of its Dagesh and accented on the ultima, in order (as Mose ha-Nakdan expressly observes) to guard against the swallowing up of the ah; cf. on Psa 10:1. Concerning the smoking of anger, vid., Psa 18:9. The characteristically Asaphic expression צאן מרעיתו is not less Jeremianic, Jer 23:1. In Psa 74:2 God is reminded of what He has once done for the congregation of His people. קדם, as in Psa 44:2, points back into the Mosaic time of old, to the redemption out of Egypt, which is represented in קנה (Exo 15:17) as a purchasing, and in גאל (Psa 77:15; Psa 78:35, Exo 15:13) as a ransoming (redemptio). שׁבט נחלתך is a factitive object; שׁבט is the name given to the whole nation in its distinctness of race from other peoples, as in Jer 10:16; Jer 51:19, cf. Isa 63:17. זה (Psa 74:2) is rightly separated from הר־ציון (Mugrash); it stands directly for אשׁר, as in Psa 104:8, Psa 104:26; Pro 23:22; Job 15:17 (Ges. §122, 2). The congregation of the people and its central abode are, as though forgotten of God, in a condition which sadly contrasts with their election. משּׁאות נצח are ruins (vid., Psa 73:18) in a state of such total destruction, that all hope of their restoration vanishes before it; נצח here looks forward, just as עולם (חרבות), Isa 63:12; Psa 61:4, looks backwards. May God then lift His feet up high (פּעמים poetical for רגלים, cf. Psa 58:11 with Psa 68:24), i.e., with long hurried steps, without stopping, move towards His dwelling - lace that now lies in ruins, that by virtue of His interposition it may rise again. Hath the enemy made merciless havoc - he hath ill-treated (הרע, as in Psa 44:3) everything (כּל, as in Psa 8:7, Zep 1:2, for חכּל or את־כּל) in the sanctuary - how is it possible that this sacrilegious vandalism should remain unpunished!
Verses 4-8
The poet now more minutely describes how the enemy has gone on. Since קדשׁ in Psa 74:3 is the Temple, מועדיך in Psa 74:4 ought likewise to mean the Temple with reference to the several courts; but the plural would here (cf. Psa 74:8) be misleading, and is, too, only a various reading. Baer has rightly decided in favour of מועדך;[1] מועד, as in Lam 2:6., is the instituted (Num 17:19 [4]) place of God's
- ↑ The reading מעודיך is received, e.g., by Elias Hutter and Nissel; the Targum translates it, Kimchi follows it in his interpretation, and Abraham of Zante follows it in his paraphrase; it is tolerably widely known, but, according to the lxx and Syriac versions and MSS, it is to be rejected.