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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 42:1 - 42:1
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(Heb.: 42:2-6) The poet compares the thirsting of his soul after God to the thirsting of a stag. אַיָּל (like other names of animals is epicoene, so that there is no necessity to adopt Böttcher's emendation כָּֽעַיֶּלֶת תערג) is construed with a feminine predicate in order to indicate the stag (hind) as an image of the soul. עָרַג is not merely a quiet languishing, but a strong, audible thirsting or panting for water, caused by prevailing drought, Psa 63:2; Joe 1:20; the signification desiderare refers back to the primary notion of inclinare (cf. Arab. 'l-mı̂l, the act of inclining), for the primary meaning of the verb Arab. ‛rj is to be slanting, inclined or bent, out of which has been developed the signification of ascending and moving upwards, which is transferred in Hebrew to an upward-directed longing. Moreover, it is not with Luther (lxx, Vulgate and authorized version) to be rendered: as the (a) stag crieth, etc., but (and it is accented accordingly): as a stag, which, etc. אָפִיק = אָפֵק is, according to its primary signification, a watercourse holding water (vid., Psa 18:16). By the addition of מַיִם the full and flowing watercourse is distinguished from one that is dried up. עַל and אֶל point to the difference in the object of the longing, viz., the hind has this object beneath herself, the soul above itself; the longing of the one goes deorsum, the longing of the other sursum. The soul's longing is a thirsting לְאֵל חָֽי. Such is the name here applied to God (as in Psa 84:3) in the sense in which flowing water is called living, as the spring or fountain of life (Psa 36:10) from which flows forth a grace that never dries up, and which stills the thirst of the soul. The spot where this God reveals Himself to him who seeks Him is the sanctuary on Zion: when shall I come and appear in the presence of Elohim?! The expression used in the Law for the three appearings of the Israelites in the sanctuary at solemn feasts is אל־פני ה נִרְאָה or את־פני, Exo 23:17; Exo 34:23. Here we find instead of this expression, in accordance with the license of poetic brevity, the bare acc. localis which is even used in other instances in the definition of localities, e.g., Eze 40:44). Böttcher, Olshausen, and others are of opinion that אראה in the mind of the poet is to be read אֶרְאֶה, and that it has only been changed into אֵרָאֶה through the later religious timidity; but the avoidance of the phrase רָאָה פְּנֵי ה is explained from the fundamental assumption of the Tôra that a man could not behold God's פנים without dying, Exo 33:20. The poet now tells us in Psa 42:4 what the circumstances were which drove him to such intense longing. His customary food does not revive him, tears are his daily bread, which day and night run down upon his mouth (cf. Psa 80:6; Psa 102:20), and that בֶּֽאֱמֹר, when say to him, viz., the speakers, all day long, i.e., continually: Where is thy God? Without cessation, these mocking words are continually heard, uttered again and again by those who are found about him, as their thoughts, as it were, in the soul of the poet. This derision, in the Psalms and in the Prophets, is always the keenest sting of pain: Psa 79:10; Psa 115:2 (cf. Psa 71:11), Joe 2:17; Mic 7:10.
In this gloomy present, in which he is made a mock of, as one who is forsaken of God, on account of his trust in the faithfulness of the promises, he calls to remembrance the bright and cheerful past, and he pours out his soul within him (on the עָלַי used here and further on instead of בִּי or בְּקִרְבִּי, and as distinguishing between the ego and the soul, vid., Psychol. S. 152; tr. p. 180), inasmuch as he suffers it to melt entirely away in pain (Job 30:16). As in Psa 77:4, the cohortatives affirm that he yields himself up most thoroughly to this bittersweet remembrance and to this free outward expression of his pain אֵלֶּה (haecce) points forwards; the כִּי (quod) which follows opens up the expansion of this word. The futures, as expressing the object of the remembrance, state what was a habit in the time past. עָבַר frequently signifies not praeterire, but, without the object that is passed over coming into consideration, porro ire. סָךְ (a collateral form of סֹךְ), properly a thicket, is figuratively (cf. Isa 9:17; Isa 10:34) an interwoven mass, a mixed multitude. The rendering therefore is: that I moved on in a dense crowd (here the distinctive Zinnor). The form אֶדַּדֵּם is Hithpa., as in Isa 38:15, after the form הִדַּמָּה from the verb דָּדָה, “to pass lightly and swiftly along,” derived by reduplication from the root דא (cf. Arab. d'ud'u), which has the primary meaning to push, to drive (ἐλαύνειν, pousser), and in various combinations of the ד (דא, Arab. dah, דח, Arab. da‛, דב, דף) expresses manifold shades of onward motion in lighter or heavier thrusts or jerks. The suffix, as in גְּדֵלַנִי = גָּדֵל עִמִּי, Job 31:18 (Ges. §121, 4), denotes those in reference to whom, or connection with whom, this moving onwards took place, so that consequently אֶדַּדֵּם includes within itself, together with the subjective notion, the transitive notion of אֲדַדֵּם, for the singer of the Psalm is a Levite; as an example in support of this אֶדַּדֵּם, vid., 2Ch 20:27., cf. v. 21. הָמֹון חֹוגֵג is the apposition to the personal suffix of this אדדם: with them, a multitude keeping holy-day. In Psa 42:6 the poet seeks to solace and encourage himself at this contrast of the present with the past: Why art thou thus cast down... (lxx ἵνα τί περίλυπος εἶ, κ. τ. λ., cf. Mat 26:38; Joh 12:27). It is the spirit which, as the stronger and more valiant part of the man, speaks to the soul as to the σκεῦος ἀσθενέστερον; the spiritual man soothes the natural man. The Hithpa. הִשְׁתֹּוחַח, which occurs only here and in Psa 43:1-5, signifies to bow one's self very low, to sit down upon the ground like a mourner (Psa 35:14; Psa 38:7), and to bend one's self downwards (Psa 44:26). הָמָה (the future of which Ben-Asher here points וַתֶּֽהֱמִי, but Ben-Naphtali וַתֶּהְמִּי), to utter a deep groan, to speak quietly and mumbling to one's self. Why this gnawing and almost desponding grief? I shall yet praise Him with thanksgiving, praise יְשׁוּעות פָּנָיו, the ready succour of His countenance turned towards me in mercy. Such is the text handed down to us. Although it is, however, a custom with the psalmists and prophets not to express such refrainlike thoughts in exactly the same form and words (cf. Psa 24:7, Psa 24:9; Psa 49:13, 21; Psa 56:5, Psa 56:11; Psa 59:10, 18), nevertheless it is to be read here by a change in the division both of the words and the verses, according to Psa 42:5 and Psa 43:5, יְשׁוּעות פָּנַי וֵאלֹהָי, as is done by the lxx (Cod. Alex.), Syriac, Vulgate, and most modern expositors. For the words ישׁועות פניו, though in themselves a good enough sense (vid., e.g., Psa 44:4, Isa 64:9), produce no proper closing cadence, and are not sufficient to form a line of a verse.
(Note: Even an old Hebrew MS directs attention to the erroneousness of the Soph pasuk here; vid., Pinsker, Einleitung, S. 133 l.)