'% PRINCETON, N. J. Dh'ision . . . . Jq5. .1 ."^3 ^ Section . . . i . !^.« . HT ./ni lit- ■ plying idolatries io take Jehovah for his 'inheritance,' xvi. 4-6, coinciding with I Sam. xxvi. 19. Ps. xi. i, " Flee as a bird," with i Sam. xxvi. 20, xiii. 6 : his flight not ultimately inconsistent with Ps. xi. I : I Sam. xix. 18, Neh. vi. II. Triumph of his faith over fear, i Sam. xxvii., xxviii., xxix. xxx. 6, Jer. iii. 23. Jehovah counselled David by Abiathar : Ps. xvi. 7 with i Sam. xxii. 20, xxiii. 2, 4, 6, 9, xxx. 7, 8. Contrast Saul's retributive doom for shuffling transgression: i Chr. x. 13, i Sam. xxviii. 6, 7, Isa. iii. 9, 11. SYLLABUS. His rebellion, as foretold, ended in witchcraft : l Sam. xv. 23. Contrast Ps. cxxxix. 24, xvii. I, 3, 4. David's being "kept from evil": I Sam. xxiv. 9, XXV. 39, xxvi. 9. " Plead my cause," Ps. xxxv. I, xliii. I, coinciding with I Sam. xxv. 39. Messiah's resurrection, Ps. xvi. 9, 10, as proved by Acts ii 26. So the saints : John viii. 51 Pages 24 — 32 LECTURE V. "How long ?" four times. Ps. xiii. coincides with l .Sam. xxvii. I. Jehovah's answer, Isa. xlix. 15. Again, liv. 8. Coincidence of Ps. xiii. 3, " Lighten mine eyes," with i Sam. xiv. 24-29 ; also Ps. xix. 8. Two Psalms of the time of David's sojourn with Achish of Gath, xxxiv., Ivi. Prayer for deliver- ance : thanks for it. Goliath's sword: i Sara. xxi. 8-12, xxvii., xxix. Ps. Ivi. 13, title, Jonath, Elem, Rechokim ; compare Iv. 6. Coincidence ot Iv. 12-14, concerning Ahithophel and Absalom, and the city and its divided counsels, strife, sorrow, and wickedness, with 2 Sam. xvi. 21-23. ' Dumb,' Ps. xxxviii. 13, with I Sam. xviii. 14.I Ps. xxxiv. title and 12-14 with i Sain. xxi. 13. Abimelech for Achish : compare Gen. xx. and xxvi. " Wrest my words," Ps. Ivi. 5, with I Sam. xxiv. 9. "Shall they escape by iniquity?" Ps. Ivi. 7, with I Sam. xiii. 14, xv. 26. " My wanderings . . . tears . . . Thy bottle," Ps. Ivi. 8, with i Sam. xxvi. 20, Ps. cxxvi. 5, Isa. Ixi. 7. "Thy vows upon me," Ps. Ivi. 12, 13, fulfilled in Ps. xxxiv. David, the "poor man," 'cried' and was 'saved.' " Thou hast known my soul in adversities," Ps. xxxi. 7, with 2 Sam. iv. 9, i Kings i. 29. "The angel of Jehovah en- campeth about them that fear Him," Ps. xxxiv. 7, with i Sam. xxix. jQ, Gen. xlviii. 16, Ex. iii., iv., Isa. Ixiii. 9.' The same angel chaseth their persecutors, Ps. xxxv. 5, 6. Ps. Ixxxvi. 2, "Preserve my soul, for I am pious," with xvi. I, 10; Ixxxvi. 8 with xvi. 4, 5, and i Sam. xxvi. 19, and Ps. Ixxxvi. 12 with Ivi. 13, cxvi. 9. "Jehovah keepeth all his bones," xxxiv. 20, with I Sam. xxi. 10-15. " The Philistines took him . . . in their hands." Ps. viii. title, 'Gittith,' from Gath : ver. 2, David 'stilled' Goliath. "All my bones shall say. Who is like imto Thee ? " xxxiv. 20, xxxv. 10, with 2 Sam. vi. 14. Ps. xxx. II, "Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing." John xix. 36, Ex. xii. 46, I Thess. v. 23 . Pages 33 — 41 LECTURE VI. The Psalms liturgical ; a spiritual storehouse for expressions of the Church's ex- periences. " Jehovah's pri\'y council is with them that fear Him," Ps. xxv. 14, compared with i Sam. xxiii. 6, 9, xxx. 7, 8, 2 Sam. ii. i. Contrast Saul's . impatience, I Sam. x. 8, xiii. 8, 14, xiv. 18, 19, Num. xxvii. 21, Isa. xxviii. 16, with David, i Chr. xiv. 8-16. Ps. xxvii. 8 ("Seek ye my face . . . Thy facewill I seek"), x.\iv. 6, Deut. iv, 29, Ex.xxxiii. 14. Isa. Ixiii. 9, Gen. xxxii. 30, coinciding with 2 Sam. xxi. i, "David sought Jehovah's /(7r^." Jehovah's ' covenant ' for ever : Ps. xxv. 14 with Ixxxix. 3, 4, 28, 34, 37 ; xviii. 50, xxi., with I Chr. xvi. 7, 15, 19, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, 2 Sam. vii. 13. Contrast to the foe perishing "for ever": Ps. xxxviii. 9, ix. 6. Amalek, Ex. xvii. 16 (margin) : Amalek, whom Saul ought to have destroyed, Saul's destroyer : I Sam. XV., 2 Sam. i. 8-10. David thrice their punisher : i Sam. xxvii. 8, xxx. 17, 2 Sam. viii. 12. Amalek's last effort against God foiled : Ps. Ixxxiii. SYLLABUS. with 2 Chr. xx. Simeon, Amalek's last destroyer, i Chr. iv. 42, 43 ; com- pare Dan. ii. 35, 44. David's love to God's house, Ps. xxvi. 8, Ixix. g, coinciding with 2 Sam. xv. 25, i Chr. xxix. 2, 3. The Antitype, John ii. 13-17. Saul's misplaced zeal, 2 Sam. xxi. 2, 7. Contrast Ps. xv. 4. Pages 42 — 49 LECTURE VII. The city Adullam in the Shefelah : Gen. xxxviii. I, 12, 20. The cave, IVady Khurcitun, Ayd-el-Mieh: i Sam. xxi. 10, xxii. i, "David's brethren went down thither." David at Mizpeh of Moab left his father and mother in charge of the king of Moab. Reason : Saul had warred with Moab, i Sam. xiv. 47. The Moabitess Ruth, David's ancestress. God's warning, "Abide not in the hold." Cause of David's severity against Moab, 2 Sam. viii. 2. Coincidence : Ps. xxvii. 2, 10, Ezek. xvi. 4-6, Isa. xlix. 15, Josh. xx. 4. Ps. xxvi. 9, "Gather . . . my soul": Matt, xxiii. 37. The Antitype misunder- stood by kinsmen : Ps. Ixix. 8 with Mark iii. 21, 31, Luke ii. 35, Matt. xii. 47, John vii. 5. Eliab's gratuitous rebuke, David's meek reply, i Sam. xvii. 28, 29, confirm the genuineness of Ps. xxxviii. 13, 14. The Moabite stone coincides with Gen. xix. 30-38, 2 Kings iii. 4, 5, 8-10, 23-27. Identity of language and idiom with Hebrew: Ps. liv. 7, lix. 10. Moab's subjection to Israel, Isa. xvi. i, coinciding with Ps. Ix. 8. David's sense of Nahash's kindness : 2 Sam. x. 2 ; Hanun's insolence and punishment. Connection of David with Nahash : i Sam. xi. 2 Sam. xvii. 27, Shobi's kindness to David, Cause of Machir's esteem for David, and provision for his wants when exiled : Ps. xviii. 25, xxiii. 5. Black obelisk from Nimroud omits Moab. Pages 50 — 58 LECTURE VIII. Order of the Psalms. Pss, i. and ii. Preface, i. 2, ii. i. 'Blessed' : Matt. v. 3. Principle of arrangement, spiritual affinity, not chronology. Messiah throughout. Acts ii. 25-27, 34. Written for us: i Peter i. 11, 12; Luke xxiv. 25, 27, 44, 46. Trilogy, xxii., xxiii., xxiv. Death scene ; Rest in Para- dise : Ascension ; Davidic thought in Ps. xxii. 5, xxv. 2, 3, xxxi. i ; xxii. 12 with Ps. Ixviii. 30; xxii. 13 with Ps. xxxv. 21. The believer's leaf, as well 3.% fruit, unwithering : Ps. i. 3, Eccl. iii. i-ii. Rev. xxii. 2; contrast Matt. xxi. 19. David's conscientiousness : sixth commandment : i Chr. xi. 15-19, I Sam. xxiv. 5, 2 Sam. xxiv. 10, answering to Ps. xix. 7-13. "Poured out like water," Ps. xxii. 14, i.e. powerlessness, as i Sam. vii. 6, 2 Sam. xiv. 14. Messiah in Ps. xxii. i, 31 : "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" " He hath done," i.e. finished, redemption : John xix. 30, Rev. xvi. 17, xxi. 6. Ps. xxii. 10, "I was cast upon Thee from the womb": Iv. 22, Isa. xlii. 1, Job xiii. 15, Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16. Ps. xxii. 13, "They gaped upon me," etc., with xxxv. 21. "They pierced my hands," etc., English version, xxii. 16, agrees with LXX., Vulg., Syr., etc. "They part my garments — cast lots upon — vesture," ver. 18. Transition: ver. 21, "Thou hast heard me." Blessed results, ver. 22-31, Rom. xi. 5, 26-32, 2 Cor. iii. 16, Ezek xl.-xlvii. Ps. xxii. 30, "A seed shall serve Him," with Isa. liii. 10. Imagery of Ps. xxiii., " The Lord is my Shepherd," with 2 Sam. vii. I, 8, "I took thee from the sheep- cote" (Gen. xlix. 24.) The iir?ie, when " the Lord had given him rest" SYLLABUS. 2 Sam. vii. i, with Ps. xxiii. 2, "He leadeth me beside the waters of quietnesses J' ' leadeth ' gently and gradually : Gen. xxxiii. 14 (Jacob) : Mark iv. 33, John xvi. 12 (the Lord Jesus). Ps. viii. 3, "When I consider the heavens," etc., suitable to a shepherd watching: Luke ii. "The valley of the shadow of death" not a shadow, but deepest death gloom: Ps. xxiii. 4, xliv. 19. "Thy rod" for counting sheep, Lev. xxvii. 32, Jer. xxxiii. 13. Sonship: Job x. 14, 28, 29. "Thy staff" : compare I Sam xvii. 40. "Save me from the lion's mouth," Ps. xxii. 13, 21, with i Sam. xvii. 37. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies," Ps. xxiii. 5, with 2 Sam. xvi. i, 2, 14, xvii. 27-32. Ziba, Machir (compare ix. 4), Shobi, Barzillai, answer to "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" Ps. Ixxviii. 19. " Ow/j/ goodness shall yi?//<7Zi; me," in spite oi ht% following me, Ps. xxiii. 6. Ver. 5, "Thou anointest my head," with i Sam. xvi. 13. Sudden rise of Israel to a wide kingdom under David from its depression (l Sam. xiii. 19) only possible just when Egypt and Assyria were depressed. Pages 59—65 LECTURE IX. Qualifications for " dwelling for ever in the Lord's house," Ps. xxiii. 6. xxiv. 3, "Who shall 7-ise in His holy place?" 2 Chr. vi. 10, Job xix. 25, John iii. 13,1. 51, vi. 62. Ps. XV. 2, "Who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle?" Ex. xxxiii. 7 ; contrast Rev. iii. 12, Ps. Ixv. 4. Messiah's holiness, the ground of His ascension, John i. 14, viii. 7, 45, 46, xiv. 6, 30 : "spoke the truth in heart": no "backbiting nor evil to neighbour" : contemned vile person" (Matt. xxii. 16) : "honoured them that feared the Lord." Ps. xv. 2-5, " reward taken against Him innocent" : Matt, xxvii. 6. Ps. xxiv., "The earth is the Lord's, and all that fills it — the habitable world,'' a first -day psalm, at David's bringing up the ark : 2 Sam. vi., vii., I Chr. xiii., xv. Uzza's error and breach : Perez-Uzza a sad contrast to Baal-Perazim, 2 Sam. v. 20. Compare Ps. Ix. i. Hence David's strict charge of sanctification, i Chr. xv. 12, 13, coinciding with Pss. xv., xxiv. Ps. xxiv. 4, "clean hands" : so xxvi. 6: ver. 8, "Lord, I have loved Thine house," with i Chr. xxix. 3. Ps. xxiv. I with I Chr. xxix. 14, "All things come of Thee." Zion the seat of the ark, the centre of Israel's devotion, 2 Sam. xv. 25. Preliminary vindication by David of Jehovah's omnipresence, Ps. xxiv. I ; as I Chr. xxix. 11-16 : Solo- mon's, 2 Chr. vi. 18; Stephen's, Acts vii. 48-50; Isaiah's, before the millennial temple, Ixv. 17, 18, 25, Ixvi. I, 2, 12, 23, Ezek. xl.-xlvii., Jer. iii. 17, 18. "The King of glory" enters at His ascension, Ps. xxiv. 7-10 : "The Lord of hosts — mighty in battle," coinciding with i Sam. xvii. 45-47. "Lift up the voice of joy," not the "soul unto vanity": so heaven's gates "lift up their heads," i Chr. xv. 16. Ps. xxiv. 4, 6, "They that seek Thy face (are) Jacob " : Gen. xxviii. 2, xxxii. 30, Hos. xii. 4 . . Pages 66 — 77 LECTURE X. The Psalter one whole, in five books. Acts i. 20, Luke xx. 44. A poetical Pentateuch, from Moses to Malachi. Each book marked by a closing doxology : xli., Ixxii., Ixxxix., cvi., cl. First book, all David's : The 'temple,' ver. 7, no objection, i Sam. i. 9, iii. 3, Gen. xxviii. 22; nor the SYLLABUS. phrase for reversing misfortune, " When the Lord bringeth back the captivity" Ps. xiv. 7, Job xlii. lo. " Salvation — out of Zion " disproves a date after the Babylonian captivity. Judg. xviii. 30, "the captiyity of the land,"-?'.^., the capture of the ark: i Sam. iv. 10, il, vii. 14, Ps. Ixxviii. 60, 61. "Jacob shall rejoice" etc., coinciding with i Sam. vi. 13, "They of Bethshemesh rejoiced io see the ark." Twenty years at Kirjath-jearim. Ps. xiv. 5, liii. 5, "They (the Philistines) were in great fear (where) no fear was," coinciding with I Sam, vii. 2, % 8, 10. The cause: "God is in the generation of the righteous"; the conseqtience{Y'i.\\\\. 5) : " God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee." They "shamed . . . the poor," xiv. 6 : so Jehovah "put them to shame," liii. 5. "Jehovah is Israel's refuge," xiv. 6 : so " God despised" Israel's foes, liii. 5. Ebenezer, i Sam. vii. 12. Further reversal of Israel's oppression by the Philistines : i Sam. xiii. 19-22, 2 Sam. v. 20-25. Crowning of it, "Let us bring again the ark," i Chr. xiii. 1-3, coinciding with Ps. xiv. 7. Ps. XV., about entrance into the tabernacle for the ark, naturally follows xiv. The 'joy ' and 'gladness,' David " dancing before the Lord with all his might," 2 Sam. vi. 12, 14, i Chr. xv. 25, answer to Ps. xiv. 7, "Jacob shall rejoice and Israel be glad." "The fool" (Nabal) suddenly in fear where so recently he was in no fear : i Sam. xxv. 25, 36, 37 ; Ps. xiv. i, 5, liii. 5; Luke xii. 16-20; 2 Sam. iii. 33. Saul, i Sam. xxvi. 21. Heartless selfishness toward man, and disregard of God, characterize Nabal : refusing bread \.o David ; with Ps. xiv. 4, liii. 4, " The workers of iniquity eat up my people as . . . bread, and call not upon Jehovah." Muth-labben, title Ps. ix.: " My lord lighteth the battles of the Lord" — " thine enemies shall He sling out of a -sling," i Sam. xxv. 28, 29, with xvii. 49, 50. Reason for twofold form of Psalm ; xiv., liii. : Liturgical Maschil : Elohim alone in liii. Gen. vi, 5, 12, with liii. I, 2, etc. : " Corrupt are they," etc. : Luke xvii. 26, 27. Ex. vi. 3, "By my name Jehovah was I not known," i.e., in fulfilling the promises of which the name is the pledge Pages 78 — 85 LECTURE XL Infidel's scoff, because of David's fall, fulfils Scripture: 2 Sam. xii. 14, "Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme": Jer xvii. 9, I Sam. xiii. 14, Eph. ii. 5, Rom. xi. 20, 2 Cor. i. 24. Overmled to good. Occasion of writing two precious Psalms — xxxii., li. Title, li., Nathan had gone utito David, according as he had gotte in to Bathsheba ": the same verb and preposition as 2 Sam. xii. i, 14 : connection of sin and condemnation, especially in the case of God's children : Amos iii. 2, i Peter iv. 17. " Trans- gressions, iniquity, sin" (Ps. li. I, 2) met by "the multitude of Thy tender mercies." " Multiply to wash me," ver. 2, 7, as the leper, Lev. xiv. 4-9. " Against Thee only I sinned," Ps. li. 4, with 2 Sam. xii. 9, 13, Gen. xxxix. 9, Contrast Saul, i Sam. xv. 30, shifting the blame on the people : whereas David's concern is for the people, lest his sin should hurt them (i Chx. xxi. 17): " I it is that have sinned, and done evil : " so Ps. li. 4, 8. Saul's plea for disobedience in order to ' sacrifice ' : Samuel refutes it : " Hath the Lord as great delight in bwf it-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying?" etc., 1 Sam. XV. 21-28. David's plea, " Thou desirest not sac7-ifice — Thou dclightest not in burnt-offering^' : undesigned coincidence. Heartless sacrifices rejected, hearty SYLLABUS. sacrifices acceptable, Ps. li. i6, 17, 19. " Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," II : undesigned coincidence with i Sam. xvi. i, 13, 14. "Uphold me with a ready spirit," Ps. li. 12 : ex. 3, I Chr. xxix, 14, 17, contrast with i Chr. x. 13, "Saul died for \ns s/itijiing transgression." " Renew a stadlis/wd s^\ui within me," Ps. li. 10, with i Chr. xxix. 18, " i'/rtM'j// their heart ": Ps. x. 17 (margin), Ixxviii. 37. Ps. li. 14, " Deliver me from bloods. Thou God of my sal- vation," harmonizing with 2 Sam. xi. 17, xii. 9. xvi. 7. 'Justifies' God: Ps. li. 3, xxxix. 9, with 2 Sam. xii. 23, Lev. xxvi. 43, 2 Chr. xii. 6, Lev. x. 1-3. " Build walls of Jerusalem," Ps. li. 18, not after the captivity, but agreeing with i Chr. xi. 5-8. Prayer heard, i Kings iii. I, xi. 15. David's promise, '"I will teach transgressors," Ps. li. 13. Fulfils it : Maschil, x.\xii. 8, 9. " Sin. iniquity, transgression," ver. 5 : David's exceptional fall, i Kings xv. 5. Pain whilst he " kept silence.'' Forgiveness realized upon confession, Ps. xxxii. 3-5, with li. 3-5. 'Sin' missing the mark; Rom. iii. 23. Contrast i Sam. xiii. 9-14, XV. 9-30 Pages 86—93 LECTURE XIL Revolt against Messiah, Ps. i., ii.; so iii., iv., against David the type. David's ex- periences, the mould in which the Spirit casts His prophecies about Messiah : the sufferings and consequent glory : " God " set apart " as King. David the type of Him whose kingdom shall not pass. Ps. ii. 6, iv. 3, Dan. vii. 14. Title of Ps. iii., Mizinor. The idea on David's way to Mahanaim. Absalom not named. " How are they increased that trouble me ! " ver. i, with 2 Sam. XV. 12. David's flight strange in one so brave. 2 Sam. xix. 9. Conscience, Ahithophel, " the man of my peace " — counsellor — acquainted with my secrets : XV. 12, xvi. 23, John xv. 15 ; type of Judas, with Ps. xii. 9, Iv. 12-14. Joined Absalom at once, "while he offered sacrifices,^' 2 Sam. xv. 7, 8, 12. Hypo- critical imitation of Jacob's vow : Gen. xxviii. 20, 21, with Ps. iv. 5, "Offer j«f/-//fa'j of righteousness." Ahitlwphel's treachery, Ps. Iv. 20, 21, xxxi. 13. Cause : father of Eliani or Ammiel, Bathsheba's father : 2 Sam. xi. 3, xxiii. 34, 39 : Uriah and Eliam fellow-ofnceus of the thirty-seven bodyguards. Absalom's incest a claim to the throne, and a bond of union in irreconcilable war, by Ahithophel's devilish coimcil. Retribution on David : 2 Sam. xii. 11, 12 : '• I will smite tl\e king only . . the saying pleased Absalom," 2 Sam. xvii. 1-3 : contrast David, 2 Sam. xviii. 5, ''Deal gently for my sake with Absalom," with Ps. cix. 4, 5. David's prayer, 2 Sam. xv. 31 : Ahithophel's net caught himself," Ps. xxxv. 7, 8: "Make their own tongue fall upon themselves," Ixiv. 8 : Absalom's corpse cast into a 'pit ': 2 Sam. xviii. 17, Ps. Iv. 23, cix. 17. Psalm V. a morning hymn : Upon Nehiloth, " concerning the lots " of the righteous and the wicked : ' leasing ' of Absalom : ver. 5-7, '• fall by their own counsels," with 2 Sam. xvii. 14, 23. '• I will come into Thine house," with 2 Sam. .\v. 25 ; '"I will not be afraid of ten thousands (Ps. iii. 6), with 2 Sam. xvii. i; " I cried unto the Lord " (I's. iii. 4), with 2 Sam. xv. 31 ; '-I will lay me down \\\ peace" (Ps. iv. 8), with 2 Sam. xvi. 1-4. David conferred all Mepluljosheth's goods on Ziba. Supply of food and wine, answering to I's. iv. 7, •• Thqu hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time their corn and wine increased." The revolters' cry, " Who will show us any good?" Ps. iv. 2-6: Absalom's 'leasing' or lying promises, 2 Sam. xv. 2-6. •• Sons of heroes " as they thought themselves, they " loved vanity " in setting SYLLABUS. aside God's appointment. Ps. iv. 2, 3, with i Sam. xv. 28. To their taunt, " No salvation for him in God " (Ps. iii. 2), David answers (ver. 8), " Salvation belongeth unto Jehovah." Absalom's 'anointing' (2 Sam. xix. 10) through vanity, fear, indecision : command in person : locks of beauty, the instru- ment of perishing : loss of children. Ps. xxi. i-io, with 2 Sam. xiv. 27, xviii. 9, I4> 18 Pages 94—103 LECTURE XIII. Counsel to Absalom's party, " Stand in awe, and sin not ... be still," Ps. iv. 4 ; compare Eph. iv. 26, "Be ye angry, and sin not": Mark iii. 5, " Let not the sun go down upon your ivratJi." Selah : Pss. Ixi., Ixii., Ixiii. Neginath : Davids stringed instrument, Amos vi. 5, with i Sam. xvi. 23 {Niggeen). " From the end of the earth," Ps. Ixi. 2 : "in the wilderness of Judah," title Ps. Ixiii., compai-ed with 2 Sam. xv. 23, 28, xvii. 16: Ps, Ixiii. i, "My soul thirsteth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land," with 2 Sam. xvi. 2, 14. " Weary . . . they refreshed themselves." Ps. xlii. 6, " I will remember Thee from the land of Jordan and the Hermons," when David had reached the trans-Jordanic region. But Ps. Ixiii. i, 2, when he was still on this side Jordan : "My soul thirsteth for Thee ... in the sanctuary," with 2 Sam. xv. 24, 25, i Chr. xxix. 3, Ps. Ixi. 4, with 2 Sam. vii. 16. Pss. xx., xxi. : David's prayers drew forth God's promises : xxi. 2, Ixi. 5, " Thou hast heard my vows," with 2 Sam. vii. 3, " All that is in thine heart." " Thou settest ■& crown of pure gold on his head," with 2 Sam. xii. 30, "the Ammonite king's crown — a talent of gold — set on David's head." " Some trust in chariots and horses, but we will remember . . . Jehovah," Ps. xx. 7, with 2 Sam. viii. 3-6, i Chr. xviii. 3-5, i Sam. xvii. 45. David's singleness of trust, Ps. Ixii. i, 2, 4, 5, 6 : contrast their all, iv. 7. " They only consult to cast him down from his excellency," Ixii. 4, with Gen. xlix. 3 : coinciding with 2 Sam. xv. 14 (margin " tlie evil "), 2 Sam. xii. 10, II. "Only to God is my soul silence," Ps. Ixii. i. The rebels trust in "men of low degree," and some " of high degi-ee," and "riches increased by robbery," Ixii. 9, 10, with 2 Sam. xv. 12 ; Ps. Ixiii. 9, 11, with Job xxxiii. 11 ; Ps. Ixiii. 6, with iv. 4. " Thou renderest to every man according to his work," Ps. Ixii. 12, with I Sam. xxvi. 23, 2 Sam. iii. 39. " In the shadow of Thy wings," Ps. Ixiii. 7, xvii. 8, with Ruth ii. 12. Fulfilment of Ps. Ixiii. 9-11, " Those that seek my soul (coinciding with 2 Sam. xvi. 11) shall be for sudden destruction ... a portion for jackals": 2 Sam. xviii. 7, 8 . Pages 104 — 109 LECTURE XIV. Hebrew versification, parallelism of ideas, " thought rhythm." Enoch, in Judo 14, earliest instance : contrast to Lamech, Gen. iv. 23, 24. Acrosticism of David, ix., X., XXV., xxxiv. ; help to memory in loosely connected poems. More regularity, less simplicity, in later acrostic Psalms : cxi., cxii., every half- verse marked by a letter : cxix., every eight verses. Aleph in ver. i, 2, and Resh in ver. 18, 19, of XXV. "Thy bowels of mercies," ver. 6, with Luke i. 78, "Look upon mine affliction," — " consider mine enemies" (Shimei) : " Let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him. Curse David " — a meek spirit (2 Sam. xvi. 5-12), coinciding with Ps. xxv. 8-10, "The meek will He teach His SYLLABUS. way " : xxxvii. 7, Ixii. i : " May be i . . the Lord will look on mine affliction " (2 Sam. xvi. 12), "and requite me good for his cursing," with cix. 28, "Let them curse, but bhss Thou " : Deut. xxiii. 5. Shimei's curse returned on himself: " The Lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head," i Kings ii- 44, 45' coinciding with Ps. vii. 16. Imprecations in the Psalms not personal revenge ; for David spared Saul and Shimei in his power : "I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy," vii. 4 ; xxxviii. 13, " I as a deaf man heard not . . . in whose mouth are no reproofs " : Isa. xlii. 2, liii. 7. xxxvii. 7, Ixii. I. Announces, as the Spirit's mouthpiece, Gocfs retribution on the wicked. Matt, xxiii. 13-39 : Israel's final redemption out of all troubles, Ps. xxv. 22, Zech. xii., xiii., xiv. Will plead Jehovah's " loving-kindnesses ever of old," Ps. xxv. 6, 14, 17; Isa. Ixiii. 7. David's plea, Jehovah's '' name^word— covenant'' Ps. xxv. 11, 14, coinciding with 2 Sam. vii. 21, 26, "For Thy word's sake, let Thy name\it. magnified" : 2 Sam. xxiii. 5 . Pages no— 115 LECTURE XV. Use of Elohim and Jehovah : Elohim in the first three books, by David, Asaph, and the sons of Korah. David's Jehovah Psalms are in the later books ; except cviii. having Elohim six times, and cxliv. once. So David uses Elohim in 2 Sam. vii. and i Chr. xxviii. 20, xxix. i ; in Book IV. Elohim not once ; in Book V. Jehovah 236 times, Elohim seven times, and that in David's Psalms. Reason : Ps. xviii. 31, "Who is Elohim but Jehovah?" When the 'Elohim' of heathendom were worshipped by Israel, latterly ' Jehovah ' marked the true God. '■ The prayers of David are ended," Ps. Ixxii. 20— ix. his serial Psalms, not his detached ones. David's conflict with Syria, Damascus, xliv., Ix., cviii. ; xliv. whilst Edom was invading Israel, and David warring with the Syrians at the Euphrates. David's style appears in Ix. : rapid transitions, energetic brevity, victory in part gained, needed completion. Title. '" when David had laid waste Syria of the two rivers (between Tigris and Euphrates) and Syria-Zobah " (between Euphrates and Orontes). with 2 Sam. viii. 3-6, x. 16-19, I Chr. xix., " the Syrians beyond the river" (or " of the two rivers." Ps. Ix. title), Hadadezer's vassals (" his servants,") his commander-in-chief, Sho- phach, over their army : i Chr. xviii. 3, with title Ps. Ix. '• Edomites," in i Chr. xviii. 12, insert, '"and smote Edom," 2 Sam. viii. 13. Campaign against the Syrians, 2 Sam. viii. and x. That against Edom followed immediately : 2 Sam. viii. 12-14; so title Ps. Ix. Hadad-ezer— '• Hadad (the sun-god) his helper." Nicolas of Damascus mentions three defeats : 2 Sam. viii. 3-5, x. iS. " David's shield of gold." viii. 7, with Song Sol. iv. 4. Ps. xliv.. by the sons of Korah when Edom seized the opportunity of invading Palestine whilst without defenders, and carrying off captives (ver. 11, 14, 16). and slaying many (ver. 22), unde- signedly coinciding with I Kings xi. 15-16, " Joab went /// (to the Holy Land) to bury the slain. .... \\\\cxi David was in Edom after he had smitten every male in Edom.'" Edom's violence pro\okcd this terrible revenge. Ps. Ix. 1-3. David as king (2 Sara. viii. 13). Joab as commander-in-chief (.title Ps. Ix.), and Abishai (i Chr. xviii. 12), under Joab, dealt the blow in the valley of Salt, south of the Dead Sea: 12,000 slain, title Ps. Ix., but 18,000 in i Chr. xviii. 12. Seeming discrepancies disprove collusion. " Thou hast scattered us among the heathen" (Ps. xliv. 11), not the Babylonian captivity ; for still they had 'armies' (ver. 9), and kept " God's covenant " (ver. 17-22), and so could b SYLLABUS. anticipate victory (ver. 5). "Jehovah going before" (ver. 9) coincides with 2 Sam. V. 24. Ultimate scope, Rom. viii. 36. Ps. xliv. 16, Edom, " the voice of him that blasphemeth," Amos i. 6, 9, Joel iii. 19. Strong language of Ps. xliv. accounted for. Shushan-Eduth, Ps. Ix. "I will divide Shechem — Succoth — Gilead — Manasseh — ^Judah my lawgiver " : just what David would quote from Jacob (Gen. xlix. 10) in support of his kingship. " Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee," Ps. Ix. 4 — i.e., the victory over Syria and Edom: 2 Sam. viii. 13, x. 17-19, i Chr. xviii. 12, xix. 19. "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe " {i.e., take possession of it) : Ruth iv. 7 ; so 2 Sam. viii. 14, i Chr. xviii. 13. "The strong city" (Sela or Petra), 2 Kings xiv. 7, Ps. Ix. 10, "Didst not go out with our armies," referring back to Ps. xliv. 9. " Thy beloved . . , save with Thy fight hand," Ps. Ix. 5, with Deut. xxxiii. 12 : Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah," 2 Sam. xii. 25. " Moab is my washpot " (Ps. Ix. 8) suits a time when Moab, Edom, and Philistia were prostrate. Ephraim and Judah were one kingdom (ver. 7), which they ceased to be after Solomon. Ps. cviii., in its latter part the duplicate of Ix., makes Edom type of all God's foes : first of a trilogy, grouped by later hands with post-captivity Psalms, to comfort the Jews of that time . Pages 116 — 124 LECTURE XVI. Ps. xviii. : 2 Sam. xxii. " To the chief musician " : concluding liturgical praise- song, in reviewing all his past deliverances. " Servant of Jehovah " : Pss. xviii. and xxxvi., Deut. xxxiv. 5, 2 Sam. xxiii. i. The wicked man's 'trans- gression' his 'oracle.' Contrast Acts xiii. 36. Self-commendation (Ps. xviii. 21, 23) not from David, but the Spirit : I Kings xiv. 8. What he prayed for on the ground of ' righteousness ' ( I Sam. xxvi. 23, 24), he, in Ps. xviii. 20, marks as granted on the same ground. " It is God that avengeth me," Ps. xviii. 47 : agreeing with i Sam. xxiv. 10, 12, xxv. 26 — David at Engedi sparing Saul and Nabal. Ps. xviii. 4-19, passive against Saul; 28-45, (^^(t've against later foes. Ver. 43, "Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people" (Israel : 2 Sam. ii. 9, 10, iii. l) ; "Thou hast made me the head of the heathen" : Ps. xxxv. I, 2 Sam. v., viii., xii., xxii. 44. Imagery suitable to the Holy Land: "Jehovah is my rock." Ps. xviii. II, 14, 15, "the channels of waters," coinciding with Baal-perazim, "Jehovah hath broken forth upon mine enemies as the breach 0/ waters," 2 Sam. V. 18-21. Belial : Ps. xviii. 4, with 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, i Sam. xxv. 25. David's safeguard against " the floods of Belial " was " Jehovah sitteth upon the flood," Ps. xxix. 10. " By Thee I have run through a troop," xviii. 29, with I Sam. xvii. 22, 48, 51. " Light my candle," Ps. xviii. 28, with 2 Sam. xxi. 17. " God maketh my way perfect," with 2 Sam. viii. 6, 14. " Deliverance to David's seed for evermore," Ps. xviii. 50, xxi. 4, 6, with 2 Sam. vii. 9-29. " Let God arise," etc., Ps. Ixviii. : Formula in moving the ark : Num. x. 35 with 2 Sam. xi. Ii. " Father of the fatherless," Ps. Ixviii. 5 : victory over Ammon, making many orphans. Ps. Ixviii. 11, "Jehovah gave the word" of victory to Israel : ' ' great was the company oi female heralds of the good news, " with i Sam. xviii. 6, 7. " Thy goings in the sanctuary," Ps. Ixviii. 24 : union of choirs in the tabernacle courts. "Benjamin who rules over" the foes, "Judah their stoning," with I Sam. xvii. 49, 50 (David) : Messiah, Dan. ii. 34, 45. Ps. SYLLABUS. Ixviii. 15-17, " Hill of Bashan," Israel's boundary towards Syria, the foe just conquered: God's "twenty thousand chariots" more than match Syria's chariots: 2 Sam. X. 18, I Chr. xix. 6, 7. David had set up the ark in Zion. Pss. cviii., cix., ex. " Thy people (are) free-will offerings, ex. 3, with Ixviii. 9 : i Chr. xxix. 5, 6, 9, 14, 17. David's fdng-prieslhood, Ps. ex., with 2 Sam. vi. 14: " in the beauties of holiness," — i.e., in holy garments. "Thy youth-dew," with 2 Sam. xvii. 12. " Drink of brook ... lift up .. . head," Ps. ex. 7, with 1 Sam. XXX. 9, 10. Ps. Ixviii. 18, " Captivity captive . . . gifts for men," with 2 Sam. xii. 30, 31, I Chr. xxx. 2, I Sam. xxx. 26-31. " Lain among pots . . . dove," Ps. Ixviii. 13 : siege of Rabbah, 2 Sam. xi.-xii. Peace (Solo- mon) : I Chr. xxii. 9, with Ps. Ixviii. 30 . . . . Pages 125 — 132 LECTURE XVII. David's numbering the people : Satan : I Chr. xxi. 1-3. Lawful in act : Ex. xxx. 12 : in spirit proud. Prosperity : sudden reverse : Ps. xxx. 6, 7, with 2 Sam. xxiv. The punishment retributive : diminution of forces on which his pride relied. " Thou hast not made my foes to triumph over me," Ps. xxx. 2 : so God's not sending "three months' destruction before his enemies. " In Ps. xxx., as in the history, /rrtycT brought relief: ver. 8. Felt the people's suffer-^ ing his own : with i Chr. xxi. 17. Ps. Ixxx. 17, Volunteer's vicarious suffering for them : as Pss. xl. and Ixix. "Thou hast put off my sackchtJi," with I Chr. xxi. 16. " Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning," with 2 Sam. xxiv. 13-15. David afraid of enquiring at Gibeon, I Chr. xxi. 30 : sacrificed on Araunah's threshing-floor, " the house of the Lord God," xxii. i, agreeing with title of Ps. xxx. (Gen. xxviii. 17). The Jews still use Ps. xxx. for the feast of dedication. Spiritual lesson, Isa. liv. 8, XXXV. 10 . . Pages 133 — 137 LECTURE XVIIL Parallelism between closing Psalms, first and second books ; their doxology at the end of .Solomon's Psalm Ixxii. " Prayer-songs of David . . . ended " — indi- cating that other Psalms of David should follow, but as centres of cycles of later Psalms. Ps. xli. 1-3, with xxxv. 13, 14. " When they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth^\\\t\:\ fasting" ; so I Chr. xxi. 16, 2 Sam. xii. 16. David's infirmity confining him to bed, followed by Adonijah's rebellion, which it gave the opportunity for : I Kings i. i, 5, with Ps. xli. 3-5, Ixxi. 10, 11. David's foolish fondness for his children : i Kings i. 6. His chastisement: l^s. xxxviii. I- 1 1, Ixix. 8, 9 : desertion of friends : " My lovers . . . kinsmen stand afar off" : "a stranger unto my brethren . . . my mother's children" : Joab his kinsman, Abiathar his once loving counsellor : i Kings i. 7. "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up," with i Chr. xxix. In his seventieth year, confined to his 'chamber' (i Kings i. 15) : "stood up on his feet " (i Chr. xxviii. 2) to speak to the assembly : so Ps. Ixxi. 9, 18, " Cast me not off in ... old age " ; " I will go in the strength of the Lord God." Presented his son and successor to the national assembly, and showed him the pattern of the temple : i Chr. xxiii., xxviii., xxix., I Kings i. Abiathar, " mine own familiar friend . . . hath lifted up his heel against me" — " O Lord, raise me up, that I may requite them " (Ps. xli. 9, 10) J viz., Joab, Shimei, and Abiathar : I Kings ii. " Sacrifice SYLLABUS. and offering Thou didst not desire" — " I have preached righteousness in the great congregation," Ps. xl. 6, 9, with i Kings i. 9, 41, i Chr. xxviii. 8, 9, Vs. Ixix. 30, 31, iv. 5, David's thanksgiving : I Chr. xxix. 10-13, i Kings i. 48, with Ps. xli. 13, Ixxii. 19. " I will keep my mouth with a bridle while the wicked is before me — let me know mine end — how frail I am — spare me that 1 may recover strength — I am a stranger with Thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were," Ps. xxxix. i, 4, 12, 13, with i Chr. xxix. 15, Ps. xxxix. 6 (Nabal): " He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them " ; i Sam. xxv. II: contrast I Chr. xxii. 5, 14-16, xxix. 2, 5 (David): Pss. ci., cii., ciii. ci. 2 with I Chr. xxviii. 9, Ps. cxxxix. i : cii. 13-22 with i Chr. xxviii. 7, 9, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, vii. Zion's covenanted restoration (after apostasy) and the Gentiles' conversion. Adonijah's rebellion, and David's distress, the ground-, work. Ps. ciii. with i Chr. xxviii. 2, 2 Sam. xxiii. 2. Israel's final thanks- giving : man's frailty, Ps. ciii. 13-16, with cii. II and i Chr. xxix. 16, li, 14. Limitation "unto them that fear Him," Ps. ciii. II, 13, 17 . Pages 138 — 145 LECTURE XIX. David's "songs of degrees," cxxii.. cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii. : cxxi. in catching sight of the Jerusalem hills : cxxii. at the gates, ver. 2; ver. i with Isa. ii. 3. David's design to conciliate the northern tribes to the Zion sanctuary, cxxii. 3 with i Chr. xi. 7, 8, 2 Sam. v. 9, 11. Ps. cxxii. 7 : 'palaces,' 'house,' 'walls': li. 18, cxxii. 5, "thrones of judgment": fulfilling Deut. xvii. 8, 9. "Whither the tribes go up," Ps. cxxii. 4 : Israel still undivided : ver. 9, " the house of the Lord," the tabernacle of the ark on Zion : Ps. v. 7, xxvii. 4, 2 Sam. vi. 12, 13. Processions to it, xlii. 4. The Maschil Psalm of Asaph, Ixxviii., teaches not to rebel against God's transfer of the sanctuary from Shiloh to Zion, as Ephraim had formerly provoked God: ver. 5, "testimony in Jacob," with cxxii. 4. Judges viii. i, xii.i. Accordance of histories with the Psalm, concerning Ephraim : 2 Sam. xv., xvi., xvii., xviii. , xix., xx. Latest historical notices in Ps. Ixxviii., "He smote His enemies in the hinder parts — refused the taber. nacle of Joseph — but chose Judah — Zion — David also." Ps. cxxii., published soon after the ark's removal to Zion, and God's promise of perpetuity to " the thrones of the house of David," ver. 5, with 2 Sam. vii. 13-25, Ps. xxi. 4. " Pray for the peace of yerusaletn " (peaceful possession) : Luke xix. 41-43. " Because of the house of the Lord," i.e. the church : Rom. xi. 12-18, i Chr. xii. 18. Ps. cxxiv., after Israel's deliverance in the Syrian and Edomite wars, David's style. " If it had not been the Lord ... on our side," twice: double inkrposition. Not the mild style of the captivity " songs of degrees." Ps. Ix., Iv. 15, Ivi. 2, Ivii. 3, with cxxiv. 3; verse 5, with xviii. 4, cxxiv. 7 with xxv. 15. cxxxi. Highmindedness only likely in prosperit}', I Chr. xxi. I, 17. "I have composed myself as a child weaned upon his mother," Matt, xviii. 1-4, with Ps, xviii. 27, ci. 5, cxxxi. i with cxxxix. 6 — "Such know- ledge IS too wonderful for me." " Let Israel hope in the Lord," cxxxi. 3, with 1 Chr. xxi. 17. Hope in Jehovah the antidote to self- reliance, Ps. cxxxviii. 6. cxxxiii., " Behold . . . Aaron," ver. i, 2 : Israel is viewed as assembled at the Passover on Zion. Communion of saints : contrast i Sam. vii. 2, i Chr. xiii. 3, 2 Sam. vi. 12. Style joyous, unlike the post-exile Psalms. " The dew of Hermon," with ex. 3. Messiah's dew, the Church's dew: destroying the foe, 2 Sam. xvii. 12: Micah v. 7, Israel hereafter: Judges vi. 37 meantime. Pages 146—154 SYLLABUS. LECTURE XX. DavicPs eight closing Psalms (appended to his seventy-two preceding ones), beginning and ending with praise, introduce the final Hallelujahs, cxxxviii. I, Jehovah's promise of perpetuity to David's house and throne : 2 Sam. vii. 19-23, Ps. xviii. 49, cxxxviii. 2, with 2 Sam. vii. i, 18, 28. "David sat before Jehovah — Thy words be true": 21-26 with Ps. cxxxviii. I, "Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name": ver. 3 with i Chr. xvii. 25, Ps. xxi. 2, 4, Ixi. 5, 6. cxxxviii. 6, " Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly," with I Chr. xvii. 17, "Thou hast regarded me according to the law of the man of high degree ": 2 Sam. vii. 19, Ps. viii. 4-6. cxxxviii. 7, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me ; Thou shalt stretch forth Thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies "; with xxiii. 4, Ixxi. 20, 2 Sam. ^ vii., viii. Ps. cxxxviii. 8, "Jehovah will perfect that which concerneth me," with 2 Sam. vii. 25: Ps. cxxxix. with cxxxviii. cxxxix. 2, "Thou understand- est my thought afar off," with cxxxviii. 6: ver. 7 with cxxxix. 10, " Thy right hand shall hold me ": ver. 11, " If I say the darkness shall cover me," with cxxxviii. 7. cxxxix. 2, " My downsitting," with 2 Sam. vii. i, I Chr. xvii. I. God's promise (2 Sam. vii. 18) in David's mind, when writing Ps. cxxxix. Ver. 1 1, 13, with xxii. 10. cx.xxix. 14, "I dxa. fearfully made," with 2 Sam. vii. 23, " God went to do for you terrible things ": Ixv. 5. cxxxix. 15, 16 : Ivi. 8 with Job X. 10, 1 1, cxxxix. 17, " How precious are Thy thoughts unto me ! " with xxxvi. 7, 2 Sam. vii. 18, 19. cxxxix. 18, "They are more . . . than the sand," with Gen. xxxii. 12. Ps. cxxxix. 18, " When I awake, I am with Thee," wiih Ixiii. 6. cxxxix. 19, "Thou wilt slay the wicked," with 2 Sam. iii. 28, 29, iv. 10, 12, I Kings ii. 5, 6. "See if there be any Wtiy of sorrow (idolatry) in me," Ps. cxxxix. 24, with xvi. 4, i John v. 21. Ps. cxl. I with xviii. 48, "Thou hast delivered me from the violent man ": 2 Sam. xxii. 49. cxl. 2 with Ivi. 6, lix. 3, Ixiv. 3. cxl. 3 with Iviii. 4. cxl. 2, 7 with I Sam. xvii. 38, xxviii. 2, " Thou hast covered my head in the day oi armature^ cxl. 11, 12, with xxxv. 6 and ix. 4. cxli. 3, 4, "Set a watch before my mouth," with xxxvii. I, xxxix. i. The cycle cxxxviii. — cxlv. answers to 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7. David's desire that his seed should not forfeit God's promise (2 Sam. vii.) by sin. The style lively antl terse, as David's former Psalms, not as the post-exile Psalms, cxli. 6, 7. '• Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth," with Isa. xxvi. 19, Ezek. xxxvii. : contrast to Ps. liii. 5. Ezek. xxxix. 10-21. The foe's bones scattered who bad scattered Israel's bones, Ps. ii. 9, 10. cxli. 4, 5, " their r^ucets (dainties)," 2 Sam. xv. 7, 12, I Kings i. 9, 41. "David's sweet words." His '-prayer in their calamities " will be for them. cxli. 5, "Let the righteous smite me . . . shall not break my head," with 2 Sam. xii. 13-23, vii. 14, 15 ('• If he commit iniquity. I will chasten him with the rod of men"), cxli. 6, as 2 Sam. xviii. 17 : Absalom, xv. 4. 2-6. 12 : after their would-be "judge was overthrown in stony places," they listened to David's "sweet words," better than Absalom's sweet 'dainties': xix. 14, 41, 43. Ps. cxli. 7, "as when oneyarrtnc'^-/// the earth " : Israel's hope : Isa. xi. I, vi. 13. Ps. cxlii., "A supplicatory prayer — in the cave": with i Sam. xxi.. xxii. "Refuge failed me," — vi/., with Achish, — had to return and hide in Adullam cave: Pss. Ivi., Ivii., ' Maschil ' for all ages, how to find relief in trial, with I Sam. xxx. 6. Ps. cxliii. I, " Hear ... in Thy faithfulness,"— viz., to Thy promise : 2 Sain. xxii SYLLABUS. vii. 5, 12, etc. "Thy servant," Ps. cxliii. 2, I2. Ver. 8," Cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness in the morning,''^ with 2 Sam. xxiii. 4, Ps. lix. 16. cxliii. 6, "My soul thirsteth after Thee," with Ixiii. i, 2 Sam. xvi. 2. 14. Ps. cxliv. i with xviii. 34. cxliv. 2, " Subdueth my people," with 2 Sam. xxii. 40, 44, V. 25, viii., xix. 14, 43 : in Ps. xviii. 39, 43, " the people." " Rid me out of great waters . . . strange children," Ps. cxliv. 7, ii, with xviii. 16, 44, 45. "Right hand of falsehood," cxliv. 8, with 2 Sam. xx. 9. Ps. cxliv. 3, 4, " What is man? " with viii. 4, 2 Sam. vii. 18, 19. Ps. cxliv. 9, ' God ' abso- lutely : peculiar to David in fourth and fifth books : except c. 3. cxlv., the thanksgiving Psalm, Tehillah : whence the Psalter is called Tehillim, Rev. v. 13. Ps. cxlv. 7, 21, with xix. 2: preparing for the last hallelujah, cxlv. i, " O king": the keynote of the coming kingdom : Isa. Ixi. 6, Heb. ii. S-12. Pages 15s— 171 LECTURE XXI. Solomon's Psalm Ixxii. objective. David's Psalms subjective. Ixxi. fitly precedes. David going forth to present Solomon as his successor. Bounds of his kingdom : as in Gen. xv. 18, Deut. xi. 24 : with i Kings iv. 21, Ps. Ixxii. 8. Messiah, the antitype, Num. xxiv. 19. Ixxii. i, " Give the king Thy judgments," with I Chr. xxix 19, "Give unto Solomon ... a perfect heart" : i Kings iii. 9. "To judge Thy people," Ps. Ixxii. 3, with i Chr. xxii. 8, 9, " I will give peace in his days "; i Kings v. 4. Ps. Ixxii. 6, " Like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth," with 2 Sam. xxiii. 4.- " The kings of Tarshish and Shsba offer gifts," Ps. Ixxii. 10, with i Kings x. 10, 22. Messiah the antitype, Ps. Ixxii. 11 with i Kings iv. 21, 24. "Prayer made for him," Ps. Ixxii. 15, with xx. Doxology closing Book IL, ^^T\\q prayers oi David, son of Jesse, are ended," with 2 Sam. xxiii. i, i Chr. xxix. 26, Isa. xi. i. Ps. cxxvii. bright in tone, free from the sadness of the "songs of degrees " without titles. Individuality in cxxvii. ; but in the others the church and nation are prominent. So Prov. x. 22. Ps. cxxvii. i, "Except the Lord build the house," etc., with I Kings v., vi., vii., viii. David laboured, but built not, because of the Lord : Solomon laboured not, but built, because of the Lord. " Except the Lord keep the city," with I Kings ix. 15, 2 Chr. viii. 1-6. Ps. cxxvii. 2, " God gives to His beloved ones in sleep " : Jedidiah, 2 Sam. xii. 24, 25 : at Gibeon, I Kings iii. 5-13, iv. 20, 25, vi. 7, I Chr. xxviii. il, xxix. 2-4, xxii. 3, 4, 14, Mark iv. 26, 27. So Messiah's kingdom, Luke xvii. 20. Ps. cxxvii. 3, " Children . . . heritage of the Lord "—built up [banim from banah, Gen. ii. 22): Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16, Job X. II. A state of prosperity, i Kings iv. 20, 25. The antitype, Micah iv. 4, Zech. i. 16, 17, ii. 4, iii. 10, viii. 3. 5, ix. 10, xii. 6. Ps. xlv. Solomon's marriage the starting-point : Messiah and the Church (Israel and the Gentiles). Admission of this epithalamium intQ tlie canon implies its spirituality. " Thy throne, O God " (Messiah) : ver. 6, Heb. i. 7-9, Ps. ex. i. David the warrior, and Solomon, prince of peace, supply the typical features : xlv. 3-5, " Gird Thj' sword upon Thy thigh," with i Sam. xxv. 13. Shoshannim, the lily-likt 'virgins,' "the king's daughters," etc., ver. 9-14: Song Sol. ii. I, 2 : contrast to ' thorns ' the wicked, 2 Sam. xxiii. 6. The spiritual view clears the moral difficulty of the plurality of wives : Israel the queen-bride, the Gentiles consorted with her : Isa. xlvii. i, liv. i, Ps. ii. 8, Ixxii. 8, Isa. ii. 2-4, Ixi. 6, xi. 10, Jer. iii. 17, Micah v. 7. So Song Sol. vi. 8, 9, " Threescore SYLLABUS. - xxiii queens — virgins — my dove is but one." The Church's union with God in Christ, 'marriage': Isa. liv. 5, Ixii. 4, 5, Jer. iii. i, etc. "Song of loves," Jedidoth, objects of Messiah's love : with Jedidiah, 2 Sam. xii. 24, 25, Deut. xxxiii. 12. Ps. xlv. 9, 14, " Thou lovest righteousness — therefore thy God — anointed thee with the oil of gladness," at the espousals: Song Sol. iii. 11. The 'queen ' Seegal, not Malkah : "in gold of Ophir," i Chr. xxix. 4, for the Temple, I Kings ix. 28. King's daughter and king's bride ' brought ' : Ps. xlv. 13-15, I Kings iii. i, ix. 24. "Thy children . . . princes": David's sons, 2 Sam. viii. 18 : superiority of antitype "in all the earth," Isa. xlix. 20, 21. Israel must 'forget' her ceremonialism, that the king may "desire her beauty." Catholicity, unity, visibility, to be when Israel's King shall appear ; Jerusalem the centre Pages 172 — 180 LECTURE XXII. Moses, first of psalmists, as of the prophets : Deut. xxxii., xxxiii. i, with title Ps. xc. " The man of God." Tone grave, sad. Time, close of the forty years in the desert. Israel's • prayer,' ' return ' to favour, 'repent': with Ex. xxxii. 12. Meditation prepares for prayer : Deut. xxxii. 36. Answer to Israel's prayer, " Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us." Con- quest of Canaan. Ps. xc. i, " Thou . . , our dwelling-place," {Ma' on) : also in xci., Deut. xxxiii. 27. Ps. xc. 2 with Gen. i., ii. 4, "the generations of the heaven and earth " : the habitable ' world,' answering to '" the dry land." "The mountains" to Deut. xxxiii. 15. Ps. xc. 3, "Return, ye . . . men" to dust, with Gen. iii, 19. Ps. xc. 4, " A thousand years ... as yesterday," with Gen. V. Ps. xc. 10, " Our years — threescore and ten — fourscore " : so the Israel- ites' forty in the wilderness, added to thirty or forty in leaving Egypt (Chaldee Targum) : Moses exceptionally strong — 120. Ps. xc. 5, 7, 8, ' flood,' with Gen. vi.-i.\. : "consumed by Thine anger," with Gen. ii. 17. Ps. xc. 12," So . . . number our days, that we may make to come to us a wise heart," with Deut. xxxii. 28, 29. Ps. xc. 15, ''The days — years" (S/ienoth-yemoth), with Deut. xxxii. 7. Ps. xc. 16, "Let Thy work appear . . . unto their children," with Num. xiv. 22-35. "Let the pleasantness oi the Lord be upon us " — "esta- blish Thou the work of our hands" with Gen. xlix. 15, Deut. xiv. 29, xxxii, - 6. Ps. xc. 14, " Satisfy us early," — in the morning. Ps. xci. by Moses : our I^ord quotes against Satan Moses' words ; so Satan against our Lord. Refers to Israel, type of Messiah. First and second persons. Most High i^ElJon) : with Gen. xiv. 18, 19,21, 22, Deut. xxxii. 8, 11. Ps. xci. I, 4: Satan the fowler, God the mother-bird : " He shall cover thee with his feathers," with Ex. xii. 13. The eagle: the hen: Matt, xxiii. 37. Ps. xci. 4-7, "A thousand shall fall at thy side, but it shall not come nigh thee," with Ex. viii. 22, ix. 4, 26. X. 22, 23, xi. 7. Israel was " not afraid of the terror by night" (Ps. .xci. 5) which smote Egypt, "nor for the destniction (cjueteb) at noonday," with Deut. xxxii. 24. " Thou shalt see the reward of the wicked," with Ex. xiv. 13, 30, 31, Isa. Ixvi. 24. Ps. xci. 9 with xc. I, 'dwelling- place' {Ma' on). Ps. xci. lO, " Thy tent ": Jehovah's tabernacle in the midst : Ex. xii. 23-30. Ps. xci. II, 12, ''He shall give His angels charge to keep thee in all thy ways, they shall bear thee up," with Ex. xxiii. 20, Deut. i. 31. Messiah was kept in all His ways, which were all right: Matt. It. ii, r SYLLABUS. " Tempting the Lord ": Ex. xvii. 7, Deut. vi. 16. Ps. xci. 13, "Tread — adder — dragon," with Deut.viii. 15. Ps. xci. 14 with Deut. x. 15 Pages 181 — 190 LECTURE XXin. Jehoshaphat's deliverance from Ammon, Moab, Edom, etc. Ps. Ixxxiii., earliest of the series ; xlvii., after the victory ; xlviii., at the Temple thanksgiving. Ixxxiii., thanksgiving by anticipation : Shir, with 2 Chr. xx. 19-22 : by Kohathites and Korhites. Asaph the author according to the Psalm title. A descendant of Asaph, Jahaziel, under the Spirit, 2 Chr. xx. 14. Ten peoples in the Psalm : the three in 2 Chr. xx. originated the plot : Ps. Ixxxiii. 8, 'holpen': 2 Chr. xx. i, "With them other beside (remote from) the Ammon- ites," ver. 2, from the deserts of Arabia : Keil, " the Mehunim " or Maonites (2 Chr. xxvi. 7). The invaders' object : to root out Israel from the inheritance : XX. II, with Ps. Ixxxiii. 3-5, 12. The booty, 2 Chr. xx. 25. Craft and secrecy, Ps. Ixxxiii. 3 : route, 2 Chr. xx. 2. Amalek, ver. 7 ; before the time of Hezekiah, 1 Chr. iv. 41-43 ; Assyria (Ps. Ixxxiii. 8) ally of the children of Lot : before 2 Kings XV. 19. The hostility was to God : Ps. Ixxxiii. 5, 2 Chr. xx. 11, 12, Ex. xvii. 16. " Do unto them as . . . Midianites," Ps. Ixxxiii. 9. Mutual slaughter : Judg. vii. 22, with 2 Chr. xx. 22, 23. Sisera's overthrow con- nected with Endor : Ps. Ixxxiii. 10 : Judg. v. 19, Taanach and Megiddo : Josh. xvii. II reconciles. Ps. Ixxxiii. 18, "That men may know that Thou . . . art the Most High over all the earth," with 2 Chr. xx. 6. Type of Anti- christ's ten confederates : Rev. xvi. 14, xvii. 3, 12, 14. " Lifting up the head " (Ps. Ixxxiii. 2, 4), to "cut off" Israel : 2 Thes. ii. 4, Dan. vii. 7, 8, Rev. xiii. I: against Messiah. His end, Dan. xi. 45. Ps. Ixxxii. : Jahaziel or some of the sons of Asaph encouraged Jehoshaphat in his judicial reforma- tion. Ver. I, " The congregation tj/" Ci^r/ " — "judgeth — gods," i.e., ]uAgts. Ver, 2, ' ' How long will ye Judge uiijustly and accept persons ? " with 2 Chr. xix. 5-7. Their responsibility : John x. 34, 35, "unto whom the word of God came" : Ex. xxii. 28 (marg.). "They know not " wilfully : for Jehoshaphat had sent out teachers, 2 Chr. xvii. 7-9. They shall "die like men," 2 Thes. ii. Ps. xlvii.: two parts divided by 'Selah,' the victory, and God's kingdom on earth; seven in. ten. "He shall choose our inheritance for us, " ver. 4, with 2 Chr. XX. II. Title assigns Ps. xlvii. to "the sons of Korah": with 2 Chr. XX. 19. Ps. xlvii. 5, " God is gone up with . , . trumpet," with 2 Chr. xx. 26, 28. Ps. xlvii. 3, 8, 9, effect of the victory on the heathen, with 2 Chr. xx. 29. So in Messiah's coming reign on earth : Acts i. 11, Jer. iii. 17, Dan. vii. 13, 14, 22-27, Ps. ii. 6, Gen. xlix. 10. Ps. xlvii. sung in Berachah valley : xlviii. in the sanctuary : ver. 9, " We have thought of Thy loving- kindness in Thy temple ": 2 Chr. xx. 27. Ps. xlviii. 4, " Lo, the kings — assembled — passed by," vanishing as quickly as they came : ver. 5, "They saw it" (viz., Jeru- salem), "and hasted away": Tekoa M'ithin three hours of the city : 2 Chr. XX. 16, 20. Ps. xlviii. 7, "Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish," with 1 Kings xxii. 48, 49, 2 Chr. xx. 36, 37, I Cor. xv. 33. "Mount Zion on the sides of the north," Ps. xlviii. 2. "Song of joy" [Shir] concerning "the joy of the whole earth," Zion : ver. 2. " The daughters of Judah" — i.e., its other cities besides Jerusalem — ver. 11, with 2 Chr. xx. 4. "As we have heard, so have SYLLABUS. XXV we seen . . . according to Thy name, so is Thy praise " (ver. 8, lo), with 2 Chr. XX. 7: 14-17 as Ex. xiv. 13 Pages 191— 202 LECTURE XXIV. Ps. xlvi. 9, " He maketh wars to cease ... He bumeth the chariot" : sudden destruction of Sennacherib's host : 2 Kings xix. 18, 23, Isa. xiv. 7. "Though the earth be removed" ver. 2, with Isa. x. 13, 14. "Though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea . . . the w(7««/(7?«.f shake" {i.e. high empires), with Isa. xxxvii. 24, " By my chariots am I come up to the mountains— Lebanon" (i.e. Zion). But "she shall not be moved," as "the kingdoms were," ver. 5, 6. " I'he river (of grace) makes glad the city" : contrast to "the sea": ver. 2, 4. The mother -city alone not taken: Isa. xxxvi. i. Hezekiah supplied streams of water to prevent drought: 2 Chr. xxxii. 11, 2 Kings XX. 20. " God shall help her at. . . the morning," with Isa. xxxvii. 36, xvii. 14. "The Lord of hosts is with ns" (Immami), with Isa. vii. 14, (Immanuel): 2 Chr. xxxii. 7, 8. "Know that I am God, I will be exalted among the heathen ... in the earth," with Hezekiah's prayer, 2 Kings xix. 19. Earnest of Antichrist's overthrow : Isa. Ixvi. 24^ xxxvii. 36, ii. 4 ; Rev. xvi. 14, xix. 19, 20, XX. 10. Ps. Ixvi.: Ixxv., Ixxvi., a pair. Altaschith, a thanksgiving (2 Chr. xx. 19-22) prayer, Ixxv. (ver. 9), Ixxvi., a thanksgiving after victory. Triumphant tone : a world-wide danger from "all the wicked of the earth," ver. 9. Ixxv., " When I shall get the set time, I will judge up- rightly," ver. 2, 3: cii. 13 with Isa. xxxvii. 21-35. Ps. Ixxv. 4, 5, "I said unto "the insolent , . . Lift not up your horn"; "Against whom hast thou lifted up thine eyes on high ? " . . . " / bear up the pillars," ver. 3 : " / have brought it to pass." True source of " lifting up" (promotion) : "neither from the east, west, south" («c;-//i omitted— the quarter whence Sennache- rib came), ver. 6-8: Isa. xxxvi. 4-6. Wine-cup of wrath : Rev. xiv. 10, xvi. 19, xi. 17 ; Dan. vii. 23-29. "In Salem brake He the lightnings of the bow — the shield," Ps. Ixxvi. 2, 3: Nah. iii. 3 with Isa. xxxvii. "The battle" : the war ended : Ps. xlvi. 9 with 2 Kings xix. 32. By the judgment of God, Ps Ixxvi. 3, 6, 8. "Mountains of prey," ver. 4, with Nah. ii. II, iii. i. " Stout-hearted slept their sleep," ver. 5, with 2 Kings xix. 23. 35. " At Thy rebuke . . . chariot and horse . . . dead sleep," ver. 6. Sennacherib's rebuke, 2 Kings xi.\. 3, 16: '• God arose to save all the meek," ver. 9, with 2 Kings xix. 4. " Remainder of wrath God sustained ": 2 Kings xix. 37. "Let all round about bring presents," ver. il, with 2 Chr. xxxii. 22, 23. " He shall cut off the breath oi princes " Ps. Ixxvi. 12, with 2 Kings xix. So Antichrist : Ezek. xxxix. 1-7, Zech. xii. 2-5. Ps. Ixxxvii. 4, Babylon, Rahab {i.e. Egypt), with Isa. XXX. 7, Ii. 9. A Korahite Jehovah Psalm. Abrupt beginning. God's foundation of Zion, ver. 2: Zion untaken ; "all the dwellings of Jacob" taken : 2 Kings xviii. 13. " I will n\ention . . . Rahab and Babylon v. 3, 4. Ps. cxxv. 3, "The rod of the wicked (world-power) shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous (Israel), lest," etc. " Such as turn aside unto . . . crooked ways," ver. 5, with Neh. vi. 10-14, I7-I9- Ps. cxxvi. 2, "Our mouth filled with laughter . . . said . . . heathen, Jehovah hath done great things for them," with Ezra iv. 16, 22, Neh. viii. 9, 17, xii. 42, 43. "They that sow in tears . . . reap in joy," ver. 5, with Neh. viii. 9, 10. "Thy children . . . olive plants," Ps. cxxviii. 3, with Zech. viii. 5. Ps. cxxix. 1-3, " Many a time they afflicted me . . . the Lord is righteous, "with Ezraix. 15, Neh. ix. 33, Dan. ix. 7. Ps. cxxx. I, "Out of the depths I cried," with Lam. iii. 55. "Forgiveness with Thee," ver. 4, with Dan. ix. 9. Ps. cxxxii., prayer, and answer echoing prayer: Jehovah's unchangeable oath the ground. Ps. cxxxiv., Epilogue. Pilgrims' address. Priests' reply ..... Pages 276 — 281 LECTURE XXXIIL Pss. cxxxv., cxxxvi., cxxxvii., imply Israel's need of deliverance. "His peculiar treasure," cxxxv. 4, with the contemporary Malachi, iii. 17, Ex. xix. 5, 6. Made up of cxv. and cxxxiv. cxxxvi. 23, "Remembered in our low estate," in Babylon, cxxxvii. i : Babylonia a net of canals fringed with ' willows ': ver. 7, "in the day of Jerusalem's overthrow, Edom said, Lay it bare": ver. 9, " Happy he that dasheth thy little ones !" not a prayer of malice ; founded on God's fore-announcement : Jer. xlix. 7-22, fulfilled by Darius Hystaspes cxlvi., etc., begin and end with Hallelujah. By Haggai and Zechariah. " Put not . . . trust in princes," ver. 3, with Ezra iv. All the five Psalms joyous : so Neh. vi. 15, 16, xii. 43. cxlvii. 13, " Strengthened . . . thy gates," with Neh. iii., xii. 27-43.- cxlvi. 6, "which made heaven," etc. : cxlviii. 4 with Neh. ix. 6. Ps. cxlix. 19, "He showeth His statutes ... judgments," with Neh. ix. 13, 14, x. 29, Deut. iv. 32-34. "Build up Jerusalem . . . gathereth . . . outcasts of Israel," Ps. cxlvii. 2, with Neh. ii. 5, iii. 6, 15. Lord's coming in glory as ' King,' cxlix. 2. " Let ... a two-edged sword in their hand," ver. 6, with Neh. iv. 16-18, xii. 31, Rev. i. 16, xix. 15. The 'saints' shall join in judging : cxlix. 6-9, Dan. vii. 22, I Cor. vi. 2, Rev. xx. 4. Musical instru- ments same in Ps. cl. as in dedicating the walls, Neh. xi'. 27 Pages 282 — 2S5 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE r. PSALMS VII. XXXV. XLI. CI. AMONG Paley's valuable contributions to Christian Apo- logetics, none is more so than his " Horae Paulinas." Few, if any, candid readers can resist the instinctive convic- tion, that the coincidences therein traced out between the Epistles of St. Paul and the independent history of St. Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, are so unobtrusive and incidental, as to exclude the possibility of design ; at the same time so real and unmistakable, that they can be accounted for only on the supposition that both the Epistles and the history are authentic and genuine. In an age when the Old Testament is being subjected to the same ordeal of rationalistic criticism as the New, it may be of profit to see how far the same argument from undesigned coincidence will hold good in comparing the Davidic Psalms with the independent histories in the books of Kings and Chronicles. We will take, for the present, the seventh Psalm : in future Lectures, we hope to be able to adduce other instances. But first it is to be premised, that if the particulars brought forward may seem petty, circuitous, and indirect, it should be remembered that this very minuteness and indirectness, and I STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. even subtilty, is just what gives point to the argument. Coin- cidences obvious, explicit, and direct, might result from truth, but would be compatible also with forgery. But oblique allusions, wherein the coincidence has to be pointed out, and does not lie on the surface, are just such as nature and truth would produce, and which no forger would ever insert. Blunt has carried out the same line of argument on other parts of both the Old and the New Testaments, including some instances from the life of David, in his " Undesigned Coincidences." The book of Psalms, however, which he passes by, affords, perhaps, a better sample of this valuable line of argument ; for here we have David's inner life mirrored forth with a fulness of individuality, not to be looked for in the histories which deal more with his outward life : and at the same time incidental allusions occur, which take for granted the facts narrated in the histories, and even curiously in some cases correspond (evidently without design) in the very modes of expression. The same characteristics mark David in both, — a tender spirit, and yet one undaunted by adversities, because he put his trust in Jehovah (compare i Sam. xxx. 6 with Ps. xlii. 5, Ivi. 3) ; a prudent spirit, such as was engendered by the exigencies of his critical position in relation to King Saul, and such as characterised the persecuted Jews of the middle ages. (Compare the undesigned coincidence of Ps. ci. 2, " I will behave myself ivisely in a perfect way : O when wilt Thou come u7ito me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart," with I Sam. xviii. 5, 14, 15, 30, "David behaved himself wisely — very wisely — in all his v/ays — more wisely than all the servants of Saul ; and Jehovah was with him.") A spirit buoyed up by the promises of God, to the assured expectation and prophetical announcement of the glories of the Messianic kingdom, about, according to Nathan's inspired declaration, (2 Sam. vii.,) to be set up in his future seed. The title of THE SEVENTH PSALM runs thus : " Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the Lord, concertiing the words of Cush the Benjamite'' The GENUINENESS OE THE TITLES may be assumed, when we consider (i) their antiquity, which ap- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. pears from the fact, that they in some cases were unintelligible to the Septuagint Greek translators, in the beginning of the second century B.C., (2) their presence in most manuscripts, and (3) in fragments of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Their very obscurity (4) and want of obvious connection with the contents of their respective Psalms, are precisely the features which would never emanate from forgers. Moreover (5) the Orientals generally prefix titles to their poems, as, for instance, Hab. iii. i, Isa. xxxviii. 9. (6) The enigmatical style of titles is exclusively confined to those Psalms which either David himself, or his singers, composed. An exact parallel occurs in the history (2 Sam. i. 18), where David pre- fixes to his beautiful elegy on Saul and Jonathan the title " The Bow," (not as the Authorised Version, " the use of the bow,") an enigmatical designation for "the song on him expert with the bow :" (compare verse 22, " From the blood of the slain, . . . the botv of Jonathan turned not back.") Heng- stenberg well said, " The titles are too poetical, spirited, and profound for any later collector." If they were added by later hands, (7) how is it that they are wanting in those Psalms where conjecture could most easily have had place, namely, in the fourth (Psalms xc. — cvi.) and fifth books (Psalms cvii. — cl.), whereas they appear in the most regular and complete form in the Davidic Psalms .-' Now these arc just the ones where conjecture is given no room for exercise. For the titles do not apparently illustrate these Psalms, but are a memorial of the events which most deeply impressed the mind of David. "The "Shiggaion" comes from the Hebrew root SJiagah [HjK'], " to err." The aberrations of Saul from God's law, culminating in his deadly persecution of one who not only had not wronged him, but even had risked life in his behalf, are before David's mind. But David, though evil had been returned for his good, did not suffer himself to be tempted to return evil for evil, and herein displayed a holy magnanimity which has its source, not in nature, but in grace. The triad of the ancient British Church well expresses it, " There are three STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. kinds of men — the man of men, who renders good for good, and evil for evil ; the man of the devil, who renders evil for good ; and the man of God, who renders good for evil." So contrary was David's spirit to that of Saul, that the latter could not forbear expressing wonder at David having spared him, when in his power in the cave of Engedi, as something contrary to all the principles of the natural man. i Sam. xxiv. 19, "If a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away ? wherefore the Lord reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day." How natural, that the charge which Saul had alleged against David as the plea for perse- cuting him, but which really lay at Saul's own door, should h€ uppermost in David's mind : and yet how tinstudiedly it comqs out in the fourth verse, " If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me," i.e., that was my friend (compare Ps. xli. 9, "yea, mine own familiar friend;" Heb. " the man of my peace," margin). Again, how strikingly consistent with themselves, in their respective and opposite characters, do Saul and David appear in I Sam. xxiii. 21, and 2 Sam. ii. 5 : Saul says to the Ziphites when these offered to betray David, ^^ Blessed be ye of the Lord; for ye have compassion on me. Go see where his haunt is, and 1 will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah." But when the men of Jabesh Gilead rescued Saul's body from the Philistines, David said to them, "Blessed be ye of the Lord, that ye have showed this kindness unto your lord, even unto Saul, and have buried him ; and now the Lord show kind- ness and truth to you ; and I also will requite you this kindness, because ye have done this thing." How happily, and at the same time undesignedly, this accords. with David's spirit in Psalm xxxv. 12, 13, "They rewarded rrie evil for good : but as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth ; I humbled my soul with fasting." Again, in Psalm vii. 3, " If I have done this," namely, what ray calumniators allege, corresponding to David's language to Saul in the history: "Men's words, saying, Behold, David sceketh thy hurt" (i Sam. xxiv. 9). "If there be iniquity m STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. my handsy How naturally, and evidently without design, David's very expression coincides with that attributed to him in the history (i Sam. xxiv. ii), "My father, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand: for in that I killed thee not, know there is neither evil nor transgression /;/ mine Jiatid ; yet thou huntest my soul to take it." Who can doubt the identity of the David in the history with the writer of the Psalm } There are the same favourite expressions, " my soul," verse 2 (" lest ho tear viy soul like a lion ") and 5 ; and the same Hebrew verb in verse i, "persecute me," [''Si") rodepJiai^ as in i Sam. xxiv. 14, "Whom dost \\\o\x pursuel' or ''persecute',' rjli"!, rodecph.'] The same scene of unrelenting persecution on the part of Saul, and of magnanimous forbearance on the part of David towards his enemy, when in his power, was enacted over again at thehillof Hachilah (i Sam. xxvi.). Again the same peculiar Davidic expressions occur, ver. 18 : " Wherefore doth my lord pursue after (' persecute,' the same Hebrew as Ps. vii. i) his servant .''... What evil is in mine hand? " The same allusion occurs to the calumnies of men about Saul, who sought to ingratiate themselves with their master by maligning David (ver. 19) : " If they be the children of men, that have stirred thee up against me . . . they have driven me out from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord." Now in 'Psalm vii. 3 — 5, he alludes to these calumnies, and defends himself from them. And the title, "concerning the words," is tantamount to "on account of the calumnies." Indeed, the Septuagint rendering {virkp rwv X6yo)v) actually gives it so. But how little of design is there on the face of all these coin- cidences ; and yet, how real and convincing, when brought to light ! The men about Saul were the ostensible calumniators, but Saul himself was the real calumniator ; for his flatterers knew that in no way better could they please their master, than by accusing David. How well and naturally does that come out in the title, "concerning {i.e., on account of) the words of Cush the Benjamite" But can we identify this enigmatical title with Saul .' P^irst, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. he was pre-eminently "the Benjamite." i Sam. ix. 21 : "Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel?" His father's name, moreover, was KisJi, of similar sound to " Cush." The character pourtrayed is one of ideal blackness morally. As "the Ethiopian (in Hebrew, QisJi) cannot change his skin," so this persecutor cannot change his black heart. (Jer. xiii. 23 ; Amos ix. 7.) " In the Ethiopian, there is nothing white," says Trapp, "but his /., slay not the race, whilst Thou consumest those of them hostile to the Lord's Anointed. Such was the doom of Saul's house. As they gathered themselves against David (ver. 3), so were they "scattered" (i Sam. xxxi. ; 2 Sam. iv., xxi.). Such also was that of the Jewish nation for rejecting Messiah. Whilst the race is preserved as a monu- ment of God's justice now, and of God's mercy hereafter (Rom. xi.), hundreds of thousands have been destroyed from age to age. The survivors are the living witnesses of God's punitive righteousness, like their prototype Cain, " fugitives and vagabonds in earth," bearing the brand of the murder of the Holy One whithersoever they go (Ps. cix. 10, 1$). With 14 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. undesigned coincidence of phrase and thought, David in the Psalm (hx. 13) prays, "Let them know that God riileth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth;'' just as in his conflict with Gohath he said, "The Lord will deliver thee into mine hand, tJiat all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.'' How completely at last the respective portions of the godly and the ungodly are reversed! In i Sam. xxiv. 14, David says, " After whom is the king of Israel come out ? after a dead dog?" But in the end it is Saul's seed, Mephibosheth, who uses the same abject term (2 Sam. ix. 8) to designate himself before David, then king of Israel : " What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am ?" and again (2 Sam. xix, 28), " For all of my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king, yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thy table." Thus was fulfilled the sentence of David's Psalm (cix. 10) : " Let his chil- dren be continually vagabonds, and beg : let them seek their bread out of their desolate places ; " i.e., amidst the ruins of their once richly supplied mansions. Again, in PSALM XXXI. 8, David prays, " Thou hast not shut me up Cjrilipri) ""ito the hand of the enemy." When we turn to the independent history (i Sam. xxiii. 7, ii, 12), we find the same phrase attributed to David : " Will the men of Keilah shut me up and my men into the hand of Saul .? And the Lord said, They will shut thee up " (^^''|p^). The cor- respondence of language is remarkable : Saul had said, when David fled to Keilah, " God hath delivered him into mine hand ; for he is shut in (the same Hebrew) by entering into a town that hath gates and bars." But Jehovah counselled David, " They will sliut thee ?// ; " i.e., deliver thee up. So by Jehovah's counsel David escaped from Keilah to a moun- tain in the wilderness of Ziph. Then truly he could say, in the language of the thirty-first Psalm, " Thou hast set my feet in a large room." However straitened the steps of the believer be now, there is awaiting him the heavenly Rehoboth {room) (Gen. xxvi. 22), the many mansions of the Father's house, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 15 whereinto no enemy shall enter, and whence no friend shall depart. It is remarkable that in i Sam. xxiii. 11, 12, "Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into Saul's hand .■* " the Hebrew for ' men ' is Baali. Doubtless the Baalites are meant — i.e., the Canaanite portion alone of the people of Keilah; the latter are designated (ver. 5) the inhabitants of Keilah. To the votaries of Baal there, David's devotion to Jehovah, and the presence of the sacred ephod with his priest Abiathar, must have been most obnoxious. It is true, David, in spite of his men's protest of* their weakness, had " gone down " (Keilah was in the Shephelah, or lower hills : mark the accuracy of the phrase, ver. 4, 6), and, under Jehovah's counsel and guidance, saved Keilah from the Philistine hosts who were robbincr their threshing-floors of the corn for which thejudaean lowland was famed. But the Baalite faction, casting away all gratitude to their deliverer, would have shut him up into his perse- cutor's hand. Like the Antitype, David was betrayed by those whom he came to save. But Jehovah baffled this treachery, and Saul's presumptuous hope that Providence would minister to his gratuitous and murderous malice. How exact, yet how palpably undesigned, the coincidence of lan- guage 'and allusion, stamping the genuineness of both the Psalm and the history, in Ps. xxxi. 6, 8, 21 : "I have hated them that regard lying vanities (as the Baalites : compare 2 Kings xvii. 15 ; Jonah ii. 8) : but I trust in Jehovah. Thou hast not shut me np into the hand of the enemy. Blessed be Jehovah : for He hath shown me His marvellous kindness in a strong city " (the very description of Keilah, which was so strong, that not merely a band, but " the armies of the Philis- tines," assailed it (i Sam. xxiii. 3) : now El-Khuweilifeh, con- sisting of two Tels, or strongholds, with a valley between). Another undesigned coincidence with David's phraseoloo-y in the history (2 Sam. iv. 9, "As Jehovah liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity,'') occurs in the fifth and seventh verses of the thirty-first Psalm, " Thou hast redeemed me — Thou hast known ?ny soul in adversities." 1 6 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. The Ziphites imitated the, treacherous men of Keilah. Reporting David's hiding himself in the hill of Hachilah, they said, " O king, come down, and our part shall be to shut him Tip" (the same Hebrew again as Ps. xxxi. 8). But God reversed Saul's and their plot. Instead of David's being shut ■up into Saul's hand, it was Saul that was shut tip into David's hand, first at Engedi, when David cut off his skirt, when he might have taken his persecutor's life, and Saul confessed, " Jehovah had sJiut me up (the same Hebrew again) into thine hand, and thou killedst me not " (i Sam. xxiv. i8) ; again at Hachilah, where Saul lay sleeping, and Abishai said to David, " God hath sJiut up (the same Hebrew) thine enemy into thine hand this day" (i Sam. xxvi. 8, margin). THE FIFTY-FOURTH Psalm commemorates this deliverance from the treachery of the Ziphites. " Strangers," saith David (ver. 3), " are risen up against me: they have not set God before them." The Ziphites, who ought by ties of tribe and country to have been David's friends, acted as hostile strangers. But God was on his kide. So the antitype Messiah was betrayed by His kins- men the Jews to ,the heathen Romans. As God shut Him not u.p in the grave permanently, but raised Him up from the dead on the ground of His faultless righteousness, so will God regard all who are identified by faith with Christ, as objects of salvation, and will raise them up together with Him. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 17 LECTURE III. PSALMS XVII., XVIII., LIL, LXXIL, CVIII., CXLIV. POETRY has been in most countries the earHest form of composition, as being the easiest to retain in the memory ; and compositions were" in ancient ages more diffused by oral recitation than by reading, as books were scarce, and in many places unknown. It is remarkable, on the other hand, that in Israel, the oldest of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Pentateuch, have less of the poetical element than the later ; so entirely has the Divine Author guarded against the suspicion of mythical admixtures, such as abound in the earliest heathen lays of all other nations. Accordingly the Epos, as having its proper sphere in a mythical heroic age, is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The whole period before David furnishes but one Psalm to the Psalter, namely, that of Moses, the ninetieth Psalm : though it is probable, as we purpose hereafter to show, that the ninety-first also is the composition of Israels leader out of Egypt. The " Book of the Wars of the Lord " (Num. xxi. 14, 17, 27), and the "Book of Jasher " {i.e., the Upright), or the Worthies of Israel (" Jeshurun," Deut. xxxii. 15 ; compare I Sam. xviii. 7; 2 Sam. i. 18), were of a secular character. David's spiritual songs gained such a hold upon the heart of the nation, that worldly lays thenceforth became in low esteem. (Compare Isa. v. I2; Amos vi. 5.) Germs of sacred song, however, existed from the beginning of the nation's history ; for instance, the song of Israel at the Red Sea 2 STUDIES IN THE CI. PSAIMS. (Exod. XV.), the priestly benediction (Num. vi. 22 — 26), Moses' chant at the moving and resting of the ark (Num. x. 35, 36), Deborah's song (Judges v.), and Hannah's (i Sam. ii.). These prepared the way for the full outburst of psalmody subse- quently, and are in part appropriated in some of the Psalms in the Psalter. The religious awakening of the nation under Samuel and the schools of the prophets, in which music and sacred song held a prominent place (i Sam. x. 5 — 11 ; xix. 19 — 24), were the immediate precursors of the golden age of psalmody under King David. Combining creative genius, as a poet, with a special gift of inspiration as a prophet, he produced the majority of the Psalms, about eighty out of the whole hundred and fifty. On his Psalms, the other psalmists (excepting, of course, Moses) mainly lean. One element in David's chequered life especially adapted him for his work. Tried sorely himself, he could experi- mentally sympathise with the afflicted. It has been well said, " Where would David's Psalms have been, if he had not been persecuted .-* " Representing in his own person the righteous principle assailed by the ungodly, he teaches believers of all subsequent times how to cast themselves on God, in strong confidence of the final triumph of righteousness over wrong. Merging his individual feelings in those of the general com- munion of saints, whose mouthpiece under the Spirit he is, he alludes to personal details only in such a way as to apply them to the whole Church ; so that his poems are litur- gical, rather than lyrical — the utterances designed by God for the Church, rather than the delineation of mere private sensibilities. Still coincidences do occur in the Psalms, marking David's individuality, and, by their palpable undesignedness, identify- ing the David of the Psalms with the David of the history. Thus, following up the persecutions which he endured from Saul, and which suggested so many of his Psalms, take THE FIFTY-SECOND PsALM. The title tells us what the .occasion was which immediately suggested its composition. It is STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 19 committed "to the chief Musician," that he should be pre- pared to have it pubHcly sung in the Temple service, with an accompaniment of sacred music. This dfrection, as well as the " Maschil " (meaning '^instruction "),' marks that the parti- cular historic fact is treated, not as a matter affecting merely individual feeling, but as illustrating the eternal principle, that the triumph of might, allied with injustice, is short, and recoils on the perpetrator. The occasion is stated to be, " When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, and said unto him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech." The tautology, " told and said," marks Doeg's officious eagerness to tell, with tale-bearing exaggerations, what he knew well his master Saul would be keen in listening to (i Sam. xxii. 9 — 11, 22). "The Edomite" is added to remind us of Edom, the repre- sentative of the world's undying enmity to the Church. But Doeg, plainly, is not the principal one against whom the Psalm is directed. He was but a herdsman, though the ready tool of one mightier, in destroying no less than eighty- five priests and their city of Nob (i Sam. xxi. 7). "The boaster in mischief' really meant in verse i, was Saul, who virtually boasted of the accomplished destruction of the priests, and threatened a similar fate to all who should aid David. To this David replies, "Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O 7nighty man f" [*TJ35n, hag-gibbor?\ Now when we turn to the history, we find David using the very same term, and concerning Saul and Jonathan: "How are the mighty {gihborini) f^allen ! " (2 Sam. i. 19.) Animal courage and worldly hero-might were characteristics which David's elegy could with truth ascribe to Saul. The higher and truer hcro-migJit belongs to the godly alone : as David takes care to insist on in the eighteenth Psalm (ver. 25) : " With an upright man (literally, with an upright \\YA<0, g'var) Thou wilt show Thyself upright." How natural, and at the same time unde- signed, the coincidence of language ! David further addresses the ideal wicked mighty one (ver. 3), "Thou lovest . . . lying rather than to speak right- eousness. Selah. Thou lovest all devouring words." Wliat STUDIES IN fHE CL. PSALMS. these " lying and all devouring words " were, may be gathered from the history (l Sam. xxiv. 9), where David said to Saul, " Wherefore hearest thou mens words, saying, Behold, David seeketh thy hurt ? " The men who spoke such words against David were courtiers and flatterers of the king, and saw that the shortest road to his favour was to malign David, and misconstrue his every act into matter of treason. The prime instigator of such lying charges was the king himself They were but the tools : Saul was the real author of the lies. Doeg told the fact, it is true, with malicious aggravation. It was Saul who put upon it the false construction of treason against David and the innocent priests (i Sam. xxii.). How naturally the history accords with the fifty-second Psalm, and also with Psalm xvii. 3, 4 : "I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." [V"'^.l3, paritz, one who breaks through all restraint.] David's grand safeguard against the hurtful " words and works of men " was " the word of God's lips." The " Selah " is characteristic of David, and the singers of David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, exclusively, and occurs seventy-three times. The " Hallelujah," on the contrary, is never found in his or their Psalms, but in the Psalms connected Avith the times of the Babylonian captivity and the return. Habakkuk (iii. 9, 13) doubtless borrows the " Selah," as also the heading "To the chief Musician on my stringed instru- ments," from David's Psalms. Nothing but close investigation brings out the fact of such individual characteristics of David's style. A forger in later days would not be likely to have observed such delicate proprieties : the observance of them in the Psalms attributed to him is a strong presumption in favour of his authorship. " Selah " is probably derived from Tw^, slilah, " rest," and denotes d. pause, during which the singers ceased to sing, and the musical instruments alone were heard. The Septuagint render it (Sid-ylraX/xa), " a break in the Psalm." It is introduced where the sense suggests the propriety of a pause, to give STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. time for calm reflection on the thought that has immediately jjreceded. In the ninth Psalm, it follows " Higgaion/' which is a call to meditation, as the word implies. It is the peaceful and meditative soul alone, that can hear with the inward ear what the Holy Spirit would have us learn ; and the " Selah " of David reminds us, that whilst hearing or reading Holy Scripture, we should commune in quietness with our spirit, and with our God. Another striking feature of David's Psalms is his use of the names of God, Elohim and Jehovah, as compared with the usage of the Psalms of a liter date in this respect. The Elohim Psalms, such as the fifty-second, are peculiar to the first three, out of the whole five books composing the Psalter, viz., to those of David, Asaph, and the sons of Korah. So strange had " Elohim " become in later times, that only the Jehovah Psalms of David were inserted in the later books, excepting Psalm cviii., by David, in which Elohim occurs six times, and Psalm cxliv., also by David, in which it occurs but once. What but truth and authenticity could have produced such a subtle nicety in the Psalms attributed to David and his singers, as distinguished from those of the last two books .'' In the fourth book, Elohim never occurs once. In the fifth, only in the two Psalms composed by David. Moreover, it is a coincidence between Davids Psalms and the independent histories (the books of Samuel and of Chronicles), that David in the latter uses Elohim as a favourite term. (Compare 2 Sam. vii., I Chron. xxviii. 20, xxix. i.) The coincidence is such as a forger would never think of. So delicate a pro- priety observed in both, attests the authenticity and genuine- ness of the Davidic Psalms and the sacred histories alike. We may thank the rationalistic school and Dr. Colcnso for calling attention to the Divine names. What they intended for the dismemberment and discrediting of the Sacred Scriptures, has been abundantly overruled to their con- firmation, Hengstcnberg suggests that the reason for David's predilec- tion for the name Elohim was this : The heathen regarded STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Jehovah, or Jahve, as the designation for the local God of Israel ; not as the God of the universe, possessing the whole fulness and might of the Godhead absolutely. So David felt it unnecessary to express Jehovah as the Divine designation ; for there was no question among the nations that He was Israel's God. What was contested was, whether He was also Elohim. In the face of the mighty world-powers, David boldly asserts the nullity of their gods, and the sole and exclusive Godhead of Jehovah ; as, for instance, in Psalm xviii. 31, "Who is Elohim save Jehovah?" Moreover, that "Elohim" in David's Elohistic Psalms presupposes Jehovah as understood, appears from the close of the second book (Ps. Ixxii. 18), " Blessed be Jehovah-Elohim." In later times, when the falsely called Elohim of surrounding nations began to be honoured in Israel, the term gave place to Jehovah for expressing the one true God. The last coincidence to be noticed between the history and the Psalm appears from a comparison of the seventh verse of the latter witli Saul's words in i Sam. xxii. 7 — 9 : " Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds ; that all of you have conspired against me, and there is none that showeth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse . . . and stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day .-* Then answered Doeg the Edomite, which was set over the servants of Saul, and said, I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech," etc. Here Saul implies that he had what David had not, ahiindtince of riches, fields and vineyards, wherewith to reward the tools of his wickedness. Samuel (i Sam. viii. II, 12, 15) had foretold that this very course should be "the manner of the king," when the Israelites were so keen about having one : " He will appoint him captaina over thousands, and he will take your fields and your vineyards, and give them to his servants." How exactly, and yet with how entire an absence of design, the harmony being latent, and not, on the surface, does all this accord with, " Lo, this is the man STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness." Singularly prophetical of Saul's own doom is the fifth verse, which, in nnstndied coincidence ivith i Sam. xxii. i8 — 20, hints at the doom inflicted by him on the house of Ahimelech. Herein is the " Maschil," or instructive lesson, to be learnt. God pays men in kind. " With the merciful He will show Himself merciful, but with the froward He will show Himself froward." Saul had, by the hands of Doeg, slain the whole family and kin of Ahimelech, save one, Abiathar. And Saul himself, and "his bloody house," with all his sons, save Mephibosheth, perished by a violent death (i Sam. xxxi. 6 ; 2 Sam. xxi. i — 14). So exactly did the word come to pass, " God shall likewise destroy thee for ever. He shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place,* and root thee out of the land of the living." Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. * The Hebrew for '•'dwelling-place," ohel, means literally the taber- nacle, or sanctuary. This is appropriate to the fact that Ahimelech was cut off by Saul during his ministry at the tabernacle, whence the king summoned him. So " tabernacle " is applied to Saul's dwelling, whence he should be cut off. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE IV. PSALMS VI., XL, XVL, XVIL, XXV., XXXV,, XLIIl, LVL THE Psalms took their rise in the rehgious awakening which began under Samuel, and was fully developed under King David. The long times of growing declension which succeeded were for the most part barren of additions to the Psalter. The only such additions were made in the times of religious revivals, as, for instance, under the pious kings Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah. Psalms xlvii., xlviii., and Ixxxiii. plainly commemorate the overthrow of the heathen confederacy against Judah in the days of Jehoshaphat ; Psalms xlvi. and Ixxxvii. similarly glorify God for the deliverance from Sennacherib's overwhelming hosts, under Hezekiah ; and Psalms Ixxvii., Ixxxviii., Ixxxix. pro- bably belong to Josiah's reign. The religious reformation which resulted from the bitter, but wholesome, lesson taught by the Divine chastisement in the nation's captivity, was marked by a brief outburst of inspired psalmody. After the last new song (Ps. cxviii.) and its sister Psalms, sung to the Lord at the completion of the city walls under Nehemiah, no new Psalm was composed under inspiration. David gives the tone to the Psalter ; just as, in his turn, he rests upon the Pentateuch of Moses, one, at least, of whose Psalms he has preserved for us, viz.. Psalm xc. His tone is elevated, and his poetical style abounds in rare forms, which create at times a difficulty. The pervading characteristic of his Psalms is the recognition of the retributive righteousness STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of God, as the preservative against despair : hence we so often meet in them Divine consolations suddenly interposed in the midst of sorrowful complaints. David's faith addresses itself to, and triumphs over, David's fears. His imminent perils and sore trials, and the victory of his faith over them, issuing in his final exaltation from the lowest humih'ation to the royal sceptre over God's own people, are what especially qualified him to be the vivid type of the Divine Son of David. Take as an illustration the mutually related pair of PSALMS, XVI. AND XVII. As Psalms xlii. and xHil, so Psalms xvi. and xvii. form one whole, consisting of two parts. The Psalmist's situation in both is that of one in imminent danger from godless foes ; and the consolation is threefold : i. Trust in Jehovah produces the assurance of life, and pleasures for ever to both body and soul ; 2. Righteousness in the petitioner, 3. And unrighteousness in the oppressors, ensure God's inter- position for His people's final and full satisfaction with His holy likeness in His presence. The first is the theme of Psalm xvi., the latter two are the theme of Psalm xvii. The heading of PSALM xvi. is, " Michtam of David." This is a title which stands by itself, and is not found associated with Maschil, Mizmor, or Tephillah, Hengstenberg explains it a " secret," a song of deep import, conducting into the depths of the Divine life. The believer is admitted into the secret presence-chamber of his Lord, and fathoms mysteries hidden from the world. (Ps. xxv. 14, " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.") But the root of MicJitavi (DHD, Kathain) may also mean to " inscribe," or " engrave : " and in this sense the Septuagint take it, " a pillar engraving," ((TTi]Xoypa(f>ia). The precious truths shadowed forth in the Psalm, namely, the death and resurrection of Messiah, deserve to be deeply engraven on the heart, as if in capital letters inscribed on a pillar before the eyes. So Bishop Words- worth. It is a striking coincidence, that Job also introduces his sublime prophetical anticipation of the resurrection of the body by the power of the Redeemer {God) with a similar 26 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. heading : " Oh that my words were printed {engraveii) in a book ! that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever ! For I know that my Redeemer hveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day {rather, the last) upon the earth," etc. Hezekiah's ' writing ' (HripXi, Miktab) seems a plain allusion to David's MicJitam. He, too, like David, was brought to the edge of the grave, and was raised again. Hence, naturally there is a correspondence to David's Michtam and other Psalms in his Miktab. Moreover, it was Hezekiah who restored David's Psalms to their liturgical use in the temple (2 Chron. xxix. 30, " Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer"). The coincidence, evidently natural, and unlike the invention of a forger, between his 'writing ' or prayer (Isa. xxxviii. 9 — 20) and David's Psalms and those of his singers (vi. 5, " In death there is no remembrance of Thee ; iu'tJie grave who shall give Thee thanks?" xxx. 9, "What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit ? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth f" xxvii, 1 3, " I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living ;"" xlix. i, "All the inJiabi- tants of the world ; " cii. 24, " O God, take me not away in the midst of my days." With which compare Hezekiah's words, " I said in the cutting off of my days, ... I am deprived of the residueof my years. . . . I shall behold no more the inhabitants of the world. The grave canjiot praise Thee ; death cannot celebrate Thee ; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth. The living, the living shall praise Thee "), and their titles (Miktab answering to Michtam Psalms xvi., Ivi., Ivii.) are a presumption for the authenticity of the latter. David's persecution by Saul, to such a degree that, despair- ing of life, he fled to the Philistines (i Sam. xxvii. i; compare xxi. 10), among whom God marvellously "preserved'' him (compare ver. i, " Preserve me, O God"), probably suggested the sixteenth Psalm, though not actually composed till later times, when he was on the throne. What confirms this is, that another similar Michtam of David (PSALM LVI.) is expressly in STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. the title attributed to this occasion : " zvJien the PJiUistincs took him ill Gath." The sorrow-multiplying idolatries around him, whilst there, would naturally suggest the resolution, " Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god : their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips " (ver. 4). The names for idol-gods and sorrozvs are almost identical (mi^y, 'atzeboth; D^^Vi? 'aizabbini) ; a bad augury for those who " hasten after " (^nnp maharu, with a dowry buy as a wife) " another god." All lovers of idols, literal or spiritual, buy them at the cost of " sorrows " here, and death for ever hereafter. In blessed con- trast to.this, he contemplates his own goodly spiritual heritage in the Lord : " The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup : Thou maintainest my lot ; " of which Saul, though he drive me ihto exile, cannot dispossess me. " The lines (which measure out my allotment) are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage^ In undesigned coincidence with this, we find David at Hachilah, in his appeal to his persecutor Saul, fixing on this as the main hardship of his forced exile from the Holy Land (i Sam. xxvi. 19) : " Cursed be they (who have stirred thee up against me) ; for they have driven me out this day from abiding in tJie inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go, serve other gods." The correspondence of the very words is of that natural and unobtrusive kind which fits in with the supposition that the Psalm and the history alike are what they profess to be, genuine representations of David's actual words and sentiments. In the first verse of THE ELEVENTH PSALM, David uses a peculiar expression, " How say ye to my soul, Flee (as) a bird to your mountain?" Birds are more exposed in the open plain ; and therefore on a sudden alarm fly to the covert of a hill. No image could be more appropriate in Palestine, abounding, as it does, in caves on the hill-sides. (Compare I Sam. xiii. 6, "The people did hide themselves — from the Philistines — in caves, rocks, and high places.") But the history furthermore shows, that it is the very image David would be 28 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. likely to use, if the David of the Psalms is the David of the history ; for when he was fleeing before Saul, he says to the latter, (i Sam. xxvi. 20,) " The king of Israel is come out ■ — as when one doth hunt a pm^tridge in the mountains." Here again is a delicate coincidence such as truth alone was likely to produce. Literally, David did flee (i Sam. xix. 18), but the flight counselled by carnal friends was a spiritual one — that he should flee from his high-place of trust in Jehovah ; and this David's spiritual instincts recoiled from ; as Nehemiah long subsequently said to like counsellors, " Should such a man as I flee.?" (Neh. vi. ii.) Once, for a brief space, his stronghold of faith failed at this period, and he sought a carnal mountain ; for he " said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul ; there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines." He narrowly escaped the penalty of his distrust (1 Sam. xxvii., xxviii., xxix.). But at the time of writing the pair of Psalms, xvi. and xvii., faith had recovered its power. For natural fear and divine confidence are the two opposite poles of the believer's life (compare i Sam. x:^x. 6, " David was greatly distressed — but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God,") and it is only at the last we realize " in vain is salvation hoped for from tJie multitude of mountains : truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel" (Jer. iii. 23). Another coincidence with the independent history is latent in Psalm xvi. 7 : "I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel." In the providence of God, Abiathar, one of Ahimelech's sons, escaped, from Saul's slaughter of the priests at Nob, to David (i Sam. xxii. 20). David had thus at his side one through whom, as a priest, in God's appointed way, he could continually seek "counsel" of the Lord. The history (i Sam. XXX. 7, 8 ; compare xxiii. 2, 4, 6, 9) expressly records that David did so " enquire at the Lord " through Abiathar. Saul, on the contrary, by the very act of slaying the priests, bereft himself of those through whom he might have consulted the Lord. So at last, when "the Lord answered him not, STUDIES IN THE CI. PSALMS. neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets/' he filled up the measure of his guilt by having recourse to the witch of Endor, — an act which is expressly specified as one leading cause of his destruction, (i Chron. x. 13, " So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and a/so for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it" I Sam. xxviii. 6, 7.) Truly God makes men's own sin their punishment, even as righteousness is its own reward. (Com- pare Isa. iii. 9, II, "Woe unto their soul ! for they have re- warded evil unto themselves. Say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him : for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him : for the reward of his hands shall be given him.") Men's sin will find them out. With divinely inspired prescience, Samuel denounced Saul's self-justifying excuses of his prominent act of disobedience in words awfully significant of the final issue : " Rebellion is as the sin oi ziitchc'raft (the very climax of guilt into which Saul finally fell), and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (i Sam. xv. 2'^. Truly we ought to pray, " Search me, O God, and know my heart — and sec if there be any way of an idol (i^p otzeb ; or as in Ps. xvi. 4, above, anf loay of sorroiu) in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." The way of idolatry, however refined, proves a way oi sorrow, and shuts out {xoxwjhe way everlasting (Ps. cxxxix. 24). It is written in i Chron. x. 13, "Saul died for his trans- gression — against the word of the Lord." The Hebrew word for " transgression " (7yO tiiaal^ expresses prevarication of word and deed ; Saul not doing God's commandments, yet wishing to appear to do them ; shuffling violation of duty ; as especially in the case of Amalek, whose men and cattle he lestroyed only so far as God's will coincided with his own, and did not interfere with his lust for spoil, and for popularity. lie even gave his very transgression, which he shifts upon " the people," a meritorious and religious character : " The people took of the spoil, to sacrifice to the Lord thy God." In marked contrast to this stands David's resolution (Ps. XVll. 3), " I am 30 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. ' purposed that my mouth shall not transgress ; " or as Heng- stenberg translates it, " my mouth oversteps not my thought." Notwithstanding exceptional falls, my mouth's claim to be righteous, that is, sincere, does not go beyond the real state of my heart, as seen by Thee : compare the end of verse i, "My prayer goeth not out of feigned lips." But lest this statement should savour of pride, David adds, " By the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." The coincidence between David's phrase in the Psalm, " concerning the works of men," and in the independent history ( I Sam. xxiv. g), "men's words," has been formerly noticed. Another coincidence is here. Twice in the history it is recorded, that David was " kept " from sinning, when sorely tempted to avenge himself. First in the case of Nabal (i Sam. XXV. 39), " The Lord (he saith, as here, The word of Thy lips) hath kept His servant from evil." In the second case, the coincidence is more striking still. When the arch- " destroyer" (Ps. xvii. 4) suggested at Hachilah Abishai's proposal in 'words,' "Let me smite Saul," the Lord kept David from the spirit of impatience and self-revenge, and David replied, " Destroy him not " (i Sam. xxvi. 9). Furthermore, David's favourite phrase in the Psalms (Ps. XXXV. I, and xliii. l), " Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me," is the very one attributed to him by the independent historian in i Sam. xxv. 39, " The Lord hath pleaded the cause oi my reproach from Nabal." God's word ^ which " is the path of life," alone can keep us from " the paths of the destroyer.^' How natural are these delicate coincidences ! The minute consistency of David's character, as pourtrayed in the Psalms, with that of his portrait in the history, is just what one might expect, assuming both the history and the Psalms to be genuine. Some have denied Jhat the passage, Ps. xvi. 9, 10, " My flesh also shall rest in hope : for Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corrup- tion," refers to anything further than David's anticipation of bodily deliverance in this life, — on the ground that " flesh " STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 31 commonly expresses the livt?ig hody ; and that the Hebrew for " leave " (Diy) rnay be translated, " commit to ; " and the Hebrew for " corruption " may be rendered, (nnt^ shacatJi) " pit." But I Sam. xvii. 44, shows this rule as to " flesh " is not universal. Moreover, the term is peculiarly appropriate of Him whose body even in death had indestructible vitality. David may have primarily thou 'a)nad), but that of one rising np in Jehovah's holy place (Dp), yaquiun ) ; it is used of a sovereign rising up to take possession of his kingdom, (2 Chron. vi. 10, " I am risen up in the room of David my father,") and is the very term applied to tJie Redeemer, in His coming to vindicate His servants' cause against the adversary, by raising their sleeping bodies : (Job xix. 25,) "I know that He shall rise np {yaqiinni) at the latter day " (else, "that He the Last shall rise up ") "above the dust." He rose first Himself above it, hereafter He shall raise His people above it; for He is the Last, as well as the First. He Himself has answered the question, " No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven" (John iii. 1 3). Enoch and Elijah had ascended up to heaven, it is true ; but none save Messiah had been in heaven first, then came down upon earth, and yet, whilst on earth, was still in heaven, maintaining uninterrupted communion with the Father there. 70 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. (John i. 51,) "The angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man," and then "ascended up where He was before" (John vi. 62). The FIFTEENTH PSALM proposes a similar question at its commencement : " Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle ? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill?" The Hebrew for " abide/' (1^5, g2ir) implies temporary sojourn ; for at best in the visible Church we have but glimpses of His glory ; and, as the Israelites were admitted to the "tabernacle of the congregation," or meeting-place between God and His people (Exod. xxxiii. 7), only as guests for a time with Him, the gracious Host, so we, by His loving invitation, "sojourn" in the earthly Church as in a temporary refuge. In the perfect Church to come we shall " dwell" permanently, and "see His face," and "no more go out" (Rev. iii. 12; xxii. 3). The same thought in PSALM LXV, identifies it as David's : " Blessed is the man whom Thou causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy house. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thine house." (So Ixiii. 5.) The ascension of Messiah first is the pledge and ground of our future ascension with Him. The ground of His ascension as man was His having fulfilled all those conditions of holi- ness which both these Psalms lay down as requisite, and which we had utterly failed to fulfil. Messiah could challenge all adversaries, " Which of you convinceth me of sin } " (John viii. 46.) " The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me" (xiv. 30). Not only did He "speak the truth in His heart," but He could say, " I AM the Truth " (xiv. 6). " No guile was found in His mouth ;" nay, " He was full of grace and truth" (i. 14). So far from "backbiting with His tongue," He restrained the uncharitableness of others : " Let him that is without sin first cast the stone at her" (viii. 7), was His home-thrust to those who wished, through His known gentleness, to entangle Him in a seeming relaxation of the law in the case of the adulteress. Not only "did He no evil to His neighbour," and " love His neighbour as Him- self," but having made man His neighbour, by assuming man's STUDIES m THE CL. PSALMS. 71 nature, He loved him better than Himself, and died the death of agony and shame, that we might live for ever in bliss and glory. " In His eyes, every vile person was contemned," nor could wealth or rank alter His estimate of men ; as even His enemies, the Herodians, confessed, (Matt. xxii. 16,) "We know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man ; for Thou regardest not the person of men." How highly " He honoured them that fear the Lord," appears from His choosing as the ministers of His kingdom poor peasants and fishermen, w'hose only recom- mendation was their promptly receptive and self-sacrificing faith. Having once for all confirmed with an oath His engagement to fulfil the Divine covenant of redemption, He changed not, though it was to His own hurt, and at the cost of His life-blood. So far from "taking reward against the innocent," a bribe of thirty pieces of silver was taken against Him by the traitor, who presently confessed, " I have be- trayed the innocent blood " (xxvii. 4). The twenty-fourth Psalm lays down similarly holiness of hands, heart, and soul, as the necessary preliminary to ascend- ing into Jehovah's hill, and rising up in His holy place. It adds those attributes of majesty and Divine glory which belong to no created being, but exclusively to the ascending Lord alone, " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof {i.e., all that fills it, all its contents) ; the world (7!ir), taibail, the Jiabitable world, oUou/j,evy]}, and they that dwell therein." The Septuagint version prefixes to the Psalm, " On the first day of the week." The rabbins say, it was usually sung on that day, the day that answers to our Christian Sabbath. The occasion, as recorded in the independent histories (2 Sam. vi. and vii., I Chron. xiii. and xv.), was when David, in zeal for the service of the Lord, had gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand, for the purpose of bringing up the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Baalah, where it had lain comparatively out of sight, ever since it had been restored by the Philistines. But in conveying it, a solemn lesson had 72 STUDIES IN THE GL. PSALMS. been given to Israel by GOD, of the deep reverence due to holy things. When the oxen that drew the cart shook the ark, Uzza, though it was not his office, in irreverent haste put forth his hand to take hold of the ark of GOD : whereupon the Lord's anger was kindled, and GOD smote him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of GOD. The event made a deep impression on David, as his words imply, " How shall the ark of the Lord come to me ? " So he, at that time, " brought it not home to himself to the city of David, but carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite." Subsequently, however, finding that the ark, though fatal to the irreverent, brings rich blessings to the godly, as Obed-edom, wherever it abides, David brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness. But still the remembrance of the awful lesson given in Uzza's case made him doubly careful of any new sin of error. The breach the Lord had made upon Uzza, fixed on the memory by the name Perez Usza (meaning breacJi on Uzza), stood in sad contrast to the breaking forth of GOD upon David's enemies, the Philistines, by David's hand, immortalized by the name he gave the place, Baal-perazim {i.e., the plain of breaches, 2 Sam. v. 20). Once again he used the same Hebrew verb in the sixtieth Psalm, first verse, "Thou hast wade a breach in us " (^jri^'nS). Hence flowed the strictness of his charges to the priests and Levites, " Sanctify yourselves, that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not after the due order" (i Chron. xv. 12, 13). What a real, though latent, harmony there is between this charge to " sanctify themselves," and the cognate Psalms, the fifteenth and the twenty-fourth, wherein such stress is laid on holiness of heart within, and of hand without, as the indis- pensable requisite for admission to, and permanent abiding in, Jehovah's holy hill ! As in the twenty-fourth Psalm he declares who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah, viz., "he that hath clean hands," STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 73 {Hebrew, D^S3, kappaim, palms') so in the sixth verse of the TWENTY-SIXTH PSALM he declares his own resolution, " I will wash vmx\& hands (the same Hebrew, /('rt//(7/,) in innocency : so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord." David's association with the sacred procession circling round the altar forms a beauti- ful contrast to those sitting in the same circle " with vain persons," in the fourth verse. All his holiest affections were called into exercise by the entrance of the ark of GOD into the tabernacle which he had prepared for it in Zion ; so that he breaks forth into thanksgivings, " Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thine house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth" (ver. 8), beautifully harmonising with the feeling attributed to him in the independent history, " I have set my affection to the house of my God'' (i Chron. xxix. 3). Is there not also a coincidence between the fourteenth verse of that chapter, " All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee," and the opening verse of the twenty- fourth Psalm, " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods " .' The presence of the ark symbolised the presence of Jehovah in Israel's capital, which was thenceforth " the holy city." Its settlement upon Mount Zion marked a new era in GOD'S relations to His people. The place of the ark in Zion was, from that time forth, the earthly centre of devotion to all godly Israelites. So much so, that when, in Absalom's rebellion, Zadok and the Levites bare the ark of GOD after David, the king said, "Brink it back into the city : if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me again, and show me botJi it and His habitation'' (2 Sam. xv. 25). But it is a principle observable in all the manifestations of God in connection with His earthly abodes, that GOD, jealous for His own honour, which might seem compromised by His dwelling there, as though space could bound the Infinite One, always enters a preliminary protest against human miscon- ception. Thus here, David's twenty-fourth Psalm opens with the declaration, that the earth is Jehovah's by the right of 74 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. creation ; so entirely in accordance with David's words in I Chron. xxix. ii — 16, "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty ; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is Thine," etc. As the Psalm guards against God's condescension in being present with the ark, in the tabernacle on Zion, being mis- construed as derogatory to His omnipresence ; so David's vindication of God's ownership of all that is in heaven and on earth, in Chronicles, guards against the possibility of a similar misconception respecting the temple which his son Solomon was about to build. That prince, accordingly, in his dedicatory prayer in the Temple, repeats in still more emphatical and eloquent words his father's proviso against anthropomorphic conceptions: " But will God indeed dwell on the earth .? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee : how much less this house that I have builded.^" (2 Chron. vi. 18.) Compare Stephen's and Paul's similar protests, so needed by the Jews in their day, and perhaps not altogether needless to professing Christians now : (Acts vii. 48 — 50,) " Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; as saith the prophet. Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool : what house will ye build me.-" saith the Lord : or what is the place of my rest .? Hath not my hand made all these things.?" (Compare Isa. Ixvi. i, 2; Acts xvii. 24, 25.) It is remarkable, moreover, that in Isaiah Ixv. 17, 18, 25, Ixvi. 12, 23, which depicts the millennial period, when " GOD createth Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy, — when the wolf and lamb shall feed together, and dust shall be the serpent's meat, — when GoD will extend to Jerusalem the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream, — and from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before the Lord," viz., at the glorious temple so minutely described by Ezekiel (xl. — xlvii.) in the forefront of this picture of the Lord's condescending to be specially present at Jerusalem for receiving the worship of all nations, (Jer. iii. 17, 18, "At that time they shall call STUDIES LV THE CL. PSALMS. 75 Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered unto it,") stands the same jealous vindication of His honour from misconception because of His condescension : " Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool : where is the house that ye build unto me ? and where is the place of my rest ? For all these things hath mine hand made " (Isa. Ixvi. i, 2). Now to any candid mind the striking harmony of connection thus brought out, so real and yet so little obtruded upon the notice, will hardly fail to bring conviction of the truthfulness and genu- ineness alike of the Psalms and of the histories in question. The twenty-fourth Psalm, after describing the qualifications needed for ascending the hill of Jehovah, does not proceed to tell of any ordinary man by his own merits entering there, but at once transports us to the scene enacted at the ascension of jESUS. As the glorious retinue, with Messiah, approached the shining gates, the attendant angels cried, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in." The reply from within was, " Who is this King of glory?" to which the escorting angels respond, " The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." Again, in more solemn tones, the same demand is made, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in ; " which calls forth the similar challenge, " Who is this King of glory } " to which, with increased emphasis, it is replied, " The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." As "the Lord mighty in battle" (Ps. xxiv. 8), David had experienced the strong help of God in his memorable encoun- ter with Goliath, when he used almost identical words, with undesigned coincidence, concerning Jehovah : " I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts — for the battle is the Lord's" (i Sam. xvii. 45 — 47). As the former designation of the Lord in the Psalm, "The Lord strong and mighty — the Lord mighty in battle," marks His almighty power on earth, so "the Lord of hosts" marks His universal sway 76 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. alike over the visible starry hosts and the invisible angels of heaven. As in the independent history (i Chron. xv. i6) David directed the Levites and singers to " lift tip the voice of joy," so in the Psalm he makes it an utter disqualification for admission along with the true worshippers to Zion, whither they were escorting the ark of Jehovah, for any to ''lift up his soul unto vanity." Heaven's gates will " lift tp their heads " only to him who hath not lifted up his soul tmto vanity. " This is the generation of them that reverently seek (S^^*!, darasli) God, they that seek (^Ti2., baquasJi) Thy face (are the true) Jacob " (so translate, and not as the English version) ; i.e., are wrestling suppliants with GOD, such as was Jacob. (Compare Gen. xxxii. 30,. " I have seen God face to face',* with the inspired commentary on it, Hos. xii. 4, " He had power over the angel, and prevailed : he wept, and made supplication unto him.") Such was the spirit in which David and the procession with the ark drew nigh the gates of the earthly Zion, not on the ground of their merits, but of God's mercies to true supphants. " Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto Thee, when I lift np my hands toward Thy holy oracle," is his un- designedly similar phrase in THE TWENTY-EIGHTH PsALM. He lifted up his hands in prayer toward the oracle, as it contained the ark of the covenant, the visible symbol of God's presence. God graciously condescended to man's natural craving after the visible, by this seen type of the unseen GOD, preparatory to the perfect manifestation of Jehovah in the Word made flesh. As the whole tabernacle was the meeting-place be- tween God and His people, so the inmost shrine was His immediate audience-chamber. " Lift up your heads," is David's appeal to the material gates, by a poetical personifica- tion ; be elated at the honour put upon you in the entrance, through you, of God's own ark. If any creature is to lift up the head in glorying, let it be to glory in the Lord. All other glorying is to " lift up the soul unto vanity ; " but this, whilst it abases self, truly glorifies the man in the Lord. As STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 77 the twenty-fourth Psalm begins with Jehovah's sovereign ownership of the earth and its contents, the world and its inhabitants, so it concludes with recognising this King of glory as "the Lord of hosts," the sovereign owner of the whole heavcfis. Be this our joy, to join with the redeemed in the heartfelt psalm of praise, " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power ; for Thou hast cre- ated all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created ! " 78 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE X. PSALMS v., IX., XIV., XV., LIIL, LXXVIII. THE Psalms form one organic whole, and are rightly called the book of Psalms. So the Apostle Peter refers to them in his address after the Lord's ascension (Acts i. 20), "It is written in the book of the Psalms." Compare also our Lord's own " mode of quoting them, as one whole, (Luke XX. 44,) "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me." The fathers, however — Ambrose (on Ps. xl.) and Jerome writing to Cyprian (ii. 695) — describe the Psalms as Jive books in one volume. They beautifully correspond to the historical fivefold Pentateuch, on which they are based ; and, as Epiphanius felicitously expresses it, (De Mens., c. 5,) they form a " poetical Pentateuch," extending from Moses, who wrote the ninetieth Psalm, to the times of Malachi, when probably some of the Psalms of the fifth book were composed. Bishop Wordsworth well remarks, " It is the Hebrew history set to music, an oratorio in five parts, with Messiah for the subject." The FIVE BOOKS are severally marked by a doxology at the close of each. (Compare the close of Psalms xli., Ixxii., Ixxxix., cvi,, cl.) Though not all composed by David, yet a Davidic spirit pervades the whole. The titles establish his claim to the authorship of the first book (Ps. i. — xli.). Nor is there any trace in it of any other author. The objection drawn from the mention of the " temple " in Ps. v. 7, " In Thy fear will I STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 79 worship toward Thy holy temple," is set aside by i Sam. 1. 9, '' Eli sat by a post of the temple of the Lord," and iii. 3, where the same expression is used long before the erection of the Temple of Solomon. So that the very objection, when thus cleared up, becomes an incidental proof of the genuine- ness and authenticity of both the Psalm and the historical book of Samuel ; for a forger in later times would never think of introducing a phrase which at first sight would seem inconsistent with the times of both Samuel and David, prior to the building of the Temple. Similarly, in accordance with the Hebrew conception of a " temple," the essential feature of which is, not the building, but the consecration to GOD, Jacob says (Gen, xxviii. 22), " This stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's housed Another phrase (Ps. xiv. 7), from which a plea has been drawn for a post-Babylonian date is, "When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice." But the same phrase occurs in one of the oldest books of the Bible, Job xlii. 10, "The Lord turned the captivity of Job," It is evidently a Hebrew idiom for to " reverse one's misfortunes." For Job was never literally a captive. Moreover, if the fourteenth Psalm had been written during the Babylonian captivity, the Psalmist could never have thought of such a prayer as, " O that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion ! " for this implies the manifestation there of the Sheki- nah cloud of glory, indicating God's presence. Now we know from Ezek. xi. 22, 23, that "the glory of the GOD of Israel " had visibly left the city of David soon after the commence- ment of the captivity. But was there any event in the times of David which would satisfactorily explain the phrase, "the captivity of Jehovah's people" .•' On turning to Judg. xviii. 30, we read of Jonathan and his sons having been priests to Micah's image " until the day of the captivity of the land" Now, as the period of the judges ends with Samuel, and in the beginning of the first book of Samuel (iv. 10, 1 1, vii. 14) we have a full account of the discomfiture of Israel before the Philistines, and of the capture of tJie ark by the uncircumcised So STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. enemy, and the taking of many of the Israehte cities, there .can be little doubt that this is " the captivity of Jehovah's people " alluded to in the book of Judges, not the Assyrian carrying away of the ten tribes ages subsequently. The seventy-eighth Psalm (ver. 60, 6i) strongly confirms this view : " God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which He placed among men ; and delivered His strength into captivity, and His glory into the enemy's hand." As this, then, constituted "the captivity of Jehovah's people" and "land," so the " bringing back that captivity " consisted in the restoration, beginning with the bringing back of the ark to Kirjath-jearim. In striking coincidence with the history (i Sam. vi. 13, "They of Beth-shemesh lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it,") are the closing words of David's fourteenth Psalm, " When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad" But this joy was only of a transient kind. For still Jehovah withheld the manifest tokens of His presence with His people. For twenty long and sad years the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim ; "and all the house of Israel mourned after the Lord " (i Sam. vii. 2). The next step towards " bringing back Israel's captivity" was Samuel's call of the people to national penitence, and their obedience, at Mizpeh. At Samuel's intercession, the Philistines, who drew near to battle against Israel whilst he was offering the burnt offering in Israel's behalf, were routed utterly. The Israelites had been (ver. 7, 8) " afraid of the Philistines," and, at their approach, had said to Samuel, " Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that He will save us out of the hand of the Philistines." But now the fear was transferred to their proud and GOD-despising enemies; for (ver. 10) "Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them." How well the Psalmist's (xiv. 5) language coincides with all this, and at the same time how unstudied and natural is the coincidence ! " There were they in great fear, (where) no fear was," i.e., where, humanly STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 8i speakin^, nothing was to be feared from a weak and defeated people, like the Israelites. Elated with past victories, the Philistines had, without- a thought of fear, anticipated an easy- conquest. But " when they said. Peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon them." Overwhelming horror suddenly surprised them amidst a prosperity which never dreamt of fear. The cause is stated : " For GOD is in the generation of the righteous." His presence with Israel was the secret of the sudden and overwhelming discomfiture of their oppressors (Ps. xiv. 5). The consequence of God's presence is stated in the sister Psalm (liii. 5), " GOD hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee." As the oppressors " shamed the counsel of the poor," i.e., tried to put them to shame for their counsel, or determination, to rely on Jehovah (Ps. xiv. 6), therefore, in righteous retribution in kind, Jehovah " put them to shame " (Ps. liii. 5). "Jehovah is Israel's refuge " (Ps. xiv. 6), therefore "GOD hath despised " their proud foes (Ps. liii. 5). How happily the Psalmist's language harmonises with that significant title which Samuel gave to the stone, the memorial of the deliverance, Eben-ezer ("iTyn pi<, the stone of help), saying, " Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." This bringing back of Israel's captivity was advanced a step farther when David, under the special guidance of the Lord, smote the same foe, who heretofore had so trodden down Israel as not to allow them to have a smith throughout the land (i Sam. xiii. 19 — 22), at Baal-perazim, and again from Geba to Gazer (2 Sam. v. 20 — 25). One step further remained to complete the reversing of Israel's captivity, and for that David earnestly longed, as the consummation of his hopes, as a patriot and a child of GOD ; that was, to bring back the ark from its place of long obscuration in the forest-town of Kirjath-jearim (at Ephratah, " in the fields of the wood," Ps. cxxxii. 6), and to enthrone it in the tabernacle on Zion. " David consulted with the captains, and with every leader, and said unto all the congregation of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and that it be of the Lord our GOD, let us send 6 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. abroad unto our brethren everywhere, that are left in all Israel, and also to the priests and Levites, that they may gather themselves unto us : and let us bidng again (n3p31 venaseebah, from ^l^D sabab) the ark of our GOD to us ; for we enquired not at it in the days of Saul" (i Chron. xiii. i — 3). The Hebrew words in this passage and in Ps. xiv. 7, are akin in origin, as in sound : " When the Lord brmgeth back the captivity of His people " (^^^3 bes/mb). What further confirms the connection and the view taken above is, that David realized his much-cherished hope, and that Psalm xv., composed to celebrate the removal of the ark of the covenant to its permanent dwelling on Zion, naturally follows Psalm xiv. As at the close of the fourteenth Psalm David prayed that "salvation might come out of Zion," so in the fifteenth he shows, under the Spirit, what worshippers alone can have access to the Holy One by this time enshrined there. The fifteenth Psalm exhibits the Lord's answer to the prayer, and His fulfilment of the inspired prophecy, that " when the Lord should bring back the captivity of His people," the pledge of which was the ark enthroned on Zion, "Jacob would rejoice, and Israel be glad." " Joy " and " gladness " were the marked characteristics of the occasion. " David brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David, with gladness " — " with joy " — " dancing before the Lord with all his might" (2 Sam. vi. 12, 14; I Chron. xv. 25). There is one prominent expression in the fourteenth Psalm-, which the history of David illustrates : the unbelieving sinner is designated as " the fool." One striking instance, confirming the justice of this scriptural designation, had come under David's special notice, as the independent history records. The sinner, however sagacious in his own estimate, because of his worldly wisdom, and however gilded over with success, is in God's esteem " a fool." The name of Nabal {fool), answering to his nature, which was selfish, unbelieving, folly, could not fail to make a deep impression on David. Often must he have remembered his wife Abigail's speech, which STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 83 was the means of keeping him from an act of violent vengeance : " Let not my lord regard this man of Belial, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he : Nabal is his name, and folly is with him " (i Sam. XXV. 25). How suddenly did "great fear" come upon Iiim in the midst of hi? feasting, "where no fear was" (Ps. liii. 5); for "in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him " of his imminent danger, " his heart died within him, and he became as a stone," — that same "heart" that had been just before so "merry within him," as if he had " said in his heart, There is no God ; " like the rich man who, in the midst of his plans of self-aggrandise- ment and self-indulgence, received the awful summons, " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (i Sam, XXV. 36, T,J ; Ps. xiv. I ; Luke xii. 16 — 20). The same pecu- liar phrase recurs from David's lips again, in his lament over Abner : "Died Abner as o. fool ditthV (2 Sam. iii. ^iZ-) Also Saul calls himself so (i Sam. xxvi, 21) in confessing David's magnanimity : " Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly." Nabal, in refusing his bread to David, was virtually betraying him to Saul. Thus the language of the Psalms (xiv. 4, liii. 4) is accurately in accordance with the historical facts: " Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord .'' " Heartless conduct to man, and disregard of God, are just the traits which the history brings out in Nabal's and Saul's characters. Can we think 'the coincidence of phrase between the Psalm and the history fortuitous } In the title of Ps. ix., Muth-labben, the same reference is found, if the explanation, as is likely, be true, that Labben is an anagram for Nabal, and that the title means, Concerning the dying of the fool {i Sam. xxv. ^S). It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion, that the coincidence is of that real, yet obviously undesigned kind, which flows from truth, the Psalm and the independent record alike faithfully representing the words of the royal Psalmist. How natural, moreover, in the same history, is the image used by Abigail in her intercession with David, (i Sam. xxv. 28, 84 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 29,) "My lordfighteth the battles of the Lord, yet a man is risen to pursue thee ; but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God : and the souls of thine enemies shall He sling o?it, as out of the middle of a sling." Surely it is not over-subtlety to see here plain traces of her remembrance of the story of David's having delivered the people of Jehovah in the battle with the Philistines, from the giant Goliath, by a sling and stone. Yet how artless and unobtrusive is the allusion ! Surely we find here the harmony of truth, not the forgery of a later age. But how are we to account for the twofold form of the same Psalm ? The probability seems that David himself altered a few of the phrases in Psalm liii., to fit it for the public services of the sanctuary. He accordingly omits whatever in Psalm liii. was less suited for liturgical purposes than for private use. As the fifty-third Psalm was designed to teach the world at large, the title "Maschil," i.e., teaching, is prefixed to it, not to Psalm xiv. The Divine name occurs seven times in each Psalm, the sacred number denoting totality and perfection. But in the fourteenth Psalm, Jehovah occurs four times, Elohim three times. In the fifty-third Psalm, Elohim alone is used throughout, the Creator and sole Rider, and coming Judge, whom the ungodly shut out from His own world, so far as their thoughts are concerned. Amidst the overwhelm- ing oppression which the godly suffer, and the abounding corruption of the world, God again, (Ps. liii. 2,) as in Noah's days, " looks down from heaven upon the children of men," preparatory to judgment. (Compare verse 3, " Every one of them is gone back, they are altogether become filthy : there is none that doeth good, no, not one:" with Gen. vi. 5, " God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually/') Practical ignoring of God is the sin which brings down Divine judgment^ and it shall be especially cha- racteristic of the generation which the Second Advent of our Lord shall so much take by surprise. (Luke xvii. 26, 27,) " As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man : They did eat, they drank, they married. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 85 etc., until the flood came, and destroyed them all." The fifty- third Psalm is an itistnictive ivaniiiig {x^z.sq\\\\)\.o the ungodly and carnal ; as the fourteenth Psalm is designed for the con- solation of the righteous when cast down by the prevalence of abounding iniquity. There is a plain coincidence of phrase between Psalm liii. i, " Corrupt are they" OrT'llj^ri, hischithu), and Gen. vi. 12, " God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt ; for " all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth " (Hnrtti^^, nisJicJiatJiaJi). Appropriately, when the Psalmist directs his address to the godly, he four times substitutes for the Elohim of Psalm liii. the special name JEHOVAH, expressing God's covenant rela- tion to ti is people, and assuring them that He who made the promises is the unchanging I AM, who will faithfully fuWl them. This is the sense of that much-disputed passage. Exodus vi. 3, " I appeared unto Abraham by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." He was known by the mere appellation long before; for it occurs as early as the second chapter of Genesis. But then first the name JEHOVAH was manifested in making good in act the precious //'c//z/j-£?i- long before given and associated with the name. The name is the future tense of hava/i, an older form than hayah ; and therefore was formed in a stage of Hebrew older than the oldest books of the Old Testament, It is impossible, on the supposition of JEHOVAH being a name coined in later times, to account for the profound reverence with which it was, and is, regarded by the whole nation. Blessed be His Holy Name, if He is coming forth out of His place as the Elohim to inflict judgment on !he ungodly, He is coming forth speedily as the covenant-keeping Jehovah to fulfil His promise of perfected redemption to His waiting people ! 86 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XL PSALMS XXXIL, XXXIX., LI., LXXVIII., CX. THE great subject for the infidel's cavil in the inspired history of David is his heinous offence against God and man in the treacherous murder of the loyal Uriah, and his adultery with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. But the cavil of the scoffer is itself a striking fulfilment of the Avord of God to David : " By this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme" (2 Sam. xii. 14). Nor is it derogatory to the religion of the Bible, as the self-righteous unbehever supposes, that the " man after God's own heart" (i Sam. xiii. 14) should so grievously fall ; for the Bible says truly of every man's natural heart, that 'it is " deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked : who can know it .'' " (Jer. xvii. 9.) According to Scripture, " by grace " alone the believer " is saved " (Eph. ii. 5). Whenever he fails in faith, watchfulness, and prayer, he is left to himself, that he may be taught that it is only " by faith he stands " (Rom. xi. 20 ; 2 Cor. i. 24). Thus it magnifies* the grace of God, that out of such corrupt materials He should produce vessels of glory meet for His own use. Yet the unbeliever has no ground for glorying over the exceptional falls of the saint. Better is a diamond with a flaw than a common pebble without one. Moreover, God has overruled David's fall to the rise of many. How many believers who have grievously fallen, have been rescued from despair and ruin by the hope which David's case gives of the power of God's grace to deliver even out of STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 87 the mouth of the roaring lion. Moreover, his great sin and his gracious restoration were made by the Spirit of God the occasion of giving to the Church and the world two of the most precious Psalms in the Psalter, namely, the FIFTY-FIRST and the thirty-second Psalms. It is a wonderful proof of the sincerity of David's repentance, that he, a great king, should commit to the chief musician, for the temple choir to sing in the public liturgy, a Psalm setting forth his own great sin and shame. As public as was his crime, so public and hearty is his confession of it to God, and prayer for mercy and renewing grace. In the title of the FIFTY-first Psalm the historical fact from which it starts is indicated: "A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet had gone unto him, after (or according- as) he had gone in to Bathsheba." The use of the same verb and preposition in the Hebrew (75^ 5^1D) in both clauses marks not a connection of time, for in fact Nathan did not come unto David till almost a year after David's first connection with Bathsheba (2 Sam. xii. i, 14), but implies the inseparable connection which there is between the believer's sin and God's condemnation of it, not merely because of God's wrath, but chiefly because of God's love (Amos iii. 2 ; i Peter iv. 17), The same verb and preposition as in the Psalm are used to express the fact in the history (2 Sam. xii. i). David's expression in the Psalm, " Blot out ,my transgres- sions," rests on Nathan's declaration in the history, " The Lord hath caused to pass away (T'riyn) thy sin." Though the prophet had thus announced an immediate and full pardon to David on his brief confession- of sin, }'et the penitent could not at once appropriate it. The greater had been the grace conferred on him, the deeper was his fall, and the harder he found it to recover peace and assurance. He uses the terms "transgressions, iniquity, sin," to mark the manifold character of his sin ; to which corresponds his penitent cry, " According to the multitude of Thy tender mercies," " multiply to wash me (for so the Hebrew for " wash me throughly " expresses) from mine iniquity." As ni)' sins are 88 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. manifold, so let Thy washing be manifold. Twice he alludes to the ritual for cleansing the leper, as typifying the spiritual cleansing which his soul-leprosy needed. The Hebrew for "wash me (D53) from mine iniquity," is properly applied to " washing the clothes " of the leper when being cleansed (Lev. xiv. 4, 7 — 9). Again, when he prays, " Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Ps. h. 7), he alludes to the sprinkling of v/ater and blood from " hyssop " on the leper to be cleansed. In the fourth verse we have a beautiful coincidence between the Psalm and the independent history. In the judgment of the world, the prominent feature in David's sin was its gross offence against the laws and well-being of society, and against Uriah, the individual whose honour and life were so cruelly sacrificed. But David, when his eyes were opened by the grace of God, saw that the chief malignity of his transgres- sion lay in its offence against the loving and holy God. This is the answer to those who cavil at the word "only" in his confession, " Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." The wrong to man was as nothing compared with the vastly greater wrong done against God. It is the same spirit that prompted Joseph's reply to the similar temptation to adultery with Potiphar's wife, " How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against Godf" (Gen. xxxix. 9.) The history exactly accords with this view of sin, and yet so incidentally that nothing but the genuineness and truth of both Psalm and history could have produced the harmony. Nathan says in 2 Sam. xii. 9, 13, "Thou hast despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight ; " and David said unto Nathan, " I have sinned against the Lord." How utterly unlike Saul, whose chief anxiety as to his sin was, lest through the prophet's withdrawal of his countenance it should have the effect of his losing favour zvith the people, rather than witJi God! " I have sinned," said he to Samuel, " yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Lsrael, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God" (i Sam. xv. 30). Further, in this we find David beautifully consistent with STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 89 his own character as it appears in the history of his other great offence, his pride in numbering Israel. Saul, when convacted of disobedience to the Lord's commandment for the utter destruction of all belonging to Amalek, twice shifted the blame from himself on the people ; " I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, but the people took the spoil, the best of the sheep and the oxen ; and the rest we have utterly destroyed" (i Sam. xv. 13, 15, 20, 21). But David on a distinct occasion (i Chron. xxi. 17) takes all the blame 011 Jiimself, and wholly exonerates the people, saying unto the Lord's prophet Gad, " Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered } even / it is that have sinned, and done evil indeed (the same phraseology, undesignedly, as in the fifty- first Psalm, ver. 4, " / have sinned, and done evil in Thy sight ") ; but as for these sheep, what have they done } Let Thine hand, I pray Thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house, but not on Thy people." Again, David's language in the sixteenth verse of the fifty- first Psalm unmistakably implies David's remembrance of Saul's plea for disobedience to the Lord's commandment concerning Amalek, in the independent history (i Sam. xv. 21 — 28): "The people took the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God. But Samuel said, HatJi the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king : the Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine that is better than thou." David could never forget the words of the prophet, whereby Jehovah transferred the kingdom to himself. Yet with what delicacy and undesignedness the latent harmony comes out, " Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it : Thou dclightcst not in burnt offering (the very expression of Samuel in the history). The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not 90 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. despise." Yet at the close he adds, " Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offer- ing and whole burnt offering " (typifying entire self-surrender to God). For as in ver. i6 he states that heartless sacrifices are rejected, so in ver. 19 he promises hearty sacrifices, as being acceptable to Jehovah. Moreover, David undesignedly shows, in the eleventh verse of the fifty-first Psalm, his remembrance of Saul's awful end as recorded in the history. We read in i Sam. xvi. i, 13, 14, that after David's being anointed, "the Spirit of Jehovah came upon David from that day forward, but the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul," Now David might well fear the same doom, as the consequence of his having so sadly "grieved the Holy Spirit of God." How natural then is his prayer, when viewed in the light of the independent history : " Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," as Thou didst from Saul. Saul's great fault was a want oi 2. prompt and ready spirit of obedience. He wished to seem to obey God whilst really following his own self-will and love of popularity. It is written (i Chron. X. 13), "Saul died for his transgression which he committed against Jehovah, even against the word of Jehovah which he kept not." The Hebrew (/V^) for " transgression " expresses shuffling violation of diity, not doing, yet wishing to appear to do : prevarication : as Reuben, by the same Hebrew word, was charged with wishing to appear to worship Jehovah, yet all the while rebelling in sacrificing at another altar than that one appointed by Jehovah (Josh. xxii. 16 ; see also Job xxi. 34, margin). Now, in contrast to this, David prays, " Uphold me with a ready (n^HJ willing) spirit ; " not as English version, " with Thy free Spirit," but with a zuilling, spontaneous, prompt spirit of obedience. At the same time, his words, " Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," imply that this " ready spirit " can only come into him from the Holy Spirit. The expression (l*!!!) in the Psalm is shown by the independent history to be a favourite one with David. In i Chron. xxix. 17, he says, "As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 91 have ivillingly (the same Hebrew) offered all these things ; " and in the fourteenth verse, "Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so xvillingly ? " So in the fifth verse of the same chapter. In the hundred and tenth Psalm, verse 3, also, he uses the same Hebrew, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power." The Hebrew for " Renew a right spirit within me" means a stablisJicd or steadfast spirit (]1^^), which harmonizes with his prayer for the people in the history (i Chron. xxix. 18), " Stablish" (the same Hebrew) "their heart unto Thee;" to which prayer corresponds beautifully the Divine answer, anticipated in Psalm x. 17, "Thou wilt establish their heart." David's fault had been want of that steadfastness whereby he should have resisted temptation (comp. Ps. Ixxviii. ^7). He had it once : he now prays God to " renew" it. God had said to David by Nathan, " Thou hast killed Uriah — with the sword of the children of Ammon " (2 Sam. xii. 9). Others also of the people, servants of David, had fallen with Uriah (xi. 17, xvi. 7). In accurate and seemingly undesigned agreement with this, David prays in Psalm li. 14, "Deliver me from bloods" (the Hebrew plural marking the slaying of more than one), " O God, Thou God of my salva- tion." This title, " God of my salvation" implies that what he sought mainly deliverance from wdjs, guilt and eternal death, not merely temporal punishment. He bore meekly the Lord's temporal chastisement in removing his child, notwithstanding his prayerful entreaty and fasting ; nay, more, he " accepted the punishment of his iniquity" (Lev. xxvi. 43), and even came into "the house of Jehovah and worshipped" directly after the child's death : thereby he "justified God" and con- demned himself, as the Psalm expresses it, in such nice harmony with the history : " Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest " (li. 3. Compare the case of Rehoboam's princes humbling themselves under chastisement by Shishak, and justifying Jehovah, 2 Chron. xii. 6). It is the same spirit as dictated his submissive cry, (Ps. xxxix. 9,) " I 92 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it." (Compare Aaron's meekness when he lost his sons by Jehovah's stroke, Lev. x. i — 3.) Rationalists have made the last two verses a pretext for dating the fifty-first Psalm after the captivity, when the walls of Jerusalem were prostrate : " Build Thou the walls of Jeru- salem." But the Psalmist does not say, "Build them again;" but " Build them." Now here the independent history shows that the Psalm is in exact, and at the same time evidently tin- designed, agreement with its record of David's reign (i Chron. xi. 5 — 8) : " David took the castle of Zion, which is the city of David, and dwelt in the castle ; therefore they called it the city of David. And he biiilt the city round about, even from Millo round about ; and Joab repaired the rest of the city" This corresponds to his prayer in the eighteenth verse of the Psalm: "Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build Thou the ivalls of jferusalem." David, whose cliief solicitude was so often shown to be for his people, was naturally afraid lest his sin, in which Joab had been an accomplice, should impede the completion of the crowning work of his kingdom, the capital city and its walls, in which also Joab was associated with him. His prayer was heard ; as the independent history incidentally informs us, Solomon finally completed " the wall of Jerusalem round about (i Kings iii. i ; ix. 15). One promise David gives in Psalm li. 13: "Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation — Then will I teach transgressors Thy way, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee." This promise he fulfils in the subsequent PSALM, xxxil., which he therefore designates Maschil, i.e., "teaching." Whilst all the Psalms, as all Scripture, contain iiistruction (2 Tim. iii. 16), the Psalms entitled "Maschil" draw attention to this as their special design, even in cases where this design is not apparent at first sight. Therein, as the mouthpiece of God the Holy Ghost, he teaches others, from his own experience, the way of blessedness : (ver. 8, 9,) " I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye." The definiteness of language, and the accumulation of terms, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 93 "sin iniquity, transgression" (ver. 5), point evidently to the one grievous exception to David's general uprightness of walk (comp. I Kings xv. 5). Sin blinded David, and stupefied his conscience for more than nine months. Hence, when first awakened by Nathan's reproof, though his ingenuous confes- sion was followed by God's instantaneous forgiveness, he did not immediately realize peace. A period of mental darkness followed, so long as he " kept silence" ixow\ full and free con- fession of all his guilt ; but he adds, " I acknoivledged my sm unto Thee, mine iniquity have I not hid : I said, I will confess vny transgressions unto Jehovah," and then "Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin;" i.e., I realized my forgiveness by Thee. Now this full confession he made in Psalm li. 3, 5, and in the very same language, " I acknoivledge my transgressions (y^S, wilfnl commissions) — my sin (5{, moral perversity, vanity) — a palpably undesigned coincidence. Hence he teaches, "Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah im- puteth not iniquity, and in whose spirit is no guile;" i.e., who does not "keep silence" from confession to God : the "trans- gression" of such a one is "forgiven," his "sin" is " covered." Contrast Saul's extenuation of his sin and its fatal issue (i Sam. xiii. 9 — 14; xv. 9 — 30). Thus "everyone that is godly," profiting by my experience, will "pray unto Thee" in the day of grace "when Thou mayest be found :" and "the floods" of wrath, when the day of grace is past, "shall not come nigh unto him:" he shall " be glad in Jehovah," and instead of a crowd of sorrows, shall be compassed about with " soncTs of deliverance." 94 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE Xir. PSALM IL, III., IV., v., XXL, XXXL, XXXV., XLL, LV., LXIV., CIX. TO the introductory pair of Psalms which form the preface of the Psalter, succeed PSALMS HI. and IV., which relate to the most critical period in David's history, the rebellion of his unnatural son Absalom. As in the pair, Psalms i. and ii., the revolt referred to is that against King Messiah, the Anti- type, so in Psalms iii. and iv. it is that against Jehovah's anointed king, David, the type. Both revolts alike are " vain." (Compare Ps. ii. i, " Why do the people imagine a vain thing > " with Ps. iv. 2, " O ye sons of men, how long will ye love va7iity f) As in Psalm iii., his former experiences of Divine aid are his ground of confidence, so in Psalm iv. the fact that God has "set him apart as king" is his reliance against the revolters. David's experiences are the mould in which the Spirit casts His prophecies concerning the Son of David. David in his afflictions typifies the sufferings of Christ, and of His Church, preliminary to the glory which follows. David in his triumphs, enthroned on God's holy hill of Zion, prefigures Messiah, of whom the Father declares His fixed decree, "Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion " (Ps. ii.). The connecting link is supplied in the independent history (2 Sam. vii. 12 — 16), wherein GOD promises by Nathan the prophet, •' Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever." That promise finds its fulfilment in Messiah alone, who revived the house and kingdom of David after their long prostration, and whose STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 95 dominion yet to be manifested with His Church, shall be " an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away " (Dan. vii. 14). The THIRD Psalm is the first with a title : accordingly, in it first, David speaks in his own person. The genuineness of the titles has been discussed in a former chapter. The desig- nation " A Psalm " (^IDIO' ^niznior), is by Gesenius explained "a song divided in rhythmical numbers ; " but by Hengsten- berg, " a song with ornate speech and well-executed music." Such a finished song could only be composed at a time of repose, and not in the midst of the excitement of the re- bellion. When therefore the title states the occasion, "when he fled from Absalom his son," we must suppose that the idea or outline was suggested to David on his way to Maha- naim, whither he fled after having crossed the Jordan ; but that the final eoniposition was not till long after, v/hen he had leisure for calm reflection on the past. Absalom is never mentioned in the Psalm, because too personal particulars were unsuitable to the liturgical use in the temple, for which the Psalms were especially designed. The individual allusions that occur are with a view to the similar experiences of all the godly, whose representative David was. Merely personal details suit private prayer : even in it we ought to guard against minute introspection degenerating into soliloquy, instead of prayer. David had just heard from spies, sent by his friend Hushai from within the city, of the counsel of Ahithophel against him, and that all Israel had joined Absalom ; how appropri- ately, then, David begins Psalm iii., "Lord, how arc they in- creased that trouble me ! Many are they that rise up against me." The history informs us, and the Psalm's coincidence with it is evidently the result of reality, not of design, " The conspiracy was strong : for the people increased continually with Absalom" (2 Sam. xv. 12). It is remarkable how, immediately upon hearing the mes- sage, " The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom," David " fled." The people themselves subsequently noticed 96 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. it : (2 Sam. xix. 9,) " The king saved us out of the hand of our enemies, and he delivered us out of the hand of the PhiH- stines ; and now he is fled out of the land for Absalom ! " The fact is true to nature ; for conscience can unman the brave : and on the other hand, as our great poet says, " Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." Now David had a righteous cause, so far as Absalom himself was concerned. The latter was simply a too fondly loved son, turning on the father who indulged him. But there was with Absalom one whose name suggested to David a train of bitter self- reproaches. It was Ahithophel, David's trusted counsellor in times past, whom he designates " mine own familiar friend," (Hebrew, "the man of my peace :" even as the anti- type, Judas, saluted Messiah with the kiss of peace,) "in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread — mine equal, my guide" {i.e., counsellor, 2 Sam. xv. 12, xvi. 23), "and mine acquaintance," acquainted with my secret feelings, as Judas was with Jesus (John xv. 15); and adds, "We took sweet counsel together {in private, *11D, sod), and walked into the house of God in company" (Hebrew, "in the public tumult- nous crozvd of worshippers," "^T^, beragesh) (Ps. xli. 9 ; Iv. 12— 14-) Absalom calculated on Ahithophel's adhesion to the rebel cause from the first. For he " sent for " him to come from his place of abode, Giloh, in the hill country of Judah, " while he (Absalom) offered sacrifices" (2 Sam. xv. 12). The sacri- fice and the sacrificial feast would give a plausible plea to the king's counsellor for being present with the king's son at such a solemn occasion. Absalom had already obtained the king's leave to go to Hebron, by the specious lie, (ver 7, 8,) " Thy servant vowed a vow while I abode at Geshur, in Syria, If the Lord shall bring me again indeed to Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord." He with sanctimonious hypocrisy imi- tated the patriarch Jacob's pious language, " If GOD will be with me — so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God" (Gen. xxviii. 20, 21). How naturally the incidental warning of David to the rebels accords STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 97 with this, " Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,'' not those of hypocrisy^ the cloak of parricidal rebellion (Ps. iv. 5). The Psalm's coincidence with the history is just of that artless nature which stamps the truth of both. Ahithophel was evidently in the secret some time before, and had left Jerusalem, his adopted place of abode as king's counsellor, for Giloh, his native place, to be ready at Absa- lom's first call. He possibly suggested the scheme of the pretended vow and sacrifices. At all events, the treachery is in the Psalms laid mainly to his charge : compare Ps. Iv. 20, 21, " He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him, he hath profaned (Hebrew) his covenant; the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart ; his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords :" and Ps. xxxi. 1 3, " Slander — fear was on every side : while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life." What a bitter contrast to the traitor's seeming communion with his rightful king, " We took sweet counsel together ! " Ahithophel evidently was the mainstay of the rebellion. The history does not directly say why he so readily deserted his lord, and threw himself so earnestly into the rebel's cause. But incidentally it comes out ; he was the father of Eliam (or, as it is written by transposition, Ammiel, i Chron. iii. 5), who was father of Bathsheba. (Compare 2 Sam. xi. 3, with xxiii. 34, 39.) David's sin found him out, in retributive justice, through the instrumentality of his paramour's immediate relative. Uriah the Hittite, and Eliam, being both of the king's body-guard, consisting of thirty-seven officers, were naturally thrown much together, and the intimacy led to Uriah's marrying the daughter of his brother officer. How natural, too, Ahithophel's sense of wrong towards the murderer of his grandson by marriage, and the corrupter of his grand- daughter! The scandal, moreover, made the people cease to respect their king, who acted in a way so grossly tnconsistent witli his profession of piety, and gave a powerful handle of attack upon his character and government to the discon- 7 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. tented. Hence his instantaneous flight, though he was usually so brave. The palpable undesignedness of all these coinci- dences, which are so little on the surface that they only come to view on a careful search, confirms the truthfulness of the history, with which the Psalms harmonize so well. Ahithophel's fame for wisdom was proverbial : " The counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of GOD " (2 Sam. xvi. 23). But it was not " the wisdom from above," but that which is " earthly, sensual, devilish." By his crafty and abominable counsel, Absalom incestuously lay with his father's concu- bines. Ahithophel's object was thereby to commit Absalom's followers to an irreconcilable war, and Absalom himself to the claim to the throne; for, according to Oriental ideas, to take to one's self the wife or wives of the preceding king was considered tantamount to claiming to succeed to his throne. (Compare in Adonijah's case, i Kings ii. 13, etc.) Thus God's threatened retribution of David's adultery in kind was fulfilled : " Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly ; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun " (2 Sam. xii. II, 12). Not regard for the justice of GOD, but bitter hostility to David personally, and Satanic sagacity, suggested this counsel of Ahithophel. The same spirit, combined with boldness of purpose, and thirst for David's blood, appears in Ahithophel's further counsel : " Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night, and I will come upon him while he is weary and- weak-handed, and / ivill smite the king only, and I will bring back all the people unto thee : the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned .... and the sdiylng pleased Absalom zvell" (2 Sam. xvii. i — 3). What a contrast to David's charge concerning Absalom, before the battle : " Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom " (2 Sam. xviii. 5). Well might STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 99 David say, " For my love they are my adversaries." " They hate me without a cause." " They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love " (Ps. cix. 4, 5). Herein he shadowed forth the great Antitype, who was hated by those to whom He had given every cause to love Him, and who loved those who had given Him every cause to hate them. It is remarkably suggestive, in this point of view, that the very same Greek word {haipeav) in Christ's quotation of the Psalm, (John xv. 25,) "They hated me zuithout a cause" is used for men's hatred, as expresses God's free or causeless (so far as man's part is concerned) love, in Rom. iii. 24, "Being justified //'r^/j/ {hwpeav, " luithout a cause'") by His grace." As gratuitous as was man's hatred, so gratuitous was God's love. David had one weapon against Ahithophel's consummate wisdom, and that one was sufficient. " I (give myself unto) prayer," he says in Psalm cix. : literally, " I — prayer :" prayer is the breath of my being, my one grand resource. So, in coincidence with the Psalm, the history records that when " one told David, Ahithophel is among the conspirators, David said, O Lord, I pray Thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel \n\.o foolishness" (i Sam. xv. 31). Ahithophel's ?iamc ex- presses "foolishness:" and David's prayer, which evidently alludes to the sense of the name, moved GoD to show in his case that " the wisdom of this world is foolishness with GOD." Treachery was his sin, and by treachery he was bafifled to his own ruin, " Without cause he had hid for David his net in a ///," but " destruction came upon himself, and his net that he had hid caught himself" (Ps. xxxv. 7, 8). By counsel he compassed David's destruction, and by Hushai's counsel he was led to destroy himself, like the antitype, Judas. " They shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves " (Ps. Ixiv. 8). His master Absalom's corpse was literally cast into a great pit, and a heap of stones piled on him, like a second Achan — the perpetual token of his curse, instead of the immortal fame which he had sought by his pillar. How significantly the language of the Psalm accords with the facts STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of the history : " Thou, O Lord, shalt bring them down to the f>it of destruction : men of bloods and deceit shall not live out half their days." "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him ; as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him" (Ps. Iv. 23 ; cix. 17). The FIFTH Psalm (verses 5 — 7) — a moi'ning hymn, as the 3rd and 4th are evening hymns — alludes to the same crisis. Hengstenberg explains the title "upon Nehiloth," as meaning " concerning the lots," i.e., the double destiny, blessing appointed by God to the righteous, misery to the wicked. "The foolish shall not stand in Thy sight — destroy Thou them : Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing — the bloody and deceitful man (deal with them as guilty, D^*'£J'^il^), O God : let them fall by their ozvn eounsels." How exactly and yet undesignedly the history coincides with this : Ahithophel's fall was occasioned by his own counsel, as in the case of Judas: (2 Sam. xvii. 14, 23,) "The Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom. When Ahithophel saiv that his counsel zvas not follozved — he gat him home to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself." In contrast to Absalom's leasing, i.e., lying pretence of sacrifice, whilst really meditating bloodshed, David says, " As for me, / will come into Thine house, in the multi- tude of Thy mercy, and in Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple." Compare with this David's words in the independent history, " The Lord will bring me again, and show me His habitation'' (2 Sam. xv. 25). David had learned from Hushai's messengers, Jonathan and Ahimaaz, Ahithophel's proposal to pursue David on the night of his flight with "twelve thousand'" (2 Sam, xvii. i) chosen men. How naturally the language of the Psalmist reflects the facts recorded by the independent historian, " I will not be afraid of ten thotisajtds of people that have set themselves against me round about" (Ps. iii, 6). David had prayed, as the history records (2 Sam. xv. 31), and faith led him to anticipate confidently the answer, as the Psalm de- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. loi clares, " I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me out of His holy hill" (Ps. iii..4). The history records a fact which strikingly confirms the reality of David's God-inspired confidence, of "both lying down in peace, and sleeping in safety," as expressed in the Psalm (iv. 8) — he conferred on Ziba "all the goods that per- tained unto Mephibosheth " (2 Sam. xvi. 4). Here we have a coincidence of ideas, rather than of words. His unworthy flight at the first alarm gave place to believing confidence. Ziba's seasonable present of " two hundred loaves of bread, an hundred bunches of raisins, and an hundred of summer fruits, and a bottle of wine," supplied David's immediate wants, and those of his " household and the young men," and were a pledge of Jehovah's continued care. This fact, recorded in the history, finds its counterpart in the Psalm (iv, 7), in the reflection thereby suggested of Jehovah's provi- dential bounty to him, vastly outweighing the present abund- ance at the rebel's command: " Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased." But how delicate and unstudied is the connection! The correspondence is the natural result of the genuineness of both the Psalm and the history, and not the work of a forger producing designedly the agreement. Three others ministered to the wants of David and his retinue when he reached Mahanaim : Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah, of the children of Amnion ; Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar ; and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim. So that, whilst the revolters had been restlessly seeking their good from earthly sources, saying, "Who zvill sJioiv ics any good?" and had lent a ready ear to the "leasing," i.e., the lying promises of the ringleaders, (2 Sam. xv. 2 — 6, " O that every man which hath any suit might come unto me, and I would do him justice !") David found all his good in Jehovah, who immediately answered his prayer, " LORD, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us " (Ps. iv. 2, 6). The fatal error of the rebels was their ignoring God's appointment. Yc think yourselves " sons of MEN " (£J''*K *'yi STUDIES LV THE CL. PSALMS. b'nce ish : " heroes,'' the honourable appellation ; not the general term, d'nee adam, "men," much less the depre- ciatory d'nee enos/i, "low, worthless men"). "How long," then, with all your boasted wisdom, will ye not " know that Jehovah hath set apart h'm that is godly for Himself?" (Ps. iv. 2, 3.) In real, though evidently undesigned, coinci- dence with this, the history (i Sam. xv. 28) represents Samuel saying to Saul concerning David, " The Lord hath given the kingdom to a neighbour of thine tJiat is better than thou." The ungodly principle that had been set aside in the person of Saul, was again seeking the mastery in the person of Absalom ; but it was "vanity " to hope for its success against God's enthronement of the godly principle in the person of David. Against their taunt, " There is no salvation {'^'W\, Jeshua) for him in GOD," David declares, " Salvation belongeth unto Jehovah: Thy blessing is upon Thy people" (Ps. iii. 2, 8). Instead of their general name of GOD, Elohim, David uses the special name that implies God's unchangeable faitJi- fulness to His promises to His people, His covenant name, Jehovah. According to David's faith was the issue. Absalom lost his opportunity of attacking his father that night, whilst weak-handed. Fear of his father's bravery, indecision, and vanity drew him easily aside from Ahithophel's politic counsel. He waited to have himself anointed, as we infer from 2 Sam. xix. 10, " Absalom, whom we anointed." Hushai knew well how to play upon his vanity by the counsel to summon all Israel, and that Absalom should command in person. The battle in the wood of Ephraim in Gilead resulted in the defeat of his cumbrous and undisciplined host. His locks, on which he prided himself, (xiv, 25, 26,) becoming entangled in the branches of a terebinth tree, kept him suspended till Joab pierced him ; and the father, whom the unnatural son would have gladly smitten, was the only one to mourn his untimely end. David's throne was re-estab- lished, and in his seed, Messiah, the Son of David, shall be everlasting ; whereas Absalom was cast into a dishonoured STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 103 grave, without a son to perpetuate his name, the three whom he once had, having all died ; the words of the Psalmist being thereby fulfilled, " Their fruit shalt Thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men," but " the king shall joy in Thy strength, O Lord. For Thou hast made him most blessed for ever: Thou hast made him exceeding glad with Thy countenance " (Ps. xxi. i — 10 ; compare 2 Sam. xiv. 27, " Unto Absalom were born three sons," with xviii. 18, "I have no son to keep my name in remembrance"). We may well say, "Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily He is a GOD that judgeth in the earth." 104 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XIII. PSALMS III., IV., XX., XXL, XLIL, LXL, LXIL, LXIII. IN connection with the third and fourth Psalms, we saw that prayerful trust in Jehovah was David's grand re- source against the formidable conspiracy of Absalom and his numerous hosts. David calmly counselled the rebels, (Ps. iv. 4,) " Stand in awe, and sin not ; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah." He exhorted them to that which he experienced the blessedness of himself — medita- tion on one's ways before God in the stillness of night, upon one's bed. It was this which gave him such composure and holy confidence; it was what was needed to make, them see their bad enterprise in its true light. Passion blinded them to its real guiltiness. The Septuagint takes the passage as St. Paul does in Eph, iv. 26, " Be ye angry, and sin not ; " i.e., " sin not through anger ; " anger may be allowable in some cases, as in Mark iii. 5, the anger of the holy Jesus at the hardness of His hearers' hearts ; but in the case of you revolters against your king, anger can only be sinful. In contrast to their blustering passion stands David's counsel, ** Be still." St. Paul's general precept, " Let not the siin go down upon your zvrath " {irapop'^Lafxw, exasperatioji), answers to the Psalmist's, " Com- mune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah." The closing Selah (from TD^, rest) is a call to calm reflection on the preceding words. A meditative soul will pause and ponder at such passages, in order to profit by what the STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. lo?' Holy Spirit propounds: whence, in Ps. ix. i6, Sclah follows " Higgaion," vieditation. The three Psalms of David, LXI., LXIL, and LXIII., refer to the same trying time. The construct form of the Hebrew {neginatJi) in the title of Psalm Ixi. requires the translation, " Upon David's stringed instrument." This accords with Amos's attribution of the invention of some musical instru- ments to David: (vi. 5,) "They invent instruments of music, like David." By undesigned coincidence the kindred Hebrew verb is applied to David's " playing with his hand " to soothe Saul (i Sam. xvi. 23, j^-?). At the same time David's author- ship of the Psalm is also implied. He says in ver. 2, " From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee." Being exiled from the tabernacle in Jerusalem, where God manifested His pre- sence, he felt as it were banished to the remote extremity of the world. He was in the "wilderness of Judah," according to the title of Ps. Ixiii., which exactly accords with the inde- pendent history (2 Sam. xv. 23), " The king and all the people passed over towards the way of the wilderness ;" " the plain of the wilderness " (ver. 28 ; xvii. 16). Here, " weary " and thirsty, " they refreshed themselves " with the bread, raisins, summer fruits, and wine supplied by Ziba (xvi. 2, 14). How accurately, yet undesignedly, the imagery of thirst in the sixty-third Psalm accords with the facts recorded in the history ! " My soul thirstetJi for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, zvJiere no luater is." As the sixty-third Psalm refers to the first stage of his flight when he was in the wilderness of Judah, so the FORTY-SECOND to the further stage when he had reached the other side of Jordan : this is intimated in the sixth verse of Psalm xlii., " O my God, I will remember Thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermons," /.^., Hermon and its fellow-mountains. The transjordanic region was regarded as in a measure separate from the Holy Land proper, as is proved by the erection of the altar of witness by Reuben, Gad, and Manassch to attest their fellowship with Israel (Josh. xxii.). David's expression of thirst for the visible sanctuary from which he was exiled. io6 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. " My soul thirsteth — my flesh longeth — to see Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary" beautifully harmonizes with the fact recorded in the history (2 Sam. xv. 24, 25) : Zadok and the Levites had brought forth the ark of the covenant of God from the city, and set it down outside. But David, remembering the fatal mistake of Hophni and Phinehas in regarding it as a heathen palladium which would save, irrespectively of the spiritual state of the worshippers, said to Zadok, "Carry back the ark of God into the city," adding words which showed the same intense love for the sanctuary as breathes in the forty-second and sixty-third Psalms : " If I shall find favour in the eyes of Jehovah, He will bring me again, and show me both it and His habitation^ So in the independent history (i Chron. xxix. 3), " I have set my affection to the house of my God," Yet even away from the earthly tabernacle David could dwell in the spiritual tabernacle : " I will abide in Thy taber- nacle for ever " (Ps. Ixi. 4). David has in mind the promise of Jehovah recorded in the history (2 Sam. vii. 16), "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever." It is a theme on which he delights to dwell, as in Ps. xx. and xxi. I — 8 : " Jehovah hear thee in the day of trouble, send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion. The king shall joy in Thy strength, O Jehovah. He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever," i.e., in his seed. The history accords with the Psalms in presenting David's prayers as the means which drew forth God's promises. (Comp. 2 Sam. vii. 3, " All that is in thine heart," with Ps. Ixi. 5, xxi. 2), Israel responds to her king, " Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies," and the history records his successive defeats of all foes on every side, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Syria, Amnion (2 Sam. viii,). The imagery of his abiding dominion in the TWENTY-FIRST Psalm (ver. 3), " Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head," accords with the historical fact in 2 Sam, xii. 30, " David took the Ammonite king's crown from off his head, the weight whereof was a talent of gold, with the precious STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 107 Stones, and it zvas set on Davicfs head." The harmony is just of that natural kind which never would occur to a forger to introduce, and which is the evidence of truth and genuine- ness. The spirit of his words in Ps. xx. 7, " Some trust in chariots and horses, but we will remember the name of JeJiovah our God',' harmonizes (evidently without design) with his language in meeting Goliath, " Thou comest to me with a sword, a spear, and a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts'' His overthrow of Hadarezer's hosts and chariots, and his houghing of their horses, because " Jehovah preserved him whithersoever he went," as recorded in the histories (2 Sam. viii. 3 — 6; i Chron. xviii. 3 — 5), seem also in his mind when writing the twentieth Psalm, " Some trust in chariots and horses',' etc. Similarly, when Absalom and the rebels were relying on their multitude, their ill-gotten resources, " their corn and their wine " (Ps. iv. 7), and whilst the revolutionary mob, whose cry is, " Who will show us any good } " (ver. 7,) lent a ready ear to Absalom's lying promises, " Oh that I were made judge, that every man might come to me, and I would do him justice!" (2 Sam. XV. 4,) David's ONE trust was, "Jehovah, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us " (adding, as he felt his prayer instantly granted), " Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine " (the repeated "their" implying it is THEIR ALL) "increased." So in the SIXTY-SECOND PsALM, the four times repeated "only '' (\^er. I, 2, 5, 6), marks David's characteristic singleness of trust. Of Absalom's faction he says (Ps. Ixii. 4), " They only consult to cast (the king) down from his excellency," i.e., from his high dignity as God's anointed king (comp. Gen. xlix. 3). The expression " cast " or " thrust down " is the very one, by undesigned coincidence, attributed to David in the inde- pendent history (2 Sam. xv. 14, w^r^.), "Lest he cast upon us the evil." (The Hebrew is sq : the evil threatened in judgment for my sin by the prophet, 2 Sam. xii. 10, 11, "The sword shall never depart from thine house. Behold, I will raise up io8 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. evil against thee out of thine own house," ny'lH n'''in). As their " only " aim was to " cast him down," so his only hope is to " wait silently upon God." The Hebrew of Ps. Ixii. i is, " Only to God is my soul silence." To their bluster David opposes his silence ; to their " delight in lies," as for instance Absalom's lying pretence of a pious vow at Hebron (2 Sam. XV. 7 — 9), David opposes his " waiting expectation only from God " (Ps. Ixii. 5). The trust of the rebels was upon the ' multitude of "men of low degree" {B'nee Adam, men in general), as the multitude of their adherents (2 Sam. xv. 12), and " men of high degree " {Bnee IsJi, distinguished men, as Ahithophel), and in "riches increased," as " their corn and their wine" (Ps. iv. 7), by "oppression" and "robbery." Therefore David warns them that such objects of " trust " are "vanity" (Ps. Ixiii. 9 — 11). Once and again David has heard God's voice speaking by His word and His pro- vidence, and to his conscience, in the stillness of night, that " power belongs to God," and does not depend on such vain objects of trust. Here David remembers God's word by Elihu in Job (xxxiii. 11), "God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not — in a vision in the night." So he says, "When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches " (Ps. Ixiii. 6) ; and he counsels the rebels the same, " Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still" (Ps. iv. 4). If they will do so, they will learn what they now ignore, that " power belongs to God " to punish the impenitent, and that " unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth also mercy " to save the repenting sinner ; " for Thou render- est to every man according to his work." Here again we have a coincidence with David's language and sentiment in the history on a different occasion, which latter circumstance marks the undesigncdness of the coincidence. To Saul at Hachilah he says (i Sam. xxvi. 23), "The Lord render to every man his righteousness and faithfulness ; " and to his own servants, on the murder of Abner by Joab (2 Sam. iii. 39), " The Lord shall reward the doer of evil according to his wickedness." David had experienced God's "help," therefore he says, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 109 " In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice " (Ps. Ixiii. 7). This is a favourite phrase of David's, as in Ps. xvii. 8, " Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings " (comp. xxxvi. 7). It was the phrase of his pious forefather, Boaz, in his address to David's ancestress, Ruth (ii. 12), "A full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, utider zvhose wings thou art covie to trusty The correspondence is just what we might have expected from, one who would cherish fondly in memory all the inci- dents of the beautiful stoiy of Ruth ; yet it comes out simply and naturally, as no forger would introduce it. The simile in the Pentateuch (Exod. xix. 4; Deut. xxxii. 11) is somewhat distinct : " I bare you ON (not under the sJiadozv of) eagles' wings." The prophecy of Ps. Ixiii. 9 — ir literally came to pass. The Hebrew is best translated, " Those that j-^^/^ my soul {p\izW. be) for sudden destruction." The same phrase is attributed to David in the independent history (2 Sam. xvi. 11), "My son, who came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life^ or "soul." "They shall fall by the sword, they shall be a portion for jackals," which prey upon unburied carcases. So we read it came to pass : " The people of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter that day of twenty thousand men. For the battle was scattered over the face of all the country, and the wood devoured more people than the sword " (2 Sam. xviii. 7, 8). So was fulfilled David's believing anticipation: "The king" (emphatically marking the ground of his hope : he was God's anointed " king," and his foes were therefore rebels against God's appointment) "shall rejoice in God ; every one that sweareth by him shall glory ; but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped." May our portion be with the loyal subjects of the Son of David, who swear by His name as their " King " (Deut. vi. 13 ; Isa. Ixv. 16). So shall we in the day of His glory "rejoice" in and with Him for ever ! STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XIV. PSALMS VII., XXV., XXXVIL, XXXVIIL, CIX. THE general principle of Hebrew versification is the parallel correspondence of thoughts, not merely sounds. Whilst the poetry of every other language suffers consider- ably by translation, Hebrew poetry suffers comparatively little. This " thought-rhythm," as Ewald happily terms the parallelism of ideas, is a beautiful provision of the Divine Author of revelation to ensure the diffusion of its most com- plex parts, namely, the poetical and prophetical, without material loss by translation, among nations of every tongue. Parallelism often gives a clue to the meaning of a passage, a difficult or ambiguous word in one clause being cleared up by the corresponding word in the parallel clause. In the inspired volume the thought is more prominent than the form. The Masoretic punctuation marks the metrical arrangement by distinctive accents. The earliest instance of parallism is in Enoch's prophecy recorded in the Epistle of Jude, 14 : — " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, Of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, And of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." It has been conjectured with plausibility, that Lamech's boast of impunity in his manslaughter (Gen. iv. 2^, 24) and STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. polygamy was in parody of the poetical prophecy of Enoch. The latter warned that lawless and infidel age, the forerunner of the last age, of God's coming judgment. Lamech, in his parallelistic imitation, mocks at the warning, and makes God's very forbearance in the case of Cain the ground of presumptuous confidence of impunity in his double-dyed crime : — " Adah and Zillah, hear my voice : Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech : I have slain a man to my wounding, And a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." In combining into a poem sentiments having but a loose mutual inter-connection, the system of alphabetical arrange- ment, or acrosticism, was occasionally adopted. No traces of this arrangement are found before the time of David's Psalms ; and there seems every probability that he was the author of it. Psalms ix., x., xxv., xxxiv., furnish in- stances. The object seems to have been, in didactic Psalms, as "technical helps to aid the memory by the help, as it were, of stepping stones" (Bishop Wordsworth). In later alphabetical Psalms there is more of regularity, and less of simplicity, than in those of David. For instance. Psalms cxi. and cxii. have every half-verse marked by a letter, and Psalm cxix. has a letter appropriated to every eight verses. In the TWENTY-FIFTH PSALM, though loosely connected in structure, and therefore moulded into symmetrical form by the alphabetical acrostic arrangement, (the consecutive verses beginning with the successive letters of the alphabet, except that verse 2 begins with alcpJi, as verse i, and rcsh begins both verses 18 and 19.) there are one or two touches which certainly, though unobtrusively, and therefore unde- signedly, mark David's hand. The Psalm is a prayer of David, as Israel's representative, for deliverance from enemies, grounded on GoD'i faithfulness to His covenant STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. with them that fear Him. David's plea is God's mercies, not his own merits : " Remember, O Lord, Thy tender mercies ('Tj''^n'n, Thy botvels of mercy, cnv\w^-)(ya i\eov\^). Whilst David was warring with Ammon and the Syrians, and the land was stripped of its defenders, Edom, always on the watch to vent the old spite of Esau against Jacob, seized the opportunity to invade Palestine, and reached as far as the south end of the Dead Sea. It was then that the sons of Korah, David's singers, wrote the fourty-fourth Psalm. This Psalm implies there had been a carrying away of Israelite captives: (verses li, 14, 16,) "Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat, and hast scattered us among the heathen. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen — bj reason of the enemy and avenger" (copied from David's Psalm, viii. 2). Verse 22 implies that there had been also a considerable slaughter of Israelites : " Yea, for Thy sake are we killed all the day long ; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." Now whilst history contains no direct record of an Edomite invasion, it incidentally, and therefore with the undesigncdness that characterises truth, confirms the Psalm. For we read in I Kings xi. 15, 16, that '^ lohen David zvas in Edom, Joab, the captain of the host, loent up (doubtless to the Hoi}' Land) to bury the slain (namely, the Israelites slain by the Edomites, for Joab would not be likely to bury the enemy's slain), after he had smitten every male (viz., only every male capable of hearing anns) in Edom." The severity of the revenge in the STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. extermination of every Edomite male proves the urgency of Israel's danger for the time. The violence of Edom when invading Israel accounts for Israel's terrible retaliation. The same appears from the sixtieth Psalm, verses i — 3 : " O God, Thou hast cast us off, Thou hast scattered us" (Heb., " 7nade a breach in us," a phrase which the history accords with the Psalm in attributing to David, 2 Sam. v. 20, " The Lord hath broken forth upon mine enemies, as \hQ breach of waters," vi. 8), " Thou hast been displeased ; Thou turnest to us again " (so the LXX.,Vulg.,Ethiop., and Arab, versions). "Thou hast made the land to tremble ; Thou hast broken it : heal the breaches thereof." Before the Edomite invaders reached the capital, David, having overcome the Syrians, had his army free to lead against the Edomites. Joab and Abishai overtook them in the valley of Salt, at the south end of the Dead Sea, between the lake and the heights crossing the valley, in their homeward retreat from before the returned army of Israel. Their defeat is attributed to David in 2 Sam. viii. 13, according to the true reading, as given above; but to Joab in the title of Ps. Ix. ; and in i Chron. xviii. 12, to Abishai. Doubtless the solution of the seeming discrepancy is, David as king, Joab as commander-in-chief, and Abishai, as sent by Joab on this par- ticular expedition, defeated the foe. We know from 2 Sam, X. 10, that a short time previously Abishai was under Joab's command. Again, the number slain in the title of Ps. Ix. is 12,000, but in 2 Sam. viii. 13, and i Chron. xviii. 12, 18,000: possibly Abishai slew first 6,000, then Joab 12,000, making up in all 18,000. The very discrepancies, which fuller knowledge of the facts would clear up for us, prove the absence of collu- sion in those particulars wherein the respective writers of the Psalms and of the independent histories concur. The genuineness of Psalms xHv., Ix., and zv\\\., appears from their undesigned coincidence with the incidental and obscure historical notices iti the histories (2 Sam. viii., x. ; i Chron. xviii., xix, ; I Kings xi.). A state of things politically is alluded to which ceased to exist after David. The eleventh verse of Psalm xliv., " Thou hast scattered STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. us among the heathen," etc., has been made a plea for assigning to it the date of the Babylonish captivity. But the words (verses 17 — 22), "All this is come upon us, yet have we not dealt falsely in Thy covenant," etc., disprove this ; for only in the time of David could Israel plead faithfulness to God's covenant, and therefore could confidently anticipate victory : " Through Thee will we push down our enemies, through Thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us " (ver. 5). Moreover, they had no "armies" in Babylon such as they speak of in ver. 9, " Thou gocst not forth with our armies." This evidently alludes, by way of sad contrast, to the Lord's response when David consnXtQd Him : "The Lord shall go out before thee, to smite the Philistines," as recorded in the independent history (2 Sam. v. 24). The " scattering " meant in ver. 1 1 was not a general carrying away, though doubtless the Spirit of God designed the language to suit the needs of the Church, when oppressed by the world in all later ages, as by Babylon, Antiochus Epiphanes, Rome, and the last Antichrist to come (Rom. viii. 36), but only a partial one, such as would gratify Edom's desire for Israelite slaves, so as to falsify Isaac's prophecy, so often thrown up to them by Israel, "The elder shall serve the younger" (Amos i. 6, 9 ; Joel iii. 19). So in the forty-fourth Psalm, ver. 16, Edom's voice is called "the voice of him that reproacheth and blas- pJicnicth : " it was spite against Israel's religious superiority conferred by God, and it is therefore called " blasphemy." A comparatively small reverse, and carrying off of captives by the heathen, seriously depressed the elect nation, regarding as they did any such triumph of heathendom as a presage of evil from Jehovah, their sole strength : such, for instance, was the feeling of Joshua and the elders after Israel's reverse at Ai (vii. 6 — 9), and the slaying of thirty-six Israelites by the enemy : " O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies } for the Canaanites shall hear of it: and what wilt Thou do unto Thy great name.'" This accounts for the strong language used in Ps. xliv., without resorting to the theory of a date as late as the Babylonian STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. captivity, which the internal evidence of the Psahn disproves (ver. 8, lo, 17 — 22). The title of PSALM LX.,"Shushan-eduth," the lily of testimony, refers to God's lovely covenant, assuring Israel of the posses- sion of Canaan, as verses 6, 7, explain : " God hath spoken in His holiness" (His Jioly faithfulness to His zvord) : therefore Israel in faith declares, "I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem — Succoth " (the two separate settlements of Jacob on either side of the Jordan — a pledge that his seed should possess all the Holy Land), " Gilead, Manasseh." " Judah is my lawgiver" is just what David would quote from Jacob's prophecy (Gen. xlix. 10) in support of his kingship, as he was of Judah, to which tribe the kingship had been transferred from Benjamin, after the death of Saul and Ishbosheth. The pledge of the fulfilment of God's promise of Israel's permanent occupation of Canaan, according to Joshua's division, was given in the complete victory obtained over the Syrians, and also the succeeding victory just achieved over Edom in the valley of Salt. To this double victory ver. 4 refers : " Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee, that it may be displayed (Heb., lifted uf) because of the truth " {i.e., because of Thy faithfulness to Thy promise), which accords with the inde- pendent history (2 Sam. viii. 13, x. 17 — 19; I Chron. xviii. 12, xix. 19). This double victory was a token that the expe- dition now being undertaken for occupying Edom, in revenge for Edom's invasion of Israel, would succeed. In reference to this expedition David saith (ver. 8 — 12), "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe," in symbol of taking victorious possession of Edom, and treading down his pride (Josh. x. 24), even as he attempted to take possession of Israel's land. The casting of a shoe symbolised transference of possession (Ruth iv. 7). In undesigned, because incidental, accordance with the Psalm here, the histories (2 Sam. viii. 14, i Chron. xviii. 13) record, " Throughout all Edom David put garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants." ' The closing prayer of faith, which anticipates success in answer, refers back to the complaint in the forty-fourth Psalm STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 123 ver. 9, " Thou hast cast us off, and gocst not forth with our armies!' "Who will bring me into the strong city?'' i.e., into Sela, or Petra, the rock-built city of Edom (2 Kings xiv. 7) ; " who will lead me into Edom ? Wilt not Thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies ?" namely, when Edom invaded our land, but who hast just given us a be- ginning of deliverance. Again, in ver. 5, "That Thy beloved may be delivered, save with Thy right hand." The name that David gives to Solomon in the history (2 Sam. xii. 25), "Jedidiah," beloved of Jehovah, accords with David's lan- guage in the Psalm : the allusion is to Benjamin (representing the whole people), of whom Moses said, (Deut. xxxiii. 12,) "The beloved of Jehovah shall dwell in safety by him :" and the words, " Save with Thy right hand'' allude to the meaning of Benjamin, "son of my right hand." Finally, the warlike, confident tone of contempt for the foe (" Moab is my washpot ; over Edom will I cast out my shoe ; Philistia, triumph thou because of me," acknowledging me thy king, to avert thine own destruction) suits the time of prosperity described by the histories, when these very nations, Moab, Edom, and Philistia, were utterly prostrated by David (Ps. Ix. 7, 8). Ephraim and Judah, moreover, as well as the tribes east of the Jordan, appear in the Psalm united in one kingdom, a state of matters which ceased to exist after Solomon. Verses 9 — 12 plainly contemplate the expedition against Edom. Here we have a number of par- ticulars in the Psalms coinciding with the state of things binder David, such as no later composer could have gleaned from the incidental and obscure notices in 2 Sam. and i Chron. The state of things ceased even under David, after he had sub- dued Edom and Syria (2 Sam. viii. 14, x. 19). The recognition of the genuineness and truth of both the Psalms in question, and of the independent historieSj alone accounts for the un- designed coincidence. In the duplicate form in the latter part of PsALM CVIII. David opens the triology of Psalms (cviii., cix., ex.), of which the subject is the triumph of Israel and Israel's king over all '124 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. their enemies : here Edom is no longer restricted to the hteral Edom, but typifies the enemies of God, of His people, and of their king. Such a trilogy would console the Jews long after, on their return from Babylon, and is therefore arranged by later hands after the Psalms of the captivity (civ. — cvii.). May we, by the teaching of the Psalms which we have con- sidered, be not only assured of the Divine authority of the word of God, but also draw from them the secret of spiritual strength in all our conflicts with the enemies of our soul! STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 125 LECTURE XVI. PSALMS XVIII., XXIL, XXVIII., XXIX., XXXV., XXXVI., LXVIII., cm., cviii., cix., ex. THE EIGHTEENTH PsALM has been well designated "a great Halleluiah, with which David retires from the theatre of life." Its alternative form given in the history (2 Sam. xxii.), omits the words " To the chief musician." We may therefore infer that the latter was not designed, as was the form in the Psalter, for liturgical use in the sanctuary. As Moses gave his last testimony to Israel in the form of a song, so David winds up his eventful life with a public praise-song to the gracious Author of his past deliverances. He desig- nated himself "servant of Jehovah," a title which was given to none before him, save Moses and Joshua (Deut. xxxiv. 5 ; Josh. i. 2), and which implies the Divine authority of his words as inspired by the Holy Spirit. (Comp. 2 Sam. xxiii. i.) This title occurs in the inscription of no other Psalm, save Ps. xxxvi., where David opposes his own inspired praises of Jehovah's mercy, faithfulness, and righteousness, to the transgression of the wicked, which is their " divine oracle ; " for they have " no - fear of God before their eyes." The Hebrew for " saith," in ver. i, means " speaketh as his oracle " (DS3). The wicked is servant of his own transgression ; this is his only oracle : sin's suggestions hold in him the place . which God's word holds in the servant of Jehovah. David, on the contrary, " for the good of his own generation, served the will of God " (Acts xiii. 36). His inspiration accounts 126 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. for his language of self-commendation : (Ps. xviii. 21, 23,) "I have kept the ways of Jehovah, and have not wickedly departed from my God ; I was also upright before Him — and I kept myself from mine iniquity." The Spirit of God here speaks by David what in the history the same Spirit spake of him : (i Kings xiv. 8,) "My servant David kept my commandments, and followed me with all his heart." His grievous sins were exceptions, which do not invalidate the Spirit's assertion of his godly integrity in the main. So David, with undesigned coincidence, in the independent history (i Sam. xxvi. 23, 24), prays on the occasion of his sparing his persecutor Saul at Hachilah, " The Lord render to every man his righteousness;" and what he ih&XQ prayed for on the ground of his " righteousness," he in the Psalm (xviii. 20) marks as granted to him on the same ground : " The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness." Again, in the forty-seventh verse of Ps. xviii., he says, " It is God that avengeth me," We feel instinctively that it is the same voice which at Engedi, when Saul was at his mercy, said, according to the history (i Sam. xxiv. 10, 12), "I will not put forth mine hand against the Lord's anointed. The Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee : but mine hand shall not be upon thee." So Abigail says to him concerning Nabal (xxv. 26), " The Lord hath ivithJiolden thee from avenging thyself w'lih. thine own hand." In the title he distinguishes " Saul " from his other enemies : " David spake this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul." So in verses 4 — 19 he appears as passive, "drawn out (as a second MoSES, which means drazvn 02it) of many waters, and delivered from his strong enemy," i.e., Saul. (The Hebrew for " drawn out " is cognate to Moses, TW'D J ^^'^'0'^^ '• for against Saul David was but a private man, attacked by a powerful king. But in his deliverance from later foes (as we read in ver. 28 — 45) he appears as active, triumphantly subduing them : " By Thee I have run through a troop," etc. The forty-third verse similarly is in exact, and at the same STUDIES IM THE CL. PSALMS. 127 time undesigned, agreement with the history : " Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people (Di?, exclusively- applied to Israel), and Thou hast made me the head of the heathen" (D'*'1X exclusively applied to the Gentiles). The " strivings " {''y^,, the very word in Ps. xxxv, i, used of Saul's "striving" with him) of the people are the intestine troubles caused by domestic foes, Saul chiefly, then Ishbosheth (2 Sam. ii. 9, 10, iii. i), and Absalom afterward : these disciplined him (in 2 Sam. xxii. 44, " Thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen,") for obtaining and retaining " headship " over the heathen nations, which the history informs us independently, he gained over Philistia, Moab, Zobah, Syria, Edom, and Ammon (2 Sam. v., viii., xii.). The imagery is just such as Palestine would su., zealously), destroying all the wicked of the land — cutting off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord," answers to his charge to Solomon in the national assembly (i Chron. xxviii. 9) : " Thou Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve Him with ?i perfect heart and a willing mind." The language in the Psalm and in the history is in the unstudied accordance of truth and genuine- ness. " For the Lord," adds David, " searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts." How exactly David's sentiment, incidentally expressed here in the history, harmonizes with the thought fully and beauti- fully expanded in PsALM CXXXIX. : " O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me — Thou nndcrstandest my thought afar off." The condition of prosperity David adds : " If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee : but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever" (i Chron. xxviii. 9). His mis- giving as to his children's failure to fulfil the condition (2 Sam. xxiii. 5, I Chron. xxviii. J, "Jehovah said unto mc. If he 144 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. be constant to do my commandments, I will establish his kingdom for ever") led him to anticipate Zion's distress as the penalty : yet Jehovah's promise by Nathan (2 Sam. vii.) assured him that his " children should continue, and his seed should be established before God " (Ps. cii. 28) ultimately, whatever apostasies they might fall into, and consequent trials they might endure meantime. This is the covenant, provided with all ("755 rtD'l^y) that is needed to establish it, on which David builds his confidence (2 Sam. xxiii. 5), and in connection with which the Holy Spirit by David, in Psalm cii. 13 — 22, foreshadows Zion's coming restoration in answer to her prayer in distress, and the Gentiles' consequent conversion at the Lord's appearing in glory. David's own depression in his sick- ness and old age, and the rebellion of his son Adonijah, and his believing cry for deliverance, are the groundwork of the picture of Zion's distress, from which her prayer will bring the Lord's deliverance : " My days are like a shadoiv that declinetJi, and / am zvithered like grass. But Thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever. Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Zion. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth Thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion — He shall appear in His glory, He ivill regard the prayer of the destitute. This shall be written for the generation to come!'' The 103RD Psalm is the praise-song of Jehovah's mercy and judgment, which David promised at the beginning of the trilogy (ci. i, "I will sing of mercy and judgment") ; ver. i, 2, 6, 8, II, 17, 18, " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction — so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles^' Davids thanksgiving here for his own marvellous raising up from his sick bed, to attend the national assembly before his death (recorded in I Chron. xxviii. 2) is moulded by the Holy Spirit, speaking by him (2 Sam. xxiii. 2), so as to express /st^^/'j- thanksgiving for the Lord's restoration of her in the last days .from the "destruction" to which otherwise the seed of David and the STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 145 nation seem exposed. The same recognition of man's frailty- appears in the Psalm (ver. 15, "As for man, his days are as grass : as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth ; for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone ; and the place thereof shall know it no more") as in the history incidentally, and therefore with the undesigned agreement of truth: (i Chron. xxix. 16, '' Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding; " so also Ps. cii. 11, "My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass.") And in both alike there is the same refuge found in the everlasting compassion of our Father : " Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory. Now therefore, our God, we praise Thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people .-• " etc (i Chron. xxix. 1 1, 14). " Like as a father pitieth his children- so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him : for He knoweth our, frame, He remembereth that we are but dust" (Ps. ciii. 13 — 16). Lest, however, Solomon and his seed should apostatize, David adds thrice \.\\t Hmitation of God's mercy (ver. 11, 13, 17) " unto them that fear Him." May God's everlasting mercy be to us also the preservative against despairing because of our frailty ! And may His righteousness warn us against abusing His mercy : so that fearing Him, and loving Him, we may at last join in the anthem of all the redeemed, " Bless the Lord, O my soul !" 10 146 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XIX. PSALMS LXXVIIL, CXXIL, CXXIV., CXXXL, CXXXIII. THE "Songs of degrees" were the pilgrim songs of Israel for their yearly "goings up," as the Hebrew for "degrees" means (ni7y.^7) to the three great feasts at Jerusalem. Four Psalms of David occur among them, namely, cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii. Not forming part of the first two books, these detached Psalms of David were incorporated by Ezra, or whoever else arranged the Psalter, with the inspired songs of the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian captivity. As Psalm CXXI. was sung in catching the first sight of the distant hills of Jerusalem (" I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills — from whence cometh my help," namely, from Jehovah seated on Zion among them), so PSALM CXXII. was sung at the gates of the city, where the pilgrims halted to form the pro- cession to the sanctuary : (ver. 2, " Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.") The prophet Isaiah, under the Spirit (ii. 3), endorses the inspiration of the first verse ("I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah "), by appropriating it in a new relation : What in early times the pilgrim Israelites used to say, that in Messiah's reign all nations shall say: "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the God of Jacob." The design of David was to conciliate the ten northern tribes, who had been slower in recognizing him as king, and to reconcile them to the transfer of the common national STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 147 sanctuary from Shiloh to Jerusalem, the newly constituted capital and centre of religious worship for the whole people. Accordingly, in the third verse he puts into the mouth of the pilgrims the language of admiration : "Jerusalem is bidlded as a city that is compact together." Now when we turn to the history, we find it recorded, in undesigned coincidence with our Psalm, that just before David's transfer of the ark to Zion, " he built the city (of David) round about, and Joab repaired the rest of the city" (i Chron. xi. 7, 8) ; and again (2 Sam. v. 9, 11), "David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David : and David built round about, from Millo and inward. And Hiram king of Tyre sent to David — cedar trees and car- penters and masons, and they built David an house." The city had existed ages before : what David did was^ he made it a ivell built "city compact together," by joining together the lower city and the fortress by the " walls." Moreover, he adorned the whole with "palaces," such as ver. 7 of Ps. cxxii. describes, answering to his own " house " in the independent history. The walls without, and the palaces within, were now worthy of the metropolis of the Theocracy. The prayer, "Peace be withih thy ivalls, and prosperity within thy palaces," exactly corresponds to that in the undoubtedly Davidic fifty- first Psalm, ver. 18, "Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion : build Thou the ivalls of Jerusalem^ Again, the mention (ver. 5) of " thrones of judgment set there (in Jerusalem), the thrones of the house of David," implies that the kingdom of David was then standing, and that princes sat on the bench of judgment, deriving their authority from him. The " for " with which the fifth verse begins — "Whither the tribes go up unto the testimony of Israel " (Exod. xl. 21 ; i.e., unto tJie ark of the testimony, which appertained to Israel as her own peculiar glory ; but Heng- stenberg translates, " According to the testimony appointed for Israel") ; ''for there are set thrones of judgment" — implies that thus was fulfilled Jehovah's ordinance, that the place for "judgment" should be the place also for the sanctuary (Deut. xvii. 8, 9). STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Another confirmation, from independent history, of the genuineness of David's authorship of the 122nd Psalm, is the intimation in the Psalm, that the nation was as yet one nndivided whole; for the fourth verse speaks of " the tribes " and " Israel " as all going up unto the sanctuary : " Whither tJie iribts go up, tlie tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel." After the separation of the kingdom under Rehoboam , the ten tribes no longer made pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great feasts, as they are represented in the Psalm as doing. Nor is the mention in ver. 9 of" the house of the Lord" incon- sistent with the date in David's time, before Solomon built the temple; for David often in his Psalms calls the taber- nacle of the ark " the teviple of Jehovah " (ver. 7, xxvii. 4, Iv. 14). Shiloh had been, under the judges, the seat of the national sanctuary. Jerusalem succeeded to it, when David brought up the ark to Zion, and sacrificed before it (2 Sam. vi. 12, 13). His aim was to win the hearts of all the tribes more and more from old associations to the new sanctuary and to Zion. Moreover, traces of pilgrim processions to it appear in Ps. xlii. 4, (literally) " I advanced ivitJi the solemn steps of processionists to the house of God " (C'l'ltit), and in Ps. Iv. 14. The Maschil Psalm of Asaph (Lxxvill.) had the same aim. The "testimony in Jacob" in Ps. Ixxviii., ver. 5, answers to "the testimony of Israel " in the 122nd Psalm, ver. 4. The frequent references to the Pentateuch, which is Jehovah's "testimony to Israel," confirm the genuineness of Ps. Ixxviii. Jehovah gave the testimony, or law, to keep Israel from imitating the rebellion of their fathers in the time of Moses. Ephraim's unfaithfulness brought them Jehovah's judgments, so that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh (ver. 56 — 64). But now again He awakes as one out of sleep, and destroys their foes, and restores the ark ; but not to its former place, Shiloh, in Ephraim. Henceforth Zion in Judah is the sanctuary of Jehovah, and David is His chosen king. Ephraim's prero- gative, which she had enjoyed during the whole period of the judges, had been just transferred to Judah as a Divine STUDIES LV THE CL. PSALMS. 14c judgment on Ephraim. The latter therefore, with the haughty spirit which of old she had shown towards Gideon and Jephthah (Judges viii. i, xii. i), Avas Hkely to resent the wound to her pride, and to fall into her old sin of rebellion. She had not submitted to David's kingly authority till seven years after he had begun to reign over Judah (2 Sam. ii., iii.). Hence arose subsequently the readiness of the ten tribes to support the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba (2 Sam. xv., xvi., xvii., xviii., xix., xx.), and their final separation from Judah under Jeroboam. How seasonable therefore is the Psalmist's warning to Israel against incurring a fresh judgment by rebelling against the appointment of God which removed the nation's king and the ark of Jehovah from their seat among the ten tribes to Judah ! What is recorded in the history has that undesigned accordance with the notices of Ephraim in the Psalms, which confirms the accuracy of both the P.salms and the histories. The latest historical facts noticed are the esta'blishmeiit of the sanctuary on Zion, and the setting up of the kingdom of David, after the restoration of the ark by Jehovah's marked interposition. "Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine ; and He smote His enemies (the Philistines with the emerods) in the hinder part " (i Sam. v. 6, 9, 12). Moreover, " He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim; but chose the tribe of Judah — the Mount Zion which He loved, and He built His sanctuary like high palaces. He chose David also His servant to feed His people, and Israel His inheritance." The Psalmist, in warning Israel against revolt from David, delicately avoids naming expressly such an act, lest he should wound the sensitiveness of a high- spirited people : he leaves them to make the application for themselves. Asaph, the prophet among Psalmists, (2 Chron. xxiv. 30; Matt. xiii. 35,) interprets the deeds of Jehovali in the past ; and he could not, as being a Levite, be accused of partiality to Judah. To return to the 122nd Psalm, the fifth verse mentions ISO STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. " the /w2(se of David." It had superseded the house of Saul (2 Sam. iii. i). Now alike in the history and in the Psalms a favourite subject with David was God'spromise of the throne by- Nathan to David, and also to " his /louse for ever." (2 Sam. vii. 11,13, ^9> 25 " The Lord will make thee an house. He shall build an house for thy name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever." " Thou hast spoken also of Thy ser- vant's kouse for a great while to come " (Ps. xxi. 4, xviii. 50). The undesigned coincidence of the Psalm with the history in this, as in the other particulars mentioned, attests the truth of both. Moreover the evident design of the Psalm to draw the people's affections round Jerusalem and its sanctuary, the sacred bond of the nation's unity, proves that it must have been published soon after the removal of the ark to Zion, and God's immediately subsequent promise of a seed, house, and throne for ever to David (2 Sam. vi., vii.). Alluding to the meaning of Jerusalem {peaceful possession), David writes, " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem — Peace be within thy walls — For my brethren's sake I will now say, Peace be within thee." That prayer is frustrated temporarily through the unbelief of the Jews, as our Lord so pathetically intimated (Luke xix. 41 — 43); "When He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For thine enemies shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." Our part is to " pray for the peace of Jerusalem," " because of the house of the Lord." For the full unity and perfection of the " brethren " is involved in the spiritual and temporal restoration of the Jewish stock into which we Gentiles were engrafted (Rom. xi. 12 — 18). Therefore we will pray, " Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces !" or, as Amasai in the Spirit saluted David (i Chron. xii. 18), " Peace, peace be unto thee, and peace be to thine helpers ; for thy God helpeth thee." David's Pilgrim PSALM (cxxiv.) was written after a deliver- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 151 ance of Israel from imminent danger. The only such peril in David's reign was that in the Syrian and Edomite wars, to which Psalms xliv. and lx. refer. No particular allusion to these wars occurs, as his design was to write a song for Israel and the Church in all ages. But the style confirms the title in ascribing the authorship to David. This Psalm has now none of the mild softness which characterises the Psalms of the period after the captivity, as for instance most of the accompanying " Songs of degrees ; " but it has all the impetuosity of David's manner, so far as is consistent with its design as a popular sacred song. The repetition of " If it had not been the Lord who was on our side " marks that the Lord's interposition had been more than once : just as in the history the victory over Hadarezer and the Syrians was the first interposition, that over Edom in the valley of Salt was the second, and was followed by the suc- cessful expedition for occupying Edom, alluded to in Psalm lx. The language is throughout Davidic. Thus in Ps. Iv. 15, Ivi. 2, Ivii. 3, " God shall save me from him that would szvallow me up ; " as in ver. 3, " They had swallowed us up quick " (living). And in Ps. xviii. 4, " The floods of ungodly men made me afraid ; " as in ver. 5, " The proud waters had gone over our soul." Lastly, Ps. xxv. 15, " He shall pluck my feet out of the net ; " as in ver. 7, " Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler." There is precisely that degree of similarity to David's thought which must have emanated from either the same mind or one copying it, and at the same time a freedom and freshness of expression such as a copyist would not be at all likely to possess. A third Psalm of David among the " Songs of degrees " is CXXXI. In it he abjures haughtiness and high-minded aims. Now it is only in a season of national prosperity that such feelings are apt to arise : they disappear in times of trouble, such as those which followed the Babylonian exile, and in which most of the other " Songs of degrees " were composed. The independent history records one case in which David, through the elation which long-continued prosperity 152 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. generates, gave way to the natural tendency of the human heart to pride. It was when Satan, the tempter to pride, "stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel " (i Chron. xxi. i). The sin of the king was shared by the people. So the king's punishment was the slaying of his people by the divinely sent pestilence. As therefore he had been their leader in pride to their destruction, so now that he has been taught humility in the school of chastisement, he teaches Israel the same lesson of humility to their salvation. How exactly the history represents this blessed effect of chastisement on him, in the words which it attributes to him ! (i Chron. xxi. 17,) " Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered ? Even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed ; but as for these sheep, what have they done .'' Let Thy hand, I pray Thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house, but not on Thy people, that they should be plagued." Pride had wholly given place to humility, such as his Psalm expresses : " Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty — surely I have composed Cn**!!^) and quieted myself [i.e., the motions of pride] as a child that is weaned, (and rests) npoti [7^] his mother — as a weaned child is my soul tipo?i me ; " i.e., it still rests upon its mother's bosom, whilst it no longer craves the mother's milk (compare our Lord's words in Matt, xviii. i — 4); so my soul no longer seeks eagerly its old, natural, haughty, and lofty aims. In the Psalms towards the close of his life, David breathes the same lowly spirit : (Ps. xviii. 27,) " Thou wilt bring down the high looks ; " (ci. 5,) " Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will I not suffer." As in ver. i, David says, " I do not exercise myself in things too wonderful iox me ; " so in his Psalm (cxxxix. 6), "Such knowledge is too wonderful iXSSifO^y^) for me!^ The same concern for Israel above himself appears in the Psalm as in the history at the close of the plague sent for his and Israel's pride : " Let Israel hope in the Lord from hence- forth and for ever ; " for this is her true path to greatness, humility as to self, and hope in Jehovah, as she may learn STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 153 from my experience. (Compare i Chron. xxi. 17.) Hope in Jehovah is the antidote to haughty thoughts of self (Ps. cxxxviii. 6). The post-exile Psalm (cxxx. 7) copies this. The harmony between the Psalm and the independent histories in their representation of David is just what it ought to be, if both be true. It never could result from forgery. The 133RD Psalm is the fourth and last Psalm of David among the " Songs of degrees." Its theme is brotherly unity. The " Behold " at its beginning implies that David had in view some such meeting of the national brotherhood as took place in Jerusalem, at the great festivals of the nation. The com- parison drawn from Aaron harmonizes with this view (ver. 2). As the holy anointing oil poured on his head streamed down upon his beard, and thence to his skirts, so the one Holy Spirit flowing from our one Lord and Head upon all His members unites them as all one in Him. The people assembled at the Passover on Zion — thick, united, and vigorous as the lovely dew of Hermon — are before the Psalmist's eye, a cheering sight (ver. 3). As in Ps. cxxii. David provided poetical words to strengthen the nation's love for their new religious and political centre, Jerusalem, so in this Psalm he glorifies the communion of saints now restored in Zion, after its long intermission during the twenty years' stay of the ark out of the nation's sight and mind at Kirjath-jearim. How happily thus do the Psalm and the history reflect light on one another ! Thus it is written in I Sam. vii, 2, "While the ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, the time was long, for it was twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord ; " and David proposes to Israel's leaders (i Chron. xiii. 3), " Let us bring again the ark of our God to us ; for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul ;" and in 2 Sam. vi. 12, " David brought up the ark of God from the house of Obcd-edom into the city of David with gladness." The tone of the Psalm is similarly joyous and free from the mournful character of the post-exile Psalms, and has the freshness, originality, and suggestivcness which were to be expected from David writing on such an occasion. 154 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. " The dew " (ver. 3) symbolizes ever fresh youth, beauty, vigour, and countless numbers. As Messiah has the dew of His youth (ex. 3), i.e., His ever-youthful soldiery, the holy brethren, so they have Him and His grace as the dew, gladdening, refreshing, and uniting them as one in Him. Finally, they shall light upon the enemy " as the dew falleth on the ground " (2 Sam. xvii. 12, which image of Hushai was probably before David's mind ; Rev. xix. 13 — 15), Then, too, on the other hand, " shall the remnant of Jacob be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, that tarrieth not for man " (Mic. v. 7). May we meantime be of the spiritual church, which, like Gideon's fleece, is saturated with the dew of heaven, whilst it is dry on all the earth beside (Judges vi. T)"/), loyal to the written word of God, and sancti- fied by the Spirit of the Incarnate Word ! STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 155 LECTURE XX. PSALMS VIII., XXIII., XXXVL, CXXXVIIL, CXXXIX., CXL., CXLI,, CXLIL, CXLIIL, CXLIV., CLXV. EIGHT consecutive Psalms of David close his contribu- tions to the Psalter : cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., cxli., cxlii., cxliii., cxliv., cxlv. This octave begins and ends with praise, introductory to the grand hallelujahs which close the whole. The 138th Psalm is one of the many Psalms of David called forth by Jehovah's promise through Nathan of the perpetuity of his house and throne (xviii., xxi., Ixi., ci., ciii., ex.). In Psalm xviii. 49, David says, " I will give thanks unto Thee among the heathen," adding, " Great deliverance giveth He to His king, to His anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore." So here (CXXXVIII. i), " Before the gods will I sing praise unto Thee ; " i. c, he challenges the heathen gods to show, if they could, any boon like this which they had bestowed, as well as promised. Now when we turn to the history, we find David uttering unmistakeably the same sen- timent, yet with such variation of expression as proves the coincidence undesigned: (2 Sam. vii. 18 — 23,) "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto ? And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight; but Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while to come. Wherefore tJicre is none like Thee, neither is there any god beside Thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears." Again, answering to the second verse of Psalm cxxxviii., " I will worship toward Thy holy temple, and 156 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. praise Thy name for Thy loving-kindness and Thy truth." In the history (2 Sam. vii. i, 18, 28), after David had " sat in his house," and expressed his wish to build a house for Jehovah, and received from Nathan Jehovah's promise of a lasting seed and throne, "he went in and sat before Jehovah','' i.e., before the ark in His tabernacle on Zion, corresponding to the words in the Psalm, " toward Thy holy temple.'' And he said, " Now, O Lord God, Thou art that God, and Thy words be true, and Thou hast promised this goodness unto Thy servant " (2 Sam. vii. 18), corresponding to the words in the Psalm, " Thy loving-kindness and Thy truths Again, if the history (2 Sam. vii. 21, 22, 25, 26) represents David saying, "For Thy word's sake hast Thou done all 'dxQs^ great things ; wherefore Thou art great, O Lord God ; and now the zvord that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant and his house, establish it for ever, and do as Thou hast said, and let Thy name be magnified for ever" (see also i Chron. xvii. 19 — 25); the Psalm (ver. i) makes him to say, " Thou hast magnified Thy 2U07'd above all Thy name," i.e., Thou hast shown the magni- tude of Thy revealed character of loving-kindness and truth in this promise of perpetuity to my seed and my throne, above all Thy past manifestations of Thyself in behalf of Thy people. Who can doubt the reality of the coincidence of thought between David's thanksgiving in the history and that in the Psalm .'' yet it is anything but obtrusive, and would hardly be noticed if it were not pointed out ; just the coinci- dence which would never be contrived by a forger. Another particular noticed in the Psalm is, that this grand promise, which we Christians know finds its full realization in Messiah alone, was the answer to prayer : (ver. 3,) " In the day when I cried. Thou answeredst me." Now prayer is based on God's promises ; so in the history we find first David's desire to build the Lord's house ; then Jehovah's meeting that desire by His promise to build (metaphorically speaking) David's house ; then David's prayer, resting on Jehovah's promise (i Chron. xvii. 25), "Thou, O my God, hast told Thy servant that Thou wilt build him an house, therefore Thy STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 157 servant hath found in his heart to pray before Thee." Here again we have a coincidence such as accords best with the theory of the genuineness of both Psalm and history. Psalm xxi. 2, 4, confirms the same view : " Thou hast given the king his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips ; he asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever." (So also Psalm Ixi. 5, 6.) The sixth verse, " Though the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly^' may shed light on the obscure passage (i Chron. xvii. 17), "Thou hast regarded me according to the law (manner) of tJie man of high degree," i.e., so as to elevate me, the lozvly man, (as he says, " What am I, and what is mine house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto .''" ver. 16 ; and the Hebrew for " man" in verse 17 is the generic term, ha-adani, an ordinary man, not ish, a distinguished man,) and my house to a high degree. So 2 Sam. vii. 19, "This is the law of the man, O Lord God," i.e., this is the law of lovin^-- kindness which God requires of men towards their fellow-men, and which Thou exercisest Thyself condescendingly towards me (Mic. vi. 8). So David says also in PSALM Vlil. 4, "What is the son of man {adaui), that Thou visitest him ?" viz., with such favour. The Son of God stooped to man's level, that He might raise man to the high degree of oneness with God. The article in Hebrew, " the man of high degree," probably is designed by the Spirit to hint at this, though David may not have known the full significance of his own words (i Peter i, 11,12). " The law of the man " is the law of perfect sympathy of man with man, which the man, jMessiah, realized, makinsr Himself, from being one with the Father, " for a little (so translate, as best agreeing with Paul's scope in Heb. ii. 7) lower than the angels," and therefore ultimately to be " crowned with glory and honour," having " all things put - under His feet" (Ps. viii. 5, 6). David adds, " Though I walk in the midst of trouble. Thou wilt revive me," reminding us of his comforting words in Psalm xxiii. 4, " Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me • 158 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Thy rod and staff comfort me." (Compare PSALM LXXI. 20, which forms a pair with David's PSALM LXX., and is therefore probably also his) His anticipation, "Thou shalt stretch forth Thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies," was realized in the series of triumphs over foreign foes, Philistia, Moab, Zobah, Syria, Ammon, and Amalek, all following in the history (2 Sam. viii.), as in the Psalm, after the promise of an eternal seed and throne (2 Sam. vii.). David's confident expectation, " JeJiovah tvill perfect that which concerneth me," in the Psalm (cxxxviii. 8), rests on David's similar prayer in the history (2 Sam. vii. 25), "The word that Thou hast spoken concerning Thy servant and his house, establish it for ever, and do as Thou hast said.'' God having begun the work of the exaltation of David's throne and seed, would "not forsake the work of His own hands." The 139TH Psalm proves its Davidic authorship by more than one phrase, linking it with David's 138th Psalm. " The way everlastingl' at the close of cxxxix., answers to " Thy mercy, O Jehovah, endurethy/^^ (2 Sam. xv. 4, " O that I were mdtdQ Judge in the land ! ") in stony places, the ten tribes of Israel joined Judah in hearing David's sweet words, better than all Absa- lom's "dainties" and flatteries (2 Sam. xv. 2 — 6, 12): "He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man, so that they sent this word unto the king, Return, thou and all thy servants " (2 Sam. xix. 14, 41 — 43). Finally, the Chaldaic, Arabic, Syriac, and LXX. support the translation of verse 7, " Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cuttcth and viakctJi furroics upon 1 66 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. the earth." The word " wood " is arbitrarily introduced in the Enghsh version. The image of the scattering of Israel's bones and David's seed, as the earth is furrowed up on one side and the other by the plough, suggests the hope of the resurrection of Israel and David's seed, just as ploughing is for the sake of the crop to spring up. The English version, if preferred, still yields the same thought ; the tree is cut by the root, but the stump remains, out of which the new scion shall spring : " The rod out of the stump of Jesse, and the Branch out of his roots " (Isa. xi. i ; compare also vi. 13). The 142ND Psalm refers primarily to David, when he took refuge i?i the cave of Adullam, after he had been obliged to leave his retreat among the Philistines. The title, "A prayer {Tephilah, a supplicatory prayer,) when he was in the cave,'' refers to this. The history in i Sam. xxi., xxii. corresponds. It was a time when matters had come to an extremity, and his spirit sank within him at the seemingly hopeless prospect : (ver. 4,) " I looked on my right hand — but there was no man that would know me : refuge failed me : " just as the history represents the refuge which he hoped to find from Saul at Achish's court failing him, so that he had to return to Saul's territory, and live an outlaw's life in the cave of Adullam as his hiding-place. But this Psalm has a wider range than its prototype, the FIFTY-SEVENTH PSALM, which similarly was composed, as its title says, " When he fled from Saul in the cave : " this was after his return from sojourning among the Philistines, to which the fifty-sixth Psalm refers. Hence this 142nd Psalm has in its title " Maschil," i.e., instruction ; for David designs it to in- struct, in all ages to come, his seed and all the Israel of God how to find relief, when they are in the cave-like darkness of trial. This 142nd Psalm accordingly connects itself with the other Psalms of the cycle : ver. 3, " They have laid a snaj^e for me," answers to cxli. 9, " Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me," and cxl. 5 ; and the clause, " When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path," answers to cxliii. 4, " My spirit is overwhelmed STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 167 within me : " and so, with undesigned coincidence, on another occasion the history represents the conflict between sense and faith, and the triumph of David's trust over David's fears: (i Sam. XXX. 6,) "David was greatly distressed — but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." This was the exact feeling of David in his perilous position at Gath, as Psalm Ivi. 3 expresses it, " What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." Psalm CXLIII. shows its connection with cxlii. in the corre- spondence of ver. 4 here with ver. 3 there ; also ver. 8, " Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk," with ver. 3 there, " Thou knewest my path — in the way wherein I walked ; " also ver. 1 1, " Bring my soul out of trouble," with ver. 7, " Bring my soul out of trouble." Twice (ver. 2 and 12) David makes his plea with God, " for I am Thy servant ; " and urges God, " Hear my prayer — in Thy faithfulness and in Thy righteousness." The " righteousness " cannot mean one grounded on David's merits ; for he cries, " Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified;" but must be God's regard to His own honour as at stake in saving one who trusts in and strives to please Him. " Faithfulness" presupposes a promise to which God is " faithful." Here the history is in undesigned harmony with, and furnishes the key to, the Psalm. The promise referred to throughout this octave of Psalms is that recorded in 2 Sam. vii. 12, etc. : "When thy days be fulfilled — I will set up thy seed after thee — and I will establish his kingdom. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him — but my mercy shall not depart away from him ; and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever." What fixes the connection of the Psalm with the history is the frequent application of the term, "Thy (Jehovah's) servant," by David to himself in the latter, as in verses 2 and 12 of the former : Jehovah had first used it of David, " Tell to my servant, to David ; " David • therefore fastens on it as his pica again and again (2 Sam. vii. 5, 19 — 21, 25 — 29). David's pica, "For I am Thy servant," is no boast of his service, but a magnifying of 1 68 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. God's electing grace : " Who am I, O Lord God ? and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto ? " (2 Sam. vii. 18.) The prayer (ver. 8), " Cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness in the morning" is a cry for speedy, seasonable, and mature help. The connecting of the " morning " with salvation, as the favourable season for granting it, answers, with the unstudied coincidence which marks genuineness, to the history which puts in David's mouth the words (2 Sam. xxiii. 4), " He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds;" so also David's Psalm lix. 16, "I will sing aloud of TJiy mercy in the morning^ Lastly, the cry (ver. 6), " My soul thirsteth after Thee as a thirsty land," answers to David's own words in Psalm Ixiii. i, when he was fleeing from Absalom, and still " in the wilderness of Judah " (title, Ps. Ixiii.) on the near side of Jordan : " My soul thirsteth for Thee." The history here again is in unde- signed agreement with the Psalm : (2 Sam. xvi. 2, 14,) " The king, and ill the people with him, came iveary, and refreshed themselves " with Ziba's fruits ; also xvii. 2. The Hebrew for " thirsty" in Psalm cxliii. is the same as for weary in Ixiii. i, and in 2 Sam. xvi. 14, and means "panting," "weary," "thirst- ing"(n3!V). The 144TH Psalm forms the transition from the prayer- psalms of the cycle to the concluding praise-psalm (CXLV.). David occasionally elsewhere made his earlier Psalms the groundwork of later ones ; so here in the first part he transfers much from his eighteenth Psalm, but still with the freshness of an original composer. As in the eighteenth Psalm he wound up his public life with a thanksgiving to Jehovah for personal deliverances from all his foes, so in Psalm cxliv. he applies the same grateful review of past mercies in a new relation, namely, for the benefit of Jiis seed and nation in ages to come. These are directed to appropriate (ver. i) from Psalm xviii. 34 what originally concerned David himself, " Blessed be Jehovah — who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight." STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 169 In Psalm xviii. 39, 43, the phrase is " the people ; " but in Psalm cxliv. 2 it is " who subdueth MY people under me : " this latter accords with 2 Sam. xxii. 40, 44, " My people " include all the heathen to be subdued under the Son of David, as well as Israel His own people, in the fulness of time. The earnest of this was given in the submission of the neighbouring nations (2 Sam. v. 25, viii.), and also of Israel and Judah, to David, after their rebellion under Absalom (2 Sam. xix. 14, 43). The " strange children " (ver. 7) shall either be won to, or else crushed under, Messiah at last. The Hebrew (H^S) for "rid," "deliver" (ver. 7, 10, 11), is literally "open" so as to free me, a poetic and rare usage suited to the elevated style of the Psalm. "The sons of the stranger" (Psalm xviii. 44, 45), or "strange children," are the aliens to God and Israel, "the great waters" (cxliv. 7; comp. xviii. 16), or overwhelming world powers, to which David's seed, as the Spirit foretold by him, should be subject, but from which such prayer as this Psalm suggests shall deliver them. At the same time, their " right hand of falsehood " (ver. 8) points also to treacherous foes : the history unstudicdly records what probably suggested the thought in the Psalm : " Joab took AmaSa with the right hand (the token of friendship) to kiss him," and then stabbed him (2 Sam. xx. 9). The sentiment (ver. 3, 4), " Lord, what is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him, or the son of man, that Thou makcst account of him .'' " accords with Psalm viii. 4. David adoringly wonders at God's loving-kindness in His promises of perpetuity to the seed of one so frail : an undesigned coincidence with 2 Sam. vii. 18, 19, "Who am I, O Lord God '^. and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto .'' And this was yet a small thing in Thy sight — but Thou hast spoken also of Thy servant's house for a great while to come." The use of " God " (absolutely) in ver. 9 is peculiar to David in the fourth and fifth books of the Psalter ; the only case of its occurrence in a non-Davidic Psalm being Psalm c. 3. The new manifestation of God's grace in the promise to his seed (2 Sam. vii.) called for ''a new soner unto God." The frround of his and his seed's lyo STL/DIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. " deliverances " was that he was " God's servant : " a phrase linking this Psalm to cxliii. 2, 12. Then follows the thanksgiving song (CXLV.) Tehillah, whence comes the title of the whole Psalter, Tehillim. This is the only Psalm so designated in the title. The designation was reserved for David's last Psalm, in order to mark that all his utterances find their consummation in praise. His last verse emphasizes the same : " My mouth shall speak the praise {tchillatJi) of Jehovah : " a preparation for the Psalter's closing Hallelu-Jah (a cognate word, never, however, found till after the Babylonian captivity), " Praise ye Jah," and a prophecy that all the troubles of the seed of David, and of Israel, shall eventuate in joyous thanksgiving to their Saviour and King. It is parallel to David's 103rd Psalm. Thrice three times "Jehovah" recurs in the Psalm. His three precious attributes, greatness, goodness, and righteousness (ver. 3, 7), are set forth. Seven times (ver. i — 6, 21) David declares his purpose of praise. The declaration that the righteous shall praise Jehovah occurs ten times. The tJiree is the Divine number ; the seven denotes perfection ; the t»n, world-wide universality. The closing words, " Let all flesh bless His holy name for ever and ever " (ver. 21), anticipate (like the closing words of the whole Psalter, " Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah,") the final anthem of every creature in heaven, earth, under the earth, and in the sea : " Blessing and honour and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (Rev. v. 13), " I will bless Thy name for ever and ever" (ver. i, 2), will be realized by David's seed and Israel, as David, their repre- sentative, anticipated from the promise which the independent history records (2 Sam. vii.). David's heart is so full, that he feels words inadequate to express his exuberant gratitude : so he heaps word upon word, as in Psalm xviii. 2, Ixii. 7. Again he uses (ver. 7) the same Hebrew as in xix. 2, " They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness ; " literally, they shall well forth in gushing abundance, implying regularity, perpetuity, beauty, and fertilizing power (yili). Heretofore STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 17 r cloud and sunshine alternated, and praise songs were often interrupted by mournful complaints. But now Zion's days of mourning are ended. Henceforth anthems of the coming kingdom (of which the " O King " in ver. i gives the key-note) continue to the end of the Psalter. To " speak of the glory of" Messiah's "kingdom" (ver. 11) shall be Israel's office, as King-priest unto the nations in the millennial reign (Exod. xix. 5, 6 ; Isa. Ixi. 6). " The saints of the Most High shall make known to the sons of men the glorious majesty of His king- dom " (ver. 10 — 12; Dan. vii. 18, 27), as royal ministers of blessing to the world. As Israel to the nations in the flesh, so shall the transfigured saints, reigning with the Lord Jesus, be the king-priests to Israel and the nations; "for to Him, and them with Him, the Father hath put in subjection the world to come " (Heb. ii. 5 — 12). May we be counted worthy to stand before the Son of man at His coming, being now faithful to His word in His bodily absence, and looking for His manifestation in glory ! 172 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXI. PSALMS XLV., LXXIL, CXXVII. TWO Psalms of the Psalter, according to the titles, are the inspired production of Solomon, LXXIT. and CXXVII. If we adopt the view suggested in lecture xviii., that David in the forty-first and seventy-first Psalms refers to the rebellion of Adonijah and his own going forth from his sick chamber to present his son Solomon as his chosen successor before Israel, then this seventy-second Psalm fittingly follows, ex- pressing Solomon's inspired prayer for, and anticipation of, a reign in peace, righteousness, and wide dominion, the type of the perfect and world-wide reign of the Messiah to come. In harmony with the attribution of the Psalm to Solomon by the title is its objective character, — a feature observable in the other writings of Solomon, as contrasted with the subjective feeling which characterizes the Psalms of David. Moreover, it is the relations of Solomon's time, rather than those of David, which form the typical groundwork on which rests the delineation of Messiah's antitypical reign in righteousness and peace. In the original promise to Abraham (Gen. xv. i8), repeated by Moses (Deut. xi. 24), the river of Egypt, the Mediterranean, and the Euphrates are specified as Israel's boundaries. Such were the bounds under Solomon (i Kings iv. 21 ; 2 Chron. ix. 26). It is from these starting-points that, according to our Psalm, in coincidence with the inde- pendent history, Messiah, Solomon's antitype, " shall have dominion (a phrase drawn from Numb. xxiv. 19) from sea to STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 173 sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth " (ver. 8). The Chaldee Targum, the Midrash Tehillim, Yarchi, Kimchi, and other ancient Jewish expositors, agree in applying the Psalm to Messiah. Solomon's opening prayer, " Give the king Thy judgments, and Thy righteousness unto the king's son," happily har- monizes with the incidental notices in the history. David, his royal father, just before his death, had prayed, " Give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart to keep Thy statutes " (i Chron. xxix. 19); and again, "Of all my sons, the Lord hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom " (xxviii. 5). Solomon himself also, at his accession, prayed at the great high place at Gibeon, " Give Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people." How happily the opening prayer of Solomon's Psalm, Ixxii., accords, ''Give the Z-/;/^ Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteous- ness unto tJie kings son " (i Kings iii. 9). Again, the prophecy in the Psalm (ver. 3), " The mountains shall bring peace to the people," harmonizes with the word of Jehovah to David, " Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars. A son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about ; for his name shall be Solomon (peaceful) ; and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days" (i Chron. xxii. 8, 9) : also with Solomon's own words, " Now the Lord my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent " (i Kings v. 4). Yet the harmony is just of that unobtrusive kind which never would suggest itself to a forger : it is the undesigned coin- cidence of truth. Moreover, David in his " last " testimony, recorded in the independent history (2 Sam. xxiii. 4), represents the effects of Messiah's reign " as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. So his ro}'al son Solomon writes in the Psalm (ver. 6), " He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." If the Psalm foretells, " The kings of Tarshish and of the 174 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. isles shall bring presents, the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts," the independent history informs us of contemporary- facts, which suggested the prophetical imagery of Messiah's reign, namely, that Solomon had one fleet in the Mediterra- nean, trading westward with Tarshish (i Kings x. 22), and another navy at Eziongeber, on the shore of the Red Sea (i Kings ix. 26), and that "the Queen of Sheba gdive Solomon an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and a great store of spices and preciou's stones " (i Kings x. 10). It is of Messiah that the Spirit foretells (Ps. Ixxii. 11), "Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him ; " but it is the history of Solomon, by whom the Spirit speaks, that supplies the groundwork of the delineation : " Solomon reigned over all kingdoms — they brought presents, and served Solomon for he had dominion over all the kings on this side the river, and he had peace on all sides" (i Kings iv. 21, 24). Also, as prayer was made for Solomon in the twentieth Psalm, so in ver. 15 of Ps. Ixxii. we read, "Prayer shall be made for him continually " — not for Messiah in the same sense as for an earthly king, but in behalf of His kingdom, that it may perpetually increase in glory. , , The closing doxology of this Psalm concludes the second book specially, and the first two books regarded as one whole, the first book (xli. 14) ending with a shorter doxology. The Epiphonema, "The_ prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended," implies not that all the previous Psalms were prayers, nor that David composed them all, but that the majority were " prayers," and that David was author of most of them. The undesigned coincidence of the Psalm here with the history (2 Sam. xxiii. i) is a confirmation of the genuineness of both : " These be the last words of David — David the son of Jesse said," etc. (comp. i Chron. xxix. 26). The phrase implies David's remembrance, amidst the royal grandeur of his closing days, of his original position as the youngest son of Jesse the Bethlehemite (i Sam. xvi. 1 1) : a lively type of Messiah, whose wonderful humility issues in the everlasting glory and dominion foretold by this Psalm. (Comp. Isa. xi. i.) STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 175 The 127x11 Psalm evidences internally the authorship of Solomon, which its title alleges, by the absence of the sad tone which pervades the other " Songs of degrees " without titles. The individual comts into prominence in this Psalm, but in those songs the nation and the church come more into view. Calvin well remarks, The theme suits Solomon, who chiefly occupied the domestic, civic territory. The main idea answers to the inspired writing of Solomon in Prov. x. 22, "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it." The independent histories inform us, that vast buildings occupied the most of Solomon's reign, and foremost amorrg these the temple of Jehovah and his own palace (i Kings V. vi., vii., viii.), the former engaging him for seven years, the latter for thirteen. David had made laborious and costly pre- parations for building the house of Jehovah ; but, as Solomon said at the dedication, "Jehovah said unto David my father. Whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thine heart. Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house, but thy son that shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house unto my name : and Jehovah hath performed His word — and I am risen up in the room of David — and have built an house for the name of Jehovah." How exactly, and at the same time unde- signedly, Solomon's words in the Psalm (ver. i) accord with the facts alleged by him in the independent history: "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." David had laboured, but had not built, because the Lord willed it not. Solomon had not laboured, yet he built, because the Lord willed the honour to him. He adds, " Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." The same association of "the house" and "the city" appears in the history of Solomon (i Kings ix. 15): "The reason of the levy which King Solomon raised " was " to build the house of the Lord, and his own Jtoiisc, and Millo, and the icall of Jcrusalcmr (See also 2 Chron. viii. i — 6.) In the second verse of the Psalm the best authorities (De 176 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Dieu, Hengstenberg, etc.) translate, " It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, (or rather, to be late in sitting down for rest^ to eat the bread of sorrows — for so (all this which you God-forgetting ones seek toilfuUy in vain) God gives to His beloved ones IN sleep." But even if we accept the English version, which follows the ancient versions, we still retain the same sense in the main : Whilst the godless, with all their toil, even to the foregoing of sleep, fail to gain lasting wealth, God gives to His beloved ones- sleep undisturbed by sorrows, and with sleep wealth growing they know not how : the latter is implied, not expressed. Beautifully, yet evidently without- design, this accords with Solomon's own experience. He was Jehovah's " beloved," as the Psalm (ver. 2) designates the objects of His favour: "Jehovah loved Solomon," and he was therefore called Jcdidiah (2 Sam. xii. 24, 25). Because he asked wisdom first, Jehovah gave him this at the vision at Gibeon, and besides, what he did not ask, riches and honour. All these Jehovah gave to his beloved " in sleep," without toil or anxiety on his part (i Kings iii. 5 — 13 ; iv. 20, 25). The magnificent "house" of Jehovah had just been built with scarcely any eftbrt of his, through his father David's design and laborious and costly preparations (i Chron. xxviii. 11; xxix. 2 — 4; xxii. 3,4, 14), and had been reared without sound of axe or hammer, as it were " in sleep" (i Kings vi. 7). Such, too, is the growth of " the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how" (Mark iv. 26; compare Luke xvii. 20). The stone of Messiah's kingdom is cut out without hands, and becomes a mountain filling the whole earth (Dan. ii. 35, 44,45)- Solomon closes the Psalm by citing " children " as an in- stance of the same principle, that all is of God's gift, which man's anxious toil cannot command without Him ; an illus- tration the more appropriate after speaking of Jehovah's "building" the house, as baniin, "children," is from the root banah, " to build." As Eve was built (so the Hebrew Gen, ii. 22) STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 177 of the rib taken by Jehovah from Adam " in sleep," so children are built up, by God's gift, "in secret," by a process most mysterious and marvellous (Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16; Job x. 11). The whole Psalm presupposes a state of prosperity such as existed under Solomon, when "Judah and Israel were many as the sand which is by the sea in multitude — every man dwelt safely under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba" (i Kings iv. 20, 25) ; a type of the future building of the house and city and family in Israel, and the whole world, under the antitypical Solomon, the Prince of peace (Mic. iv. 4 ; Zech. 1. 16, 17; ii. 4; iii. 10; viii. 3,5; ix. 10; xii. 6). As Psalm Ixxii. dwells on the Messianic kingdom, starting from that of Solomon the type, so PSALM XLV., starting from the marriage of Solomon to Pharaoh's daughter, sets forth the spiritual marriage of Messiah and the Church (Israel first, and the Gentiles united to her consequently). The Psalms of " the sons of Korah," the servants of the sanctuary, are all spiritual. Only on the supposition that the marriage is that of the antitypical Solomon to Israel and His Church, can the admission of an Epithalamium, or nuptial song, into the canon be accounted for. In the sixth verse the King is addressed as God, " Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ; " and according to the inspired Epistle to the Hebrews i. 7 — 9, the King so addressed is Messiah, " Unto the Son He (God the Father) saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." So in Psalm ex. i, Isa. ix. 6, Mic. v. 2, Dan. vii. 13, 14, Zech. xiii. 7, David supplies the typical characteristics of Messiah as tJic Warrior (ver. 3 — 5), which are wholly in- applicable to Solomon, a prince o{ peace : "Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O most Mighty." How closely the language of the Psalm here accords, yet undesignedly, with David's words to his men, in the history, when about to punish Nabal, "Gird ye on every man his sword" (r Sam. xxv. 13). As shoshanniui, " the lilies," in the title, are the lily-like virgins, whose beauty is spiritual, not carnal, " the king's daughters," " the virgins, the queen's companions that follow 12 178 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. her," and "her honourable women" (ver. 9, 14); so in the Song of Solomon (ii. i, 2) the Bridegroom's love is "the lily of the valleys," the " lily among thorns " {the wicked, 2 Sam. xxiii. 6). The mention of a number of brides, " the queen's companions brought and entering into the king's palace (Ps.xlv. 14, 1 5), is fatal to a literal interpretation; for it cannot be moral to have more than one wife at a time. The spiritual view harmonizes the difficulty. The queen's companions, her fellows, yet second to her in precedency, united to the king, like herself, are the heathen nations, " the daughter of Tyre," and others (ver. 12). Israel, the queen-bride by virtue of the old covenant, stands foremost, but with her stand the Gentile peoples (often personified as zvomen, Isa. xlvii. i, 11 v. i), to be by her converted to Christ in the last days (Ps. ii. 8, Ixxii. 8; Isa. ii. 2 — 4, Ixi. 6, xi. 10; Jer. iii. 17; Mic. v. 7). In harmony with this, the Song of Solomon (vi. 8, 9) saith, " There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled, is but one. The daughters saw her, and blessed her ; yea, the queens and the concubines," etc. The loving union of God or Christ to His people is expressed by marriage throughout the Bible (Isa. liv. 5, Ixii. 4, 5 ; Jer. iii, i ; Hos. i., ii., iii. ; Ezek. xvi., xxiii. ; Matt. ix. 15, xxii. i; John iii. 29; Rom. vii. 4; 2 Cor. xi. 2; Eph. V. 23 — 32 ; Rev. xix. 7, xxi. 29, xxii. 17). Another propriety characteristic of truth is the title, " Song ' of loves," or " Song of the loved ones," (Heb., JedidotJi) i.e., the objects of the antitypical Solomon, Messiah's love. Solomon himself was one of those, and so was named, with nice coin- cidence, Jedidiah, i.e., Jehovah's beloved, or object of love (2 Sam. xii. 24, 25) ; the original of the expression is in Deut. xxxiii. 12, " the beloved of the Lord," Jedid Jehovah, viz., Benjamin. " The loved ones " in plain language correspond to the enig- matical "lilies," the "king's daughters," the "virgins," the queen's " companions," her " honourable women" (Ps. xlv, 9, 14). It is impossible to conceive, in the non-Messianic interpreta- tion, how the possession of a numerous harem should be the consequence of " loving righteousness " (" Thou lovest righte- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 179 ousiiess ") ; but in the Messianic interpretation all is clear ; because " Thou lovest righteousness — therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fel- lows," namely, "in the day of His espousals, in the day of the gladness of His heart," as the Song of Solomon (iii. 11), an independent poem, testifies in harmony with the Psalm. So " kings' daughters " were among " Thy honourable women," i.e., secondary consorts. The "queen " is called by the unusual Hebrew term seegal, not the usual vialkah, the consort of the first rank. She stands " upon the king's right hand, in gold of Ophir ;" in coincidence with the fact recorded in the independent history, that David amassed much gold of Ophir for the Temple (i Chron. xxix. 4), and Solomon imported large quantities (i Kings ix. 28). The bride is "the King's daughter" in one aspect, the King's bride in another (ver. 13), as the type, Pharaoh's daughter, was a king's daughter and also a king's bride. As the history records, " Solomon brought her into the city of David," then " unto her house which Solomon had built for her" (i Kings iii. i, ix. 24); so the Psalm spiritually says of the heavenly bride, " She shall be bronght unto tJie King — the virgins her companions — shall be bronght nnto Thee ; with gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought — into the King's palace" (Ps. xlv. 14, 15). "Thy children made princes" (ver. 16) answers antitypically to David's making his sons "princes" (2 Sam. viii. 18), but with the distinctive superiority of the Antit)'pe to the tj'pe : these were princes only in Israel, Messiah's seed shall be so "in all the earth" (see ver. 16 ; Isa. xlix. 20, 21, liv. i). When Israel surrenders herself to the Lord, the heathen nations shall surrender to her. She must " forget her own people and her father's house," her ceremonialism and boast of earthly descent (Matt. iii. 9 ; John viii. 33, 39), in order that the king may "greatly desire her beauty;" even as Abraham obeyed God's call, " Get thee out from thy kindred, and from thy father's house" (Gen. xii. i). ' Catholicity and visible unity, unscripturally attempted by Rome, shall only be attained when Christ shall be manifested as King. Jerusalem shall i8o STUDIES IN THE CL. PS A IMS. be, what Rome never has been, the mother-Church and spiritual centre of Christendom. The glory of Israel's first "fathers" shall be transcended by the glory of Israel's "children" reigning as "princes in all the earth." Be it our chief aim meanwhile to anticipate the time when " Messiah's name shall be remembered in all generations." STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXII. PSALM XC, XCI. IT is an interesting remark of Hengstenberg. tiiat "Moses, the fountain out of which all the prophets drank Divine wisdom, gave the tone no less for prophecy (Deut. xxxii., xxxiii.) than for ^salm poetry." The ninetieth Psalm is designated, in its title, " A prayer of Moses the man of God." Moses has nowhere else applied this phrase, "the man of God," to himself, except in Deut. xxxiii. i. His high cha- racter and office, as implied in the designation, guarantee the inspired authority of the Psalm. His word is to be reverently heeded as the word of God Himself. The coincidence of Moses' language in the title of the Psalm with his language in his independent history (Deut. xxxiii. i) is confirmatory of the genuineness of both. An air of antiquity pervades the Psalm. It is grave, solemn, and majestic, terse and fresh in its conceptions. A vein of sadness runs through it, but relieved by hope and trust in the loving and everlasting Jehovah. The children of Israel had been for nearly forty years in the wilderness, suffering under God's chastisements. Now therefore they supplicate God to gladden them again with His mercy. The title rightly designates the Psalm as " a prayer ; " for the main aim is contained in the second part, which consists of prayer, for which the first part, consisting of vicditatioti, is preparatory: ^' Rctitni, O Lord, how long .^ " {i.e., Return from Thy wrath, which now lies upon us, to the state of favour which once wc enjoyed : how long will Thy 1 82 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. wrath continue ?) " and let it repent Thee concerning Thy servants." The language attributed to Moses in the Psalm is in happy coincidence with that attributed to him in the inde- pendent history (Exod. xxxii. 1 2), " Turn from Thy fierce wrath, and repent;'' and Deut. xxxii. 36, " The Lord shall repent Himself for His servants." God is said to " repent," when, having first vindicated His justice in punishing sin. He then gives the penitent and believing sinner joy, instead of sadness. It is not He who changes, but the sinner by penitence changes his relation toward God : God's unchanging principle is to treat man according to man's attitude towards God. The parallelism between the Psalm and Deuteronomy, which is Moses' recapitulatory address to Israel at the close of the forty years in the wilderness, accords with the theory that the time was just before Israel's entrance into Canaan. Their * prayer,' " Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil," was answered in the brilliant triumphs which marked their entrance into the Holy Land by the miraculous aid of Jehovah. The correspondences with the Pentateuch, and especially with Deut. xxxii., are not like copied phrases such as occur in other Psalms, but are independent and original. At the commencement the inspired man of God cries, "Jehovah, Thou hast been our dzvelling-place in all genera- tions." How naturally was the image suggested by the yearnings which the Israelites felt, in their tedious wilderness wanderings in tents, after 2. fixed habitation and a home ! It is strikingly, because undesignedly, confirmatory of the gen- uineness of the Psalm, and of its Mosaic authorship, that the Hebrew term |1i?/b, "dwelling-place," is nowhere else applied to God save here, and m the sister Psalm (xci.), the Mosaic authorship of which will be discussed below, and in the undoubtedly Mosaic passage (Deut. xxxiii. 27), "The eternal God is Thy refuge " {dwelling-place). The author of Gen. i. speaks in the Psalms as one who has before his mind the creation which he himself already described: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 183 the earth and the habitable world {tcebeei), from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art, O God." The word " brought forth " {yulladu) answers to the " generations " {tholdoth) of the heaven and earth {Gtw ii. 4). " The habitable world," ver. 2, {tcebeei^ answers to the " dry land " of the third day's creation (Gen. i. 6 — 13). The " mountains " in our Psalm, as imaging remotest antiquity, answer to " the ancient mountains and the lasting hills " of Deut. xxxiii. 15. Moreover here, as in Gen. ii. 3, IMoses teaches the doctrine that death is the wages of sin : (ver. 3,) " Thou turnest men to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children of men," namely, to your original state. The harmony with Gen. iii. 19, which records the Divine curse on man, is certain, and yet alto- gether unstudied and natural, as it would be on the assump- tion that Moses was the author : " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it thou wast taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'' Moses goes on to contrast long life as it appears in the eyes of God with it as it appears in man's eyes : (ver. 4,) "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday ;" (ver. 9,) " We spend our years as a tale that is told " {literally, as a meditation, a musing half-uttered, then passing into silence). This accords with Gen. v., where the almost a t/iousand years' life of each of the antediluvians (Methuselah attaining 969) is summed up in the same monotonous tale, like an oft-repeated funeral toll : " Adam, Seth, etc., begat sons, lived so many years, and died." Still more did the transitoriness of life appear in the close of Israel's wilderness sojourn. IMost of the whole generation that perished in the wilderness were from twenty to forty years old when leaving Egypt, and forty years in the wilderness — in all, seventy or eighty years at death. In striking, because unstudied, coincidence with this Moses says (Ps. xc. 10), "The days of our years are tJireescore years and ten ; and if b}' reason of strength they \iQ fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." The limitation of human life by the Psalmist to seventy or i84 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. eighty years is made an objection to assigning the Psalm to the times of Moses, since he himself attained the age of 120 {Deut. xxxiv. 7). But Moses was, as is expressly there declared, one of exceptional vigour; even at 120 ''his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Moreover, the Psalm is "the prayer" of the people, rather than of Moses, though the latter is their mouthpiece. The Israelites doomed to die in the wilderness for their unbelief were all above twenty years of age at the exodus, and consequently were from sixty to eighty towards the close of the forty years' wandering. Thus the people's mention of seventy or eighty as the limit of life exactly accords with what was passing before their eyes. Accordingly, the Chaldee Targum entitles the Psalm, " A prayer wherewith the prophet of the Lord, Moses, prayed, when the people of the house of Israel sinned in the wilderness." Moreover, the allusion to the flood in the Psalm (ver. 5)^ " Thou earnest them away as with a flood" is natural, if the author of the Psalm be the same as the historian of the deluge (Gen vi. — ix.). Here, as there, the sad fact of man's speedy mortality (ver. 6) is traced up to its still sadder cause, man's sin bringing necessarily upon him God's wrath (ver. 7, 8) : " We are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath we are troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." So, in undesigned co- incidence with this, Moses' own book. Genesis, represents God as threatening (ii. 17), " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." The whole ceremonial law also, as set forth by Moses in the Pentateuch, teaches the same truth, that the wages of sin is death. But, as the Psalmist perceives how little, if at all, man knows experimentally the mysterious relation of death to sin as its penalty, he prays that God will remove this insensibility, and teach men the true wisdom of life : " Who knoweth the power of Thine anger .'' {as manifested in death's power to sJwrteji our days:) even according to Thy fear (/.^., Thy dread- fulness), (so is) Thy wrath (against sin). So make us to know how to 7iumber our days, that we may make to come to us a STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 185 wise heart." (So the Hebrew literally expresses.) Here we discern the same voice that prayed for Israel (Deut. xxxii, 28, 29): "O that they were tvise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end ! " The coincidence between the Psalm and the book of Moses, where he thus complains that " there is no tniderstandiiig in thcni" is so artless and natural as to be unlike what an imitator would contrive. The peculiar Hebrew termination for " days " occurs in the following prayer (ver. 15): "Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil ; " as in Moses' book (Deut. xxxii. 7), " Re- member the days of old, consider the years of many genera- tions ;" and in both places in connection with "years" {shcnotli ycnioth, the combination causing the assimilation of endings). God heard Israel's prayer which Moses the man of God em- bodies in the Psalm. Not only does He gladden His people according to the days wherein He afflicted them, but for their past shame He gives them double (Isa. Ixi. 7). Moreover, Moses, in the Psalm, remembers God's promise succeeding His threat : " Because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles — in Egypt and in the wilder- ness, have tempted me now these ten times — surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers. But your little ones — them will I bring in " (Num. xiv. 22 — 35). So in our Psalm (ver. 16), he prays, " Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto tJieir children T The fathers of that generation had all perished in the wilderness : there- fore Moses' prayer, resting on God's promise, pleads for the cJiildren — " Let the beauty {pleasantness, nciaui) of the Lord our God be upon us," to bring us into the pleasant land — using the same Hebrew word that he employed in Gen. xlix. 15, "The land was pleasant;' "and establish Thou the zvork of our hands upon us ;" answering to his favourite expression as to God's blessing upon His people's labours in the pleasant land into which Joshua was about to lead them : "That the Lord may bless thee in all the work of thy hand" (Deut. xiv. 29, xxiv. 19, xxviii. 12, xxx. 9). The Hebrew for "establish" STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. {kim), too, is the same as in Deut. xxxii. 6, " Hath He not established thee ? " As Jehovah made Israel glad in Canaan according to the days wherein He afflicted them in the wil- derness, so will He at the resurrection morning {s,o the Hebrew for "early" means, ver. 14) establish the work of His saints, revoke the curse, swallow up death in victory, and make all His glory and beauty to rest upon His redeemed in the heavenly city for ever. Kimchi mentions that the older rabbis ascribed the NINETY- FIRST Psalm to Moses. Its being without title, whereas the ninety-third Psalm has one, makes it likely that the title at the, head of Ps. xc. comprises both Psalms. The Lord Jesus, in His conflict with Satan at the temptation, quotes only from the book of Moses, Deuteronomy; it is therefore a propriety which we might expect, that Satan, too, should quote the words of Moses, as if they gave inspired sanction for the act to which the tempter urged Messiah, to cast Himself from the Temple-pinnacle. As the Lord Jesus had quoted Moses, Satan wished to show that Moses was on his side, and gave warrant for the perilous venture. That the ulterior reference designed by the Holy Spirit is to Messiah is certain from the fact that Satan's application of it to Him is left uncontradicted by our Lord. The primary reference is clearly to Israel, the type of Messiah. The alter- nation between the first and the second persons is due to the fact that at one time the Psalmist expresses confidence as from the soul of the believer when in danger, at another time he speaks in his own person, encouraging the believer. Thus there is produced a lively and sustained interest as in a dia- logue. The " thou " is used when he acts the part of teacher, the "I" when he speaks as a scholar. The Psalmist who teaches would fain be a learner of the inspired truth of God of which he is the mouthpiece. The names given to God at the outset, " the Most High " and "the Almighty" {Shadddi), indicate the ground of the Psalmist's confident assurance of safety. " The Most High " (Eljoii) is a remarkable designation found first in Moses' STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 187 account of Melchizedek, " priest of the most high God " (Gen. xiv. 18, 19, 20, 22) ; again recorded by Moses as used by- Balaam (Num. xxiv. 16); also in Deut. xxxii. 8, "The Most High divided to the nations their inheritance." In undesigned coincidence with the latter chapter (ver. 11), "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spread eth abroad her wings — so the Lord alone did lead them," we read in our Psalm, " He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty," and " He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His ti'itigs shalt thou trust." Satan is called " the fowler," and God is represented as a mother-bird covering her young with her " feathers " and " under her wings " from the deadly arrow. This is exactly what took place when the destroying angel visited the firstborn in every Egyptian house. Jehovah said to the Israelites, " When I see the blood, (namely, of the passover lamb, sprinkled on every Israelite's house,) I will spring forward to cover you (so the Hebrew means), and the plague shall not be upon you " (Exod. xii. 13). As Jehovah is represented by Moses, the giver of the Lazv in the Old Testa- ment, under the sterner aspect of " the eagle," so the loving Jesus, in the New Testament, under the milder image of the domestic hen, gathering together her chickens under her wings (Matt, xxiii. 37). Moses, in his ninetieth Psalm, writes, "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." How exactly this accords with the thought in Psalm xci. r, "He that dzvclleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the. Almighty." " The plagues by day," and " the terror by night, the pestilence that walketh in darkness," and " the destruction that wasteth at noonday," alike fell powerless to hurt Israel ; for "Jehovah's truth was Israel's shield and buckler" (ver. 4 — 6). Just as (ver. 7) our Psalm says, " A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee; " so, with the uuobtrudcd harmony of truth, Moses, in his independent history, records Jehovah's words, '' I will sever in that day the land of Goshen, in which my STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there " (Exod. viii. 22); again (ix. 4), "Jehovah shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt, and there shall no- thing die of all that is the children's of Israel ; " and (ver. 26), " Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail ;" and (x. 22, 23), "There was a thick darkness in all Egypt three days, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings : " lastly (xi. 7), " Against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue — that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." The death-stroke which fell on the Egyptian firstborn at flight was " no terror by night " (ver. 5) to Israel. A coincidence of word too occurs in ver, 6, " Thou shalt not be afraid for the destruction that wasteth at noonday : " qiteteb, a destructive plague, more deadly than the " pestilence " mentioned in the previous clause ; the very word used by Moses in Deut. xxxii. 24, and found nowhere else save Isa. xxviii. 2, " a destroying storm." " A thousand fell at Israel's left side (so it means) and ten thousand at his right hand, but it did not come nigh him " (ver. 7). What follows in the Psalm strikingly coincides with the fact and the words in the independent history, " Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked." " Fear ye not," said Moses unto the people, at the Red Sea ; " stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you to-day : for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever" (Exod. xiv. 13). " The Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians ; and Israel satv the Egyptians dead upon the sea- shore. And Israel sazv that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians ; and the people feared the Lord, and beheved the Lord, and His servant Moses " (ver. 30, 31). So it shall be at the final overthrow of the Antichristian host : " They (the converted nations and Israel) shall go forth and look tipon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me ; for their worm shall not die" (Isa. Ixvi. 24). In the ninth verse, the same Hebrew word iincion) which STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. occurs in Psalm xc. i (Moses' Psalm), " Lord, Thou hast been our divelliug-place^' and which is applied to God by none save Moses, as we saw in the remarks above upon the ninetieth Psalm, is used: "Thou hast made the Most High thy Jiabita- tionr This natural coincidence fits in well with the theory that the ninety-first Psalm is the work of Moses. The Psalmist again recurs to Israel's exemption from the death-stroke which fell on Egypt : " There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling " (literally, tJiy tent, be-aJialcka, appropriate to Israel dwelling in tents in the wilderness, and having Jehovah's tabernacle as the centre of their encampments) : words could scarcely be written which more exactly apply to the events of the first passover, as recorded in the history (Exod. xii. 23 — 30), and yet the language is so general, as to be far more like the unstudied coincidence of truth, than like forgery. The verses which Satan quoted in tempting our Lord to cast Himself down from the temple pinnacle were (ver. 11, 12), " He shall give His angels chdirgQ over thee, to keep thee in all thy zuays ; they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." The history by Moses (Exod. xxiii. 20) here again is in that unstudied harmony with the Psalm, which favours the view that both are from the same author : " Behold," saith Jehovah Elohim, " I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way " (the same Hebrew words are employed in the history and in the Psalm). Again (Deut. i. 31), " The Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear (the same Hebrew as in the Psalm) his son, in all the way that ye went." The Hebrew also for "dash" {nagaph) is that used in Exod. xii. 23, 27, for the Lord's "smiting" with "plague" (xxxii. 35) the Egyptians. Satan, in the temptation of our Lord, omitted " in all thy ways." Jehovah keeps His children so long as they walk not in the ways of self-will, but theiK.'ays appointed by God for the believer. To choose one's own way, and to put to the test God's power and faithfulness, after having had experience of both, would be to fall into Israel's presumptuous sin, " tempting the Lord by saying. Is the I90 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Lord among us or not?" {Exod. xvii. 7; Deut. vi, 16.) All Christ's ways as man were those of implicit reverent faith and filial dependence on God ; therefore in His case " all thy ways" are all right ways ; and in these the angels of God ever ministered to Him, and did so immediately after His defeat of Satan (Matt. iv. 11). Again, in ver. 13, "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder, the young lion and the dragon" we have a coincidence with Moses' words in Deut. viii. 15, "The Lord thy God led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions!'' The word in ver, 14, too, is expressive, " Because he cleaves to me with longing affection and delight" (cliashaqn, as in Moses' book, Gen. xxxiv. 8; Deut. x. 15). This is the only^ ground on which God " sets on high," " answers " prayer, " delivers honours, satisfies with long life and salvation " for ever and ever. May this faith, working by love to Him who first loved us, be our safeguard against Satan's assaults now in time, and be our ground of confidence for eternity. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 191 LECTURE XXIII. PSALMS XLVII., XLVIIL, LXXXII., LXXXIII. THREE Psalms refer to the remarkable deliverance vouch- safed by the Lord to Jehoshaphat, the pious "king of Judah, and his people, from a formidable invasion — namely, the EIGHTY-THIRD, the FORTY-SEVENTH, and the FORTY- EIGHTH Psalms. The eighty-third is the earliest of the series. The FORTY-SEVENTH PSALM was sung after the dis- comfiture of the confederate foes on the battle-field. The FORTY-EIGHTH PSALM was sung at the thanksgiving service subsequently in the temple. The EIGHTY-THIRD PSALM is not SO much a prayer as a triumphant song of thanksgiving by anticipation. Prayer, indeed, occurs in it, but it is the prayer of joyful assurance of the answer. The very ground of the victory, according to 2 Chron. xx. 19, 21, 22, was the belicviug praisc-sotig of the Levites to Jehovah before the battle, and in front of the army : " The Levites of the Kohathites, and of the Korhites, stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high. And when Jehoshaphat had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for His mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set arnbushments against the children of Amnion, Moab, and Mount Seir — and they were smitten." Hence the title is appropriately and in undesigned coincidence with the history, a song" {shir), i.e., a jo)-ful thanksgiving, or song of praise. 192 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. " Asaph " is named in the title as its author. Now when we turn to the independent history (2 Chron. xx. 14), we read, " Upon Jahaziel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the con- gregation." The coincidence here is unmistakeable ; yet it does not lie on the surface, as would be the case if it were the result of design ; for a late forger would never have put "Asaph" for one of the sons of Asaph, which our Psalmist does. Jahaziel probably composed the Psalm ; for it appears from the history (2 Chron. xx. 18, 19) that the king " Jehoshaphat and all Judah fell before the Lord, worshipping Him, and the Levites of the Kohathites and Korhites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high ; " just as the designation of this Psalm in the title is a "song of praise" At first sight there seems a discrepancy between the Psalm and the history, as to the nations which formed the invading confederacy. In 2 Chron. xx. the foes mentioned are only Edom, Moab, and Ammon ; whereas in our Psalm no less than ten peoples are specified — Edom, the Ishmaelites, Moab, the Hagarenes, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, the Philistines, Tyre, and Assur. Closer examination shows the complete, though latent, harmony which characterizes truth, and confirms the genuineness of both the Psalm and the independent history. For in the eighty-third Psalm the three named in 2 Chron. xx. appear as originators and instigators of the enterprise, and about these three the other enemies of Israel gather them- selves ; thus in ver. 8 of the Psalm the phrase is, " They have holpen the children of Lot." On the other hand, we find in 2 Chron. xx. i, the express statement that there were "with them other beside the Ammonites," or, as it may be translated, "with them others who dwelt remote from and beyond ths Ammonites " (the Hebrew min having this sense often, Mee- ha'Anmionini), probably the tribes in the Syro-Arabic desert bordering upon Ammon on the north and east. So in ver. 2 we read, " Some told Jehoshaphat, saying. There cometh a STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 193 great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, from Syria," i.e., out of the country east of that strip of land bounded on the north by Syria, on the south by the Dead Sea — there- fore from the deserts of Arabia, whose marauding hordes often assailed Palestine.* At no other period save the reign of Jehoshaphat was such a vast confederacy organized against the elect nation. Their object was not merely to plunder, but to root out Israel from the inheritance given them by Jehovah, even as Israel had formerly rooted out the Canaanites. Therefore "Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord — out of all the cities." " And Jehoshaphat stood in the congre- gation, in the house of the Lord, and said, Art not Thou our God who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham Thy friend for ever .? And now behold the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom Thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not, Behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of THY possession zvJdcli Thou Jiast given us to inherit^ How exactly, yet indirectly and unstudiedly, the Psalm agrees with this (2 Chron. xx. 3 — 5, 12), " They have — consulted against Thy hidden ones — Come and let ns cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. They are confederate against Thee, who said. Let ns take to ourselves the houses OF GOD in possession!' The quality, as well as the quantity of the booty found on the invaders, confirms this : " Jehoshaphat and his people found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels more than they could carry * Keil, however, reads for Mee-ha-Ammonim, Meehavim^unim, or Mehunims, the Maunites (2 Chron. xxvi. 7), whose city Maan was near Petra, upon Mount Seir, in the mountainous district W. of the Arabah, which stretches from the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea. Keil also reads in ver. 2 Mee-Edom for Mec-Aravi, "from Edom," not " on this side Syria ;" as the foes made their attack from the south end of the Dead Sea, the messengers announce that the foes are coming from Edom. 13 194 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. away, and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much" (ver, 25). They had set out, as Israel did of old from Egypt, with all their jewels, treasures, and baggage, intending to settle themselves in the Holy Land, after rooting out Israel. The enemy combined cunning with force. The history (2 Chron. xx. 2) informs us that the first intelligence which Jehoshaphat had of the plot was the announcement, " There Cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, on this side Syria ; and, behold, they be in Hazazon Tamar, which is Engedi." Already they were within his territory, when the first tidings reached him ; and their march- ing round the south of the Dead Sea, instead of entering Canaan directly from the east, is another proof of their aim at secrecy, their design being to surprise Jehoshaphat and Judah whilst unprepared. Here, again, the Psalm is in exact, and at the same time unobtrusive, harmony with the history (Ixxxiii.- 3) : " They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people, and consulted against Thy hidden ones." The mention of Amalek (ver. 7) makes it certain the date is not later than the time of Jehoshaphat ; for the last remains of Amalek were rooted out by the Simeonites under Hezekiah (i Chron. iv. 41 — 43). An additional undesigned propriety which confirms the date of Jehoshaphat's reign, as established by the other internal notices, is, Assyria appears in ver. 8 as an ally of the children of Lot: "Assur also is joined with them — the children of Lot." Clearly the Psalm must have been written at a time before Assyria had pushed its conquests so far westward as it did in the reign of the Israelite king Menahem, who became a tributary to the Assyrian king Pul (2 Kings XV. 19) ; and still longer before Ahaz, king of Judah, became the vassal of Tiglath Pileser (2 Kings xvi.). Assur is mentioned last, as the most remote of the ten invading nations, and as being engaged only partially and indirectly in the confederacy. Hatred of Israel's God was the moving cause: as the Psalmist says (ver. 5), "They are confederate against Thee;" and, as the history independently implies, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 195 " They come to cast us out of TJiy possession — but our eyes are upon Thee" (2 Chron. xx. 11, 12). Amalek's attack on Israel at Rephidim, whilst the elect nation was in the weakness of its infancy, was prompted by the same hatred of God ; as appears from the Hebrew of Exod. xvii. 16), "The hand of Amaiek is against the tJiroiic of JchovaJi." The believing prayer of Israel in the Psalm was fulfilled to the letter (ver. 9) : " Do unto them as unto the Midianites," who perished by the hands of one another in mutual destruc- tion (Judges vii. 22). So in the very same way God destroyed Jehoshaphat's enemies (2 Chron. xx. 22, 23). " When the singers before the Jews' army began to sing and to praise — the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the in- habitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them : and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another." The overthrow of Sisera and Jabin at the brook of Kison, or Kishon, is connected in the Psalm (ver. 10) with Endor, "Who perished at Endor," but in Judges v. 19, " Taanach ;" and "the waters of Megiddo" are mentioned as the scene of the battle. A forger would have naturally introduced the latter names into the Psalm, to coincide directly with the history. But Joshua (xvif. ii) mentions Endor along with Taanach and Megiddo, as in the same region of Manasseh. Endor, therefore, would naturally be the scene of many Canaanites "perishing;" and the seeming discrepancy thus cleared up is the strongest proof of genuineness. Finally, as in the independent history (2 Chron. xx. 6), Jehoshaphat prays, "O Jehovah, God of our fathers — rulest not Thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen ? " so in the Psalm the ground of Israel's confident prayer is stated at the close, " Let them perish, that men Ynay know that Thou, whose name is Jehovah, art the MOST HiGH over all the earth." The Psalm awaits a further fulfilment in the last days. The confederacy of the ten nations against Jehoshaphat and Judali, extending to the whole circuit of the boundaries of the Holy Land, from Philistia on the south to Tyre on the north, fore- 196 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. shadows the final gathering of the ten kings under Antichrist to " the battle of that great day of God Almighty" (Rev. xvi. 14, xvii. 3, 12, 14). Tejt is the number of the horns of the beast, in connection with which arises " the little horn " which symbolizes " the man of sin," " the son of perdition," who will " lift up his head " (ver. 2) " above all that is called God, or that is worshipped " (2 Thess. ii. 4 ; Dan. vii. 7,8 ; Rev. xiii. i). His aim will be to " cut off Israel from being a nation " (ver. 4), in order to prevent the setting up of Messiah's manifested kingdom, which is associated inseparably with Israel's restora- tion (Ps. ii. ; Acts i. 6). But "he shall come to his end, and none shall help him " (Dan. xi. 45). Then, and not till then, as the result of that decisive blow to Satan's kingdom, the name of Jehovah-Messiah shall be known as " the Most High over all the earth." The EIGHTY-SECOND PSALM, also by Asaph, i.e., one of the school of singers who called themselves long subsequently by his name, seems to belong to the same reign, namely, that of Jehoshaphat. The Jahaziel who, under the Spirit of God, encouraged him against the invading Ammonites, Moabites, and others, was of the sons of Asaph (2 Chron. xix. 14). He or some other of the sons of Asaph, doubtless, encouraged him, under the inspiration of the Spirit, in his reformation of the judicial department of the state. The eighty-second Psalm corresponds to Jehoshaphat's charge to the judges whom " he set in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah." " Take heed what ye do : for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with yon in jiidgmeiit ; wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you ; take heed and doit" (2 Chron. xix. 5 — 7). The ground of their responsibility is that they are God's vicegerents, as persons " unto whom the word of God came " (John x. 34, 35), and so termed "gods" and "children of the Most High." God's representatives, the judges, bear His name (so Exod. xxii. 28, mar'giii). The Psalanist similarly warns the judges, "God standetJi in the congregation of God" (so the Hebrew El, i.e., in the congregation of His people, Ps. Ixxiv. 2), ''Hejudgeth among the gods " {EloJiivi), i.e., among STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 197 the judges, who, as His representatives, exercise His delegated judicial power in His congregation. The Psalmist, speaking by the Spirit of God, is sterner in tone than Jehoshaphat. Yet the coincidence in language and thought is striking, and at the same time requiring observation to bring it into view, which would not be the case if it were the result of forgery. "There is }io iniquity with the Lord our God, }ior respect of persons',' is Jehoshaphat's language ; with which compare Asaph's, "Hozv long tvill ye Judge unjustly, and accept the per- sons of the wicked } " Jehoshaphat had, by sending priests, Levites, and princes, to " teach " in the cities of Judah (2 Chron. xvii. 7 — 9), left them without the excuse of igno- rance of God's will : therefore the Psalmist complains, " They know not, neither will they understand ; they walk on in darkness," though light surrounds them. Therefore their godlike station shall not exempt them from God's doom : "Ye shall die like (common) men." " Lawlessness " shall reach its climax in the last days, when " the man of sin " shall " exalt himself above all that is called God " (2 Thess. ii. 3,4). Then, when " all the foundations of the earth are out of course," God will "arise and judge" the corrupt judges, and " the earth " which they misrule. The FORTY-SEVENTH PsALM refers to the same occasion as the eighty-third. It is a call to the nations to join with Israel in thanksgiving for a great deliverance vouchsafed by God : " O clap your hands, all yc people, shout unto God with the voice of triumph." The Selah at the close of ver, 4 divides the Psalm into two parts, consisting of five verses each (the title included), ten in all. In the former the Psalmist celebrates the victory ; in the latter, the establishment of the kingdom of God over all the earth, beginning with '' the people of the God of Abraham." The name of " God " {EloJiini) occurs sevoi times in the toi verses. As seven represents the Divine, and toi represents the world-kingdoms, the truth intimated prophetically is, that at Christ's coming again the divine shall pervade the kingdoms of the whole earth, and Israel at their head ; just as in the eighty-third Psalm the ten confederated STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. nations which assailed Jehoshaphat, and fell, foreshadow the ten kingdoms of the beast, leagued under Antichrist, which the Lord will destroy with the brightness of His coming, as the preliminary to His world-wide reign (2 Thess. ii, 8). In ver. 4, " He shall choose our inheritance for us," i.e., He shall choose it anew for us by recovering it from the invading foe, we find the same undesigned coincidence with the independent history (2 Chron. xx. 1 1), as in Psalm. Ixxxiii. : " Behold, how they come to cast us out of Thy possession Avhich Thou hast given us to inherit!' These invaders are " the nations " over which the Psalmist anticipates a triumph through Jehovah's interposition. " He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet : " an anticipation which the independent history shows us was verified (2 Chron. xx. 22 — 24) : "The Lord set ambushments, so that everyone helped to destroy another." The bloodless victory of Judah was the result of mutual distrust caused by the Lord among the invaders. It is in reference to this forced subjugation of the hostile nations that the Psalmist says, "Jehovah Most High is terrible ;" the terrible destruction of Israel's last foes ushers in His manifestation as "great King over all the earth." The title ascribes the authorship of the Psalm to " the sons of KoraJir How incidentally and therefore undesignedly the history confirms, and is itself in turn confirmed by, the Psalm ; for it records (2 Chron. xx. 19), " The Levites of the children of the Korhites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on high." Moreover, the Psalmist sings in the fifth verse, " God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trnmpety Now in the history (2 Chron. xx. 26 — 28), we read that, before leaving the scene of battle, Jehoshaphat and his people " on the fourth day assembled themselves in the valley of Berachah {i.e., blessing) ; for there they blessed the Lord : therefore the name of the same place was called, The Valley of Berachah," At this grand service of praise, and the solemn procession of the whole people, "Wherein Jehoshaphat returned in the forefront of them to go again to STUDIES IX THE CE PSALMS. 199 Jerusalem with joy " (2 Chron. xx. 27, 28), this forty-seventh Psalm would be most appropriate. The history expressly records, "they came to Jerusalem with trumpets;'" and as Jchoshaphat the earthly king went up, so Elohim Jehovah, the heavenly King, is represented by the Psalmist (ver. 5) as ''going up with the shout (His people's thanksgiving accla- mations), and with the sound of a tncinpctl' to His earthly throne, the temple at Jerusalem. The effect of the victory, gained wholly by Jehovah's interposition, was (2 Chron. xx. 29), " The fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries, when they had heard that Jehovah fought against the enemies of Israel." This exactly agrees with the believing anticipations of the Psalmist (ver. 3, 8, 9). But the full realization of this inspired word shall be when the Lord Jesus, who now unseen (Ps. Ixviii. 18 ; Acts ii. 30 — "^^Q) reigns above, shall return as He ascended, and shall reign on Zion over His own people, and thence over the whole earth (Acts i. ii ; Jer. iii. 17 ; Dan. vii. 13, 14, 22 — I'j). Then indeed shall "God reign over the heathen, and sit upon the throne of His holiness (in Zion, Ps. ii. 6), and the princes of the /^^//^j- (the Gentile pecp/es, Hebrew p/ura/) shall be gathered together to the people {singular) of the God of Abraham " (Israel). So the Arabic version and the margin rightly render it. Thus the prophecy of Jacob concerning Shiloh (Messiah, the Prince of peace), shall come to pass fully: "Unto Him shall the gathering of the peoples (so the Hebrew) be;" Compare Psalm Ixxxvii. 4; Isa. Ix. 3 — S ; the princes shall, under God, be to their people "shields of the earth," instead of oppressors ; and " In Abraham's seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed " (Gen. xii. 3, xxii. 18). As the forty-seventh Psalm was sung on the field of slaughter, which became thereby the valley of blessing (Berachah), so the FORTY-LIGIITII Psalm was sung at the thanksgiving service in the sanctuary; of which we read in the history (2 Chron. xx. 27), " Then they returned every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront, with 200 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. joy, and they came to Jerusalem with psalteries, and harps, and trumpets, unto the Iioiise of the Lord^' In exact, yet evidently unstudied, coincidence with this, the ninth verse of our Psalm has, " We have thought of Thy loving-kindness, O God, in tJie midst of Thy temple." Again, the mention of the assembled kings and their immediate dispersion (ver. 4), " For, lo, the kings were assem- bled (to take crafty counsel against God's people, and cut them off from being a nation, Psalm Ixxxiii. 3 — 8, 12) — they passed by together" — as rapidly vanishing as they came — accords with the fact stated in history. The invading Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Arabians, according to 2 Chron. xx. 16, 20, advanced within three hours' journey of Jerusalem, to the wilderness of Tekoa, which commands a view of the environs of Jerusalem. How consonant with the facts is the language of the Psalmist (xlviii. 5), "They saw it, and so they marvelled — they were troubled, and hasted away ;" i.e., no sooner had they come within sight of the city, than they were panic-stricken ! An involuntary sense of God's protecting hand over Jerusalem, at the mere view of the city heights, came over them. Mutual distrust broke out into internecine slaughter, and the destruction which they had designed against Jerusalem they inflicted on one another : " Ammon and Moab standing up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another." An allusion to Jehoshaphat's reign, specially definite, yet so incidental as to exclude design, occurs in the seventh verse of the Psalm, " Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind." The ships meant cannot be invading and hostile ships ; for Jerusalem is inland, and " ships of Tarshish " are merchantmen, not war ships. The history (i Kings xxii. 48, 49; 2 Chron. xx. 36, 37), gives the key to open the sense. Jehoshaphat, the godly king of Judah, had joined himself with the wicked king of Israel, Ahaziah, " to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships at Ezion-gaber. Then STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Eliezer, the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath broken thy works. And the ships were broken (the same Hebrew as in the Psalm for "breakest"), that they were not able to go to Tarshish." So deep an impression had the Divine judgment and subsequent warning made, that when Ahaziah wanted to send his servants subsequently with Jehoshaphat's servants, the latter, taught by bitter experience, would not. How naturally, then, in this Psalm, which com- memorates the Divine overthrow of an ungodly confederacy of open assailants, do the sons of Korah allude to the other and more insidious danger to which Jehoshaphat and Judah had been exposed (i Chron. xv. 33), namely, the alliance with an ungodly king and nation. This danger, like the other one, was dissipated by the grace of God. The Divine omnipotence exercised in destroying Jerusalem's overt in- vaders is the same wherewith He brake the ships of Tarshish, and with them the alliance which proved so disastrous to His people. The danger from within, but for His almighty and gracious interposition, would have been more deadly than that from without. To the joyous procession, returning to Jerusalem from the valley of Berachah on the south, the whole city, represented by " Mount Zion," the prominent feature appears as two sides projecting southwards from the north, and meeting in a rounded tongue of land. Appropriately "the sons of Korah " celebrate in their joyous song " Mount Zion " as " the joy of the whole earth, on the sides of the north." Moreover, they fitly designate their "Psalm " {iniznior, the general term for a song of high art and graceful speech, accompanied with well-executed music) a "song" o{ joy {shir), as being called forth by their deliverance from the foe, and return to their holy city, which is " the joy of the whole earth." Not only should "Zion rejoice," but, as the Psalm adds, " let the daughters of Jiidah be glad because of Thy judgments " (xlviii. 11). Even as upon the irruption of the motley host of invaders, "all Judah stood before Jehovah, STUDIES FN THE CL. PSALMS. with their little ones, their wives, and their children" to pray for deliverance, so now they are called on to praise for the deliverance vouchsafed. As Zion was the mother-city, so "the daughters of Judah" are the otJier cities of Judah; as the history (2 Chron. xx. 4) states that " out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek Jehovah" before the battle, so the Psalm, with undesigned coincidence, calls on " tJie daughters of Judah'' to "ho. glad because of Jehovah's judgments" on their enemies. Jehoshaphat in his prayer had appealed to God as the Deliverer who had " driven out " the Canaanites of old " before Israel" (2 Chron. xx. 7) ; so in the Psalm the sons of Korah refer to God's interpositions of old for Israel, which they had " heard " of from their fathers, as renewed again in their present experience : " As we have Jieard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts " — " According to Thy name, O God, so is Thy praise" (ver. 8, 10). Moreover, Jahaziel, of the sons of Asaph, had used, concerning the present de- liverance, the very language of Moses of old concerning the deliverance at the Red Sea : " Be not afraid : ye shall not need to fight in this battle : stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord : the Lord will be with you " (2 Chron. xx. 14 — 17) ; as in Exod. xiv. 13, " Fear ye not : stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord — the Lord shall fight for you." May we, with appropriating faith, amidst the spiritual foes combined against us, be enabled to experience (ver. 14) " this God is our God for ever and ever : " Messiah " will be our Guide," raising us "above (Hebrew 'al) the reach of death." STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 203 LECTURE XXIV. PSALMS XXXVI., XLVI., LXVL, LXVIL, LXXV., LXXVI., LXXXVII. OF all the interpositions of Jehovah in behalf of His people, no one more deeply impresses the mind than the sudden destruction of the mighty host of Sennacherib, when seeming on the point of destroying Jerusalem. Hence we might naturally expect, that such a marvellous event would form a theme of sacred song in the national Psalter. Accordingly we find marked allusions to this dehverance in no less than five of the Psalms, namely, xlvi., Ixvi. (and pro- bably Ixvii.), Ixxv., Ixxvi., Ixxxvii. The subject -of the FORTY-SIXTH PSALM is the security of the Church amidst the convulsions of the earth. The Selah, or pause for meditation, at the close of verses 3, 7, and 1 1, marks the division of the Psalm into three strophes. The ground of the Church's confidence is that " God is our refuge." This keynote at the beginning is repeated with variation at the close of the second and third strophes : " Jehov^ah Sabaoth (the Lord of hosts, whose resources are infinite,) is with us, the God (Elohim) of Jacob (in covenant with Israel) is our refuge." The victory achieved by the seemingly weak Israel over the mighty world power shows that Jehovah, Israel's covenant God, is the mighty Elohim. The heathen claim for their idols being Elohim is proved vain by Jehovah's interposition. The eighth verse, " Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth, He maketh wars 204 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. to cease — He burneth the chariot," evidently refers to some particular fact, on which the Psalmist grounds the general principle, enunciated in the previous verses, of the safety of the city of God amidst the waves of the hostile world. The historical fact which answers best to the description is the utter and sudden destruction of Sennacherib's vast host, just at the moment when it was about to swallow up Jerusalem as an easy prey. Up to that time Assyria, which was the embodiment of the power of the world kingdoms, had swept on irresistibly in the full tide of conquest. Isaiah (x. 13, 14), the contemporary of Hezekiah, makes the Assyrian king to say, " I have removed the bounds of the people — I have gathered all the earth." The language of the Psalm (ver. 2) exactly corresponds, " We will not fear, though the earth be removed'' Again, the Psalmist says, " Though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea — though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." Mountains in Scripture symbolize empires raised on high (Rev. viii. 8 ; Isa. ii. 2). In the parallel history (Isa. xxxvii. 24) this is the very image, in undesigned coincidence, employed as to the Assyrian's conquest of kingdoms : " By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains (viz., of the world kingdoms enumerated, ver. 11 — 13), to the sides of Lebanon, and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof" {i.e., Zion, repre- sented, because of its cedar-constructed palaces, as cedar- abounding Lebanon). But, says the Psalmist, though "the kingdoms were moved " (ver. 6), Zion " shall not be moved," for " God is in the midst of her." The contemporary prophet (Isa. viii. 6 — 8) uses another of the images which our Psalm contains, to contrast Assyria with Zion: "The waters of the river (Euphrates), strong and many, even the king of Assyria, shall come up over all his channels ; " but " the waters of Shiloah go softly." It is true Isaiah in chap. viii. is speaking of a former reign, that of Ahaz, yet the coincidence of language as to Assyria and Zion respectively is just of that kind, exact yet unstudied, which STUDIES IN THE CL.' PSALMS. 205 confirms genuineness. So in our Psalm (ver. 4), to " the sea " of restless agitation, " in the heart " of which the mountain- like world kingdoms "shake" (so the Hebrew, compare Isa. xxvii. i; Dan, vii. 2, 3; Rev. xvii. 15), the "river (of God's grace), the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God," stands in lovely contrast. Moreover, the mention of "the city" alone accords minutely with the historical re- cord, that all the other " defenced cities of Judah" had fallen before Sennacherib, and that the mother-city alone remained (Isa. xxxvi. i). Also Sennacherib had threatened Jerusalem with want of water in the siege, through Hczekiah's refusal to submit : " Doth not Hezckiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by thirst .-* " (2 Chron. xxxii. 11.) But Hezekiah had taken good care to guard against this by cutting off the besiegers' supply of water, and providing the city with abundance (ver. 3, 4, 30) : " He made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city " (2 Kings xx. 20). How appropriate, therefore, are the Psalmist's words, " There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God." The Psalmist's expression in the fifth verse is remarkable, " God shall help her (Zion) at the turning (marg. appearing) of the morning." The fact recorded in the independent history (Isa. xxxvii. 36) strikingly agrees with it. On the previous night the cause of the city of God seemed desperate, and that of the A ssyrian invader all but triumphant ; but " when they (the Jews) arose early in the morning, behold, they (the Assyrians) were all dead corpses ; " for the angel of the Lord had smitten in the camp of the Assyrians " an hundred and fourscore and five thousand." How exactly, yet how un- designedly, the prophet (Isa. xvii, 14) accords with the con- temporary Psalmist : " Behold, at evening tide trouble, and before the morning he (the Assyrian) is not : this is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us." Another coincidence with Isaiah, the contemporary prophet and historian, is in the seventh and eleventh verses, " The Lord of hosts is u'ith us {Immann) : the pledge of the safety of Judah 2o6 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. from hostile attack is, according to Isa. vii. 14, Immanu-el, God with tis. Still more emphatically Hezekiah again and again rests his hope on the same rock as the Psalmist : " Be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude with him ; for there be more with us than with him: ivith him is an arm of flesh, but with us is Jehovah our God (Elohim) to fight our battles " (answering exactly to Jehovah- Sabaoth, " the Lord of hosts" in our Psalm). The repeated prominence given to this thought by our Psalmist accords with the deep impression which the history says was made on the people by it. " The people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah the king of Judah" (2,Chron. xxxii. 7, 8). The language and thought is the same, yet without the least appearance of artificial harmony. The elect nation first (ver. i — 7) speak among themselves triumphantly of God. Then (ver. 8, 9) call on the Gentile peoples to " behold the works of Jehovah " in " making wars to cease unto the end of the earth," through the Assyrians' downfall (just as the contemporary Isaiah, xiv. 7, foretells as the result, " The whole earth is at rest and is quiet." Sennacherib had boasted, " With the multitude of my chariots I am come up (2 Kings xix. 23) ; but now " Jehovah burneth the chariot in the fire," even as Sennacherib had burnt the gods of the nations in the fire (2 Kings xix. 18). The coincidence of the Psalm (ver. 9) and the history is complete. Lastly, God Himself commands the heathen troublers of the people, " Be still, and knoiv that I am God. I will be exalted among the Jieathcn; I will be exalted iu the eaj'th!' Here again the Psalm coincides with the history, God's word being His answer to Hezekiah's prayer there, " O Jehovah our God, save us from Sennacherib's hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may knoiu that Thou art Jehovah, even Thou only " (2 Kings xix. 19). The overthrow of Sennacherib is an earnest of the utter and final overthrow of Antichrist, after he and his God- opposed hosts shall have for a time all but swallowed up the Church of Christ. Then shall the ransomed of the Lord "go forth and look upon the carcases of the men that have trans- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 207 gresscd against the Lord ; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched " (Isa. Ixvi. 24) : just as the re- cently beleaguered men of Jerusalem went forth to look upon the corpses of the mighty host of the Assyrians on the morn- ing that succeeded the night of Jehovah's interposition (Isa. xxxvii. 36). A still calm shall then succeed to the "trouble" and " raging " of people which have heretofore prevailed. They shall not " learn war any more " (Isa. ii. 4). And Jehovah " shall be exalted among all the heathen " as " God," after the casting out of the beast, the false prophet, and finally Satan himself (Rev. xvi. 14; xix. 19, 20; xx. 10). The same appeal as in ver. 8 of Psalm xlvi. appears in ver. 5 of Psalm lxvi., "Come and see the works of God;" and the latter, though being of a more general character, may have been suggested by the same event, the overthrow of Sennacherib's host. Psalms lxxv. and lxxvl are a pair, forming together one whole. Both are thanksgivings. But the AltascJiitJi, " destroy not," in the title of Ps. lxxv., shows that this Psalm, though couched in the form of tJianksgivingio'c the victory anti- cipated in faith, is really a prayer for deliverance. On the other hand, in Psalm Ixxvi., which is the twin Psalm, "Altaschith" is omitted, because there the victor)^ actually gained is cele- brated. Thanksgiving by believing anticipation is the most effective prayer. (Compare the case of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. XX. 19 — 22). In ver. 9 of Psalm lxxv. the Psalmist promises future praises, which implies that the deliverance was still to come. So that Psalm lxxv. is the thanksgiving for the deliver- ance //v;/^/^^^; Psalm Ixxvi., for deliverance already accom- plished. The triumphant tone accords with the period of Judah's integrity as a state, rather than the later times when it was subject to the enemy. Yet a severe distress, and one of a world-wide character, arising from "all the wicked of the earth " (ver. 8) is represented as afilicting Judah and Israel. Such was the invasion of Sennacherib, the head of the chief world power. In verses 2, 3 of Psalm lxxv., God, in reply to His people's 2o8 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. thanksgiving prayer (ver. i), assures them of His help : " When I shall get the set time {mo'eed, Ps. cii. 13), I will judge uprightly," i.e., I will vindicate my oppressed people's righteous cause. In accordance with this promise of God here in the Psalm, Isaiah is commissioned by God, according to the history (Isa. xxxvii. 21 — 35), in answer to Hezekiah's prayer, to assure the people, " Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Whereas thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria — by the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city ; for I will defend this city, to save it for my own sake," etc. Relying on this Divine promise, Israel charges the insolent enemy to cease from its insolent attempt : (Ps. Ixxv. 4,) " I said unto the insolent (laiiolelini). Deal not insolently {taJioller) ; and to the wicked, Lift not up the horn, lift not up your horn on high — speak not with a stiff neck." So exactly Jehovah in the history, "Against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted tip thine eyes on high'? Thou hast said. By the multitude of my chariots am I come up to Labanon — with the sole of my foot I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places." But it is not thou, but / who '' have brought it to pass that thou shouldest lay waste defenced cities — therefore 'dx^xr inhabitants were of small power." Similarly God claims in our Psalm (ver. 3) to be the real worker in all the convulsions of the world : " The earth and the inhabitants thereof are dissolved (the same truth and image as in the kindred PSALM XLVI. 2, 6, 8) : I bear up the pillars of it." Israel in our Psalm (ver. 6) adds the true source of lifting up : " Promotion (or lifting up, harivi) cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the sotith, but from God." At this very time, the history incidentally tells us, Judah was looking for help front the south, namely, from Egypt (Isa. xxxvi. 4 — 6). " Thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it ; so is Pharaoh to all that trust in him." The north is omitted ; an undesigned coincidence with the fact that not help, but hurt was to be looked for thence : for STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 209 this was the quarter from which the Assyrian invaders came into the Holy Land by " the entering in of Haniath." "But God is the judge — in the hand of Jehovah is a cup — the dregs — all the wicked of the earth shall drink " — the godless Assyrians must, in spite of themselves, drain God's cup of wrath to the dregs (see Rev. xiv. 10, xvi. 19). So " the once lifted up horns of the wicked " God will cutr off, and exalt the now depressed " horns of the righteous." Such, too, will be the issue of the conflict between Christ and Anti- christ. At " the set time " the Son of man shall utterly break the power of the enemy, and " take to Him His great power, and reign," and redeemed Israel and the nations, realizing " His name near," shall " sing praises unto the God of Jacob " (Dan. vii. 23 — 27 ; Rev. xi. 17). The Septuagint and the Vulgate versions rightly refer Psalm lxxvi. to the overthrow of Sennacherib and his host. All the internal evidence accords with this view. As the history (Isa. xxxvii.) describes the event as occurring at Jerusalem, so the Psalmist, with the unstudied harmony of truth, sings (ver. 2, 3), "In Salem brake He the arroivs of tJie bow, (Hebrew, the lightnings of the bow, as in Nahum. iii. 3, " i\\Qjlame of the sword, and the lightning of the spear" of tJie Assyrians^ the shield, the sword, and the battle." " The battle" placad last, moreover, indicates that, not merely was the foe defeated, but at one stroke the ivhole war was ended. The parallel Psalm (xlvi. 9) illustrates this: " We viakethzoars to cease unto the end of the earth. He breaketh the boivl' &tz. The history describes how one terrible blow from Jehovah crushed the host of Sennacherib for ever, so that he withdrew, and never dared to renew the attack. In the history the words of Jehovah to Hezekiah concerning Sennacherib exactly accord with the Psalm : " He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield" (2 Kings xix. 32). Moreover, the stroke is attributed in the Psalm (ver. 3, 6, 8), as in the history, to the direct judgment of God, without man's co-operation. The plundering Assyrian world-kingdom is STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. termed " the mountains of prey " in the Psalm (ver. 4), as in Nahum ii. 11, "the dwelling of lions," — "full of robbery" (iii. i). Jehovah shows He is " more glorious " than they ; for " the stout-hearted have slept their (last) sleep" — the death-sleep so graphically described in the independent history (2 Kings xix. 35), "That night the angel of Jehovah went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred, fourscore, and five thousand ; and when they (the Jews) arose early in the morning, behold, they (the Assyrians) were all dead corpses." They who came to "prey" on God's people were " spoiled " themselves ; and on " the mountains " that surround Jerusalem became a "prey" to all birds and beasts. "None of the men of might," says the Psalmist, " have found their hands ; " these self-vaunting heroes, who meant to lay hands on the city of God, have their hands paralysed in death. In the camp just now so full of stir, all is hushed in the stillness of death : "At Thy rebuke (grand contrast to Sennacherib's previous " rebuke," 2 Kings xix. 3, 16), O God of Jacob, both the chariot (of which Sennacherib had boasted so lately, 2 Kings xix. 23) and horse are cast into a dead sleep." As Hezekiah in the history (2 Kings xix. 4) had meekly said to Isaiah, " It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria hath sent to reproach the living God, and will reprove the words," so in the Psalm (ver. 9) we read, " God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth." " Thus " the wrath of man " (ver. 10), in spite of himself, eventuated in " praise " to God : and " the remainder of Sennacherib's wrath " against the elect nation God " re- strained " by executing judgment on him by his own sons (2 Kings xix. 37). The exhortation of the Psalm (ver. 1 1), "Let all that be round about him bring presents unto Him that ought to be feared," finds its literal accomplishment in the record of the independent history (2 Chron. xxxii. 22, 23), " Thus Jehovah saved Hezekiah and — Jerusalem from^ — Sennacherib, and from the hand of all, and guided them on every side ; and many brought gifts unto Jehovah to Jerusalem, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. and presents to Hezekiah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth." Finally, the closing verse, "He shall cut off {yibctzor, as a vinedresser, in striking accordance with the antitype, Rev. xiv. 1 8, 19) the breath of princes," is in delicate and unstudied harmony with the fact recorded in the history, that the Assyrian " princes " (Rabshakeh, etc.) at Jerusalem were " cut off," not merely driven away, as Sennacherib. In the last days the same scene shall be enacted again on a larger scale. The Church's last foes shall " fall upon the mountains of Israel" (Ezek. xxxix. i — 7). Jehovah will make again "Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the peoples round about" (Zech. xii. 2 — 5) ; and then, "when God shall arise to judgment," He will be " terrible to the (hostile) kings," but He will "save all the meek of the earth " (ver. 9, 12). The last Psalm which most probably belongs to the same period is PSALM LXXXVII. The tone is such as we should expect on an occasion of national joy. The title designates it di joyous "song" {shir), 3.nd a triumphant character pervades it throughout. " Babylon " was at the time, as the Psalm indicates, a great power, and is mentioned accordingly next after " Rahab " (Egypt), one of the greatest of the ancient world-kingdoms (ver. 4). In David's time, on the contrary, no Asiatic power is specified in the sixty-eighth Psalm as having yet risen to eminence : " Egypt and Ethiopia " are the world-powers then prominent. Moreover, the designation " Rahab " (haughtiness) occurs first in Isaiah xxx. 7, which should be translated, " I call her Rahab (haughtiness) that sitteth still." Isaiah probably origi- nated the name. He prophesied under Hezekiah, at the time of Assyria's oppression of the nations. He uses the designa- tion again in li. 9. The joyous tone of our Psalm precludes a later date than the reign of Hezekiah : in his reign occurred the last great occasion of national triumph, the glorious deliverance from the hosts of Sennacherib. Further, Rahab, or "haughti- ness," was a name applicable to Egypt only so long as it was a formidable power : this it ceased to be after its defeat by STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, on the Euphrates. Thus all considerations converge towards dating the Psalm in the reign of Hezekiah. The grand triumph of the elect people over Assyria, the mightiest world-empire of the time, awakened the long slumbering psalm poesy of the sons of Korah. To them and the sons of Asaph we owe Psalms xlvi., Ixxv., Ixxvi., and our Psalm, all written at this time, and upon the one theme. As Psalm xlvi. is a Korahite Elohim Psalm, so Psalm Ixxxvii. is a Korahite Jehovah Psalm. The praises of Zion (ver. i — 3) here answer to similar praises in Psalm xlvi. 4, 5. In both alike (xlvi. 4, Ixxxvii. 3) it is called " the city of God." As here (ver. 5) " the Highest Himself shall establish her," so there (ver. 5) " God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved." The abruptness of the beginning wherewith the Psalmist breaks forth in praises of God's secure " foundation " of the holy city (" His," i.e., God's "foundation is in the holy moun- tains ") is natural in one acting as the mouthpiece of the people, who were then full of the one all-absorbing topic, their marvellous deliverance from Assyria's overwhelming hosts. The second verse thus happily, yet evidently without design, accords with the fact stated in the history (2 Kings xviii. 1 3), that Sennacherib " took all the fenced cities of Judah," whereas Jerusalem enjoyed the special favour of God, in being exempted from their fate : " The Lord loveth the gates of Zion (which the foe could not burst open) more than all the dwellings of Jacob." That joyful era naturally suggested also the anticipation of the conversion of the Gentiles to the God of Israel, in accord- ance with the promise to Abraham, " In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed " (Gen. xii. 3). For Assyria, the com- mon foe of the other nations, as of Zion, had been humbled by God for Zion's sake ; and therefore, " many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jeriisaleni, and presents to Hezekiah, so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth " (2 Chron. xxxii. 23), with which Asaph's monition (Ps. Ixxvi. 1 1) STUDIES h^ THE CL. PSALMS. 213 exactly accords. So in Psalm Ixvii., God's making His " saving health known among all nations" rests upon His first blessing Israel ("us "). Thus fittingly the future spiritual birth of the nations in connection with Zion is combined in Psalm Ixxxvii. with the praises of the city of God : (ver, 4 — 6,) " I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as (so 7 means, Exod. xxi. 2) peoples that know me : Behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia — this man (namely, Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia, personified as an ideal man) was born (spiritually) there. And of Zion it shall be said. This and that man {individuals : as in ver. 4, nations) was born in her. The Lord shall count, when He writeth up (in the heavenly citizen-roll, Jer. xvii. 13 ; Ezek. xiii. 9 ; Luke x. 20 ; Phil. iv. 3) the peoples (Hebrew), that this people (not " man," as English version) was born there." The need of the new birth, so fully set forth in the New Testament, is intimated also here and elsewhere in the Old Testament (Ps. li. 5, 10 ; xxii. 31; Isa. Ixvi. 8). The hopes of believing Jews had been cast down by the carrying away of the ten tribes in the beginning of Hezekiah's reign : so the Israel of God was at a low ebb ; but now the glorious deliverance of Zion from Sennacherib revived the believing expectation of the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham (Gen. xxii. 17, 18), "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the sea shore ; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The accession of the heathen would compensate for the loss of the ten tribes. The history (2 Kings xx. 12) records Babylon's friendly attitude to Judah, " so that Berodach-Baladan," the Babylonian king, " sent letters and a present to Plezekiah." This is in unstudied harmony with our Psalm's anticipation of Babylon's spiritual union with Zion. Now Babylon was at this time the rising rival of Assyria, having for a time thrown off its yoke, and become an independent kingdom. Moreover, the other nations mentioned in our Psalm are those connected with Judah at this time by a common interest : " Rahab," or Egypt, was the chief object of attack to Assyria, and was threatened by Sennacherib. The " Ethiopians " under King Tirhakah 214 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. (2 Kings xix. 9) had made a powerful diversion in favour of Jerusalem when assailed by Rabshakeh, the general under Sennacherib. " Tyre " had been besieged by Shalmaneser soon after the Assyrian capture of Samaria (Menander in Josephus, y4;/A ix. 14. 2), and was threatened again (Isa. xxiii.). " Philistia " lost Ashdod, the Assyrian king Sargon's general, Tartan, having taken it (Isa. xx. i). All these incidental accordances of the Psalm with the independent history are just those which a forger would never have thought of, or indeed have been able so artlessly to introduce. They are the sure witnesses of genuineness and truth. Isaiah (xlv. 14), the contemporary prophet, undesignedly accords with the anticipations of our Psalmist : " Egypt and Ethiopia — shall make supplication unto thee. Surely God is in thee ; and there is none else, there is no God." And as in Psalm xlvi. 4, written in commemoration of the same deliver- ance, we read, " There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God," so here (Ixxxvii. 7) the theme of praise to " the singers and players on instruments " is " All my (spiritual) springs are in thee " (Zion : Ezek. xlvii. i, 8, 9 ; Ps. xxxvi. 8). The conversion of all nations is to be looked for only in connection with the re-establishment of Zion (Ps. Ixvi. and Ixvii.) as the centre and metropolis of the kingdom of God. He who hath from the beginning " founded " her will not suffer His own purpose in her election to be set aside. "The mount Zion which He loved " (Ixxviii. 62>) " with an everlasting love" (Jer. xxxi. 3) shall yet "be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it " (Isa. ii. 2). The waters of life shall issue forth from the sanctuary in Zion, and shall fertilize the desert, and heal and quicken the dead sea (Ezek. xlvii. i — 12) of heathendom ; for " all the springs " of spiritual life shall here- after be " in her," even as originally they were derived from her (Luke xxiv. 47). Then not only individuals, but whole peoples, shall be born in her. Lord, hasten the time, for Thy name's sake ! STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 215 LECTURE XXV. PSALMS XLIL, XLIIL, LXXXIV. NOT long ago the veteran leader of the sacerdotalists alleged that, as they believe in Christ's corporal presence on their altars, so, according to their faith, it is unto them ; and, on the contrary, that Protestants who deny that presence, by their unbelief deprive themselves of it. Now we admit that we have not Christ's corporal presence in our churches ; but we maintain that neither also have they : for were it otherwise, man's own fancy, not God's word, would be the test of the alleged miracle. Moreover, so far is our disbelieving the corporal presence from depriving us of the spiritual and real presence in the heart, that it is we alone who enjoy the latter by faith, whereas they are excluded from it. Let us see what Holy Scripture decides on this subject. I. In the thirteenth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, after the inspired writer has said, " It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein," he antici- pates an objection. Judaizers would say, By your argument against any continued earthly sacrifices and sacrificial meats, now that " by one offering Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified " (Hcb. x. 14), you deprive yourself and your followers of an altar, and of all its sacrificial privileges. Nay, he replies, " We have an altar " (the emphasis is not on '"ivc" in contrast to the Jews, but on ''have;'' for the rc't' is 2i6 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. not expressed in the Greek, e')(p}xev Ovcnaa-Trjpiov) : and our altar is one, moreover, which excludes from participation in its meats precisely such as, like you Judaizers and your priests, "serve the tabernacle" (Heb. viii, 5, ix. 9). " For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burnt without the camp ;" i.e., the sin-offerings, and especially those of the day of atonement, were not eaten (Lev. vi. 30), but burnt. Now these are just the offerings which most prefigure the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. On your own principles, then, ye ought to see that the true feeding on Christ is not a literal eating of meats from an earthly altar, but a spiritual eating by faith, and connected with an heavenly altar. If you profess to eat flesh from a worldly altar, you show that your sacrifice is utterly different from Christ's, which answers to the typical sacrifice in which there was no such eating. In what sense, then, are we to understand the altar which we are thus asserted to "have".'' Viewed generally, the altar is single, and expresses simply God's appointed way of access for mail to Himself through Christ crucified and glorified. This view leaves it an open question whether, with many, we take the " altar " primarily to mean the cross of Christ, which believers always "bear about with them" spiritually, and " glory in " (2 Cor. iv. 10 ; Gal. vi. 14), or, with the Bishop of Carlisle, we take it to mean the divinity of Christ, which consecrated His humanity, and prevented its being consumed under the fiery wrath of God at our sin, just as "the altar sanctifieth the gift " (Matt, xxiii, 19). II. In a more detailed view, the altar is twofold. There are two great needs which even believers, as fallen by nature, have. We all need atonement for past guilt, that we may be at peace with God ; and we need present access to God, and acceptance for our imperfect prayers. Now there are two altars in the old tabernacle which typified the coming supply for these needs. The central points of the whole tabernacle in relation to God were the altar of the burnt-offering outside, and the altar of incense within the sanctuary. For it is only STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 217 through sacrifice, and through intercession, that sinners in any age could draw nigh to God with the assurance of peace and salvation. Accordingly, in the EIGHTY-FOURTH PsALM (ver. 3), we find David using the plural " altars," when he is expressing what is his chief object of longing desire, during his exile from the sanctuaryatthe time of Absalom's rebellion: "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord — yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, (even) Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God." It is evident it is not so much access to the external sanctuary that is David's yearning desire, as it is to the spiritual, which is typified by the visible one. The external temple may be, and is, visited by multitudes who never reach the invisible, or worship God in the Spirit (Phil, iii. 3). On the other hand, all who know God as a reconciled Father have at all times and in all places, even though re- moved from the outward means of grace, access in spirit to the true and heavenly tabernacle and its altars. So God promised as to the believing Jews, dispersed at the Babylo- nian captivity, "Although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come " (Ezek. xi. 16). They who would follow Christ must " go forth unto Him without the camp" (Heb. xiii. 13), even as He "suffered without the gate ;" they must come out from all fashionable carnalism, worldly formalism, and sensuousness in worship ; they must bevyare of the Judaistic error, which the epistle to the Hebrews is directed against, of looking to an earthly altar and sacrificial meats, which is essentially ivorldliness (Heb. ix. i), and which would disqualify for participation in the heavenly altar, and its spiritual and everlasting sustenance. Puthow arc we to understand Ps. Ixxxiv. 3 t The common view is that David envied the sparrow and the swallow which made their nests in the tabernacle, whilst he was debarred from it. The objection fatal to this is, a bird building its nest there would be in no enviable or safe position ; and least 2i8 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of all so, at the " altars " of God. Indeed, they had not even access to the altar of incense within the holy place, but only to the altar of burnt-offering in the outer court. Rather, there is an abbreviated comparison : what the house is to the sparrow, and her nest to the swallow, who lays there her most valued treasure, her young brood, that Thine altars are to my precious soul, which finds here its only secure and happy resting-place. Communion with God is the true home of the soul. Till it finds that home, it is as the weak lonely "turtle dove " cast out from its nest (Ps. Ixxiv. 19). "In vain I seek for rest In every earthly good, It leaves me still unblest, And makes me thirst for God: And sure at rest I cannot be. Until my soul finds rest in Thee." Without God in Christ, man is like the little bird without shelter from the thousand dangers which surround him. But with the Lord of hosts on his side what has he to fear .-' He who can call Jehovah of Sabaoth, who rules the innumerable armies of heaven and earth, " my King and my God," must be safe for time and eternity. Even when debarred from the public ordinances of God, he still has access to the God of ordinances ; and at last he shall dwell for ever in that city where the apocalyptic seer (Rev. xxi. 22) " saw no temple ; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." III. How infatuated, as well as sinful, is the state of all who remain without God's altars as their secure home, when they might have these for the asking I How happy are those who have found refuge there ! We in our Christian dispensa- tion have the blessed reality, of which the literal altars were but the type. All former sacrifices were but shadows of that one only sacrifice for the remission of sins, the sacrifice of God's only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, on Calvary. All other "sacrifices could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience " (Heb. ix. 9). But STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 219 " by one offering Jesus Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. x. 14). Socinians and Romanists from different sides undermine this only foundation of peace, the altar of Christ's atonement. The Socinian denies the vicarious atonement altogether, and sacrifices God's unchanging justice to His mercy, instead of accepting the gospel plan that so beautifully harmonizes the two Divine attributes. There can be no solid peace to the conscience when alarmed under the sense of guilt, until it knows that sin has been all expiated. God's law eternally holds good, " Without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Heb. ix. 22). The blood of Jesus alone cleanseth from all sin, and so speaks peace to the conscience. The Romanist, on the other hand, does not deny Christ's atoning sacrifice, but detracts from its perfect efficacy, by insisting on the need of its repetition by the hands of an earthly priesthood. In direct opposition to this stand God's promises respecting all who believe in Christ's once-for-all completed offering, " Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," and Paul's argu- ment, " Now where the remission of these is, there is 710 more offering for sill'' (Heb. x. 17, 18). Not only is there no need for an additional offering of masses and eucharistic sacrifices ; but he who adds these incurs " the plagues " threatened against all who "add to" God's written word (Rev. xxii. 18). Christi- anity and Judaism (of which Rome is the copycr) are so utterly distinct now, that they who "serve the tabernacle " by retaining its sacrifices, have no right to the one true and only sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ. Theirs is but j/rt^z'/j-/^ service, not the filial adoration of Christians who " worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh " (Phil. iii. 3). As no priest durst on pain of death enter the sanctuary on the great day of atonement, but the high priest alone performed all functions, even those ordinarily performed by the priests, so no earthly priest is to interfere with the exclusive priesthood of the Lord Jesus. It was His alone to offer the sacrifice ; it is His alone to present our prayers on the heavenly altar of intercession, perfumed with the incense 220 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of His merits, as our one and only Mediator between God and man (i Tim. ii. 5). These, then, are the " altars " which are the home of the believer's soul, the altar of Christ's propitiation, and the altar of His intercession. They are the pledges to him of the coming " inheritance of the saints in light." The Lord Jesus soon will fulfil His word, " I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called" (Acts xv. 17). Whilst the trans- figured saints with Christ reign as priest-kings over the nations in the flesh, the restored temple at Jerusalem, which Ezekiel describes, shall be the religious centre of the millennial earth. The priest-kingdom which Popery has usurped, in the absence of the coming King, shall then be realized by Him who " shall bear the glory, and sit and rule upon His throne, and shall be a Priest upon His throne" (Zech. vi. 13). That shall be the time of perfect liturgy. Music and the fine arts shall then be, not as now, desecrated to minister to human vanity, but wholly consecrated to God their source. Hearts and voices shall join in glad melody to the Lord, and no one of .the noble faculties with which God has endowed man shall fail to set forth the glory of the gracious Giver. Meantime, it is in the heart first that God sets up His spiritual altar. Let us see that communion with the Father and the Son through the Spirit is our chief joy ! Let the altar of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice, and the altar of Christ's inter- cession, be our one secure shelter and home amidst the tempta- tions, sorrows, and crosses of this present scene, until we reach that new heaven and new earth, wherein " there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things shall have passed away." As to the eighty-fourth Psalm, it is observable that it is a Korahite Jehovah Psalm, as the sister PSALMS, XLII. and XLIII., are Korahite Elohim Psalms. .The sons of Korah sing as from the soul of David, for whom they pray, in deep sympathy with him, when fleeing before Absalom (ver, 9), " Behold, O STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 221 God, our shield, and look upon the face of Thine anointed." They console him, whilst longing for " the courts of the Lord," Avith the thought, " Blessed is the man whose strength is in Tliee, in whose heart are the raised ways " of the Lord {7ue- silloth, from salal, to raise. So Psalm 1. 23, Hebrew, " To him that prepareth a way will I show the salvation of God"). Such a one, though unable in body to go on the highways to Jerusalem, yet has in his heart the JdgJiivays to the spiritual temple, communion with God (Ezek. xi. 16 ; Isa. xl. 3) ; " who, passing through the valley of Baca (the wilderness, of which the only waters are tears), make it a well" of salvation and comfort (Isa. xii. 3, xlL 18). In beautiful accordance with this, the independent history (2 Sam. xv, 30) represents David, the subject of this Psalm, passing through such a valley of Baca, when fleeing from Absalom : " He went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and zvcpt ibacaJi) as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot, and all the people that were with him went up zveepmg (baca/i) as they went up." The Hebrew (Hp^) in the history is the same in essential consonants as the baca in the Psalm, though this baca (5«{33) usually means mulberry tree, of which the berry yields a tear- drop. (Compare Allon-bac/iuth, Gen. xxxv. 8, and Boc/iim, Judges ii. i — 5). " The early rain {inoreJi) covereth it with blessings" {beraeoth, which the English version confounds with bereecotJi, " pools "). Thus to the afflicted saint the valley of Baca becomes the valley of Berachah (2 Chron. xx. 26). As the series of Asaph Psalms (1., Ixxiii. — Ixxxiii.) is fol- lowed closely by the Korahite series (Ixxxiv. — Ixxxviii.), so Jahaziel, a son of Asaph, is associated witli the Korhites under Jchoshaphat (2 Chron. xx. 14 — 19). In undesigned coinci- dence with the eighty-fourth Psalm, " I had rather be a door- keeper in the house of my God," is the fact mentioned in I Chron. ix. 19, xxvi. 12 — 19, that they were "keepers of tJie gates" or "thresholds" of the sanctuary. Korah, their fore- father, had aspired to the priesthood through Lucifer-like pride, and had perished by fire. His descendants, warned by his fate, had learned contentment with their Lcvitical sphere, and 222 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. true humility. As the Asaph Psalms encouraged Israel by the remembrance of God's favours to Israel of old, so the Korahite Psalms are marked by a humble spirit of genuine affection to the services of Jehovah's sanctuary. Their words, " Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness " (represented in relation to David by the dwellings of Absalom and the rebels), undesignedly accord with Moses' warning at the time of Korah's and Dathan's destruction : " Depart, I pray you, from the tejits of these luicked men " (Numb. xvi. 26). As their ancestor fell by pride, so they rose by humility. Content to be doorkeepers, because it was in God's house, they became not merely so, but singers in God's service, and inspired by the Holy Ghost to compose Psalms which have been the comfort of the saints for ages. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. ' 223 LECTURE XXVI. rSALMS XLIV., LXXVIL, LXXX., LXXXI., LXXXV. THE SEYENTY-SEVENTH PSALM is certainly earlier in date than the Babylonian captivity; for Habakkuk moulds some of his utterances after it, especially the third chapter. Thus the Psalm.ist sings (ver. 16, 17, 19), "The waters saw TJiec, O God, the waters saw Thee ; they ti-'a-c afraid ; Thine arrozus went abroad. Thy way is in the sea, and Thy path is in the great waters ; " and Habakkuk follows his lead, " The mountains saw Thee, and they trembled — at the light of Thine arroius they went. Thou didst walk through the sea' (iii. 8 — II, 15). So also the thirteenth verse in the Psalm, " Thy way, O God, is in the saneiiiary,'' has its echo in Hab. ii. 20, "Jehovah is in His holy temple." That the prophet drew from the Psalm, not the Psalmist from the prophecy, is plain from the fact that throughout his third chapter, Habakkuk sets before him as his model the Psalm poetry. As then Habakkuk lived in Josiah's reign, this Psalm cannot be later, and was probably earlier. The cause of the Psalmist's poignant grief was probably the captivity of the ten tribes, and the danger in prospect to Judah. In this view, how happily and naturally the Psalmist uses the very words of Genesis xxxvii. 35, concerning Jacob, when all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, " but he refused to be com- forted." So verse 2, " My soul refused to be comforted." The Psalmist has before his eyes the second loss of Joseph to Jacob or Israel, in the carrying away of the ten tribes of 224 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. which the tribe of Ephraim (descended from Joseph) was chief: (ver. 15,) "Thou hast with Thine arm redeemed Thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph." Joseph in the first verse (PSALM LXXX.) can only represent the ten tribes, not Judah, as Psalm lxxviii. 6"/ proves : " He refused the taber- nacle of Joseph, the tribe of Ephraim." God's special favour to Joseph in redeeming " his house " (Zech. x. 6) out of Egypt suggests the hope of their restoration from their present bondage. The other sons of Jacob owed their preservation, under God, to Joseph, who was thus, as it were, their second father in Egypt, " the shepherd and stone of Israel " (Gen. xlix. 24, 1. 21). As God interposed so marvellously for them of old, so hereafter " His way " to be known " in the sanctuary " (Ps. Ixxiii. 17, Ixxvii. 13, 19) will find a "way in the sea for the ransomed to pass over." The sister Psalm to Ixxvii. seems to be PsALM LXXX. Israel's ten tribes are the vine brought out of Egypt, planted and carefully tended by God once, but now a prey to wild beasts (ver. 8 — 13.) Once she realized the promise (Deut. xi. 24), " Every place shall be yours from the wilderness (the south) and Lebanon (north), from the river Euphrates even unto the uttermost sea ;" as here (ver. 10, 11), " The hills (of Judah, south) were covered with it, and the goodly cedars (Lebanon) with its bottghs {jiorth), unto the sea (Mediterranean, tvest), and unto the river " (Euphrates, east) : so it ought to be translated. Judah prays for her oppressed sister, "designated as Joseph and Benjamin " (ver. i — 3), that God would visit this vine again with His favourable regard (ver. 14 — 19). Three times, at the turning-point of the Psalm, the fundamental prayer recurs, " Turn us again, cause Thy face to shine (in fulfilment of the Mosaic triple blessing, Numb. vi. 25), and we shall be saved " (ver. 3, 7, 19), The names of God in these three verses form an ascending climax: "O God" (ver. 3); "O God of hosts" (ver. 7) ; " O Jehovah, God of hosts " (ver. 19), The Septuagint rightly states the subject to be "concerning the Assyrian." The captivity of the ten tribes in Assyria awakened Judah's sympathy, which embodies itself in inter- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 225 cessory prayer. In harmony with this view, whereas in Psalms Ixxiv. and Ixxix., written when the temple had been over- thrown, no allusion occurs in the titles to the temple service, in this eightieth Psalm, on the contrary, its liturgical per- formance is committed "to the chief musician;" therefore the temple was still standing at Jerusalem, and Judah not as yet carried away to Babylon. The vine, though her "hedges " were " broken down so that all passers-by plucked her (ver. 12, 13), and the boar and wild beast devoured it," yet still remained in the Holy Land in part : therefore Judah prays (ver. 14, 15, 17), " Behold and visit this vine, and the vineyard which Thy right hand has planted, and the branch that Thou madest so strong for Thyself, let Thy hand be upon " it to strengthen it, now prostrate. Israel is this vine ; but in the fullest and antitypical sense Messiah is " the man of God's right hand " (Ps. ex. i) ; once Benoni, "son of my sorrow" (Gen. xxxv. 18), as the "Man of sorrows " (Isa. liii. 3), but afterwards " exalted by the right liand oi the Father to be Prince and Saviour" (Acts v. 31), "the Branch (so Zech. iii. 8), the Son of man, whom the Father made so strong for Himself" (ver. 15, 17) ; and so becoming Benjamin, " Son of my right hand." The people of God, partly led away, pray thrice, " Turn us again," i.e., reverse our captivity, bring us back from exile. God had promised to Jacob what holds good to Jacob's seed, "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee agai?i (the same Hebrew as here) into this laud" (Gen. xxviii. 15) ; and God will fulfil His promise (Jer. xii. 15), "I will return — and will bring them again — every man to his land." Then shall "the affliction of Joseph " (Amos vi. 6) give place to joy and Benjamin, strengthened by God's hand (ver. 17), "as the beloved of the Lord, shall dwell by Him, and the Lord shall cover him all the day long" (Deut. xxxiii. 12). In ver. 2, the Psalmist prays, " Before (i.e., advancing at the head of) Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, stir up Thy strength" (now seeming to slumber). In happy accordance with 15 226 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. this, the history (Numb. ii. 17 — 24, x. 21 — 24) assigns the fore- most place after the ark to these three tribes. Benjamin and Joseph were thus closely associated on the ground of their descent from the common mother Rachel, their first ancestors being her two fondly united sons (Gen. xliii. 29 — 34, xliv. 27 — 29). The sixth verse, "Thou makest us a strife unto our neigh- bours," is best illustrated by the prophet Jeremiah (xlix. i), " Hath Israel no heir .-' Why then doth their king (their idol Melcom or Milcom) inherit Gad, and his (Melcom's) people (Ammon) dwell in his cities .-* " When Israel was carried captive to Assyria, the neighbouring heathen people strove among themselves about the spoil of Israel, availing them- selves of the opportunity afforded by the contending world powers Egypt and Assyria. The best commentary on ver. 12, " Why hast Thou broken down her hedges, so that all they who pass by do plnck her .-• the boar out of the wood doth zvaste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it," is the Lord's word in the contempo- rary Isaiah (v. 4, 5), " What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it .-' Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes .-• And now — I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard : I will take away the Jiedge thereof, and it shall be eaten np, and break down the wall, and it shall be trodden down, and I will lay it waste." The king of Assyria (Pul, Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, and Esarhaddon, suc- cessively) answers to the " boar," the subject nations his allies answer to "the wild beast of the field." No longer could Israel say of the past; as in David's days, " We have not dealt falsely in Thy covenant ; our heart is not turned back " (xliv. 18): they can only promise /(?r the future, "So will not we turn back from Thee: " only (ver. 18), Thou must first "quicken us," and then " we will call upon Thy name " (Gal. iv. 6). All these incidental harmonies with other independent scriptures, historical and prophetical, however inconsiderable when taken separately, yet weighty in their aggregate force, can only be the result of truth, not fiction — of genuineness, and not forgery. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 227 Psalm LXXXI. belongs to the same time as Psalms Ixxvii*. and Ixxx. It is the production of a descendant of Asaph, like the two former. Its contents show it was composed exclusively for the passover. The Psalmist calls on all to "sing aloud unto the God of Jacob," with "psalm, timbrel, harp, and psaltery." " Blow up the trumpet in the new moon," i.e., the first of the month, to prepare for the passover on the fourteenth of the month. Now it was just after the carrying away of the ten tribes into Assyria that the godly king " Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh {i.e., the remnant of them still left), that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel." Because of insufficient sanctification, the priests could not keep it on the first month (Nisan), but waited till the second month, as provided by the law (Numb. ix. 10, 11). But in all other particulars, as the Psalmist takes care to express it, the passover was "in the time appointed (^' at the full moon" kescli), on our solemn feast day." "The posts went with letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that they should come to keep the passover unto the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem ; for they had not done it of a long time in such sort." The historian (2 Chron. xxx. 16) particularly notes that all was done "according to the law of Moses the man of God." And the Psalmist similarly dwells on the Divine institution of the feast originally : " This was a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob. This He ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he (Israel) went out across (Hebrew 'at) the land of Egypt." So the history, in undesigned coincidence with the Psalm, says the Israelites " went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians " (Exod. xiv. 8 ; Numb xxxiii. 3). " I (Jehovah) removed his shoulder from the burden, his hands were delivered from the pots " (or rather burden baskets, such as Rosellini describes at Thebes. Com- pare 2 Chron. xvi. 6). The Psalmist evidently implies that the same "Jehovah Elohim of Israel, who brought them out 228 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of the land of Egypt" (ver. lo), will again save the ten tribes from their foreign oppressors and the land of their captivity, if only they will adopt the same means as in Egypt : " Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee." It is be- cause Israel had not hearkened to God's command, " There shall be no strange {zar) god in thee, neither shalt thou worship any foreign {neecar) god " (ver, 9), that God gave them up to strangers and foreigners. The plea of Hezekiah is just the same in inviting them to the passover, but just with that amount of dissimilarity which marks absence of a concerted harmony : " Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He will return to the remnant of you that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria : and be not stififnecked as your fathers were : for if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find com- passion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land ; for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you, if ye return unto Him." The Psalmist (ver. 11 — 16) complements Hezekiah's assurance of God's returning favour if they would now return, by the Lord's own picture of the sad consequences to their fathers of the opposite course, namely, their not hearkening to them : " My people would not hearken to my voice, Israel would none of me, so I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts." Yet He still yearns over them : " O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways !" (Compare the contemporary Isaiah, xlviii. 18.) Instead of Assyria leading them captive, " I should soon have sub- dued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adver- saries." " He should have fed them with the fat of wheat, and with honey out of the rock." (Compare Deut. v. 29, xxxii. 13, 14, 29.) "Hezekiah spoke to the heart (2 Chron. xxx. 22, marg.) of all — and they kept the feast other seven days with gladness — so there was great ^/bj " (21, 23, 26). The music was a leading feature of this passover: "The Levites and priests praised the STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 229 Lord day by day with loud instruments unto the Lord." How exactly, yet artlessly, all this accords with our Psalm, " Sing aloud unto God our strength, make a y'lf?///// noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery." We, too, have a passover deliverance to commemorate — one from a worse than Egyptian bondage — through the sprinkled blood of the Lamb once slain. May we ever keep the feast with gladness, feeding on the finest of wheat, Christ the Bread of Life, and rejoicing in the Rock of our salvation, from whom flow all the promises, sweeter than honey to the spiritual taste ! The EIGHTY-FIFTH PSALM is closely related to the eightieth Psalm. Many wrongly take the first verse, "Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob," as referring to the restoration from Babylon. The phrase is figurative for reversing the depressed state of one that had been afflicted. Sojobxlii. 10, "The Lord turned the captivity of Job." The words, "Lord, Thou hast been favourable unto Thy land," suit a time when the Jews were still in their land, though they had suffered sore judgments. What conclusively proves that the Jews were still in their land, and not as yet carried to Babylon, and that the temple was still standing, is the direction in the title, committing the musical performance of the Psalm "to the chief musician" in the temple liturgy. Yet ver. 4 — 7 show that the people were at the time suffering under God's wrathful visitation, which by faith they anticipate as 7c'/'(^//j/ removed : (ver. i — 3,) "Thou hast covered {kasa/i, compare Prov. x. 12) all their sin. Thou hast taken away all Thy wrath. Thou hast turned Thyself from the fierceness of Thine anger." " Now Hezekiah's reign, and Josiah's, were the only two in the latter years of the kingdom of Judah, in which the temple service was restored in its full efficiency. Our choice of date for Psalm Ixxxv. between these two reigns is decided by the close connection of this Psalm with Psalm Ixxx., which, we saw above, is to be assigned to Hezekiah's reign. It is m 230 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. real, and evidently undesigned, coincidence with this that Hezekiah utters, according to the independent history (2 Chron. xxix. and xxx.), language and sentiments corre- sponding to our Psalm. As the Psalmist (ver. i) mentions ^' {he captivity oi ]2iCoh" so Hezekiah says (2 Chron. xxix. 9), "Our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity ;" for besides the Assyrian oppression of Judah under Ahaz, Tiglath Pileser had fourteen years before carried the leading popu- lation of Gilead, Galilee, and Naphtali "captive" to Assyria (2 Kings XV. 29). Again, as the Psalmist anticipates by strong faith the desired issue of their prayers, " Thou hast turned Thyself from the fierceness of TJiine anger" so the history (2 Chron. xxix. 9, 10) puts in Hezekiah's mouth similar words expressing the ground of this confidence : " It is in mine heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of \%xd.t\ihat His fierce wrath inay turn azvay from us." It may seem strange that after the suppliants in the Psalm have said (ver. 3), " Thou hast taken away all Thy wrath," they should pray still, "Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause Thine anger toward us to cease." But it is just because of faith's confident anticipation of the answer, that it prays the more earnestly for that which the Spirit of prophecy in the Psalmist reveals as an already accomplished fact : " Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause Thine anger toward us to cease!' So Hezekiah, again, in inviting to the passover (2 Chron. xxx. 8, 9) the remnant of the ten tribes, still in the Holy Land after Shalmaneser's destruction of the kingdom of North Israel, says, " The fierceness of God's wrath may turn away from you— if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and children shall come again into this land." The prayers of the multitude from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, joined with those of Hezekiah and Judah, the history ex- pressly tells us (ver. 27), " came up to God's holy dwelling- place, unto heaven." In harmony with this is the Psalmist's believing assurance, " Lord, Thou hast been favourable unto Thy landr STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 231 The coincidence of ver. 4, " Turn ics, O God of our salvation, cause Thine anger toward us to cease," with Psalm Ixxx. 3, 7, 19. "Turn ns again, O God, cause Thy face to shine {causing Thine anger to cease), and we shall be saved^' estab- lishes an identity of occasion, namely, the carrying away of the ten tribes, which called forth her sister Judah's sympathy and prayers. Again the prayer (ver. 6), " Wilt Thou not turn (and) revive us (so the Hebrew), that Thy people may rejoice in Thee .''" answers to Psalm Ixxx. 18, " Revive us (the same Hebrew as in Ixxxv. 6, tecJiayecnii), and we will call upon Thy name ; " for God must first breathe into us the Spirit of adoption, before we can call upon Him as our Father (Rom. viii. 15). Also, "So zvill not lue go back from Tliee^' in Ixxx. 18, answers to " He will speak peace to His people, but let tJiem not tnrn again to folly''' (ver. 8 in our Psalm). The sons of Korah, who ministered as musicians in the temple service, embody in this Psalm believing Judah's anti- cipations of the time when all God's anger, under which their common country was then suffering, should cease for ever. The contemporary prophet Isaiah strikingly accords in thought and language with our Psalmist; at the same time, the har- mony is not such as would result from the one copying the other. Thus ver. 9, " His salvation is nigh, that glory may dwell {shakcvi, alluding to the shekinah glory cloud) in our land." So Isaiah (xlvi. 13), "I bring near n\y righteousness, I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.'' Again, ver. 10, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other," corresponds to Isaiah xxxii. 17, "The work oi righteousness shall be peace!' Still more unmistakeable is the correspond- ence of ver. II, "Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven" with Isaiah xlv. 8, " Drop down, ye heavens, a^nd let the skies pour dozen righteous- ness, let the earth bring forth salvation " (answering to " truth," i.e., God's faithfulness to His promises). The ulterior general reference is to Messiah, by whose atoning sacrifice " all our sin is covered " (ver. 2), the Divine justice turns itself from the fierceness of its anger, the claims 232 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. of righteousness and of mercy are harmonized, and the truth of God is combined with peace to man. There is further special reference to Israel's future restoration to the land which God claims as peculiarly His {" Lord, Thou hast been favourable unto T/iy land "), and which He has assigned to the seed of Jacob for ever. Then, and not till then, under Messiah's manifested kingdom, righteousness shall look down from heaven, and the long-desolate Holy "Land shall yield her increase" (Isa. Iv. 13). STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 233 LECTURE XXVII. PSALMS XLVIL, LXXXVIII., LXXXIX. ^TO\VHERE throughout the book of Psahns, nor indeed ^ in all Scripture, does there occur such a comfortless lamentation as the EIGHTY-EIGHTH Psalm, if taken by itself. Except at the beginning, the solitary ray of hope in the attribute given by faith to God — "O Lord God of viy salvation" — the whole begins, continues, and ends in dejection. But if the Psalm be viewed in connection with Psalm Ixxxix., the anomaly disappears. As Psalms ix. and x., xlii. and xliii., so Psalms lxxxviii. and lxxxix. form one whole, consist- ing of two parts. Thus the long title before Psalm lxxxviii., which would be of undue length, if it belonged to this Psalm alone, is accounted for by viewing it as the title in its first part belonging to botJi Psalms : " A song Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief musician upon Mahalath Leannoth." Its second part, " Maschil (instruction) of Heman the Ezrahite," belongs especially to Psalm lxxxviii., and answers to "Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite," the special title of Psalm lxxxix., which is the second part of the one whole. The Hebrew designation for "song" {shir), in the title, is always used of a Joyous song, which would be utterly inapplicable if it applied solely to Psalm lxxxviii. ; but it is altogether appropriate when referred to the joy which bursts forth in Psalm Ixx.xix., after the gloom of Psalm lxxxviii. Moreover, Psalm l.Kxxix. begins with an express reference to the expression " song " (shir) in the title heading Psalm lxxxviii., " I will sing- {ashirah) of 234 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. the mercies of the Lord for ever," and continues for the first thirty-seven verses (the majority of the Psalm) to praise with joy the grace and truth of God in respect to the promised perpetuity of David's kingdom. The close of the EIGHTY-NINTH PSALM is Israel's mourning over the fallen state of David's throne, answering to the whole of the eighty-eighth Psalm. Compare Ixxxviii. lo — 12, " Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead 1 shall Thy loving- kindness be declared in the grave ? " with Ixxxix. 47, 48, " Remember how short my time is : what man is he that shall not see death } shall he deliver his soul from the . grave .''" Thus, though the beginning of the one twofold whole is gloom, and the close is also gloom, yet the central body is light, giving the assurance that, after the darkest distress, faith gains the victory by combining joyous praise with prayer. In PSALM LXXXVIII., Messiah, the antitypical Israel (compare Hosea xi. i, with Matt. ii. 15), pours forth His complaint in His agony, as in Psalms xxii. and Ixix. In Ixxxix., Messiah's type (Heb. xii. 2), Israel, who is conformed to her Lord in desertion by the Father (but with the differ- ence, that His suffering was for imputed sin, hers was for personal sin), sings a thanksgiving for God's former mercies and His covenant for ever with David and his seed ; and pleads, on the ground of that unchangeable covenant, that He will, after having so sorely punished Israel's offences, now remember for her His loving-kindnesses sworn of old. The time is evidently just before the captivity in Babylon. The people and the throne of David appear as depressed ; yet there is no hint of the destruction of the city and temple, such as there would be if the Psalm had been written subse- quently to the captivity. Jehoahaz' three months' reign, at the close of Josiah's reign, or rather, the beginning of Jehoia- kim's reign, strikingly answers to the internal evidences of date in the Psalm. " Thou hast cast off, Thou hast been wroth with Thine anointed; Thou hast made void the covenant of Thy servant ; Thou hast profaned his crozvn by casting it to the ground." In accurate and evidently undesigned coin- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 235 cidence with this, the history (2 Chron. xxxiv. 31) says of Josiah, " The king made a covenant before the Lord, to perform the words of the covenant written in this book." "Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from tlie fierceness of His great wrath, wherewith His anger was kindled against Judah " (2 Kings xxiii. 26). Again (Psalm Ixxxix. 42 — 44), " Thou /uist set ttp the right hand of his adversaries. Thou hast turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in tJie battle. Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his tJirone dozvn to the ground. Thou hast covered him with shame." So the history records, " Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates : and Josiah went out against him." In vain Necho warned Josiah, " I come not against thee, but against the house wherewith I have war : forbear from meddling with God, who is with me, that He destroy thee not. Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from, him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him. And the archers shot at King Josiah, and he died, and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah" (2 Chron. XXXV. 20 — 24). This pair of Psalms, in their sad portions, is a sample of the people's " mourning." Josiah fell when but thirty-nine years old, in comparative youtli (2 Kings xxii. i) ; exactly corresponding to the Psalm, " The days of his youth hast Thou shortened " (ver. 45). So also Jehoahaz his son, whom "the people anointed in his stead " (2 Kings xxiii. 30 — 34), was in early jw////, but twenty- three years old, and reigned only three months ; and Pharaoh- Necho took him to Egypt, where he died ; and mulcted Judea in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold, and raised Eliakim, or Jehoiakim, Josiah's brother, to the throne (2 Chron. xxxvi. I — 4). These coincidences between the Psalms and the histories are just what we night expect, if both are genuine, and are quite inconsistent with forgery. In the middle and latter parts of Jehoiakim's eleven years' reign, and in Jeconiah's and Zcdekiah's reigns, the temple was filled with godless priests (see Jer. xxxvi. 10 — 16, 23 — 26) xxix. 25 — 2j). Such an inspired song as is here entrusted to 236 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. "the chief musician" by the sons of Korah, its composers, would hardly then have been sung in the temple service. But godly Josiah had been temporarily the instrument of a great revival, the effects of which lasted for a short time after his death. The temple service would have still some godly persons connected with it, till Jehoiakim killed Urijah (Jer. xxvi. 20 — 23), and gradually the corruption became as uni- versal as it was before Josiah's revival. The title, " upon Mahalath Leannoth," enigmatically inti- mates the subject, " concerning the sickness of affliction." So the title of Psalm liii., "upon Mahalath," i.e., concerning man's spiritual malady ; and so Isaiah (i. 5) describes the disorganiza- tion of the body politic under the image of physical sickness : " The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." Leannoth comes from a Hebrew root (Hjy 'anali), "to afflict," and re- fers to Israel's "affliction : " (ver. 15,) "I am afflicted." Taken in connection with the joyous term "song" {sJiir), the design of the whole title is, Praise-song is the comfort of the sorely afflicted. The Maschil, or instruction, designed is, that mourners, instead of letting their griefs prey on them, should pour them all out before God. The sons of Korah were the authors of the pair, according to the title at the head of Psalm Ixxxviii. The names of Heman and Ethan are appended by zvay of honour. The real authors, "the sons of Korah," in the times of Josiah and his successor, put their compositions into the mouths of those two musicians of the time of David. Ethan is the same as Jeduthun, meaning the praise-man {i Chron. vi. 31 — 33,445 xvi. 41 ; XXV. I — 7). Similarly David, the author of Psalm xxxix., in order to honour " Jeduthun," put his name in the title. The term " Ezrahite " is explained by i Chron. ii. 6, "the sons oi Zerah (Judah's grandson), Ethan and Heman." The E (J^) is prefixed. By birth they were Levites ; but were reckoned in the family of Zerah of Judah, because they divelt in that family as sojourners, and became so incorporated with it as adopted sons. So Elkanah, the father of Samuel, though a Levite by birth, is said to be " of Mount Ephraim " STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 237 (r Sam. i. i). So also the " young man of the family of Jiidah (namely, by residence in Bethlehem-Judah), who was a Levite" (Judges xvii. 7). The three, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, or Ethan, as founders of the liturgical music, were doubtless divinely inspired : indeed, the inspiration of Heman is ex- pressly attested in i Chron. xxv. 5, " the king's seer, in the words of God ;" and Solomon, who received his wisdom by inspiration, is compared with " Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman "(i Kings i v. 31). No wonder then that the authors, the sons of Korah, should associate by way of honour names of these two ancient inspired masters of music and sacred poetry with their composition, which was designed for the temple liturgy. There is no so sorrowful and dark an outpouring of lamen- tation as this in all the Bible. The one solitary gleam of hope occurs in the address, " O Lord God of my salva- tion." Hereby the sufferer shuts the door against despair. Now in the independenfhistory (2 Chron. xxxv. 24, 25), the one event which is represented as causing the most over- whelming sorrow to the godly in Judah was the premature death of Josiah in the midst of his career of reviving religion after the awful apostasy of Manasseh. Besides that " all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah, Jeremiah lamented for him, and all the singing men and singing women spake of him in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel ; behold, they are written in the Lamenta- tions." The deep gloom of Psalm Ixxxviii. is in undesigned accordance with the universal, profound, and lasting lamenta- tion for Josiah's fall and the nation's consequent depression, which the history records. This lamentation was so extra- ordinary as to pass into a proverb. Long subsequently Zechariah (xii. 11) writes, "In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad- rinimon in the valley of Megiddon" (where Josiah fell, 2 Chron. xxxv. 22). It is the greatest mourning recorded in Jewish history, for his reign was the only gleam of brightness from Hezekiah to the downfall of Judah. The language of Lamcn- 238 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. tations (iv. 20) must originally have referred to good Josiah rather than to worthless Zedekiah, though it may apply to either as representing David, and typifying Messiah the "Anointed": "The breath of our nostrils, the anointed oi the Lord, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the {i.e., in spite of the surround- ing) heathen." This answers closely to Psalm Ixxxix. 38, " Thou hast been wroth with Thine anointed — Thou hast pro- faned his crown, and cast his throne down to the ground. The days of his youth hast Thou shortened." The language of Israel in Psalm Ixxxviii. 8, "I am shut up, and I cannot come forth," is in striking, yet evidently unstu- died, coincidence with that (though on a different occasion) of Jeremiah, who wrote the lamentation for Josiah: (Jer.xxxvi. 5,) " I am shut up ; I cannot go into the house of the Lord." The words (^innitha 'ani), " Thou hast afflicted me " (Ps. Ixxxviii. 7), and " I am afflicted from my youth " (ver. 1 5), refer to the leannoth of the title. As Israel's existence in the in- fancy of the nation was threatened by a Pharaoh of Egypt, so now in her advanced years another Pharaoh (Necho), by slay- ing her one anchor of hope, Josiah, threatens her destruction. The frequent allusions to " death " and the " grave " in the Psalm harmonize undesignedly with the fact that all the hopes of the godly in the nation seemed to be cut off and entombed with Josiah: (ver. 5, 6, 10, 11,) Israel complains she is "free {clwphshi, as the leper, in a several house, chophsJiith, severed apart, and so free — a melancholy freedom, than which the worst slavery is better — from human intercourse, 2 Chron. xxvi. 21, \i free it is) among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave (as the beloved Josiah now was), cutoff from Thy hand (com- pare Psalm xxxi. 22). Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead.? Shall the dead arise and praise Thee .-' Shall Thy loving- kindness be declared in the grave .'' " The ultimate reference is to Israel's antitype, Messiah. He was for us (ver. 5) "cut off out of the land of the living" (Isa. liii. 8). He was (ver. 8) "shut up that He could not come forth," because for our sakes He ivonld not. God's "wrath" at our sins STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 239 "lay hard upon Him," and "afflicted Him with all His waves" (ver. 7). Israel's cry (ver. 3), "My soul is /////of troubles to over- Jlozvi)ig" (nyiDb^, saVaJi, saturated), faintly shadows Messiah's agonized cry in Gethsemane, " My soul is exceeding sorrow- ful (7repi\v7ro<;), even unto death " (Matt. xxvi. 38). When "numbered with the transgressors" (Isa. liii. 12) on Calvary, He could say, "I am counted with them that go down into the pit (Ps. Ixxxviii. 4). His chief grief was, that He seemed, when deserted by the Father, to be "free among the dead" (ver. 5), dismissed by the Master, whose servant for our sake He under- took to be, and " cut off from His hand," His desertion by "acquaintance, lover, and friend " (ver. 8, 18), and even by the Father, ensures the fulfilment of His promise to spiritual Israel, " I will never leave thee nor forsake thee " (Heb. xiii. 5). And to the question (ver. 10), "Wilt Thou show wonders to the dead.-*" His answer suffices, " Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in which all in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth" (John v. 28). So that even in death we can praise God for His death, which robs death of its sting. Therefore, from His agonized prayers amidst sorrows worse than physical death, let us learn, when trouble is sorest, to let our prayers be the most earnest : instead of proudly struggling with grief by ourselves, let us take all to God, and praise as well as pray ; being confident that so, however deep be our gloom, "the sun of righteousness" will at last "arise with healing in his wings " (Mai. iv. 2). The subject of PSALM LXXXIX. is praise for the covenanted promise of God, which secured the perpetuity of David's seed and throne, and of the elect nation (ver. i — 37) ; but the existing state of things forms a sad contrast to this promise (ver. 38 — 45); therefore the Psalmist prays to God to remove this contrast (ver. 46 — 51). Not only Christians, but a host of Jewish commentators (Rabba and Ketanna, Valle Semoth Rabba, Midrasch Cantici Canticorum, Solomon, and Aben Ezra, in Bishop Horsley), refer this Psalm to Messiah. But the primary reference is to the seed of David and his throne, which had just received so severe a blow in the fall of King 240 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Josiah. Israel comforts herself by remembering the over- throw of proud Pharaoh and his hosts at the Red Sea ; she says, :' Who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lordf who among the sons of the mighty caii be likened nnto the Lord? God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the holy ones " (ver. 6, 7) ; just as after the drowning of that tyrant she sang (Exod. XV. 11), "Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods ? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" The coincidence is the more striking as it was another Pharaoh, namely, Necho, who now had caused such distress to the elect nation. It is therefore that Israel recalls to memory in our Psalm the deliverance which God had wrought from the Pharaoh of old, and takes it as a pledge for her deliverance from her present Egyptian oppressor. " Thou hast broken Rahab (" haughtiness," the name which Isaiah first gave to Egypt, li. 9,) in pieces as one that is slain" (Ps. Ixxxix. lo). The slayer of Judah's anointed king Josiah, Israel hereby expresses herhope,shall be slain him- self ; a prophecy which received its fulfilment in the utter defeat of Necho's host at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar (607 B.C.). Another coincidence, connecting the Psalm and the history, and evidently undesigned, occurs in ver. 15, " Blessed is the people that know tJie joyfid sound" namely, that of the trumpets sounded at the great festivals in token of joy, also that of the singers in the temple liturgy. Now it is expressly recorded in 2 Chron. xxxv. i, 15, 18, "Josiah kept a passover unto the Lord at Jerusalem. And the singers, the sons of Asaph, were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer. There was no passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet ; neither did the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah." Again, in ver. 18, allusion occurs to Israel's king : translate as the Hebrew and the main argument require : " For our shield {i.e., our king, compare Psalm xlvii. 9) is of Jehovah, STUDIES IX THE CI.. PSALMS. 241 and our king is of the Holy One of Israel." Our confidence in spite of our severe calamity, is our king, as Jehovah's anointed one belongs to Jehovah. This Israel proceeds to prove from the fact that God promised perpetual deliverance from foes to David, and so to David's people ; also peculiar sonship, universal dominion, and perpetuity of his seed and throne. David typically was God's "pious one {chasideka), mighty, and chosen out of the people " (ver. 19, 20), to whom really the vision given to Nathan concerning him (2 Sam. vii.) was addressed. Most MSS. and the Massora read the singular ; but all the old versions and many MSS. read "Thy holy ones " (plural) : thus God's speaking in vision will be to " His pious ones;" i.e., " for jw/r sakes I have laid help upon a mighty hero — David" (2 Sam. xvii. 10). Messiah is the antitype, the only one " pious " in the fullest sense, and He on whom God has laid the whole salvation of Israel, both the literal and the spiritual (Isa. ix. 6) ; the " ransom /t?//;/^ " by God, as He saith, " I have found David " the type (ver. 20 ; Job xxxiii. 24). " God's hand is established with Him," ever ready to help Him, as it was typically with David (i Sam. xviii. 12, 14; 2 Sam. v. 10, viii. 6, 14). "His dominion shall be from sea to sea" (ver. 25 ; Ps. Ixxii. 8). God's " firstborn," " begotten far before {7rpcoT6TOKo<;) every creature" (ver. 27; Col. i. 15, 18). The objection that the covenant becomes void through the people's unfaithfulness is met by the answer that, though the transgression of individuals of David's seed brings down God's chastisement, yet God's covenant of grace remains to the family in the person of Messiah (ver. 30 — 37). (Translate " the Witness in the sky is faithful," i.e., God attests His own oath; Job xvi. 19; Rom. iii. 3.) The people contrast the sad state of things actually with what the covenant seemed to promise : " Thou hast made void the covenant of Thy servant," ver. 39, contrasted with ver. 34, " My covenant will I not break." Josiah's " crown was profaned to the ground." " All that passed by the way spoiled" Israel; the Assyrians and Babylonians on the north, 16 242 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. and the Egyptians on the south, " passing " back and forward through the Holy Land, which lay between them, made it their spoil. Judah's king by turns was vassal to either ; Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh to Assyria ; Josiah to Babylon ; Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim to Egypt. Israel was "a reproach to his neighbours;" namely, to the adjoining petty nations, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Syria ; so that she prays, " Remember how I do bear in my bosom all the many peoples" (so the Hebrew, ver. 41, 50). How strikingly, yet artlessly, this accords with the independent history (2 Kings xxiv. 2) : " The Lord sent against Jehoiakim {three years from the beginning of his reign) bands of the Chaldees, and of the Syrians, and of the Moabites, and of the children of Ammon, and against Judah, to destroy it, for the sins of Manasseh." Once these feared and paid tribute to David and Solomon, but now how sadly all is changed ! (2 Sam. viii. 2 — 14; i Kings iv. 21, v.) The final appeal (ver. 49), " Lord, where are Thy former loving-kindnesses which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth .'' " answers to that in Isaiah (Ixiii, 7, 15), " I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord. Where is Thy zeal and Thy strength, the multitude of Thy bowels and of Thy mercies toward me.-*" Such shall be Israel's cry when the Lord shall pour upon the house of David and Jerusalem " the spirit of grace and supplications." Their other plea shall be the reproach of the enemy against the Lord's servants is a reproach of the Lord Himself, "wherewith they have re- proached the footsteps of His anointed." The Chaldee Targum paraphrases it, " Thine enemies have reproached the tardiness of the footsteps of Thy Christ," exactly answering to the scoff of the last days against the advent of Christ to vindicate His people : " Where is the promise of His coming .'' for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation " (2 Peter iii. 3, 4). May we be kept by His " faithfulness," ever faithful among the faithless, " hoping to the end for the grace that is to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (i Peter i. 13). STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 243 " Blessed be Jehovah for evermore ! Amen and Amen," is the doxology which closes the third book of Psalms, ending with the eighty-ninth Psalm. The first book contains the Da- vidic Jehovah Psalms (i. — xli.); the second book, the Elohini Psalms of the singers of David, the sons of Korah (xlii. — xlix.), Asaph (1.), then his own Elohim Psalms and Solomon's (li. — Ixxii.) ; the third book, the Jehovah Psalms of his singers and their school (Ixxiii. — Ixxxiii.), the sons of Korah (Ixxxiv. — Ixxxix.). The Elohim Psalms are designedly enclosed on both sides by the Jehovah Psalms. These express God's covenant relation to His people as t/icir God, faithful to His promises. 244 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXVIII. PSALMS LXXIV., LXXIX. IN the third book of the Psalter we come to Psalms referring to the period of Israel and Judah's decline and fall. The circumstances of the SEVENTY-FOURTH PsALM require this late date ; so that the " Asaph " of the title, as in some other Psalms, must refer to one of the school desig- nated from the original " Asaph " of David's days. (Compare 2 Chron. xxxv. 15; Ezra ii. 41, iii. 10.) The maschil, or instruction, of the Psalm consists in the implied exhortation to believers, when tempted by the seeming continuance of the foe's oppression " for ever," to plead still before God the honour of His name as at stake (ver. i, id). The plea in Lam. V. 20 corresponds : " Wherefore dost Thou forget \xs for ever?" At the time the Psalmist says (ver. 4), "Thine enemies roar in the midst of Thy congregation'' (Hebrew singular), i.e., in the place of meeting between God and His people {ino'eed, the same Hebrew as in Exod. xxxiii. 7, xxix. 42, 43), the temple. " They set up tJicir ensigns for signs " that they are masters of the temple; whereas "we see not our signs" (ver. 9), i.e., of our being God's peculiar people, namely, the Sabbath, the altar sacrifices, and the temple, nor the signs or miracles such as God wrought for us against our oppressors in Egypt (Ps. Ixviii. 43). Where once everything testified of God's dominion, now everything testifies of the dominion of the heathen : " The enemy is famous as one lifting up axes upon a thicket of wood (so the old versions, ver. 5), and now STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 245 they break down the carved work" etc. (so the ancient versions). How naturally all this in the Psalm harmonizes with what the history records at the final capture of Jerusalem under Zedekiah (2 Kings xxv. 13; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 18; Jer. Hi. 12 — 17) : " The pillars of brass in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brasen sea, did the Chaldees break m pieces, and carried the brass to Babylon." In taking off the gold from the overlaid walls, they would break down the carved work, (i Kings vi. 21, 22, 29,) "Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold, and he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of cherubims, and palm trees, and open flowers, within and without,'' etc. Nebuchadnezzar already had carried away the temple vessels in Jehoiachin's reign (2 Chron. xxxvi. 10). The Psalmist adds, "They have cast Thy sanctuary into tJic fire'' (marg.). So, again, the history (Jer. lii. 13) : Nebu- zar-adan, captain of Nebuchadrezzar's guard, "burned the house of the Lord;" and the Lamentations (ii. 7), "The Lord hath cast off His altar. He hath abhorred His sanctuary ; they have made a noise in the house of tJie Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast." How exactly this corresponds to'ver. 4 in our Psalm, "Thine enemies roar in the midst of Thy congrega- tion^ Josephus {Ant. x. 8. 2) states that the Chaldean princes took their seats, at the capture of the city, " in the middle court of the temple " (compare, however, Jer. xxxix. 3). The language of Lamentations (ii. 4) corresponds : " In the taber- nacle of the daughter of Zion he (the foe) poured out his fury like fire" The foe's shout in the captured temple bore a likeness, but how sadly contrasting as to the occasion of it, to the joyous shouts at Israel's solemn feasts. Isaiah, by the Spirit, foresaw the calamity: (Ixiv. 11,) "Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee, is burned zuith fire!' In the P.salmist's words (ver. 8), "They have burnt up all the syna- gogues of God in the land," the reference is not to synagogues in the modern sense, which did not exist before the Babylonian captivity, nor is mention made of synagogues being destroyed 246 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. in the accounts of the profanation of the Holy Land by Antiochus. Both here and in Lam. ii. 6 the sense is, by burning the temple the enemy has done azvay ivith all the solemn assemblies, such as were celebrated at the great feasts. (So inoed means always elsewhere the sacred season qx feast, and so here means, and in Lam. ii. 6, probably, the holy assemblies at the festivals}) The Psalmist was probably one of the Jews left by the Chaldeans in the Holy Land. Again, the Psalmist mournfully complains, " There is no more any prophet " (ver. 9) ; and the contemporary prophet Jeremiah (Lam. ii. 9) similarly complains, "The law is no more, her prophets also find no vision from the Lord." Ezekiel (vii. 26) had just previously foretold it, "Then shall they seek a vision of the prophet, but the law shall perish from the priest," etc. A forger would never have written as the Psalmist does ; for he would have thought it inconsistent with this statement, that Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, all prophesied during or after the Babylonian captivity. We know that at this time the prophets were divinely ordered to be silent (Ezek. iii. 26, xxiv. 27). Jeremiah's prophetical office terminated with the destruction of Jerusalem, though he survived it. Ezekiel was absent from the Holy Land, at the Chebar ; Daniel in Babylon ; Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi long subsequent. Though Jeremiah had foretold "how long" the captivity should last, namely, seventy years, yet the blow so stunned the people, that the Psalmist adds, " Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long." (Compare, even at a later period, Zech. i. 12.) "Cruelty" was characteristic of the Chaldeans (Jer. 1. 42, and vi. 23, " They are cruel, and have no mercy "). So with undesigned harmony the Psalmist (ver. 20), " The dark places of the land (namely, where Jews were now in darkness and sorrow. Lam. iii. 6) are full of the homesteads {neoth, not of peaceable shepherds, but) of cruelty " itself personified. Finally, the plea put forward by the Psalmist (ver. 10) is, " How long shall the adversary reproach ? shall the enemy STUDIES TN THE CL. PSALAfS. 247 blaspheme Thy name for ever ?" So the contemporary book of Lamentations (v. i) : "Remember, O Lord; consider, and behold our reproach;'' and Ezekiel (v. 15), "Jerusalem shall be a reproach." This plea of the Psalmist shall again be Israel's plea in the last days. The Jews, in the fullest sense, during the ages of their long dispersion, have been realizing the words, " We see not our signs." The Mahomedan ensigns usurp the ancient signs of God's presence in Zion. But when Israel shall turn to the Lord, and plead that their "reproach" is the reproach of Jehovah, whose people they are, then will He "remember for them His covenant" (Ps. cvi. 45), and "plead His own cause" (Ixxiv. 22 ; Zech. xii., xiii., xiv.) The twin-sister Psalm to Ixxiv. is PSALM LXXIX. Both refer to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. In Psalm Ixxiv., the destruction of the sanctuary is the prominent topic. In Psalm Ixxix., the dcfilevient of the sanctuary by the heathen is briefly alluded to (ver. i) : " O God, Thy holy temple have the heathen defiled!' The defiling involves its destruction ; for the profanation of its sanctity, the worst evil that could befall it, includes every other evil. It was because Israel and Judah had defiled the house and the city of God by their abominations, that God gave up both to the heathen to defile by their desolations; as the Lord in Ezekiel (v. 11, xxiii. 38, xxiv. 21) declare.';, "Because tJion hast defiled my sanctuary, behold I will profane my sanctuary, the excellency of your strength." It is one of the " Asaph " Psalms, which all bear a mutual resemblance. For, as Hengstenberg remarks, "The descend- ants of Asaph looked upon themselves as the instruments by which the Asaph of David's time, their illustrious ancestor, continued to speak, and therefore they naturally followed closely in his footsteps." This Psalm throughout is in striking harmony with the language of Jeremiah, yet in the most natural and unstudied agreement. Thus, ver. i, "They have laid Jerusalem on heaps " (a fact which holds good of the Babylonian destruc- tion of Jerusalem, but not of what it suffered under Antiochus 248 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Epiphanes). In Jer. xxvi, 1 8, certain elders of the land, when the princes wished to kill Jeremiah, spake to all the assembly of the people, " Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps." Most indirectly thus it appears that the Psalm announces the fulfilment of the prophecy of Micah long before, which the elders quoted in Jeremiah's time as a plea for his life being spared. No forger would invent a harmony so circuitous and at the same time real. The Asaph Psalm-picture of the Chaldeans' haughty cruelty in the Psalm, " The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the earth, their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them," is the counterpart to Jeremiah's prophecy (vii. 33), " The carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth ;" "Cast out in the streets of Jerusalem, they shall have none to bury them" (xiv. 16; compare also 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17); and shall have its final consummation under the last Antichrist, of which Antiochus was the forerunner (Dan. xi. 31 ; Rev. xi. 9). Again, the prayer of Jeremiah (x. 25), " Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not, and upon the families that call not on Thy name," answers to ver. 6 of our Psalm, " Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known Thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon Thy name." The several 'kingdoms' meant are those which served under Babylon against Jerusalem. Hence, in ver. 7, the He- brew {akal) for " devoured " is singular, whereas " laid waste " {heeshainmu) is plural. The singular implies that Israel's foes, though many, are animated by one spirit of enmity against God's people; just as, on the other hand, the members of the Church, though many, form one body animated by one Holy Spirit. So in the last days the ten kingdoms shall be banded under the one Antichrist against the Lord's anointed (Rev. xvii. 12 — 17), Jeremiah often incorporates the older STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 249 Scriptures with his own, varying them as the Spirit guided him : so in this instance his use of the Hebrew plural {akln- akaluJni) for the singular in our Psalm, "devoured," marks that the Psalm is the original, and his version the copy, which was added subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem, when the whole collection of his prophecies assumed their present form. Finally, the Psalmist's prayer (vcr. 9), " Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name, purge away our sins for Thy name's sake," answers to Jeremiah's supplication (xiv. 7, 21), "O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do Thou it for Thy name's sake ; for our backslidings are many : we have sinned against Thee." This will be all Israel's confession in the last days, when " the Lord will pour upon the house of David and Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look upon the Saviour whom they have pierced, and shall mourn " (Zech. xii. 10) : then, as God hath by the godless heathen " punished her seven times for her sins," so will He render sevenfold into the bosom of her foes the reproach wherewith they have reproached at once Himself and His people (ver. 12; Lev. xxvi. 64). 250 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXIX. PSALMS XXXVII., XLIX., LXXIIL, XCIL, XCIII., XCIV., XCV., XCVL, XCVII., XCVIIL, XCIX., C. THE series of Psalms xcii. — C. is Messianic, and antici- pates the coming and universal reign of the heavenly- King, who, at His manifestation, will deliver His people from their oppressors. The great world-empire, Assyria, was at the time casting its dark shadow over the Holy Land. The ten tribes of northern Israel were already captive exiles from the land which God had given their fathers. Judah was threatened, and narrowly escaped the same fate by the special interposition of Jehovah, who in one night destroyed the mighty host of Sennacherib. God, by His prophet Isaiah, had foretold to Hezekiah, in chastisement for the Jewish king's ostentation of his treasures to the ambassadors of the Babylonian king, that all those riches, in which he trusted for the time, should be carried away with his own descendants to Babylon as a prey. Babylon, the instrument of Judah's sin, was retributively made the instrument of her punishment. What then was the consolation of the people of the Lord in such a trying time .-• It is this, which is the keynote of the series, "Jehovah reigneth" (xciii. i, xcvi. lO, xcvii. i, xcix. i): the reference is not to the ordinary and constant govern- ment of God, but to His assuming a new and glorious kingdom. It is the regular formula at the accession of earthly sovereigns: "Jehu reigneth" (2 Kings ix. 13; 2 Sam. xv. 10; I Kings i. II, 13). The world-power, in its arrogance, STUDIES lA' THE CL. PSALMS. 251 virtually proclaimed, "The Assyrian reigneth." The over- throw of the Assyrian by Jehovah (this name, here used, implying His covenant relation with His people, which ensured their deliverance) was His counter-proclamation, implying that " Jehovah reigneth." This the Church in this series of Psalms takes as an earnest that Messiah will speedily "take His great power, and reign as King of kings and Lord of lords," having utterly destroyed in person the last foes of Himself and His people. The very same truth appears, by an undesigned coincidence, in the contemporary prophet Isaiah (xxiv. 19 — 23), "Jehovah shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth, when Jehovah of hosts shall i-eign in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously." (Com- pare Rev. xi. 15, 17, xix. 6.) It is certain that the temple was still standing, from the allusions to it in Psalm xcix. i, 5, "Jehovah sitteth between the cherubim ; worship at His footstool (the ark of the covenant, which Jehovah, sitting between the cherubim, as it were, touched with His feet, i Chron. xxviii. 2): He is holy." The version of the LXX. and Vulgate, " Worship His foot- stool," is wrong. The Hebrew particle (7) preceding implies towards or at, as the LXX. translate it in ver. 9; for it was the custom to turn toivards the temple in prayer ; so Psalm v. 7, " I will worship toiuard Thy holy temple " (Ps. cxxxviii. 2 ; I Kings viii. 44 ; Dan. vi. 10). The " He " in ver. 5 answers to His "name" (ver. 3), and to "the Lord our God " (ver. 9), establishing the English version, "He is holy," against Rome's version, " // (the footstool) is holy," which 'gives seeming countenance to bowing down to images, in violation of the second commandment. The NINETY-SECOND PSALM dwells upon the "good" which results from praise to Jehovah, especially with the sacred instruments of the saiietuary, the ten-stringed instrument, the psaltery, and the harp (ver. 3). The doubts arising from the prosperity of sinners, and especially of the world powers then threatening Israel, are overcome by leading God's people 252 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. into the midst of God's praises in the sanctuary (Ps. Ixxiii. 17). This takes us to the grand central thought, "Thou, Jehovah, art most high for evermore" (ver. 8). As in Psalms xxxVu., xlix., the Psalmist teaches by exhorta- tions, and in Ixxiii. oy detailing his own and the Church's temptation to doubt because of the " flourishing " state of sinners, which is at last surmounted by contemplating the sinner's end ; so in Psalm xcii. he teaches that all such doubts are overcome by believing praises in the Lord's house, in anticipation of the end, that the workers of iniquity, now "flourishing," shall be "destroyed for ever" (ver. 7), whereas "those that be planted in the house of Jehovah shall flourish in the courts of our God" (ver. 13): those flourish "as the grass," soon doomed to wither; these flourish like the abiding and fruitful "palm" and upright " cedar " (ver. 12); like the holy candlestick in the temple, symbolizing the Church, and formed as a tree zuith floxvers and fruit, ever graceful and abiding. The title of Psalm xcii., " A Psalm or Song {i.e., song of joyful praise) for the Sabbath day," implies, that it was designed for the " holy convocation " on the Sabbath (Lev. xxiii. 3). The resource of Hezekiah, when threatened by Sennacherib, was to " go up into the house of Jehovah, and spread the Assy- rian's letter before Jehovah " (2 Kings xix. 14), according to the independent history : this is in exact, and at the same time unstudied, accordance with this Psalm, which makes praises to Jehovah, morning and evening, and chiefly on the Sabbath, in the sanctuary, the antidote to perplexity at the sight of the flourishing state of the godless world powers which rose up against Israel. The Church's deliverance by Jehovah from her foes is that of which the Psalmist says, " Thou, Jehovah, hast made me glad through Thy luork." As the original Sabbath marked His resting from His crea- tion work, so the eternal Sabbath shall crown the consumma- tion of His redemption work. The Jew Yarchi explains the title, " A Psalm-song for the future age (the age of Messiah) which will be all Sabbath," answering to Hebrews iv. 9, STUDIES IN THE CI. PSAIMS. 253 " There remaineth a keeping of Sabbath {cra^^aTi(Tfi6 23). Its use indicates the suppliant's intense earnestness. In it, as in the rest of the series, the Church arms herself against the foe that threatened Israel's destruction, by anti- cipating Jehovah's coming to deliver His people, and cut off the wicked oppressors " in their own wickedness " and to "reign" (ver 6, 14, 17, 23). The first verse translate, "O Jehovah, God of revenges (from Deut. xxxii. 35), shine forth," make Thine epiphany (so Ps. 1. 2, Ixxx. i). The cry, "How long shall the wicked triumph," anticipates Habakkuk's complaint (i, 2), " How long shall I cry unto Thee of violence (that of the Jews, bringing on the violence of the Chaldees in Jehoia- kim's reign, sent by God to punish them), and Thou wilt not save ? " The independent history (2 Chron. xxxii. 17; 2 Kings xix. 10) states, " Sennacherib wrote letters to rail on Jehovah, God STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 255 of Israel, As the gods of the nations — have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver His people out of mine hand. Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee." In unstudied harmony with this, our Psalmist (ver. 8 — 11) says, "Under- stand, ye brutish (comp. xlix. 12 — 14, Ixxiii. 22) among the people. He that planted the ear (see Prov. xx. 12), shall He not hear (both the heathen infidel's scoff and His people's sighs).? He that admonishes ("1p''rt, Jiayoscer) the heathen shall not lie punish?" {r^'^y\\}'okiac/i.) As Hq adjiionishcs t/ie heathen by the voice of conscience (Rom. i, 20, ii. 14, 15), and as He sees their oppression of His people, it follows He must punish them. "Jehovah knoweth their devices " against His people, that they and their devices will prove " vanity." This eternal principle of God's government will especially appear in the last days, when Antichristian unbelievers shall " utter hard things " against the God of providence and of revelation, "boasting themselves" with "great swelling words" (Jude 16; Dan. vii. 8 — 27, viii. 9 — 25); and whilst they "afflict" the widowed and orphaned church (ver 6, Luke xviii. 3 — 8), they shall say, "Jehovah shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it." This is what the Psalmist designates as " brutisJi folly" (ver 8), and which leads Daniel to represent the godless world power as "the beast" (vii. 4 — 1 1). These words and deeds of Antichrist and his confederates on the one hand, and the cry of the saints, " How long } " on the other, shall eventuate in the manifestation of Him who Cometh " to execute judgment on all, and to convince all that are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him * (Jude 15). The NINETY-FIFTH Psalm forms a pair with the ninety- sixth ; and, as the rest of the series (xcii. — c), anticipates Jehovah's coming reign, arid the rest then awaiting His people, as the ground of assurance in the face of the threatening world power. The epistle to the Hebrews (iii. and iv.) stamps with inspired authority the Isles^sianic interpretation. The ex- 256 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. pression, " saying in David,'' does not prove that David com- posed Psalm xcv., but that his name is the general designation of the book of which he wrote the greater part. The Psalmist anticipates " rest " through Jehovah's interposition against Assyria and Babylon, just as the same Jehovah by Joshua gave rest from all the surrounding heathen to His people. But as then many had failed to obtain the rest in Canaan through unbelief, so, by an undesigned coincidence with our Psalm, the prophetical history (Isa. xxxiii. 14, 20, 21, 24) declares that judgments from Jehovah consumed the "sinners in Zion " and the' hypocrites (such as Shebna and the un- believers who were for submitting to Sennacherib) ; so that their eyes did not " see Jerusalem a qniet habitation, a taber- nacle not taken down," the "rest" secured by the "glorious Lord our King" to His people after His destruction of Sen- nacherib's host; "the land very far off" (or rather "the land in its remotest extent," no longer pent up, as Hezekiah Avas by the siege). So our Psalm (ver. 1 1), " Unto whom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest." The ulterior "rest" meant is that "which remaineth for the people of God," "where the wicked (such as the Assyrian world power) cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest." As the ninety-second Psalm was a " Song for the Sabbath day," so this ninety-fifth Psalm points Israel on to the eternal sabbath rest, from which unbelief alone could exclude any of her people. The contemporary Isaiah expresses God's willingness to have given rest from all her foes, past and to come, if she had believed : " O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had \hY peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea " (xlviii. 18). The same prophet anticipates by the Holy Ghost the coming rest which awaits Israel and the world : " There shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people : and His REST shall be glorious " (xi. 10). The NINETY-SIXTH PSALM is a later expansion of the latter part of David's Psalm delivered to Asaph, to thank the Lord on the king's setting up of the ark in the tabernacle on Zion, STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 257 the pledge of Jehovah's reigning among His people (i Chron. xvi, 7, 23 — 33). That the form in i Chronicles is the original, appears from its greater terseness and brevity. The contem- porary Isaiah, with the undesigned coincidence of truth, ap- propriates and expands the same Psalm. Thus the call in Isa. xlii. 10, " Sing unto Jehovah a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth," corresponds to i Chron. xvi. 23, " Sing unto Jehovah, all the earth ; " but still more closely to our Psalm (ver. i) ; and Isa. Hi. 7, " How beautiful are the feet of him that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God rcigncth!" answers to i Chron. xvi. 31, "Let men say among the nations, JchovaJi rcigncth',' and to ver. 10 of our Psalm, " Say anio)ig the heathen, Jehovah rcigncth;" and ver. 2, "Show forth {basrn, "publish the good tidings of") His salvation from day to day;" and ver. 3, "Declare His glory among the hcathe?i," answer to Isa. Ix. 6, Ixvi. 18, 19, "Declare my glory among the Gefitiles." Yarchi observes that wherever a "new song" is mentioned, it refers to Messianic times: so ver. 13 gives the reason for the new song, " For He cometh — to judge the earth — with righteousness, and with His truth." Psalms xcvi. and xcviii. begin alike, " O sing unto Jehovah a new song." Isaiah, the contemporary prophet, with happy coincidence, sings the same new song concerning Messiah's glorious kingdom, from ch. xl. forward, " Comfort ye, comfort ye my people " (the same repetitional phraseology as in ver. 13 of our Psalm), after Israel's sad depression detailed in the former part. The thrice- repeated "sing" answers to the thrice-repeated "give," namely, "glory to Jehovah, O ye kindreds of the people" (ver. 7). The final and fullest development appears in Rev. v. 9, 10, "They sung a new song — Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred — tongue — l>eoplc — nation." Again Isaiah coincides with our Psalmist in regarding and calling the heathen gods " things of nought " : (xli. 24,) "Behold, ye are of nothing;" answering to ver. 5 of our Psalm, "All the gods of the nations are nullities (D7 ;X. 17 258 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. elilirn). But, in Isaiah's inspired anticipation (ii. 2 — 4, 18 — 21), all people will " cast their idols to the moles and bats " at Jehovah's coming to "abolish the idols utterly," "to shake terribly the earth," and then to "judge," z>., r^z^/^ in peace and " righteousness" (xi.). Isaiah (ii. 2, 3) declares that " the mountain (spiritual elevation) of Jehovah's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flozv unto it'' and calls it "our holy and our beautiful house" (Ixiv. 11), just as the Psalmist sings, "O worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness (or in the glorious sanctuary, Ps. xxix. 2) ; fear before Him, all the earth!' Again, " Say among the heathen, Jehovah reigneth." " The world also (disordered by sin) shall be established, that it shall not be moved ; " and this because " He shall judge the people righteously;" or, as in Ps. xciii. i, because "Jehovah is clothed with strength" therefore "the world is established, that it cannot be moved!' So, in striking coincidence, Isaiah (xxiv. 5, 19, 20, 23) writes, " The earth is moved exceedingly ; Jehovah of hosts shall reigji in Mount Zion." " Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, to establish it with justice from henceforth even for ever " (ix. 7) ; and " I will give Thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth!' Right- eousness shall be the immoveable basis of His reign.' The closing verses (11, 12) anticipate that the material world shall express unconsciously its joyous sympathy with the moral world, both alike being " delivered from the bondage of corruption" (Rom. viii. 21, 23). " Let the heavens rejoice, let the eaj'th be glad, let the field be joyful : then shall all the i7'ees of the wood rejoice before Jehovah ; for He cometh to judge the earth with righteousness." The coincidence of Isaiah (xliv. 23) is such as to imply close mutual connection : " Sing, O ye heavens ; shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, every tree:" (Iv. 12,) "all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." At His coming the call shall go forth,— " His praise, ye winds that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines. With every plant, in sign of worship wave." — Milton. STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 259 Psalm XCVIT., like the rest of the series, refers to Jehovah's second coming to reign visibly in person. His accession to the earth-throne ("Jehovah reigneth ") is presented before us in the aspect of consuming judgments on the idolatrous and God-opposed world powers. Howcomforting this thought was to the believing remnant, at the time when the heathen empires, Assyria and Babylon, were threatening to overwhelm the people of Jehovah ! How incidentally, and at the same time exactly, the contemporary Isaiah (xlv. 16, 17) accords with our Psalmist, " They shall be ashamed and confomidcd, all of them ; they shall ^^ to confusion together that are makers of idols : but Israel shall be saved in Jehovah with an everlasting salvation ; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end;" and again (xlii. 17), "They shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods;" and the gods of Babylon he parti- cularly specifies (xlvi. i), " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth;" with which compare ver. 7 of our Psalm, " Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast tJicmselvcs of idols!' " Worship Him, all ye gods " {clohim, angels, here, as judges in Ixxxii. i, 6); i.e., since rm/ principalities such as angels are required by God to worship Messiah at His advent, much more false gods must fall before Him. (Compare i Tim. iii. 16, "Seen of angels;" 2 Thess. i. 9, 10; i Pet. iii. 22.) This shall be so especially when Messiah shall come again to take the kingdom ; as the Apostle (Heb. i. 6) quotes our Psalm, " When He hringcth again (orai/ iroKiv iia-a^aryr) : so trans- late it) the First-Begotten into the world (at His second advent). He saith, Let all the angels of God worship Him." (Compare i Cor. xv. 24, 25 ; Phil. ii. 9.) In grand contrast to the elilim, " idols," (literally, things of nought) stand the similarly sounding elohim, "angelic powers." Whilst the idolaters are " confounded," " Zion is glad," and "the daughters of Judah (the other cities besides Zion the capital) rejoice because of Jehovah's judgments" (ver. 8). This verse rests upon Ps. xlviii. 11," Let Mount Zion rejoice let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of Thy judg- 26o STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. ments." So ver. 9, " For Thou, Jehovah, art high above all the earth," is drawn from Ps. Ixxxiii. 18, " Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High over all the earth." Lastly, " Thou art exalted far above all gods " answers to xlvii. 9, " He is greatly exalted." The deliverance from the confederated foes, vouchsafed under JeJwshaphat (whose name expresses "Jehovah's y;/<^w^;^/i""), is made by our Psalmist the pledge that Jehovah again will give Zion and Judah's cities occasion to be glad and rejoice because of His judg- ments on their heathen foes. Finally, that this Psalm was not composed after the cap- tivity appears from its quotations of Holy Scripture long pre- ceding that date. By its harmonious combination of passages from the earlier sacred books (comp. Psalms of David xviii., XXX., xxxiii., xxxiv., xxxvii.), it indicates that in the con- summation to come, at Messiah's second appearing to reign, all the scattered rays of inspired prophecy, psalmody, and history shall be brought into one focus in the person of the coming King of righteousness. Then indeed shall " light be sown (scattered in rich profusion, 57*)T, zarci , as the sun sows abroad his beams) for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart" (ver. ii). The NINETY-EIGHTH PSALM is the only one which has for its title "Mismor" or " Psalm," without any accompanying word. As the term " Psalm" applies to all in the Psalter, it must be here used in a special sense. This ninety-eighth Psalm is the lyrical accompaniment of Psalm xcvii., which is the more decidedly prophetical of the two, and which forms with it one pair. The kindred forms, Lamru-zimrah, " Sing a psalm " (ver. 5), confirm this sense of " psalm," mizmor, in the title. So Hab. iii. is the lyrical accompaniment of i. and ii.; and Isa. xlii. 10 — 12, " Sing unto Jehovah a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth," etc., stands in the same relation to 13 — 17, "They shall be greatly ashamed that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods!' (Compare Ps. xcvii. 7 and xcviii. i with this.) The coincidence in this case between the Psalmist and the pro- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 261 bably contemporary prophet extends to the sentiment and language, as well as to the form. So also Psalm c. is the lyrical accompaniment of xcix. The "new song" in Psalm xcviii. i answers to that in xcvi. i, about to be sung when Jehovah- Messiah shall take His great power, and reign victorious over His and His people's foes. The thought and language (vcr. I — 3), " His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory, Jehovah hath made kjiown His salvation. His righteousness hath He openly shozved in the sight of the heathen — all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God" exactly correspond to the contemporary Isaiah (lix. 16), "His arm brought salva- tion unto Him, and His righteousness, it sustained Him ; " and Hi. lo, " Jehovah hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all tJie ends of the earth shall see the salva- tion of our Gody " His mercy and His truth toioard the house of Israel" corresponds to "the great goodness toward the house of Israel, according to His mercies^ in Isa. Ixiii. 7. The salvation of our God is first to be manifested to " Israel," and through them " unto all the ends of the earth " (ver 3 ; Luke xxiv. 47 ; Isa. ii. 2, 3). The fourth verse, " Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah, all the earth," corresponds exactly (except that Jehovah, the God in covenant with His people, is substituted for Elohivi) to Psalm Ixvi, i, which was written under Hezekiah to com- memorate the deliverance from Sennacherib. " Make a loud noise and rejoice " is literally " Break forth and be jubilant " Cl33'nl ^nV5, pitzchu verannu), and is a favourite phrase in Isaiah (comp. xiv. 7, xliv. 23, xlix. 13, liv, i), " Break forth into singing " {pitzchi rinnali). So again ver. 5, " Psalm — sing — with the voice of a psalm " (JTI^T ^"nST, zamru zimrah), answers to Isaiah (li. 3), " the voice of melody " {zimrah, " a psalm "). Clapping of hands was the customary mode of expressing joy at the accession of a king, as at Joash's acces- sion (2 Kings xi. 12). So our Psalmist sings (ver. 6, 8), " Make a joyful noise before Jehovah the King — let the floods clap tluir hands — for He cometh to judge the earth ; " with which compare the contemporary Isaiah (Iv. 12), "All the 262 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. trees of the field shall clap their hands ; " " With righteousness shall He judge — the earth " (xi. 4). Jehovah, as in Gideon's case, waits to interpose for His Church until man's powers are so small that none can say, " Mine own hand hath saved me " (Judges vii. 2). Then will " His right hand and His holy arm get Him the victory" over the Antichristian enemy at His second coming. First, He will save Israel according to His covenant (Rom. xi. 26 — 33). Next, the consequence of Israel's f estoration, by Jehovah's marvellous interposition, will be, that "all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God'' (ver. 3 ; Rom. xi. 15, etc.). Lastly, all nature shall rejoice in the reign of Him who shall deliver it from the bondage of corruption : " the hills shall be joyful together," and " the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose " (ver. 8 ; Isa. XXXV. I, 2). The NINETY-NINTH and hundredth Psalms form one pair, of which PsALM XCIX. is the prophetical, PSALM C. the lyrical portion. The prophecy, " Let all the peoples praise Thy great and terrible name " (ver. 3), effects, by the inherent power of the Word, what it foretells. Jehovah's manifestation of Himself in great and terrible deeds (Deut. x. 17, xxviii. 58)» wrought for Israel against the Church's foes, will be, at His second coming, the theme of praise to all nations ; for they shall enjoy the blessedness resulting to them from the restora- tion of God's favour to His ancient people (Rom. xi. 12, 15). The hundredth Psalm, as its title implies ("a Psalm of thanks- giving," le-thodah, so ver. 4), sings these praises : " Make a joyful noise (namely, the shout of acclamation greeting the King at His accession, i Kings i. 39, 40; Ps. ii. 6, 8, 11, 12 ; Rev. xi. 15,17) unto Jehovah, all the earth." The Hebrew for " thanks- giving" and "be thankful" (ver. 4 of Ps. c.) means literally confession ; for, in the case of God, thanksgiving is simply confessing what God is, and how worthy of all praise are His excellencies. Israel, in the ninety-ninth Psalm, is exhorted to appreciate her high privilege of nearness to God, and to avoid the sins and consequent punishments of the former genera- tion, calling upon God sincerely, as Moses, Aaron, and Samuel STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 263 did, and were therefore answered ; so will she be ready for the coming kingdom of the holy Jehovah. The threefold " holy," predicated of Jehovah, answers to the threefold "holy" of the contemporary prophet Isaiah (vi. 3)- The same thought appears in Isaiah xl. 3 — 5 : The glorious kingdom of Jehovah is coming; "prepare" ye for it. The mention of the ark and the cherubim (ver. i, 5) implies that the temple was still standing ; and the Psalm could only be sung in the liturgy in the reign of a godly king, as Hezekiah. The coincidence with 2 Kings xix. 15 is natural, if, as has been shown likely, this series of Psalms belongs to Hezekiah's times ; for Hezekiah, in his prayer against Sennacherib, applies the same designation to Jehovah as our Psalmist does: "O Jehovah, God of Israel, who dwellest between the chertibivi " (2 Kings xix. 15). His sitting there implied His special presence in Israel and the Church, — a pledge that Israel's proud foes can- not prevail. His beginning to " reign " causes " the peoples to tremble " (ver. i). Israel now trembles before the foe : Jehovah's coming will make the foe " tremble " before her. The Hebrew for " tremble " (^T5■l^ yirgezii) means also " to be angry." So the consequence of the Lord's "taking His great power and reigning" is represented in Rev. xi. 17, 18, " The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come." How puny man's " anger " appears by the side of the " wrath " of the Almighty ! The Psalmist admonishes Israel (ver. 6 — 8) that the pre- paration needed for Jehovah's coming kingdom is that she should keep His testimonies and call upon Him, as did Moses, Aaron, and Samuel ; so shall her people, like them, be " the priests of Jehovah, the ministers of our God," as the contemporary Isaiah (Ixi. 6) foretells. Jehovah " answered" the intercessions for Israel of those faithful ministers of God of old, even as now He has heard Isaiah's interces- sion against Sennacherib (2 Kings xix. 7). But now, as then, God, whilst " forgiving " the people at their intercessor's entreaty, yet took vengeance of the people's " inventions " (Dni7*7y, 'alilotham, abominable works, Ps. xiii. i). God 264 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALM^. forgave the elect nation, but punished the guilty (Num. xiv. 20 — 23; Exod. xxxii. 13, 14, 31, 33; so Isa. vi. 11 — 13, xi. II, 16). As Samuel led Israel back to the law, previous to the setting up of the kingdom, so there shall be heard a voice preparing Israel for Jehovah's reign : " Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments " (Mai. iv. 4 ; comp. Rev. xi. 3 — 12, 15). What will make His reign a blessing to Zion and the world is, it shall be a reign, not only of might, but also of " righteousness." Therefore righteous- ness on man's part is the needed qualification for access to Him. (Compare Ps. xcvii. 10.) The Messianic character of Psalm c. is marked by its being addressed to the heathen, whom it exhorts to shout for joy, and submit themselves to Jehovah, as their God, Maker, and redeeming Shepherd (compare Isa. xl. 11, xlix. 9, 10). It closes the series of Psalms xciii. — c, all of which anticipate Jehovah's advent to save His people from the might of the hostile world. The second part of Isaiah (xl. — Ixvi.) is close akin in thought. The undesigned harmony establishes the connection between the prophet and the Psalmist. The watchword at the opening of Psalm xciii. gives the keynote of joy which prevades the whole series : "Jehovah reigneth," or "assumes the throne." No longer is His kingdom of provi- dence and grace one coming " without observation " (Luke xvii. 20). The full-toned chorus of " all lands " shall " enter into Jehovah's gates with thanksgiving, and bless His name " (ver. 4; compare Isa. ii. 2 — 4; Ivi. 5 — 7; Ix. 10, 11 ; Ixvi. 18,23; xxvi. 2, " Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation may enter in." Israel, elected in order to be the centre of blessing to the world, shall give the invitation to all peoples, " Serve Jehovah with gladness, know ye that Jehovah is God." And the theme of their joint praises shall be, "Jehovah is good. His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endureth to all generations " (ver. 5 ; compare Isa. liv. 8 — 10). STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXX. PSALMS CIV., CV., CVI., CVII., CXI., CXII., CXIII., CXIV., CXV., CXVI., CXVII., CXVIII. THE trilogy, civ., cv., cvi., closes the fourth book of the Psalter, as the doxology, with its hallelujah, at its close proves. This book begins with the times of Moses (Ps. xc), Israel's leader toward Canaan, and ends with the times to- wards the close of the captivity, when Judah was about to be restored to her land. The hallelujah, "Praise ye Jehovah!" here first is found (civ. 35), and is never found in David's Psalms. The time answers to that of Daniel's prayer at the beginning of the Medo-Persian dynasty. In order to assure the Church in her trouble from the heathen world-power, the Psalmist in Psalm civ. consoles Israel by God's manifestation of power and love in the six days' creation in nature (the fir^t and second days' work, ver. 2— 5 ; the third day's work, ver. 6 — 18; the fourth, ver. 19 — 23; the fifth, ver. 24 — 26; the sixth, and beginning of the seventh, ver. 31). Jehovah, who cares for His humblest creatures, will surely care for His endangered Church (compare Matt. vi. 25 — ^i). The Psalmist in Psalm cv. consoles Israel in affliction by God's manifestation of His love in history. His assurance to Israel of possessing Canaan, when the people were few and strangers in it, gives sure hope of His restoring to them their cove- nanted possession. As Israel was delivered from " the land of Ham " (cv. 23, cvi. 22) of old, so now shall she be delivered from the Hatnitic {Gqu. x. 6 — 10) Babylon. The condition and 266 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. end of God's covenant with Israel was "that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws" (cv. 45). The 106TH Psalm meets the difficulty which Israel's failure in keeping God's laws threw in the way of Israel's restora- tion. This Psalm is the lyrical echo of Daniel's prayer (ix. 5, etc.). The confession in Psalm cvi. 6, " We have sinned {shatd) with our fathers, we have committed iniquity {aveii), we have done wickedly" {j'eshci , a climax of guilt), answers word for word to the contemporaneous confession of Daniel. Both are drawn from Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple (i Kings viii. 47). God's grace, pledged in His covenant of old, is shown in this Psalm to outweigh their sins, which heretofore have excluded them from the Divine help which nature (Ps. civ.) and history (cv.) assured them of, especially now when they are repenting of their sins. The prayer, " Save us, O Jehovah our God, and gather us from among the heathen " (ver. 47), was answered in the return of the great body of the people in the first year of Cyrus — an event which evidently had not yet taken place ; for no reference occurs in the Psalm to a return, as there does in Psalm cvii. 3. That Psalm gives thanks for it, as the 1 06th YsdXm promised (jo6i thanks in the event of the prayer being heard. Already He had begun to show mercy to the Jewish captives in Babylon, as ver. 44 implies, " Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, when He heard their cry, and remembered for them His covenant, and repented according to the multitude of His mercies ; He made them also to be pitied of all those tJiat carried them captive " (which last words establish that the reference is to the Babylonian captivity, Ps. cxxxvii. 3) : for instance, Nebuchadnezzar's favour to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach,and Abednego. So Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, treated kindly Jehoiachin, king of Judah (2 Kings XXV. 27; compare Lev. xxvi. 32 — 39, 42, 44, 45; I Kings viii. 46). The occasion of PSALM CVII. was a " congregation of the people and an assembly of the elders" (ver. 32) — a national feast, at which " sacrifices of thanksgiving " (ver. 22) were STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 267 offered. In undesigned and natural coincidence with this, the independent historj' (Ezra iii. i — 6) states that "when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in tJie cities" (answering to ver. i^, Ps. cvii., "There He mak-eth the hungry to dwell, that they may prepare a city for habitation,") "Jeshua and Zerubbabel builded the altar, and they offered burnt offerings to Jehovah. They kept also the feast of tabernacles, and willingly offered a free-will offering (536 B.C.). But the foundation of the temple of Jehovah was not yet laid." Not till the second year (536 B.C.) did Zerubbabel and Jeshua set forward the building of the house of Jehovah (ver. 8). In agreement with this, no mention of the temple occurs in the 107th Psalm. Long subsequently Ezra (viii. 21, "I proclaimed a fast at the river Ahava, to seek of God a rigJit way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance ") remembered ver. 7, " He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habita- tion " — Jerusalem, in contrast to Babylonia, wherein (ver. 4) " they found no city (of their own) to dwell in." Again (ver. 16), ' He hath broken the gates of brass, aiid cut the bars of iron in sjindery The very language which Isaiah (xlv. 2) under the Spirit represents Jehovah using concerning Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, and the deliverer of the Jews : " I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron" before Cyrus. The Psalmist (ver. t,i) foretells God's " turning rivers into a wilderness," i.e., the once fruitful Babylon into "the desert of the sea" (Isa. xxi. i; compare Jer. I. 38, li. 36) ; but, in beautiful contrast, he foretells, " He turneth the wilderness into a standing water " (ver. 35), i.e., Israel heretofore depressed in Babylon, and her land desolate, into a prosperous nation settled again in their own land, which shall regain its fertility. The state of the Church, and that of the world, shall ere long be reversed. " The righteous shall see it, and rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth" (ver. 42). "Wickedness" shall be removed from the Holy Land, to mingle with its kindred elements in Babylon, as the contemporary prophet Zechariah (v. 5, etc.) 268 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. foretells ; and again (iii. 9), " I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day." Ever since the Babylonian exile the Jews as a nation have been free from idolatry. But the full accomplishment is yet future, when the Redeemer shall turn away all ungodliness from Jacob (Rom. xi. 26 ; Isa. lix. 20). Lord, hasten the time of blessing to Israel and the whole world. The hallelujah at the beginning and end of PsALM CXIII. marks it the third oi the trilogy; CXI. and CXII. have it only at the beginning. To the joy at the Jews' restoration from Babylon, which Psalm cvii. celebrates, succeeded dejection at their low estate, compared with their prosperity before the captivity (Ezra iii. 12, ix. 8, x. 9, 13; Hag. ii. 3, 16, 17). Psalm cxi. calls Israel to praise God for His redeeming love, as the remedy against despondency. His supplying meat in the wilderness formerly (ver. 5) assures the returned exiles He will supply their needs now. He will yet give them "the heritage of the heathen," notwithstanding their present subjection to the dominant world power, and will make good the "truth" of His promise (ver. 6 — 8). As He "sent redemption " out of Egypt, and lately out of Babylon, so He "commands His covenant for ever;" so that our "wisdom" is to "fear, obey, and praise Him." PsALM CXII. is an inspired commentary on this last truth. PsALM CXIII. praises Jehovah as the Raiser of the poor out of the dust ; namely, Israel in her depression after the return from Babylon^ and ultimately after her present long dispersion. The 1 1 3TH Psalm, with the five following (Psalm cxiv.— CXVIIL), forms the greater Hallel, or grand hymn of praise, especially sung at the passover feast. The Jews usually recite cxiii. and cxiv. at the passover, before they sit at table and take food ; or as Lightfoot ("Temple Service," § 13) thinks, after the second of the four cups drunk at the feast. Psalms cxv. — cxviii. they sing after having taken food, and drunk the fourth and last cup, adding what they call the " blessing of the song " and the solemn formula, " Blessed be He who createth the fruit of the vine." The "hymn " sung by our Lord and His STUDIES nV THE CL. PSALMS. 269 disciples at the last passover (Matt. xxvi. 30) was probably the latter part of the Hallcl (cxv. — cxviii.). Psalm cxiv, teaches that God's past mighty deeds for Israel at the Red Sea and Jordan rebuke her unbelieving fears, when the world powers as a sea threaten to swallow her up. Psalm cxv. attributes all the glory of the Jews' deliver- ance from Babylon, not unto themselves, but unto Jehovali, who "had been mindful" of them "for His truth's sake" (ver. I, 12). Therefore "Israel" in general, the "house of Aaron " (the priests of the house of Jeshua the high priest, who took a leading part in the restoration ; so again under Ezra, viii. 15, 29, 30), and the laity, "fearing Jehovah," led by the Levites, are exhorted to "trust in Jehovah" (ver. 9 — 11). The 116TH Psalm was sung after public worship had been set up, a little later than Psalm cvii. Sec cxvi. 13, 14, 17 — 19, " I will pay my vows unto Jehovah now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord's house ;" for (ver. 16) " Thou hast loosed my bonds," i.e.. Thou hast delivered me from Babylon. "Thou hast delivered mine eyes from tears" (ver. 8) was in part fulfilled in the joy at the founding of the temple; but the "tears" also then shed show that the final and exhaustive fulfilment is yet to come (Isa. xxx. 19; Jer. xxxi. 16; Rev. xx. 6, xxi. 4). PSALM CXVn. is the con- clusion of Psalm cxvl In Psalm CXVIIL the Psalmist speaks as representative of the people delivered from Babylon : " I called upon the Lord in distress ; the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place," etc. The formula used at the laying of the foundation of the second temple is the same as the opening of this Psalm : " O give thanks unto Jehovah; for He is good : because His mercy endureth for ever" (Ezra iii. 10, 11). Moreover, the three classes specified are the same in both: the priests ("the house of Aaron" in our Psalm); the Levites ("they that fear the Lord "), and the people (Israel). The twenty- fourth verse of Psalm cxviii., " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it," points to a great festal day. The fifteenth verse hints at the feast of 270 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. tabernacles : " The voice of rejoici?ig and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous." Joy was the distinguishing characteristic of that feast. In undesigned coincidence with this, Nehemiah (viii. 17) writes, "There was very great glad- ness." The booths and lulabs had a gay effect by day ; the flambeaux, music, and joyous gatherings in the temple, had a still more joyous effect by night. The proverb in Succah (v. i) is, " He who has never seen the rejoicing at the pouring out of the water of Siloam has never seen rejoicing in his life." It was a thanksgiving for the " rest " (Ps. cxvi. 7) given Israel in Canaan, after the wilderness wanderings ; and so now, after the Babylonian captivity. It was kept at the erection of the altar of the second temple, the pledge of the nation's rest in their own land (Ezra iii. 2 — 4) ; and finally at the completion of the city wall, and the setting up of the gates or doors (Neh. vi. i, vii. i, viii. 14 — 18). This last crowning point of the civil and religious polity of the nation is evidently the occasion of Psalm cxviii. (445 B.C.). The earlier feast of tabernacles (536 B.C.) cannot be the occasion ; for the temple was then not yet built (Ezra iii. 2 — 4). But " the house of Jehovah" was completed before this Psalm was composed; for in verse 26 the Psalmist says, " We have blessed you out of the house of jfehovah." In the nineteenth verse there is a reference to the gates of the temple primarily, and secondarily to the city gates. It is a quotation from Isaiah xxvi. 2, " Open ye the gates (of Jerusalem), that the righteous nation (the godly remnant which had not apostatized in Babylon), which keepeth the truth, may enter in " (Heb. xii, 22 ; Rev. xxi. 10 — 13, 18, 21, 25, 27; xxii. 14). The cry usual at the feast of tabernacles (Buxtorf Lexicon Chald. 992) was that of verse 25, "Save now, I beseech thee, O Jehovah" (^{i H^'^EJ^in, Hosanna). The law was read each day in the street before the water gate (Neh. viii. i). The Psalmist sings (ver. 22), " The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner : " in unde- signed coincidence with which the prophet Zechariah had foretold, (iii. 9,) " Behold the stone that I have laid before STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 27I Joshua ; " (iv. 6, 7, 9,) " Zerubbabel shall bring forth the head- stone with shoutings, Grace, grace unto it. The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house ; his hands shall also finish it." Nehemiah, at the completion of the wall which crowned the whole polity, civil as well as religious, naturally alludes to the former work of the completion of the temple. The stone laid by Zerubbabel kept its place in spite of "mountain"-like adversaries, by the Lord's doing. Similarly Nehemiah, as Israel's representative, was able to say of the adversaries who opposed his building the wall, "All nations compassed me about, but in the name of Jehovah will I destroy them," thrice repeated (ver. 10, 11, 12) ; in con sonance with the history, which mentions the Samaritan. , "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin" in Zerubbabel's and Jeshua's building of the temple (Ezra iv. i — 10); and especially about ninety years later, the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites, led on by Sanballat, Geshem, and Tobiah, who tried to prevent the building of the walls and the setting up of the gates (Neh. iii., iv. i — 8, vi.). Salvation perfected was especially associated with the feast of tabernacles ; so the Psalm in its fourteenth verse represents Israel as singing, " Jehovah is become my salvation." Hosanna was the fre- quent cry (ver. 25). Water was drawn from the pool of Siloam, and poured upon the altar, whilst they recited Isaiah xii. 3, "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Israel (ver. 26) hails the Lord's representative in building the temple, Zerubbabel, and the Lord's representa- tive in building the city wall, Nehemiah : " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah." The shoutings in the pro- phecy (Zech, iv. 7), " Grace, grace unto it," answer to the prayer in the Psalm (ver, 26), " We have blessed you out of the house of Jehovah." The numerous coincidences between this Psalm and the independent sacred books of the same age are strong presumptions for the genuineness and historical reality of both. In the antitypical and prophetical sense, how blessed will be the millennial feast of tabernacles, when the multitude which 272 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. no man can number, clad in spotless white, and with palms, indicative of victory, in their hands, shall sing anew, " Salva- tion unto the Lamb " (Rev. vii. 9, 10). The Lord Jesus, the stone which the builders refused, is become the headstone of the corner (Acts iv. 11, 12), uniting the two main walls, Jews and Gentiles, in one spiritual church. As " the stone cut out of the mountain without hands " (Dan. ii. 45), He will " grind to powder" the Antichristian confederacy (Matt. xxi. 44). Then shall Israel's long-deferred restoration come, as Jesus foretold, quoting the twenty-sixth verse of Psalm cxviii., " Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say. Blessed is He that Cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt, xxiii. 39). The Jews shall welcome Him with this cry and with hosannas (ver. 25) ; of which the cries of the palm-bearing multitude who escorted Jesus into Jerusalem (Matt. xxi. 9) were the earnest. The feast of tabernacles which Israel and all nations (Zech. xiv. 16 — 19) shall then keep, will commemorate the deliverance from past troubles, and the universal rest then first enjoyed. It shall be a period of happy liturgy and " sacrifice " in the house of the Lord " (ver. 26, 27 ; Ezek. xl. — • xlvii.). Each Sabbath is the earnest of that perpetual one, of which it shall truly be said, " This is the day which the Lord hath made : we will rejoice and be glad in it" (ver. 24). Israel shall then sing the great Hallel, and all nations shall join in the chorus, " O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good ; for His mercy endureth for ever " (ver, 29). STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 273 LECTURE XXXI. PSALM CXIX. THE 119TH Psalm is the appropriate sermon, after the Hallel, on the text which is its epitome (Ps. i. i, 2), " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly — but his delight is in the law of the Lord." Except in two verses (122, 132), the law is expressly extolled in every verse. The alphabetical arrangement, with eight verses (each beginning with the same Hebrew letter) assigned to each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, stands instead of a closer connection of the parts. Doubtless Ezra, the restorer of the national polity in its religious aspect, as Nehemiah was in its civil aspect, was author of the present form of this Psalm. Israel is the speaker throughout, and she reminds herself that the word of God is the palladium of her national and individual salvation. The features suit the Jews' position after their return from Babylon. In vcr. 23, 46, 161, Israel avows her high calling to witness for God before the hostile heathen world : " I will speak of Thy testimonies before kings, and will not be ashamed. Princes have persecuted me without a cause : but my heart standcth in awe of Thy word." So in the independent histor}', Daniel and his three companions (Dan. iii. and vi.), Sheshbazzar or Zerubbabcl, and Jeshua, Ezra, and Nehemiah had " not been ashamed" to witness for God before the world-rulers (Kzra i. 3, 5, 8 ; V. II — 17; vi. I — 15; vii. 6 — 28; viii. 22; Neh. ii. 3 — 10, 19, 20; xiii. II). The national calamities which 18 274 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. threatened Israel's extinction by Assyria and Babylon are referred to in ver. 87, " They had almost consumed me upon earth ; but I forsook not Thy precepts." But Israel " remem- bered God's judgments of old, and comforted herself" (ver 52). The many professions of zeal (ver. 139) and love (ver. 97, ,103, etc.) for God's law correspond to the "sure covenant" which Israel's " princes, Levites, and priests " wrote and sealed, " entering into a curse and an oath to zualk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord oicr God, and His judgments and His statutes " (Neh. ix. 38, x. 29). How incidentally, yet how really, does the Psalm (ver. 106) accord with the history, " I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep Thy righteous judgments." "Reproach" and "affliction" from the "proud" are spoken of as still resting in some degree upon God's people ; but a quickening to national life had begun ; so Israel prays to be completely raised from the dust (ver. 17, 25, 26, 32, 39, 40, 50, 51, 65, 87, 93). "Thou hast quickened me." Here again Ezra in the Psalm speaks the same language as Ezra in the independent history (Ezra ix. 8), " Now for a little space grace hath been showed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage." Compare also Ps. cxix. 105, 130, " The entrance of Thy word giveth light;" (18,) " Open mine eyes" etc. The tone, like that of the eight pre- ceding Psalms, is that of tender melancholy relieved by God's consolatory word. The alphabetical arrangement in the 119th Psalm accords with the similar arrangement of cxi., cxii., at the opening of the series, cxi. — cxviii., to which cxix. is close akin in thought and expression. Ezra's characteristic distinction as " a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Jehovah the God of Israel had given " (Ezra viii. 6, 10, 11), " even a scribe of the zvords of the com- manduicnts of the Lord, and of His statutes to Israel," was just what we should expect in the author of the 119th Psalm. He " had prepared his heart to seek the lazv of the Lord, and STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 275 to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and Judgments" the very theme, in every variety of expression, of this Psalm. He has been well called "the second Moses," and the 119th Psalm is Moses' law in epitome and spiritual essence. There is in the history a similar variety of expression for "the law," as in the Psalm, "statutes," and "judgments." The Psalm' seems to be the embodiment of the solemn covenant in song, inscribing it on the nation's memory; as among the early Greek Locrians, the laws were in verse, and the lawgiver, Zaleucus was called " law-singer" (i^o/iwSo?). The covenant and Psalm naturally followed the reading of the book of the law by Ezra the priest before the congregation of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month, from morning till midday, and again on each of the seven days of the feast of taber- nacles, which began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and with which we saw the preceding Psalm (cxviii.) was connected (Neh. viii. i — 8, 18). The coincidences between the Psalm and history are just of the kind which stamp genuineness on both. The past judgments of God on the enemies of His Church assure Israel and the Church in her afflictions, that He will vindicate His people again from their oppressors. God's promises ensure the hope of final "salva- tion " (ver. 81, 123, 174). Be this our hope! And mean- while, until hope be changed into fruition, let "the statutes of God be our songs in the house of our pilgrimage" (ver. 54). 276 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXXII. PSALMS CXX., CXXI., CXXIII., CXXV., CXXVL, CXXVIII., CXXIX., CXXX., CXXXIL, CXXXIV. THE fifteen "Songs of degrees," or "goings up" (HlS^^ri), were designed as pilgrim songs for the people going tip to keep the three great feasts at Jerusalem, that city being regarded as on a spiritual elevation above other places (Exod. xxxiv, 24 ; I Kings xii. 27, 28). The simple style, the brevity, and the transitions formed by retaining a word from the previous verse, are appropriate to pilgrim songs. The four of David, and the one of Solomon, have been already discussed (Lect. xix.). The restorers of the religious polity of Israel, after the captivity in Babylon, Ezra and Nehemiah, next after having taught love for the law, as they are recorded to have done (Neh. viii., Ps. cxix.), desired to encourage regularity in attendance at the national holy feasts. A nation's songs go further towards moulding its character, and make a deeper impression, than its laws ; so these pilgrim songs must have powerfully acted on the heart of the Jewish people, especially as the ten new songs were grouped round four of David and one of Solomon, the two kings in whom the nation most gloried. In Psalm cxx., Jehovah's deliverance of Israel from Babylon, already accomplished, in answer to prayer (ver. i and Dan. ix.), is made the ground for praying for deliver- ance from the Samaritans, who by slanders interrupted the rebuilding of the temple until the reign of Darius, when STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 277 their "false" charges of treason were foiled, and tlic temple rebuilt (Ezra iv., v., vi.). So also " when Sanballat heard that Nehemiah (iv. 2, 7, 8) builded the wall, he was wroth, and mocked the Jews before the army of Samaria." " And Tobiah, and the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodjtes conspired to fight against Jerusalem : nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, because of them." The Psalmist's allusion to the Arabians in figurative language is a real, yet evidently undesigned, coincidence : " Deliver my soul from lying lips. What shall be done unto thee, \.\\on false tongue .-' Coals of juniper (rather broom, " rcUm," which the Arabs use as wood fuel. As their slanders burned like red-hot coal, so God will give them, by retribution in kind, hot coals). Woe is me ! I dwell in the tents of Kedar," i.e., Arabia, of whose first father, Ishmael, God foretold, " His hand will be against every man," etc. (Gen. xvi. 12). Hence the Psalmist adds, " My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace." Psalm cxxi. is the pilgrims' even-song, as they caught the first sight of the hills round Jerusalem, and sang, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills," not that these can help (Jer. iii. 23), but Jehovah can, whose earthly seat Zion's hill is. It is full of meaning that Jehovah is so often (six times) described as " keeping " (s/iamar) or " preserving " His people. The name SJiauiar, or Samaria, was just that one of all which caused most alarm to the Jews in their work. The Psalmist makes it the very name which most suggests confidence. Israel's foes, Samaritans, etc., it is true, do not "slumber" or "sleep," even at night (Isa. v. 27) ; but Israel's " Keeper " ("lOD* Shomcer) also, in a much truer sense, does not even "slumber,'* much less "sleep." The independent history (Neh. iv. 9, ii, 14, 22) strikingly, and evidently undesignedly, coincides with, and so confirms, and is in turn confirmed by, the Psalm : " Our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease. Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God (of which this Psalm is the lyrical embodiment), and set a watch against them day and nig/it, because of them. 278 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Be not ye afraid : remember Jehovah. Let every one lodge within Jerusalem, that in the night they may be 2. guard {mi- sheniar, the same Hebrew) unto us." The remembrance of all this is evidently before the Psalmist. " The Lord is upon thy right hand " (ver. 5) — the best position for defending another — is the same image as in Zech. iii. i, in the same age. Jehovah's " preserving " Israel's " going out and coming in " (ver. 3) assures her that, from the beginning to the completion, He will prosper her undertaking — the rebuilding of His temple and the completion of the city wall. So if we by faith have the Lord on our right hand now, He will set us on His right hand hereafter. Compare Matt. xxv. 33 and Ps. xvi. 11 with xvi. 8, " Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved — At Thy right hand there are pleasures for ever- more." Psalm CXXIII. presents before us Israel with eyes con- tinually uplifted to the correcting hand of her Master, Jehovah, until He have mercy on her. Moab, Ammon, Arabia, and Samaria are the foes meant, by whom Jehovah suffered her to be afflicted (Neh. ii. 19). In Neh. iv. 2 — 4, Sanballat said, " What do these feeble Jews } , will they fortify themselves .-* will they make an end in a day .'' will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish.?" Now Tobiah the Ammonite said, " Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall." " Hear, O our God ; for we are despised; and turn their reproacJi upon their own head." We hardly can err in pronouncing the voice in Nehemiah to be the same or akin to that in our Psalm (ver. 3), "Have mercy upon us, for we are exceedi7igly filled with contempt ; our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorn- ing of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud." The emphasis in PSALM cxxv. is not on the firmness of Israel's "trust," but on the object of her trust, Jehovah encom- passing His people, " as the mountains are round about Jerusalem." " For the rod (sceptre) of the wicked (heathen world power) shall not rest (permanently) upon the lot of the STUDIES IX THE CL. PS. i IMS. 279 righteous" (Israel's inheritance, Canaan), lest Israel's faith and patience should fail (Ps. Ixxiii. 13), and she "put forth her hands " to relieve herself by presumptuous and unlawful means (Gen. iii. 22 ; Vs. ii. 9 ; Isa. Ivii. 16). The history informs us of some among the Jews who kept up a treacherous correspondence with the foe outside. Thus Shemaiah proposed to Nehemiah hiding in the temple, which would have been a fleeing from the post of duty; the prophetess Noadiah would have "put him in fear;" and "the nobles of Judah sent many letters toTobiah" (Neh. vi. 10 — 14, 17 — 19), his adversary. The Psalm is in striking coincidence with this, — a coincidence so unstudied as to imply the truth of both : (ver. 5,) " As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity ; but peace shall be upon Israel." Psalm cxxvi. forms a pair with cxxv. Israel sings, "When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion {i.e., reversed her calamity, and restored her prosperity), our mouth was filled with laughter." So the history tells us the Jews joyed, not only at the completion of the temple under Zerubbabel and }eshua (Ezra vi. 16, 22), "Jehovah having made them joyful ;" but also especially at the reading of the law and the feast of tabernacles under Ezra and Nehemiah (viii. 9, 17 ; xii. 42, 43), and the dedication of the walls, " the singers sang aloud ; for God had made them rejoice with great joy, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." Nehemiah expressly states, " that when all our enemies heard of the finishing of the wall, and all the Jicatlien about us saw it, they were much cast down ; for they perceived tliat the work zuas wrougJit of our God!' How exact, and confirmatory of genuineness, is the coincidence with Psalm cxxvi. 2, " Then said they among the heathen, Jehovah hath done great things for theui ; Jehovah hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." " Turn again our captivity — as the streams in the south," as the rain- streams in the Negeb, or dry southern district of Canaan, when they return, gladden the parched soil. The Psalmist's words (ver. 5), "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy," beautifully 28o STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. answer to Nehemiah's (viii. 9, 10) and Ezra's words to the people, "weeping when they heard the words of the law." " Mourn not, nor weep, neither be ye sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." In Psalm cxxviii. .3, the promise to Israel, " Thy children (shall be) like olive plants round about thy table," answers to Zech. viii. 5, " The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing." The old tree sends out young olives, which grow round and shelter the central decaying parent tree from the storms which otherwise would destroy it. Israel, on returning from Babylon, expresses in PSALM CXXIX. her hope of complete re-establishment, grounded on the Lord's " righteousness " (" The Lord is righteous "), as shown in His having " cut asunder the cords of the wicked." (Contrast Psalm ii. 3.) The independent histories represent Ezra (ix, 15), Nehemiah (ix, 33), and Daniel (ix. 7), as all justifying God in His dealings : "O Lord, Thou d.rt righteous " The low state of the Jews after the return from Babylon suggested the cry in PSALM cxxx., " Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee." Compare her cry in Lamentations, written concerning the same captivity (iii. 55), "I called upon Thy name 02it of the lozv dungeon." The plea, " There is for- giveness with Thee," is the same as in Daniel (ix. 9), just before the close of the captivity, " To the Lord our Gotl belong forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him." In Psalm cxxxil Israel encourages herself, after the return, amidst the depression of the throne and the sanctuary, with the thought of Jehovah's unchangeable oath to David, that his seed should "sit upon the throne for evermore" (ver. 12). The unfaithfulness of David's children suspends, but does not abrogate, the covenant. David's and Solomon's prayer (ver. 8) was (2 Chron. vi. 41 ; i Chron. xxviii. 2 ; Ps. Ixviii. i), "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest ; Thou and the ark of Thy strength." Jehovah's answer echoes the prayer (ver. 14), "This is my rest for ever," etc. Israel prayed, " Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let Thy saints shout for joy " (ver. 9) ; Jehovah answers, " I will clothe her priests with salvation.'' STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. Israel prays (ver. lo), " For Thy servant DaviiVs sake, turn not away the face of Thine anointed ^ Jehovah answers (ver 17), "There will I make the horn of David to bud ; I have ordained a lamp (comp. i Kings xi. 36) for mine anointed^ Psalm CXXXIV. is the epilogue of the fifteen pilgrim songs. The pilgrims, arriving in the afternoon, address Jehovah's servants, the priests, at the evening sacrifice, and ask them to bless Him in their own name and that of the people (ver. I, 2) : the priests (ver. 3) in reply bless the pilgrims and the people : " The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion." (" Thee " means Israel.) 282 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. LECTURE XXXIII. PSALMS CXXXV., CXXXVI., CXXXVIL, CXLVI., CXLVII., CXLVIII., CXLIX., CL, PSALMS CXXXV., CXXXVL, ,CXXXVII., all imply that God's people need deliverance from foes, and that their hope in their present depression is grounded on Jehovah's infinite po\ver displayed in nature, and in Israel's past history. In Psalm cxxxv. 4 "Jehovah hath chosen Israel for His peculiar treasure" (H xJlD) the Psalmist uses a phrase drawn from Exod. xix. 5, and found nowhere else in the Psalms ; but it occurs in the prophecies of the contemporary of Ne/iewia/i, Mailachi (iii. 17), "When I make up my jewels," or special treasure. The undesigned coincidence confirms the genuineness of both. Naturally, the Jews in their depression lay hold of the original grand promise in Exod, xix. 5, 6. Psalm CXXXV. is made up of cxv. and cxxxiv. mainly. (Com- pare ver. I with cxxxiv. i, 2 ; ver, 21 with cxxxiv. 3 ; ver. 15 — 18 with cxv. 4 — 8; ver. 19 — 21 with . cxv. 9 — 12.) In cxxxvi. 23, "Who remembered us in our low estate," the Psalmist commemorates God's deliverance of Israel from Babylon (cxv. 12). The third of the trilogy (CXXXVII.) anticipates judgment upon Israel's foes. Babylonia was one net of canal works, and therefore abounded in "willows." The Jews often prayed by the river's side (Acts xvi. 13), for the sake of ablutions. The murmuring of the streams suits the melancholy, and furnishes an image of tears (Lam. ii. 18, iii. 48). Unable to STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 283 use their " harps," which suit joy, as being away from Zion, the centre of sacred joy, they hung them " upon the willows." The propriety of the imagery to the locality accords with truth : " By the rivers of Babylon, there (demonstratively presenting the spot before the mind's eye) we sat down ; yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows." The seventh verse means, " Remember, O Lord, Edom, in the day of Jcmsalcuis-overtJirui^^'' how Edom said, " Lay it bare," etc. Pull it down to the founda- tions : as I " remember " (ver. 6) Jerusalem with love, so do Thou " remember " Edom, her foe, with holy wrath. The Psalmist prays for what God had fore-announced, as grounded on His eternal retributive righteousness (Ezek. xxv. 12, xxxv. 5 ; Jer. xlix. 7 — 22 ; Lam. iv. 21, 22). The ninth verse, based on Isa. xiii. 16, was fulfilled to the letter. The same year, the sixth of Darius Hystaspes, which witnessed the comple- tion of Zion's second temple (Ezra vi. 16), was that in which he laid low its walls, and broke its hundred gates, a blow from which it never recovered. The Babylonians (Prideaux, Connexion iii.), in order to cut off all unnecessary mouths, strangled all the women and children, as ver. 9 foretells, " Happy shall he be that dasheth thy little ones against the stones." The last five Psalms (CXLVI. — CL.) begin and end severally with Hallelujah. The LXX., Vulgate, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic attribute Psalm cxlvi. to Haggai and Zechariah. Verse 3, " Put not your trust in princes — in whom there is no salvation " (Jeshuhah), accords with the fact in the independent history (Ezra iv.), that the Medo-Persian kings, Ahasuerus I. (Cambyses), and Artaxerxes (Pseudo-Smerdis), were quickly turned away from helping Israel, as Cyrus had been, by Sama- ritan slanderers. All the five Psalms arc joyous thanks- givings, without any of the lamentations which appear in the other post-exile Psalms. All refer to a great salvation wrought for Israel. The cycle, doubtless, commemorates the comple- tion of Jerusalem's religious and civil polity by the dedica- tion of the walls under Nehcmiah. In cxlvii. 13, "He hath 284 STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. strengthened the bars of thy gates l^ we have a clear coincidence with the independent history (Neh. iii. and xii. 27 — 43). Whilst Jerusalem lay unprotected, the Psalms of the returned Jews were tinged with sadness ; but now joy predominates, which remarkably and undesignedly accords with the history (Neh. vi. 15, 16, xii. 43), "God had made them rejoice with great joy: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." So Psalm cxlix. 6, " Let the high praises {i.e., praises with voices raised high) of God be in their mouth." Again, the Levite's prayer (Neh. ix. 6) before the sealing of the covenant, " Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, the seas," etc., accords with Psalm cxlvi. 6, " Which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is," and cxlviii. 4. So also Neh. ix. 13, 14, X. 29, "Thou gavest them right judgments, statutes," etc. Compare Ps. cxlix. 19, " He showeth His statutes and His judgments unto Israel." The revelation of God's will to Israel on Sinai was her distinguishing glory (Deut. iv. 32 — 34, xxxiii. 2 — 4 ; Rom. iii. i, 2). " The Lord doth build up Jerusalem, He gathereth to- gether the outcasts of Israel " (Ps. cxlvii. 2), is an exact description of Nehemiah's work under God (Neh. ii. 5, iii., vi., 15). Israel could testify of her past adversity, "Who can stand before His cold.?" (Ps. cxlvii. 16, 17). But as the glaciers before our era, nature's gigantic sculptors, ground and chiselled into smooth outlines the rugged hills uplifted by volcanoes ; and as the moraines, deposited in the valleys by glaciers, prepared a fertile soil ; so the snow and ice of Israel's calamity prepared her for her present blessedness and thangsgivings which close the Psalter. The praises especially look forward to the Lord's coming kingdom (CXLIX. 2), " Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King." The believing prayer (cxlix. 6), " Let a two- edged sword (be) in the saint's hand," is illustrated and suggested by the contemporary history (Neh. iv. 16 — 18): whilst they wrought with one hand in building the wall, " with the other hand they held a weapon ;" and in the pro- STUDIES IN THE CL. PSALMS. 285 cession of dedication, probably, whilst having " the high praises of God in their mouth," they had "a two-edged sword in their hand" (xii. 31). Certainly when the Lord shall come with His saints for judgment on the ungodly, the two-edged sword shall go out of His mouth (Rev. i. 16, xix. 15), and the saints shall share in judging the world {Ps. cxlix. 6 — 9). "This honour have all His saints " (Dan. vii. 22 ; Luke xxii. 29, 30; I Cor. vi. 2 ; Rev. iii. 21, xx. 4). Finally, the musical instruments used in dedicating the city walls (Neh. xii. 27) are the same as in PSALM CL. 3 — 5, "the trumpet, psaltery, harp, timbrel, and cymbals." The organ, or pipe, is not in Nehemiah, but only in Ps. cl. 4, iSy from 5^^, to blow. The pipe is only here found, at the dedication of the walls ; not elsewhere in the temple worship. " Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah ! Halle- lujah !" Living voices take up the failing notes of inanimate instruments, and as these cease on earth, redeemed saints and holy angels will eternally prolong the praises of " Him first, Him last, Him midst and without end," saying, " Alleluia ! Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God. Alleluia ! the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Amen." (Rev. xix. i, 6.) INDEX. I II III IV, V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII. XIII XIV . Lect. viii., xii. . Lect. viii., xii. . Lect. xii., xiii. , Lect. xii., xiii. . Lect. X., xii. , Lect. iv. . . Lect. i., ii., xiv. , Lect. v., viii. . Lect. vi., X. . Lect. xi. . ,* Lect. iv. . . Lect. viii. . , Lect. v. . Lect. X. PAGE PSALM • 59, 94 XV. Lect 59, 94 XVI. Lect • 94, 104 XVII. Lect. . 94, 104 XVIII. Lect. • 78, 94 XIX. Lect. . 24 XX. Lect. I, 8, no XXI. Lect. • 33, 59 . 42, 78 XXII. Lect. . 86 XXIII. Lect . 24 XXIV. Lect . 59 XXV. Lect • 33 . . 78 XXVI. Lect PAGE . vi., ix., X. 42, 66, 78 , iv. , . .24 iii., iv. . 17, 24 iii.,vi.,xvi. 17,42, 125 v., viii. . 33, 59 ii., xiii. . 8, 104 vi., xii., xiii. 42, 94, 104 ii., viii.,xvi. 8, 59, 125 , vii., viii. . 50, 59 , viii., ix.. . 59, 66 , ii., iv., vi., xiv. 8, 24, 42, no , vi., ix. . 42, 661 * David was dwelling at Engedi (= the fountain of the yoimg goat'), "the rocks of the wild goats" (i Sam. xxiv. 2), at the time of writing Psalm, xi. This was in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, the scene of the destruction of the guilty cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah. How naturally here would the idea suggest itself (Ps. xi. 6), " Upon the wicked Jehovah shall reign yf;-i? ajtd brimstone and an horrible tempest" {the -ajrath-zvijid, zil ^aphoth: comp. Isa. xxx. 33). This confirms the reality of the coincidence, evidently undesigned, between Ps. xi. i, 2, and I Sam. xxvi. 20. "The wicked bending their bow — that they may privily shoot at the upright" (ver. 2), points to the treacherous Ziphites tracking "his foot" (marg. I Sam. xxiii. 22), and guiding Saul and his Benjamite boiumen towards David. These "deadly enemies compassed him about " (Ps. xvii. 9) so closely at the wilderness of Maon, they on one side, while he was on the other, . that only by ' ' making haste David got away. " God's providence interposed'; for, just as Saul was on the verge of overtaking him, the Philistines unintentionally saved him by invading Judah, and so requiring Saul to meet them, the very enemies by whom Saul had hoped to kill David (i Sam. xviii. 21). The name Sela-hamtiiah-kkoth, " the rock of divisions," marked the spot where David climbed down on one side, whilst Saul was on the other. The coincidence of the heading of Psalm liv. with the twice-repeated words of the Ziphites in the history (i Sam. xxiii. 19, and xxvi. i), identifies the occasion referred to in that Psalm : "The Ziphites came and said to Saul, Doth not David hide himself with us?" INDEX. 287 PSALM. PACE PSALM. PACK xxvir.* Lect. vi., vii. 42, 50 LVIL Lect. ii. 8 XXVIII. Lcct. vi., ix., xvi. 42, LVIII. Lcct. ii. . 8 66, 125 LIX. Lect. ii., vii. . 8,50 XXIX. Lect. xvi. . . 125 LX. Lect. vii., ix., x\ '• 50, ^6, XXX. Lect. xvii. . -133 116 XXXI. Lect ii., v., xii. 8, 33, LXI. Lect. xiii. . 104 94 LXII. Lect. xiii., xiv. 104, 1 10 XXXII. Lect. xi. . . 86 LXIII. Lect. xiii. . 104 XXXIII. Lect. ii. . .8 LXIV. Lect. xii. • 94 XXXIV. Lect. v. ■ ■ 11 LXV. Lcct. i.x. . 66 XXXV. Lect. i., iv., v., xii., LXVI. Lect. xxiv. • 203 xvi., xviii. i, 24, 33, LXVII. Lect. xxiv. . • 203 94, 125, 138 LXVI 1 1. Lect. xvi. . 125 XXXVI. Lect. xvi., xxiv. 125, 203 LXIX. Lect. vii., xvii.,xviii. XXXVII. Lect. xiv., xviii. 1 10, 138 50, m, 138 XXXVIII. Lect. v., vii., xiv., LXX. Lect. xviii. . . 138 xviii. 33, 50, no, 138 LXXI. Lect. xviii. . . 138 XXXIX. Lect. xi., xviii. 86, 138 LXX 1 1. Lect. iii., xviii., xxi. XL. Lcct. xvii., xviii. 133, 17, 138, 172 138 LXXIII. Lect. xxvi., xxix. 223, XLI. Lect. i., xii., xviii. i, 94, 2;o 138 LXXIV. Lect. XXV., xxvi., XLII. Lect. i., xiii., xxv. i, 104, xxviii. 213, 223, 244 m 213 LXXV. Lect. ii., xxiv. 8,203 * XLIII. Lect. iv., xxv. 24, 213 LXXVI. Lect. xxiv. • 203 XLIV. Lect, XV., xxvi. 116, 223 LXXVII. Lect. xxvi. • 223 XLV. Lect. xxi. . .172 LXXVI II. Lect. viii., X., xi., XLVI. Lect. xxiv. . . 203 xix., xxiv. 59, 78, 86, XLVII. Lcct. xxiii., x.wii. 191, 146, 203 233 LXX IX. Lcct. xxvi., xxviii. 223, XLVIII. Lcct. xxiii. . . 191 244 XL IX. Lect. xxix. . . 250 LXXX. Lect. xvii., x.\vi. 133, L. Lect. xxv. . .213 223 LI. Lect. xi. . . 86 LXXXI. Lect. xxvi. . 223 LII. Lect. iii. . .17 LXXX 1 1 Lect. xxiii. . . 191 LIII. Lcct. X. . . .78 LXXXI 1 1 Lect. vi., xxiii 42, 191 LIV Lect. ii., vii. . 8, 50 LXXXIV Lect. xxv. • 2«3 LV. Leot. v., xii. . 33, 94 LXXXV Lect. xxvi. • 223 LVI Lect. i., V. . I, 33 LXXXVI Lcct. v. . • 33 • Nahash, the former husband of David's mother, before Jesse, David's father (2 Sam. xvii. 25), was probably of the royal family of Ammon. This, too, will account for David's friendship with the Ammonite king of that name, and with Shobi his son : besides the fact that David and Ammon were drawn together owing to the enmity of their common foe, Saul (i Sam. xi.). David received " kindness" from botli Shobi and Nahash (2 Sam. x. 2 ; xvii, 27). 288 INDEX. PSALM. PAGE PSALM. PAGE LXXXVII. Lect. xxiv. . 203 cxvin. Lect. XXX. , . 265 LXXXVIII. Lect. xxvii. . 233 cxix. Lect. xxxi. , . 272 LXXXIX. Lect. vi., xxvii. 42 ,233 cxx. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 xc. Lect. xxii. . 181 CXXI. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 XCI. Lect. xxii. . 181 CXXII. Lect. xix. , . 146 XCII. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXIII. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 XCIII. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXIV. Lect. xix. . . 146 XCIV. Lect. xxix. . 250 cxxv. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 xcv. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXVI. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 XCVI. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXVII. Lect. xxi. . . 172 XCVII. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXVI 1 1. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 XCVIII. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXIX. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 XCIX. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXX. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 c. Lect. xxix. . 250 CXXXI. Lect. xix. . . 146 CI. Lect. i., ii., xviii. 1,8, CXXX 1 1. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 138 CXXXI 1 1. Lect. xix. . . 146 CII. Lect. xviii. . . 138 CXXXIV. Lect. xxxii. . . 276 cm. Lect. xvi., xviii. 125, cxxxv. Lect. xxxiii. . 282 138 cxxxvi. Lect. xxxiii. . 282 CIV. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXXXVII. Lect. xxxiii. . 282 cv. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXXXVI 1 1. Lect. XX. • 155 CVI. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXXXIX. Lect. xviii., xx. 138, evil. Lect. xxx. . 265 155 CVIII. Lect. iii., xv. xvi. 17' CXL. Lect. XX. 15s 116, 125 CXLI. Lect. XX. • 155 CIX. Lect. ii., xii., xiv., CXLII. Lect. XX. 155 xvi. 8, 94, no, 125 CXLIII. Lect. XX. 155 ex. Lect. xi., xvi. 86, 125 CXLIV. Lect. iii., xx. 17 > 155 CXI. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXLV. Lect. XX. 155 CXII. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXLVI. Lect. xxxiii. 282 CXIII. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXLVII. Lect. xxxiii. 282 CXIV. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXLVI 1 1. Lect. xxxiii. 282 cxv. Lect. xxx. . 265 CXLIX. Lect. xxxiii. 282 CXVI. Lect. v., xxx. 33, 265 CL. Lect. xxxiii. 282 CXVII. Lect. xxx. . 265 DATE DUE -■ n,,.^. GAYLORD PRINTEDIN U.S.A. BS1430.8.F26 Studies in the CL Psalms: their Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 1 1012 00155 1417