Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 39:4
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
(Heb.: 39:5-7) He prays God to set the transitoriness of earthly life clearly before his eyes (cf. Psa 90:12); for if life is only a few spans long, then even his suffering and the prosperity of the ungodly will last only a short time. Oh that God would then grant him to know his end ( Job 6:11), i.e., the end of his life, which is at the same time the end of his affliction, and the measure of his days, how it is with this (מה, interrog. extenuantis, as in Psa 8:5), in order that he may become fully conscious of his own frailty! Hupfeld corrects the text to אני מה־חלד, after the analogy of Psa 89:48, because חדל cannot signify "frail." But חדל signifies that which leaves off and ceases, and consequently in this connection, finite and transitory or frail. מה, quam, in connection with an adjective, as in Psa 8:2; Psa 31:20; Psa 36:8; Psa 66:3; Psa 133:1. By הן (the customary form of introducing the propositio minor, Lev 10:18; Lev 25:20) the preceding petition is supported. God has, indeed, made the days, i.e., the lifetime, of a man טפחות, handbreadths, i.e., He has allotted to it only the short extension of a few handbreadths (cf. ימים, a few days, e.g., Isa 65:20), of which nine make a yard (cf. πήχυιος χρόνος in Mimnermus, and Sa1 20:3); the duration of human life (on חלד vid., Psa 17:14) is as a vanishing nothing before God the eternal One. The particle אך is originally affirmative, and starting from that sense becomes restrictive; just as רק is originally restrictive and then affirmative. Sometimes also, as is commonly the case with אכן, the affirmative signification passes over into the adversative (cf. verum, verum enim vero). In our passage, agreeably to the restrictive sense, it is to be explained thus: nothing but mere nothingness (cf. Psa 45:14; Jam 1:2) is every man נצּב, standing firmly, i.e., though he stand never so firmly, though he be never so stedfast ( Zac 11:16). Here the music rises to tones of bitter lament, and the song continues in Psa 39:7 with the same theme. צלם, belonging to the same root as צל, signifies a shadow-outline, an image; the בּ is, as in Psa 35:2, Beth essentiae: he walks about consisting only of an unsubstantial shadow. Only הבל, breath-like, or after the manner of breath ( Psa 144:4), from empty, vain motives and with vain results, do they make a disturbance (pausal fut. energicum, as in Psa 36:8); and he who restlessly and noisily exerts himself knows not who will suddenly snatch together, i.e., take altogether greedily to himself, the many things that he heaps up (צבר, as in Job 27:16); cf. Isa 33:4, and on - ām = αὐτά, Lev 15:10 (in connection with which אלה הדברים, cf. Isa 42:16, is in the mind of the speaker). Psalms 39:7
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