an interpretation which Aben-Ezra endorses. Hengstenberg's is better: “God will hear (the tumult of the enemies) and answer them (judicially).” The original text may have been ויענמו ישׁב קדם. But as it now stands, וישׁב קדם represents a subordinate clause, with the omission of the הוּא, pledging that judicial response: since He it is who sitteth enthroned from earliest times (vid., on Psa 7:10). The bold expression ישׁב קדם is an abbreviation of the view of God expressed in Psa 74:12, Hab 1:12, cf. Deu 33:27, as of Him who from primeval days down to the present sits enthroned as King and Judge, who therefore will be able even at the present time to maintain His majesty, which is assailed in the person of His anointed one.
Verses 19-23
In spite of this interruption and the accompanying clashing in of the music. אשׁר .ci with its dependent clause continues the ויאנם, more minutely describing those whom God will answer in His wrath. The relative clause at the same time gives the ground for this their fate from the character they bear: they persevere in their course without any regard to any other in their godlessness. The noun חליפה, which is used elsewhere of a change of clothes, of a reserve in time of war, of a relief of bands of workmen, here signifies a change of mind (Targum), as in Job 14:14 a change of condition; the plural means that every change of this kind is very far from them. In Psa 55:21 David again has the one faithless foe among the multitude of the rebels before his mind. שׁלמיו is equivalent to שׁלמים אתּו, Gen 34:21, those who stood in peaceful relationship to him (שׁלום, Psa 41:10). David classes himself with his faithful adherents. בּרית is here a defensive and offensive treaty of mutual fidelity entered into in the presence of God. By שׁלח and חלּל is meant the intention which, though not carried out as yet, is already in itself a violation and profanation of the solemn compact. In Psa 55:22 the description passes into the tone of the caesural schema. It is impossible for מחמאת, so far as the vowels are concerned, to be equivalent to מחמאות, since this change of the vowels would obliterate the preposition; but one is forbidden to read מחמאות (Targum, Symmachus, Jerome) by the fact that פּיו (lxx τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ, as in Pro 2:6) cannot be the subject to חלקוּ. Consequently מ belongs to the noun itself, and the
