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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 73:15 - 73:15
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To such, doubt is become the transition to apostasy. The poet has resolved the riddle of such an unequal distribution of the fortunes of men in a totally different way. Instead of כְּמֹו in Psa 73:15, to read כִּמֹוהֶם (Böttcher), or better, by taking up the following הנה, which even Saadia allows himself to do, contrary to the accents (Arab. mṯl hḏâ), כְּמֹו הֵנָּה (Ewald), is unnecessary, since prepositions are sometimes used elliptically (כְּעַל, Isa 59:18), or even without anything further (Hos 7:16; Hos 11:7) as adverbs, which must therefore be regarded as possible also in the case of כְּמֹו (Aramaic, Arabic כְּמָא, Aethiopic kem). The poet means to say, If I had made up my mind to the same course of reasoning, I should have faithlessly forsaken the fellowship of the children of God, and should consequently also have forfeited their blessings. The subjunctive signification of the perfects in the hypothetical protasis and apodosis, Psa 73:15 (cf. Jer 23:22), follows solely from the context; futures instead of perfects would signify si dicerem...perfide agerem. דֹּור בָּנֶיךָ is the totality of those, in whom the filial relationship in which God has placed Isreal in relation to Himself is become an inward or spiritual reality, the true Israel, Psa 73:1, the “righteous generation,” Psa 14:5. It is an appellative, as in Deu 14:1; Hos 2:1. For on the point of the uhiothesi'a the New Testament differs from the Old Testament in this way, viz., that in the Old Testament it is always only as a people that Israel is called בן, or as a whole בנים, but that the individual, and that in his direct relationship to God, dared not as yet call himself “child of God.” The individual character is not as yet freed from its absorption in the species, it is not as yet independent; it is the time of the minor's νηπιότης, and the adoption is as yet only effected nationally, salvation is as yet within the limits of the nationality, its common human form has not as yet appeared. The verb בָּגַד with בְּ signifies to deal faithlessly with any one, and more especially (whether God, a friend, or a spouse) faithlessly to forsake him; here, in this sense of malicious desertion, it contents itself with the simple accusative.
On the one side, by joining in the speech of the free-thinkers he would have placed himself outside the circle of the children of God, of the truly pious; on the other side, however, when by meditation he sought to penetrate it (לָדַעַת), the doubt-provoking phenomenon (זֹאת) still continued to be to him עָמָל, trouble, i.e., something that troubled him without any result, an unsolvable riddle (cf. Ecc 8:17). Whether we read הוּא or הִיא, the sense remains the same; the Kerî הוּא prefers, as in Job 31:11, the attractional gender. Neither here nor in Job 30:26 and elsewhere is it to be supposed that וַאחשׁבה is equivalent to וָאחשׁבה (Ewald, Hupfeld). The cohortative from of the future here, as frequently (Ges. §128, 1), with or without a conditional particle (Psa 139:8; 2Sa 22:38; Job 16:6; Job 11:17; Job 19:18; Job 30:26), forms a hypothetical protasis: and (yet) when I meditated; Symmachus (according to Montfaucon), ει ̓ ἐλογιζόμην. As Vaihinger aptly observes, “thinking alone will give neither the right light nor true happiness.” Both are found only in faith. The poet at last struck upon the way of faith, and there he found light and peace. The future after עַד frequently has the signification of the imperfect subjunctive, Job 32:11; Ecc 2:3, cf. Pro 12:19 (donec nutem = only a moment); also in an historical connection like Jos 10:13; 2Ch 29:34, it is conceived of as subjunctive (donec ulciseretur, se sanctificarent), sometimes, however, as indicative, as in Exo 15:16 (donec transibat) and in our passage, where אד introduces the objective goal at which the riddle found its solution: until I went into the sanctuary of God, (purposely) attended to (לְ as in the primary passage Deu 32:29, cf. Job 14:21) their life's end. The cohortative is used here exactly as in וָאָבִינָה, but with the collateral notion of that which is intentional, which here fully accords with the connection. He went into God's dread sanctuary (plural as in Ps 68:36, cf. מִקְדָּשׁ in the Psalms of Asaph, Psa 67:7; Psa 78:69); here he prayed for light in the darkness of his conflict, here were his eyes opened to the holy plans and ways of God (Psa 77:14), here the sight of the sad end of the evil-doers was presented to him. By “God's sanctuaries” Ewald and Hitzig understand His secrets; but this meaning is without support in the usage of the language. And is it not a thought perfectly in harmony with the context and with experience, that a light arose upon him when he withdrew from the bustle of the world into the quiet of God's dwelling - place, and there devoutly gave his mind to the matter?
The strophe closes with a summary confession of the explanation received there. שִׁית is construed with Lamed inasmuch as collocare is equivalent to locum assignare (vid., Psa 73:6). God makes the evil-doers to stand on smooth, slippery places, where one may easily lose one's footing (cf. Psa 35:6; Jer 23:12). There, then, they also inevitably fall; God casts them down לְמַשּׁוּאֹות, into ruins, fragores = ruinae, from שֹׁוא = שָׁאָה, to be confused, desolate, to rumble. The word only has the appearance of being from נָשָׁא: ensnarings, sudden attacks (Hitzig), which is still more ill suited to Psa 74:3 than to this passage; desolation and ruin can be said even of persons, as הָרַס, Psa 28:5, וְנִשְׁבָּרוּ, Isa 8:15, נִפֵּץ, Jer 51:21-23. The poet knows no other theodicy but this, nor was any other known generally in the pre-exilic literature of Israel (vid., Ps 37; Psa 39:1-13, Jer. 12, and the Job 1:1). The later prophecy and the Chokma were much in advance of this, inasmuch as they point to a last universal judgment (vid., more particularly Mal 3:13.), but not one that breaks off this present state; the present state and the future state, time and eternity, are even there not as yet thoroughly separated.