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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 94:12 - 94:12
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The fourth strophe praises the pious sufferer, whose good cause God will at length aid in obtaining its right. The “blessed” reminds one of Psa 34:9; Psa 40:5, and more especially of Job 5:17, cf. Pro 3:11. Here what are meant are sufferings like those bewailed in Psa 94:5., which are however, after all, the well-meant dispensations of God. Concerning the aim and fruit of purifying and testing afflictions God teaches the sufferer out of His Law (cf. e.g., Deu 8:5.), in order to procure him rest, viz., inward rest (cf. Jer 49:23 with Isa 30:15), i.e., not to suffer him to be disheartened and tempted by days of wickedness, i.e., wicked, calamitous days (Ew. §287, b), until (and it will inevitably come to pass) the pit is finished being dug into which the ungodly falls headlong (cf. Psa 112:7.). יָּהּ has the emphatic Dagesh, which properly does not double, and still less unite, but requires an emphatic pronunciation of the letter, which might easily become inaudible. The initial Jod of the divine name might easily lose it consonantal value here in connection with the preceding toneless û,
(Note: If it is correct that, as Aben-Ezra and Parchon testify, the וּ, as being compounded of o (u) + i, was pronounced ü like the u in the French word pur by the inhabitants of Palestine, then this Dagesh, in accordance with its orthophonic function, is the more intelligible in cases like תיסרנו יּה and קראתי יּה, cf. Pinsker, Einleitung, S. 153, and Geiger, Urschrift, S. 277. In קומו צּאו, Gen 19:14; Exo 12:31, קומו סּעו, Deu 2:24, Tsade and Samech have this Dagesh for the same reason as the Sin in תשׁביתו שּׁאור, Exo 12:15 (vid., Heidenheim on that passage), viz., because there is a danger in all these cases of slurring over the sharp sibilant. Even Chajug' (vid., Ewald and Dukes' Beiträge, iii. 23) confuses this Dag. orthophonicum with the Dag. forte conjunctivum.)
and the Dag. guards against this: cf. Psa 118:5, Psa 118:18. The certainty of the issue that is set in prospect by עַד is then confirmed with כִּי. It is impossible that God can desert His church - He cannot do this, because in general right must finally come to His right, or, as it is here expressed, מִשְׁפָּט must turn to צֶדֶק, i.e., the right that is now subdued must at length be again strictly maintained and justly administered, and “after it then all who are upright in heart,” i.e., all such will side with it, joyously greeting that which has been long missed and yearned after. מִשְׁפָּט is fundamental right, which is at all times consistent with itself and raised above the casual circumstances of the time, and צֶדֶק, like אֱמֶת in Isa 42:3, is righteousness (justice), which converts this right into a practical truth and reality.