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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 22:9 - 22:9
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(Heb.: 22:10-12)The sufferer pleads that God should respond to his trust in Him, on the ground that this trust is made an object of mockery. With כִּי he establishes the reality of the loving relationship in which he stands to God, at which his foes mock. The intermediate thought, which is not expressed, “and so it really is,” is confirmed; and thus כי comes to have an affirmative signification. The verb גּוּחַ (גִּיחַ) signifies both intransitive: to break forth (from the womb), Job 38:8, and transitive: to push forward (cf. Arab. jchcha), more especially, the fruit of the womb, Mic 4:10. It might be taken here in the first signification: my breaking forth, equivalent to “the cause of my breaking forth” (Hengstenberg, Baur, and others); but there is no need for this metonymy. גֹּחִי is either part. equivalent to גָּחִי, my pusher forth, i.e., he who causes me to break forth, or, - since גוח in a causative signification cannot be supported, and participles like בֹּוס stamping and לֹוט veiling (Ges. §72, rem. 1) are nowhere found with a suffix, - participle of a verb גָּחָהּ, to draw forth (Hitz.), which perhaps only takes the place, per metaplasmum, of the Pil. גֹּחֵחַ with the uneuphonic מְגֹחֲחִי (Ewald S. 859, Addenda). Ps 71 has גֹוזִי (Psa 71:6) instead of גֹּחִי, just as it has מִבְטָחִי (Psa 71:5) instead of מַבְטִיחִי. The Hiph. הִבְטִיחַ does not merely mean to make secure (Hupf.), but to cause to trust. According to biblical conception, there is even in the new-born child, yea in the child yet unborn and only living in the womb, a glimmering consciousness springing up out of the remotest depths of unconsciousness (Psychol. S. 215; transl. p. 254). Therefore, when the praying one says, that from the womb he has been cast
(Note: The Hoph. has o, not u, perhaps in a more neuter sense, more closely approximating the reflexive (cf. Eze 32:19 with Eze 32:32), rather than a purely passive. Such is apparently the feeling of the language, vid., B. Megilla 13a (and also the explanation in Tosefoth).)
upon Jahve, i.e., directed to go to Him, and to Him alone, with all his wants and care (Psa 55:23, cf. Psa 71:6), that from the womb onwards Jahve was his God, there is also more in it than the purely objective idea, that he grew up into such a relationship to God. Twice he mentions his mother. Throughout the Old Testament there is never any mention made of a human father, or begetter, to the Messiah, but always only of His mother, or her who bare Him. And the words of the praying one here also imply that the beginning of his life, as regards its outward circumstances, was amidst poverty, which likewise accords with the picture of Christ as drawn both in the Old and New Testaments. On the ground of his fellowship with God, which extends so far back, goes forth the cry for help (Psa 22:12), which has been faintly heard through all the preceding verses, but now only comes to direct utterance for the first time. The two כִּי are alike. That the necessity is near at hand, i.e., urgent, refers back antithetically to the prayer, that God would not remain afar off; no one doth, nor can help except He alone. Here the first section closes.