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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 41:4 - 41:4
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(Heb.: 41:5-7) He, the poet, is treated in his distress of soul in a manner totally different from the way just described which is so rich in promises of blessing. He is himself just such a דַּל, towards whom one ought to manifest sympathising consideration and interest. But, whilst he is addressing God in the language of penitential prayer for mercy and help, his enemies speak evil to him, i.e., with respect to him, wishing that he might die and that his name might perish. רְפָאָה .hs is as an exception Milra, inasmuch as א draws the tone to its own syllable; cf. on the other hand רְגָֽזָה, Isa 32:11 (Hitzig). מָתַי (prop. extension, length of time) has only become a Semitic interrogative in the signification quando by the omission of the interrogative אֵי (common Arabic in its full form Arab. 'ymtâ, êmata). וְאָבַד is a continuation of the future. In Psa 41:7 one is singled out and made prominent, and his hypocritically malicious conduct described. רְאֹות of a visit to a sick person as in 2Sa 13:5., 2Ki 8:29. אִם is used both with the perf. (Psa 50:18; Psa 63:7; Psa 78:34; Psa 94:18; Gen 38:9; Amo 7:2; Isa 24:13; Isa 28:25) and with the fut. (Psa 68:14; Job 14:14), like quum, as a blending together of si and quando, Germ. wenn (if) and wann (when). In ידבֹר לבו two Rebias come together, the first of which has the greater value as a distinctive, according to the rule laid down in Baer's Psalterium, p. xiv. Consequently, following the accents, it must not be rendered: “falsehood doth his heart speak.” The lxx, Vulgate, and Targum have discerned the correct combination of the words. Besides, the accentuation, as is seen from the Targum and expositors, proceeds on the assumption that לִבֹּו is equivalent to בְּלִבֹּו. But why may it not be the subject-notion: “His heart gathereth” is an expression of the activity of his mind and feelings, concealed beneath a feigned and friendly outward bearing. The asyndeton portrays the despatch with which he seeks to make the material for slander, which has been gathered together, public both in the city and in the country.