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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 147:7 - 147:7
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With Psa 147:7 the song takes a new flight. עָנָה לְ signifies to strike up or sing in honour of any one, Num 21:27; Isa 27:2. The object of the action is conceived of in בְּתֹּודָה as the medium of it (cf. e.g., Job 16:4). The participles in Psa 147:8. are attributive clauses that are attached in a free manner to לֵֽאלֹהֵינוּ. הֵכִין signifies to prepare, procure, as e.g., in Job 38:41 - a passage which the psalmist has had in his mind in connection with Psa 147:9. מַצְמִיחַ, as being the causative of a verb. crescendi, is construed with a double accusative: “making mountains (whither human agriculture does not reach) to bring forth grass;” and the advance to the thought that God gives to the cattle the bread that they need is occasioned by the “He causeth grass to grow for the cattle” of the model passage Psa 104:14, just as the only hinting אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָאוּ, which is said of the young of the raven (which are forsaken and cast off by their mothers very early), is explained from יְלָדָיו אֶל־אֵל יְשַׁוֵּעוּ in Job loc. cit. The verb קָרָא brev ehT .tic .col boJ ni , κράζειν (cf. κρώζειν), is still more expressive for the cry of the raven, κόραξ, Sanscrit kârava, than that שִׁוֵּעַ; κοράττειν and κορακεύεσθαι signify directly to implore incessantly, without taking any refusal. Towards Him, the gracious Sustainer of all beings, are the ravens croaking for their food pointed (cf. Luk 12:24, “Consider the ravens”), just like the earth that thirsts for rain. He is the all-conditioning One. Man, who is able to know that which the irrational creature unconsciously acknowledges, is in the feeling of his dependence to trust in Him and not in himself. In all those things to which the God-estranged self-confidence of man so readily clings, God has no delight (יֶחְפָּץ, pausal form like יֶחְבָּשׁ) and no pleasure, neither in the strength of the horse, whose rider imagines himself invincible, and, if he is obliged to flee, that he cannot be overtaken, nor in the legs of a man, upon which he imagines himself so firm that he cannot be thrown down, and which, when he is pursued, will presumptively carry him far enough away into safety. שֹׁוק, Arab. sâq, is the leg from the knee to the foot, from Arab. sâqa, root sq, to drive, urge forward, more particularly to urge on to a gallop (like curs, according to Pott, from the root car, to go). What is meant here is, not that the strength of the horse and muscular power are of no avail when God wills to destroy a man (Psa 33:16., Amo 2:14.), but only that God has no pleasure in the warrior's horse and in athletic strength. Those who fear Him, i.e., with a knowledge of the impotency of all power possessed by the creature in itself, and in humble trust feel themselves dependent upon His omnipotence - these are they in whom He takes pleasure (רָצָה with the accusative), those who, renouncing all carnal defiance and self-confident self-working, hope in His mercy.