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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 12:5 - 12:5
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(Heb.: 12:6-7) In Psa 12:6 the psalmist hears Jahve Himself speak; and in Psa 12:7 he adds his Amen. The two מִן in Psa 12:6 denote the motive, עַתָּה the decisive turning-point from forebearance to the execution of judgment, and יֹמַר the divine determination, which has just now made itself audible; cf. Isaiah's echo of it, Isa 33:10. Jahve has hitherto looked on with seeming inactivity and indifference, now He will arise and place in יֵשַׁע, i.e., a condition of safety (cf. שִׂים בַּחַיִּים Psa 66:9), him who languishes for deliverance. It is not to be explained: him whom he, i.e., the boaster, blows upon, which would be expressed by יָפִיחַ בֹּו, cf. Psa 10:5; but, with Ewald, Hengstenberg, Olshausen, and Böttcher, according to Hab 2:3, where הֵפִיחַ לְ occurs in the sense of panting after an object: him who longs for it. יָפִיחַ is, however, not a participial adjective = יָפֵחַ, but the fut., and יָפִיחַ לֹו is therefore a relative clause occupying the place of the object, just as we find the same thing occurring in Job 24:19; Isa 41:2, Isa 41:25, and frequently. Hupfeld's rendering: “in order that he may gain breath (respiret)” leaves אשׁית without an object, and accords more with Aramaic and Arabic than with Hebrew usage, which would express this idea by יָנוּחַ לֹו or יִרְוַח לֹו.
In Psa 12:7 the announcement of Jahve is followed by its echo in the heart of the seer: the words (אִמֲרֹות instead of אִמְרֹות by changing the Shebâ which closes the syllable into an audible one, as e.g., in אַֽשְׁרֵי) of Jahve are pure words, i.e., intended, and to be fulfilled, absolutely as they run without any admixture whatever of untruthfulness. The poetical אִמְרָה (after the form זִמְרָה) serves pre-eminently as the designation of the divine power-words of promise. The figure, which is indicated in other instances, when God's word is said to be צְרוּפָה (Psa 18:31; Psa 119:140; Pro 30:5), is here worked out: silver melted and thus purified בַּֽעֲלִיל לָאָרֶץ. עֲלִיל signifies either a smelting-pot from עָלַל, Arab. gll, immittere, whence also עֹל (Hitz.); or, what is more probable since the language has the epithets כוּר and מַצְרֵף for this: a workshop, from עָלַל, Arab. ‛ll, operari (prop. to set about a thing), first that which is wrought at (after the form מְעִיל, פְּסִיל, שְׁבִיל), then the place where the work is carried on. From this also comes the Talm. בַּֽעֲלִיל = בַּֽעֲלִיל manifeste, occurring in the Mishna Rosh ha-Shana 1. 5 and elsewhere, and which in its first meaning corresponds to the French en effet.
(Note: On this word with reference to this passage of the Psalm vid., Steinschneider's Hebr. Bibliographie 1861, S. 83.)
According to this, the ל in לָאָרֶץ is not the ל of property: in a fining-pot built into the earth, for which לארץ without anything further would be an inadequate and colourless expression. But in accordance with the usual meaning of לארץ as a collateral definition it is: smelted (purified) down to the earth. As Olshausen observes on this subject, “Silver that is purified in the furnace and flows down to the ground can be seen in every smelting hut; the pure liquid silver flows down out of the smelting furnace, in which the ore is piled up.” For it cannot be ל of reference: “purified with respect to the earth,” since ארץ does not denote the earth as a material and cannot therefore mean an earthy element. We ought then to read לָאָבֶץ, which would not mean “to a white brilliancy,” i.e., to a pure bright mass (Böttch.), but “with respect to the stannum, lead” (vid., on Isa 1:25). The verb זָקַק to strain, filter, cause to ooze through, corresponds to the German seihen, seigen, old High German sihan, Greek σακκεῖν (σακκίζειν), to clean by passing through a cloth as a strainer, שַׂק. God's word is solid silver smelted and leaving all impurity behind, and, as it were, having passed seven times through the smelting furnace, i.e., the purest silver, entirely purged from dross. Silver is the emblem of everything precious and pure (vid., Bähr, Symbol. i. 284); and seven is the number indicating the completion of any process (Bibl. Psychol. S. 57, transl. p. 71).