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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 24:1 - 24:1
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Jahve, whose throne of grace is now set upon Zion, has not a limited dominion, like the heathen deities: His right to sovereignty embraces the earth and its fulness (Psa 50:12; Psa 89:12), i.e., everything that is to be found upon it and in it.
(Note: In 1Co 10:26, Paul founds on this verse (cf. Psa 50:12) the doctrine that a Christian (apart from a charitable regard for the weak) may eat whatever is sold in the shambles, without troubling himself to enquire whether it has been offered to idols or not. A Talmudic teacher, B. Berachoth 35a, infers from this passage the duty of prayer before meat: He who eats without giving thanks is like one who lays hands upon קדשׁי שׁמים (the sacred things of God); the right to eat is only obtained by prayer.)
For He, הוא, is the owner of the world, because its Creator. He has founded it upon seas, i.e., the ocean and its streams, נְהָרֹות, ῥέεθρα (Jon 2:4); for the waters existed before the dry land, and this has been cast up out of them at God's word, so that consequently the solid land, - which indeed also conceals in its interior a תְּהום רַבָּה (Gen 7:11), - rising above the surface of the sea, has the waters, as it were, for its foundation (Psa 136:6), although it would more readily sink down into them than keep itself above them, if it were not in itself upheld by the creative power of God. Hereupon arises the question, who may ascend the mountain of Jahve, and stand above in His holy place? The futures have a potential signification: who can have courage to do it? what, therefore, must he be, whom Jahve receives into His fellowship, and with whose worship He is well-pleased? Answer: he must be one innocent in his actions and pure in mind, one who does not lift up his soul to that which is vain (לַשָּׁוְא, according to the Masora with Waw minusculum). (לְ) נָשָׂא נֶפֶשׁ אֶל, to direct one's soul, Psa 25:1, or longing and striving, towards anything, Deu 24:15; Pro 19:18; Hos 4:8. The Kerî נַפְשִׁי is old and acknowledged by the oldest authorities.
(Note: The reading נַפְשִׁי is adopted by Saadia (in Enumoth ii., where נפשׁי is equivalent to שׁמי), Juda ha-Levi (Cuzari iii. 27), Abulwalid (Rikma p. 180), Rashi, Kimchi, the Sohar, the Codices (and among others by that of the year 1294) and most editions (among which, the Complutensis has נפשׁי in the text). Nor does Aben-Ezra, whom Norzi has misunderstood, by any means reverse the relation of the Chethîb and Kerî; to him נפשׁי is the Kerî, and he explains it as a metaphor (an anthropomorphism): וכתוב נפשי דוך כנוי. Elias Levita is the only one who rejects the Kerî נפשׁי; but he does so though misunderstanding a Masora (vid., Baer's Psalterium p. 130) and not without admitting Masoretic testimony in favour of it (וכן ראיתי ברוב נוסחאות המסורת). He is the only textual critic who rejects it. For Jacob b. Chajim is merely astonished that נַפְשִׁו is not to be found in the Masoreth register of words written with Waw and to be read with Jod. And even Norzi does not reject this Kerî, which he is obliged to admit has greatly preponderating testimony in its favour, and he would only too gladly get rid of it.)
Even the lxx Cod. Alex. translates: τὴν ψυχὴν μου; whereas Cod. Vat. (Eus., Apollin., Theodor., et al.): τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ. Critically it is just as intangible, as it is exegetically incomprehensible; נַפְשִׁי might then be equivalent to שְׁמִי. Exo 20:7, an explanation, however, which does not seem possible even from Amo 6:8; Jer 51:14. We let this Kerî alone to its undisturbed critical rights. But that the poet did actually write thus, is incredible.
In Psa 24:5 (just as at the close of Psa 15:1-5), in continued predicates, we are told the character of the man, who is worthy of this privilege, to whom the question in Psa 24:3 refers. Such an one shall bear away, or acquire (נשׁא, as e.g., Est 2:17) blessing from Jahve and righteousness from the God of his salvation (Psa 25:5; Psa 27:9). Righteousness, i.e., conformity to God and that which is well-pleasing to God, appears here as a gift, and in this sense it is used interchangeably with יֵשַׁע (e.g., Psa 132:9, Psa 132:16). It is the righteousness of God after which the righteous, but not the self-righteous, man hungers and thirsts; that moral perfection which is the likeness of God restored to him and at the same time brought about by his own endeavours; it is the being changed, or transfigured, into the image of the Holy One Himself. With Psa 24:5 the answer to the question of Psa 24:3 is at an end; Psa 24:6 adds that those thus qualified, who may accordingly expect to receive God's gifts of salvation, are the true church of Jahve, the Israel of God. דֹּור (lit., a revolution, Arabic dahr, root דר, to turn, revolve) is used here, as in Psa 14:5; Psa 73:15; Psa 112:2, of a collective whole, whose bond of union is not contemporaneousness, but similarity of disposition; and it is an alliteration with the דֹּרְשָׁיו (Chethîb דרשו, without the Jod plur.) which follows. מְבַקְשֵׁי פָּנֶיךָ is a second genitive depending on דֹּור, as in Psa 27:8. Here at the close the predication passes into the form of invocation (Thy face). And יַֽעֲקֹב is a summarising predicate: in short, these are Jacob, not merely after the flesh, but after the spirit, and thus in truth (Isa 44:2, cf. Rom 9:6; Gal 6:16). By interpolating אלהי, as is done in the lxx and Peshîto, and adopted by Ewald, Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher, the nerve, as it were, of the assertion is cut through. The predicate, which has been expressed in different ways, is concentrated intelligibly enough in the one word יעקב, towards which it all along tends. And here the music becomes forte. The first part of this double Psalm dies away amidst the playing of the instruments of the Levitical priests; for the Ark was brought in בְּכָל־עֹז וּבְשִׁירִים, as 2Sa 6:5 (cf. 2Sa 6:14) is to be read.