10 Day and night they prowl around on its walls. Malice and abuse are also within her.
At evening let them return. Let them howl like a dog, and go around the city. They shall wander up and down for food, And wait all night if they aren't satisfied.
Ahithophel said to Absalom, Go in to your father's concubines, that he has left to keep the house; and all Israel will hear that you are abhorred of your father: then will the hands of all who are with you be strong. So they spread Absalom a tent on the top of the house; and Absalom went in to his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel.
Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night: and I will come on him while he is weary and weak-handed, and will make him afraid; and all the people who are with him shall flee; and I will strike the king only;
Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they don't know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes therein does not know peace. Therefore is justice far from us, neither does righteousness overtake us: we look for light, but, behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity. We grope for the wall like the blind; yes, we grope as those who have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; among those who are lusty we are as dead men. We roar all like bears, and moan sore like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can't enter. Yes, truth is lacking; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Yahweh saw it, and it displeased him who there was no justice.
Woe to those who devise iniquity And work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields, and seize them; And houses, and take them away: And they oppress a man and his house, Even a man and his heritage.
Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city! She didn't obey the voice. She didn't receive correction. She didn't trust in Yahweh. She didn't draw near to her God. Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 55
Commentary on Psalms 55 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Prayer of One Who Is Maliciously Beset and Betrayed by His Friend
Psalms 54:1-7 is followed by another Davidic Psalm bearing the same inscription: To the Precentor, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, a meditation, by David . It also accords with the former in the form of the prayer with which it opens (cf. Psalms 55:2 with Psalms 54:3.); and it is the Elohimic counterpart of the Jahve- Psalms 41:1-13. If the Psalm is by David, we require (in opposition to Hengstenberg) an assignable occasion for it in the history of his life. For how could the faithless bosom friend, over whom the complaint concerning malicious foes here, as in Psalms 41:1-13, lingers with special sadness, be a mere abstract personage; since it has in the person of Judas Iscariot its historical living antitype in the life and passion of the second David? This Old Testament Judas is none other than Ahithפphel, the right hand of Absalom. Ps 55 belongs, like Psalms 41:1-13, to the four years during which the rebellion of Absalom was forming; only to a somewhat later period, when Absalom's party were so sure of their cause that they had no need to make any secret of it. How it came to pass that David left the beginnings and progressive steps of the rebellion of Absalom to take their course without bringing any other weapon to bear against it than the weapon of prayer, is discussed on Psalms 41:1-13.
Hitzig also holds this Psalm to be Jeremianic. But it contains no coincidences with the language and thoughts of Jeremiah worth speaking of, excepting that this prophet, in Psalms 9:1, gives utterance to a similar wish to that of the psalmist in Psalms 55:7, and springing from the same motive. The argument in favour of Jeremiah in opposition to David is consequently referred to the picture of life and suffering which is presented in the Psalm; and it becomes a question whether this harmonizes better with the persecuted life of Jeremiah or of David. The exposition which follows here places itself - and it is at least worthy of being attempted - on the standpoint of the writer of the inscription.
In this first group sorrow prevails. David spreads forth his deep grief before God, and desires for himself some lonely spot in the wilderness far away from the home or lurking-place of the confederate band of those who are compassing his overthrow. “Veil not Thyself” here, where what is spoken of is something audible, not visible, is equivalent to “veil not Thine ear,” Lamentations 3:56, which He designedly does, when the right state of heart leaves the praying one, and consequently that which makes it acceptable and capable of being answered is wanting to the prayer (cf. Isaiah 1:15). שׂיח signifies a shrub (Syriac shucho , Arabic šı̂ḥ ), and also reflection and care (Arabic, carefulness, attention; Aramaic, סח , to babble, talk, discourse). The Hiph . חריד , which in Genesis 27:40 signifies to lead a roving life, has in this instance the signification to move one's self backwards and forwards, to be inwardly uneasy; root רד , Arab. rd , to totter, whence râda , jarûda , to run up and down (IV to desire, will); raida , to shake (said of a soft bloated body); radda , to turn (whence taraddud , a moving to and fro, doubting); therefore: I wander hither and thither in my reflecting or meditating, turning restlessly from one thought to another. It is not necessary to read ואחמיה after Psalms 77:4 instead of ועהימה , since the verb הוּם = המה , Psalms 42:6, 12, is secured by the derivatives. Since these only exhibit הוּם , and not הים (in Arabic used more particularly of the raving of love), ואהימה , as also אריד , is Hiph ., and in fact like this latter used with an inward object: I am obliged to raise a tumult or groan, break out into the dull murmuring sounds of pain. The cohortative not unfrequently signifies “I have to” or “I must” of incitements within one's self which are under the control of outward circumstances. In this restless state of mind he finds himself, and he is obliged to break forth into this cry of pain on account of the voice of the foe which he cannot but hear; by reason of the pressure or constraint ( עקת ) of the evil-doer which he is compelled to feel. The conjecture צעקת (Olshausen and Hupfeld) is superfluous. עקה is a more elegant Aramaizing word instead of צרה .
The second strophe begins with a more precise statement of that which justifies his pain. The Hiph . חמיט signifies here, as in Psalms 140:11 ( Chethîb ), declinare : they cast or roll down evil (calamity) upon him and maliciously lay snares for him בּאף , breathing anger against him who is conscious of having manifested only love towards them. His heart turns about in his body, it writhes ( יהיל ); cf. on this, Psalms 38:11. Fear and trembling take possession of his inward parts; יבא in the expression יבא בי , as is always the case when followed by a tone syllable, is a so-called נסוג אחור , i.e., it has the tone that has retreated to the penult . (Deuteronomy 1:38; Isaiah 7:24; Isaiah 60:20), although this is only with difficulty discernible in our printed copies, and is therefore (vid., Accentsystem , vi. §2) noted with Mercha . The fut. consec . which follows introduces the heightened state of terror which proceeds from this crowding on of fear and trembling. Moreover, the wish that is thereby urged from him, which David uttered to himself, is introduced in the third strophe by a fut. consec.
(Note: That beautiful old song of the church concerning Jesus has grown out of this strophe: -
Ecquis binas columbinas
Alas dabit animae?
Et in almam crucis palmam
Evolat citissime