Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

(Heb.: 21:10-11) Hitherto the Psalm has moved uniformly in synonymous dipodia, now it becomes agitated; and one feels from its excitement that the foes of the king are also the people's foes. True as it is, as Hupfeld takes it, that לעת פּניך sounds like a direct address to Jahve, Psa 21:10 nevertheless as truly teaches us quite another rendering. The destructive effect, which in other passages is said to proceed from the face of Jahve, Psa 34:17; Lev 20:6; Lam 4:16 (cf. ἔχει θεὸς ἔκδικον ὄμμα), is here ascribed to the face, i.e., the personal appearing (Sa2 17:11) of the king. David's arrival did actually decide the fall of Rabbath Ammon, of whose inhabitants some died under instruments of torture and others were cast into brick-kilns, Sa2 12:26. The prospect here moulds itself according to this fate of the Ammonites. כּתנּוּר אשׁ is a second accusative to תּשׁיתנו, thou wilt make them like a furnace of fire, i.e., a burning furnace, so that like its contents they shall entirely consume by fire (synecdoche continentis pro contento). The figure is only hinted at, and is differently applied to what it is in Lam 5:10, Mal 4:1. Psa 21:10 and Psa 21:10 are intentionally two long rising and falling wave-like lines, to which succeed, in Psa 21:11, two short lines; the latter describe the peaceful gleaning after the fiery judgment of God that has been executed by the hand of David. פּרימו, as in Lam 2:20; Hos 9:16, is to be understood after the analogy of the expression פּרי הבּטן. It is the fate of the Amalekites (cf. Psa 9:6.), which is here predicted of the enemies of the king.