From Forsaken Lament to Trust in the Lord’s Unfailing Love

Psa 13:5-6 (Heb. : 13:6) Three lines of joyous anticipation now follow the five of lament and four of prayer. By יאני he sets himself in opposition to his foes. The latter desire his death, but he trusts in the mercy of God, who will turn and terminate his affliction. בּטח בּ denotes faith as clinging fast to God, just as חסה בּ denotes it as confidence which hides itself in Him.

The voluntative יגל pre-supposes the sure realisation of the hope. The perfect in Psa 13:6 is to be properly understood thus: the celebration follows the fact that inspires him to song. גּמל על to do good to any one, as in Psa 116:7; Psa 119:17, cf. the radically cognate (על) גּמר Psa 57:3. With the two iambics gamal‛alaj the song sinks to rest. In the storm-tossed soul of the suppliant all has now become calm.

Though it rage without as much now as ever - peace reigns in the depth of his heart. Prayer for Protection against Wicked, Crafty Men The close of the preceding Psalm is the key to David’s position and mood in the presence of his enemies which find expression in this Psalm. He complains here of serpent-like, crafty, slanderous adversaries, who are preparing themselves for war against him, and with whom he will at length have to fight in open battle.

The Psalm, in its form more bold than beautiful, justifies its לדוד in so far as it is Davidic in thoughts and figures, and may be explained from the circumstances of the rebellion of Absalom, to which as an outbreak of Ephraimitish jealousy the rebellion of Sheba ben Bichri the Benjamite attached itself. Psa 58:1-11 and Psa 64:1-10 are very similar. The close of all three Psalms sounds much alike, they agree in the use of rare forms of expression, and their language becomes fearfully obscure in style and sound where they are directed against the enemies.

Just as the general lamentation of Psa 12:1-8 assumes a personal character in Psa 13:1-6, so in Psa 14:1-7 it becomes again general; and the personal desire יגל לבּי, Psa 13:5, so full of hope, corresponds to יגל יעקב, which is extended to the whole people of God in Psa 14:7. Moreover, Psa 14:1-7, as being a gloomy picture of the times in which the dawn of the divine day is discernible in the background, is more closely allied to Psa 12:1-8 than to Psa 13:1-6, although this latter is not inserted between them without some recognised reason.

In the reprobation of the moral and religious character of the men of the age, which Psa 14:1-7 has in common with Psa 12:1-8, we at once have a confirmation of the לדוד. But Psa 14:7 does not necessitate our coming down to the time of the Exile. In Psa 53:1-6 we find this Psalm which is Jehovic, occurring again as Elohimic. The position of Psa 14:1-7 in the primary collection favours the presumption, that it is the earlier and more original composition.

And since this presumption will bear the test of a critical comparison of the two Psalms, we may leave the treatment of Psa 53:1-6 to its proper place, without bringing it forward here. It is not as though Psa 14:1-7 were intact. It is marked out as seven three-line verses, but Psa 14:5 and Psa 14:6, which ought to be the fifth and sixth three lines, are only two; and the original form appears to be destroyed by some deficiency.

The difficulty is got over in Psa 53:1-6, by making the two two-line verses into one three-line verse, so that it consists only of six three-line verses. And in that Psalm the announcement of judgment is applied to foreign enemies, a circumstance which has influenced some critics and led them astray in the interpretation of Psa 14:1-7. Psa 14:1 The perfect אמר, as in Psa 1:1; Psa 10:3, is the so-called abstract present (Ges.

§126, 3), expressing a fact of universal experience, inferred from a number of single instances. The Old Testament language is unusually rich in epithets for the unwise. The simple, פּתי, and the silly, כּסיל, for the lowest branches of this scale; the fool, אויל, and the madman, הולל, the uppermost. In the middle comes the notion of the simpleton or maniac, נבל - a word from the verbal stem נבל which, according as that which forms the centre of the group of consonants lies either in נב ( Genesis S.

636), or in בל (comp. אבל, אול, אמל, קמל), signifies either to be extended, to relax, to become frail, to wither, or to be prominent, eminere , Arab. nabula ; so that consequently נבל means the relaxed, powerless, expressed in New Testament language: πνεῦμα οὐκ ἔχοντα. Thus Isaiah (Isa 32:6) describes the נבל: “a simpleton speaks simpleness and his heart does godless things, to practice tricks and to say foolish things against Jahve, to leave the soul of the hungry empty, and to refuse drink to the thirsty.

” Accordingly נבל is the synonym of לץ the scoffer (vid. , the definition in Pro 21:24). A free spirit of this class is reckoned according to the Scriptures among the empty, hollow, and devoid of mind. The thought, אין אלהים, which is the root of the thought and action of such a man, is the climax of imbecility. It is not merely practical atheism, that is intended by this maxim of the נבל.

The heart according to Scripture language is not only the seat of volition, but also of thought. The נבל is not content with acting as though there were no God, but directly denies that there is a God, i. e. , a personal God. The psalmist makes this prominent as the very extreme and depth of human depravity, that there can be among men those who deny the existence of a God.

The subject of what follows are, then, not these atheists but men in general, among whom such characters are to be found: they make the mode of action, (their) doings, corrupt, they make it abominable. עלילה, a poetical brevity of expression for עלילותם, belongs to both verbs, which have Tarcha and Mercha (the two usual conjunctives of Mugrash ) in correct texts; and is in fact not used as an adverbial accusative (Hengstenberg and others), but as an object, since השׁהית is just the word that is generally used in this combination with עלילה Zep 3:7 or, what is the same thing, דּרך Gen 6:12; and התעיב (cf.

1Ki 21:26) is only added to give a superlative intensity to the expression. The negative: “there is none that doeth good” is just as unrestricted as in Psa 12:2. But further on the psalmist distinguishes between a דור צדיק, which experiences this corruption in the form of persecution, and the corrupt mass of mankind. He means what he says of mankind as κόσμος, in which, at first the few rescued by grace from the mass of corruption are lost sight of by him, just as in the words of God, Gen 6:5, Gen 6:12.

Since it is only grace that frees any from the general corruption, it may also be said, that men are described just as they are by nature; although, be it admitted, it is not hereditary sin but actual sin, which springs up from it, and grows apace if grace do not interpose, that is here spoken of.

Psa 14:2 The second tristich appeals to the infallible decision of God Himself. The verb השׁקיף means to look forth, by bending one’s self forward. It is the proper word for looking out of a window, 2Ki 9:30 (cf. Niph . Jdg 5:28, and frequently), and for God’s looking down from heaven upon the earth, Psa 102:20, and frequently; and it is cognate and synonymous with השׁגּיח, Psa 33:13, Psa 33:14; cf.

moreover, Sol 2:9. The perf . is used in the sense of the perfect only insofar as the divine survey is antecedent to its result as given in Psa 14:3. Just as השׁהיתוּ reminds one of the history of the Flood, so does לראות of the history of the building of the tower of Babel, Gen 11:5, cf. Psa 18:21. God’s judgment rests upon a knowledge of the matter of fact, which is represented in such passages after the manner of men.

God’s all-seeing, all-piercing eyes scrutinise the whole human race. Is there one who shows discernment in thought and act, one to whom fellowship with God is the highest good, and consequently that after which he strives? - this is God’s question, and He delights in such persons, and certainly none such would escape His longing search. On את־אלהים, τὸν Θεόν, vid.

, Ges. §117, 2.

Psa 14:3 The third tristich bewails the condition in which He finds humanity. The universality of corruption is expressed in as strong terms as possible. הכּל they all (lit. , the totality); יחדּו with one another (lit. , in its or their unions, i. e. , universi ); אין גּם־אחד not a single one who might form an exception. סר (probably not 3 praet . but partic .

, which passes at once into the finite verb) signifies to depart, viz. , from the ways of God, therefore to fall away (ἀποστάτης). נאלח, as in Job 15:16, denotes the moral corruptness as a becoming sour, putrefaction, and suppuration. Instead of אין גּם־אחד, the lxx translates οὐκ ἔστιν ἕως ἑνός (as though it were עד־אחד, which is the more familiar form of expression).

Paul quotes the first three verses of this Psalm (Rom 3:10-12) in order to show how the assertion, that Jews and heathen all are included under sin, is in accordance with the teaching of Scripture. What the psalmist says, applies primarily to Israel, his immediate neighbours, but at the same time to the heathen, as is self-evident. What is lamented is neither the pseudo-Israelitish corruption in particular, nor that of the heathen, but the universal corruption of man which prevails not less in Israel than in the heathen world.

The citations of the apostle which follow his quotation of the Psalm, from τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος to ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν were early incorporated in the Psalm in the Κοινή of the lxx. They appear as an integral part of it in the Cod. Alex . , in the Greco-Latin Psalterium Vernonense , and in the Syriac Psalterium Mediolanense . They are also found in Apollinaris’ paraphrase of the Psalms as a later interpolation; the Cod.

Vat . has them in the margin; and the words σύντπιμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν have found admittance in the translation, which is more Rabbinical than Old Hebrew, מזּל רע וּפגע רע בּדרכיהם even in a Hebrew codex (Kennicott 649). Origen rightly excluded this apostolic Mosaic work of Old Testament testimonies from his text of the Psalm; and the true representation of the matter is to be found in Jerome, in the preface to the xvi.

book of his commentary on Isaiah.

Psa 14:4 Thus utterly cheerless is the issue of the divine scrutiny. It ought at least to have been different in Israel, the nation of the positive revelation. But even there wickedness prevails and makes God’s purpose of mercy of none effect. The divine outburst of indignation which the psalmist hears here, is applicable to the sinners in Israel. Also in Isa 3:13-15 the Judge of the world addresses Himself to the heads of Israel in particular.

This one feature of the Psalm before us is raised to the consistency of a special prophetic picture in the Psalm of Asaph, Psa 82:1-8. That which is here clothed in the form of a question, הלא ידעוּ, is reversed into an assertion in Psa 82:5 of that Psalm. It is not to be translated: will they not have to feel (which ought to be ידעוּ); but also not as Hupfeld renders it: have they not experienced.

“Not to know” is intended to be used as absolutely in the signification non sapere , and consequently insipientem esse , as it is in Psa 82:5; Psa 73:22; Psa 92:7; Isa 44:18, cf. 9, Isa 45:20, and frequently. The perfect is to be judged after the analogy of novisse (Ges. §126, 3), therefore it is to be rendered: have they attained to no knowledge, are they devoid of all knowledge, and therefore like the brutes, yea, according to Isa 1:2-3 even worse than the brutes, all the workers of iniquity?

The two clauses which follow are, logically at least, attributive clauses. The subordination of אכלוּ לחם to the participle as a circumstantial clause in the sense of כּאכל לחם is syntactically inadmissible; neither can אכלו לחם, with Hupfeld, be understood of a brutish and secure passing away of life; for, as Olshausen, rightly observes אכל לחם does not signify to feast and carouse, but simply to eat, take a meal.

Hengstenberg correctly translates it “who eating my people, eat bread,” i. e. , who think that they are not doing anything more sinful, - indeed rather what is justifiable, irreproachable and lawful to them, - than when they are eating bread; cf. the further carrying out of this thought in Mic 3:1-3 (especially Mic 3:3 extr . : “just as in the pot and as flesh within the caldron.

”). Instead of לא קראוּ ה Jeremiah says in Jer 10:21 (cf. however, Jer 10:25): לא דרשׁוּ ואת־ה. The meaning is like that in Hos 7:7. They do not pray as it becomes man who is endowed with mind, therefore they are like cattle, and act like beasts of prey.