Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament · Psalms Chương 4

(Heb.: 4:2) Jahve is אלהי צדק , the possessor of righteousness, the author of righteousness, and the vindicator of misjudged and persecuted righteousness. This God of righteousness David believingly calls his God (cf. Psalms 24:5; Psalms 59:11); for the righteousness he possesses, he possesses in Him, and the righteousness he looks for, he looks for in Him. That this is not in vain, his previous experience assures him: Thou hast made a breadth (space) for me when in a strait. In connection with this confirmatory relation of בּצּר הרהבתּ לּי it is more probable that we have before us an attributive clause (Hitz.), than that we have an independent one, and at any rate it is a retrospective clause. הרחבת is not precative (Böttch.), for the perf. of certainty with a precative colouring is confined to such exclamatory utterances as Job 21:16 (which see). He bases his prayer on two things, viz., on his fellowship with God, the righteous God, and on His justifying grace which he has already experienced. He has been many times in a strait already, and God has made a broad place for him. The idea of the expansion of the breathing (of the stream of air) and of space is attached to the ח , Arab. ḥ , of רחב , root רח ( Deutsch. Morgenl. Zeitschr. xii. 657). What is meant is the expansion of the straitened heart, Psalms 25:17. Isaiah 60:5, and the widening of a straitened position, Psalms 18:20; Psalms 118:5. On the Dag. in לּי vid., on Psalms 84:4.

return to '