4. 5. 6.[1]
Here also the Michtam is not wanting in its prominent favourite word. A refrain of a lofty character closes the first and second parts. In the first part cheerful submission rules, in the second a certainty of victory, which by anticipation takes up the song of praise.
Psalm 57
Verses 1-5
By means of the two distinctive tense-forms the poet describes his believing flight to God for refuge as that which has once taken place (חסיה from חסה = חסי out of pause, like the same forms in Psa 73:2; Psa 122:6), and still, because it is a living fact, is ever, and now in particular, renewed (אחסה). The shadow of the wings of God is the protection of His gentle, tender love; and the shadow of the wings is the quickening, cordial solace that is combined with this protection. Into this shadow the poet betakes himself for refuge now as he has done before, until הוּות, i.e., the abysmal danger that threatens him, be overpast, praeteriverit (cf. Isa 26:20, and on the enallage numeri Psa 10:10, Ges. §147, a). Not as though he would then no longer stand in need of the divine protection, but he now feels himself to be specially in need of it; and therefore his chief aim is an undaunted triumphant resistance of the impending trials. The effort on his own part, however, by means of which he always anew takes refuge in this shadow, is prayer to Him who dwells above and rules the universe. עליון is without the article, which it never takes; and גּמר (Psa 57:3) is the same, because it is regularly left out before the participle, which admits of being more fully defined, Amo 9:12; Eze 21:19 (Hitzig). He calls upon God who accomplisheth concerning, i.e., for him (Est 4:16), who carrieth out his cause, the cause of the persecuted one; גּמר is transitive as in Psa 138:8. The lxx renders τὸν εὐεργετήσαντά με, as though it were גּמל עלי (Psa 13:6, and frequently); and even Hitzig and Hupfeld hold that the meaning is exactly the same. But although גמל and גמר fall back upon one and the same radical notion, still it is just their distinctive final letters that serve to indicate a difference of signification
- ↑ The Syriac version reckons only 29 στίχοι (fetgome); vid., the Hexaplarian version of this Psalm taken from Cod. 14,434 (Add. MSS) in the British Museum, in Heidenheim's Vierteljahrsschrift, No. 2 (1861).
