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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 71:19 - 71:19
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The thought of this proclamation so thoroughly absorbs the poet that he even now enters upon the tone of it; and since to his faith the deliverance is already a thing of the past, the tender song with its uncomplaining prayer dies away into a loud song of praise, in which he pictures it all to himself. Without Psa 71:19-21 being subordinate to עד־אגיד in Psa 71:18, וצדקתך is coupled by close connection with בגורתך. Psa 71:19 is an independent clause; and עַד־מָרֹום takes the place of the predicate: the righteousness of God exceeds all bounds, is infinite (Psa 36:6., Psa 57:11). The cry כָמֹוךָ מִי, as in Psa 35:10; Psa 69:9, Jer 10:6, refers back to Exo 15:11. According to the Chethîb, the range of the poet's vision widens in Psa 71:20 from the proofs of the strength and righteousness of God which he has experienced in his own case to those which he has experienced in common with others in the history of his own nation. The Kerî (cf. on the other hand Psa 60:5; Psa 85:7; Deu 31:17) rests upon a failing to discern how the experiences of the writer are interwoven with those of the nation. תָּשׁוּב in both instances supplies the corresponding adverbial notion to the principal verb, as in Psa 85:7 (cf. Psa 51:4). תְּהום, prop. a rumbling, commonly used of a deep heaving of waters, here signifies an abyss. “The abysses of the earth” (lxx ἐκ τῶν ἀβύσσων τῆς γῆς, just as the old Syriac version renders the New Testament ἄβυσσος, e.g., in Luk 8:31, by Syr. tehūmā') are, like the gates of death (Psa 9:14), a figure of extreme perils and dangers, in the midst of which one is as it were half hidden in the abyss of Hades. The past and future are clearly distinguished in the sequence of the tenses. When God shall again raise His people out of the depth of the present catastrophe, then will He also magnify the גְּדֻלָּה of the poet, i.e., in the dignity of his office, by most brilliantly vindicating him in the face of his foes, and will once more (תִּסֹּוב, fut. Niph. like תָּשׁוּב ekil .h above) comfort him. He on his part will also (cf. Job 40:14) be grateful for this national restoration and this personal vindication: he will praise God, will praise His truth, i.e., His fidelity to His promises. בִּכְלִי נֶבֶל instead of בְּנֶבֶל sounds more circumstantial than in the old poetry. The divine name “The Holy One of Israel” occurs here for the third time in the Psalter; the other passages are Psa 78:41; Psa 89:19, which are older in time, and older also than Isaiah, who uses it thirty times, and Habakkuk, who uses it once. Jeremiah has it twice (Jer 50:29; Jer 51:5), and that after the example of Isaiah. In Psa 71:23, Psa 71:24 the poet means to say that lips and tongue, song and speech, shall act in concert in the praise of God. תְּרַנֶּנָּה with Dagesh also in the second Nun, after the form תְּקֹונֵנָּה, תִּשְׁכֹּנָּה, side by side with which we also find the reading תְּרַנֶּנָּה, and the reading תְּרַנֵּנָה, which is in itself admissible, after the form תֵּאָמַנָה, תֵּעָגֵנָה, but is here unattested.
(Note: Heidenheim reads תְּרַנֶּנָּה with Segol, following the statement of Ibn-Bil'am in his טעמי המקרא and of Mose ha-Nakdan in his דרכי הנקוד, that Segol always precedes the ending נָּה, with the exception only of הֵנָּה and הַֽאֲזֵנָּה. Baer, on the other hand, reads תונֵּנּה, following Aben-Ezra and Kimchi (Michlol 66b).)
The cohortative after כִּי (lxx ὅταν) is intended to convey this meaning: when I feel myself impelled to harp unto Thee. In the perfects in the closing line that which is hoped for stands before his soul as though it had already taken place. כי is repeated with triumphant emphasis.