Psalms 27:11-13
Verse 11 Teach me thy way - Let me know the gracious designs of thy providence towards me, that my heart may submit to thy will. And lead me in a plain path - In the path of righteousness, because of mine enemies, who watch for my halting. Verse 12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies - To their soul בנפש benephesh; their whole soul thirsts for my destruction. Let them not be gratified. They have suborned witnesses against me, but they are false witnesses: unmask their wickedness, and confound their counsels. Verse 13 I had fainted, unless I had believed - The words in italics are supplied by our translators; but, far from being necessary, they injure the sense. Throw out the words I had fainted, and leave a break after the verse, and the elegant figure of the psalmist will be preserved: "Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" - What! what, alas! should have become of me! Dr. Hammond has observed that there is a remarkable elegance in the original, which, by the use of the beautiful figure aposiopesis, makes an abrupt breaking off in the midst of a speech. He compares it to the speech of Neptune to the winds that had raised the tempest to drown the fleet of Aeneas - Aeneid. lib. i., ver. 131. Eurum ad se zephyrumque vocat: dehinc talia fatur; Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri? Jam coelum terramque, meo sine numine, venti, Miscere, et tantas audetis tollere moles? Quos ego-sed motos praestat componere fluctus. To Eurus and the western blast he cried, Does your high birth inspire this boundless pride? Audacious winds! without a power from me, To raise at will such mountains on the sea? Thus to confound heaven, earth, the air, and main; Whom I - but, first, I'll calm the waves again. Pitts.
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