Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 54:4 - 54:4
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
(Heb.: 54:6-9) In this second half, the poet, in the certainty of being heard, rejoices in help, and makes a vow of thanksgiving. The בְּ of בְּסֹמְכֵי is not meant to imply that God is one out of many who upheld his threatened life; but rather that He comes within the category of such, and fills it up in Himself alone, cf. Psa 118:7; and for the origin of this Beth essentiae, Psa 99:6, Jdg 11:35. In Psa 54:7 the Kerî merits the preference over the Chethîb (evil shall “revert” to my spies), which would at least require עַל instead of לְ (cf. Psa 7:17). Concerning שֹֽׁרֲרָי, vid., on Psa 27:11. In the rapid transition to invocation in Psa 54:7 the end of the Psalm announces itself. The truth of God is not described as an instrumental agent of the cutting off, but as an impelling cause. It is the same Beth as in the expression בִּנְדָבָה (Num 15:3): by or out of free impulse. These free-will sacrifices are not spiritual here in opposition to the ritual sacrifices (Psa 50:14), but ritual as an outward representation of the spiritual. The subject of הִצִּילָנִי is the Name of God; the post-biblical language, following Lev 24:11, calls God straightway הַשֵּׁם, and passages like Isa 30:27 and the one before us come very near to this usage. The praeterites mention the ground of the thanksgiving. What David now still hopes for will then lie behind him in the past. The closing line, v. 9b, recalls Psa 35:21, cf. Psa 59:11; Psa 92:12; the invoking of the curse upon his enemies in v. 8 recalls Psa 17:13; Psa 56:8; Psa 59:12.; and the vow of thanksgiving in v. 8 recalls Psa 22:26; Psa 35:18; Psa 40:10.