Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John Calvineventually God will appear for their deliverance; There can be little doubt that he hints at the stateof wretchedness and distress to which the nation had been reduced under the government of Saul,for the interposition was the more remarkable, considering the misery from which it had emerged.perhaps attaching to it a similar idea as in the preceding translations, men’s portions of land or possessions having been dividedand distinguished by paths Jerome, adhering to the Septuagint, makes it “inter medios terminos.” Thus, the word will not bewithout significance, expressing a forlorn and wretched condition, lying down betwixt the bounds; that is, in the highways. Butmany modern critics think that it signifies something in relation to pots, and that it may very probably be the same as that whichthe Arabs call , Athaphi, stones set in a chimney for a pot to rest on, the pots being without legs. “Of these,” says Hammond,“the Arabians had three, and the third being commonly (to them in the desert) some fast piece of a rock, or the like, behind thepot, — as in a chimney the back of the chimney itself, and that not looked on as distinct from the chimney, — the other two atthe sides, which were loose, might fitly be here expressed in the dual number ; and then the lying between these will betokena very low, squalid condition, as in the ashes, or amidst the soot and filth of the chimney.” “These two renderings,” he adds,“may seem somewhat distant; and yet, considering that the termini or bounds in divisions of ways were but heaps of stones, orbroken bricks, or rubbish, the word , which signifies these, may well signify these supporters of the pots also, in respect ofthe matter of these being such stones or broken bricks.”Parkhurst takes a view somewhat similar to this last interpretation. He reads, “among the fire ranges,” or “rows of stones.”“Those,” says he, “on which the caldrons or pots were placed for boiling; somewhat like, I suppose, but of a more structure, thanthose which Niebuhr says are used by the wandering Arabs. ‘Their fire-place is soon constructed: they only set their pots uponseveral separate stones, or over a hole digged in the earth.’ Lying among these denotes the most abject slavery; for this seemsto have been the place of rest allotted to the vilest slaves. So, old Laertes, grieving for the loss of his son, is described by Homer(in the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey) as, in the winter, sleeping where the slaves did, in the ashes near the fire: —‘—Oqi dmwev eni oikwEn koni agci purov.’”See his Lexicon on ii.The Chaldee has “broken bricks,” or “rubbish,” that are thrown away; the word, according to this sense, being derived from, shephah, to bruise, to trample on A similar noun, , ashpoth, derived from the verb , is used in Psalm 113:7, for a dunghill,or the vilest place, whither all kinds of rubbish are cast out, and where the poor are said to lie. When Job was brought by Satanto the lowest depths of affliction, he sat down among the ashes, and scraped himself with a potsherd, which indicated the stateof extreme sadness and debasement to which he was reduced. If this is the sense here, “lying among the broken bricks or rubbish”expresses, in like manner as the preceding translations, the most mean, dejected, and wretched condition.Harmer’s attempt to explain this passage is at least very ingenious: — As shepherds in the East betake themselves, duringthe night, for shelter to the caves which they find in their rocky hills, where they can kindle fires to warm themselves, as wellas dress their provisions, and as doves, as well as other birds, frequently haunt such places, he conjectures that the afflicted stateof Israel in Egypt is here compared to the condition of a dove making its abode in the hollow of a rock which had been smuttedby the fires which the shepherds had made in it. He supposes the word here translated pots to mean the little heaps of stones onwhich the shepherds set their pots, there being a hollow under them to contain the fire. — Harmer’s Observations, volume 1,pp. 176, 177.Gesenius thinks the word is equivalent to , hammishpethaim, which occurs in Judges 5:16, and which our Englishversion makes “sheepfolds,” the only difference between the two words being, that the word here wants the formative letter ,mem Thus, it may refer to the condition of the Israelites when living among their flocks in the wilderness. We have not yetexhausted the different significations affixed by commentators to this word; but, without referring to more, we shall only add,that, according to some, the allusion is to the condition of the Israelites in Egypt, who were doomed to the drudgery of brick-makingand pottery, and had probably to sleep among the brick-kilns or earthenware manufactories in which they were employed.With respect to the second clause of the verse, in which an image taken from the dove is introduced, a difficulty which hasbeen stated is, how her feathers can be said to resemble yellow gold. From the circumstance, that the splendor of gold is hereintermingled, Harmer concludes that this is not a description of the animal merely as adorned by the hand of nature, but that theallusion is to white doves that were consecrated to the Syrian deities, and adorned with trinkets of gold, the meaning being,“Israel is to me as a consecrated dove; and though your circumstances have made you rather appear like a poor dove, blackenedby taking up its abode in a smoky hole of the rocks, yet shall you become beautiful and glorious as a Syrian silver-colouredpigeon, on which some ornament of gold is put.” — Harmer’s Observations, volume 1, p. 180. But there are certainly doveswhich answer to the description here given, some of them having the feathers on the sides of the neck of a shining copper color,which in a bright sun must resemble gold. See Encyc. Brit. Art. Columbia. Besides, the reference is not necessarily to the colorof gold, but to its brilliancy. How highly poetical an emblem, to depict the glorious change effected in the condition of theHebrews by the deliverance which God had granted them over the proud and formidable enemies who had kept them in thedegrading condition represented in the first clause of the verse!11