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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 6:1 - 6:1
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(Heb.: 6:2-4) There is a chastisement which proceeds from God's love to the man as being pardoned and which is designed to purify or to prove him, and a chastisement which proceeds from God's wrath against the man as striving obstinately against, or as fallen away from, favour, and which satisfies divine justice. Psa 94:12; Psa 118:17; Pro 3:11. speak of this loving chastisement. The man who should decline it, would act against his own salvation. Accordingly David, like Jeremiah (Jer 10:24), does not pray for the removal of the chastisement but of the chastisement in wrath, or what is the same thing, of the judgment proceeding from wrath [Zorngericht]. בְּאַפְּךָ and בַּֽחֲמָֽתְךָ stand in the middle, between אַל and the verbs, for the sake of emphasis. Hengstenberg indeed finds a different antithesis here. He says: “The contrast is not that of chastisement in love with chastisement in wrath, but that of loving rescue in contrast with chastisement, which always proceeds from the principle of wrath.” If what is here meant is, that always when God chastens a man his wrath is the true and proper motive, it is an error, for the refutation of which one whole book of the Bible, viz., the Book of Job, has been written. For there the friends think that God is angry with Job; but we know from the prologue that, so far from being angry with him, he on the contrary glories in him. Here, in this Psalm, assuming David to be its author, and his adultery the occasion of it, it is certainly quite otherwise. The chastisement under which David is brought low, has God's wrath as its motive: it is punitive chastisement and remains such, so long as David remains fallen from favour. But if in sincere penitence he again struggles through to favour, then the punitive becomes a loving chastisement: God's relationship to him becomes an essentially different relationship. The evil, which is the result of his sin and as such indeed originates in the principle of wrath, becomes the means of discipline and purifying which love employs, and this it is that he here implores for himself. And thus Dante Alighieri
(Note: Provided he is the author of I sêtte Salmi Penitenziali trasportati alla volgar poesia, vid., Dante Alighieri's Lyric poems, translated and annotated by Kannegiesser and Witte (1842) i. 203f., ii. 208f.)
correctly and beautifully paraphrases the verse:
Signor, non mi riprender con furore,
E non voler correggermi con ira,
Ma con dolcezza e con perfetto amore.
In חָנֵּנִי David prays God to let him experience His loving-kindness and tender mercy in place of the punishment He has a right to inflict; for anguish of soul has already reduced him to the extreme even of bodily sickness: he is withered up and weary. אמְלַל has Pathach, and consequently seems to be the 3 pers. Pul. as in Joe 1:10; Nah 1:4; but this cannot be according to the rules of grammar. It is an adjective, like רַֽעֲנָן, שַֽׁאֲנָן, with the passive pointing. The formation אמלל (from אמל Arab. aml, with the primary meaning to stretch out lengthwise) is analogous to the IX and XI forms of the Arabic verb which serve especially to express colours and defects (Caspari §59). The two words אָנִי אֻמְלַל have the double accent Mercha-Mahpach together, and according to the exact mode of writing (vid., Baer in my Psalter ii. 492) the Mahpach, (the sign resembling Mahpach or rather Jethib), ought to stand between the two words, since it at the same time represents the Makkeph. The principal tone of the united pair, therefore, lies on aani; and accordingly the adj. אֻמְלָל is shortened to אֻמְלַל (cf. אֲדַמְדַּם, הֲפַכְפַּךְ, מִרְמַס, and the like) - a contraction which proves that אמלל is not treated as part. Pul. (= מְאֻמְלָל), for its characteristic a4 is unchangeable. The prayer for healing is based upon the plea that his bones (Job 4:14; Isa 38:13) are affrighted. We have no German word exactly corresponding to this נִבְהַל which (from the radical notion “to let go,” cogn. בָּלַהּ) expresses a condition of outward overthrow and inward consternation, and is therefore the effect of fright which disconcerts one and of excitement that deprives one of self-control.
(Note: We have translated Dr. Delitzsch's word erschrecht literally - the vexed of the Authorized Version seems hardly equal to the meaning.)
His soul is still more shaken than his body. The affliction is therefore not a merely bodily ailment in which only a timorous man loses heart. God's love is hidden from him. God's wrath seems as though it would wear him completely away. It is an affliction beyond all other afflictions. Hence he enquires: And Thou, O Jahve, how long?! Instead of אתה it is written את, which the Kerî says is to be read אַתַּה, while in three passages (Num 11:15; Deu 5:24; Eze 28:14) אַתְּ is admitted as masc.