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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 104:31 - 104:31
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The poet has now come to an end with the review of the wonders of the creation, and closes in this seventh group, which is again substantially decastichic, with a sabbatic meditation, inasmuch as he wishes that the glory of God, which He has put upon His creatures, and which is reflected and echoed back by them to Him, may continue for ever, and that His works may ever be so constituted that He who was satisfied at the completion of His six days' work may be able to rejoice in them. For if they cease to give Him pleasure, He can indeed blot them out as He did at the time of the Flood, since He is always able by a look to put the earth in a tremble, and by a touch to set the mountains on fire (וַתִּרְעָד of the result of the looking, as in Amo 5:8; Amo 9:6, and וְיֶֽעֱשָׁנוּ of that which takes place simultaneously with the touching, as in Psa 144:5, Zec 9:5, cf. on Hab 3:10). The poet, however, on his part, will not suffer there to be any lack of the glorifying of Jahve, inasmuch as he makes it his life's work to praise his God with music and song (בְּחַיָּי as in Psa 63:5, cf. Bar. 4:20, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις μου). Oh that this his quiet and his audible meditation upon the honour of God may be pleasing to Him (עָרֵב עַל synonymous with טֹּוב עַל, but also שָׁפֵר עַל, Psa 16:6)! Oh that Jahve may be able to rejoice in him, as he himself will rejoice in his God! Between “I will rejoice,” Psa 104:34, and “He shall rejoice,” Psa 104:31, there exists a reciprocal relation, as between the Sabbath of the creature in God and the Sabbath of God in the creature. When the Psalmist wishes that God may have joy in His works of creation, and seeks on his part to please God and to have his joy in God, he is also warranted in wishing that those who take pleasure in wickedness, and instead of giving God joy excite His wrath, may be removed from the earth (יִתַּמּוּ, cf. Num 14:35); for they are contrary to the purpose of the good creation of God, they imperil its continuance, and mar the joy of His creatures. The expression is not: may sins (חַטָּאִים, as it is meant to be read in B. Berachoth, 10a, and as some editions, e.g., Bomberg's of 1521, actually have it), but: may sinners, be no more, for there is no other existence of sin than the personal one.
With the words Bless, O my soul, Jahve, the Psalm recurs to its introduction, and to this call upon himself is appended the Hallelujah which summons all creatures to the praise of God - a call of devotion which occurs nowhere out of the Psalter, and within the Psalter is found here for the first time, and consequently was only coined in the alter age. In modern printed copies it is sometimes written הַֽלְלוּ־יָהּ, sometimes הַֽלְלוּ יָהּ, but in the earlier copies (e.g., Venice 1521, Wittenberg 1566) mostly as one word הַֽלְלוּיָהּ.
(Note: More accurately הַֽלֲלוּיָהּ with Chateph, as Jekuthiël ha-Nakdan expressly demands. Moreover the mode of writing it as one word is the rule, since the Masora notes the הַֽלֲלוּ־יָהּ, occurring only once, in Psa 135:3, with לית בטעם as being the only instance of the kind.)
In the majority of MSS it is also found thus as one word,
(Note: Yet even in the Talmud (J. Megilla i. 9, Sofrim v. 10) it is a matter of controversy concerning the mode of writing this word, whether it is to be separate or combined; and in B. Pesachim 117a Rab appeals to a Psalter of the school of Chabibi (תילי דבי חביבי) that he has seen, in which הללו stood in one line and יה in the other. In the same place Rab Chasda appeals to a תילי דבי רב חנין that he has seen, in which the Hallelujah standing between two Psalms, which might be regarded as the close of the Psalm preceding it or as the beginning of the Psalm following it, as written in the middle between the two (בעמצע פירקא). In the הלליֲה written as one word, יה is not regarded as strictly the divine name, only as an addition strengthening the notion of the הללו, as in במרחביה Psa 118:5; with reference to this, vide Geiger, Urschrift, S. 275.)
and that always with הּ, except the first הַֽלְלוּיָהּ which occurs here at the end of Ps 104, which has ה raphe in good MSS and old printed copies. This mode of writing is that attested by the Masora (vid., Baer's Psalterium, p. 132). The Talmud and Midrash observe this first Hallelujah is connected in a significant manner with the prospect of the final overthrow of the wicked. Ben-Pazzi (B. Berachoth 10a) counts 103 פרשׁיות up to this Hallelujah, reckoning Psa 1:1-6 and Psa 2:1-12 as one פרשׁת'.