Oh that the salvation of Israel - Margin, "Who will give," etc. The Hebrew literally is, "Who will give out of Zion salvation to Israel?" The word "Israel" refers primarily to the Hebrew people, and then it is used generally to denote the people of God. The wish here expressed is in view of the facts referred to in the previous verses - the general prevalence of iniquity and of practical atheism, and the sufferings of the people of God on that account. This state of things suggests the earnest desire that from all such evils the people of God might be delivered. The expression in the original, as in the margin, "Who will give," is a common expression in Hebrew, and means the same as in our translation, "Oh that." It is expressive of an earnest desire, as if the thing were in the hand of another, that he would impart that blessing or favor.

Out of Zion - On the word "Zion," see the note at Isaiah 1:8. It is referred to here, as it is often, as the seat or dwelling-place of God; the place from where he issued his commands, and from where he put forth his power. Thus in Psalm 3:4, "He heard me out of his holy hill." Psalm 20:2, "the Lord ... strengthen thee out of Zion." Psalm 128:5, "the Lord shall bless thee out of Zion." Here the phrase expresses a wish that God, who had his dwelling in Zion, would put forth his power in granting complete deliverance to his people.

When the Lord bringeth back - literally, "In Yahweh's bringing back the captivity of his people." That is, the particular salvation which the psalmist prayed for was that Yahweh would return the captivity of his people, or restore them from captivity.

The captivity of his people - This is "language" taken from a captivity in a foreign land. It is not necessary, however, to suppose that any such literal captivity is here referred to, nor would it be necessary to infer from this that the psalm was written in the Babylonian captivity, or in any other particular exile of the Hebrew people. The truth was, that the Hebrews were often in this state (see the Book of Judges, "passim"), and this language came to be the common method of expressing any condition of oppression and trouble, or of a low state of religion in the land. Compare Job 42:10.

Jacob shall rejoice - Another name for the Hebrew people, as descended from Jacob, Isaiah 2:3; Isaiah 41:21; Isaiah 10:21; Isaiah 14:1; Amos 7:2; et soepe. Prof. Alexander renders this, "Let Jacob exult; let Israel joy." The idea seems to be, that such a restoration would give great joy to the people of God, and the language expresses a desire that this might soon occur - perhaps expressing the idea also that in the certainty of such an ultimate restoration, such a complete salvation, the people of God might now rejoice. Thus, too, it will not only be true that the redeemed will be happy in heaven, but they may exult even now in the prospect, the certainty, that they will obtain complete salvation.

O that the salvation - Or, more literally, Who will give from Zion salvation to Israel? From Zion the deliverance must come; for God alone can deliver them; but whom will he make his instruments?

When the Lord bringeth back - For it is Jehovah alone who can do it. Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. That is, according to Calmet, the remains of the kingdom of Israel and those of Judah, shall be rejoined, to their mutual satisfaction, and become one people, worshipping the same God; and he has endeavoured to prove, in a dissertation on the subject, that this actually took place after the return from the Babylonish captivity.

Many of the fathers have understood this verse as referring to the salvation of mankind by Jesus Christ; and so it is understood by my old MS. Psalter, as the following paraphrase will show: Qwa sal gyf of Syon hele til Israel? qwen Lord has turned a way the captyfte of his folk, glad sal Jacob, and fayne be Israel. Qwa bot Crist that ge despyse, qwen ge wit nout do his counsaile of Syon fra heven, sal gyf hele til Israel? that es, sal saf al trew cristen men, noght als ge er that lufs noght God. And qwen our Lord has turned o way the captyfte of his folk: that es, qwen he has dampned the devel, and al his Servaundes, the qwilk tourmentes gude men, and makes tham captyfs in pyne. Then glade sal Jacob; that es, al that wirstils o gayns vices and actyf: and fayne sal be Israel: that es, al that with the clene egh of thair hert, sees God in contemplatyf lyf. For Jacob es als mikil at say als, Wrestler, or suplanter of Syn. Israel es, man seand God.

Of the two chief opinions relative to the design of this Psalm:

1. That it refers to Absalom's rebellion.

2. That it is a complaint of the captives in Babylon; I incline to the latter, as by far the most probable.

I have referred, in the note on Psalm 14:3, to that remarkable addition of no less than six verses, which is found here in the Vulgate, the Vatican copy of the Septuagint, the Ethiopic, and the Arabic, and also in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Romans 3:13-18, which he is supposed to have quoted from this Psalm as it then stood in the Hebrew text; or in the version of the Seventy, from which it has been generally thought he borrowed them. That they are not interpolations in the New Testament is evident from this, that they are not wanting in any MS. yet discovered; and they exist in all the ancient versions, the Vulgate, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Yet it has been contended, particularly by St. Jerome, that St. Paul did not quote them from this Psalm; but, being intent on showing the corruption and misery of man, he collected from different parts several passages that bore upon the subject, and united them here, with his quotation from Psalm 14:3, as if they had all belonged to that place: and that succeeding copyists, finding them in Romans, as quoted from that Psalm, inserted them into the Septuagint, from which it was presumed they had been lost. It does not appear that they made a part of this Psalm in Origen's Hexapla. In the portions that still exist of this Psalm there is not a word of these additional verses referred to in that collection, neither here nor in the parallel Psalm 53:1-6.

The places from which Jerome and others say St. Paul borrowed them are the following: -

Romans 3:13 : "Their mouth is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit." Borrowed from Psalm 5:10. "The poison of asps is under their lips." From Psalm 140:3.

Romans 3:14 : "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." From Psalm 10:7.

Romans 3:15 : "Their feet are swift to shed blood." From Proverbs 1:16, or Isaiah 59:7.

Romans 3:16-18 : "Destruction and misery are in their ways, the way of peace they have not known, and there is no fear of God before their eyes." From Isaiah 59:7, Isaiah 59:8.

When the reader has collated all these passages in the original, he will probably feel little satisfaction relative to the probability of the hypothesis they are summoned to support.

These verses are not found in the best copies of the Vulgate, though it appears they were in the old Itala or Antehieronymain version. They are not in the Codex Alexandrinus of the Septuagint; nor are they in either the Greek or Latin text of the Complutenstan Polyglot. They are wanting also in the Antwerp and Parisian Polyglots. They are neither in the Chaldee nor Syriac versions. They are not acknowledged as a part of this Psalm by Theodoret, Chrysostom, Euthymius, Arnobius, Apollinaris, the Greek Catena, Eusebius, of Caesarea, nor Jerome. The latter, however, acknowledges that they were in his time read in the churches. I have seen no Latin MS. without them; and they are quoted by Justin Martyr and Augustine. They are also in the Editio Princeps of the Vulgate, and in all the ancient Psalters known. They are in that Psalter which I have frequently quoted, both in the Latino - Scotico - English version and paraphrase.

continued...

O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!.... By whom is meant the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel, of all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles; and who is so called, because the salvation of them was put into his hands, and he undertook it; and because he is the Captain and Author of it, and it is in him, and in no other. He was to come out of Zion, out of Judea, from among the Jews; Zion being, as Kimchi observes, the head of the kingdom of Israel; see Romans 11:26. Accordingly Christ did come of the Jews, and salvation was of them, Romans 9:4; and for his coming from hence, or for his incarnation, the psalmist most earnestly wishes: he was one of those kings, prophets, and righteous men, that desired to see the days of the Messiah, Matthew 13:17. And what might move him so vehemently to wish for it, at this time, might be the sad corruption and depravity of mankind he had been describing, and the afflicted and distressed state of the saints;

when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people. The people of God are, in their unregeneracy, in a state of captivity to sin, Satan, and the law; the work of the Messiah, when he came, was to proclaim liberty to the captives, to set them free, to deliver them from their spiritual bondage: and this Christ has done; he has redeemed his people from all their sins, and from the curse of the law, and from the power of Satan, and has led captivity captive; and which has justly occasioned great joy in the redeemed ones, according to this prophecy:

Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad; that is, the posterity of Jacob and Israel; not his natural, but spiritual seed, such who are the true sons of Jacob, Israelites indeed; these having faith and hope in the plenteous redemption of Christ, rejoice in the view of their interest in it; they the song of redeeming love now, and these ransomed ones will hereafter come to Zion with joy, and everlasting joy upon their heads. The Jews refer this to the times of the Messiah (c).

(c) Baal Hatturim in Numbers 25.12. & Midrash Tillim in loc.

7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

Natural enough is this closing prayer, for what would so effectually convince atheists, overthrow persecutors, stay sin, and secure the godly, as the manifest appearance of Israel's great salvation? The coming of Messiah was the desire of the godly in all ages, and though he has already come with a sin-offering to purge away iniquity, we look for him to come a second time, to come without a sin-offering unto salvation. O that these weary years would have an end! Why tarries he so long? He knows that sin abounds and that his people are down-trodden; why comes he not to the rescue? His glorious advent will restore his ancient people from literal captivity, and his spiritual seed from spiritual sorrow. Wrestling Jacob and prevailing Israel shall alike rejoice before him when he is revealed as their salvation. O that he were come! What happy, holy, halcyon, heavenly days should we then see! But let us not count him slack, for behold, he comes, he comes quickly! Blessed are all they that wait for him.

This tristich sounds like a liturgical addition belonging to the time of the Exile, unless one is disposed to assign the whole Psalm to this period on account of it. For elsewhere in a similar connection, as e.g., in Psalm 126:1-6, שׁוּב שׁבוּת means to turn the captivity, or to bring back the captives. שׁוּב has here, - as in Psalm 126:4; Psalm 2:3 (followed by את), cf. Ezekiel 47:7, the Kal being preferred to the Hiph. השׁיב (Jeremiah 32:44; Jeremiah 33:11) in favour of the alliteration with שׁבוּת (from שׁבה to make any one a prisoner of war), - a transitive signification, which Hengstenberg (who interprets it: to turn back, to turn to the captivity, of God's merciful visitation), vainly hesitates to admit. But Isaiah 66:6, for instance, shows that the exiles also never looked for redemption anywhere but from Zion. Not as though they had thought, that Jahve still dwelt among the ruins of His habitation, which indeed on the contrary was become a ruin because He had forsaken it (as we read in Ezekiel); but the moment of His return to His people is also the moment when He entered again upon the occupation of His sanctuary, and His sanctuary, again appropriated by Jahve even before it was actually reared, is the spot whence issues the kindling of the divine judgment on the enemies of Israel, as well as the spot whence issues the brightness of the reverse side of this judgment, viz., the final deliverance, hence even during the Exile, Jerusalem is the point (the kibla) whither the eye of the praying captive was directed, Daniel 6:11. There would therefore be nothing strange if a psalm-writer belonging to the Exile should express his longing for deliverance in these words: who gives equals oh that one would give equals oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! But since שׁוב שׁבות also signifies metaphorically to turn misfortune, as in Job 42:10; Ezekiel 16:53 (perhaps also in Psalm 85:2, cf. Psalm 14:5), inasmuch as the idea of שׁבוּת has been generalised exactly like the German "Elend," exile (Old High German elilenti equals sojourn in another country, banishment, homelessness), therefore the inscribed לדוד cannot be called in question from this quarter. Even Hitzig renders: "if Jahve would but turn the misfortune of His people," regarding this Psalm as composed by Jeremiah during the time the Scythians were in the land. If this rendering is possible, and that it is is undeniable, then we retain the inscription לדוד. And we do so the more readily, as Jeremiah's supposed authorship rests upon a non-recognition of his reproductive character, and the history of the prophet's times make no allusion to any incursion by the Scythians.

The condition of the true people of God in the time of Absolom was really a שׁבוּת in more than a figurative sense. But we require no such comparison with contemporary history, since in these closing words we have only the gathering up into a brief form of the view which prevails in other parts of the Psalm, viz., that the "righteous generation" in the midst of the world, and even of the so-called Israel, finds itself in a state of oppression, imprisonment, and bondage. If God will turn this condition of His people, who are His people indeed and of a truth, then shall Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad. It is the grateful duty of the redeemed to rejoice. - And how could they do otherwise!

Oh that the salvation of {f} Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

(f) He prays for the whole Church whom he is assured God will deliver: for no one else but he can do it.

14:7 O that - These words immediately concern the deliverance of Israel out of that sinful state, in which they now were; which having described, he concludes, with a prayer to God to help them out of Zion, where the ark then was, but principally they design the spiritual redemption and salvation of all God's Israel by the Messiah. The captivity - His captive people. The children of Jacob, as Aaron is named for his sons, 1Chron 12:27.

Oh...: Heb. Who will give

7. captivity-denotes any great evil.

Zion-God's abode, from which He revealed His purposes of mercy, as He now does by the Church (compare Ps 3:4; 20:2), and which He rules and in which He does all other things for the good of His people (Eph 1:22).

14:1-7 A description of the depravity of human nature, and the deplorable corruption of a great part of mankind. - The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. The sinner here described is an atheist, one that saith there is no Judge or Governor of the world, no Providence ruling over the affairs of men. He says this in his heart. He cannot satisfy himself that there is none, but wishes there were none, and pleases himself that it is possible there may be none; he is willing to think there is none. This sinner is a fool; he is simple and unwise, and this is evidence of it: he is wicked and profane, and this is the cause. The word of God is a discerner of these thoughts. No man will say, There is no God, till he is so hardened in sin, that it is become his interest that there should be none to call him to an account. The disease of sin has infected the whole race of mankind. They are all gone aside, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Whatever good is in any of the children of men, or is done by them, it is not of themselves, it is God's work in them. They are gone aside from the right way of their duty, the way that leads to happiness, and are turned into the paths of the destroyer. Let us lament the corruption of our nature, and see what need we have of the grace of God: let us not marvel that we are told we must be born again. And we must not rest in any thing short of union with Christ, and a new creation to holiness by his Spirit. The psalmist endeavours to convince sinners of the evil and danger of their way, while they think themselves very wise, and good, and safe. Their wickedness is described. Those that care not for God's people, for God's poor, care not for God himself. People run into all manner of wickedness, because they do not call upon God for his grace. What good can be expected from those that live without prayer? But those that will not fear God, may be made to fear at the shaking of a leaf. All our knowledge of the depravity of human nature should endear to us salvation out of Zion. But in heaven alone shall the whole company of the redeemed rejoice fully, and for evermore. The world is bad; oh that the Messiah would come and change its character! There is universal corruption; oh for the times of reformation! The triumphs of Zion's King will be the joys of Zion's children. The second coming of Christ, finally to do away the dominion of sin and Satan, will be the completing of this salvation, which is the hope, and will be the joy of every Israelite indeed. With this assurance we should comfort ourselves and one another, under the sins of sinners and sufferings of saints.