creates. רשׁע in close connection with גּוים is individualising, cf. Psa 9:18 with Psa 9:16, Psa 9:17. ועד is a sharpened pausal form for ועד, the Pathach going into a Segol (קטן פתח); perhaps it is in order to avoid the threefold a-sound in לעולם ועד (Nägelsbach §8 extr.). In Psa 9:7 האויב (with Azla legarme) appears to be a vocative. In that case נתשׁתּ ought also to be addressed to the enemy. But if it be interpreted: “Thou hast destroyed thine own cities, their memorial is perished,” destroyed, viz., at the challenge of Israel, then the thought is forced; and if we render it: “the cities, which thou hast destroyed, perished is the remembrance of them,” i.e., one no longer thinks of thine acts of conquest, then we have a thought that is in itself awkward and one that finds no support in any of the numerous parallels which speak of a blotting out and leaving no trace behind. But, moreover, in both these interpretations the fact that זכרם is strengthened by המּה is lost sight of, and the twofold masculine זכרם המּה is referred to ערים (which is carelessly done by most expositors), whereas עיר, with but few exceptions, is feminine; consequently זכרם המה, so far as this is not absolutely impossible, must be referred to the enemies themselves (cf. Psa 34:17; Psa 109:15). האויב might more readily be nom. absol.: “the enemy - it is at end for ever with his destructions,” but חרבּה never has an active but always only a neuter signification; or: “the enemy - ruins are finished for ever,” but the signification to be destroyed is more natural for תּמם than to be completed, when it is used of ruinae. Moreover, in connection with both these renderings the retrospective pronoun (חרבותיו) is wanting, and this is also the case with the reading חרבות (lxx, Vulg., Syr.), which leaves it uncertain whose swords are meant. But why may we not rather connect האויב at once with תּמּוּ as subject? In other instances תּמּוּ is also joined to a singular collective subject, e.g., Isa 16:4; here it precedes, like הארב in Jdg 20:37. חרבות לנצח is a nominative of the product, corresponding to the factitive object with verbs of making: the enemies are destroyed as ruins for ever, i.e., so that they are become ruins; or, more in accordance with the accentuation: the enemy, destroyed as ruins are they for ever. With respect to what follows the accentuation
