19 And Thy righteousness, Elohim, reacheth to the sky; Thou who doest great things — Elohim, who is like Thee %!
20 Who hast caused us to see distresses many and sore, Thou wilt quicken us again,
22 I will also praise Thee upon the nabla, Thy truth, my God; I will play to Thee upon the cithern, O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall exult, when I shall harp to Thee, And my soul, which Thou hast redeemed.
eousness, That those are ashamed, that those are put to the blush who seek my hurt.
The Davidic Psalm Ixx. is followed by an anonymous Psalm which begins like Ps. xxxi. and closes like Ps. xxxv., in which ver. 12, just like Ixx. 2, is an echo of xl. 14. The whole Psalm is an echo of the language of older Psalms, which is become the mental property, so to speak, of the author, and is revived in him by experiences of a similar character. Notwithstanding the entire absence of any thorough originality, it has an individual, and in fact a Jeremianic, impress.
The following reasons decide us in considering the Psalm as coming from the pen of Jeremiah: — (1) Its relationship to Psalms of the time of David and of the earlier times of the kings, but after David, leads us down to somewhere about the age of Jeremiah. (2) This anthological weaving together of men's own utterances taken from older original passages, and this skilful variation of them by merely slight touches of his own, is exactly Jeremiah's manner. (3) In solitary instances the style of Psalm Ixix., slow, loose, only sparingly adorned with figures, and here and there prosaic, closely resembles Jeremiah; also to him corresponds the situation of the poet as one who is persecuted; to him, the retrospect of a life rich in experience and full of miraculous guidings; to him, whose term of active service extended over a period of more than thirty years under Zedekiah, the transition to hoary age in which the poet finds himself; to him, the reference implied in ver. 21 to some high office; and to him, the soft, plaintive strain that pervades the Psalm, from which it is at the same time clearly seen that the poet has attained a degree of age and experience, in which he is accustomed to self-control and is not discomposed by personal misfortune. To all these correspondences there is still to be added an historical testimony. The LXX. inscribes the Psalm TO) jdaviS) vlcov 'IcovaBdft Kai tcov nrpoarcdv al^jxaXcoTiaOivTcov, According to this inscription, the tw AavtS of which is erroneous, but the second part of which is so explicit that it must be based upon tradition, the Psalm was a favourite song of the Pechabites and of the first exiles. The Pechabites are that tribe clinging to a homely nomad life in accordance with the will of their father, which Jeremiah (ch. xxxv.) holds up before the men of his time as an example of self-denying faithful adherence to the law of their father which puts them to shame. If the Psalm is by Jeremiah, it is just as intelligible that the Pechabites, to whom Jeremiah paid such a high tribute of respect, should appropriate it to their own use, as that the first exiles should do so. Hitzig infers from ver. 20, that at the time of its composition Jerusalem had already fallen; whereas in Ps. Ixix. it is only the cities of Judah that as yet lie in ashes. But after the overthrow of Jerusalem we find no circumstances in the life of the prophet, who is no more heard of in Egypt, that will correspond to the complaints of the psalmist of violence and mockery. Moreover the foe in ver. 4 is not the Chaldsean, whose conduct towards Jeremiah did not merit these names. Nor can ver. 20 have been written at the time of the second siege and in the face of the catastrophe.
Vers. 1-6. Stayed upon Jahve, his ground of trust, from early childhood up, the poet hopes and prays for deliverance out of the hand of the foe. The first of these two strophes (vers. 1-3) is taken from xxxi. 2-4, the second (vers. 4-6, with the exception of vers. 4 and 6c) from xxii. 10, 11; both, however, in comparison with Ps. lxx. exhibit the far more encroaching variations of a poet who reproduces the language of others with a freer hand. Olshausen wishes to read Tto in ver. 3, xc. 1, xci. 9, instead of PTO, which he holds to be an error in writing. But this old Mosaic, Deuteronotnial word (vid. on xc. 1) — cf. the post-biblical oath ])yvr\ (by the Temple!) — is unassailable. J alive, who is called a rock of refuge in xxxi. 3, is here called a rock of habitation, i.e. a high rock that cannot be stormed or scaled, which affords a safe abode; and this figure is pursued still further with a bold remodelling of the text of xxxi. 3: Ypp NU7, constantly to go into, i.e. whither I can constantly, and therefore always, as often as it is needful, betake myself for refuge. The additional JVtt? is certainly not equivalent to n«f; it would more likely be equivalent to "WK JVltf; but probably it is an independent clause: Thou hast (in fact) commanded, i.e. unalterably determined (xliv. 5, lxviii. 29, cxxxiii. 3), to show me salvation, for my rock, etc. To the words mv Y»n K\J? corresponds the expression nniVD ITQ? in xxxi. 3, which the LXX. renders icai eU olkov KaTa<f>v<yf]<;y whereas instead of the former three words it has zeal el$ toitov oxypov, and seems to have read nvwao JT^, cf. Dan. xi. 15 (Hitzig). In ver. 5, Thou art my hope reminds one of the divine name?$"$* »T!i?8 in Jer. xvii. 13, 1. 7 (cf. rj i\7rU rjficov used of Christ in 1 Tim. i. 1, Col. i. 27). WDp: is not less beautiful than ^3pK?n in xxii. 11. In its incipient slumbering state (cf. iii. 6), and in its self-conscious continuance, He was and is the upholding prop and the supporting foundation, so to speak, of my life. And^iJ instead of '•nil in xxii. 10, is just such another felicitous modification. It is impracticable to define the meaning of this spJ according to nra = KT3, \y>-3 retribuere (prop, to cut up, distribute), because tea is the representative of this Aramaeo- Arabic verb in the Hebrew. Still less, however, can it be derived from fia, transire, the participle of which, if it would admit of a transitive meaning = HtftfO (Targum), ought to be *W. The verb fiT3, in accordance with its radical signification of abscindere (root H, synon. p, *lp, Bp, and the like), denotes in this instance the separating of the child from the womb of the mother, the retrospect going back from youth to childhood, and even to his birth. The LXX. a/ceiraari]^ (/jlov) is an erroneous reading for ^/£0-7racnr?$?, as is clear from xxii. 10, o i/cairdaas fie. 21??n, xliv. 9 (cf. 2 rvb, lxix. 13), is at the bottom of the expression in ver. 6c. The God to whom he owes his being, and its preservation thus far, is the constant, inexhaustible theme of his praise.
Vers. 7-12. Brought safely through dangers of every from c^il, cognate cJil, ^BSJ, to bend, distort: a turning round, that which is turned round or wrenched, i.e. that which is contrary to what is usual and looked for) to many, who gaze upon him as such with astonishment (xl. 4). It is his God, however, to whom, as hitherto so also in time to come, he will look to be thus wonderfully preserved: tiPDQD, as in 2 Sam. xxii. 33.?j? is a genitive, and the suffix is thrown back (yid. supra j vol. i. 274) in order that what God is to, and does for, the poet may be brought forward more clearly and independently [lit. unalloyed]. Ver. 8 tells us what it is that he firmly expects on the ground of what he possesses in God. And on this very ground arises the prayer of ver. 9 also: Cast me not away (viz. from Thy presence, li. 13, Jer. vii. 15, and frequently) in the time (TO>, as in Gen. viii. 11) of old age — he is therefore already an old man (|i?.T), though only just at the beginning of the njipr. He supplicates favour for the present and for the time still to come: now that my vital powers are failing, forsake me not! Thus he prays because he, who has been often wondrously delivered, is even now threatened by foes. Ver. 11, introduced by means of ver. 10, tells us what their thoughts of him are, and what they purpose doing. v, ver. 10a, does not belong to *?te, as it does not in xxvii. 2 also, and elsewhere. The? is that of relation or of reference, as in xli. 6. The unnecessary "ibfcO betrays a poet of the later period; cf. cv. 11, cxix. 82 (where it was less superfluous), and on the contrary, lxxxiii. 5 sq. The later poet also reveals himself in ver. 12, which is an echo of very similar prayers of David in xxii. 12, 20 (xl. 14, cf. lxx. 2), xxxv. 22, xxxviii. 22 sq. The Davidic style is to be discerned here throughout in other points also. In place of nj^rt the Ken substitutes ntPtflj which is the form exclusively found elsewhere.
29, and other passages, the reading of ^3* with the Syrfac, instead of ^1 in ver. 13a commends itself; but there are also other instances in this Psalm of a modification of the original passages, and the course of the thoughts is now climactic: confusion, ruin (cf. vi. 1 1), and in fact ruin accompanied by reproach and shame. This is the fate that the poet desires for his deadly foes. In prospect of this he patiently composes himself, ver. 14a (cf. xxxi. 25); and when righteous retribution appears, he will find new matter and ground and motive for the praise of God in addition to all such occasion as he has hitherto had. The late origin of the Psalm betrays itself again here; for instead of the prcet. Hiph. ^pin (which is found only in the Books of Kings and in Ecclesiastes), the older language made use of the prcet, Kal. Without ceasing shall his mouth tell ("^D, as in Jer. li. 10) of God's righteousness, of God's salvation, for he knows not numbers, i.e. the counting over or through of them (cxxxix. 17 sq.); * the divine proofs of righteousness or salvation "iSBE WW (xl. 6), they are in themselves endless, and therefore the matter also which they furnish for praise is inexhaustible. He will tell those things which cannot be so reckoned up; he will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord Jahve, and with praise acknowledge His righteousness, Him alone. Since HViaj, like the New Testament BvvdfjLeis, usually signifies the proofs of the divine iT}W| (e.g, xx. 7), the Beth is the Beth of accompaniment, as e.g. in xl. 8, to afferre, he will bring the proofs of the divine power, this rich material, with him. It is evident from vers. 18 sq. that nn^2 does not refer to the poet (in the fulness of divine strength), but, together with IHpIV, forms a pair of words that have reference to God. Til??, according to the sense, joins closely upon the suffix of ^£1? (cf. lxxxiii. 19): Thy righteousness (which has been in mercy turned towards me), Thine alone (te solum = tui solius). From youth up God has in-
* The LXX. renders ovx. 'iyuav Trpetyfixnixs; the Psalterium Ronianum, non cognovi negotiationes; Psalt. Gallicum (Vulgate), non cognovi literaturam (instead of which the Psalt. Hebr., liter atur as). According to Bottchcr, the poet really means that he did not understand the art of writing.
structed him, viz. in His ways (xxv. 4), which are worthy of all praise, and hitherto (n2\]"~W, found only in this passage in the Psalter, and elsewhere almost entirely confined to prose) has he, " the taught of Jahve " ('H *NE>?), had to praise the wonders of His rule and of His leadings. May God, then, not forsake him even further on nj^l ^PPl?- The poet is already old (I£T), and is drawing ever nearer to n9^» silvery, hoary old age (cf. 1 Sam. xii. 2). May God, then, in this stage of life also to which he lias attained, preserve him in life and in His favour, until (iy = "i^"iyj as in cxxxii. 5, Gen. xxxviii. 11, and frequently) he shall have declared His arm, i.e. His mighty interposition in human history, to posterity ("in), and to all who shall come (supply "|^.), i>e. the whole of the future generation, His strength, i.e. the impossibility of thwarting His purposes. The primary passage for this is xxii. 31 sq.
Vers. 19-24. The thought of this proclamation so thoroughly absorbs the poet that he even now enters upon the tone of it; and since to his faith the deliverance is already a thing of the past, the tender song with its uncomplaining prayer dies away into a loud song of praise, in which he pictures it all to himself. Without vers. 19-21 being subordinate to TJrtOJJ in ver. 18, inpTO is coupled by close connection with imna. Ver. 19a is an independent clause; and DiiEny takes the place of the predicate: the righteousness of God exceeds all bounds, is infinite (xxxvi. 6 sq., lvii. 11). The cry ^]iDD '•D, as in xxxv. 10, lxxxix. 9, Jer. x. 6, refers back to Ex. xv. 11. According to the Chethib, the range of the poet's vision widens in ver. 20 from the proofs of the strength and righteousness of God which he has experienced in his own case to those which he has experienced in common with others in the history of his own nation. The Keri (cf. on the other hand lx. 5, lxxxv. 7, Deut xxxi. 17) rests upon a failing to discern how the experience of the writer are interwoven with those of the nation. y\wn Ik both instances supplies the corresponding adverbial notion to the principal verb, as in lxxxv. 7 (cf. li. 4). Dinn? prop, a rumbling, commonly used of a deep heaving of waters, here signifies an abyss. "The abysses of the earth" (LXX. i/c tcjv afivcraeov tt}? 777?, just as the old Syriac version renders the like the gates of death (ix. 14), a figure of extreme perils and dangers, in the midst of which one is as it were half hidden in the abyss of Hades. The past and future are clearly distinguished in the sequence of the tenses. When God shall again raise His people out of the depth of the present catastrophe, then will He also magnify the np"i3 of the poet, i.e. the dignity of his office, by most brilliantly vindicating him in the face of his foes, and will once more (^ion, fut. Nipli. like nv^ri above) comfort him. He on his part will also (cf. Job xl. 14) be grateful for this national restoration and this personal vindication: he will praise God, will praise His truth, i.e. His fidelity to His promises, tn?." c*?? instead of EH? sounds more circumstantial than in the old poetry. The divine name " The Holy One of Israel" occurs here for the third time in the Psalter; the other passages are lxxviii. 41, lxxxix. 19, which are older in time, and older also than Isaiah, who uses it thirty times, and Habakkuk, who uses it once. Jeremiah has it twice (ch. 1. 29, li. 5), and that after the example of Isaiah. In vers. 23, 24a the poet means to say that lips and tongue, song and speech, shall act in concert in the praise of God. naann with Dagesh also in the second Nun, after the form naripfl, nabtpri, side by side with which we also find the reading nann, and the reading ruain, which is in itself admissible, after the form rw»sn rujym but is here unattested.* The cohortative after *3 (LXX. otclv) is intended to convey this meaning: when I feel myself impelled to harp unto Thee. In the perfects in the closing line that which is hoped for stands before his soul as though it had already taken place. O is repeated with triumphant emphasis.
Bilram in his KIpDH ''DVD and of Mose ha-Nakdan in his Tipjil *OV?, that Segol always precedes the ending n3, with the exception only of n3H and flUTKPl. Baer, on the other hand, reads n33"in, following Aben-Ezra and Kimchi (Michlol 666).
And Thy righteousness unto the king's son. '2 May he govern Thy people with uprightness,
3 May the mountains bring peace to the people, And the hills by righteousness.
Save the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.
5 May they fear Thee as long as the sun, And before the moon to all generations.
6 May he come down like rain upon the meadow-grass, As showers, a heavy rain upon the earth.
And abundance of peace, till the moon be no more.
8 And may he have dominion from sea to sea, And from the river unto the ends of the earth.
9 Before him shall the inhabitants of the wilderness bow, And his enemies shall lick the dust.
10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring gifts, The kings of Saba and Meroe shall offer tribute.
12 For he shall deliver the needy who crieth, And the afflicted who have no succour.
13 He shall deal gently with the poor and needy, And help the souls of the needy;
14 From oppression and violence he shall redeem their soul, And precious is their blood in his eyes:
15 And he shall live, and he will present him with gold of Saba, And he will pray for him always, bless him continually.
of the mountains, May its fruit wave like Lebanon, And may they blossom out of cities like the herbs of the
Before the sun may his name throw out shoots. And may they bless themselves in him, may all peoples call him blessed.
18 Blessed be Jahve Elohim the God of Israel, Who alone doeth wondrous things.
19 And blessed be His glorious name for ever,
And let the whole earth be filled with His
20 Ended are the prayers of David the son of Jesse,
This last Psalm of the primary collection, united to Ps. Ixxi. by community of the prominent word inpIV, appears, as we look to the superscription, lxxii. 20, to be said to be a Psalm of David; so that consequently rfripVO designates Solomon as the subject, not the author. But the Lamed of PiD^K^ here and in cxxvii. 1 cannot have any other meaning than that which the Lamed always has at the head of the Psalms when it is joined to proper names; it is then always the expression denoting that the Psalm belongs to the person named, as its author. Then in style and general character the Psalm has not the least kinship with the Psalms of David. Characteristic of Solomon, on the other hand, are the movement proverb-like, and for the most part distichic, which has less of original freshness and directness than of an artificial, reflective, and almost sluggish manner, the geographic range of view, the richness in figures drawn from nature, and the points of contact with the Book of Job, which belongs incontrovertibly to the circle of the Salomonic literature: these are coincident signs which are decisive in favour of Solomon. But if Solomon is the author, the question arises, who is the subject of the Psalm? According to Hitzig, Ptolemy Philadelphus; but no true Israelite could celebrate him in this manner, and there is no reliable example of carmina of this character having found tlieir way into the song-book of Israel. The subject of the Psalm is either Solomon (LXX. ek SaXcoficov) or the Messiah (Targum, "O God, give Thy regulations of right to the King Messiah, KIWO toW>"). Both are correct. It is Solomon himself to whom the intercession and desires of blessing of this Psalm refer. Solomon, just as David with Psalms xx. and xxi., put it into the heart and mouth of the people, probably very soon after his accession, it being as it were a church-prayer on behalf of the new, reigning king. But the Psalm is also none the less Messianic, and with perfect right the church has made it the chief Psalm of the festival of Epiphany, which has received its name of festum trium regum out of it.
Solomon was in truth a righteous, benign, God-fearing ruler; he established and also extended the kingdom; he ruled over innumerable people, exalted in wisdom and riches above all the kings of the earth; his time was the most happy, the richest in peace and joy that Israel has ever known. The words of the Psalm were all fulfilled in him, even to the one point of the universal dominion that is wished for him. But the end of his reign was not like the beginning and the middle of it. That fair, that glorious, that pure image of the Messiah which he had represented waxed pale; and with this fading away its development in relation to the history of redemption took a new turn. In the time of David and of Solomon the hope of believers, which was attached to the kingship of David, had not yet fully broken with the present. At that time, with few exceptions, nothing was known of any other Messiah than the Anointed One of God, who was David or Solomon himself. When, however, the kingship in these its two most glorious impersonations had proved itself unable to bring to full realization the idea of the Messiah or of the Anointed One of God, and when the line of kings that followed thoroughly disappointed the hope which clung to the kingship of the present, — a hope which here and there, as in the reign of Hezekiah, blazed up for a moment and then totally died out, and men were driven from the present to look onward into the future, — then, and not until then, did any decided rupture take place between the Messianic hope and the present. The image of the Messiah is now painted on the pure ethereal sky of the future (though of the immediate future) in colours which were furnished by older unfulfilled prophecies, and by the contradiction between the existing kingship and its idea; it becomes more and more, so to speak, an image, super-earthly, super-human, belonging to the future, the invisible refuge and invisible goal of a faith despairing of the present, and thereby rendered relatively more spiritual and heavenly (cf. the Messianic image painted in colours borrowed from our Psalm in Isa. ch. xi., Mic. v. 3, 6, Zech. ix. 9 sq.). In order rightly to estimate this, we must free ourselves from the prejudice that the centre of the Old Testament proclamation of salvation [or gospel] lies in the prophecy of the Messiah. Is the Messiah, then, anywhere set forth as the Redeemer of the world? The Redeemer of the world is Jahve. The appearing (parusici) of Jahve is the centre of the Old Testament proclamation of salvation. An allegory may serve to illustrate the way in which the Old Testament proclamation of salvation unfolds itself. The Old Testament in relation to the Day of the New Testament is Night. In this Night there rise in opposite directions two stars of Promise, The one describes its path from above downwards: it is the promise of Jahve who is about to come. The other describes its path from below upwards: it is the hope which rests on the seed of David, the prophecy of the Son of David, which at the outset assumes a thoroughly human, and merely earthly character. These two stars meet at last, they blend together into one star; the Night vanishes and it is Day. This one Star is Jesus Christ, Jahve and the Son of David in one person, the King of Israel and at the same time the Redeemer of the world, — in one word, the God-man.
Vers. 1-4. The name of God, occurring only once, is Eloldm; and this is sufficient to stamp the Psalm as an Elohimic Psalm. T\?D (cf. xxi. 2) and ^P'l? are only used without the article according to a poetical usage of the language. The petition itself, and even the position of the words, show that the king's son is present, and that he is king; God is implored to bestow upon him His D^DS^D, i.e, the rights or legal powers belonging to Him, the God of Israel, and n5*pj *•«■ tne official gift in order that he may exercise those rights in accordance with divine righteousness. After the supplicatory \R the futures which now follow, without the Waw apodoseos, are manifestly optatives. Mountains and hills describe synecdochically the whole land of which they are the high points visible afar off. N^J is used in the sense of 1-)B N'fO Ezek. xvii. 8: may BW be the fruit which ripens upon every mountain and hill; universal prosperity satisfied and contented within itself. The predicate for ver. 3 b is to be taken from ver. 3a, just as, on the other hand, ^P^-f?, " in or by righteousness," the fruit of which is indeed peace (Isa. xxxii. 17), belongs also to ver. 3a; so that consequently both members supplement one another. The wish of the poet is this: By righteousness, may there in due season be such peaceful fruit adorning all the heights of the land. Ver. 36, however, always makes one feel as though a verb were wanting, like njniDn suggested by Bottcher. In ver. 4 the wishes are continued in plain unfigurative language, p^in in the signification to save, to obtain salvation for, has, as is frequently the case, a dative of the object. jtos~\)3 are those who are born to poverty, just like "?l?p"J3, one who is born a king. Those who are born to poverty are more or less regarded, by an unrighteous government, as having no rights.
Vers. 5-8. The invocation of ver. 1 is continued in the form of a wish: may they fear Thee, Elohim, E^nDy, with the sun, i.e. during its whole duration (pV in the sense of cotemporary existence, as in Dan. iii. 33). rnpp.D?, in the moonlight (cf. Job viii. 16, K;Dr^i>, in the sunshine), i.e. so long as the moon shines. Onyi Tlh (accusative of the duration;f time, cf. cii. 25), into the uttermost generation which outlasts the other generations (like E?B#n *vv) of the furthest heavens which surround the other heavens). The first two periphrastic expressions for unlimited time recur in Ps. lxxxix. 37 sq., a Psalm composed after the time of Solomon; cf. the unfigurative expression in Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings viii. 40. The continuance of the kingship, from the operation of which such continuance of the fear of God is expected, is not asserted until ver. 17. It is capricious to refer the language of address in ver. 5 to the king (as Hupfeld and Hitzig do), who is not directly addressed either in ver. 4, or in ver. 6, or anywhere in the Psalm. With respect to God the desire is expressed that the righteous and benign rule of the king may result in the extension of the fear of God from generation to generation into endless ages. The poet in ver. 6 delights in a heaping up of synonyms in order to give intensity to the expression of the thoughts, just as in ver. 5; the last two expressions stand side by side one another without densum, spissum esse, and then, starting from this signification, sometimes multum and sometimes magnum esse) is the shower of rain pouring down in drops that are close together; nor is
*rp.t a synonym of Tjj, but (formed from *nj, <-J^> to flow, by means of a rare reduplication of the first two letters of the root, Ew. § 157, d) properly the water running from a roof (cf. B. Jorna 81a: "when the maid above poured out water, fcODI ^PT came upon his head").?3, however, is not the meadow-shearing, equivalent to a shorn, mown meadow, any more than ta, H}2? Arabic g'izza, signifies a shorn hide, but, on the contrary, a hide with the wool or feathers (e.g. ostrich feathers) still upon it, rather a meadow, i.e. grassy plain, that is intended to be mown. The closing word pK (accus. loci as in cxlvii. 15) unites itself with the opening word T£: descendat in terrain. In his last words (2 Sam. ch. xxiii.) David had compared the effects of the dominion of his successor, whom he beheld as by vision, to the fertilizing effects of the sun and of the rain upon the earth. The idea of ver. 6 is that Solomon's rule may prove itself thus beneficial for -the country. The figure of the rain in ver. 7 gives birth to another: under his rule may the righteous blossom (expanding himself unhindered and under the most favourable circumstances), and (may there arise) salvation in all fulness m* "92~ny, until there is no more moon (cf. the similar expression in Job xiv. 12). To this desire for the uninterrupted prosperity and happiness of the righteous under the reign of this king succeeds the desire for an unlimited extension of his dominion, ver. 8. The sea (the Mediterranean) and the river (the Euphrates) are geographically defined points of issue, whence the definition of boundary is extended into the unbounded. Solomon even at his accession ruled over all kingdoms from the Euphrates as far as the borders of Egypt; the wishes expressed here are of wider compass, and Zechariah repeats them predictively (ch. ix. 10) with reference to the King Messiah.
Vors. 9-11. This third strophe contains prospects, the ground of which is laid down in the fourth. The position of the futures here becomes a different one. The contemplation passes from the home relations of the new government to its foreign relations, and at the same time the wishes are changed into hopes. The awe-commanding dominion of the king shall stretch even into the most distant corners of the desert. &^¥ is used both for the animals and the men who inhabit the desert, to be determined in each instance by the context; here they are men beyond all dispute, but in lxxiv. 14, Isa. xxiii. 13, it is matter of controversy whether men or beasts are meant. Since the LXX., Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome here, and the LXX. and Jerome in lxxiv. 14, render AWioire^, the nomadic tribes right and left of the Arabian Gulf seem traditionally to have been associated in the mind with this word, more particularly the so-called Ichthyophagi. These shall bend the knee reverentially before him, and those who contend against him shall be compelled at last to veil their face before him in the dust. The remotest west and south become subject and tributary to him, viz. the kings of Tartessus in the south of Spain, rich in silver, and of the islands of the Mediterranean and the countries on its coasts, that is to say, the kings of the Polynesian portion of Europe, and the kings of the Cushitish or of the Joktanitish m& and of the Cushitish iOD as, according to Josephus, the chief city of Meroe was called (vid. Genesis, S. 206). It was a queen of that Joktanitish, and therefore South Arabian Sheba, — perhaps, however, more correctly (vid, Wetzstein in my Isaiah^ ii. 529) of the Cushitish (Nubian) Shebc.y — whom the fame of Solomon's wisdom drew towards him, 1 Kings ch. x. The idea of their wealth in gold and in other precious things is associated with both peoples. In the expression nna» ywn (to pay tribute, 2 Kings xvii. 3, cf. hi. 4) the tribute is not conceived of as rendered in return for protection afforded (Maurer, Hengstenberg, and Olshausen), nor as an act repeated periodically (Rodiger, who refers to 2 Chron. xxvii. 5), but as a bringing back, i.e. repayment of a debt, referre 8. reddere debitum (Hupfeld), after the same idea according to which obligatory incomings are called reditus (revenues). In the synonymous expression "|3^ ^ijjfl the presentation appears as an act of sacrifice, "^'x signifies in Ezek. xxvii. 15 a payment made in merchandise, here a rent or tribute due, from ")^, which in blending with the Aleph prostheticum has passed over into "^ by means of a shifting of the sound after the Arabic manner, just as in /3KW the verb S>?B>, to interweave, passes over into bsw (Rodiger in Gesenius' Thesaurus). In ver. 11 hope breaks through every bound: everything shall submit to his world*subduing sceptre.
Vers. 12-15. The confirmation of these prospects is now given. Voluntative forms are intermingjed because the prospect extending into the future is nevertheless more lyrical than prophetic in its character. The elevation of the king to the dominion of the world is the reward of his condescension; he shows himself to be the helper and protecting lord of the poor and the oppressed, who are the especial object upon which God's eye is set. He looks upon it as his task to deal most sympathizingly and most considerately (D^) just with those of reduced circumstances and with the poor, and their blood is precious in his eyes. Ver. 12 is re-echoed in Job xxix. 12. The meaning of ver. 146 is the same as cxvi. 15. Instead of "li?."!, by a retention of the Jod of the stem it is written "1?*. Just as in xlix. 10, Ip" here also is followed by W. The assertion is individualized: and he (who was threatened with death) shall live (voluntative, having reference to the will of the king). But who is now the subject to TJNt Not the rescued one (Hitzig), for after the foregoing designations (vers. 11 sq.) we cannot expect to find " the gold of Sheba" (gold from Jeman or ^Ethiopia) in his possession. Therefore it is the king, and in fact Solomon, of whom the disposal of the gold of Sheba (Saba) is characteristic. The king's thought and endeavour are directed to this, that the poor man who has almost fallen a victim shall live or revive, and not only will he maintain his cause, he will also bestow gifts upon him with a liberal hand, and he (the poor one who has been rescued and endowed from the riches of the king) shall pray unceasingly for him (the king) and bless him at all times. The poor one is he who is restored to life and endowed with gifts, and who intercedes and blesses; the king, however, is the beneficent giver. It is left for the reader to supply the right subjects in thought to the separate verbs. That clearly marked precision which we require in rhetorical recital is alien to the Oriental style (vid. my Geschichte der jiidischen Poesie, S. 189). Maurer and Hofmann also give the same interpretation as we have done. Vers. 16, 17. Here, where the futures again stand at the head of the clauses, they are also again to be understood as optatives. As the blessing of such a dominion after God's heart, not merely fertility but extraordinary fruitfulness may be confidently desired for the land. «"ID3 {air. \ey.), rendered by the Syriac version sugo, abundance, is correctly derived by the Jewish lexicographers from Dps — nfe'a (in the law relating to
(vid. Job, ii. 275), to extend, expandere; so that it signifies an abundance that occupies a broad space. £'K"i3? unto the summit, as in xxxvi. 6, xix. 5. The idea thus obtained is the same as when Hofmann (Weissagung und Erfullung, i. 180 f.) takes nDS (from Dps — D2K) in the signification of a boundary line: " close upon the summit of the mountain shall the last corn stand," with reference to the terrace-like structure of the heights. V"]3 does not refer back to pxi (Hitzig, who misleads one by referring to Joel ii. 3), but to 13: may the corn stand so high and thick that the fields, being moved by the wind, shall shake, i.e. wave up and down, like the lofty thick forest of Lebanon. The LXX., which renders v7repap6rj<T€Tcu, takes Bty"P for BWV, as Ewald does: may its fruit rise to a summit, i.e. rise high, like Lebanon. But a verb B>*p is unknown; and how bombastic is this figure in comparison with that grand, but beautiful figure, which we would not willingly exchange even for the conjecture "lOT*. (may it be rich)! The other wish refers to a rapid, joyful increase of the population: may men blossom out of this city and out of that city as the herb of the earth (cf. Job v. 25, where V??S5i» a^so accor(ls m sound with W?J)j M- fresh, beautiful, and abundant as it. Israel actually became under Solomon's sceptre as numerous " as the sand by the sea" (1 Kings iv. 20), but increase of population is also a settled feature in the picture of the Messianic time (ex. 3, Isa. ix. 2, xlix. 20. Zech. ii. 8; cf. Sir. xliv. 21). If, however, under the just and benign rule of the king, both land and people are thus blessed, eternal duration may be desired for his name. May this name, is the wish of the poet, ever send forth new shoots (P?J Chethib), or receive new shoots (i^ Keri, from Nipk. fa}), as long as the sun turns its face towards us, inasmuch as the happy and blessed results of the dominion of the king ever afford new occasion for glorifying his name. May they bless themselves in him, may all nations call him blessed, and that, as 13 Cl3n*l* implies, so blessed that his abundance of blessing appears to them to be the highest that they can desire for themselves. To et benedicant sibi in eo we have to supply in thought the most universal, as yet undefined subject, which is then more exactly defined as omnes gentes with a second synonymous predicate. The accentuation (Athnack, Mugrash, Silluk) is blameless.
Vers. 18, 19. Closing Beracha of the Second Book of the Psalter. It is more full-toned than that of the First Book, and God is intentionally here called Jahve Elohim the God of Israel because the Second Book contains none but Elohim- Psalms, and not, as there, Jahve the God of Israel. "Who alone doeth wonders" is a customary praise of God, lxxxvi. 10, cxxxvi. 4, cf. Job ix. 8. Hi32 D£> is a favourite word in the language of divine worship in the period after the Exile (Neh. ix. 5); it is equivalent to the irvopD Tto DW in the liturgical Beracha, God's glorious name, the name that bears the impress of His glory. The closing words: and let the whole earth be full, etc., are taken from Num. xiv. 21. Here, as there, the construction of the active with a double accusative of that which fills and that which is to be filled is retained in connection with the passive; for Vri33 is also accusative: let be filled with His glory the whole earth (let one make it full of it). The tf?K coupled by means of Waw is, in the Old Testament, exclusively peculiar to these doxologies of the Psalter.
Ver. 20. Superscription of the primary collection. The origin of this superscription cannot be the same as that of the doxology, which is only inserted between it and the Psalm, because it was intended to be read with the Psalm at the reading in the course of the service (Symbolce, p. 19). ^3 = fe>,
Pronounce wejithbarcliu, because the tone rests on the first letter of the root; whereas in ver. 15 it is jebafchenhu with Chalcph. vid. the rule in the Luther. Zeitschrift, 1863, S. 412.
manifest in the accented ultima. A parallel with this verse is the superscription u are ended the words of Job " in Job xxxi. 40, which separates the controversial speeches and Job's monologue from the speeches of God. No one taking a survey of the whole Psalter, with the many Psalms of David that follow beyond Ps. lxxii., could possibly have placed this key-stone here. If, however, it is more ancient than the doxological division into five books, it is a significant indication in relation to the history of the rise of the collection. It proves that the collection of the whole as it now lies before us was at least preceded by one smaller collection, of which we may say that it extended to Ps. lxxii., without thereby meaning to maintain that it contained all the Psalms up to that one, since several of them may have been inserted into it when the redaction of the whole took place. But it is possible for it to have contained Ps. lxxii., since at the earliest it was only compiled in the time of Solomon. The fact that the superscription following directly upon a Psalm of Solomon is thus worded, is based on the same ground as the fact that the whole Psalter is quoted in the New Testament as Davidic. David is the father of the 'A W, 2 Chron. xxix. 27, and hence all Psalms may be called Davidic, just as all DWp may be called Salomonic, without meaning thereby that they are all composed by David himself.
1 VERILY good to Israel is Elohim, To those who are of a clean heart.
2 But as for me — my feet had almost tottered, My steps had well-nigh slipped.
3 For I was incensed at the boastful, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
The imaginations of the heart appear outwardly. b They mock and speak oppression in wickedness,
And their tongue stalketh along upon the earth. 10 Therefore their people turn hither,
11 And they say: "How should God know, And knowledge dwell in the Most High?!
13 Only in vain have I cleansed my heart, And washed my hands in innocence,
16 Yet when I mused in order to solve the riddle, It was too difficult in mine eyes —
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God, Until I gave good heed unto their end:
18 Surely in slippery places dost Thou set them, Thou caetest them down to ruins.
19 How are they become a desolation as in a moment, Brought to an end, gone by reason of terrors!
22 Then I should be a stupid one and without understanding, A behemoth should I be in comparison with Thee.
23 But I remain continually with Thee, Thou hast taken hold of my right hand.
24 According to Thy counsel wilt Thou lead me, And afterward receive me to honour.
27 For, lo, those who are estranged from Thee shall perish, Thou destroyest all those who wantonly forsake Thee.
28 Bat as for me — to be united to Elohim is my happiness, I make in the Lord, Jahve, my refuge, Tli at I may declare all Thy works.
After the one Asaph Psalm of the Second Book, Ps. L, follow eleven more of them from Ps. lxxiii. to lxxxiii. They are all Elohimic, whereas the Korah Psalms divide into an Elohimic and a Jehovic group. Ps. lxxxiv. forms the transition from the one to the other. The Elohim-Psalms extend from Ps. xlii.-lxxxiv., and are fenced in on both sides by Jahve- Psalms.
In contents Ps. lxxiii. is the counterpart or pendant of Ps. 1. As in that Psalm the semblance of a sanctity based upon works is traced back to its nothingness, so here the seeming good fortune of the ungodly, by which the poet felt himself tempted to fall away, not into heathenism (Hitzig), but into that freethinking which in the heathen world does not less cast off the BeicnSai/jLovia than it does the belief in Jahve within the pale of Israel. Nowhere does there come to light in the national history any background that should contradict the ^JDK?, and the doubts respecting the moral order of the world are set at rest in exactly the same way as in Ps. xxxvii., xlix., and in the Book of Job. Theodicy, or the vindication of God's ways, does not as yet rise from the indication of the retribution in this present time which the ungodly do not escape, to a future solution of all the contradictions of this present world; and the transcendent glory which infinitely outweighs the suffering of this present time, still remains outside the range of vision. The stedfast faith which, gladly renouncing everything, holds fast to God, and the pure love to which this possession is more than heaven and earth, is all the more worthy of admiration in connection with such defective knowledge.
The strophe schema of the Psalm is predominantly octastichic: 4. 8. 8. 8; 8. 8. 5. Its two halves are vers. 1-14, 15-28.
Vers. 1, 2.?]K, belonging to the favourite words of the faith that bids defiance to assault, signifies originally " thus = not otherwise," and therefore combines an affirmative and restrictive, or, according to circumstances, even an adversative signification (yid. on xxxix. 6). It may therefore be rendered: yea good, assuredly good, or: only good, nothing but good; both renderings are an assertion of a sure, infallible relation of things. God appears to be angry with the godly, but in reality He is kindly disposed towards them, though He send affliction after affliction upon them (Lam. iii. 25). The words 7&ofc^ D\~6tf are not to be taken together, after Gal. vi. 16 (top 'IaparjX rod &eov); not, u only good is it with the Israel of Elohim," but "only good to Israel is Elohim," is the right apprehension of the truth or reality that is opposed to what seems to be the case. The Israel which in every relationship has a good and loving God is limited in ver. 16 to the pure in heart (xxiv. 4, Matt v. 8). Israel in truth are not all those who are descended from Jacob, but those who have put away all impurity of disposition and all uncleanness of sin out of their heart, i.e. out of their innermost life, and by a constant striving after sanctification (ver. 13) maintain themselves in such purity. In relation to this, which is the real church of God, God is pure love, nothing but love. This it is that has been confirmed to the poet as he passed through the conflict of temptation, but it was through conflict, for he almost fell by reason of the semblance of the opposite. The Chethib y?1 *itM (cf. Num. xxiv. 4) or ^tM (cf. 2 Sam. xv. 32) is erroneous. The narration of that which is past cannot begin with a participial clause like this, and OT?3, in such a sense (non multum abfuit quin, like 1^3, nihil abfuit quin\ always has the perfect after it, e.g. xciv. 17, cxix. 87. It is therefore to be read VIM (according to the fuller form for *tM, which is used not merely with great distinctives, as in xxxvi. 8, cxxii. 6, Num. xxiv. 6, but also with conjunctives out of pause, e.g. lvii. 2, cf. xxxvi. 9, Deut. xxxii. 37, Job xii. 6): my feet had almost inclined towards, had almost slipped backwards and towards the side. On the other hand the Chethib niBW is unassailable; the feminine singular is frequently found as predicate both of a plural subject that has preceded (xviii. 35, cf. Deut. xxi. 7, Job xvi. 16) and also more especially of one that is placed after it, e.g. xxxvii. 31, Job xiv. 19. The footsteps are said to be poured out when one "flies out or slips" and falls to the ground.
Vers. 3-6. Now follows the occasion of the conflict of temptation: the good fortune of tnose who are estranged from
God. In accordance with the gloominess of the theme, the style is also gloomy, and piles up the dull-toned suffixes amo and emo (vid. Ixxviii. 66, Ixxx. 7, Ixxxiii. 12, 14); both are after the example set by David. K3j? with Beth of the object on which the zeal or warmth of feeling is kindled (xxxvii. 1, Prov. iii. 31) here refers to the warmth of envious ill-feeling. Concerning 5vin vid. v. 6. Ver. 2>b tells under what circumstances the envy was excited; cf. so far as the syntax is concerned, xlix. 6, lxxvi. 11. In ver. 4 niayin (from nV"in = asn from 3^n, cognate 2Vy, whence 3^V, pain, Arabic 'asdbe, sl snare, cf. ^?P, d>6Y<?, and?2n9 a^oiviov), in the same sense as the Latin tormenta (from toryuere), is intended of pains that produce convulsive contractions. But in order to give the meaning u they have no pangs (to suffer) till their death," Dr6 (iD?) could not be omitted (that is, assuming also that?, which is sometimes used for *W, vid. lix. 14, could in such an exclusive sense signify the terminus ad quern). Also " there are no pangs for their death, i.e. that bring death to them," ought to be expressed by T\\&b &\}b. The clause as it stands affirms that their dying has no pangs, i.e. it is a painless death; but not merely does this assertion not harmonize with vers. 18 sq., but it is also introduced too early here, since the poet cannot surely begin the description of the good fortune of the ungodly with the painlessness of their death, and then for the first time come to speak of their healthy condition. We may therefore read, with Ewald, Hitzig, Bottcher, and Olshausen:
i.e. they have (suffer) no pangs, vigorous (Dfl like Dfo, Job xxi. 23, DW, Prov. i. 12) and well-nourished is their belly; by which means the difficult DniD7 is got rid of, and the gloomy picture is enriched by another form ending with mo. ^itf, here in a
* Hitzig calls to mind ovAo?, " corporeal;" but this word is Ionic and equivalent to oAof, solidus, the ground-word of which is the Sanscrit sarvas, whole, complete.
The observation of ver. 4a Is pursued further in ver. 5: whilst one would have thought that the godly formed an exception to the common wretchedness of mankind, it is just the wicked who are exempt from all trouble and calamity. It is also here to be written to?*?, as in lix. 14, not to^/x. Therefore is haughtiness their neck-chain, and brutishness their mantle. pW is a denominative from p^'V = avyjqv: to hang round the neck; the neck is the seat of pride {avy&v): haughtiness hangs around their neck (like PJV, a neck-ornament). Accordingly in ver. 6b DDn is the subject, although the interpunction construes it differently, viz. " they wrap round as a garment the injustice belonging to them," in order, that is, to avoid the construction of?]DJP (vid. lxv. 14) with top; but active verbs can take a dative of the object (e.g.? HD3,? 3ntf,? K2"]) in the sense: to be or to grant to any one that which the primary notion of the verb asserts. It may therefore be rendered: they put on the garment of violence (Don JW like DiJJ ^TO, Isa. lix. 17), or even by avoiding every enallage numeri: violence covers them as a garment; so that JW is an apposition which is put forth in advance.
Vers. 7-10. The reading tang, f/ aSueia avrwv LXX. (cf. in Zech. v. 6 the Dry, which is rendered by the LXX. in exactly the same way), in favour of which Hitzig, Bottcher, and Olshausen decide, u their iniquity presses forth out of a fat heart, out of a fat inward part," is favoured by xvii. 10, where 3jn obtains just this signification by combination with "tiD^ which it would obtain here as being the place whence sin issues; cf. i^ep^eaOai i/c tt}? KapSias, Matt. xv. 18 sq.; and the parallelism decides its superiority. Nevertheless the traditional reading also gives a suitable sense; not (since fat tends to make the eyes appear to be deeper in) a their eyes come forward prce adipe" but u they stare forth ex adipe, out of the fat of their bloated visage," X>no being equivalent to DjTOa 2?r\D} Job xv. 27. This is a feature of character faithfully drawn after nature. Further, just as in general to irepiaaevfia tt}? fcapBia? wells over in the gestures and language (Matt. xii. 34), so is it also with their "views or images of the heart" (from H3b>7 like ^35?, the cock with its gift of divination as speculator): the illusions of their unbounded self-confidence come forth outwardly, they overflow after the manner of a river,* viz., as ver. 8 says, in words that are proud beyond measure (Jer. v. 28). Luther: u they destroy everything " (synon. they make it as or into rottenness, from ppB). But pW is here equivalent to the Aramaic P.V? (ficofcaaOcu): they mock and openly speak JH3 (with a in connection with Munach transformed from Dechi), with evil disposition (cf. Ex. xxxii. 12), oppression; i.e. they openly express their resolve which aims at oppression. Their fellow-man is the sport of their caprice; they speak or dictate EriiBD, down from an eminence, upon which they imagine themselves to be raised high above others. Even in the heavens above do they set (WW as in xlix. 15 instead of V1B>, — there, in accordance with tradition, Milel; here at the commencement of the verse Milrd) their mouth; even these do not remain untouched by their scandalous language (cf. Jude ver. 16); the Most High and Holy One, too, is blasphemed by them, and their tongue runs officiously and imperiously through the earth below, everywhere disparaging that which exists and giving new laws, s&nfy as in Ex. ix. 23, a Kal sounding much like Hithpa., in the signification grassari. In ver. 10 the Chethib 2*Pl (therefore he, this class of man, turns a people subject to him hither, i.e. to himself) is to be rejected, because COT is not appropriate to it. foy is the subject, and the suffix refers not to God (Stier), whose name has not been previously mentioned, but to the kind of men hitherto described: what is meant is the people which, in order that it may turn itself hither (2V&, not: to turn back, but to turn one's self towards, as e.g. in Jer. xv. 19f), becomes his, i.e. this class's people (cf. for this sense of
* On the other hand, Redslob (JDeutsch. Morgenldnd. Zeitschr. 18G0, S. 675) interprets it thus: they run over the fencings of the heart, from n3B> in the signification to put or stick through, to stick into (infigere), by comparing *Q^ HYVp, ^er* VT' 19> and tpxos olovruv. He regards T\S3WD and mosaic as one word, just as the Italian ricamare (to stitch) and Dp"l is one word. Certainly the root "jj, cJj> cJ<i> has the primary notion of piercing (cf. "Dt)» and also the notion of purity, which it obtains, proceeds from the idea of the brilliance which pierces into the eye; but the primary notion of PI3B> f In general 2W does not necessarily signify to turn back, but, like the Arabic ' ada, Persic gash* en, to enter into a new (active or passive) state.
the suffix as describing the issue or event, xviii. 24, xlix. 6, lxv. 12). They gain adherents (xlix. 14) from those who leave the fear of God and turn to them; and N?o *D, water of fulness, i.e. of full measure (cf. lxxiv. 15, streams of duration = that do not dry up), which is here an emblem of their corrupt principles (cf. Job xv. 16), is quaffed or sucked in (n^?> root ones (to;>, avroh = vir avTcov). This is what is meant to be further said, and not that this band of servile followers is in fulness absorbed by them (Sachs). Around the proud freethinkers there gathers a rabble submissive to them, which eagerly drinks in everything that proceeds from them as though it were the true water of life. Even in David's time (x. 4, xiv. 1, xxxvi. 2) there were already such stout spirits (Isa. xlvi. 12) with a servum imitatorum pecus. A still far more favourable soil for these O^v was the worldly age of Solomon.
Vers. 11—14. The persons speaking are now those apostates who, deluded by the good fortune and free-thinking of the ungodly, give themselves up to them as slaves. Concerning the modal sense of V?T, quomodo sciverit, vid. xi. 3, cf. Job xxii. 13. With 15*1 the doubting question is continued. Bottcher renders thus: nevertheless knowledge is in the Most High (a circumstantial clause like Prov. iii. 28, Mai. i. 14, Judg. vi. 13); but first of all they deny God's actual knowledge, and then His attributive omniscience. It is not to be interpreted: behold, such are (according to their moral nature) the ungodly (n.?N, tales, like AT, xlviii. 15, Deut. v. 26, cf. nDn? Isa. lvi. 11); nor, as is more in accordance with the parallel member ver. 126 and the drift of the Psalm: behold, thus it befalleth the ungodly (such are they according to their lot, as in Job xviii. 21, cf. Isa. xx. 6); but, what forms a better connection as a statement of the ground of the scepticism in ver. 11, either, in harmony with the accentuation: behold, the ungodly, etc., or, since it is not D^Bhn: behold, these are ungodly, and, ever reckless (Jer. xii. 1), they have acquired great power. With the bitter npny as Stier correctly observes, they bring forward the obvious proof to the contrary. How can God be said to be the omniscient Ruler of the world? — the ungodly in their carnal security become very powerful and mighty, but piety, very far from being rewarded, is joined with nothing but misfortune. My striving after sanctity (cf. Prov. xx. 9), my abstinence from all moral pollution (cf. Prov. xxvi. 6), says he who has been led astray, has been absolutely (J\X as in 1 Sam. xxv. 21) in vain; I was notwithstanding (Ew. § 345, a) incessantly tormented (cf. ver. 5), and with every morning's dawn (D^npap, as in ci. 8, cf. D"np3p in Job vii. 18) my chastitive suffering was renewed. We may now supply the conclusion in thought in accordance with ver. 10: Therefore have I joined myself to those who never concern themselves about God and at the same time get on better.
Vers. 15-18. To such, doubt is become the transition to apostasy. The poet has resolved the riddle of such an unequal distribution of the fortunes of men in a totally different way. Instead of to3 in ver. 15, to read onto? (Bottcher), or better, by taking up the following run, which even Saadia allows himself to do, contrary to the accents (\ jjj> JJU), nsn to? (Ewald), is unnecessary, since prepositions are sometimes used elliptically (7P3, Isa. lix. 18), or even without anything further (Hos. vii. 16, xi. 7) as adverbs, which must therefore be regarded as possible also in the case of to? (Aramaic, Arabic NB3, ^Ethiopia kern). The poet means to say, If I had made up my mind to the same course of reasoning, I should have faithlessly forsaken the fellowship of the children of God, and should consequently also have forfeited their blessings. The subjunctive signification of the perfects in the hypothetical protasis and apodosis, ver. 15 (cf. Jer. xxiii. 22), follows solely from the context; futures instead of perfects would signify si dicerem... perfide agerem. T-?? "^ is the totality of those, in whom the filial relationship in which God has placed Israel in relation to Himself is become an inward or spiritual reality, the true Israel, ver. 1, the u righteous generation," xiv. 5. It is an appellative, as in Deut. xiv. 1, Hos. ii. 1. For on the point of the vloOeala the New Testament differs from the Old Testament in this way, viz. that in the Old Testament it is always only as a people that Israel is called p, or as a whole 0^3, but that the individual, and that in his direct relationship to God, dared not as yet call himself " child of God." The individual character is not as yet freed from its absorption in the species, it is not
.is yet independent; it is the time of the minor's vniriorn^j and the adoption is as yet only effected nationally, salvation is as yet within the limits of the nationality, its common human form has not as yet appeared. The verb "U2 with 2 signifies to deal faithlessly with any one, and more especially (whether God, a friend, or a spouse) faithlessly to forsake him; here, in this sense of malicious desertion, it contents itself with the simple accusative.
On the one side, by joining in the speech of the freethinkers he would have placed himself outside the circle of the children of God, of the truly pious; on the other side, however, when by meditation he sought to penetrate it (Wl?), the doubt-provoking phenomenon (DK'T) still continued to be to him tey, trouble, i.e. something that troubled him without any result, an unsolvable riddle (cf. Eccles. viii. 17). Whether we read fc^n or K'1?, the sense remains the same; the Keri wn prefers, as in Job xxxi. 11, the attractional gender. Neither here nor in Job xxx. 26 and elsewhere is it to be supposed that rQ£T!&0 is equivalent to rQ^n&O (Ewald, Hupfeld). The cohortative form of the future here, as frequently (Ges. § 128, 1), with or without a conditional particle (cxxxix. 8, 2 Sam. xxii. 38, Job xvi. 6, xi'. 17, xix. 18, xxx. 26), forms a hypothetical protasis: and (yet) when I meditated; Symmachus (according to Montfaucon), el iXoyc^ofjLTjv. As Vaihinger aptly observes, " thinking alone will give neither the right light nor true happiness." Both are found only in faith. The poet at last struck upon the way of faith, and there he found light and peace. The future after "W frequently has the signification of the imperfect subjunctive, Job xxxii. 11, Eccles. ii. 3, cf. Prov. xii. 19 (donee nutem = only a moment); also in an historical connection like Josh. x. 13, 2 Chron. xxix. 34, it is conceived of as subjunctive {donee ulcisceretur, se sanctificarent), sometimes, however, as indicative, as in Ex. xv. 16 (donee transibat) and in our passage, where "iy introduces the objective goal at which the riddle found its solution: until I went into the sanctuary of God, (purposely) attended to (? as in the primary passage Deut. xxxii. 29, cf. Job xiv. 21) their life's end. The cohortative is used here exactly as in ny?N), but with the collateral notion of that which is intentional, which here fully accords with the connection. He went into God's dread sanctuary (plural as in lxviii. 36, cf.
cnpD in the Psalms of Asaph, Ixvii. 7, Ixxviii, 69); here he prayed for light in the darkness of his conflict, here were his eyes opened to the holy plans and ways of God (Ixxvii. 14), here the sight of the sad end of the evil-doers was presented to him. By u God's sanctuaries" Ewald and Hitzig understand His secrets; but this meaning is without support in the usage of the language. And is it not a thought perfectly in harmony with the context and with experience, that a light arose upon him when he withdrew from the bustle of the world into the quiet of God's dwelling-place, and there devoutly gave his mind to the matter?
The strophe closes with a summary confession of the explanation received there. JW is construed with Lamed inasmuch as collocare is equivalent to locum assignare (vid. ver. 65). God makes the evil-doers to stand on smooth, slippery places, where one may easily lose one's footing (cf. xxxv. 6, Jer. xxiii. 12). There, then, they also inevitably fall; God casts them down rrtfctttfop, into ruins, fragores = ruince, from vSw = nNP, to be confused, desolate, to rumble. The word only has the appearance of being from K(W: ensnarings, sudden attacks (Hitzig), which is still more ill suited to lxxiv. 3 than to this passage; desolation and ruin can be said even of persons, as DVi, xxviii. 5, rilrtj, Isa. viii. 15, J>B3, Jer. li. 21-23. The poet knows no other theodicy but this, nor was any other known generally in the pre-exilic literature of Israel (vid, Ps. xxxvii., xxxix., Jer. ch. xii., and the Book of Job). The later prophecy and the Chokma were much in advance of this, inasmuch as they point to a last universal judgment (vid. more particularly Mai. iii. 13 sqq.), but not one that breaks off this present state; the present state and the future state, time and eternity, are even there not as yet thoroughly separated.
Vers. 19-22. The poet calms himself with the solution of the riddle that has come to him; and it would be beneath his dignity as a man to allow himself any further to be tempted by doubting thoughts. Placing himself upon the standpoint of the end, he sees how the ungodly come to terrible destruction in a moment: they come to an end (top from sjto, not n?9)> ^ IS all over with them (TOR) in consequence of (jo as in Ixxvi. 7, ind unconnected as in xviii. 4, xxx. 4, 2 Sam. xxii. 14) frightful occurrences (n^nj3; a favourite word, especially in the Book of Job), which clear them out of the way. It is with them as with a dream, after (|p as in 1 Chron. viii. 8) one is awoke. One forgets the vision on account of its nothingness (Job xx. 8). So the evil-doers who boast themselves fiera 7toXXt)? (pavTao-tas (Acts xxv. 23) are before God a a??, phantom or unsubstantial shadow. When He, the sovereign Lord, shall awake, i.e. arouse Himself to judgment after He has looked on with forbearance, then He will despise their shadowy image, will cast it contemptuously from Him. Luther renders, So machstu Herr jr Bilde in der Stad verschmeclit (So dost Thou, Lord, make their image despised in the city). But neither has the Kal n?3 this double transitive signification, lt to give over to contempt," nor is the mention of the city in place here. In Hos. xi. 9 also TJJ3 in the signification in urbem gives no right sense; it signifies heat of anger or fury, as in Jer. xv. 8, heat of anguish, and Schroder maintains the former signification (vid. on Ps. cxxxix. 20), in fervore (irce), here also; but the pointing TP2 is against it. Therefore "TO is to be regarded, with the Targum, as syncopated from "W3 (cf. &0^, Jer. xxxix. 7, 2 Chron. xxxi. 10; "^33, Prov. xxiv. 17, and the like); not, however, to be explained, a when they awake," viz. from the sleep of death (Targum*), or after lxxviii. 38, " when Thou awakest them," viz. out of their sleep of security (De Wette, Kurtz), but after xxxv. 23, " when Thou awakest," viz. to sit in judgment.
Thus far we have the divine answer, which is reproduced by the poet after the manner of prayer. Hengstenberg now goes on by rendering it, " for my heart was incensed;" but we cannot take r?0^. according to the sequence of tenses as an imperfect, nor understand s3 as a particle expressing the reason. On the contrary, the poet, from the standpoint of the explanation he has received, speaks of a possible return (^3 seq. fut. = idv) of his temptation, and condemns it beforehand: si exacerbaretur animus meus atque in renibus meis pungerer.
* The Targum version is, "As the dream of a drunken man, who awakes out of his sleep, wilt Thou, 0 Lord, on the day of the great judgment, when they awake out of their graves, in wrath abandon their image to contempt." The text of our editions is to be thus corrected according to Bechai (on Deut. xxxiii. 29) and Nachmani (in his treatise ^DJii "WE*)* r^nnh, to become sour, bitter, passionate; fi^n, with the more exactly defining accusative V»ti>3, to be pricked, piqued, irritated. With *?«l begins the apodosis: then should I be... I should have become (perfect as in ver. 15, according to Ges. § 126, 5). Concerning WT l6, non sapere, vid. xiv. 4. nten a can be taken as compar. decurtata for mpTCB; nevertheless, as apparently follows from Job xl. 15. the poet surely has the p-ehemou, the water-ox, i.e. the hippopotamus, in his mind, which being Hebraized is Uteris,* and, as a plump colossus of flesh, is at once an emblem of colossal stupidity (Maurer, Hitzig). The meaning of the poet is, that he would not be a man in relation to God, over against God (D?, as in lxxviii. 37, Job ix. 2, cf.
LJc, in comparison with), if he should again give way to the same doubts, but would be like the most stupid animal, which stands before God incapable of such knowledge as He willingly imparts to earnestly inquiring man.
Vers. 23-26. But he does not thus deeply degrade himself: after God has once taken him by the right hand and rescued him from the danger of falling (ver. 2), he clings all the more firmly to Him, and will not suffer his perpetual fellowship with Him to be again broken through by such seizures which estrange him from God. Confidently does he yield up himself to the divine guidance, though he may not see through the mystery of the plan (TO?) of this guidance. He knows that afterwards (in« with Mugrash: adverb as in Ixviii. 26), i.e. after this dark way of faith, God will Tfc? receive him, U. take him to Himself and take him from all suffering (nj£ as in xlix. 16, and of Enoch, Gen. v. 24). The comparison of Zech. ii. 12 is misleading; there in« is rightly accented as a preposition: after glory hath He sent me forth (vid. Kohler), and here as an adverb; for although the adverbial sense of nn« would more readily lead one to look for the arrangement of the words 7133 sJnpn in*0, still "to receive after glory" (cf. the reverse Isa. lviii. 8) is an awkward thought. 1133, which as an
* The Egyptian p frequently passes over into the Hebrew 6, and vice versa, as in the name Aperiu = onay; P, however, is retained in T]y-]2=phar-aa, grand-house (o7ko5 piyxs in Horapollo), the name of the Egyptian rulers, which begins with the sign of the plan of a house = p.
adjective u glorious" (Hofmann) is alien to the language, is either accusative of the goal (Hupfeld), or, which yields a form of expression that is more like the style of the Old Testament, accusative of the manner (Luther, " with honour''). In "in« the poet comprehends in one summary view what he looks for at the goal of the present divine guidance. The future is dark to him, but lighted up by the one hope that the end of his earthly existence will be a glorious solution of the riddle. Here, as elsewhere, it is faith which breaks through not only the darkness of this present life, but also the night of Hades. At that time there was as yet no divine utterance concerning any heavenly triumph of the church, militant in the present world, but to faith the Jahve-Name had already a transparent depth which penetrated beyond Hades into an eternal life. The heaven of blessedness and glory also is nothing without God; but he who can in love call God his, possesses heaven upon earth, and he who cannot in love call God his, would possess not heaven, but hell, in the midst of heaven. In this sense the poet says in ver. 25: whom have I in heaven? i.e. who there without Thee would be the object of my desire, the stilling of my longing? without Thee heaven with all its glory is a vast waste and void, which makes me indifferent to everything, and with Thee, i.e. possessing Thee, I have no delight in the earth, because to call Thee mine infinitely surpasses every possession and every desire of earth. If we take H£? still more exactly as parallel to B?i?#3, without making it dependent upon wan * and possessing Thee I have no desire upon the earth, then the sense remains essentially the same; but if we allow pKl to be governed by TOan in accordance with the general usage of the language, we arrive at this meaning by the most natural way. Heaven and earth, together with angels and men, afford him no satisfaction — his only friend, his sole desire and love, is God. The love for God which David expresses in xvi. 2 in the brief utterance, " Thou art my Lord, Thou art my highest good," is here expanded with incomparable mystical profoundness and beauty. Luther's version shows his master-hand. The church follows it in its " Herzlich lieb hay ich dich" when it sin^s —
" The whole wide world delights me not, For heaven and earth, Lord, care I not, If I may but have Thee;"
" Yea, though my heart be like to break, Thou art my trust that nought can shake; " *
or with Paul Gerhard, [in his Passion-hymn " Ein Lammlein gelit und trdgt die Schuld der Welt und Hirer Kinder " _
11 Light of my heart, that shalt Thou be; And when my heart in pieces breaks, Thou shalt my heart remain."
For the hypothetical perfect n?3 expresses something in spite of which he upon whom it may come calls God his God: licet defeceriL Though his outward and inward man perish, nevertheless God remains ever the rock of his heart as the firm ground upon which he, with his ego, remains standing when everything else totters; He remains his portion, i.e. the possession that cannot be taken from him, if he loses all, even his spirit-life pertaining to the body, — and God remains to him this portion D?W?, he survives with the life which he has in God the death of the old life. The poet supposes an extreme case, — one, that is, it is true, impossible, but yet conceivable, — that his outward and inward being should sink away; even then with the merus actus of his ego he wTill continue to cling to God. In the midst of the natural life of perishableness and of sin, a new, individual life which is resigned to God has begun within him, and in this he has the pledge that he cannot perish, so truly as God, with whom it is closely united, cannot perish. It is just this that is also the nerve of the proof of the resurrection of the dead which Jesus advances in opposition to the Sadducees (Matt. xxii. 32). Vers. 27, 28. The poet here once more gives expression to the great opposites into which good fortune and misfortune are seemingly, but only seemingly, divided in a manner so contradictory to the divine justice. The central point of the confirmation that is introduced with n3 lies in ver. 28. " Thy far removing ones" was to be expressed with PIT], which is distinct from pim. na? has p instead of nnnD or "nriNO after it. Those who remove themselves far from the primary fountain of life fall a prey to ruin; those who faithlessly abandon God, and choose tlie world with its idols rather than His love, fall a prey to destruction. Not so the poet; the nearness of God, i.e. a state of union with God, is good to him, i.e. (cf. cxix. 71 sq.) he regards as his good fortune. H3")jp is nom. act. after the essentially the same signification with kurba (n:nf5)? the Arabic designation of the unio mystica; cf. Jas. iv. 8, iyylcrare tqj Qea> koi iyycel vfuv. Just as D\1?K nmp stands in antithesis to Tpnij so n5|D ^ stands in antithesis to TDK'1 and nnoxn. To the former their alienation from God brings destruction; he finds in fellowship with God that which is good to him for the present time and for the future. Putting his confidence (^no, not ^PQD) in Him, he will declare, and will one day be able to declare, all His ntoxpp7 i.e. the manifestations or achievements of His righteous, gracious, and wise government. The language of assertion is quickly changed into that of address. The Psalm closes with an upward look of grateful adoration to God beforehand, who leads His own people, ofttimes wondrously indeed, but always happily, viz. through suffering to glory.
of old, Which Thou hast ransomed for the tribe of Thy possession — Of Mount Zion whereon Thou dwellest.
3 Oh lift up Thy footsteps unto the perpetual ruins, Everything hath the enemy destroyed in the sanctuary.
To the earth they have defiled the dwelling-place of Thy name;
8 They said in their hearts: we will crush them altogether; They have burnt up all the houses of God in the land.
10 How long, Elohim, shall the oppressor blaspheme? Shall the enemy scoff at Thy name for ever?
11 Why dost Thou draw back Thy hand' and Thy right hand f Out of the midst of Thy bosom bring it forth, destroy! —
12 And yet Elohim is my King from the days of old, Working deliverances in the midst of the earth.
15 Thou hast cleft fountains and brooks, Thou hast dried up never-failing rivers.
17 Thou hast established all the borders of the earth, Summer and winter hast Thou formed.
18 Remember this: the enemy revileth Jahve, And a foolish people scoffeth at Thy name.
19 Give not over to the wild beast the soul of Thy turtle-dove, Thy poor creatures forget not for ever.
21 Let not the disheartened turn back ashamed, Let the afflicted and the needy praise Thy name.
The "11DTD lxxiii. is here followed by a Maskil (vid. xxxii. 1) which, in common with the former, has the prominent, rare word ni&OTD (lxxiv. 3, lxxiii. 18), but also the old Asaphic impress. We here meet with the favourite Asaphic contemplation of Israel as a flock, and the predilection of the Asaphic Psalms for retrospective references to Israel's early history (lxxiv. 13-15). We also find the former of these two characteristic features in Ps. lxxix., which reflects the same circumstances of the times.
Moreover Jeremiah stands in the same relationship to both Psalms. In Jer. x. 25, Ps. lxxix. 6 sq. is repeated almost word for word. And one is reminded of Ps. lxxiv. by Lam. ii. 2 (cf. lxxiv. 7), ii. 7 (cf. lxxiv, 4), and other passages. The lament u there is no prophet any more" (lxxiv. 9) sounds very much like Lam. ii. 9. In connection with Jeremiah's reproductive manner, and his habit of allowing himself to be prompted to new thoughts by the original passages by means of the association of ideas (cf. *MD DV3, Lam. ii. 7, with llJJJto 3*2pa of the Psalm), it is natural to assign the priority in age to the two Asaphic national lamentation Psalms.
But the substance of both Psalms, which apparently brings us down not merely into the Chaldaean, but even into the Maccabsean age, rises up in opposition to it. After his return from the second Egyptian expedition (170 B.C.) Antiochus Epiphanes chastised Jerusalem, which had been led into revolt by Jason, in the most cruel manner, entered the Temple accompanied by the court high priest Menalaus, and carried away the most costly vessels, and even the gold of the walls and doors, with him. Myriads of the Jews were at that time massacred or sold as slaves. Then during the fourth Egyptian expedition (168) of Antiochus, when a party favourably disposed towards the Ptolemies again arose in Jerusalem, lie sent
Apollonius to punish the offenders (167), and his troops laid the city waste with fire and sword, destroyed houses and walls, burnt down several of the Temple-gates and razed many of its apartments. Also on this occasion thousands were slain and led away captive. Then began the attempt of Antiochus to Hellenize the Jewish nation. An aged Athenian was entrusted with the carrying out of this measure. Force was used to compel the Jews to accept the heathen religion, and in fact to serve Olympian Zeus (Jupiter): on the 15th of Chislev a smaller altar was erected upon the altar of burnt-offering in the Temple, and on the 25th of Chislev the first sacrifice was offered to Olympian Zeus in the Temple of Jahve, now dedicated to him. Such was the position of affairs when a band of faithful confessors rallied around the Asmonsean (Hasmonsean) priest Mattathias*
How strikingly does much in both Psalms, more particularly in Ps. lxxiv., harmonize with this position of affairs! At that time it was felt more painfully than ever that prophecy had become dumb, 1 Mace. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41. The confessors and martyrs who bravely declared themselves were called, as in Ps. lxxix. 2, D^TDn, 'Aa&alot. At that time u they saw," as 1 Mace. iv. 38 says, " the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned, and the gates burnt up, and shrubs growing in the courts as in a forest, or as in one of the mountains, yea, and the priests' chambers pulled down." The doors of the Templegates were burned to ashes (cL 2 Mace. viii. 33, i. 8). The religious ronix (lxxiv. 4) of the heathen filled the place where Jahve was wont to reveal Himself. Upon the altar of the court stood the fiSeXvyfia iprifxaxreco?; in the courts they had planted trees, and likewise the "signs" of heathendom; and the ni3B9 (7racrTO(j}6pta) lay in ruins. When later on, under Demetrius Soter (161), Alcimus (an apostate whom Antiochus had appointed high priest) and Bacchides advanced with promises of peace, but with an army at the same time, a band of scribes, the foremost of the 'Aa&aloi of Israel, went forth to meet them to intercede for their nation. Alcimus, however, seized sixty of them, slaughtered them in one day, and that, as it is added in 1 Mace. vii. 16 sq., "according to the word which he wrote: The flesh of Thy saints and their blood have they shed round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.'' The formula of citation Kara tov \6yov ov (toi/? \6yovs oft?) eypayjre, and more particularly the eypa-v/re, — which as being the aorist cannot have the Scripture (fj ypa^rj)^ and, since the citation is a prayer to God, not God, but only the anonymous psalmist, as its subject (vid., however, the various readings in Grimm on this passage), — sounds as though the historian were himself conscious that he was quoting a portion of Scripture that had taken its rise among the calamities of that time. In fact, no age could be regarded as better warranted in incorporating some of its songs in the Psalter than the Maccabaean, the sixty-third week predicted by Daniel, the week of suffering bearing in itself the character of the time of the end, this strictly martyr age of the Old Covenant, to which the Book of Daniel awards a high typical significance in relation to the history of redemption.
But unbiassed as we are in the presence of the question whether there are Maccabaean Psalms, still there is, on the other hand, much, too, that is against the referring of the two Psalms to the Maccabaean age. In Ps. lxxix. there is nothing that militates against referring it to the Chaldaean age, and lxxix. 11 (cf. cii. 21, lxix. 34) is even favourable to this. And in Ps. lxxiv., in which vers. 46, 86, 96 are the most satisfactorily explained from the Maccabaean age, there are, again, other parts which are better explained from the Chaldaean. For what is said in ver. 7a, " they have set Thy Temple on fire" applies just as unconditionally as it runs to the Chaldaeans, but not to the Syrians. And the cry of prayer, lxxiv. 3, " lift up Thy footsteps to the eternal ruins" appears to assume a laying waste that has taken place within the last few years at least, such as the Maccabaean age cannot exhibit, although at the exaltation of the Maccabees Jerusalem was aoiicnTo<; w? epTjfio? (1 Mace. hi. 45). Hitzig, it is true, renders: raise Thy footsteps for sudden attacks without end; but both the passages in which rriffltsfo occurs mutually secure to this word the signification "desolations" (Targum, Symmachus, Jerome, and Saadia). If, however, the Chaldaean catastrophe were meant, then the author of both Psalms, on the ground of Ezra ii. 41, Neh. vii. 44 (cf. xi. 22), might be regarded as an Asaphite of the time of the Exile, although they might also be composed by any one in the Asaphic style. And as regards their relation to Jeremiah, we ought to be contented with the fact that Jeremiah, whose peculiarity as a writer is otherwise so thoroughly reproductive, is, notwithstanding, also reproduced by later writers, and in this instance by the psalmist.
Nothing is more certain than that the physiognomy of these Psalms does not correspond to any national misfortune prior to the Chaldsean catastrophe. Vaihinger's attempt to comprehend them from the time of Athaliah's reign of terror, is at issue with itself. In the history of Israel instances of the sacking of Jerusalem and of the Temple are not unknown even prior to the time of Zedekiah, as in the reign of Jehoram, but there is no instance of the city being reduced to ashes. Since even the profanation of the Temple by the Persian general Bagoses (Josephus, Ant. xi. 7), to which Ewald formerly referred this Psalm, was not accompanied by any injury of the building itself, much less its reduction to ashes, there remains only the choice between the laying waste of Jerusalem and of the Temple in the year 588 and in the year 167. We have reserved to ourselves the liberty o& acknowledging some insertions from the time of the Maccabees in the Psalter; supra, vol. i. pp. 11—14. Now since in both Psalms, apart from the nV3 rttKBto, everything accords with the Maccabaean age, whilst when we refer them to the Chaldsean period the scientific conscience is oppressed by many difficulties (more especially in connection with lxxiv. 4, 8, 9, lxxix. 2, 3), we yield to the force of the impression and base both Psalms upon the situation of the Jewish nation under Antiochus and Demetrius. Their contents coincide with the prayer of Judas Maccabaeus in 2 Mace. viii. 1-4.
Vers. 1-3. The poet begins with the e*arnest prayer that God would again have compassion upon His church, upon which His judgment of anger has fallen, and would again set up the ruins of Zion. Why for ever (ver. 10, lxxix. 5, lxxxix. 47, cf. xiii. 2)? is equivalent to, why so continually and, as it seems, without end? The preterite denotes the act of casting off, the future, ver. 16, the lasting condition of this casting off. nzb, when the initial of the following word is a guttural, and particularly if it has a merely half-vowel (although in other instances also, Gen. xii. 19, xxvii. 45, Cant. i. 7), is deprived of its Dagesh and accented on the ultima^ in order (as Mose ha- Nakdan expressly observes) to guard against the swallowing up of the ah; cf. on x. 1. Concerning the smoking of anger, vid. xviii. 9. The characteristically Asaphic expression iJVjHD \Wt is not less Jeremianic, Jer. xxiii. 1. In ver. 2 God is reminded of what He has once done for the congregation of His people. ET}?, as in xliv. 2, points back into the Mosaic time of old, to the redemption out of Egypt, which is represented in rup (Ex. xv. 17) as a purchasing, and in b&0 (lxxvii. 16, lxxviii. 35, Ex. xv. 13) as a ransoming (redemptio). *i£?D£ P??? is a factitive object; ®2V is the name given to the whole nation in its distinctness of race from other peoples, as in Jer. x. 16, li. 19, cf. Isa. lxiii. 17. n? (ver. 2b) is rightly separated from |V¥~in (Mugrash); it stands directly for iy«, as in civ. 8, 26, Pro v. xxiii. 22, Job xv. 17 (Ges. § 122, 2). The congregation of the people and its central abode are, as though forgotten of God, in a condition which sadly contrasts with their election. HiN^D H¥J are ruins (vid. lxxiii. 18) in a state of such total destruction, that all hope of their restoration vanishes before it; n^ here looks forward, just as Djiy (mmn), Isa. lviii. 12, lxi. 4, looks backwards. May God then lift His feet up high (&W3 poetical for Bv«n, cf. lviii. 11 with Ixviii. 24), i.e. with long hurried steps, without stopping, move towards His dwelling-place that now lies in ruins, that by virtue of His interposition it may rise again. Hath the enemy made merciless havoc — he hath illtreated (^in, as in xliv. 3) everything (i>b, as in viii. 7, Zeph. i. 2, for?3n or?3TIN) in the sanctuary — how is it possible that this sacrilegious vandalism should remain unpunished!
Vers. 4-8. The poet now more minutely describes how the enemy has gone on. Since BHp in ver. 3 is the Temple, T'prtB in ver. 4 ought likewise to mean the Temple with reference to the several courts; but the plural would here (cf. ver. 86) be misleading, and is, too, only a various reading. Baer has rightly decided in favour of *nTO;# "Wto, as in Lam. ii. 6 sq., is the instituted (Num. xvii. 19) place of God's inter-
* The reading "pTiyo is received, e.g.,, by Elias Hutter and Nissel; tbe Targum translates it, Kirachi follows it in his interpretation, and Abraham of Zante follows it in his paraphrase; it is tolerably widely knovvro, but, according to the LXX. and Syriac versions and mss., it is to be rejected.
course with His congregation (cf. jUj^*, a rendezvous). What Jeremiah says in Lam. ii. 7 (cf. it*!?, Jer. ii. 15) is here more briefly expressed. By Dnhitf (ver. 4&) we must not understand military insignia; the scene of the Temple and the supplanting of the Israelitish national insignia to be found there, by the substitution of other insignia, requires that the word should have the religious reference in which it is used of circumcision and of the Sabbath (Ex. xxxi. 13); such heathen ninfc, which were thrust upon the Temple and the congregation of Jahve as henceforth the lawful ones, were those which are set forth in 1 Mace. i. 45-49, and more particularly the so-called abomination of desolation mentioned in ver. 54 of the same chapter. With jny. (ver. 5) the terrible scene which was at that time taking place before their eyes (lxxix. 10) is introduced. N^pa is the subject; it became visible, tangible, noticeable, i.e. it looked, and one experienced it, as if a man caused the axe to enter into the thicket of the wood, i.e. struck into or at it right and left. The plural rriD^ij? forces itself into the simile because it is the many heathen warriors who are, as in Jer. xlvi. 22 sq., likened to these hewers of wood. Norzi calls the Kametz of pjT"l?M Kametz chatuph; the combining form would then be a contraction of "spD (Ewald, Olshausen), for the long a of S]3p does not admit of any contraction. According to another view it is to be read bi-sbdc7i-etz, as in Esth. iv. 8 kHhdb'hadath (with counter-tone Metheg beside the long vowel, as e.g. I^T^, Gen. ii. 16). The poet follows the work of destruction up to the destroying stroke, which is introduced by the TO (perhaps TO., Ken nTO)> which arrests one's attention. In ver. 5 the usual, unbroken quiet is depicted, as is the heavy Cyclopean labour in the Virgilian Mi inter sese, etc.; in jahalomun, ver. 6b (now and then pointed jahlomuri), we hear the stroke of the uplifted axes, which break in pieces the costly carved work of the Temple. The suffix of jVIWlfi (the carved works thereof) refers, according to the sense, to *pjn». The LXX., favouring the Maccabaean interpretation, renders: efe- Koyjrav t<x? 6vpas avrrj? (iTnna). This shattering of the panelling is followed in ver. 7 by the burning, first of all, as we may suppose, of this panelling itself so far as it consists of wood. The guaranteed reading here is 1Bhp», not TS^PD. Bfca nfe signifies to set on fire, immittere igni, differing from 3 C'S nW} to set fire to, immittere ignem. On v?n px^ cf. Lam. ii. 2, Jer. xix. 13. Hitzig, following the LXX., Targum, and Jerome, derives the exclamation of the enemies DJ^ from P?: their whole generation (viz. we will root out)! But p: is posterity, descendants; why therefore only the young and not the aged! And why is it an expression of the object and not rather of the action, the object of which would be self-evident? DJ^ is fid. Kal of n£j here = Hiph. ntin^ to force, oppress, tyrannize over, and like DJK, to compel by violence, in later Hebrew. DjpJ (from ru", like HB*) is changed in pause into DJ^; cf. the future forms in Num. xxi. 30, Ex. xxxiv. 19, and also in Ps. cxviii. 10-12. Now, after mention has been made of the burning of the Temple framework, P&p'lJJto cannot denote the place of the divine manifestation after its divisions (Hengstenberg), still less the festive assemblies (Bottcher), which the enemy could only have burnt up by setting fire to the Temple over their heads, and?2 does not at all suit this. The expression apparently has reference to synagogues (and this ought not to be disputed), as Aquila and Symmachus render the word. For there is no room for thinking of the separate services conducted by the prophets in the northern kingdom (2 Kings iv. 23), because this kingdom no longer existed at the time this Psalm was written; nor of the ntoa the burning down of which no pious Israelite would have bewailed; nor of the sacred places memorable from the early history of Israel, which are nowhere called DHjftD, and after the founding of the central sanctuary appear only as the seats of false religious rites. The expression points (like 1jn JV3, Sota ix. 15) to places of assembly for religious purposes, to houses for prayer and teaching, that is to say, to synagogues — a weighty instance in favour of the Maccabsean origin of the Psalm.
Vers. 9-11. The worst thing the poet has to complain of is that God has not acknowledged His people during this time of suffering as at other times. u Our signs" is the direct antithesis to " their signs" (ver. 4), hence they are not to be understood, after lxxxvi. 17, as signs which God works. The suffix demands, besides, something of a perpetual character; they are the instituted ordinances of divine worship by means of which God is pleased to stand in fellowship with His people, and which are now no longer to be seen because the enemies have set them aside. The complaint " there is no prophet any more" would seem strange in the period immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, for Jeremiah's term of active service lasted beyond this. Moreover, a year before (in the tenth year of Zedekiah's reign) he had predicted that the Babylonian domination, and relatively the Exile, would last seventy years; besides, six years before the destruction Ezekiel appeared, who was in communication with those who remained behind in the land. The reference to Lam. ii. 9 (cf. Ezek. vii. 26) does not satisfy one; for there it is assumed that there were prophets, a fact which is here denied. Only perhaps as a voice coming out of the Exile, the middle of which (cf. Hos. iii. 4, 2 Chron. xv. 3, and besides Cantieum trium puerorum, ver. 14: ical ov/c ecTTiv iv tg3 /caipo) tovtco apytjav teal TrpocprjTr)? teal rjyov/ievos) was truly thus devoid of signs or miracles, and devoid of the prophetic word of consolation, can ver. 9 be comprehended. The seventy years of Jeremiah were then still a riddle without any generally known solution (Dan. ch. ix.). If, however, synagogues are meant in ver. 86, ver. 9 now too accords with the like-sounding lament in the calamitous times of Antiochus (1 Mace. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41). In ver. 10 the poet turns to God Himself with the question " How long?" how long is this (apparently) endless blaspheming of the enemy to last? Why dost Thou draw back (viz. ^^p? from us, not ^yV, lxxxi. 15) Thy hand and Thy right hand? The conjunction of synonyms " Thy hand and Thy right hand" is, as in xliv. 4, Sirach xxxiii. 7, a fuller expression for God's omnipotent energy. This is now at rest; ver. 116 calls upon it to give help by an act of judgment. " Out of the midst of Thy bosom, destroy," is a pregnant expression for, " drawing forth out of Thy bosom the hand that rests inactive there, do Thou destroy." The Chethib like P^n, j^, the act of encompassing, then that which encompasses. Instead of ^IiTpD (Ex. iv. 7) the expression is IPTJ Tjpp, because there, within the realm of the bosom, the punitive justice of God for a time as it were slumbers. On the n?3, which outwardly is without any object, cf. lix. 14.
Vers. 12-17. With this prayer for the destruction of the enemies by God's interposition closes the first half of the
Psalm, which has for its subject-matter the crying contradiction between the present state of things and God's relationship to Israel. The poet now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel's King unfolded the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel's existence was imperilled, p.5?? ^pa, not only within the circumference of the Holy Land, but, e.g., also within that of Egypt (Ex. viii. 18). The poet has Egypt directly in his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (vers. 13-15), and then at the natural displays of God's power (vers. 16, 17). Hengstenberg is of opinion that vers. 13-15 also are to be understood in the latter sense, and appeals to Job xxvi. 11-13. But just as Isaiah (ch. li. 9, cf. xxvii. 1) transfers these emblems of the omnipotence of God in the natural world to His proofs of power in connection with the history of redemption which were exhibited in the case of a worldly power, so does the poet here also in vers. 13-15. The?zn (the extended saurian) is in Isaiah, as in Ezekiel (D^nn, ch. xxix. 3, xxxii. 2), an emblem of Pharaoh and of his kingdom; in like manner here the leviathan is the proper natural wonder of Egypt. As a water-snake or a crocodile, when it comes up with its head above the water, is killed by a powerful stroke, did God break the heads of the Egyptians, so that the sea cast up their dead bodies (Ex. xiv. 30). The D^V, the dwellers in the steppe, to whom these became food, are not the ^Ethiopians (LXX., Jerome), or rather the Ichthyophagi (Bochar', Hengstenberg), who according to Agatharcides fed etc rcov ifcpnrTofievcov eh rr]v ftepcrov ktjtcov, but were no cannibals, but the wild beasts of the desert, which are called Dy, as in Prov. xxx. 25 sq. the ants and the rock-badgers. D"^ is a permutative of the notion Dj£, which was not completed: to a (singular) people, viz. to the wild animals of the steppe. Ver. 15 also still refers not to miracles of creation, but to miracles wrought in the course of the history of redemption; ver. 15a refers to the giving of water out of the rock (lxxviii. 15), and ver. 15b to the passage through the Jordan, which was miraculously dried up (W3in, as in Josh. ii. 10, iv. 23, v. 1). The object bny\ JTO is intended as referring to the result: so that the water flowed out of the cleft after the manner of a fountain and a brook, rriim are the several streams of the one Jordan; the attributive genitive |TVK describes them as streams having an abundance that does not dry up, streams of perennial fulness. The God of Israel who has thus marvellously made Himself known in history is, however, the Creator and Lord of all created things. Dav and night and the stars alike are His creatures. In close connection with the night, which is mentioned second, the moon, the itaO of the night, precedes the sun; cf. viii. 4, where $3 is the same as p^n in, this passage. It is an error to render thus: bodies of light, and more particularly the sun; which would have made one expect finiKD before the specializing Waw. rnTQS are not merely the bounds of the land towards the sea, Jer. v. 22, but, according to Deut. xxxii. 8, Acts xvii. 26, even the boundaries of the land in themselves, that is to say, the natural boundaries of the inland country. *Tjn} Y*J> are the two halves of the year: summer including spring (2^N), which begins in Nisan, the spring-month, about the time of the vernal equinox, and autumn including winter 0^9), after the termination of which the strictly spring vegetation begins (Cant. ii. 11). The seasons are personified, and are called God's formations or works, as it were the angels of summer and of winter.
Vers. 18-23. The poet, after he has thus consoled himself by the contemplation of the power of God which He has displayed for His people's good as their Redeemer, and for the good of the whole of mankind as the Creator, rises anew to prayer, but all the more cheerfully and boldly. Since ever present facts of creation have been referred to just now, and the historical mighty deeds of God only further back, nNT refers rather forwards to the blaspheming of the enemies which He suffers now to go on unpunished, as though He took no cognizance of it. *pn has Pasek after it in order to separate the word, which signifies reviling, from the most holy Name. The epithet '?}"By reminds one of Deut. xxxii. 21. In ver. 19a according to the accents ivn is the absolute state (the primary form of wn, vid. on Ixi. 1): give not over, abandon not to the wild beast (beasts), the soul of Thy turtle-dove. This is probably correct, since B'W Dsr6, " to the eager wild beast," this inversion of the well-known expression njn ty'w, which on the contrary yields the sense of vita animce, is an improbable and exampleless expression. If t?M were intended to be thus understood, the poet might have written TW nsn wsy? jnrrvtf,
" give not Thy turtle-dove over to the desire of the wild beast." Hup f eld thinks that the " old, stupid reading" may be set right at one stroke, inasmuch as he reads "pin JVn B>S3^ jnn!>N, and renders it "give not to rage the life Thy turtle-dove;" but where is any support to be found for this B>Q37, "to rage," or rather {Psychology, S. 202; tr. p. 239) "to eager desire?" The word cannot signify this in such an isolated position. Israel, which is also compared to a dove in lxviii. 14, is called a turtle-dove (lin). In ver. 196 ns_n has the same signification as in ver. 19a, and the same sense as lxviii. 11 (cf. lxix. 37): the creatures of Thy miserable ones, i.e. Thy poor, miserable creatures — a figurative designation of the ecclesia pressa. The church, which it is the custom of the Asaphic Psalms to designate with emblematical names taken from the animal world, finds itself now like sheep among wolves, and seems to itself as if it were forgotten by God. The cry of prayer TfW Ban comes forth out of circumstances such as were those of the Maccabaean age. JV"J3 is the covenant of circumcision (Gen. ch. xvii.); the persecution of the age of the Seleucidae put faith to the severe test, that circumcision, this sign which was the pledge to Israel of God's gracious protection, became just the sign by which the Syrians knew their victims. In the Book of Daniel, ch. xi. 28, 30, cf. Ps. xxii. 32, rp-Q is used directly of the religion of Israel and its band of confessors. The confirmatory clause ver. 206 also corresponds to the Maccabaean age, when the persecuted confessors hid themselves far away in the mountains (1 Mace. ii. 26 sqq., 2 Mace. vi. 11), but were tracked by the enemy and slain, — at that time the hiding-places (fcpvcpoL, 1 Mace. i. 53) of the land were in reality full of the habitations of violence. The combination DEn nisp is like D&tfn niso, Jer. xxv. 37, cf. Gen. vi. 11. From this point the Psalm draws to a close in more familiar Psalm-strains. 3B*J *7Kj ver. 21, viz. from drawing near to Thee with their supplications. "The reproach of the foolish all the day" is that which incessantly goes forth from them, ^pn n?^ u going up (1 Sam. v. 12, not: increasing, 1 Kings xxii. 35) perpetually," although without the article, is not a predicate, but attributive (vid. on Ivii. 3). The tone of the prayer is throughout temperate; this the ground upon which it bases itself is therefore all the more forcible.
4 If the earth and all its inhabitants are dissolving — I, even I set up its pillars." (Sela.)
7 For not from the rising and not from the setting, And not from the desert of the mountain-heights —
He putteth down one, and setteth up another.
And it foameth with wine, it is full of mixture; And He poureth out from it, yea the dregs thereof Must all the wicked of the earth sip, drink up.
I will sing praises to the God of Jacob;
11 And all the horns of the wicked will I smite down, The horns of the righteous shall be exalted.
That for which Ps. lxxiv. prays: Arise, Jahve, plead Thine own cause (vers. 22 sq.), Ps. Ixxv. beholds; the judgment of God upon the proud sinners becomes a source of praise and of a triumphant spirit to the psalmist. The prophetic picture stands upon a lyrical groundwork of gold; it emerges out of the depth of feeling, and it is drawn back again into it. The inscription: To the Precentor, (after the measure:) Destroy not (yid. on lvii. 1), a Psalm by Asaph, a Song, is fully borne out.
The Sela shows that the Psalm, as TB> niDTD says, is appointed to be sung with musical accompaniment; and to the *)D&6 corresponds its thoroughly Asaphic character, which calls Ps. 1. to mind with especial force. But from this Psalm Ps. lxxv. differs, however, in this particular, viz. that a more clearly defined situation of affairs manifests itself through the hope of the judicial interposition of God which is expressed in it with prophetic certainty. According to appearances it is the time of the judgment of the nations in the person of Assyria; not, however, the time immediately following the great catastrophe, but prior to this, when Isaiah's prophecy concerning the shattering of the Assyrian power against Jerusalem had gone forth, just as Hengstenberg also regards this Psalm as the lyrical companion of the prophecies which Isaiah uttered in the presence of the ruin which threatened from Assyria, and as a testimony to the living faith with which the church at that time received the word of God. Hitzig, however, assigns both Ps. lxxv. and lxxvi. to Judas Maccabaeus, who celebrates the victory over Apollonius in the one, and the victory over Seron in the other: " we may imagine that he utters the words of lxxv. 11 whilst he brandishes the captured sword of the fallen Apollonius." But the probability that it refers to the Assyrian period is at least equally balanced with the probability that it refers to the Maccabsean (vid. lxxv. 7, lxxvi. 5-7); and if the time of Hezekiah were to be given up, then we might sooner go back to the time of Jehoshaphat, for both songs are too original to appear as echoes and not much rather as models of the later prophecy. The only influence that is noticeable in Ps. lxxv. is that of the Song of Hannah.