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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 42:6 - 42:6
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(Heb.: 42:7-12) The poet here continues to console himself with God's help. God Himself is indeed dishonoured in him; He will not suffer the trust he has reposed in Him to go unjustified. True, עָלַי seems at the beginning of the line to be tame, but from עָלַי and אֶזְכָּרְךָ, the beginning and end of the line, standing in contrast, עָלַי is made emphatic, and it is at the same time clear that עַל־כֵּן is not equivalent to אֲשֶׁר עַל־כֵּן - which Gesenius asserts in his Lexicon, erroneously referring to Psa 1:5; Psa 45:3, is a poetical usage of the language; an assertion for which, however, there is as little support as that כִּי עַל־כֵּן in Num 14:43 and other passages is equivalent to עַל־כֵּן כִּי. In all such passages, e.g., Jer 48:36, עַל־כֵּן means “therefore,” and the relationship of reason and consequence is reversed. So even here: within him his soul is bowed very low, and on account of this downcast condition he thinks continually of God, from whom he is separated. Even in Jon 2:8 this thinking upon God does not appear as the cause but as the consequence of pain. The “land of Jordan and of Hermonim” is not necessarily the northern mountain range together with the sources of the Jordan. The land beyond the Jordan is so called in opposition to אֶרֶץ לְבָנֹון, the land on this side. According to Dietrich (Abhandlungen, S. 18), חֶרְמֹונִים is an amplificative plural: the Hermon, as a peak soaring far above all lower summits. John Wilson (Lands of the Bible, ii. 161) refers the plural to its two summits. But the plural serves to denote the whole range of the Antilebanon extending to the south-east, and accordingly to designate the east Jordanic country. It is not for one moment to be supposed that the psalmist calls Hermon even, in comparison with his native Zion, the chosen of God. הַר מִצְעָר, i.e., the mountain of littleness: the other member of the antithesis, the majesty of Zion, is wanting, and the מִן which is repeated before הר is also opposed to this. Hitzig, striking out the מ of מהר, makes it an address to Zion: “because I remember thee out of the land of Jordan and of summits of Hermon, thou little mountain;” but, according to Psa 42:8, these words are addressed to Elohim. In the vicinity of Mitz‛are, a mountain unknown to us, in the country beyond Jordan, the poet is sojourning; from thence he looks longingly towards the district round about his home, and just as there, in a strange land, the wild waters of the awe-inspiring mountains roar around him, there seems to be a corresponding tumult in his soul. In Psa 42:8 he depicts the natural features of the country round about him - and it may remind one quite as much of the high and magnificent waterfalls of the lake of Muzêrı̂b as of the waterfall at the course of the Jordan near Paneas and the waters that dash headlong down the mountains round about - and in Psa 42:8 he says that he feels just as though all these threatening masses of water were following like so many waves of misfortune over his head (Tholuck, Hitzig, and Riehm). Billow follows billow as if called by one another (cf. Isa 6:3 concerning the continuous antiphon of the seraphim) at the roar (לְקֹול as in Hab 3:16) of the cataracts, which in their terrible grandeur proclaim the Creator, God (lxx τῶν καταῤῥακτῶν σου) - all these breaking, sporting waves of God pass over him, who finds himself thus surrounded by the mighty works of nature, but taking no delight in them; and in them all he sees nothing but the mirrored image of the many afflictions which threaten to involve him in utter destruction (cf. the borrowed passage in that mosaic work taken from the Psalms, Jon 2:4).
He, however, calls upon himself in Psa 42:9 to take courage in the hope that a morning will dawn after this night of affliction (Psa 30:6), when Jahve, the God of redemption and of the people of redemption, will command His loving-kindness (cf. Psa 44:5, Amos; 3f.); and when this by day has accomplished its work of deliverance, there follows upon the day of deliverance a night of thanksgiving (Job 35:10): the joyous excitement, the strong feeling of gratitude, will not suffer him to sleep. The suffix of שִׁירֹה is the suffix of the object: a hymn in praise of Him, prayer (viz., praiseful prayer, Hab 3:1) to the God of his life (cf. Sir. 23:4), i.e., who is his life, and will not suffer him to come under the dominion of death. Therefore will he say (אֹומְרָה), in order to bring about by prayer such a day of loving-kindness and such a night of thanksgiving songs, to the God of his rock, i.e., who is his rock (gen. apos.): Why, etc.? Concerning the different accentuation of למה here and in Psa 43:2, vid., on Psa 37:20 (cf. Psa 10:1). In this instance, where it is not followed by a guttural, it serves as a “variation” Hitzig); but even the retreating of the tone when a guttural follows is not consistently carried out, vid., Psa 49:6, cf. 1Sa 28:15 (Ew. §243, b). The view of Vaihinger and Hengstenberg is inadmissible, viz., that Psa 42:10 to Psa 42:11 are the “prayer,” which the psalmist means in Psa 42:9; it is the prayerful sigh of the yearning for deliverance, which is intended to form the burthen of that prayer. In some MSS we find the reading כְּרֶצַח instead of בְּרֶצַח; the בְּ is here really synonymous with the כְּ, it is the Beth essentiae (vid., Psa 35:2): after the manner of a crushing (cf. Eze 21:27, and the verb in Psa 62:4 of overthrowing a wall) in my bones, i.e., causing me a crunching pain which seethes in my bones, mine oppressors reproach me (חֵרֵף with the transfer of the primary meaning carpere, as is also customary in the Latin, to a plucking and stripping one of his good name). The use of ב here differs from its use in Psa 42:10; for the reproaching is not added to the crushing as a continuing state, but is itself thus crushing in its operation (vid., Psa 42:4). Instead of בֶּֽאֱמֹר we have here the easier form of expression בְּאָמְרָם; and in the refrain פָּנַי וֵאלֹהָי, which is also to be restored in Psa 42:6.