Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

38 I will pursue my enemies and destroy them, I will not turn till they are consumed. 39 I will consume them and dash them in pieces, that they may not arise, And may fall under my feet. 40 And Thou girdest me with strength for war, Thou bowest mine adversaries under me. 41 And Thou makest mine enemies turn the back to me; My haters, I root them out. The optative form ארדּפה serves to make the future signification of ארדּף (in the psalm) the more apparent. Consequently it is quite out of the question to take the other verbs as preterites. We are not compelled to do this by the interchange of imperfects c. vav consec. with simple imperfects, as the vav consec. is not used exclusively as expressive of the past. On the contrary, the substance of the whole of the following description shows very clearly that David refers not only to the victories he has already won, but in general to the defeat of all his foes in the past, the present, and the future; for he speaks as distinctly as possible not only of their entire destruction (Sa2 22:38, Sa2 22:39, Sa2 22:43), but also of the fact that God makes him the head of the nations, and distant and foreign nations to him homage. Consequently he refers not only to his own personal dominion, but also, on the strength of the promise which he had received from God, to the increase of the dominion of the throne of his house, whilst he proclaims in the Spirit the ultimate defeat of all the enemies of the kingdom of God. This Messianic element in the following description comes out in a way that cannot be mistaken, in the praise of the Lord with which he concludes in Sa2 22:47-51. ואשׁמידם, "I destroy them," is stronger than ואשּׂיגם, "I reach them" (in the psalm). In Sa2 22:39 the words are crowded together, to express the utter destruction of all foes. In the psalm ואכלּם is omitted. ותּזרני for ותּאזּרני in the psalm is not a poetical Syriasm, and still less a "careless solecism" (Hupfeld), but a simple contraction, such as we meet with in many forms: e.g., מלּפנוּ for מאלּפנוּ (Job 35:11; cf. Ewald, 232, b.). The form תּתּה for נתתּה (in the psalm) is unusual, and the aphaeresis of the נ can only be accounted for from the fact that this much-used word constantly drops its נ as a radical sound in the imperfect (see Ewald, 195, c.). The phrase ערף לּי תּתּה is formed after Exo 23:27. "Giving the enemy to a person's back" means causing them to turn the back, i.e., putting them to flight.