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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 40:17 - 40:17
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On Psa 40:17 compare Psa 35:27. David wishes, as he does in that passage, that the pious may most heartily rejoice in God, the goal of their longing; and that on account of the salvation that has become manifest, which they love (2Ti 4:8), they may continually say: Let Jahve become great, i.e., be magnified or celebrated with praises! In Psa 40:17 with וַאֲנִי he comes back to his own present helpless state, but only in order to contrast with it the confession of confident hope. True he is עָנִי וְאֶבְיֹון (as in Psa 109:22; Psa 136:1, cf. Psa 25:16), but He who ruleth over all will care for him: Dominus solicitus erit pro me (Jerome). חָשַׁב in the same sense in which in Psa 40:6 the מחשׁבות, i.e., God's thoughts of salvation, is conceived of (cf. the corresponding North-Palestinian expression in Jon 1:6). A sigh for speedy help (אַל־תְּאַחַר, as in Dan 9:19 with a transition of the merely tone-long Tsere into a pausal Pathach, and here in connection with a preceding closed syllable, Olshausen, §91, d, under the accompanying influence of two final letters which incline towards the a sound) closes this second part of the Psalm. The first part is nothing but thanksgiving, the second is exclusively prayer.