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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 17:8 - 17:8
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The covenant relationship towards Himself in which Jahve has placed David, and the relationship of love in which David stands to Jahve, fully justified the oppressed one in his extreme request. The apple of the eye, which is surrounded by the iris, is called אִישֹׁון, the man (Arabic insân), or in the diminutive and endearing sense of the termination on: the little man of the eye, because a picture in miniature of one's self is seen, as in a glass, when looking into another person's eye. בַּת־עַיִן either because it is as if born out of the eye and the eye has, as it were, concentrated itself in it, or rather because the little image which is mirrored in it is, as it were, the little daughter of the eye (here and Lam 2:18). To the Latin pupilla (pupula), Greek κόρη, corresponds most closely בָּבַת עַיִן, Zec 2:12, which does not signify the gate, aperture, sight, but, as בַּת shows, the little boy, or more strictly, the little girl of the eye. It is singular that אִישֹׁון here has the feminine בַּת־עָֽיִן as the expression in apposition to it. The construction might be genitival: “as the little man of the apple of the eye,” inasmuch as the saint knows himself to be so near to God, that, as it were, his image in miniature is mirrored in the great eye of God. But (1) the more ozdinary name for the pupil of the eye is not בַּת עַיִן, but אִישֹׁון; and (2) with that construction the proper point of the comparison, that the apple of the eye is an object of the most careful self-preservation, is missed. There is, consequently, a combination of two names of the pupil or apple of the eye, the usual one and one more select, without reference to the gender of the former, in order to give greater definition and emphasis to the figure. The primary passage for this bold figure, which is the utterance of loving entreaty, is Deu 32:10, where the dazzling anthropomorphism is effaced by the lxx and other ancient versions;
(Note: Vid., Geiger, Urschrift und Ueberstezungen der Bibel, S. 324.)
cf. also Sir. 17:22. Then follows another figure, taken from the eagle, which hides its young under its wings, likewise from Deut 32, viz., Psa 17:11, for the figure of the hen (Mat 23:37) is alien to the Old Testament. In that passage, Moses, in his great song, speaks of the wings of God; but the double figure of the shadow of God's wings (here and in Psa 36:8; Psa 57:2; Psa 63:8) is coined by David. “God's wings” are the spreadings out, i.e., the manifestations of His love, taking the creature under the protection of its intimate fellowship, and the “shadow” of these wings is the refreshing rest and security which the fellowship of this love affords to those, who hide themselves beneath it, from the heat of outward or inward conflict.
From Psa 17:9 we learn more definitely the position in which the psalmist is placed. שָׁדַד signifies to use violence, to destroy the life, continuance, or possession of any one. According to the accentuation בְּנֶפֶשׁ is to be connected with אֹיְבַי, not with יַקִּפוּ, and to be understood according to Eze 25:6 : “enemies with the soul” are those whose enmity is not merely superficial, but most deep-seated (cf. ἐκ ψυχῆς, Eph 6:6; Col 3:23). The soul (viz., the hating and eagerly longing soul, Psa 27:12; Psa 41:3) is just the same as if בנפשׁ is combined with the verb, viz., the soul of the enemies; and איבֵי נפשׁי would therefore not be more correct, as Hitzig thinks, than בנפשׁ איבַי, but would have a different meaning. They are eager to destroy him (perf. conatus), and form a circle round about him, as ravenous ones, in order to swallow him up.