Bible Commentaries

Elohimic Variation of the Jahve - Psalm 14:1-7

Psalm 52:1-9 and Psalm 53:1-6, which are most closely related by occasion, contents, andexpression, are separated by the insertion of Psalm 53:1-6, in which the individualcharacter of Psalm 52:1-9, the description of moral corruption and theannouncement of the divine curse, is generalized. Psalm 53:1-6 also belongs to thisseries according to its species of poetic composition; for the inscriptionruns: To the Precentor, after Machalath, a (Maskı̂l) of David. The formulaעל־מחלת recurs in Psalm 88:1 with the addition of לענּות. Since Ps88 is the gloomiest of all the Psalms, and Psalm 53:1-6, although having a brightborder, is still also a dark picture, the signification of מחלה,laxness (root חל, opp. מר), sickness, sorrow, which is capable ofbeing supported by Exodus 15:26, must be retained. על־מחלת signifies after asad tone or manner; whether it be that מחלת itself (with theancient dialectic feminine termination, like נגינת, Psalm 61:1) is aname for such an elegiac kind of melody, or that it was thereby designed toindicate the initial word of some popular song. In the latter case מחלת is the construct form, the standard song beginning מחלת לב or some such way. The signification to be sweet(Aramaic) and melodious (Aethiopic), which the root חלי obtainsin the dialects, is foreign to Hebrew. It is altogether inadmissible tocombine מחלת with Arab. (mahlt), ease, comfort (Germ. Gemächlichkeit, cf. mächlich, easily, slowly, with mählich, by degrees), as Hitzig does; sinceמחל, Rabbinic, to pardon, coincides more readily with מחה; Psalm 51:3, Psalm 51:11. So that we may regard (machalath) as equivalent to mestonotpianoor andante/>That the two texts, Psalm 14:1-7 and Psalm 53:1-6, are “vestiges of an original identity”(Hupfeld) is not established: Psalm 53:1-6 is a later variation of Psalm 14:1-7. Themusical designation, common only to the earlier Psalms, at once dissuadesone from coming down beyond the time of Jehoshaphat or Hezekiah. Moreover, we have here a manifest instance that even Psalms which arecomposed upon the model of, or are variations of Davidic Psalms, were without any hesitation inscribed לדוד.

Beside the critical problem, all that remains here for the exegesis is merely the discussion of anything peculiar in the deviations in the form of the text.

The well-grounded asyndeton השׁהיתוּ התעיבוּ ishere dismissed; and the expression is rendered more bombastic by the useof עול instead of עלילה. עול (the masculineto עולה), pravitasis the accusative of the object (cf. Ezekiel 16:52) to both verbs, which give it a twofold superlative attributivenotion. Moreover, here השׁחיתו is accented with (Mugrash) in our printedtexts instead of (Tarcha). One (Mugrash) after another is contrary to all rule.

In both recensions of the Psalm the name of God occurs seven times. In Psalm 14:1-7 it reads three times Elohim and four times Jahve; in the Psalm before usit is all seven times Elohim, which in this instance is a proper name ofequal dignity with the name Jahve. Since the mingling of the two names inPsalm 14:1-7 is perfectly intentional, inasmuch as Elohim in Psalm 53:1, Psalm 53:2 describesGod as a Being most highly exalted and to be reverentially acknowledged,and in Psalm 52:5 as the Being who is present among men in the righteousgeneration and who is mighty in their weakness, it becomes clear thatDavid himself cannot be the author of this levelling change, which iscarried out more rigidly than the Elohimic character of the Psalm reallydemands.

Instead of הכּל, the totality, we have כּלּו, which denoteseach individual of the whole, to which the suffix, that has almost vanished(Psalm 29:9) from the genius of the language, refers. And instead of סר, the more elegant סג, without any distinction in themeaning.

Here in the first line the word כּל־, which, as in Psalm 5:6; Psalm 6:9, is inits right place, is wanting. In Psalm 14:1-7 there then follow, instead of twotristichs, two distichs, which are perhaps each mutilated by the loss of aline. The writer who has retouched the Psalm has restored the tristichicsymmetry that had been lost sight of, but he has adopted rather violentmeans: inasmuch as he has fused down the two distichs into a singletristich, which is as closely as possible adapted to the sound of theirletters.

The last two lines of this tristich are in letters so similar to the twodistichs of Psalm 14:1-7, that they look like an attempt at the restoration of somefaded manuscript. Nevertheless, such a close following of the sound of theletters of the original, and such a changing of the same by means of aninterchange of letters, is also to be found elsewhere (more especially inJeremiah, and e.g., also in the relation of the Second Epistle of Peter toJude). And the two lines sound so complete in themselves and full of life,that this way of accounting for their origin takes too low an estimate ofthem. A later poet, perhaps belonging to the time of Jehoshaphat orHezekiah, has here adapted the Davidic Psalm to some terrible catastrophe that has just taken place, and given a special character to the universal announcement of judgment. The addition of לא־היה פּחד (supply אשׁר = אשׁר שׁם, Psalm 84:4) is meant to imply that fear of judgment had seized upon the enemies of the people of God, when no fear, i.e., no outward ground for fear, existed; it was therefore חרדּת אלהים (1 Samuel 14:15), a God-wrought panic. Such as the case with the host of the confederates in the days of Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:22-24); such also with the army of Sennacherib before Jerusalem (Isaiah 37:36). כּי gives the proof in support of this fright from the working of the divine power. The words are addressed to the people of God: Elohim hath scattered the bones (so that unburied they lie like dirt upon the plain a prey to wild beasts, Psalm 141:7; Ezekiel 6:5) of thy besieger, i.e., of him who had encamped against thee. חנך .eeht tsniaga instead of חנך = חנה עליך.

(Note: So it has been explained by Menachem; whereas Dunash wrongly takes the ך of חנך as part of the root, overlooking the fact that with the suffix it ought rather to have been חנך instead of חנך. It is true that within the province of the verb (âch) does occur as a pausal masculine suffix instead of (écha), with the preterite (Deuteronomy 6:17; Isaiah 30:19; Isaiah 55:5, and even out of pause in Jeremiah 23:37), and with the infinitive (Deuteronomy 28:24; Ezekiel 28:15), but only in the passage before us with the participle. Attached to the participle this masculine suffix closely approximates to the Aramaic; with proper substantives there are no examples of it found in Hebrew. Simson ha-Nakdan, in his חבור הקונים (a MS in Leipzig University Library, fol. 29b), correctly observes that forms like שׁמך, עמּך, are not biblical Hebrew, but Aramaic, and are only found in the language of the Talmud, formed by a mingling of the Hebrew and Aramaic.)

By the might of his God, who has overthrown them, the enemies of His people, Israel has put them to shame, i.e., brought to nought in a way most shameful to them, the project of those who were so sure of victory, who imagined they could devour Israel as easily and comfortably as bread. It is clear that in this connection even Psalm 53:5 receives a reference to the foreign foes of Israel originally alien to the Psalm, so that consequently Micah 3:3 is no longer a parallel passage, but passages like Numbers 14:9, our bread are they (the inhabitants of Canaan); and Jeremiah 30:16, all they that devour thee shall be devoured.

The two texts now again coincide. Instead of ישׁוּעת, wehere have ישׁעות; the expression is strengthened, the pluralsignifies entire, full, and final salvation.