Psalms 58

Psalms 58. THE Psalmist describes his enemies in the first strophe, ver. 1- 5 as unrighteous, mischievous, utterly corrupt, hardened and seared, and in the second strophe first builds upon this their condition his prayer to the Lord, that he would overthrow them, ver. 6, then elevates himself, ver. 7-11, to the joyful hope, that this shall be done, to the joy of all the righteous, and to the glory of God. The Psalm is of similar character and contents to those of the preceding and following, which have respect to David’s relations in the Sauline period; already the תשהת אל of the superscription shews, that we must not separate it from them; the manner, in which the Psalmist here expresses him-self, entirely agrees with the expressions of David during the pe-riod in question, recorded in history; comp. for ex. 1 Samuel 26:10; 1 Samuel 24:13; characteristic in this point of view is the promi-nence giving to the speaking of lies, by the enemies, in ver. 3. Against the authorship of David, and in the time specified, andin favour of the hypothesis, that the Psalm contains “the com-plaint of a Jew over unrighteous judges,” whether foreign or domestic, at the time of the exile, stress has been laid on the circumstance of “unrighteous judges” being spoken of in ver. 1. As if David had not, during the Sauline period, been made to underlie an unrighteous judgment-as if even then his judges had not been his persecutors, and every thing had not been or-dered so, as to conceal the persecution behind the appearance of a righteous judgment. But that the unrighteous judges meant are not of the common stamp, appears from this, that they are spoken of as at the same time the personal enemies of the Psalmist, who persecute him for the purposes of their ownhatred, whereas it is a standing trait in regard to common un-righteous judges, that through bribery they pervert judgment, comp. for ex. Isaiah 5:23, and therefore are not impelled by hat-red, but by self-interest.

Psalms 58:1-5

To the Chief musician, destroy not, of David, a secret. Ver.1. Are ye then indeed dumb, that ye will not speak, what is righteous, and judge what is upright, ye children of men? Ver.2. Even in the heart ye commit iniquities, in the land your hands weigh out unrighteousness. Ver. 3. The wicked go astray from the mother’s lap, err from the mother’s womb the speakers of lies. Ver. 4. Poison have they like serpent’s poison, like a deaf adder he stops his ear. Ver. 5. Which hears not the voice of the char-mer, of the conjurer, who can conjure well. The Psalm begins with an address to the wicked, ver. 1 and 2, but he presently perceives, that he can make nothing of them, that they are per-fectly hardened, and deaf to all admonition, and so, in what follows, he speaks of them, and brings out this distinctive mark of their condition. The expression: Are ye then indeed, in ver. 1, points to the unheard of and incredible nature of the fact, that judges should be dumb in regard to righteous judgment-which is a contradiction, especially in respect to Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 1:17 - and admonishes, that they might still bethink themselves. אלם occurs only once besides, in Psalms 56. supers., and indeed in the sense of being dumb.

That this is here also to be retained, ap-pears from the mention of deafness, in ver. 4, 5: they are dumb when they should speak, deaf when they should hear, comp. Ps.38:14, where אלם and הרש likewise occur united.

The abstract stands emphatically in place of the adj. dumbness, for quite dumb. In the following words the sphere is indicated, in which the dumbness operates: that ye speak, etc., in reference to the speaking. מישרים, uprightness, which is never used ad-verbially, comp. on Psalms 17:2, is q. d. and upright judgment, comp. Ew. § 486. The first member is expounded by many: speak you actually dumb judgment. But the paraphrase of Stier: “Would ye (not at length, as always in duty bound) bring to utterance the (alas! long enough) dumb judgment,” shows what the Psalmist must have said, if he had wished to express this mean-ing. The not must then have been here, the indeed must have been awanting, as Gesen. would, for the sake of this interpreta-tion, thrust it out of the text.

The doubting question: speak ye then in reality dumb judgment, would imply that there was atleast the appearance of a return to the righteousness, that had been renounced, which, however, we cannot imagine. The ex-position of Maurer, who presses upon אלם the sig. of pactum, faedus, and the conjecture of Ewald, who would read אלים, your gods, are to be rejected on the ground alone of the corre-spondence here between dumbness and deafness in ver. 4 and 5.

The expression: Ye children of men, reminds the high ones of the earth of the higher, to whom they must give an account, and has therefore the import of a grounding to the call to righteous judgment: if the children of men are dumb when they should speak, God will then speak with them, comp. the Elohim in ver. 6 and and the contrast between Jehovah and the child-ren of men in 1 Samuel 26:19, as also the children of men, who oppose the Psalmist, and Elohim, who helps him, in Psalms 57:4. Arnd: “From this we see and learn that the persecuted Christ-ians have no audience and no help with worldly and spiritual jurisdictions when false doctrine is in vogue; though men should there declare and speak, still they are dumb; though the cause also be ever so good, yet no one will open his mouth, and lend. a good word in its behalf. Hence the Holy Spirit asks them, through the mouth of David, whether there is right, namely, in speaking against righteousness and truth.” In ver. 2 the posi-tive is added to the negative. אף is not a particle of grada-tion, but is used in its common sig. of also, comp. on Psalms 18:48; Psalms 44:9 : Ye omit what ye ought to do, also ye do what ye ought to omit. The opposite of the: in heart, consists, not of: in the land, but of: your hands. The expression: ye do wick-edness in the heart, instead of meditating evil in the heart, points here, as in Micah 2:1, to there being also actions of the heart, which God will bring into judgment. The words: ye weigh out the unrighteousness of your hands, contains an abbreviated comparison: instead of the righteousness, which, as the judges appointed by God, ye ought to weigh out, (comp. the mention of the balance of righteousness, in Job 31:6,) ye practise in-justice זרו in ver. 3 is pret. Kal. To “the wicked” we must supply: in the number of whom are my enemies.

What makes the human corruption so dreadful is the fact of its growing out of original sin, comp. on Psalms 51:6, and consequently it has its root in the inmost depths of the heart. Those, with whom na-ture is allowed free scope to develope itself, as it will, and. who shut out grace from access to their heart, must attain to a ripe-ness in sinning, which would be incredible if nature were origi-nally, and still predominantly good.

The opposite are not such as have been corrupt from their mother’s womb, such indeed as do not exist, but those in whom the corruption common to all has uninterruptedly developed itself, and those in whom the de-velopement has been hemmed in and broken through. That the inborn depravity is quite a general one, extending over the whole family of man, appears from Genesis 8:21, the confession of David himself in Psalms 51:6, and Job 14:4. Arnd: “The god-less are wayward from their mother’s womb, from their childhood upwards there is nothing good in them; the godly, although they also are conceived and born in sin, yet live in the new birth, in daily repentance.” In ver. 4 המת stands in stat. cons. before the preposition, on account of the close connection. The second half of verse 4 and verse 5 describes, by way of grada-tion, their poisonousness: the serpents, on whom the charmers can make no impression, (comp. on the charming of serpents my Egypt and Books of Moses, p. 97, ss.) are the most poisonous— instead of נהש there is here פתן. What the ineffectual charms are in reference to the excessively poisonous serpent, that are with the venomous and wicked man the prayers and entreaties of those, who suffer injury from him and his friends, as an exam-ple of which we have only to think of David’s representations to Saul, and Jonathan’s intercessions, both so persuasive, that their fruitlessness presents to our view the wickedness of Saul, which is a reflection of man’s generally, as a deep abyss. Not only, however, does the resemblance hold in regard to such prayers and entreaties, but also to the admonitions of the ser-vants of God, and last of all, to the reproofs and warnings, which God himself brings to bear on men through their con-science.

How powerfully these resounded in the dark soul of Saul, may be seen in the conviction often uttered by him, that David, upheld by God, would escape his persecutions and gain the day. But although his conscience called to him aloud, that his striving was wrong and to no purpose, the strength of wick-edness in him was so great, that he could not desist from it.

The subject יאטם is not the adder, (commonly: which stops its ear,) but the wicked. The stopping requires hands, and what is already deaf by nature has no need to stop. It is just by means of stopping, that the wicked make themselves like the deaf adder. Arnd: “As we see in the history of the holymartyr Stephen. When he made his confession before the ec-clesiastical council at Jerusalem, and said: ‘ Lo I see the hea-vens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,’ to the Jewish prelates that was so insufferable a testimony, that in order to retain their poison, they stopt their ears, and cried aloud.”

Psalms 58:6-11

There follows in ver. 6-11 the prayer and the confidence. Ver. 6. God, break their teeth in their mouth, the tusks of the young lions break in pieces, O Lord. Ver. 7. They shall dis-solve as waters, flow away: he takes aim with his arrows, as if they were cut in pieces. Ver. 8. As a snail which melts away, he vanishes, as an abortion they behold not the sun. Ver. 9. Before your pots feel the thorn, will he, raw or sodden, over- throw him. Ver. 10. The righteous will rejoice, because he sees vengeance, his steps bathe in the blood of the wicked. Ver. 11. And men will say: truly fruit hath the righteous, truly God judges in the earth. At the beginning of ver. 6 Elohim is used, because the Psalmist raises himself up from the children of men to God. On the expression: break their teeth, Arnd: “There is here de-scribed the great hatred and wrath of the enemies toward the church of God. They are as the hungry and ravenous lions. So vehement is their feeling toward us, that if God had permittedthem, they would have swallowed us up bodily.” מלתעות is ety-mologically the correct, but unusual form for מתלעות.�That the fut. in ver. 7, ss. are to be taken as expressive of hope and confidence, appears from the praetor. proph. הזו in ver. 8.� ימאסו from מאס, for מסס. The subject in יתהלכו is not the waters, but the wicked. This appears from למו an ironical dat. comm.; they shall have this thereby, that they flow away. ך`רד, to bend, for, to fit in a bent form.

The arrows are, as to the effect to be shot off, as if they were cut, deprived of their heads and blunt-ed. Such hope could spring up in David only from a living faith.

If he viewed the matter without this, the thought which pressed upon him must have been: “his arrows are sharp, theypierce the heart of the enemies of the king.”– תב ver. 8 is the 3d fem. of the abbreviated fut. of מסה=מסס. The sub-ject in ך`להי, is the wicked. Instead of: as the snail, which melts away, dissolves, he vanishes, many: as the snail which meltingly vanishes, properly, which walks dissolution. But שבלול can hardly be masc., there is no such noun as תבס, to walk dissolution is very hard, and so also is that which must besupplied by this rendering: they shall be. Before נפל we are not precisely to supply as, but it is to be explained: as (spirit-ual) abortion. The subject in הזו is not the singular נפל (many: beholds not the sun), but those, who are the subject both before and after, the wicked.

The preterite is to be ex- plained from the confidence of faith. The wicked are so far like an abortion, as they, like it, are hurried away by an untime-ly and violent death, do not see the sun.

Job 3:16 rests upon this passage. Job, the righteous there wishes for himself the fate of an abortion, which is here predicted of the wicked as a punishment; so God appears to exchange with each other the fates of the righteous and the wicked.-In ver. 9 the discourse at first addresses the ungodly, as in ver. 1 and 2, but soon it be-comes more placid again, and speaks of them: he will overthrow him, whereas from the commencement we would have expect-ed: you. On the words: before your pots feel the thorn, the Berleb Bible: “that is, before the fire thereof, which quick-ly burn and heat, has got fairly within, before the flesh in your pots has become warm or ready, that is, your plans shall at an early period be destroyed or executed.” כמו-כמו as well�\ הי and הרון, prop. glow, then glowing heat, refers to the con-tents of the pots, the flesh, which is boiled in them. As here in poetry, הי and הרון, so in 1 Sam. ii 15 are הי, living or raw, and מבשל, boiled. To the raw flesh correspond the unripe plans, to the sodden the ripe. The expression: be it raw, be it sodden or ready, is, q. d. without taking any account of this, whether ye have finished your cooking, and not good-humour-edly granting the necessary time for your executing your pro-jects against the righteous.

It means without any thing farther at once: away with you,-and however painful it will also be to you, to find all your preparations in vain, however hard to eat what you have boiled, God makes no account of it, as Saul must do before he carries his designs against David into execu-tion. The subject in ישערנו is the Lord, and the suffix refers to the wicked; this is evident from Job 27:21, referring to our passage: “The east wind carrieth him away, and he de-parteth, and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.” It is not the flesh-pot that is torn away from the wicked, but the wicked from his flesh-pot, his projects, on which the history of Saul de-livers the best commentary.

The other expositions are to be rejected. Against Luther’s: Before your thorns are ripe in thethorn-bush, besides many other grounds, it is decisive that thorns are always סירים, never סירות; excepting Amos 4:2, where it is used of an instrument like a thorn, it always signifies pots. Against the exposition: “before your pots perceive the thorn, as green as burning, they are pluct away,” it is to be objected, amongst other grounds, that הי is never used of green thorns, nor in any similar import.-On the expression: because he sees vengeance, in ver. 10, comp. 1 Samuel 24:12, where David says to Saul, “The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee; but my hand shall not be upon thee: How the vengeance should be an object of joy to the righteous, viz. because of the manifestation given in it of the judgment and righteousness of God, of the nourishment which his knowledge and fear of God draws from it, appears from ver. 11. On the second member, Arnd: “That he shall bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked, is not to be understood literally, as if the fearers of God must avenge themselves by the shedding of blood, or have pleasure therein; but so, that if they entreat vengeance of God, God wonderfully vindicates their cause. When Saul fell upon his sword, sore pressed by the Philistines, that was God’s vengeance, and David bathed his feet in the blood of the wicked, and incurred no guilt by Saul’s destruction. When Ahab was shot in the battle, so that his blood ran through the chariot, and the dogs licked it, that also was God’s vengeance, and the prophet Elias bathed his feet in the blood of the wicked.”- ך`א in ver. 11, stands as a particle of assurance: only, it is not otherwise, than so.

The plural in שפטים, springs with that in אלהים from one root, comp. on Psalms 11:6. The general name of God stands in opposition to אדם: men recognize God as judge, but at the same time also in contrast to the sons of men at the beginning, to which the close refers back: God exercises on earth the righteous judgment; which they with-hold.