wickedness, mayst Thou find nothing more of it.” It is not without a meaning that, instead of the form of expression usual elsewhere (Psa 37:36; Job 20:8), the address to Jahve is retained: that which is no longer visible to the eye of God, not merely of man, has absolutely vanished out of existence. This absolute conquest of evil is to be as surely looked for, as that Jahve's universal kingship, which has been an element of the creed of God's people ever since the call and redemption of Israel (Exo 15:18), cannot remain without being perfectly and visibly realised. His absolute and eternal kingship must at length be realised, even in all the universality and endless duration foretold in Zec 14:9; Dan 7:14, Rev 11:15. Losing himself in the contemplation of this kingship, and beholding the kingdom of God, the kingdom of good, as realised, the psalmist's vision stretches beyond the foes of the church at home to its foes in general; and, inasmuch as the heathen in Israel and the heathen world outside of Israel are blended together into one to his mind, he comprehends them all in the collective name of גּוים, and sees the land of Jahve (Lev 25:23), the holy land, purified of all oppressors hostile to the church and its God. It is the same that is foretold by Isaiah (Isa 52:1), Nahum (Nah 2:1), and in other passages, which, by the anticipation of faith, here stands before the mind of the suppliant as an accomplished fact - viz. the consummation of the judgment, which has been celebrated in the hymnic half (Ps 9) of this double Psalm as a judgment already executed in part.
Verses 17-18
Still standing on this eminence from which he seems to behold the end, the poet basks in the realisation of that which has been obtained in answer to prayer. The ardent longing of the meek and lowly sufferers for the arising, the parusia of Jahve (Isa 26:8), has now been heard by Him, and that under circumstances which find expression in the following futt., which have a past signification: God has given and preserved to their hearts the right disposition towards Himself (הכין, as in Psa 78:8; Job 11:13, Sir. 2:17 ἑτοιμάζειν καρδίας, post-biblical כּוּן[1] and to be
- ↑ B. Berachoth 31a: the man who prays must direct his heart steadfastly towards God (יכוּן לבּו לשּׁמים).
