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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 18:31 - 18:31
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(Heb.: 18:32-35) The grateful description of the tokens of favour he has experienced takes a new flight, and is continued in the second half of the Psalm in a more varied and less artificial mixture of the strophes. What is said in Psa 18:31 of the way and word of Jahve and of Jahve Himself, is confirmed in Psa 18:32 by the fact that He alone is אֱלֹוהַּ, a divine being to be reverenced, and He alone is צוּר, a rock, i.e., a ground of confidence that cannot be shaken. What is said in Psa 18:31 consequently can be said only of Him. מִבַּלְעֲדֵי and זוּלָתִי alternate; the former (with a negative intensive מִן) signifies “without reference to” and then absolutely “without” or besides, and the latter (with ı̂ as a connecting vowel, which elsewhere has also the function of a suffix), from זוּלַת (זוּלָה), “exception.” The verses immediately following are attached descriptively to אֱלֹהֵינוּ, our God (i.e., the God of Israel), the God, who girded me with strength; and accordingly (fut. consec.) made my way תָמִים, “perfect,” i.e., absolutely smooth, free from stumblings and errors, leading straight forward to a divine goal. The idea is no other than that in Psa 18:31, cf. Job 22:3, except that the freedom from error here is intended to be understood in accordance with its reference to the way of a man, of a king, and of a warrior; cf. moreover, the other text. The verb שִׁוָּה signifies, like Arab. swwâ, to make equal (aequare), to arrange, to set right; the dependent passage Hab 3:19 has, instead of this verb, the more uncoloured שִׁים. The hind, אַיָּלָה or אַיֶּלֶת, is the perfection of swiftness (cf. ἔλαφος and ἐλαφρός) and also of gracefulness among animals. “Like the hinds” is equivalent to like hinds' feet; the Hebrew style leaves it to the reader to infer the appropriate point of comparison from the figure. It is not swiftness in flight (De Wette), but in attack and pursuit that is meant, - the latter being a prominent characteristic of warriors, according to 2Sa 1:23; 2Sa 2:18; 1Ch 12:8. David does not call the high places of the enemy, which he has made his own by conquest “my high places,” but those heights of the Holy Land which belong to him as king of Israel: upon these Jahve preserves him a firm position, so that from them he may rule the land far and wide, and hold them victoriously (cf. passages like Deu 32:13; Isa 58:14). The verb לִמֵּד, which has a double accusative in other instances, is here combined with לְ of the subject taught, as the aim of the teaching. The verb נִחֵת (to press down = to bend a bow) precedes the subject “my arms” in the singular; this inequality is admissible even when the subject stands first (e.g., Gen 49:22; Joe 1:20; Zec 6:14). קֶשֶׁת נְחוּשָׁה a bow of brazen = of brass, as in Job 20:24. It is also the manner of heroes in Homer and in the Ramâ-jana to press down and bend with their hand a brazen bow, one end of which rests on the ground.