is a burden which is more easily put on than cast off; audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.
In Psa 15:4 the interpretation “he is little in his own eyes, despised,” of which Hupfeld, rejecting it, says that Hitzig has picked it up out of the dust, is to be retained. Even the Targ., Saad., Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, Urbino (in his Grammar, אהל מועד) take נבזה בעיניו together, even though explaining it differently, and it is accordingly accented by Baer נמאס | נבזה בּע יניו (Mahpach, Asla Legarme, Rebia magnum).[1]
God exalts him who is קטן בּעיניו, 1Sa 15:17. David, when he brought up the ark of his God, could not sufficiently degrade himself (נקל), and appeared שׁפל בּעניו, 2Sa 6:22. This lowliness, which David also confesses in Psa 131:1-3, is noted here and throughout the whole of the Old Testament, e.g., Isa 57:15, as a condition of being well-pleasing before God; just as it is in reality the chief of all virtues. On the other hand, it is mostly translated either, according to the usual accentuation, with which the Beth of בעיניו is dageshed: the reprobate is despised in his eyes (Rashi, Hupf.), or in accordance with the above accentuation: despised in his eyes is the reprobate (Maurer, Hengst., Olsh., Luzzatto); but this would say but little, and be badly expressed. For the placing together of two participles without an article, and moreover of similar meaning, with the design of the one being taken as subject and the other as predicate, is to be repudiated simply on the ground of style; and the difference among expositors shows how equivocal the expression is.
On the other hand, when we translate it: “despicable is he in his own eyes, worthy to be despised” (Ges. §134, 1), we can appeal to Psa 14:1, where השׁהיתוּ is intensified just in the same way by התעיבוּ, as נבזה is here by נמאס; cf. also Gen 30:31; Job 31:23; Isa 43:4. The antithesis of Psa 15:4
- ↑ The usual accentuation בּעיניו נמאס | נבזה forcibly separates בעיניו from נבזה to which according to its position it belongs. And Heidenheim's accentuation נבזה בעיניו נמאס is to be rejected on accentuological grounds, because of two like distinctives the second has always a less distinctive value than the first. We are consequently only left to the one given above. The MSS vary.
