the destruction which had begun in his body, "driven leaf,' that he compares himself to a i. e. one that is tossed to and fro by the wind (comp. Lev. xxvi. 36), and to the dry chaff, which is in like manner blown about (comp. Ps. i. 4, etc.). Ver. 26. For Thou decreest for me bitter things (or also with consecutive rendering of (supply) is connected transitively with accus. of the person, as elsewhere ; comp. ch. xx. 2; xxxii. 14; xl. 4. 6. Third Division. The vindication of himself to God, with a complaint over the vanity and helplessness of human existence: ch. xiii. 23xiv. 22. [That Job, lifted up by the proud consciousness of innocence, might really fancy for the moment that God would answer his chal-: "that Thou decreest," etc.). here lenge, is not in itself improbable in view of the is equivalent of course to "bitter painful punpresent temper of his soul, and the entire plan ishments;" and 2, lit. to "write," refers to of the poem, according to which such an inter- a written decree announcing a judicial sentence: course of God with men as may be apprehended comp. ch. xxxi. 35; Ps. cxlix. 9; Is. x. 1.— by the senses lies within the bounds of possi- And makest me to inherit the iniquities bility (ch. xxxviii. seq.), and should not be de- of my youth: the sins of my earlier years, scribed (with Schlottm.) as a fanatical thought; long since forgiven and forgotten, by comparison although indeed he could not long continue in with which as being the half-conscious misbethis fancy; not only the non-appearance of God, haviour of childhood, or the manifestations of but also every consideration of a more particular youthful thoughtlessness (Ps. xxv. 7), so severe sort must convince him of the idleness of his wish." and fearful a penalty would seem to be needless Dillmann. Hence the sudden change of his apo- cruelty. ["He can regard his affliction only as logy to a lamentation]. the inheritance of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath to reproach himself with." Del.E. Ver. "makest me to possess," etc., not sufficiently expressive. "His old age inherited the accumulated usury and consequence of youthful sins." Dav.] "To cause one to inherit anything" is the same as causing him to experience the consequences of anything (here the bad consequences, the punishments); comp. Prov. xiv. 18; Ps. lxix. 37 (36); Mark x. 17; 1 Cor. vi. 10, etc. First Strophe: Vers. 23-28. Having repeatedly announced his purpose (ver. 13 seq., 17 seq.), Job now at length passes directly to the demonstration of his innocence, but at once falls from a tone of confident self-justification into one of sorrowful lamentation, and faint-hearted despair, out of which he does not again emerge during this discourse. Ver. 23. How many are (then) my iniquities and sins; my wickedness and my sin make known to me!-Inasmuch as n denotes sin or moral aberration in general (occasionally also indeed sins of weakness), y transgression or evil-doing of a graver sort, y however flagrant wickedness, open apostasy from God (comp. Hoffmann, Schriftbew. 1., 483 seq.), the enumeration which is here given is on the whole neither climactic nor anti-climactic, but alike in a and b the more special and stronger expression precedes, while the more general term follows. Observe still further that the characteristic expression used to denote the smallest and slightest offenses, (Ps. xix. 13) is not introduced here at all. Of such failures of the most insignificant sort Job would indeed be perfectly well aware that he was guilty; comp. above ch. ix. 2, 14 seq. Ver. 24. Wherefore hidest Thou Thy face (a sign of the Divine displeasure, comp. Is. liv. 8) and regardest me as Thine enemy? -The question is an expression of impatient wonder at the non-appearance of God. Ver. 25. A driven leaf wilt Thou terrify? with He interrog. like D, ch. xv. 2. Comp. Gesenius 100 [98], 4 [E. V. wilt thou break a leaf," etc. And so Bernard: but against usage]. And pursue the dry chaff? The meaning of this troubled plaintive double question is: How canst Thou, who art Almighty and All-sufficient, find Thy pleasure in persecuting and afflicting a weak and miserable creature like me? It is not with reference to the universal frailty of mankind, of which he partook (Hahn), but with special reference to the fearful visitation which had come on him, and Ver. 27. And puttest my feet in the block: i. e. treatest me as a prisoner. D poet. for D, Ewald, 8443, b. [jussive in form though not in signification; used simply "from the preference of poetry for a short pregnant form." Del.], comp. ch. xv. 33; xxiii. 9, 11.— here and ch. xxxiii. 11 is a wooden block with a contrivance for firmly fastening the feet of a prisoner, the same with the nan of Jer. xx. 3, and the ulov of Acts xvi. 24, or modokáry, or the Roman instruments of torture called cippus, codex or nervus. In times still recent wooden blocks of this kind were in use among the Arabians, as Burckhardt had occasion to observe (Travels, p. 420). And watchest all my paths: i. e. does not allow me the slightest freedom of motion: comp. ch. vii. 12; x. 14.Around the roots of my feet Thou dost set bounds: i. e around the place where I stand, where the soles of my feet are placed (the soles firmly fixed in one point being compared bounds, lines of demarcation, which Thou dost to the roots of a tree), Thou dost make marks, not permit me to cross. This is the simplest and philologically the most suitable definition of the Hithpael pnn (from рn, прn); found only here, in which definitions Gesenius, Ewald (1st Ed.), Schlottm., Hahn, Del, Dillm., [Con., Elz.-and see below the rendering of Hirzel, Noyes, etc.], etc., essentially agree. Not essentially different as to the sense, although philologically not so well authenticated are the explanations of Rosenm., Umbreit [Hengst., Mers]; etc. Thou drawest a circle around my feet;' of Ewald (2d Ed.): "Thou makest sure of my feet" (comp. Peshito and Vulgate: vestigia | belongs immediately to the notion contained in pedum meorum considerasti); of Hirzel [Fürst]: the subject, man, whom it characterizes accordThou dost make Thyself a trench around ing to his innate quality of weakness (as also in the roots of my feet" [others, e. g. Noyes, ch. xv. 14; xxv. 4), while the two following Renan, Davidson, Rödiger, take pрn in this clauses illustrate the shortness of his life, (P, sense of cutting or digging a trench, but regard constr. st. of 3, comp. ch. x. 15), and the the Hithpael as indirectly and not directly trouble which fills it (, as in ch. iii. 17, 26). reflexive, sibi, not se susculpere-"dost dig a trench for thyself"]; of Raschi, Mercier, etc.: It is disputed whether the second verb in ver. 2, Thou fastenest Thyself to the soles of my feet." " means to wither, or to be cut off. Etymolo[E. V., Good, Wem., Bernard, etc.: "Thou gically both these definitions are possible, since brandest (settest a print upon, E. V.) the soles of my feet;" evidently supposing the expression may be taken either as Imperf. Niph. of to refer to some process of branding criminals -1, succidi, or as Imperf. of a secondary in the feet: for which, however, there is no good authority. The three parallel figures contained in the verse all find their actual explanation in the fearful disease, with which Job was visited by God, in consequence of which he was doomed to one place, being unable to move on account of the unshapely swelling of his limbs. ["Mercier has already called attention to the gradation which marks the proofs given in these verses of the Divine anger. (1) God hides His face. (2) He shows Himself an enemy. (3) He issues severe decrees against him. (4) He punishes sins long since passed. (5) He throws him into cruel and narrow imprisonment." Hengst.] Kal. (an alternate form), synonymous with, to wither, to become dry, marcescere. The meaning to be cut off, however, is less suitable to the flower than to fade [the latter, and not the former, being, as Dillmann points out, the natural destiny alike of the flower and of man]; comp. Is. xl. 7; Ps. xxxvii. 2; xc. 6; ciii. 15 seq.; Matt. vi. 30; 1 Pet. i. 24; moreover, in the two parallel passages of our book, ch. xviii. 16; and xxiv. 24, it is by no means necessary to render in the sense of succidi, præcidi (against Hirzel, Gesenius, Delitzsch [Conant, Dav., E. V.], etc.). On b comp. ch. viii. 9; Ps. xc. 5, 9, 10. [Conant regards the article before as having a definite signification, "that which however, would scarcely be in harmony with marks the passing and declining day." This, the verb 2, which describes rather the fleet Ver. 28. Although he (the persecuted one) as rottenness wastes away, as a garment which the moth has eaten (comp. ch. iv. 19). This forcible description of the weakness and perishableness of his condition is given to emphasize the thought, how unacccountably severe is God's treatment of him (comp. above ing shadow of the cloud, to which the art. would ver. 25). It is introduced by (instead of be equally suitable. Merx transposes ver. 28, of chap. vii., and inserts it here between vers. *N) objectivizing the subject, and "giving to 1 and 2, thus depriving it of the force and beauty the discourse a more general application, valid which belong to it as the closing verse of that also for other men,” and at the same time pro-strophe, and as a transition to this, and at the viding a transition to the following lament, same time weakening the beauty and pathos of referring to human misery in general. ["Thou this passage by the accumulation of figures. hast set this enclosure around one who does not -E.] grow like a tree, but moulders away moth-eaten like a garment. Job looks at himself ab extra; he will hardly own himself; he hardly recognizes himself, so changed is he by affliction and disease, and he speaks of himself in the third person. How natural and touching is this!" Wordsworth.] Ver. 3. And upon this one dost Thou keep Thine eye open? viz. in order to watch him, and to punish him for his sins, comp. Ps. xxxiv. 17 [16]. 7, emphatically connecting something new with what has already been given, like our "over and above." -hy, Third Division: Second and Third Strophes:"upon this one," i. e. upon such an one as The lament over man's mortality, frailty and he is here described, upon so wretched a vanity continued: ch. xiv. 1-12. creature (Psalm ciii. 14). [The pronoun here descriptive, "such an one, talis, rather than demonstrative. By position the phrase is emphatic. E. V., Conant, etc., render the verb simply "to open," so much as open the eyes, so much as look upon him. The rendering given in our commy. "to keep the eye open upon" presupposes a double emphasis, the first and principal one on the pronoun, the second on the verb. Second Strophe: vers. 1-6. [Man's physical frailty and moral impurity by nature made the ground of a complaint against the severity of God's treatment, and of an appeal for forbearance.] Vers. 1, 2. Man, born of woman, of few days, and full of trouble, cometh up as a flower [and withereth, and fleeth as a shadow, and abideth not].-This is the only right construction of the passage. The first verse contains only the subject, together with three appositional clauses more particularly descriptive of the same. Of these the first, E.]—And me ([', emphatic, me] this pardost thou bring into judgment before ticularly wretched example of the human race), Thee ?-i. e., to judgment at Thy tribunal, where it is impossible to maintain one's cause. a phrase which is elsewhere exactly) יְלוּד אִשָּׁה synonymous with "man," e. g. Sir. x. 18: yevvnμa yuvaikós, and Matt. xi. 11: yévvпtos yʊv.), Ver. 4. O that a pure one might come forth out of an impure: i. e., would it were only possible that one might remain free from the אחָד T T gree that- as in ch. viii. 21; 1 Sam. ii. 5; universal sinfulness of the human race, and from | the misery accompanying the same, which is now absolutely universal and without exception, so that it has the appearance of unpitying severity when God visits those belonging to this race with punishment (comp. vers. 5, 6). , the customary optative formula (as in ver. 13; ch. vi. 8), here connected with an accusative of the object, specifying the contents of the wish (so also in ch. xxxi. 31, 35; Ps. xiv. 7; Deut. xxviii. 67). Hence not: "who makes [E. V.: can bring] a pure one out of an impure? (Rosenm, Arnheim, Welte, [Renan]); nor: "where can a pure one be found among the impure?" as if ? here could have the partitive sense before the singular ["The Opt. rendering not only denies the possibility (of a morally clean coming out of a morally unclean), but gives utterance to the desire that it was otherwise." Dav.]. Notuous, inconsistent indeed, if we have to do simone: to wit, "comes forth." [Not therefore Ply with the thought: "until the completion of "can bring forth," as might be inferred from the days of his life." [It is difficult to see why the literal rendering of ]. Not one pure not perfectly suitable to the connection. The the definition adopted by the E. V. and Del. is will ever come forth in the line of development objection to it is that it is not supported by which has once been contaminated by sin; comp. usage. means everywhere "to regard faPs. li. 7 [5]; also the expression Dvorably, to take pleasure in." We are not justi Ps. xiv. 3, which reminds us very closely of this fied in taking it in any other sense here. But . Ewald, with whom Dillmann agrees, the expression "to enjoy as a hireling his day" punctuates instead of , and conforms the is variously understood. Some take in here second member to the first: "Oh that there in some specific sense; e. g., the day of his diswere one!" for the reason that a wish does not charge, his last day as a hireling (Bernard); his day of rest (Rodwell); and something similar is properly contemplate an answer. But a wish which is in itself incapable of realization is equi-thought would have been more distinctly exsuggested by Jerome's optata dies. But this valent to a question, the answer to which is a strong negation. Moreover the passage is incomparably stronger and more emphatic according to the common rendering, than according to that of Ewald. ["Moreover, why should he desire one such specimen? Plainly, the desire is nothing to the purpose, except as implying that not one such is to be found; and precisely this is asserted in the proper and usual construction of the words." Con.]. On the relation of this assertion by Job of the universality of human corruption to the earlier affirmation of Eliphaz in ch. iv. 17 seq., see the Doc. and Eth. Remarks. Vers. 5, 6, (the former the antecedent, the latter the consequent).—If his days are determined (D', lit. cut off [decisi], sharply bounded, defined aπoróμws; comp. Isa. x. 22; 1 Kings xx. 40), the number of his months with Thee (viz. "is established, firmly fixed;" here equivalent to , comp. ch. x. 13), and Thou hast made [or set] his limit (read ip with the K'thibh, not the plural with the K'ri, which is here less suitable, there being but one limit, one terminus to this earthly life) which he cannot pass (lit. "and he passes it not") [observe that the particle DN in the first member of the verse extends its influence over all three members]: then look away from him, the opposite of ver. 3 a; comp. ch. vii. 19) that he may rest ( here as in 1 Sam. ii. 5: "to rest, to keep holiday," to be released from the of ver. 1) that he may enjoy as a hireling his day. The last member literally reads: "until that (to the de T ::." pressed.-Others (Hengst., Wordsworth, Noyes, Barnes), explain it as a wish that man may enjoy from care, as the hireling. But to this there are his life at least as much, with the same freedom several objections. (1) would scarcely be used to express this idea, least of all, as here, without any qualification. (2) That Job regarded the day or service of a hireling as a term of hardship, from which deliverance was to be sought rather than as affording any measure of satisfaction to be desired, is evident from the parallel passage in ch. vii. 1, 2. Comp. ch. iii. 19. (3) He has already expressed the burden of his longing in. This clause is rather to be regarded as an amplification of that thought: the rest, the enjoyment which the end of the day's labor brings. It is unnatural to suppose that having reached in thought the goal of rest, he would go back to the joyless, even though painless toil preceding it. We are thus led to the explanation that the enjoyment herc spoken of is that which succeeds the labors of day comes when the "shadow" of evening (ch. the day. The hireling's real enjoyment of his vii. 2) brings with it the rest which he covets, and the wages he has earned. In like manner Job desires for man agitated by unrest (11ʼn ver. 1) a respite, however brief, the satisfaction which the end of toil and sorrow would bring. It is not death however that he here prays may come, for that, as the following verses show, is a hopeless condition. And yet the thought of the end of toil suggests at once the thought of death and that hopeless beyond.-E.]. Third Strophe: Vers. 7-12. The hopelessness of man when his earthly life is ended. pires (y, Imperf. consec., because the cheerless consequences of death are here further set forth), and where is he?-where does he then go to? what becomes of him? Comp. the simi Ver. 7. For there is yet hope for the tree. ", "for" introduces the reason for the request preferred in ver. 6 in behalf of miserable and af-lar yearning question in Eccles. iii. 21. flicted man: "look away from him," etc. ["The predication of hope made very strongly both by and the accent, the main division of the verse is at hope." Dav.].-If it be cut down, it shoots up again (viz., the stump left in the ground, comp. Isa. vi. 13), and its sprout Пp, the tender young shoot from the root [suckling], LXX. pádauvos; comp. ch. viii. 16) faileth not. Carey, Delitzsch, and others, correctly understand the tree of whose vitality and power of perpetual rejuvenescence Job seems more particularly to think here to be the datepalm, which on account of this very quality is called by the Greeks φοίνιξ. It is not so probable that the oak or terebinth [E. V. "teil"] mentioned in the parallel passage in Isa. vi. 13, is intended here. Ver. 11. The waters flow away [lit. roll off] out of the sea, and a stream fails and dries up.-This is the protasis of a simile, the apodosis of which is introduced, ver. 12, by! "so," as below in ver. 19, and as above in chap. v. 7; xi. 12 (in which latter passages indeed the figure follows, not precedes, the thing illustrated). Comp. the description, imitative of the present passage, in Isa. xix. 5, describing the drying up of the Nile (D) by a Divine judgment-a description which indeed the advocates of a post-solomonic authorship of our book regard as the original of the passage before us (e. g., Volck, de summa carm. Job sent., p. 31). [here should be taken of an inland sea or body of water, a sense which the application of the word to the lake of Tiberias, Numb. xxxiv. 11; the Euphrates, Isaiah xxvii. 1; the Nile, see above, abundantly justifies. Such a drying up of large bodies of water is no uncommon phenomenon in the torrid regions of the East. E.] T Vers. 8, 9, present not properly "another case," (Dillmann), but they develop the illustration already presented still further and more forcibly. If its root becometh old in the ground (P, inchoative Hiph., senescere), and its trunk dieth in the dust (comp. Isa. Ver. 12. So man lies down and rises no xl. 24), i. e., if the tree die, not interrupted in its more; till the heavens are no more, they growth by the violent hand of man, while yet awake not.-Dey, until the failure, young and vigorous, but decaying with age, becoming dry and dead down to the roots.-i. e., the disappearance of the heavens (comp. the Through the scent of water (i. e., so soon as exactly equivalent phrase, 7, Ps. lxxii. it feels the vivifying energy of water; comp. Judg. xvi. 9) [177, may be taken either subjec-7), the same in meaning with Diy, Psalm tively of the scenting, or inhalation of water by the tree; or, better, of the scent which water brings with it. "When the English army landed in Egypt in 1801, Sir Sydney Smith gave the troops the sure sign that wherever date-trees grew there must be water." Vide R. WILSON's History of the Expedition to Egypt, page 18] it sprouts (again; comp. Ps. xcii. 14) and puts forth boughs (comp. ch. xviii. 16; xxix. 19), like a young plant; or also like a sapling newly planted (LXX.: ¿s veoOUTOV). That this description also is pre-eminently suitable to the palm appears from the fact that, as every oriental knows very well, in every place where this tree grows, water must be very near at hand, generally from the indestructible vitality and luxuriant fulness of this divdpov ovrov, (comp. Delitzsch on this passage. ["Even when centuries have at last destroyed the palm-says Masius in his beautiful and thoughtful studies of nature-thousands of inextricable fibres of parasites cling about the stem, and delude the traveller with an appearance of life." DEL.]). cxlviii. 6. For according to the popular conception of the ancient Hebrews, the heavens endure forever: Ps. lxxxix. 30 [29]; Jer. xxxi. 35. When in Ps. cii. 27; Isa. li. 6; lxv. 17 the heavens are described as waxing old and being changed, this statement does not exclude their eternal existence; for the supposition of a destruction of the universe in the sense of its annihilation is everywhere foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. The expression before us, "not to awake till the heavens are no more," is accordingly in any case equivalent to "not to awake for ever" [or "never to awake"], as the third member of the verse also clearly indicates: and are never aroused out of their sleep-they sleep a Dhy ny, Jer. li. 89, 57, an endless sleep of death. It is assuredly straining the language, and at variance with the connection, and with Job's present mood, to assume in the expression an implication that when the phenomenal heavens should disappear, man would awake. How far Job's mind does reach out towards the idea of a resuscitation of humanity will be seen presently. Amid such fluctuations of thought and feeling as characterize his utterances, we are Ver. 10. But man dies and is brought not to look for self-consistency, much less for a careful and exact expression of the highest forms down ( here in the intrans. sense confectum of truth, whether as revealed elsewhere, or even esse, to be prostrated, to be down, whence the as at times revealed to his own mind.-E.] How usual signification, "to be weak," is derived: unchangeable the cheerless outlook on such an [the Imperf., when transitive, is written ; eternal condition of death in Sheol presents itself to Job, is shown by the vividly expressed wish when intransitive, as here, ]); man ex- which immediately follows that God, if it were Vers. 10-12 present the contrast to the above: the hopelessness of man in death. : possible, would cause him again to emerge out 7) of the trunks and roots of the tree which has of this condition, which, however, he immediately been cut down. The 7, in a word, which recognizes as a yearning which is absolutely incapable of being realized. 8. Third Division: Fourth and Fifth Strophes: Continuation and conclusion of the description of the hopelessness of man in the prospect of death: vers. 13-22. Fourth Strophe: Vers. 13-17: [If God would only permit a hope of the cessation of His wrath, and of his restoration from Sheol, how joyfully he would endure] until the change should come; but now He punishes without pity his sins.] Ver. 13. Ah that Thou wouldst hide me (Hiph, as in Ex. ii. 3) in the realm of the dead, wouldst keep me secret until Thy wrath should change (comp. the description of such a hiding from God's wrath in Isa. xxvi. 20; Ps. xxvii. 5; xxxi. 21 [20]), wouldst appoint me a set time (a pn, see on ver. 5), and then remember me-viz., for good, in order to re-establish me in the fellowship of Thy grace, and cause me to live in the same. This last expression !! accented with the emphasis of glowing passion, is the culmination of the yearning wish which Job here expresses, from which, however, he immediately recoils again, as from a chimerical idea which has no real foundation. Job yearns for is a release from service which (Schlott.), it still furnishes an unconscious prophecy of that which was accomplished in Christ's descent into Hades for the salvation of the saints of the Old Covenant. Ver. 15. Thou wouldst call (to wit, in this discharge by Ewald and others referred to the forensic call to the final trial, wherein Job confidently hoped to be acquitted; but the connection here indicates rather the call of love, yearning after its object; "the voice of God returning to take His creatures to Himself" (DAV.)—E.], and I would answer Thee (would follow Thy call); Thou wouldst yearn after the work of Thy hands (chap. x. 3); i. e., Thou, as Creator, wouldst feel an affectionate longing after Thy creature, which Thou hadst hitherto treated harshly, and rejected. "The true character of the relation of love between the Creator and His creature would again assert itself, it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa. liv. 8), and love the true and essential necessity of His being." DEL. ["Job Ver. 14. If man dies, will he live?-i. e., must have had a keen perception of the profound is it possible that he who has once died, will relation between the creature and his Maker in come to life again? The asyndetic introduction the past, to be able to give utterance to such an of this short but frequent question after the pre-imaginative expectation respecting the future." ceding verse, produces a contrast which is all SCHLOTT.] Although only a "phantasy of hope" the stronger. No answer to the question follows, because it is self-evident to the reader that it can be answered only in the negative. But strong as is his conviction of the impossibility of a return to life of the dead, equally sweet and gracious is the charm of the thought which dwells on the opposite possibility, which he has just expressed in the form of a wish. ["If a man die, etc., finely natural interpretation of the cold reason and of doubt, striving to banish the beautiful dream and presentiment of a new bodily life with God; but in vain, the spirit tramples down the rising suspicion, and pursues more eagerly the glorious vision." DAV.] All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my discharge (lit. "my exchange," comp. chap. x. 17) should come.-Job uses the term "warfare" here somewhat differently from chap. vii. as an emphatic clause,="indeed now," 1 to denote not only the remainder of his toilsome and troublesome days on earth, but "the whole dismal interval between the present and that longed-for goal" in the future when he should be released from Hades; this release in. It is found already in Mercier, here, in accordance with the figure of military (non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem), service, designated as an "exchange" or "dis- and is of late advocated by Delitzsch [and charge." [Hence the " 'change" here spoken Wordsworth. It seems to Del. "that the sense of is not, as the old Jewish expositors, followed intended must be derived from, which by some moderns, have explained it, the change means to keep anger, and consequently to delay produced by death. The word n, however, the manifestation of it; Amos i. 11.”] Dillhas here a double significance, which should be mann's explanation gives the same sense: appreciated to realize the full beauty of the pas-"Thou dost not pass over my sins;" a rendersage. In addition to its primary and principal ing, indeed, which rests on an emendation of meaning as expressing the discharge of the soldier whose term of hard service has expired, it the text to: -y, which is favored in some measure by the version of the LXX. suggests also the "sprouting" anew Also the rendering advocated by Ewald, Heilig.. ver. Ver. 16. For now Thou numberest my steps, i. c., for at this time Thou watchest every step and motion, as those of a transgressor, comp. chap. xiii. 27. Ay, as in chap. vi. 21, introducing the contrast between a point of time on which the eye fixes in the future, and the sad reality of the present. [? assigns the reason for the wish which forms the contents of vers. 13-15. It is not necessary, with Hirzel and Schlott., to supply any thing between vers. 15 and 16, as, e. g., "Thou dost not yearn for Thy creature now, for,' etc. The construction of Umbreit, etc., which takes is to be rejected.-E.]-And dost not hold Thyself back on account of my sins. This is the most satisfactory rendering of |