Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/701

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of Assyria in the reign of Hezekiah. But there is no ground for conjecturing either Isaiah or Hezekiah to be the composer of this Psalm. If עולם in Psa 66:7 signified the world (Hitzig), then he would be (vid., Psa 24:9) one of the latest among the Old Testament writers; but it has the same meaning here that it has everywhere else in Old Testament Hebrew.
In the Greek Church this Psalm is called Ψαλμὸς ἀναστάσεως; the lxx gives it this inscription, perhaps with reference to Psa 66:12, ἐξήγαγες ἡμᾶς εἰς ἀναψυχήν.

Psalm 66


Verses 1-4


The phrase שׂים כבוד ל signifies “to give glory to God” in other passages (Jos 7:19; Isa 42:12), here with a second accusative, either (1) if we take תּהלּתו as an accusative of the object: facite laudationem ejus gloriam = gloriosam (Maurer and others), or (2) if we take כבוד as an accusative of the object and the former word as an accusative of the predicate: reddite honorem laudem ejus (Hengstenberg), or (3) also by taking תהלתו as an apposition: reddite honorem, scil. laudem ejus (Hupfeld). We prefer the middle rendering: give glory as His praise, i.e., to Him as or for praise. It is unnecessary, with Hengstenberg, to render: How terrible art Thou in Thy works! in that case אתּה ought not to be wanting. מעשׂיך might more readily be singular (Hupfeld, Hitzig); but these forms with the softened Jod of the root dwindle down to only a few instances upon closer consideration. The singular of the predicate (what a terrible affair) here, as frequently, e.g., Psa 119:137, precedes the plural designating things. The song into which the Psalmist here bids the nations break forth, is essentially one with the song of the heavenly harpers in Rev 15:3., which begins, Μεγάλα καὶ θαυμαστὰ τὰ ἔργα σου.

Verses 5-7


Although the summons: Come and see... (borrowed apparently from Psa 46:9), is called forth by contemporary manifestations of God's power, the consequences of which now lie open to view, the rendering of Psa 66:6, “then will we rejoice in Him,” is nevertheless unnatural, and, rightly looked at, neither grammar nor the matter requires it. For since שׁם in this passage is equivalent to אז, and the future after אז takes the signification of an aorist; and since the cohortative form of the future can also (e.g., after עד, Psa 73:7, and in clauses having a hypothetical sense) be referred to the past,