arm, and that in a twofold manner, viz., with the מגן for warding off the hostile blow and צנּה (vid., Ps 5:13) which covers the body like a testudo - by which, inasmuch as it is impossible to hold both shields at the same time, the figure is idealised - is meant to express, that He is to make Himself felt by the foes, in every possible way, to their own confounding, as the unapproachable One. The ב of בּעזרתי (in the character of help turned towards me) is the so-called Beth essentiae,[1] as in Exo 18:4; Pro 3:26; Isa 48:10 (tanquam argentum), and frequently. הריק has the same meaning as in Exo 15:9, cf. Gen 14:14, viz., to bring forth, draw forth, to draw or unsheath (a sword); for as a sword is sheathed when not in use, so a spear is kept in the δουροδόκη (Odyss. i. 128). Even Parchon understands סגר to mean a weapon; and the word σάγαρις, in Herodotus, Xenophon, and Strabo, a northern Asiatic, more especially a Scythian, battle-axe, has been compared here;[2] but the battle-axe was not a Hebrew weapon, and סגר, which, thus defectively written, has the look of an imperative, also gives the best sense when so taken (lxx σύγκλεισον, Targ. וּטרוק), viz., close, i.e., cut off, interclude scil. viam. The word has Dechî, because לקראת רדפי, “casting Thyself against my persecutors,”
- ↑ The Hebrew Beth essentiae is used much more freely and extensively than the Arabic, which is joined exclusively to the predicate of a simple clause, where in our language the verb is “to be,” and as a rule only to the predicate of negative clauses: laisa bi - hakı̂mim, he is not wise, or laisa bi - l - hakı̂mi, he is not the wise man. The predicate can accordingly be indeterminate or determinate. Moreover, in Hebrew, where this ב is found with the predicate, with the complement of the subject, or even, though only as a solecism (vid., Gesenius' Thesaurus p. 175), with the subject itself, the word to which it is prefixed may be determinate, whether as an attribute determined by itself (Exo 6:3, בּאל שׁדּי), by a suffix (as above, Psa 35:2, cf. Psa 146:5; Exo 18:4; Pro 3:26), or even by the article. At all events no syntactic objection can be brought against the interpretations of בעשׁן, “in the quality of smoke,” Psa 37:20; cf. בּהבל, Psa 78:33, and of בּנּפשׁ, “in the character of the soul,” Lev 17:11.
- ↑ Probably one and the same word with the Armenian sakr, to which are assigned the (Italian) meanings mannaja, scure, brando ferro, in Ciakciak's Armenian Lexicon; cf. Lagarde's Gesammelte Abhandlungen, 1866, S. 203.
