Psalm 65 opens: "For the conductor, a psalm of David, a song." What is this psalm about? The Malbim explains that it is founded upon the blessing of rain that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave following the well-known three-year famine during the days of David, during which they sought to understand why it had come. It is very possible, says the Malbim, that the psalm was also composed regarding the famine itself. In any case, the Malbim's commentary stays closely aligned with this theme throughout the entire chapter. The Radak, in contrast, explains that the psalm refers to the exile: there is a longing and yearning here for redemption from exile, and we sing it while we are in exile.
לְךָ דֻמִיָּה תְהִלָּה אֱלֹהִים בְּצִיּוֹן וּלְךָ יְשֻׁלַּם נֶדֶר׃ - To You, silence is praise, O God in Zion, and to You a vow shall be paid.
Almost all the commentators explain: silence is praise to You. Rashi explains that there is no end to Your praise. This is just like what the Amora said to that disciple who piled on praises: "Have you finished all the praises of your Master?" The Great, the Mighty, the Awesome, the Powerful, the Dreaded, and so on - have you finished all the praises of Hashem? One who multiplies His praises only diminishes Him, for whoever piles on adjectives is essentially saying, "up to here, and no more." We recite only what was instituted for us and do not add to it; but were we to attempt to say all that could be said, silence is praise. We have no way to praise and laud Him according to His true worth, reality, and truth, for we do not even have any grasp of His true reality and truth, and any praise one utters actually diminishes and limits Him.
This can be compared to a person whose concept of wealth is very limited, and he comes to describe a multi-billionaire: "Do you know how much money he has? Hundreds of thousands of dollars!" The wealthy man is offended by what was said about him - he is a trillionaire, he has long stopped counting because it is beyond measure, and you speak of him in terms of hundreds of thousands. You have diminished his praise.
The Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim writes this explicitly: the meaning of silence is that in relation to You, silence is the praise, since whatever we utter with the intent of exalting and praising Him falls short and contains some deficiency relative to Him. Even the phrase "the great, mighty, and awesome God" - had Moshe Rabbeinu not said it in the Torah, and had the Men of the Great Assembly not come and instituted it in prayer, we would not be able to say it. For one could ask: if silence is praise, why do we say "the great, mighty, and awesome"? The answer is that had it not been written in the Torah and instituted for us by the Men of the Great Assembly, we would not recite it; and all the more so, one must not add to them. As Shlomo HaMelech already said: "For God is in heaven and you are upon earth, therefore let your words be few." What can you possibly grasp of Divinity? Whatever you praise and glorify is only according to the pettiness of your own understanding and grasp, and therefore silence is truly praise - silence itself is the praise of the Creator, blessed be He.
Rashi explains "God in Zion" as God Who dwells in Zion. He also cites a Midrash of Chazal: praise is due to You, Hashem, for having remained still and kept silent over what Your enemy did in Zion. The enemies entered, ruined, destroyed, and committed abominations; they slashed the Parochet, brought a harlot into the Holy of Holies, and committed unthinkable acts - who could see all of this and remain silent? Yet the Holy One, blessed be He, sees and remains silent. We are incapable of staying silent when we see something infuriating, yet Hashem holds His peace. It turns out, then, that praise to Hashem, blessed be He, is for this restraint - that He did not immediately take retribution from these nations.
The holy Alshich explains that King David enumerates three things that are wondrous beyond his grasp. First: according to Your exalted stature, silence is praise; if so, why did Hashem command that we stand and pray before Him? After all, we have no grasp of Divinity and do not know how to express His praise at all. Second: "O God in Zion" - can the infinite God, of Whom Shlomo said, "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You," deign to dwell in a house of cedar down here? "Will God indeed dwell on earth?" And third: "And to You a vow shall be paid" - when everything belongs to Him, how can a vow be paid to Him from what is already His? When a person says, Master of the Universe, I vow to give such and such, the Holy One, blessed be He, could say: give of your own; why are you giving Me from what belongs to Me? And in truth, what do we possess of our own? Nothing at all.
These are not questions awaiting an answer, but expressions of wonder: see how wondrous, how astonishing it is that the Holy One, blessed be He - Whose praises are infinite - instructed us to pray in our own language and in the manner we are able. Likewise, the wonder that although the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, He rests His presence in Zion. And likewise, the wonder that we take vows and pay them to Hashem - and from whose pocket? From the pocket of the Holy One, blessed be He! It is like a child who says to his father: "Abba, don't worry, I will pay you for what I broke," then reaches into his father's pocket, takes out coins, and says, "Here, take this." That is exactly what we do. All of these are wonders demonstrating the greatness of the Creator, blessed be He.
Radak, who understands this psalm as having been composed regarding the exile, explains "dumiyah" in the sense of yearning and anticipation - like "diminu Elokim chasdecha" (we have hoped for Your kindness, God), meaning we yearn and hope for Your lovingkindness. It also shares a root with *damam* (silence): "Wait quietly until we reach you" (dumu ad higi'einu aleichem) - be still, in silence, and wait; "Only for God wait quietly, my soul" (ach l'Elokim domi nafshi) - be silent and yearning. And so, "To You silence is praise": praise itself yearns and waits in silence - when will You, Hashem, be in Zion so that we may merit to praise and laud You; when will we merit to witness the ingathering of the exiles? "And to You vows will be paid" - and then vows will also be fulfilled. All the vows that the Jewish people take throughout their exile - that when Hashem redeems us, we will serve Him and offer sacrifices - will be fulfilled there in the Beit HaMikdash when You are "God in Zion." And why does the verse specifically say "in Zion"? Because the vast majority of praise took place there: in the Beit HaMikdash they would sing with instruments, harps, and lyres, praising Hashem. Therefore, praise waits in silence for the time when Hashem will be in Zion, and we will merit to praise Him fittingly.
What we noted earlier - that one should not multiply praises of the Omnipresent because whatever you add still falls short - applies when someone seeks to establish his words as part of the formal, instituted prayer. This was the case with the prayer leader who added "the great, mighty, awesome, powerful God..." and so forth into the text of the Shemoneh Esrei. But for a person who wishes, in his own words and language, to turn to Hashem, to laud and praise Him - this restriction does not apply. There is no prohibition against speaking Hashem's praises; the prohibition is only against formalizing them into a liturgy, as though saying: "This is it; this is the required formula and nothing more." But when someone expresses himself in his own words, we certainly do not say to him, "Have you finished all the praises of your Master?" For whatever he uttered reflects his own understanding and his personal perception of reality.
Radak also cites from the Midrash: David said, "To You silence is praise" - how can You remain silent? Everyone gives You praise, yet You are silent, keeping silent over Zion! As it is written, "They raised their voices in the House of Hashem as on a festival day." And what was that voice? They said, "Our hand is high, and it was not Hashem Who did all this," and they said, "Where is their God, the rock in whom they sought refuge?" They raised their voices in arrogance, and You remain silent? This was King David's astonishment at how the Holy One, Blessed be He, is long-suffering - similar to what Rashi noted. For they raised their voices against Him in the House of Hashem, as though declaring, "We have overcome Hashem, our hand is high and it was not Hashem Who did all this" - a voice of blasphemy; "Where is their God, the rock in whom they sought refuge?" - outright heresy. If so, Master of the World, how can You remain silent?
The Malbim explains praise as an abstract entity, and as is his way throughout the Prophets, he personifies it: praise is like a figure standing before You, silent, as if it had no words to utter. Yet the entire essence of praise is speech - to laud! And despite this, it stands before You in silence. This means: the very fact that there is no limit to how much You deserve to be praised is itself the ultimate praise. What is the praise? To remain silent. "Exalted above all blessing and praise."
"And to You vows will be paid" - and what praise is there in this? The Malbim explains wonderfully: A vow is always made conditionally - "If you do this for me, I will give you such and such." Its purpose is to guarantee that the condition will be met, for if it is not met, I will not pay. But toward the Holy One, Blessed be He, it is impossible to say "if He does not do it," for Hashem will surely fulfill His word. Therefore, "to You vows will be paid" immediately - one can pay in advance, even before the condition is fulfilled, because it is certain that salvation will come, and Hashem is ready and available to all who seek Him.
Another commentator explains: "To You silence is praise, God in Zion" - when You were God in Zion, meaning when the Holy One, Blessed be He, rested in the Beit HaMikdash and His Shechinah was manifest, there was no need for verbal praise, because sacrifices were being offered there. Prayer was instituted for everyone to pray everywhere only when the reality arose that we no longer had sacrifices - "and we will render the calves of our lips." But there in the Temple, silence was praise, because the sacrifices themselves served as the prayer - sacrifices were the substitute for prayer, or prayer is the substitute for sacrifices. Now in exile, prayer and crying out are precisely the praise; whereas when God is in Zion, silence is praise, for the sacrifices bring atonement without a person needing to stand and pray.
The Gemara in Eruvin expounds on "To You silence is praise, and to You a vow shall be paid": When a flesh-and-blood person is condemned to death by the government, they place a hook in his mouth so that he will not curse the king. After all, he is being led to his execution anyway, so what more can they do to him? This would be his opportunity to curse the king because of whom he is mounting the gallows, and therefore they seal his mouth. But a person who is liable to death by the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, remains silent - "To You silence." And not only is he silent, but he even offers praise, as it says, "is praise." And what is more, it is considered as if he is offering a sacrifice, as it says, "and to You a vow shall be paid."
Indeed, it is written that one who merits dying for Kiddush Hashem is considered like an offering before Hashem, may He be blessed, and this is the highest level to which a person can aspire. It is related of the Vilna Gaon that all his days he yearned to die for Kiddush Hashem, and likewise of the Beit Yosef, that the Maggid angel told him he would merit this, though in the end he did not - and one must understand why, but in any event we see that this was his aspiration. It is also recounted of the Vilna Gaon that when Count Potocki [the Ger Tzedek of Vilna] was discovered and led to the pyre, the Gaon told him that he could transmit a Holy Name to him through which he could be saved. He replied to him: "I merit being an offering, to ascend and die for the sanctification of Hashem's Name, something that all generations longed for - and now I should recite a Holy Name to be saved? After all, Rabbi Akiva said: 'All my days I was pained, when will it come to my hand that I may fulfill it?'" And Count Potocki went singing into the fiery furnace. We find, then, that not only is it "To You silence," but also "praise" - he lauds and praises Hashem; and not only that, but "to You a vow shall be paid" - he feels he is meriting bringing an offering, for what could be greater than offering oneself as a sacrifice to Hashem.
שֹׁמֵעַ תְּפִלָּה עָדֶיךָ כָּל בָּשָׂר יָבֹאוּ׃ - You Who hear prayer, unto You all flesh shall come.
The Radak continues along his line of interpretation: Following "God in Zion," which spoke of the Redemption, that is where You will be "Hearer of prayer." For in exile it is said, "He shut out my prayer," and Chazal say that from the day the Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, an iron barrier was erected between us and our Father in Heaven; people cry out and are not answered. But when the Jewish people return to the Beit HaMikdash - "God in Zion" - He will once again be the Hearer of prayer, and there Hashem will hear their prayer. Then "unto You all flesh shall come," as it is written, "all flesh shall come to prostrate themselves before Me, says Hashem" - not only Israel, but also the nations, who will take hold of the corner of a Jewish man's garment and say to him, "Let us go up to the House of Hashem," and all will acknowledge the reality of the Creator.
Rav Yerucham of Mir noted regarding what we say in the Rosh Hashanah prayers: "May every creature know that You created him, and every formed entity understand that You formed him, and may everything that has the breath of life in its nostrils declare: Hashem, the God of Israel, is King, and His kingdom rules over all" - His kingdom will not rule over all if there remains even a single bushman in an African jungle who does not recognize Hashem. "His kingdom rules over all" means that every creature and every formed entity will know that You formed it, and everyone who has breath in his nostrils will understand that Hashem, the God of Israel, is King. Then indeed, "Hashem will be King over all the earth," and this is the complete and true revelation - "unto You all flesh shall come."
The Malbim adds: Unlike a flesh-and-blood king, where one who wishes to request something does not approach him directly but goes to the ministers, with You, Master of the Universe, You hear prayer Yourself, to the extent that "unto You" - directly to You - all flesh shall come. No one tells you, "Go to the clerk; my secretary will speak with you." With flesh and blood, one cannot reach either the minister or the king, but here, "unto You all flesh shall come."
Therefore, in all our prayers, we turn solely to Him, blessed be He - not to an angel, not to a seraph, not to an emissary, and not to anything else. This was the mistake of the earliest generations, as the Rambam writes: They said that Hashem is exalted and lofty, and would one ever approach a king directly? Surely only through the ministers and officials. Therefore, they began to turn to Him through the sun, the moon, and the other agents of nature, as though they would submit the petition before Him, or salvation from Him would arrive through them. However, their children, grandchildren, and subsequent generations made the sun, the moon, and all the celestial bodies the primary focus, bowing down to them as an end in themselves and believing they possessed independent power. In their temples they saw depictions of the sun and the like, and concluded that the sun itself was a god. Thus began the era of Enosh. But with the Holy One, blessed be He - "unto You all flesh shall come," prayer is addressed directly to Hashem, blessed be He.
And so too at the graves of tzaddikim: A person must not say, "Rabbi Shimon, save me!" or "Rabbeinu, save me!" - absolutely not. Neither Rabbeinu saves, nor does Rabbi Shimon save. Rather, one should say: "Master of the Universe, save me in the merit of the tzaddik buried here"; or he may ask the tzaddik to intercede on his behalf before Hashem so that Hashem will save him, that he serve as an advocate for him. But to say to the tzaddik, "You save me" - no. We do not turn to any other power, but to Hashem alone. Therefore, notice that all the sacrifices are offered "solely to Hashem alone" - there is no sacrifice where the name Elokim is mentioned, but only the Shem Havayah, which is His essential Name, whereas Elokim denotes mastery over forces. To be sure, all forces are His and everything stems from Him, but "he who sacrifices to gods shall be utterly destroyed, save unto Hashem alone," because directing devotion to any other power means taking a subordinate official and turning him into an independent power.
And if you ask: Why should we not approach Hashem the way one approaches any exalted king, through his officials? The answer is simple, and it is explained with a parable. Imagine that the king is standing right here with his minister beside him, and you approach the minister and ask him, "Do me a favor, help me solve a problem" - while the king is standing right there, watching! The minister would immediately say to you, "The king is right here! I am stepping aside; go speak to him! Why are you turning to me as if I have the authority?" With the Holy One, blessed be He, Hashem is present at every moment and at all times; I stand and pray before Him, He is right here with me - and in His very presence should I turn to His minister? There is no greater insult than this! It is the exact opposite of our physical reality, where one is far from the king and therefore turns to an official. Here the King is right beside you, and you bypass Him, saying, "Step aside for a moment, Your Majesty - official, can you help me?" Therefore, since the Holy One, blessed be He, is near to us whenever we call upon Him - "Hearer of prayer, unto You all flesh shall come." What room is there to turn to officials when Hashem is right here with us?
And to what do these words refer here? The Malbim explains: You, Hashem, alone hear the request, and the request is for rain. They paid their vows and are now praying for rain, for the psalm was composed concerning this matter. Therefore, they plead and say: Master of the Universe, save us and grant us the rain for which we yearn.
דִּבְרֵי עֲוֺנֹת גָּבְרוּ מֶנִּי פְּשָׁעֵינוּ אַתָּה תְכַפְּרֵם׃ - Words of iniquities have overwhelmed me; as for our transgressions, You shall atone for them.
Rashi explains: Iniquities have overwhelmed me, and we cannot manage to arrange and enumerate them before You one by one, for they are so numerous. Therefore, we turn to You in a general manner and say, "as for our transgressions, You shall atone for them" - atone for all the transgressions together.
Radak notes the shift in phrasing: "have overwhelmed me" is in the singular, whereas "our transgressions, You shall atone for them" is in the plural. In keeping with his approach that the entire psalm refers to the children of the exile and their yearning for redemption, this refers to both the individual and the collective: the iniquities that overwhelmed me as an individual, as well as our collective transgressions - atone for them as well, for it is they that prolonged our stay in exile. And why does it emphasize "You shall atone for them"? Because You alone grant atonement, as it is written, "For with You is forgiveness." We have no king who pardons and forgives other than You, and pardon and forgiveness cannot be sought from anyone else.
The Malbim, consistent with his view that the entire chapter addresses the drought in the days of David following the sin of Saul not being eulogized properly, explains that this was the text of the prayer recited during that drought. Here again, in his characteristic way, the abstract concept is personified: the iniquities themselves speak. The iniquities have overwhelmed me - they are stronger than man, and he cannot overcome them; therefore, they themselves advocate and speak before Hashem, saying, "as for our transgressions, You shall atone for them." And what is this plea? Since iniquities are stronger than human capacity, making it naturally difficult for man to conquer the inclination implanted within him, it is as though he says: I do not even have the strength to plead, but the iniquities, which are stronger than me - they shall plead that You atone for our transgressions, for You know that the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth.
The opening of the psalm teaches us the very foundation of standing before the Creator: "To You, silence is praise" - silence itself is the praise, since all praise is according to our limited comprehension, and whoever adds only detracts; yet Hashem commanded us to pray in our own language, and He even dwells in Zion, and even receives vows from what is His - three wonders reflecting His greatness. Even one condemned to death remains silent and praises, and it is considered as if he offered a sacrifice. "O Hearer of prayer" - there are no intermediaries between us and Him: neither sun nor moon, neither angel nor tzaddik, but Him alone, for the King stands right here beside us. And "words of iniquities have overwhelmed me" - an admission that we lack the strength to withstand the inclination, and a plea that He alone, Who knows that the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth, grant atonement for our transgressions.