The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.Maclaren, Alexander
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Psalms, Vol. 2: Psalms XXXIX.-LXXXIX.
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
The single voice of praise will be caught up, the singer thinks, by a
great chorus of those who would have been struck dumb with confusion
if his prayer had not been answered (ver. 6), and who, in like
manner, are gladdened by seeing his deliverance. The grace bestowed
on one brings thanksgivings from many, which redound to the glory
of God. The sudden transition in ver. 32 _b_ to direct address to
the seekers after God, as if they stood beside the solitary singer,
gives vividness to the anticipation. The insertion of "behold" is
warranted, and tells what revives the beholders' hearts. The seekers
after God feel the pulse of a quicker life throbbing, when they
see the wonders wrought through prayer. The singer's thoughts go
beyond his own deliverance to that of Israel. "His captives" is most
naturally understood as referring to the exiled nation. And this
wider manifestation of God's restoring power will evoke praise from
a wider circle, even from heaven, earth, and sea. The circumstances
contemplated in vv. 33-36 are evidently those of a captivity.
God's people are in bondage, the cities of Judah are in ruins, the
inhabitants scattered far from their homes. The only reason for taking
the closing verses as being a liturgical addition is unwillingness to
admit exilic or post-exilic psalms. But these verses cannot be fairly
interpreted without recognising that they presuppose that Israel is
in bondage, or at least on the verge of it. The circumstances of
Jeremiah's life and times coincide closely with those of the psalmist.
PSALM LXX.[2]
1 _O God_, [be pleased] to deliver me,
Jehovah, hasten to my help.
2 Shamed and put to the blush be the seekers after my soul!
Turned back and dishonoured be they who delight in my calamity!
3 _Let them turn back_ by reason of their shame who say, Oho! Oho!
4 Joyful and glad in Thee be all who seek Thee!
_And "God_ be magnified" may they ever say who love Thy salvation!
5 But as for me, I am afflicted and needy;
_O God, hasten_ to me:
My help and my deliverer art Thou;
_Jehovah_, delay not.
This psalm is all but identical with the last verses of Psalm xl.
13-17. Some unimportant alterations have been made, principally in the
Divine names; but the principle on which they have been made is not
obvious. It is scarcely correct to say, with Delitzsch, that the psalm
"has been transformed, so as to become Elohistic"; for though it twice
replaces the name of Jehovah with that of God (vv. 1, 4), it makes the
converse change in ver. 5, last clause, by reading Jehovah instead of
"God," as in Psalm xl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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