Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/284

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

word; שׁמע means information, rumour, and שׁמע אזן is the opposite of personal observation (Job 42:5), it is therefore to be rendered: they submitted even at the tidings of my victories; and 2Sa 8:9. is an example of this. כּחשׁ to lie, disown, feign, and flatter, is sued here, as it is frequently, of the extorted humility which the vanquished show towards the conqueror. Psa 18:46 completes the picture of the reason of the sons of a foreign country “putting a good face on a bad game.” They faded away, i.e., they became weak and faint-hearted (Exo 18:18), incapable of holding out against or breaking through any siege by David, and trembled, surrendering at discretion, out of their close places, i.e., out of their strongholds behind which they had shut themselves in (cf. Ps 142:8). The signification of being alarmed, which in this instance, being found in combination with a local מן, is confined to the sense of terrified flight, is secured to the verb חרג by the Arabic ḥarija (root ḥr, of audible pressure, crowding, and the like) to be pressed, crowded, tight, or narrow, to get in a strait, and the Targumic חרנּא דמותא = אימתא דמותא (vid., the Targums on Deu 32:25). Arab. ḥjl, to limp, halt, which is compared by Hitzig, is far removed as to the sound; and the most natural, but colourless Arab. chrj, to go out of (according to its radical meaning - cf. Arab. chrq , chr‛, etc. - : to break forth, erumpere), cannot be supported in Hebrew or Aramaic. The ירגּזוּ found in the borrowed passage in Micah, Mic 7:17, favours our rendering.

Verses 46-48

Psa 18:46-48 (Hebrew_Bible_18:47-49) The hymn now draws towards the end with praise and thanksgiving for the multitude of God's mighty deeds, which have just been displayed. Like the (צוּרי) בּרוּך which is always doxological, חי ה (vivus Jahve) is meant as a predicate clause, but is read with the accent of an exclamation just as in the formula of an oath, which is the same expression; and in the present instance it has a doxological meaning. Accordingly וירוּם also signifies “exalted be,” in which sense it is written וירם (וירם = וירם) in the other text. There are three doxological utterances drawn from the events which have just been celebrated in