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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 73:19 - 73:19
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The poet calms himself with the solution of the riddle that has come to him; and it would be beneath his dignity as a man to allow himself any further to be tempted by doubting thoughts. Placing himself upon the standpoint of the end, he sees how the ungodly come to terrible destruction in a moment: they come to an end (סָֽפוּ from סוּף, not סָפָה), it is all over with them (תַּמּוּ) in consequence of (מִן as in Psa 76:7, and unconnected as in Psa 18:4; Psa 30:4; Psa 22:14) frightful occurrences (בַּלָּהֹות, a favourite word, especially in the Book of Job), which clear them out of the way. It is with them as with a dream, after (מִן as in 1Ch 8:8) one is awoke. One forgets the vision on account of its nothingness (Job 20:8). So the evil-doers who boast themselves μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας (Act 25:23) are before God a צֶלֶם, a phantom or unsubstantial shadow. When He, the sovereign Lord, shall awake, i.e., arouse Himself to judgment after He has looked on with forbearance, then He will despise their shadowy image, will cast it contemptuously from Him. Luther renders, So machstu Herr jr Bilde in der Stad verschmecht (So dost Thou, Lord, make their image despised in the city). But neither has the Kal בָּזָה this double transitive signification, “to give over to contempt,” nor is the mention of the city in place here. In Hos 11:9 also בְּעִיר in the signification in urbem gives no right sense; it signifies heat of anger or fury, as in Jer 15:8, heat of anguish, and Schröder maintains the former signification (vid., on Psa 139:20), in fervore (irae), here also; but the pointing בָּעִיר is against it. Therefore בָּעִיר is to be regarded, with the Targum, as syncopated from בְּהָעִיר (cf. לָבִיא, Jer 39:7; 2Ch 31:10; בִּכָּֽשְׁלֹו, Pro 24:17, and the like); not, however, to be explained, “when they awake,” viz., from the sleep of death (Targum),
(Note: The Targum version is, “As the dream of a drunken man, who awakes out of his sleep, wilt Thou, O Lord, on the day of the great judgment, when they awake out of their graves, in wrath abandon their image to contempt.” The text of our editions is to be thus corrected according to Bechai (on Deu 33:29) and Nachmani (in his treatise שׁער הגמול).)
or after Psa 78:38, “when Thou awakest them,” viz., out of their sleep of security (De Wette, Kurtz), but after Psa 35:23, “when Thou awakest,” viz., to sit in judgment.
Thus far we have the divine answer, which is reproduced by the poet after the manner of prayer. Hengstenberg now goes on by rendering it, “for my heart was incensed;” but we cannot take יִתְחַמֵּץ according to the sequence of tenses as an imperfect, nor understand כִּי as a particle expression the reason. On the contrary, the poet, from the standpoint of the explanation he has received, speaks of a possible return (כִּי seq. fut. = ἐάν) of his temptation, and condemns it beforehand: si exacerbaretur animus meus atque in renibus meis pungerer. הִתְחַמֵּץ, to become sour, bitter, passionate; הִשְׁתֹּונֵן, with the more exactly defining accusative כִּלְיֹותַי, to be pricked, piqued, irritated. With וַאֲנִי begins the apodosis: then should I be... I should have become (perfect as in Psa 73:15, according to Ges. §126, 5). Concerning לֹא יָדַע, non sapere, vid., Psa 14:4. בְּהַמוֹת can be taken as compar. decurtata for כַּבהמות; nevertheless, as apparently follows from Job 40:15, the poet surely has the p-ehe-mou, the water ox, i.e., the hippopotamus, in his mind, which being Hebraized is בְּהֵמֹות,
(Note: The Egyptian p frequently passes over into the Hebrew b, and vice versâ, as in the name Aperiu = עברים; p, however, is retained in פרעה = phar-aa, grand-house (οἶκος μέγας in Horapollo), the name of the Egyptian rulers, which begins with the sign of the plan of a house = p.)
and, as a plump colossus of flesh, is at once an emblem of colossal stupidity (Maurer, Hitzig). The meaning of the poet is, that he would not be a man in relation to God, over against God (עִם, as in Psa 78:37; Job 9:2, cf. Arab. ma‛a, in comparison with), if he should again give way to the same doubts, but would be like the most stupid animal, which stands before God incapable of such knowledge as He willingly imparts to earnestly inquiring man.