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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 7:9 - 7:9
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(Heb.: 7:10-11) In this strophe we hear the calm language of courageous trust, to which the rising and calmly subsiding caesural schema is particularly adapted. He is now concerned about the cessation of evil: Oh let it come to an end (גָּמַר intransitive as in Psa 12:2; Psa 77:9).... His prayer is therefore not directed against the individuals as such but against the wickedness that is in them. This Psalm is the key to all Psalms which contain prayers against one's enemies. Just in the same manner וּתְכֹונֵן is intended to express a wish; it is one of the comparatively rare voluntatives of the 2 pers. (Ew. §229): and mayst Thou be pleased to establish.... To the termination of evil which is desired corresponds, in a positive form of expression, the desired security and establishment of the righteous, whom it had injured and whose continuance was endangered by it. וּבֹחֵן is the beginning of a circumstantial clause, introduced by ו, but without the personal pronoun, which is not unfrequently omitted both in the leading participial clause, as in Isa 29:8 (which see), and in the minor participial clause as here (cf. Psa 55:20): cum sis = quoniam es. The reins are the seat of the emotions, just as the heart is the seat of the thoughts and feelings. Reins and heart lie naked before God-a description of the only kardiognoo'stees, which is repeated in Jer 11:20; Jer 20:12, Rev 2:23. In the thesis the adjective is used with אֱלֹהִים in the sing. as in Psa 78:56, cf. Ps 58:12. God is the righteous God, and by his knowledge of the inmost part He is fully capable of always showing Himself both righteous in anger and righteous in mercy according to the requirements and necessity of the case. Therefore David can courageously add עַל־אֶלֹהִים מָגִנִּי, my shield doth God carry; לְ Psa 89:19) would signify: He has it, it (my shield) belongs to Him, עַל (1Ch 18:7) signifies: He bears it, or if one takes shield in the sense of protection: He has taken my protection upon Himself, has undertaken it (as in Psa 62:8, cf. Jdg 19:20), as He is in general the Saviour of all who are devoted to Him with an upright heart, i.e., a heart sincere, guileless (cf. Psa 32:1 with Psa 7:2). צַדִּים is intentionally repeated at the end of the first two lines - the favourite palindrome, found more especially in Isa 40:1. And to the mixed character of this Psalm belongs the fact of its being both Elohimic and Jehovic. From the calm language of heartfelt trust in God the next strophe passes over into the language of earnest warning, which is again more excited and somewhat after the style of didactic poetry.