chapter iii. makes an entirely new beginning, with its abruptly

independent "I am the Man!" The suppression of the Divine Name is intentional. Israel durst not breathe it, until compelled by the climax, verse 18: cf. Am. vi. 10. Contrast its frequency afterwards, when ground of hope is found in the Divine pity and purpose (verses 22-40), and when the contrite nation turns to its God in prayer (verses 55-66). The spiritual aspect of things is now the main topic. The poet deals less with incident, and more with the moral significance of the nation's sufferings. It is the religious culmination of the book. His poem is rather lyrical than narrative, which may account for some obscurities in the connexion of thought; but his alphabetic scheme proves that he _designed_ twenty-two stanzas, not sixty-six detached couplets. There is something arresting in that bold "I am the Man"; and the lyrical intensity, the religious depth and beauty of the whole, may well blind us to occasional ruggedness of metre and language, abrupt transitions from figure to figure and other alleged blemishes, some of which may not have seemed such to the poet's contemporaries (e.g. the repetition of the acrostic word, far more frequent in Psalm cxix.); and some disappear on revision of the text.

Verse 5, perhaps: "He swallowed me up" (Jer. li. 34) "and begirt my head" (Septuagint) "with gloom" ([Hebrew: afela] Is. lviii. 10, cf. verse 6, yet cf. also [Hebrew: halaa], Neh. ix. 32). Verse 14: "all my people," rather _all peoples_ (Heb. MSS. and Syr.). Verse 16b, rd. [Hebrew: yflishani], "He made me bore" (i.e. grovel) "in the ashes:" cf. Jer. vi. 26; Ezek. xxvii. 30. Verse 17a should be: [Hebrew: vaiznah leolam nafshi] "And He cast off my soul for ever:" see verse 31; Psalm lxxxviii. 15. Verse 26: "It is good _to wait_" [Hebrew: leohil] "_in silence_" ([Hebrew: dumam] Is. xlvii. 5); or "It is good _that he wait and be silent_" ([Hebrew: ki yohil vedamam]; cf. verse 27). Verse 31, add [Hebrew: nafsho], "his soul." The verse is a reply to 17a. Verses 34-36 render: "To crush under His feet ... Adonai _purposed_ not" (Gen. xx. 10; Psalm lxvi. 18). Verse 39, [Hebrew: hai] (Gen. v. 5; or [Hebrew: haya] Neh. ix. 29) is the necessary second verb: "Why doth a mortal complain?" (or "What ... lament?"). "Doth a man live by his sins?": Man "lives by" righteousness (Ezek. xxxiii. 19). For the wording, cf. Psalm lxxxix. 49. Verse 43a: "Thou didst encompass with" (rg. [Hebrew: savota]; Hos. xii. 1) "anger and pursue us." Syntax as verse 66a. Verse 49, rd. [Hebrew: tefune] (cf. ii. 18 also). Verse 51: "Mine eye did hurt to herself" [Hebrew: lenafsha]), "By weeping over my people:" Verse 48: ch. i. 16; Jer. xxxi. 15. Verse 52: "They quelled my life in the pit" (Sheol; Psalms xxx. 4, lxxxviii. 4, 7; verse 55); "They _brought me down to Abaddon_" ([Hebrew: horiduni abaddon]; cf. Psalm lxxxviii. 12). Verse 58: "O plead, Lord, the cause of my soul! O redeem my life!"; cf. Psalm cxix. 154. If the prayer for vengeance begins here, Budde's "deep division in the middle of an acrostic letter-group" vanishes. Verse 59, rd. [Hebrew: uti], "my perverting;" inf. pi. c. suff. obj.; cf. verse 36. Verse 61b repeated by mistake from 60b. Perhaps: "Wherewith they dogged my steps:" [Hebrew: shihrefu ekvotai]: Psalm lxxxix. 51 f. Verse 63, rd. [Hebrew: komem], as usual, and [Hebrew: neginatam], as in verse 14 and Job xxx. 9. Verse 65: "Thou wilt give them madness" (cf. Arab. _gunûn_; _magnûn_, mad) "of heart; Thou wilt curse and consume them!" ([Hebrew: tohar tohlam]).