Psalms 6

Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

Verse 1

(Heb.: 6:2-4) There is a chastisement which proceeds from God's love to the man as being pardoned and which is designed to purify or to prove him, and a chastisement which proceeds from God's wrath against the man as striving obstinately against, or as fallen away from, favour, and which satisfies divine justice. Psa 94:12; Psa 118:17; Pro 3:11. speak of this loving chastisement. The man who should decline it, would act against his own salvation. Accordingly David, like Jeremiah (Jer 10:24), does not pray for the removal of the chastisement but of the chastisement in wrath, or what is the same thing, of the judgment proceeding from wrath [Zorngericht]. בּאפּך and בּחמתך stand in the middle, between אל and the verbs, for the sake of emphasis. Hengstenberg indeed finds a different antithesis here. He says: "The contrast is not that of chastisement in love with chastisement in wrath, but that of loving rescue in contrast with chastisement, which always proceeds from the principle of wrath." If what is here meant is, that always when God chastens a man his wrath is the true and proper motive, it is an error, for the refutation of which one whole book of the Bible, viz., the Book of Job, has been written. For there the friends think that God is angry with Job; but we know from the prologue that, so far from being angry with him, he on the contrary glories in him. Here, in this Psalm, assuming David to be its author, and his adultery the occasion of it, it is certainly quite otherwise. The chastisement under which David is brought low, has God's wrath as its motive: it is punitive chastisement and remains such, so long as David remains fallen from favour. But if in sincere penitence he again struggles through to favour, then the punitive becomes a loving chastisement: God's relationship to him becomes an essentially different relationship. The evil, which is the result of his sin and as such indeed originates in the principle of wrath, becomes the means of discipline and purifying which love employs, and this it is that he here implores for himself. And thus Dante Alighieri (Note: Provided he is the author of I stte Salmi Penitenziali trasportati alla volgar poesia, vid., Dante Alighieri's Lyric poems, translated and annotated by Kannegiesser and Witte (1842) i. 203f., ii. 208f.) correctly and beautifully paraphrases the verse: Signor, non mi riprender con furore, E non voler correggermi con ira, Ma con dolcezza e con perfetto amore. In חנּני David prays God to let him experience His loving-kindness and tender mercy in place of the punishment He has a right to inflict; for anguish of soul has already reduced him to the extreme even of bodily sickness: he is withered up and weary. אמלל has Pathach, and consequently seems to be the 3 pers. Pul. as in Joe 1:10; Nah 1:4; but this cannot be according to the rules of grammar. It is an adjective, like רענן, שׁאנן, with the passive pointing. The formation אמלל (from אמל Arab. aml, with the primary meaning to stretch out lengthwise) is analogous to the IX and XI forms of the Arabic verb which serve especially to express colours and defects (Caspari 59). The two words אני אמלל have the double accent Mercha-Mahpach together, and according to the exact mode of writing (vid., Baer in my Psalter ii. 492) the Mahpach, (the sign resembling Mahpach or rather Jethib), ought to stand between the two words, since it at the same time represents the Makkeph. The principal tone of the united pair, therefore, lies on aani; and accordingly the adj. אמלל is shortened to אמלל (cf. אדמדּם, הפכפּך, מרמס, and the like) - a contraction which proves that אמלל is not treated as part. Pul. (= מאמלל), for its characteristic a4 is unchangeable. The prayer for healing is based upon the plea that his bones (Job 4:14; Isa 38:13) are affrighted. We have no German word exactly corresponding to this נבהל which (from the radical notion "to let go," cogn. בּלהּ) expresses a condition of outward overthrow and inward consternation, and is therefore the effect of fright which disconcerts one and of excitement that deprives one of self-control. (Note: We have translated Dr. Delitzsch's word erschrecht literally - the vexed of the Authorized Version seems hardly equal to the meaning.) His soul is still more shaken than his body. The affliction is therefore not a merely bodily ailment in which only a timorous man loses heart. God's love is hidden from him. God's wrath seems as though it would wear him completely away. It is an affliction beyond all other afflictions. Hence he enquires: And Thou, O Jahve, how long?! Instead of אתה it is written את, which the Ker says is to be read אתּה, while in three passages (Num 11:15; Deu 5:24; Eze 28:14) אתּ is admitted as masc.

Verse 4

(Heb.: 6:5-8) God has turned away from him, hence the prayer שׁוּבה, viz., אלי. The tone of שׁוּבה is on the ult., because it is assumed to be read שׁוּבה אדני. The ultima accentuation is intended to secure its distinct pronunciation to the final syllable of שׁובה, which is liable to be drowned and escape notice in connection with the coming together of the two aspirates (vid., on Psa 3:8). May God turn to him again, rescue (חלּץ from חלץ, which is transitive in Hebr. and Aram., to free, expedire, exuere, Arab. chalaṣa, to be pure, prop. to be loose, free) his soul, in which his affliction has taken deep root, from this affliction, and extend to him salvation on the ground of His mercy towards sinners. He founds this cry for help upon his yearning to be able still longer to praise God, - a happy employ, the possibility of which would be cut off from him if he should die. זכר, as frequently הזכּיר, is used of remembering one with reverence and honour; הודה (from ודה) has the dat. honoris after it. שׁאול, Psa 6:6, ἅδης (Rev 20:13), alternates with מות. Such is the name of the grave, the yawning abyss, into which everything mortal descends (from שׁאל = שׁוּל Arab. sâl, to be loose, relaxed, to hang down, sink down: a sinking in, that which is sunken in, (Note: The form corresponds to the Arabic form fi‛âlun, which, though originally a verbal abstract, has carried over the passive meaning into the province of the concrete, e.g., kitâb = maktûb and ilâh, אלוהּ = ma‛lûh = ma‛bûd (the feared, revered One).) a depth). The writers of the Psalms all (which is no small objection against Maccabean Psalms) know only of one single gathering-place of the dead in the depth of the earth, where they indeed live, but it is only a quasi life, because they are secluded from the light of this world and, what is the most lamentable, from the light of God's presence. Hence the Christian can only join in the prayer of v. 6 of this Psalm and similar passages (Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13; Psa 115:17; Isa 38:18.) so far as he transfers the notion of hades to that of gehenna. (Note: An adumbration of this relationship of Christianity to the religion of the Old Testament is the relationship of Islam to the religion of the Arab wandering tribes, which is called the "religion of Abraham" (Din Ibrâhim), and knows no life after death; while Islam has taken from the later Judaism and from Christianity the hope of a resurrection and heavenly blessedness.) In hell there is really no remembrance and no praising of God. David's fear of death as something in itself unhappy, is also, according to its ultimate ground, nothing but the fear of an unhappy death. In these "pains of hell" he is wearied with (בּ as in Psa 69:4) groaning, and bedews his couch every night with a river of tears. Just as the Hiph. השׂחה signifies to cause to swim from שׂחה to swim, so the Hiph. המסה signifies to dissolve, cause to melt, from מסה (cogn. מסס) to melt. דּמעה, in Arabic a nom. unit. a tear, is in Hebrew a flood of tears. In Psa 6:8 עיני does not signify my "appearance" (Num 11:7), but, as becomes clear from Psa 31:10; Psa 88:10, Job 17:7, "my eye;" the eye reflects the whole state of a man's health. The verb עשׁשׁ appears to be a denominative from עשׁ: to be moth-eaten. (Note: Reuchlin in his grammatical analysis of the seven Penitential Psalms, which he published in 1512 after his Ll. III de Rudimentis Hebraicis (1506), explains it thus: עשׁשׁה Verminavit. Sic a vermibus dictum qui turbant res claras puras et nitidas, and in the Rudim. p. 412: Turbatus est a furore oculus meus, corrosus et obfuscatus, quasi vitro laternae obductus.) The signification senescere for the verb עתק is more certain. The closing words בּכל־צוררי (cf. Num 10:9 הצּר הצּרר the oppressing oppressor, from the root צר Arab. tsr, to press, squeeze, and especially to bind together, constringere, coartare (Note: In Arabic ציר dir is the word for a step-mother as the oppressor of the step-children; and צרר dirr, a concubine as the oppressor of her rival.)), in which the writer indicates, partially at least, the cause of his grief (כּעס, in Job 18:7 כּעשׁ), are as it were the socket into which the following strophe is inserted.

Verse 8

(Heb.: 6:9-11) Even before his plaintive prayer is ended the divine light and comfort come quickly into his heart, as Frisch says in his "Neuklingende Harfe Davids." His enemies mock him as one forsaken of God, but even in the face of his enemies he becomes conscious that this is not his condition. Thrice in Psa 6:9, Psa 6:10 his confidence that God will answer him flashes forth: He hears his loud sobbing, the voice of his weeping that rises towards heaven, He hears his supplication, and He graciously accepts his prayer. The twofold שׁמע expresses the fact and יקח its consequence. That which he seems to have to suffer, shall in reality be the lot of his enemies, viz., the end of those who are rejected of God: they shall be put to shame. The בּושׁ, Syr. behet, Chald. בּהת, בּהת, which we meet with here for the first time, is not connected with the Arab. bht, but (since the Old Arabic as a rule has t` as a mediating vowel between ש and t, )ת with Arab. bât, which signifies "to turn up and scatter about things that lie together (either beside or upon each other)" eruere et diruere, disturbare, - a root which also appears in the reduplicated form Arab. bṯṯ: to root up and disperse, whence Arab. battun, sorrow and anxiety, according to which therefore בּושׁ (= בּושׁ as Arab. bâta = bawata) prop. signifies disturbare, to be perplexed, lose one's self-control, and denotes shame according to a similar, but somewhat differently applied conception to confundi, συγχεῖσθαι, συγχύνεσθαι. ויבּהלוּ points back to Psa 6:2, Psa 6:3 : the lot at which the malicious have rejoiced, shall come upon themselves. As is implied in יבשׁוּ ישׁבוּ, a higher power turns back the assailants filled with shame (Psa 9:4; Psa 35:4). What an impressive finish we have here in these three Milels, jashûbu jebôshu rāga), in relation to the tripping measure of the preceding words addressed to his enemies! And, if not intentional, yet how remarkable is the coincidence, that shame follows the involuntary reverse of the foes, and that יבשׁו in its letters and sound is the reverse of ישׁבו! What music there is in the Psalter! If composers could but understand it!!