.JUL 7 1959 BOOKS FOR BIBLE S TOXBN^^ ' Edited by the REV. ARTHUR E. GREGORY. THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. BY W. T. Davison, M.A., D.D. CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, Castle St., City Rd., E.C. And 66, Paternoster Row, E.C. i8q^ BOOKS FOR BIBLE STUDENTS. Editor: Rev. Aethur E. Gregory. The Epistles of Paul the Apostle. A Sketch of their Origin and Contents. By George G. Fixdlay, B.A., Tutor in iJiblical Literature and Exegesis, Headingley College. Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. Third Thousand. The Theological Student. A Handbook of Elementary- Theology. With List of Questions for Self-Examination. By J. Robinson Gregory, Small crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. Second Thousand. The Gospel of John. An Exposition, with Critical Notes. By T. F. LocKYER, B.A. Small crown Svo, 2s. 6d. The Praises of Israel. An Introdnction to the Study of the Psalms. By W. T. Davison, M.A., D.D. Small crown Svo, 2s. 6d. IN PREPARATION. An Introduction to the Study of Hehrew. By J. T. L, Maggs, B.A., Prizeman in Hebrew and New Testament Greek, London University. [Nearly ready. The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. By W. T. Davison, M.A., D.D. The Prophetical Writings of the Old Testament. By Professor George G. Findlay, B.A. From Malachi to Mattheiv. By Professor E. AYaddy Moss, Didsbury College, Manchester. {In the Press. The Siinoptic Gospels. By Marcus D. Buell, D.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis in Boston University, U.S.A. The Writings of St. John. A Sketch of their Origin and Contents. By Professor George G. Findlay, B.A. An Introduction to the Study of Neio Testament Greek. By J. H. MouLTON, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Cam- bridge. The Ministry of the Lord Jesus. By T. G. Selby, Author of "The Imperfect Angel." The Apostolic Churches : Their Doctrine and Fellowship, By Robert A. Watson, M.A., D.D. London : CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, Castle St., City Rd., E.C. THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE PSALMS. W. T. DAA^SON, M.A., B.D., TUTOR IN SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, )IANDSW<)RTH COLLEGE, BIRMINGHAM. CHARLES H. KELLY, 2, Castle St., City lii.>., EC. And 66, Pateknosteu Row, E.C. 1893. MORRISON AND fUBB, PRINTERS, KDINBURGH. Conjugt meae iUctissimae PREFACE. THE size and scope of this volume have involved an appearance of dogmatism upon debated questions very far from the mind of the writer. It has often been necessary to give results, with- out the processes that have led up to them. It has been impossible even to quote, much less discuss, the views of scholars for whom I enter- tain the highest respect, but whose conclusions I have not been able to accept. The literature of the Psalms is portentously large, and it would take considerable space even to enumerate the writers to wdiom I am under obligation. But I have freely consulted and used very various authorities, from Augustine and Calvin to Ewald and Delitzsch, Perowne and Kay, Bathgen and Schultz, Driver and Cheyne, Kirkpatrick and Eobertson Smith. The title adopted for this brief Introduction, which is drawn from the striking language of Ps. xxii. 3, and is indeed l)ut viii PREFACE. a literal rendering of the current Hebrew name for the Psalter, has been used as a sub-title by Canon Cheyne, in his Booh of Psalms, a Nciv Translation loith Commentary, a work to which I am the more glad to express a general indebtedness, because I have been unable to follow its learned author in many of his critical conclusions as published in his Bampton Lectures. From the Midrash Tchillini, recently made more accessible in Wiinsche's edition, and the " Christian Midrash" from patristic writers embodied in the pages of Drs. Neale and Littledale, it is at least possible to learn how the Psalms have been understood, or misunderstood, during centuries of Jewish and Christian inter- pretation. Both from "mystical" exegetes on the one hand, and from " rationalistic " theorists on the other, not a little may be learned by one who is anxious to understand the Psalms on their spiritual and literary sides respectively. But the Psalter is its own best commentary, and nothing is more refreshing than to turn from reading ahout the Psalms, to ponder the book itself. If the readers of this little volume lay it down with any added zest for drinking at the Fountain-head, its end will be abundantly answered. W. T. D. Handswohth, October 1893. CONTENTS. CHAP. , PAOE INTRODUCTION , .... 1 I. THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTEIl . . .10 II. THE AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS . . 31 III. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS . . .70 IV. THEOLOGY OF THE PSALTER — I. THE PSALMIST'S GOD .... 100 V. THEOLOGY OF THE PSALTER — II. GOD IN NATURE . . . .130 VI. THEOLOGY OF THE PSALTER— III. THE RELIGIOUS LIFE IN MAN . . 145 VII. THEOLOGY OF THE PSALTER — IV. THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD . .174 VIII. THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHRIST — I. THE PERSON OF THE SAVIOUR . . .201 IX, THE WITNESS OF THE PSALMS TO CHRIST— II. THE COMING SALVATION . . . 235 X. THE USE OF THE PSALMS IX THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ..... 255 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. INTEODUCTION. THE Psalter is a Bible within a Bible. It is so, because in it beats the very heart of the Old Testament and of all spiritual religion. But perhaps in no respect is the saying more true than in this, that the Book of Psalms, while itself a whole possessing a marvellous unity, is at the same time an organic w^hole, consisting of a number of independent and mutually related parts, and exhibiting all the characteristics of growth and development. It is not merely a collection of sacred poems, it is a collection of collections, an anthology of the flowers of divine song among the Hebrews during many centuries. But the selection is not one of a hundred and fifty gems of literature, — though the judgment of ages has given to the Psalms an exceediugly high place as human compositions, — but of the lyric 1 2 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. poems best adapted to express and guide the religious life of Israel, most suitable for the worship of God and the instruction of men. They present a number of sparkling points of light in the long line of that Kevelation of Himself which God has made to men, always in man and by man ; and especially in that portion of His pro- gressive revelation by which God spoke to the world throuoh Israel. This remarkable book is not merely a Jewish anthology. More than any book of the Old Testa- ment, it has been " baptized into Christ." In the music which sounds from the harp of Israel, the over-tones are Christian. The harmonics or over- tones, by which an endless range of quality is con- ferred on a fundamental tone in music, must not overpower it, or the note loses both in truth and sweetness. But the richness and fulness of the note is due to its over-tones, and the Christian cannot listen to the strains of the Psalms without hearing the exquisite vibrations of promises greeted from afar, and a Voice sounds in his ear telling how " all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and IN THE Psalms concerning Me." Moreover, the Psalms speak the language of universal devotion. The religious poems of the Vedas and the liturgies of the Zendavesta were INTRODUCTION. 3 for an age and for a nation, Israel's hymns are for the world and for all time. When they cease to be read, man will have ceased to be religious. Believers in God and the human soul, who grapple with the problems of this difficult life, who bend under its burdens and long for emancipation from its evils, who know the mystic joys of peni- tence and the unspeakable enlargement of the spirit in its aspirations after righteousness and its enjoyment of personal communion with a personal God, will never exhaust the fulness of the Psalms, nor weary of their repetition. Such a book deserves study. Eich enjoyment and spiritual profit are indeed to be drawn from it without minute and careful study. By virtue of its intrinsic excellence, the spirit of tender and fervent religious feeling breathed into it by the Divine Spirit, it will in and of itself continue to minister to the devotion of the world as no other book has ever done. For public worship and for private meditation it is inestimably precious to those who have little time and less opportunity for its close and systematic examination. But if it is true that to know this book as it ought to be known, we must love it ; it is no less true that to love this book as it ought to be loved, we ought to know it through and through. It cannot be well known by the mere reader, however devout and 4 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. prayerful. The light which slumbers dully in the uncut stone, gleams in a hundred sparkling rays from the facets of the brilliant. Increase of knowledge need not imply, and ought never to induce, diminished enjoyment of beauty or abate- ment of devotional feeling. The botanist need lose nothing of " the splendour in the grass, the glory in the Hower," because he has studied its history and analysed its parts. The poetry and beauty of tree and hill and stream are fully open only to those who know their place in the universe and understand their significance. The scholar may allow his religion to evaporate while he is analysing the book which embodies it, but the devout student knows how study will deepen devotion, while devotion enhances the delights of study. Those who know tlie Psalms most intimately can make the best use of them. Such study needs to be pursued afresh in every generation, but for some reasons particularly in our own. Unfortunately it has come to be called " Criticism," a word with anything but sacred associations ; and even " Higher Criticism," which ignorant people take to imply a tone of conceited superiority towards the sacred Scriptures. It can hardly be too often repeated that Biblical criticism means only reasoned judgment concerning the human and literary side of the Bible, based upon INTRODUCTION. 5 the most complete investigatioii. There is nothing new about it ; the oldest traditional opinion was new once. There is nothing necessarily abstract and erudite about it; the processes may be for the few, but the results are little worth if they are not capable of being understood by the many. There is certainly nothing necessarily rationalistic or destructive about it, though to too great an extent, minute, thorough, exhaustive investigation of the facts has been left to men with rationalistic tendencies. It is true there is a Biblical criticism which is emphatically new, which is nothing if not erudite, and which has thus far done little but destroy. It has touched the Psalter, as it has touched every book of the Bible, and its finger- marks have not improved the page. But it is both foolish and wicked to create a prejudice against Biblical criticism, because some eminent Biblical critics have analysed a literature rather than expounded a sacred text. There is a great work to be done in our day by men who can pre- serve the depth of their religious feeling and the fidelity of their allegiance to God, while keeping their minds open to new light concerning the nature and significance of the Kevelation which the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has made of Himself in Xature, in History, and in Holy Scripture. Methods of Biblical study, as of 6 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. all study, have improved rapidly of late. New sources of information have opened up, old truth has been presented in new and improved setting. The Book of Psalms is inseparably identified with the religion of Israel, and much has been learned during the last half-century concerning the history and significance of that religion which was to prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord. If some time-honoured traditional views have to be set aside, — by no means so many as some would have us think, for none of them must be lightly discarded, — much more than compensation will be gained by a clearer and more accurate under- standing of the facts of history and the nature of the Scripture record. A fresh reading of the familiar and beloved Psalms may bring here and there a ray of new light, a glimpse of new meaning, a breath of fresh religious inspiration given by the Spirit who of old moved those holy men to write. If fresh interest be awakened, fresh benefit cannot fail to follow. These pages will be by no means critical in their character. Where the literary aspect of the Psalms is concerned, criticism, in the sense of judgment after careful examination, is necessary, and to avoid it would be a species of cowardice. But the reader of the Psalms desires to be introduced as little as possible to " doubtful disputations." It is difficult INTRODUCTION. 7 to avoid these altogether in the present state of public opinion. On the one hand, we are met by the confident dogmatism of theorists who expect crude conjectures to be accepted as axioms ; on the other, by the unintelligent tenacity of some pious men who damage the defence of the faith by con- tending for details of traditional opinion ahout the Bible, as if these formed part of the book itself. Nothing but good can come of examination, if it be at the same time thorough and reverent. Difference of opinion there must be ; what St. Paul calls e/Dt9, strife, Ovfiol, ebullitions of temper, alpeaei^, the organising of parties, there need not be. It is unseemly to wrangle in the vestibule of the temple. The measure of uncertainty which attaches to the decision of critical questions con- cerning the Psalms and the date and circumstances of their composition, should make it easier to pass beyond them to the upper air of reverent medita- tion, " to where, beyond these voices, there is peace." Whoever wrote these sacred poems, and under whatever circumstances they were written, they bring us into the presence of God. We stand at the portals of a sanctuary, and can hear the soul- subduing strains of heavenly music within. It is through the Psalms that we learn to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life. " The 8 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. Psalm," says Basil in often-quoted words, " is the rest of the soul, the minister of peace. It stilleth the stir and swell of the thoughts, it assuageth the passions and chasteneth the waywardness of the desires. To this purpose were those harmonious tunes of psalms devised for us, that they who are children in years, or as yet unripe in virtue, might, when they think they sing, learn. the wise conceit of that heavenly Teacher, who by His skill hath found out a way that while we sing psalms, we may drink in knowledge to profit ! " " What is there," echoes Eichard Hooker, more than a thousand years afterwards, " necessary for man to know, which the Psalms are not able to teach ? Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, repentance un- feigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of Providence over this world, and the promised joys of that world which is to come, all good necessarily to be either known, or done, or had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disaster incident into the soul of man, any wound or sickness named, for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found." " The Psalms," said the late Dean Church, "are a pillar of fire and INTRODUCTION. light in the liistory of the early world." Round that pure flanie clouds and mists, some thick and dark, others brightly touched with a thousand pleasing colours of fancy and speculation, are continually gathering, till the light itself cannot be distinctly seen. That the light of the Psalter may be seen more clearly, in order that He may be seen more clearly of whose celestial glory it is but a single earthly ray, is the object of tlie following. chapters. CHAPTEE I. THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. ATEUE hymn-book is not made, it grows. An individual or a synod may collect a number of poetical compositions, but a book which stands in living relation with the worship of a living Church has a life of its own. Favourite hymns are not made such by the decisions of an ecclesi- astical council. The real hymn-book, with its roots struck deep in the life and affections of a spiritual community, will itself exhibit the life and growth of an organism. And the history of such a book, where it can be traced, will teach m.any lessons concerning the history and religion of such a community. The history of the hymns in the Eoman and Parisian Breviaries is long, somewhat intricate, and very instructive. The book still called "Wesley's Hymns" has a long history behind it. Its proper title, "A Hymn- l:)Ook for the use of the people called Methodists, 10 THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. ii with a new Supplement," takes us back to 1875, when the new supplement was prepared; to 1830, when an earlier supplement was added; and to 1780, when John Wesley published the first edition of a book which itself was but the last of a long and interesting series of hymn-books put forth since the issue in 1753 of "Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Eeal Christians of all Denomin- ations." Furthermore, hymns are specially liable to alteration and modification. If, as Mr. Stopford Brooke has lately been showing, early lays like the Anglo-Saxon epic of Beowulf, exhibit layers or strata of verse embedded in them, pointing back to centuries before the date assigned to the poem, much more is this likely to be the case with sacred songs handed down for generations by oral tradition, and then incorporated with others for the purposes of public worship. These are peculiarly likely to exhibit traces of modification and adaptation, so that hymnology, with the study of history it implies, has become almost a science.^ A close examination of the Psalter reveals even such a history. The account of the processes does not lie upon the surface; we have not a number of " editions," each with its title-page and date ; but some at least of the stages tlirough which ^ Remarkably illustrated in the recent voluminous Diction- ary of IlymnoJofjy, edited by Mr. Julian. 12 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. this wonderful book passed before it was handed on as a sacred heirloom in its present form, may be traced out by careful research. We have used the word hymn-book for the moment as interchangeable with Psalter. This is not strictly correct, and there are important differences between the history we are about to sketch, and that of a Christian hymnary. The word Psalm (Greek -v^aX/xog, Hebrew mizmor) indicates by its derivation a composition set to music. The action implied both in the Hebrew and the Greek roots, is the touching of the strings of the harp, then the word comes to indicate the music thus produced, and lastly, the verses sung to musical accompaniment. But, properly speak- ing, the psalm is not to be confused with the hymn. *' The psalm might be a Da Profitndis'' says the late Archbishop Trench, "the story of man's deliverance, or a commemoration of mercies which he had received; and of a spiritual song the same might be said ; the hymn must always be more or less of a Magnificat, a direct address to the praise and glory of God." ^ Some of the Psalms are, according to the title current among the Jews, literally Teliillim, the j^raiscs of Israel ; others, as the subscription to Psalm Ixxii. and the titles of Ixxxvi., xc, and cii. indicate, are prayers, ^ Sunonij7n>< of fhe X/'>r Te.-ilament, \^. 286. THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. 13 either from tlie depths or from the level tablelands of life, up to those celestial heights from whence comes man's help; others are songs, like Psalms cxx.-cxxxiv., with an emphasis laid upon their being chanted by the Imman voice. Some are narrative in character, like Ixxviii., cv., cvi. ; some didactic^ like the 50th Psalm ; others elegiac, like the 6th, the 38th, the ooth. But, whether the strain be Venite Exultemus or Miserere Bomine, one Xame rules the whole, one spirit pervades it. " Holiness to the Lord " is written on the door- posts of the house, on the beams of its chambers and the lily-work of its carved pillars. Any attempt to analyse or classify these strains accord- ing to their subject-matter breaks down, as we find rapture blend with pleading, or the night of sorrow lose itself in the morning of joy, mood succeeding mood and experience passing into experience more rapidly than the sunshine and rain that blend and pass in the sweet confusion of an April morning. The rehearsal of God's " mighty acts," which one generation tells to another, breaks suddenly aw^ay into penitence for national sin or an outburst of thanksgiving which abundantly utters the memory of His great good- ness. The only key to the unity of the whole is found in the words with which St. Paul concludes one of his great arguments concerning God in 14 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. history : " Of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things. To Him be the glory for ever 1 " Under what circumstances, then, has the present collection of Psalms been made, and what signs are there of preliminary stages through which the final result has been reached ? The division of the Psalter into five books, made so clear in our Eevised Version, is very old ; some think it is to be traced as far back as the time of the Chronicles, in the fourth century before Christ. The Midrash TehiUim'^ opens with a glowing comparison between the lawgiver and the king, the five books of the Pentateuch and the five books of the Psalms, the blessing of Moses and the blessing of David. The comparison has since been a favourite one with commentators, who have written, like Delitzsch, of ''the fivefold book of the congregation to Jehovah, as the Law is the fivefold book of Jehovah to the congregation " ; or like Wordsworth, who calls the Psalter " a poetical Pentateuch, set to music in Hebrew^ history, the subject of the oratorio being Messiah Himself." 'This fivefold division is marked by the doxologies which occur at xli. 13, Ixxii. 18, Ixxxix. 52, and cv. 48, respectively. But it is necessary to ex- amine much more closely in order to understand / ^ Ed. Wiinsche, p. 2. THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. 15 the exact significance and bearing of this obvious fivefold division. A clear indication at the outset that the Psalter as we have it is a collection of collections, not precisely corresponding with the traditional five books, is found in the existence of duplicate forms of the same psalm. With slight variations, the exact nature of which is worth noticing, Psalm liii. is identical with Psalm xiv. ; Psalm Ixx. with Psalm xl. 13-17 ; while Psalm cviii. consists of a combination of Ivii. 7-11, with Ix. 5-12. Some of the variations arise from a difference of text ; others appear to show what we have other reasons for concluding, that these sacred poems were modified and adapted for new use in new circum- stances, to express new, though kindred feelings. A close comparison of the two " editions " of Psalm xviii., as found in 2 Samuel xxii. and in the Psalter, is very instructive. Further examples of the free use made of previous compositions, the matter-of-fact way in which borrowing and adaptation was practised, may be found in Psalm Ixxxvi., which is almost made up of quotations, and in Psalm cxliv. A striking example of the way in which psalms might be blended and put into the mouth of a speaker, as an appropriate expression of his feelings, is found in 1 Chronicles xvi. 7-36. The chronicler does not, it is true, 1 6 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. as our A.V. implies, directly attribute this psalm, which is made up of parts of xcvi., cv., and cvi., to David. The seventh verse is translated in RV. : " Then on that day did David first ordain to give thanks unto the Lord, by the hand of xlsaph and his brethren/' and the meaning of the Hebrew appears to be that David then for the first time enjoined upon Asaph and his brethren the duty of leading the formal thanksgivings of the congregation. It would appear that the words which follow, which it is impossible to believe that David composed, are inserted as an appro- priate illustration of his object and aims in arranging the music of the sanctuary. Another interesting phenomenon, illustrating the way in which psalms were edited or adapted, is the variation found in the names of God used in different parts of the Psalter. In Book i. the name Jehovah occurs 272 times, Elohim 15; in Book ii. the case is reversed, Elohim occurring 164 times, Jehovah 30 times. In the 3rd book the facts are somewhat more complicated, there being an Elohistic section and a Jehovistic section discernible ; while in the two last books the name Jehovah is paramount, occurring 339 times, while Elohim, used absolutely and of the true God, occurs but once or twice. The exact significance of these facts is still in dispute. They cannot be THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. 17 accidental. iSTor is it likely that some psalmists used chiefly one name of God, and that the groups of psalms were arranged accordingly. Tt mny have been that at certain times or amongst a certain school of writers the use of one name predominated ; but it is much more probable that it is due to the hand of an editor. For example, Psalm 1. 7 is taken from Exodus xx. 2 ; several verses in l\saltn Ixviii. from Numbers x. and Judges V. Tsalm Ixxi. 19 is taken from Exodus XV. 11, and in each case the name Elohim is substituted for the name Jehovah. This chano-e o has been sometimes carried out even at the cost of the true meaning. For instance, in Exodus XX. 2, " I am Jehovah, thy God," is intelligible ; but the relation between the names is altogether lost in Psalm 1. 7, " I am God, thy God." The supposition that the change of names was due to a compiler is almost proved by the fact that in Psalms liii. and Ixx. we have what may be called a Jehovistic and an Elohistic edition of the same psalm. Sometimes, how^ever, a passage is borrowed without change of name, as Ixxxvi. 14 from liv. 4, 5, and Psalm cviii. from Psalms Ivii. and Ix., according to their present style. This is thought to prove tbat Psalms liv., hii., and Ix. were not merely written earlier, but brought together l)y this same collector, wlien Psalms 1 8 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. Ixxxvi. and cviii. were fixed in llieir present places.^ It is not easy to explain the significance of these facts. At one time the hypothesis obtained that the name Elohini was a mark of antiquity, and certain theories as to the composition of the Pentateuch hinged upon its use. But the view that dates of documents could be determined by the use of Divine names has been given up. The names Elohim and Jeliovah have, of course, a distinct theological significance, but it is impos- sible to press this distinction as if it were always observed in actual use, though some commentators have attempted to do so. On the other hand, it is altogetlier unsatisfactory to ascribe the usage, as some have done, to " a compiler's whim." We are compelled at present simply to note the facts and draw^ the conclusion that the Psalms, as we have them, have been edited, and for some reason, not now clearly traceable, the names of God regulated or changed. Is it possible, then, by these and otlier means to trace out the process by which we now have 150 psalms arranged in five books ? The first book contains 41 psalms, all of which are inscribed '' to David," except the four following. Tlie first Psalm is prefatory. The second at one time seems to liave ^ Ewald, P-^ahns, vol. i. p. 9. THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. 19 appeared as a continuation of the first. In tlie text of Acts xiii. 00 an important MS. styles it the first Psalm. The tenth is a kind of appendix to the ninth, forming with it an imperfect acrostic. The tliirty- third is ascribed to David in the LXX. In the second book Psalms xlii.-xlix. are ascribed to the sons of Korah ; 1. to Asaph ; li.-lxxi. to David (except Ixvi., Ixvii., Ixxi. anonymous) ; and Ixxii. to Solomon. In the tliird book we find, first, a group of psalms, Ixxiii.-lxxxiii. attributed to Asaph; Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxxvii., and Ixxxviii. are Korahitic ; one psalm only, Ixxxvi., is ascriljcd to David, and Ixxxix. to Ethan. In the fourth book, one psalm, xc, is ascribed to Moses ; two, ci. and ciii., to David, and the rest are anonymous. In the fifth book, out of 43 psalms, 15 (only 11 in the LXX.) are ascribed to David, one to Solomon, and the rest are anonymous. At the end of the 72nd Psalm, in addition to the doxology, a subscription is found, " The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." The mean- ing of this in itself is clear enough, as it marks the end of a collection of Davidic psalms ; but its position is peculiar. The psalm to which it is affixed is ascribed to Solomon, while a number of non-Davidic psalms are found in the second book, which ends here, and many Davidic psalms, as we have seen, occur in tlie later books. It seems 20 THE PRAISES OE ISRAEL. likely, therefore, that this cuiupiler's note is now somewhat out of place. Ewald has a somewhat elaborate theory on the subject, which we need not transcribe ; while the following account of the process which has led to the present arrangement is given by Professor Eobertson Smith in the E acyclopcedia Britannica. {(i) The formation oithejird Davidic collection, with a clo.sing doxology (i. -xli.). (h) The formation of the second Davidic collection, with doxology and subscription (li.-lxxii.). (c) The formation of a twofold Levitical collection (xlii.-xlix. Korahitic; l.,lxxiii.-lxxxiii. Asaphic). ((/) An Elohistic redaction and combination of (h) and (c). (r) The addition to {d) of a non-Elohistic supplement and doxology (Ixxxiv.-lxxxix.). (/) Tlie formation of the third collection (xc.-cl.). • We can at least follow this scheme so far as to find in the first three books, consisting of 89 psalms, four groups or collections, two Davidic, two Levitical, with a brief appendix. What, then, is the nature of the remaining two books, which many scholars regard as forming but one collection ? It is clear that here also subordinate groups may be traced out, though it is by no means certain that they all existed as separate collec- ^ See Old Test, ui Jewish Church, 2ikI ed., p. 201. THE COMPfLATION OF THE PSALTER. 21 tions. We turn to I'tsalins cxx.-cxxxiv., and tind a group of fifteen " Songs of Degrees," as they are called in A.V., more properly " Songs of Ascents," R.V., or " Pilgrim-Songs." They are clearly marked off from the rest by a family likeness in style, subject and treatment, while the form in which the title occurs seems to show that they formed at one time a separate collection. The plural word " Ascents," given in the title of the separate psalms, seems to point to a general title, " Songs of Ascents," from which each separate inscription has been derived. In any case the Pilgrim-Songs form a distinct group of psalms well worthy of separate study. Another group, each beginning with the word Hodu, " Give thanks," is found in Psalms cv.-cvii., and two similar groups of Hallelujah psalms in cxi.-cxiii., cxlvi.-cl. With these we may compare the MascMl groups, xlii.-xlv. and lii.-lv., and the Michtam group, Ivi.-lx. In these latter cases, however, it is tolerably clear that we find only the grouping of the compiler; the meaning of the words Maschil (" didactic " ?) and Michtam (" golden " ?) being doubtful, and there being little or no connection in the subject-matter of the psalms thus designated. AVe need not pursue this subject into further detail, though, taking the collections separately. 22 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. it is interesting to notice tlie marks of thought and care in the arrangement of each, and to trace out indications of the principle or principles observed. The mode of arranging poems varies. In the Koran, what appears to us the singular principle is followed, of placing the longer Suras first, the shortest last. (It is probable, however, that we have traces of this in the arrangement of the Hebrew prophets.) In the Vedas, the poems wliich contain invocations to the same divinity, or prayers of a similar character, are placed together. In modern times it is almost taken for o-ranted that the chronoloc^ical order ouo-ht to prevail, and in the Psalter it is true that in tltc main the earliest psalms are found in the former books, those of the middle period in the middle books, and the latest in the last. So, to some extent, with the collections severally. But (as, e.g., in Wordsworth's arrangement of his own poems) the topical principle is sometimes pre- ferred, and it may be traced in the juxtaposition of certain psalms. Less appropriate, according to our modern way of thinking, is an arrangement by means of 'catchwords,' according to which psalms containing some word or phrase which has caught tlie attention of the compiler are placed together. So with Psalms i. and ii., which the late Bishop Wordsworth considered were placed THE COMPILATION OF THE PSALTER. 23 together because of the oeciuTence of sucli words as icay in i. 6 and ii. 12, and meditate in i. 2 and ii. 1, these phrases being, as the mystical com- mentator delighted to observe, " like the golden taches which coupled together tlie curtains of the tabernacle." Delitzsch makes much of this prin- ciple of connection in a separate pamphlet which he has written on the subject, and in his Com- mentary. Thus Psalms xxxiv. and xxxv., so essentially different from one another, are supposed to be placed side by side, because in these only is the mention of " the angel of the Lord " ; while the link between Iv. and Ivi. is attributed (strangely enough) to the mention of the " dove " in Iv, G, and in the inscription of Ivi., where the direction is given that the psalm should be sung to the tune of " The dove of the distant terebinths " ! Very fanciful have been some of the meanings read by devout commentators into the arrangement of the Psalms. Augustine wrote that the order of the Psalms seemed to him to contain the secret — magni sacramenti — of " a great and holy mystery." Chrysostom says that " the more the organic structure of the Psalms is analysed, the more will it be recognised that it is pre-adjusted by the Holy Spirit to the doctrines of the gospel of Christ." Wordsworth follows, as may be imagined, on the same track, and the extracts from the Fathers, 24 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. given in Neale and Littledale, exhibit the same principle, sometimes carried to an almost absurd extreme. A moderate example is found in the exposition which makes the position of Psalms xxii.-xxix. to depend upon their reference to the work of Christ in redemption. Psalm xxii. is understood to refer to the passion of Christ; xxiii. to His being the Good Shepherd who leads through the valley of the shadow of death ; xxiv. to the ascension ; xxv. to His intercession ; xxvi.- xxviii. to His grace in the communion of His Church; and xxix. to the work of the Holy Spirit, who blesses His people with peace ! Another writer ^ works out at some length the supposed principle of arrangement, that " spiritual atlinity, not chronological order, mainly determines tlie sequence of the Psalms " ; while yet another - ingeniously divides tlie Psalter into seven books — three "Amen books" and three "Hallelujah books," with one central " Amen-Hallelujah book" between them. The 89 Psalms of the first three books, he tells us, are clearly of a ]\Iessianic character, a Messianic psalm (xlv.) being found in the middle of the whole, with two alphabets (2x22) of psalms on either side ; a psalm of the Messianic King (ii.) meeting us at the beginning, and another (Ixxxix.) 1 Fausset, Studies in the 150 Psabm, p. 60. - Forbes, Studies in the Bool- of Psalms, pp. 7, S6. THE COMPILATION OF I'HE PSALTER. 25 at the end of the whole. These examples are given simply to illustrate the way in which a devout fancy has, in almost every generation, delighted to find its own meanings in this beloved and suggestive hook. It may have been pleasant and profitable to pious souls thus to trace out what seemed to them the subtle significance of the curves of beauty forming the pattern in the embroidered work of the Psalter. But all these ingenious fancies can- not be right in their attempts to expound the hidden meaning of the Divine Spirit. It does not require much examination to see that all are mistaken. Not in this direction must we look if we would rightly understand the Book of the Praises of Israel. A very real testimony, as we shall see, may be found in the Psalms to the Lord Jesus Christ, without our allowino- devout imaoin- ation to take the place of reason. The I*salms were certainly not thrown together at random, but in their arrangement no single principle is dis- cernible. The order of time is, within certain limits, ol)served; but chronological arrangement is very greatly modified by other conditions, chiefly by the circumstances of collection ; whilst in several instances a verbal or a topical connection appears to have led to the precise sequence adopted. At what times these several collections were made, it is not easy to say. We may, however. 26 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. mark out certain limits within which the gradual compilation took place. If the view which has so long obtained, that the Canon of the Old Testament was closed in the time of Ezra, could be established, the terminus ad quern, or limit on the hither side, could be easily fixed. It is now, however, generally held by scholars that, while the Canon of the Torah, or Law — the first of the three great divisions of the Jewish Scriptures — was closed soon after the return from captivity, that of the NcMim, or Prophets, w^as not fixed till the third century before Christ ; while that of the Gcthuhim (Hagiographa), or Writings, was not finally closed till a century later.^ The Book of Psalms headed this third section of the Jewish Scriptures, and, as the question of dates is of con- siderable importance in connection with that of authorship and the relation of the Psalms to the religious life of the Jewish Church, we must linger on it long enough to point out a few chief landmarks. Without discussing obscure questions concern- ing the Old Testament Canon, it is certain that the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, the date of which can be fixed with considerable certainty, gives us one ^ See Professor Kyle's Canon of the Old Tei;ht to the issue which has oiven to the world the Book of Psalms. This does not exclude the possibility, or probability, that the compilers of the first and second books had in their possession not only a number of separate pre-Exilic psalms, but smaller collections already formed. Nor does it exclude the possibility that after the forma- tion of a collection, later psalms may have been added at a later date.^ Further light upon more detailed questions connected with the compilation will be shed upon the subject by an examination into the age of individual psalms, to which we now turn. ' To take another illustration from tlic Wesleyan Hymn- book, compare the liyjnns marked with an asterisk, which " were not in tlie editions published durin^i,' the lifetime ut ]\[r. Wesley." CHAPTER 11. THE AGE AND AUTHOrvSIIIP OF THE PSALMS. THE question as to the date and authorship of the several psahns is not so important for the purposes of religious editication as it is some- times represented. The universality, and if one may so say, the timelessness of the Psalter are amongst its prominent characteristics. The per- sonal elements which the Psalms contain is soon lost in the impersonal, the finite in the infinite. The singer seldoms lingers long amidst the streets of the city, within the limits of a single nation or country, among the fields and the homesteads ; he soon wings his flight into the upper air, from whence the whole familiar landscape dwindles to a mere speck. The psalmist, of all men, is alone with God and his own soul. The name of a saint does not determine the character of his religion, and the busiest critic may hesitate to intermeddle with the secret devotion of the heart. 31 32 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. But a second glance shows us that this view must be modiiied. The writers of these sacred lyrics are men of Israel ; the occasions of their poems are known, or may be partly ascertained ; the poems themselves are often unintelligible apart from the history of the Jewish nation, and some of them are inextricably interwoven with it. A historical background for the Psalms is naturally sought for, and for many reasons is most desirable, if it can be supplied. Professor Cheyne thinks such a background is necessary in order to pre- serve the Psalms in the affections of Christendom. " Whether we seek this in the life of David and his successors, or in the larger life of the Church- nation, seems from the point of view of dramatic interest, unimportant. But let no one give up the one background unless he is prepared to adopt the other. As mere academical exercises, by not merely unnamed but unknown individuals, the Psalms will neither edify the Church nor charm the literary student." ^ Xow we are not here concerned witli " dramatic interest," nor prepared to admit that if we do not know the name or even the age of the writer of the 51st Psalm, it sinks to the level of an "academic exercise." Its value to him who reads it in the inner chamber, *' liaving shut to the door," is the same, ^ Orvjin and Contents of the Psalter, p. 276. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. t,}, whether it expresses the passion of penitence which shook David's soul after his great sin, or the collective confession of the Jewish Church- nation. Some of the chief favourites with the devout Christian, the 42nd, the 91st, and the 116th, carry with them no distinct historical associations. There are, how^ever, many other considerations to be taken into account. The importance of the subject of this chapter for the history of religion in Israel is very great. Those who are anxious to prove a natural development in the history of Judaism from what is called a " monolatry," but little removed from Polytheism, to the spiritual worship of Jehovah, attained only in tlie latest stages of Jewish history, obviously find the Psalms stand in their way. A late date for the whole of the Psalter becomes necessary, and the question of its age as propounded by Wellhausen is "not whether it contains any post-Exilic psalms, but whether any are pre-Exilic." This question is answered by Canon Cheyne virtually in the negative. He admits no Davidic psalms, and but one, the 18th, wdth great hesitation, as written before the Exile. This extreme view is not shared by many scholars, and it represents a violent reaction from the tradition of the Jewish and the Christian Church, which attributes half the 3 34 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. l^salms to David's own pen, and regards the tirst three books of the Psalter as substantially ex- pressing the religious feelings of the Jews during the earlier part of the monarchy. Let us examme the data at our disposal for coming to an approxi- mate decision, remembering that an approximate decision, based on probable evidence, is all that we can expect at this distance of time to attain, in the case of compositions furnishing so few directly historical references. Our first business is to investigate the titles or inscriptions prefixed to the majority of the Psalms. If these are simply to be accepted as authoritative, our work is well-nigh done. But a little consideration will show that this is not the case. The position of these titles is like that of the subscriptions to St. Paul's Epistles ; ^ they do not form a part of the original text, but they represent an early, though not contemporary tradition. That such titles were usual, we see from the headings to the lyrics in 2 Samuel xxii. 1 and xxiii. 1, and the ode in Habakkuk iii. We may also compare the titles given to separate utterances of the prophets, in Isaiah i. 1, ii. 1, ^ The analogy is not quite complete, but it must be remem- bered that our comparative nearness to the New Testament times enables us to perceive the interval between the original documents and these afterthoughts. ACE AND AUTHORSIIir OF 'J HE PSALMS. 35 xiii. 1, etc. It is practically certain that these inscriptions were not written by the authors of the Psalms themselves. In some instances the phraseology may be shown to be taken almost verbatim from the language of 1 Samuel, which was written considerably after the time of David, and the phenomena of the text in relation to the LXX version show that the titles must be the work of subsequent collectors or editors. At the same time, the measure of similarity that exists, not amounting to identity, between the Hebrew text and that of the LXX, shows that we possess in these titles traditions of very con- siderable antiquity, which are not to be lightly discarded, as they are by some modern critics, as utterly valueless. That a psalm was at a certain time attributed to David, even if not actually written by him, is a fact of some im- portance. If, however, we are not to assume the correctness of these titles, what amount of credence is to be given to them ? When they are examined, we find them to be of three kinds, referring (1) to the musical setting of the psalm ; (2) to its authorship or composition ; (3) to the historical circumstances which gave rise to it. On the first head, we need say at present only that these musical expressions are so ancient that the LXX translators did not under- 36 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. stand lliem, and have made some curious guesses as to their meaning. The musical notices are almost entirely absent in the later books, which argues a change of some importance with regard to the music of the temple- worship. If the Greek translation of the Psalms was made in the early part of the second century B.C., and the con- tinuity of tradition was preserved, as we know it was, from generation to generation in Palestine, and so to the Jews in Egypt, the fact that Alex- andrian Jews did not understand these musical notes would seem to point to a pre-Exilic date for them, or, at least, shows that we are in the presence of a very early tradition. Without, however, pressing this point, which is disputed by some, and requires more discussion than we can give it, let us examine the direct references to authorship, assuming for the moment that the " of David " (Heb. " to David ") implies that the psalm is ascribed to David as its author. In the Massoretic, or traditional Hebrew text, 1 psalm is attributed to Moses, 73 to David, 2 to Solomon, 12 to Asaph, 11 to the sons of Korah, 1 to Heman, and 1 to Ethan, while in 14 cases historical circumstances are added. The LXX translators ascribe 14 or 15 to David where the Hebrew does not do so, while 4 that are attributed to David in the Hebrew are without a title in the AGE AND AU'JlIORSHir OF J HE PSALMS. 37 Greek. The LXX also add some further refer- ences, usually obscure and often curious. Thus the 27th Psalm is said to have been written by David "before his anointing": the 06th was \\ritten by David "when the house was being- built, after tlie captivity": Ixxvi. and Ixxx. are said to have reference to " the Assyrian " : while a number of the titles in the Greek indicate the day of tlie w-eek on which certain psalms were recited in public w^orship. In the Hebrew, the 92nd Psalm is shown to have been appointed for the Sabbath-day, but the Greek gives also the 24th for the first day of the week, the 48th for the second, and the 93rd for the day before the Sabbath, when the work of creation and of settling the earth with its new inhabitants was finished. Passing by for the moment Psalm xc, which is attributed to Moses, it will be convenient to test the value of the titles by examining those in which psalms are ascribed to David. A super- ficial examination would enable us to divide these into cases (1) where the evidence for Davidic authorship preponderates ; (2) those which maij have been written by David ; and (3) those which, as they stand, could not have come from his pen. Taking the latter class first, we may say that the language of Psalm cxxxix. puts Davidic author- ship quite out of the question. The number of 38 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. Araiiuiisms is so considerable, and tlie peculiarities of language such that it must be one of the latest of all the Psalms. It is not often that a linguistic argument can be used to determine date, but here its applicability is unquestionable. Equally strong is the argument against cxliv., as it stands ; but the psalm is not improbably a composite one, the latter part of late date, — the mention of David by name in verse 10 is not conclusive, — while the former may have been written by David, though it is more likely to be a later imitation of his style. Psalms cxxii. and cxxiv., l)y indubitable internal evidence, belong to the time of the Ptestoration ; cxxii. 5 even mentioning " the thrones of the house of David." In cviii. we have a composite psalm, post-Exilic, but possibly embodying an earlier fragment. The 86th Psalm, beautiful as it is, is little more than a mosaic of passages found in other psalms, some of them certainly later than David's time. The 53rd Psalm, a reproduction of the 14th, contains a direct reference to the Captivity, as in all proba- bility does li. 18.1 j^^ these cases, however, there ^ 111 the modern Jewish Pra3'er-book, in the order for morn- ing service in the synagogues, there occurs a prayer, "that the holy temple may speedily be rebuilt in our days," and the Hebrew Avord for ''rcbuiki" is the same as that used for "buihl" in li. 18. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 39 may have been a liturgical addition allixed to an earlier composition. In Psalms v. 7, Ixiii. o, Ixix. 10, and cxxxviii. 2, we have a reference to the temple, which, in the opinion of most critics, is fatal to Davidic authorship. A word is used, the root of which indicates a capacious building, its proper meaning is " palace," and it is used scores of times in the Old Testament of the temple. Some scholars, however, think it may refer to the Davidic tabernacle, which may have been splendid in its construction ; and if it were ever so mean, it was undoubtedly the palace of a great King^ (cf. 1 Sam. i. 9, and see Psalm xi., 4). Psalms xx. and xxi. are not the addresses of a king to his people, but the prayers of a people for their king. In other psalms, e.g. xii., XXV., xxxvii., xxxviii., the circumstances, when examined, seem very inappropriate to David at any period of his history; and it is certainly very difficult to match the expressions of Psalms Iv.-lix. with the several circumstances under which they are said to have been composed. On the other hand, there is strong evidence for the belief that David wrote the 18th Psalm. As this is a crucial point, and much depends on its decision, it must be examined somewhat closely. In 2 Samuel xxii. 1 w^e have a distinct statement ^ So Delitzscli in loco ; see i. 161, E. Tr. 40 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. which confirms the historical title of Psalm xviii. : '' And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul." Some critics w^ill not admit this as independent evidence, or, at least, as early evidence, because 2 Samuel xxi.-xxiii. appears to form a kind of appendix to the book, added at a later date. The word " appendix " does not properly describe the nature of this section. It is, however, distinguished from the continuous flow of the narrative, which it un- doubtedly interrupts. It consists of certain illus- trative extracts, some historical, some poetical, inserted from earlier, perhaps contemporary documents. Tliis was in all probability done by the compiler of 1 and 2 Samuel, but if due to a later hand, there is still no ground for saying that the passage " only proves that the poem was con- jecturally ascribed to the idealised David not long before the Exile." The evidence of 2 Samuel xxii. may not have the force of contemporary evidence, but it undeniably represents a tradition which takes us back within a couple of centuries of David's time, and which not improbably rests on contemporary documents. Unless there be some strong antecedent presumption against Davidic psalms altogether, this evidence must be AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 41 considered conclusive. A close comparison of the two texts seems to show that the form in 1 Samuel is the earlier of the two, or both may have been taken from some earlier authority, such as the Annals of David, which we know existed, thougli they have not come down to us (1 Chron. xxix. 29, 30). The internal evidence confirms the statement of the title. There is nothing in the psalm inconsistent with Davidic authorship, and it is exceedingly difficult to find any one else of whom such words could have Ijeen used, wliile it has all the freshness and force of an original and early composition. An advanced critic,^ who is very ready to assign the latest possible date to every psalm, says of this one : " If it was not written by David, it must have been composed in his name, and by one who was able to transpose himself in thouglit into his situation and mood ; and wdio could liave been this contemporary and highly endowed poet ? " As a matter of fact, no one would hesitate about admitting the Davidic authorship of the IStli Psalm, if there were not some powerful ante- cedent considerations at work on the other side. What arguments can be alleged against it ? The history of poetry amongst the Hebrews shows that the art of poetical composition was quite ^ Hitzig, quoted by Delitzsch. 42 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. sufficiently far advanced for such an ode to be produced at this time. The triumphant song of Exodus XV. and the song of Deborah in Judges v. are admitted, even by extreme critics, to be frag- ments of earlier poesy ; they also allow that David wrote the elegy over Saul and Jonathan given in 2 Samuel i. The religious tone of 2 Samuel i. and 2 Samuel xxii. is no doubt different, for an elegy differs from a psalm, but the man who composed the one poem was certainly able to produce the other. There is no allusion in the psalm incon- sistent with the history of the times, as usually happens in verses idealising a national hero. Even the mention of David's own name is not a valid objection to his authorship, though some think that ver. 50 is a later addition to the original. Further, it is allowed that for many centuries David had at least the reputation of being the founder of psalmody in Israel. In 2 Samuel xxiii. 1 he is described as being " lovely (or pleasant) in Israel's songs of praise " ; 1 Samuel xvi. 18 describes his youthful skill upon the harp ; 1 Chronicles xxiii. 5 and 2 Chronicles xxix. 25 describe his introducing stringed in- struments into the service of the sanctuary to accompany the psalms that were sung there. jSTehemiah xii. 36 refers to "the musical instru- AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 43 liients of David, the man of God " ; while Amos vi. 5 shows that much earlier than this David's musical instruments had become proverbial. It was not, how^ever, a mere association of David's name with instruments of music, as many modern critics assert. The word used in 2 Samuel xxiii. 1 implies more than this, and the single illustration of the Lamentation in 2 Samuel i. is enough to proA'e that David was no mere skilled nmsical executant. The early character of the tradition which constituted him " the sweet Psalmist of Israel " has been shown, and by the time that Hebrews iv. 7 was written, and indeed long before then, the whole Psalter was called after him and recognised by the simple name " David." Is it likely that he composed no sacred songs ? If he did, is it likely that they all perished ? The permanence of songs as literature is well known. The fragments contained in the early books of the Old Testament are an illustration of this. The care with wdiich oral traditions of all kinds were handed on amongst the Jews and other Eastern nations is matter of history. But the memory is especially tenacious of poetry, of lyrical poetry more than of other kinds of verse, of sacred lyrics, especially when used in public worship and often repeated, most of all. Why, then, should it be assumed that every trace 44 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. of David's sacred compositions has passed away, when external and internal evidence so markedly point to Psalm xviii. as his ? It is said that the personal character of David renders it unlikely or even impossible that he should write such highly spiritual compositions as this and some other psalms attributed to him. It is coming to be assumed by many modern critics — for no proof is offered — that our ideas concerning David must be altogether altered. Eenan sneers at those "pious souls who fancy they have been in spiritual communion with this bandit"; and Canon Cheyne means much the same thing when he describes David in somewhat more courtly language as a " versatile condottiere, chieftain, and king"^ whom later ages have learned to idealise. But surely it is a shallow ^'iew of history and of human nature which seeks to " simplify '"' our ideas of David by explain- ing away the religions aspects of his many-sided character. Canon Cheyne says, " More easily could Karl the CJ-reat have written St. Bernard's hymn, than the David of the Ijooks of Samuel the 51st Psalm! "2 Curiously enough, Charle- magne is the very character selected by Bishop .\lexander as presenting an interesting historical ' Or'iQin of the Psalter, p. 211. - Aid>i to Devout CriticUm, p. 28. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 45 parallel to David. In his estahlislmient of material order, in the bloodshed whicli stains his name, in the sensuous side of his character which led him into sins of the flesh, in his per- sonal prowess, and the tenderness of his family affection, Charles the Great often recalls the generous - hearted and passionate David. The parallel is made more striking by Charles's in- tense love of church music, psalmody, and chant- ing ; and Bishop Alexander adds, " The most singular resemblance of the whole is, that an obstinate conviction of -the inner sanctity of the* man, in spite of all drawbacks, pierces through the scandals that darken round his path, and a cry goes up in Christian churches to that strange saint, Sande Carole, ova irro Jiohis ! " ^ The dift'er- ence between the tw^o aspects of David is obvious, and has often enough pointed what Carlyle calls the " shallow " sneer, " Is this your man according to God's own heart ? " The advanced critics of modern days seem to admit that the sneer is justified. They explain that " after God's own heart " means nothing more than fitted to accom- plish a great national task, and that David was merely one " in whom the God of Israel had found the qualities of a captain or leader "' ; as if even the national work for the chosen people ^ Witness of the Psalms to Christ, p. 90. 46 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. Israel could have been accomplished by a strong hand without a great heart and a devout spirit. But even in the historical narrative we have evidence of David's fine and tender feelings. His magnanimity, generosity, and affectionateness in human relations, and the very vehemence of his feelings wdien he was WTong, quite prepare us for the religious susceptibility and nobility of moral character manifested in the 18th Psalm. The analysis of the critic fails here in its dealing with the complexities of the human heart and human life. Much nearer the mark is Edward Irving when he comments on the manifoldness of David's character and the near kinship of strong passions which to a superficial observer appear inconsistent or contradictory. " His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy and sorrow swept over the chords as he passed ; but the melody always breathed of heaven. And such oceans of affection lay within his breast, as could not always slumber in their calmness. For the hearts of a hundred men strove and struggled together within the narrow continent of his single heart ; and will the scornful men have no sympathy for one so con- ditioned, but scorn him, because he ruled not with constant quietness the unruly host of diverse natures which dwelt within his single soul ? " ^ It 1 Works, vol. i. p. 416, AGE A AD AUTHORSHIP OF THE TSALMS. 47 is not ti peculiarity of the biblical portraiture of David that in it are joined " bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire." There is a close con- nection between the clauses in the description of David in his last days, " the anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet Psalmist of Israel/' and till evidence of another kind is forthcoming, we shall prefer to the '' two Davids " of the critic's analysis the description of the son of Sirach, who blends in a single breath the victories of the hero and the music of the poet : " He brought to nought the Philistines his adversaries, and brake their horn in sunder unto this day. In all his works he praised the Holy One most high with words of glory ; witli his whole heart he sung songs, and loved Him that made him." ^ Evidence of another kind is supposed to be forthcoming in the views now gaining currency concerning the religious history of Israel. This would lead us into the discussion of questions quite beyond our scope. It is often assumed by writers of a certain school that spiritual religion of a high type was impossible so early as the time of David. The literary analysis of Old Testament documents and the analogy of other nations are supposed alike to point to a develop- ment in the history of Israelitish religion which ^ Ecclus. xlvii. 7, 8. 4cS THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. makes Davidic psalms impossible. Without en- tering upon a wide field of discussion, we may be content with pointing to the writings of the eighth-century prophets Amos and Hosea, and the prophecies admitted to be written by Isaiah. The state of religious feeling implied in those utterances presupposes a long previous history, such as leaves abundant room for Davidic psalms two hundred years before. And this without pressing the indubitable point, that ever in the history of religion great souls are "before their time," as the loftiest peaks catch the earliest rays of the sun-rising. So much may be said by those who do not believe in the supernatural or the influence of the Spirit of God fitting a prince like David for a great and varied work, so that he manifested qualities not altogether to be accounted for by a regular "development" traceable by nineteenth-century canons, and accounted for by natural laws. All who believe in supernatural manifestations of a living God must repudiate ah initio views which would assimilate the history of religion in Israel to those of surrounding nations. And, to return to our immediate sub- ject, one evidence of the erroneous character of such views will, we believe, be found in the Book of Psalms. If, then, the 18th Psalm was written by David, AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 49 what follows \ it by no means follows that we must accept the evidence of the titles as a whole, for in many cases these appear to embody a much later tradition, and are sometimes clearly contra- dicted by the testimony of the psalms tliemselves. But it does follow that the li priori objection to Davidic psalms is removed. The man who wrote this psalm might have written any one of the hundred and fifty, so far as religious insight and literary ability are concerned. We gain, moreover, certain criteria of style and subject- matter, which may help us in inquiring into the authorship of other psalms. There is a vigour and energy about the 18th Psalm, a certain dis- tinction or magnificence, what artists would call "breadth," about the style of this noble ode, which is fairly recognisable, and quite removed from the smooth and often tame and conven- tional liow of the mass of post-Exilic compositions. It by no means follows, however, that every psalm which exhibits marks of David's style has come down to us just as it left his pen. The tendency to adapt and modify hymns is proved to have obtained in the case of several psalms, by the facts already adduced. We may expect, therefore, to find Davidic fragments embedded in later psalms, and additions or modifications made in undoubted Davidic compositions. 50 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. If it were clear that the titles represented an early tradition, and in every case where ] )avid's name is mentioned were intended to imply Davidic authorship, the simplest plan w^ould be to travel carefully through the list, and ascribe to ])avid every psalm in which there is nothing strikingly inconsistent with his having written it. But the facts being as they are, the sifting must lie conducted somewdiat differently. If there be anything in (1) the language, (2) the style, (3) the historical allusions, or (4) the religious posi- tion of the writer, which does not suit Davidic authorship, the statements of the titles must be disregarded. But these canons may be more or less stringently applied. The first cannot be often used, for in the state of the Hebrew text as it has come down to us, linguistic considerations avail little towards determining date. The argu- ment from style is one on which little reliance can be placed, though it should count for some- thing. In many psalms historical allusions hardly occur, and the views of critics differ considerably concerning the history of religion in Israel. Con- sequently, we cannot be surprised to find con- siderable difference of opinion amongst scholars as to the number of Davidic psalms that Iiave come down to us. It is clear, however, that tradition lias estimated that number very much too high. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 51 Uaiioii Clieyiie, as we liave seen, does not admit any Davidic psalms. Bathgen specifies three, — the *5rd, 4tli, and LSth — tliougli lie speaks doubtfully of the former two. Schultz, in the earlier editions of his Old Testament Theologij, attributed 10 or 12 psalms to David, but now appears to regard tlie 18th alone as certainly his. Ewald specifies 17, in the following order: xi., vii., xxiv. 7-10, xxiv. 1-G, XV., ci., xxix., xix. 1-6, xviii., ex., Ix, 0-10, xviii., xxxii., iii., iv., ii., cxliv. 12-15. Delitzsch includes more than -10 psalms as in all pro- l)ability Davidic. These last two scholars, each in Ids own way, were giants in the patient and com- prehensive study of the Old Testament, but the A'iews of the latter altered in some respects towards the close of his life, and, had he lived, his estimate of the number of Davidic psalms would probably have been considerably diminished. It is impossible, with the evidence before us, to speak definitely, but perhaps the truth lies some- where between the estimates of Ewald and Delitzsch. David can hardly have written fewer than ten, and probably did not write more than twenty, of the psalms that have come down to us. We liavc assumed thus far tliat the ])hrasc PDarhl ("of David," literally "to David"), in the titles, implies strictly Davidic authorship. This is, however, by no means certain. It may indicate 52 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. authorsliip; but it is also used in the phrase •' For the Precentor," and can hardly he understood literally of authorship in the case of the sons of Koral]. We have seen that the general title of the group of psalms known as " Songs of Ascents " was subsequently prefixed to each separate psalm in the collection ; and it is by no means improbable that the same took place in the first book, which contains several of David's compositions, so that in a collection wnicli was primarily and nominally Davidic, many psalms acquired the title rUavid, though in the first instance it was known that David did not write them. It is probable, on several grounds, that this title was used with a considerable measure of latitude, that the psalms called " Davidic " were not always understood to be David's own composition, any more than the " Korahitic" psalms were understood to be actually composed by the family or descendants of Korah.^ The title seems to have been prefixed in some cases where the name of David occurring in the psalm (see cxxii. 5), or some other character- istic, was likely to remind the reader of the great founder of Israelitish psalmody. The use of the expression in the New Testament of Psalm xcv., which on almost any supposition could not have ^ See tlie remarks of Canon Driver on this snhjeet, Introduc- tion to Old TtHtumtnt Literature, p. BoO. AGE AX/) AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 53 been written by David, will illustrate thi.--. It is quite possible that the phrase VDavid was some- times at least used in a sense similar to that occnrring in the title of Psalm cii., which is styled "A prayer of the altlicted, when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord," and it would then indicate a composition befitting the character and circumstances of David. With- out discussing the subject in detail, which is impossible within present limits, it may be said tliat in all probability this explanation best suits the title of Psalm xc, " A prayer of Moses, the man of God," and of Ixxii., which is said to be "of Solomon." The prayers of the latter psabn, by whomsoever written, were much more likely to be written in reference to Solomon as a type of tlie Messianic king, than by Solomon as petitions on liis own account, even if his authorship were admissible on other grounds. It may be said in favour of this looser interpretation of the title, " A psalm of David," tliat in the LXX, l*sahncxxxviii. (cxxxvii.) is called a " Davidic " psalm of Haggai and Zechariah, and Psalm cxxxvii. (cxxx\i.) a "Davidic" psalm of Jeremiah.^ In many cases, ' III the iiiodeni Jewish rrayer-book the title, "A Song of degrees of David," stands before an evidently modern jtsalni compiled for liturgieal purposes, the lirst words of which are taken from Psalm cxxii. 1. 54 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. however, as in the 34th Psalm, it is difficult to detect any connection between title and contents ; and the substitution of Abimelech for Achish, in spite of the plausible explanations that have been given of it, appears rather to result from a con- fusion in the mind of the compiler. Twelve Psalms (1. and Ixxiii.-lxxxiii.) are de- described as " of Asaph." Asaph was a Levite, descended from Gershom, Levi's second son, and he is named as being set by David " over the service of song after that the ark had rest ... in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it" in Zion (see 1 Chron. vi. 31, xvi. 1). In connection with two colleagues, Heman and Jeduthun (Ethan), he is said to have ministered in the same way at the high place of Gibeon (1 Chron. xv. 17, xvi. 39 f.). He is also called a Seer (2 Chron. xxix. 30), and several writers have remarked upon the prophetic character of some of the psalms {c/j. 1. and Lxxiii.) ascribed to him. It is quite certain, however, that Asaph cannot have written all the psalms inscribed with his name. Psalms Ixxiv. and Ixxix., which describe the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple, or, as some think, calamities still later in date, are said to be " of Asaph," a con- temporary of David. The explanation has been given that this title includes the descendants, or AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 55 those belougiiig to the " school " of Asapli (Xeh. xi. 22). It is more likely, however, that the use of the title points, as Bishop Perowne suggests, to a recognised similarity of style and coincidence of thoughts, without any regard being paid to difference in date and historical considerations generally. Dr. Perowne adds, as an alternative, " Perhaps there may have been originally a small separate collection entitled ' Psalms of Asaph,' into whicli others, at a later period, may have crept. How easily this might have occurred, we see from the whole history of hymnology." ^ Others " regard Asaph rather as the founder of a musical school than as psalmist or seer, and hold that the psalms entitled VAscqjh were delivered to the Asaphic school to set to music and sing in the public services, the name Asaph being used generally for tlie family of Asaph, as Aaron is for the family of Aaron in 1 Chronicles xii. 27, xxvii. 17. On the whole, the second of the theories suggested by I'erowne seems the most probable ; it appears to commend itself to Canon Driver, and if it be accepted it confirms the view taken in these pages of the title V David. The next group consists of Psalms xlii.-xlix., Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxxvii., and Ixxxviii., wliich are ^ 71ie Psalms, vol. i. pp. 96, 99. - So Messrs. Jemiinys and Lowe, vol. i. pp. 11-14, 56 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. inscribed with the name of " the sons of Korah." These belonged to the Kohathite section of the Levites, and filled the offices of singers (2 Chron. XX. 19) and of " door-keepers " or " porters " in the temple (1 Chron. xxvi. 1), the latter an office of considerable dignity. As in the case of the Asaphic psalms, it is matter of debate whether the sons of Korah were understood to be the authors of the psalms attributed to them, or whether the title indicates only a collection of psalms in the possession of the Levitical guild of that name in the time of the second temple. A certain similarity may, however, be detected in the members of this, as of the last group. The philosophic, meditative, didactic strain of many of the Asaphic psalms finds its counterpart in the brio'htness, fire, and vehemence of several in the Korahitic group. ^ There are, however, points of resemblance as well as of contrast in these two minor collections. Both groups are for tlie most part national, not personal, in their character, and there breathes through them, as seems appro- priate in Levitical psalms, an ardent longing for the sanctuary and delight in its solemnly joy- ful services. With these psalms may fitly be ' As long ago as the time of Origen tliese clianieteiisties were noticed. He refers to them as remarked upon hy "the old interpreters." AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 57 joined the 88tli, which has a (loiil)le title. It is ascribed to Heinan the Ezrachite, and also to the sons of Korali.^ The 89th bears the name of Ethan the Ezrachite, who must not be con- founded with Etlian (Jeduthun), the third of David's great singers. The 88th Psahn remarkably violates the character of cheerfulness ascribed to the Korahitic psalms. It is the gloomiest in the whole Psalter, the only one in which no single ray of light — unless it be one gleam in the first verse, soon lost in gloom — breaks through the clouds, such as from time to time envelop the singers of strains sweet, but often sad. Lord Bacon said, " If you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many liearse-like airs as carols." But who can read the Psalter without feeling tliat in its music the carols prevail ? Between the time of David and the (Aiptivit}^ there appear to have been two periods at which there was a temporary revival of psalmody — during the reigns of Jehosliaphat and Hezekiah. The chronicler tells us that the former strengthened the kingdom of eJudah both externally and inter- nally, and gives an interesting description of a kind of royal commission of princes, Levites, and * Hence, either Henian was a Korahite, or there has l)eeii confusion in the names, or (most probably) the sons of Korah were not ref^arded as authors. 58 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. priests, for the instruction and improvement of the people. " And they taught in Judah, having the book of the law of the Lord with them ; and they went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people " (2 Chron. xvii. 9). Heze- kiah appears to have paid special attention to the temple music. " He set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David . . . Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer" (2 Chron. xxix. 25, 30). His care for sacred literature is evidenced by the note in Proverbs xxv. 1 concerning the proverbs of Solomon, which " the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Contemporary evidence of the state of religion and culture in his time is furnished by the writings of Isaiah, while the wonderful deliverance from the power of Assyria (birinfj the invasion of Sennacherib was well calcu- lated to stir patriotic and grateful religious feeling. There is some evidence, moreover, that in the northern kingdom of Israel during the eighth century religious literature was not wholly lacking. But little trace of the productions of this period is clearly discernible in the Psalter. The 20th and 21st Psahns belong to tlie period of the monarchy, AGE AND AUrilORSHir OF 7 1//-: PSALMS. 59 but whether David or ;i subsequent king is the subject of them does not appear. The same may be said of the 2nd Psahu, which will be considered later on. The 72nd Psalm w^as probably written during the heyday of monarchical power. The 42nd bears clear traces of its Nortli Israelitish origin (ver. (i), but its date is in all prol)ability later than the period we iue now concerned with. The 4otli Psalm celebrates the nuptials of a prince, in language whicli makes it no mere earthly epi- thalamium, but prepares the mind for the higher aspects of such an event. Wliat prince is referred to, however, is a question not easily answered. Almost every conceivable period has been fixed on, from Solomon (Perowne and Hupfeld), Ahab (Hitzig), and Joram (Delitzsch), down to the latest specimen of critical ingenuity furnished by l*ro- fessor Cheyne, who makes the royal bridegroom to have l)een Ptolemy Philadelphus ! The little group, xlvi.-xlviii., and perhaps Ixxvi., celebrati^ the marked interposition of Jehovah in that de- liverance of Jerusalem from Sennaeherilj, which signalised the reign of Hezekiah. The Totli Psalm, in which the ruler declares his intention of quell- ing arrogant ungodliness amongst his subordinate ofticers, may well be placed in Hezekiah's reign ; while the 82nd, with its reproof of unjust judges, beloncis to the clof^e of the monarchv, or a still 6o THE PRAISES OF f SKA El.. later period. TIic 78th may be placed with some confidence during the period of the monarchy ; the historical allusions of the 83rd are very difficult to trace, but a large number of commentators place the 87th in the time of Hezekiah. There must have been a close connection be- tween the spirit of prophecy in its golden age and the spirit of psalmody. The lyric in Isaiah xii. and tlie ode in ITabakkuk iii. strikingly illustrate this. Ihit it is not easy to trace it out, and tradition gives us no help. It is noteworthy tliat no psalms are attributed to any of the prophets, except that in the LXX three or four are attributed to Jere- miah, Haggai, and Zechariah. Such psalms as xxii. and Ixix., if not written by Jeremiah, are cliarac- teristic of tlie times in which his lot was cast and the spirit of his prophecies. The connection in lauQ-uat^e between Psalm i. and Jeremiah xvii. 7, 8, probably points to a post-Exilic date for the psalm, but it is often very difficult in such a case of parallelism to determine relative priority. The 50th l\salm is distinctly prophetic in spirit. The same may Ijc said of the 62nd, 39tli, and 40th, and several others. The psalms which deal with the perennial problems of human life, that form the subject of the Book of Job, and are touched upon from time to time by certain prophets, — such as Psalms xxxix., xlix., Ixxiii., and Ixxvii., — require AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 6i separate discussion. Some of Iheiu jji-obably date from the decline of the monarchy, while others cannot have been written till after the Exile. Sorrow as well as joy linds a natural relief in music and song. The Exile was a period of national humiliation, but in many respects it prepared the way for nati(jnal regeneration, and, according to many writers, it marks almost the birth of true spiritual life among the chosen people. AVe are prepared, therefore, to find the impress of this great crisis upon the psalmody of the time, and we are not disappointed. The little Book of Lamentations — called by the Jews by the quaintly patlietic title Ecliali (How !), the key-word of the opening verses — gives us a speci- men of an elaborate elegy belonging to this period. By whomsoever written, the date of this long acrostic poem, so finished in its rhythm and dic- tion, can be approximately fixed ; and it furnishes a stronn: arG^ument for the existence of a consider- able body of pre-Exilic poetry. If in the sixth century before Christ such a poem as this was possible, it is almost absurd to make all the pre- vious centuries silent as regards psalmody, or to suppose that while psalms were plentifully com- posed, they have all unaccountably perished. The psalms which have come down to us from this period date rather from the Eestoration than 62 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. from the P>xile itself. Those which have special reference to the Captivity are such as the 102nd, wlien probably the light of deliverance was dawn- ing: the 80th, with its description of the deserted and desolated vineyard ; and the 137th, with its passionate love for Jerusalem, and equally pas- sionate hatred of its enemies. The 120th perhaps describes the cry of the captives, and tlie 121st may have reference to the long journey home- wards : the 12Gth contemplates a deliverance not yet complete (ver. 4) : Avhile the 85tli celebrates its joyful consummation. The restoration of the temple is naturally marked by an outburst of thanksgiving and song. The 1 18th Psalm (assigned by Canon Cheyne, on insufiicient evidence, to the time of Simon the Maccabee) appears to give fitting expression to the feelings of the time, while a number of psalms are associated with it (cxiii.-cxviii.) under the name of the Hallel, which probably belong to the same period. The splendid group of the Psalms of the Theophany (xcvi.-c), and the Vcnitc Exultemus (xc^^), which for so many centuries lias stood in tlie forefront of Jewish and Christian liturgies, together with the Hallelujah Psalms (cxlvi.-cl.), which close tlie Psalter, repre- sent tlie liturgical service of the second temple. AVe must not linger to attempt the arrangement of tliese under the earlier and later Persian periods AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 63 (B.C. o20-3oO), and the Greek i»criod (830-17U), if indeed LliaL be possible. Our liistorical infor- mation after the times of Ezra and Xehemiali is scanty, and the psahns belonging to the later period of Jewish history contain few liistorical references, so that any attempt to be precise in fixing dates is vain. The psalms mentioned above are given as specimens only of the sacred min- strelsy of a period which, so far as extant psalms are concerned, is the most prolific of all. The question has often been discussed, wlietlier any psalms are to be assigned to the time of the Maccabees {cirv. 105 B.C.), and a new aspect has been given to it by tlie fact of a Bampton lecturer attributing the whole of the I'salter to post-Exilic times, and placing a considerable section of it ^ so late as the ^Nlaceabean period. This question liad previously been answered in the negative by such scholars as Bleek and Ewald, while a lart^e mini- her of commentatois, e.tj. Calvin, Perowne, and Delitzsch, incline to admit three or four psalms as Maccabean, including xliv., Ixxiv., and Ixxix. It is not possible to discuss the question at length liere. It may be enough to say that there is no- tliing in tlie history of tlie Old Testament Canon, ^ Twenty-live yisalins, vi;^, xx., xxi,, xxxiii., xliv., Ix., Ixi., Ixiii,, Ixxiv., Ixxix., Ixxxiii., ci., cviii,, cxv.-cxviii., exxxv.- cxxxviii., exlv.-cl. 64 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. as now understood, to prevent the inclusion of psalms of so late a date. ]jut it is remarkable that those which are fixed upon as most appro- priate to this period occur in the earlier books. Canon Cheyne, it is true, following lieuss and Olshausen, assigns the greater portion of the Psalter to the third and second centuries before Christ, but his reasoning is speculative in the highest degree. He names the following as criteria of Maccabean psalms : ^ (1) " Some fairly distinct allusions to Maccabean circumstances," which are hard to find in more than two or three psalms for those who read with unbiassed eyes ; (2) " a uniquely strong Church feeling," a test which is bound up with views concerning the " I " of the psalms, which will fall to be considered later ; (3) "an intensity of monotheistic faith," which cannot be said to be exclusively characteristic of Maccabean times ; and (4) " an ardour of grati- tude for some unexampled stepping forth of the one Lord Jehovah into history," as if siich divine interpositions had never been known till the times of Judas and Simon, or as if the Jews at this period were grateful and devout beyond the measure of the prophets and psalm- ists of earlier days. It is possible that Psalm xliv. must be assigned to this period, on ac- 1 Orii/inoffh' rmlfer, p. 16. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 65 count of its strong protestations of national innocence; Ixxiv., on account of the mention of " synagogues " (ver. 8) and the complaint of the decay of prophecy (ver. 9); and Ixxix., because of the close parallel between many of its expres- sions and the descriptions of 1 Maccabees. But it is also possible that the calamities and sorrowful experiences of these psalms may be referred to an earlier period, while the difficulties arising from their style and language, as well as their place in the Psalter, make the supposition of their Maccabean origin not altogether easy to accept. Our knowdedge of the Maccabean period, and such literary products of that time as have come down to us, render it improbable that any con- siderable portion of the Psalter should be assigned to it. It seems strange, to begin with, if tw^enty- five notable psalms were written at this time, that we have no trace of a tradition to that effect. If the extra-canonical book known as " The Psalms of Solomon " w^re written, as has been supposed, in the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, this would be conclusive against the Maccabean origin of any canonical psalms. The opinion of scholars now, however, inclines to bring the work down to the time of Pompey (b.c. 48).i Even so, the tone and 1 See the recent admirable edition of these Psalms by Pro- fessor Eyle and Mr. James. 1891. 5 66 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. character of these "Psahns of the Pharisees" makes strongly against a late date for any con- siderable number of the canonical psalms. The tendencies of religious thought which resulted in the "Psalms of the Pharisees" must have been operative for more than half a century before they were written. The Messianic expectations, the views of a future life, and the politico-religious ideas embodied in these apocryphal compositions, require a very considerable interval of time to separate them from the widely differing tone and spirit of the latest psalms in the canonical collec- tion.^ These are only scattered notes or hints upon a wide and difficult subject. All that seems to be quite clear at present is, that the older traditional view, represented by a literal acceptance of the inscriptions, seems to be impossible on the one hand ; while on the other, there is no adequate ground' for the views of the extreme critics, who exclude the possibility of Davidic, or even pre- Exilic, psalms, and make the Psalter in the most literal sense " the hymn-book of the Second Temple." That its arrangement and compilation are due to the pious care of post-Exilic times, and ^ Professor Kirkpatrick holds this to be a valid argument ; but it is strongly contested by Canon Cheyne. See Aids to Devout Criticism, pp. 135, 136. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 67 that a much larger proportion of the Psalms than has generally been allowed was actually composed in this period, seems clearly proved. But no evidence has been alleged to disprove the position that the Book of Psalms is an anthology of the best sacred lyrics of Israel during many centuries, from David onwards. A nucleus of the whole collection is Davidic, and pre-Exilic strains prevail in the earlier books. The views concerning the Psalter which are now fashionable amongst scholars rest very largely upon views concerning the history of religion in Israel, which are far from being proved, and which would revolutionise a large part of the Old Testament. As a recent writer well says : " By one stroke the tongue of ancient Israel is struck dumb, as the pen is dashed from its hand, these artless lyrics are deprived of their spontaneousness, and a great gulf is fixed between the few, which a niggardly criticism admits to be of early date, and the full volume of devotional song which in many tones was called forth by the shifting situations of olden times." ^ To attempt to reduce the varied strains of several collections of sacred lyrics to the dead level of one period, which was neither lofty in its religious character nor vigorously original in its literature, shows mistaken views 1 Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, p. 474. 68 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. of art, as well as a misunderstanding of the history of religion. But having said so much as to the general character of the Psalter, we must be content to leave the details of age and authorship in con- siderable uncertainty. Exact historical informa- tion has not come down to us, and the great majority of the psalms by no means determine their own date. When external evidence fails, and critics are left to use their own judgment, we know what to expect. The diversity would be amusing, if it were not bewildering. Ewald ascribes to David a psalm which Cheyne pro- nounces to have been written in honour of Simon the Maccabee. The 90th Psalm has been assigned by critics of highest repute alike to Moses and to a post-Exilic writer, separated from one another by more than a thousand years. The 68th Psalm is described at the same time as one of the earliest and as one of the latest psalms ; Delitzsch refers it to the time of David, Hitzig to the time of Jehoshaphat, and Eeuss to the pre-Maccabean Greek age. As Eiehm observes,^ who could tell from internal evidence alone whether a familiar hymn were by Luther or Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen or Angelas Silesius ? Who would have ascribed the well-known German hymn "Jesus meine 1 Einleitunrj, ii. pp. 190, 193. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE PSALMS. 69 Zuversicht " to Princess Louisa of Brandenburg ? And we might add, what keenly critical hymn- ologist could discover from internal evidence that " The God of Abraham praise " was written by Thomas Olivers, an obscure Methodist shoemaker? Enough is known concerning the age and author- ship of the Psalms to enable us to read them intelligently; enougli remains still uncertain to invite our patient study, and to prevent us from losing in minute considerations of time and place the fruitful and abiding lessons of spiritual and eternal truth. CHAPTER III. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. THE words " literature " and " poetry " are by no means adequate to describe the contents of the Psalter. But they represent one aspect of its character, and describe the form in which Divine treasure of highest value has been preserved for succeeding generations. A study of this form, a vessel so admirably adapted to hold and transmit its sacred contents, is indispensable to a proper understandiuGf of the Psalms. Hebrew poetry is almost entirely lyric in its character. Under this head may be included the varieties of ^7Z07?i2c verse, illustrated by the Book of Proverbs, elegiac poems like the Lamentations, and others, clearly distinguishable from the true lyrics of the Psalms. But epic and dramatic poetry are alike foreign to the genius of the nation. The Book of Job is only partially dramatic in form, and the Sono; of Songs is an idyll rather than a drama. ^ 70 THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 71 It is well known that rhyme is absent from ancient Hebrew poetry. In the Middle Ages some exquisite specimens of Hebrew rhyming poetry were produced; but we must pass to the tenth and eleventh centuries a.d. to find verses like those of Ibn Gebirol and Judah Halevi, who did for Hebrew what Adam of St. Victor and Bernard of Cluny did for Latin hymnody. In ancient Hebrew poetry alliteration is sometimes found, and more frequently assonance, i.e. the introduc- tion of words having like-sounding syllables. But metre, in the proper sense of the word, such as is characteristic of most Western poetry, in which the lines are of a measured lenQth, and consist of a definite number of syllables, or " feet," is unknown ; ^ and verbal rhythm, where it occurs, is irregular and indefinable, Hebrew poetry con- sists in the rhythm of thought and the balance of sentences. But this implies a true rhythm, or " beat," though one of a much less regular kind than in Western classical poetry. "We might make a rough analogy by comparing the rhythmic movement of verse to the time beats of a clock or watch. Other languages divide the verses into measured feet, as a watch ticks off the seconds ; ^ Professor Bickell claims to have discovered the structure of Hebrew metre, and bases upon it a reconstruction of the text of the Book of Job. 72 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. but Hebrew opposes line to line with the longer, more solemn, and more majestic beat of the pendulum of a large clock." ^ Coleridge's " Christ- abel" is an attempt to introduce into English verse a less regular rhythm, as well as a less regular metre, than is customary. The psalm is divided into lines, which are approximately and sometimes actually of the same length, and these are arranged in couplets or triplets or quatrains, which may be termed verses. These again may be combined into strophes or stanzas, a number of stanzas consti- tuting the whole poem. But the balance is one of thought, not of sound or of measured feet, and the lines are so arranged that " thought corre- sponds to thought, in repetition or amplification, contrast or response." The irregularity of the Hebrew poem, which forms a mean between the strict order of metre on the one hand, and the still greater irregularity (itself not without order) of musical prose on the other, has a beauty and charm of its own. The thought proceeds not directly, but as by " the beat of alternate wings " ; or rather, like the progress of a bird, which advances by a series of spiral flights, circling in the air as it rises skywards, or drops gently and gradually into its nest in the young April corn. ^ Agleii, Poetry of tU Bible, § 2, ''Parallelism." THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 73 This feature of parallel structure is more or less discernible in the poetry of all nation?. It repre- sents a form of utterance naturally adopted in most languages to express thought, either with the added force of increased emphasis, or with the deepened tenderness of a lingering pathos. It is especially characteristic of uncultured na- tions, and is appropriately used b}^ Longfellow in his " Indian Edda " of " Hiawatha," in which the simplicity of the language is more impressive than the polished versification of a classical style,— " Ye who love the haunts of nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, And the thunder in the mountains. Whose innumerable echoes Flap like eagles in their eyries ; — Listen to these wild traditions. To this song of Hiawatha ! " It may be observed, however, that the regularity of the lines detracts somewhat from the dignity of the style, and before long palls upon the ear. But this parallelism is not appropriate only in the comparatively inartistic productions of early 74 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL, times, or poems which imitate them. It is often found in Shakespeare. There is a combined state- liness and pathos about its use in the well-known lines in which Eichard II. abdicates his crown, — " Now mark me, how I will undo myself ; — • I give this heavy weight from off my head, And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand. The pride of kingly sway from out my heart ; With mine own tears I wash away my balm. With mine own hands I give away my crown. With mine own tongue deny my sacred state. With mine own breath release all duty's rites : All pomp and majesty do I forswear ; My manors, rents, revenues I forego ; God pardon all oaths that are broke to me ! God keep all vows unbroke that swear to thee ! " ^ It often appears in the most highly finished verse of the nineteenth century, perhaps of any century in the English language, that of Tennyson. In " Love and Duty " he writes of ' The slow, sweet hours that bring us all things good, The slow, sad hours that bring us all things ill " ; where the parallelism is no less impressive than the lingering, reluctant movement of the long- drawn-out monosyllables. In the address to the Queen on the Prince Consort's death, forming the Dedication of the '' Idylls," occur the familiar lines, — 1 Richard 11. , Act iv. Sc. 1, 203. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 75 " His love, unseen but felt, o'ersliadow tliee, The love of all thy sons encompass thee. The love of all tliy daughters cherish thee, The love of all thy people comfort thee. Till God's love set thee at his side again ! " But in Hebrew poetry the very absence of art enhances its sublimity and impressiveness. There is doubtless more artistic arrangement than appears upon the surface, but at its best it rises above the few and simple laws which it has imposed on itself, and rejoices in a freedom which yet remains within the bounds of law. It is unnecessary to describe in detail all the varieties of structure that have been observed, as it is indeed impossible accurately to classify them. Bishop Lowth in modern times has worked out the subject with a fulness which has left all who have since laboured in the same field his debtors. His definition of parallelism is as follows : " The correspondence of one verse or line with another, I call parallelism. When a proposition is delivered, and a second is subjoined to it, or drawn under it, equivalent, or contrasted with it in sense, or similar to it in the form of grammatical construc- tion, these I call parallel lines ; and the words or phrases answering to one another in the corre- sponding lines, parallel terms." This opens the way for the subdivision into synonymous, anti- 76 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. thetic, and synthetic or constructive parallelism. A more elaborate classification is suggested by De Wette/ who distinguishes four kinds of parallelism — (1) That which consists in an equal number of words in each member, which is the original and perfect parallelism. (2) The unequal form, in which the number of words is not the same ; divided into a simple, l composite, and other varieties. (3) Where both members are composite; with its subdivisions. (4) Ehythmical parallelism, which lies merely in the external form of the diction. Other divisions and subdivisions have been suggested, which it is tedious even to read. It is poor work to turn a garden into a herbarium. Turning to examples, which teach us more than any abstract system of classification, we proceed from the simpler to the more complex. The simplest and most frequent of all is the arrange- ment in two lines, of which the second repeats or echoes the thought of the first, — " The heavens are telling the glory of God, The firmament sheweth His handy work." — ('xix. 1.) " In green pastures He maketh me lie clown, By restful waters He leadeth me." — (xxiii. 2.) " Cast forth lightning and scatter them ; Shoot out Thine arrows and discomfit them." — (cxhv. 6.) 1 See Dictio7iary of the Bible, "Hebrew Poetry," vol. ii. p. 901. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 77 Sometimes the second line emphasises and strengthens the first, — " For tlioii dost bless the righteous ; Jehovah, witli favour wilt Thou compass hiiii as with a broad shield." — (v. 12.) " The waters saw Thee, God ; The waters saw Thee, they writhed in pain."' — (Ixxvii. 16.) Sometimes the parallelism is in three members, — " The wicked see it, and are grieved : They gnash with their teeth and melt away : The desire of the wicked shall perish." — (cxii. 10.) " Let all them that take refvige in Thee rejoice ; Let them ring out their joy for ever, because Thou defendest them : Let them also who love Thy name be joyful in Thee."— (v. 11.) An example of a quatrain, or verse of four lines, is found in the 30th Psalm, — " For His anger is but for a moment, His favour for a life-time ; Weeping may come in to lodge at even, But in the morning (hark !) a ringing cry of joy ! " — (xxx. 5.) Or, with a slightly different relation between the members, — 78 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. " Jehovah, in Thy strength shall the king rejoice, And in Thy salvation how greatly shall he exult ! Thou hast given him his heart's desire, And hast not withholden the request of his lips." -(xxi. 1, 2.) Or, arranged, as we should say, with alternate rhymes, — " For, as the heaven is high above the earth, So mighty is His loving kindness over them that fear Him ; As far as sunrise from sunset. Hath He removed our transgressions from us." — (ciii. 11, 12.) The so-called "antithetic" parallelism is only distinguished from the "synonymous" or "cog- nate" by the fact that the lines emphasise a thought rather by presenting a contrast, than by way of repetition or echo, — " For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked perishes." — (i. 6.) " Some (boast) of chariots and some of horses. But we will boast of the name of Jehovah our God."— (XX. 7.) Or thus, in a quatrain, — " His mouth was smoother than butter. But his heart was war ; His words were softer than oil. Yet were they drawn swords." — (Iv. 21.) THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 79 The term " synthetic " or " constructive " parallel- ism implies that the second line does not contain a repetition of the first, nor a contrast to it, but in some independent way completes it, and so builds up the thought of the whole. Here word does not answer to word, but " the idea is kept in view by the writer, while he proceeds to develop and enforce his meaning by accessory ideas and modifications," — " One thing do I ask of Jehovah, That will I seek after ; That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah All the days of my life, To behold the pleasantness of Jehovah, And to meditate in His temple."— (xxvii. 4.) It is hardly worth while to invent another name, " introverted parallelism," for a slightly different arrangement of lines, corresponding to one another in a quatrain like the stanzas of " In Memoriam," the first and fourth pairing together, and the second and third, — " The earth hath yielded her increase ; May God, our own God, bless us ! May God bless us, And all the ends of the earth fear Him ! " — (Ixvii. 6, 7.) Or, in a more complicated form, — 8o THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. " Unto Thee do I lift up mine eyes, Thou that art seated in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants are ujoon the hand of their master. As the eyes of a maiden are upon the hand of her mistress. So our eyes are upon Jehovah our God, till He have pity upon us." — (cxxiii. 2.) In some of these cases a different arrangement of lines might be adopted, and in many instances it is not easy to define the exact relation between the various members, which are nevertheless clearly related to one another, and help to build up one thought : — "As for me, I am poor and helpless. Yet Jehovah thinketh upon me ; Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, my God." — (xl. 17.) There is no rule for the length of the separate lines. Canon Driver says that " upon an average the lines consist of seven or eight syllables, but, so far as appears, there is no rule upon the sub- ject ; lines may be longer or shorter as the poet may desire. . . . The didactic and historical psalms are more regular in structure than those which are of a more emotional character." ^ It is clear that the shorter the line, the more bright and animated the strain; while the longer lines and ^ Introduction^ p. 343. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 8i more laboured stanzas approximate to the com- parative duliiess and heaviness of prose. Com- pare, for instance, — " My heart is brimful!, Goodly is the theme ; 1 utter words, My work is for a king ; My tongue is a jDen, Yea, a ready scribe." — (xlv. 1.) with the quotation above given from the 123rd Psalm, or the following from the 107th: — " Again, when they are minished and brought low By the pressure of misfortune and sorrow, He who poureth contempt upon princes, And maketh them wander in the wilderness, where there is no way : He setteth the needy on high from affliction, And maketh him families like a flock." — (cvii. 39-41.) In poetry, as well as in prose, variation in the character of the diction is discernible. Apart from the steady wave-like flux and reflux of the alternating clauses, there comes a period of high tides, and then again of neap-tides, when the flow of feeling ebbs; and, as Ewald says, there is a standard rhythm to which the verse returns when the diction flags from its loftier and more sublime 82 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. heights. But throughout there is variety, anima- tion, change of pace and action. The form of the verse alters with the mood of the writer and the strain of his song. There is nothing stiff, wooden, mechanical : perhaps we should rather say, when these features do appear, it is a sign of decad- ence, and we pass from the golden age of Hebrew poetry to an age of silver, or even of copper. The earlier strains are the more vigorous and animated; in the later days decay sets in, and a more artificial and conventional style of verse prevails. Verses build up strophes or stanzas. Some scholars have propounded elaborate theories on this subject. Even the more sober and moderate theorists undertake to arrange most of the psalms into regular stanzas, the lines of which observe regular lengths, thus: 4,6,7,7,6,4; or 6,6,6,6,7,7; like the modern hymns, the metre of which is styled 7's and 6's, or 6-8's. On this subject it does not become those who have not carefully studied the subject to say much ; but the examples given suggest ingenuity in the critics rather than obvious regularity in the metrical arrangement of the psalm. If, however, the word " strophe " be understood to imply a poetical paragraph, in which are arranged with a good deal of irregularity a number of verses contributing to the working out THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 83 of one leading thought, the existence of this will at once be admitted. Such a division of a psalm into parts or stanzas is suggested by the fre- quent occurrence of refrains, such as the well- known, — "Jehovah God of Hosts, is with us, The God of Jacob is our tower of refuge." — (xlvi. 7, 11.) " Why art thou cast down, my soul ? And why disquieted within me ? Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise Him Who is the help of my countenance and my God," — (xlii. 5, 11 ; xliii. 5.) The liturgical refrains often recur. The response in the 136th Psalm occurs twenty-six times, as if weak and sinful men could hardly tire of repeat- ing " For His mercy endureth for ever." Another less obvious mark of organic structure in the Psalms may be illustrated from the exquisite little group of " Songs of Ascents." It implies a progress by means of characteristic words or phrases, a mounting as by stc])s from thought to thought ; a form of composition which some have thought gave rise to the name of the group. This can only be illustrated by printing at length one of these short but lovely psalms, italicising the phrases which are repeated, as in the " triolet," 84 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. or " rondeau " of mediaeval poetry, though not with the same regularity : — " Had not Jehovah Himself been on our side^ Let Israel now say — Had not Jehovah Himself been on our side When men rose up against us : TJien they had swallowed us up alive, When their wrath was kindled against us. TJien the icaters had overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul. Then had gone over our soul The proud-raging waters. "Blessed be Jehovah, who gave us not up As a prey to their teeth ! Our soul, like a bird hath it escaped Out of the snare of the fowlers : The snare was broken. And we — we escaped. Our help is in the name of Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth." — (cxxiv.) The principle of the Acrostic is well known, but few English readers recognise how freely it is used in the Hebrew Psalter. The example of the 119th Psalm, in which are tw^enty-two stanzas, each with eight verses beginning with the same Hebrew letter, is familiar. But a similar arrange- ment is more or less observed in Psalms ix. and x,, in which two verses occur to each letter, but the plan is imperfectly carried out ; also in xxv., with one verse to each letter, xxxiv., xxxvii., cxi., and THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 85 cxii. (in the last two cases only half a verse to a letter), and cxlv. Psalm cxi. has been thus arranged in Euglish,i in order to exhibit the structure, — " Hallelujah ! A dore will I the Lord with all my heart, B oth in the meeting of the upright and in the con- gregation. C onfessedly great are the deeds of the Lord ; D elighters in them search them out. E xcellent for honour and majesty is His work : F or evermore doth His righteousness endure. G racious and compassionate is the Lord, H is wonderful works hath He made to be reniem- bered," etc. Leaving the purely literary structure of the Psalms, we shall do well to remember in all our study of them that they were made (for the most part) to be sung. Signs of this appear on every hand. No fewer than fifty-five psalms are in- scribed "For the Chief Musician," or Precentor. The nature of his work may be gathered from 1 Chronicles xv. 17-21, where Heman, Asaph, and Ethan are described as conductors, sounding aloud with cymbals ; while certain other musicians were appointed vocally " to lead " the singing, to the accompaniment of psalteries for the soprano and 1 By the late Professor Binnie. See his Psalms, their History, Teachings, and Use, 2nd ed. p. 142. 86 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL, harps for the bass — as we should say, with violins and violoncellos. The LXX, it may be said in passing, everywhere translate the expression " For the Precentor" by g/j rl TiXog ("for ever" ?), con- fusing it with a similar Hebrew word and showing that they did not understand its meaning. In the passage from 1 Chronicles just quoted two terms occur, Alamoth, found also in Psalm xlvi. 1, and Sheminith, Psalm vi. 1, the meaning of which is now pretty clearly determined as corresponding to our "soprano" and "bass." The frequently recurring term Sclah has been very variously understood : it most probably indicates a musical interlude, not necessary of a forte or triumphant character, but varying with the subject-rnatter of the preceding or succeeding verses. The musical instruments chiefly in use were — amongst stringed instruments, the Kinnor,i\\Q most ancient kind of harp (Ps. cxxxvii. 2) ; and the Nehcl, usually translated psaltery (Ps. Ivii. 8), probably a larger and improved variety of the same; amongst wind instruments the Shophar (Ps. xlvii. 5) and Chatsotserah (Ps. xcviii. 6), trumpets of different kinds, the former a long horn turned up at the extremity, the latter a straight trumpet of silver, terminating in a bell- mouth, a sacred rather than a martial instrument. Amongst instruments of percussion we find the THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 87 Toiih and the Tseltselim, the tabret or timbrel (Ps. Ixxxi. 2), and the cymbals (Ps. cl. 5), the latter being of two kinds, one characterised by its high pitch, and the other used for a loud-sounding accompaniment. Two general terms occur in the titles, Ncginoth for stringed instruments (see Pss. iv., vi., liv. etc.; comp. IxL), and Nechiloth, only in Psalm v., generally understood to mean flutes. Yery probably the Gittith of Psalms viii., Ixxxi., and Ixxxiv. indicates a harp of some particular kind, named from the city of Gath. The names of the tunes to which some of the psalms were sung have come down to us, but the names alone. Tliese consist of two or three words, probably indicating the first words of a well- known song, or some popular melody, to which, especially in the earlier days, the psalm might be sung : e.g. " Death of the Son " (Ps. ix.), " The Hind of the Morning " (Ps. xxii.), " Lilies " (xlv. and Ixix.; comp. Ixxx.), " The Dove of the Distant Terebinths " (Ivi.), while four (Ivii.-lix., and Ixxv.) are described as set to the air "Destroy not," which may perhaps be illustrated by Isaiah Ixv. 8 : "As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saitli. Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it " ; the words Al-TashcJieth being the opening words of a vintage-song. This mode of indicating tunes is intelligible enough to a generation accustomed 88 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. to speak of " Sicilian Mariners," " Fertile Plains," " Just as I am," or " Pax Dei," as names which recall familiar tunes, and need hardly be explained to those who even yet have not given up singing sacred words to the air of " Ye Banks and Braes," or " Eobin Adair." In early times, no doubt, the music and the singing were comparatively rude. There is no warrant, however, for the attempt now being made to bring down the institution of organized worship to the time of the Second Temple. The books of Chronicles, which, though late in date, rest, as we are expressly told, upon earlier docu- ments, trace the beginnings of this organization to David. At the dedication of Solomon's temple, and again at the reconsecration of the temple under Hezekiah, the musical part of the service is expressly described (2 Chron. vii. 6 and xxix. 26). But it is quite consistent with the statements of Scripture, and probable on many other grounds, that the conduct of worship in pre-Exilic days was primitive and comparatively unorganized. A great improvement took place in post-Exilic days. The Book of the Law was arranged, edited, and taught as it had never been before ; the writings of the prophets were gradually collected with reverent care ; and so the fragments of earlier psalms, and various smaller collections of Davidic THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 89 and other sacred songs, were prepared for use in the more carefully arranged and more reverently conducted temple-worship. The outline of ser- vice during the second or third centuries before Christ is tolerably well known to us, even in its details. We touch upon it, only so far as it illustrates the structure and use of the psalms we are studying. Some of the psalms were sung antiphonally, or by priests and Levites with responses from the congregation. This appears to have been very ancient (cf. Ex. xv. 20, 21); and the manner is expressly stated in Ezra iii. 11: "And they sang one to another " (A.V. " by course ") " in praising and giving thanks to the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord." The " two great companies that gave thanks and went in procession," mentioned in Nehemiah xii. 27 and 38, evidently sang antiphonally. One of the oldest psalms in the Psalter is of this kind. The late Dean Stanley describes,^ with characteristically graphic power, the scene which took place when first the latter portion of Psalm xxiv. was cli anted. " The long captivity of the Ark in Philistia . . . 1 Jeii'Uh Church, vol. ii. pp. 71, 72. The passage quoted is condensed. 90 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. was now brought to an end. Accordingly, as the Ark stood beneath the walls of the ancient Jewish fortress, so venerable with unconqiiered age, the summons goes up from the procession to the dark walls in front. The ancient everlasting gates of Jebus are called to lift up their heads, their port- cullis gates, stiff with the rust of ages. They are to grow and rise with the freshness of youth, that their height may be worthy to receive the new King of Glory." I. [Choir of Priests, approaching the gates.] " Lift up your heads, ye gates ; Lift yourselves up, ye ancient doors, That the King of Glory may come in." [Warders from within.] "Who then is the King of Glory?" [Choir of Priests.] " Jehovah, strong and mighty ; Jehovah, mighty in battle." IL Priests. " Lift up your heads, ye gates ; Lift yourselves up, ye ancient doors. That the King of Glory may come in ! " Warders. "Who is He, tlie King of Glory?" Priests. "Jehovah Sabaoth, ... He is the King of Glory." In the late liturgical psalms we have a number of THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 91 What may be called standard choruses or refrains, sun- as responses, examples of which may be found in the beginning of Psalm cxvm. and throughout Psalm cxxxvi. Each day of the week had its psalm. It was sung at the tin-.e of the drink-oflering, in three sections of three parts each, indicated by the trumpet-blasts of the priests; the Levites sang the wor,ls and the people the responses, falling down and worshipping. The Sabbath psalm was xcii.i (see title) ; that for the first day of the week was xxiv. ; and there followed in order, xlvui., Ixxxii., xciv., Ixxxi., xciii. The principle of selec- tion is not altogether easy to follow. The practice of the modern synagogue will to some extent illustrate the method of cantillation employed; but it is impossible now to trace out the precise musical significance of the accents found m our Hebrew Bibles. Dr. Edersheim says: "^^hat the melodies were to which the Psalms had been sunt' it is unfortunately impossible now to ascertain." Some of the music still used in the synagogue must date from those tin>es ; and there is no reason to doubt that in the so-called Gre-01 ian ' tones ' we have also preserved to us a 1 ^ Said by the Rabbis to have been sung by Adam when created, on the eve before the Sabbath. See the cunous stones iu Midrash Tehillim, ii. 75. 92 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. close approximation to the ancient hymnody of the temple, though certainly not without con- siderable alterations." ^ This must not be viewed as mere antiquarian lore. A composition that is intended to be sung can only be half understood and appreciated when it is read. Music intensifies feeling of all kinds ; and no one can feel the true responsive thrill to a Miserere Domine or a Gloria in Excelsis when he coldly reads them on the printed page. We cannot reproduce the Jewish music, and we need not spend much time over the meaning of ancient Jewish musical notation. But we must, if possible, bring with us the exalted mood of the worshipper in the great congregation as we join in the ringing cry of Psalm cxlviii., " Praise Jehovah — praise Him — praise Him ! " or plead in the plaintive prayer of Psalm Ixix., — " Save me, God : For the waters press in, even to my soul. I am sunk in deep mire, where is no standing ; I am come into deep waters, where floods overwhelm me." The vivacity and rapid turns of expression which abound in the Psalms become intelligible when we remember the rapidly changing moods of even ^ The Temple^ its Ministry and Services, p. 57. THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 93 the best man's religious life; but tliey become full of meaning when we think of them as alter- nating like the movements in a concerted piece of music, and, so to speak, mark them with the/o?"^e and inano of a well-arranged chorus. It is tlie musician who takes the " two poor bounded words and makes them new," — " Page after page of music turn, And still they live and still they burn, Eternal, passion-fraught, and free — Miserere Domine ! " So far as printed w^ords can sway the feelings, and tune the reader to the strain of thanksgiving or supplication, teaching him the true note of penitential pathos or rapturous triumph, it is achieved by the language of the Psalter. But each psalm must be read with the heart as well as with the mind, and, as far as may be, with the imagination which recalls the scenes and circum- stance under which it was intended to be sung. Music entirely apart, the note of true poetry is struck in the Psalms, as at no other point in the long history of hymnology. The deficiencies of very bald and prosaic words are covered in some churches by elaborate music, but perhaps no music ever composed has been adequate to render the Psalms of David. If, with Words- 94 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. worth, we define poetry as " tlie breath and finer spirit of all knowledge : the impassioned expres- sion which is in the countenance of all science/' or speak of it as " the first and last of all knowledge, immortal as the heart of man," it would be difficult to find in the whole range of literature a better example of poetry than many of the Psalms will furnish. If we take Milton's three characterising epithets, that poetry must be " simple, sensuous, passionate," again the Psalms occur to us as wonderfully fulfilling each of these conditions. The sublime simplicity of the Psalms needs no comment. The intense feeling, amount- ing to sacred passion, which burns in them is obvious at a glance. But it may not be so immediately clear how far the power and vakie of the Psalms depends upon what Milton means by the "sensuous" element, that avoidance of the abstract and metaphysical, the striking concrete- ness of the language which represents and em- bodies the most refined and spiritual thoughts. The God of metaphysics is not the God of the Bible, and especially not of the Psalms. The figures used are sometimes of the boldest. A fastidious taste might even carp at some of them as crude or coarse ; some modern critics have a great deal to say about a " mythological element," as if the Psalmist had not risen above the con- THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 95 ceptions of the Vedas or the Orphic hymns. But the language used to express spiritual truth must always he more or less metaphorical, and in the Psalter we have happily a large measure of that mode of speech which always makes its way direct to the heart of the multitude, while there is nothing to offend or repel any right-minded reader. Who that reads the 18th Psalm aright can hesitate as to the true meaning, or still less as to the poetical grandeur of the descrip- tion, — " He rode upon a clierub and did fly, And flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind ; He made darkness His covert, His pavilion round about Him, Dark waters, thick clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness before Him there passed thro' His clouds Hailstones and coals of fire." — (xviii. 10-12.) The crudity surely is in the critic who con- ceives that these and other descriptions of the God of Israel are to be construed literally, as if the Psalmist had hardly passed the stage of thought in which the primitive Aryan invokes Agni or Indra, or the Chinaman strives to appease the uncouth dragon of the storms. In the same psalm we find the most spiritual conceptions of God,— 96 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL, " Fervently do I love thee, Jehovah, my strength ! . . . As for God, His way is flawless : The word of Jehovah is tried : He is a shield unto all that take refuge in Him." —(vers. 1, 30.) It is not difficult to distinguish symbolic from mythological language, and it is a Divine yji^iciici characterising the Book of Psalms, that one of the most spiritual books in the world is one of the freest and boldest in its use of figure. '' Metaphysic theologies," says Isaac Taylor, "except so far as they take up the very terms of the Hebrew Scriptures, have hitherto shown a properly religious aspect in proportion as they have been unintelligible ; when intelligible, they become, if not atheistic, yet tending in that direction." Much of this boldness of figurative speech is patent to the English reader, but some- times a most suggestive figure lies behind what appears a commonplace word. No irreverence is present in the representation given of the Divine Being choosing Jerusalem for His own habitation, when the Psalmist waxes very bold and uses words elsewhere descriptive of the covert of the wild beast and the lair of the lion, — " In Salem is His leafy covert, And His rocky den in Zion." — (Ixxvi. 2.) THE POETRY OF THE PSALMS. 97 The free use of metaphor in the most orclinary conceptions of the Psahiiist it would be super- fluous to illustrate. Figures form not the fringe but the very web of his texture of wrought gold. The Psalms are in this respect in the Old Testa- ment what the parables of our Lord are in the New. The didactic strain of the 1st Psalm breaks away in the third verse into a lovely picture of the terebintli by the water-brooks ; the wicked, on tlie other hand, are like the light chaff on the mountain threshing-floor (i. 6), or like the whirl- ing dust before the wind (Ixxxiii. 13). When the Psalmist prays for forgiveness in the anguish of his penitence in Psalm li., he uses not one but half a score of fic^ures to describe the cleansino- for which he longs. The God in whom he trusts is to the Psalmist a Shepherd and a Guide, Light and Healing, a Kock of refuge and High Tower of defence, a living Fountain of refreshment for which he longs more eagerly than the wearied hart pants for cooling streams. The sun is to him as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, the very pastures "laugh for joy, they also sing." How fitted the land of Palestine was to supply an abundance of the most vivid imagery for the concrete embodiment of religious feeling and spiritual truth, it is needless to say. '* Palestine, 98 THE PRAJSES OE ISRAEL, in the age of its wealth, was a sampler of the world : it was a museum country, many lands in one : the tread of the camel in two or three hours may now give the traveller a recollection of his own — come whence he may, from any country between the torrid zone and our northern latitudes. ... In Palestine, such as it was of old, the soft graces of a rural scene, the vine-covered slopes, the plains, brilliant with flowers, the wooded glens and knolls sparkling with springs, and where tlie warbling of birds invites men to tranquil enjoyment — in Palestine, there is, or there was, ever at hand those material symbols of unearthly good which should serve to remind man of his destination to a world better and l)righter than this. It was thus, therefore, that within limits so narrow as those of the land occupied by the Hebrew people, provision had teen made (may we not use this phrase ?) at once for supplying to its poets, in the greatest abundance and variety, the material imagery they would need ; and for bringing within the daily experiences of the people every condition of the material world which could be made avail- able for tlie purposes of a figurative literature. In these adjustments of the country to the people, and of both to the ulterior intention of a revela- tion for the world, we need not hesitate to recog- nise the Divine wisdom, making preparation in THE rOETRY OE THE PSALMS. 99 a iiuirked iiiaiiner fur so great and peculiar a work." ^ With this thought it will be well to close this chapter. So long as we are studying the poetry and artistic form of the Psalms, we are dealing with that which under the guidance of the Divine Spirit was only a means to a great end. The highest flights of imagination, the utmost pLiy of fancy, the richest wealth of metaphor, the most exquisite grace of diction, are all here subordinated to a higher aim and purpose. While lingering on these subjects,— which well repay diligent and loving study, — we are but in the outer courts of the temple. Sights and sounds which transcend all our imaginings, which defy the power of words to render them, — such as eye has not seen, nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, — are open to the Psalmist who '' beholds the fair beauty of Jehovah," who is privileged to " be a guest in His tabernacle, and abide in His holy hill." The doors of the inner sanctuary are open to him, but they will open also to the trembling knock of the humble and the meek. Be ours the grace to enter and adore ! 1 ^inrit of Hebrew PoHry, pp. 72, 73, 88. CHAPTEE IV. THE THEOLOGY OF THE TSALTER — I. THE rSALMIST'S GOD. IN entering the inner shrine of this temple of song, and trying to learn there some of the lessons it has to teach on the highest themes that can occupy the thoughts of man, some preliminary questions suggest themselves. 1. Do the Psalms form a real part of Divine revelation ? It may be said that they contain emphatically the thoughts and feelings of men, rather than the teaching of God ; that they embody the hopes and fears, the complaints and aspirations, of men, saintly, no doubt, men whose words may be read even in these latter days with great profit, but wdio certainly do not bring to us directly a Divine message. We cannot listen, it is said, to the Psalmist praying, as we listen to the prophet preaching ; the prophet is the spokes- man of Jehovah, tlie Psalmist at best is only the representative of humanity. The objection is a 100 THE FSAL.}nST\S GOD. loi natural one, and contains an element of truth, but it is superficial, and the distinction drawn is con- cerned with the form rather than the subject- matter of revelation. The later Jewish theologians distinguished between Riiach liannchuah and B^i.acli hahkodrsli, the inspiration of the prophets and the inspiration of the writers of the Hagiographa ; and undoubtedly tliere is a diherence between the message wdiich comes direct from Jehovah and the indirect reflection of His word and the know- ledge of His will in the minds and lives of Old Testament saiuts. But all revelation in Scripture comes to us through men, and the Psalms are the echo of God's law in the religious expeiience of those who strove to be faithful to it, and as such, are quite as instructive in their place as the in- junctions of the Law^ itself, or the message of the prophets commissioned to declare the mind of God to His people. The Holy Spirit nray be conceived as operating i'rom without or from within upon the mind of the inspired writer, though in both cases through and by means of the operation of the human mind. If from with- out, the messenger is comparatively passive, and has to carry the word "Thus saith the Lord"; if from within, an illustration is furnished of what St. Paul described later in the Epistle to the Komans : " We know not how to pray as we I02 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. ought : but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." It is possible to pray in the Spirit and to give thanks in the Spirit, and the Psalms furnish abundant illustrations of both. Inspiration may be found as truly in prayer and praise as in prophecy, thougli it be of another kind, and may seem to be less immediately Divine. But the chronicler describes Heman as a " seer in tlie words of God" (1 Chron. xxv. 5) as well as a singer or poet (1 Chron. xv. 9) ; and numerous examples might be furnished, in which the work of the prophet merges in that of the Psalmist, or in which the Psalmist assumes the function of the prophet. We need guidance in religious feeling as well as in religious thought and active obedience, and the form of the Psalms, laying open the very fountains of religious experience, brings the operations of the Divine Spirit home very close to the reader's heart, because here are the words of God spoken not so much to man, as in man. Keble, in his preface to the Christian Year, says that " next to a sound rule of faith," there is nothing so important as " a sober standard of feeling," — a characteristically Anglican utter- ance, for the spirit of Christianity is one of " power and love," as well as " of a sound mind." But a standard of religious feeling is given us in THE rSAf.Mlsr'S GOD. 103 the rscilter, and, besides tliis, views of (iod, and prayer, and thanksgiving, and utterances of the soul in the act of communion with (rod, which form a real part of Divine revelation, and are inestimably precious to every devout worshipper. 2. It will not perhaps be seriously objected that we cannot truly learn from the Psalms, because the language is poetical, and that to name the word " theology " in connection with them is to degrade their free, spontaneous utter- ance, bringing it into unnatural bondage to scientific system. Within certain limits this is true enough. The chaiacter of the Psalms must be borne in mind by every student. They are (happily) not cast in the form of a dogmatic treatise, though some commentators are apt to " break a butterfly on the wheel," and build up a metaphysical system out of a series of metaphors. But the beautiful, figurative, often highly charged, language of the Psalms surely has a meaning. It is with that meaning, whether relating to God ori man, Divine truth or human conduct, that we are now concerned. Theology has often been embodied in hymns ; evangelical truth owed much to them in the time of Luther and at the ]\Iethodist revival. Provided we remember the nature of the book we are considering, it cannot be objected that we are dealing unfaiily with 104 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. these spiritual songs, wlieu we try to educe from them the spiritual truth they contain. 3. One other preliminary difficulty remains to be dealt with. May we treat this book as a ^homogeneous whole ? If the view were adopted which would make it entirely a " monument of Church-consciousness " of the later Judaism, the I pure product in thought and in construction of ; the period extending for tw^o or three hundred ; years after the Exile, the book, it is said, might be regarded as one. But if the Psalms extend over a period of eight centuries or more, and ex- press alike the feelings of a David and an Ezra, singers of the early monarchy and scribes of the second century before Christ, may these composi- tions be treated as one whole ? Is no progress of religious thought discernible through all that period ? The answer is, that in the main the I religion of a spiritually minded Jew was one throughout these centuries of Israelitish history. Varying shades and tones of religious thought are perceptible, wdiich Biblical theology should not be slow to recognise. Questions arise during the later stages which had hardly suggested them- selves to earlier thinkers ; further light of revela- tion was given upon some topics as the centuries advanced ; but the God of Israel remained essen- tially the same, the mode of service was the same. THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 105 iiiid the guiding- principles of the religion did not vary. There was undoubtedly some progress in spirituality of conception concerning the Divine Being, in the idea of righteousness, in the study of tlie problems of life, in comprehension of God's designs, and in the hope of immortality : though great care is necessary in describing this progress, and the evolution of thought does not proceed along a few clear and simple lines. Consequently, in our study, it will be necessary sometimes to distinguish between the earlier and later psalms ; but as in the linguistic treatment of the Hebrew, so in the examination of the thought of the Psalms, there is sufhcient unity for us to treat the book as one whole, and the spirituality of its con- ceptions for the most part lifts us above considera- tions of time and place and circumstance. The whole Psalter is the expression of joy or sorrow, desire or apprehension, in relation to the life of God in the soul of man. The chief ques- tions, therefore, we have to ask are, \Yhat view of God is here taken ; what view of man, in his personal religious life and in the religious life of the community ? The present part of our subject falls naturally into three parts, — The Psalmist's God, the religious life in man as depicted in the Psalter, and the view therein taken of the Church and the world. The relation of the Psalms to the io6 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. New Testament, and their witness to Christ, may Ije reserved for separate consideration. The existence of God is here, as elsewhere in the Bible, not proved, but taken for granted. It is so in the first chapter of Genesis. The world needs to be accounted for, not God. He is the " self-evident presupposition of every beginning." So is it with what some hold to be the first line in the Psalter so far as chronological order is con- cerned — "Fervently will I love thee, Jehovah, my strength" (xviii. 1); so also with the last — " Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah. Praise ye Jehovah " (cl. 6). David does not lay a metaphysical foundation for this fundamental article of his creed ; he throws it down like a gage of defiance against the adversaries, chants it like a pa3an of battle, "Jehovah liveth, and blessed be my rock ! " (xviii. 46). It is the " fool," the man who carries the unwisdom of his irre- ligiousness into his theories of life as well as into his conduct, who " says in his heart, There is no God" (xiv. 1). There is a reason for this. Ungodliness in action brings arrogance in thought ; the wicked man holds his head high, but not high enough to see the Divine judgments, which are too high in heaven for him to see (x. 5). Hence " There is no God — this is the sum of all his thoughts " (x. 4). This is a matter on which THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 107 the Psalmist will luirdly condescend to argue; if lie lingers on it for a moment, it is to press home certain unanswerable questions which are addressed to the arrogant ungodly. These have lowered themselves till they can hardly claim the name or dignity or consideration of men, they are the " brutisli " among the people (xciv. 8), — " He that plantetli the ear, shall He not hear ? He that Ibriued the eye, shall He not .see ? He that instructeth the nation.^, shall not He correct, Even He that teacheth man knowledge?" —(xciv. 9, 10.) The modern philosophy of the Unconscious, and the fundamental scepticism of the agnostic, would alike have been unintelligible to the Psalmist, who furnishes in popular language arguments \Aliicli are philosophically impregnaljle, and wliich anticipate the doctrines of despair that have gained such strange currency in the nineteenth century. In the 94th Psalm they are destroyed before they are born. Teleological arguments, cosniological, anthropological, historical — all lie wrapped up in these cogent questionings, as the oak in the acorn. Much is to be learned from the names of God used in the Psalter. The name to the Jew meant the revelation of character. It was not a mere form of speech when David cried, " Jehovah io8 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. uur Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!" But it is not safe to press on all occa- sions the etymological meaning of each of the Divine names. The etymology is indeed more or less uncertain, and, as with ourselves, some Divine names came amongst the Jew^s to be used synony- mously and also indiscriminately. There are three kindred names. El, Eloah, and Elohim, which alike refer to the Deity as such, and are to be translated " God." The first of these in all probability celebrates the might of the " Strong One," the second and tliird point to an object of adoration and worship, but the original meaning of the roots has disappeared in the general meaning of " Deity, sublime and adorable." The second of these words, an artificial, peculiar form, though frequent in the Book of Job, hardly occurs at all in the Psalter ; the first occurs some forty or fifty times, the third, as w^e have already seen, many hundreds of times. It is properly a plural, and while sometimes used in a secondary sense of angelic powers (see xcvii. 7, '' Worship Him all ye gods"), or of heathen divinities (xcvii. 9, '' Exalted far above all gods ") the word is the standard generic one, in the Psalter as elsewhere in the Bible, for the Supreme Being. It is not a proper name of the God of Israel, but " when the God of Israel is called Elohim, He is thereby THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 109 simply described as JJeity, as possessor of a nature which is absohUely sublime, and to which obedi- ence and adoration are due from mortals." ^ The word Adonai, which means Lord, and is translated in E.V. by the word Lord (not printed in capitals, the latter being reserved as a render- ing for the name Jehovah), is used with some frequency in the Psalter, but apparently without special reference to its etymological meaning. Two archaic names are also found : Shaddai, whieli means the Almighty, twice only (see Ixviii. 15 and xci. 1); and El Elyon, God most high, altuut twenty times in all. Canon Clieyne, who in his earlier work on the Psalms, held that this name was " not a sure sign of post-Exilic date," in his later writings seems inclined to maintain that it is. For reasons we cannot now adduce, this seems liardly tenable. The word is used, as is well known, in Genesis xiv. 18, where Melchizedek is said to have been " priest of God most high," but this passage Professor Cheyne holds to be post- Exilic. In the Psalter this title is found in all parts, from the 7th Psalm to the 107th, but it is most frequent in the 2nd and 3rd, or, as they have been called, the Levitical books. A similar phrase is in use among other Semitic nations, and if there be any special connotation in the 1 Schultz, Old Testament Theolotjij, E. Tr., vol. ii. p. 127. no THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. name, it is well given by the familiar English translation. The personal name of the covenant Gocl of Israel was Jehovah.^ Mystery surrounds botli the meaning and pronunciation of this word, but the prevalent opinion is no doubt the true one, that it signifies the Eternal, the Self-Existent, " He who is." No simpler or more sublime title could be given to God, expressing as it does a thought given elsewhere in the form " I, Jehovah, the first, and with the last ; I am He " (Isa. xli. 4). It may very well have been an ancient name of God, but from the time of Moses onwards it had a special significance as the personal name of the covenant God of Israel. Elohim is the Gocl of heaven and earth, all cosmical action of creation and preservation is due to Him ; but Jehovah is the theocratic God, and all Divine activity con- nected wdth history, emphatically the history of tlie cliosen people in relation to " the nations " outside, is properly refeired to JehoMih. He is essentially and inviolably One. " The multi- plicity of Divine powers broken up in polytheism is already summed up into unity in Elohim, but it is as Jehovah that God is first fally recog- ^ Strictly speaking, tlie Tetragrammaton IHVH, with the vowels supplied from another word. But in English it seems better to write *' Jehovah " than " Jahweh," THE PSAl.MJST'S GOD. in iiised as one : and thus inonutlieisiii is one of the cardinal doctrines of ]\l(jsaism — " I am Jehovah, thy God — thou shalt have none otlier gods be- side me" (Ex. XX. 2, o)} In the Psalter the distinction between these two great names of God is by no means lost sight of, but for reasons already explained, we cannot build upon it, as if it were always accurately observed and main- tained. It is noteworthy that the last two books of the Psalter, eminently those of the post-Exilic period, use the name Jehovah almost entirely, since that was the time when the chosen people were most anxious to emphasise their separation from otlier peoples; ^vhile in the late book Ecclesiastes and in the usage of the LXX, this name appears to be avoided, as too sacred for general use. The only other name it seems de- sirable to mention is that of Hahaotli ; the full title being " Jehovah, Eloliim of Sabaoth," i.e. Jehovah, God of Hosts. The title includes the three meanings, God of armies, God of the starry host, and God of the angelic throng. Scholars are divided as to which of these is the primary meaning.- In either case the title is a great and ^ Oehler, Old Testament Theology, vol. i. p. 154, 2 Schrader and Schulz may represent those who advocate tlie first ; Ewald and otliers adopt the last ; the majority, including Kuenen, Delitzsch, and Cheyne, the second. 112 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. noble one, for to the eye of tlie Psalmist the hosts of heaven and earth are but parts of the empire of Him whose kingdom ruleth over all. In the same breath the Lord of Sabaoth is spoken of as ruling with wisdom and mioht, above and below, — " For who in the skies can be compared unto Jeliovah, Who is like unto Jehovah among the sons of God ? Jehovah, God of Hosts, who is a mighty one, hke unto Tliee ? . . . Thou liast broken Rahab (Egypt) in pieces, as one that is slain, Thou hast scattered thine enemies with the arm of thy strength."— (Ixxxix. 6, 8, 10.) A satisfactory settlement of the whole etymo- losjical discussion is found in the words which follow : " The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine" (ver. 11). Jehovah is God of the hosts in earth below and in heaven above. The pious Israelite in time of danger and sudden calauiity linds double assurance in the triumphant refrain, " Jehovah, God of hosts, is with us ; the God of Jacob is our tower of refuge" (Ps. xlvi.). Some- times different names are joined together, as in the description of the solemn appearance of the Judge, when earth and heaven are to testify together to His righteousness, — " El Elohim Jehovah has spoken, And called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof." — (1. 1.) THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 113 The titles here are cuiiiuhitive, and indicate the God of sovereign power and nniversal worship, who is identified with the covenant God of Israel It might appear that in ver. 7 the Elohistic editor has marred the application of the words, which at once recall the solemn appeal of Deuteronomy v., " Hear, Israel: I am Jehovah, thy God"; but the language of the psalm generally emphasises the truth that the speaker from this august judg- ment-seat is Elohim, God of the whole earth. That these names were often used interchangeably we find, for example, in the 86th Psalm, where the tliree names are found, Jehovah four times, Elohim four times, and Adonai seven times; in prayers where, without perceptibly altering the meaning, either of tliese might take the place of either of the others. The chief point to be borne in mind is the surpassing excellence of that Being who unites in His Person the glories to which so many glorious names severally testify. Personal religion depends upon belief in a personal God. It is common in these days to| raise metaphysical difficulties over the question of Divine personality, whether a characteristic which implies limitation can be asserted of the Supreme Being, and the like; but in the Psalms such questions are never raised. The Psalmist cannot conceive of a God without consciousness. H4 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. intelligence, and will. His is a God who tliinks, knows, feels, and loves, who wills and acts, a God who speaks to men and to whom men can speak, who reveals Himself to mankind as the eternal " I Am," and with whom men may liumbly but truly hold communion, echoing an eternal " Thou / art." This feature must not too readily be taken as matter of course; for, strange though it may seem, in the history of religions, man has lieen unable, apart from the Scriptures,^ to preserve in its purity belief in a personal God, and to hold the balance between Polytheism and the errors of earlier times on the one hand, and Materialism and Pantheism, with the errors of later times, on the other. The Bible — and pre- eminent among the books of the Old Testament, the Psalter — is the stronghold of those who believe, in a personal God. The late Professor Clifford, with a melancholy realization of the blank in life created when he felt compelled to give up belief in Christianity and Theism, used the striking expression, "I have lost the Great ^Companion I" It is the glory of the Psalms that they bring us simply, directly, impressively into the very presence of Him wlio, though God over ^ Mohaiiimc'dainsm is but a developed Judaism, reasserting a truth which man owes to Israel, encumbered with errors l)elouiiini( to Ai ;i1)ia of the sixtli centurv. THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 115 all, deigns to be the great Coiii]>aiiion and Friend of His creature man. He it is who says to men, " I will counsel tliee, with Mine eye upon thee ' (xxxii. 8); who invites men to "seek Jehovali and His strengtii, seek His face everm(.>re" (ev. 4). The Psalmist replies, — "[Hast Thou not said] Seek ye my face? My lieait liath ^aid unto Thee, Tliy lace, Jehovali, will I seek," — (xxvii. 8.) And well he may ; for he is assured that, though "father and mother have forsaken him, Jehovah will take him up " (xxvii. 10, li.V.). The thoughts of God are graciously occupied with men, poor and needy though they be (xl. 17). '' How preciou.s also are Thy thoughts to-nie-ward, God! How great is their sum I If I should count tliem, they are more in number than the sand ; When I awake, I am still with Thee." — (cxxxix. 17, 18.) Hence it is possible for heavily-laden man to " roll his way upon Jehovali " (xxxvii. 5) : to "cast upon Jehovah the burden" of his own often anxious or irksome lot, as well as the " heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world." If the Psalmist cannot understand the meaning of the riddle of life, he reasons and ii6 THE PRAISES OP ISRAEL. pleads with a reiterated Wliy, Lord ? How long, Lord ? (Pss. Ixxxviii. and xiii.). It is his one relief to " pour out his heart " (Ixii. 8) before the God who hears prayer, for "The eyes of Jeliovali are toward tlie righteous, And His ears are open unto their cry." — (xxxiv. 15.) Such a God is a refuge indeed : one who is " found exceedingly ! " in time of trouble (xlvi. 1). If God could indeed be silent and deaf unto him, he would " become like them that go down into the pit " (xxviii. 1), the very light of life as if struck out. In carrying out this thought, the Psalmist is not afraid of what in cumbrous modern phraseo- logy are called anthropomorphism and anthropo- pathism. The Psalmist speaks as a man, because I he thinks as a man, but he does not make God \like a man when he uses terms which are neces- sary if man would vividly apprehend a mode of 1.)eing which is above his comprehension. xVll the phrases which describe the eye and hand and arm of God, the wrath and pity and repentance of God, are used only from the practical point of view of one wdio, whatever is said or not said, will nut lose his firm hold of the living God for whom his soul thirsts (xlii. 1). Sometimes the TlIK PSALMIST'S GOD. 117 figures are su bold, that if coined now, tliey wovdd be held to be blasphemous. " Awake, why slcepest Thou, Lord ? . . . Wherefore hid est Thou Thy face, And forgettest our atHictioii and our oppression T' — (xHv. i>3, 24.) Not long after tlie 44th Tsalm was written, John Hyrcanus complained of these words as unworthy of God, and would not allow them to be recited in the liturgy. It was ])ut a shallow criticism. Did the eager soul who cried aloud in the ears of the Ciod of his lathers, and besougiit Him not to leave the children to the hands of the oppressor, need to be reminded that He slumbers not nor sleeps ? AYas Jehovah to him a Baal who might Ije musing, or journeying, or sleeping and needed to be awaked \ Surely there is little danger of misunderstanding when we read the terrible words, — " He that sitteth in the heavt-ns shall kugli, Tlio Lord sliall have tliem in derision." — (ii. 4.) (_)r even the still bolder metaphor, — " Then the Lord awaked as one out of slee}». Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. " — (Ixxviii. 05.) It is easy, from the elevation of modern en- lightenment, to look down upon these " mythic iiS THE PRAISES OE ISRAEL. elements;"' and despise the crudity of such views of God. Let it be remembered that to this day, among earth's wisest sons, there is no language which brings God so near without lowering His majesty, which raises man so high while reminding him of his frailty, as the language of the Psalms. The figures of the Psalms, like the parables of the Saviour, contain spiritual truth for spiritual men. Others smile at them as Jewish myths, or stundjle at tliem as gross anthropomorphisms. ''■ To minds of tlie metaphysic class there is no conveyance of llieistic axioms: to minds of tlie captious tem- perament there is none; to the sensual and sordid, tlie contumacious or the impious, tliere is none. These passages are as a stream of the effulgence of the upper heavens sent down througli an aperture of dense cloud, to rest with a life-giving power of light and heat upon the dwelling of tlie humble worsliipper. Whether this liumble worshipper be one who turns the soil for his daily l)read, or be the occupant of a i)rofessor's chair, it shall 1)0 the same theology that he thence derives: tlie former will not think to ask, and tlie latter will be better trained than to ask, liow it is that the Omnipotent can be said either to be seated on a throne in the upper heaven, or to make earth His footstool."^ These are not metapliysical or ^ Taylor, Spirit of Hehreir Poetry, \\\>. 19, 20. THE PSA f. MIST'S COD. 119 scientific truths, but religious realities ; hence the perpetual freshness witli which we turn to the sublimely simple figures of the Psalms from the laborious abstractions which are the product of the logical understanding, the delight of the pedant, and the despair of the weary and anxious heart, athirst for the living God. These ''anthro- pomorphisms," as a master of Old Testament Theology has well observed, " are in no sense a dimming of the perfect idea of God ; but tliey contain, althougli in a popular dress, the really positive part of tlie statements regarding Him. They^Jiacome the more prominent the warmer religion becomes. While ]X)st-canonical Judaism, ^ in its emptiness and baldness, shuns them, and the Alexandrian scliool, with its intellect dazzled by the splendour of Hellenic speculation, is ashamed to own them. Jesus shows them special favour." 1 The peril of mistaking metapliysical aljstraction for reality was little known in the Psalmist's days. The nations round about Israel were not in danger of worshipping a soulless Entity, or making a god of Humanity with a capital H. They believed in personal gods, wiiom they had indeed made like unto themselves: and the religion of Israel was distinguished from those of surround- 1 Scliultz, Old Testament Theology. E. Ti-., vol. ii. p. 109. I20 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. ing peoples, not so much by their conception of "personality, as by the character of the PersonalTEy" whom they worshipped. Here, again, it is the very simplicity of the Psalms which makes them so true and so valuable to religion. Later re- finements of thought have enumerated sundry " attributes " of God, classified them into natural and moral, defined their relation one to another, and, in too many cases, the living God Himself has vanished amidst the aggregated clouds of an accumulation of abstract qualities. Nay, these liave even 1)een arranged one against the other, — love against justice (as if Divine love could be unjust or Divine justice unloving) and mercy against righteousness, — till the minds of men have become bewildered, and their vision of God has become dim and blurred. There is nothing of this in the Psalms. What we call natural attributes, omniscience and omnipresence, are portrayed, not from a metaphysical, but from a practical point of view, to indicate God's complete supremacy, His superiority to our limitations of place and time, knowledge and ignorance. The moral attri- luites of God are spoken of with the utmost freedom, in succession or simultaneously, with no arribre iic)n6(i of questioning concerning the exact nature of these qualities when ascriljed to the ^lost High, or the way in which they can co-exist THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 121 side by side. The streams which for later u'eiiera- tions flow apart in separate channels, for the Psalmist slumber placidly together in the great mountain-lake of Divine perfection, from which all alike take their rise. The most elaborate description of the eternity of God e^'er penned by the most subtle meta- physician does not equal, either for trutli or l)eauty, the majestic lines, — I '' Loi'd, Tlioii ha.st lieeii our lefugL- 111 all generations. Before the mountaiii.s were l)iouglit fortli, Or ever Tliou gave.-^t birth to the earth and \\w worl.l : Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. For a thousand years are in Thine eyes But as yesterday wlien it passeth, Ami as a watcli in the night."— (xe. 1, 2, 4.) And still those who l)elieve in what theologians call the transcendence and immanence of God in relation to the universe, turn back for its highest expression to words wliich liave uttered the truth once for all, — - Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit ? Or whither sLall I flee from Thy presence \ If I climb into heaven, Thou art there ; If I make my bed in hell, lo, Thou art there. 122 THE PRAISES OE ESRAEE '' If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall Thy hand lead me. And Thy right hand shall hold me." — (cxxxix. 7-10.) There is no questioning liow tliis can be possible for Him ^yho " dwelleth between the cherubim " (Ixxx. 1), who "forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, and cliose the tribe of Judali, the Mount Zion which He loved," saying, " This is my resting- ]dace for ever; here will T dwell, for T have desired it" (Pss. Ixxviii. (>(), (J.S, cxxxii. 4). For tlie B[)irit of the true worshipper there is no contrast between tlie splendours ol" the God that rules on high and the tenderness of Him wlio — " With scarce an intervention presses close And palpitatingly, His soid o'er ours." So at least it is with the T\salmist. He who " telletli the numl»er of the stars " is He who ■' liealetli the broken in heart, aiid bindetli up their wounds" (Ps. cxlvii. o, 4), He is " nigli unto all them that call upon Him in truth." And through all these centuries — except for the teacli- ing of the Lord Jesus Christ, who lias made the conceptions of the Psalmist possilde and real — how much nearer have men approached to an expression of the fundamental truths of religion, what worthier conceptions of God have tliey THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 123 attained, how niiicli nearer heaven have they cUmbed, than the godly men wlio, under the influence of the Spirit, poured r>ut tlieir souls in the music of the Psalms ? There is no need to dwell in detail upon tlie attributes of God celebrated in the Psalter; that, indeed, would mean to transcribe a large part of its contents. It is worth while, however, to illustrate the easy and natural UnuJliuj of Divine attributes mentioned above, for here later crenera- tions have something to learn from the simple piety of devout Israel. Emphasis is laid continu- ally upon one fundamental ethical quality : — " Jehovali is ri^liteous ; He loveth righteousness; The upriuht sliall hehold His face."— (xi. 7.) lUit in order to understand wliat is meant by righteousness, we turn elsewdiere, and find in beautiful conjunction such celestial constellations as these : — " Jehovah, thy loviugkiudness reachetli luito the heavens ; Thy faithfulness unto the clouds. Thy righteousness stancleth like the mountains of ( iod ; Thy judgments are a great deep : Jehovah, Thou preservest man and beast. How precious is Tliy lovingkindness, God I That the children of men can take refuge under the shadow of Thy wings." — (xxxvi. 5-7.) 124 THE PRAISES OF ISRAEL. Jt is a true parallelism when we read, — " He lovetli rigliteousness and judgment ; The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord." — (xxxiii. 5.) He who " is a righteous Judge, a God that luith indignation every day," — as He looks upon a world in which is so much every day to rouse the wrath of the All-Pure, — is the same God whose " mercy endureth for ever." His immutability is not immobility. It is revealed in variations which yet are no changes, though they seem such amidst the clianges of the wayward and fickle sons of men. '' A\'itli the loving Thou sliewest Thyself loving, With the perfect Thon shewe.st Thyself perfect, With the pure Thou shewest Thyself pure, And with the perverse Thou shewest Thyself fro- ward.-'— (xviii. 24, 25.) In these lines stand tlie very pillars of tlie kingdom of truth and moral order; they explain, moreover, much of wdiat seems like the irony of human history. There may lie a secret in them which every num cannot unravel, but there is no inconsistency in the ] )ivine character thus limned with a few strokes. With Him is forgiveness; with Him is lovingkindness and plenteous re- ilemption : but not tliat He may be slighted as THE PSALMIST'S GOD. 125 an easy and too-indulgent ruler, but " that Thou niayest be feared" (cxxx. 4). True religious reverence is reserved for Hiui wlio can both create and destroy, both punish and Ibrgive. In Him, not once, but evermore, " Mercy and truth are met together, Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." — (Ixxxv. 10.) Hence the paradox, which is none to him who reads with care, — " Thine, too, Jehovah, is lovingkindness, For Thou renderest to every man according to his work."— (Lxii. 12.) Do men call this quality justice ? The Psalmist teaches a deeper lesson. As Canon Cheyne says in one of the many admirable notes of his Commentary, — a book less known than it deserves, through the attention attracted by the extreme utterances of his Baiivpton Lectures, — " Lovingkindness is that gracious cjuality which knits together the members of a connuunity and the parties to a covenant ; it is therefore not inconsistent \\i\X\ justice : indeed, it is one form of justice. Such a quality in its highest degree alone can unravel the tangled skein uf human responsibility, and deteiinine how much in each human life is the ' work " of the man, and how 126 7^ HE PRAISES OE ISRAEL. iiiucli tliat of otlier members of the community."^ The point of view of the rsahnist here is one from which the moralist may learn a much-needed lesson. There are two qualities ascribed to God in the Tsalms, each of wliich it is ditticult to render by a single word. The first of these is the one just referred to, chescd, best translated " lovingkind- ness " : the other is anavah, " gentleness;"' or '■ low- liness." The first indicates both the covenant- love of God to His people, and the response made to it by men who are i'aithful to the terms of that gracious covenant. This mutual relation clothes the various uses of the word with great beauty and suggestiveness, but it makes it particu- larly ditticult to translate. Of it the Psalmist speaks when he says, " I have trusted in Thy lovingkindness " ; explaining the word in the next verse — " For Jehovah hath dealt bountifully with me" (xiii. 5, 6). But it is often closely joined with faithfulness, as in Psalm xcviii. 3, and can only be understood as the Divine side in a mutual relation between God and those who are called chasidim — translated "saints" (1. 5), " godly" (Ixxxvi. 2) — the faithful, loving ones whose names stand in the covenant-bond, and ^ The Jiovk of P.-