Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 118:12
They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.
12. like bees ] Cp. Deu 1:44.
they were extinguished as a fire of thorns ] The sudden collapse of their rage is compared to a fire of thorns which blazes up fiercely and then rapidly dies down. But the form of the preceding verses and the following line lead us to expect a climax in the description of their hostility rather than a description of their extinction, and the LXX may have preserved the true text:
They came about me like bees about wax;
They blazed like a fire among thorns;
In the name of Jehovah, I cut them off.
The corruption of the Massoretic text is most ingeniously explained by Baethgen. The Targ. ‘burning like a fire among thorns,’ seems to preserve a reminiscence of this reading. Aq. Symm. Jer. Syr. follow the Mass. text.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They compassed me about like bees –
(a) As thick or numerous as bees;
(b) armed as bees – or, their weapons might be compared to the stings of bees.
They are quenched as the fire of thorns – The Septuagint and the Vulgate render this, They burn as the fire of thorns. The connection would seem to demand this, but the Hebrew will not bear it. The figure is changed in the Hebrew, as is not uncommon. The mind of the psalmist at first recalls the number and the malignity of his foes; it then instantly adverts to the rapid manner in which they were destroyed. The illustration from the fire of thorns is derived from the fact that they quickly kindle into a blaze, and then the flame soon dies away. In Eastern countries it was common to burn over their fields in the dry time of the year, and thus to clear them of thorns and briars and weeds. Of course, at such a time they would kindle quickly, and burn rapidly, and would soon be consumed. So the psalmist says it was with his enemies. He came upon them, numerous as they were, as the fire runs over a field in a dry time, burning everything before it. Compare the notes at Isa 33:12.
For in the name of the Lord I will destroy them – That is, such was his purpose then; such was the reason why they so soon and suddenly disappeared.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 118:12
They compassed me about like bees.
Like bees
I know the bees can compass one about right well; but, as a rule, they compass about those who threaten to attack their home and to take away their little treasure. Let us think about a few things connected with the bees life.
1. Bees build their own house, and a beautiful house it is. The skill of the bees in building is wonderful. Every little room built by them has six sides; but all the rooms are not of the same size. They are made according to their requirements; but they are all so beautifully planned and partitioned that every room is just big enough for its purpose. There are no end of little nurseries, store-rooms, and ordinary living-rooms in a beehive. The bees house is a wonderful house; we could not build anything like it. Then, having built the house–
2. They are very busy in filling their larders. I know there are some drones. You never found a community anywhere without drones, and the poor bees are not perfect; but the bulk of them are very busy workers. There are, for instance, many wax-makers–those who produce wax and thus make up cells and construct walls. They also store the honey. Then there are the nurse-bees: such tender little creatures! They seem to tread softer and move about more quietly than the other bees. They see to all the sick, and to all the little children that are in the house, and feed, nurse, and watch over them.
3. They also reserve food for the winter. They fill a cell with honey and then seal it up, very much as your mother does with the preserve, when having filled a galley pot she puts a sheet of white paper on the top and seals it. Some of you boys wish it were not so well sealed. I have no doubt some little bees occasionally wish some of the cells were open; but they must not open them. They are not opened until the winter comes, and there is urgent need of food. Then older bees open those little cells just as your mother does the preserve pot, then they take just what is needed. Thus, there is such careful preparation for winter, that the bees can live right through until the spring comes back again, when they are able to begin to work and provide once more. Well now, could not we imitate the bees, could not we be active, and be ever doing our part? And even if we are put on the defence, can we not show strong characters, and let people learn that because we deal in honey we are not necessarily helpless? (D. Davies.)
Lessons from the bees
I. Loyalty. They all love their queen. She is their ruler and their mother, and they are her subjects and her children. Without her, home would be nothing. She is queen, and must be obeyed.
II. Loving the home. Bees are very much attached to their hive. No mother of a family loves her home more than a queen bee; and all the true worker bees take after their mother in this respect. Some people have a genius for helping; there are others who seem to have a genius for hindering.
III. Cleanliness. The care with which they remove dirt of all kinds is something remarkable. Every boy and girl may well follow the example of these wise little philosophers, the bees, and keep everything clean in their homes.
IV. Sympathy. I have seen a wounded bee carried at length, and laid on the bee-board in the warm sunshine. One bee would lick the sufferer from head to foot with his tongue, another would roll him over and over in the sunshine. After they had succeeded in doing this, they would carry him to his sick-bed. This shows us the sympathy of the bee, and sympathy is the most divine thing in the world.
V. Being happy in ones work. Place yourselves, says one who has written on this subject, before a hive, and see the indefatigable industry of its busy toilers. Let the bees hum inspire you with the honourable resolution to do all things cheerfully in the active duties of life. We ought to be happy and cheerful in our work. (R. Newton, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns] I shall refer to Dr. Delaney’s note on this passage. The reader has here in miniature two of the finest images in Homer; which, if his curiosity demands to be gratified, he will find illustrated and enlarged, Iliad ii., ver. 86.
————— .
,
,
‘ ,
‘ ,
.
—————-The following host,
Poured forth by thousands, darkens all the coast.
As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees,
Clustering in heaps on heaps, the driving bees,
Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms,
With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms:
Dusky they spread a close embodied crowd,
And o’er the vale descends the living cloud;
So from the tents and ships a lengthening train
Spreads all the beach, and wide o’ershades the plain;
Along the region runs a deafening sound;
Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground.
POPE
The other image, the fire consuming the thorns, we find in the same book, ver. 455: –
,
,
‘ .
As on some mountain, through the lofty grove,
The crackling flames ascend and blaze above;
The fires expanding, as the winds arise,
Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies;
So, from the polished arms, and brazen shields,
A gleamy splendour flashed along the fields.
POPE.
The arms resembling a gleaming fire is common both to the psalmist and Homer; but the idea of that fire being quenched when the army was conquered, is peculiar to the psalmist.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Like bees; in great numbers, and with great and potent fury, and to their own ruin, as bees do when they fly about a man, and leave their stings in him.
They are quenched: so this word is used Job 6:17; 18:5,6; 21:17. Or, as the LXX. and Chaldee render it, they burnt or flamed, i.e. raged against me like fire, as it follows. And this is supposed to be one of those Hebrew verbs, which have not only divers, but contrary significations.
As the fire of thorns; which flameth out terribly, and makes a crackling noise, and burneth fiercely, but quickly spends itself without any considerable or lasting effect.
For; or, but, as this very particle is frequently used, and here twice in this very phrase, Psa 118:10,11. So as the former part of the verse notes their hostile attempt, this notes their ill success and utter ruin. Here is an inversion of words in this last clause, which is not unusual in the Hebrew text. Although these words may be, and are by a learned man of our own, rendered as they lie in the Hebrew, I trust (which word may easily be understood out of Psa 118:8,9)
in the name of the Lord, therefore (for so the Hebrew chi is oft rendered, and is so taken by the Chaldee in this place)
I shall destroy them, or cut them off.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. as the fire of thornssuddenly.
in the name, c.by thepower (Psa 20:5 Psa 124:8).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
They compassed me about like bees,…. In great numbers w; as a swarm of bees, which, being irritated and provoked, will fly upon persons in a body, and with great fury; to which the Amorites and the Assyrian army were compared, De 1:44. They will attack horses and kill them, as Aristotle x says; and places besieged have been delivered by throwing out hives of bees among the besiegers y: and yet as they are feeble creatures, so by striking they lose their sting; and either die very quickly, or however become useless. All which denotes the numbers of the enemies of David and of Christ, and of his church and people, and the wrath and fury of them against them, as well as their fruitless and unsuccessful attempts upon them; for though they rage, what they contrive and endeavour to put in execution are vain things, and in the issue end in their own ruin and destruction;
they are quenched as the fire of thorns; which make a blaze, a noise, for a while; but are soon consumed, and leave only a few ashes behind. Wicked men are often compared to thorns, they being like them, unfruitful in themselves, unprofitable to others, harmful to the saints, and whose end is to be burnt; and whose destruction is certain and sudden, and easily effected as the burning of thorns; see Ps 58:9 Ec 7:6. The Targum renders it,
“they burned as fire among thorns;”
which is easily kindled and soon quenched: and so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions; as if it was expressive of their wrath and fury, which was soon over; which agrees with what follows:
for; or “but”, or “verily” z,
in the name of the Lord I will destroy them;
[See comments on Ps 118:10] and
[See comments on Ps 118:11].
w , Homer. Iliad. 2. v. 87, Vid. Virgil. Aeneid. 12. v. 587. x Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 40. y Vid. Dieteric. Antiqu. Biblic. p. 478. z “sed”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator “certe utique”, Polus; “quod certissime”, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(12) Like bees.The image of the bees may be derived from Deu. 1:44 (comp. Isa. 7:18), but the LXX. suggest that the poet employed an original and far more expressive image, for they read, as bees surround the comb. Possibly the word comb dropped out of the Hebrew text, because the copyist was thinking of Deu. 1:44.
The fire of thorns.See Psa. 58:9, Note. The rapidity with which a fire made of thorns burns gives the point of the comparison. The LXX. and Vulg. gave this more plainly by rendering, they burnt out like a fire in thorns. Shakespeare may have had this verse in his thought when he wrote:
Shallow jesters and rash bavin (i.e., brushwood) wit,
Soon kindled and soon burnt.King Henry IV.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. Compassed me about Repeated four times, which Perowne thinks marks their pertinacious hostility.
Like bees Not only as to their number, but the madness with which they pursue those who attack or disturb them. Deu 1:44; Isa 7:18.
The fire of thorns Which is sudden, violent, and quickly extinguished, answering to the figure of the attack by “bees.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 118:12 They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.
Ver. 12. They compassed me about like bees ] Like so many swarms of bees, which, being angered,
– Venenum
Morsibus inspirant, et spicula caeca relinquunt
Affixae venis, animasque in vulnere ponunt
(Virgil)
Bees, to be revenged, lose their stings, and therewith their lives, or, at least, they become drones ever after (Aristot.). Wicked men are no less spiteful; they care not to undo themselves, so they may wrong the saints; yea, they are not unlike the scorpion, of which Pliny saith, that there is not one minute wherein it doth not put forth the sting.
They are quenched (or kindled) as the fire of thorns] Which is quickly kindled, and as quickly quenched, leaving no coals behind it. See Ecc 7:6 . Ex spinis non fiunt carbones (Kimchi). The enemies of the Church may make a blaze, but they are but a blast.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
They compassed. Figure of speech Anaphora (App-6), repeated from Psa 118:11.
are quenched. Septuagint reads “blazed up”.
the name. See note on Psa 20:1.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
like bees: Deu 1:44
quenched: Psa 83:14, Psa 83:15, Ecc 7:6, Isa 27:4, Nah 1:10
in the name: Psa 8:9, Psa 20:1, Psa 20:5, 1Sa 17:45, 2Sa 23:6, 1Ch 14:10, 1Ch 14:11, 1Ch 14:14-16, 2Ch 14:11, 2Ch 14:12, 2Ch 16:7-9, 2Ch 20:17-22, 2Ch 22:7, 2Ch 22:8
destroy them: Heb. cut them down
Reciprocal: 2Ki 6:16 – Fear not Psa 18:37 – General Psa 27:2 – they Psa 58:9 – thorns Isa 7:18 – fly