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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 71:1 - 71:1
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Stayed upon Jahve, his ground of trust, from early childhood up, the poet hopes and prays for deliverance out of the hand of the foe. The first of these two strophes (Psa 71:1-3) is taken from Psa 31:2-4, the second (Psa 71:4-6, with the exception of Psa 71:4 and Psa 71:6) from Psa 22:10-11; both, however, in comparison with Psa 70:1-5 exhibit the far more encroaching variations of a poet who reproduces the language of others with a freer hand. Olshausen wishes to read מָעֹוז in Psa 71:3, Psa 90:1; Psa 91:9, instead of מָעֹון, which he holds to be an error in writing. But this old Mosaic, Deuteronomial word (vid., on Psa 90:1) - cf. the post-biblical oath המעון (by the Temple!) - is unassailable. Jahve, who is called a rock of refuge in Psa 31:3, is here called a rock of habitation, i.e., a high rock that cannot be stormed or scaled, which affords a safe abode; and this figure is pursued still further with a bold remodelling of the text of Psa 31:3 : לָבֹוא תָּמִיד, constantly to go into, i.e., which I can constantly, and therefore always, as often as it is needful, betake myself for refuge. The additional צִוִּיתָ is certainly not equivalent to צַוֵּה; it would more likely be equivalent to אֲשֶׁר צוית; but probably it is an independent clause: Thou hast (in fact) commanded, i.e., unalterably determined (Psa 44:5; Psa 68:29; Psa 133:3), to show me salvation, for my rock, etc. To the words לבוא תמיד צוית corresponds the expression לבית מצודות in Psa 31:3, which the lxx renders καὶ εἰς οἶκον καταφυγῆς, whereas instead of the former three words it has καὶ εἰς τόπον ὀχυρόν, and seems to have read לבית מבצרות, cf. Dan 11:15 (Hitzig). In Psa 71:5, Thou art my hope reminds one of the divine name מִקְוֵה יִשְׂרָאֵל in Jer 17:13; Jer 50:7 (cf. ἡ ἐλπίς ἡμῶν used of Christ in 1Ti 1:1; Col 1:27). נִסְמַכְתִּי is not less beautiful than הָשְׁלַכְתִּי in Psa 22:11. In its incipient slumbering state (cf. Psa 3:6), and in its self-conscious continuance. He was and is the upholding prop and the supporting foundation, so to speak, of my life. And גֹוזִי instead of גֹּחִי in Psa 22:10, is just such another felicitous modification. It is impracticable to define the meaning of this גֹוזִי according to גָּזָה = גְּזָה, Arab. jz', retribuere (prop. to cut up, distribute), because גָּמַל is the representative of this Aramaeo-Arabic verb in the Hebrew. Still less, however, can it be derived from גּוּז, transire, the participle of which, if it would admit of a transitive meaning = מֹוצִיאִי (Targum), ought to be גָּזִי. The verb גָּזָה, in accordance with its radical signification of abscindere (root גז, synon. קץ, קד, קט, and the like), denotes in this instance the separating of the child from the womb of the mother, the retrospect going back from youth to childhood, and even to his birth. The lxx σκεπαστής (μου) is an erroneous reading for ἐκσπαστής, as is clear from Psa 22:10, ὁ ἐκσπάσας με. הִלֵּל בְּ, Psa 44:9 (cf. שִׂיחַ בְּ, Psa 69:13), is at the bottom of the expression in Psa 71:6. The God to whom he owes his being, and its preservation thus far, is the constant, inexhaustible theme of his praise.