We arrive now at the final portion of Chapter 139, a psalm devoted entirely to the knowledge of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Divine Providence. After King David described how no place and no thought are hidden from the Creator, he turns to those wicked people whose entire concern is to deny this knowledge and providence, clarifying his attitude toward them and the boundaries of that hatred. We will follow the order of the verses and examine the commentaries of Rashi, Radak, Ibn Ezra, Metzudat David, and the Malbim.
אֲשֶׁר יֹמְרוּךָ לִמְזִמָּה נָשׂוּא לַשָּׁוְא עָרֶיךָ׃ - Who speak of You with deceit; Your foes invoke Your name in vain.
Rashi explains: "Who speak of You with deceit [yomrukha limzimah]" - they mention Your Name in connection with all their evil designs, applying Your divinity to idols. That is, instead of serving Hashem, they invoke His Name upon their idolatry.
Here we are reminded of the incident involving Rabbi Akiva and Tinneius Rufus (Turnus Rufus). Rufus asked him: "Why does the Holy One, blessed be He, say, 'Yet Esau I hated'?" Rabbi Akiva told him that he had dreamed about two dogs, naming one Turnus and the other Rufus - alluding to Rufus and Rufina, after the Roman ruler and his wife. The ruler instantly flew into a rage and said, "You deserve death! You dare name your dogs after me?!" Rabbi Akiva replied, "You are outraged at me for naming dogs after you, so how should the Holy One, blessed be He, not be angry when you name your idols after Him? The Holy One, blessed be He, created the entire world, yet you give the credit to your idols - why shouldn't He be angry? And why shouldn't He say, 'Yet Esau I hated'?" Rufus swallowed his tongue, left with nothing to answer.
Rashi continues: "Your foes invoke [Your name] in vain [nasu lashav arekha]" - Your enemies invoke Your Name in vain. The word arekha denotes an enemy, similar to what we find regarding Shaul, where it was said that Hashem took the kingship from him and gave it to "your rival" - the one you hate, King David. Thus, the meaning of the verse is: Your Name is invoked in vain by Your enemies.
Radak explains that yomrukha is written without an alef and comes from the root of speech (amirah), citing proof from "and to Amasa say [tomru]," which is likewise written without an alef. According to this, Radak follows Rashi's direction: they speak of You according to their thoughts, which are wicked thoughts regarding You. And limzimah stems from the concept of "for they have committed an outrage [zimah]," which means an abomination. "Your foes invoke in vain" - those who hate You invoke You with their lips in vain. In what sense do they take Hashem's Name in vain? This becomes clearer through the words of the Metzudat David.
Metzudat David interprets yomrukha not as speech, but as elevation - similar to "they shall extol You [ya'amirukha]," meaning they elevate You. They elevate Your Name in order to carry out their wicked scheme. And this is a wondrous explanation.
We have explained several times the difference between the term "lofty [ram]" and "great [gadol]." Regarding the nations, it is said, "Hashem is lofty above all nations," whereas among us it is said, "Great is Hashem and exceedingly praised," and "In Israel His Name is great." The Vilna Gaon explains: "Great" implies continuity from bottom to top. The Empire State Building is great, Mount Everest is great - they stretch from the ground all the way to the top. In contrast, a hot air balloon or an airplane is "lofty": it is not necessarily large, but it is high up and detached above.
To ease the pangs of conscience, the nations simply exalted Hashem: He is high, He is above, His glory is above the heavens. And what happens down here on earth? He is not particularly interested, nor does He really know. From this sprang all the arguments they attempted to advance, such as the claims of the philosophers: human knowledge changes at every moment, whereas Hashem is absolute unity and undergoes no change; if His knowledge and His essence are one, how could He know the constantly changing particulars at every moment? All these arguments were designed for one purpose: to grant us license, to allow us to do whatever we please, claiming that Hashem is supreme and unconcerned with what transpires down here.
Yet we affirm that Hashem is great - from below all the way to above. Hashem sees that which pertains to the lowliest and most humble, as well as that which belongs to the highest spheres. And this is the meaning of "who speak of You for wickedness (le'mezimah)": they exalt and elevate Hashem, but their intention is to commit depravity (zimah), to indulge every desire of their hearts, particularly in matters of forbidden relationships where the inclination presses most severely.
This is precisely what Aldous Huxley, who was among the prominent disseminators of Darwinian thought, admitted in his time. He wrote an essay titled "Confession of a Professed Atheist", in which he attested that they actually had many difficulties with the theory, yet they nonetheless exerted every effort to propagate it. The purpose, as he admitted, was to attain liberation from morality, particularly in matters of modesty. For as long as God exists, there are restraints and inhibitions. But when there is no God, and everything is mere chance, and man evolved from an ape or some amoeba, there are no dilemmas, no interference, and no morality - one can do whatever one pleases. "Yomrucha" - they exalt You, but the underlying agenda is depravity (mezimah). Therefore, one prefers to send the Holy One, blessed be He, high up above, exalting Him exceedingly, provided one can claim that He does not observe what happens down here and does not scrutinize man's actions.
There is a well-known expression: "They kicked him upstairs." Sometimes there is a teacher and the administration does not know what to do with him; he causes serious problems in the classroom, having poor relations with students and parents alike - so they give him an administrative post. In an office, he causes less harm. It is exactly the same here: they prefer to promote the Holy One, blessed be He, to the heavens, so long as He does not interfere.
"Your adversaries take Your name in vain (nasu lashav arecha)" - You are elevated and exalted in the mouths of Your foes, "nasu" being an expression of lifting up and elevation, and the purpose is "lashav": to commit vanity and iniquity, to do evil. They do not exalt You for Your honor, but rather so that they can indulge their desires. The enemies of Hashem glorify Him and declare that He is exceedingly high, all so they can do whatever they please.
The Malbim explains that they believed there was a Creator of the universe, but defined Him as the "God of gods." Nebuchadnezzar, too, told Daniel that divine spirit resided within him, and that there are matters known only to the "God of gods." He ostensibly exalts Him - yet continues worshiping idols, because he remains bound to the notion that spiritual influence must be drawn from intermediate forces below. To his mind, the Holy One, blessed be He, is like an overarching chairman of the board, but if you want to draw down bounty, you must deal with the celestial bodies. That is why they served the stars and constellations.
The Malbim adds: seeing that the wicked prosper while the righteous are persecuted, "Your adversaries speak of You for wickedness" - the foes praise You, and from these observations philosophers arrive at the conclusion that You cannot possibly know the details of this world. They argue that this would contradict absolute unity (since knowable facts are constantly changing whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, is absolute unity), and that it is beneath Your honor to oversee lowly matters. They exalt and glorify You solely to carry out their wicked schemes, so they may do whatever they please with neither judgment nor a judge. Alternatively, "nasu lashav" means: You are elevated in their eyes through falsehood - through futile and false arguments leveled against divine knowledge and divine providence.
And this was another argument to which they clung: if the Holy One, blessed be He, knows everything that is to occur, how can man possess free will, given that He already knew in advance what man would choose? This is a topic discussed extensively in Iyov, in the Kuzari, in Siftei Chaim, and in Pirkei Avot on the principle "everything is foreseen, yet free will is given." Conversely, if Hashem does not know, that would imply a deficiency in His divine knowledge. Thus, they seized upon yet another rationale to rid themselves of the obligation to fulfill the mitzvot, and turned to heresy.
הֲלוֹא מְשַׂנְאֶיךָ יְהֹוָה אֶשְׂנָא וּבִתְקוֹמְמֶיךָ אֶתְקוֹטָט׃ - Shall I not hate those who hate You, Hashem, and strive with those who rise up against You?
The Ibn Ezra explains: I hate those who hate You with all my might. "And with those who rise up against You" - those who rebel against You, "I contend" (etkotet), similar to "I loathed that generation" (akut bedor). When a root letter is doubled, it indicates an intensified or repeated action: patz means shattered, whereas potzetz means shattered into tiny pieces; par denotes crumbling, whereas porer means into minuscule fragments. So too, etkotet signifies quarrel after quarrel, continually contending and striving against those who rise up against You.
The Radak cites Chazal as teaching that this verse refers to heretics (minim), who know Hashem and acknowledge Him, yet deny Him. The Metzudas David explains: "Those who hate You" - these are the ones who cause Your commandments to be detested in the eyes of people. They make wicked claims, as we have seen, ostensibly exalting the Holy One, blessed be He, only to push Him far away from them, thereby causing the mitzvos to be despised: What purpose is there in observing mitzvos? "What profit is there that we have kept His charge?" Since He is supposedly transcendent above all existence, He does not concern Himself with what happens down here. "And with those who rise up against You" - those wicked people who rise up against You to deny Divine Providence (hashgachah) and claim that Hashem does not watch over man, with them I wage dispute and contend, to demonstrate to them their futility.
The Malbim explains that those who rise up do so maliciously, out of spite: they deny Divinity to provoke Him, and therefore I contend against them. The Malbim adds a fundamental principle: this is the true mark of one who loves, for he hates the enemies of the one he loves as though they were his own enemies. When a person loves someone, and that person has enemies, he hates them as if they were his own foes. For example, if someone hates a person's father, naturally that person will not treat him warmly, for this is the man who curses his father and speaks ill of him! If you love someone, you inevitably hate his detractors. The same applies, perhaps even more strongly, when it comes to children: one common trigger for feuds between adults is a quarrel between their children, which spirals into family score-settling, retaliation and counter-retaliation, until a reconciliation is made, and the cycle repeats. In any case, when someone harasses the person you love, you hate the harasser as though he were your own enemy.
The Midrash HaGadol comments on the verse, "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem?": Why, then, did Yitzchak love Eisav? Did he not know that his deeds were corrupt? After all, David says, "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem," and Eisav was a hater of Hashem, and Eisav's guardian angel is the Sama-el! Rather, Yitzchak showed him love only outwardly, in his presence, in order to draw him near and pull him in. For if Eisav's deeds were corrupt even while receiving love, all the more so would they have been had Yitzchak hated and alienated him. As our Sages said: A person should always let the right hand draw near and the left hand push away.
Indeed, Scripture states: "And Yitzchak loved Eisav because game was in his mouth" - this love was built on conveying a message to Eisav: I derive great benefit from you; thanks to you, I have food to eat. In other words: I need you, I want you to stay close to me. He gave him a sense of importance, as though things would not manage without him, thereby helping Eisav feel bound to Yitzchak.
This also explains the grammatical distinction between the expressions. As the commentators point out, ohev ("loves") is in the simple form (kal), whereas vaye'ehav ("and he loved") is an intensive grammatical construction, which indicates that an effort was required to generate the feeling. "And Yitzchak loved [vaye'ehav] Eisav" - he deliberately activated love toward him. By contrast, "and Rivkah loved [oheves] Yaakov" - a natural, effortless love, without having to generate an active force of love. Yitzchak felt compelled to do this so as not to distance Eisav and drive him into outright rebellion, and therefore he summoned a powerful force of love to keep him close, but a natural, intrinsic love for him he did not possess.
We have already mentioned that the hatred of Yishmael is exceedingly harsh. Why is this so? The holy books explain that it is because the son of the bondwoman was banished, banished completely. Eisav, on the other hand, was drawn close by Yitzchak, and for this reason throughout history we have often been able to come to terms with Eisav. But with Yishmael, the hatred is of an entirely different nature: "Woe is me that I have sojourned in Meshech, that I have dwelled among the tents of Kedar!" "Woe, who shall live when God establishes him!" - woe to whoever lives when Yishmael rises up and wreaks havoc across the world, he into whose name God placed His own name. The prophets foresaw this and cried out in agony. Because he was banished, his hatred and vengefulness are enduring. It defies all reason: What was done to you? Why have you gone to such extremes? Where is the logic? There is none. It is an ancient hatred rooted in the dawn of time: "And he shall be a wild donkey of a man," and that wild nature erupts anew time and again. Eisav, however, was drawn close, which is why converts stem from Eisav, whereas there are almost no converts from Yishmael.
The holy Or HaChaim asks regarding "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem?": Does the Torah not command, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart," "You shall not take vengeance nor bear a grudge," and "You shall love your fellow as yourself"? The answer is simple: all of these commandments apply only to one who conducts himself as "your brother" and acts as a member of your people. But those who hate Hashem - and note carefully how he defines them - such as apostates (mumarim) and heretics (apikorsim), it is forbidden to love them, and one is obligated to hate them.
From here we see that we must always draw a clear distinction between the swept-along masses and the ringleaders at the top. The ringleaders are the heads of the media, the chief inciters, the leaders of the protests - and concerning them it is said, "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem? With utmost hatred I hate them; they have become enemies to me." These are the ones who run to slander us before the world, may we never know or hear from them. This is an evil root from the erev rav (the mixed multitude) that mingled among us: in the midst of war, instead of being consumed by the anguish of the community, they go and spread slander about us throughout the world. "And for the slanderers let there be no hope." When the blood of Israel is spilled like water - this is what consumes them. Regarding these people it is said, "Those who hate You, Hashem, I hate; with utmost hatred I hate them; they have become enemies to me."
But the simple person swept along after them - poor fellow, what is he? They have brainwashed him from morning till night with foolishness and nonsense, and what does he understand? After all, to be a heretic one has to know something; one who knows nothing, what is he even denying?
A story is told of a certain heretic who heard of a renowned heretic and was very eager to meet him, to exchange impressions and gain insights. People told him: There is a certain Yankele the Heretic in Vilna. He went looking for him. Arriving at his house, he knocked on the door: "Is Yankele the Heretic here?" They told him: "No, he is in the beis midrash." "What? In the beis midrash?" "Yes, yes, in the beis midrash." He arrived at the beis midrash and saw in the back a man wearing a peaked cap, an open Gemara before him, swaying and studying intently. He approached him tentatively, careful not to offend him: "Is your honor Yankele the Heretic?" The man replied, "Yes, pleased to meet you; and who is your honor?" He said, "I am Avremele the Heretic." Yankele asked him, "And what is your honor doing here in the beis midrash?" He said, "I found my place here. And you, what are you doing here?" Yankele asked him, "Are you a heretic?" He answered, "Yes." He said to him, "Have you studied Torah?" He said, "No." "Have you studied the Bavli, the Yerushalmi, the Sifra, the Sifrei, the Beis Yosef, the Shulchan Aruch?" He said, "No." Yankele said to him: "Forgive me, honored sir, but you are not a heretic; you are simply an am ha'aretz (an ignoramus). A heretic needs to know what he is denying. If I stand up right now and declare that I deny quantum mechanics, and you ask me what quantum mechanics is, and I answer that I do not really know but it does not seem right to me - that is how a fool speaks. One who denies something must know what is on the other side and claim that he has ways to refute it. But when a person knows nothing at all, he is simply an am ha'aretz."
Therefore, concerning the swept-along masses, it was not said, "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem?" No matter what you hear such a person say, do not be overly moved. A small war is enough, and see how suddenly everyone becomes brothers; all those who spoke words of hatred are suddenly brothers. Why? Because they were truly just brainwashed. But the ringleaders - you will see that they remain steadfast in their rebellion and hatred. Concerning them it is said, "Those who hate You, Hashem, I hate, and with those who rise up against You I contend." They are the inciters and seducers in every generation; they are the "apostates and heretics" of whom the Or HaChaim said that it is forbidden to love them and one must hate them.
תַּכְלִית שִׂנְאָה שְׂנֵאתִים לְאוֹיְבִים הָיוּ לִי׃ - With utmost hatred I hate them; they have become enemies to me.
In the name of the Rebbe of Ostrovtza, a wonderful explanation is cited. The Torah states, "If you see the donkey of your enemy collapsed under its burden, and you would refrain from helping him, you must surely help him." Now this seems astonishing: how does the Torah grant legitimacy to having an enemy, when it is written, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart"? Rather, Chazal explain that this refers to a legitimate enemy: one who saw his fellow commit a sin. Presumably he should go to beis din - yet he was a lone witness, and a lone witness who comes forward to testify in such a case is lashed, as the Gemara says: "Tuviah sinned, and Zigud is lashed?!" If so, he cannot testify, and what is left for him to do? To hate him. He knows that the other is wicked, yet he can do nothing about it.
Yet here lies the danger: from hatred for the sake of a mitzvah, one can quickly slip into hatred that is a transgression. For I hate him because I saw an evil deed in him, and as water reflects face to face - he senses that I hate him, which arouses hostility in him, and he begins to hate me. Once he shows me an attitude of hatred, a feedback loop is created, and I hate him back. However, this hatred is no longer a hatred of mitzvah, but rather hatred simply because he hates me.
It is related that someone approached Rabbi Yisrael Salanter and said there was an issue that required protest, and that he wished to rise up and protest. Rabbi Yisrael said to him: "It is indeed necessary to rise up and protest; you are right - but make sure that you remain right. 'Justice, justice shall you pursue.' For often a person enters a battle because he is in the right, but the battle heats up and turns into a personal matter and an issue of ego: you said this, I said that, I will defeat you - and you have already completely forgotten what you went out to fight for in the first place, forgetting that this was supposed to be about the honor of Heaven."
Therefore, the Torah comes and says: When you see the donkey of your enemy collapsed under its burden, you must surely help him. Why? So that you set boundaries to the hatred and ensure it does not turn into personal malice. You are commanded to hate him, but within limits. A hatred that transgresses its boundaries and turns into private enmity - that is something the Torah does not want.
And this is what King David says: "With utmost hatred I hate them." In the plain sense, we understand tachlis sin'ah as hatred that reaches the extreme limit. But according to this novel explanation: to this hatred I set an end and a boundary (tachlis). Tachlis sin'ah means a purposeful hatred, one that has a defined objective, and that objective is solely to hate the enemies of Hashem. I did not allow the hatred to be boundless, for if I make it boundless - "they have become enemies to me," they will turn into personal enemies not for the sake of a mitzvah, and I would be hating people personally rather than by virtue of the Torah's command. Therefore, I set a boundary to this hatred, ensuring it remains limited strictly to what Hashem commanded: if He tells me, "You must surely help him" - I must help him.
According to the peshat, as Radak explains, "consummate hatred" refers to an immense hatred beyond which there is none, reaching the ultimate extreme and purpose, to the point that "they have become my enemies." Malbim explains that an enemy (oyeiv) is worse than a hater (soneh): a hater hates only in his heart, whereas an enemy actively seeks his fellow's harm. And as is well known from Malbim in several places, there is a hater (soneh), an enemy (oyeiv), and an adversary (tsar): the hater hates in his heart, the enemy seeks his harm, and the adversary causes actual distress - not only seeking harm, but actively carrying it out.
חׇקְרֵנִי אֵל וְדַע לְבָבִי בְּחָנֵנִי וְדַע שַׂרְעַפָּי׃ - Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me, and know my thoughts.
This is David's plea: Master of the Universe, gaze into my heart and into my thoughts, and see that I have not fallen into personal hatred, but rather a hatred born of a mitzvah, stemming from the Holy One, blessed be He, having commanded us to hate those who perpetrate evil. Only You know this - by searching, by knowing my heart, and by knowing my innermost thoughts, seeing that my hatred is strictly "consummate hatred," a hatred that serves a purpose: to hate only those who hate Hashem, without any personal interest whatsoever.
Radak explains: Since he mentioned the thoughts of the wicked, which are evil and do not believe in Hashem, may He be blessed, he therefore said: With me, the matter is not so. Search and know my heart, and You will see that my heart is upright in its faith in You. "Test me and know my thoughts (sar'apai)" - know my thoughts. Sar'apai and se'ifai are of the same concept; both refer to thoughts. And why are they called by this name? Because they are related to a tree (ilan), of which it is likewise said "its boughs" (sar'apotav and se'ifotav) - namely, the branches that extend out from the tree. In the same way, a person's thoughts branch out and wander.
Malbim makes a precise distinction: "Search me, O God, and know my heart" - here it refers to deeds, whose root lies in the heart. The heart is what desires and is aroused to action, as we explained that the root of desires is in the heart, as it says, "You have given him his heart's desire." "Test me and know my thoughts" - here it refers to thoughts, which are an expression of beliefs and outlooks. If the heart is an expression of desires, thoughts are the expression of faith in Hashem and upright beliefs. That is to say: Test me, Hashem, both in my heart regarding my desires and in my innermost thoughts regarding my beliefs and outlooks, and You will see that I am wholehearted with You.
וּרְאֵה אִם דֶּרֶךְ עֹצֶב בִּי וּנְחֵנִי בְּדֶרֶךְ עוֹלָם׃ - And see if there is any vexing way in me, and lead me in the way of eternity.
Rashi explains: "If there is any way of sorrow (ma'atzevah) and corruption in me." In Ibn Ezra the idea is stated even more explicitly: If for a single moment there is in my heart a thought regarding Your words that is improper, that is not pleasing in Your eyes, take my life immediately. Thus David says: If for a single moment I entertain a thought that turns away from You, Master of the Universe, take me from this world. And what is otzev? It connotes rebellion, as in "Yet they rebelled and grieved (ve'itsevu) His holy spirit" - thoughts of rebellion, causing grief, as it were, and pain to the Holy One, blessed be He. And "and lead me in the way of eternity" - according to Ibn Ezra, this means: take me from this world, akin to "Behold, I am going the way of all the earth."
Malbim explains: "And see if there is any vexing way in me" - if there is in me a path of rebellion and defiance, or otzev in the sense of idols (atzabim), as in "worshipers of idols and images," meaning idolatry. And if so, "and lead me in the way of eternity." Why would he ask for death? Malbim explains: Because it is better to die innocent than to die guilty. Therefore, if You see that I am about to follow an evil path, take me beforehand, so that I do not die while transgressing. It is better to die innocent than to die guilty.
The conclusion of Psalm 139 is a frontal confrontation with those who deny divine knowledge and providence. They "speak of You for deceit" - exalting the Creator and placing Him high above, not out of honor for Him, but to exempt themselves from morality and judgment. Among the nations, "Hashem is high above all nations," whereas with us, "Great is Hashem" - from bottom to top, seeing even the lowly. Against them David proclaims, "Do I not hate those who hate You, Hashem?" - which is the hallmark of a lover, who hates the enemies of his beloved. Yet he immediately defines a boundary: "I hate them with consummate hatred" - a purposeful hatred, strictly for the sake of Heaven, that will not degenerate into personal animosity, in the spirit of "you shall surely release it with him" and ensuring that one's motives remain pure. Therefore he asks, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" - examine my desires and my outlooks, and see that there is no vexing way in me; and if there is, "lead me in the way of eternity," for it is better to die innocent than to die guilty. "I shall not die, but live, and recount the deeds of the Lord." And with this, we conclude Psalm 139 in Tehillim.