PSALMS IX. AND X. 277
p
His mouth is full of deceits and oppression,
Under his tongue is mischief and trouble ;
8 He sitteth in places of ambush in the villages,
In secret places he slayeth the innocent.
f (c)
His eyes watch privily for the hapless,
9 He lieth in ambush in a secret place as a lion in
his covert;
He lieth in ambush to snatch away the afflicted,
He snatcheth away the afflicted, dragging him off
in his net.
10 [The righteous]... sinketh down,
And the hapless fall by his strong ones (?).
11 He saith in his heart, "God has forgotten,
He hath hidden His face (and) seeth nevermore."
like its parallel, in the next line of a pair of qualities, comes limping
awkwardly in at the end as an afterthought. Why is there a stress
on cursing? Why, so much more stress on cursing than on deceit or
oppression? Why, perhaps we may further ask, is cursing somewhat
incongruously coupled with " deceit and oppression"? These are
questions which commentators who follow the traditional division of
the text have never answered, if they have even considered them.
(2) The inclusion of hlx in the first line would overload it, giving it
five word-accents against the four of its parallel: this lack of balance
is only aggravated when Baethgen removes rwx from v. 6 and prefixes
it to v. 7!
Read, then, in 7a jtv tvmrm xlm vhyp, i.e. omit the v before tvmrm
(necessarily introduced when hlx had been connected with v. 7), or
less probably the waw of mnnni may have shifted from an original
vxlm, lit. Deceit and oppression fill his mouth.
9 In a secret place: The omission of these words, which may have
been accidentally repeated from 8 b, improves the vigour and rhythm
of the line.
10 Again, the attempt to render the existing Hebrew text has
reduced commentators to the most desperate straits. R.V. renders,
He croucheth, he boweth down,
And the helpless fall by his strong ones.
But to whom does the pronoun refer? Many, since Ewald, have