Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 4:2 - 4:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
(Heb.: 4:3-4) Righteous in his relation to God he turns rebukingly towards those who contemn his whose honour is God's honour, viz., to the partisans of Absolom. In contrast with בְּנֵי אָדָם, men who are lost in the multitude, בְּנֵי אִישׁ denotes such as stand prominently forward out of the multitude; passages like Psa 49:3; Psa 62:10; Pro 8:4; Isa 2:9; Isa 5:15, show this distinction. In this and the preceding Psalm David makes as little mention of his degenerate son as he does of the deluded king in the Psalms belonging to the period of his persecution by Saul. The address is directed to the aristocratic party, whose tool Absolom has become. To these he days: till when (עַד־מֶה beside the non-guttural which follows with Segol, without any manifest reason, as in Psa 10:13; Isa 1:5; Jer 16:10), i.e., how long shall my honour become a mockery, namely to you and by you, just as we can also say in Latin quousque tandem dignitas mea ludibrio? The two following members are circumstantial clauses subordinate to the principal clause with עַד־מֶה (similar to Isa 1:5; Ew. §341, b). The energetic fut. with Nun parag. does not usually stand at the head of independent clauses; it is therefore to be rendered: since ye love רִיק, that which is empty - the proper name for their high rank is hollow appearance - how long will ye pursue after כָּזָב, falsehood?-they seek to find out every possible lying pretext, in order to trail the honour of the legitimate king in the dust. The assertion that the personal honour of David, not his kingly dignity, is meant by כְּבֹודִי, separates what is inseparable. They are eager to injure his official at the same time as his personal reputation. Therefore David appeals in opposition to them (Psa 4:4) not only to the divine choice, but also to his personal relationship to God, on which that choice is based. The ו of וּדְעוּ is, as in 2Ki 4:41, the ו of sequence: so know then. The Hiph. חִפְלָה (from פָּלָה = פָּלָא, cogn. פָּלַל, prop. to divide) to make a separation, make a distinction Exo 9:4; Exo 11:7, then to distinguish in an extraordinary and remarkable way Exo 8:18, and to show Psa 17:7, cf. Psa 31:22, so that consequently what is meant is not the mere selection (בָּחַר), but the remarkable selection to a remarkable position of honour (lxx, Vulg. mirificavit, Windberg translation of the Psalms gewunderlichet). לֹו belongs to the verb, as in Psa 135:4, and the principal accent lies on חָסִיד: he whom Jahve Himself, not men, has thus remarkably distinguished is a חָסִיד, a pious man, i.e., either, like the Syriac חֲסִידָא = רְהִימָא: God's favourite, or, according to the biblical usage of the language (cf. Psa 12:2 with Isa 17:1), in an active signification like פָּלִיט, פָּרִיץ, and the like: a lover of God, from חָסַד (root חס Arab. ḥs, stringere, whence ḥassa to curry, maḥassa a curry-comb) prop. to feel one's self drawn, i.e., strongly affected (comp. ḥiss is mental impression), in Hebrew, of a strong ardent affection. As a חסיד he does not call upon God in vain, but finds a ready hearing. Their undertaking consequently runs counter to the miraculously evidenced will of God and must fail by reason of the loving relationship in which the dethroned and debased one stands to God.