Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 7:6 - 7:6

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 7:6 - 7:6


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(Heb.: 7:7-9) In the consciousness of his own innocence he calls upon Jahve to sit in judgment and to do justice to His own. His vision widens and extends from the enemies immediately around to the whole world in its hostility towards Jahve and His anointed one. In the very same way special judgments and the judgment of the world are portrayed side by side, as it were on one canvas, in the prophets. The truth of this combination lies in the fact of the final judgment being only the finale of that judgment which is in constant execution in the world itself. The language here takes the highest and most majestic flight conceivable. By קוּמָה (Milra, ass in Psa 3:8), which is one of David's words of prayer that he has taken from the lips of Moses (Psa 9:20; Psa 10:12), he calls upon Jahve to interpose. The parallel is הִנָּשֵׂא lift Thyself up, show thyself in Thy majesty, Psa 94:2, Isa 33:10. The anger, in which He is to arise, is the principle of His judicial righteousness. With this His anger He is to gird Himself (Psa 76:11) against the ragings of the oppressors of God's anointed one, i.e., taking vengeance on their many and manifold manifestations of hostility. עַבְרֹות is a shorter form of the construct (instead of עֶבְרֹות Job 40:11, cf. Psa 21:1-13 :31) of עֶבְרָה which describes the anger as running over, breaking forth from within and passing over into words and deeds (cf. Arab. fšš, used of water: it overflows the dam, of wrath: it breaks forth). It is contrary to the usage of the language to make מִשְׁפָּט the object to עוּרָה in opposition to the accents, and it is unnatural to regard it as the accus. of direction = לַמּשׂפט (Psa 35:23), as Hitzig does. The accents rightly unite עוּרָה אֵלַי: awake (stir thyself) for me i.e., to help me (אֵלַי like לִקְלָאתִי, Psa 59:5). The view, that צִוִּיתָ is then precative and equivalent to צַוֵּה: command judgment, is one that cannot be established according to syntax either here, or in Psa 71:3. It ought at least to have been וְצִוִּיתָ with Waw consec. On the other hand the relative rendering: Thou who hast ordered judgment (Maurer, Hengst.), is admissible, but unnecessary. We take it by itself in a confirmatory sense, not as a circumstantial clause: having commanded judgment (Ewald), but as a co-ordinate clause: Thou hast indeed enjoined the maintaining of right (Hupfeld).

The psalmist now, so to speak, arranges the judgment scene: the assembly of the nations is to form a circle round about Jahve, in the midst of which He will sit in judgment, and after the judgment He is to soar away (Gen 17:22) aloft over it and return to the heights of heaven like a victor after the battle (see Psa 68:19). Although it strikes one as strange that the termination of the judgment itself is not definitely expressed, yet the rendering of Hupfeld and others: sit Thou again upon Thy heavenly judgment-seat to judge, is to be rejected on account of the שׁוּבָה (cf. on the other hand 21:14) which is not suited to it; שׁוב לַמָּרֹום can only mean Jahve's return to His rest after the execution of judgment. That which Psa 7:7 and Psa 7:8 in the boldness of faith desire, the beginning of Psa 7:9 expresses as a prophetic hope, from which proceeds the prayer, that the Judge of the earth may also do justice to him (שָׁפְתֵנִי vindica me, as in Psa 26:1; Psa 35:24) according to his righteousness and the purity of which he is conscious, as dwelling in him. עָלַי is to be closely connected with תֻּמִּי, just as one says נַפְשִׁי עָלַי (Psychol. S. 152 [tr. p. 180]). That which the individual as ego, distinguishes from itself as being in it, as subject, it denotes by עָלַי. In explaining it elliptically: “come upon me” (Ew., Olsh., Hupf.) this psychologically intelligible usage of the language is not recognised. On תֹּם vid., on Psa 25:21; Psa 26:1.