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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 149:6 - 149:6
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The glance is here directed to the future. The people of the present have again, in their God, attained to a lofty self-consciousness, the consciousness of their destiny, viz., to subjugate the whole world of nations to the God of Israel. In the presence of the re-exaltation which they have experienced their throat is full of words and songs exalting Jahve (רֹֽומֲמֹות, plural of רֹומָם, or, according to another reading, רֹומַם, Psa 56:1-13 :17), and as servants of this God, the rightful Lord of all the heathen (Psa 82:8), they hold in their hand a many-mouthed, i.e., many edged sword (vid., supra, p. 580), in order to take the field on behalf of the true religion, as the Maccabees actually did, not long after: ταῖς μὲν χερσὶν ἀγωνιζόμενοι ταῖς δὲ καρδίαις πρὸς τὸν Θεόν εὐχόμενοι (2 Macc. 15:27). The meaning of Psa 149:9 becomes a different one, according as we take this line as co-ordinate or subordinate to what goes before. Subordinated, it would imply the execution of a penal jurisdiction over those whom they carried away, and כָּתוּב would refer to prescriptive facts such as are recorded in Num 31:8; 1Sa 15:32. (Hitzig). But it would become the religious lyric poet least of all to entertain such an unconditional prospect of the execution of the conquered worldly rulers. There is just as little ground for thinking of the judgment of extermination pronounced upon the nations of Canaan, which was pronounced upon them for an especial reason. If Psa 149:9 is taken as co-ordinate, the “written judgment” (Recht) consists in the complete carrying out of the subjugation; and this is commended by the perfectly valid parallel, Isa 45:14. The poet, however, in connection with the expression “written,” has neither this nor that passage of Scripture in his mind, but the testimony of the Law and of prophecy in general, that all kingdoms shall become God's and His Christ's. Subjugation (and certainly not without bloodshed) is the scriptural מִשְׁפָּט for the execution of which Jahve makes use of His own nation. Because the God who thus vindicates Himself is Israel's God, this subjugation of the world is הָדָר, splendour and glory, to all who are in love devoted to Him. The glorifying of Jahve is also the glorifying of Israel.