Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Epilogue of the divine discourse. Under the name שׁכחי אלוהּ are comprehended the decent or honourable whose sanctity relies upon outward works, and those who know better but give way to licentiousness; and they are warned of the final execution of the sentence which they have deserved. In dead works God delighteth not, but whoso offereth thanksgiving (viz., not shelamim-tôda, but the tôda of the heart), he praises Him (Note: In Vedic jag', old Bactrian jaz (whence jag'jas, the primitive word of ἅγιος), the notions of offering and of praising lie one within the other.) and שׂם דּרך. It is unnecessary with Luther, following the lxx, Vulgate, and Syriac versions, to read שׁם. The Talmudic remark אל תקרי ושׂם אלא ושׁם [do not read ושׂם, but ושׁם] assumes ושׂם to be the traditional reading. If we take שׂם דּרך as a thought complete in itself, - which is perfectly possible in a certain sense (vid., Isa 43:19), - then it is best explained according to the Vulgate (qui ordinat viam), with Bצttcher, Maurer, and Hupfeld: viam h. e. recta incedere (legel agere) parans; but the expression is inadequate to express this ethical sense (cf. Pro 4:26), and consequently is also without example. The lxx indicates the correct idea in the rendering καὶ ἐκεῖ ὁδὸς ᾗ δείξω αὐτῷ τὸ σωτήριον Θεοῦ. The ושׂם דוך (designedly not pointed דּרך), which standing entirely by itself has no definite meaning, receives its requisite supplement by means of the attributive clause that follows. Such an one prepares a way along which I will grant to him to see the salvation of Elohim, i.e., along which I will grant him a rapturous vision of the full reality of My salvation. The form יכבּדנני is without example elsewhere. It sounds like the likewise epenthetical יקראנני, Pro 1:28, cf. Pro 8:17, Hos 5:15, and may be understood as an imitation of it as regards sound. יכבּדנני (= יכבּדני) is in the writer's mind as the form out of pause (Ges. ֗58, 4). With Psa 50:23 the Psalm recurs to its central point and climax, Psa 50:14. What Jahve here discourses in a post-Sinaitic appearing, is the very same discourse concerning the worthlessness of dead works and concerning the true will of God that Jesus addresses to the assembled people when He enters upon His ministry. The cycle of the revelation of the Gospel is linked to the cycle of the revelation of the Law by the Sermon on the Mount; this is the point at which both cycles touch.