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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 103:1 - 103:1
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In the strophe Psa 103:1 the poet calls upon his soul to arise to praiseful gratitude for God's justifying, redeeming, and renewing grace. In such soliloquies it is the Ego that speaks, gathering itself up with the spirit, the stronger, more manly part of man (Psychology, S. 104f.; tr. p. 126), or even, because the soul as the spiritual medium of the spirit and of the body represents the whole person of man (Psychology, S. 203; tr. p. 240), the Ego rendering objective in the soul the whole of its own personality. So here in Psa 103:3 the soul, which is addressed, represents the whole man. The קְוָבִים which occurs here is a more choice expression for מֵעִים (מֵעַיִם): the heart, which is called קֶרֶב κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν, the reins, the liver, etc.; for according to the scriptural conception (Psychology, S. 266; tr. p. 313) these organs of the cavities of the breast and abdomen serve not merely for the bodily life, but also the psycho-spiritual life. The summoning בָּֽרֲכִי is repeated per anaphoram. There is nothing the soul of man is so prone to forget as to render thanks that are due, and more especially thanks that are due to God. It therefore needs to be expressly aroused in order that it may not leave the blessing with which God blesses it unacknowledged, and may not forget all His acts performed (גָּמַל = גָּמַר) on it (גְּמוּל, ῥῆμα μέσον, e.g., in Psa 137:8), which are purely deeds of loving-kindness), which is the primal condition and the foundation of all the others, viz., sin-pardoning mercy. The verbs סָלַח and רָפָא with a dative of the object denote the bestowment of that which is expressed by the verbal notion. תַּֽחֲלוּאים (taken from Deu 29:21, cf. 1Ch 21:19, from חָלָא = חָלָה, root הל, solutum, laxum esse) are not merely bodily diseases, but all kinds of inward and outward sufferings. מִשַּׁחַת the lxx renders ἐκ φθορᾶς (from שָׁחַת, as in Job 17:14); but in this antithesis to life it is more natural to render the “pit” (from שׁוּחַ) as a name of Hades, as in Psa 16:10. Just as the soul owes its deliverance from guilt and distress and death to God, so also does it owe to God that with which it is endowed out of the riches of divine love. The verb עִטֵּר, without any such addition as in Ps 5:13, is “to crown,” cf. Psa 8:6. As is usually the case, it is construed with a double accusative; the crown is as it were woven out of loving-kindness and compassion. The Beth of בַּטֹּוב in Psa 103:5 instead of the accusative (Psa 104:28) denotes the means of satisfaction, which is at the same time that which satisfies. עֶדְיֵךְ the Targum renders: dies senectutis tuae, whereas in Psa 32:9 it is ornatus ejus; the Peshîto renders: corpus tuum, and in Psa 32:9 inversely, juventus eorum. These significations, “old age” or “youth,” are pure inventions. And since the words are addressed to the soul, עֲדִי cannot also, like כָבֹוד in other instances, be a name of the soul itself (Aben-Ezra, Mendelssohn, Philippsohn, Hengstenberg, and others). We, therefore, with Hitzig, fall back upon the sense of the word in Psa 32:9, where the lxx renders τάς σιαγόνας αὐτῶν, but here more freely, apparently starting from the primary notion of עדי = Arabic chadd, the cheek: τὸν ἐμπιπλῶντα ἐν ἀγαθοῖς τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν σου (whereas Saadia's victum tuum is based upon a comparison of the Arabic gdâ, to nourish). The poet tells the soul (i.e., his own person, himself) that God satisfies it with good, so that it as it were gets its cheeks full of it (cf. Psa 81:11). The comparison כַּנֶּשֶׁר is, as in Mic 1:16 (cf. Isa 40:31), to be referred to the annual moulting of the eagle. Its renewing of its plumage is an emblem of the renovation of his youth by grace. The predicate to נְעוּרָֽיְכִי (plural of extension in relation to time) stands first regularly in the sing. fem.