Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

(Heb.: 22:28-32)The long line closing strophe, which forms as it were the pedestal to the whole, shows how far not only the description of the affliction of him who is speaking here, but also the description of the results of his rescue, transcend the historical reality of David's experience. The sufferer expects, as the fruit of the proclamation of that which Jahve has done for him, the conversion of all peoples. The heathen have become forgetful and will again recollect themselves; the object, in itself clear enough in Psa 9:18, becomes clear from what follows: there is a γνῶσις τοῦ θεοῦ (Psychol. S. 346ff.; tr. pp. 407ff.) among the heathen, which the announcement of the rescue of this afflicted one will bring back to their consciousness. (Note: Augustin De trinitate xiv. 13, Non igitur sic erant oblitae istae gentes Deum, ut ejus nec commemoratae recordarentur.) This prospect (Jer 16:19.) is, in Psa 22:29 (cf. Jer 10:7), based upon Jahve's right of kingship over all peoples. A ruler is called משׁל as being exalted above others by virtue of his office (משׁל according to its primary meaning = Arab. mṯl, erectum stare, synonymous with כּחן, vid., on Psa 110:4, cf. עמד Mic 5:3). In וּמשׁל we have the part., used like the 3 praet., without any mark of the person (cf. Psa 7:10; Psa 55:20), to express the pure praes., and, so to speak, as tempus durans: He rules among the nations (ἔθνη). The conversion of the heathen by that sermon will, therefore, be the realisation of the kingdom of God. Psa 22:29 The eating is here again brought to mind. The perfect, אכלוּ, and the future of sequence, ויּשׁתּחווּ, stand to one another in the relation of cause and effect. It is, as is clear from Psa 22:27, an eating that satisfies the soul, a spiritual meal, that is intended, and in fact, one that is brought about by the mighty act of rescue God has wrought. At the close of Ps 69, where the form of the ritual thank-offering is straightway ignored, ראוּ (Psa 22:23) takes the place of the אכלוּ. There it is the view of one who is rescued and who thankfully glorifies God, which leads to others sharing with him in the enjoyment of the salvation he has experienced; here it is an actual enjoyment of it, the joy, springing from thankfulness, manifesting itself not merely in words but in a thank-offering feast, at which, in Israel, those who long for salvation are the invited guests, for with them it is an acknowledgment of the mighty act of a God whom they already know; but among the heathen, men of the most diversified conditions, the richest and the poorest, for to them it is a favour unexpectedly brought to them, and which is all the more gratefully embraced by them on that account. So magnificent shall be the feast, that all דּשׁני־ארץ, i.e., those who stand out prominently before the world and before their own countrymen by reason of the abundance of their temporal possessions (compare on the ascensive use of ארץ, Psa 75:9; Psa 76:10; Isa 23:9), choose it before this abundance, in which they might revel, and, on account of the grace and glory which the celebration includes within itself, they bow down and worship. In antithesis to the "fat ones of the earth" stand those who go down to the dust (עפר, always used in this formula of the dust of the grave, like the Arabic turâb) by reason of poverty and care. In the place of the participle יורדי we now have with ונפשׁו (= ואשׁר נפשׁו) a clause with ולא, which has the value of a relative clause (as in Psalms 49:21; Psa 78:39, Pro 9:13, and frequently): and they who have not heretofore prolonged and could not prolong their life (Ges. 123, 3, c). By comparing Phi 2:10 Hupfeld understands it to be those who are actually dead; so that it would mean, His kingdom extends to the living and the dead, to this world and the nether world. But any idea of a thankful adoration of God on the part of the dwellers in Hades is alien to the Old Testament; and there is nothing to force us to it here, since יורד עפר, can just as well mean descensuri as qui descenderunt, and נפשׁו dna ,tnuredne חיּה (also in Eze 18:27) means to preserve his own life, - a phrase which can be used in the sense of vitam sustentare and of conservare with equal propriety. It is, therefore, those who are almost dead already with care and want, these also (and how thankfully do these very ones) go down upon their knees, because they are accounted worthy to be guests at this table. It is the same great feast, of which Isaiah, Isa 25:6, prophesies, and which he there accompanies with the music of his words. And the result of this evangel of the mighty act of rescue is not only of boundless universality, but also of unlimited duration: it propagates itself from one generation to another. Formerly we interpreted Psa 22:31 "a seed, which shall serve Him, shall be reckoned to the Lord for a generation;" taking יספּר as a metaphor applying to the census, Ch2 2:16, cf. Psa 87:6, and לדּור, according to Psa 24:6 and other passages, as used of a totality of one kind, as זרע of the whole body of those of the same race. But the connection makes it more natural to take דור in a genealogical sense; and, moreover, with the former interpretation it ought to have been לדּור instead of לדּור. We must therefore retain the customary interpretation: "a seed (posterity) shall serve Him, it shall be told concerning the Lord to the generation (to come)." Decisive in favour of this interpretation is לדּור with the following יבאוּ, by which דור acquires the meaning of the future generation, exactly as in Psa 71:18, inasmuch as it at once becomes clear, that three generations are distinctly mentioned, viz., that of the fathers who turn unto Jahve, Psa 22:30, that of the coming דור, Psa 22:31, and עם נולד, to whom the news of the salvation is propagated by this דור, Psa 22:31 : "They shall come (בּוא as in Psa 71:18 : to come into being), and shall declare His righteousness to the people that shall be born, that He hath finished." Accordingly זרע is the principal notion, which divides itself into (יבאו) דור and עם נולד; from which it is at once clear, why the expression could be thus general, "a posterity," inasmuch as it is defined by what follows. עם נולד is the people which shall be born, or whose birth is near at hand (Psa 78:6); the lxx well renders it: λαῷ τῷ τεχθησομένῳ (cf. Psa 102:19 עם נברא populus creandus). צדקתו is the dikaiosu'nee of God, which has become manifest in the rescue of the great sufferer. That He did not suffer him to come down to the very border of death without snatching him out of the way of his murderous foes and raising him to a still greater glory, this was divine צדקה. That He did not snatch him out of the way of his murderous foes without suffering him to be on the point of death - even this wrathful phase of the divine צדקה, is indicated in Psa 22:16, but then only very remotely. For the fact, that the Servant of God, before spreading the feast accompanying the shelamim (thank-offering) in which He makes the whole world participants in the fruit of His suffering, offered Himself as an asham (sin-offering), does not become a subject of prophetic revelation until later on, and then under other typical relationships. The nature of the עשׂה, which is in accordance with the determinate counsel of God, is only gradually disclosed in the Old Testament. This one word, so full of meaning (as in Ps 52:11; Psa 37:5; Isa 44:23), implying the carrying through of the work of redemption, which is prefigured in David, comprehends everything within itself. It may be compared to the לעשׂות, Gen 2:3, at the close of the history of the creation. It is the last word of the Psalm, just as τετέλεσται is the last word of the Crucified One. The substance of the gospel in its preparatory history and its fulfilment, of the declaration concerning God which passes from generation to generation, is this, that God has accomplished what He planned when He anointed the son of Jesse and the Son of David as mediator in His work of redemption; that He accomplished it by leading the former through affliction to the throne, and making the cross to the latter a ladder leading up to heaven.