Psalm 92:10

But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) Unicorn.—Better, buffalo. (See Numbers 23:22; Psalm 22:21.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

92:7-15 God sometimes grants prosperity to wicked men in displeasure; yet they flourish but for a moment. Let us seek for ourselves the salvation and grace of the gospel, that being daily anointed by the Holy Spirit, we may behold and share the Redeemer's glory. It is from his grace, by his word and Spirit, that believers receive all the virtue that keeps them alive, and makes them fruitful. Other trees, when old, leave off bearing, but in God's trees the strength of grace does not fail with the strength of nature. The last days of the saints are sometimes their best days, and their last work their best work: perseverance is sure evidence of sincerity. And may every sabbath, while it shows forth the Divine faithfulness, find our souls resting more and more upon the Lord our righteousness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But my horn shalt thou exalt - The horn is a symbol of strength or power (see the notes at Psalm 18:2); and the meaning here is, that, while the wicked would be cut off, he would be prospered; that is, he had such confidence that he was the friend of God, that he believed God would honor him and exalt him. The psalmist here speaks of himself not so much with reference to his own particular case, but as the representative of the righteous. The idea is, that God will thus exalt "a righteous man."

Like the horn of an unicorn - Supposed to be remarkable for the strength of its horn. On the animal here referred to, see the notes at Job 39:9; compare Psalm 22:21.

I shall be anointed with fresh oil - Oil pure and sweet; not old and rancid. That is, he would be made happy, cheerful, bright, and prosperous. Anointing with oil in the East was the symbol of all this, or was equivalent to what we mean by putting on festive apparel - holiday apparel. Compare the notes at Psalm 23:5.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. horn … exalt—is to increase power (Ps 75:5).

anointed … fresh—or, "new"

oil—(Ps 23:5) a figure for refreshment (compare Lu 7:46). Such use of oil is still common in the East.

The Treasury of David

10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn, I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

11 Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me.

Psalm 92:10

"But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn." The believer rejoices that he shall not be suffered to perish, but shall be strengthened and enabled to triumph over his enemies, by the divine aid. The unicorn may have been some gigantic ox or buffalo now unknown, and perhaps extinct - among the ancients it was the favourite symbol of unconquerable power; the Psalmist adopts it as his emblem. Faith takes delight in foreseeing the mercy of the Lord, and sings of what he will do as well as of what he has done. "I shall be anointed with fresh oil." Strengthening shall be attended with refreshment and honour. As guests were anointed at feasts with perfumed unguents, so shall the saints be cheered and delighted by fresh outpourings of divine grace; and for this reason they shall not pass away like the wicked. Observe the contrast between the happiness of the brutish people and the joy of the righteous, the brutish men grow with a sort of vegetable vigour of their own, but the righteous are dealt with by the Lord himself, and all the good which they receive comes directly from his own right hand, and so is doubly precious in their esteem. The Psalmist speaks in the first person, and it should be a matter of prayer with the reader that he may be enabled to do the same.

Psalm 92:11

"Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies." The words, "my desire," inserted by the translators, had far better have been left out. He does not say what he should see concerning his enemies, he leaves that blank, and we have no right to fill in the vacant space with words which look vindictive. He would see that which would be for God's glory, and that which would be eminently right and just. "And mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me." Here, again, the words "my desire" are not inspired, and are a needless and perhaps a false interpolation. The good man is quite silent as to what he expected to hear; he knew that what he should hear would vindicate his faith in his God, and he was content to leave his cruel foes in God's hands, without an expression concerning his own desire one way or the other. It is always best to leave Scripture as we find it. The broken sense of inspiration is better let alone than pieced out with additions of a translator's own invention; it is like repairing pure gold with tinsel, or a mosaic of gems with painted wood. The holy Psalmist had seen the beginning of the ungodly, and expected to see their end; he felt sure that God would right all wrongs, and clear his Providence from the charge of favouring the unjust; this confidence he here expresses, and sits down contentedly to wait the issues of the future.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

But as for me and other righteous persons, (of whom he saith the same thing Psalm 92:12) we shall be advanced to the height of honour, and true and lasting felicity.

Unicorn; of which See Poole "Deu 33:17".

I shall be anointed; I shall have great cause of rejoicing and testifying my joy by anointing myself, as the manner was in feasts and all joyful solemnities.

Fresh oil; sweet and uncorrupted.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But my horn shall thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn,.... Which is said to be very high and strong, see Deuteronomy 33:17 this may be understood of the establishment of David's kingdom, of his royal authority, power, and the glory of it, signified by his horn; which was fulfilled when he had subdued the neighbouring nations, and the kings of them, and was exalted above them, and had rest from all his enemies: and may be applied unto the Messiah, the horn of David, the horn of salvation raised up in his house, Psalm 132:17 and so may refer to exaltation at the right hand of God, and the strength and glory of his kingdom; see 1 Samuel 2:10, and also may be interpreted of every good man, in opposition to the wicked; who, though low and abased, God will exalt and set them among princes, and cause them to inherit the throne of glory, and even to sit down on the same throne with Christ; see 1 Samuel 2:8.

I shall be anointed with fresh oil; oil of olive, as the Targum; oil of myrrh, as Aben Ezra; it may respect David's unction to office, as king of Israel; for not only after he had been anointed by Samuel, but even after he was anointed by the men of Judah as king over them, he was afresh anointed by all the tribes of Israel as their king, 2 Samuel 2:4, "oil" often signifies the Spirit of God, his gifts and graces; and "fresh" oil may intend new supplies of his grace out of the fulness of it, which is in Christ; and also the renewed joys and comforts of the Holy Spirit, who is the oil of gladness Christ was anointed with above his fellows, and is given to his people in measure.

Geneva Study Bible

{g} But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

(g) You will strengthen them with all power, and bless them with all happiness.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. But my horn hast thou exalted like (the horn of) a wild ox:

I am anointed with fresh oil.

The poet speaks on behalf of Israel restored and glorified. The metaphor is derived from animals tossing their heads in the consciousness of vigour. God has restored to Israel a buoyant sense of life and power to repel its enemies. Cp. Psalm 89:17; Psalm 89:24. ‘Unicorn’ comes from the LXX through the Vulg.; but the now extinct wild ox (Bos primigenius) is doubtless the animal meant. Its strength and untameableness are described in Job 39:9 ff. Cp. Numbers 23:22; Deuteronomy 33:17. See Tristram’s Nat. Hist. of the Bible, pp. 146 ff.

The metaphor in the second line is taken from the use of oil on occasions of festivity (Psalm 23:5; Psalm 45:7; Isaiah 61:3), or as a restorative of strength. The rendering I am anointed is however doubtful. Some critics would follow the LXX and Symm. in reading the word with different vowels, and rendering, (and restored) my failing strength with fresh oil. “Israel is imagined as an old man, whose strength is restored through the use of oil” (Cheyne).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn; rather, of a wild ox. The Hebrew, like the Assyrian, reym, is certainly a species of wild cattle, whether the aurochs, or the bison, or the buffalo, may be doubted. The psalmist speaks in the name of Israel, or of God's faithful ones generally, and confidently predicts their exaltation to glory and honour simultaneously with the destruction of God's enemies. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. Oil was supposed to give vigour to the frame; and "fresh oil," or "green oil," would be the most efficient and the best. Psalm 92:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The hitherto oppressed church then stands forth vindicated and glorious. The futt. consec. as preterites of the ideal past, pass over further on into the pure expression of future time. The lxx renders: καὶ ὑψωθήσεται (ותּרם) ὡς μονοκέρωτος τὸ κέρας μου. By ראים (incorrect for ראם, primary form ראם), μονόκερως, is surely to be understood the oryx, one-horned according to Aristotle and the Talmud (vid., on Psalm 29:6; Job 39:9-12). This animal is called in Talmudic קרשׂ (perhaps abbreviated from μονόκερως); the Talmud also makes use of ארזילא (the gazelle) as synonymous with ראם (Aramaic definitive or emphatic state רימא).

(Note: Vid., Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmud, 146 and 174.)

The primary passages for figures taken from animal life are Numbers 23:22; Deuteronomy 33:17. The horn is an emblem of defensive power and at the same time of stately grace; and the fresh, green oil an emblem of the pleasant feeling and enthusiasm, joyous in the prospect of victory, by which the church is then pervaded (Acts 3:19). The lxx erroneously takes בּלּותי as infin. Piel, τὸ γῆράς μου, my being grown old, a signification which the Piel cannot have. It is 1st praet. Kal from בּלל, perfusus sum (cf. Arabic balla, to be moist, ballah and bullah, moistness, good health, the freshness of youth), and the ultima-accentuation, which also occurs in this form of double Ajin verbs without Waw convers. (vid., on Job 19:17), ought not to mislead. In the expression שׁמן רענן, the adjective used in other instances only of the olive-tree itself is transferred to the oil, which contains the strength of its succulent verdure as an essence. The ecclesia pressa is then triumphans. The eye, which was wont to look timidly and tearfully upon the persecutors, the ears, upon which even their name and the tidings of their approach were wont to produce terror, now see their desire upon them as they are blotted out. שׁמע בּ (found only here) follows the sense of ראה בּ, cf. Arab. nḍr fı̂, to lose one's self in the contemplation of anything. שׁוּרי is either a substantive after the form בּוּז, גּוּר, or a participle in the signification "those who regarded me with hostility, those who lay in wait for me," like נוּס, fled, Numbers 35:32, סוּר, having removed themselves to a distance, Jeremiah 17:13, שׁוּב, turned back, Micah 2:8; for this participial form has not only a passive signification (like מוּל, circumcised), but sometimes too, a deponent perfect signification; and חוּשׁ in Numbers 32:17, if it belongs here, may signify hurried equals in haste. In שׁוּרי, however, no such passive colouring of the meaning is conceivable; it is therefore: insidiati (Luzatto, Grammatica, 518: coloro che mi guatavano). There is no need for regarding the word, with Bttcher and Olshausen, as distorted from שׁררי (the apocopated participle Pilel of the same verb); one might more readily regard it as a softening of that word as to the sound (Ewald, Hitzig). In Psalm 92:12 it is not to be rendered: upon the wicked doers (villains) who rise up against me. The placing of the adjective thus before its substantive must (with the exception of רב when used after the manner of a numeral) be accounted impossible in Hebrew, even in the face of the passages brought forward by Hitzig, viz., 1 Chronicles 27:5; 1 Samuel 31:3;

(Note: In the former passage כהן ראשׁ is taken as one notion (chief priest), and in the latter אנשׁים בקשׁת (men with the bow) is, with Keil, to be regarded as an apposition.)

it is therefore: upon those who as villains rise up against. The circumstance that the poet now in Psalm 92:13 passes from himself to speak of the righteous, is brought about by the fact that it is the congregation of the righteous in general, i.e., of those who regulate their life according to the divine order of salvation, into whose future he here takes a glance. When the prosperity lit. the blossoming of the ungodly comes to an end, the springing up and growth of the righteous only then rightly has its beginning. The richness of the inflorescence of date-palm (תּמר) is clear from the fact, that when it has attained its full size, it bears from three to four, and in some instances even as many as six, hundred pounds of fruit. And there is no more charming and majestic sight than the palm of the oasis, this prince among the trees of the plain, with its proudly raised diadem of leaves, its attitude peering forth into the distance and gazing full into the face of the sun, its perennial verdure, and its vital force, which constantly renews itself from the root - a picture of life in the midst of the world of death. The likening of the righteous to the palm, to the "blessed tree," to this "sister of man," as the Arabs call it, offers points of comparison in abundance. Side by side with the palm is the cedar, the prince of the trees of the mountain, and in particular of Mount Lebanon. The most natural point of comparison, as ישׂגּה (cf. Job 8:11) states, is its graceful lofty growth, then in general τὸ δασὺ καὶ θερμὸν καὶ θρέψιμον (Theodoret), i.e., the intensity of its vegetative strength, but also the perpetual verdure of its foliage and the perfume (Hosea 14:7) which it exhales.