Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 34:5

Charles Ellicott Commentary

Psalms 34:5

1819–1905
Anglican
Charles Ellicott
Charles Ellicott

Charles Ellicott Commentary

Psalms 34:5

1819–1905
Anglican
SCRIPTURE

"They looked unto him, and were radiant; And their faces shall never be confounded." — Psalms 34:5 (ASV)

Were lightened. —The Hebrew verb means properly “to flow,” but by a natural process, as in the common phrases “streams of light,” “floods of light,” acquired in Aramaic the sense of “shining.” Such must be its meaning in Isaiah 60:5, almost the echo of the thought in the psalm, the thought of a reflex of the Divine glory lighting up the face of those who in trouble seek God. (Theodoret has “He who approaches God, receives the rays of intellectual light.”) We naturally think of the dying Stephen.

As to the construction, the subject must either be supplied from Psalms 34:2, or it must be general. The Septuagint and Vulgate avoid the difficulty by changing to the second person.