to consist of thirteen lines, whereas the other two parts consist of twelve lines each.
What a variegated pattern card of hypotheses modern criticism opens out before us in connection with this Psalm (Psa 42:1)! Vaihinger regards it as a song composed by one of the Levites who was banished by Athaliah. Ewald thinks that King Jeconiah, who was carried away to Babylon, may have composed the Psalm; and in fact, when (and this is inferred from the Psalm itself) on the journey to Babylon, he may have been detained just a night in the vicinity of Hermon. Reuss (in the Nouvelle Revue de Théologie, 1858) prefers to suppose it is one of those who were carried off with Jeconiah (among whom there were also priests, as Ezekiel). Hitzig, however, is no less decisive in his view that the author is a priest who was carried off in the direction of Syria at the time of the wars of the Seleucidae and Ptolemies; probably Onias III, high priest from 199 b.c., the collector of the Second Book of the Psalms, whom the Egyptians under the general Skopas carried away to the citadel of Paneas. Olshausen even here, as usual, makes Antiochus Epiphanes his watchword. In opposition to this positive criticism, Maurer adheres to the negative; he says: quaerendo elegantissimi carminis scriptore frustra se fatigant interpretes.
Psalm 42
Verses 1-5
Psa 42:1-5 (Hebrew_Bible_42:2-6) The poet compares the thirsting of his soul after God to the thirsting of a stag. איּל (like other names of animals is epicoene, so that there is no necessity to adopt Böttcher's emendation כּעיּלת תערג) is construed with a feminine predicate in order to indicate the stag (hind) as an image of the soul. ערג is not merely a quiet languishing, but a strong, audible thirsting or panting for water, caused by prevailing drought, Psa 63:2; Joe 1:20; the signification desiderare refers back to the primary notion of inclinare (cf. Arab. ‘l - mı̂l, the act of inclining), for the primary meaning of the verb Arab. ‛rj is to be slanting, inclined or bent, out of which has been developed the signification of ascending and moving upwards, which is transferred in Hebrew to an upward-directed longing. Moreover, it is not with Luther (lxx, Vulgate and authorized version) to be rendered: as the (a) stag crieth, etc., but (and
