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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 37:27 - 37:27
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Psa 37:27-28
The round of the exhortations and promises is here again reached as in Psa 37:3. The imperative שְׁכֹן, which is there hortatory, is found here with the ו of sequence in the sense of a promise: and continue, doing such things, to dwell for ever = so shalt thou, etc. (שָׁכַן, pregnant as in Ps 102:29, Isa 57:15). Nevertheless the imperative retains its meaning even in such instances, inasmuch as the exhortation is given to share in the reward of duty at the same time with the discharge of it. On Psa 37:28 compare Psa 33:5.
Psa 37:28-29
The division of the verse is wrong; for the ס strophe, without any doubt, closes with חֲסִדָיו, and the ע eht dna strophe begins with לְעֹולָם, so that, according to the text which we possess, the ע of this word is the acrostic letter. The lxx, however, after εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα φυλαχθήσονται has another line, which suggests another commencement for the ע strophe, and runs in Cod. Vat., incorrectly, ἄμωμοι ἐκδικήσονται, in Cod. Alex., correctly, ἄνομοι δὲ ἐκδιωχθήσονται (Symmachus, ἄνομοι ἐξαρθήσονται). By ἄνομος the lxx translates עָרִיץ in Isa 29:20; by ἄνομα, עַוְלָה in Job 27:4; and by ἐκδιώκειν, הִצְמִית, the synonym of הִשְׁמִיד, in Psa 101:5; so that consequently this line, as even Venema and Schleusner have discerned, was עַוָּלִים נִשְׁמָדוּ. It will at once be seen that this is only another reading for לעולם נשׁמרו; and, since it stands side by side with the latter, that it is an ancient attempt to produce a correct beginning for the ע strophe, which has been transplanted from the lxx into the text. It is, however, questionable whether this reparation is really a restoration of the original words (Hupfeld, Hitzig); since עַוָּל (עֲוִיל) is not a word found in the Psalms (for which reason Böttcher's conjecture of עֹשֵׁי עַוְלָה more readily commends itself, although it is critically less probable), and לעולם נשׁמרו forms a continuation that is more naturally brought about by the context and perfectly logical.