5]] (just as at the close of Psa 15:1-5), in continued predicates, we are told the character of the man, who is worthy of this privilege, to whom the question in Psa 24:3 refers. Such an one shall bear away, or acquire (נשׁא, as e.g., Est 2:17) blessing from Jahve and righteousness from the God of his salvation (Psa 25:5; Psa 27:9). Righteousness, i.e., conformity to God and that which is well-pleasing to God, appears here as a gift, and in this sense it is used interchangeably with ישׁע (e.g., Psa 132:9, Psa 132:16). It is the righteousness of God after which the righteous, but not the self-righteous, man hungers and thirsts; that moral perfection which is the likeness of God restored to him and at the same time brought about by his own endeavours; it is the being changed, or transfigured, into the image of the Holy One Himself. With Psa 24:5 the answer to the question of Psa 24:3 is at an end; Psa 24:6 adds that those thus qualified, who may accordingly expect to receive God's gifts of salvation, are the true church of Jahve, the Israel of God. דּור (lit., a revolution, Arabic dahr, root דר, to turn, revolve) is used here, as in Psa 14:5; Psa 73:15; Psa 112:2, of a collective whole, whose bond of union is not contemporaneousness, but similarity of disposition; and it is an alliteration with the דּרשׁיו (Chethîb דרשו, without the Jod plur.) which follows. מבקשׁי פּניך is a second genitive depending on דּור, as in Psa 27:8. Here at the close the predication passes into the form of invocation (Thy face). And יעקב is a summarising predicate: in short, these are Jacob, not merely after the flesh, but after the spirit, and thus in truth (Isa 44:2, cf. Rom 9:6; Gal 6:16). By interpolating אלהי, as is done in the lxx and Peshîto, and adopted by Ewald, Olshausen, Hupfeld, and Böttcher, the nerve, as it were, of the assertion is cut through. The predicate, which has been expressed in different ways, is concentrated intelligibly enough in the one word יעקב, towards which it all along tends. And here the music becomes forte. The first part of this double Psalm dies away amidst the playing of the instruments of the Levitical priests; for the Ark was brought in בּכל־עז וּבשׁירים, as 2Sa 6:5 (cf. 2Sa 6:14) is to be read.
Verses 7-10
The festal procession has now arrived above at the gates of the citadel of Zion. These are called פּתחי עולם, doors of eternity (not “of the world” as Luther renders it contrary to the Old Testament usage of the language) either as doors which pious faith hopes will last for ever, as Hupfeld and Hitzig explain it, understanding them, in opposition to the inscription of the Psalm, to be the
