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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 80:8 - 80:8
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The complaint now assumes a detailing character in this strophe, inasmuch as it contrasts the former days with the present; and the ever more and more importunate prayer moulds itself in accordance therewith. The retrospective description begins, as is rarely the case, with the second modus, inasmuch as “the speaker thinks more of the bare nature of the act than of the time” (Ew. §136, b). As in the blessing of Jacob (Gen 49:22) Joseph is compared to the layer (בֵּן) of a fruitful growth (פֹּרָת), whose shoots (בָּנֹות) climb over the wall: so here Israel is compared to a vine (Gen 49:22; גֶּפֶן פֹּרִיָּח, Psa 128:3), which has become great in Egypt and been transplanted thence into the Land of Promise. הִסִּיעַ, lxx μεταίρειν, as in Job 19:10, perhaps with an allusion to the מסעים of the people journeying to Canaan (Psa 78:52).
(Note: Exod. Rabba, ch. 44, with reference to this passage, says: “When husbandmen seek to improve a vine, what do they do? They root (עוקרין) it out of its place and plant (שׁותלין) it in another.” And Levit. Rabba, ch. 36, says: “As one does not plant a vine in a place where there are great, rough stones, but examines the ground and then plants it, so didst Thou drive out peoples and didst plant it,” etc.)
Here God made His vine a way and a place (פִּנָּהּ, to clear, from פָּנָה, to turn, turn aside, Arabic fanija, to disappear, pass away; root פן, to urge forward), and after He had secured to it a free soil and unchecked possibility of extension, it (the vine) rooted its roots, i.e., struck them ever deeper and wider, and filled the earth round about (cf. the antitype in the final days, Isa 27:6). The Israelitish kingdom of God extended itself on every side in accordance with the promise. תְּשַׁלַּח (cf. Eze 17:6, and vegetable שֶׁלַח, a shoot) also has the vine as its subject, like תַּשְׁרֵשׁ. Psa 80:11-12 state this in a continued allegory, by the “mountains” pointing to the southern boundary, by the “cedars” to the northern, by the “sea” to the western, and by the “river” (Euphrates) to the eastern boundary of the country (vid., Deu 11:24 and other passages). צִלָּהּ and עֲנָפֶיהָ are accusatives of the so-called more remote object (Ges. §143, 1). קָצִיר is a cutting = a branch; יֹונֶקֶת, a (vegetable) sucker = a young, tender shoot; אַרְזֵי־אֵל, the cedars of Lebanon as being living monuments of the creative might of God. The allegory exceeds the measure of the reality of nature, inasmuch as this is obliged to be extended according to the reality of that which is typified and historical. But how unlike to the former times is the present! The poet asks “wherefore?” for the present state of things is a riddle to him. The surroundings of the vine are torn down; all who come in contact with it pluck it (אֳרָה, to pick off, pluck off, Talmudic of the gathering of figs); the boar out of the wood (מיער with עין תלויה, Ajin)
(Note: According to Kiddushin, 30a, because this Ajin is the middle letter of the Psalter as the Waw of גחון, Lev 11:42, is the middle letter of the Tôra. One would hardly like to be at the pains of proving the correctness of this statement; nevertheless in the seventeenth century there lived one Laymarius, a clergyman, who was not afraid of this trouble, and found the calculations of the Masora (e.g., that אדני ה occurs 222 times) in part inaccurate; vid., Monatliche Unterredungen, 1691, S. 467, and besides, Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel, S. 258f.))
cuts it off (כִּרְסֵם, formed out of כָּסַם = גָּזַם
(Note: Saadia appropriately renders it Arab. yqrḍhâ, by referring, as does Dunash also, to the Talmudic קִרְסֵם, which occurs of ants, like Arab. qrḍ, of rodents. So Peah ii. §7, Menachoth 71b, on which Rashi observes, “the locust (חגב) is accustomed to eat from above, the ant tears off the corn-stalk from below.” Elsewhere קירסם denotes the breaking off of dry branches from the tree, as זֵרֵד the removal of green branches.))
viz., with its tusks; and that which moves about the fields (vid., concerning זיז, Psa 50:11), i.e., the untractable, lively wild beast, devours it. Without doubt the poet associates a distinct nation with the wild boar in his mind; for animals are also in other instances the emblems of nations, as e.g., the leviathan, the water-serpent, the behemoth (Isa 30:6), and flies (Isa 7:18) are emblems of Egypt. The Midrash interprets it of Seîr-Edom, and זיז שׂדי, according to Gen 16:12, of the nomadic Arabs.
In Psa 80:15 the prayer begins for the third time with threefold urgency, supplicating for the vine renewed divine providence, and a renewal of the care of divine grace. We have divided the verse differently from the accentuation, since שׁוּב־נָא הַבֵּט is to be understood according to Ges. §142. The junction by means of וְ is at once opposed to the supposition that וְכַּנָּה in Psa 80:16 signifies a slip or plant, plantam (Targum, Syriac, Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and others), and that consequently the whole of Psa 80:16 is governed by וּפְקֹד. Nor can it mean its (the vine's) stand or base, כֵּן (Böttcher), since one does not plant a “stand.” The lxx renders וכנה: καὶ κατάρτισαι, which is imper. aor. 1. med., therefore in the sense of כֹּֽונֲנָה.
(Note: Perhaps the Caph majusculum is the result of an erasure that required to be made, vid., Geiger, Urschrift, S. 295. Accordingly the Ajin suspensum might also be the result of a later inserted correction, for there is a Phoenician inscription that has יר (wood, forest); vid., Levy, Phönizisches Wörterbuch, S. 22.)
But the alternation of עַל (cf. Pro 2:11, and Arab. jn ‛lâ, to cover over) with the accusative of the object makes it more natural to derive כנה, not from כָּנַן = כּוּן, but from כָּנַן Arab. kanna = גָּנַן, to cover, conceal, protect (whence Arab. kinn, a covering, shelter, hiding-place): and protect him whom...or: protect what Thy right hand has planted. The pointing certainly seems to take כנה as the feminine of כֵּן (lxx, Dan 11:7, φυτόν); for an imperat. paragog. Kal of the form כַּנָּה does not occur elsewhere, although it might have been regarded by the punctuists as possible from the form גַּל, volve, Psa 119:22. If it is regarded as impossible, then one might read כֹנָּה. At any rate the word is imperative, as the following אֲשֶׁר, eum quem, also shows, instead of which, if כנה were a substantive, one would expect to find a relative clause without אשׁר, as in Psa 80:16. Moreover Psa 80:16 requires this, since פָּקַד עַל can only be used of visiting with punishment. And who then would the slip (branch) and the son of man be in distinction from the vine? If we take בנה as imperative, then, as one might expect, the vine and the son of man are both the people of God. The Targum renders Psa 80:16 thus: “and upon the King Messiah, whom Thou hast established for Thyself,” after Psa 2:1-12 and Dan 7:13; but, as in the latter passage, it is not the Christ Himself, but the nation out of which He is to proceed, that is meant. אִמֵּץ has the sense of firm appropriation, as in Isa 44:14, inasmuch as the notion of making fast passes over into that of laying firm hold of, of seizure. Rosenmüller well renders it: quem adoptatum tot nexibus tibi adstrinxisti.
The figure of the vine, which rules all the language here, is also still continued in Psa 80:17; for the partt. fem. refer to גֶּפֶן ot refer, - the verb, however, may take the plural form, because those of Israel are this “vine,” which combusta igne, succisa (as in Isa 33:12; Aramaic, be cut off, tear off, in Psa 80:13 the Targum word for אֳרָה; Arabic, ksḥ, to clear away, peel off), is just perishing, or hangs in danger of destruction (יֹאבֵדוּ) before the threatening of the wrathful countenance of God. The absence of anything to denote the subject, and the form of expression, which still keeps within the circle of the figure of the vine, forbid us to understand this Psa 80:17 of the extirpation of the foes. According to the sense תְּהִי־יָֽדְךָ עַל
(Note: The תְֽהי has Gaja, like שְֽׂאו־זמרה (Psa 81:3), בְֽני־נכר (Psa 144:7), and the like. This Gaja beside the Shebâ (instead of beside the following vowel) belongs to the peculiarities of the metrical books, which in general, on account of their more melodious mode of delivery, have many such a Gaja beside Shebâ, which does not occur in the prose books. Thus, e.g., יְֽהֹוה and אֶלהים always have Gaja beside the Shebâ when they have Rebia magnum without a conjunctive, probably because Rebia and Dechî had such a fulness of tone that a first stroke fell even upon the Shebâ-letters.)
coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בֵּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf. Psa 80:16), called אִישׁ יְמִינֶֽךָ, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand
(Note: Pinsker punctuates thus: Let Thy hand be upon the man, Thy right hand upon the son of man, whom, etc.; but the impression that ימינך and אמצתה לך coincide is so strong, that no one of the old interpreters (from the lxx and Targum onwards) has been able to free himself from it.)
for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בֶּן־אָדָם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by וְלֹא־נָסֹוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נָסֹוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus, vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation. To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תְּחַיֵּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i.e., make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time. The name of God is here threefold.