Vers. 33-38. Since in ver. 36 the historical narration is still continued, a meaning relating to the cotemporaneous past is also retrospectively given to the two correlative Dfe^. It now goes on to tell what those who have now returned have observed and experienced in their own case. Ver. 33a sounds like Isa. 1. 26; ver. 336 like Isa. xxxv. 7a; and ver. 35 takes its rise from Isa. xli. 186. The juxtaposition of *KtfD and tfNB?, since Deut. viii. 15, belongs to the favourite antithetical alliterations, e.g. Isa. lxi. 3. rin<?0, that which is salty (LXX. cf. Sir. xxxix. 23: a\fjLr))y is, as in Job xxxix. 6, the name for the uncultivated, barren steppe. A land that has been laid waste for the punishment of its inhabitants has very often been changed into flourishing fruitful fields under the hands of a poor and grateful generation; and very often a land that has hitherto lain uncultivated and to all appearance absolutely unprofitable has
24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 40 there stand reversed Nuns (p312n pu, in the language of the Masora rvnrOJD pu)> as before Num. x. 35 and between i. i3G aud xi. 1 (nine in all). Their signification is unknown.
developed an unexpected fertility. The exiles to whom Jeremiah writes, eh. xxix. 5: Build ye houses and settle down, and plant gardens and eat their fruity may frequently have experienced this divine blessing. Their industry and their knowledge also did their part, but looked at in a right light, it was not their own work but God's work that their settlement prospered, and that they continually spread themselves wider and possessed a not small, i.e. (cf. 2 Kings iv. 3) a very large, stock of cattle.
Vers. 39-43. But it also came to pass that it went ill with them, inasmuch as their flourishing prosperous condition drew down upon them the envy of the powerful and tyrannical; nevertheless God put an end to tyranny, and always brought His people again to honour and strength. Hitzig is of opinion that ver. 39 goes back into the time when things were different with those who, according to vers. 36-38, had thriven. The modus consecutivus is sometimes used thus retrospectively (yid. Isa. xxxvii. 5); here, however, the symmetry of the continuation from vers. 36-38, and the change which is expressed in ver. 39a in comparison with ver. 385, require an actual consecution in that which is narrated. They became few and came down, were reduced (pn&, cf. Prov. xiv. 19: to come to ruin, or to be overthrown), a coarctatione malitios et mosroris. ^V is the restraint of despotic rule, njn the evil they had to suffer under such restraint, and fa") sorrow, which consumed their life. "IVJJD has Tarcha and r\yi Munach (instead of Mercha and Mugrashy vid. Accentuationssysteniy xviii. 2). There is no reason for departing from this interpunction and rendering: " through tyranny, evil, and sorrow.'' What is stiff and awkward in the progress of the description arises from the fact that ver. 40 is borrowed from Job xii. 21, 24, and that the poet is not willing to make any change in these sublime words. The version shows how we think the relation of the clauses is to be apprehended. Whilst He pours out His wrath upon tyrants in the contempt of men that comes upon them, and makes them fugitives who lose themselves in the terrible waste, He raises the needy and those hitherto despised and ill-treated on high out of the depth of their affliction, and makes families like a flock, i.e. makes their families so increase, that they come to have the appearance of a merrily gamboling and numerous flock. Just as this figure points back to Job xxi. 11, so ver. 42 is made up out of Job xxii. 19, v. 16. The sight of this act of recognition on the part of God of those who have been wrongfully oppressed gives joy to the upright, and all roguery (n^y vid. xcii. 16) has its mouth closed, i.e. its boastful insolence is once for all put to silence. In ver. 43 the poet makes the strains of his Psalm die away after the example of Hosea, ch. xiv. 10, in the nota bene expressed after the manner of a question: Who is wise — he will or let him keep this, i.e. bear it well in mind. The transition to the jussive together with a change of number is rendered natural by the fact that D^n **?> as m Hos. loc. cit. (cf. Jer. ix. 11, Esth. v. 6, and without Waw apod. Judg. vii. 3, Prov. ix. 4, 16), is equivalent to quisquis sapiens est. 'fl ^pn (*[jpn) are the manifestations of mercy or loving-kindness in which God's ever-enduring mercy unfolds itself in history. He who is wise has a good memory for and a clear understanding of this.
2 CONFIDENT is my heart, Elohim, I will sing and play upon the harp, Yea, this shall my glory do.
4 I will praise Thee among the peoples, Jahve, And praise Thee upon the harp among the nations.
5 For great beyond the heavens is Thy mercy, Elohim, And unto the clouds Thy truth.
6 Oh show Thyself exalted above the heavens, Elohim, And above the whole earth Thy glory!
7 In order that Thy beloved may be delivered — Save now with Thy right hand and answer me!
I shall rejoice, I shall portion out Shechem, And measure out the valley of Succoth. 9 Mine is Gilead, mine Manasseh,
And Ephraim is the helm of my head, Judah is my sceptre, 20 Moab is my wash-pot,
11 Who will conduct me to the fortified city, Who will bring me to Edom?!
14 In Elohim shall we obtain the victory, And He will tread down our oppressors.
The TNN in ver. 4 and the whole contents of this Psalm is the echo to the Vtin of the preceding Psalm. It is inscribed a Psalm-song by David, but only because it is compiled out of ancient Davidic materials. The fact of the absence of the TOD^ makes it natural to suppose that it is of later origin. Two Davidic Psalm-pieces in the Elohimic style are here, with trifling variations, just put together, not soldered together, and taken out of their original historical connection. That a poet like David would thus compile a third out of two of his own songs (Hengstenberg) is not conceivable.
Vers. 2-6. This first half is taken from Ps. lvii. 8-12. The repetition of confident is my heart in Ps. lvii. is here omitted; and in place of it the " my glory" of the exclamation, awake my glory, is taken up to " I will sing and will harp" as a more minute definition of the subject (yid, on iii. 5): He will do it, yea, his soul with all its godlike powers shall do it. Jahve in ver. 4 is transformed out of the Adonaj; and Waw copul. is inserted both before ver. Ab and ver. 6&, contrary to Ps. lvii. byp, ver. 5a (as in Esth. iii. 1), would be a pleasing change for *W if ver. 5a followed 5b and the definition of magnitude did not retrograde instead of heightening. More-
Vers. 7-14. Ps. lx. 7-14 forms this second half. The clause expressing the purpose with |y»?, as in its original, has the following nywn for its principal clause upon which it depends. Instead of *3?SJ., which one might have expected, the expression used here is W\ without any interchange of the mode of writing and of reading it; many printed copies have V}V\ here also; Baer, following Norzi, correctly has ^?V\. Instead of y!... v, lx. 9, we here read y... y, which is less soaring. And instead of Cry aloud concerning me, 0 Pldlistia (the plaintive cry of the vanquished), it here is, Over Pldlistia do I shout for joy (the triumphant cry of the victor); in accordance with which Hupfeld wishes to take *JttjfaTin in the former as infinitive: " over (yV instead of y^) Philistia is my shouting for joy" (*W^"jr,J? instead of ^Vnn»7? since the infinitive does not admit of this pausal form of the imperative). For TlVO vy we have here the more usual form of expression "TC^O Ty. Ver, 12a is weakened by the omission of the nriK (*fen).
opened against me, They have spoken against me with a lying tongue,
3 And with animosities have they surrounded me And fought against me without cause.
6 Set Thou a wicked man over him, And let Satan stand at his right hand;
7 If he is judged, let him come off as a wicked man, And let his prayer become sin.
9 Let his children become orphans, And his wife a widow,
10 And let his children wander to and fro begging, And let them entreat far from their ruins.
11 Let the creditor surround with snares all that he hath, And let strangers spoil what his labour hath gained.
12 Let there be no one to continue kindness to him, And let no one bestow [anything] upon his orphans.
14 Let the guilt of his fathers be remembered with Jahve, And let the sin of his mother not be blotted out,
16 Because he hath not remembered to show kindness, And hath persecuted a man wretched and poor, And terrified of heart, to put him to death.
17 He hath loved the curse, and it hath come upon him; And he delighted not in blessing, and it remained far
18 He clothed himself in cursing as his garment, And it pressed like water into his bowels, And like oil into his bones.
20 This is the reward of mine adversaries from Jahve, And of those who speak evil concerning my soul.
sake; Because Thy loving-kindness is good, deliver Thou me!
24 My knees knock together through fasting, And my flesh is fallen away from fatness.
25 And I am become a reproach to them, They see me, they shake their head.
27 That they may know that this is Thy hand, Thou, Jahve, hast done it.
29 Mine adversaries shall clothe themselves with reproach, And envelope themselves as with a mantle with their own
30 I will give thanks greatly unto Jahve with my mouth, And in the midst of many will I praise Him,
31 That He placeth Himself at the right hand of the po^r, To help him against the judges of his soul.
The fHitf, corresponding like an echo to the mn of Ps. cvii., is also found here in ver. 30. But Ps. cix. is most closely related to Ps. lxix. Anger concerning the ungodly who requite love with ingratitude, who persecute innocence and desire the curse instead of the blessing, has here reached its utmost bound. The imprecations are not, however, directed against a multitude as in Ps. lxix., but their whole current is turned against one person. Is this Doeg the Edomite, or Cush the Benjamite? We do not know. The marks of Jeremiah's hand, which raised a doubt about the TfT? of Ps. lxix., are wanting here; and if the development of the thoughts appears too diffuse and overloaded to be suited to David, and also many expressions (as the inflected BVD in ver. 8, the nK33, which is explained by the Syriac, in ver. 16, and the half-passive bbn in ver. 22) look as though they belong to the later period of the language, yet we feel on the other hand the absence of any certain echoes of older models. For in the parallels ver. 6, cf. Zech. iii. 1, and vers. 18, 296, cf. Isa. lix. 17, it is surely not the mutual relationship but the priority that is doubtful; ver. 22, however, in relation to lv. 5 (cf. ver. 4 with lv. 5) is a variation such as is also allowable in one and the same poet (e.g. in the refrains). The anathemas that are here poured forth more extensively than anywhere else speak in favour of David, or at least of his situation. They are explained by the depth of David's consciousness that he is the anointed of Jahve, and by his contemplation of himself in Christ. The persecution of David was a sin not only against David himself, but also against the Christ in him; and because Christ is in David, the outbursts of the Old Testament wrathful spirit take the prophetic form, so that this Psalm also, like Ps. xxii. and lxix., is a typically prophetic Psalm, inasmuch as the utterance of the type concerning himself is carried by the Spirit of prophecy beyond himself, and thus the dpa is raised to the irpo^rela iv etSet apas (Chrysostom). These imprecations are not, however, appropriate in the mouth of the suffering Saviour. It is not the spirit of Zion but of Sinai which here speaks out of the mouth of David; the spirit of Elias, which, according to Luke ix. 55, is not the spirit of the New Testament. This wrathful spirit is overpowered in the New Testament by the spirit of love. But these anathemas are still not on this account so many beatings of the air. There is in them a divine energy, as in the blessing and cursing of every man who is united to God, and more especially of a man whose temper of mind is such as David's. They possess the same power as the prophetical threatenings, and in this sense they are regarded in the New Testament as fulfilled in the son of perdition (John xvii. 12). To the generation of the time of Jesus they were a deterrent warning not to offend against the Holy One of God, and this Psalmus Ischarioticus (Acts i. 20) will ever be such a mirror of warning to the enemies and persecutors of Christ and His Church.
Vers. 1-5. A sigh for help and complaints of ungrateful persecutors form the beginning of the Psalm. " God of my praise " is equivalent to God, who art my praise, Jer. xvii. 14, cf. Deut. x. 21. The God whom the Psalmist has hitherto had reason to praise will also now show Himself to him as worthy to be praised. Upon this faith he bases the prayer: be not silent (xxviii. 1, xxxv. 22)! A mouth such as belongs to the " wicked," a mouth out of which comes u deceit," have they opened against him; they have spoken with him a tongue (accusative, vid. on lxiv. 6), i.e. a language, of falsehood. ""?:n of things and utterances as in xxxv. 20. It would be capricious to take the suffix of *n?n« in ver. 4 as genit. object, (love which they owe me), and in ver. 5 as genit. subject.; from xxxviii. 21 it may be seen that the love which he has shown to them is also meant in ver. 4. The assertion that he is u prayer" is intended to say that he, repudiating all revenge of himself, takes refuse in God in prayer and commits his cause into His hands. They have loaded him with evil for good, and hatred for the love he has shown to them. Twice he lays emphasis on the fact that it is love which they have requited to him with its opposite. Perfects alternate with aorists: it is no enmity of yesterday; the imprecations that follow presuppose an inflexible obduracy on the side of the enemies.
Vers. 6-10. The writer now turns to one among the many, and in the angry zealous fervour of despised love calls down God's judgment upon him. To call down a higher power, more particularly for punishment, upon any one is expressed by by (Tipsn) lj5S, Jer. xv. 3, Lev. xxvi. 16. The tormentor of innocence shall find a superior executor who will bring him before the tribunal (which is expressed in Latin by legis actio per manus injectionem). The judgment scene in vers. 65, la shows that this is what is intended in ver. 6a: At the right hand is the place of the accuser, who in this instance will not rest before the damnatus es has been pronounced. He is called \ti&9 which is not to be understood here after 1 Sam. xxix. 4, 2 Sam. xix. 23, but after Zech. hi. 1, 1 Chron. xxi. 1, if not directly of Satan, still of a superhuman (cf. Num. xxii. 22) being which opposes him, by appearing before God as his tcarrjycdp; for according to ver. la the \tiw is to be thought of as accuser, and according to lb God as Judge. V^"J has the sense of reus, and N£ refers to the publication of the sentence. Ver. lb wishes that his prayer, viz. that by which he w^ould wish to avert the divine sentence of condemnation, may become nNBn7, not: a missing of the mark, i.e. ineffectual (Thenius), but, according to the usual signification of the word: a sin, viz. because it proceeds from despair, not from true penitence. In ver. 8 the incorrigible one is wished an untimely death (2st?yD as in one other instance only, Eccles. v. 1) and the loss of his office. The LXX. renders: irjv eTnaKOTrrjv avrov \df3oi erepos. H'npQ really signifies the office of overseer, oversight, office, and the one individual must have held a prominent position among the enemies of the psalmist. Having died off from this position before his time, he shall leave behind him a family deeply reduced in circumstances, whose former dwellingplace — he was therefore wealthy — becomes "ruins." His children wander up and down far from these ruins (|p as e.g. in Judg. v. 11, Job xxviii. 4) and beg (E'TJ, like Trpoa-atrelv, iiraLTetv, Sir. xl. 28 = Dpi tfga, xxxvii. 25)/ Instead of «htj the reading *&jn*J1 is also found. A Poel is now and then formed from the strong verbs also,* in the inflexion of which the Cholem is sometimes shortened to Kametz chatuph; vid. the forms of |t5v, to slander, in ci. 5, "HCfe, to sketch, mark out in outline, Isa. xliv. 13, cf. also Job xx. 26 0n.?^?^) and Isa» lxii. 9 (according to the reading VQpxp). To read the Kametz in these instances as a, and to regard these forms as resolved Piels, is, in connection with the absence of the Metheg, contrary to the meaning of the pointing; on purpose to guard against this way qf reading it, correct codices have W^JJ (cf. Lxix. 19), which Baer has adopted.
Vers. 11-15. The Piel t?jM properly signifies to catch in
Latin obligate (as referring to the creditor's right of claim); nbb is the name for the creditor as he who gives time for payment, gives credit (vid. Isa. xxiv. 2). In ver. 12 ion tj^d, to draw out mercy, is equivalent to causing it to continue and last, xxxvi. 11, cf. Jer. xxxi. 3. ^IC!**, ver. 13a, does not signify his future, but as ver. 136 (cf. xxxvii. 38) shows: his posterity. fiN"V?np \T is not merely exscindatur, but exscindenda sit (Ezek. xxx. 16, cf. Josh. ii. 6), just as in other instances? n\i corresponds to the active fut. periphrasticum, e.g. Gen. xv. 12, Isa. xxxvii. 26. With reference to nts* instead of riB* (contracted from «"1^), vid. Ges. § 75, rem. 8. A Jewish acrostic
* In connection with the stroDg verb it frequently represents the Piel which does not occur, as with fcrn, |b6, DBE>, or even represents the Piel which, as in the case of bhb?, is already made use of in another signification (Piel, to root out; Poel, to take root).
interpretation of the name *£ runs: i"»fl SW Tt&[. This curse shall overtake the family of the vlbs t?}? airaikeias. All the sins of his parents and ancestors shall remain indelible above before God the Judge, and here below the race, equally guilty, shall be rooted out even to its memory, i.e. to the last trace of it.
Vers. 16-20. He whom he persecuted with a thirst for blood, was, apart from this, a great sufferer, bowed down and poor and 3n? nN33, of terrified, confounded heart. LXX. /caravevvyfjuevov (Jerome, compunction); but the stem-word is n?}2y to cause to come near, to meet. The verb, and more especially in Niph., is proved to be Hebrew by Dan. xi. 30. Such an one who without anything else is of a terrified heart, inasmuch as he has been made to feel the wrath of God most keenly, this man has persecuted with a deadly hatred. He had experienced kindness (*lDn) in a high degree, but he blotted out of his memory that which he had experienced, not for an instant imagining that he too on his part had to exercise "ion. The Poel nrriD instead of IVDIJ points to the agonizing death (Isa. liii. 9, cf. Ezek. xxviii. 10 '•nio) to which he exposes God's anointed. The fate of the shedder of blood is not expressed after the manner of a wish in vers. 16-18, but in the historical form, as being the result that followed of inward necessity from the matter of fact of the course which he had himself determined upon. The verb Nia seq. ace. signifies to surprise, suddenly attack any one, as in Isa. xli. 25. The three figures in ver. 18 are climactic: he has clothed himself in cursing, he has drunk it in like water (Job xv. 16, xxxiv. 7), it has penetrated even to the marrow of his bones, like the oily preparations which are rubbed in and penetrate to the bones. In ver. 19 the emphasis rests upon ntajp and upon *P&ft. The summarizing ver. 20 is the close of a strophe. npV^? an earned reward, here punishment incurred, is especially frequent in Isa. ch. xl.-lxvi., e.g. xlix. 4, xl. 10; it also occurs once even in the Tora, Lev. xix. 13. Those who answer the loving acts of the righteous with such malevolence in word and in deed commit a 6atanic sin for which there is no forgiveness. The curse is the fruit of their own choice and deed. Arnobius: Nota ex arbitrio tvenisse ut nollet, propter hceresim, quo? dicit Deum alios pro?- destinasse ad benedictionemy alios ad maledictionem.
Vers. 21-25. The thunder and liodrtnin£ are n0w as it were followed by a shower of tears of deep sorrowful complaint. Ps. cix. here just as strikingly accords with Ps. lxix., as Ps. lxix. does writh Ps. xxii. in the last strophe but one. The twofold name Jahve Adonaj (yid. Symbolo?, p. 16) corresponds to the deep-breathed complaint. Nfltf nfc?^ deal with me, i.e. succouring me, does not greatly differ from y in 1 Sam. xiv. 6. The confirmation, ver. 215, runs like lxix. 17: Thy lovingkindness is niD, absolutely good, the ground of everything that is good and the end of all evil. Hitzig conjectures, as in lxix. 17, 1*lDn 2iD3, " according to the goodness of Thy lovingkindness;" but this formula is without example: "for Thy loving-kindness is good " is a statement of the motive placed first and corresponding to the "for Thy Name's sake." In ver. 22 (a variation of lv. 5)??n, not 3vn, is traditional; this ^n, as being verb, denom. from i>bn, signifies to be pierced, and is therefore equivalent to S^n (cf. Luke ii. 35). The metaphor of the shadow in ver. 23 is as in cii. 12. When the day declines, the shadow lengthens, it becomes longer and longer (Virgil, majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrai), till it vanishes in the universal darkness. Thus does the life of the sufferer pass away. The poet intentionally uses the Niph. *Jwn?. (another reading is HJOTna); it is a power rushing upon him from without that drives him away thus after the manner of a shadow into the night. The locust or grasshopper (apart from the plague of the locusts) is proverbial as being a defenceless, inoffensive little creature that is soon driven away, Job xxxix. 20. "iJtt?, to be shaken out or off (cf. Arabic na'icra, a water-wheel that fills its clay-vessels in the river and empties them out above, and "W^n, Zech. xi. 16, where Hitzig wishes to read "Wj>n, dispulsio = dispulsi). The fasting in ver. 24 is the result of the loathing of all food which sets in with deep grief. |D$D CTJ3 signifies to waste away so that there is no more fat left.* In ver. 25 ^K is designedly rendered prominent: in this
* The verbal group fc»TD, "1113, J^> n,<^, etc. has the primary signification of withdrawal and taking away or decrease; to deny is the same as to withdraw from agreement, and he becomes thin from whom the fat the form of his affliction he is the butt of their reproaching, and they shake their heads doubtfully, looking upon him as one who is punished of God beyond all hope, and giving him up for lost. It is to be interpreted thus after lxix. 11 sq.
Vers. 26-31. The cry for help is renewed in the closing strophe, and the Psalm draws to a close very similarly to Ps. lxix. and xxii., with a joyful prospect of the end of the affliction. In ver. 27 the hand of God stands in contrast to accident, the work of men, and his own efforts. All and each one will undeniably perceive, when God at length interposes, that it is His hand which here does that which was impossible in the eyes of men, and that it is His work which has been accomplished in this affliction and in the issue of it. He blesses him whom men curse: they arise without attaining their object, whereas His servant can rejoice in the end of his affliction. The futures in ver. 29 are not now again imprecations, but an expression of believingly confident hope. In correct texts 7^03 has Mem raphatum. The " many" are the " congregation" (vid. xxii. 23). In the case of the marvellous deliverance of this sufferer the congregation or church has the pledge of its own deliverance, and a bright mirror of the loving-kindness of its God. The sum of the praise and thanksgiving follows in ver. 31, where *3 signifies quod, and is therefore allied to the on recitaiivwn (cf. xxii. 25). The three Good Friday Psalms all sum up the comfort that springs from David's affliction for all suffering ones in just such a pithy sentence (xxii. 25, lxix. 34). Jahve comes forward at the right hand of the poor, contending for him (cf. ex. 5), to save (him) from those who judge (xxxvii. 33), i.e. condemn, his soul. The contrast between this closing thought and vers. 6 sq. is unmistakeable. At the right hand of the tormentor stands Satan as an accuser, at the right hand of the tormented one stands God as his vindicator; he who delivered him over to human judges is condemned, and he who was delivered up is " taken away out of distress and from judgment" (Isa. liii. 8) by the Judge of the judges, in order that, as we now hear in the following withdraws, goes away. Saadia compares on this passage (mD) nioro H&hrD, a lean cow, Berachoth 32a. In like manuer Targum II. renders Lieu. xli. 27 Nnt^rD Nmifi, the lean kine.
Psalm, he may sit at the right hand of the heavenly King. 'ESi/caicodr) ev irvevjjbart,... dve\rj/jL(f)67] iv Bo^y! (1 Tim. iii. 16.)
1 THE oracle of Jahve unto my Lord: " Sit thou at My right hand,
" Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies! "
7 Of the brook in the way shall he drink, Therefore shall he lift up the head on high.
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them: What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He! They say unto Him: David's. He saith unto them: How then doth David in the spirit call Him Lord, saying: " The Lord hath said unto my Lord: Sit Thou on My right hand until I make Thine enemies the stool of Thy feet? " If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his Son? And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any one from that day forth question Him further.
So we read in Matt. xxii. 41-46, Mark xii. 35-37, Luke xx. 41-44. The inference which it is left for the Pharisees to draw rests upon the two premises, which are granted, that Ps. ex. is Davidic, and that it is prophetico-Messianic, i.e, that in it the future Messiah stands objectively before the mind of David. For if those who were interrogated had been able to reply that David does not there speak of the future Messiah, but puts into the mouth of the people words concerning himi>elf, or, as Hofmann has now modified the view he formerly held (Schriftbeweisy ii. 1, 496-500), concerning the Davidic king in a general way,* then the question would lack the background of cogency as an argument. Since, however, the pro-
* Vid. the refutation of this modified view in Kurtz, Zur Theologie der Psalmen, in the Dorpater Zeitschrift for the year 1861, S. 516.
Supplementary Note. — Von Hofmann now interprets Ps. ex. as prophetico-Messianic. We are glad to be able to give it in his own words.
" As the utterance of a prophet who speaks the word of God to the person addressed, the Psalm begins, and this it is then all through, even where it does not, as in ver. 4, expressly make known to the person addressed what God swears to him. God intends to finally subdue his foes to him. Until then, until his day of victory is come, he shall have a dominion in the midst of them, the sceptre of which shall be mighty through the succour of God. His final triumph is, however, pledged to him by the word of God, which appoints him, as another Melchizedek, to an eternal priesthood, that excludes the priesthood of Aaron, and by the victory which God has already given him in the day of His wrath.
" This is a picture of a king on Zion who still looks forward to that which in Ps. lxxii. 8 sqq. has already taken place, — of a victorious, mighty king, who however is still ruling in the midst of foes, — therefore of a king such as Jesus now is, to whom God has given the victory over heathen Rome, and to whom He will subdue all his enemies when he shall again reveal himself in the world; meanwhile he is the kingly priest and the priestly king of the people of God. The prophet who utters this is David. He whom he addresses as Lord is the king who is appointed to become that which Ps. lxxii. describes him; it is therefore he of whom God has spoken according to 2 Sam. xxiii. 3. David beholds him in a moment of his ruling to which the moment in his own ruling in which we find him in 2 Sam. xi. 1 is typically parallel."
phetico-Messianic character of the Psalm was acknowledged at that time (even as the later synagogue, in spite of the dilemma into which this Psalm brought it in opposition to the church, has never been able entirely to avoid this confession), the conclusion to be drawn from this Psalm must have been felt by the Pharisees themselves, that the Messiah, because the Son of David and Lord at the same time, was of human and at the same time of superhuman nature; that it was therefore in accordance with Scripture if this Jesus, who represented Himself to be the predicted Christ, should as such profess to be the Son of God and of divine nature.
The New Testament also assumes elsewhere that David in this Psalm speaks not of himself, but directly of Him, in whom the Davidic kingship should finally and for ever fulfil that of which the promise speaks. For ver. 1 is regarded elsewhere too as a prophecy of the exaltation of Christ at the right hand of the Father, and of His final victory over all His enemies: Acts ii. 34 sq., 1 Cor. xv. 25, Heb. i. 13, x. 13; and the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. v. 6, vii. 17, 21) bases its demonstration of the abrogation of the Levitical priesthood by the Melchizedek priesthood of Jesus Christ upon ver. 4. But if eyen David, who raised the Levitical priesthood to the pinnacle of splendour that had never existed before, was a priest after the manner of Melchizedek, it is not intelligible how the priesthood of Jesus Christ after the manner of Melchizedek is meant to be a proof in favour of the termination of the Levitical priesthood, and to absolutely preclude its continuance.
We will not therefore deceive ourselves concerning the apprehension of the Psalm which is presented to us in the New Testament Scriptures. According to the New Testament Scriptures, David speaks in Ps. ex. not merely of Christ in so far as the Spirit of God has directed him to speak of the Anointed of Jahve in a typical form, but directly and objectively in a prophetical representation of the Future One. And would this be impossible? Certainly there is no other Psalm in which David distinguishes between himself and the Messiah, and has the latter before him: the other Messianic Psalms of David are reflections of his radical, ideal contemplation of himself, reflected images of his own typical history; they contain prophetic elements, because David there too speaks iv
TTvev/jLdTi,, but elements that are not solved by the person of David. Nevertheless the last words of David in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7 prove to us that we need not be surprised to find even a directly Messianic Psalm coming from his lips. After the splendour of all that pertained to David individually had almost entirely expired in his own eyes and in the eyes of those about him, he must have been still more strongly conscious of the distance between what had been realized in himself and the idea of the Anointed of God, as he lay on his death-bed, as his sun was going down. Since, however, all the glory with which God has favoured him comes up once more before his soul, he feels himself, to the glory of God, to be " the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet singer of Israel," and the instrument of the Spirit of Jahve. This he has been, and he, who as such contemplated himself as the immortal one, must now die: then in dying he seizes the.pillars of the divine promise, he lets go the ground of his own present, and looks as a prophet into the future of his seed: The God of Israel hath said, to me hath the Bock of Israel spoken: u A ruler of men, a just one, a ruler in the fear of God; and as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, a cloudless morning, when after sunshine, after rain it becomes green out of the earth." For not little (!5"W to be explained according to Job ix. 35, cf. Num. xiii. 33, Isa. li. 6) is my house with God, but an everlasting covenant hath He made with me, one ordered in all things and sure, for all my salvation and all my favour — ought He not to cause it to sprout? The idea of the Messiah shall notwithstanding be realized, in accordance with the promise, within his own house. The vision of the future which passes before his soul is none other than the picture of the Messiah detached from its subjectivity. And if so there, why may it not also have been so even in Ps. ex.? The fact that Ps. ex. has points of connection with cotemporaneous history is notwithstanding the less to be denied, as its position in the Fifth Book leads one to suppose that it is taken out of its cotemporary annalistic connection. The first of these connecting links is the bringing of the Ark home to Zion. Girded with the linen ephod of the priest, David had accompanied the Ark up to Zion with signs of rejoicing. There upon Zion Jahve, whose earthly throne is the Ark, now took
His place at the side of David; but, spiritually considered, the matter stood properly thus, that Jahve, when He established Himself upon Zion, granted to David to sit henceforth enthroned at His side. The second connecting link is the victorious termination of the Syro-Ammonitish war, and also of the Edomitish war that came in between. The war with the Ammonites and their allies, the greatest, longest, and most glorious of David's wars, ended in the second year, when David himself joined the army, with the conquest of Rabbah. These two cotemporary connecting links are to be recognised, but they only furnish the Psalm with the typical ground-colour for its prophetical contents.
In this Psalm David looks forth from the height upon which Jahve has raised him by the victory over Ammon into the future of his seed, and there He who carries forward the work begun by him to the highest pitch is his Lord. Over against this King of the future, David is not king, but subject. He calls him, as one out of the people, " my Lord." This is the situation of the prophetico-kingly poet. He has received new revelations concerning the future of his seed. He has come down from his throne and the height of his power, and looks up to the Future One. He too sits enthroned on Zion. He too is victorious from thence. But His fellowship with God is the most intimate imaginable, and the last enemy is also laid at His feet. And He is not merely king, who as a priest provides for the salvation of His people, He is an eternal Priest by virtue of a sworn promise. The Psalm therefore relates to the history of the future upon a typical ground-work. It is also explicable why the triumph in the case of Ammon and the Messianic image have been thus to David's mind disconnected from himself. In the midst of that war comes the sin of David, which cast a shadow of sorrow over the whole of his future life and reduced its typical glory to ashes. Out of these ashes the phoenix of Messianic prophecy here arises. The type, come back to the conscious of himself, here lays down his crown at the feet of the Antitype.
Ps. ex. consists of three sevens, a tetrastich together with a tristich following three times upon one another. The Rebia magnum in ver. 2 is a security for this stichic division, and in like manner the Olewejored by ^{J in ver. 3, and in general the interpunction required by the sense. And vers. 1 and 2 show decisively that it is to be thus divided into 4 + 3 lines; for ver. 1 with its rhyming inflexions makes itself known as a tetrastich, and to take it together with ver. 2 as a heptastich is opposed by the new turn which the Psalm takes in ver. 2. It is also just the same with ver. 4 in relation to ver. 3: these seven stichs stand in just the same organic relation to the second divine utterance as the preceding seven to the first utterance. And since vers. 1-4 give twice 4 + 3 lines, vers. 5-7 also will be organized accordingly. There are really seven lines, of which the fifth, contrary to the Masoretic division of the verse, forms with ver. 7 the final tristich.
The Psalm therefore bears the threefold impress of the number seven, which is the number of an oath and of a covenant. Its impress, then, is thoroughly prophetic. Two divine utterances are introduced, and that not such as are familiar to us from the history of David and only reproduced here in a poetic form, as with Ps. lxxxix. and exxxii., but utterances of which nothing is known from the history of David, and sucl; as we hear for the first time here. The divine name JaJwe occurs three times. God is designedly called Adonaj the fourth time. The Psalm is consequently prophetic; and in order to bring the inviolable and mysterious nature even of its contents into comparison with the contemplation of its outward character, it has been organized as a threefold septiad, which is sealed with the thrice recurring tetragramma.
Vers. 1, 2. In Ps. xx. and xxi. we see at once in the openings that what we have before us is the language of the people concerning their king. Here ^fcO in ver. 1 does not favour this, and B*0 is decidedly against it. The former does not favour it, for it is indeed correct that the subject calls his king " my lord," e.g. 1 Sam. xxii. 12, although the more exact form of address is " my lord the king," e.g. 1 Sam. xxiv. 9; but if the people are speaking here, what is the object of the title of honour being expressed as if coming from the mouth of an individual, and why not rather, as in Ps. xx., xxi., spo? or \TVVup? DSp is, however, decisive against the supposition that it is an Israelite who here expresses himself concerning the relation of his king to Jahve. For it is absurd to suppose that an Israelite speaking in the name of the people would begin in the manner of the prophets with DN3, more particularly since this 'H DfcO placed thus at the head of the discourse is without any perfectly analogous example (1 Sam. ii. 30, Isa. i. 24 are only similar) elsewhere, and is therefore extremely important. In general this opening position of DWj even in cases where other genitives than TfMV follow, is very rare; EN? is found besides, so placed, only in the mouth of Balaam in Num. xxiv. 3 sq., 15 sq., of David in 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, of Agur in Prov. xxx. 1, and always (even in Ps. xxxvi. 2) in an oracular signification. Moreover, if one from among the people were speaking, the declaration ought to be a retrospective glance at a past utterance of God. But, first, the history knows nothing of any such divine utterance; and secondly, 'n DN3 always introduces God as actually speaking, to which even the passage cited by Hofmann to the contrary, Num. xiv. 28, forms no exception. Thus it will consequently not be a past utterance of God to which the poet glances back here, but one which David has just now heard iv irvevfiarL (Matt. xxii. 43), and is therefore not a declaration of the people concerning David, but of David concerning Christ. The unique character of the declaration confirms this. Of the king of Israel it is said that he sits on the throne of Jahve (1 Chron. xxix. 23), viz. as visible representative of the invisible King (1 Chron. xxviii. 5); Jahve, however, commands the person here addressed to take his place at His right hand. The right hand of a king is the highest place of honour, 1 Kings ii. 19.* Here the sitting at the right hand signifies not merely an idle honour, but reception into the fellowship of God as regards dignity and dominion, exaltation to a participation in God's reigning (fiacikevew, 1 Cor. xv. 25). Just as Jahve sits enthroned in the heavens and laughs at the rebels here below, so shall he who is exalted henceforth share this blessed calm with Him, until He subdues all enemies to him, and therefore makes him the unlimited, universally acknowledged ruler. *tp as in Hos. x. 12, for s3"iy or "i^frplj^ does not exclude the time that lies beyond,
* Cf. the custom of the old Arabian kings to have their viceroy (rid/) sitting at their right hand, Monumenta antiquiss. hist. Arabum, ed. Eichhorn, p. 220.
but as in cxii. 8, Gen. xlix. 10, includes it, and in fact so that it at anv rate marks the final subjugation of the enemies as a turning-point with which something else comes about (vid. Acts iii. 21, 1 Cor. xv. 28). thn is an accusative of the predicate. The enemies shall come to lie under his feet (1 Kings v. 17), his feet tread upon the necks of the vanquished (Josh. x. 24), so that the resistance that is overcome becomes as it were the dark ground upon which the glory of his victorious rule arises. For the history of time ends with the triumph of good over evil, — not, however, with the annihilation of evil, but with its subjugation. This is the issue, inasmuch as absolute omnipotence is effectual on behalf of and through the exalted Christ. In ver. 2, springing from the utterance of Jahve, follow words expressing a prophetic prospect. Zion is the imperial abode of the great future King (ii. 6). ^jJf HBO (cf. Jer. xlviii. 17, Ezek. xix. 11-14) signifies " the sceptre (as insignia and the medium of exercise) of the authority delegated to thee" (1 Sam. ii. 10, Mic. v. 3). Jahve wTill stretch this sceptre far forth from Zion: no goal is mentioned up to which it shall extend, but passages like Zech. ix. 10 show how the prophets understand such Psalms. In ver. 26 follow the words with which Jahve accompanies this extension of the dominion of the exalted One. Jahve will lay all his enemies at his feet, but not in such a manner that he himself remains idle in the matter. Thus, then, having come into the midst of the sphere (^£2) of his enemies, shall he reign, forcing them to submission and holding them down. We read this nil in a Messianic connection in lxxii. 8. So even in the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 19), where the sceptre (ch. xxiv. 17) is an emblem of the Messiah Himself.
Vers. 3, 4. In order that he may rule thus victoriously, it is necessary that there should be a people and an army. In accordance with this union of the thoughts which ver. 3a anticipates, ^fn DV3 signifies in the day of thy arriere ban, i.e. when thou callest up thy "power of an army" (2 Chron. xxvi. 13) to muster and go forth to battle. In this day are the people of the king willingnesses (nhnj)? i.e. entirely cheerful readiness; ready for any sacrifices, they bring themselves with all that they are and have to meet him. There is no need of any compulsory, lengthy proclamation calling them out: it is no army of mercenaries, but willingly and quickly they present themselves from inward impulse (STOno, Judg. v. 2, V). The punctuation, which makes the principal caesura at ^n with Olewejored, makes the parallelism of l^n and inVTpJ distinctly prominent. Just as the former does not signify roboris tui, so now too the latter does not, according to Eccles. xi. 9, signify TTcuhLOTrjTos gov (Aquila), and not, as Hofmann interprets, the dew-like freshness of youthful vigour, which the morning of the great day sheds over the king. Just as W3 signifies both exile and the exiled ones, so Iflfip^ like veoTrjs, juventus, juventa, signifies both the time and age of youth, youthfulness, and youthful, young men (the youth). Moreover one does not, after ver. 3a, look for any further declaration concerning the nature of the king, but of his people who place themselves at his service. The young men are likened to dew which gently descends upon the king out of the womb (uterus) of the morning-red.* "TOto is related to "in^ just as IflPne is to IJBfri; the notion of "inB> and T$H appears to be more sharply defined, and as it were apprehended more massively, in "tfTOT and "]$riD. The host of young men is likened to the dew both on account of its vigorousness and its multitude, which are like the freshness of the mountain dew and the immense number of its drops, 2 Sam. xvii. 12 (cf. Num. xxiii. 10), and on account of the silent concealment out of which it wondrously and suddenly comes to light, Mic. v. 6. After not having understood "thy youth" of the youthfulness of the king, we shall now also not, with Hofmann, refer BhJHTTina to the king, the holy attire of his armour. fc^.p JVTin is the vestment of the priest
* The LXX. renders it: \v rms 7^cc^7rpoTYiat ruv uyluv gov (belonging to the preceding clause), ix, yctorpog Kpo ecoatpopov eyiuvvaci as (Psalt. Veron. exegennesa se; Bamberg, gegennica se). The Vulgate, following the Italic closely: in splendoribus sanctorum; ex utero ante luciferum genui te. The Fathers in some cases interpret it of the birth of the Lord at Christmas, but most of them of His antemundane birth, and accordingly Apollinaris paraphrases: yuarpog KcupTrog tpvis irpo huaQopov oevrog ItvxQvis. In his own independent translation Jerome reads 'mrQ (as in lxxxvii. 1), in montibus Sanctis quasi de vulva orietur tibi ros adolescentise tuse, as Symmachus iv opiaiv uytotg, — elsewhere, however, fo 16%*) ocyiav. The substitution is not unmeaning, since the ideas of dew and of mountains ( exxxiii. 3) are easily united; but it was more important to give prominence to the holiness of the equipment than to that of the place of meeting.
for performing divine service: the Levite singers went forth before the army in " holy attire" in 2 Chron. xx. 21; here, however, the people without distinction wear holy festive garments. Thus they surround the divine king as dew that is born out of the womb of the morning-red. It is a priestly people which he leads forth to holy battle, just as in Apoc. xix. 14 heavenly armies follow the Logos of God upon white horses, evSeSvfievoi ftvaaivov Xev/cbv icaOapov — a new generation, wonderful as if born out of heavenly light, numerous, fresh, and vigorous like the dew-drops, the offspring of the dawn. The thought that it is a priestly people leads over to ver. 4. The king who leads this priestly people is, as we hear in ver. 4, himself a priest (coJien). As has been shown by Hupfeld and Fleischer, the priest is so called as one who stands (from |n| == pa in an intransitive signification), viz. before God (Deut. x. 8, cf. Ps. exxxiv. 1, Heb. x. 11), like K'QJ the spokesman, viz. of God.* To stand before God is the same as to serve Him, viz. as priest. The ruler whom the Psalm celebrates is a priest who intervenes in the reciprocal dealings between God and His people within the province of divine worship; the priestly character of the people who suffer themselves to be led forth to battle and victory by him, stands in causal connection with the priestly character of this their king. He is a priest by virtue of the promise of God confirmed by an oath. The oath is not merely a pledge of the fulfilment of the promise, but also a seal of the high significance of its purport. God the absolutely truthful One (Num. xiii. 19) swears — this is the highest enhancement of the 'n DW of which prophecy is capable (Amos vi. 8). He appoints the person addressed as a priest for ever " after the manner of Melchizedek" in this most solemn manner. The i of TTOl is the same ancient connecting vowel as in the ^D of the name Melchizedek; and it has the tone, which it loses when, as in Lam. i. 1, a tone-syllable follows. The wide- noy are synonyms of |ro in this sense of standing ready for service and io r.u official capacity.
meaning nwrtjf, "in respect to, on account of," Eccles. iii. 18, vii. 14, viii. 2, is here specialized to the signification " after the manner, measure of," LXX. Kara rr^v tcl^lv. The priesthood is to be united with the kingship in him who rules out of Zion, just as it was in Melchizedek, king of Salem, and that for ever. According to De Wette, Ewald, and Hofmann, it is not any special priesthood that is meant here, but that which was bestowed directly with the kingship, consisting in the fact that the king of Israel, by reason of his office, commended his people in prayer to God and blessed them in the name of God, and also had the ordering of Jahve's sanctuary and service. Now it is true all Israel is a "kingdom of priests" (Ex. xix. 6, cf. Num. xvi. 3, Isa. Ixi. 6), and the kingly vocation in Israel must therefore also be regarded as in its way a priestly vocation. But this spiritual priesthood, and, if one will, this princely oversight of sacred things, needed not to come to David first of all by solemn promise; and that of Melchizedek, after which the relationship is here defined, is incongruous to him; for the king of Salem was, according to Canaanitish custom, which admitted of the union of the kingship and priesthood, really a high priest, and therefore, regarded from an Israelitish point of view, united in his own person the offices of David and of Aaron. How could David be called a priest after the manner of Melchizedek, he who had no claim upon the tithes of the priests like Melchizedek, and to whom was denied the authority to offer sacrifice * inseparable from the idea of the priesthood in the Old Testament? (cf. 2 Chron. xxvi. 20.) If David were the person addressed, the declaration would stand in antagonism with the right of Melchizedek as priest recorded in Gen. ch. xiv., which, according to the indisputable representation of the Epistle to the Hebrews, was equal in compass to the Levitico- Aaronic right, and, since "after the manner of" requires a coincident reciprocal relation, in antagonism to itself also.f One might get on more easily with ver. 4 by referring the
* G. Enjedin the Socinian (died 1597) accordingly, in referring this Psalm to David, started from the assumption that priestly functions have been granted exceptionally by God to this king as to no other; vid. the literature of the controversy to which this gave rise in Serpilius, Personalia Davidis, S. 268-274.
Psalm to one of the Maccabsean priest-princes (Hitzig, von Len^erke, and Olshausen); and we should then prefer to the reference to Jonathan who put on the holy stola, 1 Mace. x. 21 (so Hitzig formerly), or Alexander Jannseus who actually bore the title of king (so Hitzig now), the reference to Simon, whom the people appointed to " be their governor and high priest for ever, until there should arise a faithful prophet" (1 Mace. xiv. 41), after the death of Jonathan his brother — a union of the two offices which, although an irregularity, was not one, however, that was absolutely illegal. But the priesthood, which the Maccabseans, however, possessed originally as being priests born, is promised to the person addressed here in ver. 4; and even supposing that in ver. 4 the emphasis lay not on a union of the priesthood with the kingship, but of the kingship with the priesthood, then the retrospective reference to it in Zechariah forbids our removing the Psalm to a so much later period. Why should we not rather be guided in our understanding of this divine utterance, which is unique in the Old Testament, by this prophet, whose prophecy in ch. vi. 12 sq. is the key to it % Zechariah removes the fulfilment of the Psalm out of the Old Testament present, with its blunt separation between the monarchical and hierarchical dignity, into the domain of the future, and refers it to Jahve's Branch (nEV) that is to come. He, who will build the true temple of God, satisfactorily unites in his one person the priestly with the kingly office, which were at that time assigned to Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the prince. Thus this Psalm was understood by the later prophecy; and in what other sense could the post-Davidic church have appropriated it as a prayer and hymn, than in the eschatological Messianic sense? But this sense is also verified as the original. David here hears that the king of the future exalted at the right hand of God, and whom he calls his Lord, is at the same time an eternal priest. And because he is both these his battle itself is a priestly royal work, and just on this account his people fighting with him also wear priestly garments.
Vers. 5-7. Just as in ver. 2 after ver. 1, so now here too after the divine utterance, the poet continues in a reflective strain. The Lord, says ver. 5, dashes in pieces kings at the right hand of this priest-king, in the day when His wrath is kindled (ii. 12, cf. xxi. 10). *$*W is rightly accented as subject. The fact that the victorious work of the person addressed is not his own work, but the work of Jahve on his behalf and through him, harmonizes with ver. lb. The sitting of the exalted one at the right hand of Jahve denotes his uniform participation in His high dignity and dominion. But in the fact that the Lord, standing at his right hand (cf. the counterpart in cix. 6), helps him to victory, that unchangeable relationship is shown in its historical working. The right hand of the exalted one is at the same time not inactive (see Num. xxiv. 17, cf. ver. 8), and the Lord does not fail him when he is obliged to use his arm against his foes. The subject to HJ and to the two pE is the Lord as acting through him. "He shall judge among the peoples" is an eschatological hope, vii. 9, ix. 9, xcvi. 10, cf. 1 Sam. ii. 10. What the result of this judgment of the peoples is, is stated by the neutrally used verb fc6» with its accusative nisU (cf. on the construction lxv. 10, Deut. xxxiv. 9): it there becomes full of corpses, there is there a multitude of corpses covering everything. This is the same thought as in Isa. lxvi. 24, and wrought out in closely related connection in Apoc. xix. 17, xviii. 21. Like the first po, the second (ver. 6c) is also a perfect of the ideal past. Accordingly H2~i_ pN seems to signify the earth or a country (cf. nnrn px? Ex. hi. 8, Neh. ix. 35) broad and wide, like nzn_ n)nr\ the great farstretching deep. But it might also be understood the " land of Kabbah," as they say the " land of Jazer " (Num. xxxii. 1), the " country of Goshen " (Josh. x. 41), and the like; therefore the land of the Ammonites, whose chief city is Kabbah. It is also questionable whether H31 pK ~by Wih is to be taken like K6(j)a\rjv virep irdvTay Eph. i. 22 (Hofmann), or whether pK"S>y nm belongs to pi» as a designation of the battle-field. The parallels as to the word and the thing itself, lxviii. 22, Hab. iii. 13 sq., speak for B>fen signifying not the chief, but the head; not, however, in a collective sense (LXX., Targum), but the head of the yw~l /car i^o^v (yid. Isa. xi. 4). If this is the case, and the construction by pan is accordingly to be given up, neither is it now to be rendered: He breaks in pieces a head upon the land of Kabbah, but upon a great (broad) land; in connection with which, however, this designation of the place of battle takes its rise from the fact that the head of the ruler over this great territory is intended, and the choice of the word may have been determined by an allusion to David's Ammonitish war. The subject of ver. 7 is now not that arch-fiend, as he who in the course of history renews his youth, that shall rise up again (as we explained it formerly), but he whom the Psalm, which is thus rounded off with unity of plan, celebrates. Ver. 7 a expresses the toil of his battle, and ver. lb the reward of undertaking the toil. i?"^ is therefore equivalent to dvrl tovtov. TJ!?.?j however, although it might belong to?r)2Q (of the brook by the wayside, lxxxiii. 10, cvi. 7), is correctly drawn to nnt^ by the accentuation: he shall on his arduous way, the way of his mission (cf. cii. 24), be satisfied with a drink from the brook. He will stand still only for a short time to refresh himself, and in order then to fight afresh; he will unceasingly pursue his work of victory without giving himself any time for rest and sojourn, and therefore (as the reward for it) it shall come to pass that he may lift his head on high as victor; and this, understood in a christological sense, harmonizes essentially with Phil. ii. 8 sq., Heb. xii. 2, Apoc. v. 9 sq.
1 X I WILL give thanks unto Jahve with the whole heart, 2 In the council of the upright and the congregation.
4 T A memorial of His wonderful works hath He founded, n Gracious and compassionate is Jahve.
G 3 He hath made known to His people the power of His b Giving to them the heritage of the heathen.
7 d The works of His hands are truth and right,: Faithful are all His statutes,
With Ps. cxi. begins a trilogy of Hallelujah-Psalms. It may be appended to Ps. ex., because it places the " for ever" of ex. 4 in broader light in relation to the history of redemption, by stringing praise upon praise of the deeds of Jahve and of His appointments. It stands in the closest relationship to Ps. cxii. Whilst Ps. cxi., as Hitzig correctly says, celebrates the glory, might, and loving-kindness of Jahve in the circle of the " upright," Ps. cxii. celebrates the glory flowing therefrom and the happiness of the "upright" themselves, of those who fear Jahve. The two Psalms are twin in form as in contents. They are a mixture of materials taken from older Psalms and gnomical utterances; both are sententious, and both alphabetical. Each consists of twenty-two lines with the twentytwo letters of the alphabet at the beginning,* and every line for the most part consists of three words. Both songs are only chains of acrostic lines without any strophic grouping, and therefore cannot be divided out. The analogous accentuation shows how strong is the impression of the close relationship of this twin pair; and both Psalms also close, in vers. 9 and 10, with two verses of three members, being up to this point divided into verses of two members.
That which the poet purposes doing in ver. 1, he puts into execution from ver. 2 onwards. ■"njn, according to Ixiv. 7, cxviii. 14, is equivalent to B^W. According to ver. 10&, bn^an in ver. 2b apparently signifies those who find pleasure in them (the works of God); but Wl = nfan (like ■'fW, Isa. xxiv. 7 = ^Pf) is less natural than that it should be the construct form of the plural of Y^D, that occurs in three instances,
* Bbttcher transposes the verses in Ps. cxi., and in cxii. 5 corrects 7373* into 73731; in the warmth of his critical zeal he runs against the boundary - posts of the letters marking the order, without observing it.
and there was no need for saying that those who make the works of God the object of their research are such as interest themselves in them. We are led to the right meaning by torrbab in 1 Kings ix. 11 in comparison with Isa. xliv. 28, xlvi. 10, cf. liii. 10, where r?C signifies God's purpose in accordance with His counsel: constantly searched into, and therefore a worthy object of research (^"H, root T7, to seek to know by rubbing, and in general experimentally, cf. ^J of knowledge empirically acquired) according to all their aims, i.e. in all phases of that which they have in view. In ver. 4 "D! points to the festival which propagates the remembrance of the deeds of God in the Mosaic age; *pB, ver. 5, therefore points to the food provided for the Exodus, and to the Passover meal, together with the feast of unleavened bread, this memorial (P"13I, Ex. xii. 14) of the exemption in faithfulness to the covenant which was experienced in Egypt. This Psalm, says Luther, looks to me as though it had been composed for the festival of Easter. Even from the time of Theodora and Augustine the thought of the Eucharist has been connected with ver. 5 in the New Testament mind; and it is not without good reason that Ps. cxi. has become the Psalm of the church at the celebration of the Lord's Supper. In connection with T3PI one is reminded of the Pesach-Haggada. The deed of redemption which it relates has a power that continues in operation; for to the church of Jahve is assigned the victory not only over the peoples of Canaan, but over the whole world. The power of Jahve's deeds, which He has made known to His people, and which they tell over again among themselves, aims at giving them the inheritance of the peoples. The works of His hands are truth and right, for they are the realization of that which is true and which lasts and verifies itself, and of that which is right, that triumphantly maintains its ground. His ordinances are WOJ5J (occasionally pointed ITODMa), established, attested, in themselves and in their results authorizing a firm confidence in their salutariness (cf. xix. 8). D^Dpj supported, stayed, viz. not outwardly, but in themselves, therefore imperturbable (cf. ipDD used of the state of mind, cxii. 8, Isa. xxvi. 3). D^tPJJ, moulded, arranged, viz. on the part of God, "in truth, and upright;" IB* is accusative of the predicate
(cf. cxix. 37), but without its being clear why it is not pointed ^n\. If we have understood vers. 4-6 correctly, then MVia glances back at the deliverance out of Egypt. Upon this followed the ratification of the covenant on Sinai, which still remains inviolable down to the present time of the poet, and has the holiness and terribleness of the divine Name for a guarantee of its inviolability. The fear of Jahve, this holy and terrible God, is the beginning of wisdom — the motto of the Chokma in Job (ch. xxviii. 28) and Proverbs (ch. i. 7, ix. 10), the Books of the Chokma. Ver. 10b goes on in this Proverbs-like strain: the fear of God, which manifests itself in obedience, is to those who practise them (the divine precepts, DHlpa) 3HD bfc> (Prov. xiii. 15, iii. 4, cf. 2 Chron. xxx. 22), a fine sagacity, praiseworthy discernment — such a (dutiful) one partakes of everlasting praise. It is true, in glancing back to ver. 3b, TOnn seems to refer to God, but a glance forward to cxii. 3b shows that the praise of him who fears God is meant. The old observation therefore holds good: ubi hcec ode desinitj sequens incipit (Bakius).
2 y His seed shall become mighty upon earth, 1 The generation of the upright is blessed.
4 T There ariseth in darkness for the upright a light, n Gracious and compassionate and righteous.
S His righteousness standeth for ever. p His horn groweth up into honour, 10 "i The wicked seeth it, and is vexed,
P Gnashing his teeth and melting away — n The desire of the wicked shall perish.
The alphabetical Hallelujah Ps. cxi., which celebrated the government of God, is now followed by another coinciding with it in structure {CTYXOC KB, i.e. 22 c7Tt%ot, as the Coptic version correctly counts), which celebrates the men whose conduct is ordered after the divine pattern.
As in the preceding Psalm, ver. 1 here also sets forth the theme of that which follows. What is there said in ver. 3 concerning the righteousness of God, ver. 3 here says of the righteousness of him who fears God: this also standeth fast for ever, it is indeed the copy of the divine, it is the work and gift of God (xxiv. 5), inasmuch as God's salutary action and behaviour, laid hold of in faith, works a like form of action and behaviour to it in man, which, as ver. 9 says, is, according to its nature, love. The promise in ver. 4 sounds like Isa. lx. 2. Hengstenbero; renders: " There ariseth in the darkness light to the upright who is gracious and compassionate and just." But this is impossible as a matter of style. The three adjectives (as in cxi. 4, pointing back to Ex. xxxiv. 6, cf. cxlv. 8, cxvi. 5) are a mention of God according to His attributes, J^n and Dirn never take the article in Biblical Hebrew, and P^V follows their example here (cf. on the contrary, Ex. ix. 27). God Himself is the light which arises in darkness for those who are sincere in their dealings with Him; He is the Sun of righteousness with wings of rays dispensing "grace" and "tender mercies," Mai. iii. 20 [iv. 2], The fact that He arises for those who are compassionate as He is compassionate, is evident from ver. 5. 2)D being, as in Isa. iii. 10, Jer. xliv. 17, intended of well-being, prosperity, ^\S 2)D is here equivalent to V*x *!K%, which is rendered man FP31B in Tarcumic phrase.
his gifts around. Ver. 5b is not an extension of the picture of virtue, but, as in cxxvii. 5c, a promissory prospect: he will uphold in integrity (BIBtea, lxxii. 2, Isa. ix. 6, and frequently), or rather (=B2^'e>3) in the cause (cxliii. 2, Prov. xxiv. 23, and frequently), the things which depend upon him, or with which he has to do; for??'?, sustineve, signifies to sustain, i.e. to nourish, to sustain, i.e. endure, and also to support, maintain, i.e. carry through. This is explanatorily confirmed in ver. 6: he stands, as a general thing, imperturbably fast. And when he dies he becomes the object of everlasting remembrance, his name is still blessed (Prov. x. 7). Because he has a cheerful conscience, his heart +oo is not disconcerted by any evil tidings (Jer. xlix. 23): it remains p3J, erect, straight and firm, without suffering itself to bend or warp; '»~I3 rm, f a\\ 0f confidence (passive, "in the sense of a passive state after a completed action of the person himself," like "W3J, ciii. 14); T^D, stayed in itself and established. The last two designations are taken from Isa. xxvi. 3, where it is the church of the last times that is spoken of. Ps. xci. 8 gives us information with reference to the meaning of V*iV3 n^n; ny^ as in xciv. 13, of the inevitable goal, on this side of which he remains undismayed. 2 Cor. ix. 9, where Paul makes use of ver. 9 of the Psalm before us as an encouragement to Christian beneficence, shows how little the assertion " his righteousness standeth for ever" is opposed to the New Testament consciousness. "1*3 of giving away liberally and in manifold ways, as in Prov. xi. 24. DVJ, ver. 9c, stands in opposition to the egoistical D'nn in lxxv. 5 as a vegetative sprouting up (cxxxii. 17). The evil-doer must see this and, confounded, vex himself over it; he gnashes his teeth with the rage of envy and chagrin, and melts away, i.e. loses consistency, becomes unhinged, dies off (DD3, 3d prcet. Niph. as in Ex. xvi. 21, pausal form of DD:=:Dpj). How often has he desired the ruin of him whom he must now see in honour! The tables are turned; this and his ungodly desire in general come to nought, inasmuch as the opposite is realized. On n^T.j with its self-evident object, cf. Mic. vii. 10. Concerning the pausal form DyDl, vid. xciii. 1. Hupfeld wishes to read m_pn after ix. 19, Prov. x. 28. In defence of the traditional reading, Hitzig rightly points to Prov. x. 24 together with ver. 28.
1 PRAISE, ye servants of Jahve, Praise the Name of Jahve!
3 From the rising of the sun unto its going down Is the Name of Jahve to be praised.
7 Who raiseth up the lowly out of the dust, Who lifteth the poor from the heap of ashes,
9 Who maketh the barren woman to keep house, As a joyful mother of the sons,
With this Psalm begins the Hallel, which is recited at the three great feasts, at the feast of the Dedication (Chanucca) and at the new moons, and not on New Year's day and the day of Atonement, because a cheerful song of praise does not harmonize with the mournful solemnity of these days. And they are recited only in fragments during the last days of the Passover, for " my creatures, saith the Holy One, blessed be lie, were drowned in the sea, and ought ye to break out into songs of rejoicing?" In the family celebration of the Passover night it is divided into two parts, the one half, Ps. cxiii., cxiv., being sung before the repast, before the emptying of the second festal cup, and the other half, Ps. cxv.-cxviii., after the repast, after the filling of the fourth cup, to which the vfjLvi)aavT6<; (Matt. xxvi. 30, Mark xiv. 26) after the institution of the Lord's Supper, which was connected with the fourth festal cup, may refer. Paulus Burgensis styles Ps. cxiii.-cxviii. A lleluja Judceorum magnum. This designation is also frequently found elsewhere. But according to the prevailing custom, Ps. cxiii.-cxviii., and more particularly Ps. cxv.-cxviii., are called only Hallel, and Ps. cxxxvi., with its " for His mercy endureth for ever" repeated twenty-six times, bears the name of " the Great Hallel" (toifl fen).*
A heaping up, without example elsewhere, of the so-called Chirek compaginis is peculiar to Ps. cxiii. Gesenius and others call the connecting vowels i and o (in proper names also u) the remains of old case terminations; with the former the Arabic genitive termination is compared, and with the latter the Arabic nominative termination. But in opposition to this it has been rightly observed, that this i and o are not attached to the dependent word (the genitive), but to the governing word. According to the more probable view of Ewald, § 211, i and o are equivalent connecting vowels which mark the relation of the genitive case, and are to be explained from the original oneness of the Semitic and Indo-Germanic languages.
* Vid. the tractate Sofrim, xviii. § 2. Apart from the new moons, a which the recitation of the Hallel koct elop^'z/, i.e. Ps. cxiii.-cxviii., is onlyaccording to custom 0i"G£), not according to the law, the Hallel was recited eighteen times a year during the continuance of the Temple (and in Palestine even in the present day), viz. once at the Passover, once at Shabuoth, eight times at Succoth, eight times at Chanucca (the feast of the Dedication); and now in the Exile twenty-one times, because the Passover and Succoth have received two feast-days and Shabuoth one as an addition, viz. twice at the Passover, twice at Shabuoth, nine times at Succoth. Instead of Hallel absolutely we also find the appellation " the Egyptian Hallel" (,H¥E)n b^n) for Ps. cxiii.-cxviii. The ancient ritual only makes a distinction between this (Egyptian) Hallel and the Great Hallel, Ps. cxxxvi. (see there).
quently found when the second member of the stat. constr. has a preposition, and this preposition is consequently in process of beincr resolved: Gen. xlix. 11, Ex. xv. G, Obad. ver. 3 (Jer. xlix. 1G), Hos. x. 11, Lam. i. 1, Ps. cxxiii. 1, and perhaps Cant. i. 9. Also in the Chetldbj Jer. xxii. 23, li. 13, Ezek. xxvii. 3. Thirdly, where a word stands between the two notions that belong together according to the genitival relation, and the stat. construct, is consequently really resolved: Ps. ci. 5, Isa. xxii. 16, Mic. vii. 14. It is the same i which is found in a great many proper names, both Israelitish, e.g. Gamaliel (benefit of God), and Phoenician, e.g. Melchizedek, Hannibd al (the favour of Baal), and is also added to many Hebrew prepositions, like W3 (where the i however can, according to the context, also be a pronominal suffix), *TOT (where i can likewise be a suffix), ^p (poetical). In *DB^, on the other hand, the i is always a suffix. The tone of the i only retreats in accordance with rhythmical rule (yid. ex. 4), otherwise i is always accented. Ver. 8 shows how our Ps. cxiii. in particular delights in this ancient i3 where it is even affixed to the infinitive as an ornament, a thing which occurs nowhere else, so that "a^nb excites the suspicion of being written in error for
Among those things which make God worthy to be praised the Psalm gives prominence to the condescension of the infinitely exalted One towards the lowly one. It is the lowliness of God lowering itself for the exaltation of the lowly which performs its utmost in the work of redemption. Thus it becomes explicable that Mary in her Magnificat breaks forth into the same strain with the song of Hannah (1 Sam. ch. ii.) and this Psalm.
Vers. 1-3. The call, not limited by any addition as in exxxiv. 1, or even, after the manner of ciii. 20 sq., extended over the earth, is given to the whole of the true Israel that corresponds to its election by grace and is faithful to its mission; and its designation by "servants of Jahve" (lxix. 37, cf. xxxiv. 23), or even " servant of Jahve" (exxxvi. 22), has come into vogue more especially through the second part of Isa i ah. This Israel is called upon to praise Jahve; for the praise and celebration of His Name, i.e. of His nature, which is disclosed by means of its manifestation, is a principal element, yea, the proper ground and aim, of the service, and shall iinally become that which fills all time and all space.?pfiO, laudatum (est), is equivalent to aiverov, laudahile (LXX., Vulgate), and this does not differ greatly from laudetur. The predictive interpretation laudahitur is opposed to the context (cf. moreover Kohler on Mai. i. 11).
Vers. 4-6. This praiseworthiness is now confirmed. The opening reminds one of xcix. 2. Pasek stands between D^U and nirp in order to keep them apart. The totality of the nations is great, but Jahve is raised above it; the heavens are glorious, but Jahve' s glory is exalted above them. It is not to be explained according to cxlviii. 13; but according to lvii. 6, 12, D"i belongs to ver. 4£ too as predicate. He is the incomparable One who has set up His throne in the height, but at the same time directs His gaze deep downwards (expression according to Ges. § 142, rem. 1) in the heavens and upon earth, i.e. nothing in all the realm of the creatures that are beneath Him escapes His sight, and nothing is so low that it remains unnoticed by Him; on the contrary, it is just that which is lowly, as the following strophe presents to us in a series of portraits so to speak, that is the special object of His regard. The structure of vers. 5, 6 militates against the construction of " in the heavens and upon the earth" with the interrogatory " who is like unto Jahve our God?" after Deut. iii. 24.
Vers. 7-9. The thoughts of vers, la and 8a are transplanted from the song of Hannah. lay, according to 1 Kings xvi. 2, cf. xiv. 7, is an emblem of lowly estate (Hitzig), and D2^X (from n?^) an emblem of the deepest poverty and desertion; for in Syria and Palestine the man who is shut out from society lies upon the mezbele (the dunghill or heap of ashes), by day calling upon the passers-by for alms, and by night hiding himself in the ashes that have been warmed by the sun (Job, ii. 152). The movement of the thoughts in ver. 8, as in ver. 1, follows the model of the epizeuxis. Together with the song of Hannah the poet has before his eye Hannah's exaltation out of sorrow and reproach. He does not, however, repeat the words of her song which have reference to this (1 Sam. ii. 5), but clothes his generalization of her experience in his own language. If he intended that nipjj should be understood out of the genitival relation after the form ^^8, why did he not write rnjJJJ IVan "l^D f rvjan would then be equivalent to niva, lxviii. 7. Jftan n^py is the expression for a woman who is a wife, and therefore housewife, Hjan (n?5J3) HD, but yet not a mother. Such an one has no settled position in the house of the husband, the firm bond is wanting in her relationship to her husband. If God gives her children, He thereby makes her then thoroughly at home and rooted-in in her position. In the predicate notion nnD^ Dmitri DK the definiteness attaches to the second member of the string of words, as in Gen. xlviii. 19, 2 Sam. xii. 30 (cf. the reverse instance in Jer. xxiii. 26, *K3J "ipt^n, those prophesying that which is false), therefore: a mother of the children. The poet brings the matter so vividly before him, that he points as it were with his finger to the children with which God blesses her.
2 Then Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His dominion.
3 The sea saw it, and fled, Jordan turned backwards,
4 The mountains skipped like rams, The hills like young sheep.
7 Before the face of the Lord tremble, O earth, Before the face of the God of Jacob,
8 Who changeth the rock into a pool of water, The flinty rock into water-springs!
To the side of the general Hallelujah Ps. cxiii. comes an historical one, which is likewise adorned in ver. 8 with the Cldreh compaginis, and still further with Cholem compaginis, and is the festival Psalm of the eighth Passover day in the Jewish ritual. The deeds of God at the time of the Exodus are here brought together to form a picture in miniature which is as majestic as it is charming. There are four tetrastichs, which pass by with the swiftness of a bird as it were with four flappings of its wings. The church sings this Psalm in a tonus peregrinus distinct from the eight Psalm-tones.
Vers. 1-4. Egypt is called f|6 DV (from Tl£, cogn. M^ nyp), because the people spoke a language unintelligible to Israel (lxxxi. 6), and as it were a stammering language. The LXX., and just so the Targum, renders i/c Xaov fiapftdpov (from the Sanscrit barbaras, just as onomatopoetic as balbus, cf. Fleischer in Levy's Chalddisches Worterbuch, i. 420). The redeemed nation is called Judah, inasmuch as God made it His sanctuary (VHP) by setting up His sanctuary (B*Ji?B, Ex. xv. 17) in the midst of it, for Jerusalem (el-kuds) was Benjamitish Judsean, and from the time of David was accounted directly as Judaean. In so far, however, as He made this people His kingdom (VHWDD, an amplificative plural with Mem pathachatum)9 by placing Himself in the relation of King (Deut. xxxiii. 5) to the people of possession which by a revealed law He established characteristically as His own, it is called Israel. The predicate takes the form Wfl, for peoples together with country and city are represented as feminine (cf. Jer. viii. 5). The foundation of that new beginning in connection with the history of redemption was laid amidst majestic wonders, inasmuch as nature was brought into service, co-operating and sympathizing in the work (cf. Ixxvii. 15 sqq.). The dividing of the sea opens, and the dividing of the Jordan closes, the journey through the desert to Canaan. The sea stood aside, Jordan halted and was dammed up on the north in order that the redeemed people might pass through. And in the middle, between these great wonders of the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into Canaan, arises the not less mighty wonder of the giving of the Law: the skipping of the mountains like rams, of the hills like |*6P?3, i.e. lambs (Wisd. xix. 9), depicts the quaking of Sinai and its environs (Ex. xix. 1 8, cf. supra lxviii. 9, and on the figure xxix. 6).
Vers. 5-8. The poet, when he asks, " What aileth thee, O sea, that thou fleest...?" lives and moves in this olden time as a cotemporary, or the present and the olden time as it were flow together to his mind; hence the answer he himself gives to the question propounded takes.the form of a triumphant mandate. The Lord, the God of Jacob, thus mighty in wondrous works, it is before whom the earth must tremble. fllK does not take the article because it finds its completion in the following ^?V\ (TON) j ifc *s the same epizeuccis as in cxiii. 8, xciv. 3, xcvi. 7, 13. ^tinn has the constructive i out of the genitival relation; and in WJ?pp in this relation we have the constructive 6} which as a rule occurs only in the genitival combination, with the exception of this passage and "V3Q fa3, Num. xxiv. 3, 15 (not, however, in Prov. xiii. 4, "his, the sluggard's, soul"), found only in the name for wild animals fifrrirvrij which occurs frequently, and first of all in Gen. i. 24. The expression calls to mind cvii. 35. "fi3?n is taken from Ex. xvii. 6; and K>TOn (LXX. ttjv a/cporofiov, that which is rugged, abrupt) * stands, according to Deut. viii. 15, poetically for V?D, Num. xx. 11, for it is these two histories of the giving of water
* One usually compares ^.jul.^, chalndbus [the Karaite lexicographer Abraham ben David writes DUD^n]; but this obsolete word, as a compound from ^ulri*, to be black -grey, and /^jj^, to be hard, may originally signify a hard black-grey stone, whereas t^D^n looks like a mingling of the verbal stems ^^a^-, to be hard, and tjA^ } to be blackbrown (as Jy*b>-, a detached block of rock, is of the verbal stems SLp^, to be hard, and w\^~, to be massive). In Hauran the doors of the houses and the window-shutters are called <wJo- when they consist of a massive slab of dolcrite, probably from their blackish hue. Perhaps t^j^n is tne ancient name for basalt; and in connection with the hardness of this form of rock, which resembles a mass of cast metal, the breaking through of springs is a great miracle.— Wetzstein. For other views vid. on Isa. xlix.
to which the poet points back. But why to these in particular! The causing of water to gush forth out of the flinty rock is a practical proof of unlimited omnipotence and of the grace which converts death into life. Let the earth then tremble before the Lord, the God of Jacob. It has already trembled before Him, and before Him let it tremble. For that which He has been He still ever is; and as He came once, He will
1 NOT unto us, Jahve, not unto us, But unto Thy Name give glory,
2 Wherefore shall the heathen say: " Where is now their God! "
4 Their gods, howrever, are silver and gold, The work of men's hands.
5 They have a mouth and speak not, They have eyes and see not,
6 They have ears and' hear not, They have a nose and smell not.
7 Their hands, with which they handle not, Their feet, with which they walk not, They speak not with their throat.
9 Israel, trust thou in Jahve, Their help and their shield is He.
10 O house of Aaron, trust ye in Jahve, Their help and their shield is He.
11 Ye who fear Jahve, trust in Jahve, Their help and their shield is He.
12 Jahve hath been mindful of us, He will bless — He will bless the house of Israel,
And the earth hath He given to the children of men.
This Psalm, which has scarcely anything in common with the preceding Psalm except that the expression " house of Jacob," cxiv. 1, is here broken up into its several members in vers. 12 sq., is found joined with it, making one Psalm, in the LXX., Syriac, Arabic, and JEthiopic versions, just as on the other hand Ps. cxvi. is split up into two. This arbitrary arrangement condemns itself. Nevertheless Kimchi favours it, and it has found admission into not a few Hebrew manuscripts.
It is a prayer of Israel for God's aid, probably in the presence of an expedition against heathen enemies. The two middle strophes of the four are of the same compass. Ewald's conjecture, that whilst the Psalm was being sung the sacrifice was proceeded with, and that in ver. 12 the voice of a priest proclaims the gracious acceptance of the sacrifice, is pleasing. But the change of voices begins even with ver. 9, as Olshausen also supposes.
Vers. 1, 2. It has to do not so much with the honour of Israel, which is not worthy of the honour (Ezek. xxxvi. 22 sq.) and has to recognise in its reproach a well-merited chastisement, as with the honour of Him who cannot suffer the reproaching of His holy name to continue long. He willeth that His name should be sanctified. In the consciousness of his oneness with this will, the poet bases his petition, in so far as it is at the same time a petition on behalf of Israel, upon God's %a/0£? and d\r)0eca as upon two columns. The second fe?, according to an express note of the Masora, has no Waw before it, although the LXX. and Targum insert one. The thought in ver. 2 is moulded after lxxix. 10, or after Joel ii. 17, cf. Ps. xlii. 4, Mic. vii. 10. KJ"n*K is the same style as WiTCH in cxvi. 18, cf. in the older lanima£e W"7N, fcO~DN and the like.
Vers. 3-8. The poet, with " And our God," in the name of Israel opposes the scornful question of the heathen by the believingly joyous confession of the exaltation of Jahve above the false gods. Israel's God is in the heavens, and is therefore supramundane in nature and life, and the absolutely unlimited One, who is able to do all things with a freedom that is conditioned only by Himself: quod vult, valet (ver. 36 = cxxxv. 6, Wisd. xii. 18, and frequently). The carved gods (3-fV? from 3VV, cogn. 3Vn, 3Vj5) of the heathen, on the contrary, are dead images, which are devoid of all life, even of the sensuous life the outward organs of which are imaged upon them. It cannot be proved with Eccles. v. 16 that E^T and DHy?i are equivalent to urb U^l\ D^jn. They are either subjects which the Waw apodosis (cf. Gen. xxii. 24, Prov. xxiii. 24, Hab. ii. 5) renders prominent, or casus absoluti (Ges. § 145, 2), since both verbs have the idols themselves as their subjects less on account of their gender (T and fen are feminine, but the Hebrew usage of genders is very free and not carried out uniformly) as in respect of ver. 7c: with reference to their hands, etc. flB^D* is the energetic future form, which goes over from TO into b^d, for *#DJ. It is said once again in ver. 1c that speech is wanting to them; for the other negations only deny life to them, this at the same time denies all personality. The author might know from his own experience how little was the distinction made by the heathen worship between the symbol and the thing symbolized. Accordingly the worship of idols seems to him, as to the later prophets, to be the extreme of self-stupefaction and of the destruction of human consciousness; and the final destiny of the worshippers of false gods, as he says in ver. 8, is, that they become like to their idols, that is to say, being deprived of their consciousness, life, and existence, they come to nothing, like those their nothingnesses (Isa. xliv. 9). This whole section of the Psalm is repeated in Ps. cxxxv. (vers. 6, 15-18).
Vers. 9-14. After this confession of Israel there now arises a voice that addresses itself to Israel. The threefold division into Israel, the house of Aaron, and those who fear Jahve is the same as in cxviii. 2-4. In Ps. cxxxv. the " house of Levi" is further added to the house of Aaron. Those who fear Jahve, who also stand in the last passage, are probably the proselytes (in the Acts of the Apostles aefio/jievoi tov Qeov, or merely ae^o/xevot*); at any rate these are included even if Israel in ver. 9 is meant to signify the laity, for the notion of " those who fear Jahve " extends beyond Israel. The fact that the threefold refrain of the summons does not run, as in xxxiii. 20, our help and shield is He, is to be explained from its being an antiphonal song. In so far, however, as the Psalm supplicates God's protection and help in a campaign the declaration of confident hope, their help and shield is He, may, with Hitzig, be referred to the army that is gone or is going forth. It is the same voice which bids Israel to be of good courage and announces to the people the well-pleased acceptance of the sacrifice with the words u Jahve hath been mindful of us" (UT3? 'H, cf. "W^ nri^ xx. 7), perhaps simultaneously with the presentation of the memorial portion (mats) of the meat-offering (xxxviii. 1). The SJTQJ placed at the head is particularized threefold, corresponding to the threefold summons. The special promise of blessing which is added in ver. 14 is an echo of Deut. i. 11, as in 2 Sam. xxiv. 3. The contracted future *|D* we take in a consolatory sense; for as an optative it would be too isolated here. In spite of all oppression on the part of the heathen, God will make His people ever more numerous, more capable of offering resistance, and more awe-inspiring.
Vers. 15-18. The voice of consolation is continued in ver. 15, but it becomes the voice of hope by being blended with
* The appellation (pofiovpsuoi does not however occur, if we do not bring Acts x. 2 in here; but in Latin inscriptions in Orelli-Hentzen No. 2523, and in Auer in the Zdtschrift fur katJiolische Theologie 1852, S. 80, the proselyte (rcliyionis Judaic^) is called metuens.
the newly strengthened believing tone of the congregation. Jahve is here called the Creator of heaven and earth because the worth and magnitude of His blessing are measured thereby. He has reserved the heavens to Himself, but given the earth to men. This separation of heaven and earth is a fundamental characteristic of t'ie post-diluvian history. The throne of God is in the heavens, and the promise, which is given to the patriarchs on behalf of all mankind, does not refer to heaven, but to the possession of the earth (xxxvii. 22). The promise is as yet limited to this present world, whereas in the New Testament this limitation is removed and the KXypovofila embraces heaven and earth. This Old Testament limitedness finds further expression in ver. 17, where nipvi, as in xciv. 17, signifies the silent land of Hades. The Old Testament knows nothing of a heavenly ecclesia that praises God without intermission, consisting not merely of angels, but also of the spirits of all men who die in the faith. Nevertheless there are not wanting hints that point upwards which were even better understood by the post-exilic than by the pre-exilic church. The New Testament morn began to dawn even upon the post-exilic church. We must not therefore be astonished to find the tone of vi. 6, xxx. 10, Ixxxviii. 11-13, struck up here, although the echo of those earlier Psalms here is only the dark foil of the confession which the church makes in ver. 18 concerning its immortality. The church of Jahve as such does not die. That it also does not remain among the dead, in whatever degree it may die off in its existing members, the psalmist might know from Isa. xxvi. 19, xxv. 8. But the close of the Psalm shows that such predictions which light up the life beyond only gradually became elements of the church's consciousness, and, so to speak, dogmas.
2 For He hath inclined His ear unto me, Therefore will I call as long as I live.
And the straitoesses of Hades came upon me, Distress and sorrow did I experience.
5 Gracious is Jahve and righteous, And our God a compassionate One.
8 Yea, Thou hast delivered my soul from death, Mine eyes from tears,
15 Precious in the eyes of Jahve Is the death of His saints.
I am Thy servant, the son of Thy handmaid, Thou hast loosed my bonds.
17 Unto Thee will I sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving And proclaim the Name of Jahve.
We have here another anonymous Psalm closing with Hallelujah, It is not a supplicatory song with a hopeful prospect before it like Ps. cxv., but a thanksgiving song with a fresh recollection of some deadly peril that has just been got the better of; and is not, like Ps. cxv., from the mouth of the church, but from the lips of an individual who distinguishes himself from the church. It is an individual that has been delivered who here praises the loving-kindness he has experienced in the language 0f tne tenderest affection. The LXX. has divided this deeply fervent song into two parts, cxvi. 1-9, 10-19, and made two Hallelujah-Psalms out of it; whereas it unites Ps. cxiv. and cxv. into one. The four sections or strophes, the beginnings of which correspond to one another (vers. 1 and 10, 5 and 15), are distinctly separate. The words K"}pN 'n Dtfin are repeated three times. In the first instance they are retrospective, but then swell into an always more full-toned vow of thanksgiving. The late period of its composition makes itself known not only in the strong Aramaic colouring of the form of the language, which adopts all kinds of embellishments, but also in many passages borrowed from the pre-exilic Psalms. The very opening, and still more so the progress, of the first strophe reminds one of Ps. xviii., and becomes an important hint for the exposition of the Psalm.
Vers. 1-4. Not only is ^ V^n&s, « I love (like, am well pleased) that," like ayaircj on, Thucydides vi. 36, contrary to the usage of the language, but the thought, " I love that Jahve answereth me," is also tame and flat, and inappropriate to the continuation in ver. 2. Since vers. 3, 4 have come from xviii. 5-17, ^nx is to be understood according to 1pn"}K in xviii. 2, so that it has the following rorp as its object, not it is true grammatically, but logically. The poet is fond of this pregnant use of the verb without an expressed object, cf. N"JpN in ver. 2, and 7^»gn in ver. 10. The Pasek after V^f) is intended to guard against the blending of the final a with the initial 'a of •OIK (cf. lxvi. 18, v. 2, in Baer). In ver. 16 the accentuation prevents the rendering vocem orationis mece (Vulgate, LXX.) by means of Mugrash. The i of vip will therefore no more be the archaic connecting vowel (Ew. § 211, b) than in Lev. xxvi. 42; the poet has varied the genitival construction of xxviii.
6 to the permutative. The second "O, following close upon the first, makes the continuation of the confirmation retrospective. " In my days" is, as in Isa. xxxix. 8, Bar. iv. 20, cf. *ra in Ixiii. 5, and frequently, equivalent to " so long as I live." We even here hear the tone of Ps. xviii. (ver. 2), which is continued in vers. 3, 4 as a freely borrowed passage. Instead of the " bands" (of Hades) there, the expression here is ^VD, angmtice, plural of "TOD, after the form 2D2 in cxviii. 5, Lam. i. 3 (Bottcher, Be inferis, § 423); the straitnesses of Hades are deadly perils which can scarcely be escaped. The futures KVEX and N"Ji?^, by virtue of the connection, refer to the cotemporaneous past. H3N (viz. nc^pn \^bly i.e. in a suppliant sense) is written with He instead of Aleph here and in five other Instances, as the Masora observes. It has its fixed Metheg in the first syllable, in accordance with which it is to be pronounced anna (like Q^s btlttim), and has an accented ultima not merely on account of the following nirp = •o'ls (yid. on iii. 8), but in every instance; for even where (the Metheg having been changed into a conjunctive) it is supplied with twTo different accents, as in Gen. 1. 17, Ex. xxxii. 31, the second indicates the tone-syllable.* Instead now of repeating " and Jahve answered me," the poet indulges in a laudatory confession of general truths which have been brought vividly to his mind by the answering of his prayer that he has experienced.
Vers. 5-9. With "gracious" and "compassionate" is here associated, as in cxii. 4, the term "righteous," which comprehends within itself everything that Jahve asserts concerning Himself in Ex. xxxiv. 6 sq. from the wTords " and abundant in goodness and truth" onwards. His love is turned especially toward the simple (LXX. ra vrjina, cf. Matt. xi. 25),
Milel. But the Palestinian and the Babylonian systems of pointing coincide in this, that the beseeching kjk (h:n) is Milra, and the interrogatory ms Milel (with only two exceptions in our text, which is fixed according to the Palestinian Masora, viz. cxxxix. 7, Deut. i. 28, where the following word begins with Aleph), and these modes of accenting accord with the origin of the two particles. Pinsker (Einleitung, S. xiii.) insinuates against the Palestinian system, that in the cases where k:k has two accents the pointing was not certain of the correct accentuation, only from a deficient knowledge of the bearings of the case.
who stand in need of His protection and give themselves over to it. D\xr.D, as in Prov. ix. 6, is a mode of writing blended out of D^KTIB and D^na. The poet also has experienced this love in a time of impotent need. stfhft is accented on the' ultima here, and not as in cxlii. 7 on the penult. The accentuation is regulated by some phonetic or rhythmical law that has not yet been made clear (vid. on Job xix. 17).# JPrtn* is a resolved Hiphil form, the use of which became common in the later period of the language, but is not alien to the earlier period, especially in poetry (xlv. 18, cf. lxxxi. 6, 1 Sam. xvii. 47, Isa. lii. 5). In ver. 7 we hear the form of soliloquy which has become familiar to us from Ps. xlii., xliii., ciii. *?*$ is Milra here, as also in two other instances. The plural D^niJD signifies full, complete rest, as it is found only in God; and the suffix in the address to the soul is ajchi for ajich, as in ciii. 3-5. The perfect boa states that which is a matter of actual experience, and is corroborated in ver. 8 in retrospective perfects. In vers. 8, 9 we hear lvi. 14 again amplified; and if we add xxvii. 13, then we see as it were to the bottom of the origin of the poet's thoughts. nyCH'JD belongs still more decidedly than JPBhrP to the resolved forms which multiply in the later period of the language. In ver. 9 the poet declares the result of the divine deliverance. The Hitlipa. ^nrw denotes a free and contented going to and fro; and instead of " the land of the living," xxvii. 13, the expression here is "the lands (rriViN), i.e. the broad land, of the living." There he walks forth, with nothing to hinder his feet or limit his view, in the presence of Jahve, i.e. having his Deliverer from death ever before his eyes.
Vers. 10-14. Since "^"IK *3 does not introduce anything that could become an object of belief, pBgn is absolute here: to have faith, just as in Job xxiv. 22, xxix. 24, with vb it signifies " to be without faith, i.e. to despair." But how does it now proceed? The LXX. renders eVtcrreucra, Bcb iXaXrjaaj which the apostle makes use of in 2 Cor. iv. 13, without our being
* The national grammarians, so far as we are acquainted with them, furnish no explanation. De Balmis believes that these Milra forms tfrijPli *nfa» and the like, must be regarded as infinitives, but at the same time confirms the difference of views existing on this point.
therefore obliged with Luther to render: / believe, therefore 1 speak; O does not signify Sio. Nevertheless *3 might accordin <t to the sense be used for p7, if it hud to be rendered with Hen<Tstenberg: "I believed, therefore I spake, but I was very much plagued." But this assertion does not suit this connection, and has, moreover, no support in the syntax. It might more readily be rendered: " I have believed that I should yet speak, i.e. that I should once more have a deliverance of God to celebrate;" but the connection of the parallel members, which is then only lax, is opposed to this. Hitzig's attempted interpretation, " I trust, when ('•S as in Jer. xii. 1) I should speak: I am greatly afflicted," i.e. u I have henceforth confidence, so that I shall not suffer myself to be drawn away into the expression of despondency," does not commend itself, since ver. 10b is a complaining, but not therefore as yet a desponding assertion of the reality. Assuming that ^3DfcWl and W*?K in ver. 11a stand on the same line in point of time, it seems that it must be interpreted / had faith, for I spake (was obliged to speak); but "OIK, separated from TUIDKn by O, is opposed to the colouring relating to the cotemporaneous past. Thus ver. 10 will consequently contain the issue of that which has been hitherto experienced: I have gathered up faith and believe henceforth, when I speak (have to speak, must speak): / am more particularly in captivity, whence *Ia*1\, those who are bowed down). On the other hand, ver. 11 is manifestly a retrospect. He believes now, for he is thoroughly weaned from putting trust in men: / said in my despair (taken from xxxi. 23), the result of my deeply bowed down condition: All men are liars (iras avdpco7ro<; ^evaT7]<;, Rom. iii. 4). Forsaken by all the men from whom he expected succour and help, he experienced the truth and faithfulness of God. Striding away over this thought, he asks in ver. 12 how he is to give thanks to God for all His benefits, no is an adverbial accusative for nt32, as in Gen. xliv. 16, and the substantive fctaOT-, in itself a later formation, has besides the Chaldaic plural suffix ohi, which is without example elsewhere in Hebrew. The poet says in ver. 13 how alone he can and will give thanks to his Deliverer, by using a figure taken from the Passover (Matt. xxvi. 27), the memorial repast in celebration of the redemption out of Egypt. The cup of salvation is that which is raised aloft and drunk amidst thanksgiving for the manifold and abundant salvation (nijft^) experienced. 'Jl DBQ K"j|j is the usual expression for a solemn and public calling upon and proclamation of the Name of God. In ver. 14 this thanksgiving is more minutely designated as "H?. *????>, which the poet now discharges. A. common and joyous eating and drinking in the presence of God was associated with the shelamim. W (yid. cxv. 2) in the freest application gives a more animated tone to the word with which it stands. Because he is impelled frankly and freely to give thanks before the whole congregation, fcO stands beside 1JJ, and "Hi, moreover, has the intentional ah.
Vers. 15-19. From what he has experienced the poet infers that the saints of Jahve are under His most especial providence. Instead of njBn the poet, who is fond of such embellishments, chooses the pathetic form nj™?-> and consequently, instead of the genitival construct state (nio), the construction with the Lamed of " belonging to." It ought properly to be "soul" or "blood," as in the primary passage lxxii. 14. But the observation of Grotius: quce pretiosa sunt, non facile largimur, applies also to the expression " death." The death of His saints is no trifling matter with God; He does not lightly suffer it to come about; He does not suffer His own to be torn away from Him by death.* After this the poet goes on beseechingly: dnndh Adonaj. The prayer itself is not contained in *7S s J?^?> — f°r ne *s already rescued, and the perfect as a precative is limited to such utterances spoken in the tone of an exclamation as we find in Job xxi. 16, — but remains unexpressed; it lies wrapped up as it were in this heartfelt dnndh: Oh remain still so gracious to me as Thou hast already proved Thyself to me. The poet rejoices in and is proud of the fact that he may call himself the servant of God. With IJDN he is mindful of his pious mother (cf. lxxxvi.