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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 23:6 - 23:6
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Foes are now pursuing him, but prosperity and favour alone shall pursue him, and therefore drive his present pursuers out of the field. אַךְ, originally affirmative, here restrictive, belongs only to the subject-notion in its signification nil nisi (Psa 39:6, Psa 39:12; Psa 139:11). The expression is remarkable and without example elsewhere: as good spirits Jahve sends forth טֹּוב and חֶסֶד to overtake David's enemies, and to protect him against them to their shame, and that all his life long (accusative of continuance). We have now no need, in connection with our reference of the Psalm to the persecution under Absolom, either to persuade ourselves that וְשַׁבְתִּי is equivalent to וְשִׁבְתִּי Psa 27:4, or that it is equivalent to וְיָשַׁבְתִּי. The infinitive is logically inadmissible here, and unheard of with the vowel ā instead of i, which would here (cf. on the other hand קַחְתִּי) be confusing and arbitrary. Nor can it be shown from Jer 42:10 to be probable that it is contracted from וישׁבתי, since in that passage שֹׁוב signifies redeundo = rursus. The lxx, certainly, renders it by καθίσαντες, as in 1Sa 12:2 by καὶ καθήσομαι; but (since so much uncertainty attaches to these translators and their text) we cannot draw a safe inference as to the existing usage of the language, which would, in connection with such a contraction, go out of the province of one verb into that of another, which is not the case with תַּתָּה = נָתַתָּה in 2Sa 22:41. On the contrary we have before us in the present passage a constructio praegnans: “and I shall return (perf. consec.) in the house of Jahve,” i.e., again, having returned, dwell in the house of Jahve. In itself וְשַׁבְתִּי ב might also even mean et revertam ad (cf. Psa 7:17; Hos 12:7), like עָלָה בְ, Psa 24:3, adscendere ad (in). But the additional assertion of continuance, לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים (as in Psa 93:5; Lam 5:20, אֹרֶךְ, root רךְ, extension, lengthening = length) favours the explanation, that בְּ is to be connected with the idea of וישׁבתי, which is involved in ושׁבתי as a natural consequence.