WE have here another of those psalms, in which two great parties, the righteous and the wicked, are exhibited in contrast and in an attitude of mutual hostility. The psalm may be divided into three parts, parallel to one another, in all of which the elements combined are complaint, prayer, and the promise of thanksgiving for anticipated deliverance. The first division is occupied with an invocation of divine judgments on God’s enemies, ending with an expression of triumph in God’s favor, ver. 1–9. The second contains a more particular description of these enemies, as oppressors, false accusers, unthankful renderers of evil for good, and malignant scoffers, with a prayer for the divine interposition, and a pledge of public thanksgiving, ver. 10–18. The third renews briefly the description of the enemy, but is chiefly filled with prayer to be delivered from them, and closes, like the others, with a promise of perpetual thanksgiving, ver. 19–28.
1. By David. Oppose, Jehovah, my opposers; devour my devourers. The correctness of the title is confirmed by the appearance of allusion to 1 Sam. 24:16 (15), the incident recorded in which place may have been present to the Psalmist’s mind although we have no reason to believe that he wrote it with exclusive reference to that time or to himself, but for the use of pious sufferers in general.—Strive with my strivers, or contend with my contenders. The original verb is one specifically used to denote judicial contest, litigation, in which sense a cognate noun is used below, ver. 23, and the English Bible thus translates the verse before us: plead (my cause) with them that strive against me; fight against them that fight against me. It is only in the passive form, however, that לחם means to fight; its primary sense is to devour. The application of this metaphor to warfare is not uncommon. See below, Ps. 56:2, 3 (1, 2), and compare Num. 14:9, 24:8, Deut. 7:16.
2. Lay hold of shield and buckler; and stand up in my defense (or for my help). The manifestation of God’s saving and protecting power is described in Scripture under various figures corresponding to the form of the particular suffering or danger. Against injustice he appears as an advocate or judge (see ver. 23 below); against violence as a warrior (see Deut. 32:41, 42). In this character the Psalmist here entreats him to appear, and for that end to seize, grasp, or lay hold of his weapons of defense. The shield and buckler seem to have been different in size (1 Kings 10:16, 17), though not in use.—Arise, address thyself to action. See above, on Ps. 3:8 (7).—In my help is by some explained to mean as my help, i.e. my helper; but the Hebrew idiom seems to be identical with our phrase in my defense.
3. And draw out the spear, and stop (the way) against my pursuers; say to my soul, Thy salvation (am) I. The first verb properly means empty, pour out, and then draw out. Some suppose the expression to be strictly applicable only to the sword, but to be here applied by a kind of poetic license to the spear. Others suppose it to be strictly used, but in relation to the drawing of it out of its repository or concealment. Some explain סנר as a foreign word, identical with the Scythian σάγαρις, or battle-axe. But no such word occurs in Hebrew elsewhere, and the meaning of the verb סָגַר is entirely appropriate, to close or stop the way against another. Against, or literally to meet, in a hostile or military sense which the word has in Deut. 1:44, Josh. 8:14, and elsewhere.—To my soul; see above, on Ps. 11:1.—Thy salvation, see below, Ps. 38:23 (22).
4. Shamed and confounded be the seekers of my soul; turned back and made to blush the devisers of my hurt. Entirely disappointed in their hopes and efforts. The optative meaning of the futures is determined by the unambiguous form יְהִי in ver. 6 below. The seekers of my soul or life, i.e. such as seek it to destroy it. Compare Mat. 2:13, 20. Turned back, disgracefully repulsed and defeated. See above, on Ps. 9:18 (17). Made to blush: the form of the verb in Hebrew is not causative, but simply means to blush or be confused. The causative form is here employed in order to give uniformity to the English sentence.—My hurt, literally my evil, i.e. evil fortune, calamity, or injury.—Devisers, literally thinkers, i.e. such as meditate or purpose my destruction.
5. Let them be as chaff before a wind, and the angel of Jehovah smiting. Under the influence of inspiration, the Psalmist sees the natural and righteous consequences of their wickedness, and viewing the case merely in itself, apart from personal feeling, speaks of this effect as desirable. The wish expressed is, to all intents and purposes, equivalent to a prediction or the affirmation of a general truth. The Psalmist desires the destruction of these sinners precisely as God wills it; nor is it any harder to reconcile such wishes with the highest degree of human goodness than it is to reconcile the certain fact that God allows some men to perish with his infinite benevolence. The figure of chaff before the wind suggests the idea of intrinsic worthlessness with that of easy and complete destruction. Compare Ps. 1:4. The participle at the close means striking (them) down, so that they cannot rise. Compare Ps. 36:13 (12). The angel of Jehovah, his appointed instrument of vengeance. See above, on Ps. 34:8 (7).
6. Let their way be dark and slippery, and the angel of Jehovah chasing them. The optative form of the verb at the beginning determines the sense of those which go before, and which otherwise might be ambiguous.—Dark and slippery, literally darkness and smoothnesses, an emphatic substitution of the abstract for the concrete. The fearful image thus suggested of men driven, like chaff before the wind, along a dark and slippery path, is rendered more terrific by the additional idea of their being hotly pursued by the destroying angel. The construction of the last clause, both in this verse and the one before it, is: (let) the angel of Jehovah (be) pursuing them.
7. For without cause they hid for me their pit-fall; without cause they digged for my soul. This verse assigns the reason of the imprecations or denunciations which precede.—Without cause, wantonly, gratuitously, unprovoked, and therefore prompted by mere malice. See below, ver. 19.—The pit of their net is an idiomatic phrase like the hill of my holiness. See above, on Ps. 2:6. The true sense of the phrase appears to be their netpit, i.e. their pit covered with a net, a figure borrowed from the ancient modes of hunting. See above, on Ps. 7:16 (15), 9:16 (15). In the last clause we may either supply a relative, as in the common version, which they digged, or take the verb in the absolute sense of making a pit or ditch.
8. Let ruin come (upon) him (when) he does not know; and his net which he hid—let it take him—with ruin (to his ruin) let him fall into it. The first noun properly denotes a crash, as of a falling house, and then a ruin, both in the narrower and wider sense. When he does not know, unawares, unexpectedly, as in Isa. 47:11, Job. 9:5. The last clause may also be translated, into ruin let him fall into it, i.e. as the common version has it, into that very ruin. But it is simpler to let בְּשׁוֹאָה qualify the verb; let him fall with ruin, i.e. ruinously to his own destruction.
9. And my soul shall exult in Jehovah, shall joy in his salvation. Our idiom would require so or then at the beginning of the sentence, to make the connection of the verses clear.—In Jehovah, not merely on account of him, but in union with him and possession of him, as the parallel phrase, in his salvation, means in the experience and enjoyment of it. This is a kind of promise that the favor asked shall not be unrequited by thanksgiving, and the same idea is still further carried out in the next verse.
10. All my bones shall say, Jehovah, who is like thee, delivering the sufferer from (one) stronger than himself, and the sufferer and the needy from his spoiler? The bones, the frame, the person, are here put for the whole man. See above, on Ps. 32:3. The interrogative form implies negation. “There is no such savior besides God.” The apparent tautology may be relieved in English by translating even the sufferer, &c. But such repetitions are entirely congenial to the Hebrew idiom. With the second clause compare Jer. 31:11, and with the third Ps. 10:2.
11. There rise up witnesses of violence; (as to) that which I have not known they ask me. The future verbs describe the acts as still in progress, and as likely to be long continued. They are rising or about to rise, asking or about to ask. The word translated violence is one of very frequent occurrence in the psalms, and includes the ideas of injustice and cruelty. See above, on Ps. 7:17 (16), 11:5, 18:49 (48), 25:19, 27:12. “They endeavor to draw from me the acknowledgment of crimes which I have not committed, and of which I have no knowledge.”
12. They repay me evil for good—bereavement to my soul. “If given up to them, I have nothing to expect but a continued recompence of evil for good, extending even to the loss of what is most essential to my being and well-being.” The word translated bereavement commonly means loss of children, but is here used metaphorically for the most extreme and lamentable destitution.
13. And I—in their sickness my clothing (was) sackcloth; I humbled with fasting my soul—and my prayer into my bosom shall return. The general idea is that he displayed the deepest sympathy with their distresses. This idea is expressed by figures borrowed from the oriental mourning usages. Sackcloth, fasting, and prayer are here particularly mentioned. To humble the soul (or one’s self), or as some explain it, to mortify the appetite, is the phrase by which fasting is described in the Law of Moses (Lev. 16:31, 23:27, 32, Num. 29:7), and which is here combined with the later word צוּם.—The last clause is obscure, and is by some understood to signify the constancy of supplication, coming back and going out again without sensation. Others explain it as a mere description of the attitude of prayer with the head bowed upon the bosom, as if he had said, I was continually pouring prayer into my bosom. But neither of these explanations is so probable as the traditional one of the Jews, according to which he desires that the prayer which he offered for them might redound to his own advantage. Or the clause may be still more simply construed as a prediction: “My prayer shall not be lost, it shall return in blessings to the heart which prompted it.”
14. As (if it had been) a friend, a brother to me, I went on (or went about); as a mourner for a mother, squalid I bowed down. He not only mourned in their calamity, but with the deepest grief, as for a friend, a brother, or a parent, which terms are so arranged as to produce a beautiful and striking climax.—The verb in the first clause corresponds very nearly to the familiar English phrase went on, in the sense of lived or habitually acted. See above, on Ps. 1:1.—The Hebrew word קדֵר means squalid, dirty, in allusion to the ancient oriental practice of neglecting the appearance, and even covering the dress and person with dust and ashes, as a token of extreme grief. The bowing down is also to be taken as a part of the same usage.
15. And (yet) in my limping they rejoiced, and were gathered together; there were gathered together against me cripples, and I did not know (it): they did tear and were not silent. With his behavior to them in their affliction he contrasts theirs to him. As disease in general is a common figure for distress, so lameness in particular is so used here and in Ps. 38:18 (17), Jer. 20:10. They assembled not to comfort but to mock him and revile him.—The obscure word נֵכִים has been variously explained to mean smiters with the tongue (Jer. 18:18), i.e. slanderers—whipped (Job 30:8), i.e. degraded criminals—and smitten (Isa. 53:4), i.e. afflicted. But Luther’s explanation, which connects the word with the cognate form נְכֵה רַגְליִם (2 Sam. 4:4, 9:3), smitten in the feet, lame, crippled, not only yields a good sense, but agrees best with the figure of the first clause. ‘When I limped cripples mocked at me’—i.e. those who were themselves contemptible treated me with contempt. I did not know it. It was done behind my back, and while I was entirely unsuspicious. See above, on ver. 8. This is a more natural construction than whom I did not know, which is, moreover, inconsistent with what goes before.—They rent or tore me by their slanders.
16. With worthless mockers for bread—gnashing against me their teeth. This they did in the company of impious, reprobate, or worthless scoffers, who calumniate others for the sake of gaining favor with their wicked patrons. Hence they are called bread or cake scoffers, those who earn their food by spiteful mockery of others. The form of the whole verse is extremely idiomatic, and scarcely admits of an exact translation. The literal meaning of the first clause is with the worthless of mockers of bread, and in the second the verb gnash is an infinitive, which can only be rendered in intelligible English by a participle or a finite verb, they gnashed, or gnashing. This is always expressive of malignant rage, and shews that what is here described is not mere raillery but spiteful defamation.
17. Lord, how long wilt thou look on? Restore my soul from their ruins (or ruinous plots), from the young lions my lonely one. The first Hebrew word is not Jehovah but Adhonai, properly expressive of dominion or sovereignty. See above, on Ps. 16:2—How long? The Hebrew phrase usually means how much, but is here specially applied to time; how much time? how long? Wilt thou see what treatment I receive, and merely see it, as an indifferent spectator?—Restore my soul has not the same sense as in Ps. 19:8 (7), 23:3, but the strict one of bringing back from the dangerous extreme to which he had been brought by the ruins or ruinous devices—i.e. designed to ruin others—of his enemies. Lions are mentioned as the strongest and fiercest of wild beasts, and young lions as the most active of their species. See above, on Ps. 34:11 (10).—My lonely, solitary soul. See above, on Ps. 22:21 (20).
18. I will thank thee in the great assembly, in (the midst of the) mighty people I will praise thee On the supposition that his prayer will be heard and answered, he engages to give public thanks, in the great congregation or assembly of God’s people. See above, on Ps. 22:23, 26 (22, 25).—Strong people, strong in numbers, a poetical equivalent to great congregation.—The verb in the last clause means to praise in general; that in the first to praise for benefits received, to acknowledge favors, in other words to thank. See above, on Ps. 33:2.
19. Let them not rejoice respecting me, my enemies of falsehood, (and let not) my haters without cause wink the eye. Respecting me, at my expense, or, in this and similar connections, over me, although this idea is not so much expressed in the text as suggested by the context. See above, Ps. 25:2, and below, ver. 24, Ps. 38:17 (16). Let them not rejoice, let them have no occasion so to do.—My enemies of falsehood, my false enemies, who gratify their spite by calumny and slander.—My haters without cause, those who hate me gratuitously, out of sheer spite, without any reasonable ground or even colourable pretext. This is a favorite description of the enemies of the righteous—see above, on Ps. 7:5 (4), 25:3—and was pre-eminently true of the enemies of Christ, to whom it is applied in the New Testament (John 15:25). The negation of the first clause is to be repeated in the other, as in Ps. 9:19 (18). Winking is here referred to as a gesture of mutual congratulation among accomplices in guilt. Compare Prov. 6:13, 10:10.
20. For not peace will they speak, and against the quiet of the land words of deceits will they devise. The for assigns a reason why they ought not to be suffered to rejoice in the success of their designs. The reason is, because their designs are evil, tending not to peace—in the strict sense, as opposed to strife, or in the wide sense, as opposed to trouble and calamity—but to the disturbance of those who are peacefully inclined, the quiet (or tranquil) of the land, i.e. the land of promise, considered as the home of God’s chosen people, who, as its rightful proprietors, are characteristically peaceful, and averse from all strife and disorder. Compare Mat. 5:5. To disturb these, the wicked devise words of deceits, in which phrase words is not an idiomatic pleonasm,—compare 41:9 (8), 65:4 (3),—but a substantive expression, meaning false (or lying) words, and more specifically slanders—see below, Ps. 36:4 (3)—the utterers of which are called lying enemies in ver. 19. The futures of this verse include the present: they do so now and will do so still. Some connect not peace as an emphatic compound, meaning just the opposite of peace. Compare Isa. 10:15.
21. And have widened against me their mouth; they have said, Aha, aha, our eye has seen. “They have mocked at my distress with contemptuous grimaces, and rejoiced in the fulfilment of their spiteful wishes.” With the first clause compare Ps. 22:8 (7) above. The Hebrew interjection in the last clause (הֶאָח) seems to be a natural expression of joyful surprise. Their success was almost too great to be real, yet attested by their senses. The verse ends with a kind of aposiopesis: “our own eyes have seen”—what we could not have believed on the report of another, to wit, the gratification of our warmest wishes. See below, ver. 25.
22. Thou hast seen, Jehovah, be not silent; Lord, be not far from me. “But they are not the only witnesses of my distress, for thou, Lord, likewise seest and hast long seen it. Seeing it, therefore, be no longer silent; refrain no longer from interposing in my favour; speak in my behalf; be near me in this time of peril.” The connection of the verses is like that in Ps. 10:13, 14, and the prayer in the last clause not unlike that with which the same psalm opens. With the other petition, be not silent, compare that at the beginning of Ps. 28, and with the first words, thou hast seen, those of ver. 17 above.
23. Arouse (thee) and awake for my right (or judgment), my God and my Lord, for my cause. “Put an end to this inaction and apparent indifference, and manifest thy presence, as my sovereign and my covenant-keeping God, for the vindication of my innocence against false accusers and unrighteous judges.” The same petition, clothed in nearly the same words, occurs above in Ps. 7:7, 9 (6, 8). See also Ps. 9:5 (4), 17.
24. Judge me according to thy righteousness, Jehovah, my God, and let them not rejoice respecting me. “Do me justice, clear me from aspersion, grant an attestation of my innocence, in the exercise and exhibition of thine own essential rectitude, and in accordance with that covenant relation which exists between us; and thus, in the most effectual manner, take away from my malignant enemies all pretext and occasion for exulting in my overthrow, or otherwise triumphing at my expense.” With the last clause compare Ps. 30:2 (1) above, where he thanks God for the very favour which he here asks. The verb in this clause may be referred to men in general, or with still greater probability to the enemies described in the preceding context.
25. Let them not say in their heart, Aha, our soul (or our heart’s desire)! Let them not say, We have swallowed him up! In their heart, not secretly, but cordially, not as opposed to saying so to others, but to mere profession.—Our heart’s desire! an abbreviated exclamation prompted by strong feeling. “This is precisely what we have so long and so intensely wished for!” See above, on Ps. 27:12. Let them not say, let them not have occasion so to say; let not the events which befall me justify them in so saying.—Swallowed him up, utterly destroyed him. See above, on Ps. 21:10 (9), and compare Lam. 2:16, where the form of expression is no doubt copied from the verse before us.
26. Let them be ashamed and blush together—the rejoicers in my evil; let them put on shame and contempt the (men) magnifying against me (their words, or their deeds, or themselves)! The relative construction, who rejoice in my hurt, who magnify against me, gives the sense, but in an English rather than a Hebrew form.—Ashamed, disappointed and defeated. See above, on ver. 4.—Blush, be confused or confounded.—My evil, i.e. evil fortune, injury, including the idea of injustice, as the antithetical term in ver. 27 is righteousness or justification.—Put on, as a dress, and wear it, or be covered with it. See below, on Ps. 109:18 (17), and compare Job 8:22.—Contempt, disgrace, ignominy.—Making great, &c., their mouth or words, i.e. speaking proudly, Obad. 12, Ezek. 35:13; or still more probably and agreeably to usage, acting proudly, as in Ps. 55:13 (12), and elsewhere. The complete expression may be that used in Joel 2:20.
27. Let them shout (or sing) and rejoice—the desirers of my righteousness—and let them always say, Great is (or be) Jehovah, the (God) willing (or desiring) the peace of his servant! The sentence may be brought into closer conformity to our idiom by adopting a relative construction. “Let them rejoice who desire my righteousness,” i.e. my justification, who desire to see me practically justified by God’s providential dealings with me.—Let them always say, i.e. always have occasion so to do, which is virtually wishing that the peace or prosperity of Jehovah’s servant may be perpetual. The verbal adjective in both these clauses means desiring, with a strong implication of complacency or satisfaction in the object, and therefore really includes the two ideas of desire and delight.—The righteousness or justification of the first clause is an obvious antithesis to the evil, hurt, or injury of ver. 26, and no less obviously identical, or at least coincident, with the peace or welfare of the last clause here.
28. And my tongue shall utter thy righteousness—all the day (long) thy praise. The and connects the verse with what precedes, as the effect with its occasion or its cause. This connection may be made clear in our idiom by the use of a more definite particle, such as then or so.—The verb used in this verse is applied elsewhere both to articulate and inarticulate animal sounds. The nearest equivalent in English is to utter. For a secondary or derived sense of the same verb, see above, on Ps. 1:2.—All the day long, or every day, common expressions for continually, always.—The righteousness of the first clause is the object of the praise in the second. The righteousness of God here mentioned has reference to the Psalmist’s righteousness in ver. 27. By vindicating this, the divine justice or fidelity acquires, as it were, a new claim to the praises of the justified sinner, which he here declares himself resolved to pay.
Alexander, J. A. (1864). The Psalms Translated and Explained (pp. 149–155). Andrew Elliot; James Thin. (Public Domain)
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