captives. שׁוּב has here, - as in Psa 126:4; Psa 2:3 (followed by את), cf. Eze 47:7, the Kal being preferred to the Hiph. השׁיב (Jer 32:44; Jer 33:11) in favour of the alliteration with שׁבוּת (from שׁבה to make any one a prisoner of war), - a transitive signification, which Hengstenberg (who interprets it: to turn back, to turn to the captivity, of God's merciful visitation), vainly hesitates to admit. But Isa 66:6, for instance, shows that the exiles also never looked for redemption anywhere but from Zion. Not as though they had thought, that Jahve still dwelt among the ruins of His habitation, which indeed on the contrary was become a ruin because He had forsaken it (as we read in Ezekiel); but the moment of His return to His people is also the moment when He entered again upon the occupation of His sanctuary, and His sanctuary, again appropriated by Jahve even before it was actually reared, is the spot whence issues the kindling of the divine judgment on the enemies of Israel, as well as the spot whence issues the brightness of the reverse side of this judgment, viz., the final deliverance, hence even during the Exile, Jerusalem is the point (the kibla) whither the eye of the praying captive was directed, Dan 6:11. There would therefore be nothing strange if a psalm-writer belonging to the Exile should express his longing for deliverance in these words: who gives = oh that one would give = oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! But since שׁוב שׁבות also signifies metaphorically to turn misfortune, as in Job 42:10; Eze 16:53 (perhaps also in Psa 85:2, cf. Psa 14:5), inasmuch as the idea of שׁבוּת has been generalised exactly like the German “Elend,” exile (Old High German elilenti = sojourn in another country, banishment, homelessness), therefore the inscribed לדוד cannot be called in question from this quarter. Even Hitzig renders: “if Jahve would but turn the misfortune of His people,” regarding this Psalm as composed by Jeremiah during the time the Scythians were in the land. If this rendering is possible, and that it is is undeniable, then we retain the inscription לדוד. And we do so the more readily, as Jeremiah's supposed authorship rests upon a non-recognition of his reproductive character, and the history of the
