Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/1008

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he has removed from its position. The originality of the Psalm in the Psalter, too, is revealed thereby, and the non-independence of the chronicler, who treats the Psalm as an historian.

Verses 1-3


Call to the nation of Jahve to sing praise to its God and to evangelize the heathen. שׁירוּ is repeated three times. The new song assumes a new form of things, and the call thereto, a present which appeared to be a beginning that furnished a guarantee of this new state of things, a beginning viz., of the recognition of Jahve throughout the whole world of nations, and of His accession to the lordship over the whole earth. The new song is an echo of the approaching revelation of salvation and of glory, and this is also the inexhaustible material of the joyful tidings that go forth from day to day (מיּום ליום as in Est 3:7, whereas in the Chronicles it is מיום אל־יום as in Num 30:15). We read Psa 96:1 verbally the same in Isa 42:10; Psa 96:2 calls to mind Isa 52:7; Isa 60:6; and Psa 96:3, Isa 66:19.

Verses 4-6


Confirmation of the call from the glory of Jahve that is now become manifest. The clause Psa 96:4, as also Psa 145:3, is taken out of Psa 48:2. כל־אלהים is the plural of כּל־אלוהּ, every god, 2Ch 32:15; the article may stand here or be omitted (Psa 95:3, cf. Psa 113:4). All the elohim, i.e., gods, of the peoples are אלילים (from the negative אל), nothings and good-for-nothings, unreal and useless. The lxx renders δαιμόνια, as though the expression were שׁדים (cf. 1Co 10:20), more correctly εἴδωλα in Rev 9:20. What Psa 96:5 says is wrought out in Isa 40, Isa 44, and elsewhere; אלילים is a name of idols that occurs nowhere more frequently than in Isaiah. The sanctuary (Psa 96:6) is here the earthly sanctuary. From Jerusalem, over which the light arises first of all (Isa. 60), Jahve's superterrestrial doxa now reveals itself in the world. הוד־והדר is the usual pair of words for royal glory. The chronicler reads Psa 96:6 עז וחדוה בּמקמו, might and joy are in His place (הדוה( ecalp siH ni era yoj d a late word, like אחוה, brotherhood, brotherly affection, from an old root, Exo 18:9). With the place of God one might associate the thought of the celestial place of God transcending space; the chronicler may, however, have