Commentaire de citation sur Les Psaumes 73:26

But my heart was awake. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, Who is, “the Rock of my heart and my portion,”¹⁰Tehillim 73:26. is awake to guard me and to benefit me.

Rock He endures forever, like a rock. Do not be amazed at the use of such an analogy, as they are common in Scripture (e.g., “Who shall roar like a lion” [Hosea 11: 10]). It is impossible for us to describe God in any way other than in terms of His creations (for every thing that exists is His creation). Compare, “the Rock [Hebrew: ṣur] of my heart” [Psalms 73: 26] — meaning support, strength, pillar. There are also those who say that the word comes from “form” (as in “their form [Hebrew: ṣuram] shall waste away in the grave” [Psalms 49: 15]). Their thesis is that God has no substance, but is primal form. In my opinion, however, the former etymology is correct.

עם חלב כליות חטה, the choicest fat of the wheat kernels. [The word כליות can obviously not refer to kidneys, seeing that wheat does not have kidneys. The author therefore searches for other pertinent meanings which can be applied to Moses’ hyperbole here. Ed.] In Samuel II 13,39 we find the line ותכל דוד המלך לצאת אל אבשלום, which the author understands as “King David now pined, had an overpowering desire for Avshalom,” since he had by now gotten over the death of his son Amnon (whom Avshalom had murdered). In Psalms 84,3 we read כלתה נפשי, “my soul yearns for….” In other words, the root כלה, from which the wordכליות is derived can mean “to have a craving.” People can develop a craving for this kind of wheat once they have tasted its excellence. In Psalms 73,26 כלה שארי, the word may also describe a craving of one’s body. As to the letter י in the word כליות in our verse, which appears to contradict the claim that the root is כלה, consider the relationship between שבה and שביה, shivyah, where we also suddenly discover a letter י that appears unaccounted for. Another such example occurs with the root בנה and הבניה in Ezekiel 41,13, where the י in הבניה appears unaccounted for. The fact is, that when roots ending with the letter ה such as בנה and שבה experience the semi-vowel sheva abbreviating the syllable, the letter י is substituted for the original letter ה.