7. Remember Yahweh, O sons of Edom. With Jerusalem addressed directly
in vss. 5–6 and Babylon cursed in the second person in vss. 8–9, the critic
looks for a second-person imprecation of Edom in our verse. Such emerges with
the analysis of the lamedh of libnē ʾedōm,
“O sons of Edom!” as the vocative lamedh.
Compare Ps 132:1, zekōr yhwh ledāwīd,
“Remember Yahweh, O David!” and Ps 98:3, zekōr
(MT zākar) ḥasdō weʾemūnātō lebēt yiśrāʾēl, “Remember
his love and his fidelity, O house of Israel!” In our verse singular imperative
zekōr may be retained,
though the persons addressed are plural “O sons of Edom!” since the imperative
precedes. Cf. GK, § 145o. One may also read the infinitive absolute zākōr, since the infinitive absolute
often serves as a surrogate for the imperative.
The Edomites, who helped the
Babylonians sack Jerusalem in 587/6 b.c., figure in a letter found at Tell Arad
in southern Palestine dating to ca. 600 b.c. This letter deals with the urgent
dispatch of men from Arad to a certain Elisha at Ramath-Negeb, against a
threatening attack by the Edomites. For further details see Yohanan Aharoni,
“Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple,” The
Biblical Archaeologist 31 (1968), 2–32, especially 17–18.
the day. When Jerusalem was captured and destroyed by the
Babylonians. For a similar nuance of yōm,
compare Ps 37:13; Obad 12–14; Job 18:20, and Hittite ḫali, “day,” but also “day of death”; H. Th. Bossert in Archiv
für Orientforschung 18 (1956), 366; in Ps 81:16, ʿittām, literally “their time,” is
rendered “their doom.”
Strip her, strip her. The repeated imperative ʿārū shares the feminine suffix of bāh, “her.” Here Jerusalem is depicted as a woman being despoiled
of her clothing; compare Isa 47:2–3; Ezek 16:37; Lam 1:8. The traditional
version of ʿārū ʿārū, “Rase it, rase
it!” (RSV) is not sustained by collateral texts.
to her foundation! Here yesōd
has a double sense, namely “buttocks,” and “foundation.” For a related sense of
yesōd, “foundation,”
compare Hab 3:13, ʿārōt yesōd
ʿad ṣawwāʾr, “Stripping him tail-end to neck”; cf. W. F. Albright, in Studies in Old Testament Prophecy (the
T. H. Robinson sixty-fifth anniversary volume), ed. H. H. Rowley (Edinburgh,
1950), p. 13. The law of retaliation remains operative when Edom, depicted as a
drunken woman, is described in Lam 4:21, tiškerī
wetitʿārī, “You will get drunk [on the cup of Yahweh’s wrath]
and strip yourself.” The Hebrew poet employs the same verb of Edom that the
Edomites used when they clamored for the spoliation of Jerusalem.
8. O Daughter Babylon. Not “O daughter of Babylon” (RSV); see Ps 9:15
on the expression bat ṣiyyōn,
“Daughter Zion.” The “genitives” which follow the construct bat, “daughter,” are explanatory or
appositional; cf. GK, § 128k; W. F. Stinespring, “No Daughter of Zion,” Encounter 26 (Indianapolis, 1965),
133–41, and Alexander A. Di Lella, CBQ 30 (1968), 628.
In our verse, “Daughter Babylon”
is a personification of the Babylonian empire.
you devastator. Repointing MT haššedūdāh
to haššādōdāh and comparing the form
with Jer 3:7, 10, bāgōdāh,
“treacherous,” as recommended by some scholars. Of course, the ū vowel of šedūdāh may well be another instance of the shift of ō to ū
in the Phoenician dialect; see the discussion at Ps 103:14.
you devastator, blest he who repays you. The alliteration of shin sounds in haššedōdāh ʾašrē šeyešallem lāk resembles the
alliteration of vs. 3.
9. seizes and dashes. The poet balances these two first-colon verbs
with the two nouns “your infants” and “the rock” in the second colon.
your infants. The practice of Oriental warfare spared neither women
nor children in a war of extermination; cf. Isa 13:16; Hos 10:14; Nah 3:10.
the rock. Just as the psalmist played on words in vs. 5, so here he
resorts to punning on selaʿ, “rock,”
but also a place name in Edom (some identify selaʿ with Petra), and vs. 8, “Edom.” This wordplay, it might be
remarked, secures vs. 8 ʾedōm
against the emendation to ʾarām,
“Aram,” that is occasionally proposed.(Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III—101-150: Introduction, Translation, and
Notes with an Appendix: The Grammar of the Psalmer [AYB 17A; New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2008], 272-74)
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