TEHILLIM LIGHT

Commentaries

Mizmor 024, Verse 004

נְקִ֥י כַפַּ֗יִם וּֽבַר־לֵ֫בָ֥ב אֲשֶׁ֤ר ׀ לֹא־נָשָׂ֣א לַשָּׁ֣וְא נַפְשִׁ֑י וְלֹ֖א נִשְׁבַּ֣ע לְמִרְמָֽה

Neki chappayim uvar-leivov asher  lo-noso lashove nafshi velo nishba lemirmoh

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up a false oath by My life or sworn deceitfully.

MIDRASH TEHILLIM

1.....(24.7)
A.
He who has clean hands...
Alludes to Moshe, who said: "I have not taken a donkey from a single one of them..." (Bamidbar - Numbers 16:15)
B.
...clear understanding...
Alludes to clear understanding of God's message, which Moshe sought, when God said to him, Go with My message to Pharaoh, and Moshe replied: "Behold I come to the children of Israel, and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" (Shemot - Exodus 3:13).
[NOTE:
Midrash interprets the words "uvar-leivov" - (pure heart) as "clear understanding".
The hebrew word "BAR" can be translated as - PURE, but it also has a cannotation of - CLEAR.
The hebrew word "LEVAV" can be translated as - HEART, but it also has a meaning of - INNER MAN, MIND.
Aramaic Targum translate it as - "The pure of hand and clear of thought..."
]

RASHI

1.
...who has not taken My name in vain...
Who has not sworn with My name and My soul in vain. We find an expression of an oath used with the soul (נפש) , as it is stated (in Amos 6:8): “The Lord God swore by Himself (בנפשו).”

RADAK

1.
The clean of hand and pure of heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, And has not sworn deceitfully.
Notice that he indicates in this verse three dispositions in man - action, thought, and speech; and in the three of them the man will be perfect who shall be clean in his actions, pure in his heart, and trustworthy in his speech.
(The marginal reading) is נפשׁי (written) with yod ( = my soul), and is the utterance of God, as (in the verses) (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11), "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain";
and נפשׁו (His soul, essence, being) is (equivalent to) His Name. And so it says (in the verse) (Amos. 6:8), "The Lord God hath sworn by Himself (בנפשׁו)."
And the word as written, נפשׁו, i.e. with waw, means his soul, viz. the swearer's; a man shall not lift up unto vanity nor swear deceitfully, but in truth and righteousness.
And such swearing is a mitzvah to the fearers of the Name, as is said (in the text) (Devarim - Deuteronomy 6:13), "And shall swear by His Name"; and another verse says (ibid. 10:20), "The Lord your God shall you fear, Him shall you serve, and to Him shall you cleave, and by His Name shall you swear."
When these attributes (i.e. service, fear, adhesion) are yours, then by His Name shall you swear. And so it says (Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah 4:2), "And you shall swear 'As the Lord lives,' in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness..."

Rabbi HIRSCH

1.
He that is clean of hands and pure of heart, who has not lified up his soul, which is Mine, unto vanity and has not sworn deceitfully.
[נָקִי] (naqiy)
is superficial cleanliness, freedom from dirt.
[בַּר] (bar)
is inner purity, describing a body from which every impure element has been "picked out".
[כַּף] (kaph)
is the hand that takes hold of a possession.
Therefore, he whose possessions are pure, who calls no ill-gotten gains his own, who is pure of mind and harbors no impure thoughts within his heart.
[נַפְשִׁ֑י] (nafshi) is the keri.
[נַפְשׁ֥וֹ] is the ketiv. Spelled with a WOW at the end, but it is read as NAFSHI (with the YOD at the end
i.e. He who respects his soul, because it really belongs to Me, and therefore will not lift it up to anything that is vain or transitory, but will have it strive only for goals that are noble, and that are neither based on vanity nor doomed to decay.

[NOTE:
keri (the way a word is read)
ketiv (the way it is written in the actual scroll)
]

WORDS