11 Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, And all the kingdoms of Canaan,
These are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel struck beyond the Jordan westward, from Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon even to Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir; and Joshua gave it to the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their divisions; in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is beside Bethel, one; the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one; the king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one; the king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one; the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one; the king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one; the king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one; the king of Makkedah, one; the king of Bethel, one; the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one; the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one; the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one; the king of Shimron-meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one; the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one; the king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one; the king of Dor in the height of Dor, one; the king of Goiim in Gilgal, one; the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty-one.
Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying, Let me pass through your land: we will not turn aside into field, or into vineyard; we will not drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's highway, until we have passed your border. Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness, and came to Jahaz; and he fought against Israel. Israel struck him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, even to the children of Ammon; for the border of the children of Ammon was strong. Israel took all these cities: and Israel lived in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the towns of it. For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even to the Arnon. Therefore those who speak in proverbs say, Come you to Heshbon; Let the city of Sihon be built and established: For a fire is gone out of Heshbon, A flame from the city of Sihon: It has devoured Ar of Moab, The lords of the high places of the Arnon. Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh: He has given his sons as fugitives, His daughters into captivity, To Sihon king of the Amorites. We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even to Dibon, We have laid waste even to Nophah, Which [reaches] to Medeba. Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. Moses sent to spy out Jazer; and they took the towns of it, and drove out the Amorites who were there. They turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. Yahweh said to Moses, Don't fear him: for I have delivered him into your hand, and all his people, and his land; and you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon. So they struck him, and his sons and all his people, until there was none left him remaining: and they possessed his land.
Now it happened, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them; that they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men of it were mighty. Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, and to Piram king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying, Come up to me, and help me, and let us strike Gibeon; for it has made peace with Joshua and with the children of Israel. Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped against Gibeon, and made war against it. The men of Gibeon sent to Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Don't slack your hand from your servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us: for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill-country are gathered together against us. So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valor. Yahweh said to Joshua, Don't fear them: for I have delivered them into your hands; there shall not a man of them stand before you. Joshua therefore came on them suddenly; [for] he went up from Gilgal all the night. Yahweh confused them before Israel, and he killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Horon, and struck them to Azekah, and to Makkedah. It happened, as they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth Horon, that Yahweh cast down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died: they were more who died with the hailstones than they whom the children of Israel killed with the sword. Then spoke Joshua to Yahweh in the day when Yahweh delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand you still on Gibeon; You, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.
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Commentary on Psalms 135 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Four-Voiced Hallelujah to the God of Israel, the God of Gods
Psalms 135 is here and there (vid., Tפsefפth Pesachim 117 a ) taken together with Psalms 134:1-3 as one Psalm. The combining of Ps 115 with Psalms 114:1-8 is a misapprehension caused by the inscriptionless character of Ps 115, whereas Ps 135 and Psalms 134:1-3 certainly stand in connection with one another. For the Hallelujah Psalms 135 is, as the mutual relation between the beginning and close of Psalms 134:1-3 shows, a Psalm-song expanded out of this shorter hymn, that is in part drawn from Ps 115.
It is a Psalm in the mosaic style. Even the Latin poet Lucilius transfers the figure of mosaic-work to style, when he says: quam lepide lexeis compostae ut tesserulae omnes ... In the case of Psalms 135 it is not the first time that we have met with this kind of style. We have already had a glimpse of it in Psalms 97:1-12 and Psalms 98:1-9. These Psalms were composed more especially of deutero-Isaianic passages, whereas Psalms 135 takes its tesserulae out of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms.
The beginning is taken from Psalms 134:1; Psalms 135:2 recalls Psalms 116:19 (cf. Psalms 92:14); and Psalms 135:4 is an echo of Deuteronomy 7:6. The servants of Jahve to whom the summons is addressed, are not, as in Psalms 134:1., His official servants in particular, but according to Psalms 135:2 , where the courts, in the plural, are allotted to them as their standing-place, and according to Psalms 135:19-20, those who fear Him as a body. The threefold Jahve at the beginning is then repeated in Jāh ( הללוּ־יהּ , cf. note 1 to PsPsalms 104:35), Jahve , and Jāh . The subject of כּי נעים is by no means Jahve (Hupfeld), whom they did not dare to call נעים in the Old Testament, but either the Name, according to Ps 54:8 (Luther, Hitzig), or, which is favoured by Psalms 147:1 (cf. Proverbs 22:18), the praising of His Name (Appolinaris: ἐπεὶ τόδε καλὸν ἀείδειν ): His Name to praise is a delightful employ, which is incumbent on Israel as the people of His choice and of His possession.
The praise itself now begins. כּי in Psalms 135:4 set forth the ground of the pleasant duty, and the כי that begins this strophe confirms that which warrants the summons out of the riches of the material existing for such a hymn of praise. Worthy is He to be praised, for Israel knows full well that He who hath chosen it is the God of gods. The beginning is taken from Psalms 115:3, and Psalms 135:7 from Jeremiah 10:13 (Psalms 51:16). Heaven, earth, and water are the three kingdoms of created things, as in Exodus 20:4. נשׂיא signifies that which is lifted up, ascended; here, as in Jeremiah, a cloud. The meaning of בּרקים למּטר עשׂה is not: He makes lightnings into rain, i.e., resolves them as it were into rain, which is unnatural; but either according to Zechariah 10:1 : He produces lightnings in behalf of rain, in order that the rain may pour down in consequence of the thunder and lightning, or poetically: He makes lightnings for the rain, so that the rain is announced (Apollinaris) and accompanied by them. Instead of מוצא (cf. Psalms 78:16; Psalms 105:43), which does not admit of the retreating of the tone, the expression is מוצא , the ground-form of the part. Hiph . for plurals like מחצרים , מחלמים , מעזרים , perhaps not without being influenced by the ויּוצא in Jeremiah, for it is not מוצא from מצא that signifies “producing,” but מוציא = מפיק . The metaphor of the treasuries is like Job 38:22. What is intended is the fulness of divine power, in which lie the grounds of the origin and the impulses of all things in nature.
Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Redeemer out of Egypt. בּתוככי as in Psalms 116:19, cf. Psalms 105:27.
Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Conqueror of the Land of Promise. in connection with Psalms 135:10 one is reminded of Deuteronomy 4:38; Deuteronomy 7:1; Deuteronomy 9:1; Deuteronomy 11:23; Joshua 23:9. גּוים רבּים are here not many, but great peoples (cf. גּדלים in Psalms 136:17), since the parallel word עצוּמים is by no means intended of a powerful number, but of powerful might (cf. Isaiah 53:12). As to the rest also, the poet follows the Book of Deuteronomy: viz., לכל ממלכות as in Deuteronomy 3:21, and נתן נחלה as in Deuteronomy 4:38 and other passages. It is all Deuteronomic with the exception of the שׁ , and the ל e in Psalms 135:11 as the nota accus . (as in Psalms 136:19., cf. Psalms 69:6; Psalms 116:16; Psalms 129:3); the construction of הרג is just as Aramaizing in Job 5:2; 2 Samuel 3:30 (where 2 Samuel 3:30-31, like 2 Samuel 3:36-37, are a later explanatory addition). The הרג alternating with הכּה is, next to the two kings, also referred to the kingdoms of Canaan, viz., their inhabitants. Og was also an Amoritish king, Deuteronomy 3:8.
This God who rules so praiseworthily in the universe and in the history of Israel is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Just as Psalms 135:13 (cf. Psalms 102:13) is taken from Exodus 3:15, so Psalms 135:14 is taken from Deuteronomy 32:36, cf. Psalms 90:13, and vid., on Hebrews 10:30-31.
For the good of His proved church He ever proves Himself to be the Living God, whereas idols and idol-worshippers are vain - throughout following Psalms 115:4-8, but with some abridgments. Here only the אף used as a particle recalls what is said there of the organ of smell ( אף ) of the idols that smells not, just as the רוּח which is here (as in Jeremiah 10:14) denied to the idols recalls the הריח denied to them there. It is to be rendered: also there is not a being of breath, i.e., there is no breath at all, not a trace thereof, in their mouth. It is different in 1 Samuel 21:9, where אין ישׁ (not אין ) is meant to be equivalent to the Aramaic אין אית , num ( an ) est ; אין is North-Palestinian, and equivalent to the interrogatory אם (after which the Targum renders אלּוּ אית ).
A call to the praise of Jahve, who is exalted above the gods of the nations, addressed to Israel as a whole, rounds off the Psalm by recurring to its beginning. The threefold call in Psalms 115:9-11; Psalms 118:2-4, is rendered fourfold here by the introduction of the house of the Levites, and the wishing of a blessing in Psalms 134:3 is turned into an ascription of praise. Zion, whence Jahve's self-attestation, so rich in power and loving-kindness, is spread abroad, is also to be the place whence His glorious attestation by the mouth of men is spread abroad. History has realized this.