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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 16:1 - 16:1
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The Psalm begins with a prayer that is based upon faith, the special meaning of which becomes clear from Psa 16:10 : May God preserve him (which He is able to do as being אֵל, the Almighty, able to do all things), who has no other refuge in which he has hidden and will hide but Him. This short introit is excepted from the parallelism; so far therefore it is monostichic, - a sigh expressing everything in few words. And the emphatic pronunciation שָֽׁמְרֵנִי shāmereni harmonises with it; for it is to be read thus, just as in Psa 86:2; Psa 119:167 shāmerah (cf. on Isa 38:14 עָֽשְׁקָה), according to the express testimony of the Masora.
(Note: The Masora observes גרשין בספרא ב, i.e., twice in the Psalter שׁמרה is in the imperative, the o being displaced by Gaja (Metheg) and changed into aa, vid., Baer, Torath Emeth p. 22f. In spite of this the grammarians are not agreed as to the pronunciation of the imperative and infinitive forms when so pointed. Luzzatto, like Lonzano, reads it shŏmereni.)
The text of the next two verses (so it appears) needs to be improved in two respects. The reading אָמַרְתְּ as addressed to the soul (Targ.), cf. Lam 3:24., is opposed by the absence of any mention of the thing addressed. It rests upon a misconception of the defective form of writing, אָמַרְתִּ (Ges. §44, rem. 4). Hitzig and Ewald (§190, d) suppose that in such cases a rejection of the final vowel, which really occurs in the language of the people, after the manner of the Aramaic (אַמְרֵת or אִמְרֵת), lies at the bottom of the form. And it does really seem as though the frequent occurrence of this defective form (ידעת = ידעתי Psa 140:13; Job 42:2, בנית = בניתי 1Ki 8:48, עשׂית = עשׂיתי Eze 16:59, cf. 2Ki 18:20, אמרת now pointed אמרתָ, with Isa 36:5) has its occasion at least in some such cutting away of the i, peculiar to the language of the common people; although, if David wrote it so, אמרת is not intended to be read otherwise than it is in Psa 31:15; Psa 140:7.
(Note: Pinsker's view (Einleit. S. 100-102), who considers פָּעַלְתְּ to have sprung from פַּלְלֵת as the primary form of the 1 pers. sing., from which then came פַּלְתִּי and later still פַּלְתִּי, is untenable according to the history of the language.)
First of all David gives expression to his confession of Jahve, to whom he submits himself unconditionally, and whom he sets above everything else without exception. Since the suffix of אֲדֹנָי (properly domini mei = domine mi, Gen 18:3, cf. Psa 19:2), which has become mostly lost sight of in the usage of the language, now and then retains its original meaning, as it does indisputably in Psa 35:23, it is certainly to be rendered also here: “Thou art my Lord” and not “Thou art the Lord.” The emphasis lies expressly on the “my.” It is the unreserved and joyous feeling of dependence (more that of the little child, than of the servant), which is expressed in this first confession. For, as the second clause of the confession says: Jahve, who is his Lord, is also his benefactor, yea even his highest good. The preposition עַל frequently introduces that which extends beyond something else, Gen 48:22 (cf. Psa 89:8; Psa 95:3), and to this passage may be added Gen 31:50; Gen 32:12; Exo 35:22; Num 31:8; Deu 19:9; Deu 22:6, the one thing being above, or co-ordinate with, the other. So also here: “my good, i.e., whatever makes me truly happy, is not above Thee,” i.e., in addition to Thee, beside Thee; according to the sense it is equivalent to out of Thee or without Thee (as the Targ., Symm., and Jerome render it), Thou alone, without exception, art my good. In connection with this rendering of the עַל, the בַּל (poetic, and contracted from בְּלִי), which is unknown to the literature before David's time, presents no difficulty. As in Pro 23:7 it is short for בַּל־תִּֽהְיֶה. Hengstenberg remarks, “Just as Thou art the Lord! is the response of the soul to the words I am the Lord thy God (Exo 20:2), so Thou only art my salvation! is the response to Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me (עַל־פָּנַי).” The psalmist knows no fountain of true happiness but Jahve, in Him he possesses all, his treasure is in Heaven.
Such is his confession to Jahve. But he also has those on earth to whom he makes confession. Transposing the w we read:
וְלִקְדֹושִׁים אֲשֶׁר בָּאַרֶץ
הֵמָּה אַדִּירֵי כָל־חֶפְצִי־בָם׃
While Diestel's alteration: “to the saints, who are in his land, he makes himself glorious, and all his delight is in them,” is altogether strange to this verse: the above transfer of the Waw
(Note: Approved by Kamphausen and by the critic in the Liter. Blatt of the Allgem. Kirchen-Zeitung 1864 S. 107.)
suffices to remove its difficulties, and that in a way quite in accordance with the connection. Now it is clear, that לקדושׁים, as has been supposed by some, is the dative governed by אָמַרְתִּי, the influence of which is thus carried forward; it is clear what is meant by the addition אשׁר בארץ, which distinguishes the object of his affection here below from the One above, who is incomparably the highest; it is clear, as to what הֵמָּה defines, whereas otherwise this purely descriptive relative clause אֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ הֵמָּה (which von Ortenberg transposes into אֲשֶׁר אֶרְצֶה בָהֵמָּה) appears to be useless and surprises one both on account of its redundancy (since המה is superfluous, cf. e.g., 2Sa 7:9; 2Sa 2:18) and on account of its arrangement of the words (an arrangement, which is usual in connection with a negative construction, Deu 20:15; 2Ch 8:7, cf. Gen 9:3; Eze 12:10); it is clear, in what sense אדירי alternates with קדושׁים, since it is not those who are accounted by the world as אדיריס on account of their worldly power and possessions (Psa 136:18, 2Ch 23:20), but the holy, prized by him as being also glorious, partakers of higher glory and worthy of higher honour; and moreover, this corrected arrangement of the verse harmonises with the Michtam character of the Psalm. The thought thus obtained, is the thought one expected (love to God and love to His saints), and the one which one is also obliged to wring from the text as we have it, either by translating with De Welte, Maurer, Dietrich and others: “the saints who are in the land, they are the excellent in whom I have all my delight,” - a Waw apodoseos, with which one could only be satisfied if it were וְהֵמָּה (cf. 2Sa 15:34) - or: “the saints who are in the land and the glorious-all my delight is in them.” By both these interpretations, לְ would be the exponent of the nom. absol. which is elsewhere detached and placed at the beginning of a sentence, and this l of reference (Ew. §310, a) is really common to every style (Num 18:8; Isa 32:1; Ecc 9:4); whereas the ל understood of the fellowship in which he stands when thus making confession to Jahve: associating myself with the saints (Hengst.), with (von Lengerke), among the saints (Hupf., Thenius), would be a preposition most liable to be misapprehended, and makes Psa 16:3 a cumbersome appendage of Psa 16:2. But if l be taken as the Lamed of reference then the elliptical construct וְאַדִּירֵי, to which הארץ ought to be supplied, remains a stumbling-block not to be easily set aside. For such an isolation of the connecting form from its genitive cannot be shown to be syntactically possible in Hebrew (vid., on 2Ki 9:17, Thenius, and Keil); nor are we compelled to suppose in this instance what cannot be proved elsewhere, since כל־חפצי־בם is, without any harshness, subordinate to ואדירי as a genitival notion (Ges. §116, 3). And still in connection with the reading ואדירי, both the formation of the sentence which, beginning with ל, leads one to expect an apodosis, and the relation of Psa 16:3 to Psa 16:2, according to which the central point of the declaration must lie just within כל־חפצי־בם, are opposed to this rendering of the words ואדירי כל־חפצי־כם.
Thus, therefore, we come back to the above easy improvement of the text. קְושִׁים are those in whom the will of Jahve concerning Israel, that it should be a holy nation (Exo 19:6; Deu 7:6), has been fulfilled, viz., the living members of the ecclesia sanctorum in this world (for there is also one in the other world, Psa 89:6). Glory, δόξα, is the outward manifestation of holiness. It is ordained of God for the sanctified (cf. Rom 8:30), whose moral nobility is now for the present veiled under the menial form of the עָנִי; and in the eyes of David they already possess it. His spiritual vision pierces through the outward form of the servant. His verdict is like the verdict of God, who is his all in all. The saints, and they only, are the excellent to him. His whole delight is centred in them, all his respect and affection is given to them. The congregation of the saints is his Chephzibah, Isa 62:4 (cf. 2Ki 21:1).