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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 58:1 - 58:1
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The text of Psa 58:2 runs: Do ye really dictate the silence of righteousness? i.e., that before which righteousness must become silent, as the collector (cf. Psa 56:1) appears to have read it (אֵלֶם = אִלּוּם, B. Chullin 89a). But instead of אֵלֶם it is, with Houbigant, J. D. Michaelis, Mendelssohn, and others, to be read אֵלִם (= אֵלִים, as in Exo 15:11), as an apostrophe of those who discharge the godlike office of rulers and judges. Both the interrogative הַֽאֻמְנָם (with ŭ as is always the case at the head of interrogative clauses), num vere, which proceeds from doubt as to the questionable matter of fact (Num 22:37; 1Ki 8:27; 2Ch 6:18), and the parallel member of the verse, and also the historical circumstances out of which the Psalm springs, demand this alteration. Absalom with his followers had made the administration of justice the means of stealing from David the heart of his people; he feigned to be the more impartial judge. Hence David asks: Is it then really so, ye gods (אֵלִים like אֱלֹהִים, Psa 82:1, and here, as there, not without reference to their superhumanly proud and assumptive bearing), that ye speak righteousness, that ye judge the children of men in accordance with justice? Nay, on the contrary (אַף, imo, introducing an answer that goes beyond the first No), in heart (i.e., not merely outwardly allowing yourselves to be carried away) ye prepare villanies (פָּעַל, as in Mic 2:1; and עֹולֹת, as in Psa 64:7, from עֹולָה = עַוְלָה, Ps 92:16, Job 5:16, with ô = a + w), in the land ye weigh out the violence of your hands (so that consequently violence fills the balances of your pretended justice). בְּנֵי אָדָם in Psa 58:2 is the accusative of the object; if it had been intended as a second vocative, it ought to have been בְּנַי־אִישׁ (Psa 4:3). The expression is inverted in order to make it possible to use the heavy energetic futures. בָּאָרֶץ (mostly erroneously marked with Pazer) has Athnach, cf. Psa 35:20; Psa 76:12.