of Job), which clear them out of the way. It is with them as with a dream, after (מן as in 1Ch 8:8) one is awoke. One forgets the vision on account of its nothingness (Job 20:8). So the evil-doers who boast themselves μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας (Act 25:23) are before God a צלם, a phantom or unsubstantial shadow. When He, the sovereign Lord, shall awake, i.e., arouse Himself to judgment after He has looked on with forbearance, then He will despise their shadowy image, will cast it contemptuously from Him. Luther renders, So machstu Herr jr Bilde in der Stad verschmecht (So dost Thou, Lord, make their image despised in the city). But neither has the Kal בּזה this double transitive signification, “to give over to contempt,” nor is the mention of the city in place here. In Hos 11:9 also בּעיר in the signification in urbem gives no right sense; it signifies heat of anger or fury, as in Jer 15:8, heat of anguish, and Schröder maintains the former signification (vid., on Psa 139:20), in fervore (irae), here also; but the pointing בּעיר is against it. Therefore בּעיר is to be regarded, with the Targum, as syncopated from בּהעיר (cf. לביא, Jer 39:7; 2Ch 31:10; בּכּשׁלו, Pro 24:17, and the like); not, however, to be explained, “when they awake,” viz., from the sleep of death (Targum),[1] or after Psa 78:38, “when Thou awakest them,” viz., out of their sleep of security (De Wette, Kurtz), but after Psa 35:23, “when Thou awakest,” viz., to sit in judgment.
Thus far we have the divine answer, which is reproduced by the poet after the manner of prayer. Hengstenberg now goes on by rendering it, “for my heart was incensed;” but we cannot take יתחמּץ according to the sequence of tenses as an imperfect, nor understand כּי as a particle expression the reason. On the contrary, the poet, from the standpoint of the explanation he has received, speaks of a possible return (כּי seq. fut. = ἐάν) of his temptation, and condemns it beforehand: si exacerbaretur animus meus atque in renibus meis pungerer. התחמּץ,
- ↑ The Targum version is, “As the dream of a drunken man, who awakes out of his sleep, wilt Thou, O Lord, on the day of the great judgment, when they awake out of their graves, in wrath abandon their image to contempt.” The text of our editions is to be thus corrected according to Bechai (on Deu 33:29) and Nachmani (in his treatise שׁער הגמול).
