13), is equivalent to: to assist him and his good cause in securing their right. The phrases are also used in a judicial sense without the suffix. The genitive object after these principal words never denotes the person against whom, but the person on whose behalf, the third party steps forward with his judicial authority. Jahve has seated Himself upon His judgment-seat as a judge of righteousness (as in Jer. xi. 20), i. e. as a judge whose judicial mode of procedure is righteousness, justice,* and has decided in his favour. In b 3#J (as in cxxxii. 11), which is distinguished in this respect from 2V] by_ (xlvii. 9), the idea of motion, considere, comes prominently forward.
Vers. 6 — 7. The strophe with 3, which is perhaps intended to represent 1 and n as well, continues the confirmation of the cause for thanksgiving laid down in ver. 4. He does not celebrate the judicial act of God on his behalf, which he has just experienced, alone, but in connection with, and, as it were, as the sum of many others which have preceded it. If this is the case, then in ver. 6 beside the Ammonites one may at the same time (with Ilengstenb.) think of the Amalekites (1 Sam. viii. 12), who had been threatened since the time of Moses with a "blotting out of their membrance" (Ex. xvii. 14, Deut. xxv. 19, cf. Num. xxiv. The divine threatening is the word of omnipotence which detroys in distinction from the word of omnipotence that
* AlsoProv. viii. 16 is probably to be read f] according to the Targum, Syriac version, and oh!; at any rite creates, yt^l in close connection with D?U is individualising, cf. ver. 18 with vers. 16, 17. Ipl is a sharpened pausal form for tgj, the Pathach going into a Segol (|Ep finD); perhaps it is in order to avoid the threefold #-sound in iyi nbtyb (Nagelsbach § 8 extr.). In ver. 7 D^lNPl (with ^zfa legarme) appears to be a vocative. In that case n&'Tlj ought also to be addressed to the enemy. But if it be interpreted: "Thou hast destroyed thine own cities, their memorial is perished", destroyed, viz. at the challenge of Israel, then the thought is forced; and if we render it: "the cities, which thou hast destroyed, perished is the remembrance of them", i. e. one no longer thinks of thine acts of conquest, then we have a thought that is in itself awkward and one that finds no support in any of the numerous parallels which speak of a blotting out and leaving no trace behind. But, moreover, in both these interpretations the fact that D"1DT is strengthened by Hon is lost sight of, and the twofold masculine nan Q1DT is referred to Qvny (which is carelessly done by most expositors), whereas Ty, with but few exceptions, is feminine; consequently HOT D1DT, so far as this is not absolutely impossible, must be referred to the enemies themselves (cf. xxxiv. 17, cix. 15). 3*IKn might more readily be nom. absol.: "the enemy — it is at end for ever with his destructions", but FITIM never has an active but always only a neuter signification; or: "the enemy — ruins are finished for ever", but the signification to be destroyed is more natural for cpnthan to be completed, when it is used oiruince. Moreover, in connection with both these renderings the retrospective pronoun (vrYD"jPl) is wanting, and this is also the case with the reading fYQnn (LXX., Vulg., Syr.), which leaves it uncertain whose swords are meant. But why may we not rather connect D^xn at once with ion as subject? In other instances -ion is also joined to a singular collective subject, e. g. Isa. xvi. 4; here it precedes, like Z3"ixn in Judg. xx. 37. nsA ROT is a nominative of the product, corresponding to the factitive object with verbs of making: the enemies are destroyed as ruins for ever, t. e. so that they are become ruins; or, more in accordance with the accentuation: the enemy, destroyed as ruins are they for ever. With respect to what follows the accentuation also contains hints worthy of our attention. It does not take nttTD (with the regular Pathach by Athnach after Olewejored, vid. on ii. 7) as a relative clause, and consequently does not require HOT D"DT to be referred back to Q^y.
We interpret the passage thus: and cities (viz. such as were hostile) thou hast destroyed (ttf'ro evellere, exstirpare), perished is their (the enemies') memorial. Thus it also now becomes intelligible, why D1DT, according to the rule Ges. § 121, 3, is so remarkably strengthened by the addition of DEn (cf. Num. xiv. 32, 1 Sam. xx. 42, Prov. xxii. 19, xxiii. 15, Ezek. xxxiv. 11). Hupfeld, whose interpretation is exactly the same as ours, thinks it might perhaps be the enemies themselves and the cities set over against one another. But the contrast follows in ver. 8: their, even their memorial is perished, while on the contrary Jahve endures for ever and is enthroned as judge. This contrast also retrospectively gives support to the explanation, that o~QT refers not to the cities, but to a^NH as a collective. With this interpretation of ver. 7 we have no occasion to read nan?? U121 (Targ.), nor nana *D1 (Paul., Hitz.). The latter is strongly commended by Job xi. 20, cf. Jer. x. 2; but still it is not quite admissible, since "15? here is not subjective (their own remembrance) but objective (remembrance of them). But may not cny perhaps here, as in cxxxix. 20, mean zealots =» adversaries (from "VJJ fervere, zelare)? We reply in the negative, because the Psalm bears neither an Aramaising nor a North Palestinian impress. Even in connection with this meaning, the harshness of the any without any suffix would still remain. But, that the cities that are, as it were, plucked up by the root are cities of the enemy, is evident from the context.
Vers. 8 — 9. Without a trace even of the remembrance of them the enemies are destroyed, while on the other hand Jahve endureth for ever. This strophe is the continuation of the preceding with the most intimate connnection of contrast (just as the 2-strophe expresses the ground for what is said in the preceding strophe). The verb 2W] has not the general signification "to remain* here (like np^J to endure), but just the same meaning as in xxix. 10. Everything that is opposed to Him comes to a terrible end, whereas He sits, or (which the fut. implies) abides, enthroned for ever, and that as Judge: He hath prepared His throne for the purpose of judgment. This same God, who has just given proof that He lives and reigns, will by and bye judge the nations still more comprehensively, strictly, and impartially. ^2Fl, a word exclusively poetic and always without the article, signifies first (in distinction from jhx the body of the earth and no"!N the covering or soil of the earth) the fertile (from bzp) surface of the globe, the olxoopivq. It is the last Judgment, of which all preceding judgments are harbingers and pledges, that is intended. In later Psalms this Davidic utterance concerning the future is repeated.
Vers. 10 — 11. Thus judging the nations Jahve shews Himself to be, as a second i-strophe says, the refuge and help of His own. The voluntative with Warn of sequence expresses that which the poet desires for his own sake and for the sake of the result mentioned in ver. 11. DUt^Jp, a high, steep place, where one is removed from danger, is a figure familiar to David from the experiences of his time of persecution. T]i (in pause in) is properly one who is crushed (from Tgi = Kin, T\21 to crush, break in pieces, pgl to pulverize), therefore one who is overwhelmed to the extreme, even to being completely crushed. The parallel is m»2 nin}6 with the datival b (as probably also in x. 1). rYjRj; from njJ (time, and then both continuance, lxxxi. 16, and condition) signifies the public relations of the time, or even the vicissitudes of private life, xxxi. 16; and m23 is not PHST! with 2 (Bottch.), which gives an expression that is meaninglessly minute ("for times in the need"), but one word, formed from y^ (to cut off, Arab, to see, prop, to discern keenly), just like nt^jpS from #p3, prop, a cutting off, or being cut off, i. e. either restraint, especially motionlessness (= rn'S3, Jer. xvii. 8, plur. rvh23 Jer. xiv. 1), or distress, in which the prospect of deliverance is cut off. Since God is a final refuge for such circumstances of hopelessness in life, t. e. for those who are in such circumstances, the confidence of His people is strengthened, refreshed, and quickened. They who know His name, to them He has now revealed its character fully, and that by His acts; and they who inquire after Him, or trouble and concern themselves about Him (this is what tt'T] signifies in distinction from #j52), have now experienced that He also does not forget them, but makes Himself known to them in the fulness of His power and mercy.
Vers. 12 — 13. Thus then the T- strophe summons to the praise of this God who has done, and will still do, such things. The summons contains a moral claim, and therefore applies to all, and to each one individually. Jahve, who is to be praised everywhere and by every one, is called |1*S 2Bfy which does not mean: He who sits enthroned in Zion, but He who inhabiteth Zion, Ges. § 138, 1. Such is the name by which He is called since the time when His earthly throne, the ark, was fixed on the castle hill of Jerusalem, lxxvi. 3. It is the epithet applied to Him during the period of the typical kingship of promise. That Jahve's salvation shall be proclaimed from Zion to all the world, even outside Israel, for their salvation, is, as we see here and elsewhere, an idea which throbs with life even in the Davidic Psalms; later prophecy beholds its realisation in its wider connections with the history of the future. That which shall be proclaimed to the nations is called vffiWy, a designation which the magnalia Dei have obtained in the Psalms and the prophets since the time of Hannah's song, 1 Sam. ii. 3 (from hb$, root b% to come over or upon anything, to influence a person or a thing, as it were, from above, to subject them to one's energy, to act upon them).
With *3, quod, in ver. 13, the subject of the proclamation of salvation is unfolded as to its substance. The prcett. state that which is really past; for that which God has done is the assumption that forms the basis of the discourse in praise of God on account of His mighty acts. They consist in avenging and rescuing His persecuted church, — persecutBd even to martyrdom. TheDrflK, standing by way of emphasis before its verb, refers to those who are mentioned afterwards (cf. ver. 21): the Chethib calls them D»flT, the Kerl c^:;*. Both words alternate elsewhere also, the Keri at one time placing the latter, at another the former, in the place of the one that stands in the text. They are both referable to ~ to bend (to bring low, Isa. xxv. 5). The neuter signification of the verb Pu)J = W, Lld /W. 0., underlies the noun ir; (cf. ^I&Oj f°r which in Num. xii. 3 there is a Am TO with an incorrect /otf (like yovf Job xxi. 23). This is manifest from the substantive PHJJJj which doec not signify affliction, but passiveness, i. e. humility and gentleness; and the noun *y$ is passive, and therefore does not, like 1$, signify one who is lowly-minded, in a state of nvg, but one who is bowed down by afflictions, *3P. But because the twin virtues denoted by m^yare acquired in the school of affliction, there comes to be connected with *jp — but only secondarily — the notion of that moral and spiritual condition which is aimed at by dispensations of affliction, and is joined with a suffering life, rather than with one of worldly happiness and prosperity, — a condition which, as Num. xii. 3 shews, is properly described by "Op (tccttsivo? and irpau;). It shall be proclaimed beyond Israel, even among the nations, that the Avenger of blood, DW Bhfti thinks of them (His DMBf^l), and has been as earnest in His concern for them as they in theirs for Him. CEl always signifies human blood that is shed by violence and unnaturally; the plur. is the plural of the product discussed by Dietrich, Abhandl. S. 40. ftHl to demand back from any one that which he has destroyed, and therefore to demand a reckoning, indemnification, satisfaction for it, Gen. ix. 5, then absolutely to punish, 2 Chron. xxiv. 22.
Vers. 14 — 15. To take this strophe as a prayer of David at the present time, is to destroy the unity and hymnic character of the Psalm, since that which is here put in the form of prayer appears in what has preceded and in what follows as something he has experienced. The strophe represents to us how the D*yg (UWg) cried to Jahve before the deliverance now experienced. Instead of the form ^n used everywhere else the resolved, and as it were tremulous, form U3jD is designedly chosen. According to a better attested reading it is U33T1 (Pathach with Gaja in the first syllable), which is regarded by Chajug and others as the imper. Piel, but more correctly (Ewald § 251, c) as the imper. Kal from the intransitive imperative form p_n. >CDFlD is the vocative, cf. xvii. 7. The gates of death, i. e. the gates of the realm of the dead (MW#, Isa. xxxviii. 10), are in the deep; he who is in peril of death is said to have sunk down to them; he who is snatched from peril of death is lifted up, so that they do not swallow him up and close behind him. The church, already very near to the gates of death, cried to the God who can snatch from death. Its final purpose in connection with such deliverance is that it may glorify God. The form ^n^HF) is sing, with a plural suffix just like WlfiOft Ezek. xxxv. 11, OTIDtJ'K Ezra ix. 15. The punctuists maintained (as ^PSJJ in Isa. xlvii. 13 shews) the possibility of a plural inflexion of a collective singular. In antithesis to the gates of death, which are represented as beneath the ground, we have the gates of the daughter of Zion standing on high. I^H is gen. appositionis (Ges. § 116, 5). The daughter of Zion (Zion itself) is the church in its childlike, bride-like, and conjugal relation to Jahve. In the gates of the daughter of Zion is equivalent to: before all God's people, cxvi. 14. For the gates are the places of public resort and business. At this period the Old Testament mind knew nothing of the songs of praise of the redeemed in heaven. On the other side of the grave is the silence of death. If the church desires to praise God, it must continue in life and not die.
Vers. 16 — 17. And, as this tt-strophe says, the church is able to praise God; for it is rescued from death, and those who desired that death might overtake it, have fallen a prey to death themselves. Having interpreted the n- strophe as the representation of the earlier D"TJ ngyy we have no need to supply dicendo or dicturus, as Seb. Schmidt does, before this strophe, but it continues the prcett. preceding the nstrophe, which celebrate that which has just been experienced. The verb p2C (root 2D, whence also b*y$ signifies originally to press upon anything with anything flat, to be pressed into, then, as here and in lxix. 3, 15, to sink in. OOtt IT (pausal form in connection with Mugrash) in the parallel member of the verse corresponds to the attributive HPJJ (cf. bvt], vii. 16). The union of the epicene IT with HBfj hy Makkeph proceeds from the view, that fl is demonstrative as in xii. 8: the net there (which they have hidden). The punctuation, it is true, recognises a relative -IT, xvii. 9, lxviii. 29, but it mostly takes it as demonstrative, inasmuch as it connects it closely with the preceding noun, either by Makkeph (xxxii. 8, lxii. 12, cxlii. 4, cxliii. 8) or by marking the noun with a conjunctive accent (x. 2, xxxi. 5, cxxxii. 12). The verb "ID1? (Arabic to hang on, adhere to, IV. to hold fast to) has the signification of seizing and catching in Hebrew.
In ver. 17 Ben Naphtali points yp with a: Jahve is known (part. Niph.); Ben Asher jnfo, Jahve has made Himself known (3 pers. prcet. Niph. in a reflexive signification, as in Ezek.xxxviii. 23). The readings of Ben Asher have become the uxtus receptus. That by which Jahve has made Himself known is stated immediately: He has executed judgment or right, by ensnaring the evil-doer (ytP'l, as in ver. 6) in his own craftily planned work designed for the destruction of Israel. Thus Gussetius has already interpreted it. t^'plj is part. Kal from #M. If it were part. Niph. from ty'pj the e, which occurs elsewhere only in a few yy verbs, as DOJ Uquef actus, would be without an example. But it is not to be translated, with Ges. and Hengst.: "the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands", in which case it would have to be pointed u/0z (3 prcet. Niph.), as in the old versions. Jahve is the subject, and the suffix refers to the evil-doer. The thought is the same as in Job xxxiv. 11, Isa. i. 31. This figure of the net, ntfin (from ufy capere), is peculiar to the Psalms that are inscribed TCt>. The music, and in fact, as the combination n^D |Vjn indicates, the playing of the stringed instruments (xcii. 4), increases here; or the music is increased after a solo of the stringed instruments. The song here soars aloft to the climax of triumph.
Vers. 18 — 19. Just as in vers. 8 sqq. the prospect of a final universal judgment was opened up by Jahve's act of judgment experienced in the present, so here the grateful restrospect of what has just happened passes over into a confident contemplation of the future, which is thereby guaranteed. The LXX. translates £RBh by diroaxpacp^Kjoaav, Jer. convertantur, a meaning which it may have (cf. e. g. 2 Chron. xviii. 25); but why should it not be avaoxpacprjiwaav, or rather: dvaaipacpTjaovTou, since ver. 19 shews that ver. 18 is not a wish but a prospect of that which is sure to come to pass? To be resolved into dust again, to sink away into nothing (redactio in pulverem, in nihilum) is man's return to his original condition, — man who was formed from the dust, who was called into being out of nothing. To die is to return to the dust, civ. 29, cf. Gen. iii. 19, and here it is called the return to Sheol, as in Job xxx. 23 to death, and in xc. 3 to atoms, inasmuch as the state of shadowy existence in Hades, the condition of worn out life, the state of decay is to a certain extent the renewal (Repristinatiori) of that which man was before he came into being. As to outward form rb\$vh may be compared with nnyts^b in lxxx. 3; the h in both instances is that of the direction or aim, and might very well come before H/lKt^j because this form of the word may signify both ev qhoo and el? a'Soo (cf. rtollD Jer. xxvii. 16). E. Abba ben Zabda, in Genesis Babba cap. 50, explains the double sign of the direction as giving intensity to it: in imum ambitum orci. The heathen receive the epithet of D^ribtt TDK? (which is more neuter than TOW, 1. 22); for God has not left them without a witness of Himself, that they could not know of Him, their alienation from God is a forgetfulness of Him, the guilt of which they have incurred themselves, and from which they are to turn to God (Isa. xix. 22). But because they do not do this, and even rise up in hostility against the nation and the God of the revelation that unfolds the plan of redemption, they will be obliged to return to the earth, and in fact to Hades, in order that the persecuted church may obtain its longed for peace and its promised dominion. Jahve will at last acknowledge this ecclesia pressa; and although its hope seems likely to perish, inasmuch as it remains again and again unfulfilled, nevertheless it will not always continue thus. The strongly accented N^ rules both members of ver. 19, as in xxxv. 19, xxxviii. 2, and also frequently elsewhere (Ewald § 351, a). j^ZN, from P13N to wish, is one eager to obtain anything = a needy person. The Arabic
_j|, which means the very opposite, and according to which it would mean "one who restrains himself", viz. because he is obliged to, must be left out of consideration.
Vers. 20 — 21. By reason of the act of judgment already witnessed the prayer now becomes all the more confident in respect of the state of things which is still continually threatened. From 1 the poet takes a leap to p which, however, seems to be a substitute for the D which one would expect to find, since the following Psalm begins with b. David's HCIp (iii. 8, vii. 7) is taken from the lips of Moses, Num. x. 35. "Jahve arises, comes, appears" are kindred expressions in the Old Testament, all of which point to a final personal appearing of God to take part in human history from which He has now, as it were, retired into a state of repose becoming invisible to human eyes. Hupfeld and others wrongly translate "let not man become strong". The verb TW does not only mean to be or become strong, but also to feel strong, powerful, possessed of power, and to act accordingly, therefore: to defy, Hi. 9, like iy_ defiant, impudent (post-biblical miy shamelessness). ItfW, as in 2 Chron. xiv. 10, is man, impotent in comparison with God, and frail in himself. The enemies of the church of God are not unfrequently designated by this name, which indicates the impotence of their pretended power (Isa. li. 7, 12). David prays that God may repress the arrogance of these defiant ones, by arising and manifesting Himself in all the greatness of His omnipotence, after His forbearance with them so long has seemed to them to be the result of impotence. He is to arise as the Judge of the world, judging the heathen, while they are compelled to appear before Him, and, as it were, defile before Him ("OSr^), He is to lay HTiD on them. If "razor" be the meaning it is equivocally expressed; and if, according to Isa. vii. 20, we associate with it the idea of an ignominious rasure, or of throat-cutting, it is a figure unworthy of the passage. The signification master (LXX., Syr., Vulg., and Luther) rests upon the reading rnio, which we do not with Thenius and others prefer to the traditional reading (even Jerome translates: pone, Domine, ierrorem eis); for miO, which according to the Masora is instead of N*l1tt (like fl^2D Hab. iii. 17 for N^2p), is perfectly appropriate. Hitzig objects that fear is not a thing which one lays upon any one; but N")1D means not merely fear, but an object, or as Hitzig himself explains it in Mai. ii. 5 a "lever", of fear. It is not meant that God is to cause them to be overcome with terror (ty), nor that He is to put terror into them (2), but that He is to make them (b in no way differing from xxi. 4, cxl. 6, Job xiv. 13) an object of terror, from which to their dismay, as the wish is further expressed in ver. 21 b, they shall come to know (Hos. ix. 7) that they are mortal men. As in x. 12, xlix. 12, 1. 21, kiv. 6, Gen. xii. 13, Job xxxv. 14, Amos v. 12, Hos. vii. 2, i;-£ is followed by an only half indirect speech, without i| or n^N. rbo has Dag. forte conj. according to the rule of the pTPD >n« (concerning which vid. on lii. 5), because it is erroneously regarded as an essential part of the text.
Why hidest Thou Thyself in times of trouble!?
3 For the evil-doer boasteth of his soul's desire, And the covetous renounceth [and] despiseth Jahve.
Far above are Thy judgments, out of his sight; All his adversaries, he puffeth at them.
C He saith in his heart: with nothing shall I be moved. From one generation to another I am he to whom no misfortune comes. 7 Of cursing is his mouth full, and of deceit and oppr sion, Under his tongue is trouble and evil.
8 He sitteth in the lurking-places of the villages, In the secret corners doth he slay the innocent; His eyes, they lie in wait for the weak.
9 He lieth in wait in the secret corner as a lion in his
lair, He lieth in wait to carry off the afflicted, He carrieth off the afflicted, drawing him away in
11 He saith in his heart: uGod hath forgotten, He hath hidden His face, He hath never seen."
13 Wherefore should the evil-doer blaspheme the Deity, Saying in his heart: Thou dost not punish?!
14 1 Thou dost indeed see it; for Thou beholdest trouble and grief, to lay it in Thy hand;
The heathen are perished out of His land.
18 To obtain justice for the orphan and tne oppressed, That man of the earth may no more terrrify.
This Psalm and Ps. xxxiii. are the only ones that are anonymous in the First book of the Psalms. But Ps. x. has something peculiar about it. The LXX. gives it with Ps. ix. as one Psalm, and not without a certain amount of warrant for so doing. Both are laid out in tetrastichs; only in the middle portion of Ps. x. some three line strophes are mixed with the four line. And assuming that the p-strophe, with which Ps. ix. closes, stands in the place of a D-strophe which one would look for after the ^-strophe, then Ps. x., beginning with?, continues the order of the letters. At any rate it begins in the middle of the alphabet, whereas Ps. ix. begins at the beginning. It is true the ^-strophe is then followed by strophes without the letters that come next in order; but their number exactly corresponds to the letters between b and p, "}, t^', n with which the last four strophes of the Psalm begin, viz. six, corresponding to the letters 0, 3, D, y, £, 2J, which are not introduced acrostically. In addition to this it is to be remarked that Ps. ix. and x. are most intimately related to one another by the occurrence of rare expressions, as fnS3 niny1? and '•n; by the use of words in the same sense, as t^lJX and cyjj; by striking thoughts, as "Jahve doth not forget" and "Arise"; and by similarities of style, as the use of the oratio directa instead of obiiqua, ix. 21, x. 13. And yet it is impossible that the two Psalms should be only one. Notwithstanding all their community of character they are also radically different. Ps. ix. is a thanksgiving Psalm, Ps. x. is a supplicatory Psalm. In the latter the personality of the psalmist, which is prominent in the former, keeps entirely in the background. The enemies whose defeat Ps. ix. celebrates with thanksgiving and towards whose final removal it looks forward are c^2, therefore foreign foes; whereas in Ps. x. apostates and persecutors of his own nation stand in the foreground, and the C^3 are only mentioned in the last two strophes. In their form also the two Psalms differ insofar as Ps. x. has no musical mark defining its use, and the tetrastich strophe structure of Ps. ix., as we have already observed, it not carried out with the same consistency in Ps. x. And is anything really wanting to the perfect unity of Ps.ix.? If it is connected with Ps. x. and they are read together uno tenore, then the latter becomes a tail-piece which disfigures the whole. There are only two things possible: Ps. x. is a pendant to Ps. ix. composed either by David himself, or by some other poet, and closely allied to it by its continuance of the alphabetical order. But the possibility of the latter becomes very slight when we consider that Ps. x. is not inferior to Ps. ix. in the antiquity of the language and the characteristic nature of the thoughts. Accordingly the mutual coincidences point to the same author, and the two Psalms must be regarded as "two co-ordinate halves of one whole, which make a higher unity" (Hitz.). That hard, dull, and tersely laconic language of deep-seated indignation at moral abominations for which the language has, as it were, no one word, we detect also elsewhere in some Psalms of David and of his time, those Psalms, which we are accustomed to designate as Psalms written in the indignant style (in grollendem Stil).
Vers. 1 — 2. The Psalm opens with the plaintive inquiry, why Jahve tarries in the deliverance of His oppressed people. It is not a complaining murmuring at the delay that is expressed by the question, but an ardent desire that God may not delay to act as it becomes His nature and His promise. PIC^, which belongs to both members of the sentence, has the accent on the ultima, as e. g. before ^H2Ty in xxii. 2, and before nnjnn in Ex. v. 22, in order that neither of the two gutturals, pointed with a, should be lost to the ear in rapid speaking (vid. on iii. 8, and Luzzattoonlsa. xi. 2, r6y nro).* For according to the primitive pronunciation (even before the Masoretic) it is to be read: lamah Adonaj; so that consequently n and K are coincident. The poet asks why in the present hopeless condition of affairs (on m$»2 vid. on ix. 10) Jahve stands in the distance (pirns, only here, instead of pirnp), as an idle spectator, and why does He cover (D^JJP
* According to the Masora Ho? without Dag. is always Milra with the single exception of Joh vii. 20, and HD' with Dag. is Milel\ but, when the following closely connected word begins with one of the letters JJHN it becomes Milra, with five exceptions, viz. xlix. 6, 1 Sam. xxviii. 15, 2 Sam, xiv. 31 (three instances in which the guttural of the second word has the vowel i), and 2 Sam. ii. 22, and Jer. xv. 18. In the Babylonian system of pointing, HDT> is always written without Dag. and with the accent on the penultimate, vid. Pinsker, Einlei'ung in das Babylonisch* hebraische Punktationssystem, S. 182 — 184.
with orthophonic Dagesh, in order that it may not be pronounced D^yn), viz. His eyes, so as not to see the desperate condition of His people, or also His ears (Lam. iii. 56) so as not to hear their supplication. For by the insolent treatment of the ungodly the poor burns with fear (Ges., Stier, Hupf.), not vexation (Hengst.). The assault is a Trupwaic, 1 Pet. iv, 12. The verb pbl which calls to mind np^l_, 7iup£- tos, is perhaps chosen with reference to the heat of feeling under oppression, which is the result of the persecution, of the (12) yHn$ p'T\ of the ungodly. There is no harshness in the transition from the singular to the plural, because isy and J7#*1 are individualising designations of two different classes of men. The subject to 'itypFP is the D*$g, and the subject to iCETI is the D#l. The futures describe what usually takes place. Those who, apart from this, are afflicted are held ensnared in the crafty and malicious devices which the ungodly have contrived and plotted against them, without being able to disentangle themselves. The punctuation, which places Tarcha by IT, mistakes the relative and interprets it: "in the plots there, which they have devised".
Vers. 3 — 4. The prominent features of the situation are supported by a detailed description. The prcett. express those features of their character that have become a matter of actual experience, ^n, to praise aloud, generally with the accus., is here used with bv. of the thing which calls forth praise. Far from hiding the shameful desire or passion (cxii. 10) of his soul, he makes it an object and ground of high and sounding praise, imagining himself to be above all restraint human or divine. Hupfeld translates wrongly: "and he blesses the plunderer, he blasphemes J alive". But the j?Bh who persecutes the godly, is himself a yjfo, a covetous or rapacious person; for such is the designation (elsewhere with j^2 Prov. i. 19, or yn pS3 Hab. ii. 9) not merely of one who "cuts off" («^dj), i. e. obtains unjust gain, by trading, but also by plunder, irXeovlxTijc The veil) "^2 (here in connection with Mugrash, as in Num. xxiii.20 with Tiphcha TI3) never directly signifies maledicere in biblical Hebrew it does in the later Talmudic (whence cir'n m blasphi B. Sanhedrin 56a, and frequently), but to take 1 ia my to decline and abandon generally, Job i. 5, and frequently (cf. the word remercier, abdanken; and the phrase udas Zeitliche segnen" = to depart this life). The declaration without a conjunction is climactic, like Isa. i. 4, Amos iv. 5, Jer. xv. 7. yxj, properly to prick, sting, is used of utter rejection by word and deed.* Inver. 4, "the evil-doer according to his haughtiness" (cf. Prov. xvi. 18) is nom. absol., and UVibto p*J BhT"^3 (contrary to the accentuation) is virtually the predicate to tYVftSJErte This word, which denotes the intrigues of the ungodly, in ver. 2, has in this verse, the but not without being easily associated with the secondary idea of that which is subtly devised. The whole texture of his thoughts is, i. e. proceeds from and tends towards the thought, that he (viz. Jahve, whom he does not like to name) will punish with nothing (^5 the strongest form of subjective negation), that in fact there is no God at all. This second follows from the first; for to deny the existence of a living, acting, all-punishing (in one word: a personal) God, is equivalent to denying the existence of any real and true God whatever (Ewald).
Ver. 5. This strophe, consisting of only three lines, describes his happiness which he allows nothing to disturb. The signification: to be lasting (prop, stiff, strong) is secured to the verb ^T) (whence Wi) by Job xx. 21. He takes whatever ways he choses, they always lead to the desired end; he stands fast, he neither stumbles nor goes astray, cf. Jer. xii. 1. The Chethib "0~H O^TJ) bas no other meaning than that given to it by the Keri (cf. xxiv. 6, lviii. 8). Whatever might cast a cloud over his happiness does not trouble him: neither the judgments of God, which are removed high as the heavens out of his sight, and consequently do not disturb his conscience (cf. xxviii. 5, Isa. v. 12; and the opposite, xviii. 23), nor his adversaries whom he bloweth upon contemptuously. D)^D is the predicate: altissime remota. And 3 rp£n, to breathe upon, does not in any case signify:
* Pasek stands between WO and nii"P, because to blaspheme God is a terrible thought and not to be spoken of without hesitancy, cf. the Pasek in lxxiv. 18, lxxxix. 52, Isa. xxxvii. 24 (2 Kings xix. 23).
actually to blow away or down (to express which 2#3 or P]t$j] would be used), but either to "snub", or, what is more appropriate to ver. 5&, to blow upon them disdainfully, to puff at them, like TVBT} in Mai. i. 13, and flare rosas (to despise the roses) in Prudentius. The meaning is not that he drives his enemies away without much difficulty, but that by his proud and haughty bearing he gives them to understand how little they interfere with him.
Vers. 6 — 7. Then in his boundless carnal security he gives free course to his wicked tongue. That which the believer can say by reason of his fellowship with God, EiBN"^2 (xxx. 7, xvi. 8), is said by him in godless self-confidence. He looks upon himself in age after age, i. e. in the endless future, as JH2 tib 1t$$, i. e. as one who ("it$$ as in Isa. viii. 20) will never be in evil case (jTQ as in Ex. v. 19, 2 Sam. xvi. 8). It might perhaps also be interpreted according to Zech. viii. 20, 23 (vid. Kohler^ in loc): in all time to come (it will come to pass) that I am not in misfortune. But then the personal pronoun (^N or tfin) ought not be omitted; whereas with our interpretation it is supplied from CD1SK, and there is no need to supply anything if the clause is taken as an apposition: in all time to come he who... In connection with such unbounded self-confidence his mouth is full of PDN, cursing, execratio (not perjury, perjurium, a meaning the word never has), niDID, deceit and craft of every kind, and "Fi,oppression, violence. And that which he has under his tongue, and consequently always in readiness for being put forth (cxl. 4, cf. lxvi. 17), is trouble for others, and in itself matured wickedness. Paul has made use of this ver. 7 in his contemplative description of the corruptness of mankind, Rom. iii. 14.
Ver. 8. The ungodly is described as a lier in wait; and one is reminded by it of such a state of anarchy, that described in Hos. vi. 9 for instance. The picture fix upon one simple feature in which the meanness of the ungodly culminates; and it is possible that it is intended to be taken as emblematical rather than literally. IJjH (from *l^n to surround, cf. Ja^, ^yi^, and especially j+~^) i farm premises walled in (Arab, hadar, haddr, haddra)y then losing the special characteristic of being walled round it comes to mean generally a settled abode (with a house of clay or stone) in opposition to a roaming life in tents (cf. Lev. xxv. 31, Gen. xxv. 16). In such a place where men are more sure of falling into his hands than in the open plain, he lies in wait (D&'\ like &J JmS subsedit = insidiatus est ei), murders unobserved him who had never provoked his vengeance, and his eyes ft'®p Fch?b- M£^ to spie, xxxvii. 32, might have been used instead of ]SS; but)D^ also obtains the meaning, to lie in ambush (lvi. 7, Pro v. i. 11, 18) from the primary notion of restraining one's self (^>Jua fut. i. in Beduin Arabic: to keep still, to be immoveably lost in thought, vid. on Job xxiv. 1), which takes a transitive turn in ]*£ "to conceal". tlD^n, the dative of the object, is pointed just as though it came from y$: Thy host, i. e. Thy church, 0 Jahve. The pausal form accordingly is rchft with Segol, in ver. 14, not with Tsere as in incorrect editions. And the appeal against this interpretation, which is found in the plur. CfrO^n ver. 10, is set aside by the fact that this plural is taken as a double word: host (^n = Wl = b]Fl as in Obad. ver. 20) of the troubled ones (0^2, not as Ben-Labrat supposes, for DWD3, but from DK3 weary, and mellow and decayed), as the Ken (which is followed by the Syriac version) and the Masora direct, and accordingly it is pointed DN3^n with Tsere. The punctuation therefore sets aside a word which was unintelligible to it, and cannot be binding on us. There is a verb "bn, which, it is true, does not occur in the Old Testament, but in the Arabic, from the root dL^. firmus fuit, firmum fecit (whence also JjCa* intrans. to be firm, ferme', i. e. closed), it gains the signification in reference to colour: to be dark (cognate with fen, whence ^^Dfl) and is also transferred to the gloom and blackness of misfortune.* From this an abstract is formed T\br\ or T\bh (like #Bh):
* Cf. Samachschari's Golden Necklaces, Proverb 67, which Fleischer translates: "Which is blacker: the plumage of the raven, which is black as coal, oi thy life, 0 stranger among strangers?" The word "blacker1'
Ver. 9. The picture of the J?t5^1, who is become as it were a beast of prey, is now worked out further. The lustrum of the lion is called Tjb Jer. xxv. 38, or HID Job xxxviii. 40: a thicket, from "2pj which means both to interweave and to plait over = to cover (without any connection with Tfo a thorn, Arab, shdk, a thistle). The figure of the lion is reversed in the second line, the 'oy himself being compared to the beast of prey and the ytp'1 to a hunter who drives him into the pit- fall and when he has fallen in hastens to drag him away ("tt;D, as in xxviii. 3, Job xxiv. 22) in, or by means of (Hos. xi. 4, Job xl. 25), his net, in which he has become entangled.
Vers. 10 — 11. The comparison to the lion is still in force here and the description recurs to its commencement in the second strophe, by tracing back the persecution of the ungodly to its final cause. Instead of the Chethib nr~l (nini perf. consec), the Keri reads T\T\^ more in accordance with the Hebrew use of the tenses, job xxxviii. 40 is the rule for the interpretation. The two futures depict the settled and familiar lying in wait of the plunderer. True, the Kal H!l in the signification "to crouch down" finds no support elsewhere; but the Arab, dakka to make even (cf. Jcon firmiter inhcesit loco, of the crouching down of beasts of prey, of hunters, and of foes) and the Arab, da'g'ga, compared by Hitzig, to move stealthily along, to creep, and dug j eh a hunter's hiding-place exhibit synonymous significations. The TaTisLvwasi aux6v of the LXX. is not far out of the way. And one can still discern in it the assumption that the text i> to be read nw nz"li: and crushed he sinks (Aquila: h XaaOoU y^i^Jr^i-r/.i); but even HJI is not found elsewhi and if the poet meant that, why could he nut have written nr?:? (cf. moreover Judges v. 27). If HZ": is taken in the sense of a position in which one is the Least Likel) to be seen, then the first two verbs refer to the BCulker, but the third according to the usual schema (as e.g. exxiv. 5) i^ t ho predicate to D'iO^n (D\N^n) going before it. Crouching down as low as possible he lies on the watch, and the feeble and defenceless fall into his strong ones, "PEttJJJ, i. e. claws. Thus the ungodly slays the righteous, thinking within himself: God has forgotten, He has hidden His face, i. e. He does not concern Himself about these poor creatures and does not wish to know anything about them (the denial of the truth expressed in ix. 13, 19.); He has in fact never been one who sees, and never will be. These two thoughts are blended; hi with the perf. as in xxi. 3, and the addition of TV&h (cf. xciv. 7) denies the possibility of God seeing now any more than formerly, as being an absolute absurdity. The thought of a personal God would disturb the ungodly in his doings, he therefore prefers to deny His existence, and thinks: there is only fate and fate is blind, only an absolute and it has no eyes, only a notion and that cannot interfere in the affairs of men.
Vers. 12 — 13. The six strophes, in which the consecutive letters from d to % are wanting, are completed, and now the acrostic strophes begin again with p. In contrast to those who have no God, or only a lifeless idol, the psalmist calls upon his God, the living God, to destroy the appearance that He is not an omniscient Being, by arising to action. We have more than one name of God used here; ^ is a vocative just as in xvi. 1, lxxxiii, 2, cxxxix. 17, 23. He is to lift up His hand in order to help and to punish (~P NtM, whence comes the imperat, tffco = N*t£>, cf. HDJ iv. 7, like T r6tt>' cxxxviii. 7 and "P DE: Ex. vii. 5 elsewhere). Forget not is equivalent to: fulfil the rCWtb of ix. 13, put to shame the 7X PDlfi* of the ungodly, ver. 11! Our translation follows the Keri Q'lJjJ. That which is complained of in vers. 3, 4 is put in the form of a question to God in ver. 13: wherefore (DD"7j, instead of which we find 7112'b]) in Num. xxii. 32, Jer. ix. 11, because the following words begin with letters of a different class) does it come to pass, i. e. is it permitted to come to pass? On the perf. in this interrogative clause vid. xi. 3. wo inquires the cause. He6 the aim, and DO'ty the motive, or in general the reason: on what ground, since God's holiness can suffer no injury to His honour?
Ver. 14. Now comes the confirmation of his cry to God: It is with Him entirely different from what the ungodly imagine. They think that He will not punish; but He does see (cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 22), and the psalmist knows and confesses it: nriN"1 (defective — finw xxxv. 22), Thou hast seen and dost see what is done to Thine own, what is done to the innocent. This he supports by a conclusion a genere ad speciem thus: the trouble which is prepared for others, and the sorrow (DgS, as in Eccl. vii. 3) which they cause them, does not escape the all-seeing eye of God, He notes it all, to give it into (lay it in) His hand. "To give anything into any one's hand" is equivalent to, into his power (1 Kings xx. 28, and frequently), or into any one's care (Gen. xxxii. 17, and frequently); but here God gives (lays) the things which are not to be administered, but requited, into His own hand. The expression is meant to be understood according to lvi. 9, cf. Isa. xlix. 16: He is observant of the afflictions of His saints, laying them up in His hand and preserving them there in order, in His own time, to restore them to His saints in joy, and to their enemies in punishment. Thus, therefore, the feeble and helpless (read PD^norn^n; according to the Masoretic text nz^n Thy host, not PD.n, which is contrary to the character of the form, as pau'sal form for Tobvj!) can leave to Him, viz. all his burden (13PP, lv. 23), everything that vexes and disquiets him. Jahve has been and will be the Helper of the fatherless. CTP stands prominent by way of emphasis, like CHIN ix. 13, and Bakius rightly remarks in voce pupilli synecdoche est, complectens omnes illos, qui humanis prccsidiis destituuntur.
Vers. 15 — 16. The desire for Jahve's interposition now rises again with fresh earnestness. It is a mistake to regard l^TT and N^n as correlative notions. In the phrase to seek and not find, when used of that which has totally disappeared, we never have #"H, but always tfjpa, xxxvii. 36, 1 xli. 12, Jer. 1. 20, and frequently. The verb tf"J1 Bignii here exactly the same as in vers. 4, 13, and ix. 13: "and wicked (nom. absol. as in ver. 4) — mayst Thou punish his wickedness, mayst Thou find nothing more of it". It is not without a meaning that, instead of the form of expression usual elsewhere (xxxvii. 36, Job xx. 8), the address to Jahve is retained: that which is no longer visible to the eye of God, not merely of man, has absolutely vanished out of existence. This absolute conquest of evil is to be as surely looked for, as that Jahve's universal kingship, which has been an element of the creed of God's people ever since the call and redemption of Israel (Ex. xv. 18), cannot remain without being perfectly and visibly realised. His absolute and eternal kingship must at length be realised, even in all the universality and endless duration foretold in Zech. xiv. 9, Dan. vii. 14, Apoc. xi. 15. Losing himself in the contemplation of this kingship, and beholding the kingdom of God, the kingdom of good, as realised, the psalmist's vision stretches beyond the foes of the church at home to its foes in general; and, inasmuch as the heathen in Israel and the heathen world outside of Israel are blended together into one to his mind, he comprehends them all in the collective name of D^l-I, and sees the land of Jahve (Lev. xxv. 23), the holy land, purified of all oppressors hostile to the church and its God. It is the same that is foretold by Isaiah (lii. 1), Nahum (ii. 1), and in other passages, which, by the anticipation of faith, here stands before the mind of the suppliant as an accomplished fact — viz. the consummation of the judgment, which has been celebrated in the hymnic half (Ps.ix.) of this double Psalm as a judgment already executed in part.
Vers. 17 — 18. Still standing on this eminence from which he seems to behold the end, the poet basks in the realisation of that which has been obtained in answer to prayer. The ardent longing of the meek and lowly sufferers for the arising, the parusia of Jahve (Isa. xxvi. 8), has now been heard by Him, and that under circumstances which find expression in the following futt., which have a past signification: God has given and preserved to their hearts the right disposition towards Himself (pDili as in lxxviii. 8, Job xi, 13, Sir. ii. 17 exoifxaCeiv xotpStac, post-biblical VO* and to be
* B. Berachoth 31a: the man who prays must direct his heart steadfastly towards God (0>GBfSl2& m).
understood according to 1 Sam. vii. 3, 2 Chron. xx. 33, cf. }1DJ 2b li. 12, lxxviii. 37; it is equivalent to "the single eye" in the language of the New Testament), just as, on the other hand, He has set His ear in the attitude of close attention to their prayer, and even to their most secret sighings (SH^bri with ftft, as in Prov. ii. 2; to stiffen the ear, from DtP'p, v^y*o, root Wp to be hard, rigid, firm, from which we also have JTKjjJ, iLs, n^'p, ^**2, jj-wwj, cf. on Isa. xxi. 7). It was a mutual relation, the design of which was finally and speedily to obtain justice for the fatherless and oppressed, yea crushed, few, in order that mortal man of the earth may no longer (^2, as in Isa. xiv. 21, and in post -biblical Hebrew ^5 and b^b instead of ]Q) terrify. From the parallel conclusion, ix. 20, 21, it is to be inferred that &W does not refer to the oppressed but to the oppressor, and is therefore intended as the subject; and then the phrase IHNJTJE als° belongs to it, as in xvii. 14, people of the world, lxxx. 14 boar of the woods, whereas in Prov. xxx. 14 ^~)ND belongs to the verb (to devour from off the earth). It is only in this combination that ^INrrp l^'UX forms with y*lg? a significant paronomasia, by contrasting the conduct of the tyrant with his true nature: a mortal of the earth, i. e. a being who, far removed from any possibility of vying with the God who is in heaven, has the earth as his birth-place. It is not flCPI&tfTJD, for the earth is not referred to as the material out of which man is formed, but as his ancestral house, his home, his bound, just as in the expression of John 6 flv ex ttj; -p}^ iii. 31 (Lat. ut non amplius terreat homo terrenus). A similar play of words was attempted before in ix. 20 tfjjgj)'y^N\ The Hebrew verb yyy signifies both to give way to fear, Deut. vii. 21, and to put in fear, Isa. ii. 19, 21, xlvii. 12. It d< mean "to defy, rebel against", although it might have this meaning according to the Arabic,j£>>x. (to come in the way, withstand, according to which Wetzstein explains p")Jj Job xxx. 6, like ^v-fc, "a valley that runs slantwise across a district, a gorge that blocks up the traveller's way".*). It is related to ^jX. to vibrate, tremble {e.g. of lightnin
1 IN Jahve put I my trust — how say ye to my soul: "Flee to your mountain [as] a birdl
2 "For, lo, the wicked have bent the bow,
"They have made ready their arrow upon the string, "To shoot the upright in heart in the dark.
His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men.
And the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth.
7 For Jahve is righteous, loving righteousness: The upright shall behold His countenance.
Ps. xi., which likewise confidently sets the all-seeing eye of Jahve before the ungodly who carry out their murderous designs under cover of the darkness, is placed after Ps. x. The life of David (to whom even Hitzig and Ewald ascribe this Psalm) is threatened, the pillars of the state are shaken, they counsel the king to flee to the mountains. These are indications of the time when the rebellion of Absolom was secretly preparing, but still clearly discernible. Although hurrying on with a swift measure and clear in the principal thoughts, still this Psalm is not free from difficult points, just as it is with all the Psalms which contain similar dark passages from the internal condition of Israel. The gloomy condition of the nation seems to be reflected in the very language. The strophic plan is not easily discernible; nevertheless we cannot go far wrong in dividing the Psalm into two seven line strophes with a two line epiphonema.
Vers. 1 — 3. David rejects the advice of his friends to save his life by flight. Hidden in Jahve (xvi. 1, xxxvi. 8) he needs no other refuge. However well-meant and wellgrounded the advice, he considers it too full of fear and is himself too confident in God, to follow it. David also introduces his friends as speaking in other passages in the Psalms belonging to the period of the Absolom persecution, iii. 3, iv. 7. Their want of courage, which he afterwards had to reprove and endeavour to restore, shewed itself even before the storm had burst, as we see here. With the words "how can you say" he rejects their proposal as unreasonable, and turns it as a reproach against them. If the Chethib, 1113, is adopted, then those who are well-disposed, say to David, including with him his nearest subjects who are faithful to him: retreat to your mountain, (ye) birds (")1D^ collective as in viii. 9, cxlviii. 10); or, since this address sounds too derisive to be appropriate to the lips of those who are supposed to be speaking here: like birds (comparatio decurtata as in xxii. 14, lviii. 9, Job xxiv. 5, Isa. xxi. 8). DDV[ which seems more natural in connection with the vocative rendering of TIS5J (cf. Isa. xviii. G with Ezek. xxxix. 4) may also be explained, with the comparative rendering, without any need for the conjecture TiBB 1EO 1H (cf. Deut. xxxiii. 19), as a retrospective glance at the time of the persecution under Saul: to the mountains, which formerly so effectually protected you (cf. 1 Sam. xxvi. 20, xxiii. 14). But the Keri, which is followed by the ancient versions, exchanges mj for HU, cf. T\& Isa. li. 23. Even reading it thus we should not take "11BU, which certainly is epiccene, as vocative: flee to your mountain, 0 bird (Hitz.); and for this reason, that this form of address is not appropriate to the idea of those who profer their counsel. But we should take it as an equation instead of a comparison: fly to your mountain (which gave you shelter formerly), a bird, i. e. after the manner of a bird that flies away to its mountain home when it is chased in the plain. But this Keri appears to be a needless correction, which removes the difficulty of HU coming after HS^A, by putting another in the place of this sy nail age numeri.*
In ver. 2 the faint-hearted ones give as the ground of their advice, the fearful peril which threatens from the side of crafty and malicious foes. As n|n implies, this danger is imminent. The perfect overrides the future: they are not only already in the act of bending the bow, they have made ready their arrow, i. e. their deadly weapon, upon the string (*in> = "1ITO, xxi. 13, Arab, rvatar, from TP, rvatara, to stretch tight, extend, so that the thing is continued in one straight line) and even taken aim, in order to discharge it (PH"1 with b of the aim, as in lxiv. 5, with ace. of the object) in the dark (i. e. secretly, like an assassin) at the upright (those who by their character are opposed to them). In ver. 3 the faint-hearted still further support their advice from the present total subversion of justice, nin^'n are either the highest ranks, who support the edifice of the state, according to Isa. xix. 10, or, according to lxxxii. 5, Ezek. xxx. 4, the foundations of the state, upon whom the existence and wellbeing of the land depends. We prefer the latter, since the king and those who are loyal to him, who are associated in thought with pvjs, are compared to theniW. The construction of the clause beginning with 13 is like Job xxxviii. 41. The fut. has a present signification. The perf. in the principal clause, as it frequently does elsewhere (e. g. xxxix. 8, lx. 11, Gen. xxi. 7, Num. xxiii. 10, Job xii. 9, 2 Kings xx. 9) in interrogative sentences, corresponds to the Latin conjunctive (here quid fecerif), and is to be expressed in English by the auxiliary verbs: when the bases of the state are shattered, what can the righteous do? he can do nothing. And all counter-effort is so useless that it is well to be as far from danger as possible.
Vers. 4 — 6. The words of David's counsellors who fear for him are now ended. And David justifies his confidence in God with which he began his song. Jahve sits enthroned a bird" it would require to be accented flKJ D3*]i") H13 (as a transformation from *)ir^ CD "in T1TJ, vid. Baer's Accents system XVIII. 2). The interpunction as we have it, niDif DD1PI TllJ, harmonises with the interpretation of Varenius as of Ldb Spira {Pentateuch- Comm. 1815): Fugiie (0 socii Davidis), mons vesier (h. c. presidium vestrum, Ps. xxx. 8, cui inm'timini) est avis errans.
above all that takes place on earth that disheartens those of little faith. At an infinite distance above the earth, and also above Jerusalem, now in rebellion, is a BH'p ton, xviii. 7, xxix. 9, and in this holy temple is Jahve, the Hoiy One. Above the earth are the heavens, and in heaven is the throne of Jahve, the King of kings. And this temple, this palace in the heavens, is the place whence issues the final decision of all earthly matters, Hab. ii. 20, Mic. i. 2. For His throne above is also the super- terrestrial judgment- seat, ix. 8, ciii. 19. Jahve who sits thereon is the all -seeing and omniscient One. HTn prop, to split, cf. cernerc, is used here according to its radical meaning, of a sharp piercing glance. p3 prop, to try metals by fire, of a fixed and penetrating look that sees into a thing to the foundation of its inmost nature. The mention of the eyelids is intentional. When we observe a thing closely or ponder over it, we draw the eyelids together, in order that our vision may be more concentrated and direct, and become, as it were, one ray piercing through the object. Thus are men open to the all -seeing eyes, the allsearching looks of Jahve: the just and the unjust alike. He tries the righteous, i. e. He knows that in the depth of his soul there is an upright nature that will abide all testing (xvii. 3, Job xxiii. 10), so that He lovingly protects him, just as the righteous lovingly depends upon Him. And His soul hates (i. e. He hates him with all the energy of His perfectly and essentially holy nature) the evil-doer and him that delights in the violence of the strong towards the weak. And the more intense this hatred, the more fearful will the judgments in which it bursts forth.
Ver. 7, which assumes a declaration of something that is near at hand, is opposed to our rendering the voluntative form of the fut.9 *0?\ as expressive of a wish. The shorl form of the future is frequently indicative in the sense of the future, e. g. lxxii. 13, or of the present, e. g. lviii. 5, or of the past, xviii. 12. Thus it here affirms a fact of the future which follows as a necessity from vers. 4, 5. Assuming that ErrvD might be equivalent to DGTIB, even then the Hebrew CHD, according to the general usage of the langua in distinction from nk"^, does not denote burning, but black coals. It ought therefore to have been JN 'CPI?. Hi1 reads CPID from ITS) ashes; but a rain of ashes is no medium of punishment. Bottcher translates it "lumps" according to Ex. xxxix. 3, Num. xvii. 3; but in these passages the word means thin plates. We adhere to the signification snares, Job xxii. 10, cf. xxi. 17, Prov. xxii. 5; and following the accentuation, we understand it to be a means of punishment by itself. First of all descends a whole discharge of missiles which render all attempt at flight impossible, viz. lightnings; for the lightning striking out its course and travelling from one point in the distance, bending itself like a serpent, may really be compared to a snare, or noose, thrown down from above. In addition to fire and brimstone (Gen.xix. 24) we have also rVjry^T PITH. The LXX. renders it ttvsujaoc xaxai- YtSo?, and the Targum N^nySj; KBgT, procella turbinea. The root is not F]y^, which cannot be sustained as a cognate form of 2J"6, 2fcO to burn, but «^yT, which (as Sam. v. 10 shews) exactly corresponds to the Latin cestuare which combines in itself the characteristics of heat and violent motion, therefore perhaps: a wind of flames, i. e. the deadly simoom, which, according to the present division of the verse is represented in connection with n^TSfl W8, as the breath of the divine wrath pouring itself forth like a stream of brimstone, Isa. xxx. 33. It thus also becomes clear how this can be called the portion of their cup, i. e. what is adjudged to them as the contents of their cup which they must drain off. fijp (only found in the Davidic Psalms, with the exception of 2 Chron. xxxi. 4) is both absolutivus and constructivus according to Olshausen (§§ 108, c, 165, e), and is derived from manajath, ovmanarvath, with the original feminine termination ath, the final weak radical being blended with it. According to Hupfeld it is constr., springing from r,02, like nap (in Dan. and Neh.) from niSg. But probably it is best to regard it
Ver. 7. Thus then Jahve is in covenant with David. Even though he cannot defend himself against his enemies, still, when Jahve gives free course to His hatred in judgment, they will then have to do with the powers of wrath and death, which they will not be able to escape. When the closing distich bases this different relation of God towards the righteous and the unrighteous and this judgment of the latter on the righteousness of God, we at once perceive what a totally different and blessed end awaits the righteous. As Jahve Himself is righteous, so also on His part (1 Sam. xii. 7, Mic. vi. 5, and frequently) and on the part of man (Isa. xxxiii. 15) He loves nipltf, the works of righteousness. The object of 2HN (= DHN) stands at the head of the sentence, as in xcix. 4, cf. x. 14. In ver. lb IB* designates the upright as a class, hence it is the more natural for the predicate to follow in the plur. (cf. ix. 7, Job viii. 19) than to precede as elsewhere (Prov. xxviii. 1, Isa. xvi. 4). The rendering: "His countenance looks upon the upright man" (Hengst. and others) is not a probable one, just because one expects to find something respecting the end of the upright in contrast to that of the ungodly. This rendering is also contrary to the general usage of the language, according to which D"0D is always used only as that which is to be seen, not as that which itself sees. It ought to have been iDtPgi xxxiii. 18, xxxiv. 16, Job xxxvi. 7. It must therefore be translated according to xvii. 15, cxl. 13: the upright (quisquis probus est) shall behold His countenance. The pathetic form ID^S instead of TOD was specially admissible here, where God is spoken of (as in Deut. xxxiii. 2, cf. Isa. xliv. 15). It ought not to be denied any longer that mo is sometimes (e. g. Job xx. 23, cf. xxii. 2, xxvii. 23) a dignified singular suffix. To behold the face of God is in itself impossible to mortals without dying. But when God reveals Himself in love, then He makes His countenance bearable to the creature. And to enjoy this vision of God softened by love is the highest honour God in His mercy can confer on a man; it is the blessedness itself that is reserved for the upright, cxl. 14. It is not possible to say that what is intended is a future vision of God; but it is just as little possible to say that it is exclusively a vision in this world. To the Old Testament conception the future C^iyis certainly lost in the night of Sheol. But faith broke through this night, and consoled itself with a future beholding of God, Job MX. 26. The redemption of the New Testament has realised this aspiration of faith, since the Redeemer has broken through the night of the realm of the dead, has borne on high with Him the
Old Testament saints, and translated them into the sphere of the divine love revealed in heaven.
2 HELP, Jahve, for the godly man ceaseth,
3 They speak falsehood one with another, Flattering lips with a double heart, they speak.
5 Which say: to our tongue we impart strength, Our lips are with us, who is lord over us?!
G "Because of the desolation of the afflicted, the sighing of the poor, "Will I now arise — saith Jahve — "In safety will I set him who languisheth for it." —
Ps. xi. is appropriately followed by Ps. xii., which is of a kindred character: a prayer for the deliverance of the poor and miserable in a time of universal moral corruption, and more particularly of prevailing faithlessness and boasting. The inscription: To the Precentor, on the Octave, a Psalm of David points us to the time when the Temple music was being established, i. e. the time of David — incomparably the best age in the history of Israel, and yet, viewed in the light of the spirit of holiness, an age so radically corrupt. The true people of Jahve were even then, as ever, a church of confessors and martyrs, and the sighing for the coming of Jahve was then not less deep than the cry "Come, Lord Jesus!" at the present time.
This Ps. xii. together with Ps. ii. is a second example of the way in which the psalmist, when under great excitement of spirit, passes over into the tone of one who directly hears God's words, and therefore into the tone of an inspired prophet. Just as lyric poetry in general, as being a direct and solemn expression of strong inward feeling, is the earliest form of poetry: so psalm -poetry contains in itself not only the mashal, the epos, and the drama in their preformative stages, but prophecy also, as we have it in the prophetic writings of its most flourishing period, has, as it were, sprung from the bosom of psalm-poetry. It is throughout a blending of prophetical epic and subjective lyric elements, and is in many respects the echo of earlier psalms, and even in some instances (as e.g. Isa. xii., Hab. iii.) transforms itself into the strain of a psalm. Hence Asaph is called nj.hr] in 2 Chron. xxix. 30, not from the special character of his Psalms, but from his being a psalmist in general; for Jeduthun has the same name given to him in 2 Chron. xxxv. 15, and N23 in 1 Chron. xxv. 2 sq. (cf. irpo^Tstkiv, Luke i. 67) is used directly as an epithet for psalm -singing with accompaniment — a clear proof that in prophecy the cooperation of a human element is no less to be acknowledged, than the influence of a divine element in psalm-poi
The direct words of Jahve, and the psalmist's Amen to them, form the middle portion of this Psalm — a six line strophe, which is surrounded by four line strophes.
Vers. 2 — 3. The sigh of supplication, n^Lrr. has object within itself: work deliverance, give help; and the motive is expressed by the complaint which follows. 1 he verb "ic-1 to complete, means here, as in vii. 10, to have an end; and the air. Xsy. CCD is equivalent to DBN in lx.wii. to come to the extremity, to cease. It is at our.- clear from the predicate being placed first in the plur., that D^BN this passage is not an abstr actum } as e. g, in Prov. xiii- 17.; moreover the parallelism is against it, just as in x.wi.
-pen is the pious man, as one who practises "|pH towards God and man. J1DN, primary form WON (plur. DOIBKJ whereas from NEN we should expect C01DN), — used as an adjective (cf. on the contrary Deut. xxxii. 20) here just as in xxxi. 24, 2 Sam. xx. 19, — is the reliable, faithful, conscientious man, literally one who is firm, i. e. whose word and meaning is firm, so that one can rely upon it and be certain in relation to it. * We find similar complaints of the universal prevalence of wickedness in Mic. vii. 2, Isa. lvii. 1, Jer. vii. 28, and elsewhere. They contain their own limitation. For although those who complain thus without pharisaic self- righteousness would convict themselves of being affected by the prevailing corruption, they are still, in their penitence, in their sufferings for righteousness* sake, and in their cry for help, a standing proof that humanity has not yet, without exception, become a massa perdita. That which the writer especially laments, is the prevailing untruthfulness. Men speak xw (= Nit£>from Nltt>), desolation and emptiness under a disguise that conceals its true nature, falsehood (xli. 7), and hypocrisy (Job xxxv. 13), exaoxo? izpoc, tov uXtjoiov auiou (LXX., cf. Ephes. iv. 25, where the greatness of the sin finds xts confirmation according to the teaching of the New Testament: on eo[X£v aXXrjXwv jxsXyj). They speak lips of smoothnesses (rYipbn, plural from np^n, Icevitates, or from p^n, Icevia), i. e. the smoothest, most deceitful language (accusative of the object as in Isa. xix. 18) with a double heart, inasmuch, namely, as the meaning they deceitfully express to others, and even to themselves, differs from the purpose they actually cherish, or even (cf. 1 Chron. xii. 33 2b N^>2 2b\ and James i. 8 8(^0^0?, wavering) inasmuch as the purpose they now so flatteringly put forth quickly changes to the very opposite.