Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 66:5 - 66:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 66:5 - 66:5


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Although the summons: Come and see... (borrowed apparently from Psa 46:9), is called forth by contemporary manifestations of God's power, the consequences of which now lie open to view, the rendering of Psa 66:6, “then will we rejoice in Him,” is nevertheless unnatural, and, rightly looked at, neither grammar nor the matter requires it. For since שָׁם in this passage is equivalent to אָז, and the future after אָז takes the signification of an aorist; and since the cohortative form of the future can also (e.g., after עַד, Psa 73:7, and in clauses having a hypothetical sense) be referred to the past, and does sometimes at least occur where the writer throws himself back into the past (2Sa 22:38), the rendering: Then did we rejoice in Him, cannot be assailed on syntactical grounds. On the “we,” cf. Jos 5:1, Chethîb, Hos 12:1-14 :54. The church of all ages is a unity, the separate parts being jointly involved in the whole. The church here directs the attention of all the world to the mighty deeds of God at the time of the deliverance from Egypt, viz., the laying of the Red Sea and of Jordan dry, inasmuch as it can say in Psa 66:7, by reason of that which it has experienced ibn the present, that the sovereign power of God is ever the same: its God rules in His victorious might עֹולָם, i.e., not “over the world,” because that ought to be בָּעֹולָם, but “in eternity” (accusative of duration, as in Psa 89:2., Psa 45:7), and therefore, as in the former days, so also in all time to come. His eyes keep searching watch among the peoples; the rebellious, who struggle agaisnt His yoke and persecute His people, had better not rise, it may go ill with them. The Chethîb runs יָרִימוּ, for which the Kerî is יָרוּמוּ. The meaning remains the same; הֵרִים can (even without יָד, רֹאשׁ, קֶרֶן, Psa 65:5) mean “to practise exaltation,” superbire. By means of לָמֹו this proud bearing is designated as being egotistical, and as unrestrainedly boastful. Only let them not imagine themselves secure in their arrogance! There is One more exalted, whose eye nothing escapes, and to whose irresistible might whatever is not conformed to His gracious will succumbs.