Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 141:5 - 141:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 141:5 - 141:5


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Thus far the Psalm is comparatively easy of exposition; but now it becomes difficult, yet not hopelessly so. David, thoroughly conscious of his sins against God and of his imperfection as a monarch, says, in opposition to the abuse which he is now suffering, that he would gladly accept any friendly reproof: “let a righteous man smite in kindness and reprove me - head-oil (i.e., oil upon the head, to which such reproof is likened) shall my head not refuse.” So we render it, following the accents, and not as Hupfeld, Kurtz, and Hitzig do: “if a righteous man smites me, it is love; if he reproves me, an anointing of the head is it unto me;” in connection with which the designation of the subject with הִיא would be twice wanting, which is more than is admissible. צַדִּיק stands here as an abstract substantive: the righteous man, whoever he may be, in antithesis, namely, to the rebels and to the people who have joined them. Amyraldus, Maurer, and Hengstenberg understand it of God; but it only occurs of God as an attribute, and never as a direct appellation. חֶסֶד, as in Jer 31:3, is equivalent to בְּחֶסֶד, cum benignitate = benigne. What is meant is, as in Job 6:14, what Paul (Gal 6:1) styles πνεῦμα πραΰ́τητος. and הָלַם, tundere, is used of the strokes of earnest but well-meant reproof, which is called “the blows of a friend” in Pro 27:6. Such reproof shall be to him as head-oil (Psa 23:5; Psa 133:2), which his head does not despise. יָנִי, written defectively for יָנִיא, like יַשִּׁי, in Psa 55:16, אָבִי, 1Ki 21:29 and frequently; הֵנִיא (root נא, Arab. n', with the nasal n, which also expresses the negation in the Indo-Germanic languages) here signifies to deny, as in Psa 33:10 to bring to nought, to destroy. On the other hand, the lxx renders μὴ λιπανάτω τὴν κεφαλήν μου, which is also followed by the Syriac and Jerome, perhaps after the Arabic nawiya, to become or to be fat, which is, however, altogether foreign to the Aramaic, and is, moreover, only used of fatness of the body, and in fact of camels. The meaning of the figure is this: well-meant reproof shall be acceptable and spiritually useful to him. The confirmation כִּי־עֹוד וגו follows, which is enigmatical both in meaning and expression. This עֹוד is the cipher of a whole clause, and the following ו is related to this עֹוד as the Waw that introduces the apodosis, not to כִּי as in 2Ch 24:20, since no progression and connection is discernible if כי is taken as a subordinating quia. We interpret thus: for it is still so (the matter still stands thus), that my prayer is against their wickednesses; i.e., that I use no weapon but that of prayer against these, therefore let me always be in that spiritual state of mind which is alive to well-meant reproof. Mendelssohn's rendering is similar: I still pray, whilst they practise infamy. On עוד ו cf. Zec 8:20 עֹוד אֲשֶׁר (vid., Köhler), and Pro 24:27 אַחַר וְ. He who has prayed God in Psa 141:3 to set a watch upon his mouth is dumb in the presence of those who now have dominion, and seeks to keep himself clear of their sinful doings, whereas he willingly allows himself to be chastened by the righteous; and the more silent he is towards the world (see Amo 5:13), the more constant is he in his intercourse with God. But there will come a time when those who now behave as lords shall fall a prey to the revenge of the people who have been misled by them; and on the other hand, the confession of the salvation, and of the order of the salvation, of God, that has hitherto been put to silence, will again be able to make itself freely heard, and find a ready hearing.

As Psa 141:6 says, the new rulers fall a prey to the indignation of the people and are thrown down the precipices, whilst the people, having again come to their right mind, obey the words of David and find them pleasant and beneficial (vid., Pro 15:26; Pro 16:24). נִשְׁמְטוּ is to be explained according to 2Ki 9:33. The casting of persons down from the rock was not an unusual mode of execution (2Ch 25:12). יְדֵי־סֶלַע are the sides (Psa 140:6; Jdg 11:26) of the rock, after which the expression ἐχόμενα πέτρας of the lxx, which has been misunderstood by Jerome, is intended to be understood;

(Note: Beda Pieringer in his Psalterium Romana Lyra Radditum (Ratisbonae 1859) interprets κατεπόθησαν ἐχόμενα πέτρας οἱ κραταιοὶ τὐτῶν, absorpti, i.e., operti sunt loco ad petram pertinente signiferi turpis consilii eorum.)

they are therefore the sides of the rock conceived of as it were as the hands of the body of rock, if we are not rather with Böttcher to compare the expressions בִּידֵי and עַל־יְדֵי construed with verbs of abandoning and casting down, Lam 1:14; Job 16:11, and frequently. In Psa 141:7 there follows a further statement of the issue on the side of David and his followers: instar findentis et secantis terram (בָּֽקַע with Beth, elsewhere in the hostile signification of irrumpere) dispersa sunt ossa nostra ad ostium (לְפִי as in Pro 8:3) orci; Symmachus: ὥσπερ γεωργὸς ὅταν ῥήσσῃ τὴν τὴν, οὕτως ἐσκορπίσθη τὰ ὀστᾶ ἡμῶν εἰς στόμα ᾅδου; Quinta: ὡς καλλιεργῶν καὶ σκάπτων ἐν τῇ γῇ κ. τ. λ. Assuming the very extreme, it is a look of hope into the future: should his bones and the bones of his followers be even scattered about the mouth of Sheôl (cf. the Syrian picture of Sheôl: “the dust upon its threshold ‛al-escûfteh,” Deutsche Morgenländ. Zeitschrift, xx. 513), their soul below, their bones above - it would nevertheless be only as when on in ploughing cleaves the earth; i.e., they do not lie there in order that they may continue lying, but that they may rise up anew, as the seed that is sown sprouts up out of the upturned earth. lxx Codd. Vat. et Sinait. τὰ ὀστᾶ ἡμῶν, beside which, however, is found the reading αὐτῶν (Cod. Alex. by a second hand, and the Syriac, Arabic, and Aethiopic versions), as Böttcher also, pro ineptissimo utcunque, thinks עצמינו must be read, understanding this, according to 2Ch 25:12 extrem., of the mangled bodies of those cast down from the rock. We here discern the hope of a resurrection, if not directly, at least (cf. Oehler in Herzog's Real-Encyclopädie, concluding volume, S. 422) as am emblem of victory in spite of having succumbed. That which authorizes this interpretation lies in the figure of the husbandman, and in the conditional clause (Psa 141:8), which leads to the true point of the comparison; for as a complaint concerning a defeat that had been suffered: “so are our bones scattered for the mouth of the grave (in order to be swallowed up by it),” Psa 141:7, would be alien and isolated with respect to what precedes and what follows.