5 There they feared a fear -- there was no fear, For God hath scattered the bones of him Who is encamping against thee, Thou hast put to shame, For God hath despised them.
and I have set My face against you, and ye have been smitten before your enemies; and those hating you have ruled over you, and ye have fled, and there is none pursuing you.
The wicked have fled and there is no pursuer. And the righteous as a young lion is confident.
`And those who are left of you -- I have also brought a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a leaf driven away hath pursued them, and they have fled -- flight from a sword -- and they have fallen, and there is none pursuing.
And put the carcases of the sons of Israel before their idols, And scattered your bones round about your altars.
As one tilling and ripping up in the land, Have our bones been scattered at the command of Saul.
and there is a trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people, the station and the destroyers have trembled -- even they, and the earth shaketh, and it becometh a trembling of God.
`And among those nations thou dost not rest, yea, there is no resting-place for the sole of thy foot, and Jehovah hath given to thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and grief of soul; and thy life hath been hanging in suspense before thee, and thou hast been afraid by night and by day, and dost not believe in thy life; in the morning thou sayest, O that it were evening! and in the evening thou sayest, O that it were morning! from the fear of thy heart, with which thou art afraid, and from the sight of thine eyes which thou seest.
At that time, an affirmation of Jehovah, They bring the bones of the kings of Judah, And the bones of its princes, And the bones of the priests, And the bones of the prophets, And the bones of inhabitants of Jerusalem, Out of their graves, And have spread them to sun, and to moon, And to all the host of the heavens, that they have loved, And that they have served, And that they have walked after, And that they have sought, And to which they have bowed themselves, They are not gathered, nor buried, They are for dung on the face of the ground.
There hath been upon me a hand of Jehovah, and He taketh me forth in the Spirit of Jehovah, and doth place me in the midst of the valley, and it is full of bones, and He causeth me to pass over by them, all round about, and lo, very many `are' on the face of the valley, and lo, very dry. And He saith unto me, `Son of man, do these bones live?' And I say, `O Lord Jehovah, Thou -- Thou hast known.' And He saith unto me, `Prophesy concerning these bones, and thou hast said unto them: O dry bones, hear a word of Jehovah: Thus said the Lord Jehovah to these bones: Lo, I am bringing into you a spirit, and ye have lived, and I have given on you sinews, and cause flesh to come up upon you, and covered you over with skin, and given in you a spirit, and ye have lived, and ye have known that I `am' Jehovah.' And I have prophesied as I have been commanded, and there is a noise, as I am prophesying, and lo, a rushing, and draw near do the bones, bone unto its bone. And I beheld, and lo, on them `are' sinews, and flesh hath come up, and cover them doth skin over above -- and spirit there is none in them. And He saith unto me: `Prophesy unto the Spirit, prophesy, son of man, and thou hast said unto the Spirit: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: From the four winds come in, O Spirit, and breathe on these slain, and they do live.' And I have prophesied as He commanded me, and the Spirit cometh into them, and they live, and stand on their feet -- a very very great force. And He saith unto me, `Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; lo, they are saying: Dried up have our bones, And perished hath our hope, We have been cut off by ourselves.
And He shaketh as a garden His tabernacle, He hath destroyed His appointed place, Jehovah hath forgotten in Zion the appointed time and sabbath, And despiseth, in the indignation of His anger, king and priest.
seeing Jehovah hath caused the camp of Aram to hear a noise of chariot and a noise of horse -- a noise of great force, and they say one unto another, `Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of Egypt, to come against us.' And they rise and flee in the twilight, and forsake their tents, and their horses, and their asses -- the camp as it `is' -- and flee for their life.
this `is' the word that Jehovah spake concerning him: Trampled on thee, laughed at thee, Hath the virgin daughter of Zion, Behind thee shaken the head hath the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom hast thou reproached and reviled? And against whom lifted up the voice? Yea, thou dost lift up on high thine eyes Against the Holy One of Israel. By the hand of thy servants Thou hast reviled the Lord, and sayest: In the multitude of my chariots I have come up to a high place of hills, The sides of Lebanon, And I cut down the height of its cedars, The choice of its firs, And I enter the high place of its extremity, The forest of its Carmel. I -- I have dug and drunk waters, And I dry up with the sole of my steps All floods of a bulwark. Hast thou not heard from afar? -- it I did, From days of old -- that I formed it. Now, I have brought it in, And it is to make desolate, Ruinous heaps -- fenced cities, And their inhabitants are feeble-handed, They were broken down, and are dried up. They have been the herb of the field, And the greenness of the tender grass, Grass of the roofs, And blasted corn, before it hath risen up. And thy sitting down, and thy going out, And thy coming in, I have known, And thy anger towards Me. Because of thy anger towards Me, And thy noise -- it came up into Mine ears, I have put My hook in thy nose, And My bridle in thy lips, And I have caused thee to turn back In the way in which thou camest. -- And this to thee `is' the sign, Food of the year `is' self-sown grain, And in the second year the spontaneous growth, And in the third year, sow ye and reap, And plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. And it hath continued -- the escaped Of the house of Judah that hath been left -- To take root beneath, And it hath made fruit upward. For from Jerusalem goeth forth a remnant, And an escape from mount Zion, The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts doth this. Therefore, thus said Jehovah, Concerning the king of Asshur: He doth not come in unto this city, Nor doth he shoot there an arrow, Nor doth he come before it `with' shield, Nor doth he pour out against it a mount. In the way that he came, in it he turneth back, And unto this city he doth not come in, An affirmation of Jehovah, And I have covered over this city, To save it, for Mine own sake, And for the sake of David My servant.' And a messenger of Jehovah goeth out, and smiteth in the camp of Asshur a hundred and eighty and five thousand; and `men' rise early in the morning, and lo, all of them `are' dead corpses. And journey, and go, and turn back doth Sennacherib king of Asshur, and dwelleth in Nineveh. And it cometh to pass, he is bowing himself in the house of Nisroch his god, and Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons have smitten him with the sword, and they have escaped to the land of Ararat, and Esar-Haddon his son reigneth in his stead.
Fill their faces `with' shame, And they seek Thy name, O Jehovah. They are ashamed and troubled for ever, Yea, they are confounded and lost.
They are ashamed and confounded together, Who are seeking my soul to destroy it, They are turned backward, And are ashamed, who are desiring my evil.
They are ashamed and confounded together, Who are rejoicing at my evil. They put on shame and confusion, Who are magnifying themselves against me.
There they have feared a fear, For God `is' in the generation of the righteous.
He who is sitting in the heavens doth laugh, The Lord doth mock at them.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 53
Commentary on Psalms 53 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Elohimic Variation of the Jahve - Psalms 14:1-7
Psalms 52:1-9 and Psalms 53:1-6, which are most closely related by occasion, contents, and expression, are separated by the insertion of Psalms 53:1-6, in which the individual character of Psalms 52:1-9, the description of moral corruption and the announcement of the divine curse, is generalized. Psalms 53:1-6 also belongs to this series according to its species of poetic composition; for the inscription runs: To the Precentor, after Machalath, a Maskı̂l of David . The formula על־מחלת recurs in Psalms 88:1 with the addition of לענּות . Since Ps 88 is the gloomiest of all the Psalms, and Psalms 53:1-6, although having a bright border, is still also a dark picture, the signification of מחלה , laxness (root חל , opp . מר ), sickness, sorrow, which is capable of being supported by Exodus 15:26, must be retained. על־מחלת signifies after a sad tone or manner ; whether it be that מחלת itself (with the ancient dialectic feminine termination, like נגינת , Psalms 61:1) is a name for such an elegiac kind of melody, or that it was thereby designed to indicate the initial word of some popular song. In the latter case מחלת is the construct form, the standard song beginning מחלת לב or some such way. The signification to be sweet (Aramaic) and melodious (Aethiopic), which the root חלי obtains in the dialects, is foreign to Hebrew. It is altogether inadmissible to combine מחלת with Arab. mahlt , ease, comfort (Germ. Gemächlichkeit , cf. mächlich , easily, slowly, with mählich , by degrees), as Hitzig does; since מחל , Rabbinic, to pardon, coincides more readily with מחה , Psalms 51:3, Psalms 51:11. So that we may regard machalath as equivalent to mesto , not piano or andante .
That the two texts, Psalms 14:1-7 and Psalms 53:1-6, are “vestiges of an original identity” (Hupfeld) is not established: Psalms 53:1-6 is a later variation of Psalms 14:1-7. The musical designation, common only to the earlier Psalms, at once dissuades one from coming down beyond the time of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah. Moreover, we have here a manifest instance that even Psalms which are composed upon the model of, or are variations of Davidic Psalms, were without any hesitation inscribed לדוד .
Beside the critical problem, all that remains here for the exegesis is merely the discussion of anything peculiar in the deviations in the form of the text.
The well-grounded asyndeton השׁהיתוּ התעיבוּ is here dismissed; and the expression is rendered more bombastic by the use of עול instead of עלילה . עול (the masculine to עולה ), pravitas , is the accusative of the object (cf. Ezekiel 16:52) to both verbs, which give it a twofold superlative attributive notion. Moreover, here השׁחיתו is accented with Mugrash in our printed texts instead of Tarcha . One Mugrash after another is contrary to all rule.
In both recensions of the Psalm the name of God occurs seven times. In Psalms 14:1-7 it reads three times Elohim and four times Jahve ; in the Psalm before us it is all seven times Elohim , which in this instance is a proper name of equal dignity with the name Jahve . Since the mingling of the two names in Psalms 14:1-7 is perfectly intentional, inasmuch as Elohim in Psalms 53:1, Psalms 53:2 describes God as a Being most highly exalted and to be reverentially acknowledged, and in Psalms 52:5 as the Being who is present among men in the righteous generation and who is mighty in their weakness, it becomes clear that David himself cannot be the author of this levelling change, which is carried out more rigidly than the Elohimic character of the Psalm really demands.
Instead of הכּל , the totality, we have כּלּו , which denotes each individual of the whole, to which the suffix, that has almost vanished (Psalms 29:9) from the genius of the language, refers. And instead of סר , the more elegant סג , without any distinction in the meaning.
Here in the first line the word כּל־ , which, as in Psalms 5:6; Psalms 6:9, is in its right place, is wanting. In Psalms 14:1-7 there then follow, instead of two tristichs, two distichs, which are perhaps each mutilated by the loss of a line. The writer who has retouched the Psalm has restored the tristichic symmetry that had been lost sight of, but he has adopted rather violent means: inasmuch as he has fused down the two distichs into a single tristich, which is as closely as possible adapted to the sound of their letters.
The last two lines of this tristich are in letters so similar to the two distichs of Psalms 14:1-7, that they look like an attempt at the restoration of some faded manuscript. Nevertheless, such a close following of the sound of the letters of the original, and such a changing of the same by means of an interchange of letters, is also to be found elsewhere (more especially in Jeremiah, and e.g., also in the relation of the Second Epistle of Peter to Jude). And the two lines sound so complete in themselves and full of life, that this way of accounting for their origin takes too low an estimate of them. A later poet, perhaps belonging to the time of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah, has here adapted the Davidic Psalm to some terrible catastrophe that has just taken place, and given a special character to the universal announcement of judgment. The addition of לא־היה פּחד (supply אשׁר = אשׁר שׁם , Psalms 84:4) is meant to imply that fear of judgment had seized upon the enemies of the people of God, when no fear, i.e., no outward ground for fear, existed; it was therefore חרדּת אלהים (1 Samuel 14:15), a God-wrought panic. Such as the case with the host of the confederates in the days of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:22-24); such also with the army of Sennacherib before Jerusalem (Isaiah 37:36). כּי gives the proof in support of this fright from the working of the divine power. The words are addressed to the people of God: Elohim hath scattered the bones (so that unburied they lie like dirt upon the plain a prey to wild beasts, Psalms 141:7; Ezekiel 6:5) of thy besieger , i.e., of him who had encamped against thee. חנך .eeht tsniaga instead of חנך = חנה עליך .
(Note: So it has been explained by Menachem; whereas Dunash wrongly takes the ך of חנך as part of the root, overlooking the fact that with the suffix it ought rather to have been חנך instead of חנך . It is true that within the province of the verb âch does occur as a pausal masculine suffix instead of écha , with the preterite (Deuteronomy 6:17; Isaiah 30:19; Isaiah 55:5, and even out of pause in Jeremiah 23:37), and with the infinitive (Deuteronomy 28:24; Ezekiel 28:15), but only in the passage before us with the participle. Attached to the participle this masculine suffix closely approximates to the Aramaic; with proper substantives there are no examples of it found in Hebrew. Simson ha-Nakdan, in his חבור הקונים (a MS in Leipzig University Library, fol. 29 b ), correctly observes that forms like שׁמך , עמּך , are not biblical Hebrew, but Aramaic, and are only found in the language of the Talmud, formed by a mingling of the Hebrew and Aramaic.)
By the might of his God, who has overthrown them, the enemies of His people, Israel has put them to shame, i.e., brought to nought in a way most shameful to them, the project of those who were so sure of victory, who imagined they could devour Israel as easily and comfortably as bread. It is clear that in this connection even Psalms 53:5 receives a reference to the foreign foes of Israel originally alien to the Psalm, so that consequently Micah 3:3 is no longer a parallel passage, but passages like Numbers 14:9, our bread are they (the inhabitants of Canaan); and Jeremiah 30:16, all they that devour thee shall be devoured .
The two texts now again coincide. Instead of ישׁוּעת , we here have ישׁעות ; the expression is strengthened, the plural signifies entire, full, and final salvation.