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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 107:4 - 107:4
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It has actually come to pass, the first strophe tells us, that they wandered in a strange land through deserts and wastes, and seemed likely to have to succumb to death from hunger. According to Psa 107:40 and Isa 43:19, it appears that Psa 107:4 ought to be read לֹא־דָֽרֶךְ (Olshausen, Baur, and Thenius); but the line is thereby lengthened inelegantly. The two words, joined by Munach, stand in the construct state, like פֶּרֶא אָדָם, Gen 16:12 : a waste of a way = ἔρημος ὁδός, Act 8:26 (Ewald, Hitzig), which is better suited to the poetical style than that דֶּרֶךְ, as in מִשְׁנֶה־כֶּסֶףp, and the like, should be an accusative of nearer definition (Hengstenberg). In connection with עִיר מֹושָׁב the poet, who is fond of this combination (Psa 107:7, Psa 107:36, cf. בֵּית־מֹושָׁב, Lev 25:29), means any city whatever which might afford the homeless ones a habitable, hospitable reception. With the perfects, which describe what has been experienced, alternates in Psa 107:5 the imperfect, which shifts to the way in which anything comes about: their soul in them enveloped itself (vid., Psa 61:3), i.e., was nigh upon extinction. With the fut. consec. then follows in Psa 107:6 the fact which gave the turn to the change in their misfortune. Their cry for help, as the imperfect יַצִּילֵם implies, was accompanied by their deliverance, the fact of which is expressed by the following fut. consec. וַיַּדְרִיכֵם. Those who have experienced such things are to confess to the Lord, with thanksgiving, His loving-kindness and His wonderful works to the children of men. It is not to be rendered: His wonders (supply אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה) towards the children of men (Luther, Olshausen, and others). The two לְ coincide: their thankful confession of the divine loving-kindness and wondrous acts is not to be addressed alone to Jahve Himself, but also to men, in order that out of what they have experienced a wholesome fruit may spring forth for the multitude. נֶפֶשׁ שֹֽׁוקֵקָה (part. Polel, the ē of which is retained as a pre-tonic vowel in pause, cf. Psa 68:26 and on Job 20:27, Ew. §188, b) is, as in Isa 29:9, the thirsting soul (from שׁוּק, Arab. sâq, to urge forward, of the impulse and drawing of the emotions, in Hebrew to desire ardently). The preterites are here an expression of that which has been experienced, and therefore of that which has become a fact of experience. In superabundant measure does God uphold the languishing soul that is in imminent danger of languishing away.