Psalm 73:22

So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Foolish.—Better, brutish.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

73:21-28 God would not suffer his people to be tempted, if his grace were not sufficient, not only to save them from harm, but to make them gainers by it. This temptation, the working of envy and discontent, is very painful. In reflecting upon it, the psalmist owns it was his folly and ignorance thus to vex himself. If good men, at any time, through the surprise and strength of temptation, think, or speak, or act amiss, they will reflect upon it with sorrow and shame. We must ascribe our safety in temptation, and our victory, not to our own wisdom, but to the gracious presence of God with us, and Christ's intercession for us. All who commit themselves to God, shall be guided with the counsel both of his word and of his Spirit, the best counsellors here, and shall be received to his glory in another world; the believing hopes and prospects of which will reconcile us to all dark providences. And the psalmist was hereby quickened to cleave the closer to God. Heaven itself could not make us happy without the presence and love of our God. The world and all its glory vanishes. The body will fail by sickness, age, and death; when the flesh fails, the conduct, courage, and comfort fail. But Christ Jesus, our Lord, offers to be all in all to every poor sinner, who renounces all other portions and confidences. By sin we are all far from God. And a profession Christ, if we go on in sin, will increase our condemnation. May we draw near, and keep near, to our God, by faith and prayer, and find it good to do so. Those that with an upright heart put their trust in God, shall never want matter for thanksgiving to him. Blessed Lord, who hast so graciously promised to become our portion in the next world, prevent us from choosing any other in this.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So foolish was I, and ignorant - Such low and imperfect views did I take of the subject. The margin is, "I knew not." So the Hebrew: "And I am brutish, and know not;" that is, I did not understand the case; I had no correct views in regard to it.

I was as a beast before thee - Margin, as in Hebrew, "with thee." That is, in thy very presence; or, I was guilty of such foolishness in the very presence of my Maker. If it had been when I was alone, or when no one saw me, the folly would not have been so aggravated, and so much to be regretted, but it was when the very eye of God was upon me. Compare Isaiah 1:7; Jeremiah 7:30; Jeremiah 18:10; Psalm 51:4. When he says that he was as a beast, he means that he was stupid and senseless; he had no proper understanding of the case; he did not take any just views of it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. before thee—literally, "with Thee," in conduct respecting Thee.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As a beast. Heb. beasts, which may signify a great beast; a most stupid and sottish creature, like one not only void of grace, but of reason too; for reason itself, especially assisted by the Holy Scriptures, did sufficiently discover that, all things considered, I had no sufficient cause to envy the prosperity of wicked men. I minded only present things, as the brutes do. and did not consider things to come, as reasonable creatures do, and ought to do.

Before thee; in thy sight or judgment, and therefore in truth, Romans 2:2, howsoever I seemed to myself or others to have some degree of reason and discretion.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So foolish was I,.... To envy the prosperity of the wicked, which is of so short a continuance; to arraign the providence and perfections of God, and to conclude so hastily that there was nothing in religion:

and ignorant; or, "I knew not" (w); what he attempted to know, Psalm 73:16, nor the end of the wicked, till he went into the sanctuary of the Lord; nor the counsel and design of God, in his methods of providence towards wicked men:

I was as a beast before thee, or "with thee" (x); in the knowledge of the ways and works of God, even those of providence; see Psalm 92:5, unteachable, untractable, kicking against God and his providential dispensations; not behaving like a man, much, less like a saint; but even as the worst of brutes, as the behemoth in Job 40:15, for the same word is here used; he concluded that God, who saw all the wickedness of his heart, the workings and reasonings of his mind, which were so vain and foolish, could esteem him no other than as a beast; so the Targum,

"as a beast I am accounted with thee:''

the words may be rendered, "I was the veriest beast before thee"; there being no note of similitude in the text; the word for "beast" being in the plural number, may be used for a superlative; Plautus (y) uses the word "bellua", beast, for a stupid man.

(w) "nescivi", V. L. "non cognoscebam", Pagninus, Montanus; "nec sciebam", Piscator; "non noveram", Cocceius. (x) "apud te", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (y) Trinum. Acts 4. Sc. 2. v. 110.

Geneva Study Bible

So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a {l} beast before thee.

(l) For the more that man goes about by his own reason to seek out God's judgments, the more he declares himself a beast.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. I had no more intelligence than the brute beasts; I was wholly unable to reason aright (comp. Psalm 32:9; Psalm 92:7; Proverbs 30:2). Psalm 73:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet calms himself with the solution of the riddle that has come to him; and it would be beneath his dignity as a man to allow himself any further to be tempted by doubting thoughts. Placing himself upon the standpoint of the end, he sees how the ungodly come to terrible destruction in a moment: they come to an end (ספוּ from סוּף, not ספה), it is all over with them (תּמּוּ) in consequence of (מן as in Psalm 76:7, and unconnected as in Psalm 18:4; Psalm 30:4; Psalm 22:14) frightful occurrences (בּלּהות, a favourite word, especially in the Book of Job), which clear them out of the way. It is with them as with a dream, after (מן as in 1 Chronicles 8:8) one is awoke. One forgets the vision on account of its nothingness (Job 20:8). So the evil-doers who boast themselves μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας (Acts 25:23) are before God a צלם, a phantom or unsubstantial shadow. When He, the sovereign Lord, shall awake, i.e., arouse Himself to judgment after He has looked on with forbearance, then He will despise their shadowy image, will cast it contemptuously from Him. Luther renders, So machstu Herr jr Bilde in der Stad verschmecht (So dost Thou, Lord, make their image despised in the city). But neither has the Kal בּזה this double transitive signification, "to give over to contempt," nor is the mention of the city in place here. In Hosea 11:9 also בּעיר in the signification in urbem gives no right sense; it signifies heat of anger or fury, as in Jeremiah 15:8, heat of anguish, and Schrder maintains the former signification (vid., on Psalm 139:20), in fervore (irae), here also; but the pointing בּעיר is against it. Therefore בּעיר is to be regarded, with the Targum, as syncopated from בּהעיר (cf. לביא, Jeremiah 39:7; 2 Chronicles 31:10; בּכּשׁלו, Proverbs 24:17, and the like); not, however, to be explained, "when they awake," viz., from the sleep of death (Targum),

(Note: The Targum version is, "As the dream of a drunken man, who awakes out of his sleep, wilt Thou, O Lord, on the day of the great judgment, when they awake out of their graves, in wrath abandon their image to contempt." The text of our editions is to be thus corrected according to Bechai (on Deuteronomy 33:29) and Nachmani (in his treatise שׁער הגמול).)

or after Psalm 78:38, "when Thou awakest them," viz., out of their sleep of security (De Wette, Kurtz), but after Psalm 35:23, "when Thou awakest," viz., to sit in judgment.

Thus far we have the divine answer, which is reproduced by the poet after the manner of prayer. Hengstenberg now goes on by rendering it, "for my heart was incensed;" but we cannot take יתחמּץ according to the sequence of tenses as an imperfect, nor understand כּי as a particle expression the reason. On the contrary, the poet, from the standpoint of the explanation he has received, speaks of a possible return (כּי seq. fut. equals ἐάν) of his temptation, and condemns it beforehand: si exacerbaretur animus meus atque in renibus meis pungerer. התחמּץ, to become sour, bitter, passionate; השׁתּונן, with the more exactly defining accusative כּליותי, to be pricked, piqued, irritated. With ואני begins the apodosis: then should I be... I should have become (perfect as in Psalm 73:15, according to Ges. 126, 5). Concerning לא ידע, non sapere, vid., Psalm 14:4. בּהמות can be taken as compar. decurtata for כּבהמות; nevertheless, as apparently follows from Job 40:15, the poet surely has the p-ehe-mou, the water ox, i.e., the hippopotamus, in his mind, which being Hebraized is בּהמות,

(Note: The Egyptian p frequently passes over into the Hebrew b, and vice vers, as in the name Aperiu equals עברים; p, however, is retained in פרעה equals phar-aa, grand-house (οἶκος μέγας in Horapollo), the name of the Egyptian rulers, which begins with the sign of the plan of a house equals p.)

and, as a plump colossus of flesh, is at once an emblem of colossal stupidity (Maurer, Hitzig). The meaning of the poet is, that he would not be a man in relation to God, over against God (עם, as in Psalm 78:37; Job 9:2, cf. Arab. ma‛a, in comparison with), if he should again give way to the same doubts, but would be like the most stupid animal, which stands before God incapable of such knowledge as He willingly imparts to earnestly inquiring man.