Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/632

 carry, to him one gives it to carry. The admonition proceeds on the principle that God is as willing as He is able to bear even the heaviest burden for us; but this bearing it for us is on the other side our own bearing of it in God's strength, and hence the promise that is added runs: He will sustain thee (כּלכּל), that thou mayest not through feebleness succumb. Psa 55:23 also favours this figure of a burden: He will not give, i.e., suffer to happen (Psa 78:66), tottering to the righteous for ever, He will never suffer the righteous to totter. The righteous shall never totter (or be moved) with the overthrow that follows; whereas David is sure of this, that his enemies shall not only fall to the ground, but go down into Hades (which is here, by a combination of two synonyms, בּאר שׁחת, called a well, i.e., an opening, of a sinking in, i.e., a pit, as e.g., in Pro 8:31; Eze 36:3), and that before they have halved their days, i.e., before they have reached the half of the age that might be attained under other circumstances (cf. Psa 102:25; Jer 16:11). By ואתּה אלהים prominence is given to the fact that it is the very same God who will not suffer the righteous to fall who casts down the ungodly; and by ואני David contrasts himself with them, as being of good courage now and in all time to come.

=Psalm 56=

Cheerful Courage of a Fugitive
2 BE gracious unto me, Elohim, for man is greedy after me, All the day he, fighting, oppresseth me.

3 Mine adversaries are greedy after me all the day, For many are they who proudly war against me.

4 In the day that I fear do I cling confidingly to Thee.

5 Through Elohim will I praise His word, In Elohim do I trust, without fearing : What can flesh do unto me ?

6 All the day long they wrest my words, Against me are all their thoughts for evil.

7 They band together, they set spies —

They watch my heels, because seeking after my life.