Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

(Heb.: 18:44-46) Thus victorious in God, David became what he now is, viz., the ruler of a great kingdom firmly established both in home and foreign relations. With respect to the גּוים and the verb תּפלּטני which follows, ריבי עם can only be understood of the conflicts among his own people, in which David was involved by the persecution of Saul and the rebellions of Absolom and Sheba the son of Bichri; and from which Jahve delivered him, in order to preserve him for his calling of world-wide dominion in accordance with the promise. We therefore interpret the passage according to בּרית עם in Isa 49:8, and קנאת־עם in Isa 26:11; whereas the following עם comes to have a foreign application by reason of the attributive clause לא־ידעתּי (Ges. 123, 3). The Niph. נשׁמע in Psa 18:45 is the reflexive of שׁמע, to obey (e.g., Exo 24:7), and is therefore to be rendered: show themselves obedient (= Ithpa. in Dan 7:27). לשׁמע אזן implies more than that they obeyed at the word; שׁמע means information, rumour, and שׁמע אזן is the opposite of personal observation (Job 42:5), it is therefore to be rendered: they submitted even at the tidings of my victories; and Sa2 8:9. is an example of this. כּחשׁ to lie, disown, feign, and flatter, is sued here, as it is frequently, of the extorted humility which the vanquished show towards the conqueror. Psa 18:46 completes the picture of the reason of the sons of a foreign country "putting a good face on a bad game." They faded away, i.e., they became weak and faint-hearted (Exo 18:18), incapable of holding out against or breaking through any siege by David, and trembled, surrendering at discretion, out of their close places, i.e., out of their strongholds behind which they had shut themselves in (cf. Ps 142:8). The signification of being alarmed, which in this instance, being found in combination with a local מן, is confined to the sense of terrified flight, is secured to the verb חרג by the Arabic ḥarija (root ḥr, of audible pressure, crowding, and the like) to be pressed, crowded, tight, or narrow, to get in a strait, and the Targumic חרנּא דמותא = אימתא דמותא (vid., the Targums on Deu 32:25). Arab. ḥjl, to limp, halt, which is compared by Hitzig, is far removed as to the sound; and the most natural, but colourless Arab. chrj, to go out of (according to its radical meaning - cf. Arab. chrq, chr‛, etc. - : to break forth, erumpere), cannot be supported in Hebrew or Aramaic. The ירגּזוּ found in the borrowed passage in Micah, Mic 7:17, favours our rendering.