Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 55:9 - 55:9

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 55:9 - 55:9


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In the second group anger is the prevailing feeling. In the city all kinds of party passions have broken loose; even his bosom friend has taken a part in this hostile rising. The retrospective reference to the confusion of tongues at Babel which is contained in the word פַּלַּג (cf. Gen 10:25), also in remembrance of בָּלַל (Gen 11:1-9), involves the choice of the word בַּלַּע, which here, after Isa 19:3, denotes a swallowing up, i.e., annihilation by means of confounding and rendering utterly futile. לְשֹׁונָם is the object to both imperatives, the second of which is פַּלַּג (like the pointing usual in connection with a final guttural) for the sake of similarity of sound. Instead of חָמָס וָרִיב, the pointing is חמס וְרִיב, which is perfectly regular, because the וריב with a conjunctive accent logically hurries on to בָּעִיר as its supplement.

(Note: Certain exceptions, however, exist, inasmuch as וְ sometimes remains even in connection with a disjunctive accent, Isa 49:4; Jer 40:10; Jer 41:16; and it is pointed וָ in connection with a conjunctive in Gen 45:23; Gen 46:12; Lev 9:3; Mic 2:11; Job 4:16; Ecc 4:8.)

The subjects to Psa 55:11 are not violence and strife (Hengstenberg, Hitzig), for it is rather a comical idea to make these personified run round about upon the city walls; but (cf. Psa 59:7, Psa 59:15) the Absalomites, and in fact the spies who incessantly watch the movements of David and his followers, and who to this end roam about upon the heights of the city. The narrative in 2 Sam. 15 shows how passively David looked on at this movement, until he abandoned the palace of his own free will and quitted Jerusalem The espionage in the circuit of the city is contrasted with the movements going on within the city itself by the word בֶּקֶרֶב. We are acquainted with but few details of the affair; but we can easily fill in the details for ourselves in accordance with the ambitious, base, and craftily malicious character of Absalom. The assertion that deceit (מִרְמָה) and the extremest madness had taken possession of the city is confirmed in Psa 55:13 by כִּי. It is not open enemies who might have had cause for it that are opposed to him, but faithless friends, and among them that Ahithophel of Giloh, the scum of perfidious ingratitude. The futures וְאֶשָּׂא and וְאֶסָּתֵר are used as subjunctives, and וְ is equivalent to alioqui, as in Psa 51:18, cf. Job 6:14. He tells him to his face, to his shame, the relationship in which he had stood to him whom he now betrays. Psa 55:14 is not to be rendered: and thou art, etc., but: and thou (who dost act thus) wast, etc.; for it is only because the principal clause has a retrospective meaning that the futures נַמְתִּיק and נְהַלֵּךְ describe what was a custom in the past. The expression is designedly אֱנֹושׁ כְּעֶרְכִּי and not אִישׁ כערכי; David does not make him feel his kingly eminence, but places himself in the relation to him of man to man, putting him on the same level with himself and treating him as his equal. The suffix of כערכי is in this instance not subjective as in the כערכך of the law respecting the asham or trespass-offering: according to my estimation, but objectively: equal to the worth at which I am estimated, that is to say, equally valued with myself. What heart-piercing significance this word obtains when found in the mouth of the second David, who, although the Son of God and peerless King, nevertheless entered into the most intimate human relationship as the Son of man to His disciples, and among them to that Iscariot! אַלּוּף from אָלַף, Arabic alifa, to be accustomed to anything, assuescere, signifies one attached to or devoted to any one; and מֻידָּא, according to the Hebrew meaning of the verb יָדַע, an intimate acquaintance. The first of the relative clauses in Psa 55:15 describes their confidential private intercourse; the second the unrestrained manifestation of it in public. סֹוד here, as in Job 19:19 (vid., supra on Psa 25:14). הִמְתִּיק סֹוד, to make friendly intercourse sweet, is equivalent to cherishing it. רֶגֶשׁ stands over against סֹוד, just like סֹוד, secret counsel, and רִגְשָׁה, loud tumult, in Psa 64:3. Here רֶגֶשׁ is just the same as that which the Korahitic poet calls הָמֹון חֹוגֵג in Psa 42:5.

In the face of the faithless friends who has become the head of the Absalomite faction David now breaks out, in Psa 55:16, into fearful imprecations. The Chethîb is יְשִׁימֹות, desolationes (super eos); but this word occurs only in the name of a place (“House of desolations”), and does not well suit such direct reference to persons. On the other hand, the Kerî יַשִּׁיאמָוֶת, let death ensnare or impose upon them, gives a sense that is not to be objected to; it is a pregnant expression, equivalent to: let death come upon them unexpectedly. To this יַשִּׁיא corresponds the חַיִּים of the second imprecation: let them go down alive into Hades (שְׁאֹול, perhaps originally שְׁאֹולָה, the ה of which may have been lost beside the ח that follows), i.e., like the company of Korah, while their life is yet vigorous, that is to say, let them die a sudden, violent death. The drawing together of the decipiat (opprimat) mors into one word is the result of the ancient scriptio continua and of the defective mode of writing, יַשִּׁי, like יָנִי, Psa 141:5, אָבִי, 1Ki 21:29. Böttcher renders it differently: let death crash in upon them; but the future form יַשִּׁי = יַשְׁאָה from שָׁאָה = שָׁאַי is an imaginary one, which cannot be supported by Num 21:30. Hitzig renders it: let death benumb them (יַשִּׁים); but this gives an inconceivable figure, with the turgidity of which the trepidantes Manes in Virgil, Aenid viii. 246, do not admit of comparison. In the confirmation, Psa 55:16, בִּמְגוּרָם, together with the בְּקִרְבָּם which follows, does not pretend to be any advance in the thought, whether מָגֹור be rendered a settlement, dwelling, παροικία (lxx, Targum), or an assembly (Aquila, Symmachus, Jerome). Hence Hitzig's rendering: in their shrine, in their breast (= ἐν τῷ θησαυρῷ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, Luk 6:45), מְגוּרָם being short for מְגוּרָתָם in accordance with the love of contraction which prevails in poetry (on Psa 25:5). But had the poet intended to use this figure he would have written בִּמְגוּרַת קרבם, and is not the assertion that wickedness is among them, that it is at home in them, really a climax? The change of the names of God in Psa 55:17 is significant. He calls upon Him who is exalted above the world, and He who mercifully interposes in the history of the world helps him.