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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 56:8 - 56:8
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What the poet prays for in Psa 56:8, he now expresses as his confident expectation with which he solaces himself. נֹד (Psa 56:9) is not to be rendered “flight,” which certainly is not a thing that can be numbered (Olshausen); but “a being fugitive,” the unsettled life of a fugitive (Pro 27:8), can really be numbered both by its duration and its many temporary stays here and there. And upon the fact that God, that He whose all-seeing eye follows him into every secret hiding-place of the desert and of the rocks, counteth (telleth) it, the poet lays great stress; for he has long ago learnt to despair of man. The accentuation gives special prominence to נֹדִי as an emphatically placed object, by means of Zarka; and this is then followed by סָפַרְתָּה with the conjunctive Galgal and the pausal אָתָּה with Olewejored (the _ of which is placed over the final letter of the preceding word, as is always the case when the word marked with this double accent is monosyllabic, or dissyllabic and accented on the first syllable). He who counts (Job 31:4) all the steps of men, knows how long David has already been driven hither and thither without any settled home, although free from guilt. He comforts himself with this fact, but not without tears, which this wretched condition forces from him, and which he prays God to collect and preserve. Thus it is according to the accentuation, which takes שִׂימָה as imperative, as e.g., in 1Sa 8:5; but since שִׂים, שִׂימָה ,שִׂים, is also the form of the passive participle (1Sa 9:24, and frequently, 2Sa 13:32), it is more natural, in accordance with the surrounding thoughts, to render it so even in this instance (posita est lacrima mea), and consequently to pronounce it as Milra (Ewald, Hupfeld, Böttcher, and Hitzig). דמעתי (Ecc 4:1) corresponds chiastically (crosswise) to נֹדִי, with which בְנֹאדֶךָ forms a play in sound; and the closing clause הֲלֹא בְּסִפְרָתֶךָ unites with סָפַרְתָּה in the first member of the verse. Both Psa 56:9 and Psa 56:9 are wanting in any particle of comparison. The fact thus figuratively set forth, viz., that God collects the tears of His saints as it were in a bottle, and notes them together with the things which call them forth as in a memorial (Mal 3:16), the writer assumes; and only appropriatingly applies it to himself. The אָז which follows may be taken either as a logical “in consequence of so and so” (as e.g., Psa 19:14; Psa 40:8), or as a “then” fixing a turning-point in the present tearful wandering life (viz., when there have been enough of the “wandering” and of the “tears”), or “at a future time” (more abruptly, like שָׁם in Psa 14:5; 36:13, vid., on Psa 2:5). בְּיֹום אֶקְרָא is not an expansion of this אָז, which would trail awkwardly after it. The poet says that one day his enemies will be obliged to retreat, inasmuch as a day will come when his prayer, which is even now heard, will be also outwardly fulfilled, and the full realization of the succour will coincide with the cry for help. By זֶה־יָדַעְתִּי in Psa 56:10 he justifies this hope from his believing consciousness. It is not to be rendered, after Job 19:19 : “I who know,” which is a trailing apposition without any proper connection with what precedes; but, after 1Ki 17:24 : this I know (of this I am certain), that Elohim is for me. זֶה as a neuter, just as in connection with יָדַע in Pro 24:12, and also frequently elsewhere (Gen 6:15; Exo 13:8; Exo 30:13; Lev 11:4; Isa 29:11, cf. Job 15:17); and לִי as e.g., in Gen 31:42. Through Elohim, Psa 56:11 continues, will I praise דָּבָר: thus absolutely is the word named; it is therefore the divine word, just like בַּר in Psa 2:12, the Son absolutely, therefore the divine Son. Because the thought is repeated, Elohim stands in the first case and then Jahve, in accordance with the Elohimic Psalm style, as in Psa 58:7. The refrain in Psa 56:12 (cf. Psa 56:5) indicates the conclusion of the strophe. The fact that we read אָדָם instead of בָּשָׂר in this instance, just as in Psa 56:11 דָּבָר instead of דְּבָרֹו (Psa 56:5), is in accordance with the custom in the Psalms of not allowing the refrain to recur in exactly the same form.