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5God shall likewise destroy thee for ever. From these words it is made still more evident that his object in dwelling upon the aggravated guilt of Doeg, was to prove the certainty of his approaching doom, and this rather for his own conviction and comfort, than with a view to alarming the conscience of the offender. Accordingly, he declares his persuasion that God would not allow his treachery to pass unpunished, though he might for a time connive at the perpetration of it. The ungodly are disposed, so long as their prosperity continues, to indulge in undisturbed security; and the saint of God, when he sees the power of which they are possessed, and witnesses their proud contempt of the divine judgments, is too apt to be overwhelmed with unbelieving apprehensions. But in order to establish his mind in the truth which he announces, it is observable that the Psalmist heaps one expression upon another, — God shall destroy thee, take thee away, pluck thee out, root thee out, — as if by this multiplicity of words he would convince himself more effectually, that God was able to overthrow this adversary with all his boasted might and authority. (278) In adding that God would root him out of his dwelling-place or tent, (279) and out of the land of the living, he insinuates that the wicked will be destroyed by God, however securely they may seem to repose ir the nest of some comfortable mansion, and in the vain hope of living upon earth for ever. Possibly he may allude, in mentioning a tent, to the profession of Doeg, as shepherds have their dwelling in tents.
(278) “” says Bishop Horne, “ the force of the verbs in the original, which convey to us the four ideas of ‘ prostrate,’ ‘ as by fire,’ ‘ away as with a besom,’ and ‘ extirpating root and branch,’ as a tree eradicated from the spot on which it grew.” The second verb, יחתך, yachtecha, Bythner explains, “will snatch thee away, as one snatches fire from a hearth. From חתה,chatheh, he snatched off live coals or fire from one place to another. ”
(279) There is another interpretation of this expression which may here be stated. It has been thought that the allusion is to God’ tabernacle. “ מאהל,meohel, ” says Hammond, “ literally ‘ the tabernacle,’ not ‘ thy dwelling-place:’ and so the LXX. render it, ‘ Απὸ σκηνώματος,’ ‘ the tabernacle;’ and though the Latin, and Syriac, and Arabic, have added tuo ,thy, yet neither will the Hebrew bear, nor do the Chaldee acknowledge it, who read by way of paraphrase, ‘ shall cause thee to depart from inhabiting in the place of the Schechina, or tabernacle, the place of God’ presence.’” Hammond supposes that the expression is to be understood “ the censure of excommunication, which in the last and highest degree was Schammatha, delivering up the offender to the hand of heaven to be cut off, himself and his posterity.” “” says Archbishop Secker, “ no office in the tabernacle; but it seems, by his history, that he frequented it, which he might do to seem a good man. And there seems an opposition between his being plucked out of God’ dwelling-place, and David’ continuing in the house of God, verse eighth.”