Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/702

 and does sometimes at least occur where the writer throws himself back into the past (2Sa 22:38), the rendering: Then did we rejoice in Him, cannot be assailed on syntactical grounds. On the “we,” cf. Jos 5:1, Chethîb, Hos 12:1-14 :54. The church of all ages is a unity, the separate parts being jointly involved in the whole. The church here directs the attention of all the world to the mighty deeds of God at the time of the deliverance from Egypt, viz., the laying of the Red Sea and of Jordan dry, inasmuch as it can say in Psa 66:7, by reason of that which it has experienced ibn the present, that the sovereign power of God is ever the same: its God rules in His victorious might עולם, i.e., not “over the world,” because that ought to be בּעולם, but “in eternity” (accusative of duration, as in Psa 89:2., Psa 45:7), and therefore, as in the former days, so also in all time to come. His eyes keep searching watch among the peoples; the rebellious, who struggle agaisnt His yoke and persecute His people, had better not rise, it may go ill with them. The Chethîb runs ירימוּ, for which the Kerî is ירוּמוּ. The meaning remains the same; הרים can (even without יד, ראשׁ, קרן, Psa 65:5) mean “to practise exaltation,” superbire. By means of למו this proud bearing is designated as being egotistical, and as unrestrainedly boastful. Only let them not imagine themselves secure in their arrogance! There is One more exalted, whose eye nothing escapes, and to whose irresistible might whatever is not conformed to His gracious will succumbs.

Verses 8-12
The character of the event by which the truth has been verified that the God who redeemed Israel out of Egypt still ever possesses and exercises to the full His ancient sovereign power, is seen from this reiterated call to the peoples to share in Israel's Gloria. God has averted the peril of death and overthrow from His people: He has put their soul in life (בּחיּים, like בּישׁע in Psa 12:6), i.e., in the realm of life; He has not abandoned their foot to tottering unto overthrow (mowT the substantive, as in Psa 121:3; cf. the reversed construction in Psa 55:23). For God has cast His people as it were into a smelting-furnace or fining-pot in order to purify and to prove them by suffering; - this is a favourite figure with Isaiah and Jeremiah, but is also found in Zec 13:9; Mal 3:3. Eze 19:9 is decisive concerning the meaning of מצוּדה, where הביא במצודות