《Keil & Delitzsch Commentary – Psalms (Vol. 2)》(Karl F. Keil, etc.) 51 Psalm 51

91 Psalm 91
Introduction

Talismanic Song in Time of War and Pestilence

The primeval song is followed by an anonymous song (inscribed by thelxx without any warrant ôùÄáõé), the time of whosecomposition cannot be determined; and it is only placed in this order because the last verse accords with the last verse but one of Ps 90. There the revelation of Jahve's work is prayed for, and here Jahve promises: I will grant him to see My salvation; the “work of Jahve” is His realized “salvation.” The two Psalms also have other points of contact, e.g., in the מעון referred to God (vid., Symbolae, p. 60).
In this Psalm, the Invocavit Psalm of the church, which praises the protecting and rescuing grace which he who believingly takes refuge in God experiences in all times of danger and distress,

(Note: Hence in J. Shabbath 8, col. 2, and Midrash Shocher tob on Psalm 91:1 and elsewhere, it is called, together with Psalm 3:1-8, (פגעים) שיר פגועין, a song of occurrences, i.e., a protective (or talismanic) song in times of dangers that may befall one, just as Sebald Heyden's Psalm-song, “He who is in the protection of the Most High and resigns himself to God,” is inscribed “Preservative against the pestilence.”)

the relation of Psalm 91:2 to Psalm 91:1 meets us at the very beginning as a perplexing riddle. If we take Psalm 91:1 as a clause complete in itself, then it is tautological. If we take אמר in Psalm 91:2 as a participle (Jerome, dicens) instead of אמר, ending with (Pathach) because a construct from (cf. Psalm 94:9; Psalm 136:6), then the participial subject would have a participial predicate: “He who sitteth is saying,” which is inelegant and also improbable, since אמר in other instances is always the 1st pers. fut. If we take אמר as 1st pers. fut. and Psalm 91:1 as an apposition of the subject expressed in advance: as such an one who sitteth … . I say, then we stumble against יתלונן; this transition of the participle to the finite verb, especially without the copula (וּבצל), is confusing. If, however, we go on and read further into the Psalm, we find that the same difficulty as to the change of person recurs several times later on, just as in the opening. Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Hitzig get rid of this difficulty by all sorts of conjectures. But a reason for this abrupt change of the person is that dramatic arrangement recognised even in the Targum, although awkwardly indicated, which, however, as first of all clearly discerned by J. D. Michaelis and Maurer. There are, to wit, two voices that speak (as in Psalm 121:1-8), and at last the voice of Jahve comes in as a third. His closing utterance, rich in promise, forms, perhaps not unaccidentally, a seven-line strophe. Whether the Psalm came also to be executed in liturgical use thus with several voices, perhaps by three choirs, we cannot tell; but the poet certainly laid it out dramatically, as the translation represents it. In spite of the many echoes of earlier models, it is one of the freshest and most beautiful Psalms, resembling the second part of Isaiah in its light-winged, richly coloured, and transparent diction.

Verse 1-2

As the concealing One, God is called עליון, theinaccessibly high One; and as the shadowing One שׁדּי, theinvincibly almighty One. Faith, however, calls Him by His covenant name(Heilsname) יהוה and, with the suffix of appropriation, אלהי (my God). In connection with Psalm 91:1 we are reminded of theexpressions of the Book of Job, Job 39:28, concerning the eagle's buildingits nest in its eyrie. According to the accentuation, Psalm 91:2 ought to berendered with Geier, “Dicit: in Domino meo (or Domini) latibulum, etc.”But the combination אמר לה is more natural, since the language ofaddress follows in both halves of the verse.

Verses 3-9

יקושׁ, as in Proverbs 6:5; Jeremiah 5:26, is the dullest toned from forיקושׁ or יוקשׁ, Psalm 124:7. What is meant is death, or “he whohas the power of death,” Hebrews 2:14, cf. 2 Timothy 2:26. “The snare of thefowler” is a figure for the peril of one's life, Ecclesiastes 9:12. In connection withPsalm 91:4 we have to call to mind Deuteronomy 32:11: God protects His own as an eaglewith its large strong wing. אברה is nom. unitatisa pinion, toאבר, Isaiah 40:31; and the Hiph. הסך, from סכך, withthe dative of the object, like the Kal in Psalm 140:8, signifies to affordcovering, protection. The áëåãסחרה,according to its stem-word, is that which encompasses anything roundabout, and here beside צנּה, a weapon of defence surrounding thebody on all sides; therefore not corresponding to the Syriac (sḥārtā'), a stronghold (סהר, מסגּרת), but to Syriac (sabrā'), a shield. The Targum translates צנּה with תּריסא, θυρεός , and סחרה with עגילא, which points to the round (parma). אמתּו is the truth of the divine promises. This is an impregnable defence (a) in war-times, Psalm 91:5, against nightly surprises, and in the battle by day; (b) in times of pestilence, Psalm 91:6, when the destroying angel, who passes through and destroys the people (Exodus 11:4), can do no harm to him who has taken refuge in God, either in the midnight or the noontide hours. The future יהלך is a more rhythmical and, in the signification to rage (as of disease) and to vanish away, a more usual form instead of ילך. The lxx, Aquila, and Symmachus erroneously associate the demon name שׁד with ישׁוּד. It is a metaplastic (as if formed from שׁוּד morf de) future for ישׁד, cf. Proverbs 29:6, ירוּן, and Isaiah 42:4, ירוּץ, frangetur. Psalm 91:7 a hypothetical protasis: si cadant; the preterite would signify cediderint, Ew. §357, b. With רק that which will solely and exclusively take place is introduced. Burk correctly renders: nullam cum peste rem habebis, nisi ut videas. Only a spectator shalt thou be, and that with thine own eyes, being they self inaccessible and left to survive, conscious that thou thyself art a living one in contrast with those who are dying. And thou shalt behold, like Israel on the night of the Passover, the just retribution to which the evil-doers fall a prey. שׁלּמה, recompense, retribution, is a hapaxlegomenon, cf. שׁלּמים, Isaiah 34:8. Ascribing the glory to God, the second voice confirms or ratifies these promises.

Verses 9-16

The first voice continues this ratification, and goes on weaving these promises still further: thou hast made the Most High thy dwelling-place (מעון); there shall not touch thee … . The promises rise ever higher and higher and sound more glorious. The Pual אנּה, prop. to be turned towards, is equivalent to “to befall one,” as in Proverbs 12:21; Aquila well renders: ου ̓ μεταχθήσεται πρὸς σὲ κακία . לא־יקרב reminds one of Isaiah 54:14, where אל follows; here it is בּ, as in Judges 19:13. The angel guardianship which is apportioned to him who trusts in God appears in Psalm 91:11, Psalm 91:12 as a universal fact, not as a solitary fact and occurring only in extraordinary instances. Haec est vera miraculorum ratio, observes Brentius on this passage, quod semel aut iterum manifeste revelent ea quae Deus semper abscondite operatur. In ישּׂאוּנך the suffix has been combined with the full form of the future. The lxx correctly renders Psalm 91:12 : μήποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου , for נגף everywhere else, and therefore surely here too and in Proverbs 3:23, has a transitive signification, not an intransitive (Aquila, Jerome, Symmachus), cf. Jeremiah 13:16. Psalm 91:13 tells what he who trusts in God has power to do by virtue of this divine succour through the medium of angels. The promise calls to mind Mark 16:18, ὄφεις ἀροῦσι , they shall take up serpents, but still more Luke 10:19: Behold, I give you power to tread ἐπάνω ὄφεων καὶ σκορπίων καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ ἐχθροῦ . They are all kinds of destructive powers belonging to nature, and particularly to the spirit-world, that are meant. They are called lions and fierce lions from the side of their open power, which threatens destruction, and adders and dragons from the side of their venomous secret malice. In Psalm 91:13 it is promised that the man who trusts in God shall walk on over these monsters, these malignant foes, proud in God and unharmed; in Psalm 91:13 , that he shall tread them to the ground (cf. Romans 16:20). That which the divine voice of promise now says at the close of the Psalm is, so far as the form is concerned, an echo taken from Ps 50. Psalm 50:15, Psalm 50:23 of that Psalm sound almost word for word the same. Genesis 46:4, and more especially Isaiah 63:9, are to be compared on Psalm 50:15 . In B. Taanith 16a it is inferred from this passage that God compassionates the suffering ones whom He is compelled by reason of His holiness to chasten and prove. The “salvation of Jahve,” as in Psalm 50:23, is the full reality of the divine purpose (or counsel) of mercy. To live to see the final glory was the rapturous thought of the Old Testament hope, and in the apostolic age, of the New Testament hope also.
92 Psalm 92
Introduction

Sabbath Thoughts

This Song-Psalm for the Sabbath-day was the Sabbath-Psalm among theweek's Psalms of the post-exilic service (cf. pp. 18, 211); and was sung inthe morning at the drink-offering of the first Tamîd lamb, just as at the accompanying Sabbath-musaph-offering (Numbers 28:9.) a part of the song Deut. 32 (divided into six parts) was sung, and at the service connected with the Mincha or evening sacrifice one of the three pieces, Exodus 15:1-10, Exodus 15:11-19, Numbers 21:17-20 (B. Rosh ha-Shana 31a). 1 Macc. 9:23 is a reminiscence from Psalm 92:1-15 deviating but little from the lxx version, just as 1 Macc. 7:17 is a quotation taken from Ps 89. With respect to the sabbatical character of the Psalm, it is a disputed question even in the Talmud whether it relates to the Sabbath of the Creation (R. Nehemiah, as it is taken by the Targum) or to the final Sabbath of the world's history (R. Akiba: the day that is altogether Sabbath; cf. Athanasius: αἰνεῖ ἐκείνην τὴν γενησομένην ἀνάπαυσιν ). The latter is relatively more correct. It praises God, the Creator of the world, as the Ruler of the world, whose rule is pure loving-kindness and faithfulness, and calms itself, in the face of the flourishing condition of the evil-doers, with the prospect of the final issue, which will brilliantly vindicate the righteousness of God, that was at that time imperceptible to superficial observation, and will change the congregation of the righteous into a flourishing grove of palms and cedars upon holy ground. In this prospect Psalm 92:12 and Psalm 91:8 coincide, just as God is also called “the Most High” at the beginning of these two Psalms. But that the (tetragrammaton) occurs seven times in both Psalms, as Hengstenberg says, does not turn out to be correct. Only the Sabbath-Psalm (and not Ps 91) repeats the most sacred Name seven times. And certainly the unmistakeable strophe-schema too, 6. 6. 7. 6. 6, is not without significance. The middle of the Psalm bears the stamp of the sabbatic number. It is also worthy of remark that the poet gains the number seven by means of an anadiplosis in Psalm 92:10. Such an emphatic climax by means of repetition is common to our Psalm with Psalm 93:3; Psalm 94:3; Psalm 96:13.

Verses 1-3

The Sabbath is the day that God has hallowed, and that is to be consecrated to God by our turning away from the business pursuits of the working days (Isaiah 58:13.) and applying ourselves to the praise and adoration of God, which is the most proper, blessed Sabbath employment. It is good, i.e., not merely good in the eyes of God, but also good for man, beneficial to the heart, pleasant and blessed. Loving-kindness is designedly connected with the dawn of the morning, for it is morning light itself, which breaks through the night (Psalm 30:6; Psalm 59:17), and faithfulness with the nights, for in the perils of the loneliness of the night it is the best companion, and nights of affliction are the “foil of its verification.” עשׂור beside נבל (נבל) is equivalent to נבל עשׂור in Psalm 33:2; Psalm 144:9: the ten-stringed harp or lyre. הגּיון is the music of stringed instruments (vid., on Psalm 9:17), and that, since הגה in itself is not a suitable word for the rustling (strepitus) of the strings, the impromptu or phantasia playing (in Amos 6:5, scornfully, פּרט), which suits both Psalm 9:17 (where it is appended to the forte of the interlude) and the construction with Beth instrumenti.

Verses 4-6

Statement of the ground of this commendation of the praise of God. Whilst פּעל is the usual word for God's historical rule (Psalm 44:2; Psalm 64:10; Psalm 90:16, etc.), מעשׂי ידיך denotes the works of the Creator of the world, although not to the exclusion of those of the Ruler of the world (Psalm 143:5). To be able to rejoice over the revelation of God in creation and the revelation of God in general is a gift from above, which the poet thankfully confesses that he has received. The Vulgate begins Psalm 92:5 Quia delectasti me, and Dante in his Purgatorio, xxviii. 80, accordingly calls the Psalm il Salmo Delectasti; a smiling female form, which represents the life of Paradise, says, as she gathers flowers, she is so happy because, with the Psalm Delectasti, she takes a delight in the glory of God's works. The works of God are transcendently great; very deep are His thoughts, which mould human history and themselves gain from in it (cf. Psalm 40:6; Psalm 139:17., where infinite fulness is ascribed to them, and Isaiah 55:8, where infinite height is ascribed to them). Man can neither measure the greatness of the divine works nor fathom the depth of the divine thoughts; he who is enlightened, however, perceives the immeasurableness of the one and the unfathomableness of the other, whilst a אישׁ־בּער, a man of animal nature, homo brutus (vid., Psalm 73:22), does not come to the knowledge (לא ידע, used absolutely as in Psalm 14:4), and כּסיל, a blockhead, or one dull in mind, whose carnal nature outweighs his intellectual and spiritual nature, does not discern את־זאת (cf. 2 Samuel 13:17), id ipsum, viz., how unsearchable are God's judgments and untrackable His ways (Romans 11:33).

Verses 7-9

Upon closer examination the prosperity of the ungodly is only a semblance that lasts for a time. The infinitive construction in Psalm 92:8 is continued in the historic tense, and it may also be rendered as historical. זאת היתה (Saadia: Arab. (fânnh)) is to be supplied in thought before להשּׁמדם, as in Job 27:14. What is spoken of is an historical occurrence which, in its beginning, course, and end, has been frequently repeated even down to the present day, and ever confirmed afresh. And thus, too, in time to come and once finally shall the ungodly succumb to a peremptory, decisive (עדי־עד) judgment of destruction. Jahve is מרום לעלם, by His nature and by His rule He is “a height for ever;” i.e., in relation to the creature and all that goes on here below He has a nature beyond and above all this (Jenseitigkeit), ever the same and absolute; He is absolutely inaccessible to the God-opposed one here below who vaunts himself in stupid pride and rebelliously exalts himself as a titan, and only suffers it to last until the term of his barren blossoming is run out. Thus the present course of history will and must in fact end in a final victory of good over evil: for lo Thine enemies, Jahve - for lo Thine enemies … . הנּה points as it were with the finger to the inevitable end; and the emotional anadiplosis breathes forth a zealous love for the cause of God as if it were his own. God's enemies shall perish, all the workers of evil shall be disjointed, scattered, יתפּרדוּ (cf. Job 4:11). Now they form a compact mass, which shall however fall to pieces, when one day the intermingling of good and evil has an end.

Verses 10-12

The hitherto oppressed church then stands forth vindicated and glorious. The futt. consec. as preterites of the ideal past, pass over further on into the pure expression of future time. The lxx renders: καὶ ὑψωθήσεται (ותּרם) ὡς μονοκέρωτος τὸ κέρας μου . By ראים (incorrect for ראם, primary form ראם), μονόκερως , is surely to be understood the oryx, one-horned according to Aristotle and the Talmud (vid., on Psalm 29:6; Job 39:9-12). This animal is called in Talmudic קרשׂ (perhaps abbreviated from μονόκερως ); the Talmud also makes use of ארזילא (the gazelle) as synonymous with ראם (Aramaic definitive or emphatic state רימא).

(Note: Vid., Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmud, §§146 and 174.)

The primary passages for figures taken from animal life are Numbers 23:22; Deuteronomy 33:17. The horn is an emblem of defensive power and at the same time of stately grace; and the fresh, green oil an emblem of the pleasant feeling and enthusiasm, joyous in the prospect of victory, by which the church is then pervaded (Acts 3:19). The lxx erroneously takes בּלּותי as infin. Piel, τὸ γῆράς μου , my being grown old, a signification which the Piel cannot have. It is 1st praet. Kal from בּלל, perfusus sum (cf. Arabic (balla), to be moist, (ballah) and (bullah), moistness, good health, the freshness of youth), and the ultima-accentuation, which also occurs in this form of double (Ajin) verbs without Waw convers. (vid., on Job 19:17), ought not to mislead. In the expression שׁמן רענן, the adjective used in other instances only of the olive-tree itself is transferred to the oil, which contains the strength of its succulent verdure as an essence. The ecclesia pressa is then triumphans. The eye, which was wont to look timidly and tearfully upon the persecutors, the ears, upon which even their name and the tidings of their approach were wont to produce terror, now see their desire upon them as they are blotted out. שׁמע בּ (found only here) follows the sense of ראה בּ, cf. Arab. (nḍr) (fı̂), to lose one's self in the contemplation of anything. שׁוּרי is either a substantive after the form בּוּז, גּוּר, or a participle in the signification “those who regarded me with hostility, those who lay in wait for me,” like נוּס, fled, Numbers 35:32, סוּר, having removed themselves to a distance, Jeremiah 17:13, שׁוּב, turned back, Micah 2:8; for this participial form has not only a passive signification (like מוּל, circumcised), but sometimes too, a deponent perfect signification; and חוּשׁ in Numbers 32:17, if it belongs here, may signify hurried = in haste. In שׁוּרי, however, no such passive colouring of the meaning is conceivable; it is therefore: insidiati (Luzatto, Grammatica, §518: coloro che mi guatavano). There is no need for regarding the word, with Böttcher and Olshausen, as distorted from שׁררי (the apocopated participle Pilel of the same verb); one might more readily regard it as a softening of that word as to the sound (Ewald, Hitzig). In Psalm 92:12 it is not to be rendered: upon the wicked doers (villains) who rise up against me. The placing of the adjective thus before its substantive must (with the exception of רב when used after the manner of a numeral) be accounted impossible in Hebrew, even in the face of the passages brought forward by Hitzig, viz., 1 Chronicles 27:5; 1 Samuel 31:3;

(Note: In the former passage כהן ראשׁ is taken as one notion (chief priest), and in the latter אנשׁים בקשׁת (men with the bow) is, with Keil, to be regarded as an apposition.)

it is therefore: upon those who as villains rise up against. The circumstance that the poet now in Psalm 92:13 passes from himself to speak of the righteous, is brought about by the fact that it is the congregation of the righteous in general, i.e., of those who regulate their life according to the divine order of salvation, into whose future he here takes a glance. When the prosperity lit. the blossoming of the ungodly comes to an end, the springing up and growth of the righteous only then rightly has its beginning. The richness of the inflorescence of date-palm (תּמר) is clear from the fact, that when it has attained its full size, it bears from three to four, and in some instances even as many as six, hundred pounds of fruit. And there is no more charming and majestic sight than the palm of the oasis, this prince among the trees of the plain, with its proudly raised diadem of leaves, its attitude peering forth into the distance and gazing full into the face of the sun, its perennial verdure, and its vital force, which constantly renews itself from the root - a picture of life in the midst of the world of death. The likening of the righteous to the palm, to the “blessed tree,” to this “sister of man,” as the Arabs call it, offers points of comparison in abundance. Side by side with the palm is the cedar, the prince of the trees of the mountain, and in particular of Mount Lebanon. The most natural point of comparison, as ישׂגּה (cf. Job 8:11) states, is its graceful lofty growth, then in general τὸ δασὺ καὶ θερμὸν καὶ θρέψιμον (Theodoret), i.e., the intensity of its vegetative strength, but also the perpetual verdure of its foliage and the perfume (Hosea 14:7) which it exhales.

Verses 13-15

The soil in which the righteous are planted or (if it is not rendered with the lxx πεφυτευμένοι , but with the other Greek versions μεταφυτευθέντες ) into which they are transplanted, and where they take root, a planting of the Lord, for His praise, is His holy Temple, the centre of a family fellowship with God that is brought about from that point as its starting-point and is unlimited by time and space. There they stand as in sacred ground and air, which impart to them ever new powers of life; they put forth buds (הפריח as in Job 14:9) and preserve a verdant freshness and marrowy vitality (like the olive, 52:10, Judges 9:9) even into their old age (נוּב of a productive force for putting out shoots; vid., with reference to the root נב, Genesis, S. 635f.), cf. Isaiah 65:22: like the duration of the trees is the duration of my people; they live long in unbroken strength, in order, in looking back upon a life rich in experiences of divine acts of righteousness and loving-kindness, to confirm the confession which Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:4, places at the head of his great song. There the expression is אין עול, here it is אין עלתה בּו. This (‛ôlātha), softened from (‛awlātha) - So the Kerî - with a transition from the (aw), (au) into (ô), is also found in Job 5:16 (cf. עלה = עולה; Psalm 58:3; Psalm 64:7; Isaiah 61:8), and is certainly original in this Psalm, which also has many other points of coincidence with the Book of Job (like Ps 107, which, however, in Psalm 107:42 transposes עלתה into עולה).