The son of Jesse said. — The description of the human author of the following prophecy is strikingly analogous to that of Balaam in Numbers 24:3-4; Numbers 24:15-16. The word “said,” used twice, is a peculiar form (used between two hundred and three hundred times) of direct Divine utterances, and applied to human sayings only here, in the places referred to in Numbers, and in Proverbs 30:1, in all which special claim is made to inspiration.
The sweet psalmist of Israel. — Literally, He that is pleasant in Israel’s psalms, i.e., by the composition and arrangement of Israel’s liturgical songs he was entitled to be called “pleasant.” David, with life now closing, fitly sends down this prophetic song to posterity with such description of its human writer as should secure to it authority.