Keil & Delitzsch

(Heb.: 21:8-9) With this strophe the second half of the Psalm commences. The address to God is now changed into an address to the king; not, however, expressive of the wishes, but of the confident expectation, of the speakers. Hengstenberg rightly regards Psa 21:8 as the transition to the second half; for by its objective utterance concerning the king and God, it separates the language hitherto addressed to God, from the address to the king, which follows. We do not render Psa 21:8: and trusting in the favour of the Most High - he shall not be moved; the mercy is the response of the trust, which (trust) does not suffer him to be moved; on the expression, cf. Pro 10:30. This inference is now expanded in respect to the enemies who desire to cause him to totter and fall. So far from any tottering, he, on the contrary, makes a victorious assault upon his foes. If the words had been addressed to Jahve, it ought, in order to keep up the connection between Psa 21:9 and Psa 21:8, at least to have been איביו and שׁנאיו (his, i.e., the king's, enemies). What the people now hope on behalf of their king, they here express beforehand in the form of a prophecy. מצא ל (as in Isa 10:10) and מצא seq. acc. (as in Sa1 23:17) are distinguished as: to reach towards, or up to anything, and to reach anything, attain it. Supposing ל to represent the accusative, as e.g., in Psa 69:6, Psa 21:9 would be a useless repetition.