Bible Commentaries
Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Psalms 135
Four-Voiced Hallelujah to the God of Israel, the God of Gods
Psalms 135 is here and there (vid., Tôsefôth Pesachim117a) takentogether with Psalm 134:1-3 as one Psalm. The combining of Ps 115 with Psalm 114:1-8 is amisapprehension caused by the inscriptionless character of Ps 115,whereas Ps 135 and Psalm 134:1-3 certainly stand in connection with one another. For the Hallelujah Psalms 135 is, as the mutual relation between thebeginning and close of Psalm 134:1-3 shows, a Psalm-song expanded out of thisshorter hymn, that is in part drawn from Ps 115.
It is a Psalm in the mosaic style. Even the Latin poet Lucilius transfers the figure of mosaic-work to style, when he says: quam lepide lexeis compostae ut tesserulae omnes … In the case of Psalms 135 it is not the first time that we have met with this kind of style. We have already had a glimpse of it in Psalm 97:1-12 and Psalm 98:1-9. These Psalms were composed more especially of deutero-Isaianic passages, whereas Psalms 135 takes its tesserulae out of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms.
The beginning is taken from Psalm 134:1; Psalm 135:2 recalls Psalm 116:19 (cf. Psalm 92:14); and Psalm 135:4 is an echo of Deuteronomy 7:6. The servants of Jahve to whom thesummons is addressed, are not, as in Psalm 134:1., His official servants inparticular, but according to Psalm 135:2 , where the courts, in the plural, areallotted to them as their standing-place, and according to Psalm 135:19-20, thosewho fear Him as a body. The threefold Jahve at the beginning is thenrepeated in (Jāh) (הללוּ־יהּ, cf. note 1 to PsPsalm 104:35), (Jahve), and (Jāh). Thesubject of כּי נעים is by no means Jahve (Hupfeld),whom they did not dare to call נעים in the Old Testament, but either theName, according to Ps 54:8 (Luther, Hitzig), or, which is favoured by Psalm 147:1 (cf. Proverbs 22:18), the praising of His Name (Appolinaris: åôïêáëïá): His Name to praise is a delightful employ, which is incumbent onIsrael as the people of His choice and of His possession.
The praise itself now begins. כּי in Psalm 135:4 set forth the ground of thepleasant duty, and the כי that begins this strophe confirms thatwhich warrants the summons out of the riches of the material existing forsuch a hymn of praise. Worthy is He to be praised, for Israel knows fullwell that He who hath chosen it is the God of gods. The beginning is takenfrom Psalm 115:3, and Psalm 135:7 from Jeremiah 10:13 (Psalm 51:16). Heaven, earth, and waterare the three kingdoms of created things, as in Exodus 20:4. נשׂיא signifies that which is lifted up, ascended; here, as in Jeremiah, a cloud. The meaning of בּרקים למּטר עשׂה is not: He makes lightnings into rain, i.e., resolves them as it were into rain, which is unnatural; but either according to Zechariah 10:1: He produces lightnings in behalf of rain, in order that the rain may pour down in consequence of the thunder and lightning, or poetically: He makes lightnings for the rain, so that the rain is announced (Apollinaris) and accompanied by them. Instead of מוצא (cf. Psalm 78:16; Psalm 105:43), which does not admit of the retreating of the tone, the expression is מוצא, the ground-form of the part. Hiph. for plurals like מחצרים, מחלמים, מעזרים, perhaps not without being influenced by the ויּוצא in Jeremiah, for it is not מוצא from מצא that signifies “producing,” but מוציא = מפיק. The metaphor of the treasuries is like Job 38:22. What is intended is the fulness of divine power, in which lie the grounds of the origin and the impulses of all things in nature.
Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Redeemer out of Egypt. בּתוככי as in Psalm 116:19, cf. Psalm 105:27.
Worthy is He to be praised, for He is the Conqueror of the Land ofPromise. in connection with Psalm 135:10 one is reminded of Deuteronomy 4:38; Deuteronomy 7:1; Deuteronomy 9:1; Deuteronomy 11:23; Joshua 23:9. גּוים רבּים are here not many, butgreat peoples (cf. גּדלים in Psalm 136:17), since the parallel wordעצוּמים is by no means intended of a powerful number, but ofpowerful might (cf. Isaiah 53:12). As to the rest also, the poet follows theBook of Deuteronomy: viz., לכל ממלכות as in Deuteronomy 3:21, and נתן נחלה as in Deuteronomy 4:38 and otherpassages. It is all Deuteronomic with the exception of the שׁ, andthe ל e in Psalm 135:11 as the nota accus(as in Psalm 136:19., cf. Psalm 69:6; Psalm 116:16; Psalm 129:3);the construction of הרג is just as Aramaizing in Job 5:2; 2 Samuel 3:30 (where 2 Samuel 3:30-31, like 2 Samuel 3:36-37, are a later explanatory addition). The הרג alternating with הכּה is, next to the two kings, also referred to the kingdoms of Canaan, viz., their inhabitants. Og was also an Amoritish king, Deuteronomy 3:8.
This God who rules so praiseworthily in the universe and in the history ofIsrael is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. Just as Psalm 135:13 (cf. Psalm 102:13) is taken from Exodus 3:15, so Psalm 135:14 is taken from Deuteronomy 32:36, cf. Psalm 90:13, and vid., on Hebrews 10:30-31.
For the good of His proved church He ever proves Himself to be theLiving God, whereas idols and idol-worshippers are vain - throughoutfollowing Psalm 115:4-8, but with some abridgments. Here only the אף used as a particle recalls what is said there of the organ of smell (אף) of the idols that smells not, just as the רוּח which is here(as in Jeremiah 10:14) denied to the idols recalls the הריח denied to themthere. It is to be rendered: also there is not a being of breath, i.e., there isno breath at all, not a trace thereof, in their mouth. It is different in 1 Samuel 21:9, where אין ישׁ (not אין) is meant to beequivalent to the Aramaic אין אית, (num) ((an)) (est); אין is North-Palestinian, and equivalent to the interrogatory אם (after which theTargum renders אלּוּ אית).
A call to the praise of Jahve, who is exalted above the gods of the nations,addressed to Israel as a whole, rounds off the Psalm by recurring to itsbeginning. The threefold call in Psalm 115:9-11; Psalm 118:2-4, is rendered fourfold here by the introduction of the house of the Levites, and the wishing of a blessing in Psalm 134:3 is turned into an ascription of praise. Zion, whence Jahve's self-attestation, so rich in power and loving-kindness, is spread abroad, is also to be the place whence His glorious attestation by the mouth of men is spread abroad. History has realized this.
Add Comment
Comments