S") are to be read in close connection, to secure distinct! nunciation for the unaccented V, as e. >j. is also the case i 13, D;yP3 {baku jam).
The name of the God of Jacob set thee up on high,
3 Send thee help from the sanctuary, And uphold thee out of Zion!
5 Give thee according to thine own heart, And fulfil all thy counsel!
7 Now know I that Jahve giveth help to His Anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven
To Ps. xix. is closely attached Ps. xx., because its commencement is as it were the echo of the prayer with which the former closes; and to Ps. xx. is closely attached Ps. xxi., because both Psalms refer to the same event relatively, as prayer and thanksgiving. Ps. xx. is an intercessory psalm of the nation, and Ps. xxi. a thanksgiving psalm of the nation, on behalf of its king. It is clearly manifest that the two Psalms form a pair, being connected by unity of author and subject. They both open somewhat uniformly with a synonymous parallelism of the members, xx. 2 — G, xxi. 2 — 8; they then increase in fervour and assume a more vivid colouring as they come to speak of the foes of the king and the empire, xx. 7 — 9, xxi. 9 — 13; and they both close with an ejaculatory cry to Jahve, xx. 10, xxi. 14. In both, the king is apostrophised through the course of several verses, xx. 2 — 6, xxi. 9 — 13; and here and there this is done in a way that provokes the question whether the words are not rather addressed to Jahve, xx. 6, xxi. 10. In both Psalms the king is referred to by T]ban, xx. 10, xxi. 8; both comprehend the goal of the desires in the word njW'*.j xx. 6, cf. 7, xxi. 2, 6; both delight in rare forms of expression, which are found only in these instances in the whole range of Old Testament literature, viz. bm xx. 6,
If, as the "Ti"6 indicates, they formed part of the oldest Davidic Psalter, then it is notwithstanding more probable that their author is a cotemporary poet, than that it is David himself. For, although both as to form of expression (cf. xxi. 12 with x. 2) and as to thoughts (cf. xxi. 7 with xvi. 11), they exhibit some points of contact with Davidic Psalms, they still stand isolated by their peculiar character. But that David is their subject, as the inscription ir6, and their position in the midst of the Davidic Psalms, lead one to expect, is capable of confirmation. During the time of the Syro-Ammonitish war comes David's deep fall, which in itself and in its consequences made him sick both in soul and in body. It was not until he was again restored to God's favour out of this self-incurred peril, that he went to his army which lay before Rabbath Ammon, and completed the conquest of the royal city of the enemy. The most satisfactory explanation of the situation referred to in this couplet of Psalms is to be gained from 2 Sain. xi. xii. Ps. xx. prays for the recovery of the king, who i> involved in war with powerful foes; and Ps. xxi. gives thanks for his recovery, and wishes him a victorious issue to tin- approaching campaign. The "chariots and horses" ('xx. s) are characteristic of the military power of Aram (-1 Sam. x. 1 -, and frequently), and in xxi. 4 and 10 we perceive aD allusion to 2 Sam. xii. 30, 31, or at Least a remaikal ment with what is there recorded.
Vers. 2 — 6. Litany for the king in distress, who offers sacrifices for himself in the sanctuary. The futures in vers. 2 — 5, standing five times at the head of the climactic members of the parallelism, are optatives. KtDI, ver. 6, also continues the chain of wishes, of which even nip!! (cf. lxix. 15) forms one of the links. The wishes of the people accompany both the prayer and the sacrifice. "The Name of the God of Jacob" is the self-manifesting power and grace of the God of Israel. 2py is used in poetry interchangeably with ^NT£">, just like DTI^N with mr?. Alshech refers to Gen. xxxv. 3; and it is not improbable that the desire moulds itself after the fashion of the record of the fact there handed down to us. May Jahve, who, as the history of Jacob shews, hears (and answers) in the day of distress, hear the king; may the Name of the God of Jacob bear him away from his foes to a triumphant height. 23ty alternates with cell (xviii. 49) in this sense. This intercession on the behalf of the praying one is made in the sanctuary on the heights of Zion, where Jahve sits enthroned. May He send him succour from thence, like auxiliary troops that decide the victory. The king offers sacrifice. He offers sacrifice according to custom before the commencement of the battle (1 Sam. xiii. 9 sq., and cf. the phrase DErto t£Hp), a whole burnt-offering and at the same time a meat or rather meal offering also, nirOE;* for every whole offering and every shelamim- or peace-offering had a meat-offering and a drink-offering as its indispensable accompaniment. The word 121 is perfectly familiar in the ritual of the meal-offering. That portion of the meal-offering, only a part of which was placed upon the altar (to which, however, according to traditional practice, does not belong the accompanying meal-offering of the D"CD3 nnJE, which was entirely devoted to the altar), which ascended with the altar fire is called rn^TH, (xvYjjjioaavov
* This, though not occurring in the Old Testament, is the principal form of the plural, which, as even David Kimchi recognises in his Lexicon, points to a verb rUO (just as Hi/D'U, my^, HiDD^ point to '?^i Vr^> HD^)j whereas other old grammarians supposed nnJ to be the root, and were puzzled with the traditional pronunciation menacholh} but without reason.
(cf. Acts x. 4), that which brings to remembrance with God him for whom it is offered up (not "incense", as Hupfeld renders it); for the designation of the offering of jealousy, Num. v. 15, as "bringing iniquity to remembrance before God" shews, that in the meal-offering ritual ""D? retains the very same meaning that it has in other instances. Every meal-offering is in a certain sense a Yft2\ HPIjO. Hence here the prayer that Jahve would graciously remember them is combined with the meal-offerings.
As regards the colah, the wish "let fire from heaven (Lev. ix. 24, 1 Kings xviii. 38, 1 Chron. xxi. 26) turn it to ashes", would not be vain. But the language does not refer to anything extraordinary; and in itself the consumption of the offering to ashes (Bottcher) is no mark of gracious acceptance. Moreover, as a denominative from |ttft, fat ashes, ]BH means "to clean from ashes", and not: to turn into ashes. On the other hand, ]EH also signifies "to make fat", xxiii. 5, and this effective signification is applied declaratively in this instance: may He find thy burnt-offering fat, which is equivalent to: may it be to Him a orTO iTH [an odour of satisfaction, a sweet-smelling savour]. The voluntative ah only occurs here and in Job xi. 17 (which see) and Isa. v. 19, in the 3 pers.\ and in this instance, just as with the cohortative in 1 Sam. xxviii. 15, we have a change of the lengthening into a sharpening of the sound (cf. the exactly similar change of forms in 1 Sam. xxviii. 15, Isa. lix. 5, Zech. v. 4, Prov. xxiv. 14, Ezek. xxv. 13) as is very frequently the case in Dp for HD. The alteration to HjCTP or rfflth] (Hitzig) is a felicitous but needless way of getting rid of the rare form. The explanation of the intensifying of the music here is, that the intercessory song of the choir is to be simultaneous with the presentation upon the altar (•TjOpn)- PlSg is the resolution formed in the present wartime. "Because of thy salvation", i. e. thy success in war, is, as all the language is here, addressed to the king, cf. xxi. 2, where it is addressed to Jahve, and intended of the victory accorded to him. It is needless to read u*:: in of bin:-, after the rendering of the LXX. p Ite.
^JPU is a denominative from ^ri: to wave a banner. In the closing line, the rejoicing of hope goes back again to the present and again assumes the form of an intercessory desire.
Vers. 7 — 9. While vers. 2 — 6 were being sung the offering of the sacrifice was probably going on. Now, after a lengthened pause, there ascends a voice, probably the voice of one of the Levites, expressing the cheering assurance of the gracious acceptance of the offering that has been presented by the priest. With r\T\V_ or DnjJl, the usual word to indicate the turning-point, the instantaneous entrance of the result of some previous process of prolonged duration, whether hidden or manifest (e. g. 1 Kings xvii. 24, Isa. xxix. 22), is introduced. JW'IH is the perfect of faith, which, in the certainty of being answered, realises the fulfilment in anticipation. The exuberance of the language in ver. 7 corresponds to the exuberance of feeling which thus finds expression.
In ver. 3 the answer is expected out of Zion, in the present instance it is looked for from God's holy heavens; for the God who sits enthroned in Zion is enthroned for ever in the heavens. His throne on earth is as it were the vestibule of His heavenly throne; His presence in the sanctuary of Israel is no limitation of His omnipresence; His help out of Zion is the help of the Celestial One and Him who is exalted above the heaven of heavens. D1T123 does not here mean the fulness of might (cf. xc. 10), but the displays of power (cvi. 2, cxlv. 4, cl. 2, Isa. lxiii. 15), by which His right hand procures salvation, i. e. victory, for the combatant. The glory of Israel is totally different from that of the heathen, which manifests itself in boastful talk. In ver. 8a YV&tt} or W2P must be supplied from the "p3U in ver. 8b (LXX. (x£YaXuv6Yja6[X£0a = T;M, xii. 5); 3 T3in, to make laudatory mention of any matter, to extol, and indirectly therefore to take credit to one's self for it, to boast of it (cf. 2 ^H, xliv. 9). According to the Law Israel was forbidden to have any standing army; and the law touching the king (Deut. xvii. 16) speaks strongly against his keeping many horses. It was also the same under the judges, and at this time under David; but under Solomon, who acquired for himself horses and chariots in great number (1 Kings x. 26 — 29), it was very different. It is therefore a confession that must belong to the time of David which is here made in ver. 8, viz. that Israel's glory in opposition to their enemies, especially the Syrians, is the sure defence and protection of the Name of their God alone. The language of David to Goliath is very similar, 1 Sam. xvii. 45. The preterites in ver. 9 are prcet. confidentice. It is, as Luther says, "a song of triumph before the victory, a shout of joy before succour." Since Dip does not mean to stand, but to rise, WOT) assumes the present superiority of the enemy. But the position of affairs changes: those who stand fall, and those who are lying down rise up; the former remain lying, the latter keep the field. The Hithpa. TVlynn signifies to shew one's self firm, strong, courageous; like Tliy, cxlvi. 9, clxvii. 6, to strengthen, confirm, recover,
Ver. 10. After this solo voice, the chorus again come on. The song is closed, as it was opened, by the whole congregation; and is rounded off by recurring to its primary note, praying for the accomplishment of that which is sought and pledged. The accentuation construes "ban with tiJjP as its subject, perhaps in consideration of the fact, that njWin is not usually followed by a governed object, and because thus a medium is furnished for the transition from address to direct assertion. But if in a Psalm, the express object of which is to supplicate salvation for the king, "j^DD MlWin stand side by side, then, in accordance with the connection, "|bnn must be treated as the object; and more especially since Jahve is called 2~) TJ7D, in xlviii. 3, and the like, but never absolutely "|^cn. Wherefore it is, with Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others, to be rendered according to the LXX. and Vulgate, Domine salvum fac raj cm. The New Testament cry '^actwa x<p tncp Aaoft is a peculiar application of this Davidic "God bless the king (God the king)", which is brought about by means of exviii. 25. 1 closing line, ver. 10b, is an expanded Amen.
4 For Thou dost meet him bringing blessings of good, Thou settest upon his head a crown of fine gold.
5 He asked life of Thee, — Thou grantedst it to him, Length of days, for ever and ever.
And through the favour of the Most High he shall not be moved.
10 Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven,
when thou art angry, Jahve in His wrath shall swallow them up, and a fire shall devour them.
11 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, And their seed from among the children of men.
uJahve fulfil all thy desires" cried the people in the preceding Psalm, as they interceded on behalf of their king; and in this Psalm they are able thankfully to say to God "the desire of his heart hast Thou granted." In both Psalms the people come before God with matters that concern the welfare of their king; in the former, with their wishes and prayers, in the latter, their thanksgivings and hopes; in the latter as in the former when in the midst of war, but in the latter after the recovery of the king, in the certainty of a victorious termination of the war.
The Targum and the Talmud, B. Succa 52a, understand this 21st Psalm of the king Messiah. Rashi remarks that this Messianic interpretation ought rather to be given up for the sake of the Christians. But even the Christian exposition cannot surely mean to hold fast this interpretation so directly and rigidly as formerly. This pair of Psalm treats of David; David's cause, however, in its course towards a triumphant issue — a course leading through suffering — is certainly figuratively the cause of Christ.
Vers. 2 — 3. The Psalm begins with thanksgiving for the bodily and spiritual blessings which Jahve has bestowed and still continues to bestow upon the king, in answer to his prayer. This occupies the three opening tetrastichs, of which these verses form the first, iy (whence?fttf, as in lxxiv. 13, together with My, lxiii. 3, and frequently) is the power that has been made manifest in the king, which lias turned away his affliction; Jiy-lt^ is the help from above which has freed him out of his distress. The 7'!P, which follows the HO of the exclamation, is naturally shortened by the Keri into by (with the retreat of the tone); cf. on the contrary Prov. xx. 24, where no is interrogative and, according to the sense, negative). The kr.. Xef. T)UhH lias the signification eager desire, according to the connection, the LXX. osTjaiv, and the perhaps also cognate l;,,~\ to 1"- po the Arabic t&sy avidum esse, must be left out of considei tion according to the laws of the interchange ofcoi the same root. Observe the strong negation bl: no, thou hast not denied, but done the very opposite. The fact of the music having to strike up here favours the supposition, that the occasion of the Psalm is the fulfilment of some public, well-known prayer.
Vers. 4 — 5. "Blessings of good" (Prov. xxiv. 25) are those which consist of good, i. e. true good fortune. The verb Clp, because used of the favour which meets and presents one with some blessing, is construed with a double accusative, after the manner of verbs of putting on and bestowing (Ges. § 139). Since ver. 4b cannot be intended to refer to David's first coronation, but to the preservation and increase of the honour of his kingship, this particularisation of ver. 4=a sounds like a prediction of what is recorded in 2 Sam. xii. 30: after the conquest of the Ammonitish royal city Rabbah David set the Ammonitish crown (mtDg), which is renowned for the weight of its gold and its ornamentation with precious stones, upon his head. David was then advanced in years, and in consequence of heavy guilt, which, however, he had overcome by penitence and laying hold on the mercy of God, was come to the brink of the grave. He, worthy of death, still lived; and the victory over the Syro-Ammonitish power was a pledge to him of God's faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. It is contrary to the tenour of the words to say that ver. 5b does not refer to length of life, but to hereditary succession to the throne. To wish any one that he may live D^ly^, and especially a king, is a usual thing, 1 Kings i. 31, and frequently. The meaning is, may the life of the king be prolonged to an indefinitely distant day. What the people have desired elsewhere, they here acknowledge as bestowed upon the king.
Vers. 6 — 7. The help of God turns to his honour, and paves the way for him to honour, it enables him — this is the meaning of ver. 6b — to maintain and strengthen his kingship with fame and glory. b)l rw used, as in lxxxix. 20, of divine investiture and endowment. To make blessings, or a fulness of blessing, is a stronger form of expressing God's words to Abram, Gen. xii. 2: thou shalt be a blessing i.e. a possessor of blessing thyself, and a medium of blessing to others. Joy in connection with (nx as in xvi. 11) the countenance of God, is joy in delightful and most intimate fellowship with Him. mn, from mn, which occurs once in Exod. xviii. 9, has in Arabic, with reference to nomad life, the meaning "to cheer the beasts of burden with a song and urge them on to a quicker pace", and in Hebrew, as in Aramaic, the general signification "to cheer, enliven."
Vers. 8 — 9. With this strophe the second half of the Psalm commences. The address to God is now changed into an address to the king; not, however, expressive of the wishes, but of the confident expectation, of the speakers. Hengstenberg rightly regards ver. 8 as the transition to the second half; for by its objective utterance concerning the king and God, it separates the language hitherto addressed to God, from the address to the king, which follows. We do not render ver. 8b: and [trusting] in the favour of the Most High — he shall not be moved; the mercy is the response of the trust, which (trust) does not suffer him to be moved; on the expression, cf. Prov. x. 30. This inference is now expanded in respect to the enemies who desire to cause him to totter and fall. So far from any tottering, he, on the contrary, makes a victorious assault upon his foes. If the words had been addressed to Jahve, it ought, in order to keep up the connection between vers. 9 and 8, at least to have been vrptf and VfrO£> (his, i. e. the king's, enemies). What the people now hope on behalf of their king, they here express beforehand in the form of a prophecy, b KSD (as in Isa. x. 10) and N!J£ seq. ace. (as in 1 Sam. xxiii. 17) arc distinguished as: to reach towards, or up to anything, and to reach anything, attain it. Supposing b to represent the accusative, as e. g. in lxix. 6, ver. 9b would be a uscl repetition.
Vers. 10 — 11. Hitherto the Psalm has moved uniformly in synonymous dipodia, now it becomes agitated; and one feels from its excitement that the foes of the king are also the people's foes. True as it is, as Hupfeld takes it, that 5ME) PyS sounds like a direct address to Jahve, rer. \0b nevertheless as truly teaches us quite another renderii The destructive effect, which in other | laid to iv. 16 (cf. £X£t 6£os ex&txov oji{xa),is here ascribed to the face, I. e. the personal appearing (2 Sam. xvii. 11) of the king. David's arrival did actually decide the fall of Rabbath Amnion, of whose inhabitants some died under instruments of torture and others were cast into brick-kilns, 2 Sam. xii. 26 sqq. The prospect here moulds itself according to this fate of the Ammonites. #n "fiSHS is a second accusative to lorw'fl, thou wilt make them like a furnace of fire, i. e. a burning furnace, so that like its contents they shall entirely consume by fire {synecdoche continentis pro contento). The figure is only hinted at, and is differently applied to what it is in Lam. v. 10, Mai. iii. 19. Ver. 10a and 10& are intentionally two long rising and falling wave-like lines, to which succeed, in ver. 11, two short lines; the latter describe the peaceful gleaning after the fiery judgment of God that has been executed by the hand of David. ionD, as in Lam. ii. 20, Hos. ix. 16, is to be understood after the analogy of the expression jEiri v\9. It is the fate of the Amalekites (cf. ix. 6 sq.), which is here predicted of the enemies of the king.
Vers. 12 — 13. And this fate is the merited frustration of their evil project. The construction of the sentences in ver. 12 is like xxvii. 10, cxix. 83; Ew. § 362, b. HV"1 DEJ is not to be understood according to the phrase ntSf] H£5j (= VPTB), for this phrase is not actually found; we have rather, with Hitzig, to compare lv. 4, 2 Sam. xv. 14: to incline evil down upon any one is equivalent to: to put it over him, so that it may fall in upon him. HEJ signifies "to extend lengthwise", to unfold, but also to bend by drawing tight. ddi& rvt^' to make into a back, i. e. to make them into such as turn the back to you, is a more choice expression than Fp'y jro, xviii. 41, cf. 1 Sam. x. 9; the half segolate form DDtP", (= DDK') becomes here, in pause, the full segolate form DDBf. C^n must be supplied as the object to UpR, as it is in other instances after rniH, 'SJvBfl,!TV; yr\ pi3, xi. 2, cf. vii. 14, signifies to set the swift arrow upon the bow-string (irvo = "TT)j) = to aim. The arrows hit the front of the enemy, as the pursuer overtakes them.
Ver. 14. After the song has spread abroad its wings in twice three tetrastichs, it closes by, as it were, soaring aloft and thus losing itself in a distich. It is a cry to God for victory in battle, on behalf of the king. "Be Thou exalted", t\ e. manifest Thyself in Thy supernal (lvii. 6, 12) and judicial (vii. 7 sq.) sovereignty. What these closing words long to see realised is that Jahve should reveal for world-wide conquest this niD?, to which everything that opposes Him must yield, and it is for this they promise beforehand a joyous gratitude.
2 MY God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?! Far from my help is my entreating cry,
3 0 my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou answerest not, And in the night season, but I have no rest.
They trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. G Unto Thee they cried and were freed,
A reproach of men and despised of the people.
8 All they that see me laugh me to scorn; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head:
10 Yea Thou art He that took me out of the womb That inspired me with trust at my mother's breasts.
12 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, For there is no helper at hand.
14 They open their mouth against me A lion ravening and roaring.
15 Like water am I poured out, And out of joint are all my bones. My heart is become like wax, Melted in the midst of my bowels.
16 Dried up like a potsherd is my strength. And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, And Thou layest me in the dust of death.
A band of wicked men encircles me, Like a lion, my hands and my feet.
19 They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture they cast lots.
20 And Thou, Jahve, remain not afar off! My strength, haste Thee to help me!
In the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee:
"All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him,
25 "For He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, "Neither hath He hid His face from him, "And when he cried, He hath hearkened to him."
26 From Thee cometh my praise in the great congregation — My vows will I pay before them that fear Him.
27 The meek shall eat and be satisfied, They shall praise Jahve that seek Him: "Let your heart refresh itself for ever!"
30 All the thriving of the earth shall eat and bow down, Before Him shall all they that go down to the dust sink
31 A seed shall serve Him: it shall be told to the generation
We have here a plaintive Psalm, whose deep complaints, out of the midst of the most humiliating degradation and most fearful peril, stand in striking contrast to the cheerful tone of Ps. xxi. — starting with a disconsolate cry of anguish, it passes on to a trustful cry for help, and ends in vows of thanksgiving and a vision of world-wide result-, which spring from the deliverance of the sufferer. In do Psalm do we trace such an accumulation of the most excruciating outward and inward suffering pressing upon the complainant, in connection the most perfect innocence. In this respect Ps. lxix. is its counterpart; but it differs from it in this particular, that there is not a Bingle sound of imprecation mingled with its complaints.
It is David, who here struggles upward out of the gloomiest depth to such a bright height. It is a Davidic Psalm belonging to the time of the persecution bj Saul Ewald brings it down to the time preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, and Bauer to the time of the Exile. Ewald says it is not now possible to trace the poet more exactly. And Maurer closes by saying: illud unum equidem pro certo habeo, fuisse vatem hominem opibus prcedilum atque illustrem, qui magna auctoritate valeret non solum apud suos, verum etiam apud bar oar os. Hitzig persists in his view, that Jeremiah composed the first portion when cast into prison as an apostate, and the second portion in the court of the prison, when placed under this milder restraint. And according to Olshausen, even here again, the whole is appropriate to the time of the Maccabees. But it seems to us to be confirmed at every point, that David, who was so persecuted by Saul, is the author. The cry of prayer pmrrtN (xxii. 12, 20, xxxv. 22, xxxviii. 22, borrowed in lxxi. 12); the name given to the soul, rnTT (xxii. 21, xxxv. 17); the designation of quiet and resignation by rTOVi (xxii. 3, xxxix. 3, lxii. 2, cf. lxv. 2), are all regarded by us, since we do not limit the genuine Davidic Psalms to Ps. iii. — xix. as Hitzig does, as Davidic idioms. Moreover, there is no lack of points of contact in other respects with genuine old Davidic hymns (cf. xxii. 30 with xxviii. 1, those that go down to the dust, to the grave; then in later Psalms as in cxliii. 7, in Isaiah and Ezekiel), and more especially those belonging to the time of Saul, as Ps. lxix. (cf. xxii. 27 with lxix. 33) and lix. (cf. xxii. 17 with lix. 15). To the peculiar characteristics of the Psalms of this period belong the figures taken from animals, which are heaped up in the Psalm before us. The fact that Ps. xxii. is an ancient Davidic original is also confirmed by the parallel passages in the later literature of the Shir (lxxi. 5 sq. taken from xxii. 10 sq.; cii. 18 sq. in imitation xxii. 25, 31 sq.), of the Chokma (Prov. xvi. 3, Vr^N bl taken from Ps. xxii. 9, xxxvii. 5), and of prophecy (Isaiah, ch. xlix. liii.; Jeremiah, in Lam. iv. 4; cf. Ps. xxii. 15, and many other similar instances). In spite of these echoes in the later literature there are still some expressions that remain unique in the Psalm and are not found elsewhere, as the hapaxlegomena EYi/'K and nti9- Thus, then, we entertain no doubts respecting the truth of the TTl?. David speaks in this Psalm, — he and not any other, and that out of his own inmost being. In accordance with the nature of lyric poetry, the Psalm has grown up on the soil of his individual life and his individual sensibilities.
There is also in reality in the history of David, when persecuted by Saul, a situation which may have given occasion to the lifelike picture drawn in this Psalm, viz. 1 Sam. xxiii. 25 sq. The detailed circumstances of the distress at that time are not known to us, but they certainly did not coincide with the rare and terrible sufferings depicted in this Psalm in such a manner that these can be regarded as an historically faithful and literally exact copy of those circumstances; cf. on the other hand Ps. xvii. which was composed at the same period. To just as slight a degree have the prospects, which he connects in this Psalm with his deliverance, been realised in David's own life. On the other hand, the first portion exactly coincides with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and the second with the results that have sprung from His resurrection. It is the agonising situation of the Crucified One which is presented before our eyes in vers. 15 — 18 with such artistic faithfulness: the spreading out of the limbs of the naked body, the torturing pain in hands and feet, and the burning thirst which the Redeemer, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, announced in the cry Su}a>, John xix. 28. Those who blaspheme and those who shake their head at Him passed by His cross, Mat. xxvii. 39, just asver. 8 says; scoffers cried out to Him: let the God in whom He trusts help Him, Mat. xxvii. 43, just as ver. 9 says; His garments were divided and lots were cast for His coat, John xix. 23 sq., in order that ver. 19 of our Psalm might be fulfilled. The fourth of the seven s ings of the dying One, 'HXt, 'HXl x. t. X., Mat. xxvii. 46, Mark xv. 34, is the first word of our Psalm and th<> appropriation of the whole. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. ii. 11 sq., cites ver. 23 as the words of Christ, to shew I He is not ashamed to call them brethren, whose sanctifier God has appointed Him to be, just as the risen R< mer actually has done, Mat. xxviii. 10, John xx. 17. This 1 by no means exhausted the list of mutual relationships. The Psalm so vividly sets before us not merely the Buffering! of the Crucified One, but also the salvation of I >rld arising out of His resurrection and its sacramental efficacy, that it seems more like history than prophecy, ut non tarn prophetia, quam historia videatur (Cassiodorus). Accordingly the ancient Church regarded Christ, not David, as the speaker in this Psalm; and condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia who expounded it as cotemporary history. Bakius expresses the meaning of the older Lutheran expositors when he says: asserimus, hunc Psalmum ad liter am primo, vroprie et absque ulla allegoria, tropologia et avaya)"^ integrum et per omnia de solo Christo exponendum esse. Even the synagogue, so far as it recognises a suffering Messiah, hears Him speak here; and takes the "hind of the morning" as a name of the Shechina and as a symbol of the dawning redemption.
To ourselves, who regard the whole Psalm as the words of David, it does not thereby lose anything whatever of its prophetic character. It is a typical Psalm. The same God who communicates His thoughts of redemption to the mind of men, and there causes them to develope into the word of prophetic announcement, has also moulded the history itself into a prefiguring representation of the future deliverance; and the evidence for the truth of Christianity which is derived from this factual prophecy (Thatrveissagung) is as grand as that derived from the verbal prediction (Wortweissagung). That David, the anointed of Samuel, before he ascended the throne, had to traverse a path of suffering which resembles the suffering path of Jesus, the Son of David, baptized of John, and that this typical suffering of David is embodied for us in the Psalms as in the images reflected from a mirror, is an arrangement of divine power, mercy, and wisdom. But Ps. xxii. is not merely a typical Psalm. For in the very nature of the type is involved the distance between it and the antitype. In Ps. xxii., however, David descends, with his complaint, into a depth that lies beyond the depth of his affliction, and rises, with his hopes, to a height that lies far beyond the height of the reward of his affliction.
depiction, with colours thickly laid on), without which, in the eyes of the Semite, poetic diction would be flat and faded, is here made use of by the Spirit of God. By this Spirit the hyperbolic element is changed into the prophetic. This elevation of the typical into the prophetic is also capable of explanation on psychological grounds. Since David has been anointed with the oil of royal consecration, and at same time with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the kingship of promise, he regards himself also as the messiah of God, towards whom the promises point; and by virtue of this view of himself, in the light of the highest calling in connection with the redemptive history, the historical reality of his own experiences becomes idealised to him, and thereby both what he experiences and what he hopes for acquire a depth and height of background which stretches out into the history of the final and true Christ of God. We do not by this maintain any overflowing of his own consciousness to that of the future Christ, an opinion which has been shewn by Hengstenberg, Tholuck and Kurtz to be psychologically impossible. But what we say is, that looking upon himself as the Christ of God, — to express it in the light of the historical fulfilment, — he looks upon himself in Jesus Christ. He does not distinguish himself from the Future One, but in himself he sees the Future One, whose image does not free itself from him till afterwards, and whose history will coincide with all that is excessive in his own utterances. For as God the Father moulds the history of Jesus Christ in accordance with His own counsel, so His Spirit moulds even the utterances of David concerning himself the type of the Future One, with a view to that history. Through this Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and of the future Christ at the same til David's typical history, as he describes it in the Psalms and more especially in this Psalm, acquires that ideal depth of tone, brilliancy, and power, by virtue of which it (the history) reaches far beyond its typical facts, penetrates to very root in the divine counsels, and grows to be the word of prophecy: so that, to a certain extent, it may rightly be said that Christ here speaks through Davi 1, insofar as the Spirit of Christ speaks through him, and makes the typical suffering of His ancestor the medium for the repr< ion incontestable relation of the matter Ps.xxii. cannot be understand nor can we fully enter into its sentiments.
The inscription runs: To the precentor, upon {after) the hind of the morning's dawn, a Psalm of David. Luther, with reference to the fact that Jesus was taken in the night and brought before the Sanhedrim, renders it uof the hind, that is early chased," for
This interpretation is certainly a well-devised improvement of the uTiep T7j; dvTiXrj^so)? TTJ? £a)6iv9]s of the LXX. (Vulg. pro susceptione matutind), which is based upon a confounding of n^N with m^N (ver. 20), and is thus explained by Theodoret: dv-tX7]^t? e(d6iv7j tj too atoTrjpos Tjfxuiv E7u<pav£ia. Even the Midrash recalls Cant. ii. 8, and the Targum the lamb of the morning sacrifice, which was offered as soon as the watchman on the pinnacle of the Temple cried: WjTD p~i2 (the first rays of the morning burst forth). ^XWT\ r6>K is in fact, according to traditional definition, the early light preceding the dawn of the morning, whose first rays are likened to the horns of a hind.* But natural as it may be to assign to the inscription a symbolical meaning in the case of this Psalm, it certainly forms no exception to the technical meaning, in connection with the music, of the other inscriptions. And Melissus (1572) has explained it correctly "concerning the melody of a common song, whose commencement was Ajeleth Hashdhar, that is, The hind of the morning's dawn." And it may be that the choice of the melody bearing this name was designed to have reference to the glory which bursts forth in the night of affliction.
According to the course of the thoughts the Psalm falls into three divisions, vers. 2 — 12, 13 — 22, 23 — 32, which are
* There is a determination of the time to this effect, which is found hoth in the Jerusalem and in the Babylonian Talmud "from the hind of the morning's dawn till the east is lighted up." In Jer. Berachoth, ad init., it is explained: tOml! ^"ip THH ^DD "Wn n^N ND^y1? pHJDI NrOHDD ppte, "like two horns of light, rising from the east and filling the world with light."
of symmetrical compass, consisting of 21, 24, and 21 lines. Whether the poet has laid out a more complete strophic arrangement within these three groups or not, must remain undecided. But the seven long closing lines are detached from the third group and stand to the column of the whole, in the relation of its base.
Vers. 2 — 3. In the first division, vers. 2 — 12, the disconsolate cry of anguish, beginning here in ver. 2 with the lamentation over prolonged desertion by God, struggles through to an incipient, trustfully inclined prayer. The question beginning with r\fcb (instead of HE? before the guttural, and perhaps to make the exclamation more piercing, vid. on vi. 5, x. 1) is not an expression of impatience and despair, but of alienation and yearning. The sufferer feels himself rejected of God; the feeling of divine wrath has completely enshrouded him; and still he knows himself to be joined to God in fear and love; his present condition belies the real nature of his relationship to God; and it is just this contradiction that urges him to the plaintive question, which comes up from the lowest depths: Why hast Thou forsaken me? But in spite of this feeling of desertion by God, the bond of love is not torn asunder; the sufferer calls God "6k (my God), and urged on by the longing desire that God again would grant him to feel this love, he calls* Him, ty I'px. That complaining question: why hast Thou forsaken me? is not without example even elsewhere in the Psalms, lxxxviii. 15, cf. Isa. xlix. 14. The forsakenness of the Crucified One, however, is unique; and may not be judged by the standard of David or of any other sufferers who thus complain when passing through trial. That which is common to all is here, as there, this, viz. that behind the wrath that is felt, is hidden the love of God, which faith holds fast; and that he who thus complains even on account of it, is, considered in itself, not a Bub of wrath, because in the midst of the feeling of wrath he keeps up his communion with God. The Crucified On< to His latest breath the Holy One of God; and the reconciliation for which He now offers himself is I nal purpose of mercy, which is now being realised in the fulness of times. But inasmuch as He places himself under the judgment of God with the sin of His people and of the whole human race, He cannot be spared from experiencing God's wrath against sinful humanity as though He were himself guilty. And out of the infinite depth of this experience of wrath, which in His case rests on no mere appearance, but the sternest reality*, comes the cry of His complaint which penetrates the wrath and reaches to God's love, 7jXl TjXl Xajxa oat3a^6avL, which the evangelists, omitting the additional Trpoa^s? p-oi** of the LXX., render: 0es \loo,Qz£ jaoo, iva ti {is £*pcax£Xnrs;. He does not say W2TJ, but *2PP3#, which is the Targum word for the former. He says it in Aramaic, not in order that all may understand it, — for such a consideration was far from His mind at such a time, — but because the Aramaic was His mother tongue, for the same reason that He called God frON in prayer. His desertion by God, as ver. 2b says, consists in God's help and His cry for help being far asunder. njNtfc', prop, of the roar of the lion (Aq. pp^XYifJL0C)? *s the loud cry extorted by the greatest agony, xxxviii. 9; in this instance, however, as *>~)21 shews, it is not an inarticulate cry, but a cry bearing aloft to God the words of prayer, pirn is not to be taken as an apposition of the subject of "Orciy: far from my help, (from) the words of my crying (Riehm); for VtfNtP' H31 would then also, on its part, in connection with the nonrepetition of the p, be in apposition to VWlti^D. But to this it is not adapted on account of its heterogeneousness; hence Hitzig seeks to get over the difficulty by the conjecture iTIPtBtiQ ("from my cry, from the words of my groaning"). Nor can it be explained, with Olshausen and Hupfeld, by adopting Aben-Ezra's interpretation, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, far from my help? are the words of my crying." This violates the structure of the
** Vid. Jerome's Ep. ad Pammachium de opiimo gcnere interpretandi, where he cries out to his. critics, sticklers for tradition, Reddant rationem, cur septuaginta translalorcs inter posuerunt "respice in me"!
verse, the rhythm, and the custom of the language, and gives to the Psalm a flat and unlyrical commencement. Thus, therefore, pim in the primary form, as in cxix. 155, according to Ges. § 146, 4, will be the predicate to n2"I and placed before it: far from my salvation, i. e. far from my being rescued, are the words of my cry; there is a great gulf between the two, inasmuch as God does not answer him though he cries unceasingly. In ver. 3 the reverential name of God ^TDK takes the place of ^k the name that expresses His might; it is likewise vocative and accordingly marked with Rebia magnum. It is not an accusative of the object after xviii. 4 (Hitzig), in which case the construction would be continued with rtJJP tib]. That it is, however, God to whom he calls is implied both by the direct address Vi^S\ and by rDyn &6l, since he from whom one expects an answer is most manifestly the person addressed. His uninterrupted crying remains unanswered, and unappeased. The clause v? rTOTtffy is parallel to HOT N^l, and therefore does not mean: without allowing me any repose (Jer. xiv. 17, Lam. iii. 49), but: without any rest being granted to me, without my complaint being appeased or stilled. From the sixth to the ninth hour the earth was shrouded in darkness. About the ninth hour Jesus cried, after a long and more silent struggle, ^Xt, r^i The avs|367|aEv cpwvrj \iv(alrh Mat. xxvii. 46, and also the xpauyrj ta/upi of Hebr. v. 7, which does not refer exclusively to the scene in Gethsemane, calls to mind the,>rUN# of ver. 2b. When His passion reached its climax, days and nights of the like wrestling had preceded it, and what then becomes audible was only an outburst of the second David's conflict of prayer, which gr< hotter as it draws near to the final issue.
Vers. 4—6. The sufferer reminds Jahve of the contradiction between the long season of helplessness and His readiness to help so frequently and so promptly attest Pin«1 opens an adverbial clause of the counterargument: although Thou art... Jahve is Bl"l£, absolutely pure, lit. separated (root ip, jo, to cut, part, just as tahw synonym of kadusa, is the intransitive of tahara remove to a distance, and ^2 pure, clean, radically distil from pu-rus, goes back to T12 to sever), viz. from I which is worldly and common, in one word: holy. Jahve is holy, and has shewn Himself such as the rvi^nn of Israel solemnly affirm, upon which or among which He sits enthroned, m^nn are the songs of praise offered to God on account of His attributes and deeds, which are worthy of praise (these are even called HWttl in lxxviii. 4, Exod. xv. 11, Isa. lxiii. 7), and in fact presented in His sanctuary (Isa. lxiv. 10). The combination rvfrnn Dtfity (with the accusative of the verbs of dwelling and tarrying) is like 2UfV D^ZTD, xcix. 1, lxxx. 2. The songs of praise, which resounded in Israel as the memorials of His deeds of deliverance, are like the wings of the cherubim, upon which His presence hovered in Israel. In vers. 5, 6, the praying one brings to remembrance this graciously glorious self-attestation of God, who as the Holy One always, from the earliest times, acknowledged those who fear Him in opposition to their persecutors and justified their confidence in Himself. In ver. 5 trust and rescue are put in the connection of cause and effect; in ver. 6 in reciprocal relation. to^D and D^O are only distinguished by the harder and softer sibilants, cf. xvii. 13 with cxvi. 4. It need not seem -strange that such thoughts were at work in the soul of the Crucified One, since His divine-human consciousness was, on its human side, thoroughly Israelitish; and the God of Israel is also the God of salvation; redemption is that which He himself determined, why, then, should He not speedily deliver the Redeemer?
Vers. 7 — 9. The sufferer complains of the greatness of his reproach, in order to move Jahve, who is Himself involved therein, to send him speedy succour. Notwithstanding his cry for help, he is in the deepest affliction without rescue. Every word of ver. 7 is echoed in the second part of the Book of Isaiah. There, as here, Israel is called a worm, ch. xli. 14; there all these traits of suffering are found in the picture of the Servant of God, ch. xlix. 7, liii. 3, cf. 1. 6, and especially lii. 14 "so marred was His appearance, that He no longer looked like a man." nj^in is more particularly the kermes, or cochineal (vermiculus, whence color vermiculi, vermeil, vermiglio); but the point of comparison in the present instance is not the blood-red appearance, but the suffering so utterly defenceless and even ignominious. Dy is gen. subj., like Vjjj, Isa. xlix. 7. Jerome well renders the e^ouOavajjxa Xaou of the LXX. by abjectio (Tertullian: nullificameri) plebis, not populi. The i^jxuxxrjpiaav [xe, by which the LXX. translates "6 Wj6i, is used by Luke, ch. xxiii. 35, cf. xvi. 14, in the history of the Passion; fulfilment and prediction so exactly coincide, that no more adequate expressions can be found in writing the gospel history than those presented by prophecy. In hBtfiG "PEEP, what appears in other instances as the object of the action (to open the mouth wide, diducere labia), is regarded as the means of its execution; so that the verbal notion being rendered complete has its object in itself: to make an opening with the mouth, cf. nS3 "ty'S, Job xvi. 10, b*p2 ]HJ lxviii. 34; Ges. § 138, 1, rem. 3. The shaking of the head is, as in cix. 25, cf. xliv. 15, lxiv. 9, a gesture of surprise and astonishment at something unexpected and strange, not a Trpoavsusiv approving the injury of another, although Jfij, T)j, D1J, vs6-o>, nu-t-o, nic-to, neigen, nicken, all form one family of roots. In ver. 9 the words of the mockers follow without lb*6. bi is not the 3 prcet. (LXX., cf. Mat. xxvii. 43) like "lIX, tfti; it is not only in Pie! (Jer. xi. 20, xx. 12, where *n^3= V^Si Ew. § 121, a) that it is transitive, but even in Kal\ nor is it inf. absol. in the sense of the imperative (Hitz., Bottch.), although this infinitive form is found, but always only as an inf. intens. (Numb, xxiii. 25, Ruth ii. 1G, cf. I xxiv. 19); but, in accordance with the parallels xxxvii. 5 (where it is written ^1i), Prov. xvi. 3, cf. Ps. It. 23, 1 1 v. 7, it is imperat.: roll, viz. thy doing and thy Buffering to Jahve, i. e. commit it to Him. The mockers call out this hi to the sufferer, and the rest they say of him with malicious looks askance. *3 in the mouth of the foes is not confirmatory as in xviii. 20, but a conditional £dv (in C provided that).
Vers. 10—12. The sufferer pleads thai G respond to his trust in Him, on the ground that thi is made an object of mockery. With >3 be * atablisl reality of the loving relationship in which h at which his foes mock. The intermediate t; not expressed, "and so it really i^, i -lU3
O comes to have an affirmative signification. The verb rnJ (PPil) signifies both intransitive: to break forth (from the womb), Job xxxviii. 8, and transitive: to push forward (cf. v>^), more especially, the fruit of the womb, Mic.
iv. 10. It might be taken here in the first signification: my breaking forth, equivalent to "the cause of my breaking forth" (Hengstenberg, Baur, and others); but there is no need for this metonymy, ''nil is either part, equivalent to ina, my pusher forth, i. e. he who causes me to break forth, or, — since nu in a causative signification cannot be supported, and participles like D12 stamping and &b veiling (Ges. § 72, rem. 1) are nowhere found with a suffix, — participle of a verb fifti, to draw forth (Hitz.), which perhaps only takes the place, per metaplasmum, of the Pil. nnil with the uneuphonic VTGD (Ewald S. 859, Addenda), Ps. lxxi. has >jft (ver. 6) instead of ">ru, just as it has TOC5D (ver. 5) instead of ^JTt?2D. The Hiph. CPEQPI does not merely mean to make secure (Hupf.), but to cause to trust. According to biblical conception, there is even in the new-born child, yea in the child yet unborn and only living in the womb, a glimmering consciousness springing up out of the remotest depths of unconsciousness (Psychol. S. 215; transl. p. 254). Therefore, when the praying one says, that from the womb he has been cast* upon Jahve, i. e. directed to go to Him, and to Him alone, with all his wants and care (lv. 23, cf. lxxi. 6), that from the womb onwards Jahve was his God, there is also more in it than the purely objective idea, that he grew up into such a relationship to God. Twice he mentions his mother. Throughout the Old Testament there is never any mention made of a human father, or begetter, to the Messiah, but always only of His mother, or her who bare Him. And the words of the praying one here also imply that the beginning of his life, as regards its outward circumstances, was amidst poverty, which like-
* The Hopli. has o, not w, perhaps in a more neuter sense, more closely approximating to the reflexive (cf. Ezek. xxxii. 19 with xxxii. 32), rather than a purely passive. Such is apparently the feeling of the language, vid. B. Mcgilla 13a (and also the explanation in Tosefoth).
wise accords with the picture of Christ as drawn "both in the Old and New Testaments. On the ground of his fellowship with God, which extends so far back, goes forth the cry for help (ver. 12), which has been faintly heard through all the preceding verses, but now only comes to direct utterance for the first time. The two >3 are alike. That the necessity is near at hand, i. e. urgent, refers back antithetically to the prayer, that God would not remain afar off; no one doth, nor can help except He alone. Here the first section closes.
Vers. 13 — 14. Looking back upon his relationship to God, which has existed from the earliest times, the sufferer has become somewhat more calm, and is ready, in vers. 13 — 22, to describe his outward and inner life, and thus to unburden his heart. Here he calls his enemies D*")5, bullocks, and in fact)t£>3 n;2X (cf. 1. 13 with Deut. xxxii. 14), strong ones of Bashan, the land rich in luxuriant oak forests and fat pastures (jtt'D = buthene, which in the Beduin dialect means rich, stoneless meadow-land, vid. Job S. 509 f.; tr. ii. pp. 399 sq.) north of Jabbok extending as far as to the borders of Hermon, the land of Og and afterwards of Manasseh (Num. xxx. 1). They are so called on account of their robustness and vigour, which, being acquired and used in opposition to God is brutish rather than human (cf. Amos iv. 1). Figures like these drawn from the animal world and applied in an ethical sense are explained by the fact, that the ancients measured the instincts of animals according to the moral rules of human nature; but more deeply by the fact, that according to the indisputable conception of Scripture, since man was made to fall by Satan through the agency of an animal, the animal and Satan are the two dominant powers in Adamic humanity. ^?r is a climacticsynonym of 22D. On ver. 14« compare the echoes in Jeremiah, Lam. ii. 16, iii. 46. Finally, the foes are all comprehended under the figure of a lion, which, soon as he sights his prey, begins to roar, Amos iii. 4. I Hebrew F)"l£, discerpere, according to its root, belongs to rpn, carpere. They are vistar tenuis dilaniahiri et ruffientis.
r Vers. 15 — 16. Now he describes, how, thus encompa ed round, he is still just living, but already as it v. ad.
The being poured out like water reminds us of the ignominious abandonment of the Crucified One to a condition of weakness, in which His life, deprived of its natural support, is in the act of dissolution, and its powers dried up (2 Sam. xiv. 14); the bones being stretched out, of the forcible stretching out of His body (TjDnn, from TiD to separate, cf. 4>wj according to its radical signification, which has been preserved in the common Arabic dialect: so to spread out or apart that the thing has no bends or folds,* Greek iSctTiXouv); the heart being melted, recalls His burning anguish, the inflammation of the wounds, and the pressure of blood on the head and heart, the characteristic cause of death by crucifixion. DEJ, in pause DE3, is 3 prcet.; wax, 5511, receives its name from its melting (jn, root:n, ttjx). In ver. 16 the comparison BHrD has reference to the issue or result (vid. xviii. 43): my strength is dried up, so that it is become like a potsherd. ^3n (Saadia) instead of iri3 commends itself, unless, nil perhaps, like the Talmudic rP3, also had the signification "spittle" (as a more dignified word for pi). JlB^, with the exception perhaps of Prov. xxvi. 28, is uniformly feminine; here the predicate has the masculine ground-form without respect to the subject. The part. pass, has a tendency generally to be used without reference to gender, under the influence of the construction laid down in Ges. § 143, 1, &, according to which "0&6 may be treated as an accusative of the object; IMp^Di however, is ace. loci (cf. b exxxvii. 6, Job xxix. 10; bit Lam. iv. 4, Ezek. iii. 26): my tongue is made to cleave to my jaws, fauces meas. Such is his state in consequence of outward distresses. His enemies, however, would not have power to do all this, if God had not given it to them. Thus it is, so to speak, God Himself who lays him low in death. riDi^ to put anywhere, to lay, with the accompanying idea of firmness and duration, i^Aju, Isa. xxvi. 12; the future is used of that which is just taking place. Just in like manner, in Isa. liii., the death of the Servant of God is spoken of not merely as happening thus, but as decreed; and not merely as permitted by God, but as being in accordance with the divine will. David is persecuted by Saul, the king of His people, almost to the death; Jesus, however, is delivered over by the Sanhedrim, the authority of His people, to the heathen, under whose hands He actually dies the death of the cross: it is a judicial murder put into execution according to the conditions and circumstances of the age; viewed, however, as to its final cause, it is a gracious dispensation of the holy God, in whose hands all the paths of the world's history run parallel, and who in this instance makes sin subservient to its own expiation.
Vers. 17 — 19. A continuation, referring back to ver. 12, of the complaint of him who is dying and is already as it were dead. In the animal name C2^3, figuratively descriptive of character, beside shamelessness and meanness, special prominence is given to the propensity for biting and worrying, i. e. for persecuting; hence Symmachus and Theodotion render it 6rjpaxai, xovT^sxai. In ver. 17 b rVjJJ D^JPD takes the place of Q^zto; and this again is followed by F^n in the plur. (to do anything in a circle, to surround by forming a circle round, a climactic synonym, like Tf)3 to 22D) either per attractionem (cf. cxl. 10, 1 Sam. ii. 4), or on account of the collective mj?. Tertullian renders it synagoga maleficorum, Jerome concilium pessimorum. But a faction gathered together for some evil purpose is also called pnjj, e. g. rn'p rnv: In ver. 17c the meaning of "HN3, instar leonis, is either that, selecting a point of attack, they make the rounds of his hands and feet, just as a lion does its prey upon which it springs as soon as its prey stirs; or, that, standing round about him like lions, they make all defence impossible to his hands, and all escape impossible to his feet. But whether we take this Wll *Ti as accusative of the members beside the accusative of the person (vid. xvii. 11), or as the object of the IDVXI to be supplied from ver. 17 ft, it still remains harsh and drawling so far as the language is concerned. Perceiving this, the Masora on Isa. xxxviii. 13 observes, that HR2, in the two passages in which it occurs (Ps. xxii. 17, Isa. xxxviii. 13), occurs in two different meanings (i&O HTQ)j just as the Midrash then also understands HKD in the Psalm as a verb used of marking with conjuring, magic characters.* Is the meaning of the Masora that HK3i in the passage before us, is equivalent to D^"]N3? If so the form would be doubly Aramaic: both the participial form ind (which only occurs in Hebrew in verbs med. E) and the apocopated plural, the occurrence of which in Hebrew is certainly, with Gesenius and Ewald, to be acknowledged in rare instances (vid. xlv. 9, and compare on the other hand 2 Sam. xxii. 44), but which would here be a capricious form of expression most liable to be misapprehended. If "HfcO is to be understood as a verb, then it ought to be read **!frjb. Tradition is here manifestly unreliable. Even in MSS. the readings riiO and vjfrp are found. The former is attested both by the Masora on Num. xxiv. 9 and by Jacob ben Chajim in the Masora finalis as a MS. Chethib** Even the Targum, which renders mordent sicut leo manus et pedes meos, bears witness to the ancient hesitancy between the substantival and verbal rendering of the "nND. The other ancient versions have, without any doubt, read vifcO. Aquila in the 1st edition of his translation rendered it Xjo^oav (from the Aramaic and Talmudic -)frp = "ljp to soil, part. *V)ND, dirty, nasty); but this is not applicable to hands and feet, and therefore has nothing to stand upon. In the 2nd edition of his translation the same Aquila had instead of
* Hupfeld suspects this Masoretic remark piro J^Dp O i*)NO \ft^) as a Christian interpolation, but it occurs in the alphabetical Masoreth register *firb nro Jirpnni '3 'D. Even Elias Levita speaks of it with astonishment (in his mDDH mDD [ed. Ginsburg, p. 253]) without doubting its genuineness, which must therefore have been confirmed, to his mind, by MS. authority. Heidenheim also cites it in his edition of the Pentateuch, D^JJ "11ND, on Num. xxiv. 9; and down to the present time no suspicion has been expressed on the part of Jewish critics, although all kinds of unsatisfactory attempts have been made to explain this Masoretic remark (<?. g. in the periodical Biccure ha- ' Ittim).
** The authenticity of this statement of the Masora ^"11 T HN3 TDD rifcO may be disputed, especially since Jacob ben Chajim became a convert to Christianity, and other Masoretic testimonies do not mention a ^HDl *lp to "HJO; nevertheless, in this instance, it would be premature to say that this statement is interpolated. Ant. Hulsius in his edition of the Psalter (1650) has written 1")ND m the margin according to the text of the Complutensis.
this, like Symmachus, "they have bound",* after ID, JjT, to twist, lace; but this rendering is improbable since the Hebrew has other words for "to bind", constringere. On the other hand nothing of any weight can be urged against the rendering of the LXX. ujpu£av (Peshito ijjd, Vulg. foderwit, Jer. ftxemnt); for (1) even if we do not suppose any special verb *MR3, nfcO can be expanded from n3 ("I'D) = TD (H"D) just in the same manner as flD&n, Zech. xiv. 10 from riDT, cf. N'EKp Dan. vii. 16. And (2) that -fl3 and ni3 can signify not merely to dig out and dig into, engrave, but also to dig through, pierce, is shewn, — apart from the derivative HIDE (the similarity of the sound of which to jxdt^aipa from the root p.a)(, maksh, mraksh, is only accidental), — by the double meaning of the verbs "ipj, 6puaasiv (e. g^ opuaasiv xov lo8p.6v Herod, i. 174), fodere (hasta); the LXX. version of Ps. xl. 7 would also support this meaning, if xaisxp^aw (from xaxaxitpav) in that passage had been the original reading instead of xaTYjpxtoo). If DN3 be read, then ver. 17c, applied to David, perhaps under the influence of the figure of the attacking dogs (Bohl), says that the wicked bored into his hands and feet, and thus have made him fast, so that he is inevitably abandoned to their inhuman desires. The fulfilment in the nailing of the hands and (at least, the binding fast) of the feet of the Crucified One to the cross is clear. This is not the only passage in which it is predicted that the future Christ shall be murderously pierced; but it is the same in Isa. liii. 5 where He is said to be pierced (bbhc) on account of our sins, and in Zech. xii. 10, where Jahve describes Himself as exx&vxrjOsi? in Him.
Thus, therefore, the reading nfcO might at least have an equal right to be recognised with the present rcceptft, for which Hupfeld and Hitzig demand exclusive recognition; while Bottcher, — who reads '*)&&> and gives this the meaning
* Also in Jerome's independent translation the reading vinxeruntit found by the side of fixer unt, just as Abraham of Zante paraphra it in his paraphrase of the Psalter in rhyme HD^ '.~ *"T HN3 The want of a verb is too perceptible. Baadia Buppliea it in b diffi way "they compass me as a lion, to crush my hands an
"springing round about (after the manner of dogs)", — regards the sicut leo as "a production of meagre Jewish wit"; and also Thenius after taking all possible pains to clear it up gives it up as hopeless, and with Meier, adopting a different division of the verse, renders it: "a mob of the wicked has encompassed me like lions. On my hands and feet I can count all my bones." But then, how '*1N2 comes limping on after the rest! And how lamely does *!??"!! T precede ver. 18! How unnaturally does it limit VlilDSJJ, with which one chiefly associates the thought of the breast and ribs, to the hands and feet! I&UX is potientialis. Above in ver. 15 he has said that his bones are out of joint. There is no more reason for regarding this "I can count &c." as referring to emaciation from grief, than there is for regarding the former as referring to writhing with agony. He can count them because he is forcibly stretched out, and thereby all his bones stand out. In this condition he is a mockery to his foes. D^Il signifies the turning of one's gaze to anything, 2 PINT the fixing of one's sight upon it with pleasure. In ver. 19 a new feature is added to those that extend far beyond David himself: they part my garments among them... It does not say they purpose doing it, they do it merely in their mind, but they do it in reality. This never happened to David, or at least not in the literal sense of his words, in which it has happened to Christ. In Him ver. 19a and 19& are literally fulfilled. The parting of the Q^T33 by the soldiers dividing His Ifi-axia among them into four parts; the casting lots upon the b^qS by their not dividing the xi™v appacpo?, but casting lots for it, John xix. 23 sq. W)2b is the garment which is put on the body that it may not be bare; DH33 the clothes, which one wraps around one's self for a covering; hence Ufcb is punningly explained in B. Sabbath lib by n#D fr6 (with which one has no need to be ashamed of being naked) in distinction from ND^J, a mantle (that through which one appears D^UD, because it conceals the outline of the body). In Job xxiv. 7, and frequently, u/)2b is an undergarment, or shirt, what in Arabic is called absolutely ^«i* thob "the garment", or expressed according to the Roman distinction: the tunica in distinction from the toga, whose exact designation is ^yo. With ver. 19 of this Psalm it is exactly as with Zech. ix. 9, cf. Mat. xxi. 5; in this instance also, the fulfilment has realised that which, in both phases of the synonymous expression, is seemingly identical.*
Vers. 20 — 22. In ver. 19 the description of affliction has reached its climax, for the parting of, and casting lots for, the garments assumes the certain death of the sufferer in the mind of the enemies. In ver. 20, with nn&O the looks of the sufferer, in the face of his manifold torments, concentrate themselves all at once upon Jahve. He calls Him TT^K nom. abstr. from ^N, lxxxviii. 5: the very essence of strength, as it were the idea, or the ideal of strength; le- 'ezrathi has the accent on the penult., as in lxxi. 12 (cf. on the other hand xxxviii. 23), in order that two tone syllables may not come together. In ver. 21, D*in means the deadly weapon of the enemy and is used exemplificatively. In the expression 2^3 "TO, "PD is not merely equivalent to)p, but "P is, according to the sense, equivalent to "paw" (cf. P)3, Lev. xi. 27), as vp is equivalent to jaws; although elsewhere not only the expression "hand of the lion and of the bear", 1 Sam. xvii. 37, but also "hands of the sword", Ps. lxiii. 11, and even "hand of the flame", Isa. xlvii. 14 are used, inasmuch as T is the general designation of that which acts, seizes, and subjugates, as the instrument of the act. Just as in connection with the dog "P, and in connection with the lion id (cf., however, Dan. vi. 28) is mentioned as its weapon of attack, the horns, not the horn (also not in Deut. xxxiii. 17), are mentioned in connection with antilopes, Q^D"! (a shorter form, occurring only in this passage, for CEfrO, xxix. 6, Isa. xxxiv. 7). Nevertheless, Luther following the LXX. and Vulgate, renders it "rescue me from the unicorns" (yid. thereon on xxix. 6). DTP, as the parallel member here and in xxxv. 17 shews, is an epithet of Z'Zi The LXX. in both instances renders it correctly x^v [io jxou, Vulg. unicam meam, according to Gen. xxii. 2, Jud( xi. 34, the one soul besides which man has no Becond, the
* On such fulfilments of prophecy, literal beyond all vid. Saat auf Hu/fnung iii., 3, 47 — 51, one life besides which man has no second to lose, applied subjectively, that is, soul or life as the dearest and most precious thing, cf. Homer's cpiXov x9jp. It is also interpreted according to xxv. 16, lxviii. 7: my solitary one, solitarium, the soul as forsaken by God and man, or at least by man, and abandoned to its own self (Hupfeld, Kamphausen, and others). But the parallel H^B3, and the analogy of H13D (= H$te3), stamp it as an universal name for the soul: the single one, i. e. that which does not exist in duplicate, and consequently that which cannot be replaced, when lost. The prcet. "OH'Oy. might be equivalent to *Ojy, provided it is a perf. consec. deprived of its Warn convers. in favour of the placing of DW. ^ngB first for the sake of emphasis; but considering the turn which the Psalm takes in ver. 23, it must be regarded as perf. confidentice, inasmuch as in the very midst of his supplication there springs up in the mind of the suppliant the assurance of being heard and answered. To answer from the horns of the antilope is equivalent to hearing and rescuing from them; cf. the equally pregnant expression 2 TttV cxviii. 5, perhaps also Hebr. v. 7.*
Vers. 23 — 24. In the third section, vers. 23 — 32, the great plaintive prayer closes with thanksgiving and hope. In certainty of being answered, follows the vow of thanksgiving. He calls his fellow-country men, who are connected with him by the ties of nature, but, as what follows, viz. aye that fear Jahve" shews, also by the ties of spirit, "brethren", ^plfj (from br\pr = bpj xaX-£(o, cal-o, Sanscr. kaly to resound) coincides with ixxXYjoia. The sufferer is conscious of the significance of his lot of suffering in relation to the working out of the history of redemption. Therefore he will make that salvation which he has experienced common property. The congregation or church shall hear the evangel of his rescue. In ver. 24 follows the introduction to this announcement, which is addressed to the whole of Israel, so far as it fears the God of revelation. Instead of mil the text of the Orientals (wnFID), i. e. Babylonians,
* Thrupp in his Emendations on the Psalms (Journal of Classic and Sacred Philology, 1860) suggests "I0,T^> my poverty (my poor soul), instead of Wty.
had here the Chethib VW with the Keri)y\y\ \ the introduction of the jussive (xxxiii. 8) after the two imperatives would not be inappropriate. ]p T)j| (= *ijjj) is a stronger form of expression for ]cn"P, xxxiii. 8.
Ver. 25. This tristich is the evangel itself. The materia laudis is introduced by vp. nijg (principal form rVDg) bending, bowing down, affliction, from ruy, the proper word to denote the Passion. For in Isaiah, ch. liii. 4, 7, the Servant of God is also said to be DS^JD and PIJJB, and Zechariah, ch. ix. 9, also introduces Him as ^y and yty'fa. The LXX., Vulgate, and Targum erroneously render it "cry". i"Dy does not mean to cry, but to answer, &|xsi(3saGou; here, however, as the stem-word of niJ]J, it means to be bent. From the ypv/ (to regard as an abhorrence), which alternates with ni2, we see that the sufferer felt the wrath of
God, but this has changed into a love that sends help; God did not long keep His countenance hidden, He hearkened to him, for his prayer was well-pleasing to Him. yj2U/ is not the verbal adjective, but, since we have the definite fact of the rescue before us, it is a pausal form for JJD#, as in xxxiv. 7, 18, Jer. xxxvi. 13.
Vers. 26 — 27. The call to thanksgiving is now ended; and there follows a grateful upward glance towards the Author of the salvation; and this grateful upward glance grows into a prophetic view of the future. This fact, that the sufferer is able thus to glory and give thanks in the great congregation (xl. 10), proceeds from Jahve (nNO as in cxviii. 23, cf. lxxi. 6). The first half of the verse, according to Baer's correct accentuation, closes with 31 ^HfJ?. WP does not refer to bnp, but, as everywhere else, ia meant to be referred to Jahve, since the address of pra passes over into a declarative utterance. It is not Dec sary in this passage to suppose, that in the mind of David the paying of vows is purely ethical, and not a ritualistic act. Being rescued he will bring the -)"U *D^6f, which it u his duty to offer, the thank-offerings, which he vowed to God when in the extremest peril. When the Bprinkling with blood (npnt) and the Laying of the fai pieces npon altar (mtjpn) were completed, the remaining flesh of the shelamim was used by the offerer to make B joyous m< and the time allowed for this feasting was the day of offering and on into the night in connection with the toda-shelamim offering, and in connection with the shelamim of vows even the following day also (Lev. vii. 15 sq.). The invitation of the poor to share in it, which the law does not command, is rendered prohahle by these appointments of the law, and expressly commended by other and analogous appointments concerning the second and third tithes. Ver. 27 refers to this: he will invite the D^jp, those who are outwardly and spiritually poor, to this "eating before Jahve"; it is to be a meal for which they thank God, who has bestowed it upon them through him whom He has thus rescued. Ver. 27 c is as it were the host's blessing upon his guests, or rather Jahve's guests through him: "your heart live for ever", i. e. may this meal impart to you ever enduring refreshment. TP optative of Jrn, here used of the reviving of the heart, which is as it were dead (1 Sam. xxv. 37), to spiritual joy. The referrence to the ritual of the peace offerings is very obvious. And it is not less obvious, that the blessing, which, for all who can be saved, springs from the salvation that has fallen to the lot of the sufferer, is here set forth. But it is just as clear, that this blessing consists in something much higher than the material advantage, which the share in the enjoyment of the animal sacrifice imparts; the sacrifice has its spiritual meaning, so that its outward forms are lowered as it were to a mere figure of its true nature; it relates to a spiritual enjoyment of spiritual and lasting results. How natural, then, is the thought of the sacramental eucharist, in which the second David, like to the first, having attained to the throne through the suffering of death, makes us partakers of the fruits of His suffering!
Vers. 28 — 32. The long line closing strophe, which forms as it were the pedestal to the whole, shews how far not only the description of the affliction of him who is speaking here, but also the description of the results of his rescue, transcend the historical reality of David's experience. The sufferer expects, as the fruit of the proclamation of that which Jahve has done for him, the conversion of all peoples. The heathen have become forgetful and will again recollect themselves; the object, in itself clear enough in ix. 18, becomes clear from what follows: there is a fvuiais to5 6eo5 (Psychol. S. 346 ff.; tr. pp. 407 sqq.)% among the heathen, which the announcement of the rescue of this afflicted one will bring back to their consciousness.* This prospect (Jer. xvi. 19 sqq.) is, in ver. 29 (cf. Jer. x. 7), based upon Jahve's right of kingship over all peoples. A ruler is called btt'D as being exalted above others by virtue of his office (bu/72 according to its primary meaning = Joi^o, erectum stare, synonymous with jrp, vid. on ex. 4, cf. "icy Mic. v. 3), In bwm we have the part., used like the 3 prcet., without any mark of the person (cf. vii. 10, lv. 20), to express the pure prces., and, so to speak, as tempus durans: He rules among the nations (s6vy)). The conversion of the heathen by that sermon will, therefore, be the realisation of the kingdom of God.
Ver. 30. The eating is here again brought to mind. The perfect, fcgt, and the future of sequence, ITTint^J, stand to one another in the relation of cause and effect. It is, as is clear from ver. 27, an eating that satisfies the soul, a spiritual meal, that is intended, and in fact, one that is brought about by the mighty act of rescue God has wrought. At the close of Ps. lxix, where the form of the ritual thankoffering is straightway ignored, in*1 (ver. 33) takes the place of the i^DX. There it is the view of one who is rescued and who thankfully glorifies God, which leads to others sharing with him in the enjoyment of the salvation he has experienced; here it is an actual enjoyment of it, the joy, springing from thankfulness, manifesting itself not merely in words but in a thank-offering feast, at which, in Israel, those who long for salvation are the invited quests, for with them it is an acknowledgment of the mighty act of a God whom they already know; but among the heathen, men of the m diversified conditions, the richest and the poorest, for to them it is a favour unexpectedly brought to them, and which is all the more gratefully embraced by them on that Account. So magnificent shall be the feast, that all jntpjB^Ji *■ '*• those who stand out prominently before the world and before their own countrymen by reason of the abundance of their temporal possessions (compare on the ascensive use of fHK, lxxv. 9, lxxvi. 10, Isa. xxiii. 9), choose it before this abundance, in which they might revel, and, on account of the grace and glory which the celebration includes within itself, they bow down and worship. In antithesis to the "fat ones of the earth" stand those who go down to the dust ("IBS?, always used in this formula of the dust of the grave, like the Arabic turdb) by reason of poverty and care. In the place of the participle vvfii we now have with 1#W1 (= 1#M "lt£W) a clause with fcoi, which has the value of a relative clause (as in xlix. 21, lxxviii. 39, Prov. ix. 13, and frequently): and they who have not heretofore prolonged and could not prolong their life (Ges. § 123, 3, c). By comparing Phil. ii. 10 Hupfeld understands it to be those who are actually dead; so that it would mean, His kingdom extends to the living and the dead, to this world and the nether world. But any idea of a thankful adoration of God on the part of the dwellers in Hades is alien to the Old Testament; and there is nothing to force us to it here, since *10]J v-p V, can just as well mean descensuri as qui descenderunt, and 1#M 7)*11 (also in Ezek. xviii. 27) means to preserve his own life, — a phrase which can be used in the sense of vitam sustentare and of conservare with equal propriety. It is, therefore, those who are almost dead already with care and want, these also (and how thankfully do these very ones) go down upon their knees, because they are accounted worthy to be guests at this table. It is the same great feast, of which Isaiah, ch. xxv. 6, prophesies, and which he there accompanies with the music of his words. And the result of this evangel of the mighty act of rescue is not only of boundless universality, but also of unlimited duration: it propagates itself from one generation to another.
Formerly we interpreted ver. 31 "a seed, which shall serve Him, shall be reckoned to the Lord for a generation;" taking "iDp1 as a metaphor applying to the census, 2 Chron. ii. 16, cf. Ps. lxxxvii. 6, and yrb, according to xxiv. 6 and other passages, as used of a totality of one kind, as jni of the whole body of those of the same race. But the connection makes it more natural to take yn in a genealogical sense; and, moreover, with the former interpretation it ought to have been yph instead of *mt>. We must therefore retain the customary interpretation: "a seed (posterity) shall serve Him, it shall be told concerning the Lord to the generation (to come)". Decisive in favour of this interpretation is TH2 w^h the following sjtfS*, by which *in acquires the meaning of the future generation, exactly as in lxxi. 18, inasmuch as it at once becomes clear, that three generations are distinctly mentioned, viz. that of the fathers who turn unto Jahve, ver. 30, that of the coming "in, ver. 31, and "6tt Dy, to whom the news of the salvation is propagated by this TH, ver. 32: "They shall come (fcfla as in lxxi. 18: to come into being), and shall declare His righteousness to the people that shall be born, that He hath finished." Accordingly yiT is the principal notion, which divides itself into (1N31) TTI and "6u cy; from which it is at once clear, why the expression could be thus general, ua posterity", inasmuch as it is defined by what follows. Dy "6l3 is the people which shall be born, or whose birth is near at hand (lxxviii. 6); the LXX. well renders it: Xau> x(J> T£x^<30|x£v(j) (cf. cii. 19 &TQ3 Dy populus creandus). InfJTS is the oixaioauvif] of God, which has become manifest in the rescue of the great sufferer. That He did not suffer him to come down to the very border of death without snatching him out of the way of his murderous foes and raising him to a still greater glory, this was divine nj?TS. That He did not snatch him out of the way of his murderous foes without suffering him to be on the point of death — even this wrathful phase of the divine Hfn?, is indicated in ver. 16c, but then only very remotely. For the fact, that the Servant of God, before spreading the feast accompanying the shelamim (thank-offering) in which He makes the whole world participants in the fruit of His suffering, offered Himself as an asham (sin-offering), does not become a Bubject of prophetic revelation until later on, and then under otl typical relationships. The nature of the rr;\ which is in accordance with the determinate counsel of God, is only gradually disclosed in the Old Testament. This one word, 60 full of meaning (as in lii. 11, xxxvii. 5, Ua, xliv. 2 implying the carrying through of the work of redemption, which is prefigured in David, comprehends everything within itself. It may be compared to the n1iZ'j6, Gen. ii. 3, at the close of the history of the creation. It is the last word of the Psalm, just as xexeXeoTai is the last word of the Crucified One. The substance of the gospel in its preparatory history and its fulfilment, of the declaration concerning God which passes from generation to generation, is this, that God has accomplished what He planned when He anointed the son of Jesse and the Son of David as mediator in His work of redemption; that He accomplished it by leading the former through affliction to the throne, and making the cross to the latter a ladder leading up to heaven.
2 In green pastures He maketh me to lie down, Beside still waters He leadeth me.
4 Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of
death: I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff — they comfort me.
oppressors, Thou anointest my head with oil, My cup is fulness.
6 Only prosperity and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life,
The arrangement, by which a Psalm that speaks of a great feast of mercy prepared for mankind is followed by a Psalm that praises Jahve as the Shepherd and Host of His own people, could not possibly be more sensible and appropriate. If David is the author, and there is no reason for doubting it, then this Psalm belongs to the time of the rebellion under Absolom, and this supposition is confirmed on every hand. It is like an amplification of iv. 8; and iii. 7 is also echoed in it. But not only does it contain points of contact with this pair of Psalms of the time mentioned, but also with other Psalms belonging to same period, as xxvii. 4, and more especially lxiii., which is said to have been composed when David had retreated with his faithful followers over Kidron and the Mount of Olives into the plains of the wilderness of Judah, whither Hushai sent him tidings, which counselled him to pass over Jordan with all possible haste. It is characteristic of all these Psalms, that in them David yearns after the house of God as after the peculiar home of his heart, and, that all his wishes centre in the one wish to be at home again. And does not this short, tender song, with its depth of feeling and its May-like freshness, accord with David's want and wanderings to and fro at that time?
It consists of two hexastichs with short closing lines, resembling (as also in Isa. xvi. 9, 10) the Adonic verse of the strophe of Sappho, and a tetrastich made up of very short and longer lines intermixed.
Vers. 1 — 3. The poet calls Jahve *JT1, as He who uniformly and graciously provides for and guides him and all who His. Later prophecy announces the visible appearing of this Shepherd, Isa. xl. ll,Ezek. xxxiv. 37, and other pas If this has taken place, the yh 'Pi from the mouth of man fil its cordial response in the words £?<!> etjil 6 icotjiip He who has Jahve, the possessor of all things, himself has all things, he lacks nothing; viz. 3lB"te, what itself and would be good for him, xxxiv. 11, lxwiv. 12. ti&l Mtti are the pastures of fresh and bender one lies at easo, and rest and enjoyment HtO (HJj), according to its primary meaning, IS a i dwelling-place, specifically an oasis, i. e. a verdant spot in the desert. prop '0 are waters, where the weary finds a most pleasant resting-place (according to Hitzig, it is a plural brought in by the plural of the governing word, but it is at any rate a superlative plural), and can at the same time refresh himself. ^rD is suited to this as being a pastoral word used of gentle leading, and more especially of guiding the herds to the watering-places, just as t^ZHn is used of making them to rest, especially at noon-tide, Cant. i. 7; cf. o&r^siv, Apoc. vii. 17. Bfe)J ttW (elsewhere 3HPH) signifies to bring back the soul that is as it were flown away, so that it comes to itself again, therefore to impart new life, recreare. This He does to the soul, by causing it amidst the dryness and heat of temptation and trouble, to taste the very essence of life which refreshes and strengthens it. The Hiph. njnn (Arabic: to put on one side, as perhaps in Job xii. 23) is, as in cxliii. 10 the intensive of T\T\} (lxxvii. 21). The poet glories that Jahve leads him carefully and without risk or wandering in pTK"v$p, straight paths and leading to the right goal, and this 1D# ]ypb (for His Name's sake). He has revealed Himself as the gracious One, and as such He will prove and glorify Himself even in the need of him who submits to His guidance.
Vers. 4 — 5. Rod and staff are here not so much those of the pilgrim, which would be a confusing transition to a different figure, but those of Jahve, the Shepherd (E-t£;, as in Mic. vii. 14, and in connection with it, cf. Num. xxi. 18, VtiyiWO as the filling up of the picture), as the means of guidance and defence. The one rod, which the shepherd holds up to guide the flock and upon which he leans and anxiously watches over the flock, has assumed a double form in the conception of the idea. This rod and staff in the hand of God comfort him, i. e. preserve to him the feeling of security, and therefore a cheerful spirit. Even when he passes through a valley dark and gloomy as the shadow of death, where surprises and calamities of every kind threaten him, he fears no misfortune. The LXX. narrows the figure, rendering KVQ according to the Aramaic NOT, Dan. iii. 25, ev \iiom. The noun did^, which occurs in this passage for the first time in the Old Testament literature, is originally not a compound word; but being formed from a verb D^, *JJb (root bx, JJo), to overshadow, darken, after the form RTOg, but pronounced niD^S (cf. rilD'W, Hadramot = the court of death, Sn1?^ in-God's-shadow), it signifies the shadow of death as an epithet of the most fearful darkness, as of Hades, Job x. 21 sq., but also of a shaft of a mine, Job xxviii. 3, and more especially of darkness such as makes itself felt in a wild, uninhabited desert, Jer. ii. 6.
After the figure of the shepherd fades away in ver. 4, that of the host appears. His enemies must look quietly on ("133 as in xxxi. 20), without being able to do anything, and see how Jahve provides bountifully for His guest, anoints him with sweet perfumes as at a joyous and magnificent banquet (xcii. 11), and fills his cup to excess. What is meant thereby, is not necessarily only blessings of a spiritual kind. The king fleeing before Absolom and forsaken by the mass of his people was, with his army, even outwardly in danger of being destroyed by want; it is, therefore, even an abundance of daily bread streaming in upon them, as in 2 Sam. xvii. 27 — 29, that is meant; but even this, spiritually regarded, as a gift from heaven, and so that the satisfying, refreshing and quickening is only the outside phase of simultaneous inward experiences.* The future *"iyn is followed, according to the customary return to the perfect ground-form, by flJtgn, which has, none the less, the signification of a present. And in the closing assertion, *D13, my cup, is metonymically equivalent to the contents of my cup. This is Jrri, a fulness satiating even to excess.
Ver. 6. Foes are now pursuing him, but prosperity and favour alone shall pursue him, and therefore drive his present pursuers out of the field. 7]K, originally affirmative, here restrictive, belongs only to the subject-notion in its signification nil nisi (xxxix. 6, 12, cxxxix. 11). The expression is remarkable and without example elsewhere: as good spirits Jahve sends forth 212 and "icn to overtake David's enemies, and to protect him against them to their Bhame, viridium, it is thetable of the Lord's b upper, as Apollin he applies to it the epithet frre8avd>» pp(0ouoav, horrend mm unu* and that all his life long (accusative of continuance). We have now no need, in connection with our reference of the Psalm to the persecution under Absolom, either to persuade ourselves that >P)3t#l is equivalent to lOfcn xxvii. 4, or that it is equivalent to Tpl^l. The infinitive is logically inadmissible here, and unheard of with the vowel a instead of i, which would here (cf. on the other hand 'FITO) be confusing and arbitrary. Nor can it be shewn from Jer. xlii. 10 to be probable that it is contracted from TOt^l, since in that passage 31£> signifies redeundo = rursus. The LXX., certainly, renders it by xa8iaavxe<;, as in 1 Sam. xii. 2 by xal xa6f4ao[Aai; but (since so much uncertainty attaches to these translators and their text) we cannot draw a safe inference as to the existing usage of the language, which would, in connection with such a contraction, go out of the province of one verb into that of another, which is not the case with nnn = Pinn^ in 2 Sam. xxii. 41. On the contrary we have before us in the present passage a constructio prcegnans: "and I shall return (perf. consec.) in the house of Jahve", i. e. again, having returned, dwell in the house of Jahve. In itself 3 'FlSl&fl might also even mean et revertam ad (cf. vii. 17, Hos. xii. 7), like 3 i"6y, xxiv. 3, adscendere ad (in). But the additional assertion of continuance, T^xb UW (as in xciii. 5, Lam. v. 20, TpK, root "p, extension, lengthening = length) favours the explanation, that 3 is to be connected with the idea of TDWl, which is involved in VCtfl as a natural consequence.
1 JAHVE's is the earth, and its fulness, The world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For He, He hath founded it upon the seas, And upon streams did He set it fast.
3 Who may ascend the hill of Jahve, Who may stand in His holy place?
4 He that is of innocent hands and of pure heart, He that doth not lift up his soul to vanity, And doth not swear deceitfully —
And righteousness from the God of his salvation. G This is the generation of those who aspire after Him, Who seek Thy face — Jacob. (Sela)
B. Psalm on entering (above, on the citadel of Zion). Chorus of the festive procession.
Chorus. Jahve of Hosts, He is the King of Glory. (Sela)
Ps. xxiii. expressed a longing after the house of Jahve on Zion; Ps. xxiv. celebrates Jahve's entrance into Zion, and the true character of him who may enter with Him. It was composed when the Ark was brought from Kirjath Jearim to Mount Zion, where David had caused it to be set up in a tabernable built expressly for it, 2 Sam. vi. 17, cf. xi. 11, 1 Kings i. 39; or else, which is rendered the more probable by the description of Jahve as a warrior, at a time when the Ark was brought back to Mount Zion, after having been taken to accompany the army to battle (vid. Ps. lxviii.). Ps. xv. is very similar. But only xxiv. 1 — 6 is the counterpart of that Psalm; and there is nothing wanting to render the first part of Ps. xxiv. complete in itself. Hence Ewald divides Ps. xxiv. into two songs, belonging to different periods, although both old Davidic songs, viz. Ps. xxiv. 7 — 10, the song of victory sung at the removal of the Ark to Zion; and xxiv. 1 — 6, a purely didactic song pre-supposing this event which forms an era in their history. And it is relatively more natural to regard this Psalm rather than Ps. xix., as two songs combined and made into one; but these two songs have an internal coherence; in Jahve's coming to His temple is found that which occasioned them and that towards which They point; and consequently they form a whole consisting of two divisions. To the inscription "11EIO ir6 the LXX. adds ttj? fJ-ta; aaj^atou* (= P\2W2 "1PIN?#, for the first day of the week), according to which this Psalm was a customary Sunday Psalm. This addition is confirmed by B. Tamid extr., Bosh ha- Shana 31r/, Sofrim xviii. (cf. supra p. 32). In the second of these passages cited from the Talmud, R. Akiba seeks to determine the reasons for this choice by reference to the history of the creation.
Incorporated in Israel's hymn-book, this Psalm became, with a regard to its original occasion and purpose, an Old Testament Advent hymn in honour of the Lord who should come into His temple, Mai. iii. 1; and the cry: Lift up, ye
* The London Papyrus fragments, in Teschendorf Monum. i. 247, read TH MIA TQN 2ABBATQN. In the Hexaplarian text, this addition to the inscription was wanting.
gates, your heads, obtained a meaning essentially the same as that of the voice of the crier in Isaiah xl. 3: Prepare ye Jahve's way, make smooth in the desert a road for our God! In the New Testament consciousness, the second appearing takes the place of the first, the coming of the Lord of Glory to His church, which is His spiritual temple; and in this Psalm we are called upon to prepare Him a worthy reception. The interpretation of the second half of the Psalm of the entry of the Conqueror of death into Hades, — an interpretation which has been started by the Gospel of Nicodemus (vid. Tischendorf's Evv. apocrypha p. 306 sq.) and still current in the Greek church, — and the patristic interpretation of it of the eU oupavoo? avaXrfyis too xupiou, do as much violence to the rules of exegesis as to tho parallelism of the facts of the Old and New Testaments.
Vers. 1 — 6. Jahve, whose throne of grace is now set upon Zion, has not a limited dominion, like the heathen deities: His right to sovereignty embraces the earth and its fulness (1. 12, lxxxix. 12), i. e. everything that is to be found upon it and in it.* For He, Kin, is the owner of the world, because its Creator. He has founded it upon seas, %. e. the ocean and its streams, ni"inJ, pssGpa (Jon. ii. 4); for the waters existed before the dry land, and this has been cast up out of them at God's word, so that consequently the solid land, — which indeed also conceals in its interior a C'rH Din (Gen. vii. 11), — rising above the surface of the sea, has the waters, as it were, for its foundation (exxxvi. G), although it would more readily sink down into them than keep itself above them, if it were not in itself upheld by the creative power of God. Hereupon arises the question, who
* In 1 Cor. x. 20, Paul founds on this verse (cf. 1. 12) the doctrine that a Christian (apart from a charitable regard for the weak) I eat whatever is sold in the shambles, without troubling himself to enquire whether it has been offered to idols or not. A Talmudic teacher, B. Beracholh 35a, infers from this passage the duty of pn before meat: He who eats without giving thanks ifi like one « hands upon D^ 'trip (the sacred things of God); the right to is only obtained by prayer.
may ascend the mountain of Jahve, and stand above in His holy place? The futures have a potential signification: who can have courage to do it? what, therefore, must he be, whom Jahve receives into His fellowship, and with whose worship He is well-pleased? Answer: he must be one innocent in his actions and pure in mind, one who does not lift up his soul to that which is vain (K1I&6, according to the Masora with Ware minusculum). (b) *?N l&'DJ NKO, to direct one's soul, xxv. 1, or longing and striving, towards anything, Deut. xxiv. 15, Prov. xix. 18, Hos. iv. 8. The Keri ^IPBJ is old and acknowledged by the oldest authorities.* Even the LXX. Cod. Alex, translates: rqv ^o^yjv jjloo; whereas Cod. Vat. (Eus., Apollin., Theodor., et al.): T7]v ^o^tjv auxou. Critically it is just as intangible, as it is exegetically incomprehensible; W^\ might then be equivalent to ^DB% Exod. xx. 7, an explanation, however, which does not seem possible even from Amos vi. 8, Jer. li. 14. We let this Keri alone to its undisturbed critical rights. But that the poet did actual write thus, is incredible.
In ver. 5 (just as at the close of Ps. xv.), in continued predicates, we are told the character of the man, who is worthy of this privilege, to whom the question in ver. 3 refers. Such an one shall bear away, or acquire (&<i&0, as e.g. Esth. ii. 17) blessing from Jahve and righteousness from vuDi is equivalent to VStf), Juda ha-Levi {Cuzari iii. 27), Abuhvalid (Rikma p. 180), Rashi, Kimchi, the Sohar, the Codices (and among others by that of the year 1294) and most editions (among which, the Complutensis has '■tfDJ in the text). Nor does Aben-Ezra, whom Norzi has misunderstood, by any means reverse the relation of the Chethib and Keri; to him ^*DJ is the Keri, and he explains it as a metaphor (an anthropomorphism): ^UD "}T1 ^DJ 3irDl. Elias Levita is the ouly one who rejects the Keri ^'DJ; but he does so through misunderstanding a Masora (vid. Baer's Psalterium p. 130) and not without admitting Masoretic testimony in favour of it (nilDDH niNnDtf 3rO TOT) |31). He is the only textual critic who rejects it. For Jacob b. Chajim is merely astonished that N^SJ is not to be found in the Masoreth register of words written with Warn and to be read with Jod. And even Norzi does not reject this Keri, which he is obliged to admit has greatly preponderating testimony in its favour, and he would only too gladly get rid of it.
the God of his salvation (xxv. 5, xxvii. 9). Righteousness i. e. conformity to God and that which is well-pleasing to God, appears here as a gift, and in this sense it is used interchangeably with jJt^ (e. g. cxxxii. 9, 16). It is the righteousness of God after which the righteous, but not the self-righteous, man hungers and thirsts; that moral perfection which is the likeness of God restored to him and at the same time brought about by his own endeavours; it is the being changed, or transfigured, into the image of the Holy One Himself. With ver. 5 the answer to the question of ver. 3 is at an end; ver. 6 adds that those thus qualified, who may accordingly expect to receive God's gifts of salvation, are the true church of Jahve, the Israel of God. Ill (lit. a revolution, Arabic dahr, root *n, to turn, revolve) is used here, as in xiv. 5, lxxiii. 15, cxii. 2, of a collective whole, whose bond of union is not cotemporaneousness, but similarity of disposition; and it is an alliteration with the W'"H (Chethib itm, without the Jod plur.) which follows. *|\)D *#P9P is a second genitive depending on -)H, as in xxvii. 8. Here at the close the predication passes into the form of invocation (Thy face). And 3bjp is a summarising predicate: in short, these are Jacob, not merely after the flesh, but after the spirit, and thus in truth (Isa. xliv. 2, cf. Rom. ix. 6, Gal. vi. 16). By interpolating *rPK, as is done in the LXX. and Peshito, and adopted by Ewald, Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Bottcher, the nerve, as it were, of the assertion is cut through. The predicate, which has been expressed in different ways, is concentrated intelligibly enough in the one word 2p])\ towards which it all along tends. And here the music becomes forte. The first part of this double Psalm dies away amidst the playing of the instruments of the Levitical priests; for the Ark was brought in c'WZn Tir^D2, as 2 Sam. vi. 5 (cf. 14) is to be read.
Vers. 7 — 10. The festal procession lias now arm above at the gates of the citadel of Zion. These are called nb)V 'HriD, doors of eternity (not Bof the world" as Lutl renders it contrary to the Old Testament a m- guage) either as doors which pious faith hopes will La ever, as Hupfeld and Hitzig explain it, understand] in opposition to the inscription v( the Psalm, gates of Solomon's Temple; or, what seems to us much more appropriate in the mouth of those who are now standing before the gates, as the portals dating back into the hoary ages of the past (cb)V as e. g. in Gen. xlix. 26, Isa. lviii. 12), the time of the Jebusites, and even of Melchizedek, through which the King of Glory, whose whole being and acts is glory, is now about to enter. It is the gates of the citadel of Zion, to which the cry is addressed, to expand themselves in a manner worthy of the Lord who is about to enter, for whom they are too low and too strait. Rejoicing at the great honour, thus conferred upon them, they are to raise their heads (Job x. 15, Zech. ii. 4), i. e. lift up their portals (lintels); the doors of antiquity are to open high and wide.* Then the question echoes back to the festal procession from Zion's gates which are wont only to admit mighty lords: who, then (PIT giving vividness to the question, Ges. § 122, 2), is this King of Glory; and they describe Him more minutely: it is the Hero-god, by whom Israel has wrested this Zion from the Jebusites with the sword, and by whom he has always been victorious in time past. The adjectival climactic form Tlty (like l^b, with \ instead of the a in ]i2n, 2V&0 is only found in one other passage, viz. Isa. xliii. 17. HEPl^E TJSil refers back to Exod. xv. 3. Thus then shall the gates raise their heads and the ancient doors lift themselves, i. e. open high and wide; and this is expressed here by Kal instead of Niph. (NiSO to lift one's self up, rise, as in Nah. i. 5, Hos. xiii. 1, Hab. i. 3), according to the well-known order in which recurring verses and refrain-like repetitions move gently onwards. The gates of Zion ask once more, yet now no longer hesitatingly, but in order to hear more in praise of the great King. It is now the enquiry seeking fuller information; and the heaping up of the pronouns (as in Jer. xxx. 21, cf. xlvi. 7, Esth. vii. 5) expresses its urgency (quis tandem, ecquisnam). The answer runs, "Jahve Tsebaoth, He is the King of Glory (now making His entry)". nitf2^ 'n is the proper name of Jahve as King, which had become His customary name in the time