of support and central points of the heavens themselves: the whole universe trembles.
2Sa 22:11-13
Instead of the pictorial ויּדא (Deu 28:49, and hence in Jeremiah), which is generally used of the flight of the eagle, we have the plain, uncoloured ויּרא He appeared. Instead of ישׁת, which is intended as an aorist, we meet the more strictly regular, but here, where so many aorists with ו come together, less poetical ויּשׁת. In 2Sa 22:12 the rise and fall of the parallel members has grown over till it forms one heavy clumsy line: And made darkness round about Him a pavilion (סכּות). But the ἁπ. λεγ. חשׁרת, to which the signification of a “massive gathering together” is secured by the Arabic, is perhaps original. The word Arab. ḥšr, frequently used in the Koran of assembling to judgment, with the radical signification stipare, cogere (to crowd together, compress) which is also present in Arab. ḥšâ , ḥâš , ḥšd, is here used like ἀγείρειν in the Homeric νεφεληγρέτα (the cloud-gatherer).[1]
2Sa 22:13 is terribly mutilated. Of עביו עררו ברד ו of the other text there are only the four letters בּערוּ (as in 2Sa 22:9) left.
2Sa 22:14-16
Instead of ויּרעם we find ירעם, which is less admissible here, where a principal fact is related and the description is drawing nearer and nearer to its goal. Instead of מן־שׁמים the other text has בּשּׁמים; in Psa 30:4 also, מן is retained without being assimilated before שׁ. But the fact, however, that the line בּרד וגחלי־אשׁ is wanting, is a proof, which we welcome, that it is accidentally repeated from the preceding strophe, in the other text. On the other hand, חצּים is inferior to חצּיו; וּברקים רב is corrupted into a tame בּרק; and the Kerî ויּהם erroneously assumes that the suffix of ויפיצם refers to the arrows, i.e., lightnings. Again on the other hand, אפיקי ים, channels of the sea, is perhaps
- ↑ Midrash and Talmud explain it according to the Aramaic “a straining of the clouds,” inasmuch as the clouds, like a sieve, let the drops trickle down to the earth, falling close upon each other and yet separately (B . Taanîth 9b: מחשרות מים על־גבי קרקע). Kimchi combines חשׁר with קשׁר. But the ancient Arabic ḥšr is the right key to the word. The root of חשׁך and חשׁכּה is perhaps the same (cf. Exo 10:21).
