Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 93:3 - 93:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
All the raging of the world, therefore, will not be able to hinder the progress of the kingdom of God and its final breaking through to the glory of victory. The sea with its mighty mass of waters, with the constant unrest of its waves, with its ceaseless pressing against the solid land and foaming against the rocks, is an emblem of the Gentile world alienated from and at enmity with God; and the rivers (floods) are emblems of worldly kingdoms, as the Nile of the Egyptian (Jer 44:7.), the Euphrates of the Assyrian (Isa 8:7.), or more exactly, the Tigris, swift as an arrow, of the Assyrian, and the tortuous Euphrates of the Babylonian empire (Isa 27:1). These rivers, as the poet says whilst he raises a plaintive but comforted look upwards to Jahve, have lifted up, have lifted up their murmur, the rivers lift up their roaring. The thought is unfolded in a so-called “parallelism with reservation.” The perfects affirm what has taken place, the future that which even now as yet is taking place. The ἅπαξ λεγ. דֳּכִי signifies a striking against (collisio), and a noise, a din. One now in Psa 93:4 looks for the thought that Jahve is exalted above this roaring of the waves. מִן will therefore be the min of comparison, not of the cause: “by reason of the roar of great waters are the breakers of the sea glorious” (Starck, Geier), - which, to say nothing more, is a tautological sentence. But if מִן is comparative, then it is impossible to get on with the accentuation of אדירים, whether it be with Mercha (Ben-Asher) or Dechî (Ben-Naphtali). For to render: More than the roar of great waters are the breakers of the sea glorious (Mendelssohn), is impracticable, since מים רבים are nothing less than ים (Isa 17:12.), and we are prohibited from taking אדירים משׁברי־ים as a parenthesis (Köster), by the fact that it is just this clause that is exceeded by אדיר במרום ה. Consequently אדירים has to be looked upon as a second attributive to מים brought in afterwards, and מִשְׁבְּרֵי־יָם (the waves of the sea breaking upon the rocks, or even only breaking upon one another) as a more minute designation of these great and magnificent waters (אדירים, according to Exo 15:10),
(Note: A Talmudic enigmatical utterance of R. Azaria runs: באדירים יבא אדיר ויפרע לאדירים מאדירים, Let the glorious One (Jahve, Psa 93:4, cf. Isa 10:34; Isa 33:21) come and maintain the right of the glorious ones (Israel, Psa 16:3) against the glorious ones (the Egyptians, Exo 15:10 according to the construction of the Talmud) in the glorious ones (the waves of the sea, Psa 93:4).)),
and it should have been accented: מים רבים אדירים משברי ים | מקלות. Jahve's celestial majesty towers far above all the noisy majesties here below, whose waves, though lashed never so high, can still never reach His throne. He is King of His people, Lord of His church, which preserves His revelation and worships in His temple. This revelation, by virtue of His unapproachable, all-overpowering kingship, is inviolable; His testimonies, which minister to the establishment of His kingdom and promise its future manifestation in glory, are λόγοι πιστοί καὶ ἀληθινοί, Rev 19:9; Rev 22:6. And holiness becometh His temple (נַֽאֲוָה־קֹדֶשׁ, 3rd praet. Pilel, or according to the better attested reading of Heidenheim and Baer, נָֽאֲוָה;
(Note: The Masora on Ps 147 reckons four נָאוָה, one וְנָאוָה, and one נָֽאֲוָה eno d, and therefore our נאוה is one of the יז מלין דמפקין אלף וכל חד לית מפיק (cf. Frensdorf's Ochla we-Ochla, p. 123), i.e., one of the seventeen words whose Aleph is audible, whilst it is otherwise always quiescent; e.g., כְּמֹוצְאֵת, otherwise מֹוצֵאת.)
therefore the feminine of the adjective with a more loosened syllable next to the tone, like יַֽחֲשָׁב־לִּי in Ps 40:18), that is to say, it is inviolable (sacrosanct), and when it is profaned, shall ever be vindicated again in its holiness. This clause, formulated after the manner of a prayer, is at the same time a petition that Jahve in all time to come would be pleased to thoroughly secure the place where His honour dwells here below against profanation.