Psalms 41 — LXXSB

(42) For the end, a Psalm for instruction, for the sons of Core.

41As the hart earnestly desires the fountains of water, so my soul earnestly longs for you, O God.
^{Verse 2}My soul has thirsted for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
^{Verse 3}My tears have been bread to me day and night, while they daily said to me, Where is your God?
^{Verse 4}I remembered these things, and poured out my soul in me, for I will go to the place of your wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God, with a voice of exultation and thanksgiving and of the sound of those who keep festival.⁺
^{Verse 5}Therefore are you very sad, O my soul? and therefore do you trouble me? hope in God; for I will give thanks to him; he is the salvation of my countenance.
^{Verse 6}O my God, my soul has been troubled within me: therefore will I remember you from the land of Jordan, and of the Ermonites, from the little hill.
^{Verse 7}Deep calls to deep at the voice of your cataracts: all your billows and your waves have gone over me.
^{Verse 8}By day the Lord will command his mercy, and⁺manifest it by night: with me is prayer to the God of my life.
^{Verse 9}I will say to God, You are my helper; why have you forgotten me? therefore do I go sad of countenance, while the enemy oppresses me?
^{Verse 10}While my bones were breaking, they that afflicted me reproached me; while they said to me daily, Where is your God?
^{Verse 11}Therefore are you very sad, O my soul? and therefore do you trouble me? hope in God; for I will give thanks to him; he is the health of my countenance, and my God.

Commentary

(Heb.: 41:2-4) The Psalm opens by celebrating the lot, so rich in promises, of the sympathetic man. דּל is a general designation of the poor (e.g., Exo 30:15), of the sick and weakly (Gen 41:19), of the sick in mind (Sa2 13:4), and of that which outwardly or inwardly is tottering and consequently weak, frail. To show sympathising attention, thoughtful consideration towards such an one (השׂכּיל אל as in Neh 8:13, cf. על Pro 17:20) has many promises. The verb חיּה, which elsewhere even means to call to life again (Psa 71:20), in this instance side by side with preserving, viz., from destruction, has the signification of preserving life or prolonging life (as in Psa 30:4; Psa 22:30). The Pual אשּׁר signifies to be made happy (Pro 3:18), but also declaratively: to be pronounced happy (Isa 9:15); here, on account of the בּארץ that stands with it, it is the latter. The Chethb יעשּׁר sets forth as an independent promise that which the Ker ואשּׁר joins on to what has gone before as a consequence. אל, Psa 41:3 (cf. Psa 34:6 and frequently), expresses a negative with full sympathy in the utterance. נתן בּנפשׁ as in Psa 27:12. The supporting in Psa 41:4 is a keeping erect, which stops or arrests the man who is sinking down into death and the grave. דּוי (= davj, similar form to שׁמי, מעי, but wanting in the syllable before the tone) means sickness. If Psa 41:4 is understood of the supporting of the head after the manner of one who waits upon the sick (cf. Sol 2:6), then Psa 41:4 must, with Mendelssohn and others, be understood of the making of the couch or bed. But what then is neat by the word לך? משׁכּב is a sick-bed in Exo 21:18 in the sense of being bedridden; and הפכתּ (cf. Psa 30:12) is a changing of it into convalescence. By כל־משׁכבו is not meant the constant lying down of such an one, but the affliction that casts him down, in all its extent. This Jahve turns or changes, so often as such an one is taken ill (בחליו, at his falling sick, parallel with דוי על־ערשׂ דוי htiw). He gives a complete turn to the "sick-bed" towards recovery, so that not a vestige of the sickness remains behind.

(Heb.: 41:5-7) He, the poet, is treated in his distress of soul in a manner totally different from the way just described which is so rich in promises of blessing. He is himself just such a דּל, towards whom one ought to manifest sympathising consideration and interest. But, whilst he is addressing God in the language of penitential prayer for mercy and help, his enemies speak evil to him, i.e., with respect to him, wishing that he might die and that his name might perish. רפאה .hs is as an exception Milra, inasmuch as א draws the tone to its own syllable; cf. on the other hand רגזה, Isa 32:11 (Hitzig). מתי (prop. extension, length of time) has only become a Semitic interrogative in the signification quando by the omission of the interrogative אי (common Arabic in its full form Arab. 'ymtâ, êmata). ואבד is a continuation of the future. In Psa 41:7 one is singled out and made prominent, and his hypocritically malicious conduct described. ראות of a visit to a sick person as in Sa2 13:5., Kg2 8:29. אם is used both with the perf. (Psa 50:18; Psa 63:7; Psa 78:34; Psa 94:18; Gen 38:9; Amo 7:2; Isa 24:13; Isa 28:25) and with the fut. (Psa 68:14; Job 14:14), like quum, as a blending together of si and quando, Germ. wenn (if) and wann (when). In ידבר לבו two Rebias come together, the first of which has the greater value as a distinctive, according to the rule laid down in Baer's Psalterium, p. xiv. Consequently, following the accents, it must not be rendered: "falsehood doth his heart speak." The lxx, Vulgate, and Targum have discerned the correct combination of the words. Besides, the accentuation, as is seen from the Targum and expositors, proceeds on the assumption that לבּו is equivalent to בּלבּו. But why may it not be the subject-notion: "His heart gathereth" is an expression of the activity of his mind and feelings, concealed beneath a feigned and friendly outward bearing. The asyndeton portrays the despatch with which he seeks to make the material for slander, which has been gathered together, public both in the city and in the country.

(Heb.: 41:8-10) Continuation of the description of the conduct of the enemies and of the false friend. התלחשׁ, as in Sa2 12:19, to whisper to one another, or to whisper among themselves; the Hithpa. sometimes (cf. Gen 42:1) has a reciprocal meaning like the Niphal. The intelligence brought out by hypocritical visitors of the invalid concerning his critical condition is spread from mouth to mouth by all who wish him ill as satisfactory news; and in fact in whispers, because at that time caution was still necessary. עלי stands twice in a prominent position in the sense of contra me. רעה לּי belong together: they maliciously invent what will be the very worst for him (going beyond what is actually told them concerning him). In this connection there is a feeling in favour of בּליּעל being intended of an evil fate, according to Psa 18:5, and not according to Psa 101:3 (cf. Deu 15:9) of pernicious or evil thought and conduct. And this view is also supported by the predicate יצוּק בּו: "a matter of destruction, an incurable evil (Hitzig) is poured out upon him," i.e., firmly cast upon him after the manner of casting metal (Job 41:15.), so that he cannot get free from it, and he that has once had to lie down will not again rise up. Thus do we understand אשׁר in Psa 41:9; there is no occasion to take it as an accusative by departing from the most natural sense, as Ewald does, or as a conjunction, as Hitzig does. Even the man of his peace, or literally of his harmonious relationship (אישׁ שׁלום as in Oba 1:7, Jer 20:10; Jer 38:22), on whom he has depended with fullest confidence, who did eat his bread, i.e., was his messmate (cf. Psa 55:15), has made his heel great against him, lxx ἐμεγάλυνεν ἐπ ̓ ἐμὲ πτερνισμόν. The combination הגדּיל עקב is explained by the fact that עקב is taken in the sense of a thrust with the heel, a kick: to give a great kick, i.e., with a good swing of the foot.

(Heb.: 41:11-13) Having now described their behaviour towards him, sick in soul and body as he is, so devoid of affection, yea, so malignantly hostile and so totally contrary to the will and promise of God, David prays that God would raise him up, for he is now lying low, sick in soul and in body. The prayer is followed, as in Ps 39:14 and many other passages, by the future with ah: that I may be able to requite them, or: then will I requite them. What is meant is the requiting which it was David's duty as a duly constituted king to exercise, and which he did really execute by the power of God, when he subdued the rebellion of Absalom and maintained his ground in opposition to faithlessness and meanness. Instead of בּזאת אדע (Gen 42:33, cf. Gen 15:8, Exo 7:17; Num 16:28; Jos 3:10) the expression is בּזאת ידעתּי in the sense of (ex hoc) cognoverim. On חפצתּ בּי cf. Psa 18:20; Psa 22:9; Psa 35:27. By the second כּי, the בּזאת, which points forwards, is explained. The adversatively accented subject ואני stands first in Psa 41:13 as a nom. absol., just as in Psa 35:13. Psa 41:13 states, retrospectively from the standpoint of fulfilment, what will then be made manifest and assure him of the divine good pleasure, viz., Jahve upholds him (תּמך as in Psa 63:9), and firmly sets him as His chosen one before Him (cf. Psa 39:6) in accordance with the Messianic promise in Sa2 7:16, which speaks of an unlimited future.

(Heb.: 41:14) The closing doxology of the First Book, vid., Introduction. Concerning בּרוּך vid., Psa 18:47. The expression "from aeon to aeon" is, according to Berachoth ix. 5, directed against those who deny the truth of the future world. אמן ואמן (a double aleethe's or aleethoo's) seals it in a climactic form.

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