coincides with the supplicatory כנה על. It is Israel that is called בּן in Psa 80:16, as being the son whom Jahve has called into being in Egypt, and then called out of Egypt to Himself and solemnly declared to be His son on Sinai (Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1), and who is now, with a play upon the name of Benjamin in Psa 80:3 (cf. Psa 80:16), called אישׁ ימינך, as being the people which Jahve has preferred before others, and has placed at His right hand[1] for the carrying out of His work of salvation; who is called, however, at the same time בּן־אדם, because belonging to a humanity that is feeble in itself, and thoroughly conditioned and dependent. It is not the more precise designation of the “son of man” that is carried forward by ולא־נסוג, “and who has not drawn back from Thee” (Hupfeld, Hitzig, and others), but it is, as the same relation which is repeated in Psa 80:19 shows, the apodosis of the preceding petition: then shall we never depart from Thee; נסוג being not a participle, as in Psa 44:19, but a plene written voluntative: recedamus, vowing new obedience as thanksgiving of the divine preservation. To the prayer in Psa 80:18 corresponds, then, the prayer תּחיּנוּ, which is expressed as future (which can rarely be avoided, Ew. §229), with a vow of thanksgiving likewise following: then will we call with Thy name, i.e., make it the medium and matter of solemn proclamation. In v. 20 the refrain of this Psalm, which is laid out as a trilogy, is repeated for the third time. The name of God is here threefold.
Psalm 81
Easter Festival Salutation and Discourse
- ↑ Pinsker punctuates thus: Let Thy hand be upon the man, Thy right hand upon the son of man, whom, etc.; but the impression that ימינך and אמצתה לך coincide is so strong, that no one of the old interpreters (from the lxx and Targum onwards) has been able to free himself from it.
