Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/112

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7-9==
The Anointed One himself now speaks and expresses what he is, and is able to do, by virtue of the divine decree. No transitional word or formula of introduction denotes this sudden transition from the speech of Jahve to that of His Christ. The psalmist is the seer: his Psalm is the mirrored picture of what he saw and the echo of what he heard. As Jahve in opposition to the rebels acknowledges the king upon Zion, so the king on Zion appeals to Him in opposition to the rebels. The name of God, יהוה, has Rebia magnum and, on account of the compass of the full intonation of this accent, a Gaja by the Shebâ (comp. אלהי Psa 25:2, אלהים Psa 68:8, אדני Psa 90:1).[1]
The construction of ספּר with אל (as Psa 69:27, comp. אמר Gen 20:2; Jer 27:19, דּבּר   2Ch 32:19, הודיע Isa 38:19): to narrate or make an announcement with respect to... is minute, and therefore solemn. Self-confident and fearless, he can and will oppose to those, who now renounce their allegiance to him, a חק, i.e., an authentic, inviolable appointment, which can neither be changed nor shaken. All the ancient versions, with the exception of the Syriac, read חק־יהוה together. The line of the strophe becomes thereby more symmetrical, but the expression loses in force. אל־חק rightly has Olewejored. It is the amplificative use of the noun when it is not more precisely determined, known in Arabic grammar: such a decree! majestic as to its author and its matter. Jahve has declared to Him: בּני אתּה,[2] and that on the definite day

  1. We may observe here, in general, that this Gaja (Metheg) which draws the Shebâ into the intonation is placed even beside words with the lesser distinctives Zinnor and Rebia parvum only by the Masorete Ben-Naphtali, not by Ben-Asher (both about 950 a.d.). This is a point which has not been observed throughout even in Baer's edition of the Psalter so that consequently e.g., in Psa 5:11 it is to be written אלהים; in Psa 6:2 on the other hand (with Dechî) יהוה, not יהוה.
  2. Even in pause here אתּה remains without a lengthened ā (Psalter ii. 468), but the word is become Milel, while out of pause, according to Ben-Asher, it is Milra; but even out of pause (as in Psa 89:10, Psa 89:12; Psa 90:2) it is accented on the penult. by Ben-Naphtali. The Athnach of the books תאם (Ps., Job, Prov.), corresponding to the Zakeph of the 21 other books, has only a half pausal power, and as a rule none at all where it follows Olewejored, cf. Psa 9:7; Psa 14:4; Psa 25:7; Psa 27:4; Psa 31:14; Psa 35:15, etc. (Baer, Thorath Emeth p. 37).