Bible Commentaries

Olshausen observes, “The poet keeps entirely to the standpoint of the old Hebrew doctrine of recompense, which the Book of Job so powerfully refutes.” But, viewed in the light of the final issue, all God's government is really in a word righteous recompense; and the Old Testament theodicy is only inadequate in so far as the future, which adjusts all present inconsistencies, is still veiled. Meanwhile the punitive justice of God does make itself manifest, as a rule, in the case of the ungodly even in the present world; even their dying is usually a fearful end to their life's prosperity. This it is which the poet means here, and which is also expressed by Job himself in the Book of Job, Job 27:1. With התחרה, to grow hot or angry (distinct from תּחרה, to emulate, Jeremiah 12:5; Jeremiah 22:15), alternates קנּא, to get into a glow, excandescentia, whether it be the restrained heat of sullen envy, or the incontrollable heat of impetuous zeal which would gladly call down fire from heaven. This first distich has been transferred to the Book of Proverbs, Proverbs 24:19, cf. Proverbs 23:17; Proverbs 24:1; Proverbs 3:31; and in general we may remark that this Psalm is one of the Davidic patterns for the Salomonic gnome system. The form ימּלוּ is, according to Gesenius, Olshausen, and Hitzig, fut. Kal of מלל, cognate אמל, they wither away, pausal form for ימּלוּ like יתּממוּ, Psalm 102:28; but the signification to cut off also is secured to the verb מלל by the Niph. נמל, Genesis 17:11, whence fut. ימּלוּ = ימּלּוּ; vid., on Job 14:2; Job 18:16. ירק דּשׁא is a genitival combination: the green (viror) of young vigorous vegetation.

The “land” is throughout this Psalm the promised possession (Heilsgut), viz., the land of Jahve's presence, which has not merely a glorious past, but also a future rich in promises; and will finally, ore perfectly than under Joshua, become the inheritance of the true Israel. It is therefore to be explained: enjoy the quiet sure habitation which God gives thee, and diligently cultivate the virtue of faithfulness. The two imperatives in Psalm 37:3 , since there are two of them (cf. Psalm 37:27) and the first is without any conjunctive Waw, have the appearance of being continued admonitions, not promises; and consequently אמוּנה is not an adverbial accusative as in Psalm 119:75 (Ewald), but the object to רעה, to pasture, to pursue, to practise (Syriac רדף, Hosea 12:2); cf. רעה, רע, one who interests himself in any one, or anything; Beduin (râ‛â) = (ṣâḥb), of every kind of closer relationship (Deutsch. Morgenländ. Zeitschr. v. 9). In Psalm 37:4, ויתן is an apodosis: delight in Jahve (cf. Job 22:26; Psalm 27:10; Isaiah 58:14), so will He grant thee the desire (משׁאלת, as in Psalm 20:5) of thy heart; for he who, entirely severed from the creature, finds his highest delight in God, cannot desire anything that is at enmity with God, but he also can desire nothing that God, with whose will his own is thoroughly blended in love, would refuse him.

The lxx erroneously renders גּול (= גּל, Psalm 22:9) by ἀποκάλυψον instead of å1 Peter 5:7: roll the burden ofcares of thy life's way upon Jahve, leave the guidance of thy life entirelyto Him, and to Him alone, without doing anything in it thyself: He willgloriously accomplish (all that concerns thee): עשׂה, as in Ps 22:32;52:11; cf. Proverbs 16:3, and Paul Gerhardt's Befiehl du deine Wege, “Committhou all thy ways,” etc. The perfect in Psalm 37:6 is a continuation of thepromissory יעשׂה. הוציא, as in Jeremiah 51:10, signifies toset forth: He will bring to light thy misjudged righteousness like the light(the sun, Job 31:26; Job 37:21, and more especially the morning sun, Proverbs 4:18), which breaks through the darkness; and thy down-trodden right(משׁפּטך is the pausal form of the singular beside Mugrash) like the bright light of the noon-day: cf. Isaiah 58:10, as on Psalm 37:4, Isaiah 58:14.

The verb דּמם, with its derivatives (Psalm 62:2, Psalm 62:6; Lamentations 3:28),denotes resignation, i.e., a quiet of mind which rests on God, renounces allself-help, and submits to the will of God. התחולל (from הוּל, to be in a state of tension, to wait) of the inward gathering of one'sself together in hope intently directed towards God, as in B. Berachoth30b is a synonym of התחונן, and as it were reflexive of חלּה ofthe collecting one's self to importunate prayer. With Psalm 37:7 the primarytone of the whole Psalm is struck anew. On Psalm 37:7 compare the definition ofthe mischief-maker in Proverbs 24:8.

On הרף (let alone), imper. apoc. Hiph., instead of הרפּה, vid., Ges. §75, rem. 15. אך להרע is a clause toitself (cf. Proverbs 11:24; Psalm 21:5; Psalm 22:16): it tends only to evil-doing, it ends onlyin thy involving thyself in sin. The final issue, without any need that thoushouldst turn sullen, is that the מרעים, like to whom thou dostmake thyself by such passionate murmuring and displeasure, will be cutoff, and they who, turning from the troublous present, make Jahve theground and aim of their hope, shall inherit the land (vid., Psalm 25:13). It isthe end, the final and consequently eternal end, that decides the matter.

The protasis in Psalm 37:10 is literally: adhuc parum (temporis superest)עוד מעט ו, as e.g., Exodus 23:30, and as in a similar connectionמעט ו, Job 24:24. והתבּוננתּ also is a protasis witha hypothetical perfect, Ges. §155, 4, a. This promise also runs in themouth of the Preacher on the Mount (Matthew 5:5) just as the lxx renders Psalm 37:11 : οἱ δὲ πρᾳεῖς κληρονομήσουσι γῆν . Meekness, which is content with God, and renounces all earthly stays, will at length become the inheritor of the land, yea of the earth. Whatever God-opposed self-love may amass to itself and may seek to acquire, falls into the hands of the meek as their blessed possession.

The verb זמם is construed with ל of that which is the object atwhich the evil devices aim. To gnash the teeth (elsewhere also: with theteeth) is, as in Psalm 35:16, cf. Job 16:9, a gesture of anger, not of mockery,although anger and mockery are usually found together. But the Lord, whoregards an assault upon the righteous as an assault upon Himself, laughs(Psalm 2:4) at the enraged schemer; for He, who orders the destinies of men,sees beforehand, with His omniscient insight into the future, his day, i.e.,the day of his death (1 Samuel 26:10), of his visitation (Psalm 137:7, Obadiah 1:12; Jeremiah 50:27, Jeremiah 50:31).

That which corresponds to the “treading” or stringing of the bow is thedrawing from the sheath or unsheathing of the sword: פּתח,Ezekiel 21:28, cf. Psalm 55:22. The combination ישׁרי־דּרך is just likeתמימי־דוך, Psalm 119:1. The emphasis in Psalm 37:14 is upon the suffix of בלבּם: they shall perish by their own weapon. קשּׁתותם has(in Baer) a Shebâ(dirimens), as also in Isaiah 5:28 in correct texts.

With Psalm 37:16 accord Proverbs 15:16; Proverbs 16:8, cf. Tobit 12:8. The ל of לצּדּיק is a periphrastic indication of the genitive (Ges. §115). המון is a noisy multitude, here used of earthly possessions. רבּים is not per attract. (cf. Psalm 38:11, הם for הוּא) equivalent to רב, but the one righteous man is contrasted with many unrighteous. The arms are here named instead of the bow in Psalm 37:15 . He whose arms are broken can neither injure others nor help himself. Whereas Jahve does for the righteous what earthly wealth and human power cannot do: He Himself upholds them.

The life of those who love Jahve with the whole heart is, with all itsvicissitudes, an object of His loving regard and of His observantprovidential care, Psalm 1:6; Psalm 31:8, cf. Psalm 16:1-11. He neither suffers His own to losetheir heritage nor to be themselves lost to it. The áéêëçñïíïìéis not as yet thought of as extending into the futureworld, as in the New Testament. In Psalm 37:19 the surviving refers only to thispresent life.

With כּי the preceding assertion is confirmed by its opposite (cf. Psalm 130:4). כּיקר בּרים forms a fine play in sound; יקר is a substantivized adjective like גּדל ekil evitcejda, Exodus 15:16. Instead ofבעשׁן, it is not to be read כּעשׁן, Hosea 13:3; the ב issecured by Psalm 102:4; Psalm 78:33. The idea is, that they vanish into smoke, i.e., areresolved into it, or also, that they vanish in the manner of smoke, which isfirst thick, but then becomes thinner and thinner till it disappears(Rosenmüller, Hupfeld, Hitzig); both expressions are admissible as to factand as to the language, and the latter is commended by בּהבל, Psalm 78:33, cf. בּצלם, Psalm 39:7. בעשׁן belongs to the first,regularly accented כּלוּ; for the Munach by בעשׂן is the substitute for Mugrash, which never can be used where at least two syllables do not precede the Silluk tone (vid., Psalter ii. 503). The second כּלוּ has the accent on the penult. for a change (Ew. §194, c), i.e., variation of the rhythm (cf. למה למה, Psalm 42:10; Psalm 43:2; עורי עורי, Judges 5:12, and on Psalm 137:7), and in particular here on account of its pausal position (cf. ערוּ, Psalm 137:7).

It is the promise expressed in Deuteronomy 15:6; Deuteronomy 28:12, Deuteronomy 28:44, which is rendered in Psalm 37:21 in the more universal, sententious form. לוה signifies to bebound or under obligation to any one = to borrow and to owe (nexumesse). The confirmation of Psalm 37:22 is not inappropriate (as Hitzig considersit, who places Psalm 37:22 after Psalm 37:20): in that ever deeper downfall of theungodly, and in that charitableness of the righteous, which becomes moreand more easy to him by reason of his prosperity, the curse and blessingof God, which shall be revealed in the end of the earthly lot of both therighteous and the ungodly, are even now foretold. Whilst those who rejectthe blessing of God are cut off, the promise given to the patriarchs isfulfilled in the experience of those who are blessed of God, in all itsfulness.

By Jahve (מן, áalmost equivalent to õwith thepassive, as in Job 24:1; Ecclesiastes 12:11, and in a few other passages) are aman's steps made firm, established; not: ordered or directed (lxx, Jerome, κατευθύνεται ), which, according to the extant usage of the language, wouldbe הוּכנוּ (passive of הכין, Proverbs 16:9; Jeremiah 10:23; 2 Chronicles 27:6), whereas כּוננוּ, the Pulal of כּונן, is to beunderstood according to Psalm 40:3. By גּבר is meant man in anemphatic sense (Job 38:3), and in fact in an ethical sense; compare, on theother hand, the expression of the more general saying, “Man proposes, and God disposes,” Proverbs 16:9; Proverbs 20:24; Jeremiah 10:23. Psalm 37:23 shows that it is the upright man that is meant in Psalm 37:23 : to the way, i.e., course of life, of such an one God turns with pleasure (יחפּץ pausal change of vowel for יחפּץ): supposing he should fall, whether it be a fall arising from misfortune or from error, or both together, he is not prostrated, but Jahve upholds his hand, affords it a firm point of support or fulcrum (cf. תּמך בּ, Psalm 63:9, and frequently), so that he can raise himself again, rise up again.

There is an old theological rule: promissiones corporales intelligendae sunt cum exceptione crucis et castigationisTemporary forsakenness anddestitution the Psalm does not deny: it is indeed even intended to meet theconflict of doubt which springs up in the minds of the God-fearing out ofcertain conditions and circumstances that are seemingly contradictory tothe justice of God; and this it does, by contrasting that which in the endabides with that which is transitory, and in fact without the knowledge ofany final decisive adjustment in a future world; and it only solves itsproblem, in so far as it is placed in the light of the New Testament, whichalready dawns in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Psalm 37:27-28

The round of the exhortations and promises is here again reachedas in Psalm 37:3. The imperative שׁכן, which is there hortatory, is foundhere with the ו of sequence in the sense of a promise: and continue, doingsuch things, to dwell for ever = so shalt thou, etc. (שׁכן,pregnant as in Ps 102:29, Isaiah 57:15). Nevertheless the imperative retains itsmeaning even in such instances, inasmuch as the exhortation is given toshare in the reward of duty at the same time with the discharge of it. On Psalm 37:28 compare Psalm 33:5.

Psalm 37:28-29

The division of the verse is wrong; for the ס strophe, without anydoubt, closes with חסדיו, and the ע eht dna strophe begins withלעולם, so that, according to the text which we possess, the ע ofthis word is the acrostic letter. The lxx, however, after åéôïáéöõëá÷èçhas another line, which suggests another commencement for the ע strophe, and runs in Cod. Vat., incorrectly, ἄμωμοι ἐκδικήσονται , in Cod. Alex., correctly, ἄνομοι δὲ ἐκδιωχθήσονται (Symmachus, ἄνομοι ἐξαρθήσονται ). By ἄνομος the lxx translates עריץ in Isaiah 29:20; by ἄνομα , עולה in Job 27:4; and by ἐκδιώκειν , הצמית, the synonym of השׁמיד, in Psalm 101:5; so that consequently this line, as even Venema and Schleusner have discerned, was עוּלים נשׁמדוּ. It will at once be seen that this is only another reading for לעולם נשׁמרו; and, since it stands side by side with the latter, that it is an ancient attempt to produce a correct beginning for the ע strophe, which has been transplanted from the lxx into the text. It is, however, questionable whether this reparation is really a restoration of the original words (Hupfeld, Hitzig); since עוּל (עויל)is not a word found in the Psalms (for which reason Böttcher's conjecture of עשׁי עולה more readily commends itself, although it is critically less probable), and לעולם נשׁמרו forms a continuation that is more naturally brought about by the context and perfectly logical.

The verb הגה unites in itself the two meanings of meditatingand of meditative utterance (vid., Psalm 2:1), just as אמר those ofthinking and speaking. Psalm 37:31 in this connection affirms the stability of themoral nature. The walk of the righteous has a fixed inward rule, for theTôra is to him not merely an external object of knowledge and acompulsory precept; it is in his heart, and, because it is the Tôra of hisGod whom he loves, as the motive of his actions closely united with hisown will. On תּמעד, followed by the subject in the plural,compare Psalm 18:35; Psalm 73:2 Chethîb/>

The Lord as ἀνακρίνων is, as in 1 Corinthians 4:3., put in contrast with the ἀνακρίνειν of men, or of human ἡμέρᾳ . If men sit in judgment upon the righteous, yet God, the supreme Judge, does not condemn him, but acquits him (cf. on the contrary Psalm 109:7). Si condemnamur a mundo, exclaimed Tertullian to his companions in persecution, absolvimur a Deo.

Let the eye of faith directed hopefully to Jahve go on its way, withoutsuffering thyself to be turned aside by the persecution and condemnationof the world, then He will at length raise thee out of all trouble, and causethee to possess (לרשׁת, ut possidas et possideas) the land, as thesole lords of which the evil-doers, now cut off, conducted themselves.

עריץ (after the form צדּיק) is coupled with רשׁע, must as these two words alternate in Job 15:20: a terror-inspiring,tyrannical evil-doer; cf. besides also Job 5:3. The participle in Psalm 37:35 formsa clause by itself: et se diffundensscil. erat. The lxx and Jerometranslate as though it were כארז הלבנן, “like the cedars of Lebanon,” insteadof כאזרח רענן. But אזרח רענן is the expression for anoak, terebinth, or the like, that has brown from time immemorial in itsnative soil, and has in the course of centuries attained a gigantic size in thestem, and a wide-spreading overhanging head. ויּעבר does notmean: then he vanished away (Hupfeld and others); for עבר inthis sense is not suitable to a tree. Luther correctly renders it: man ging vorüberone (they) passed by, Ges. §137, 3. The lxx, Syriac, and others,by way of lightening the difficulty, render it: then I passed by.

תּם might even be taken as neuter for תּם, and ישׂר for ישׁר; but in this case the poet would have writtenרעה instead of ראה; שׁמר is therefore used as,e.g., in 1 Samuel 1:12. By כּי that to which attention is speciallycalled is introduced. The man of peace has a totally different lot from theevil-doer who delights in contention and persecution. As the fruit of hislove of peace he has אחרית, a future, Proverbs 23:18; Proverbs 24:14, viz., inhis posterity, Proverbs 24:20; whereas the apostates are altogether blotted out;not merely they themselves, but even the posterity of the ungodly is cutoff, Amos 4:2; Amos 9:1; Ezekiel 23:25. To them remains no posterity to carryforward their name, their אחרית is devoted to destruction (cf. Psalm 109:13 with Numbers 24:20).

The salvation of the righteous cometh from Jahve; it is thereforecharacterized, in accordance with its origin, as sure, perfect, and enduringfor ever. מעוּזּם is an apposition; the plena scriptioserves, asin 2 Samuel 22:33, to indicate to us that מעוז is meant in this passage tosignify not a fortress, but a hiding-place, a place of protection, a refuge, inwhich sense Arab. (ma'âd‛llh) (the protection of God) and (m‛âḏwjh‛llh) (theprotection of God's presence) is an Arabic expression (also used as aformula of an oath); vid., moreover on Psalm 31:3. The moods of sequence inPsalm 37:40 are aoristi gnomici. The parallelism in Psalm 37:40 is progressive after themanner of the Psalms of degrees. The short confirmatory clause (kichā'subo) forms an expressive closing cadence.