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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 44:9 - 44:9
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(Heb.: 44:10-13) Just as אַף signifies imo vero (Psa 58:3) when it comes after an antecedent clause that is expressly or virtually a negative, it may mean “nevertheless, ho'moos,” when it opposes a contrastive to an affirmative assertion, as is very frequently the case with גַּם or וְגַם. True, it does not mean this in itself, but in virtue of its logical relation: we praise Thee, we celebrate Thy name unceasingly - also (= nevertheless) Thou hast cast off. From this point the Psalm comes into closest connection with Psa 89:39, on a still more extended scale, however, with Psa 60:1-12, which dates from the time of the Syro-Ammonitish war, in which Psalm Psa 44:10 recurs almost word for word. The צְבָאֹות are not exactly standing armies (an objection which has been raised against the Maccabean explanation), they are the hosts of the people that are drafted into battle, as in Exo 12:41, the hosts that went forth out of Egypt. Instead of leading these to victory as their victorious Captain (2Sa 5:24), God leaves them to themselves and allows them to be smitten by the enemy. The enemy spoil לָמֹו, i.e., just as they like, without meeting with any resistance, to their hearts' content. And whilst He gives over (נָתַן as in Mic 5:2, and the first יִתֵּן in Isa 41:2) one portion of the people as “sheep appointed for food,” another becomes a diaspora or dispersion among the heathen, viz., by being sold to them as slaves, and that בְּלֹא־הֹון, “for not-riches,” i.e., for a very low price, a mere nothing. We see from Joe 3:3 in what way this is intended. The form of the litotes is continued in Psa 44:13: Thou didst not go high in the matter of their purchase-money; the rendering of Maurer is correct: in statuendis pretiis eorum. The ב is in this instance not the Beth of the price as in Psa 44:13, but, as in the phrase הִלֵּל בְּ, the Beth of the sphere and thereby indirectly of the object. רִבָּה in the sense of the Aramaic רַבֵּי (cf. Pro 22:16, and the derivatives תַּרְבִּית, מַרְבִּית), to make a profit, to practise usury (Hupfeld), produces a though that is unworthy of God; vid., on the other hand, Isa 52:3. At the heads of the strophe stands (Psa 44:10) a perfect with an aorist following: וְלֹא תֵצֵא is consequently a negative וַתֵּצֵא. And Psa 44:18, which sums up the whole, shows that all the rest is also intended to be retrospective.