Psalms 17:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Psalms 17:14
From men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
hand
יָדְךָ֨ya.de.Kha
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֡הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
men
מִֽמְתִ֬יםmi.Tim
H4962
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
world
מֵחֶ֗לֶדme.Che.led
H2465
life (as a fleeting portion of time) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
portion
חֶלְקָ֥םchel.Kam
H2506
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
life
בַּֽחַיִּים֮ba.chai.Yim
H2416
alive · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
belly
בִ֫טְנָ֥םvit.Nam
H990
the belly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
fillest
תְּמַלֵּ֪אte.ma.Le'
H4390
to fill or (intransitively) be full of · verb, piel imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
hid
צָפִיןtsâphîyn
H6840
a treasure (as hidden)
full
יִשְׂבְּע֥וּyis.be.'U
H7646
to sate · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
children
בָנִ֑יםva.Nim
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
leave
יָנַחyânach
H3240
to deposit
rest
יִ֝תְרָ֗םyit.Ram
H3499
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
babes
לְעוֹלְלֵיהֶֽםle.'o.lei.Hem
H5768
a suckling · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 22:18 Yet he filled their houses with good things: but the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Psalms 49:17-19 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.
Luke 12:19-21 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luke 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the…
Luke 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comfor…
John 8:23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
John 15:19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefor…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 17:8–end
We may observe, in these verses,
I. What David prays for. Being compassed about with enemies that sought his life, he prays to God to preserve him safely through all their attempts against him, to the crown to which he was anointed. This prayer is both a prediction of the preservation of Christ through all the hardships and difficulties of his humiliation, to the glories and joys of his exalted state, and a pattern to Christians to commit the keeping of their souls to God, trusting him to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom. He prays,
1. That he himself might be protected (Psa 17:8): "Keep me safe, hide me close, where I may not be found, where I may not be come at. Deliver my soul, not on…
men . . . world--all men of this present time. They appear, by fulness of bread and large families, to be prosperous; but (Psa 17:15) he implies this will be transient, contrasting his better portion in a joyful union with God hereafter.
Next: Psalms Chapter 18
John Gill on Psalms 17:14
From men which are thy hand, O Lord,.... Some understand these words, with what follows, as independent of the former, and of another set of men, even of good men; so the Targum,
"and the righteous who deliver their souls for thy sake, O Lord, unto death in the earth, their portion is in eternal life;''
so Jarchi gives the like sense of them: but the words are to be connected with the preceding, as they are by Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech; and the sense is, deliver my soul from men, which are instruments in thine hand to chastise thy people: so even Satan himself, and the Sabeans and Chaldeans, whom he instigated to afflict Job, are called the "hand" of the Lord that touched him, beca…
Psalm 17:13-14
13. Arise, O Jehovah, prevent [or go before] his face, lay him prostrate on the ground; [368] deliver my soul from the ungodly man by thy sword: 14. From men by thy hand, O Jehovah, from men who are of long duration, [or who are from an age, [369] ] whose portion is in life, whose belly thou fillest with thy secret goods; their children are filled with them, and they leave the rest to their babes.
13. Arise, O Jehovah. The more furiously David was persecuted by his enemies, he beseeches God the more earnestly to afford him immediate aid; for he uses the word face to denote the swift impetuosity of his adversary, to repress which there was need of the greatest haste. By these…
The Church Fathers
Since I do not know how to ask for manifest punishment of them, whereas you are aware, having as you do hidden treasuries of wisdom, inflict on them the punishments you best know.
Here the psalmist is not criticizing the children's food, as some would think (for those things that enter the mouth do not make a person unclean), but he regards those to whom God has given many offspring unwise when they leave behind them not excellence but their evils as an inheritance.
"Deliver My soul from the ungodly." Deliver My soul, by restoring Me after the death, which the ungodly have inflicted on Me. "Thy weapon: from the enemies of Thine hand" (ver. 14). For My soul is Thy weapon, which Thy hand, that is, Thy eternal Power, hath taken to subdue thereby the kingdoms of iniquity, and divide the righteous from the ungodly. This weapon then "deliver from the enemies of Thine hand," that is of Thy Power that is from Mine enemies. "Destroy them, O Lord, from off the earth, scatter them in their life." O Lord, destroy them from off the earth, which they inhabit, scatter them throughout the world in this life, which only they think their life, who despair of life eternal. "And by Thy hidden things their belly hath been filled." Now not only this visible punishment shall overtake them, but also their memory hath been filled with sins, which as darkness are hidden from the light of Thy truth, that they should forget God. "They have been filled with swine's flesh." They have been filled with uncleanness, treading under foot the pearls of God's words. "And they have left the rest to their babes:" crying out, "This sin be upon us and upon our children."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Decrees of God — “The decrees of God are his eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise, and sovereign purpose, comprehending at once all things that ever were or will be in their causes, conditions, successions, and…
Agency · IN EXECUTING — IN EXECUTING
Happiness · .Is limited to this life — .Is limited to this life
Happiness Of The Wicked, The · Is limited to this life — Is limited to this life
Life, Natural · The wicked have their portion of good, during — The wicked have their portion of good, during
Titles And Names Of The Wicked · Men of the world — Men of the world
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The phrase קדּם פּני, antevertere faciem alicujus, means both to appear before any one with reverence, Psa 95:2 (post-biblical: to pay one's respects to any one) and to meet any one as an enemy, rush on him. The foe springs like a lion upon David, may Jahve - so he prays - as his defence cross the path of the lion and intercept him, and cast him down so that he, being rendered harmless, shall lie there with bowed knees (כּרע, of the lion, Gen 49:9; Num 24:9). He is to rescue his soul from the ungodly חרבּך. This חרבך, and also the ידך which follows, can be regarded as a permutative of the subject (Bצttcher, Hupfeld, and Hitzig), an explanation which is commended by Psa 44:3 and other passage…
The psalmist confidently prays for the Lord’s victory, knowing that God possesses more power than the evildoers. The psalmist finds his joy in the Lord’s inheritance (16:5), whereas the wicked search for joy in this world.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 17:14
From men which are thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.
Almost every word of this verse has furnished matter for discussion to scholars, for it is very obscure. We will, therefore, rest content with the common version, rather than distract the reader with divers translations. "From men which are thy hand." Having styled the ungodly a sword in his Father's hand, he now likens them to that hand itself, to set forth his conviction that God could as easily remove their violence as a man moves his own hand. He will never s…
