Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 95:3 - 95:3

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 95:3 - 95:3


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The adorableness of God receives a threefold confirmation: He is exalted above all gods as King, above all things as Creator, and above His people as Shepherd and Leader. אֱלֹהִים (gods) here, as in Psa 96:4., Psa 97:7, Psa 97:9, and frequently, are the powers of the natural world and of the world of men, which the Gentiles deify and call kings (as Moloch Molech, the deified fire), which, however, all stand under the lordship of Jahve, who is infinitely exalted above everything that is otherwise called god (Psa 96:4; Psa 97:9). The supposition that תֹּועָפוֹת הָרִים denotes the pit-works (μέταλλα) of the mountains (Böttcher), is at once improbable, because to all appearance it is intended to be the antithesis to מֶחְקְרֵי־אֶרֶץ, the shafts of the earth. The derivation from וָעַף (יָעַף), κάμνειν, κοπιᾶν, also does not suit תועפות in Num 23:22; Num 24:8, for “fatigues” and “indefatigableness” are notions that lie very wide apart. The כֶּסֶף תֹּועָפֹות of Job 22:25 might more readily be explained according to this “silver of fatigues,” i.e., silver that the fatiguing labour of mining brings to light, and תועפות הרים in the passage before us, with Gussetius, Geier, and Hengstenberg: cacumina montium quia defatigantur qui eo ascendunt, prop. ascendings = summits of the mountains, after which כסף תועפות, Job 22:25, might also signify “silver of the mountain-heights.” But the lxx, which renders δόξα in the passages in Numbers and τὰ ὕψη τῶν ὀρέων in the passage before us, leads one to a more correct track. The verb יָעַף (וָעַף), transposed from יפע (ופע), goes back to the root יף, וף, to stand forth, tower above, to be high, according to which תועפות = תופעות signifies eminentiae, i.e., towerings = summits, or prominences = high (the highest) perfection (vid., on Job 22:25). In the passage before us it is a synonym of the Arabic mı̂fan, mı̂fâtun, pars terrae eminens (from Arab. wfâ = יפע, prop. instrumentally: a means of rising above, viz., by climbing), and of the names of eminences derived from Arab. yf' (after which Hitzig renders: the teeth of the mountains). By reason of the fact that Jahve is the Owner (cf. 1Sa 2:8), because the Creator of all things, the call to worship, which concerns no one so nearly as it does Israel, the people, which before other peoples is Jahve's creation, viz., the creation of His miraculously mighty grace, is repeated. In the call or invitation, הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה signifies to stretch one's self out full length upon the ground, the proper attitude of adoration; כָּרַע, to curtsey, to totter; and בָּרַךְ, Arabic baraka, starting from the radical signification flectere, to kneel down, in genua (πρόχνυ, pronum = procnum) procumbere, 2Ch 6:13 (cf. Hölemann, Bibelstudien, i. 135f.). Beside עַם מַרְעִיתֹו, people of His pasture, צֹאן יָדֹו is not the flock formed by His creating hand (Augustine: ipse gratiâ suâ nos oves fecit), but, after Gen 30:35, the flock under His protection, the flock led and defended by His skilful, powerful hand. Böttcher renders: flock of His charge; but יָד in this sense (Jer 6:3) signifies only a place, and “flock of His place” would be poetry and prose in one figure.