BS1430 .D355 v. 3 Delitzsch, Franz, 1813-1890 Biblical commentary on the Psalms / JUN 17 1966 % CLARK'S FOREIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. FOUKTH SEKIES. VOL. XXXI. SeTit^0cI)'!S Commcntari) on ti)t ^^alms. VOL. III. E D I N B U E G II : T. & T. CLAliK, 38, GEOEGE STEEET. MDCCCLXXXV. PRINTED BY MORRISON AND G1B8. T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, GEORGE HERBERT. NBW YORK SCRIBNER AND WELFORO. BIBLICAL COMMENTARY THE PSALMS. FRANZ DELITZSCIT, D.D., PROFESSOR OF OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS, LEITSia £;ranslakb from ilje (§zxmmx (from the SECOirD EDITION, REVISED THRGUGHOVT) REV. FRANCIS BOLTON, B.A., PRIZEMAN IX HKDUEW AND NEW TESTAMENT GREEK IX THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. SECOND edition: VOL. IIL EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEOIiGE STREET. MDCCCLXXXV. ^,,c^.-m^,,^ \ TABLE OF CONTENTS. EXPOSITION OF THE PSALTER. Third Book of the PsAi,Ti:n, Ps. lxxiii.-lxxxix. — (ci Psalm Ixxxiv. to Ixxxix., .... Fourth Book of the Psalter, Ps. xc.-cvi., Fifth Book of the Psalter, Ps. cvii.-cl.. The Fifteen Soiigs of Degrees, Ps. cxx.-cxxxiv., nthtncd) — 47-1.09 1 60-416 264-322 EXCURSUS BY J. G. WETZSTEIN. I. CONCEnXIXG -lim, THE NAME OF A BiRD (On Ps. Ixxxiv. 4), . II. Concerning the Signification of the Word njyo in its APPLICATION TO AGRICULTURE (On Ps. CXxix. 3, cf. OH Ps. Irv. 11), 417 ERRATA. Vol. III. Page 15, line 21 from top, fur One read thing. 28, ,, 17 ,, /'/• xviii. 15 reari xviii. 5. 45, ,. 1-1 ,, /*/• referential read postliminiar. 110, ,, 2 ,, /!'r xx.\iv. 15 reof/ xxxvi. 5. 124, ,, 4 ,. for cv.l read cxy.^. 137, note t, line 4 from bottom, read Npi'S. 169, line 12 from bottom, for li; read tTri. 191, note, line 3 from bottom, /or cxxxviii. read cxxxiii. These "Errata" and those noted in Vol. II. are, with trifling excep- tion, the result of corrections and suggestions received from Dr. Delilzsch, which reached the printers too late for correction in type. The Scripture references have been carefully verified during the progress of the work, so that the translator trusts the student will, after attention to the above, find no perplexing inaccuracies in this department. Vol. I. Page 14, line 18 from top, delete comma before "inscribing." ,, 99, first line of note, read which show this ancient noiT. ,, 144, line 17 from top, for ^y 7-ead fjy. ,, 151, in note *, read DDB' instead ofariU' ., 297, line 11 from bottom, read distre&s. ,, 347, ,, 12 from top, read eudfi. THIRD BOOK OF THE PSALTEE (CONTINUED). Ps. LXXIII.-LXXXIX. PSALM LXXXIV. LONGING FOR THE HOUSE OF GOD, AND FOR THE HAPPINESS OF DWELLING THERE. 2 HOW lovely are Thy dwelling-places, Jahve of Hosts ! 3 i\Iy soul longeth, yea fainteth, for the courts of Jahve, My heart and my flesh sing for joy towards the living G< 4 Yea, the sparrow hatli found a house, And the swallow a nest for herself, Where she hath sheltered her young — Thine altars, Jahve of Hosts, My King and my God. 5 Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, They shall still praise Thee. {Sela.) 6 Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee — The pilgrims' ways are in their lieart. 7 Passing through the valley of Baca, They make it a place of springs, The rain also enshroudeth it in blessings. 8 They go from strength to strengtii, There stand they before Elohim in Zion : VOL. III. 1 2 PSAI.M LXXXIV. \) " Jalive Eloliira of Hosts, Oh hear my prayer, Give ear, O God of Jacob!" (Sela.) 10 Thou our Shield, look into it, Elohim, And look upon the face of Thine anointed ! 11 For better is a day in Thy courts than a thousand; I had rather lie upon the threshold in the house of iny God, Than dwell in the tents of wickedness. 12 For a sun and shield is Jahve Elohim. Grace and glory doth Jahve dispense. He doth not withhold any good thing from those who walk in uprightness. 13 Jahve of Hosts, Blessed is the man who trusteth in Thee. With Ps. Ixxxiii. the circle of the Asaphic songs is closed (twelve Psalms, viz. one in the Second Book and eleven in the Third), and with Ps. Ixxxiv. begins the other half of the Ko- rahitic circle of songs, opened by the last of the Korahitic Elo- him-Psalms. True, Hengstenberg (transl. vol. iii. Appendix, p. xlv) says that no one would, with my Spnbolce, p. 22, regard this Ps. Ixxxiv. as an Elohimic Psalm ; but the marks of the Elohimic style are obvious. Not only that the poet uses Elohim twice, and that in ver. 8, where a non-Elohimic Psalm ought to have said Jahve; it also delights in compound names of God, which are so heaped up that Jahve Tsehaoth occurs three times, and the specifically Elohimic Jahve Elohim Tsehaoth once. The origin of this Psalm has been treated of already in connection with its counterpart, Ps. xlii.-xliii. It is a thoroughly heartfelt and intelligent expression of the love to the sanctuary i)f Jahve which yearns towards it out of the distance, and calls all those happy who have the like good fortune to have their home there. The prayer takes the form of an intercession for God's anointed ; for the poet is among the followers of David, the banished one.* He docs not pray, as it were, out of his Nic. Nonuen takes a different view in liis Disscrtatio dc Tzippor et PSALM LXXXIV. 2-5. 3 soul (llengstenberg, Tholuck, von Gerlach), but for him ; for loving Jahve of Hosts, the iieavcnly King, he also loves His inviolably chosen one. And wherefore should he not do so, since with him a new era for the neglected sanctuary had dawned, and the delightful services of the Lord had taken a new start, and one so rich in song? With him he shares both joy and grief. With his future he indissolubly unites his own. To the Precentor upon the Gittith, the inscription runs, by Bene-Korah, a Psalm. Concerning n''ri2n~?y, vid. on viii. 1, The structure of the Psalm is artistic. It consists of two halves with a distichic as/ir^-conclusion. The schema is 3. 5. 2 | 5. 5. 5. 3. 2. Vers. 2-5. How loved and lovely (niT"*!^) is the sacred dwelling-place (^plur. as in xliii. 3) of the all-commanding, re- demptive God, viz. His dwelling-place here below upon Zion ! Thither the poet is drawn by the deeply inward yearning of love, which makes him pale (^P?^ from ^03, t o grow pa le, xvii. 12) and consum£sJiijiii-('"iP3 as in Job xix. 27). His heart and flesh joyfully salute the living God dwelling there, who, as a never-failing spring, quenches the thirst of the soul (xlii. 3) ; the joy that he feels when he throws himself back in spirit into the long- denied delight takes })ossession even of his bodily nature, the bitter-sweet pain of longing completely fills him (Ixiii. 2). The mention of the "courts" (with the exception of the Davidic Psalm Ixv. 5, occurring only in the anonymous Psalms) does not preclude the reference of the Psalm to the tent-temple on Zion. The Tabernacle certainly had only one "i>*n ; the arrangement of the Davidic^tent-teniple^ however, is indeed unknown to us, and, according to reliable traces,* it may be well assumed that it was more gorgeous and more spacious than the old Tabernacle which remained in Gibeon. In ver. 4 the preference must be given to that explanation which makes ^^"linSipTix dependent upon '^^'VOj without being obliged to supply an intermediate thought like n^? (with hardening Deror, etc., 1741. He considers oue of the Ephraimitcs wlio were brought back to tlie fellowship of the true worship of God in the reign of Jchoaiia- phat (2 Chron. xix. 4) to be the subject of tlic P.saliij. * Vid. Kuobel on Exodus, S. l'5o-257, especially S. 25r». 4 PSAL5I LXXXIV. 2-5. Dagesh like |3, Gen. xix. 38, vid. the rule at lii. 5) and !i?. as a more definite statement of the object which the poet has in view. The altars, therefore, or (what this is meant to say without any need for taking ns as a preposition) the realm, province of the altars of Jahve— this is the house, this the nest which sparrow and swallow have found for themselves and their young. The poet thereby only indirectly says, that birds have builtthemselves nests on the Temple-house, without giving any occasion for the discussion whether this has taken place in reality. By the bird that has found a comfortable snug home on the place of the altars of Jahve in the Temple-court and in the Temple-house, he means himself. "ii2y (from I?)') is a general name for whistling, twittering birds, like the finch* and the sparrow, just as the LXX. here renders it. ii">'^ is not the turtle- dove (LXX., Targum, and Syriac), but the swallow, which is frequently called even in the Talmud nm "ilsfX^ "'^^^?)j ^"^^ appears to take its name from its straightforward darting, as it were, radiating flight (cf . Arabic jadurru of the horse : it darts straight forward). Saadia renders du7-tje, wdiich is the name of the sparrow in Palestine and Syria {vid. Wetzstein's Ex- cursus I. at the end of this volume). After the poet has said that his whole longing goes forth towards the sanctuary, he adds that it could not possibly be otherwise (05 standing at the Head of the clause and belonging to the whole sentence, as e.g. in Isa. XXX. 33 ; Ewald, § 352, b) : he, the sparrow, the swallow, has found a liouse, a nest, viz. the altars of Jahve of Hosts, his King and his God (xliv. 5, xlv. 7), who gloriously and inaccessibly protects him, and to whom he unites himself with most heartfelt and believing love. The addition " where (I'f J:^ as in xcv. 9, Num. xx. 13) she layeth her young," is not without its significance. One is here reminded of the fact, that at the time of the second Temple the sons of the priests were called nsna ^nna, and the Leyke poet means himself together with his faniily; God's altars secure to them shelter and sustenance. How happy, blessed, therefore, are those who enjoy this good fortune, which he now longs for again with pain in a strange country, viz. to be able to make his home in the house of such an adorable and gracious God ! niy here signifies, not Vid. Tobler. Dcnkhlutkr aus Jtrusakm, 1853, S. 117. PSALM LXXXIV. 6-13. 5 ''constantly" (Gen. xlvi. 29), for which ^^OPl would have been used, but "yet^" as in xlii. 0. The relation of ver. 5Z» to 5a is tlierefore like xli. 2. The present is dark, but it will come to ])as3 even yet that the inmates of God's house (oUeloc tov Qeov, Eph. ii. 10) will praise Him as their Helper. The music here strikes in, anticipating this praise. Vers. 6-13. This second half takes up the " blessed" of the distichic epode (eVwSo?) of the first, and consequently joins member to member chain-like on to it. Many hindrances must be cleared away if the poet is to get back to Zion, his true home; but his longing carries the surety within itself of its fulfilment : blessed, yea in himself blessed, is the man, who has his strength (Tiy only here plene) in God, so that, consequently, the strength of Him to whom all things are possible is mighty in his weakness. What is said in ver. Qh is less adapted to be the object of the being called blessed than the result of that blessed relationship to God. What follows shows that the " high-roads" are not to be understood according to Isa. xl. 3 sq., or any other passage, as an ethical, notional figure (Venema, Hengstenberg, Hitzig, and others), but according to Isa. xxxiii. 8 (cf. Jer. xxxi. 21), with Aben-Ezra, Vatablus, and the ma- jority of expositors, of the roajls leading towards Zion ; not, however, as referring to the return from the Exile, but to the going u p to a festi val : the pilgrim-high-roads with their sepa- rate halting-places (stations) were constantly present to the mind of such persons. And though they may be driven never so far away fi'om them, they will nevertheless reach the goal of their longing. The most gloomy present becomes bright to them : passing through even a terrible wilderness, they turn it (inri''Ei''') into a place of springs, their joyous hope and the infinite beauty of the goal, which is worth any amount of toil and trouble, afford them enlivening comfort, refreshing strengthen- ing in the midst of the arid steppe. i<3nn poy does not signify the "Valley of weeping," as Hupfeld at last renders it (LXX. KotXdSa TOV K\av6fMO}vo<;), although Burckhardt found a t^'->^j lioJl (Valley of weeping) in the neighbourhood of Sinai. In Hebrew "weeping" is ''-?3, '"133^ ni33, not ND3. Renan, in the fourth chapter of his Vie de Jesus, understands the expression to mean the last station of those who journey from northern 6 rSAI.M LXXXIV. G-13. Palestine on this side of the Jordan towards Jerusalem, viz. Ain el-Haraimje, in a narrow and gloomy valley where a black stream of water flows out of the rocks in which graves are dug , so that consequently N3an p'O) signifies Valley of tears or of trickling waters. But such trickling out of the rock is also called ^"33, Job xxviii. 11, and not W3. This latter is the singular to D\s-33 in 2 Sam. v. 24 (cf. D^^5?3, D^snv, ciii. 21), the name of a treej and, according to the old Jewish lexicographers, of the mulberry-tree (Talmudic m\, cjj) ; but according to the designation, of a tree from which some kind of fluid flows, and such a tree is the ilO, resembling the balsam-tree, which is very common in the arid valley of Mecca, and therefore might also have given its name to some arid valley of the Holy Land {vid. Winer's Realivorterbuch, s.v. Bacha), and, according to 2 Sam. V. 22-25, to one belonging, as it would appear, to the line of valley which leads from the coasts of the Philistines to Jerusalem. What is spoken of in passages like Isa. xxxv. 7, xH. 18, as being wrought by the omnipotence of God, who brings His people home to Zion, appears here as the result of the power of faith in those who, keeping the same end of their journeyings in view, pass through the unfruitful sterile valley. That other side, however, also does not remain unexpressed. Not only does their faith bring forth water out of the sand and rock of the desert, but God also on His part lovingly antici- pates their love, and rewardingly anticipates their faithfulness : a gentle rain, like that which refreshes the sown fields in the autumn, descends from above and enwraps it (viz. the Valley of Baca) in a fulness of blessing {^^T-, Hiphil with two accusa- tives, of which one is to be supplied : cf. on the figure, Ixv. 14). The arid steppe becomes resplendent with a flowery festive frarmont (Isa. xxxv. 1 sq.), not to outward appearance, but to theni spiritually, in a manner none the less true and real. And whereas under ordinary circumstances the strength of the traveller diminishes in proportion as he has traversed more and more of his toilsome road, with them it is the very reverse ; they go from strength to strength (cf. on the expression, Jer. ix. 2, xii. 2), i.e. they receive strength for strength (cf. on the subject-matter, Isa. xl. 31, John i. 16), and that an ever in- creasing strength, the nearer they come to the desired goal, PSALM LXXXIV. C-13. 7 which also they cannot fail to reach. The pilgriin-band (this is the subject to '"'^"^!'.), going on from strength to ('?X) strength, at last reaches, attains to (/J< instead of the \^.ri"% used in other instances) Elohiin in Zion. Having reached this final goal, the pilgrim-band pours forth its heart in the language of prayer such as we have in ver. 9, and the music here strikes up and blends its sympathetic tones with this converse of the church with its God. The poet, however, who in spirit accompanies them on their pilgrimage, is now all the more painfully conscious of being at the present time far removed from this goal, and in the next strophe prays for relief. He calls God =I35JD (as in lix. 12), for without Plis protection David's cause is lost. May He then behold (i^^?"], used just as absolutely as in 2 Chron. xxiv. 22, cf. Lam. iii. 50), and look upon the face of His anointed, which looks up to Him out of the depth of its reproach. The position of the words shows that ^^2^-3 is not to be regarded as the object to nsn^ according to Ixxxix. 19 (cf. xlvii. 10) and in opposition to the accentuation, for why should it not then have been wnhn i:3J0 nxi? The confirmation (ver. 11) puts the fact that we have before us a Psalm belonging to tlie time of D avid's per - secution_byAbsaloiu, beyond all doubt. Manifestly, when his king prevails, the })oet will at the same time (cf. David's lan- guage, 2 Sam. XV. 25) be restored to the sanctuary. A single day of his Ife in the courts of God is accounted by him as better than a thousand other days {%^^^ with Olewejored and preceded by Relia parvuiii). He would rather lie down on the ^ threshold (concerning the significance of this ^^iJ^pi? in the mouth of a Korahite, vid. supra^ vol. ii. p. 53) in the house of his God than dwell within in the tents of ungodliness (not "palaces," as one might have expected, if the house of God had at that time been a palace). For how worthless is the pleasure and concealment to be had there, when compared with the salvation and protection which Jahve Elohim affords to His saints ! This is the only instance in which God is directly galled a sun (ti'???') in the sacred writings (cf. Sir. xlii. IG). He is called a shield as protecting those who flee to Him and rendering them inaccessible to their foes, and a sun as the Being who dwells in an unapproachable lig^lit, which, going forth from Him in love towards men, is particularized as |n and 8 PSALM LXXXV. 1123. as the iientle and overpowcrino; light of the grace and glory (X^'ipi-^ 3"<^l ^o^a,) of the Father of Lights. The highest good is self-communicative (coinmunicativnm siii). The God of salva- tion does not refuse any good thing to those who walk ^''pnii (□"on Tj-inSj ci. 6; of. on xv. 2). Upon all receptive ones, i.e. all those who are desirous and capable of receiving His bless- ings, He freely bestows them out of the abundance of His good things. Strophe and anti-strophe are doubled in this second half of the song. The epode closely resembles that which follows the fii'st half. And this closing ashrS is not followed by any Sela. The music is hushed. The song dies away with an iambic cadence into a waiting expectant stillness. PSALM LXXXV. PETITION OF THE HITHERTO FAVOURED PEOPLE FOR A RESTORATION OF FAVOUR. 2 THOU hast been favourable, Jahve, unto Thy land, Thou hast turned the captivity of Jacob ; 3 Thou hast taken away the iniquity of Thy people, Thou hast covered all their sin — (^Sela.) 4 Thou hast drawn in all Thy wrath. Thou hast turned from the heat of Thine anger. f> Turn unto vis again, O God of our salvation, And cause Thine indignation against us to cease. <) Wilt Thou for ever be angry with us, Wilt Thou draw out Thine anger to all generations ? 7 Wilt Thou not quicken us again, That Thy people may rejoice in Thee? 8 Cause us to see, Jahve, Thy loving-kindness, And grant us Thy salvation. {) I will hear what God Jahve will speak Yea, He spcaketh peace to His people and to His saints; Only let them not again fall into folly! 10 Yea, nigh unto those who fear Him is His salvation^ That glory may again dwell in our land. PSALM I.XXXV. 2-4. 11 Loving-kindness and truth sliall meet together, Righteousness and peace shall kiss each other. J 2 Truth sliall spring out of tlie earth, And rio;hteousuess shall look down from heaven. mrr S' 13 Jahve shall give every good th And our land shall again yield its increase. 14 Righteousness shall go before Him And attend unto the way of Plis steps. The second part of the Book of Isaiah is written for the Israel of the Exile. It was the incidents of the Exile that first unsealed this great and indivisible prophecy, which in its com- pass is without any parallel. And after it had been unsealed there sprang up out of it those numerous songs of the Psalm- collection which remind us of their common model, partly by their allegorizing figurative language, partly by their lofty ])rophetic thoughts of consolation. This first Korahitic Jahve- Psalm (in ver. 13 coming into contact with Ps. Ixxxiv., cf. Ixxxiv. 12), which more particularly by its allegorizing fio;ura- tive language points to Isa. ch. xl.— Ixvi., belongs to the number of these so-called deutero-Isaianic Psalms. The reference of Ps. Ixxxv. to the period after the Exile and to the restoration of the state, says Dursch, is clearly ex- i)ressed in the Psalm. On the other hand, Henfrstenberir maintains that "the Psalm does not admit of any historical interpretation," and is sure only of this one fact, that vers. 2-4. do not relate to the deliverance out of the Exile. Even this Psalm, however, is not a formulary belonging to no express ])eriod, but has a special historical basis ; and vers. 2-4 certainly sound as though they came from the lips of a people restored to their fatherland. Vers. 2-4. The poet first of all looks back into the past, so rich in tokens of favour. The six perfects are a remembrance of former events, since nothing precedes to modify them. Cer- tainly that which has just been experienced might also be in- tended ; but then, as Hitzig supposes, vers. 5-8 would be the jietition that preceded it, and ver. 9 would go back to the turn- ing-point of the answering of the request — a retrograde move- 10 PSALM LXXXV. o-fi. ment wliicli is less probable than that in =i3?VJ'j ver. 5, we have a transition to the petition for a renewal of previously manifested favour. (^"'3'^') '^^^v' 2^j here said of a cessation of a national judgment, seems to be meant literally, not figuratively (yid. xiv. 7). n^n, with the accusative, to have and to show pleasure in any one, as in the likewise Korahitic lamentation-Psalm xliv. 4, of. cxlvii. 11. In ver. 3a sin is conceived of as a burden of the conscience ; in ver. 36 as a blood-stain. The music strikes up in tlie middle of the strophe in the sens.e of the "blessed" in xxxii. 1. In ver. 4a God's n"i2y ({.'^'l, like TEVj^ in xxxviii. 2, has t^(cf. the inflexion of ''"IQ and ph) instead of the f in ^:>V'^'\ 'nS^.. Here at the close of the strophe the prayer turns back inferentially to this attribute of God. PSALM LXXXV. 9-11. 11 Vers. 9-11. Tlie prayer is followed by attention to tlio tlivine answer, and by the answer itself. The poet stirs himself up to give ear to the words of God, like Habakkuk, cli. ii. 1. Beside nyp'j'X we find the reading nj,'Cw'X, vid. on xxxix. 13. The construction of 'n ?N'n is appositional, like 11"^ ^|"2ri, Ges. § 113. ^3 neither introduces the divine answer in express words, nor states the ground on which he hearkens, but rather supports the fact that God speaks from that which He has to speak. Peace is the substance of that which He speaks to His people, and that (the particularizing Waw) to His saints ; but with the addition of an admonition. PN is dehortative. It is not to be assumed in connection with this ethical notion that the ah of n?pD7 is the locative ah as in npixti*?, ix. 18. npca is related to 7D3 like foolery to folly. The present misfortune, as is indi- cated here, is the merited consequence of foolish behaviour (playing the fool). In vers. 10 sqq. the poet unfolds the promise of peace which he has heard, just as he has heard it. What is meant by '\Vp\ is particularized first by the infinitive, and then in perfects of actual fact. The possessions that make a people truly happy and prosperous are mentioned under a charming allegory exactly after Isaiah's manner, ch. xxxii. 16 sq., xlv. 8, lix. 14 sq. The glory that has been far removed again takes up its abode in the land. Mercy or loving-kindness walks along the streets of Jerusalem, and there meets fidelity, like one guardian angel meeting the other. Righteousness and peace or prosperity, these two inseparable brothers, kiss each other there, and fall lovingly into each other's arms.* Vers. 12-14. The poet pursues this charming picture of the future further. After God's niDS, i.e. faithfulness to the promises, has descended like dew, DDX, i.e. faithfulness to the covenant, springs up out of the land, the fruit of that fertilizing influence. And '"'1^7^'; gracious justice, looks down from heaven, * Concerning St. Bernard's beautiful parable of the reeouciliation of the inviolability of divine threatening and of justice Avith mercy and peace in the work of redemption, which has grown out of this passage of the I'salms, Misericurdia et Veritas obviaveriait slhi, justitia et pax oscultifie stmt. and has been transferred to the painting, poetry, and drama of the middk- ages, viil. Piper's Evangelischer Kaknder, 1859, S. 24-34, and tlie beautiful miniature representing the duTrxafii; of oix-xioavvr, and si>jj*>! of a Greek Psalter, 1867, S. 63. 12 PSALM LXXXVI. smiling favour and dispensing blessing. W in ver. 13 places these two prospects in reciprocal relation to one another (of. Ixxxiv. 7) ; it is found once instead of twice. Jahve gives nitsn, everything that is only and always good and that imparts true happiness, and the land, corresponding to it, yields np^^;, the in- crease which might be expected from a land so richly blessed (cf. Ixvii. 7 and the promise in Lev. xxvi. 4). Jahve Himself is present in the land : righteousness walks before Him ma- jestically as His herald, and righteousness VDys r\-rib Db*;, sets (viz. its footsteps) upon the way of His footsteps, that is to say, follows Him inseparably. Vcys stands once instead of twice ; the construct is to a certain extent attractional, as in Ixv. 12, Gen. ix. 6. Since the expression is neither ^^^ (1. 23, Isa. li. 10) nor V:^^ (Isa. xlix. 11), it is natural to interpret the expression thus, and it gives moreover (cf. Isa. Iviii. 8, Hi. 12) an excellent sense. But if, which v/e prefer, D'b' is taken in the sense of ni? D^b' (as e.g. in Job iv. 20) with the following ?, to give special heed to anything (Deut. xxxii. 46, Ezek. xl. 4, xliv. 5), to be anxiously concerned about it (1 Sam. ix. 20), then we avoid the supplying in thought of a second Vcys, which is always objectionable, and the thought obtained by the other interpretation is brought clearly before the mind: righteous- ness goes before Jahve, who dwells and walks abroad in Israel, and gives heed to the way of His steps, that is to say, follows carefully in His footsteps. PSALM LXXXVL PEAYER OF A PERSECUTED SAINT. 1 BOW down, Jahve, Thine ear, answer me, For I am needy and poor. 2 Preserve my soul, for I am pious ; Help Thy servant, O Thou my God, Who cleaveth confidingly to Thee. 3 Be merciful unto mc, Lord, For unto Tiiee do I cry all the day. 4 Itejoice the soul of Thy servant, I lift up my soul. PSALM LXXXVI. lo 5 For Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, And plenteous in mercy unto all who call upon Thee. G Give ear, Jahve, to my prayer, And hearken to the cry of my importunate supplications. 7 In the day of my distress do I call unto Thee, For Thou wilt answer me. 8 There is none like unto Thee among the gods, O Lord, And Thy works have not their equal. 9 All nations which Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, Lord, And give glory to Thy name. 10 For Thou art great and doest wondrous things, Thou, Thou art God alone. 11 Teach me, Jahve, Thy way, I desire to walk in Thy truth ; Unite my heart to fear Thy Name. 12 I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart. And will glorify Thy Name for ever, 13 That Thy mercy has been great over me, And Thou hast rescued my soul out of the deep hell. 14 Elohim, the proud are risen against me, And an assembly of violent men seek my soul, And have not set Thee before their eyes. 15 But Thou, Lord, art a God compassionate and gracious, Long-suffering and plenteous in mercy and truth. 16 Turn unto me and be gracious to me, O give strength unto Thy servant And save the son of Thy handmaid. 17 Show me a token for good, That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, That Thou, Jahve, hast helped me and comforted me. A Psalm " by David" which has points of contact with Ps. Ixxxv. (cf. Ixxxvi. 2, TDH, with Ixxxv. 9; Ixxxvi. 15, non niDSI, with Ixxxv. 11) is here inserted between Korahitic Psalms : it can only be called a Psalm by David as having grown out of Davidic and other model passages. The writer cannot be 14 rSALM LXXXVI. 1-13. compared for poetical capability either with David or ^Yith the authors of such Psalms as Ps. cxvi. and cxxx. His Psalm is more liturgic than purely poetic, and it is also only entitled npsrij without bearing in itself any sign of musical designation. It possesses this characteristic, that the divine name ''J^X occurs seven times,* just as it occurs three times in Ps. cxxx., forming the start for a later, Adonajic style in imitation of the Elohimic. Vers. 1-5. The prayer to be heard runs like Iv. 3 ; and the statement of the ground on which it is based, ver. lb, word for word like xl. 18. It is then particularly expressed as a prayer for preservation ('"^jpt^, as in cxix. 167, although im- perative, to be read shconfrah; cf. xxx. 4 "•"!"! '^^^ xxxviii. 21 ^S"!"! or 'ST]!, and what we have already observed on xvi. 1 ^J^.ptr) ; for he is not only in need of God's help, but also because ^^p^I (iv. 4, xvi. 10), i.e. united to Him in the bond of affection port, Hos. vi. 4, Jer. ii. 2), not unworthy of it. In ver. 2 we hear the strains of xxv. 20, xxxi. 7 ; in ver. 3, of Ivii. 2 sq. : the confirmation in ver. 46 is taken verbally fi-om xxv. 1, cf. also cxxx. 6. Here, what is said in ver. 4 of this shorter Adonajic Psalm, cxxx., is abbreviated in the aira^ jeypa/u,. n?D (root bo, bi^j to allow to hang loose, 'x^aXdv, to give up, remittere). The Lord is good (SiJO), i.e. altogether love, and for this very reason also ready to forgive, and great and rich in mercy for all who call upon Him as such. The beginning of the follow- ing group also accords with Ps. cxxx. in ver. 2. Vers. 6-13. Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms and of the Law ; viz., ver. 7 follows xvii. 6 and other passages ; ver. 8tf is taken fi'om Ex. XV. 11, cf. Ixxxix. 9, where, however, D\n^N, gods, is avoided; ver. %h follows Deut. iii. 24; ver. 9 follows xxii. 28 ; ver. 11a is taken from xxvii. 11; ver. lib from xxvi. 3; ver. 13, 7\^*p n>nnri from Deut. xxxii. 22, where instead of this it is n^rinri^ just as in cxxx. 2 ^^1^[]|? (supphcatory prayer) instead of "'niJIJnn * For the genuine reading in ver. 4 (whore Ileidenheim reads niH^) and in vor. 5 (where Nisscl reads mn'') is also '•ynx (Bouiberg, Ilutter, etc.). Both the divine names in vers. 1 and 5 belong to the 134 pN"ni. The divine name ^JIS, which is written and is not merely substituted for nin\ is called in the language of the Masora *5>;*71 (the true and real one). PSAUr LXXXVI. 14-17. 15 (importunate supplications) ; and also ver. 10 (cf. Ixxii. 18) is a doxolooical formula that was already in existence. The con- struction 3 2''\ypn is the same as in Ixvi. 19. But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With the con- fession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Apoc. XV. 4. " All nations, which Thou hast made" — they have their being from Thee ; and although they have forgotten it (ciJ. ix. 18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it. a'ia"73, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities) ; cf. Jer. xvi. 16 with Ps. xxii. 18; Tubit xiii. 11, e6u7] TToXXd, with ibid. xiv. 6, irdvTa to. eOv-q. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in ver. 11: wd cor memuj ut timeat nomen tuum ! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the LXX., Syriac, and Vulgate : ketetur {^}j\ from ^y}). The meaning, however, is not so much " keep my heart near to the only One," as " direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing." The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (njnnn ijis*^, like n^rinri ps*, the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Ezek. xxxi. 14 sqq.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (^3, ver. 13, as in Ivi. 14). Vers. 14-17. The situation is like that in the Psalms of the time of Saul. Tlie writer is a persecuted one, and in con- stant peril of his life. He has taken ver. 14a5 out of the Elo- himic Ps. liv. ver. 5, and retained the Elohim as a proper name of God (cf. on the other hand vers. 8, 10) ; he has, however, altered C^t to Q''1T, which here, as in Isa. xiii. 11 (cf., however, ibid. XXV. 5), is the alternating word to D^^*''"iy. In ver. 15 he supports his petition that follows by Jahve's testimony con- cerning Himself in Ex. xxxiv. 6. The appellation given to himself by the poet in ver. 16 recurs in cxvi. 16 (cf. Wisd. ix. 5). The poet calls himself " the son of Thy handmaid" as liaving been born into the relation to Him of servant ; it is a relationship that has come to him by birth. How beautifully 16 PSALM LXXXVII. does tlie Adonaj come in here for the seventh time ! He is even from liis mother's womb the servant of tlie sovereign Lord, from whose omnipotence lie can therefore also look for a miraculous interposition on his behalf. A " token for good " is a sj)ecial dispensation, from which it becomes evident to him that God is kindly disposed towards him. nniDp as in the mouth of Nehemiah, ch. v. 19, xiii. 31 ; of Ezra, eh. viii. 22 ; and also even in Jeremiah and earlier. VJ^'TI is just as paren- thetical as in Isa. xxvi. 11. PSALM LXXXVIL THE CITY OF THE NEW BIRTH OF THE NATIONS. 1 HIS founded [city] upon the holy mountains — 2 Jahve loveth the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city of God ! {Sela.) 4 " I will proclaim Rahab and Babylon as My intimates ; Behold Philistia and Tyre, together with ^Ethiopia — Til at one is born there," 5 And to Zion it shall one day be said : Each and every one is born in her. And He, the Highest, doth establish her. 6 Jahve shall reckon in the list of the nations : That one is born there. (Sela.) 7 And singing as well as dancing (they say) : All my fountains are in thee ! The mission thought in Ixxxvi. 9 becomes the ruling thouglit in this Korahitic Psalm. It is a prophetic Psalm in the style, boldly and expressively concise even to obscurity (Eusebius, cT(f)uBpa alvtyfjiaTcioST]^ koX a-Koreivm elprjfieuo^;), in which the first three oracles of the tetralogy Isa. xxi.-xxii. 14, and the passage Isa. xxx. 6, 7 — a passage designed to be as it were a memorial exhibition — are also written. It also resembles these oracles in this respect, that ver. lb opens the whole arsis-like rSALJI LXXXVII. 1-4. 17 by a solemn statement of its subject, like tlie emblematical inscriptions there. As to the rest, Isa. xliv. 5 is the key to its meaning. The threefold 1^^ here corresponds to the threefold n.T in that passage. Since Eahab and Babylon as the foremost worldly powers are mentioned first among the peoples who come into the congregation of Jahve, and since the prospect of the poet has moulded itself according to a present rich in promise and carrying such a future in its bosom, it is natural (with Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Vaihinger, Keil, and others) to suppose that the\ Psalm was composed when, in consequence of the destruction of the Assyrian army before Jerusalem, offerings and presents were brought from many quarters for Jahve and the king of Judah (2 Cliron. xxxii. 23), and the admiration of Hezekiah,. the favoured one of God, had spread as far as Babylon. Just as Micah (ch. iv. 10) mentions Babylon as the place of the chastisement and of the redemption of his nation, and as Isaiah, about the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, predicts to the king a carrying away of his treasures and his posterity to Babylon, so here Egypt and Babylon, the inheritress of Assyria, stand most prominent among the worldly powers that shall be obliged one day to bow themselves to the God of Israel. In a similar connection Isaiah (ch. xix.) does not as yet mention Babylon side by side with Egypt, but Assyria. Vers. 1-4. The poet is absorbed in the contemplation of the glory of a matter which he begins to celebrate, without naming it. Whether we render it : His founded, or (since ID^p and IQ^l^ are both used elsewhere as pa?'^. pass.) : His foundation (after the form n^^pp, poeticailly for liC)', a founding, then that which is set fast = a foundation), the meaning remains the same ; but the more definite statement of the object with P'V "'?.i!^ is more easily connected with what precedes by regard- ing it as a participle. The suffix refers to Jahve, and it is Zion, whose praise is a favourite theme of the Korahitic songs, tliat is intended. We cannot tell by looking to the accents whether the clause is to be taken as a substantival clause (His founded [city] is upon the holy mountains) or not. Since, however, the expression is not t^'^r'?.:!^!? J*'!? i'"i^^D', t^'lp '""^'"'^ ^n^^O' i« an object placed first in advance (which the antithesis to the VOL. III. 2 13 PSAUI LXXXVir. 1-4. other dwellings of Jacob would admit of), ami in ver. 2« a new synonymous object is subordinated to 3nk by a similar turn of the discourse to Jer. xiii. 27, vi. 2 (Ilitzig). By alter- ing the division of the verses as Hupfeld and Hofmann do (His foundation or founded [city] upon the holy mountains doth Jahve love), ver. 2 is decapitated. Even now the God- founded city (surrounded on three sides by deep valleys), whose firm and visible foundation is the outward manifestation of its imperishable inner nature, rises aloft above all the other dwell- ing-places of Israel. Jahve stands in a lasting, faithful, loving relationship (^HN*, not d prcet. 3ns) to the gates of Zion. These gates are named as a periphrasis for Zion, because they bound the circuit of the city, and any one who loves a city delights to go frequently through its gates ; and they are perhaps men- tioned in prospect of the fulness of the heathen that shall enter into them. In ver. 3 the LXX. correctly, and at the same time in harmony with the syntax, renders : AeBo^aa/bueva i\a- Xi',9r) 'irepl aov. The construction of a plural subject with a singular predicate is a syntax common in other instances also, whether the subject is conceived of as a unity in the form of the plural {e.g. Ixvi. 3, cxix. 137, Isa. xvi. 8), or is indivi- dualized in the pursuance of the thought (as is the case most likely in Gen. xxvii. 29, cf. xii. 3) ; here the glorious things are conceived of as the sum-total of such. The operation of the construction of the active (Ew. § 295, b) is not probable here in connection with the participle. 3 beside "13'^ may signify the place or the instrument, substance and object of the speecli (e.g. cxix. 46), but also the person against whom the words are spoken (e.g. 1. 20), or concerning whom they are uttered (as the words of the suitor to the father or the relatives of the maiden, 1 Sam. XXV. 39, Cant. viii. 8 ; cf. on the construction, 1 Sam. ; xix. 3). The poet, without doubt, here refers to the words of (promise concerning the eternal continuance and future glory of Jerusalem : Glorious things are spoken, i.e. exist as spoken, in reference to thee, O tliou city of (jiod, city of His choice and of His love. The glorious contents of the promise are now unfolded, and that with the most vivid directness : Jahve Himself takes up the discourse, and declares the gracious, glorious, world-wide . mission of His chosen and beloved city : it shall become the rSALM LXXXVII. 5-7. 13 birtli-place of all nations. Rahah is Egypt, as in Ixxxix. 11, i Isa. XXX. 7, li. 9, the southern worldly power, and Babylon the j northern. i''3t'?, as frequently, of loud (Jer. iv. 16) and honourable public mention or commemoration, xlv. 18. It does not signify "to record or register in writing;" for the official name "i^STD, which is cited in support of this meaning, designates the historian of the empire as one who keeps in remembrance the memorable events of the history of his time It is therefore impossible, with Hofmann, to render : I will add Rahab and Babylon to those who know me. In general ? is not used to point out to whom the addition is made as belonging to them, but for what purpose, or as what (cf. 2 Sam. V. 3, Isa. iv. 3), these kingdoms, hitherto hostile towards God and His people, shall be declared : Jahve completes what He Himself has brought about, inasmuch as He publicly and colemnly declares them to be those who know Him, i.e. those who experimentally (^vid. xxxvi. 11) know Him as their God. Accordingly, it is clear that D"C'"n'?.^ nt is also meant to refer t(i the conversion of the other three nations to whom the fingerj of God points with nan, viz. the war-loving Philistia, the richl and proud Tyre, and the adventurous and powerful Ethiopia' (Isa. ch. xviii.). nj does not refer to the individuals, nor to theh sum-total of these nations, but to nation after nation (cf. nj Ei*^, Isa. xxiii. 13), by fixing the eye upon each one separately. And DK' refers to Zion. The words of Jahve, which come in without any intermediary preparation, stand in the closest con- nection with the language of the poet and seer. Zion appear.s\^ elsewhere as the mother who brings forth Israel again as a \ numerous people (Isa. Ixvi. 7, liv, 1-3) : it is the children of the dispersion (diaspora) which Zion regains in Isa. Ix. 4 sq. ; ) here, however, it is the nations which are born in Zion. The\ poet does not combine with it the idea of being born again in the depth of its New Testament meaning; he means, however, that the nations v/ill attain a right of citizenship in Zloii {iroXireui tov 'I''N, Esth. i. 8, signifies each and every one ; accordingly here t^'''X1 \i'''ii. (individual and, or after, individual) affirms a pror/ressus in infinitum^ where one is ever added to another. Of an immeasurable multitude, and of each individual in this multitude in particular, it is said that he was born in Zion. Now, too, pv.V ^.^-^.^7^^ ^^'^1 has a significant con- nection with what precedes. AVhilst from among foreign peoples more and more are continually acquiring the right of natives in Zion, and thus are entering into a new national alliance, so that a breach of their original national friendships is taking place, He Himself (cf. 1 Sam. xx. 9), the Most High, will uphold Zion (xlviii. 9), so that under His protection and blessing it shall become ever greater and more glorious. Ver. G tells us what will be the result of such a progressive incorpo- ation in the church of Zion of those who have hitherto been ar removed, viz. Jahve will reckon when He writeth down 2in3 as in Josh, xviii. 8) the nations ; or better, — since this would more readily be expressed by i^^^a, and the book of the living (Isa. iv. 3) is one already existing from time imme- . morial, — He will reckon in the list (2in3 after the form Di-'n, \ ^"i^n, ""^P? = 2^??) Ezek. xiii. 9) of the nations, i.e. when He Igoes over the nations that are written down there and chosen Ifor the coming salvation, " this one was born there ;" lie will therefore acknowledge them one after another as those born in Zion. The end of all history is that Zion shal' become the rSALM LXXXVIII. 21 metropolis of all nations. When the fulness of the Gentiles i is thus come in, then shall all and each one as well singing as I dancing say (supply =i"iDX^) : All my fountains are in thee, j Among the old translators the rendering of Aquila is the best : Kol aSoz/re? to? %opot- iraaat Trrjyal ev aoi, which Jerome follows, et cant07'es quasi in choris : oinnes fontes mei in te. One would rather render ^''??f}, " flute-players" (LXX. a>9 iv av\ot'0, all my near-dwellers, i.e. those who dwell with me under the same roof*), is not Hebrew, and deprives us of the thought which corresponds to the aim of the whole, that Jerusalem shall be universally regarded as the place where the water of life springs for the whole of mankind, and - shall be universally praised as this place of fountains. PSALM LXXXVIII. TLAINTIVE PRAYER OF A PATIENT SUFFERER LIKE JOB. 2 JAHVE, God of my salvation, In the time when I cry in the night before Thee, * Hupfeld cites Rashi as Laving tlius explained it ; but his gloss is to be rendered: my w lole iumost part (after the Aramaic = Vd) is with thee, i.e. thy salvation. 22 PSALM LXXXVIII. 3 Let my prayer come before Thy face, Incline Tliine ear to my crying. 4 For satiated with sufferings is my soul, And my life is come nigh unto Hades. 5 I am accounted as those who go down to the pit, I am become as a man that hath no strength — ■ 6 A freed one among the dead, Like the slain, those buried in the grave, Whom Thou rememberest no more, And they are cut off from Thy hand. 7 Tliou hast laid me in the pit of the abysses. In darknesses, in the depths of the sea. 8 Upon me Thy fierce anger lieth hard, And all Thy waves dost Thou bend down. [Scla.) 9 Thou hast removed my familiar friends from me, Thou hast made me an abomination to them. Who am shut up and cannot come forth. 10 j\Iine eye languisheth by reason of affliction, I call upon Tliee, Jahve, every day, I stretch out my hands unto Thee. 11 Wilt Thou do wonders unto the dead, Or shall the shades arise to give thanks unto Thee ? (Sell.) 12 Shall Thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave, Thy faithfulness in the place of destruction ? 13 Shall Thy wonder-working power be made known in tlie darkness, And Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 14 And as for me — to Thee, Jahve, do I cry, Even in the morning my prayer cometh to meet Thee. 15 Wlierefore, Jahve, dost Thou cast off my soul, Dost Thou hide Thy face from me ? 10 Needy am I and ready to die from my youth up, I bear Thy terrors, I am utterly helpless. 17 Over me Thy fierce anger hath passed, Thy terrors have destroyed me. PSAL.M LXXXVIII. 23 IS They have surrounded me like waters all tlie day, They compassed me about altogether. 19 Thou hast removed far from me lover aud friend, My familiar friends are darkness. Ps. Ixxxviii. is as gloomy as Ps, Ixxxvii. is cheerful ; they stand near one another as contrasts. Kot Ps. Ixxvii., as the old expositors answer to the question qncenam ode omnium iristissima^ but this Ps. Ixxxviii. is the darkest, gloomiest, of all the plaintive Psalms ; for it is true the name " God of my salvation," with which the praying one calls upon God, and his praying itself, show that tlie spark of faith within him is not utterly extinguished ; but as to the rest, it is all one pouring forth of deep lament in the midst of the severest conflict of temptation in the presence of death, the gloom of melancholy does not brighten up to become a hope, the Psalm dies away in Job-like lamentation. Herein we discern echoes of the Korahitic Ps. xlii. and of Davidic Psalms : compare ver. 3 with xviii. 7 ; ver. 5 with xxviii. 1 ; ver. 6 with xxxi. 23 ; ver. 18 with xxii. 17; ver. 19 (although differently applied) with xxxi. 12 ; and more particularly the questions in vers. 11-13 with vi. 6, of which they are as it were only the amj)lification. But these Psalm-echoes are outweighed by the still more striking j)oints of contact with the Book of Job, both as regards linguistic usage (3^?■^, ver. 10, Job xli. 44; ^''ND^, ver. 11, Job xxvi. 5 ; p■^?^5, ver. 12, Job xxvi. 6, xxviii. 22 ; ">p, ver. 16fl, Job xxxiii. 'Ib^ xxxvi. 14; D'p^*, ver. lOb, Job xx. 25; DW3, ver. 17, Job vi. 4) and single thoughts (cf. ver. 5 with Job xiv. ]0; ver. 9 with Job xxx. 10; ver. 19 with Job xvii. 9, xix. 14), and also the suffering condition of the poet aud the whole manner in which this finds expression. For the poet finds himself in the midst of the same temptation as Job not merely so far as his mind and spirit are concerned ; but his out- ward affliction is, according to the tenor of his complaints, the same, viz. the leprosy (ver. 9), which, the disposition to which being born with him, has been his inheritance from his youth up (ver. 16). Now, since the Book of Job is a Chokma-work of the Salomonic age, and the two Ezrahites belonged to the wise men of the first rank at the court of Solomon (1 Kings v. 11 [iv. 31]), it is natural to suppose that the Book of Job 24 rSALM LXXXVIII. 2-8. lias sprnnfT out of this very Cliokma-company, and that perliaps this very Henian the Ezrahite who is the author of Ps. Ixxxviii. has made a passage of his own life, suffering, and conflict of soul, a subject of dramatic treatment. The inscription of the Psalm runs : A Psalm-song hy the Koraldtes ; to the Precentor, to he recited (lit. to be j^'^'^ssed doivn, not after Isa. xxvii. 2 : to be sung, which expresses nothing, nor : to be sung alternatingly, which is contrary to the character of the Psalm) after a sad manner (cf. liii. 1) ivith m%(ffied voice, a meditation hy Heman the Ezrahite. This is a double inscription, the two halves of which are contradictory. The bare pM^ side by side with mp~''J3!' would be perfectly in order, since the precentor Heman is a Korahite according to 1 Chron. vi. 18-23 [33-38] ; but ^misn p^n is the name of one of the four great Israelitish sages in 1 Kings v. 11 [iv. 31], who, according to 1 Chron. ii, 6, is a direct descendant of Zerah, and therefore is not of the tribe of Levi, but of Judah. Tlie suppositions that Heman the Korahite had been adopted into the family of Zerah, or that Heman the Ezrahite had been admitted among the Levites, are miserable attempts to get over the difficulty. At the head of the Psalm there stand two different statements respecting its origin side by side, which are irreconciUible. The assumption that the title of the Psalm originally was either merely mp"''jni5 "ilDTD T'K', or merely 'W^ nv:o^, is warranted by the fact that only in this one Psalm nV3D^ does not occupy the first place in the inscription. But which of the two statements is the more reliable one? Most assuredly the latter; for mp"''J3b "IIDTO y^ is only a recurrent repetition of the inscription of Ps. Ixxxvii. The second state- ment, on the other hand, by its precise designation o" the melody, and by the designation of the author, which corresponds to the Psalm that follows, gives evidence of its antiquity and its historical character. Vers. 2-8. Tiie poet finds himself in the midst of circum- stances gloomy in the extreme, but he does not despair; he still turns towards Jahve with his complaints, and calls Plim the God of his salvation. This actus directus of fleeing in prayer to the God of salvation, which urges its way through all tha is dark and gloomy, is the fundamental characteristic of all true PSALM LXXXVIII. 2-8. 25 filth. Ver. 2a is not to be rendered, as a clause of itself : " by day I cry unto Thee, in the night before Thee" (LXX. and Targum), which ought to have been C^V^ but (as it is also pointed, especially in Buer's text) : by day, i.e. in the time (Ivi. 4, Ixxviii. 42, cf. xviii. 1), when I cry before Thee in the night, let my prayer come . . . (Hitzig). In ver. db he calls his piercing lamentation, his wailing supplication, '^n, as in xvii. 1, Ixi. 2. HLsn as in Ixxxvi. 1, for which we find t:n in xvii. 6. The Beth of niyns, as in Ixv. 5, Lam. iii. 15, 30, denotes that of which his soul has already had abundantly sufficient. On ver. 4:b, cf. as to the syntax xxxi. 11. ?^X (^aira^ Xe^ofi. like ri'iP^X, xxii. 20) signifies succinctness, compactness, vigorousness (dSpoTTTi) : he is like a man from whom all vital freshness and vigour is gone, therefore now only like the shadow of a man, in fact like one already dead. ''^P^, in ver. Ga, the LXX. readers iv veKpoh i\ev9epo^ (Symmachus, a<^e\<; iX.evOepo<;) ; and in like manner the Tai'gum, and the Talmud which follows it in formulating the proposition that a deceased person is '•u'^n mii'on |D, free from the fulfilling of the precepts of the Law (cf . Rom. vi. 7). Hitzig, Ewald, Koster, and Bottcher, on the contrary, explain it according to Ezek. xxvii. 20 (where K'Sh signifies stragidnm) : among the dead is my couch (^'li'sn = 'j;i^'% Job xvii. 13). But in respect of Job iii. 19 the adjectival rendering is the more probable ; " one set free among the dead" (LXX.) is equivalent to one released from the bond of life (Job xxxix. 5), somewhat as in Latin a dead person is called defunctus. God does not remember the dead, i.e. prac-^ tically, inasmuch as, devoid of any progressive history, their condition remains always the same ; they are in fact cut away ("1TJ3 as in xxxi. 23, Lam. iii. 54, Isa. liii. 8) from the hand, viz. from the guiding and helping hand, of God. Their dwelling-place is the pit of the places lying deep beneath (cf. on ni'rinn^ Ixiii. 10, Ixxxvi. 13, Ezek. xxvi. 20, and more par- ticularly Lam. iii. 55), the dark regions (Q''3U'nD as in cxliii. 3, Lam. iii. 6), the submarine depths (nipvpn; LXX., Symmachus, the Syriac, etc. : iv aKia Oavdrov = niD!5:i3, according to Job X. 21 and frequently, but contrary to Lam. iii. 54), whose open abyss is the grave for each one. On ver. 86 cf. xlii. 8. The Mugrash by ina'ii'Q'^^ stamps it as an adverbial accusative (Targum), or more correctly, since the expression is not 'jrT'jy, 2G PSALM LXXXVIII. 9-13. as the object ])laced in advance. Only those who are not con- versant with the subject (as Hupfeld in this instance) imagine that tlie accentuation marks ^"'31' as a relative clause (cf. on the contrary viii. lb, xxi. ob, etc.). nsy, to bow down, press down ; here used of the turning or directing downwards (LXX. iWjyaye'?) of the waves, which burst like a cataract over the afflicted one. Vers. 9-13. The octastichs are now followed by hexastichs which belong together in pairs. The com})laint concerning the alienation of his nearest relations sounds like Job xix. 13 sqq., but the same strain is also frequently heard in the earlier Psalms written in times of suffering, e.g. xxxi. 9. He is for- saken by all his familiar friends (not : acquaintances, for V'^'^p signifies more than that), he is alone in the dungeon of wretched- ness, where no one comes near him, and whence he cannot make his escape. This sounds, according to Lev. ch. xiii., very much like the complaint of a leper. The Book of Leviticus there passes over from the uncleanness attending the beginning of human life to the uncleanness of the most terrible disease. Disease is the middle stage between birth and death, and, ac- cording to the Eastern notion, leprosy is the worst of all diseases, it is death itself clinging to the still living man (Num. xii. 12), and more than all other evils a stroke of the chastening hand of God (y^?.), a scourge of God (ni?"]y). The man suspected of liaving leprosy was to be subjected to a seven days' quarantine until the determination of the priest's diagnosis ; and if the leprosy was confirmed, he was to dwell apart outside the camp (Lev. xiii. 46), where, though not imprisoned, he was neverthe- less separated from his dwelling and his family (cf. Job^ i. 347), and if a man of position, would feel himself condemned to a state of involuntary retirement. It is natural to refer the NPS, which is closely connected with ''^^^, to this separation. '•J''^, ver. 10, instead of ''^V, as in vi. 8, xxxi. 10 ; his eye has lan- guished, vanished away (3XT of the same root as tdbescei^e, cognate with the root of J^n, Ixviii. 3), in consequence of (his) affliction. He calls and calls upon Jalive, stretches out {^W, expandere, according to the Arabic, more especially after the manner of a roof) his hands (jmlmas) towards Him, in order to shield himself from His wratli and to lead Him compassionately to give ear to him. In vers. 11-13 he bases his cry for lielp PSALM LXXXYIII. ii-ia. 27 upon a twofold wish, viz. to become an object of the miraculous help of God, and to be able to praise Him for it. Neither of these wishes would be realized if he were to die; for that which lies beyond this life is uniform darkness, devoid of any pro- gressive history. With crio alternates Q''^^2"l (sing. Nf)"!), the relaxed ones, i.e. shades (aKial) of the nether world. With reference to ^1V instead of nilinp^ vid. Ewald, § 337, b. Beside ■^l^'H (Job X. 21 sq.) stands n^^'^ ^^?, the land of forgetfulness (X7]dr]), where there is an end of all thinking, feeling, and acting (Eccles. ix. 5, 6, 10), and where the monotony of death, devoid of thought and recollection, reigns. Such is the repre- sentation given in the Old Testament of the state beyond the present, even in Ecclesiastes, and in the Apocrypha (Sir. xvii. 27 sq. after Isa. xxxviii. 18 sq. ; Baruch ii. 17 sq.) ; and it was obliged to be thus represented, for in the New Testament not merely the conception of the state after death, but this state itself, is become a different one. Vers. 14-19. He who complains thus without knowing any comfort, and yet without despairing, gathers himself up afresh for prayer. With V.^1 he contrasts himself with the dead who are separated from God's manifestation of love. Being still in life, although under wrath that apparently has no end, he strains every nerve to struggle through in prayer until he shall reach God's love. His complaints are petitions, for they are complaints that are poured forth before God. The destiny under which for a long time he has been more like one dying than living, reaches back even into his youth, "lyip (since IW is everywhere undeclined) is equivalent to ^"]y30. The i^rjiropr^dTju of the LXX. is the right indicator for the understanding of the uira^ Xc'y. nji2N. Aben-Ezra and Kimchi derive it from iS, like npy from pV* and assign to it the signifi- cation of duhitare. But it may be more safely explained after the Arabic words ^^i^ ^i , ^•-'U (root (_J', to urge forwards, push), in which the fundamental notion of driving back, nar- * The derivation is not contrary to the genius of the language ; tlie supplementing productive force of the language displayed in the liturgical poetry of the synagogue, also changes particles into verbs : vid. Zunz, Die s'jnagogaie Poesie des MittcMtcrs, S. 421. 28 rSALM LXXXVIII. 14-19. rowing and exliaustiug, is transferred to a weakening or weak- ness of the intellect. We might also compare n:3, ^i, " to disappear, vanish, pass away;" but the e^'qiroprjOr^v of the LXX. favours the kinship with that .•!, iufirma mente et consilii inops fuit* which has been already compared by Castell. The aorist of the LXX., however, is just as erroneous in this instance as in xlii. 5, Iv. 3, Ivii. 5. In all these instances the cohortative denotes the inward result following from an outward compulsion, as they say in Hebrew : I lay hold of trembling (Isa. xiii. 8, Job xviii. 20, xxi. 6) or joy (Isa. xxxv. 10, li. 11), when the force of circumstances drives one into such states of mind. Labouring under the burden of divine dispensations of a terrifying character, he finds himself in a state of mental weakness and exhaustion, or of insensible (senseless) fright ; over him as their destined goal before many others go God's burnings of wrath (pliir. only in this instance), His terrible decrees (vid. concerning T)])2 on xviii. 15) have almost anni- hilated him. ''ti^nns^ is not an impossible form (Olshausen, § 251, a), but an intensive form of inrsy^ the last part of the already inflected verb being repeated, as in ^3n 13^^, Hos. iv. 18 (cf. in the department of the noun, rii-3''S), edge-edges = many edges, cxlix. G), perhaps under the influence of the deri- vative.f The corrections 'JHricy (from nn?py) or 'Jnntsy (from nD>') are simple enough ; but it is more prudent to let tradition judge of that which is possible in the usage of the language. In ver. 18 the burnings become floods ; the wrath of God can be compared to every destroying and overthrowing element. The billows threaten to swallow him up, without any helping hand being stretched out to him on the part of any of his lovers and friends. Is ver. 19a to be now explained according to Job xvii. 14, viz. My familiar friends are gloomy darkness ; * Abulwalid also explains nj'lSX after the Arabic, but in a way that cannot be accepted, viz. " for a long time onwards," from the Arabic ijjan (^ihbdn, iff, (ifoJ\ //«/, taiffah), time, period — time conceived of in the on- ward rush, the constant succession of its moments. f lleidcnheim interprets : Tliy terrors are become to me as nn^i' (Lev. ixv. 23), i.e. inalienably my own. PSALM LXXXIX. 20 i.e. instead of tliose who were hitherto my famihars (,iob xix. 14), darkness is become my familiar friend ? One would liave thought that it ought then to have been ""y^^^ (Sclmurrer), or, according to Prov. vii. 4, ''V'^^'O^ and that, in connection with this sense of the noun, ycni2 ought as subject to have the prece- dence, that consequently "'J^'^I.^P is subject and '^'^'^^ predicate : my familiar friends have lost themselves in darkness, are be- come absolutely invisible (Hitzig at last). But the regular position of the words is kept to if it is interpreted : my familiar friends are reduced to gloomy darkness as my familiar friend, and the plural is justified by Job xix. 14 : Mother and sister (do I call) the worm. With this complaint the harp falls from the poet's hands. He is silent, and waits on God, that He may solve this riddle of affliction. From the Book of Job we might infer that He also actually appeared to him. He is more faithful than men. No soul that in the midst of wrath lays hold upon His love, whether with a firm or with a trembling hand, is suffered to be lost. PSALM LXXXIX. PRAYER FOR A RENEWAL OF THE MERCIES OF DAVID. 2 OF the loving-kindnesses of Jahve for ever will I sing. To remote generations will I make known Thy faithfulness with my mouth. 3 For I say : For ever is mercy being built up. In the heavens — there dost Thou establish Thy faithfulness. 4 " I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto David My servant : 5 For ever will I establish thy seed, And build up thy throne to remote generations." (Sela.) 6 And the heavens praise Thy wondrousness, Jahve, Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. 7 For who in the sky can be compared to Jahve, Who among the sons of the gods is like unto Jahve '? 8 A God terrible in the great council of the holy ones. And fearful above all those who are round about Him. 30 PSALM LXXXIX. 9 Jahve, God of hosts, who is as Thou ? ! A mighty One, Jah, and Thy faithfuhiess is round about Thee. 10 Thou art He who restraineth the pride of the sea ; When its waves arise, Thou stillest them. 11 Thou hast crushed Eahab as one that is slain, By the arm of Thy might hast Thou scattered Tiiy foes. 12 Thine are the heavens, Thine also is the earth ; The earth and that which filleth it hast Thou founded. 13 North and south, Thou hast created them ; Tabor and Hermon shout for joy at Tliy name. 14 Thine is an arm with heroic strength, Strong is Thy hand, exalted is Thy right hand. 15 Righteousness and right is the foundation of Thy throne, Mercy and truth stand waiting before Thee. 1(3 Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound, Who walk, O Jahve, in the light of Thy countenance ! 17 In Thy name do they rejoice continually. And tlu-ough Thy righteousness are they exalted. 18 For the glory of their mightiness art Thou, And through Thy favour is our horn exalted. 11) For to Jahve belongeth our shield. And to the Holy One of Israel our king. 20 Once Tliou spakest in vision to Thy familiar one, and saidst : " I have granted help to a mighty one, I have raised a stripling out of the peoj)le. 211 have found David My servant, With My holy oil have I anointed him ; 22 With whom My hand shall be stedfast, My arm also shall strengthen him. 23 An enemy shall not ensnare him. And the son of wantonness shall not oppress him. PSALM LXXXIX. 31 ^4 1 will break in pieces his oppressors before him, And I will smite those who hate him. 25 And My faithfulness and My mercy are with him, And in My Name shall his horn be exalted. 26 1 will set his hand upon the sea, And his right hand upon the rivers. 27 He shall cry unto Me : My Father art Thou, My God, and the Rock of my salvation ! 28 In return I will make him My first-born. The highest with respect to the kings of the earth. 29 For ever will I preserve to him My mercy, And My covenant sliall be inviolable with him, 30 I will make his seed to endure for ever. And his throne like the days of heaven. 31 If his children shall forsake ^ly law And walk not in My judgments ; 32 If they profane My statutes And keep not ^My commandments : 33 Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes ; 34 Nevertheless My loving-kindness will I not break off from him, And will not belie My faithfulness — 35 I will not profane My covenant Nor alter the vow of My lips. 36 One thing have I sworn by My holiness ; Verily I will not deceive David : 37 His seed shall endure to eternity, And his throne as the sun before Me. 38 As the moon shall it continue for ever — And the witness in the sky is faithful ! " (Sela.) 39 And Thou Thyself hast rejected and despised, Thou hast been wroth with Thine anointed ; 32 PSALM LXXXIX. 40 Thou hast shaken off from Thee the covenant of Thv servant, Thou hast profaned his diadem to the earth. 41 Thou hast broken down all his hedges, Thou hast laid his strongholds in ruins. 42 All who pass by the way spoil him, He is become a reproach to his neighbours. 43 Thou hast exalted the right hand of his oppressors, Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. 44 Thou didst also turn back the edge of his sword. And didst not hold him erect in the battle. 45 Thou hast caused him to lose his splendour, And hast cast his throne down to the ground. 46 Thou hast shortened the days of his youth. Thou hast covered him round with shame. {Sela.) 47 How long, Jahve, wilt Thou hide Thyself for ever, Shall Thy wrath burn like fire ? 48 Kemember : I— how utterly perishable ! For what vanity hast Thou created all the children of men ! 49 Who is the man that should live and not see death That should be able to secure his soul against the nether world ? {Sela.) 50 Where are Thy former loving-kindnesses. Lord, Which Thou hast sworn to David in Thy faithfulness ? 51 Eemember, Lord, the reproach of Tliy servants, That I carry in my bosom the reproach of many peoples, 52 Which reproach— Thine enemies, Jahve !— Which reproach the footsteps of Thine anointed. 53 Blessed be Jahve for everjiore ! Amen, and Amen. _ After having recognised the fact that the double inscrip. tion of Ps. Ixxxviii. places two irreconcilable statements con- cerning the origin of that Psalm side by side, we renounce the PSALM LXXXIX. 66 artifices by which Ethan (I^'X*) the Ezrahite, of the tribe of Judah (1 Kings v. 11 [iv. 31], 1 Cliron. ii. G), is made to be one and the same person with Ethan (Jeduthun) the son of Kushaiah the Merarite, of the tribe of Levi (1 Cliron. xv. 17, vi. 29-32 [44-47]), the master of the music together with Asaph and Heman, and the chief of the six classes of musi- cians over whom his six sons were placed as sub-directors (1 Chron. eh. xxv.). The collector has placed the Psalms of the two Ezrahites together. Without this relationship of the authors the juxta- position would also be justified by the reciprocal relation in which the two Psalms stand to one another by their common, striking coincidences with the Book of Job. As to the rest, however, Ps. Ixxxviii. is a purely individual, and Ps. Ixxxix. a ^JK[ thoroughly national Psalm. Both the poetical character and the situation of the two Psalms are distinct. The circumstances in which the writer of Ps. Ixxxix. finds himself are in most striking contradiction to the promises given to the house of David. He revels in the contents of these promises, and in the majesty and faithfulness of God, and then he pours forth his intense feeling of the great distance between these and the present circumstances in complaints over the afflicted lot of the anointed of God, and prays God to be mindful of His promises, and on the other hand, of the reproach by which at this time His anointed and His people are over- whelmed. The anointed one is not the nation itself (Hitzig), but he who at that time wears the crown. The crown of tlie king is defiled to the ground ; his throne is cast down to the earth ; he is become grey-headed before his time, for all the fences of his land are broken through, his fortresses faller and his enemies have driven him out of the field, so that reproach and scorn follow him at every step. There was no occasion for such complaints in the reign of Solomon ; but surely in the time of Pehoboam, into the first decade of whose reign Ethan the Ezrahite may have survived king Solomon, who died at the age of sixty. In the fifth year of Eehoboam, Shishak (P'^'-'v' = Xeaoyx'-'i = Sheshonk /.), the * This name \JVii is also Phceuician in the form |nv Itan, Ircoc; ; P""^, lit'iti, is Phoenician, and equivalent to ubv'P- VOL. III. 8 34 PSALM LXXXIX. 2-5. first Pharaoh of the twenty-second (Bubastic) dynast}', marched acrainst Jerusalem with a large army gathered together out of many nations, conquered the fortified cities of Judah, and spoiled the Temple and Palace, even carrying away with him the golden shields of Solomon — a circumstance which the his- tory bewails in a very especial manner. At that time Shemaiah preached repentance, in the time of the greatest calamity of war ; king and princes humbled themselves ; and in the midst of judgment Jerusalem accordingly experienced the gracious forbearance of God, and was spared. God did not complete his destruction, and there also again went forth D''21D D''")n, i.e. (cf. Josh, xxiii. 14, Zech. i. 13) kindly comforting words from God, in Judah. Such is the narrative in the Book of Kings (1 Kings xiv. 25-28) and as supplemented by the chronicler (2 Chron. xii. 1-12). During this very period Ps. Ixxxix. took its rise. The young Davidic king, whom loss and disgrace make prematurely old, is Rehoboam, that man of Jewish appearance whom Pharaoh Sheshonk is bringing among other captives before the god Amun in the monumental picture of Karnak, and who bears before him in his embattled ring the words Judhmelek (King of Judah) — one of the finest and most reliable dis- coveries of Cliampollion, and one of the greatest triumphs of his system of hieroglyphics.* Ps. Ixxxix. stands in kindred relationship not only to Ps. Ixxiv., but besides Ps. Ixxix., also to Ps. Ixxvii., Ixxviii., all of which glance back to the earliest times in the history of Israel. They are all Asaphic Psalms, partly old Asaphic (Ixxvii., Ixxviii.), partly later ones (Ixxiv., Ixxix.). From this fact we see that the Psalms of Asaph were the favourite models in that school of the four wise men to which the two Ezrahites belong. Vers. 2-5. The poet, who, as one sgon observes, is a DDPI (for the very beginning of the Psalm is remarkable and inge- nious), begins with the confession of the inviolability of the mercies promised to the house of David, i.e. of the ^^ ^non * Vid. Blau, Sisafjs Zuq gegen Juda, illustrated from tlie monumeut in Karnak, Deutsche Morgenland. Zeitschr. xv. 233-250. PSALM LXXXIX C-9. 35 C'30X3nj Isa. Iv. 3.* God's faithful love towards the house of David, a love faithful to His promises, will he sing without ceasing, and make it known with his mouth, i.e. audibly and publicly (cf. Job xix. 16), to the distant posterity. Instead of ■"IPO, we find here, and also in Lam. iii. 22, -"iipn with a not merely slightly closed syllable. The Lamed of I^J i"i? is, according to ciii. 7, cxlv. 12, the datival Lamed. With ''ri"}nx"''3 (LXX., Jerome, contrary to ver. 3/*, on ebira^) the poet bases his resolve upon his conviction. n:33 means not so much to be upheld in building, as to be in the course of continuous build- ing {e.g. Job xxii. 23, Mai. iii. 15, of an increasingly pros- perous condition). Loving-kindness is for ever (accusative of duration) in the course of continuous building, viz. upon the unshakeable foundation of the promise of grace, inasmuch as it is fulfilled in accordance therewith. It is a building with a most solid foundation, which will not only not fall into ruins, but, adding one stone of fulfilment upon another, will rise ever higher and higher. D)'?*^ then stands first as casus ahsol.^ and Dn3 is, as in xix. 5, a pronoun having a backward reference to it. In the heavens, which are exalted above the rise and fall of things here below, God establishes His faithfulness, so that it stands fast as the sun above the earth, although the condition of things here below seems sometimes to contradict it (cf. cxix. 89). Now follow in vers. 4, 5 the direct words of God, the sum of the promises given to David and to his seed in 2 Sam. ch. vii., at which the poet arrives more naturally in vers. 20 sqq. Here they are strikingly devoid of connection. It is the special substance of the promises that is associated in thought with the "loving-kindness" and "truth" of ver. 3, which is expanded as it were appositionally therein. Plence also r?^ and ppj^, W^^l and npn^ correspond to one another. David's seed, by virtue of divine faithfulness, has an eter- nally sure existence ; Jahve builds up David's throne " into generation and generation," inasmuch as He causes it to rise ever fresh and vigorous, never as that which is growing old and feeble. Vers. G-9. At the close of the promises in vers. 4, 5 the * The Vulgate renders : Misericordias Domini in asternum caiital/o. The second Sunday after Easter takes its name from this rendering. 36 PSALM LXXXIX. 10-15. music is to become forte. And 'ni'"! attaches itself to this jubilant Sela. In vers. 6-19 there follows a hymnic descrip- tion of the exalted majesty of God, more especially of His omnipotence and faithfulness, because the value of the promise is measured by the character of the person who promises. The God of the promise is He who is praised by the heavens and the holy ones above. His way of acting is N?3, of a transcen- dent, paradoxical, wondrous order, and as such the heavens praise it ; it is pi'aised (inv, according to Ges. § 137, 3) in the assembly of the holy ones, i.e. of the spirits in the other world, the angels (as in Job v. 1, xv. 15, cf. Deut. xxxiii. 2), for He is peerlessly exalted above the heavens and the angels. ?^'''P^ poetic singular instead of ^''v^^'f (vid. supra on Ixxvii. 18), which is in itself already poetical ; and ^"^y, not, as e.g. in Isa. xl. 18, in the signification to co-ordinate, but in the medial sense : to rank with, be equal to. Concerning D''7X; ^22^ vid. on xxix. 1. In the great council (concerning ^^D, of both genders, perhaps like Di3, vid. on xxv. 14) of the holy ones also, Jahve is ter- rible ; He towers above all who are about Him (1 Kings xxii. 19, cf. Dan. vii. 10) in terrible majesty, niin might, according to Ixii. 3, Ixxviii. 15, be an adverb, but according to the ordei of the words it may more appropriately be regarded as an adjective ; cf. Job xxxi. 34, nni Jion pyx ^3, " when I feared the" great multitude." In ver. 9 He is apostrophized with • <0 ' ( PSALM LXXXI.t. 31-C8. 41 Psalm proves their oiigiiiality. But even if, as history shows, this means of chastisement shouhl be ineffectual in the case of individuals, the house of David as such will nevertheless remain ever in a state of favour with Him. In ver. 34 "I^SS'N? ^"^Dni i*3V0 corresponds to "^? "i^D^'N^ ^-iDm in 2 Sam. vii. 15 (LXX., Taro-um) : the fat. Hiph. of "na is otherwise always iSi^ : the conjecture "I'pS is therefore natural, yet even the LXX. trans- lators {ov /XT) BiaaKeSdao)) had i''3X before them. 3 "ifp;^ as in xliv. 18. Tiie covenant with David is sacred with God : lie will not profane it (/?.^, to loose the bonds of sanctity). He will fulfil what has gone forth from His lips, i.e. His vow, according to Deut. xxiii. 24 [23], of. Num. xxx. 3 [2]. One thing hath He sworn to David ; not : once = once for all (LXX.), for what is introduced by ver. 36 (cf. xxvii. 4) and follows in vers. 37, 38, is in reality one thing (as in Ixii. 12, two). He hath sworn it per sanctitatem suam. Thus, and not in sanctnario meo, "V'li?-? ^^ this passage and Amos iv. 2 (cf. on Ix. 8) is to be rendered, for elsewhere the expression is '3, Gen. xxii. 16, Isa. xlv. 23, or VC'D33, Amos vi. 8, Jer. li. 14, or ^pt^'3, Jer xliv. 26, or iJ"'^''?, Isa. Ixii. 8. It is true we do not read any set form of oath in 2 Sam. ch. vii., 1 Chron. ch. xvii., but just as Isaiah, ch. liv. 9, takes the divine promise in Gen. viii. 21 as an oath, so the promise so earnestly and most solemnly pledged to David may be accounted by Psalm-poesy (here and in cxxxii. 11), which reproduces the historical matter of fact, as a promise attested with an oath. With Dt? in ver. 363 God asserts that He will not disappoint David in reference to this one thing, viz. the perpetuity of his throne. This shall stand for ever as the sun and moon ; for these, though they may one day undergo a change (cii. 27), shall nevertheless never be destroyed. In the presence of 2 Sam. vii. 16 it looks as if ver. 386 ought to be rendered : and as the witness in the clouds shall it (David's throne) be faithful (perpetual). By the witness in the clouds one would then have to understand the rainbow as the celestial memorial and sign of an ever- lasting covenant. Thus Luther, Geier, Schmid, and others. But neither this rendering, nor the more natural one, " and as the perpetual, faithful witness in the clouds," is admissible in connection with the absence of the 3 of comparison. Accord- ingly Hengstenberg, following the example of Jewish exposi- 42 rSALM LXXXIX. 30-46. tors, renders : " and the witness in the clouds is perpetual," viz. the moon, so that the continuance of the Davidic line would be associated with the moon, just as the continuance of the condemned earth is with the rainbow. But in what sense would the moon have the name, without example elsewhere, of witness ? Just as the Book of Job was the key to the con- clusion of Ps. Ixxxviii., so it is the key to this ambiguous verse of the Psalm before us. It has to be explained according to Job xvi. 19, where Job says : " Behold in heaven is my witness, and my surety in the heicjhtsr Jahve, the \i^^^. P^? (Deut. vii. 9), seals His sworn promise with the words, " and the witness in the sky (ethereal heights) is faithful" (cf. con- cerning this Waw in connection with asseverations, E\v. § 340, c). Hengstenberg's objection, that Jahve cannot be called His own witness, is disposed of by the fact that *iy frequently sig- nifies the person who testifies anything concerning himself; in tliis sense, in fact, the whole Tora is called 'n ri^i? (the testi- mony of Jahve). Vers. 39-46. Now after the poet has turned his thoughts towards the beginnings of the house of David which were so rich in promise, in order that he might find comfort under the sorrowful present, the contrast of the two periods is become all the more sensible to him. With nrixi in ver. 39 (And Thou — the same who hast promised and affirmed tliis with an oath) his Psahn takes a new turn, for which reason it might even have been nnyi. mj is used just as absolutely here as in xliv. 24, Ixxiv. 1, Ixxvii. 8, so that it does not require any object to be supplied out of ver. 396. ^^1^??. in ver. 40 the LXX. renders KaTeaTp€-\lra<; ; it is better rendered in Lam. ii. 7 uTreri- va^€', for 1^^?. is synonymous with "^V^, to shake off, push away, cf. Arabic el-nienair, the thrusters (with the lance). V}.^J^^ is a vocational name of the king as such. His crown is sacred as being the insignia of a God-bestowed office. God has therefore made the sacred thing vile by casting it to the ground (?.^n pX7, as in Ixxiv. 17, to cast profaningly to the ground). The primary passage to vers. 41, 42 is Ixxx. 13. "His hedges" are all the boundary and protecting fences which the land of the king has; and 1"'"i^'20 " the fortresses" of his land (in both instances without 73, because matters have not yet come to such rSALM LXXXIX. 39-16. 43 a pass).* In inD'^' the notions of the king and of the land blend together, 'n?.!"'''?.^^ ^^^ ^^^® hordes of the peoples passing through tiie land. VJD*^ are the neighbouring peoples that are otherwise liable to pay tribute to the house of David, who sought to take every possible advantage of that weakening of the Davidic kingdom. In ver. 44 we are neither to translate " rock of his sword" (Ilengstenberg), nor "O rock" (Olshausen). "i^V does not merely signify rupes, but also from another root (t,V,jL?, originally of the grating or shrill noise produced by pressing and squeezing, then more particularly to cut or cut off with ])ressure, w^ith a sharply set knife or the like) a knife or a blade (cf. English knife, and German knei/en, to nip) : God has decreed it that the edge or blade of the sword of the king has been turned back by the enemy, that he has not been able to maintain his ground in battle (inopn with e instead of z, as also when the tone is not moved forward, ISIic. v. 4). In ver. 45 the Mem of "nnLiD, after the analogy of Ezek. xvi. 41, xxxiv. 10, and other passages, is a preposition : cessare fecisti eiim a splendore suo. A noun "intpp = "inp?? with Dag. diriinetis^f lik? cnipp Ex. XV. 17, l?2a Nah. iii.'i? (Abulwalid, Aben-Ezra, Parchon, Kimchi, and others), in itself improbable in the signi- fication required here, is not found either in post-biblical or in biblical Hebrew, inb, like "inV, signifies first of all not purity, but brilliancy. Still the form inb does not lie at the basis of it in this instance ; for the reading found here just happens not to be i"""^^, but i"'i^'^P ; and the reading adopted by Norzi, lleidenheim, and Baer, as also by Nissel and others, so far as form is concerned is not distinct from it, viz. ii^*^'? {mit~ tohuro), the character of the Shehd being determined by the * lu the list of the nations and <^itics conquered by King Sheshouk i. are found even cities of the tribe of Issachar, cfj. SJien-ma-aii, Sunem; cul. Brugsch, Ileiseherichte, S. 141-145, and LSlau as referred to above. t The view of Pinsker (Einkituiig, S. G9), that this Dar/. is not a sign of the doubUng of the letter, but a diacritic point (that preceded the invention of tlie system of vowel-points), which indicated that the re- spective letter was to be pronounced with a Chatcph vowel {c.fj. viiluhar), is incorrect. The doubling Dctj. renders the Shcbd audible, and having once become audible it readily receives this or that colouring according to the nature of its consonant and of the neighbouring vowel. 44 rSALJI LXXXIX. 47-52. analogy of the a following (cf. '"'li'EZi, 2 Kiiigs ii. 1), which presupposes the principal form intp (J5ottcher, § 386, of. siqjra, ii. 31, note). The personal tenor of ver. 46a requires that it should be referred to the then reigning Davidic king, but not as dying before his time (Olshausen), but as becoming prema- turely old by reason of the sorrowful experiences of his reio-n. The larger half of the kingdom has been wrested from him ; Egypt and the neighbouring nations also threaten the half that remains to him ; and instead of the kingly robe, shame com- pletely covers him. Vers. 47-52. After this statement of the prcj-ent condition of things the psalmist begins to pray for the removal of all that is thus contradictory to the promise. Tlie plaintive question, ver. 47, with the exception of one word, is verbatim the same as Ixxix. 5. The wrath to which quousgue refers, makes itself to be felt, as the intensifying {vid. xiii. 2) n'^:h implies, in the intensity and duration of everlasting wrath. *l^n is this tem- poral life which glides past secretly and unnoticed (xvii. 14) ; and ■'^^j'l^T is not equivalent to ''37t'J (instead of which by way of emphasis only ''J^< ''JnaT can be said), but l^n^'ip ''^N* stands for ""^N 1?n"np — according to the sense equivalent to ""^N •'7.0~"'Pj xxxix. 5, cf. 6. The conjecture of Houbigant and modern expositors, ''J'"iN* "ibT (cf. ver, 51), is not needed, since the inverted position of the words is just the same as in xxxix. 5. In ver. 486 it is not pointed N1^ n^-^y, "wherefore (Job x. 2, xiii. 14) hast Thou in vain (cxxvii. 1) created?" (Hengstenbcrg), but Nlty""!^-?!;^ on account of or for what a nothing (XVi:'""!?^ belong- ing together as adjective and substantive, as in xxx. 10, Job xxvi. 14) hast Thou created all the children of men ? (De Wette, riupfeld, and Hitzlg.) bv^ of the ground of a matter and direct motive, which is better suited to the question in ver. 49 than the other way of taking it : the life of all men passes on into death and Hades; why then might not God, within this brief space of time, this handbreadth, manifest Himself to His creatures as the merciful and kind, and not as the always angry God? The music strikes in here, and how can it do so other- wise than in elegiac mesto? If God's justice tarries and fails in this present world, then the Old Testament faith becomes sorely tempted and tried, because it is not able to find consola- tion in the life beyond. Thus it is with the faith of the poet rSALM LXXXIX. 47-52. 45 in tlie present juncture of affairs, the outward appearance of which is in such perplexing contradiction to the lovini^-kindnesa sworn to David and also hitherto vouchsafed. Cl^n has not the sense in this passage of promises of favour, as in 2 Chron. vi. 42, but proofs of favour ; D'':l"X^n glances back at the long period of the reigns of David and of Solomon.* The Asaph Psalm Ixxvii. and the Tephilla Isa. ch. Ixiii. contain similar complaints, just as in connection with ver. 51a one is reminded of the Asaph Psalm Ixxix. 2, 10, and in connection with ver. 52 of Ixxix. 12. Tiie phrase ip''na Nb'J is used in other instances of loving nurture. Num. xi. 12, Isa. xl. 11. In this passage it must have a sense akin to I'^.^y nEnri. It is impossible on syntactic grounds to regard C^sy DU"!"?zi as still dependent upon nsin (Ewald) or, as Hupfeld is fond of calling it, as a "refe- rential" genitive. Can it be that the b^ is perhaps a mutilation of ns?3, after Ezek. xxxvi. 15, as Bottcher suggests? We do not need this conjecture. For (1) to carry any one in one's bosom, if he is an enemy, may signify : to be obliged to cherish him with the vexation proceeding from him (Jer. xv. 15), without being able to get rid of him ,- (2) there is no doubt that Q''3"i can, after the manner of numerals, be placed before the substantive to which it belongs, xxxii. 10, Prov. xxxi. 29, 1 Chron. xxviii. 5, Neh. ix. 28 ; cf. the other position, e.g., in Jer. xvi. 16; (3) consequently W'l^V C'^T^^ may signify the " totality of many peoples" just as well as D^3"i D'i3 P3 in Ezek. xxxi. 6. The poet complains as a member of the nation, as a citizen of the empire, that he is obliged to foster many nations in his bosom, inasmuch as the land of Israel was overwhelmed by the Egyptians and their allies, the Libyans, Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. The i?^'?^ which follows in ver. 52 cannot now be referred back over ver. 516 to nsin (^qnd calumnid), and yet the relative sense, not the confirmatory (because, qnoniam), is at issue. We therefore refer it to U"OV, and take T'^li';' as an apposition, as in cxxxix. 20 : who reproach Thee, (as) Thine * The Pusek between D'\V'g^ as a second definition of time : before the creation of the world, and from eternity to eternity. The Lord was God before the world was — that is the first assertion of ver. 2 ; His divine existence reaches out of the unlimited past into the unlimited rSALJI XC. 1-4. 51 future — this is the second. ?X is not vocative, which it some- times, though rarely, is in the Psalms ; it is a predicate, as e.g. in Deut. iii, 24. This is also to be seen from vers. 3, 4, when ver. 3 now more definitely affirms the omnipotence of God, and ver. 4 the supra-temporality of God or the omnipresence of God in time. The LXX. misses the meaning when it brin(i;s over ^X from r . ver. 2, and reads 3"if'ri"7N*. Tlie shorter future form Si^'n for 3''C'ri stands poetically instead of the longer, as e.g. in xi. (3, XXV. 9; cf. the same thing in the inf. constr. in Deut. xxvi. 12, and both instances together in Deut. xxxii. 8. The poet intentionally calls the generation that is dying away ti'ijx, which denotes man from the side of his frailty or perishable- ness ; and the new generation D'iS"'':2j with which is combined the idea of entrance upon life. It is clear that ^^^"^""'J' ^''C'n is intended to be understood according to Gen. iii. 19 ; but it is a question whether N3T is conceived of as an adjective (with mutable d), as in xxxiv. 19, Isa. Ivii. 15 : Thou puttest men back into the condition of crushed ones (cf. on the construc- tion Num. xxiv. 24), or whether as a neutral feminine from T]T (= n3"n) : Thou changest them into that which is crushed = dust, or whether as an abstract substantive like n^n^ or according to another reading (cf. cxxvii. 2) ^3^^ in Deut. xxiii. 2 : to crushing. This last is the simplest way of taking it, but it comes to one and the same thing with the second, since X3"n signifies crushing in the neuter sense. A fut. consec. follows. The fact that God causes one generation to die off has as its consequence tliat He calls another into being (cf. the Arabic epithet of God el-7nuid=2''[^b2n, the Eesuscitator). Ilofniann and Hitzig take 3"J'n as imperfect on account of the following "lONDI : Thou didst decree mortality for men ; but the fut. consec. frequently only expresses the sequence of the thoughts or the connection of the matter, e.g. after a future that refers to that which is constantly taking place. Job xiv. 10. God causes men to die without letting them die out; for — so it continues in ver. 4 — a thousand years is to Him a very short period, not to be at all taken into account. What now is the connection between that which confirms and that which is con- firmed here? It is not so much ver. 3 that is confirmed aa ver. 2, to which the former serves for cxplanution, viz. tins, 52 PSALJI XC. 5-8. that God as the Almighty (:>^), in the midst of this change of generations, which is His woi'k, remains Himself eternally the same. This ever the same, absolute existence has its ground herein, that time, although God fills it up with His working, is no limitation to Him. A thousand years, which would make any man who might live through them weary of life, are to Him like a vanishing point. The proposition, as 2 Pet. iii. 8 shows, is also true when reversed : " One day is with the Lord as a thousand years." He is however exalted above all time, inasmuch as the longest period appears to Him very short, and in the shortest period the greatest work can be executed by Him. The standpoint of the first comparison, " as yesterday," is taken towards the end of the thousand of years. A whole millennium appears to God, when He glances over it, just as the yesterday does to us when C^) it is passing by O'^V^.), and we, standing on the border of the opening day, look back upon the day that is gone. The second comparison is an advance upon the first, and an advance also in form, from the fact that the Caph similitudinis is wanting : a thousand years are to God a watch in the night. •Tj^DC'X is a night-watch, of which the Israelites reckoned three, viz. the first, the middle, and the morning watch (vid. Winer's Kealioorterhuch s. v. Nacldioaclie). It is certainly not without design that the poet says n^^?? n"ii»:;'N instead of 'ip^pri nibii'N. The night-time is the time for sleep ; a watch in the night is one that is slept away, or at any rate passed in a sort of half-sleep. A day that is past, as we stand on the end of it, still produces upon us the impression of a course of time by reason of the events which we can recall ; but a night passed in sleep, and now even a fragment of the night, is devoid of all trace to us, and is therefore as it were timeless. Thus is it to God with a thousand years : they do not last long to Him ; they do not affect Him ; at the close of them, as at the beginning, He is the Absolute One ('?^). Time is as nothing to Him, the Eternal One. The changes of time are to Him no barrier restraining the realization of His counsel — a truth which has a terrible and a consolatory side. The poet dwells upon the fear which it produces. Vers. 5-8. Vers. 5, 6 tell us how great is the distance between men and this eternal selfsameness of God. The suffix of C)ripnT, referred to the thousand years, produces a PSALM XC. 5-8. 53 synallage (since T\2\y is feminine), which is to be avoided when- ever it is possible to do so ; the reference to mx"''32, as being the principal object pointed to in what has gone before, is the more natural, to say the very least. In coimection with both ways of applying it, D^iJ does not signify : to cause to rattle down like sudden heavy showers of rain ; for the figure that God makes years, or that He makes men (Hitzig : the germs of their coming into being), to rain down from above, is fanci- ful and strange. D"!T may also mean to sweep or wash away as with heavy rains, ahripere instar nimbi, as the old expositors take it. So too Luther at one time : Du reyssest sie dalujn (Thou earnest them away), for which he substituted later : Da lessest sie dahin faven wie einen Strom (Thou causest them to pass away as a river) ; but Q^I always signifies rain pouring down from above. As a sudden and heavy shower of rain, becoming a flood, washes ev^erything away, so God's omnipo- tence sweeps men away. Tliere is now no transition to another alien figure when the poet continues: vn"* ^3t^'. What is meant is the sleep of death, Ixxvi. 6, D^ii/ nj^,' jjr. li. 39, 57, cf. ]^\ xiii. 4. He whom a flood carries away is actually brought into a state of unconsciousness, he goes entirely to sleep, i.e. hejdies. From this point the poet certainly does pass on to another figure. The one generation is carried away as by a flood in the night season, and in the morning another grows up. Men are the subject of ^D,., as of ViT. The collective singular alternates with the plural, just as in ver. 3 the collective *J'i:s alternates with ms-''J3. The two members of ver. 5 stand in contrast. The poet describes the succession of the genera- tions. One generation perishes as it were in a flood, and another grows up, and this also passes on to the same fate. The meaning in both verses of the fj^n, which has been for the most part, after the LXX., Vulgate, and Luther, erroneously taken to be pvceterire = interire, is determined in accordance wiih this idea. The general signification of this verb, which corresponds to the Arabic i__iL>-, is " to follow or move after, to go into the place of another, and in general, of passing over from one place or state into another." Accordingly the Ilipldl signifies to put into a new condition, cii. 27, to set a A.vfei'' 54 PSALM XC. 5-8. new thing on the place of an old one, Isa. ix. 9 [10], to gain new strength, to take fresh courage, Isa. xl. 31, xli. 1 ; and of plants : to send forth new shoots. Job xiv. 7 ; consequently the Ka I, which frequently furnishes the perfect for the future Hiphil (Ew. § 127, 6, and Hitzig on this passage), of plants signifies : to gain new shoots, not : to sprout (Targum, Syriac), but to sprout again or afresh, regerminare ; cf. u-ci^? ai^ after- growth, new wood. Perishing humanity renews its youth in ever new generations. Ver. ^a again takes up this thought : in the morning it grows up and shoots afresh, viz. the grass to which men are likened (a figure appropriated by Isa. ch. xl.), in the evening it is cut down and it dries up. Others trans- late hhyo to wither (root i'n, properly to be long and lax, to allow to hang down long, cf. ^rP^^ ^^.'^ with J,<^, to hope, i.e. to look forth into the distance) ; but (1) this Pilel of b'^'0 or Po'el of ??0 is not favourable to this intransitive way of taking it ; (2) the reflexive in Iviii. 8 proves that t^)"!^ signifies to cut off in the front or above, after which perhaps even xxxvii. 2, Job xiv. 2, xviii. 16, by comparison with Job xxiv. 24, are to l)e explained. In the last passage it runs : as the top of the stalk they are cut off (fut. Niph. of ??»). Such a cut or plucked ear of corn is called in Deut. xxiii. 26 '"i/?^, a Deuteronomic hapaxlegomenon which favours our way of taking the ^jjiD' (with a most general subject = ^i'^'^'). Thus, too, ^y'}, is better attached to what precedes: the cjit.^rass becomes parched hay. Just such an alternation of morning springing forth and evening drying up is the alternation of the generations of men. Tiie poet substantiates this in vers. 7 sq. from the expe- rience of those amongst whom he comprehended himself in the i3/> of ver. 1. Hengstenberg takes ver. 7 to be a statement of the cause of the transitoriness set forth : its cause is the wrath of God ; but the poet does not begin 1D{<3 ''3 but irb ^2. The chief emphasis therefore lies upon the perishing, and ^3 is not argumentative but explicative. If the subject of l^^a were men in general (Olshausen), then it would be elucidating idem per idem. But, according to ver. 1, those who speak here are those whose refuge the Eternal One is. The poet therefore speaks in the name of the church, and confirms the lot of men PSALM XC. 5-8. 5f) from that which his people have experienced even down to the present time. Israel is able out of its own experience to cor- roborate what all men pass through ; it has to pass through the very same experience as a special decree of God's wrath on account of its sins. Therefore in vers. 7, 8 we stand alto- gether upon historical ground. The tesdmony of the inscrip- tion is here verified in the contents of tlie Psalm. The older generation that came out of Egypt fell a prey to the sentence of punishment, that they should gradually die off during the forty years' journey through the desert; and even Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb only excepted, were included in this punish- ment on special grounds, Num. xiv. 26 sqq., Deut. i. 34-31>. This it is over which Moses here laments. God's wrath is here called ^X and nnn ; just as the Book of Deuteronomy (in dis- tinction from the other books of the Pentateuch) is fond of combining these two synonyms (Deut. ix. 19, xxix. 22, 27, cf. Gen. xxvii. 44 sq.). The breaking forth of the infinitely great opposition of the holy nature of God against sin has swept away the church in the person of its members, even down to the present moment ; p^^^ as in civ. 29, cf. '^^''^3, Lev. xxvi. 16. It is the consequence of their sins, flp signifies sin as the perversion of the right standing and conduct ; DW, that which is veiled in distinction from manifest sins, is the sum-total of hidden moral, and that sinful, conduct. There is no necessity to regard ^^^7'J as a defective plural ; 2"^^!^ signifies youth (from a radically distinct word, D^'y) ; secret sins would therefore be called nilDpy according to xix. 13. God sets transgressions before Him when, because the measure is full and forgiveness is inadmissible. He makes them an object of punishment. 3^'^ (Keri, as in viii. 7 : nnc', cf. vi. 4 ^^\ Ixxiv. 6 W) has the accent upon the ultima before an initial guttural. The parallel to "^-^ij? is ^':3 li«0^. lis is light, and I'^t^O is either a body of light, as the sun and moon, or, as in this passage, the circle of light which the light forms. The countenance of God ('n 'JS) is God's nature in its inclination towards the world, and ")1XQ 'n ^:q is the doxa of His nature that is turned towards the world, which penetrates everything that is conformed to God as a gracious light (Num. vi. 25), and makes manifest to the bottom everything that is opposed to God and consumes it as a wrathful fire. 56 PSALM XC. 9-12. Vers. 9-12. After the transltoriness of men has now heen confirmed in vers. 6 sq. out of the special experience of Israel, the fact that this particular experience has its ground in a divine decree of wrath is more definitely confirmed from the facts of this experience, which, as vers. 11 sq. complain, un- fortunately have done so little to urge them on to the fear of God, which is the condition and the beginning of wisdom. In ver. 9 we distinctly hear the Israel of the desert speaking. That was a generation that fell a prey to the wrath of God (im3^ nn, Jer. vii. 29). nnay is wrath that passes over, breaks through the bounds of subjectivity. All their days (cf. ciii. 15) are passed away (n^Q, to turn one's self, to turn, e.g. Deut. i. 24) in such wrath, i.e. thoroughly pervaded by it. They have spent their years like a sound (njnin^)^ which has hardly gone forth before it has passed away, leaving no trace behind it ; the noun' signifies a gentle dull sound, whether a murmur (Job xxxvii. 2) or a groan (Ezek. ii. 10). With Dn3 in ver. 10 the sum is stated : there are comprehended therein seventy years ; they include, run up to so many. Hitzig renders : the days wherein (onn) our years consist are seventy years ; but laTilJCy side by side with ''D* must be regarded as its more minute genitival definition, and the accentuation cannot be objected to. Beside the plural CJ^ the poetic plural T\Sl^ appears here, and it also occurs in Deut. xxxii. 7 (and nowhere else in the Pentateuch). That of which the sum is to be stated stands first of all as a casus ahsol. Luther's rendering : Siebenzig Jar, icens hack kompt so sinds aclitzig (seventy years, or at the furthest eighty years), as Symmachus also meant by his ev irapaSo^o) (in Chrysostom), is confirmed by the Talmudic yjn nnUJ^, " to attain to extreme old age" {B. Moed katan 28a), and rightly approved of by Hitzig and Olshausen. nniD: sig- nifies in Ixxi. 16 full strength, here full measure. Seventy, or at most eighty years, were the average sum of the extreme term of life to which the generation dying out in the wilder- ness attained. ^"^^1] the LXX. renders to ifKetov avrcou, but DanT is not equivalent to 2Ii^. The verb 3n"i signifies to behave violently, e.g. of importunate entreaty, Prov. vi. 3, of insolent treatment, Isa. iii. 5, whence 3n"| (here 3ni), violence, impetu- osity, and more especially a boastful vaunting appearance or coming forward, Job ix. 13, Isa. xxx. 7. The poet means to PSALM XC. 9-12. 57 say that iverythlng of which our life is proud (riclics, outwaril appearance, luxury, beauty, etc.), when regarded in the ri^ht light, is after all only ^^V, inasmuch as it causes us trouble and toil, and tJ.NI, because without any true intrinsic merit and worth^ To this second predicate is appended the confirmatory clause, ti'^n js injin. adverb, from ti'^in, &r\^ Deut. xxxii. 35 : speedily, swiftly (Symmachus, the Quinta, and Jerome). The verb T=ia signifies transh'e in all the Semitic dialects ; and fol- lowing this signification, which is applied transitively in Num. xi. 31, the Jewish expositors and Schultens correctly render : nam transit velocissvne. Following upon the perfect T3, the modus consecutivus -^pvai maintains its retrospective significa- tion. The strengthening of this mood by means of the inten- tional ah is more usual with the 1st pers. sing., e.g. Gen. xxxii. 6, than with the 1st pers. plu7\, as here and in Gen. xli. 11 ; Ew. § 232, g. The poet glances back from the end of life to the course of life. And life, with all of which it had been proud, appears as an empty burden ; for it passed swiftly by and we fled away, we were borne away with rapid fliglit upon the wings of the past. Such experience as this ought to urge one on to the fear of God ; but how rarely does this happen ! and yet the fear of God is the condition (stipulation) and the beginning of wisdom. The verb VT^ in ver. 11a, just as it in general denotes not merely notional but practically living and efficient knowledge, is here used of a knowledge which makes that which is known conduce to salvation. The meaning of ^^NTdi is determined in accordance with this. The suffix is here either gen. suhj. : according to Thy fearfulness ("^^T as in Ezek. i. 18), or gen. ohj. : according to the fear tliat is due to Thee, which in itself is at once (cf. v. 8, Ex. xx. 20, Deut. ii. 25) more natural, and here designates the knowledge which is so rarely found, as that which is determined by the fear of God, as a truly reli- gious knowledge. Such knowledge Moses supplicates for him- self and for Israel: to number our days teach us rightly to understand. 1 Sam. xxiii. 17, where i? V'V signifies " he does not know it to be otherwise, he is well aware of it," shows how I? is meant. Hitzig, contrary to the accentuation, draws it to im'' nUD^; but " to number our days" is in itself equivalent to " hourly to contemplate tlie fleeting character and brevity 53 PSALM XC. 13-17. of our lifetime ;" and J^liH jzi prays for a true qualification for this, and one that accords with experience. The future that follows is well adapted to the call, as frequently aim and result. But N''3n is not to be taken, with Ewald and Hitzig, in the signification of bringing as an offering, a meaning this verb cannot have of itself alone (why should it not have been 2"'"]ip3^?). Bottcher also erroneously renders it after the analogy of Prov. ii. 10 : " that we mav bring wisdom into the heart," which ought to be 272. N'»3ri, deriving its meaning from agri- culture, signifies "to carry off, obtain, gain, prop, to bring in," viz. into the barn, 2 Sam. ix. 10, Hagg. i. 6 ; the produce of the field, and in a general way gain or profit, is hence called ns^an. A wise heart is the fruit which one reaps or garners in from such numbering of the days, the gain which one carries off from so constantly reminding one's self of the end. 22? npDn is a poetically intensified expression for D^n 37^ just as ND'iD 2? in Prov. xiv. 30 signifies a calm easy heart. Vers. 13-17. The prayer for a salutary knowledge, or dis- cernment, of the appointment of divine wrath is now followed by the prayer for the return of favour, and the wish that God would carry out His work of salvation and bless Israel's under- takings to that end. We here recognise the well-known language of prayer of Moses in Ex. xxxii. 12, according to which nniti' is not intended as a prayer for God's return to Israel, but for the turning away of His anger; and the sjgh "•nn-iy that is blended with it asks how long this being angary, which threatens to blot Israel out, is still to last, cn^ni is explained according to this same parallel passage: May God feel remorse or sorrow (which in this case coincide) concerning His servants, i.e. concerning the affliction appointed to them. The naming of the church by T'laj? (as in Dent. ix. 27, cf. Ex. xxxii. 13 of the patriarchs) reminds one of Deut. xxxii. 36 : concerning His servants He shall feel compassion (HitJipa. instead of the Niplial). The prayer for the turning of wrath is followed in ver. 14 by the prayer for the turning towards them of favour. In li^'33 there lies the thought that it has been night hitherto in Israel. " Morning " is therefore the beginning of a new season of favour. In l3J??i?> (to which T^DH is a second accusative of the object) is implied the thought that Israel whilst under wrath has been hunn;erin