I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly; i.e. such was my shamelessness that there was scarcely any wickedness which I did not commit, unrestrained even by the presence of the congregation and assembly.
The fact which the ruined youth laments is the extent and audacity of his sins. It is not that he accuses himself of hypocrisy in religion (Delitzsch), but he adds another clement in his career of vice.
He has disregarded the warnings and reproofs of his teachers and friends; but more, the presence of the congregation of God's people, a silent but not a less impressive protest, had no restraining effect upon him.
The words, "the congregation and assembly" (Hebrew, kahal v'edah), seem to be used to heighten the conception, rather than to express two distinct and separate ideas, since we find them both used interchangeably to designate the congregation of the Israelites.
The radical conception of kahal ("congregation") is the same as that of the LXX. ἐκκλήσια and Vulgate ecclesia, viz. the congregation looked upon from the point of its being called together, kahal being derived from kahal, which in hiph.
is equivalent to "to call together," while that of edah is the congregation looked at from the point of its having assembled edah being derived from yaad, in niph. equivalent to "to come together." The latter will therefore stand for any assembly of people specially convened or coming together for some definite object, like the LXX.
συναγώγη and the Vulgate synagoga. The term edah is, however, used in a technical sense as signifying the seventy elders, or senators, who judged the people (see Numbers 25:7; Numbers 35:12). Rabbi Salomon so explains haedah as "the congregation," in Joshua 20:6 and Numbers 27:21.
Other explanations, however, have been given of these words. Zockler takes kahal as the convened council of elders acting as judges (Deuteronomy 33:4, Deuteronomy 33:5), and edah as the concourse (coetus) of the people executing the condemning sentence (Numbers 15:15; cf.
Psalms 7:7), and renders, "Well nigh had I fallen into utter destruction in the midst of the assembly and the congregation." Fleischer, Vatablus, and Bayne take much the same view, looking upon ra ("evil," Authorized Version) as "punishment," i.
e. the evil which follows as a consequence of sin—a usage supported by 2 Samuel 16:18; Exodus 5:19; 1 Chronicles 7:23; Psalms 10:6—rather than as evil per se, i.e. that which is morally bad, as in Exodus 32:22.
Aben Ezra considers that the perfect is used for the future; "In a little time I shall be involved in all evil;" i.e. punishment, which is looked forward to prospectively. For "almost" (ki-mat, equivalent to "within a little," "almost," "nearly"), see Genesis 26:10; Psalms 73:2; Psalms 119:87.