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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 9:5 - 9:5
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(Heb.: 9:6-7) The strophe with ג, which is perhaps intended to represent ד and ה as well, continues the confirmation of the cause for thanksgiving laid down in Psa 9:4. He does not celebrate the judicial act of God on his behalf, which he has just experienced, alone, but in connection with, and, as it were, as the sum of many others which have preceded it. If this is the case, then in Psa 9:6 beside the Ammonites one may at the same time (with Hengstenb.) think of the Amalekites (1Sa 8:12), who had been threatened since the time of Moses with a “blotting out of their remembrance” (Exo 17:14; Deu 25:19, cf. Num 24:20). The divine threatening is the word of omnipotence which destroys in distinction from the word of omnipotence that creates. רָשָׁע in close connection with גֹּויִם is individualising, cf. Psa 9:18 with Psa 9:16, Psa 9:17. וָעֶד is a sharpened pausal form for וָעַד, the Pathach going into a Segol (קטן פתח); perhaps it is in order to avoid the threefold a-sound in לעולם ועד (Nägelsbach §8 extr.). In Psa 9:7 הָאֹויֵב (with Azla legarme) appears to be a vocative. In that case נָתַשְׁתָּ ought also to be addressed to the enemy. But if it be interpreted: “Thou hast destroyed thine own cities, their memorial is perished,” destroyed, viz., at the challenge of Israel, then the thought is forced; and if we render it: “the cities, which thou hast destroyed, perished is the remembrance of them,” i.e., one no longer thinks of thine acts of conquest, then we have a thought that is in itself awkward and one that finds no support in any of the numerous parallels which speak of a blotting out and leaving no trace behind. But, moreover, in both these interpretations the fact that זִכְרָם is strengthened by הֵמָּה is lost sight of, and the twofold masculine זִכְרָם הֵמָּה is referred to עָרִים (which is carelessly done by most expositors), whereas עִיר, with but few exceptions, is feminine; consequently זכרם המה, so far as this is not absolutely impossible, must be referred to the enemies themselves (cf. Psa 34:17; Psa 109:15). האויב might more readily be nom. absol.: “the enemy - it is at end for ever with his destructions,” but חָרְבָּה never has an active but always only a neuter signification; or: “the enemy - ruins are finished for ever,” but the signification to be destroyed is more natural for תָּמַם than to be completed, when it is used of ruinae. Moreover, in connection with both these renderings the retrospective pronoun (חָרְבֹותָיו) is wanting, and this is also the case with the reading חֲרָבֹות (lxx, Vulg., Syr.), which leaves it uncertain whose swords are meant. But why may we not rather connect האויב at once with תַּמּוּ as subject? In other instances תַּמּוּ is also joined to a singular collective subject, e.g., Isa 16:4; here it precedes, like הָאֹרֵב in Jdg 20:37. חֳרָבֹות לָנֶצַח is a nominative of the product, corresponding to the factitive object with verbs of making: the enemies are destroyed as ruins for ever, i.e., so that they are become ruins; or, more in accordance with the accentuation: the enemy, destroyed as ruins are they for ever. With respect to what follows the accentuation also contains hints worthy of our attention. It does not take נָתַשְׁתָּ (with the regular Pathach by Athnach after Olewejored, vid., on Psa 2:7) as a relative clause, and consequently does not require זכרם המה to be referred back to ערים.
We interpret the passage thus: and cities (viz., such as were hostile) thou hast destroyed (נָתַשׁ evellere, exstirpare), perished is their (the enemies') memorial. Thus it also now becomes intelligible, why זִכְרָם, according to the rule Ges. §121, 3, is so remarkably strengthened by the addition of הֵמָּה (cf. Num 14:32; 1Sa 20:42; Pro 22:19; Pro 23:15; Eze 34:11). Hupfeld, whose interpretation is exactly the same as ours, thinks it might perhaps be the enemies themselves and the cities set over against one another. But the contrast follows in Psa 9:8 : their, even their memorial is perished, while on the contrary Jahve endures for ever and is enthroned as judge. This contrast also retrospectively gives support to the explanation, that זכרם refers not to the cities, but to האויב as a collective. With this interpretation of Psa 9:7 we have no occasion to read זִכְרָם מֵהֵמָּה (Targ.), nor זֵכֶר מֵהֵמָּה (Paul., Hitz.). The latter is strongly commended by Job 11:20, cf. Jer 10:2; but still it is not quite admissible, since זֵכֶר here is not subjective (their own remembrance) but objective (remembrance of them). But may not עָרִים perhaps here, as in Psa 139:20, mean zealots = adversaries (from עִיר fervere, zelare)? We reply in the negative, because the Psalm bears neither an Aramaising nor a North Palestinian impress. Even in connection with this meaning, the harshness of the ערים without any suffix would still remain. But, that the cities that are, as it were, plucked up by the root are cities of the enemy, is evident from the context.