if David wrote it so, אמרת is not intended to be read otherwise than it is in Psa 31:15; Psa 140:7.[1]
First of all David gives expression to his confession of Jahve, to whom he submits himself unconditionally, and whom he sets above everything else without exception. Since the suffix of אדני (properly domini mei = domine mi, Gen 18:3, cf. Psa 19:2), which has become mostly lost sight of in the usage of the language, now and then retains its original meaning, as it does indisputably in Psa 35:23, it is certainly to be rendered also here: “Thou art my Lord” and not “Thou art the Lord.” The emphasis lies expressly on the “my.” It is the unreserved and joyous feeling of dependence (more that of the little child, than of the servant), which is expressed in this first confession. For, as the second clause of the confession says: Jahve, who is his Lord, is also his benefactor, yea even his highest good. The preposition על frequently introduces that which extends beyond something else, Gen 48:22 (cf. Psa 89:8; Psa 95:3), and to this passage may be added Gen 31:50; Gen 32:12; Exo 35:22; Num 31:8; Deu 19:9; Deu 22:6, the one thing being above, or co-ordinate with, the other. So also here: “my good, i.e., whatever makes me truly happy, is not above Thee,” i.e., in addition to Thee, beside Thee; according to the sense it is equivalent to out of Thee or without Thee (as the Targ., Symm., and Jerome render it), Thou alone, without exception, art my good. In connection with this rendering of the על, the בּל (poetic, and contracted from בּלי), which is unknown to the literature before David's time, presents no difficulty. As in Pro 23:7 it is short for בּל־תּהיה. Hengstenberg remarks, “Just as Thou art the Lord! is the response of the soul to the words I am the Lord thy God (Exo 20:2), so Thou only art my salvation! is the response to Thou shalt have no other gods beside Me (על־פּני).” The psalmist knows no fountain of true happiness
- ↑ Pinsker's view (Einleit. S. 100-102), who considers פּעלתּ to have sprung from פּללת as the primary form of the 1 pers. sing., from which then came פּלתּי and later still פּלתּי, is untenable according to the history of the language.
