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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 129:6 - 129:6
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The poet illustrates the fate that overtakes them by means of a picture borrowed from Isaiah and worked up (Psa 37:27): they become like “grass of the housetops,” etc. שֶׁ is a relative to יָבֵשׁ (quod exarescit), and קַדְמַת, priusquam, is Hebraized after מִן־קַדְמַת דְּנָה in Dan 6:11, or מִקַּדְמַת דְּנָה in Ezr 5:11. שָׁלַף elsewhere has the signification “to draw forth” of a sword, shoe, or arrow, which is followed by the lxx, Theodotion, and the Quinta: πρὸ τοῦ ἐκσπασθῆναι, before it is plucked. But side by side with the ἐκσπασθῆναι of the lxx we also find the reading exanthee'sai; and in this sense Jerome renders (statim ut) viruerit, Symmachus ἐκκαυλῆσαι (to shoot into a stalk), Aquila ἀνέθαλεν, the Sexta ἐκστερεῶσαι (to attain to full solidity). The Targum paraphrases שׁלף in both senses: to shoot up and to pluck off. The former signification, after which Venema interprets: antequam se evaginet vel evaginetur, i.e., antequam e vaginulis suis se evolvat et succrescat, is also advocated by Parchon, Kimchi, and Aben-Ezra. In the same sense von Ortenberg conjectures שֶׁחָלַף. Since the grass of the house-tops or roofs, if one wishes to pull it up, can be pulled up just as well when it is withered as when it is green, and since it is the most natural thing to take חציר as the subject to שׁלף, we decide in favour of the intransitive signification, “to put itself forth, to develope, shoot forth into ear.” The roof-grass withers before it has put forth ears of blossoms, just because it has no deep root, and therefore cannot stand against the heat of the sun.
(Note: So, too, Geiger in the Deutsche Morgenländische Zeitschrift, xiv. 278f., according to whom Arab. slf (šlf) occurs in Saadia and Abu-Said in the signification “to be in the first maturity, to blossom,” - a sense שׁלף may also have here; cf. the Talmudic שׁלופפי used of unripe dates that are still in blossom.)
The poet pursues the figure of the grass of the house-tops still further. The encompassing lap or bosom (κόλπος) is called elsewhere חֹצֶן (Isa 49:22; Neh 5:13); here it is חֵצֶן, like the Arabic ḥiḍn (diminutive ḥoḍein), of the same root with מָחֹוז, a creek, in Psa 107:30. The enemies of Israel are as grass upon the house-tops, which is not garnered in; their life closes with sure destruction, the germ of which they (without any need for any rooting out) carry within themselves. The observation of Knapp, that any Western poet would have left off with Psa 129:6, is based upon the error that Psa 129:7-8 are an idle embellishment. The greeting addressed to the reapers in Psa 129:8 is taken from life; it is not denied even to heathen reapers. Similarly Boaz (Rth 2:4) greets them with “Jahve be with you,” and receivers the counter-salutation, “Jahve bless thee.” Here it is the passers-by who call out to those who are harvesting: The blessing (בִּרְכַּת) of Jahve happen to you (אֲלֵיכֶם,
(Note: Here and there עֲלֵיכֶם is found as an error of the copyist. The Hebrew Psalter, Basel 1547, 12mo, notes it as a various reading.)
as in the Aaronitish blessing), and (since “we bless you in the name of Jahve” would be a purposeless excess of politeness in the mouth of the same speakers) receive in their turn the counter-salutation: We bless you in the name of Jahve. As a contrast it follows that there is before the righteous a garnering in of that which they have sown amidst the exchange of joyful benedictory greetings.