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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 105:16 - 105:16
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“To call up a famine” is also a prose expression in 2Ki 8:1. To break the staff of bread (i.e., the staff which bread is to man) is a very old metaphor, Lev 26:26. That the selling of Joseph was, providentially regarded, a “sending before,” he himself says in Gen 45:5. Psa 102:24 throws light upon the meaning of עִנָּה בְ. The Kerî רַגְלֹו is just as much without any occasion to justify it as עֵינֹו in Ecc 4:8 (for עֵינָיו). The statement that iron came upon his soul is intended to say that he had to endure in iron fetters sufferings that threatened his life. Most expositors take בַּרְזֶל as equivalent to בְּבַּרְזֶל, but Hitzig rightly takes נפשׁו as an object, following the Targum; for ברזל as a name of an iron fetter
(Note: Also in ancient Arabic firzil (after the Aramaic פרזלא) directly signifies an iron fetter (and the large smith's shears for cutting the iron), whence the verb. denom. Arab. farzala, c. acc. pers., to put any one into iron chains. Iron is called בַּרְזֶל from בָּרַז, to pierce, like the Arabic ḥdı̂d, as being the material of which pointed tools are made.)
can change its gender, as do, e.g., צפון as a name of the north wind, and כבוד as a name of the soul. The imprisonment (so harsh at the commencement) lasted over ten years, until at last Joseph's word cam to pass, viz., the word concerning this exaltation which had been revealed to him in dreams (Gen 42:9). According to Psa 107:20, דְבָרֹו appears to be the word of Jahve, but then one would expect from Psa 105:19 a more parallel turn of expression. What is meant is Joseph's open-hearted word concerning his visions, and אִמְרַת ה is the revelation of God conveying His promises, which came to him in the same form, which had to try, to prove, and to purify him (צָרַף as in Psa 17:3, and frequently), inasmuch as he was not to be raised to honour without having in a state of deep abasement proved a faithfulness that wavered not, and a confidence that knew no despair. The divine “word” is conceived of as a living effectual power, as in Psa 119:50. The representation of the exaltation begins, according to Gen 41:14, with שָֽׁלַח־מֶלֶךְ
(Note: Here שׁלח is united by Makkeph with the following word, to which it hurries on, whereas in Psa 105:28 it has its own accent, a circumstance to which the Masora has directed attention in the apophthegm: שׁלוחי דמלכא זריזין שׁלוחי דחשׁוכא מתינין (the emissaries of the king are in haste, those of darkness are tardy); vid., Baer, Thorath Emeth, p. 22.)
and follows Gen 41:39-41, Gen 41:44, very closely as to the rest, according to which בְּנַפְשֹׁו is a collateral definition to לֶאְסֹּר (with an orthophonic Dag.) in the sense of בִּרְצֹונֹו: by his soul, i.e., by virtue of his will (vid., Psychology, S. 202; tr. p. 239). In consequence of this exaltation of Joseph, Jacob-Israel came then into Egypt, and sojourned there as in a protecting house of shelter (concerning גּוּר, vid., supra, p. 414). Egypt is called (Psa 105:23, Psa 105:27) the land of Chaam, as in Psa 78:51; according to Plutarch, in the vernacular the black land, from the dark ashy grey colouring which the deposited mud of the Nile gives to the ground. There Israel became a powerful, numerous people (Exo 1:7; Deu 26:5), greater than their oppressors.