12 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.
The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah. Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel. We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions. Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God. They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright. Save, LORD: let the king hear us when we call.
Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people that could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 108
Commentary on Psalms 108 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Two Elohimic Fragments Brought Together
The אודך in Psalms 108:4 and the whole contents of this Psalm is the echo to the הודוּ of the preceding Psalm. It is inscribed a Psalm-song by David , but only because it is compiled out of ancient Davidic materials. The fact of the absence of the למנצח makes it natural to suppose that it is of later origin. Two Davidic Psalm-pieces in the Elohimic style are here, with trifling variations, just put together, not soldered together, and taken out of their original historical connection.
That a poet like David would thus compile a third out of two of his own songs (Hengstenberg) is not conceivable.
This first half is taken from Ps. 57:8-12. The repetition of confident is my heart in Psalms 57:1-11 is here omitted; and in place of it the “my glory” of the exclamation, awake my glory , is taken up to “I will sing and will harp” as a more minute definition of the subject (vid., on Psalms 3:5): He will do it, yea,his soul with all its godlike powers shall do it. Jahve in Psalms 108:4 is transformed out of the Adonaj ; and Waw copul . is inserted both before Psalms 108:4 and Psalms 108:6 , contrary to Psalms 57:1-11. מעל , Psalms 108:5 (as in Esther 3:1), would be a pleasing change for עד if Psalms 108:5 followed Psalms 108:5 and the definition of magnitude did not retrograde instead of heightening. Moreover Psalms 36:6; Jeremiah 51:9 (cf. על in Psalms 113:4; Psalms 148:13) favour עד in opposition to מעל .
Ps. 60:7-14 forms this second half. The clause expressing the purpose with למען , as in its original, has the following הושׁיעה for its principal clause upon which it depends. Instead of ועננוּ , which one might have expected, the expression used here is וענני without any interchange of the mode of writing and of reading it; many printed copies have ועננו here also; Baer, following Norzi, correctly has וענני . Instead of ולי ... לי , Psalms 60:9, we here read לי ... לי , which is less soaring. And instead of Cry aloud concerning me, O Philistia do I shout for joy (the triumphant cry of the victor); in accordance with which Hupfeld wishes to take התרועעי in the former as infinitive: “over ( עלי instead of עלי ) Philistia is my shouting for joy” ( התרועעי instead of התרועעי , since the infinitive does not admit of this pausal form of the imperative). For עיר מצור we have here the more usual form of expression עיר מבצר . Psalms 108:12 is weakened by the omission of the אתּה ( הלא ).