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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 27:13 - 27:13
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Self-encouragement to firmer confidence of faith. Joined to Psa 27:12 (Aben-Ezra, Kimchi), Psa 27:13 trails badly after it. We must, with Geier, Dachselt, and others, suppose that the apodosis is wanting to the protasis with its לוּלֵא pointed with three points above,
(Note: The ו has not any point above it, because it might be easily mistaken for a Cholem, vid., Baer's Psalterium p. 130.)
and four below, according to the Masora (cf. B. Berachoth 4a), but a word which is indispensably necessary, and is even attested by the lxx (ἑαυτῇ) and the Targum (although not by any other of the ancient versions); cf. the protasis with לוּ, which has no apodosis, in Gen 50:15, and the apodoses with כִּי after לוּלֵי in Gen 31:42; Gen 43:10; 1 Sam. 35:34; 2Sa 2:27 (also Num 22:33, where אוּלַי = אִם לֹא = לוּלֵי), which are likewise to be explained per aposiopesin. The perfect after לוּלֵא (לוּלֵי) has sometimes the sense of a plusquamperfectum (as in Gen 43:10, nisi cunctati essemus), and sometimes the sense of an imperfect, as in the present passage (cf. Deu 32:29, si saperent). The poet does not speak of a faith that he once had, a past faith, but, in regard to the danger that is even now abiding and present, of the faith he now has, a present faith. The apodosis ought to run something like this (Psa 119:92; Psa 94:17): did I not believe, were not confidence preserved to me...then (אָז( ne or כִּי אָז) I should perish; or: then I had suddenly perished. But he has such faith, and he accordingly in Psa 27:14 encourages himself to go on cheerfully waiting and hoping; he speaks to himself, it is, as it were, the believing half of his soul addressing the despondent and weaker half. Instead of וֶאֱמַץ (Deu 31:7) the expression is, as in Ps 31:25, וְיַֽאֲמֵץ לִבֶּךָ, let thy heart be strong, let it give proof of strength. The rendering “May He (Jahve) strengthen thy heart” would require יְאַמֵּץ; but הֶאֱמִיץ, as e.g., הִרְחִיב Psa 25:17, belongs to the transitive denominatives applying to the mind or spirit, in which the Hebrew is by no means poor, and in which the Arabic is especially rich.