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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 40:5 - 40:5
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He esteems him happy who puts his trust (מִבְטַחֹו, with a latent Dagesh, as, according to Kimchi, also in Psa 71:5; Job 31:24; Jer 17:7) in Jahve, the God who has already made Himself glorious in Israel by innumerable wonderful works. Jer 17:7 is an echo of this אַֽשְׁרֵי. Psa 52:9 (cf. Psa 91:9) shows how Davidic is the language. The expression is designedly not הָאִישׁ, but הַגֶּבֶר, which is better adapted to designate the man as being tempted to put trust in himself. רְהָבִים from רָהָב (not from רַהַב) are the impetuous or violent, who in their arrogance cast down everything. שָׂטֵי כָזָב, “turners aside of falsehood” (שׁוּט = שָׂטָה, cf. Psa 101:3), is the expression for apostates who yield to falsehood instead of to the truth: to take כָּזָב as accusative of the aim is forbidden by the status construct.; to take it as the genitive in the sense of the accusative of the object (like תֹם הֹלְכֵי, Pro 2:7) is impracticable, because שׂוט (שׂטה) does not admit of a transitive sense; כזב is, therefore, genit. qualit. like אָוֶן in Psa 59:6. This second strophe contains two practical applications of that which the writer himself has experienced. From this point of view, he who trusts in God appears to the poet to be supremely happy, and a distant view of God's gracious rule over His own people opens up before him. נִפְלָאֹות are the thoughts of God realized, and מַֽחֲשָׁבֹות those that are being realized, as in Jer 51:29; Isa 55:8. רַבֹּות is an accusative of the predicate: in great number, in rich abundance; אֵלֵינוּ, “for us,” as e.g., in Jer 15:1 (Ew. §217, c). His doings towards Israel were from of old a fulness of wondrous deeds and plans of deliverance, which was ever realizing and revealing itself. There is not עֲרֹךְ אֵלֶיךָ, a possibility of comparison with Thee, οὐκ ἔστι (Ew. §§321, c) ἰσουν τί σοι - עָרַךְ as in Psa 89:7; Isa 40:18 - they are too powerful (עָצֵם of a powerful sum, as in Psa 69:5; Psa 139:17, cf. Jer 5:6) for one to enumerate. According to Rosenmüller, Stier, and Hupfeld, אין ערך אליך even affirms the same thing in other words: it is not possible to lay them forth to Thee (before Thee); but that man should “lay forth” (Symmachus ἐκθέστηαι) before God His marvellous works and His thoughts of salvation, is an unbecoming conception. The cohortative forms, which follow, אַגִּידָה וַֽאֲדַבֵּרָה ,wollof h, admit of being taken as a protasis to what follows, after the analogy of Job 19:18; Job 16:6; Job 30:26; Psa 139:8 : if I wish to declare them and speak them forth, they are too powerful (numerous) to be enumerated (Ges. §128, 1, d). The accentuation, however, renders it as a parenthetical clause: I would (as in Psa 51:18; Psa 55:13; Psa 6:10) declare them and speak them forth. He would do this, but because God, in the fulness of His wondrous works and thoughts of salvation, is absolutely without an equal, he is obliged to leave it undone - they are so powerful (numerous) that the enumeration of them falls far short of their powerful fulness. The words alioqui pronunciarem et eloquerer have the character of a parenthesis, and, as Psa 40:7 shows, this accords with the style of this Psalm.