Psalms of Solomon

Historical printed page 640

THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON 8. 1-15 VIII. Of Solomon. Of the chief Musician. 8 1 Distress and the sound of war hath my ear heard, The sound of a trumpet announcing slaughter and calamity, 2 The sound of much people as of an exceeding high wind, As a tempest with mighty fire sweeping through the Negeb. 3 And I said in my heart, Surely (?) God judgeth us ; 4 5 6 7 (6) (7) 8 9 A sound I hear (moving) towards Jerusalem, the holy city. My loins were broken at what I heard, (5) my knees tottered ; My heart was afraid, my bones were dismayed like flax. I said: They establish their ways in righteousness. I thought upon the judgements of God since the creation of heaven and earth; I held God righteous in His judgements which have been from of old. God laid bare their sins in the full light of day ; All the earth came to know the righteous judgements of God. In secret places underground their iniquities (were committed) to provoke (Him) to anger ; το They wrought confusion, son with mother and father with daughter ; II (10) 12 (11) They committed adultery, every man with his neighbour's wife. They concluded covenants with one another with an oath touching these things ; They plundered the sanctuary of God, as though there was no avenger. 13 (12) They trode the altar of the Lord, (coming straight) from all manner of uncleanness ; And with menstrual blood they defiled the sacrifices, as (though these were) common flesh. 14 (13) They left no sin undone, wherein they surpassed not the heathen. VIII. TiTLe, Of the chief Musician. & εἰς νῖκος, ‘unto victory’; but in Theodotion’s version of Ps, xii. 1, xiii. 1, εἰς νῖκος is the rendering of ny), ‘ Of (or to) the chief Musician.’ Fas Cp. is2; 14, announcing. ἠχούσης = POW. Cp. Sir. xlv. 9. 2. the Negeb, i.e. the wilderness to the south of Judah. So probably ® here, as in Isa. xxi. 1; & in both passages has the more general ‘ (the) wilderness’. 3. in my heart. (ἃ 3S ‘to my heart’. Surely. (ἃ S ‘where, then’ (will God, &c.) ; ποῦ should imply in 18 75°8 or 738, but neither of these words in such a context would mean ‘surely’. Possibly 3 was already corrupt. An assertive particle would be suitable ; but, since the dominant rhythm of the Hebrew poem seems to have been 3 : 2, ποῦ ἄρα should rather correspond to the corruption of some word that belonged to the first half of the verse, perchance to 13 125 “8, ‘Woe to us! for.’ Cp. e. g. Jer. vi. 4. judgeth. & ‘will judge’. ᾿ 4 us. (ἃ ὦ ‘him’. # would have been ambiguous, permitting the different vocalizations, NEY and DEY), 4. hear. G ‘heard’. (moving) towards. εἰς (Ἱερουσαλὴμ πόλιν), RL C; ἐν (Ἱερουσαλὴμ πόλιν) H; 95 ‘in (Jerusalem) ’. If the text of & in v. 3 f. represents the meaning of the original, the point of the verse is that the poet is convinced that God will judge the hostile people (v. 1 ἢ), but is at first uncertain where: ‘I said in my heart, Where then will God judge him?’ (v. 3). He then hears the sound of judgement upon ‘him’, i.e. the enemy, in Jerusalem. But in this case the distress at the news described in v. 4 is difficult to account for, though it is natural enough, if the poet sees in the hosts (v. 1 f.) advancing on (v. 4) Jerusalem the instruments of God’s judgement on ‘us’, i. 6. Jerusalem. a sound, or ‘a voice’ (and so in v. If.). 5. at what I heard, lit. ‘at hearing’; but cp. Ezek. xxi. 11 (6), Isa. xxi. 3. tottered. Isa. xxxv. 3. 6. Rhythm suggests that the simile may have stood in the first part of the verse ; perchance ἐφοβήθη is paraphrastic, and the verse originally ran somewhat as follows: ‘ My heart trembled (cp. Isa. vii. 2) like flax, my bones were dismayed ’ (Ps. vi. 3). 7. The psalmist'’s first thought that Jerusalem is righteous (cp. i. 3), which created his astonishment and distress (vv. 5, 6) at the approach of disaster (v. 1 f.), is corrected by God’s laying bare the secret sins of the people (vv. 8 ff.). Perhaps the thought has been obscured by the loss of more than half a distich. According to the punctuation and accentuation of the MSS. of (τ, we should render: ‘And I said to those that establish,” ἄς. Sas above. — 8. in the full light of day. ii. 13n. 10. They wrought confusion. Cp. ii. 15 ἢ. 12. the sanctuary. i. 8n. as though there_was no avenger. { lit. ‘there not being an inheritor delivering’. S ‘as if there were none to inherit and deliver’. 1 probably as above. The apparent dominance of the 3:2 rhythm favours Ryle and James’ conjecture that read by js). 13. altar. 3% ‘temple’. 134. Having come in contact with women at a time when they are ritually unclean, and thereby themselves contracted uncleanness, they do not wait to undergo the necessary purification, but eat the sacrificial flesh as though it were not sacred, but mere common flesh that could be eaten whether one was clean or unclean. See Lev. xii. 1-8, xv. 19-33 ; Ezek. xviii. 6; Lev. xv. 31; Deut. xii. 15. 640 ., Caney o./ ὡ