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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 10:1 - 10:1
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The Psalm opens with the plaintive inquiry, why Jahve tarries in the deliverance of His oppressed people. It is not a complaining murmuring at the delay that is expressed by the question, but an ardent desire that God may not delay to act as it becomes His nature and His promise. לָמָּה, which belongs to both members of the sentence, has the accent on the ultima, as e.g., before עֲזַבְתָּנַי in Psa 22:2, and before הֲרֵעֹתָה in Exo 5:22, in order that neither of the two gutturals, pointed with a, should be lost to the ear in rapid speaking (vid., on Psa 3:8, and Luzzatto on Isa 11:2, נָחָה עָלָיו).
(Note: According to the Masora לָמָּה without Dag. is always Milra with the single exception of Job 7:20, and יָמָּה with Dag. is Milel; but, when the following closely connected word begins with one of the letters אהע it becomes Milra, with five exceptions, viz., Psa 49:6; 1Sa 28:15; 2Sa 14:31 (three instances in which the guttural of the second word has the vowel i), and 2Sa 2:22, and Jer 15:18. In the Babylonian system of pointing, למה is always written without Dag. and with the accent on the penultimate, vid., Pinsker, Einleitung in das Babylonish-hebräishce Punktationssystem, S. 182-184.)
For according to the primitive pronunciation (even before the Masoretic) it is to be read: lam h Adonaj; so that consequently ה and א are coincident. The poet asks why in the present hopeless condition of affairs (on בַצָּרָה vid., on Psa 9:10) Jahve stands in the distance (בְּרָחֹוק, only here, instead of מֵרָחֹוק), as an idle spectator, and why does He cover (תַּעְלִּים with orthophonic Dagesh, in order that it may not be pronounced תַּֽעֲלִים), viz., His eyes, so as not to see the desperate condition of His people, or also His ears (Lam 3:56) so as not to hear their supplication. For by the insolent treatment of the ungodly the poor burns with fear (Ges., Stier, Hupf.), not vexation (Hengst.). The assault is a πύρωσις, 1Pe 4:12. The verb דָּלַק which calls to mind דַּלֶּקֶת, πυρετός, is perhaps chosen with reference to the heat of feeling under oppression, which is the result of the persecution, of the (בֹּו) דְּלֹק אַֽחֲרָיו of the ungodly. There is no harshness in the transition from the singular to the plural, because עָנִי and רָשָׁע are individualising designations of two different classes of men. The subject to יִתָּֽפְשׁוּ is the עֲנִיִּים, and the subject to חַשָׁבוּ is the רְשָׁעִים. The futures describe what usually takes place. Those who, apart from this, are afflicted are held ensnared in the crafty and malicious devices which the ungodly have contrived and plotted against them, without being able to disentangle themselves. The punctuation, which places Tarcha by זוּ, mistakes the relative and interprets it: “in the plots there, which they have devised.”