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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 77:16 - 77:16
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When He directed His lance towards the Red Sea, which stood in the way of His redeemed, the waters immediately fell as it were into pangs of travail (יָחִילוּ, as in Hab 3:10, not וַיּחילו), also the billows of the deep trembled; for before the omnipotence of God the Redeemer, which creates a new thing in the midst of the old creation, the rules of the ordinary course of nature become unhinged. There now follow in Psa 77:18, Psa 77:19 lines taken from the picture of a thunder-storm. The poet wishes to describe how all the powers of nature became the servants of the majestic revelation of Jahve, when He executed judgment on Egypt and delivered Israel. זֹרֵם, Poel of זָרַם (cognate זָרַב, זָרַף, Aethiopic זנם, to rain), signifies intensively: to stream forth in full torrents. Instead of this line, Habakkuk, with a change of the letters of the primary passage, which is usual in Jeremiah more especially, has זֶרֶם מַיִם עָבָר. The rumbling which the שְׁחָקִים
(Note: We have indicated on Psa 18:12; Psa 36:6, that the שׁהקים are so called from their thinness, but passages like Psa 18:12 and the one before us do not favour this idea. One would think that we have more likely to go back to Arab. sḥq, to be distant (whence suḥḳ, distance; saḥı̂ḳ, distant), and that שׁהקים signifies the distances, like שׁמים, the heights, from שֹׁחַק = suḥḳ, in distinction from שַׁחַק, an atom (Wetzstein). But the Hebrew affords no trace of this verbal stem, whereas שָׁחַק, Arab. sḥq, contundere, comminuere (Neshwân: to pound to dust, used e.g., of the apothecary's drugs), is just as much Hebrew as Arabic. And the word is actually associated with this verb by the Arabic mind, inasmuch as Arab. saḥâbun saḥqun (nubes tenues, nubila tenuia) is explained by Arab. sḥâb rqı̂q. Accordingly שׁהקים, according to its primary notion, signifies that which spreads itself out thin and fine over a wide surface, and according to the usage of the language, in contrast with the thick and heavy פני הארץ, the uppermost stratum of the atmosphere, and then the clouds, as also Arab. a‛nân, and the collective ‛anan and ‛anân (vid., Isaiah, at Isa 4:5, note), is not first of all the clouds, but the surface of the sky that is turned to us (Fleischer).)
cause to sound forth (נָתְֽנוּ, cf. Psa 68:34) is the thunder. The arrows of God (חֲצָצֶיךָ, in Habakkuk חִצֶּיךָ) are the lightnings. The Hithpa. (instead of which Habakkuk has יְחַלֵּכוּ) depicts their busy darting hither and thither in the service of the omnipotence that sends them forth. It is open to question whether גַּלְגַּל denotes the roll of the thunder (Aben-Ezra, Maurer, Böttcher): the sound of Thy thunder went rolling forth (cf. Psa 29:4), - or the whirlwind accompanying the thunder-storm (Hitzig); the usage of the language (Psa 83:14, also Eze 10:13, Syriac golgolo) is in favour of the latter. On Psa 77:19 cf. the echo in Psa 97:4. Amidst such commotions in nature above and below Jahve strode along through the sea, and made a passage for His redeemed. His person and His working were invisible, but the result which attested His active presence was visible. He took His way through the sea, and cut His path (Chethîb plural, שְׁבִילֶיךָ, as in Jer 18:15) through great waters (or, according to Habakkuk, caused His horses to go through), without the footprints (עִקְּבֹות with Dag. dirimens) of Him who passes and passed through being left behind to show it.