Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 19:4 - 19:4

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 19:4 - 19:4


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(Heb.: 19:5-7) Since אֹמֶר and דְבָרִים are the speech and words of the heavens, which form the ruling principal notion, comprehending within itself both יום and לילה, the suffixes of קַוָּם and מִלֵּיהֶם must unmistakeably refer to השׁמים in spite of its being necessary to assign another reference to קולם in Psa 19:4. Jer 31:39 shows how we are to understand קָו in connection with יָצָא. The measuring line of the heavens is gone forth into all the earth, i.e., has taken entire possession of the earth. Psa 19:5 tells us what kind of measuring line is intended, viz., that of their heraldship: their words (from מִלָּה, which is more Aramaic than Hebrew, and consequently more poetic) reach to the end of the world, they fill it completely, from its extreme boundary inwards. Isaiah's קַו, Psa 28:1-9 :10, is inapplicable here, because it does not mean commandment, but rule, and is there used as a word of derision, rhyming with צַו. The ὁ φθόγγος αὐτῶν of the lxx (ὁ ἦχος αὐτῶν Symm.) might more readily be justified, inasmuch as קָו might mean a harpstring, as being a cord in tension, and then, like τόνος (cf. τοναία), a tone or sound (Gesenius in his Lex., and Ewald), if the reading קולם does not perhaps lie at the foundation of that rendering. But the usage of the language presents with signification of a measuring line for קו when used with יצא (Aq. κανών, cf. 2Co 10:13); and this gives a new thought, whereas in the other case we should merely have a repetition of what has been already expressed in Psa 19:4. Paul makes use of these first two lines of the strophe in order, with its very words, to testify to the spread of the apostolic message over the whole earth. Hence most of the older expositors have taken the first half of the Psalm to be an allegorical prediction, the heavens being a figure of the church and the sun a figure of the gospel. The apostle does not, however, make a formal citation in the passage referred to, he merely gives a New Testament application to Old Testament language, by taking the all-penetrating praeconium coelorum as figure of the all-penetrating praeconium evangelii; and he is fully justified in so doing by the parallel which the psalmist himself draws between the revelation of God in nature and in the written word.

The reference of בָּהֶם to השׁמים is at once opposed by the tameness of the thought so obtained. The tent, viz., the retreat (אֹהֶל, according to its radical meaning a dwelling, from אהל, cogn. אול, to retire from the open country) of the sun is indeed in the sky, but it is more naturally at the spot where the sky and the קְצֵה תֵבֵל meet. Accordingly בהם has the neuter signification “there” (cf. Isa 30:6); and there is so little ground for reading שָׁם instead of שָׂם, as Ewald does, that the poet on the contrary has written בהם and not שָׁם, because he has just used שָׂם (Hitzig). The name of the sun, which is always feminine in Arabic, is predominantly masculine in Hebrew and Aramaic (cf. on the other hand Gen 15:17, Nah 3:17, Isa 45:6, Mal 4:2); just as the Sabians and heathen Arabs had a sun-god (masc.). Accordingly in Psa 19:6 the sun is compared to a bridegroom, who comes forth in the morning out of his חֻפָּה. Joe 2:16 shows that this word means a bride-chamber; properly (from חָפַף to cover) it means a canopy (Isa 4:5), whence in later Hebrew the bridal or portable canopy (Talmud. בֵּית גִּנְנָא), which is supported by four poles and borne by four boys, at the consecration of the bridal pair, and then also the marriage itself, is called chuppa. The morning light has in it a freshness and cheerfulness, as it were a renewed youth. Therefore the morning sun is compared to a bridegroom, the desire of whose heart is satisfied, who stands as it were at the beginning of a new life, and in whose youthful countenance the joy of the wedding-day still shines. And as at its rising it is like a bridegroom, so in its rapid course (Sir. 43:5) it is like a hero (vid., on Psa 18:34), inasmuch as it marches on its way ever anew, light-giving and triumphant, as often as it comes forth, with גְּבוּרָה (Jdg 5:31). From one end of heaven, the extreme east of the horizon, is its going forth, i.e., rising (cf. Hos 6:3; the opposite is מָבֹוא going in = setting), and its circuit (תְּקוּפָה, from קוּף = נָקַף, Isa 29:1, to revolve) עַל־קְצֹותָם, to their (the heavens') end (= עד Deu 4:32), cf. 1 Esdr. 4:34: ταχὺς τῷ δρόμῳ ὁ ἥλιος, ὅτι στρέφεται ἐν τῷ κύκλῳ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ πάλιν ἀποτρέχει εἰς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ τόπον ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ. On this open way there is not נִסְתָּר, anything hidden, i.e., anything that remains hidden, before its heat. חַמָּה is the enlightening and warming influence of the sun, which is also itself called חַמָּה in poetry.