Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 22:19 - 22:19

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 22:19 - 22:19


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(Heb.: 22:20-22)In Psa 22:19 the description of affliction has reached its climax, for the parting of, and casting lots for, the garments assumes the certain death of the sufferer in the mind of the enemies. In Psa 22:20, with וְאַתָּה the looks of the sufferer, in the face of his manifold torments, concentrate themselves all at once upon Jahve. He calls Him אֱיָלוּתִי nom. abstr. from אֱיָל, Psa 88:5 : the very essence of strength, as it were the idea, or the ideal of strength; lė‛ezrāthi has the accent on the penult., as in Psa 71:12 (cf. on the other hand Ps 38:23), in order that two tone syllables may not come together. In Psa 22:21, חֶרֶב means the deadly weapon of the enemy and is used exemplificatively. In the expression מִיַּד כֶּלֶב, מִיַּד is not merely equivalent to מִן, but יָד is, according to the sense, equivalent to “paw” (cf. כַּף, Lev 11:27), as פִּי is equivalent to jaws; although elsewhere not only the expression “hand of the lion and of the bear,” 1Sa 17:37, but also “hands of the sword,” Psa 63:11, and even “hand of the flame,” Isa 47:14 are used, inasmuch as יד is the general designation of that which acts, seizes, and subjugates, as the instrument of the act. Just as in connection with the dog יד, and in connection with the lion פי (cf. however, Dan 6:28) is mentioned as its weapon of attack, the horns, not the horn (also not in Deu 33:17), are mentioned in connection with antilopes, רֵמִים (a shorter form, occurring only in this passage, for רְאֵמִים, Psa 29:6; Psa 34:7). Nevertheless, Luther following the lxx and Vulgate, renders it “rescue me from the unicorns” (vid., thereon on Psa 29:6). יְהִידָה, as the parallel member here and in Psa 35:17 shows, is an epithet of נֶפֶשׁ. The lxx in both instances renders it correctly τὴν μονογενῆ μου, Vulg. unicam meam, according to Gen 22:2; Jdg 11:34, the one soul besides which man has no second, the one life besides which man has no second to lose, applied subjectively, that is, soul or life as the dearest and most precious thing, cf. Homer's fi'lon kee'r. It is also interpreted according to Psa 25:16; Psa 68:7 : my solitary one, solitarium, the soul as forsaken by God and man, or at least by man, and abandoned to its own self (Hupfeld, Kamphausen, and others). But the parallel נַפְשִׁי, and the analogy of כְּבֹודִי (= נַפְשִׁי), stamp it as an universal name for the soul: the single one, i.e., that which does not exist in duplicate, and consequently that which cannot be replaced, when lost. The praet. עֲנִיתָנִי might be equivalent to עֲנֵנִי, provided it is a perf. consec. deprived of its Waw convers. in favour of the placing of מִקַּרְנֵי רֵמִים first for the sake of emphasis; but considering the turn which the Psalm takes in Psa 22:23, it must be regarded as perf. confidentiae, inasmuch as in the very midst of his supplication there springs up in the mind of the suppliant the assurance of being heard and answered. To answer from the horns of the antilope is equivalent to hearing and rescuing from them; cf. the equally pregnant expression עָנָה בְּ Psa 118:5, perhaps also Heb 5:7.

(Note: Thrupp in his Emendations on the Psalms (Journal of Classic and Sacred Philology, 1860) suggests עֲנִיָּתִי, my poverty (my poor soul), instead of עניתני.)