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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 94:16 - 94:16
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In the fifth strophe the poet celebrates the praise of the Lord as his sole, but also trusty and most consolatory help. The meaning of the question in Psa 94:16 is, that there is no man who would rise and succour him in the conflict with the evil-doers; לְ as in Exo 14:25; Jdg 6:31, and עִם (without נִלְחַם or the like) in the sense of contra, as in Psa 55:19, cf. 2Ch 20:6. God alone is his help. He alone has rescued him from death. הָיָה is to be supplied to לוּלֵי: if He had not been, or: if He were not; and the apodosis is: then very little would have been wanting, then it would soon have come to this, that his soul would have taken up its abode, etc.; cf. on the construction Psa 119:92; Psa 124:1-5; Isa 1:9, and on כִּמְעָט with the praet. Psa 73:2; Psa 119:87; Gen 26:10 (on the other hand with the fut. Psa 81:15). דּוּמָה is, as in Psa 115:17, the silence of the grave and of Hades; here it is the object to שָֽׁכְנָה, as in Psa 37:3, Pro 8:12, and frequently. When he appears to himself already as one that has fallen, God's mercy holds him up. And when thoughts, viz., sad and fearful thoughts, are multiplied within him, God's comforts delight him, viz., the encouragement of His word and the inward utterances of His Spirit. שַׁרְעַפִּים, as in Psa 139:23, is equivalent to שעִפִּים, from שָׂעַף, סָעַף, Arab. š‛b, to split, branch off (Psychology, S. 181; tr. p. 214). The plural form יְשַֽׁעַשְׁעוּ, like the plural of the imperative in Isa 29:9, has two Pathachs, the second of which is the “independentification” of the Chateph of יְשַֽׁעֲשַׁע.