6 Come in, we bow ourselves, and we bend, We kneel before Jehovah our Maker.
Know that Jehovah He `is' God, He made us, and we are His, His people -- and the flock of His pasture.
And Daniel, when he hath known that the writing is signed, hath gone up to his house, and the window being opened for him, in his upper chamber, over-against Jerusalem, three times in a day he is kneeling on his knees, and praying, and confessing before his God, because that he was doing `it' before this.
for Solomon hath made a scaffold of brass, and putteth it in the midst of the court, five cubits its length, and five cubits its breadth, and three cubits its height, and he standeth upon it, and kneeleth on his knees over-against all the assembly of Israel, and spreadeth forth his hands towards the heavens --
that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow -- of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth --
Thou dost not bow thyself to them, nor serve them: for I, Jehovah thy God, `am' a zealous God, charging iniquity of fathers on sons, on the third `generation', and on the fourth, of those hating Me,
Israel doth rejoice in his Maker, Sons of Zion do joy in their king.
Come, we sing to Jehovah, We shout to the rock of our salvation.
And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and he who is hearing -- let him say, Come; and he who is thirsting -- let him come; and he who is willing -- let him take the water of life freely.
And I, John, am he who is seeing these things and hearing, and when I heard and beheld, I fell down to bow before the feet of the messenger who is shewing me these things;
for ye were bought with a price; glorify, then, God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
but when it came that we completed the days, having gone forth, we went on, all bringing us on the way, with women and children, unto the outside of the city, and having bowed the knees upon the shore, we prayed,
And it cometh to pass, at Solomon's finishing to pray unto Jehovah all this prayer and supplication, he hath risen from before the altar of Jehovah, from bending on his knees, and his hands spread out to the heavens,
and having bowed the knees, he cried with a loud voice, `Lord, mayest thou not lay to them this sin;' and this having said, he fell asleep.
And he was withdrawn from them, as it were a stone's cast, and having fallen on the knees he was praying,
And having gone forward a little, he fell upon the earth, and was praying, that, if it be possible the hour may pass from him,
and having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he did hunger.
And forget doth Israel his Maker, and buildeth temples, And Judah hath multiplied cities of defence, And I have sent a fire into his cities, And it hath consumed their palaces!
For thy Maker `is' thy husband, Jehovah of Hosts `is' His name, And thy Redeemer `is' the Holy One of Israel, `God of all the earth,' He is called.
In that day doth man look to His Maker, Yea, his eyes to the Holy One of Israel look,
Before him bow do the inhabitants of the dry places, And his enemies lick the dust.
And none said, `Where `is' God my maker? Giving songs in the night,
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 95
Commentary on Psalms 95 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Jahve is called the Rock of our salvation (as in Psalms 89:27, cf. Psalms 94:22) as being its firm and sure ground. Visiting the house of God, one comes before God's face; קדּם פּני , praeoccupare faciem , is equivalent to visere ( visitare ). תּודה is not confessio peccati , but laudis . The Beth before תודה is the Beth of accompaniment, as in Micah 6:6; that before זמרות (according to 2 Samuel 23:1 a name for psalms, whilst מזמר can only be used as a technical expression) is the Beth of the medium.
The adorableness of God receives a threefold confirmation: He is exalted above all gods as King, above all things as Creator, and above His people as Shepherd and Leader. אלהים (gods) here, as in Psalms 96:4., Psalms 97:7, Psalms 97:9, and frequently, are the powers of the natural world and of the world of men, which the Gentiles deify and call kings (as Moloch Molech, the deified fire), which, however, all stand under the lordship of Jahve, who is infinitely exalted above everything that is otherwise called god (Psalms 96:4; Psalms 97:9). The supposition that תּועפות הרים denotes the pit-works ( μέταλλα ) of the mountains (Böttcher), is at once improbable, because to all appearance it is intended to be the antithesis to מחקרי־ארץ , the shafts of the earth. The derivation from ועף ( יעף ), κάμνειν, κοπιᾶν , also does not suit תועפות in Numbers 23:22; Numbers 24:8, for “fatigues” and “indefatigableness” are notions that lie very wide apart. The כּסף תּועפות of Job 22:25 might more readily be explained according to this “silver of fatigues,” i.e., silver that the fatiguing labour of mining brings to light, and תועפות הרים in the passage before us, with Gussetius, Geier, and Hengstenberg: cacumina montium quia defatigantur qui eo ascendunt , prop. ascendings = summits of the mountains, after which כסף תועפות , Job 22:25, might also signify “silver of the mountain-heights.” But the lxx, which renders δόξα in the passages in Numbers and τὰ ὕψη τῶν ὀρέων in the passage before us, leads one to a more correct track. The verb יעף ( ועף ), transposed from יפע ( ופע ), goes back to the root יף , וף , to stand forth, tower above, to be high, according to which תועפות = תופעות signifies eminentiae , i.e., towerings = summits, or prominences = high (the highest) perfection (vid., on Job 22:25). In the passage before us it is a synonym of the Arabic mı̂fan , mı̂fâtun , pars terrae eminens (from Arab. wfâ = יפע , prop. instrumentally: a means of rising above, viz., by climbing), and of the names of eminences derived from Arab. yf' (after which Hitzig renders: the teeth of the mountains). By reason of the fact that Jahve is the Owner (cf. 1 Samuel 2:8), because the Creator of all things, the call to worship, which concerns no one so nearly as it does Israel, the people, which before other peoples is Jahve's creation, viz., the creation of His miraculously mighty grace, is repeated. In the call or invitation, השׁתּחוה signifies to stretch one's self out full length upon the ground, the proper attitude of adoration; כּרע , to curtsey, to totter; and בּרך , Arabic baraka , starting from the radical signification flectere , to kneel down, in genua ( πρόχνυ , pronum = procnum ) procumbere , 2 Chronicles 6:13 (cf. Hölemann, Bibelstudien , i. 135f.). Beside עם מרעיתו , people of His pasture, צאן ידו is not the flock formed by His creating hand (Augustine: ipse gratiâ suâ nos oves fecit ), but, after Genesis 30:35, the flock under His protection, the flock led and defended by His skilful, powerful hand. Böttcher renders: flock of His charge; but יד in this sense (Jeremiah 6:3) signifies only a place, and “flock of His place” would be poetry and prose in one figure.
The second decastich begins in the midst of the Masoretic Psalms 95:7. Up to this point the church stirs itself up to a worshipping appearing before its God; now the voice of God (Hebrews 4:7), earnestly admonishing, meets it, resounding from out of the sanctuary. Since שׁמע בּ signifies not merely to hear, but to hear obediently, Psalms 95:7 cannot be a conditioning protasis to what follows. Hengstenberg wishes to supply the apodosis: “then will He bless you, His people;” but אם in other instances too (Psalms 81:9; Psalms 139:19; Proverbs 24:11), like לוּ , has an optative signification, which it certainly has gained by a suppression of a promissory apodosis, but yet without the genius of the language having any such in mind in every instance. The word היּום placed first gives prominence to the present, in which this call to obedience goes forth, as a decisive turning-point. The divine voice warningly calls to mind the self-hardening of Israel, which came to light at Merîbah, on the day of Massah. What is referred to, as also in Psalms 81:8, is the tempting of God in the second year of the Exodus on account of the failing of water in the neighbourhood of Horeb, at the place which is for this reason called Massah u - Merı̂bah (Exodus 17:1-7); from which is to be distinguished the tempting of God in the fortieth year of the Exodus at Merı̂bah , viz., at the waters of contention near Kadesh (written fully Mê - Merı̂bah Kadesh , or more briefly Mê - Merı̂bah ), Numbers 20:2-13 (cf. on Psalms 78:20). Strictly כמריבה signifies nothing but instar Meribae , as in Psalms 83:10 instar Midianitarum ; but according to the sense, כּ is equivalent to כּעל . Psalms 106:32, just as כּיום is equivalent to כּביום . On אשׁר , quum , cf. Deuteronomy 11:6. The meaning of גּם־ראוּ פעלי is not they also ( גם as in Psalms 52:7) saw His work; for the reference to the giving of water out of the rock would give a thought that is devoid of purpose here, and the assertion is too indefinite for it to be understood of the judgment upon those who tempted God (Hupfeld and Hitzig). It is therefore rather to be rendered: notwithstanding (ho'moos, Ew. §354, a ) they had (= although they had, cf. גם in Isaiah 49:15) seen His work (His wondrous guiding and governing), and might therefore be sure that He would not suffer them to be destroyed. The verb קוּט coincides with κοτέω, κότος . בּדּור .ען , for which the lxx has τῇ γενεᾷ ἐκείνη , is anarthrous in order that the notion may be conceived of more qualitatively than relatively: with a (whole) generation. With ואמר Jahve calls to mind the repeated declarations of His vexation concerning their heart, which was always inclined towards error which leads to destruction - declarations, however, which bore no fruit. Just this ineffectiveness of His indignation had as its result that ( אשׁר , not ὅτι but ὥστε , as in Genesis 13:16; Deuteronomy 28:27, Deuteronomy 28:51; 2 Kings 9:37, and frequently) He sware, etc. ( אם = verily not, Gesen. §155, 2, f , with the emphatic future form in ûn which follows). It is the oath in Numbers 14:27. that is meant. The older generation died in the desert, and therefore lost the entering into the rest of God, by reason of their disobedience. If now, many centuries after Moses, they are invited in the Davidic Psalter to submissive adoration of Jahve, with the significant call: “To-day if ye will hearken to His voice!” and with a reference to the warning example of the fathers, the obedience of faith, now as formerly, has therefore to look forward to the gracious reward of entering into God's rest, which the disobedient at that time lost; and the taking possession of Canaan was, therefore, not as yet the final מנוּחה (Deuteronomy 12:9). This is the connection of the wider train of thought which to the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews Hebrews 3:1, Hebrews 4:1, follows from this text of the Psalm.