12 Give us help from trouble; for vain is man's deliverance.
{To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David.} Jehovah answer thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob protect thee; May he send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; Remember all thine oblations, and accept thy burnt-offering; Selah. Grant thee according to thy heart, and fulfil all thy counsels. We will triumph in thy salvation, and in the name of our God will we set up our banners. Jehovah fulfil all thy petitions! Now know I that Jehovah saveth his anointed; he answereth him from the heavens of his holiness, with the saving strength of his right hand. Some make mention of chariots, and some of horses, but we of the name of Jehovah our God. They are bowed down and fallen; but we are risen and stand upright. Save, Jehovah! Let the king answer us in the day we call.
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for what account is to be made of him?
For to you the protection of Pharaoh shall be a shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt a confusion. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people [that] did not profit them, nor were a help or profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
And the Egyptians are men, and not ùGod, and their horses flesh, and not spirit; and Jehovah shall stretch forth his hand, and he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall, and they all shall perish together.
Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that confideth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. And he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but he shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that confideth in Jehovah, and whose confidence Jehovah is. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out its roots by the stream, and he shall not see when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; and in the year of drought he shall not be careful, neither shall he cease to yield fruit.
+God withdraweth not his anger; the proud helpers stoop under him:
I have heard many such things: grievous comforters are ye all.
Put not confidence in nobles, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his purposes perish. Blessed is he who hath the ùGod of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Jehovah his God,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 108
Commentary on Psalms 108 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Two Elohimic Fragments Brought Together
The אודך in Psalms 108:4 and the whole contents of this Psalm is the echo to the הודוּ of the preceding Psalm. It is inscribed a Psalm-song by David , but only because it is compiled out of ancient Davidic materials. The fact of the absence of the למנצח makes it natural to suppose that it is of later origin. Two Davidic Psalm-pieces in the Elohimic style are here, with trifling variations, just put together, not soldered together, and taken out of their original historical connection.
That a poet like David would thus compile a third out of two of his own songs (Hengstenberg) is not conceivable.
This first half is taken from Ps. 57:8-12. The repetition of confident is my heart in Psalms 57:1-11 is here omitted; and in place of it the “my glory” of the exclamation, awake my glory , is taken up to “I will sing and will harp” as a more minute definition of the subject (vid., on Psalms 3:5): He will do it, yea,his soul with all its godlike powers shall do it. Jahve in Psalms 108:4 is transformed out of the Adonaj ; and Waw copul . is inserted both before Psalms 108:4 and Psalms 108:6 , contrary to Psalms 57:1-11. מעל , Psalms 108:5 (as in Esther 3:1), would be a pleasing change for עד if Psalms 108:5 followed Psalms 108:5 and the definition of magnitude did not retrograde instead of heightening. Moreover Psalms 36:6; Jeremiah 51:9 (cf. על in Psalms 113:4; Psalms 148:13) favour עד in opposition to מעל .
Ps. 60:7-14 forms this second half. The clause expressing the purpose with למען , as in its original, has the following הושׁיעה for its principal clause upon which it depends. Instead of ועננוּ , which one might have expected, the expression used here is וענני without any interchange of the mode of writing and of reading it; many printed copies have ועננו here also; Baer, following Norzi, correctly has וענני . Instead of ולי ... לי , Psalms 60:9, we here read לי ... לי , which is less soaring. And instead of Cry aloud concerning me, O Philistia do I shout for joy (the triumphant cry of the victor); in accordance with which Hupfeld wishes to take התרועעי in the former as infinitive: “over ( עלי instead of עלי ) Philistia is my shouting for joy” ( התרועעי instead of התרועעי , since the infinitive does not admit of this pausal form of the imperative). For עיר מצור we have here the more usual form of expression עיר מבצר . Psalms 108:12 is weakened by the omission of the אתּה ( הלא ).