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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 68:19 - 68:19
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Now begins the second circuit of the hymn. Comforted by the majestic picture of the future that he has beheld, the poet returns to the present, in which Israel is still oppressed, but yet not forsaken by God. The translation follows the accentuation, regular and in accordance with the sense, which has been restored by Baer after Heidenheim, viz., אֲדֹנָי has Zarka, and יַֽעֲמָס לָנוּ Olewejored preceded by the sub-distinctive Rebia parvum; it is therefore: Benedictus Dominator: quotidie bajulat nobis, - with which the Targum, Rashi, and Kimchi agree.
(Note: According to the customary accentuation the second יֹום has Mercha or Olewejored, and יַעֲמָס־לָנוּ, Mugrash. But this Mugrash has the position of the accents of the Silluk-member against it; for although it does exceptionally occur that two conjunctives follow Mugrash (Accentsystem, xvii. §5), yet these cannot in any case be Mahpach sarkatum and Illui.)
עָמַס, like נָשָׂא and סָבַל, unites the significations to lay a burden upon one (Zec 12:3; Isa 46:1, Isa 46:3), and to carry a burden; with עַל it signifies to lay a burden upon any one, here with לְ to take up a burden for any one and to bear it for him. It is the burden or pressure of the hostile world that is meant, which the Lord day by day helps His church to bear, inasmuch as He is mighty by His strength in her who of herself is so feeble. The divine name אֵל, as being the subject of the sentence, is הָאֵל: God is our salvation. The music here again strikes in forte, and the same thought that is emphasized by the music in its turn, is also repeated in Psa 68:21 with heightened expression: God is to us a God לְמֹושָׁעֹות, who grants us help in rich abundance. The pluralet. denotes not so much the many single proofs of help, as the riches of rescuing power and grace. In Psa 68:21 לַמָּוֶת corresponds to the לָנוּ; for it is not to be construed תֹּוצָאֹות לַמָּוֶת: Jahve's, the Lord, are the outgoings to death (Böttcher), i.e., He can command that one shall not fall a prey to death. תוצאות, the parallel word to מושׁעות, signifies, and it is the most natural meaning, the escapings; יָצָא, evadere, as in 1Sa 14:41; 2Ki 13:5; Ecc 7:18. In Jahve's power are means of deliverance for death, i.e., even for those who are already abandoned to death. With אַךְ a joyously assuring inference is drawn from that which God is to Israel. The parallelism of the correctly divided verse shows that רֹאשׁ here, as in Psa 110:6, signifies caput in the literal sense, and not in the sense of princeps. The hair-covered scalp is mentioned as a token of arrogant strength, and unhumbled and impenitent pride, as in Deu 32:42, and as the Attic koma'n directly signifies to strut along, give one's self airs. The genitival construction is the same as in Isa 28:1, Isa 32:13. The form of expression refers back to Num 24:17, and so to speak inflects this primary passage very similarly to Jer 48:45. If קדקד שׂער be an object, then ראשׁ ought also to be a second object (that of the member of the body); the order of the words does not in itself forbid this (cf. Psa 3:8 with Deu 33:11), but would require a different arrangement in order to avoid ambiguities.
In Psa 68:23 the poet hears a divine utterance, or records one that he has heard: “From Bashan will I bring back, I will bring back from the eddies of the sea (from צוּל = צָלַל, to whiz, rattle; to whirl, eddy), i.e., the depths or abysses of the sea.” Whom? When after the destruction of Jerusalem a ship set sail for Rome with a freight of distinguished and well-formed captives before whom was the disgrace of prostitution, they all threw themselves into the sea, comforting themselves with this passage of Scripture (Gittin 57b, cf. Echa Rabbathi 66a). They therefore took Psa 68:23 to be a promise which has Israel as its object;
(Note: So also the Targum, which understands the promise to refer to the restoration of the righteous who have been eaten by wild beasts and drowned in the sea (Midrash: מבשׁן = מבין שׁני אריות); cf. also the things related from the time of the Khaliphs in Jost's Geschichte des Judenthums, ii. 399, and Grätz' Gesch. der Juden, v. 347.)
but the clause expressing a purpose, Psa 68:24, and the paraphrase in Amo 9:2., show that the foes of Israel are conceived of as its object. Even if these have hidden themselves in the most out-of-the-way places, God will fetch them back and make His own people the executioners of His justice upon them. The expectation is that the flight of the defeated foes will take a southernly direction, and that they will hide themselves in the primeval forests of Bashan, and still farther southward in the depths of the sea, i.e., of the Dead Sea (יָם as in Isa 16:8; 2Ch 20:2). Opposite to the hiding in the forests of the mountainous Bashan stands the hiding in the abyss of the sea, as the extreme of remoteness, that which is in itself impossible being assumed as possible. The first member of the clause expressing the purpose, Psa 68:24, becomes more easy and pleasing if we read תִּרְחַץ (lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate, ut intingatur), according to Psa 58:11. So far as the letters are concerned, the conjecture תֶּחְמַץ (from which תמחץ, according to Chajug', is transposed), after Isa 63:1, is still more natural (Hitzig): that thy foot may redden itself in blood. This is certainly somewhat tame, and moreover מִדָּם would be better suited to this rendering than בְּדָם. As the text now stands, תַּֽמְחַץ
(Note: The Gaja of the first closed syllable warns one to make a proper pause upon it, in order that the guttural of the second, so apt to be slurred over, may be distinctly pronounced; cf. תִּֽבְחר, Psa 65:5; הִֽרְחיק, Psa 103:12. So also with the sibilants at the beginning of the second syllable, e.g., תַּֽדְשׁא, Gen 1:11, in accordance with which, in Gen 14:1; 53:2, we must write הִֽשׁתיתו והִֽתעיבו.)
is equivalent to תִּמְחָצֵם (them, viz., the enemies), and רַגְלְךָ בְּדָם is an adverbial clause (setting or plunging thy foot in blood). It is, however, also possible that מָחַץ is used like Arab. machaḍa (vehementer commovere): ut concutias s. agites pedem tuam in sanguine. Can it now be that in Psa 68:24 from among the number of the enemies of the one who goes about glorying in his sins, the רָשָׁע κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν (cf. Isa 11:4; Hab 3:13, and other passages), is brought prominently forward by מִנֵּהוּ? Hardly so; the absence of תָּלֹק (lambat) cannot be tolerated, cf. 1Ki 21:19; 1Ki 22:38. It is more natural, with Simonis, to refer מִנֵּהוּ back to לְשֹׁון (a word which is usually fem., but sometimes perhaps is masc., Psa 22:16; Pro 26:28); and, since side by side with מִמֶּנִוּ only מֶנְהוּ occurs anywhere else (Ew. §263, b), to take it in the signification pars ejus (מֵן from מָנַן = מָגָה, after the form גֵּז, חֵן, קֵץ, of the same meaning as מָגָה, מְנָת, Psa 63:11), in favour of which Hupfeld also decides.
What is now described in Psa 68:25-28, is not the rejoicing over a victory gained in the immediate past, nor the rejoicing over the earlier deliverance at the Red Sea, but Israel's joyful celebration when it shall have experienced the avenging and redemptive work of its God and King. According to Psa 77:14; Hab 3:6, הֲלִיכֹות appears to be God's march against the enemy; but what follows shows that the pompa magnifica of God is intended, after He has overcome the enemy. Israel's festival of victory is looked upon as a triumphal procession of God Himself, the King, who governs in holiness, and has now subjugated and humbled the unholy world; בַּקֹּדֶשׁ as in Psa 68:18. The rendering “in the sanctuary' is very natural in this passage, but Exo 15:11; Psa 77:14, are against it. The subject of רָאוּ is all the world, more especially those of the heathen who have escaped the slaughter. The perfect signifies: they have seen, just as קִדְּמוּ, they have occupied the front position. Singers head the procession, after them (אַחַר,
(Note: This אחר, according to B. Nedarim 37b, is a so-called עטור סופרים (ablatio scribarum), the sopherim (sofrim) who watched over the faithful preservation of the text having removed the reading ואחר, so natural according to the sense, here as in Gen 18:5; Gen 24:55; Num 31:2, and marked it as not genuine.)
an adverb as in Gen 22:13; Exo 5:1) players upon citherns and harps (נֹֽגְנִים, participle to נִגֵּן), and on either side virgins with timbrels (Spanish adufe); תֹּופֵפֹות, apocopated part. Poel with the retension of ē (cf. שֹׁוקֵקָה, Psa 107:9), from תָּפַף, to strike the תֹּף (Arab. duff). It is a retrospective reference to the song at the Sea, now again come into life, which Miriam and the women of Israel sang amidst the music of timbrels. The deliverance which is now being celebrated is the counterpart of the deliverance out of Egypt. Songs resound as in Psa 68:27, “in gatherings of the congregation (and, so to speak, in full choirs) praise ye Elohim.” מַקְהֵלֹות (מַקְהֵלִים, Psa 26:12) is the plural to קָהָל (Psa 22:23), which forms none of its own (cf. post-biblical קְהִלֹּות from קְהִלָּה). Psa 68:27 is abridged from ברכו אדני אשׁר אתם ממקור ישראל, praise ye the Lord, ye who have Israel for your fountainhead. אֲדֹנָי, in accordance with the sense, has Mugrash. Israel is here the name of the patriarch, from whom as from its fountainhead the nation has spread itself abroad; cf. Isa 48:1; Isa 51:1, and as to the syntax מִמְּךָ, those who descend from thee, Isa 58:12. In the festive assembly all the tribes of Israel are represented by their princes. Two each from the southern and northern tribes are mentioned. Out of Benjamin was Israel's first king, the first royal victor over the Gentiles; and in Benjamin, according to the promise (Deu 33:12) and according to the accounts of the boundaries (Jos 18:16., Jos 15:7.), lay the sanctuary of Israel. Thus, therefore, the tribe which, according both to order of birth (Gen 43:29.) and also extent of jurisdiction and numbers (1Sa 9:21), was “little,” was honoured beyond the others.
(Note: Tertullian calls the Apostle Paul, with reference to his name and his Benjamitish origin, parvus Benjamin, just as Augustine calls the poetess of the Magnificat, nostra tympanistria.)
Judah, however, came to the throne in the person of David, and became for ever the royal tribe. Zebulun and Naphtali are the tribes highly praised in Deborah's song of victory (Jdg 5:18, cf. Psa 4:6) on account of their patriotic bravery. רֹדֵם, giving no sense when taken from the well-known verb רָדַם, falls back upon רָדָה, and is consequently equivalent to רֹדָם (cf. Lam 1:13), subduing or ruling them; according to the sense, equivalent to רֹדֶה בָם (1 Kings 5:30; 1Ki 9:23; 2Ch 8:10), like הַמַּֽצֲלֵם, not “their leader up,” but ὁ ἀναγαγὼν αὐτοὺς, Isa 63:11, not = רֹדֵיהֶם (like עֹשֵׂיהֶם, רֹאֵיהֶם), which would signify their subduer or their subduers. The verb רָדָה, elsewhere to subjugate, oppress, hold down by force, Eze 34:4; Lev 25:53, is here used of the peaceful occupation of the leader who maintains the order of a stately and gorgeous procession. For the reference to the enemies, “their subduer,” is without any coherence. But to render the parallel word רִגְמָתָם “their (the enemies') stoning” (Hengstenberg, Vaihinger, and others, according to Böttcher's “Proben”), is, to say nothing more, devoid of taste; moreover רָגַם does not mean to throw stones with a sling, but to stone as a judicial procedure. If we assign to the verb רָגַם the primary signification congerere, accumulare, after Arab. rajama VIII, and rakama, then רֹגְמָתָם signifies their closely compacted band, as Jewish expositors have explained it (קהלם או קבוצם). Even if we connect רָגַם with רָקַם, variegare, or compare the proper name regem = Arab. rajm, socius (Böttcher), we arrive at much the same meaning. Hupfeld's conjecture רִגְשָׁתָם is consequently unnecessary.