Psalms 32 — WBMSE

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32Learning to David. [The understanding of David.] Blessed be they, whose wickedness be forgiven; and whose sins be covered. (A teaching by David. Happy be they, whose wickedness be forgiven; and whose sins be covered.)^{Verse 2}Blessed is the man, to whom the Lord areckoned not sin; neither guile is in his spirit. (Happy is the person, to whom the Lord did not reckon any sin; and there is no deceit in his spirit.)^{Verse 3}For I was still, my bones waxed eld; while I cried all day. (For when I kept silent or For when I did not confess my sins, my bones grew old; while I cried all day long.)^{Verse 4}For by day and night thine hand was made grievous on me (or And day and night thy hand was heavy upon me); I am turned in my wretchedness, while the thorn is set in.^{Verse 5}(Then) I made my sin known to thee; and I hid not my unrightfulness. I said, I shall acknowledge against me mine unrightfulness to the Lord; and thou hast forgiven the wickedness of my sin.^{Verse 6}For this thing each holy man shall pray to thee; in covenable time. Nevertheless in the great flood of many waters; they shall not (come) nigh to thee. (For this thing, each holy man shall pray to thee; in his time of need. And then, in the great flood of many troubles, none shall come near him.)^{Verse 7}Thou art my refuge from tribulation, that (en)compassed me; thou, my fully joying, deliver me from them that (en)compass me. (Thou art my refuge, from the troubles that surround me; thou, my full out joy, deliver me from those who surround me.)^{Verse 8}I shall give understanding to thee, and I shall teach thee; in this way in which thou shalt go, I shall make steadfast mine eyes on thee. (And the Lord said, I shall give understanding to thee, and I shall teach thee the way in which thou should go; and I shall put my eyes steadfastly upon thee.)^{Verse 9}Do not ye be made as an horse and mule; to which is none understanding. Lord, constrain thou the cheeks of them with a barnacle and bridle; that (they) nigh not to thee. (Do not ye be made like a horse or a mule; which have no understanding, or reasoning ability. Their mouths must be constrained with a bit and a bridle; so that they finally submit to where they should go.)^{Verse 10}Many beatings be of the sinner; but mercy shall (en)compass him that hopeth in the Lord. (Many beatings be to the sinner; but the love of the Lord shall surround those who trust in him.)^{Verse 11}Ye just men, be glad, and make fully joy in the Lord; and all ye rightful of heart, have glory. (Ye who be righteous be glad, and make full out joy, (or rejoice), in the Lord; and all ye with an upright heart, have glory, (or shout for joy)!)

Commentary

The Psalm begins with the celebration of the happiness of the man who experiences God's justifying grace, when he gives himself up unreservedly to Him. Sin is called פּשׁע, as being a breaking loose or tearing away from God; חטאה, as a deviation from that which is well-pleasing to God; עון, as a perversion, distortion, misdeed. The forgiveness of sin is styled נשׂא (Exo 34:7), as a lifting up and taking away, αἴρειν and ἀφαιρεῖν, Exo 34:7; כּסּה (Psa 85:3, Pro 10:12, Neh 4:5), as a covering, so that it becomes invisible to God, the Holy One, and is as though it had never taken place; לא חשׁב (Sa2 19:20, cf. Arab. ḥsb, to number, reckon, ου ̓ λογίζεσθαι, Rom 4:6-9), as a non-imputing; the δικαιοσύνη χωρὶς ἔργων is here distinctly expressed. The justified one is called נשׂוּי־פּשׁע, as being one who is exempted from transgression, praevaricatione levatus (Ges. ֗135, 1); נשׂוּי, instead of נשׁא, Isa 33:24, is intended to rhyme with כּסוּי (which is the part. to כּסּה, just as בּרוּך is the participle to כּרך); vid., on Isa 22:13. One "covered of sin" is one over whose sin lies the covering of expiation (כּפּר, root כף, to cover, cogn. Arab. gfr, chfr, chmr, gmr) before the holy eyes of God. The third designation is an attributive clause: "to whom Jahve doth not reckon misdeed," inasmuch as He, on the contrary, regards it as discharged or as settled. He who is thus justified, however, is only he in whose spirit there is no רמיּה, no deceit, which denies and hides, or extenuates and excuses, this or that favourite sin. One such sin designedly retained is a secret ban, which stands in the way of justification.

For, as his own experience has taught the poet, he who does not in confession pour out all his corruption before God, only tortures himself until he unburdens himself of his secret curse. Since Psa 32:3 by itself cannot be regarded as the reason for the proposition just laid down, כּי signifies either "because, quod" (e.g., Pro 22:22) or "when, quum" (Jdg 16:16; Hos 11:10. The שׁאגה was an outburst of the tortures which his accusing conscience prepared for him. The more he strove against confessing, the louder did conscience speak; and while it was not in his power to silence this inward voice, in which the wrath of God found utterance, he cried the whole day, viz., for help; but while his heart was still unbroken, he cried yet received no answer. He cried all day long, for God's punishing right hand (Psa 38:3; Psa 39:11) lay heavey upon him day and night; the feeling of divine wrath left him no rest, cf. Job 33:14. A fire burned within him which threatened completely to devour him. The expression is בּחרבני (like בעשׂן in Psa 37:20; Psa 102:4), without כ, inasmuch as the fears which burn fiercely within him even to his heart and, as it were, scorch him up, he directly calls the droughts of summer. The בּ is the Beth of the state or condition, in connection with which the change, i.e., degeneration (Job 20:14), took place; for mutare in aliquid is expressed by הפך ל. The ל (which Saadia and others have mistaken) in לשׁדּי is part of the root; לשׁד (from לשׁד, Arab. lsd, to suck), inflected after the analogy of גּמל and the like, signifies succus. In the summer-heat of anxiety his vital moisture underwent a change: it burned and dried up. Here the music becomes louder and does its part in depicting these torments of the awakened conscience in connection with a heart that still remains unbroken. In spite of this διάψαλμα, however, the historical connection still retains sufficient influence to give אודיעך the force of the imperfect (cf. Psa 30:9): "I made known my sin and my guilt did I not cover up (כּסּה used here as in Pro 27:13; Job 31:33); I made the resolve: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord (הודה = חתודּה, Neh 1:6; Neh 9:2; elsewhere construed with the accusative, vid., Pro 28:13) - then Thou forgavest," etc. Hupfeld is inclined to place אמרתי before חטאתי אודיעך, by which אודיעך and אודה would become futures; but ועוני לא כסיתי sounds like an assertion of a fact, not the statement of an intention, and ואתה נשׂאת is the natural continuation of the אמרתי which immediately precedes. The form ואתה נשׂאת is designedly used instead of ותּשּׂא. Simultaneously with his confession of sin, made fide supplice, came also the absolution: then Thou forgavest the guilt (עון, misdeed, as a deed and also as a matter of fact, i.e., guilt contracted, and penance or punishment, cf. Lam 4:6; Zac 14:19) of my sin. Vox nondum est in ore, says Augustine, et vulnus sanatur in corde. The סלה here is the antithesis of the former one. There we have a shrill lament over the sinner who tortures himself in vain, here the clear tones of joy at the blessed experience of one who pours forth his soul to God - a musical Yea and Amen to the great truth of justifying grace.

For this mercy, which is provided for every sinner who repents and confesses his sin, let then, every חסיד, who longs for חסד, turn in prayer to Jahve לעת מצא, at the time (Psa 21:10; Ch1 12:22; cf. בּעת, Isa 49:8) when He, and His mercy, is to be found (cf. Deu 4:29 with Jer 29:13; Isa 55:6, בּהמּצאו). This hortatory wish is followed by a promissory assurance. The fact of לשׁטף מים רבּים being virtually a protasis: quam inundant aquae magnae (ל of the time), which separates רק from אליו, prohibits our regarding רק as belonging to אליו in this instance, although like אף, אך, גּם, and פּן, רק is also placed per hypallage at the head of the clause (as in Pro 13:10 : with pride there is only contention), even when belonging to a part of the clause that follows further on. The restrictive meaning of רק here, as is frequently the case (Deu 4:6; Jdg 14:16; Kg1 21:25, cf. Psa 91:8), has passed over to the affirmative: certo quum, etc. Inundation or flooding is an exemplificative description of the divine judgment (cf. Nah 1:8); Psa 32:6 is a brief form of expressing the promise which is expanded in Ps 91. In Psa 32:7, David confirms it from his own experience. The assonance in מצּר תּצּרני (Thou wilt preserve me, so that צר, angustum = angustiae, does not come upon me, Psa 119:143) is not undesigned; and after תצרני comes רני, just like כלו after בהיכלו in Psa 29:9. There is no sufficient ground for setting aside רני, with Houbigant and others, as a repetition of the half of the word תצרני. The infinitive רן (Job 38:7) might, like רב, plur. רבּי, חק, plur. חקּי, with equal right be inflected as a substantive; and פּלּט (as in Psa 56:8), which is likewise treated as a substantive, cf. נפּץ, Dan 12:7, presents, as a genitive, no more difficulty than does דעת in the expression אישׁ דּעת. With songs of deliverance doth Jahve surround him, so that they encompass him on all sides, and on occasion of exulting meets him in whatever direction he turns. The music here again for the third time becomes forte, and that to express the highest feeling of delight.

It is not Jahve, who here speaks in answer to the words that have been thus far addressed to Him. In this case the person addressed must be the poet, who, however, has already attained the knowledge here treated of. It is he himself who now directly adopts the tone of the teacher (cf. Psa 34:12). That which David, in Psa 51:15, promises to do, he here takes in hand, viz., the instruction of sinners in the way of salvation. It is unnecessary to read איעצך instead of איעצה, as Olshausen does; the suffix of אשׂכּילך and אורך (for אורך) avails also for this third verb, to which עליך עיני, equivalent to שׂם עליך עיני (fixing my eye upon thee, i.e., with sympathising love taking an interest in thee), stands in the relation of a subordinate relative clause. The lxx renders it by ἐπιστηριῶ ἐπὶ σὲ τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς μου, so that it takes יעץ, in accordance with its radical signification firmare, as the regens of עיני (I will fix my eye steadfastly upon thee); but for this there is no support in the general usage of the language. The accents give a still different rendering; they apparently make עיני an accus. adverb. (Since אעצה עליך עיני is transformed from איעצה עליך עיני: I will counsel thee with mine eye; but in every other instance, יעץ על means only a hostile determination against any one, e.g., Isa 7:5. The form of address, without changing its object, passes over, in Psa 32:9, into the plural and the expression becomes harsh in perfect keeping with the perverted character which it describes. The sense is on the whole clear: not constrained, but willing obedience is becoming to man, in distinction from an irrational animal which must be led by a bridle drawn through its mouth. The asyndeton clause: like a horse, a mule (פּרד as an animal that is isolated and does not pair; cf. Arab. fard, alone of its kind, single, unlike, the opposite of which is Arab. zawj, a pair, equal number), has nothing remarkable about it, cf. Psa 35:14; Isa 38:14. But it is not clear what עדיו is intended to mean. We might take it in its usual signification "ornament," and render "with bit and bridle, its ornament," and perhaps at once recognise therein an allusion to the senseless servility of the animal, viz., that its ornament is also the means by which it is kept in check, unless עדי, ornament, is perhaps directly equivalent to "harness." Still the rendering of the lxx is to be respected: in camo et fraeno - as Jerome reproduces it - maxilas eorum constringere qui non approximant ad te. If עדי means jaw, mouth or check, then עדיו לבלום is equivalent to ora eorum obturanda sunt (Ges. 132, rem. 1), which the lxx expressed by ἄγξαι, constringe, or following the Cod. Alex., ἄγξις (ἄγξεις), constringes. Like Ewald and Hitzig (on Eze 16:7), we may compare with עדי, the cheek, the Arabic chadd, which, being connected with גּדוּד, a furrow, signifies properly the furrow of the face, i.e., the indented part running downwards from the inner corners of the eyes to both sides of the nose, but then by synecdoche the cheek. If `dyw refers to the mouth or jaws, then it looks as if בּל קרב אליך must be translated: in order that they may not come too near thee, viz., to hurt thee (Targ., Syriac, Rashi, etc.); but this rendering does not produce any point of comparison corresponding to the context of this Psalm. Therefore, it is rather to be rendered: otherwise there is no coming near to thee. This interpretation takes the emphasis of the בל into account, and assumes that, according to a usage of the language that is without further support, one might, for instance, say: בּל לכתּי שׁמּה, "I will never go thither." In Pro 23:17, בל also includes within itself the verb to be. So here: by no means an approaching to thee, i.e., there is, if thou dost not bridle them, no approaching or coming near to thee. These words are not addressed to God, but to man, who is obliged to use harsh and forcible means in taming animals, and can only thus keep them under his control and near to him. In the antitype, it is the sinner, who will not come to God, although God only is his help, and who, as David has learned by experience, must first of all endure inward torture, before he comes to a right state of mind. This agonising life of the guilty conscience which the ungodly man leads, is contrasted in Psa 32:10 with the mercy which encompasses on all sides him, who trusts in God. רבּים, in accordance with the treatment of this adjective as if it were a numeral (vid., Psa 89:51), is an attributive or adjective placed before its noun. The final clause might be rendered: mercy encompasses him; but the Poel and Psa 32:7 favour the rendering: with mercy doth He encompass him.

After the doctrine of the Psalm has been unfolded in three unequal groups of verses, there follows, corresponding to the brief introduction, a still shorter close, which calls upon those whose happy state is there celebrated, to join in songs of exultant joy.

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