Psa 33:1-3 | KD | STEP | The Davidic Maskîl, , is followed by an anonymous congregational song of a hymnic character, which begins just like the former closes. It owes its composition apparently to some deliverance of the nation from heathen oppression, which had resulted from God’s interposition and without war. Moreover it exhibits no trace of dependence upon earlier models, such as might compel us to assign a late date to it; the time of Jeremiah, for instance, which Hitzig adopts. The structure is symmetrical. Between the two hexastichs, , , the materia laudis is set forth in eight tetrastichs.

‏ Psalms 33:1-3

Praise of the Ruler of the World as Being the Defender of His People

The Davidic Maskîl, Psa 32:1-11, is followed by an anonymous congregational song of a hymnic character, which begins just like the former closes. It owes its composition apparently to some deliverance of the nation from heathen oppression, which had resulted from God’s interposition and without war. Moreover it exhibits no trace of dependence upon earlier models, such as might compel us to assign a late date to it; the time of Jeremiah, for instance, which Hitzig adopts. The structure is symmetrical. Between the two hexastichs, Psa 33:1, Psa 33:20, the materia laudis is set forth in eight tetrastichs. Psa 33:1-3

The call contained in this hexastich is addressed to the righteous and upright, who earnestly seek to live a godly and God-pleasing life, and the sole determining rule of whose conduct is the will and good pleasure of God. These alone know God, whose true nature finds in them a clear mirror; so on their part they are joyfully to confess what they possess in Him. For it is their duty, and at the same time their honour, to praise him, and make their boast in Him. נאוה is the feminine of the adjective נאוה (formed out of נאוי), as in Psa 147:1, cf. Pro 19:10. On כּנּור (lxx κιθάρα, κινύρα) and נבל (lxx ψαλτήριον, νάβλα, ναῦλα, etc.) vid., Introduction §II. נבל is the name given to the harp or lyre on account of its resemblance to a skin bottle or flash (root נב, to swell, to be distended), and נבל עשׂור, “harp of the decade,”' is the ten-stringed harp, which is also called absolutely עשׂור, and distinguished from the customary נבל, in Psa 92:4. By a comparison of the asyndeton expressions in Psa 35:14, Jer 11:19, Aben-Ezra understands by נבל עשור two instruments, contrary to the tenour of the words. Gecatilia, whom he controverts, is only so far in error as that he refers the ten to holes (נקבים) instead of to strings. The בּ is Beth instrum., just like the expression κιθαρίζειν ἐν κιθάραις, Rev 14:2. A “new song” is one which, in consequence of some new mighty deeds of God, comes from a new impulse of gratitude in the heart, Psa 40:4, and frequently in the Psalms, Isa 42:10, Judith 6:13, Rev 5:9. In היטיבוּ the notions of scite and strenue, suaviter and naviter, blend. With בּתרוּעה, referring back to רננו, the call to praise forms, as it were, a circle as it closes.