Vers. 2-6. The church in anticipation gives thanks for the judicial revelation of its God, the near approach of which He Himself asserts to it. The connection with) in f\fiw afojjl presents a difficulty. Neither here nor anywhere else is it to be supposed that) is synonymous with *3; but at any rate even *3 might stand instead of it. For Hupfeld's attempt to explain it: and "near is Thy name" Thy wonders have declared; and Hitzig's: and Thou whose Name is near, they declare Thy wondrous works, — are past remedy. Such a personification of wonders does not belong to the spirit of Hebrew poetry, and such a relative clause lies altogether beyond the bounds of syntax. If we would, however, take 1DC> nnpl, after 1. 23, as a result of the thanksgiving (Campensis), then that for which thanks are rendered would remain undefined; neither will it do to take nvtp as referring to the being inwardly present (Hengstenberg), since this, according to Jer. xii. 2 (cf. Deut. xxx. 14), would require some addition, which should give to the nearness this reference to the mouth or to the heart. Thus, therefore, nothing remains for us but to connect the nearness of the Name of God as an outward fact with the earnest giving of thanks. The church has received the promise of an approaching judicial, redemptive revelation of God, and now says, " We give Thee thanks, we give thanks and near is Thy Name;" it welcomes the future act of God with heartfelt thanksgiving, all those who belong to it declare beforehand the wonders of God. Such was really the position of matters when in Hezekiah's time the oppression of the Assyrians had reached its highest point — Isaiah's promises of a miraculous divine deliverance were at that time before them, and the believing ones saluted beforehand, with thanksgiving, the u coming Name of Jahve" (Isa. xxx. 27). The *3 which was to be expected after UHlfl (cf., e.g., c. 4 sq.) does not follow until ver. 3. God Himself undertakes the confirmation of the forthcoming thanksgiving and praise by a direct announcement of the help that is hailed and near at hand (lxxxv. 10). It is not to be rendered, 11 when I shall seize," etc., for ver. 36 has not the structure of an apodosis. ^3 is confirmatory, and whatever interpretation we may give to it, the words of the church suddenly change into the words of God. *JyiD in the language of prophecy, more especially of the apocalyptic character, is a standing expression for the appointed time of the final judgment (vid. on Hab. ii. 3). When this moment or juncture in the lapse of time shall have arrived, then God will seize or take possession of it (p\b in the unweakened original sense of taking hold of with energy, cf. xviii. 17, Gen. ii. 15): He Himself will then interpose and hold judgment according to the strictly observed rule of right (&*^9, adverbial accusative, cf. Dnc^KO, ix. 9, and frequently). If it even should come to pass that the earth and all its inhabitants are melting away (cf. Isa. xiv. 31, Ex. xv. 15, Josh. ii. 9), i.e. under the pressure of injustice (as is to be inferred from ver. 36), are disheartened, scattered asunder, and are as it were in the act of dissolution, then He (the absolute I, *?3X) will restrain this melting away; He setteth in their places the pillars, i.e. the internal shafts (Job ix. 6), of the earth, or without any figure: He again asserts the laws which lie at the foundation of its stability. 'Jf'??*? is a mood of certainty, and ver. 4a is a circumstantial clause placed first, after the manner of the Latin ablative absolute. Hitzig appropriately compares Prov. xxix. 9; Isa. xxiii. 15 may also be understood according to this bearing of the case.
The utterance of God is also continued after the Sela. It is not the people of God who turn to the enemies with the language of warning on the ground of the divine promise (Hengstenberg); the poet would then have said ^"]DX or must at least have said Hlpp$!?"?£• God Himself speaks, and His words are not yet peremptorily condemning, as in 1. 16 sqq., cf. xlvi. 11, but admonitory and threatening, because it is not He who has already appeared for the final judgment who speaks, but He who announces His appearing. With WS He tells the braggarts who are captivated with the madness of supposed greatness, and the evil-doers who lift up the horn or the head,* what He will have once for all said to them, and what they are to suffer to be said to them for the short space of time till the judgment. The poet, if we have assigned the right date to the Psalm, has Rabshakeh and his colleagues before his mind, cf. Isa. xxx vii. 23. The ^, as in that passage, and like?K in Zech. ii. 4 (vid. Kohler), has the idea of a hostile tendency.?K rules also over ver. 6b: " speak not insolence with a raised neck." It is not to be construed pny "l&WQ with a stiff neck.
Parallel passages like xxxi. 19, xciv. 4, and more especially the primary passage 1 Sam. v. 3, show that PW is an object-notion, and that "IKJ?2 by itself (with which, too, the accentuation harmonizes, since Munach here is the vicarius of a distinctive), according to Job xv. 26, has the sense of Tpa^rjXcojTe^ or v7repav^ovvT€<;.
* The head is called in Sanscrit giras, in Zend gararih, = K»p»; the horn in Sanscrit, gringa, i.e. (according to Burnouf, Etudes, p. 19) that which proceeds from and projects out of the head (giras), Zend grva = Ktp<zs, \-\p (karn).
Vers. 7-9. The church here takes up the words of God, again beginning with the *3 of ver. 3 (cf. the ""a in 1 Sam. ii. 3). A passage of the Midrash says m pn Dnri &op»3$ Dnn io (everywhere where harim is found in Scripture it signifies harirri) mountains, with the exception of this passage), and accordingly it is explained by Rashi, Kimchi, Alshech, and others, that man, whithersoever he may turn, cannot by strength and skill attain great exaltation and prosperity.* Thus it is according to the reading 13*]lpD, although Kimchi maintains that it can also be so explained with the reading I?1]??, by pointing to DD"]D (Isa. x. 6) and the like. It is, however, difficult to see why, in order to express the idea " from anywhere," three quarters of the heavens should be used and the north left out. These three quarters of the heavens which are said to represent the earthly sources of power (Hupfeld), are a frame without the picture, and the thought, " from no side (viz. of the earth) cometh promotion " — in itself whimsical in expression — offers a wrong confirmation for the dissuasive that has gone before. That, however, which the church longs for is first of all not promotion, but redemption. On the other hand, the LXX., Targum, Syriac, and Vulgate render: a deserto montium (desertis montibus); and even Aben-Ezra rightly takes it as a Palestinian designation of the south, when he supplements the aposiopesis by means of DJJWEJ *D (more biblically UT|J| K2J, cf. cxxi. 1 sq.). The fact that the north is not mentioned at all shows that it is a northern power which arrogantly, even to blasphemy, threatens the small Israelitish nation with destruction, and against which it looks for help neither from the east and west, nor from the reed-staff of Egypt (Isa. xxxvi. 6) beyond the desert of the mountains of Arabia Petraea, but from Jahve alone, according to the watchword of Isaiah: VtoEW 'n (Isa. xxxiii. 22). The negative thought is left unfinished, the discourse hurrying on to the opposite affirmative thought. The close connection of the two thoughts is strikingly expressed by the rhymes D^"in and tPV, The s3 of ver. 8 gives the confirmation of the negation from the opposite, that which is denied; the s3 of ver. 9 confirms this confirmation.
* E.g. Bamidbar Rabba ch. xxii.; whereas according to Bereshith Rabba ch. lii. D'HH ia equivalent to Dill.
If it were to be rendered, " and the wine foams," it would then have been??]}; *I?D, which is undoubtedly accusative, also shows that |" is also not considered as anything else: and it (the cup)
foams (ion like -*JoJ, to ferment, effervesce) with wine, is full of mixture. According to the ancient usage of the language, which is also followed by the Arabic, this is wine mixed with water in distinction from memm, Arabic chamr mermug'e. Wine was mixed with water not merely to dilute it, but also to make it more pleasant; hence ^]pD signifies directly as much as to pour out (yid. Hitzig on Isa. v. 22). It is therefore unnecessary to understand spiced wine (Talmudic |H3HJlp, conditum), since the collateral idea of weakening is also not necessarily associated with the admixture of water. Wft refers to D13, which is used as masculine, as in Jer. xxv. 15; the word is feminine elsewhere, and changes its gender even here in n"nw (cf. Ezek. xxiii. 34). In the fuL consec. Tj£! the historical signification of the consecutive is softened down, as is frequently the case. ^JN affirms the whole assertion that follows. The dregs of the cup — a dira necessitas — all the wicked of the earth shall be compelled to sip (Isa. li. 17), to drink out: they shall not be allowed to drink and make a pause, but, compelled by Jahve, who has appeared as Judge, they shall be obliged to drink it out with involuntary eagerness even to the very last (Ezek. xxiii. 34). We have here the primary passage of a figure, which has been already hinted at in lx. 5, and is filled in on a more and more magnificent and terrible scale in the prophets. Whilst Obadiah (ver. 16, cf. Job xxi. 20) contents himself with a mere outline sketch, it is found again, in manifold applications, in Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel, and most frequently in Jeremiah (ch. xxv. 27 sq., xlviii. 26, xlix. 12), where in ch. xxv. 15 sqq. it is embodied into a symbolical act. Jahve's cup of intoxication (inasmuch as nDn and l^n, the burning of anger and intoxicating, fiery wine, are put on an equality) is the judgment of wrath which is meted out to sinners and given them to endure to the end.
Vers. 10, 11. The poet now turns back thankfully and cheerfully from the prophetically presented future to his own actual present. With ^K1 he contrasts himself as a member of the now still oppressed church with its proud oppressors: he will be a perpetual herald of the ever memorable deed of redemp- tion. tyy?, says he, for, when he gives himself up so entirely to God the Redeemer, for him there is no dying. If he is a member of the ecclesia pressa, then he will also be a member of the ecclesia triumphans; for el vTro/jbevofjiev, koX <TVfJL{3acnXev- GOfxev (2 Tim. ii. 12). In the certainty of this avfJb^aaLkeveiv, and in the strength of God, which is even now mighty in the weak one, he measures himself in ver. 11 by the standard of what he expresses in ver. 8 as God's own work. On the figure compare Deut. xxxiii. 17, Lam. ii. 3, and more especially the four horns in the second vision of Zechariah, ch. ii. 1 sq. [i. 18 sq.]. The plural is both nfr]B and *3"8| because horns that do not consist of horn are meant. Horns are powers for offence and defence. The spiritual horns maintain the sovereignty over the natural. The Psalm closes as subjectively as it began. The prophetic picture is set in a lyric frame.
4 There brake He the lightnings of the bow, Shield and sword and weapons of war. (Sela.)
9 From heaven didst Thou cause judgment to sound forth — The earth feared and became silent,
13 He cutteth down the snorting of despots, He is terrible to the kings of the earth.
No Psalm has a greater right to follow Ps. lxxv. than this, which is inscribed To the Precentor, with accompaniment of stringed instruments (yid. iv. 1), a Psalm by Asaph, a song. Similar expressions (God of Jacob, lxxv. 10, lxxvi. 7; saints, wicked of the earth, lxxv. 9, lxxvi. 10) and the same impress throughout speak in favour of unity of authorship. In other respects, too, they form a pair: Ps. lxxv. prepares the way for the divine deed of judgment as imminent, which Ps. lxxvi. celebrates as having taken place. For it is hardly possible for there to be a Psalm the contents of which so exactly coincide with an historical situation of which more is known from other sources, as the contents of this Psalm confessedly (LXX. 7rpo? rbv 'Aaavpiov) does with the overthrow of the army of Assyria before Jerusalem and its results. The Psalter contains very similar Psalms which refer to a similar event in the reign of Jehoshaphat, viz. to the defeat at that time of the allied neighbouring peoples by a mutual massacre, which was predicted by the Asaphite Jahaziel (yid, on Ps. xlvi. and lxxxiii.). Moreover in Ps. lxxvi. the u mountains of prey," understood of the mountains of Seir with their mounted robbers, would point to this incident. But just as in Ps. lxxv. the reference to the catastrophe of Assyria in the reign of Hezekiah was indicated by the absence of any mention of the north, so in Ps. lxxvi. both the nEE> in ver. 4 and the description of the catastrophe itself make this reference and no other natural. The points of contact with Isaiah, and in part with Hosea (cf. ver. 4 with Hos. ii. 20) and Nahum, are explicable from the fact that the lyric went hand in hand with the prophecy of that period, as Isaiah predicts for the time when Jahve shall discharge His fury over Assyria, ch. xxx. 29, " Your song shall re-echo as in the night, in which the feast is celebrated.''1
Vers. 2-4. In all Israel, and more especially in Judah, is Elohim known (here, according to ver. 25, participle, whereas in ix. 17 it is the finite verb), inasmuch as He has made Himself known (cf. Vn, Isa. xxxiii. 13). His Name is great in Israel, inasmuch as He has proved Himself to be a great One and is praised as a great One. In Judah more especially, for in Jerusalem, and that upon Zion, the citadel with the primeval gates (xxiv. 7), He has His dwelling-place upon earth within the borders of Israel. tbw is the ancient name of Jerusalem; for the Salem of Melchizedek is one and the same city with the Jerusalem of Adonizedek, Josh. x. 1. In this primeval Salem God has ta*D, His tabernacle (= tot?, Lam. ii. 6, = fr)3p, as in xxvii. 5), there Injiyo, His dwelling-place, — a word elsewhere used of the lair of the lion (civ. 22, Am. iii. 4); cf. on the choice of words, Isa. xxxi. 9. The future of the result W, is an expression of the fact which is evident from God's being known in Judah and His Name great in Israel. Ver. 4 tells what it is by which He has made Himself known and glorified His Name. nBtt>, thitherwards, in that same place (as in fact the accusative, in general, is used both in answer to the question where? and whither?), is only a fuller form for DK*, ntfjjpDBn (with Phe raphatum, cf. on the other hand, Cant, viii. 6#) are the arrows swift as lightning that go forth (Job xli. 20) from the bow; side by side with these, two other weapons are also mentioned, and finally everything that pertains to war is gathered up in the word npn^D (cf. Hos. ii. 20). God has broken in pieces the weapons of the worldly power directed against Judah, and therewith this power itself (Isa. xiv. 25), and consequently (in accordance with the prediction Hos. i. 7, and Isa. ch. x., xiv. xvii., xxix., xxxi., xxxiii., xxxvii., and more particularly xxxi. 8) has rescued His people
* The pointing is here just as inconsistent as in T\H?% and on the contrary mriD.
The Psalm is hexastichic, and a model of symmetrical strophe-structure.
Vers. 5-7. The u mountains of prey," for which the LXX. has opecov alcovlccv (D'itt!), is an emblematical appellation for the haughty possessors of power who also plunder every one that comes near them,* or the proud and despoiling worldly powers. Far aloft beyond these towers the glory of God. He is "tffcO, illustris, prop, illumined; said of God: light-encircled, fortified in light, in the sense of Dan. ii. 22, 1 Tim. vi. 16. He is the T^R^ to whom the Lebanon of the hostile army of the nations must succumb (Isa. x. 34). According to Solinus (ed. Mommsen, p. 124) the Moors call Atlas Addirim. This succumbing is described in vers. 6 sq. The strong of heart or stout-hearted, the lion-hearted, have been despoiled, disarmed, exuti; wifiPK \ is an Aramaizing prcet. Hithpo. (like WITM^ 2 Chron. xx. 35, cf. Dan. iv. 16, Isa. lxiii. 3) with a passive signification. From ver. 6ac we see that the beginning of the catastrophe is described, and therefore *DJ (perhaps on that account accented on the ult.) is meant inchoatively: they have fallen into their sleep, viz. the eternal sleep (Jer. Ii. 39, 57), as Nahum says (ch. iii. 18): thy shepherds sleep, 0 king of Assyria, thy valiant ones rest. In ver. 6c we see them lying in the last throes of death, and making a last effort to spring up again. But they cannot find their hands, which they have lifted up threateningly against Jerusalem: these are lamed, motionless, rigid and dead; cf. the phrases in Josh. viii. 20, 2 Sam. vii. 27, and the Talmudic phrase, "he did not find his hands and feet in the school-house," i.e. he was entirely disconcerted and stupefied.;): This field of corpses is the effect of the omnipotent energy of the word of the God of Jacob; cf. to "lyjl, Isa. xvii. 13. Before His threatening both war-chariot and horse () — ]) are sunk into motionlessness and unconscious-
* One verse of a beautiful poem of the Muhammel which Tbn Duchi, the phylarch of the Beni Zumeir, an honoured poet of the steppe, dictated to Consul AYetzstein runs thus: The noble are like a very lofty hill-side upon which, when thou oomest to it, thou flndest an evening meal and protection (^Jj^j lu*x! ■).
ness — an allusion to Ex. ch. xv., as in Isa. xliii. 17: who bringetJ out chariot and horse, army and heroes — together they faint away, they shall never rise; they have flickered out, like a wick they are extinguished.
Vers. 8-10. Nahum also (ch. i. 6) draws the same inference from the defeat of Sennacherib as the psalmist does in ver. 8. ^2^ t«D (cf. Ruth ii. 7, Jer. xliv. 18), from the decisive turning-point onwards, from the TK in ii. 5, when Thine anger breaks forth. God sent forth His judiciary word from heaven into the midst of the din of war of the hostile world: immediately (cf. on the sequence of the tenses xlviii. 6, and on Hab. iii. 10) it was silenced, the earth was seized with fear, and its tumult was obliged to cease, when, namely, God arose on behalf of His disquieted, suffering people, when He spoke as we read in Isa. xxxiii. 10, and fulfilled the prayer offered in extreme need in Isa. xxxiii. 2.
Vers. 11-13. The fact that has just been experienced is substantiated in ver. 11 from a universal truth, which has therein become outwardly manifest. The rage of men shall praise Thee, i.e. must ultimately redound to Thy glory, inasmuch as to Thee, namely (ver. lib as to syntax like lxxiii. 35), there always remains a rfJNB^ i.e. a still unexhausted remainder, and that not merely of Hpn, but of nbn, with which Thou canst gird, i.e. arm, Thyself against such human rage, in order to quench it. flbn IV'iKB' is the infinite store of wrath still available to God after human rage has done its utmost. Or perhaps still better, and more fully answering to the notion of n1'")^: it is the store of the infinite fulness of wrath which still remains on the side of God after human rage (""^n) nas spent itself, when God calmly, and laughing (ii. 4), allows the Titans to do as they please, and which is now being poured out. In connection with the interpretation: with the remainder of the fury (of hostile men) wilt Thou gird Thyself, i.e. it serves Thee only as an ornament (Hupfeld), the alternation of Hon and Dbn is left unexplained, and ">jnn is alienated from its martial sense (Isa. lix. 17, li. 9, Wisd. v. 21), which is required by the context. Ewald, like the LXX., reads Ijlljfi, ioprdaec gov, in connection with which, apart from the high-sounding expression, Don nnNSy (iyfcardXeififia iv6vfiiov) must denote the remainder of malignity that is suddenly converted into its opposite; and one does not see why what ver. 11a says concerning rage is here limited to its remainder. Such an inexhaustiveness in the divine wrath-power has been shown in what has just recently been experienced. Thus, then, are those who belong to the people of God to vow and pay, i.e. (inasmuch as the preponderance falls upon the second imperative) to pay their vows; and all who are round about Him, i.e. all peoples dwelling round about Him and His people (W3CT/9, the subject to what follows, in accordance with which it is also accented), are to bring offerings (lxviii. 30) to God, who is K^io, i.e. the sum of all that is awe-inspiring. Thus is He called in Isa. viii. 13; the summons accords with Isaiah's prediction, according to which, in consequence of Jahve's deed of judgment upon Assyria, ^Ethiopia presents himself to Him as an offering (ch. xviii.), and with the fulfilment in 2 Chron. xxxii. 23. Just so does ver. 13a resemble the language of Isaiah; cf. Isa. xxv. 1-5, xxxiii. 11, xviii. 5: God treats the snorting of the princes, i.e. despots, as the vine-dresser does the wild shoots or branches of the vine-stock: He lops it, He cuts it off, so that it is altogether ineffectual. It is the figure that is sketched by Joel iv. [iii.] 13, then filled in by Isaiah, and embodied as a vision in Apoc. xiv. 17-20, which is here indicated. God puts an end to the defiant, arrogant bearing of the tyrants of the earth, and becomes at last the feared of all the kings of the earth — all kingdoms finally become God's and His Christ's.
My hand is stretched out in the night without ceasing, My soul refuseth to be comforted.
6 I consider the days of old, The years of ancient times;
8 Will the Lord cast off for ever, And will He be favourable no more?
11 Thereupon say I to myself: my decree of affliction is this, The years of the right hand of the Most High.
16 Thou hast with uplifted arm redeemed Thy people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. {Sela.)
17 The waters saw Thee, Elohim, The waters saw Thee, they writhed, The depths also trembled.
18 The clouds poured out waters, The skies rumbled,
19 Thy thunder resounded in the whirlwind, The lightnings lightened the world,
20 In the sea was Thy way, And Thy path in great waters,
21 Thou hast led Thy people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.
u TJie earth feared and became stilly9 says Ps. lxxvi. 9; the earth trembled and shook, says Ps. lxxvii. 19: this common thought is the string on which these two Psalms are strung. In a general way it may be said of Ps. lxxvii., that the poet flees from the sorrowful present away into the memory of the years of olden times, and consoles himself more especially with, the deliverance out of Egypt, so rich in wonders. As to the rest, however, it remains obscure what kind of national affliction it is which drives him to find his refuge from the God who is now hidden in the God who was formerly manifest. At any rate it is not a purely personal affliction, but, as is shown by the consolation sought in the earlier revelations of power and mercy in connection with the national history, an affliction shared in company with the whole of his people. In the midst of this hymnic retrospect the Psalm suddenly breaks off, so that Olshausen is of opinion that it is mutilated, and Tholuck that the author never completed it. But as Ps. lxxvii. and lxxxi. show, it is the Asaphic manner thus to close with an historical picture without the line of thought recurring to its commencement. Where our Psalm leaves off, Hab. ch. iii. goes on, taking it up from that point like a continuation. For the prophet begins with the prayer to revive that deed of redemption of the Mosaic days of old, and in the midst of wrath to remember mercy; and in expression and figures which are borrowed from our Psalm, he then beholds a fresh deed of redemption by which that of old is eclipsed. Thus much, at least, is therefore very clear, that Ps. lxxvii. is older than Habakkuk. Hitzig certainly calls the psalmist the reader and imitator of Hab. ch. iii.; and Philippson considers even the mutual relationship to be accidental and confined to a general similarity of certain expressions. We, however, believe that we have proved in our Commentary on Habakkuk (1843), S. 118-125, that the mutual relationship is one that is deeply grounded in the prophetic type of Habakkuk, and that the Psalm is heard to re-echo in Habakkuk, not Habakkuk in the language of the psalmist; just as in general the Asaphic Psalms are full of boldly sketched outlines to be filled in by later prophetic writers. We also now further put this question: how was it possible for the gloomy complaint of Ps. lxxvii., which is turned back to the history of the past, to mould itself after Hab. ch. in., that joyous looking forward into a bright and blessed future? Is not the prospect in Hab. ch. iii. rather the result of that retrospect in Ps. lxxvii., the confidence in being heard which is kindled by this Psalm, the realizing as present, in the certainty of being heard, of a new deed of God in which the deliverances in the days of Moses are antitypically revived?
More than this, viz. that the Psalm is older than Habakkuk, who entered upon public life in the reign of Josiah, or even as early as in the reign of Manasseh, cannot be maintained. For it cannot be inferred from ver. 16 and ver. 3, compared with Gen. xxxvii. 35, that one chief matter of pain to the psalmist was the fall of the kingdom of the ten tribes which took place in his time. Nothing more, perhaps, than the division of the kingdom which had already taken place seems to be indicated in these passages. The bringing of the tribes of Joseph prominently forward is, however, peculiar to the Asaphic circle of songs.
The task of the precentor is assigned by the inscription to Jeduthun (Chethib: Jedithun), for b (xxxix. 1) alternates with by (lxii. 1); and the idea that jinn* denotes the whole of the Jeduthunites ("overseer over...") might be possible, but is without example.
The strophe schema of the Psalm is 7. 12. 12. 12. 2. The first three strophes or groups of stichs close with Sela.
Vers. 2-4. The poet is resolved to pray without intermission, and he prays; for his soul is comfortless and sorely tempted by the vast distance between the former days and the present times. According to the pointing, pwni appears to be meant to be imperative after the form ^Bpn, which occurs instead of tapn and ^>'^y cf- xciv» 1? Isa. xliii. 8, Jer. xvii. 18, and the mode of writing?*Bpn, cxlii. 5, 2 Kings viii. 6, and frequently; therefore et audi = ut audias (cf. 2 Sam. xxi. 3). But such an isolated form of address is not to be tolerated; TWp. has been regarded as perf. consec. in the sense of ut audiat, although this modification of pTKn into P?Kn in connection with the appearing of the Waw consec. cannot be supported in any other instance (E\v. § 234, e), and Kimclii on tins account tries to persuade himself to that which is impossible, viz. that W*?ni in respect of sound stands for T\^\ The preterites in ver. 3 express that which has commenced and which will go on. The poet labours in his present time of affliction to press forward to the Lord, who has withdrawn from him; his hand is diffused, i.e. stretched out (not: poured out, for the radical meaning of ~\ti, as the Syriac shows, is protrahere), in the night-time without wearying and leaving off; it is fixedly and stedfastly (^EK, as it is expressed in Ex. xvii. 12) stretched out towards heaven. His soul is comfortless, and all comfort up to the present rebounds as it were from it (cf. Gen. xxxvii. 35, Jer. xxxi. 15). If he remembers God, who was once near to him, then he is compelled to groan (cf. lv. 18, 3; and on the cohortative form of a Lamed He verb, cf. Ges. § 75, 6), because He has hidden Himself from him; if he muses, in order to find Him again, then his spirit veils itself, i.e. it sinks into night and feebleness (f]Bynn as in cvii. 5, cxlii. 4, cxliii. 4). Each of the two members of ver. 4 are protasis and apodosis; concerning this emotional kind of structure of a sentence, vid. Ewald, § 357, b.
Vers. 5-10. He calls his eyelids the "guards of my eyes." He who holds these so that they remain open when they want to shut together for sleep, is God; for his looking up to Him keeps the poet awake in spite of all overstraining of his powers. Hupfeld and others render thus: "Thou hast held, i.e. caused to last, the night-watches of mine eyes," — which is affected in thought and expression. The preterites state what has been hitherto and has not yet come to a close. He still endures, as formerly, such thumps and blows within him, as though he lay upon an anvil (Ey?), and his voice fails him. Then silent soliloquy takes the place of audible prayer; he throws himself back in thought to the days of old (cxliii. 5), the years of past periods (Isa. li. 9), which were so rich in the proofs of the power and loving-kindness of the God who was then manifest, but is now hidden. He remembers the happier past of his people and his own, inasmuch as he now in the night purposely calls back to himself in his mind the time when joyful thankfulness impelled him to the song of praise accompanied by the music of the harp (jbyZ belongs according to the accents to the verb, not to WJ3, although that construction certainly is strongly commended by parallel passages like xvi. 7, xlii. 9, xcii. 3, cf. Job xxxv. 10), in place of which, crying and sighing and gloomy silence have now entered. He gives himself up to musing " with his heart," i.e. in the retirement of his inmost nature, inasmuch as he allows his thoughts incessantly to hover to and fro between the present and the former days, and in consequence of this (Jut. consec. as in xlii. 6) his spirit betakes itself to scrupulizing (what the LXX. reproduces with <tkcl\- \ecv, Aquila with o-ica\eveiv) — his conflict of temptation grows fiercer. Now follow the two doubting questions of the tempted one: he asks in different applications, vers. 8-10 (cf. lxxxv. 6), whether it is then all at an end with God's loving-kindness and promise, at the same time saying to himself, that this nevertheless is at variance with the unchangeableness of His nature (Mai. iii. 6) and the inviolability of His covenant. DDX (only occurring as a 3. prcet.) alternates with "i£3 (xii. 2). rrian is an infinitive construct formed after the manner of the Lamed He verbs, which, however, does also occur as infinitive absolute (nto^, Ezek. xxxvi. 3, cf. on xvii. 3); Gesenius and Olshausen (who doubts this infinitive form, § 245, f) explain it, as do Aben-Ezra and Kimchi, as the plural of a substantive nan, but in the passage cited from Ezekiel (yid, Hitzig) such a substantival plural is syntactically impossible. E^rn fDij is to draw together or contract and draw back one's compassion, so that it does not manifest itself outwardly, just as he who will not give shuts (Y%V\) his hand (Deut. xv. 7; ct. supra, xvii. 10).
Vers. 11-16. With "lDiO the poet introduces the self-encouragement with which he has hitherto calmed himself when such questions of temptation were wont to intrude themselves upon him, and with which he still soothes himself. In the rendering of VNpn (with the tone regularly drawn back before the following monosyllable) even the Targum wavers between vnjno (mv affliction) and WV% (my supplication); and just in the same way, in the rendering of ver. 116, between VJFiC'X (have changed) and \^f (years). TYfiW cannot possibly signify "change" in an active sense, as Luther renders: "The right hand of the Most High can change everything," but only a having become different (LXX. and the Quinta aWoicoais, Symmachus eVtSeuTepwo-^), after which Maurer, Hupfeld, and Hitzig render thus: my affliction is this, that the right hand of the Most High has changed. But after we have read mat? in wr. 6 as a poetical plural of nj^>, a year, we have first of all to see whether it may not have the same signification here. And many possible interpretations present themselves. It can be interpreted: " my supplication is this: years of the right hand of the Most High" (viz. that years like to the former ones may be renewed); but this thought is not suited to the introduction with 1D&). We must either interpret it: my sickness, viz. from the side of God, i.e. the temptation which befalls me from Him, the affliction ordained by Him for me (Aquila appcoarla yitou), is this (cf. Jer. x. 19); or, since in this case the unambiguous ^vn would have been used instead of the Piel: my being pierced, my wounding, my sorrow is this (Symmachus rpwak pov, inf. Kal from??n, cix. 22, after the form rrian from |^n) — they are years of the right hand of the Most High, i.e. those which God's mighty hand, under which I have to humble myself (1 Pet. v. 6), has formed and measured out to me. In connection with this way of taking ver. 116, ver. 12a is now suitably and easily attached to what has gone before. The poet says to himself that the affliction allotted to him has its time, and will not last for ever. Therein lies a hope which makes the retrospective glance into the happier past a source of consolation to him. In ver. 12a the Chethib Y3TK is to be retained, for the "D in ver. 126 is thus best explained: a I bring to remembrance, i.e. make known with praise or celebrate (Isa. lxiii. 7), the deeds of Jah, for I will remember Thy wondrous doing from days of old." His sorrow over the distance between the present and the past is now mitigated by the hope that God's right hand, which now casts down, will also again in His own time raise up. Therefore he will now, as the advance from the indicative to the cohortative (cf. xvii. 15) imports, thoroughly console and refresh himself with God's work of salvation in all its miraculous manifestations from the earliest times, nj is the most concise and comprehensive appellation for the God of the history of redemption, who, as Habakkuk prays, will revive His work of redemption in the midst of the years to come, and bring it to a glorious issue. To Him who then was and who will yet come the poet now brings praise and celebration. The way of 'rod is His historical rule, and more especially, as in Hab. iii. 6, HiSy^ His redemptive rule. The primary passage Ex. xv. 11 (cf. Ps. Ixviii. 25) shows that Ehp3 is not to he rendered "in the sanctuary" (LXX. iv tw dy[(p), but "in holiness" (Symmachus iv ayiaa/jiG)). Holy and glorious in love and in anger, God goes through history, and shows Himself there as the incomparable One, with whose greatness no being, and least of all any one of the beingless gods, can be measured. He is?NH, the God, God absolutely and exclusively, a miracle-working (N7D nfcfy not vb* Hfefy cf. Gen. i. 11*) God, and a God who by these very means reveals Himself as the living and supra-mundane God. He has made His omnipotence known among the peoples, viz., as ver. 16 says, by the redemption of His people, the tribes of Jacob and the double tribe of Joseph, out of j^gypt, — a deed of His arm, i.e. the work of His own might, by which He has proved Himself to all peoples and to the whole earth to be the Lord of the world and the God of salvation (Ex. ix. 16, xv. 14). VhT3, brachio scil. extenso (Ex. vi. 6, Deut. iv. 34, and frequently), just as in lxxv. 6, "•NJV?, collo scil. erecto. The music here strikes in; the whole strophe is an overture to the following hymn in celebration of God, the Redeemer out of Egypt.
Vers. 17-20. When He directed His glance towards the Red Sea, which stood in the way of His redeemed, the waters immediately fell as it were into pangs of travail (ysl?r9 as in Hab. iii. 10, not l*5^*}), also the billows of the deep trembled; for before the omnipotence of God the Redeemer, which creates a new thing in the midst of the old creation, the rules of the ordinary course of nature become unhinged. There now follow in vers. 18, 19 lines taken from the picture of a thunder-storm. The poet wishes to describe how all the powers of nature became the servants of the majestic revelation of Jahve, when He executed judgment on Egypt and delivered Israel. D"]f, Poel of &1J (cognate 3nj, S|T|, iEthiopic D3T, to rain), signifies inten-
* The joining of the second word, accented on the first syllable and closely allied in sense, on to the first, which is accented on the ultima (the tone of which, under certain circumstances, retreats to the penult., y\02 *lin&0 or monosyllabic, by means of the hardening Dagesh (the so-called pMi), only takes place when that first word ends in n — or n —, not when it ends in n —.
lively: to stream forth in full torrents. Instead of this line, Habakkuk, with a change of the letters of the primary passage, which is usual in Jeremiah more especially, has "OV DVD D1T. The rumbling which the D^jpnc^* cause to sound forth (^ro? cf. lxviii. 34) is the thunder. The arrows of God (T^-fC!, in Habakkuk 1*3fH) are the lightnings. The Ilithpa. (instead of which Habakkuk has OTj depicts their busy darting hither and thither in the service of the omnipotence that sends them forth. It is open to question whether?a?| denotes the roll of the thunder (Aben-Ezra, Maurer, Bottcher): the sound of Thy thunder went rolling forth (cf. xxix. 4), — or the whirlwind accompanying the thunder-storm (Hitzig); the usage of the language (lxxxiii. 14, also Ezek. x. 13, Syriac golgolo) is in favour of the latter. On ver. 19&c cf. the echo in xcvii. 4. Amidst such commotions in nature above and below Jahve strode along through the sea, and made a passage for His redeemed. His person and His working were invisible, but the result which attested His active presence was visible. He took His way through the sea, and cut His path (Chethib plural, Iv*?*?, as in Jer. xviii. 15) through great waters (or, according to Habakkuk, caused His horses to go through), without the
* We have indicated on xviii. 12, xxxvi. 6, that the Cpn^' are so called from their thinness, but passages like xviii. 12 and the one before us do not favour this idea. One would think that we have more likely to go back to ^1^,^, to be distant (whence suhk, distance; saMk, distant), and that D^pnt? signifies the distances, like D^W, the heights, from pnb> = suhk, in distinction from pn£>, an atom (Wetzstein). But the Hebrew affords no trace of this verbal stem, whereas pnt^, 'is^t contundere, comminuere (Neshwan: to pound to dust, used e.g. of the apothecary's drugs), is just as much Hebrew as Arabic. And the word is actually associated with this verb by the Arabic mind, inasmuch as /Lg\~s ' *\ «&...* (nubes tenues, nubila tenuia) is explained by /pJ? » C—?l^U;. Accordingly D^pn*^, according to its primary notion, signifies that which spreads itself out thin and fine over a wide surface, and, according to the usage of the language, in contrast with the thick and heavy piNH "OS, the uppermost stratum of the atmosphere, and then the clouds, as also.Aac!, and the collective ^xz and ^Uc (vid. Isaiah, i. 156, note 1), is not first of all the clouds, but the surface of the sky that is turned to us (Fleischer).
footprints (ntapy with Dag, dirimens) of Him who passes and passed through being left behind to show it.
Ver. 21. If we have divided the strophes correctly, then this is the refrain-like close. Like a flock God led His people by Moses and Aaron (Num. xxxiii. 1) to the promised goal. At this favourite figure, which is as it were the monogram of the Psalms of Asaph and of his school, the poet stops, losing himself in the old history of redemption, which affords him comfort in abundance, and is to him a prophecy of the future lying behind the afflictive years of the present.
1 GIVE ear, O my people, to my teaching, Incline your ear to the utterances of my mouth.
3 What we have heard, and become conscious of, And our fathers have told us,
5 He hath established a testimony in Jacob And laid down a law in Israel,
children born afterwards, That they might arise and tell it again to their children,
7 And might place their confidence in Elohim, And might not forget the deeds of God, And might keep His commandments —
bellious generation, A generation that set not its heart aright, And whose spirit was not faithful towards God.
9 The sons of Ephraim, the bow-equipped archers, Turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of Elohim, And in His law they refused to walk.
miracle- worker, In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea, and led them through, And piled the waters up as a heap;
16 And brought forth streams out of the rock, And caused the waters to flow down like rivers.
20 Behold He smote rock, and waters gushed out, And streams dashed along —
23 Nevertheless He commanded the clouds above, And the doors of heaven He opened;
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heaven, And by His power brought on the south wind,
27 And rained flesh upon them like the dust, And winged fowls as the sand of the seas.
29 Then they did eat and were well filled, And their desire He fulfilled to them.
30 Still they were not estranged from their desire, The food was still in their mouth,
31 Then the anger of Elohim went up against thenij And slew among their fat ones,
34 When He slew them, they inquired after Him, They turned back and sought God diligently,
35 And remembered that Elohim was their rock, And God the Most High their Redeemer.
36 They appeased Him with their mouth, And with their tongue they lied unto Him;
37 But their heart was not stedfast with Him, And they did not prove faithful in His covenant.
38 Nevertheless He is full of compassion — He forgiveth iniquity and doth not destroy^ And hath ofttimes restrained His anger, And stirred not up all His fury.
40 How oft did they provoke Him in the desert, Did they grieve Him in the wilderness!
41 And again and again they sought God, And vexed the Holy One of Israel.
The day when He delivered them from the oppressor,
45 He sent gad-flies against them, which devoured them, And frogs, which brought destruction upon them.
46 He gave the fruit of their field to the cricket, And their labour to the locust;
47 He smote down their vine with hail, And their sycamore-trees with hail-stones;
48 And He gave over their cattle to the hail, And their flocks to the lightnings.
49 He let loose upon them the burning of His anger, Indignation and fury and distress,
50 He made plain a way for His anger, He spared not their soul from death,
52 Then He made His own people to go forth like sheep, And guided them like a flock in the desert;
And allotted them as a marked out inheritance, And settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
57 They turned back and fell away like their fathers, They turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58 They incensed Him by their high places, And by their idols they excited His jealousy.
GO Then He cast off the tabernacle of Shiloh, The tent which He had pitched among men;
62 He gave over His people to the sword, And was wroth concerning His inheritance.
64 Their priests, by the sword they fell, And their widows could not mourn.
69 And He built, as the heights of heaven, His sanctuary, Like the earth which He hath founded for ever.
70 And He chose David His servant, And took him from the sheep-folds;
71 Following the ewes that gave suck He took him away To pasture Jacob His people,
72 And he pastured them according to the integrity of his heart, And with judicious hands he led them.
In the last verse of Ps. Ixxvii. Israel appears as a flock which is led by Moses and Aaron; in the last verse of Ps. lxxviii. as a flock which is led by David, of a pure heart, with judicious hands. Both Psalms also meet in thoughts and expressions, just as the ^9?- °f both leads one to expect. Ps. lxxviii. is called Maskil, a meditation. The word would also be appropriate here in the signification " a didactic poem." For the history of Israel is recapitulated here from the leading forth out of Egypt through the time of the Judges down to David, and that with the practical application for the present age that they should cleave faithfully to Jahve, more faithfully than the rebellious generation of the fathers. After the manner of the Psalms of Asaph the Ephraimites are made specially prominent out of the whole body of the people, their disobedience as well as the rejection of Shiloh and the election of David, by which it was for ever at an end with the supremacy of Ephraim and also of his brother-tribe of Benjamin.
The old Asaphic origin of the Psalm has been contested: — (1) Because ver. 9 may be referred to the apostasy of Ephraim and of the other tribes, that is to say, to the division of the kingdom. But this reference is capriciously imagined to be read in ver. 9. (2) Because the Psalm betrays a malice, indeed a national hatred against Ephraim, such as is only explicable after the apostasy of the ten tribes. But the alienation and jealousy between Ephraim and Judah is older than the rupture of the kingdom. The northern tribes, in consequence of their position, which was more exposed to contact with the heathen world, had already assumed a different character from that of Judah living in patriarchal seclusion. They could boast of a more excited, more martial history, one richer in exploit; in the time of the Judges especially, there is scarcely any mention of Judah. Hence Judah was little thought of by them, especially by powerful Ephraim, which regarded itself as the foremost tribe of all the tribes. From the beginning of Saul's persecution of David, however, when the stricter principle of the south came first of all into decisive conflict for the mastery with the more lax principle of the Ephraimites, until the rebellion of Jeroboam against Solomon, there runs through the history of Israel a series of facts which reveal a deep reft between Judah and the other tribes, more especially Benjamin and Ephraim. Though, therefore, it were true that a tone hostile to Ephraim is expressed in the Psalm, this would not be any evidence against its old Asaphic origin, since the psalmist rests upon facts, and, without basing the preference of Judah upon merit, he everywhere contemplates the sin of Ephraim, without any Judaean boasting, in a connection with the sin of the whole nation, which involves all in the responsibility. Nor is ver. 69 against Asaph the cotemporary of David; for Asaph may certainly have seen the building of the Temple of Solomon as it towered upwards to the skies, and Caspari in his Essay on the Holy One of Israel (Luther. Zeitschrift, 1844, 3) has shown that even the divine name ^N*}^ B^i? does not militate against him. We have seen in connection with Ps. lxxvi. how deeply imbued Isaiah's language is with that of the Psalms of Asaph. It cannot surprise us if Asaph is Isaiah's predecessor in the use of the name u the Holy One of Israel." The fact, however, that the writer of the Psalm takes the words and colours of his narration from all five books of the Pentateuch, with the exception of Leviticus, is not opposed to our view of the origin of the Pentateuch, but favourable to it. The author of the Book of Job, with whom in ver. 64 he verbally coincides, is regarded by us as younger; and the points of contact with other Psalms inscribed u by David," u by the sons of Koran," and " by^Asaph," do not admit of being employed for ascertaining his time, since the poet is by no means an unindependent imitator.
The manner of representation which characterizes the Psalm becomes epical in its extension, but is at the same time concise after the sententious style. The separate historical statements have a gnome-like finish, and a gem-like elegance. The whole falls into two principal parts, vers. 1-37, 38-72; the second part passes over from the God-tempting unthankfulness of the Israel of the desert to thajt of the Israel of Canaan. Every three strophes form one group.
Vers. 1—11. The poet begins very similarly to the poet of
Ps. xlix. lie comes forward among the people as a preacher, ami demands for his tova a willing, attentive hearing, rnin is the word for every human doctrine or instruction, especially for the prophetic discourse which sets forth and propagates the substance of the divine teaching. Asaph is a prophet, hence ver. 2 is quoted in Matt. xiii. 34 sq. as p7]0ev 8ta rod 7rpo<f»]Tov* He here recounts to the people their history D"ip~^?p7 from that Egyptaeo-Sinaitic age of yore to which Israel's national independence and specific position in relation to the rest of the world goes back. It is not, however, with the external aspect of the history that he has to do, but with its internal teachings.?Kfo is an allegory or parable, 7rupa/3o\7]j more particularly the apophthegm as the characteristic species of poetry belonging to the Chokma, and then in general a discourse of an elevated style, full of figures, thoughtful, pithy, and rounded, rvrn is that which is entangled, knotted, involved, perplexe dictum. The poet, however, does not mean to say that he will literally discourse gnomic sentences and propound riddles, but that he will set forth the history of the fathers after the manner of a parable and riddle, so that it may become as a parable, i.e. a didactic history, and its events as marks of interrogation and nota-bene's to the present age. The LXX. renders thus: avoided iv 7rapaf3o\al<; to aTOfxa /nov, (pdey^ofxat, nrpojBXrjfxaTa air apxv?' Instead of this the Gospel by Matthew has: avol^co iv irapa^okal^ to aTO/ia jjlov^ ep€v%o{iat, /cefcpvfifjLeva airh koutcl- 8o\r)<; (fcoa/jiov), and recognises in this language of the Psalm a prophecy of Christ; because it is moulded so appropriately for the mouth of Him who is the Fulfiller not only of the Law and of Prophecy, but also of the vocation of the prophet. It is the object-clause to ^[}?3, and not a relative clause belonging to the " riddles out of the age of yore," that follows in ver. 3 with "i^N, for that which has been heard only becomes riddles by the appropriation and turn the poet gives to it. Ver. 3 begins a new period (cf. Ixix. 27, Jer. xiv. 1, and frequently): What we have heard, and in consequence thereof known, and what our fathers have told us (word for word, like xliv. 2,
* The reading 5/« 'Hoxtov rov npotpviTov is, although erroneous, nevertheless ancient; since even the Clementine Homilies introduce this passage as the language of Isaiah.
Judg. vi. 13), that will we not hide from their children (cf. Job xv. 18). The accentuation is perfectly correct. The Rebia by omao has a greater distinctive force than the Rebia by pint* ("iriS>); it is therefore to be rendered: telling to the later generation (which is just what is intended by the offspring of the fathers) the glorious deeds of Jahve, etc. The fut. consec. DgJ, joins on to nby 1BW. Glorious deeds, proofs of power, miracles hath He wrought, and in connection therewith set up an admonition in Jacob, and laid down an order in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, viz. to propagate by tradition the remembrance of those mighty deeds (Ex. xiii. 8, 14, Deut. iv. 9, and other passages). DjHinp has the same object as fining in Deut. iv. 9, Josh. iv. 22. The matter in question is not the giving of the Law in general, as the purpose of which, the keeping of the laws, ought then to have been mentioned before anything else, but a precept, the purpose of which was the further proclamation of the magnolia Dei, and indirectly the promotion of trust in God and fidelity to the Law; cf. lxxxi. 5 sq., where the special precept concerning the celebration of the Feast of the Passover is described as a nviJJ laid down in Joseph. The following generation, the children, which shall be born in the course of the ages, were to knowconcerning His deeds, and also themselves to rise up (*B*pJ, not: come into being, like the *tf3J of the older model-passage xxii. 32) and to tell them further to their children, in order that these might place their confidence in God (<>p3 0^, like nonD IW in Ixxiii. 28), and might not forget the mighty deeds of God (lxxvii. 12), and might keep His commandments, being warned by the disobedience of the fathers. The generation of the latter is called fnb* VrtD, just as the degenerate son that is to be stoned is called in Deut. xxi. 18. to? P?Dj to direct one's heart, i.e. to give it the right direction or tendency, to put it into the right state, is to be understood after ver. 37, 2 Chron. xx. 33, Sir. ii. 17.
Ver. 9, which comes in now in the midst of this description, is awkward and unintelligible. The supposition that " the sons of Ephraim " is an appellation for the whole of Israel is refuted by vers. 67 sq. The rejection of Ephraim and the election of Judah is the point into which the historical retrospect runs out; how then can " the sons of Ephraim " denote Israel as a whole? And yet what is here said of the Ephraimites also holds good of the Israelites in general, as ver. 57 shows. The fact, however, that the Ephraimites are made specially conspicuous out of the " generation " of all Israel, is intelligible from the special interest which the Psalms of Asaph take in the tribes of Joseph, and here particularly from the purpose of practically preparing the way for the rejection of Shiloh and Ephraim related further on. In vers. 10 and 11 the Ephraimites are also still spoken of; and it is not until ver. 12, with the words " in sight of their fathers," that we come back again to the nation at large. The Ephraimites are called nSPjpDfa '•gKnj in the sense of W\> *»n nt?P VW \ the two participial construct forms do not stand in subordination but in co-ordination, as in Jer. xlvi. 9, Deut. xxxiii. 19, 2 Sam. xx. 19, just as in other instances also two substantives, of which one is the explanation of the other, are combined by means of the construct, Job xx. 17, cf. 2 Kings xvii. 13 Keri. It is therefore: those who prepare the bow, i.e. those arming themselves therewith (\>W\ as in 1 Chron. xii. 2, 2 Chron. xvii. 17), those who cast the bow, i.e. those shooting arrows from the bow (Jer. iv. 29), cf. Bottcher, § 728. What is predicated of them, viz. " they turned round" (^sn as in Judg. xx. 39, 41), stands in contrast with this their ability to bear arms and to defend themselves, as a disappointed expectation. Is what is meant thereby, that the powerful warlike tribe of Ephraim grew weary in the work of the conquest of Canaan (Judg. ch. i.), and did not render the services which might have been expected from it? Since the historical retrospect does not enter into details until ver. 12 onwards, this special historical reference would come too early here; the statement consequently must be understood more generally and, according to ver. 57, figuratively: Ephraim proved itself unstable and faint-hearted in defending and in conducting the cause of God, it gave it up, it abandoned it. They did not act as the covenant of God required of them, they refused to walk (n?#, cf. A?#, Eccles. i. 7) within the limit and track of His Tora, and forgat the deeds of God of which they had been eye-witnesses under Moses and under Joshua, their comrades of the same family.
Vers. 12-25. It is now related how wonderfully God led the fathers of these Ephraimites, who behaved themselves so badly as the leading tribe of Israel, in the desert; how they again and again ever indulged sinful murmuring, and still He continued to give proofs of His power and of His loving-kindness. The (according to Num. xiii. 22) very ancient Zoan (Tanis), ancient Egyptian Zane, Coptic G'ane, on the east bank of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, so called therefrom — according to the researches to which the Turin Papyrus No. 112 has led, identical with Avaris (yid. on Isa. xix. 11) # — was the seat of the Hyksos dynasties that ruled in the eastern Delta, where after their overthrow Rameses n., the Pharaoh of the bondage, in order to propitiate the enraged mass of the Semitic population of Lower Egypt, embraced the worship of Baal instituted by King Apophis. The colossal sitting figure of Rameses II. in the pillared court of the Royal Museum in Berlin, says Brugsch (Aus dem Orient ii. 45), is the figure which Rameses himself dedicated to the temple of Baal in Tanis and set up before its entrance. This mighty colossus is a cotemporary of Moses, who certainly once looked upon this monument when, as Ps. lxxviii. says, he u wrought wonders in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan." The psalmist, moreover, keeps very close to the Tora in his reproduction of the history of the Exodus, and in fact so close that he must have had it before him in the entirety of its several parts, the Deuteronomic, Elohimistic, and Jehovistic. Concerning the rule by which it is pointed 'asa pliSle, vid. on Hi. 5. The primary passage to ver. 136 (cf. Ovjfo ver. 16) is Ex. xv. 8. "U is a pile, i.e. a piled up heap or mass, as in xxxiii. 7. And ver. 14 is the abbreviation of Ex. xiii. 21. In vers. 15 sq. the writer condenses into one the two instances of the giving of water from the rock, in the first year of the Exodus (Ex. ch. xvii.) and in the fortieth year (Num. ch. xx.). The Piel V$2\ and the plural Ds")¥ correspond to this compression. H3T is not an adjective (after the analogy of nan Dinri), but an adverb as in lxii. 3; for the giving to drink needs a qualificative, but monn does not need any enhancement. K^s} has i instead of e as in cv. 43.
* The identity of Avaris and Tanis is in the meanwhile again become doubtful. Tanis was the Hyksos city, but Pelusium = Avaris the Hyksos fortress; vid. Petermann's Mitlheilungen, 1866, S. 296-298.
The fact that the subject is continued in ver. 17 with ID^piM without mention having been made of any sinning on the part of the generation of the desert, is explicable from the consideration that the remembrance of that murmuring is closely connected with the giving of water from the rock to which the names Massah u-Meribah and Meribath-Kadesh (cf. Num. xx. 13 with xxvii. 14, Deut. xxxii. 51) point back: they went on (liy) sinning against Him, in spite of the miracles they experienced. rri"1^ is syncopated from nnpnp as in Isa. iii. 8. The poet in ver. 18 condenses the account of the manifestations of discontent which preceded the giving of the quails and manna (Ex. ch. xvi.), and the second giving of quails (Num. ch. xi.), as he has done the two cases of the giving of water from the rock in ver. 15. They tempted God by unbelievingly and defiantly demanding (^^, postulando, Ew. § 280, d) instead of trustfully hoping and praying. D5??^ points to the evil fountain of the heart, and D£OT> describes their longing as a sensual eagerness, a lusting after it. Instead of allowing the miracles hitherto wrought to work faith in them, they made the miracles themselves the starting-point of fresh doubts. The poet here clothes what we read in Ex. xvi. 3, Num. xi. 4 sqq., xxi. 5, in a poetic dress. In to$ the unbelief reaches its climax, it sounds like self-irony. On the co-ordinating construction a therefore Jahve heard it and was wroth," cf. Isa. v. 4, xii. 1, 1. 2, Rom. vi. 17. The allusion is to the wrath-burning at Taberah (Tab'era), Num. xi. 1—3, which preceded the giving of the quails in the second year of the Exodus. For it is obvious that ver. 21 and Num. xi. 1 coincide, EM "Uyrpl here being suggested by the bw D2"*ijnm of that passage, and rhv *|K being the opposite of Bfcn yp^ni in ver. 2. A conflagration broke out at that time in the camp, at the same time, however, with the breaking out of God's anger. The nexus between the anger and the fire is here an outward one, whereas in Num. xi. 1 it is an internal one. The ground upon which the wrathful decree is based, which is only hinted at there, is here more minutely given in ver. 22: they believed not in Elohim (vid. Num. xiv. 11), i.e. did not rest with believing confidence in Him. and trusted not in His salvation, viz. that which they had experienced in the redemption out of Egypt (Ex. xiv. 13, xv. 2), and which was thereby guaranteed for time to come.
Now, however, when Taberah is here followed first by the giving of the manna, vers. 23-25, then by the giving of the quails, vers. 26-29, the course of the events is deranged, since the giving of the manna had preceded that burning, and it was only the giving of the quails that followed it. This putting together of the two givings out of order was rendered necessary by the preceding condensation (in vers. 18-20) of the clamorous desire for a more abundant supply of food before each of these events. Notwithstanding Israel's unbelief, He still remained faithful: He caused manna to rain iown out of the opened gates of heaven (cf. u the windows of heaven," Gen. vii. 11, 2 Kings vii. 2, Mai. iii. 10), that is to say, in richest abundance. The manna is called corn (as in cv. 40, after Ex. xvi. 4, it is called bread) of heaven, because it descended in the form of grains of corn, and supplied the place of bread-corn during the forty years. D^vaK Dr6 the LXX. correctly renders dprov dyyikcov (D*T3K = ^P T??j ciii. 20). The manna is called a bread of angels" (Wisd. xvi. 20) as being bread from heaven (ver. 24, cv. 40), the dwellingplace of angels, as being mann es-semdj heaven's gift, its Arabic name, — a name which also belongs to the vegetable manna which flows out of the Tamarix mannifera in consequence of the puncture of the Coccus manniparusy and is even at the present day invaluable to the inhabitants of the desert of Sinai. B^K is the antithesis to D^TaK; for if it signified " every one," *?ax would have been said (Hitzig). HTS as in Ex. xii. 39; V2&? as in Ex. xvi. 3, cf. 8.
Vers. 26-37. Passing over to the giving of the quails, the poet is thinking chiefly of the first occasion mentioned in Ex. ch. xvi., which directly preceded the giving of the manna. But the description follows the second: V& (He caused to depart, set out) after Num. xi. 31. "East" and "south" belong together: it was a south-east wind from the -ZElanitic Gulf. " To rain down " is a figurative expression for a plentiful giving or dispensing from above. "Its camp, its tents," are those of Israel, Num. xi. 31, cf. Ex. xvi. 13. The HJNfi, occurring twice, vers. 29, 30 (of the object of strong desire, as in xxi. 3), points to Kibroth-Jiattaavah, the scene of this carnal lusting; K*an is the transitive of the fc03 in Prov. xiii. 12. In vers. 30, 31 even in the construction the poet closely follows Num. xi.
33 (cf. also V"!? with ICJTp, aversion, loathing, Num. xi. 20). The Waio unites what takes place simultaneously; a construction which presents the advantage of being able to give special prominence to the subject. The wrath of God consisted in the breaking out of a sickness which was the result of immoderate indulgence, and to which even the best-nourished and most youthfully vigorous fell a prey. When the poet goes on in ver. 32 to say that in spite of these visitations (nKT/Jii) they went on sinning, he has chiefly before his mind the outbreak of " fat " rebelliousness after the return of the spies, cf. ver. 32Z> with Num. xiv. 11. And ver. 33 refers to the judgment of death in the wilderness threatened at that time to all who had come out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward (Num. xiv. 28-34). Their life devoted to death vanished from that time onwards ^-^j m breath-like instability, and n^??, in undurable precipitancy; the mode of expression in xxxi. 11, Job xxxvi. 1 suggests to the poet an expressive play of words. When now a special judgment suddenly and violently thinned the generation that otherwise was dying off, as in Num. xxi. 6 sqq., then they inquired after Him, they again sought His favour, those who were still preserved in the midst of this dying again remembered the God who had proved Himself to be a "Kock" (Deut. xxxii. 15, 18, 37) and to be a "Redeemer" (Gen. xlviii. 16) to them. And what next? Vers. 36,* 37 tell us what effect they gave to this disposition to return to God. They appeased Him with their mouth, is meant to say: they sought to win Him over to themselves by fair speeches, inasmuch as they thus anthropopathically conceived of God, and with their tongue they played the hypocrite to Him; their heart, however, was not sincere towards Him (pV like J")K in ver. 8), i.e. not directed straight towards Him, and they proved themselves not stedfast (ttlcttoI, or properly fiefiatoi) in their covenant-relationship to Him.
Vers. 38-48. The second part of the Psalm now begins. God, notwithstanding, in His compassion restrains His anger; but Israel's God-tempting conduct was continued, even after the
* According to the reckoning of the Masora this ver. 36 is the middle verse of the 2527 verses of the Psalter (Buxtorf, Tiberias, 1620, p. 133).
journey through the desert, in Canaan, and the miracles of judgment amidst which the deliverance out of Egypt had been effected were forgotten. With Kirn in ver. 38* begins an adversative clause, which is of universal import as far as rpriK^ and then becomes historical. Ver. 386 expands what lies in Dirn: He expiates iniquity and, by letting mercy instead of right take its course, arrests the destruction of the sinner. With nsnrn (Ges. § 142, 2) this universal truth is supported out of the history of Israel. As this history shows, He has many a time called back His anger, i.e. checked it in its course, and not stirred up all His glowing anger (cf. Isa. xlii. 13), i.e. His anger in all its fulness and intensity. We see that ver. 38cd is intended historically, from the fact more particularly that if the whole of ver. 38 were intended as abstract, ver. 39 would inadequately express the result which accrued to Israel from this conduct of God. If, however, ver. dScd refers to His conduct towards Israel, then ver. 39 follows with the ground of the determination, and that in the form of an inference drawn from such conduct towards Israel. He moderated His anger against Israel, and consequently took human frailty and perishableness into consideration. The fact that man is flesh (which not merely affirms his physical fragility, but also his moral weakness, Gen. vi. 3, cf. viii. 21), and that, after a short life, he falls a prey to death, determines God to be long-suffering and kind; it was in fact sensuous desire and loathing by which Israel was beguiled time after time. The exclamation "how oft!" ver. 40, calls attention to the praiseworthiness of this undeserved forbearance.
But with ver. 41 the record of sins begins anew. There is nothing by which any reference of this ver. 41 to the last example of insubordination recorded in the Pentateuch, Num. xxv. 1-9 (Hitzig), is indicated. The poet comes back once more to the provocations of God by the Israel of the wilderness in order to expose the impious ingratitude which revealed itself
* According to B. KiddusMn 30a, this ver. 38 is the middle one of the 5896 fplDQ, gti'xoi, of the Psalter. According to B. Maccoih 22b, Ps. lxxviii. 38, and previously Deut. xxviii. 58, 59, xxix. 8, were recited when the forty strokes of the lash save one, which according to 2 Cor. xi. 24 Paul received five times, were being counted out to the culprit.
in this conduct, njnn is the causative of njn — "joZ, K?fi, to repent, to be grieved, LXX. irapoo^vvav. The miracles of the time of redemption are now brought before the mind in detail, ad exaggerandum crimen tentationis Dei cum summa ingratitudine conjunctum (Venema). The time of redemption is called Di*, as in Gen. ii. 4 the hexahemeron. nitf tW (synon. nb>y, jnj) is used as in Ex. x. 2. We have already met with Ijpsip in xliv. 11. The first of the plagues of Egypt (Ex. vii. 14-25), the turning of the waters into blood, forms the beginning in ver. 44. From this the poet takes a leap over to the fourth plague, the 2iy (LXX. /cvvofAvia), a grievous and destructive species of fly (Ex. viii. 16-28 [20-32]), and combines with it the frogs, the second plague (Ex. vii. 26 [viii. l]-viii. 11). jrpBX is the lesser Egyptian frog, Rana Mosaica, which is even now called cJoL?, do/da. Next in ver. 46 he comes to the eighth plague, the locusts, ^pn (a more select name of the migratory locusts than nJ1^), Ex. x. 1-20; the third plague, the gnats and midges, D*33, is left unmentioned in addition to the fourth, which is of a similar kind. For the chastisement by means of destructive living things is now closed, and in ver. 47 follows the smiting writh hail, the seventh plague, Ex. ix. 13-35.?D3n (with pausal a, not a, cf. in Ezek. viii. 2 the similarly formed npp^'nn) in the signification hoar-frost (Trd^vrjj LXX., Vulgate, Saadia, and Abulwalid), or locusts (Targum K21H3 = Sjn), or ants (J. D. Michaelis), does not harmonize with the history; also the hoar-frost is called liSS, the ant r6pa (collective in Arabic neml). Although only conjecturing from the context, we understand it, with Parchon and Kimchi, of hailstones or hail. With thick lumpy pieces of ice He smote down vines and sycamore-trees (Fayum was called in ancient Egyptian " the district of the sycamore "). X\n proceeds from the Biblical conception that the plant has a life of its own. The description of this plague is continued in ver. 48. Two mss. present "I3"n? instead of T\2?; but even supposing that CBKn might signify the fever-burnings of the pestilence (yid. on Hab. iii. 5), the mention of the pestilence follows in ver. 50, and the devastation which, according to Ex. ix. 19-22, the hail caused among the cattle of the Egyptians is in its right place here. Moreover it is expressly said in Ex. ix. 24 that there was conglomerate
Vers. 49-59. When these plagues rose to the highest pitch, Israel became free, and removed, being led by its God, into the Land of Promise; but it continued still to behave there just as it had done in the desert. The poet in vers. 49-51 brings the fifth Egyptian plague, the pestilence (Ex. ix. 1-7), and the tenth and last, the smiting of the first-born (Hl"lba H30), Ex. ch. xi., xii., together. Ver. 49a sounds like Job xx. 23 (cf. below ver. 64). CJH ^K?D are not wicked angels, against which view Hengstenberg refers to the scriptural thesis of Jacobus Ode in his work De Angelis, Deum ad puniendos malos homines mittere bonos angelos et ad castigandos pios usurpare malos, but angels that bring misfortune. The mode of construction belongs to the chapter of the genitival subordination of the adjective to the substantive, like JH Wtf? Prov. vi. 24, cf. 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, Num. v. 18, 24, 1 Kings x. 15, Jer. xxiv. 2, and the Arabic assembling (congregational) mosque, therefore: angels (not of the wicked ones = wicked angels, which it might signify elsewhere, but) of the evil ones = evil, misfortune-bringing angels (Ew. § 287, a). The poet thus paraphrases the rpnBten that is collectively conceived in Ex. xii. 13, 23, Heb. xi. 28. In ver. 50a the anger is conceived of as a stream of fire, in ver. 50b death as an executioner, and in 50c the pestilence as a foe. D^K TO^n (Gen. xlix. 3, Deut. xxi. 17) is that which had sprung for the first time from manly vigour (plii7\ intensivus). Egypt is called En as in Ps. cv. and cxi. according to Gen. x. 6, and is also called by themselves in ancient Egyptian Kemi, Coptic ChSmi, Kime (vid. Plutarch, De hide et Osiride, ch. xxxiii.). When now these plagues which softened their Pharaoh went forth upon the Egyptians, God procured for His people a free departure, He guided flock-like ("^V? like "^JSij Jer. xxxi. 24, with Dag. implicitum), i.e. as a shepherd, the flock of His people (the favourite figure of the Psalms of Asaph) through the desert, — He led them safely, removing all terrors out of the way and drowning their enemies in the Red Sea, to His holy territory, to the mountain which (HJ) His right hand had acquired, or according to the accents (cf. supra, vol.
i. 1G9): to the mountain there (nt), which, etc. It is not Zion that is meant, but, as in the primary passage Ex. xv. 16 sq., in accordance with the parallelism (although this is not imperative) and the usage of the language, which according to Isa. xi. 9, lvii. 13, is incontrovertible, the whole of the Holy Land with its mountains and valleys (cf. Deut. xi. 11). i"6m 73nn is the poetical equivalent to npnazi, Num. xxxiv. 2, xxxvi. 2, and frequently. The Beth is Beth essentice (here in the same syntactical position as in Isa. xlviii. 10, Ezek. xx. 41, and also Job xxii. 24 surely): He made them (the heathen, viz., as in Josh, xxiii. 4 their territories) fall to them (viz., as the expression implies, by lot, bl))2) as a line of inheritance, i.e. (as in cv. 11) as a portion measured out as an inheritance. It is only in ver. 56 (and not so early as ver. 41) that the narration passes over to the apostate conduct of the children of the generation of the desert, that is to say, of the Israel of Canaan. Instead of Vriny from flfljl, the word here is VHftjJ from rny (a derivative of Ity, not I^J). Since the apostasy did not gain ground until after the death of Joshua and Eleazar, it is the Israel of the period of the Judges that we are to think of here. njO"l nf\)} yer. 57, is not: a bow of slackness, but: a bow of deceit; for the point of comparison, according to Hos. vii. 16, is its missing the mark: a bow that discharges its arrow in a wrong direction, that makes no sure shot. The verb HD"j signifies not only to allow to hang down slack (cogn. n?"J), but also, according to a similar conception to spe dejicere, to disappoint, deny. In the very act of turning towards God, or at least being inclined towards Him by His tokens of power and loving-kindness, they turned (Jer. ii. 21) like a bow that misses the mark and disappoints both aim and expectation. The expression in ver. 58 is like Deut. xxxii. 16, 21. Wpf refers to their prayer to the Baalim (Judg. ii. 11). The word "i?pnn, which occurs three times in this Psalm, is a word belonging to Deuteronomy (ch. iii. 26). Ver. 59 is purposely worded exactly like ver. 21. The divine purpose of love spurned by the children just as by the fathers, was obliged in this case, as in the former, to pass over into angry provocation. Vers. 60—72. The rejection of Shiloh and of the people worshipping there, but later on, when the God of Israel is again overwhelmed by compassion, the election of Judah, and of Mount Zion, and of David, the king after His own heart. In the time of the Judges the Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh (Josh, xviii. 1); there, consequently, was the central sanctuary of the whole people, — in "the time of Eli and Samuel, as follows from 1 Sam. ch. i.-iii., it had become a fixed temple building. When this building was destroyed is not known; according to Judg. xviii. 30 sq., cf. Jer. vii. 12-15, it was probably not until the Assyrian period. The rejection of Shiloh, however, preceded the destruction, and practically took place simultaneously with the removal of the central sanctuary to Zion; and was, moreover, even previously decided by the fact that the Ark of the covenant, when given up again by the Philistines, was not brought back to Shiloh, but set down in Kirjath Jearim (1 Sam. vii. 2). The attributive clause nn«3 |3B> uses |3K* as rsjtP'n is used in Josh, xviii. 1. The pointing is correct, for the words do not suffice to signify "where He dwelleth among men" (Hitzig); consequently |3t? is the causative of the Kal, Lev. xvi. 16, Josh. xxii. 19. In ver. 61 the Ark of the covenant is called the might and glory of God (fay piN, cxxxii. 8, cf. 1ta3, 1 Sam. iv. 21 sq.), as being the place of their presence in Israel and the medium of their revelation. Nevertheless, in the battle with the Philistines between Eben-ezer and Aphek, Jahve gave the Ark, which they had fetched out of Shiloh, into the hands of the foe in order to visit on the high-priesthood of the sons of Ithamar the desecration of His ordinances, and there fell in that battle 30,000 footmen, and among them the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests (1 Sam. ch. iv.). The fire in ver. 63 is the fire of war, as in Num. xxi. 28, and frequently. The incident mentioned in 1 Sam. vi. 19 is reasonably (yid. Keil) left out of consideration. By vfin &6 (LXX. erroneously, ov/c eirevOrjaav = vfifl — Wjl) are meant the marriage-songs (cf. Talmudic Kj}?n? the nuptial tent, and U*70\) rV3 the marriage-house). "Its widows (of the people, in fact, of the slain) weep not" (word for word as in Job xxvii. 15) is meant of the celebration of the customary ceremony of mourning (Gen. xxiii. 2): they survive their husbands (which, with the exception of such a case as that recorded in 1 Sam. xiv. 19-22, is presupposed), but without being able to show them the last signs of honour, because the terrors of the war (Jer. xv. 8) prevent them.
With ver. Go the song takes a new turn. After the punitive judgment has sifted and purified Israel, God receives His people to Himself afresh, but in such a manner that He transfers the precedence of Ephraim to the tribe of Judah. He awakes as it were from a long sleep (xliv. 24, cf. Ixxiii. 20); for He seemed to sleep whilst Israel had become a servant to the heathen; He aroused Himself, like a hero exulting by reason of wine, i.e. like a hero whose courage is heightened by the strengthening and exhilarating influence of wine (Hengstenberg). B^HH is not the Hithpal. of |n in the Arabic signification, which is alien to the Hebrew, to conquer, a meaning which we do not need here, and which is also not adapted to the reflexive form (Hitzig, without any precedent, renders thus: who allows himself to be conquered by wine), but Hithpo. of t^J: to shout most heartily, after the analogy of the reflexives |jriW>7, Ttt3nn? JWi"inn. The most recent defeat of the enemy which the poet has before his mind is that of the Philistines. The form of expression in ver. QQ is moulded after 1 Sam. v. 6 sqq. God smote the Philistines most literally in posteriora (LXX., Vulgate, and Luther). Nevertheless ver. 66 embraces all the victories under Samuel, Saul, and David, from 1 Sam. ch. v. and onwards. Now, when they were able to bring the Ark, which had been brought down to the battle against the Philistines, to a settled resting-place again, God no longer chose Shiloh of Ephraim, but Judah and the mountain of Zion, which He had loved {xlvii. 5), of Benjamitish-Judsean (Josh. xv. 63, Judg. i. 8, 21) — but according to the promise (Deut. xxxiii. 12) and according to the distribution of the country (yid. on lxviii. 28) Benjamitish — Jerusalem.* There God built His Temple D*DVlD3. Hitzig proposes instead of this to read D^pnps; but if B^i^j xvi. 6, signifies amcena, then DW may signify excelsa (cf. Isa. xlv. 2 Baffin, Jer. xvii. 6 D*nQ) and be poetically equivalent to D^OViD: lasting as the heights of heaven, firm as the earth, which He hath founded for ever. Since the eternal duration of heaven and of the earth is quite consistent with a radical change in the manner of its duration, and that not less in the sense of the Old Testament than of the Nev (vid. e.g. Isa. lxv. 17), so the u$V? applies not to the stone building, but rather to the place where Jahve reveals Himself, and to the promise that He will have such a dwelling-place in Israel, and in fact in Judah. Regarded spiritually, i.e. essentially, apart from the accidental mode of appearing, the Temple upon Zion is as eternal as the kingship upon Zion with which the Psalm closes. The election of David gives its impress to the history of salvation even on into eternity. It is genuinely Asaphic that it is so designedly portrayed how the shepherd of the flock of Jesse (Isai) became the shepherd of the flock of Jahve, who was now to pasture old and young in Israel with the same care and tenderness as the ewe-lambs after which he went (HvJJ as in Gen. xxxiii. 13, and 3 ny"j? cf. 1 Sam. xvi. 11, xvii. 34, like 3?WO and the like). The poet is also able already to glory that he has fulfilled this vocation with a pure heart and with an intelligent mastery. And with this he closes. From the decease of David lyric and prophecy are retrospectively and prospectively turned towards David.
1 ELOHIM, the heathen have pressed into Thine inheritance, They have defiled Thy holy Temple,
2 They have given the dead bodies of Thy servants for food
to the birds of the heaven, The flesh of Thy saints to the beasts of the land;
3 They have poured out their blood like water Kound about Jerusalem, and no one burieth them.
4 We are become a reproach to our neighbours,
5 How long, Jahve, wilt Thou be angry for ever, Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire?!
6 Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen who know Thee not, And over the kingdoms, which call not upon Thy name!
8 Remember not against us the iniquities of the forefathers; Speedily let Thy tender mercies come to meet us,
9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy
Name, And deliver us, and expiate our sins for Thy Name's sake!
10 Wherefore shall the heathen say: where is now their God? — Let there be made known among the heathen before our
eyes The avenging of the blood of Thy servants, which is shed.
11 Let the sighing of the prisoners come before Thee, According to the greatness of Thine arm spare the children
12 And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom Their reproach, wherewith they have reproached Thee, O
13 And we, Thy people and the flock of Thy pasture, We will give Thee thanks for ever,
This Psalm is in every respect the pendant of Ps. lxxiv. The points of contact are not merely matters of style (cf. lxxix. 5, Low long for ever? with lxxiv. 1, 10; lxxix. 10, JW, with lxxiv. 5; lxxix. 2, the giving over to the wild beasts, with lxxiv. 19, 14; lxxix. 13, the conception of Israel as of a flock, in which respect Ps. lxxix. is judiciously appended to Ps. lxxviii. 70-72, with Ps. lxxiv. 1, and also with lxxiv. 19). But the mutual relationships lie still deeper. Both Psalms have the same Asaphic stamp, both stand in the same relation to Jeremiah, and both send forth their complaint out of the same circumstances of the time, concerning a destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem, such as only the age of the Seleucidae (1 Mace. i. 31, iii. 45, 2 Mace. viii. 3) together with the Chaldsean period* can ex-
* According to So/rim xviii. § 3, Ps. lxxix. and exxxvii. are the Psalms for the Kinoth-day, i.e. the 9th day of Ab, the day commemorative of the Chaldaean and Roman destruction of Jerusalem.
hibit, and in conjunction with a defiling of the Temple and a massacre of the servants of God, of the Chasidim (1 Mace. vii. 13, 2 Mace. xiv. 6), such as the age of the Seleucidae exclusively can exhibit. The work of the destruction of the Temple which was in progress in Ps. lxxiv., appears in Ps. lxxix. as completed, and here, as in the former Psalm, one receives the impression of the outrages, not of some war, but of some persecution: it is straightway the religion of Israel for the sake of which the sanctuaries are destroyed and the faithful are massacred.
Apart from other striking accords, vers. 6, 7 are repeated verbatim in Jer. x. 25. It is in itself far more probable that Jeremiah here takes up the earlier language of the Psalm than that the reverse is the true relation; and, as Hengstenberg has correctly observed, this is also favoured by the fact that the words immediately before, viz. Jer. x. 24, originate out of Ps. vi. 2, and that the connection in the Psalm is a far closer one. But since there is no era of pre-Maccaba)an history corresponding to the complaints of the Psalm,* Jeremiah is to be regarded in this instance as the example of the psalmist; and in point of fact the borrower is betrayed in vers. 6, 7 of the Psalm by the fact that the correct?V of Jeremiah is changed into?K, the more elegant rrinsi^D into HiDPDD and the plural v3X into ^tf, and the soaring exuberance of Jeremiah's expression is impaired by the omission of some of the words.
Vers. 1-4. The Psalm begins with a plaintive description, and in fact one that makes complaint to God. Its opening sounds like Lam. i. 10. The defiling does not exclude the reducing to ashes, it is rather spontaneously suggested in Ixxiv. 7 in company with wilful incendiarism. The complaint in ver. \c reminds one of the prophecy of Micah, ch. iii. 12, which in its time excited so much vexation (Jer. xxvi. 18); and ver. 2, Deut. xxviii. 26. T'J-Ji! confers upon those who were massacred the honour of martyrdom. The LXX. ren-
* Cassiodorus and Bruno observe: deplorat Antiochi persecutionem tempore Machabeorum factam, tunc futuram. And Notker adds: To those who have read the First Book of the Maccabees it (viz. the destruction bewailed in the Psalm) is familiar.
dors D^yb by 64$ biraypo^vXaKLov, a flourish taken from Isa. i. 8. Concerning the quotation from memory in 1 Mace. vii. 16 sq., vld. the introduction to Ps. Ixxiv. The translator of the originally Hebrew First Book of the Maccabees even in other instances betrays an acquaintance with the Greek Psalter (cf. 1 Mace. i. 37, kcll e^e-^eav al/xa a6coov kvk\(o tov cvyuzafiaTos). u As water," i.e. (cf. Deut. xv. 23) without setting any value upon it and without any scruple about it. Ps. xliv. 14 is repeated in ver. 4. At the time of the Chaldsean catastrophe this applied more particularly to the Edomites.
Vers. 5-8. Out of the plaintive question how long? and whether endlessly God would be angry and cause His jealousy to continue to burn like a fire (Deut. xxxii. 22), grows up the prayer (ver. 6) that He would turn His anger against the heathen who are estranged from and hostile towards Him, and of whom He is now making use as a rod of anger against His people. The taking over of vers. 6 and 7 from Jer. x. 25 is not betrayed by the looseness of the connection of thought; but in themselves these four lines sound much more original in Jeremiah, and the style is exactly that of this prophet, cf. Jer. vi. 11, ii. 3, and frequently, xlix. 20. The?K, instead of?V, which follows SJBK* is incorrect; the singular blK gathers all up as in one mass, as in Isa. v. 26, xvii. 13. The fact that such power over Israel is given to the heathen world has its ground in the sins of Israel. From ver. 8 it may be inferred that the apostasy which raged earlier is now checked. QW is not an adjective (Job xxxi. 28, Isa. lix. 2), which would have been expressed by DW&on UTiUiy, but a genitive: the iniquities of the forefathers (Lev. xxvi. 14, cf. 39). On ver. 8c cf. Judg. vi. 6. As is evident from ver. 9, the poet does not mean that the present generation, itself guiltless, has to expiate the guilt of the fathers (on the contrary, Deut. xxiv. 16, 2 Kings xiv. 6, Ezek. xviii. 20); he prays as one of those who have turned away from the sins of the fathers, and who can now no longer consider themselves as placed under wrath, but under sin-pardoning and redeeming grace.
Vers. 9-12. The victory of the world is indeed not God's aim; therefore His own honour does not suffer that the world of which He has made use in order to chasten His people should for ever haughtily triumph, ^ip^ is repeated with emphasis at the end of the petition in ver. 9, according to the figure epanaphora. "UVpy = $xb} as in xlv. 5, cf. vii. 1, is a usage even of the language of the Pentateuch. Also the motive, "wherefore shall they say?" occurs even in the Tora (Ex. xxxii. 12, cf. Num. xiv. 13-17, Deut. ix. 28). Here (cf. cxv. 2) it originates out of Joel ii. 17. The wish expressed in ver. lObc is based upon Deut. xxxii'. 43. The poet wishes in company with his cotemporaries, as eye-witnesses, to experience what God has promised in the early times, viz. that He will avenge the blood of His servants. The petition in ver. 11 runs like cii. 21, cf. xviii. 7. "^DK individualizingly is those who are carried away captive and incarcerated; nrnon \)2 are those who, if God does not preserve them by virtue of the greatness (?1J, cf. /H Ex. xv. 16) of His arm, i.e. of His farreaching omnipotence, succumb to the power of death as to a patria potestas* That the petition in ver. 12 recurs to the neighbouring peoples is explained by the fact, that these, who might most readily come to the knowledge of the God of Israel as the one living and true God, have the greatest degree of guilt on account of their reviling of God. The bosom is mentioned as that in which one takes up and holds that which is handed to him (Luke vi. 38); prrfy) -* (&^) ™l}, as in Isa. lxv. 7, 6, Jer. xxxii. 18. A sevenfold requital (cf. Gen. iv. 15, 24) is a requital that is fully carried out as a criminal sentence, for seven is the number of a completed process.
Ver. 13. If we have thus far correctly hit upon the parts of which the Psalm is composed (9. 9. 9), then the lamentation closes with this tristichic vow of thanksgiving.
2 SHEPHERD of Israel, Oh give ear, Thou who leadest Joseph like a flock, Who sittest enthroned above the cherubim, Oh appear!
* The Arabic has just this notion in an active application, viz. lent elmot = the heroes (destroyers) in the battle.
3 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh Stir up Thy warrior-strength,
And gavest them to drink tears in great measure.
7 Thou madest us a strife to our neighbours, And our enemies carry on their mockery.
9 Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt, Thou didst drive out nations and plant it;
11 Mountains were covered by its shadow, And by its boughs, the cedars of God.
13 Why hast Thou broken down its hedges, That all who pass by the way do pluck it?
18 Oh hold Thy hand over the man of Thy right hand, Over the son of man whom Thou hast chosen for
19 And we will not go back from Thee — Quicken us, and we will celebrate Thy Name.
With the words We are Thy people and the flock of Thy pasture, Ps. lxxix. closes; and Ps. lxxx. begins with a cry to the Shepherd of Israel. Concerning the inscription of the Psalm: To be practised after the u Lilies, the testimony...," by Asaph, a Psalm, vid. on xlv. 1, supra, p. 76 sq. The LXX. renders, eZ? to tcXo? (unto the end), virep twv a\\oL(o6r](TO/jbivcov (which is unintelligible and ungrammatical = D^W"?K), paprvpiov rep 'Acrdcf) (as the accentuation also unites these words closely by Tarchd), 'tyaXpos virep rov 'Aacrvplov (cf. Ixxvi. 1), perhaps a translation of TOtaTTM, an inscribed note which took the " boar out of the forest" as an emblem of Assyria. This hint is important. It solves the riddle why Joseph represents all Israel in ver. 2, and why the tribes of Joseph in particular are mentioned in ver. 3, and why in the midst of these Benjamin, whom like descent from Rachel and chagrin, never entirely overcome, on account of the loss of the kingship drew towards the brother-tribes of Joseph. Moreover the tribe of Benjamin had only partially remained to the house of David since the division of the kingdom,* so that this triad is to be regarded as an expansion of the "Joseph" (ver. 2). After the northern kingdom had exhausted its resources in endless feuds with Damascene Syria, it succumbed to the world-wide dominion of Assyria in the sixth year of Hezekiah, in consequence of the heavy visitations which are closely associated with the names
* It is true we read that Benjamin stood on the side of Rehoboam with Judah after the division of the kingdom (1 Kings xii. 21), Judah and Benjamin appear as parts of the kingdom of Judah (2 Chron. xi. 3, 23, xv. 8 sq., and frequently); but if, according to 1 Kings xi. 13, 32, 36, only B3C* *intf remains to the house of David, this is Judah, inasmuch as Benjamin did not remain entirely under the Davidic sceptre, and Simeon is to be left out of account (cf. Genesis, S. 603); the Benjamitish cities of Bethel, Gilgal, and Jericho belonged to the northern kingdom, but, as in the case of Kama (1 Kings xv. 21 sq.), not without being contested (cf. e.g. 2 Chron. xiii. 19); the boundaries were therefore fluctuating, vid. Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (3d ed.), S. 439-441.
of the Assyrian kings Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser. The psalmist, as it seems, prays in a time in which the oppression of Assyria rested heavily upon the kingdom of Ephraim, and Judah saw itself threatened with ruin when this bulwark should have fallen. We must not, however, let it pass without notice that our Psalm has this designation of the nation according to the tribes of Joseph in common with other pre-exilic Psalms of Asaph (lxxvii. 16, Ixxviii. 9, lxxxi. 6). It is a characteristic belonging in common to this whole group of Psalms. Was Asaph, the founder of this circle of songs, a native, perhaps, of one of the Levite cities of the province of the tribe of Ephraim or Manasseh?
The Psalm consists of five eight-line strophes, of which the first, second, and fifth close with the refrain, u Elohim, restore us, let Thy countenance shine forth, then shall we be helped!" This prayer grows in earnestness. The refrain begins the first time with Elohim, the second time with Elohim Tsebaoth, and the third time with a threefold Jahve Elohim Tsebaoth, with which the second strophe (ver. 5) also opens.