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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 26:4 - 26:4
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He still further bases his petition upon his comportment towards the men of this world; how he has always observed a certain line of conduct and continues still to keep to it. With Psa 26:4 compare Jer 15:17. מְתֵי שָׁוְא (Job 11:11, cf. Psa 31:5, where the parallel word is מִרְמָה) are “not-real,” unreal men, but in a deeper stronger sense than we are accustomed to use this word. שָׁוְא (= שָׁוֶא, from שֹׁוא) is aridity, hollowness, worthlessness, and therefore badness (Arab. su') of disposition; the chaotic void of alienation from God; untruth white-washed over with the lie of dissimulation (Psa 12:3), and therefore nothingness: it is the very opposite of being filled with the fulness of God and with that which is good, which is the morally real (its synonym is אָוֶן, e.g., Job 22:15). נַֽעֲלָמִים, the veiled, are those who know how to keep their worthlessness and their mischievous designs secret and to mask them by hypocrisy; post-biblical צְבוּעִים, dyed (cf. ἀνυπόκριτος, Luther “ungefärbt,” undyed). (אֵת) בֹּוא עִם, to go in with any one, is a short expression for: to go in and out with, i.e., to have intercourse with him, as in Pro 22:24, cf. Gen 23:10. מֵרֵעַ (from רָעַע) is the name for one who plots that which is evil and puts it into execution. On רָשָׁע see Psa 1:1.