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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 9:9 - 9:9
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(Heb.: 9:10-11) Thus judging the nations Jahve shows Himself to be, as a second ו-strophe says, the refuge and help of His own. The voluntative with Waw of sequence expresses that which the poet desires for his own sake and for the sake of the result mentioned in Psa 9:11. מִשְׂגָּב, a high, steep place, where one is removed from danger, is a figure familiar to David from the experiences of his time of persecution. דַּךְ (in pause דָּךְ) is properly one who is crushed (from דָּכַךְ = דָּכָא, דָּכָה to crush, break in pieces, דָקַק to pulverize), therefore one who is overwhelmed to the extreme, even to being completely crushed. The parallel is לְעִתֹּות בַצָּרָה with the datival לְ (as probably also in Psa 10:1). עִתֹּות from עַת (time, and then both continuance, Psa 81:16, and condition) signifies the public relations of the time, or even the vicissitudes of private life, Psa 31:16; and בַצָּרָה is not הַצָּרָה with בְּ (Böttch.), which gives an expression that is meaninglessly minute (“for times in the need”), but one word, formed from בִּצֵּר (to cut off, Arab. to see, prop. to discern keenly), just like בַּקָּשָׁה ekil from בִּקֵּשׁ, prop. a cutting off, or being cut off, i.e., either restraint, especially motionlessness (= בַּצֹּרֶת, Jer 17:8, plur. בַּצָּרוֹת Jer 14:1), or distress, in which the prospect of deliverance is cut off. Since God is a final refuge for such circumstances of hopelessness in life, i.e., for those who are in such circumstances, the confidence of His people is strengthened, refreshed, and quickened. They who know His name, to them He has now revealed its character fully, and that by His acts; and they who inquire after Him, or trouble and concern themselves about Him (this is what דָּרַשׁ signifies in distinction from בִּקֵּשׁ), have now experienced that He also does not forget them, but makes Himself known to them in the fulness of His power and mercy.