9 Send destruction on them, O Lord, make a division of tongues among them: for I have seen fighting and violent acts in the town.
As the spring keeps its waters cold, so she keeps her evil in her: the sound of cruel and violent behaviour is in her; before me at all times are disease and wounds.
Come, let us go down and take away the sense of their language, so that they will not be able to make themselves clear to one another. So the Lord God sent them away into every part of the earth: and they gave up building their town. So it was named Babel, because there the Lord took away the sense of all languages and from there the Lord sent them away over all the face of the earth.
Then Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me take out twelve thousand men and this very night I will go after David: And I will come up with him when he is tired and feeble, and make him full of fear: and all the people with him will go in flight; and I will make an attack on the king only: And I will make all the people come back to you as a bride comes back to her husband: it is the life of only one man you are going after; so all the people will be at peace. And the saying was pleasing to Absalom and to the responsible men of Israel. Then Absalom said, Now send for Hushai the Archite, and let us give ear to what he has to say. And when Hushai came, Absalom said to him, This is what Ahithophel has said: are we to do as he says? if not, what is your suggestion? And Hushai said to Absalom, Ahithophel's idea is not a good one at this time. Hushai said further, You have knowledge of your father and his men, that they are men of war, and that their feelings are bitter, like those of a bear in the field whose young ones have been taken from her: and your father is a man of war, and will not take his night's rest with the people; But he will certainly have taken cover now in some hole or secret place; and if some of our people, at the first attack, are overcome, then any hearing of it will say, There is destruction among the people who are on Absalom's side. Then even the strongest, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will become like water; for all Israel is conscious that your father is a man of war, and those who are with him are strong and without fear. But my suggestion is that all Israel, from Dan as far as Beer-sheba, comes together to you, a great army like the sands of the sea in number; and that you yourself go out among them. Then we will come on him in some place, wherever he may be, falling on him as the dew comes on the earth: and of him and all the men who are with him not one will get away with his life. And if he has gone into some town, then let all Israel take strong cords to that town, and we will have it pulled into the valley, till not one small stone is to be seen there. Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, Hushai's suggestion is better than that of Ahithophel. For it was the purpose of the Lord to make the wise designs of Ahithophel without effect, so that the Lord might send evil on Absalom.
And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a shocking thing; they are untrue to their wives, walking in deceit, and they make strong the hands of evil-doers, so that a man may not be turned back from his evil-doing: they have all become like Sodom to me, and its people like Gomorrah.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who are sent to her! Again and again would I have taken your children to myself as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is made waste.
Then the servants went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why have you not got him with you? The servants made answer, No man ever said things like this man. Then the Pharisees said to them, Have you, like the others, been given false ideas? Have any of the rulers belief in him, or any one of the Pharisees? But these people who have no knowledge of the law are cursed. Nicodemus--he who had come to Jesus before, being himself one of them--said to them, Is a man judged by our law before it has given him a hearing and has knowledge of what he has done? This was their answer: And do you come from Galilee? Make search and you will see that no prophet comes out of Galilee. [And every man went to his house;
But when Paul saw that half of them were Sadducees and the rest Pharisees, he said in the Sanhedrin, Brothers, I am a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees: I am here to be judged on the question of the hope of the coming back from the dead. And when he had said this, there was an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and a division in the meeting. For the Sadducees say that there is no coming back from the dead, and no angels or spirits: but the Pharisees have belief in all these. And there was a great outcry: and some of the scribes on the side of the Pharisees got up and took part in the discussion, saying, We see no evil in this man: what if he has had a revelation from an angel or a spirit? And when the argument became very violent, the chief captain, fearing that Paul would be pulled in two by them, gave orders to the armed men to take him by force from among them, and take him into the army building.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 55
Commentary on Psalms 55 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Prayer of One Who Is Maliciously Beset and Betrayed by His Friend
Psalms 54:1-7 is followed by another Davidic Psalm bearing the same inscription: To the Precentor, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, a meditation, by David . It also accords with the former in the form of the prayer with which it opens (cf. Psalms 55:2 with Psalms 54:3.); and it is the Elohimic counterpart of the Jahve- Psalms 41:1-13. If the Psalm is by David, we require (in opposition to Hengstenberg) an assignable occasion for it in the history of his life. For how could the faithless bosom friend, over whom the complaint concerning malicious foes here, as in Psalms 41:1-13, lingers with special sadness, be a mere abstract personage; since it has in the person of Judas Iscariot its historical living antitype in the life and passion of the second David? This Old Testament Judas is none other than Ahithפphel, the right hand of Absalom. Ps 55 belongs, like Psalms 41:1-13, to the four years during which the rebellion of Absalom was forming; only to a somewhat later period, when Absalom's party were so sure of their cause that they had no need to make any secret of it. How it came to pass that David left the beginnings and progressive steps of the rebellion of Absalom to take their course without bringing any other weapon to bear against it than the weapon of prayer, is discussed on Psalms 41:1-13.
Hitzig also holds this Psalm to be Jeremianic. But it contains no coincidences with the language and thoughts of Jeremiah worth speaking of, excepting that this prophet, in Psalms 9:1, gives utterance to a similar wish to that of the psalmist in Psalms 55:7, and springing from the same motive. The argument in favour of Jeremiah in opposition to David is consequently referred to the picture of life and suffering which is presented in the Psalm; and it becomes a question whether this harmonizes better with the persecuted life of Jeremiah or of David. The exposition which follows here places itself - and it is at least worthy of being attempted - on the standpoint of the writer of the inscription.
In this first group sorrow prevails. David spreads forth his deep grief before God, and desires for himself some lonely spot in the wilderness far away from the home or lurking-place of the confederate band of those who are compassing his overthrow. “Veil not Thyself” here, where what is spoken of is something audible, not visible, is equivalent to “veil not Thine ear,” Lamentations 3:56, which He designedly does, when the right state of heart leaves the praying one, and consequently that which makes it acceptable and capable of being answered is wanting to the prayer (cf. Isaiah 1:15). שׂיח signifies a shrub (Syriac shucho , Arabic šı̂ḥ ), and also reflection and care (Arabic, carefulness, attention; Aramaic, סח , to babble, talk, discourse). The Hiph . חריד , which in Genesis 27:40 signifies to lead a roving life, has in this instance the signification to move one's self backwards and forwards, to be inwardly uneasy; root רד , Arab. rd , to totter, whence râda , jarûda , to run up and down (IV to desire, will); raida , to shake (said of a soft bloated body); radda , to turn (whence taraddud , a moving to and fro, doubting); therefore: I wander hither and thither in my reflecting or meditating, turning restlessly from one thought to another. It is not necessary to read ואחמיה after Psalms 77:4 instead of ועהימה , since the verb הוּם = המה , Psalms 42:6, 12, is secured by the derivatives. Since these only exhibit הוּם , and not הים (in Arabic used more particularly of the raving of love), ואהימה , as also אריד , is Hiph ., and in fact like this latter used with an inward object: I am obliged to raise a tumult or groan, break out into the dull murmuring sounds of pain. The cohortative not unfrequently signifies “I have to” or “I must” of incitements within one's self which are under the control of outward circumstances. In this restless state of mind he finds himself, and he is obliged to break forth into this cry of pain on account of the voice of the foe which he cannot but hear; by reason of the pressure or constraint ( עקת ) of the evil-doer which he is compelled to feel. The conjecture צעקת (Olshausen and Hupfeld) is superfluous. עקה is a more elegant Aramaizing word instead of צרה .
The second strophe begins with a more precise statement of that which justifies his pain. The Hiph . חמיט signifies here, as in Psalms 140:11 ( Chethîb ), declinare : they cast or roll down evil (calamity) upon him and maliciously lay snares for him בּאף , breathing anger against him who is conscious of having manifested only love towards them. His heart turns about in his body, it writhes ( יהיל ); cf. on this, Psalms 38:11. Fear and trembling take possession of his inward parts; יבא in the expression יבא בי , as is always the case when followed by a tone syllable, is a so-called נסוג אחור , i.e., it has the tone that has retreated to the penult . (Deuteronomy 1:38; Isaiah 7:24; Isaiah 60:20), although this is only with difficulty discernible in our printed copies, and is therefore (vid., Accentsystem , vi. §2) noted with Mercha . The fut. consec . which follows introduces the heightened state of terror which proceeds from this crowding on of fear and trembling. Moreover, the wish that is thereby urged from him, which David uttered to himself, is introduced in the third strophe by a fut. consec.
(Note: That beautiful old song of the church concerning Jesus has grown out of this strophe: -
Ecquis binas columbinas
Alas dabit animae?
Et in almam crucis palmam
Evolat citissime