footing - a combination like מטר־גּשׁם, Zec 10:1, אדמת־עפר, Dan 12:2, explained in the Mishna, Mikvaoth ix. 2, by טיט הבורות (mire of the cisterns). Taking them out of this, Jahve placed his feet upon a rock, established his footsteps, i.e., removed him from the danger which surrounded him, and gave him firm ground under his feet. The high rock and the firm footsteps are the opposites of the deep pit and the yielding miry bottom. This deliverance afforded him new matter for thanksgiving (cf. Psa 33:3), and became in his mouth “praise to our God;” for the deliverance of the chosen king is an act of the God of Israel on behalf of His chosen people. The futures in Psa 40:4 (with an alliteration similar to Psa 52:8) indicate, by their being thus cumulative, that they are intended of the present and of that which still continues in the future.
Verses 5-6
He esteems him happy who puts his trust (מבטחו, with a latent Dagesh, as, according to Kimchi, also in Psa 71:5; Job 31:24; Jer 17:7) in Jahve, the God who has already made Himself glorious in Israel by innumerable wonderful works. Jer 17:7 is an echo of this אשׁרי. Psa 52:9 (cf. Psa 91:9) shows how Davidic is the language. The expression is designedly not האישׁ, but הגּבר, which is better adapted to designate the man as being tempted to put trust in himself. רהבים from רהב (not from רהב) are the impetuous or violent, who in their arrogance cast down everything. שׂטי כזב, “turners aside of falsehood” (שׁוּט = שׂטה, cf. Psa 101:3), is the expression for apostates who yield to falsehood instead of to the truth: to take כּזב as accusative of the aim is forbidden by the status construct.; to take it as the genitive in the sense of the accusative of the object (like תם הלכי, Pro 2:7) is impracticable, because שׂוט (שׂטה) does not admit of a transitive sense; כזב is, therefore, genit. qualit. like און in Psa 59:6. This second strophe contains two practical applications of that which the writer himself has experienced. From this point of view, he who trusts in God appears to the poet to be supremely happy, and a distant view of God's gracious rule over His own people opens up before him. נפלאות are the thoughts of God realized, and מחשׁבות those that are being realized, as in Jer 51:29; Isa 55:8. רבּות is an accusative of the predicate: in great number, in rich abundance; אלינוּ, “for us,” as e.g., in Jer 15:1 (Ew. §217, c). His doings towards Israel were from of old a fulness of wondrous
