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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 10:8 - 10:8
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The ungodly is described as a lier in wait; and one is reminded by it of such a state of anarchy, as that described in Hos 6:9 for instance. The picture fixes upon one simple feature in which the meanness of the ungodly culminates; and it is possible that it is intended to be taken as emblematical rather than literally. חָצֵר (from חָצַר to surround, cf. Arab. hdr, hṣr, and especially hdr) is a farm premises walled in (Arab. hadar, hadâr, hadâra), then losing the special characteristic of being walled round it comes to mean generally a settled abode (with a house of clay or stone) in opposition to a roaming life in tents (cf. Lev 25:31; Gen 25:16). In such a place where men are more sure of falling into his hands than in the open plain, he lies in wait (יָשַׁב, like Arab. q‛d lh, subsedit = insidiatus est ei), murders unobserved him who had never provoked his vengeance, and his eyes לְהֵֽלְכָה יִצְפֹּנוּ. צָפָה to spie, Psa 37:32, might have been used instead of צָפָן; but צָפַן also obtains the meaning, to lie in ambush (Psa 56:7; Pro 1:11, Pro 1:18) from the primary notion of restraining one's self (Arab. ḍfn, fut. i. in Beduin Arabic: to keep still, to be immoveably lost in thought, vid., on Job 24:1), which takes a transitive turn in צָפַן “to conceal.” חֵֽלְכָה, the dative of the object, is pointed just as though it came from חַיִל: Thy host, i.e., Thy church, O Jahve. The pausal form accordingly is חֵלֶֽכָה with Segol, in Psa 10:14, not with Ṣere as in incorrect editions. And the appeal against this interpretation, which is found in the plur. חלכאים Psa 10:10, is set aside by the fact that this plural is taken as a double word: host (חֵל = חֵיל = חַיִל as in Oba 1:20) of the troubled ones (כָּאִים, not as Ben-Labrat supposes, for נְכָאִים, but from כָּאֶה weary, and mellow and decayed), as the Kerî (which is followed by the Syriac version) and the Masora direct, and accordingly it is pointed חֵלְכָּאִים with Ṣere. The punctuation therefore sets aside a word which was unintelligible to it, and cannot be binding on us. There is a verb הָלַךְ, which, it is true, does not occur in the Old Testament, but in the Arabic, from the root Arab. ḥk, firmus fuit, firmum fecit (whence also Arab. ḥkl, intrans. to be firm, fermé, i.e., closed), it gains the signification in reference to colour: to be dark (cognate with חָכַל, whence חַכְלִילִי) and is also transferred to the gloom and blackness of misfortune.
(Note: Cf. Samachschari's Golden Necklaces, Proverb 67, which Fleischer translates: “Which is blacker: the plumage of the raven, which is black as coal, or thy life, O stranger among strangers?” The word “blacker” is here expressed by Arab. ahlaku, just as the verb Arab. halika, with its infinitives halak or hulkat and its derivatives is applied to sorrow and misery.)
From this an abstract is formed חֶלֶךְ or חֹלֶךְ (like חֹפֶשׁ): blackness, misfortune, or also of a defective development of the senses: imbecility; and from this an adjective חֶלְכֶּה = חֶלְכַּי, or also (cf. חָפְשִׁי, עֻלְפֶּה Eze 31:15 = one in a condition of languishing, עֹלֶף) חָלְכֶּה = חָלְכַּי, plur. חָלְכָּאִים, after the form דּוּדָאִים, from דּוּדַי, Ew. §189, g.