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LECTURES

ON THE

ORIGIN AND GROWTH

PSALMS

BY
THOMAS CHALMERS MURRAY
» . » . —
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES AT THE
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
743 and 745 Broadway
1880

COPYRIGHT 1880.
By CHARLES SCEIBNEB'S SONS.

GRANT, FAIKES & EODBBES,
Elkcteotyfees and Printees,
Philadelphia, Pa.

THIS VOLUME is
INSCRIBED TO
DANIEL C. GILMAN,
President of the Johns Hopkins University,
AS ONE WHO WELCOMES THAT NEW ERA OF THOUGHT IN WHICH
ITS AUTHOR HAD HOPED TO BE A WORKER, AND
IN RECOGNITION OF PERSONAL AND
OFFICIAL RELATIONS.

PUBLISHERS' NOTE.

The following lectures were delivered at the Johns Hopkins
University, during the winter of 1878-79, before a general audience.
The form in which they were given was probably not that in
which their author would have finally embodied his researches, or
have permanently submitted them as a subject of scholarly criticism.
It has seemed, however, to many beside the publishers of this
volume, that these lectures should be placed before a larger audience ;
not simply as the only completed work left by a scholar of very
remarkable independence and promise, but as a most valuable con
tribution to the study to which his life was devoted — the reverent
and critical investigation of the History and Literature of the
Hebrew Scriptures. It is entirely certain that Professor Murray's
early death, occurring but a few days after the closing of this
course, took from his branch of learning one of the most earnest
and able students it has counted in America.
Before the publication of these lectures, it was necessary to
add to a few passages brief explanatory notes, verifications of ref
erences, transliterations, &c, ?uch as the author himself would have
supplied to aid the general reader unacquainted with Oriental
languages. This scholarly service has been very kindly performed
for the volume by the Rev. Dr. C. H. Toy, who has, however, in
every case, affixed his initial to the note thus furnished.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.
PAGE.
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLES. IMPORTANCE
OF THE STUDY OF THEIR LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE, . I

LECTURE II.
HISTORY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERATURE.
COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW. WRITINGS  34
LECTURE III.
TITLES OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES. HISTORY OF THE NAMES
PSALM AND PSALTER. LITERARY ANl5 EDITORIAL AR
RANGEMENT OF THE BOOKS OF THE PSALTER. INSCRIP
TIONS OF THE PSALMS,  73

LECTURE IV.
THEORIES OF MACCABEAN- AUTHORSHIP. ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES
AND THE MACCABEAN ERA. DAVIDIC AUTHORSHIP, . . '. IIO
vii

Vlii CONTENTS.
LECTURE V.
PAGE.
ORIGIN AND METHOD OF COLLECTION OF THE DAVIDIC TEMPLE
BOOK. DAVID AS A POET  144
LECTURE VI.
POST-EXILIC COLLECTORS. THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE. FIRST
AND SECOND BOOKS OF THE PSALTER. LYRICS OF THE SONS
OF KORAH,  I7S
LECTURE VII.
SECOND BOOK OF THE PSALTER. BALLAD POETRY. THE
ANONYMOUS PSALMS. THE VINDICTIVE PSALMS. NEHEMIAH.
THIRD BOOK OF THE PSALTER. LYRIC, EPIC AND DIDACTIC
POETRY. SONGS OF ASAPH  209
LECTURE VIII.
DRAMATIC ART AMONG THE SHEMITES. TRAGEDY AND COMEDY.
BOOK OF JOB. THE SONG OF SONGS. FOURTH BOOK OF
THE PSALTER,  24.7
LECTURE IX.
FIFTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. THE SONGS OF DEGREES.
COLLECTION OF THE FIVE BOOKS. SHEMITIC SONG AND
MUSIC. MUSICAL INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. THE MUSIC
OF THE SECOND TEMPLE,  28l

ORIGIN

AND

GROWTH OF THE PSALMS,

LECTURE I.

As the curtain rises on the stage of history, we can
just descry through the mists of the early dawning, a
Bedouin people dwelling in the Petraean uplands, be
tween the Bight of Akaba and the Persian Gulf
They were the progenitors of perhaps the most
unique and remarkable people whom the world has
produced ; a people belonging to a race and speech
alien to our own, yet to whom we are under a greater
obligation for our religion, our culture and our civ
ilization, than to any of our own kin.
It was the beginnings of a people known to us
under the unfortunate and misleading name, She-
mitic, given them by Schlozer1 at the close of the
1 A. L. Schlozer in his article on the Chaldeans in Eichhorn's Refer-
torium fur Hilische und morgenlandische litteratur, Part 8, p. 161
I

2 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
last century. [Semitic and Semite, now so much in
vogue as almost to be good usage, are survivals of
the French nomenclature of the English orientalists
who learned Arabic at the feet of De Sacy.J
It seems appropriate at the opening of this course
of lectures, among the first, if I mistake not, de
livered in this country on the Shemitic Languages
and Literature on the purely academic side and
away from the restrictions inseparable from theo
logical teaching, that I should glance briefly and in a
way more popular than is possible in the class-room,
at the position and history of this people, the exposi
tion of one of whose literatures is our main object.
Of course the first question naturally arising in our
minds is whence and how came this people to Ara
bia ? but at the very threshold of this investigation
we are met by problems as yet unsolved, for whose
solution we scarce know where to look. The me
thods by which we trace them to Arabia are too
technical for popular exposition ; they are chiefly
linguistic, though susceptible of as high a degree of
(r78i) seems to speak of the term "Shemitic" as if he were its inventor,
and its use in that article is the earliest, so far as appears. But Eich-
horn himself in his Allgemcinc Bibliothek der biblischcn litteratur vi.
772 (1794), claims to have been the first to substitute "Shemitic" for
" Oriental " (the previous designation of these languages), and he must
have known of Schlozer's use of it. It was through Eichhorn that the
term gained currency. (T.)

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. 3
proof as is possible outside the exact sciences — but
here we suddenly lose the trail. Do we inquire of
history, it is voiceless, for history had not yet begun.
Do we interrogate their native traditions, we find
them confused and contradictory, and in their earliest
form bearing evidence of being loans from neigh
boring peoples rather than of native growth. Per
chance you may bethink yourself of the Jewish
records, and ask whether there be not in them some
clue through the maze. These fragments of the
infant history of the world, sacred in themselves and
hallowed by association, no one who hears me can
lay more stress on than myself. But what do they
mean? What are those strange and majestic shapes
thrown by the brush of the inspired artist athwart
the background of his canvas ? Do they represent
persons, or peoples, or countries ? Are they, as
some claim, merely types, and if so, are these types
ethnic or moral ? Can we be sure that we have all
the links in the chain, or has the writer chosen only
those more prominent names which have projected
themselves into the knowledge of his own time?
This is not the place nor this a fit occasion to take
up or answer these questions. They belong to the
special problems which arise in discussing the Mo
saic literature. I merely allude to them as questions
not yet settled, on which there is a diversity well-

4 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
nigh irreconcilable between scholars of equal candor
and equal learning.
With the growing light thrown on the ancient
history of the Orient by the unearthing of its de
parted civilizations, we may hope some day to re
cover the key to the narratives of the Genesis. It
is, to be sure, a confession of ignorance, but not
necessarily of despair, when the Shemitic scholar
acknowledges his inability to decipher as yet the
character in which these records are written, or in
terpret them in a way which will make them a sure
norm for the study of the beginnings of the race.
The native tradition of the other Shemitic peoples
is of little value. That of the Assyrian tablets is the
tradition borrowed from a people alien in speech and
race, who had their homes on the shores of the
Caspian.1 The native traditions of the Arameans
have been completely eroded by the surging breakers
of war and foreign invasion, which since the earliest
times have almost ceaselessly dashed hither and
thither across their river uplands.
Who that has studied them can give credence to
the legends of the Koran ? It is time, now that his-
1 The Accadians. All that is certainly known of them is that they
came from a mountain district, as their name (=mountaineers) imports;
their original home (before they entered Mesopotamia) may have been
in the South Taurus range, or in the North Taurus near the Caspian
Sea. (T.)

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. 5
torians of civilization and dilettante biographers have
so long held the public ear, that Arabic scholars
should be heard on the character of Muhammed and
the originality of his message. The Arab biographers
but half conceal under their laudation of him as of
purest lineage from the bluest blood of the desert, his
descent from a mongrel tribe of traders — Qureish —
formed through the mixture of Arabs, Jews, perhaps
even Abyssinians, (the Abbasides had unmistakable
negro blood) around the caravan stations at Mecca.
The boy Muhammed learned from his uncle Waraka
and the Jewish relatives of his mother the stories of
their people. The prophet of Allah only reproduces
them in the Koran, distorted by his diseased fancy,
shaped to serve the ends of his ambition or appetite,
and mingled with the fables of the people among
whom he dwelt.
There is no pre-Islamite history or native tra
dition of the North Arabic people. The Bedouins
make no history, and the native traditions of their
origin have disappeared as irrecoverably as the tents
of which one of their poets sings. — " Yesterday they
gleamed white before me, but now are they vanished
into desert air."
Even less can the accounts of the later Arab
chroniclers lay claim to be used in serious history ;
they are merely the projection of the century im-

6 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
mediately preceding Muhammed on a canvas they
spanned to dimensions learned from other peoples.
If the truth were known it would appear that we can
not ascertain with surety even the names of the Pro
phet's ancestors at the second remove, so you may
imagine the value of the genealogies of their epony
mous heroes so liberally drawn on by the historians
of the orient. Shemitic native traditions are like the
prophetic reed on which scholars have only leaned
to the piercing of their own hands.
Do we turn to philology for the solution of the
problem of the origin of the Shemitic people, the
reply is almost equally unsatisfactory. As I have
had occasion to say at a former time in this place,
there are no Shemitic languages, but only one She
mitic language, whose various dialects differ from one
another hardly as much as do the dialects of the
Greek. After eliminating some few differences of
vocabulary accidental to the kinds of literature in
which the one or the other dialect has come down to
us, the difference between the most widely variant of
them would be about the same as exists in our own
day between the German of the Hanoverian heaths
and that of the Bavarian highland, or, if you please
between the English of the midland and the border
counties. Of these dialects the Arabic is the most
interesting, as it is most copious and most character-

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. 7
istically Shemitic. The Hebrew, which is more com
monly studied and taken as the type of the language,
is, in the form in which it has been preserved to
us, philologically the latest and least characteristic.
When we come to sift and compare these dialects, we
find them all unmistakably pointing to the old Arabic
as their earliest form, to the Steppes of the Nejd1
as their primeval home. But there they stop, and in
vain do we seek in them a clue to lead us further.
The comparisons drawn and made so much of by
those holding briefs for the primitive unity of speech,
between the Shemitic and our own family of language
are in the main delusive, being founded on mere ac
cordances of sound in decayed forms of one family
or the other — between the Latin and the Hebrew for
example, where this species of philology has most run
riot. Of grammatical resemblance, the only infallible
test of relationship in language, there is no trace,
as there seems a well-nigh insuperable barrier be
tween the original Indo-European with its mobile
vowels and the stiff vowelless Shemitic.
The evidence on one side or the other is simply
not in a condition for the cautious philologist to make
use of No doubt in the end, the problem of the
primitive unity of the Shemitic and Indo-European
may shape itself differently, but we must bear in mind
1 The Arabian highland stretching toward Babylonia. (T.)

8 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
that for the present the trend of the evidence is to
prove a radical diversity, and many of the most con
servative Shemitic philologists, as Noldeke, deny the
possibility of any unity of origin for speeches so
inherently dissimilar. However the result may be,
the evidence of language to those who have no in
terest save philology at stake, does not now point to
any common home, where as has been fondly believed
Shemite and Aryan dwelt together, does not enable
us to trace Shemitic speech back to some more prim
itive form. If we glance over the peoples who lay
around the Shemites as they appear in history, it will
but further show them to us as a racial oasis in their
deserts, a waif in the midst of alien peoples. Im
mediately on the north in the Babylonian lowlands
and at the river mouths was a Turanian J people akin
to the European Magyars and Fins ; further north
ward along the upper river courses lay a people
whose name and very existence was unknown to us
1 The term " Turanian'' (formed from Tur, the name of a mythical
personage in the Persian legends) was invented by Max Miiller and is
used by him and others to include all languages except those of the
Indo-European, Shemitic and Hamitic (this term embracing sub-She-
mitic, Egyptian and Libyan) families — that is, almost all the aggluti-
nizing and monosyllabic languages of the world. Others confine it to the
agglutinizing groups: Ugro-Finnish, Samoyed, Turco-Tatar and
Tongous, and still others reject it altogether as meaningless and mis
leading. In fact it does not in itself convey either a geographical or a
linguistic meaning, and is open to the same objections as the name
"Shemitic." Probably the author here uses it in the second of the
above senses, in which the Accadian also would be included. (T.)

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. g
until within a few years, their antiquities have been
unearthed from the mounds of Karkhemish. * The
Mediterranean sea-board was held by tribes to whom
the imagination of the later Shemitic inhabitants has
given Titanic proportions, the Anakim and Zamzum-
mim — the African coast was held by a Hottentot
people, at a later time pushed southward by the suc
cessive waves of immigration.
Do we call anthropology to our aid with its '
measurements of the skull and minute investigation of
the crinkle of the hair and color of the skin, we shall
find the diversity between the Shemites and their
neighbors even far more deeply seated than the
variance of their customs, their civilizations and their
religions had a priori led us to assume.
Thus we may say with accuracy and without flinch
ing any of the points at issue, that the beginning of
Shemitic history is concident with the appearance of
the Shemitic people in Arabia. Further than this we
cannot venture safely with the clues now in our
hands. I do not however wish to be understood as
holding with Sprenger and the later Shemitic eth
nologists that the Shemites are the autochthonous
1 Inscriptions in an unknown character have been found at Hamath,
Karkhemish and in Asia Minor. The character is usually called Hama-
thite, and has as yet defied decipherment ; almost absolutely nothing is
known of the people and language to which it belonged. See the publi
cations of the London Society of Biblical Archaeology. (T.)

IO ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Bedouin race of Arabia, a theory assuming the whole
point at issue. My philological instinct leads me to
believe that there are some few ground principles
common to all speech, which careful investigation will
one day discover and establish. It is for the Shemitic
philologist to help on the solution by sifting out in
the mass of phenomena with which he has to deal
the merely accidental, from that which is essential and
permanent. I also believe there is a discoverable
(though not yet discovered) bond of union between
the Shemitic and the other peoples. It is the part of
the student of Shemitic civilization to distinguish
what is characteristic in their racial features and
habits of mind from what is merely the outgrowth oi
their environment.
The first step in every science is to stake out the
boundaries between the known and the unknown, and
there would be no stimulus to further work, if philology
or ethnology unlocked their secrets, save to the most
patient research.
Looking out now from this vantage-ground we have
gained in Arabia, let me ask you to follow me as I
cursorily sketch the way in which the hither Orient
became settled by the Shemites. It seems remarka
ble that the barren steppes of Tartary and Arabia, so
alike in climate and in natural feature, should have
been the officincs of the two great peoples of the

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. \ \
world. We are as yet unable to trace the reason for
the strange seething and upheavals in Central Asia,
whose resultant was the outpouring over Europe at
longer or shorter intervals of the successive waves of
Aryan immigration. It is in precisely a similar and
equally mysterious way that the Western Orient has
been Shemitized from Arabia.
The most remarkable of these Shemitic movements
is one which has occurred within comparatively a
few centuries and to which before the close of this
lecture I shall have occasion to allude.
The most interesting question at the present in
Shemitic philology is the relation between the She
mitic and a group of dialects which some one in a
luckless hour dubbed Hamitic. By Hamitic is meant
the Old Egyptian and its outgrowth the vulgar dia
lects of the Coptic ; further the dialects of the peoples
who since the earliest times have lain along the edge
of the Sahara from Syrtis to the Atlas, just back
of the fringe of various civilizations, Carthaginian,
Latin and Arabic, which had successively held the
Mediterranean seaboard of Africa. These dialects
may without hesitation be placed under one head and
regarded as a single group. When we come to com
pare them with the Shemitic we are at once struck
with so many apparent resemblances, lying as it were
on their very surface, that we are fain to regard them

I 2 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
as Shemitic dialects. When we further investigate
their nominal and verbal formation we find such deep-
seated diversity as to force us to an entire remodeling
of our theories of Shemitic structure, should they be
admitted as well-authenticated members of this group.
I think you cannot fail to see how radical will be the
reshaping of history if Egyptian letters and civilization
be proven to be outgrowths of the Shemitic stock.
But we must turn away from the too tempting vista ;
the question still sways in air. Shemitic scholarship,
to its shame be it said, has left this problem of such
supreme importance unwrought, for discussions as to
technical minutiae of the Jewish schoolmen, which it
is a wonder can be of interest to any occidental mind.
If the result show a connection between the She
mitic and the so called Hamitic, the Hamitic must be
regarded as the earliest surge of the Shemitic migra
tions passing away from the parental home, before
there had become fixed and crystalized in the She
mitic those linguistic features so characteristic of it at
a later day, and acquiring from the tribes they found
in the Nile valley those Nigritian features which have
led many to assign the Egyptian to the African dia
lects. In other words, the Hamitic will only be a
species of Pre- Shemitic}
l More exactly : one branch of the primitive Hamitic-Shemitic stem
the other branch being the Shemitic. (T.)

HIS TOR Y OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. J 3
Leaving this for future inquiry and turning now to
the migrations of the people recognized as Shemitic,
we see first the invasion of the Euphrates valley at a
period not prior to the year 3000 before our era.
We have now-a-days too many Oriental chronologies
to set much confidence in any of them ; the eloquent
satire of Macaulay on Hindu chronology in his Mem
oranda on Indian Education, would be apropos to the
Berosian dynasties with their thousands and ten
thousands of years. We can easily understand how
the rich reaches of river bottom, which until this
day make Babylonia one of the gardens of the Lord,
early attracted the Arab Bedouin across the narrow
rim of desert which was their only protection ; how
the commerce of the Indies . in its earliest trade line
up the Persian Gulf tempted, as it has done almost
five thousand years later, Arab pirates to lurk along
the shores and infest the river mouths. We must not
conceive of any sudden conquest of the Accadian
inhabitants ; year by year the Bedouin raided deeper
into the land — year by year the pirate fleets pressed
further up the rivers until they became strong enough
to seize the reins of government. On the earliest in
scriptions the Shemitic element is but the ruling caste
among a people Turanian in speech, in manners and
in religion1 The welding together of the two
1 The Accadians and the Sumerians, who were probably two tribes of

14 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
peoples came slowly, and at a later period seems far
from perfect — in fact there are doubts whether the
population of Babylonia ever became homogeneous.
In this process the Shemitic element lost well-nigh all
save their language ; they acquired from their more
cultured subjects their civilization and religion. So it
comes to pass that when the North Shemites begin to
emigrate from Babylonia, which had become a new
centre for them, they -carry away with their Shemitic
speech Turanian mythology, Turanian civilization and
Turanian manners. Therefore it is, I have said at
the beginning of this lecture, that much of the
Shemitic tradition is not of native growth. We find
among the Arab Bedouin of the present day, who
have remained in the old homes, customs and beliefs
more characteristically Shemitic than those disclosed
to us by the very earliest of the North Shemitic
monuments. Long ere the Shemitic invaders had gained the
mastery in Babylonia the more hardy spirits began
pushing up the river valleys, and joined doubtless by
nomad bands who had come through the desert, they
dispossessed the feeble upland folk and laid the
foundations of the Aramaic people.
the same people, and have probably left traces of themselves in a good
many of the proper names of that region, among others, in the names
Tigris, Euphrates and Ur (Abraham's city). See Lenormant's La
langue primitive de la Chaldie. (T.)

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. I 5
The peculiarities of Aramaic speech have been the
peg on which the school who endeavor to trace a
Shemitic dispersion from Central Asia have hung
their beliefs. Their theory is that in the Shemitic
dispersions the Arameans were a waif who tarried
behind in the hill country while the main body
pushed forward into Arabia. The testimony of
language will however, I think, disprove convincingly
any such origin of the Aramaic people ; if it be of
any value, it shows that the Aramaic possesses, in
common with the older Shemitic, forms which can
only be explained by a prolonged sojourn in Arabia,
and a later attrition by coming into contact with the
Turanian people in Babylonia.
The Arameans were traders and adventurers ; the
mart they founded at Nineveh first rivalled and then
surpassed the capital of their older brethren further
down the rivers, while the wars of a later day between
Assyria and Babylon were an internecine struggle for
the control of the trade lines. As the India trade
passed gradually to the Himyarite settlements on the
south coast of Arabia, the Euphrates valley lost its
wealth, its power and its prestige, and fell a prey to
the Aryan hordes who had been long hovering along
its Eastern frontier. Never must we forget the debt
of obligation which civilization owes to the Arameans ;
pressing into Asia Minor through their mountain de-

I 6 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
files they early seized the coasts and islands of the
Egean. It is possible they were in Greece before the
Hellens reached there. It is they and not the
Phenicians who are the fabled Cadmus (Qadma, East
ern people) who brought us our letters. It was they
whose science, crude as it was, kindled the torch
which in the hands of the Greeks was to blaze into a
flame; from their rude art it was that the Greeks
learned the elements of their magnificent architec
ture. l Within our own era they have done a work
for civilization the credit of which has been given to
others, scarcely less precious than that of the early
time. When the Greek learning fled from the ecclesi
astical strife and civil disorder of the lower empire,
it largely took refuge in the Aramaic university of
Edessa, than where the Aristotelian philosophy has
1 It is necessary to distinguish carefully between the Arameans and the
Assyrians, two peoples dwelling side by side in the Tigris-Euphrates
valley, yet quite distinct in language, character and achievements. It
was the Assyrians that founded Nineveh, and became the teachers of the
Greeks in architecture (as may reasonably be inferred from the similarity
between the architectural remains found at Mycenas and Nineveh). It
may be that the Greek letters were derived from the Arameans and that
they early penetrated to the western sea ; but this early history is obscure
and we shall have to wait for the results of further investigation and dis
covery before forming an opinion on the relations between the East and
the West in the pre-historic time. Compare the author's remarks p 14.
(T.)

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. I 7
been nowhere cherished by more loving hands.
Syrian scholars were the masters of the untrained
Arabs of the armies of Islam, and it is merely what
they learned from them that the Arabs carried to
Spain, to kindle there the new learning and to open
the Renascence. Dr. Draper gives to the torch-
bearer the credit which belongs to the flame. The
native Arabs have neither a creative nor a scientific
mind. Count the great names who in the middle
ages made Arabic science illustrious, and you will
find that almost without exception, in the orient they
are Arameans or Persians — in the Occident Spanish
Jews or Moors.
But we must pass from the Arameans with a single
word further. They held the upper courses of the
Euphrates and Tigris until they were obliterated by
new incursions from Arabia in the sixth century of
our era. Their dialect was with its slight inflections
the English of the Shemitic family: as the trade-
speech of the orient it had by the second century be
fore our era, displaced all the kindred North Shemitic
dialects. It is of interest as being in its Galilean pa
tois the mother tongue of Christ and his first follow
ers — the speech in which thought the men who wrote
the New Testament in Greek. It is preserved to us
carved on the Palmyrene monuments, hewn in the
Petrean rocks, treasured in a voluminous literature,

1 8 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
still spoken in half a dozen corrupt jargons through
the Lebanon and in Persia.
At a time no doubt somewhat later, as the river
valleys became overcrowded, there pushed out into
the lowland the first spur of the Canaanite people
who took possession of the Mediterranean seaboard,
and are known to us by the name given them in the
Occident, Phenicians. They were the traders of the
early times, whose colonies formed a Hansabund
across the then known world, from the shores of the
Euxine to the tin mines of Cornwall. The Carthage,
"the new -city," founded by them to command the
African trade, has to most of us, from school days,
been the chief representative of their greatness. The
study of Jheir mythology and art on which so much
stress is laid in these days, will prove of small value,
as both were borrowed by them from the Assyrians ;
but the investigation of their political institution^ and
commercial code is of value even in America, which
has not advanced so greatly beyond them.
It is an apothegm come of late into most histories
of the world, that the Shemitic peoples were not
traders or colonists. Ground is gained for this hy
pothesis by excluding from the Shemitic peoples the
Phenicians. The only reason for this exclusion is a
faulty interpretation ' of certain genealogies of the
Genesis, but the Phenicians cannot be kept out ; they

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE.

19

are too plainly marked as of the Shemitic type to be
excluded by any ex-cathedra judgment. Even if they
were excluded, it is hard to see what vantage the
holders of this view would gain, with the colonies and
trade of so clearly Shemitic peoples as the Arameans
and Himyarites still unaccounted for.
The second Shemitic migration into the lowland
was that of the Palestinian tribes, of whom hardly
more is preserved to us than their names and some
few words in the Hebrew writings.
The third and last was that of the Terahites, who
entered the lowland about 2000 b. c, long after it was
settled by the kindred tribes who had preceded them.
The great mass of these settled down in Canaan; only
a small fragment, attracted by the inducements held
out by the Hyksos, pass on, at a later day, into' the
pasture land of the Eastern Nile Delta. With their
expulsion begins the more specific Israelite history,
which I will take up briefly when I speak of their lit
erature in the next hour. Bear in mind one thing
rarely noted, that the name Hebrew (fbri, of which, by
the way, we have no satisfactory solution) belongs in
common to all the Terahite people ; there is no reason
for applying it to the Israelites any more than to the
Edomites or Ishmaelite Arabs. Good English usage
goes for something even in nomenclature, and so we
continue to say Hebrew, Hebrew people, and Hebrew

20 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
writings. But if we wish to be exact we must say
Israel. Hebrew is, as I have said, the name of the
whole Abrahamic people ; Jew but a name of a single
Israelite tribe.
During the thousand or fifteen hundred years
through which the North Shemitic countries were be
ing settled, there was taking place a similar, though
far less important movement, to the southward. At a
period somewhat subsequent to the Shemitic settle
ment of the Euphrates valley, Arab settlers reached
the shores of the Indian Ocean and became the
nucleus of the Himyarite people. . Like their breth
ren, the Phenicians, they were adventurous traders
and mariners, and at an early day succeeded in divert
ing the Indian trade from the Persian Gulf. Their
little skiffs, following the favorable turn of the Mon
soon, carried rapidly and safely the spices and ivories
of India from the Malabar coast to their own ports,
whence they were conveyed by caravan to Egypt and
the Phenician distributing depots for the Occident.
The huge and shapeless ruins which are found
throughout Yemen attest their being a wealthy and
magnificent people. The Greeks, misinterpreting their
name Himyar, called the sea on which they lived and
traded 'Epudprj, " The Red." 1
1 Himyar, the pretended eponym of the Himyarites, is a legendary
person who, an uncertain number of centuries before the beginning oi

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. 21 >
At a comparatively late time, probably not many
centuries before our era, there was an emigration of
Himyarrtes across the Bab-el-Mandab, ^ °, ".. ."
("Gate of Tears," Gate of Sighs, lead-^^^' ^
ing into the dangerous, narrow sea, feared till the pre
sent day by mariners,) into Africa. Their name, Geez,
" The Free," leads us to suppose they may have been
political refugees from Himyarite authority, which
we know was none of the mildest. Christianized,
but little improved, in the fourth century by Greek
missionaries, they have become known to the Occi
dent as Ethiopic. Of late there has been much
interest shown for them in connection with the Eng
lish Expedition against Theodore. Their dialect is
linguistically of great importance for Shemitic pho
nology, but their meagre literature of homilies and
translations is devoid of interest.
Beyond the Ethiopic, probably stretching to the
south of the Equator, were a number of negro dia
lects partly Shemitized through contact with the
Ethiopians, known as Sub- Shemitic. These dialects
have been first brought to notice by English and
German explorers or missionaries during the present
our era, is said to have raised his tribe to pre-eminence among the
Sabean people, and to have founded the famous and powerful Himyaritic
kingdom, which continued till its overthrow by the Abyssinians in the
sixth century after Christ. The name is somewhat similar in form and
sound to an Arabic word meaning " red." (t.)

2 2 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
century, so their extent and peculiarities are as yet
imperfectly understood.
Thus we have glanced over the migrations of the
Shemitic peoples up to the beginning of our era. A
view of the map will show the territory occupied by
them as a somewhat irregular parallelogram between
the Indian Ocean on the south, the Persian Gulf and
the Tigris on the east, the Taurus on the north, and
the Mediterranean and the Red Sea on the west. You
will observe that Arabia covers at least two-thirds
of this. Beyond these limits the Shemitic people
save in the case of the feeble rim of refugees across
the Bab-el-Mandab, do not seem to have spread save
sporadically; the Phenician colonies were no more
than trading posts, and the Arameans were early
pressed back out of their settlements on the Egean.
This peculiarly Shemitic territory is no larger than
European Russia — a narrow stage on which have
been enacted some of the grandest scenes of the
world's drama.
No sketch however, of the Shemitic nation, can be
complete without noticing the most far-reaching of
their migrations, that strange movement within our
own era, by which the oldest of their peoples sud
denly burst, sword in hand, from their deserts, to
change the faith and the culture of half the civilized
world. The beginnings of this movement can be

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE. 23
traced back to a period shortly after the opening of
our era, when the change of trade-lines reduced the
resources of the people of Yemen. The Ghassanites
and Tayites,1 severally the frontier people of the
Roman and Persian power, who had to bear the brunt
of every attack, were South Arabic peoples who first
reached the Syrian frontiers in the third century of
our era. The movement continued with gathering
volume during the next two centuries. Shortly before
Muhammed, a Himyarite tribe had with difficulty
been expelled from Mecca. It was as a sort of neu
tral umpire, between two warring clans of the South,
who had seized Medina, that the prophet was called
thither. It is a mistake to suppose that the Arab
conquest was due primarily, either to Muhammed or
to Islam. He was a child of fortune, whose faith,
believed in and often taught before him, unheeded, by
men of greater genius and purer character than his
own, was proclaimed just as the time had grown ripe,
and became a rallying cry through which the Bedouin,
hitherto possessing no common centre, were united.
Mayhap he hastened the bursting of the storm, but
even without him the storm would soon have broken.
I wish to impress on your mind that the movements
which led to the re-peopling of the Orient in the sixth
1 The Ghassanites dwelt at Bosra in Syria, and the Tayites near the
mountains Aja and Salma. (T.)

24 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
century of our era, were primarily national, precisely
the same in kind with those which long ages before,
had given it its first Shemitic population. Omar,
Abu-Bakr and the shrewder minds who controlled
the Prophet, succeeded in turning his somewhat
variegated revelations to good account. The sudden
military success of the Bedouin need not surprise us ;
the Roman Empire had long out-lived its day ; rent
by dissensions, and rotten with corruption, it was
shivered by the first impact of the fresh blood of the
desert. Within scarce fifty years from the death of
the Orthodox Caliphs, the Arabs had conquered
almost all the countries of the Mediterranean, which
it had taken the Latin legionaries and administrators
centuries to subdue and order. As little need the
success of Islam be a surprise ; the Orient had grown
weary of being harried by the strifes of warring sec
taries, and torn asunder by discordant ecclesiastics
who had almost forgotten there was a God in their
endless discussions as to His nature and persons —
the Greek dialectics of Alexandria and Byzantium,
confused minds susceptible only of a tangible and
simple creed. So it was that a large part of the
Orient was ready without compulsion and without
persecution to accept the simpler confession and
ritual of Islam. That the Arabs were persecutors
cannot be doubted, but their faith would never have

HISTORY OF THE SHEMITIC PEOPLE.

25

been so successful had there not been a preparedness
for it in the people they subdued. I hope, if occa
sion offer, at some future time to speak of the rise of
the Saracen power ; we cannot now pause to speak
of it. Unused to rule any save the simple children
of the desert,* untrained in the arts of government,
their hands were too feeble to grasp the sceptre of
the world's empire, which had fallen to them. The
dynasties of the Omeyades and Abbasides furnish a
black succession of voluptuaries and tyrants, hardly
redeemed by the genius of a Maimun or the piety of
an Omar II. The pretorian band of Turkish mer
cenaries first called in by the Caliphs to protect them
from the indignation of their oppressed and outraged
subjects, speedily became strong enough to seize the
califate to themselves, and after four thousand years
the control of the Orient passed back into the hands
of the Turanians who held it at the very dawn of its 1
history. The Arab language, however, maintained
itself, and has been an ever increasing power in the
East. It is one of the most graceful and forcible of
civilized tongues — the mother tongue of millions of
people, and commonly spoken from the pillars of
Hercules to the wall of China, from the shores of
the Caspian to the equator. Travelers tell us that
both on the North and South, it is still spreading. It
has a literature more considerable than that of any
2

26 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
occidental nation, covering all branches of human
thought and endeavor, in itself of great value and
interest to western scholars. There has been scarcely
a time in the history of the Shemitic dialects when
they could so ill as now be classed under " ancient
languages and literature."
After this imperfect and hasty sketch of the She
mitic people, let me in conclusion say a word as to
the proper position of the study of the Shemitic lan
guages in an University course of instruction.
Of chief importance is this study from the stand
point of Philology. No philology worthy of the name
is exhausted by the study and teaching of a single
language, or family of languages. Philology is an
investigation into the phenomena of all articulate
thought. As the geologist traces through his rock
strata the growth of the earth, as the biologist follows
through his orders the development of life, so it is the
task of the philologist to trace through the various
languages of the world, the origin and development
of that most characteristic, yet most recondite faculty
of the human race — speech. One cannot wonder that
of late years what is called comparative philology
has been in growing disrepute. Even as pursued by
the wiser scholars it has been founded almost entirely
upon the observation of the phenomena of our own
family, and so has broken down or proved inadequate

STUDY OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES.

27

when brought face to face with the larger phenomena
of speech. The old adage of " one language — no
language," is being verified as to many of its hasty
generalizations which are proving too narrow even
for Indo-Germanic structure. Of course in our day
it would be folly for any philologist to take all lan
guage as his province, or even to hope to master a
single family. It is only by most patient painstaking
investigation and analysis of the different dialects by
many different scholars, that we can ever hope to
reach the ultimate facts upon which may be built up
a synthesis of enduring value and truth for all speech.
Next of kin to our own family stands the Shemitic
as the second great language of the civilized peoples ;
its structure, composed solely of consonantal elements,
marvelously compact and singularly unique, has on
the surface apparently no analogy in our own family.
The first problem for serious philology to decide is
the relation between these two families. It is to be
the crucial test of the value of philological methods.
If they are unequal to solving and settling the rela
tions of languages so contiguous, contemporaneous
through well nigh six thousand years, and easily
accessible in a voluminous literature, we may well
despair of any success with the outlying and ob
scurer families. This investigation involves as well
questions of even more far-reaching importance. If

28 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
in the several analyses of the Shemitic and Indo-
European it be found that their ultimate elements
and methods are so inherently dissimilar as to pre
clude not only the development of one from the other,
but even from a common stock, it will create an ar
gument against an original unity of human speech,
and hence a priori against an original unity of the
human race. If the present apparent diversity be
proved superficial on investigation, there will doubt
less be disclosed early methods of formation enabling
us more clearly to see the principle of human speech
underlying the now utterly discordant mass of
spoken language. No larger investigation, however,
can be of value without an accurate, and, as far as
may be, exhaustive acquaintance with the several lan
guages at issue.
In scarce any field are there more problems
lying unwrought whose working promises so rich
results. The language of the mighty empires of the
Euphrates, unearthed during this century, from the
mounds of Nineveh, stands patiently waiting under
the indignities it suffers at prentice hand of tyros, for
some scholar to bring a master key to its arcana.
What people carved the inscriptions of Petra ? What
is the clue through the Hamathite characters ? What
the interpretation of the Himyarite monuments?
What is the origin of the written character become

STUDY OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES. 29
ours by later inheritance from the Shemite ? These
are but a tithe of the opening problems in which one
need tread no hackneyed round, but may strike out
for himself in unknown fields as a discoverer. Or
come to the trodden ground of the better known
dialects, none of which, not even the Hebrew, studied
one is oft fain to say these eighteen hundred years
to small purpose, has been thoroughly investigated.
He will be doing original work, deserving well of
philology, who collects all the phenomena of even the
smallest of them in a scientific grammar or glossary.
But philological investigation can not proceed far
without the aid of the literary instinct ; it goes halting
through an arid waste of logomachy unless there be
in the literatures studied inherent value and interest.
Shemitic literature is of interest to the occidental
student, and in what I have to say of it I exclude the
Israelitish writings, which I shall speak of in a subse
quent hour.
First of all, as pure literature. Its style (so essen
tially different from that of most Aryan peoples),
should be of interest to us, as our language, under the
influence of the English Bible, has, to a degree of
which many are unconscious, been Shemitized. The
poetry of the Bedouin, sprung from their transparent
air and long reaches of desert, lacks, perhaps, that
perfect form and workmanship in which the Greeks

30 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
are masters of the world. But in what lies nearer to.
the essence of true poetry, the power to paint nature
and gather in a single word the manifold expression
of earth and sky, it is approached by no other litera
ture. But the very analytic character of the Shemitic -
mind which gives such beauty to the minute pictures
of their poetry, is a disadvantage to their prose style.
This is broad, and loses in its mass of detail the syn
thetic brevity and clearness of statement which, to the
better taste of the Aryans, is essential to good style. If
read at all with interest it must be for ends other than
literary, and chief of these is the historical. It is but
little understood how much of history, and to us most
interesting history, is contained solely in Shemitic lit
erature. The traditions of the beginning of the Tura
nian people, and the history of the powers who ruled
the civilized world from the twentieth to the eighth
century before our era is stamped on the Assyrian
tablets; the commencements of the world's trade and
commerce are carved on the Phenician and Himyarite
stones ; or leaving the dead past and coming to move
ments within our own era, where shall we look but to
the annals of the Syriac chroniclers for the history of
the last great incursion of the barbarian hordes in
which the curse of God, Kenghiz Khan, ravaged the
fairest portions of earth and swept away with his
besom of fire and blood the last traces of antique civ-

STUDY OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES. 31
ilization? Where shall we look, one might almost
say, for the history of the world during the night of
mediaeval superstition and barbarism, when Europe
scarce- had a history, but to the scholars of Bagdad
and Cordova? The very faults of Shemitic style
make their documents of the greatest historical value
— we have an almost painfully detailed rehearsal of
the minutiae of the facts known to their compiler —
rarely redeemed, the historian might say marred, by
being fused through his conception of them into a
synthetic whole.
The history of civilization is also largely beholden
to the student of Shemitic manners and beliefs.
Renan in his history, graceful as fiction and scarce
more trustworthy, has evolved a theory of the She
mitic monotheistic instinct which has almost become
an integral part of every history of culture. But later
investigation shows that hardly any people are of
nature and intent so little monotheistic as the She
mites. The primitive Bedouin Shemite is a fetich-
worshipper — he never advances into civilization in
the early time save to become polytheistic. What is
called the monotheistic instinct is clearly due to some
impulse from without on a single branch of the She
mitic stock. It is no less one of the most interest
ing than one of the most important tasks of the
student of civilization to trace this back to its foun-

32 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
tain-head, follow it through the history of that mys
terious fragment of our race whom it raised to a
position of permanent influence and interest such as
even Greek art and literature has failed to do for the
Hellens, until it blossoms out into the two great
religions of the world, Christianity and Islam. The
religion of the western world, be it Judaism or Chris
tianity, is stated in Shemitic terms ; was first taught
by a Shemitic tongue to a Shemitic people. The
origin and primitive form of Christianity is inexplica
ble without understanding that the manners and
habits of thought of its founders were Shemitic.
The Greek element which later came into it and is so
often confounded with it became an element of aliena
tion to its Shemitic followers.
Turn in another direction and how valuable are the
inquiries as to the genesis of the Assyrian art and
letters, by contact with which in Asia Minor and
the islands of the Egean our own art had its begin
nings. Looking to the eastward, what is the relation
between the early culture of India and the Euphrates
valley, so like, yet so unlike? Looking to the
westward, what precisely is the Shemitic element in
the primitive Greek culture, what the Shemitic influ
ence which has left traces so unmistakable in the
rude art which has been exhumed in our day from
Mycenae and Hissarlik?

STUDY OF THE SHEMITIC LANGUAGES.

33

Only time fails me further to dwell on the many
points of interest and importance in Shemitic study.
I trust that this University which already in its
beginnings has done so much for the elevation of
American scholarship may be permitted to solve
some of these problems. I trust Shemitic letters may
never be regarded here as survivals of a scholastic
learning whose usefulness has long since volatilized,
may never be taught here to prove any dogma save
truth. I trust they may be esteemed as of equal
value with their sister branches of philology and
literature for the study of the thought, the civilization
and the history of the. world.
I shall in continuation of this course of lectures
take up, in our next hour, first a short sketch of the
rise and development of the literature of the Jewish
people, passing then to speak, more specially of the
book of Psalms ; the collection, arrangement and the
present form of the entire book, together with the
style, authorship and age of the several poems. This
course is not designed for Hebrew scholars, so use
will be made of the version of King James now in
general acceptance in most English-speaking com
munities. 2*

LECTURE II,

I endeavored in a previous hour to make clear to
you the origin of the Shemitic peoples, and traced,
after a cursory manner, the migrations by which they
became masters of the hither Orient. I further en
deavored to show the importance of the study of
Shemitic letters and history to a just appreciation of
the thought and civilization, not only of antiquity but
even of our own time. Many of the points which I
then inerely touched might be further dwelt on with
both interest and advantage. We must however turn
now to the consideration of the language and litera
ture of one of the smallest and politically least impor
tant of these Shemitic peoples — the Israelites.
The Hebrew literature is one of the cultured litera
tures of the world ; as literature it suffers with most
of us, through being removed by certain subjective
standards from comparison with all other literatures.
In what I have to say in this and the succeeding lec-
34

THE HEBRE W LANG UA GE. 3 5
tures, I shall regard it alone from the linguistic and
literary side, which I trust will not be without in
terest in opening up some views which may prove
novel to you. Believe me that I do so not from any
unmindfulness of the sacred relations other than lite
rary in which the Hebrew Scriptures must ever stand
to us.
Take up any history of the Orient of a century ago
and you will find stated as an axiom, to doubt which
was well-nigh doubting an essential of faith, that the
Hebrew was the mother-tongue of the race spoken in
Eden by our first parents ; for, naively says an old
chronicler, " the divine name as well as that of the
first human pair are plainly of the Hebrew tongue," —
the only fly in the pot of ointment being that the
serpent seemed so conversant with this same divine
language. With the growing knowledge of the Orient and the
renascence of philological study due to the discovery
of the Sanscrit, it became apparent that any such ori
gin of human speech was impossible ; the miracles in
language by which the Greek and Latin were derived
in the olden time from the Hebrew are now for scholars
but curiosities, of interest alone to the historian of
philology. I have been surprised to find that even at
the present day this view of the priority of the He
brew retains such hold in the popular beliefs ; but

36 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
even going no further than the Hebrew Scripture, on
ground of which the view is still held by some, it is
capable of convincing disproof; for (i) the proper
names which came down in the Mosaic writings from
the antediluvian period are not Shemitic nor can they
be explained from any Shemitic language, least of all
from the Hebrew. The people to whom they be
longed seem to have been members of an older non-
Shemitic civilization, who held the orient before the
rise of the Shemitic peoples. Scholars are in doubt
as to who this earlier people were, though it seems
the growing belief that they were akin to the present
Turanians. However this may be, it is (2) clearly stated
in the Genesis that the Terahite or Hebrew migration
had its origin in the district of Ur, on the lower Eu
phrates. Almost contemporaneous slabs and tablets,
of late years unearthed at Mugheir, show that the
language spoken in Ur at the time of the Abrahamic
migration must have been the Babylonian, thus
strikingly confirming our assumption made on purely
philological grounds in the last hour, that the He
brew was developed through the Babylonian from
some earlier Shemitic mother-tongue ; and we find
in Genesis xxxi. 47, that an older branch of the
patriarchal families than that to which Abraham
belonged lived in Mesopotamia and spoke not the
Hebrew but the Aramaic.

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE.

37

Not to confuse or weiry you with technical mi
nutiae, I will sum up the judgment of modern scholar
ship in a word by saying that what is known to us as
Hebrew is the Shemitic dialect? of the Palestinian sea
board of the Mediterranean, spoken with slight shades
of variance, chiefly in vocabulary, by all the Pales
tinian peoples. Do you ask for proof of this, you
may read it in clearest character in the broken frag
ments of the Mesha Stone, 1 oldest monument of the
Palestinian people ; on the ruins of the Phenician col
onies, strewn on every coast of the Mediterranean,
and in the names of the towns and peoples of the
Canaanites, preserved to us in the writings of the
nation who had dispossessed them.
The barriers which grew up in a later time were
national and religious ; linguistically there were none.
Phenician, Philistine, Canaanite, and Israelite, all
spoke patois of the same sea-coast dialect, probably in
no case with such variance as would prevent perfect
mutual understanding of one another. How this dia
lect, with its peculiar variations from the mother
1 The Mesha stone or Moabite stone is a heavy basaltic block dis
covered in the year 1868 on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. It con
tains an inscription in the Moabitish dialect by the Moabite king
Mesha, narrating the victories that his god Chemosh had given him over
the Israelites ; the inscription, belonging to the ninth century B. C, is a
valuable contribution to Shemitic palaeography, shows the close simi
larity of the Moabite and Israelite dialects, and throws light on the
history of the Omri dynasty. (T.)

38 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
tongue and the sister dialects, grew up, we can not as
yet clearly see ; it is, however, considered proven by
the best Shemitic scholars that it grew up in Palestine
from the meeting and attrition there of the various
Shemitic invasions — Babylonian, Aramaic, and Arabic
— during a longer or shorter period subsequent to the
year 3000 before our era.
The migration who enter Palestine under Abraham,
including not only the subsequent Israel but as well
the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and even the
Ishmaelite Bedouin, who later held the northern edge
of the Arabic desert, have the generic designation
Hebrew p3j? Ibri), a little understood name, refer
ring, perhaps, to their having come from beyond
(*\?#) the Euphrates— it is a name precisely of a sort
with Canaan, (liL?3 Kenaan), the national epithet of the
previous immigration.
There is a mooted question which need not concern
us here, as to whether the Abrahamic immigrants
came in among the previous settlers speaking a lan
guage precisely similar to them, or whether they ac
quired their later dialect from the Canaanites. It is
at all events clear from the narrative of the Genesis
that the patriarchs settled on friendly terms among a
people with whom they seem to have readily been
able to communicate. The migration of a portion of
the Abrahamites to Egypt, whither they had been at-

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE.

39

tracted by the fertile lands of the Goshen delta and
the largess of the Arab shepherd (Hyksos) dynasty,
who had seized the reins of power, probably would do
little to change their dialect, save in the vocabulary
for things specifically Egyptian. The Egyptians were
the most exclusive people of antiquity, regarding con
tact with the foreigner as pollution ; after the national
movement which resulted in driving out the hated
rule of the Hyksos, their Shemitic subjects were in
terned in slave colonies in the extreme part of the
eastern boundaries. Breaking away from this bond
age, it was the majestic revelation received through
Moses which first united " the mixed multitude " into
the people Israel, and gave to it that peculiar sense of
nationality — a people dwelling alone — which so dis
tinguishes them in the later history from their neigh
bor peoples, kindred in language and descent. Ibn
Khaldun, the Hallam of Arab historians, in his " His
tory of the Berbers," after describing in an eloquent
passage the effect of the desert on the so-called civil
ized man of the town, in conclusion wisely and pithily
suggests that there was need, throughout a generation,
of the pure air and simple life of the desert to fit the
vitiated and debased fugitives of Egypt to become a
nation and the bearers of a revelation. x But however
much revelation or surrounding may have shaped the
1 This passage occurs in the Prolegomena to the History. (T.)

40 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
character of the people, there is no reason to believe
their language underwent any change ; they lived and
wandered among the Ishmaelite Arabs, who were an
offspring of the same stock as themselves. There
was no need for a linguistic conquest of Palestine.
Though they came back a nation where they had
gone forth a fragment, they bring back with them a
language in all respects similar to the one they had
taken away from their old home. With all the stress
laid in scripture on the religious and national diversi
ty between Israel and the Canaanites, never is there
an allusion to so telling a point as linguistic difference
might have made had it been present. The very
name Israel gives their language, " the tongue of
Canaan" (Isa. xix. 18, fi'i? n?^), seems to imply what
from other sources we know positively, that it was
the common speech of all the dwellers of Canaan.
The whole tone of the narratives in the Jewish his
torical books creates the impression that the people
of Israel had easy and constant communication,
without need of interpreter, with all their neighbors.
But while in the slavery of Egypt and the disci
pline of the desert, the Israelite people had been
growing into a nation, there had unnoticed been
encroaching on the northern frontier of Palestine a
language which was destined to swallow up the old
speech of Canaan. It was the Aramaic coming from

THE HEBRE W LANGUAGE. 41
Mesopotamia and the upper Euphrates, to whose
later growth as well as the reason of it I alluded in
the last hour. The northern tribes of Israel, who
barely conquered and never held their own, were at
once thrown against this Aramaic frontier and very
early begin to show signs of its influence. The song
of Deborah, a war ballad composed and sung in the
north, has forms which are unmistakably the result
of this Aramaizing. Had not the rise of the Jewish
kingdom under David and the increase of its wealth
and power by the venturesome but successful com
mercial policy of Solomon furnished a centre for
the national life, Israel would, long ere it did, have
succumbed to the pressure from the north. Moreover
the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem rather
than at Shiloh, gave to the Judean patois made use
of in the service, the sanction of a holy language, and
it became forever thereafter the standard of the best
literary style, thus raising, in literature at least, a
break-water against the rising tide of Aramaism.
After the upheaval in the national life occasioned by
the secession of the ten tribes, the result of dissatis
faction in the tribes of the north with the growing
power of Judah and the centralizing policy of the
court faction in Jerusalem, the Israelite kingdom was
by the necessities of its situation, drawn into close
and almost constant alliance with the petty Aramaic

42 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
States of the Anti-Lebanon. The effect of this alli
ance could not but be reflected in the spoken dialect
of the northern kingdom which had ere. the final in
vasion and conquest by Salmanu asir ("'P^???' Shal-
maneser, 722 b. c.) been lost to Hebrew speech and at
least in the patois of the common people become
Aramaic. The question which has so vexed many
good people as to the whereabouts of the lost ten
tribes, recognized within a decade in peoples as dis
similar as the American Indians and the Afghans,
seems to me capable of easy solution by the probable
fact that the great mass of them never left Palestine.
The peculiarly Assyrian policy of securing them
selves from revolt and internal disorder seems not to
have extended to the deportation of entire peoples,
but was as effectively accomplished by the removal
of the upper and governing classes; in some few
cases it extended to the middle classes, probably
never to the peasantry. How far this deportation
went in the case of the ten tribes we have no sure in
formation ; but probably the great mass of the people
were not disturbed. Those who were taken captive
and settled in Mesopotamia, either filtered back
amidst the Jewish returns in the age of Cyrus and
thereafter, or preferring the Euphrates valley became
there, with their Jewish brethren who had chosen to
remain rather than to undergo the peril and hardship

THE HEBRE W LANG UA GE.

43

of founding a new State, (became there, I say), the
nucleus of those Babylonian communities whose
literary and commercial activity is in a later time so
celebrated. Out of the mixture of the foreign peo
ples brought into the upland of Ephraim, with those
who had remained there of the Israelites, there grew
up that cultus, so distasteful to the Jews, whose cen
tre was Gerizim, and the local patois — in all its main
features the old Ephraimite — which developed into
what is known to us as the Samaritan. The Galilean
country was settled by a more mixed population, the
outcome of which was an Aramaic dialect with such
an obscure pronunciation of certain characteristic
Shemitic sounds, that we are told in the Talmud
that it was impossible to understand a certain Galile
an who came to the Jerusalem market to purchase
something, whether he desired to have "'on (hamar)
an ass, ""^n (hamar) wine, 1?2, (amar) some wool,
or "l?*- (immar) a lamb, all pronounced precisely the
same in his patois. It is this thick pronunciation,
almost a brogue, which is the point in the betrayal of
Peter by his speech. I fear I weary you by philologi
cal detail, and can plead as my only excuse that most
of the misconception, shall I add preconception of
the present day, as to the Old Testament has its
origin just here. Bear in mind then if you please
that by the end of the seventh century before our era

44 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the old language of Canaan had probably ceased to be
a spoken tongue north of Jerusalem ; the exact lin
guistic line being of course a changing one and im
possible of definition. In the middle belt of Ephraim
was spoken a patois whose historical development is
the Samaritan ; in the farther north there was gradu
ally crystallizing out of many elements the later Gal
ilean. We have thus traced the Hebrew to its extinction
as a spoken dialect amongst the great majority of
those to whom it had once been a mother tongue ;
let us now glance at its fate in the kingdom of Judah.
The little kingdom of Judah, notwithstanding the
foreign policy of its court; (who, forgetting that their
very strength lay in their weakness and isolation,
constantly sought the alliance and aped the luxuri
ous manners of the great powers), despite the disso
luteness of morals among the people, who not only
accepted, but sought after the cultus of the Arame
ans, had in the Temple and learned classes of Jerusa
lem a principle of stability for its literature, and so,
to a great extent, for its language, which had failed
the northern kingdom. At the time of the attack on
Jerusalem by Sennacherib (Sanherib 3'lnJD) we know
that the courtiers of Hezekiah understood Aramaic,
which at that time was the cultured and diplomatic
language of the Orient — somewhat as the French in

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. 45
Europe during the last century. We also know that
it was not understood by the common people, who
still retained the older Canaanite tongue, which had
come to be called, as the dialect of the other tribes
had become Aramaic, specifically the " dialect of Ju
dah," all of which you may see by referring to Isaiah
xxxvi. 11. There is scarce another so widely ac
cepted belief as to the history of the East, founded
on so radical an error, as that of the loss of their lan
guage by the Jews during the captivity. This is
convincingly disproven by the fact that the dialect
spoken by them at a later day could not have been
acquired in Assyria, but being precisely of a kind
with that spoken by their neighbors on the north,
must have come to the Jews from them. The Capti
vity, with its breaking down of all authority and re
ligion, left the peasantry no doubt exposed to Arama
ic influences from the people who surrounded them,
but the educated and governing classes, who were car
ried away into Mesopotamia, lived together in dense
colonies, and would have little occasion, as they
doubtless had small disposition, to acquire the
tongue of their conquerors. At all events, they did
not acquire it : Some of the Psalms written during
1 The author here assumes, and probably rightly, that there is no good
ground for the assertion made by some writers that Aramaic had in the
days of the Exile ousted the' vernacular, and come to be the spoken

46 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the Exile show as exquisitely delicate a perception of •
the niceties of the language as those of the earlier
time. It seems impossible they should have been
composed among a people who were rapidly losing
their language. The Jews did not lose their lan
guage until several centuries later ; the main, in fact
almost the sole effect of the Exile was in preparing
the way for the subsequent change by breaking down
their nationality and bringing them as subjects under
powers whose official language continued to be Ara
maic until almost the opening of our «ra. The exu-
lants, who return to Palestine, bring back with them
their old speech ; in fact, with a generation present
at the foundation of the latter Temple, whose memory
extended back to the former, it seems to me impossi
ble that any great change should have taken place.
The writings of the post-exilic period in the clear
ness and ease of their style, attest the language as a
living and spoken one ; further and immediately to
our point, the writings of the post-exilic religious
orators or prophets, which would have been of no
value unless generally understood by the mass of the
people, are written in the purest vernacular. The
linguistic tenacity of the Jewish people is something
which interests scholars in very many fields — the
language of Babylon and Babylonia. The opinion that it was the tongue
of the Chaldeans is now entirely abandoned. (T.)

THE HEBRE W LANGUA GE. 47
Jewish universities on the Euphrates preserve to us
forms which the contemporaneous Arabic had long
out-grown ; Spanish scholars tell us that the writings
of the Spanish Jews (in Spanish) are in a style two
centuries older than their time ; and there may be
found in the dialects of the French and German Jews
many forms, preserved almost like flies in amber,
from the very oldest French and German. It was
the same tenacity which helped the Jewish people to
retain their old language, for three centuries after
their return, under constant Aramaizing influence.
It is not to our purpose to follow minutely the decay
of Jewish speech, beginning with the peasantry, and
last of all reaching the religious orders ; it extended
through the Persian dominion, during the feuds of
the Greek dynasties, when Palestine hung, the apple
of discord between the warring generals of Alexan
der, #and not until the repressive measures of the
Seleucidse to " damp the speech of sedition," does
it entirely cease to be a spoken language in the
second century before our era — crushed out between
the upper and nether millstones of Greek and Ara
maic. Its history henceforth, is that of a learned
language, one of the schools and not of common life.
The Jews of the Greek dispersion learned Greek, and
so completely forgot the mother tongue that a Greek
translation of their sacred books had to be made for

48 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
them. Those who remained in Palestine, together
with the settlements of the exiles who had tarried in
Babylonia, spoke Aramaic, until this was, in the sixth
century after our era, dispossessed in turn by the
Arabic. The subsequent history of the dialects of
the Jews and the rise of the Rabbinic and the new
Hebrew, does not, interesting though it be, fall within
the scope of these lectures.
I trust that I have thus far made clear to you that
the so-called Hebrew is the tongue of Palestine
where we can trace it back to a period two thousand
years before our era; that it was displaced among
the northern ten tribes by the Aramaic in the seventh
century before our era ; among the Jews it was re
tained until the second ; that since this time it has
been a purely learned language, spoken indeed after
a fashion, but without growth, or hold on popular
consciousness. So far from being a mysterious lan
guage, it is one of the easiest for the scholar to grasp
and determine the position of. You will notice that
what I have said of the " tongue of Canaan " has
been confined to it as spoken by the Israelites. It is
with intent that I have not alluded to it as spoken by
the Phenicians, or the other lowland people ; that
would lead us too far from the main point we have in
view, without changing in any essential particular the
history of the language as we have sketched it. Let

HEBRE W LITERA TURE. 49
us turn now from the linguistic to the literary side on
which, hereafter, in these lectures, I shall chiefly dwell.
The literature of the Jewish people falls naturally
into two almost equal divisions, the literature written
in their own native dialect — the Hebrew — and the
literature written by them in foreign languages. The
latter, which by the very terms of these lectures is
excluded from our present attention, is a literature of
enormous extent, principally preserved in the Ara
maic and Arabic, but found beside in almost all the
civilized languages of the ancient and modern world.
It contains many of the writings which have done
most to give renown to Jewish literature ; in Greek,
the philosophy of Philo and the Jewish fore-runners
of the new Platonism in Alexandria ; in the Aramaic
the main part of the Talmud, hugest yet crudest
of all encyclopedias, a very sea of learning which
swamps most of the craft which venture upon it;
in the Arabic, the poetry and belles-lettres of the
Spanish Jews, which lent grace to the civilization of
the Caliphate of Cordova, while Christian Europe
lay in barbarism.
Leaving this and taking up the Jewish literature
written in Hebrew, we find this again falling naturally
into two divisions — the literature written during the
existence of the Hebrew as a spoken language — the
natural outgrowth and expression of the thought and
3

50 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
life of the people, and the literature written after the
Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language— the
artificial product of reflection and scholastic effort.
This latter we are obliged once more to exclude from
our field of view. Suffice it to say in passing, it is an
extensive literature, whose chief value is technical,
for grammatical investigation and the like. The
artificiality and conceits of style with which it endea
vors to atone for lack of originality renders so much
of it as lays any claim to be pure literature cloying to
the taste and almost unreadable.
It is the native literature during the life of the
spoken language with which alone we are concerned
at this time. We have already seen that the Hebrew
was a spoken language for about two thousand years,
from a period somewhat prior to the twentieth cen
tury before our era until the beginning of the second
century. The limits of the literary period agree in
the main with this; perhaps, however, it were better
on account of the great variance of opinion as to the
date of the later writings of the Hebrew Scripture, to
state the literary period more in gross — as from the
beginning of the Hebrew language until the opening
of our era. You have thus, I trust, a clear idea of
what the first period of Hebrew literature — that with
which these lectures are occupied — is. It is the
period of the literature during the life of the spoken

HEBRE W LITERA TURE. 5 1
language, extending over two thousand years, from
the twentieth century until our era.
When we ask what are the written remains of this
period we find them of three kinds : (1) certain in
scriptions and coins, (2) a few apocryphal books, and
(3), and mainly, the collection of writings known to
us as the Hebrew Scriptures.
The inscriptions are some twenty or more carved
seals and gems, some of which belong to a period long
prior to the Exile, and of which Dr. Levy of Breslau
has treated at length. For paleography they are of
immense interest, but as they contain nothing but
proper names can scarcely be reckoned as literature.
The coins are those of the Maccabean dynasty, and
are all subsequent to the year 135 before our era.
Though of great rarity and numismatic value, they are
too late to throw any light on the language or litera
ture. Their Hebrew legends prove no more than the
Latin now stamped on the coinage of England.
What I mean by Apocryphal books I doubt my
being able to make clear until I speak of the collec
tion of the Hebrew literature and the reasons which
lead to its division into so called canonical and
apocryphal writings : — for the moment then this may
remain in abeyance.
We have remaining the Hebrew Scriptures now in
our hands, by far the most extensive, practically the

52 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
only remains, we have of Hebrew literature from its
first period. I have said only remains. They were
far from being the only literature during this period,
for we have fragments scattered all through the writ
ings which have come to us of a popular and religious
poetry now irrecoverably lost; while the compilers
of the Hebrew annals with most painstaking accuracy
give us the literary sources from which they draw
their information, and refer us to books circulating in
their day for a fulness of detail which they themselves
have not space to give. Look in any introduction to
the Hebrew Scriptures and you will find full citations
of this literature. " The Book of the Wars of the
Lord ; " " The Book of the Just ; " " Chronicles of the
Prophet Nathan ; " " Prophecy of Ahia the Shilon-
ite ; " " Chronicles of the Reign of David." The
literature which has survived necessarily presupposes
a flourishing contemporaneous literature in a high
degree of cultivation, and of a literary reading class in
the Jewish community.
When we take up these fragments of the early
literature which have come down to us in the He
brew Scripture, the first thing staring the student of
the original in the face is the precise similarity of
grammatical form running through the entirety of the
writings. I presume you know that grammatical
form in all literary investigation, be it even in our

HEBRE W LITERA TURE. 5 3
own English, is regarded as the most trustworthy
indication of the age of any piece of literature at
issue. An English scholar will at a glance distin
guish the English of Chaucer from that of the age of
Jonson by its form. When we take up the Hebrew
Scripture purporting to be a collection of fragments
from a period of over two thousand years, we find
from the oldest to the youngest, a precise similarity
of form ; no archaisms from an older time, no trace
of growth, still less of decay — a phenomenon unpar
alleled in literary history — a language apparently
sprung full clothed from the brain of a people who
continued to speak it for twenty centuries unchanged.
This has been made the basis of many charges of
designed manufacture of the writings to serve the
purpose of a priestly caste who gained control of the
rehabilitated Jewish state shortly after the Exile.
There is no other human speech or literature without
a history — were the form in which we have the
Jewish literature the original one, there would be
strong reason for suspicion that it was the product of
a single age and school. We know, however, that
we do not have the sacred literature of the Jews in its
original form, but in the liturgical shape into which
it was cast for purposes of worship by certain profes- .
sors of the University of Tiberias in Galilee, about the I
sixth century of our era.

54 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Perhaps I may make it clear to you by an example
from English literature. Imagine that the entirety
of English literature, from Caedmon to Spenser, with
all the variety and growth of form which enables us to
' distinguish it into old, middle, and new English, had,
in the age of Anne, been cast by the Anglican clergy
into a form suitable to the intoned reading of their
service, and in that shape alone had come down to us.
You will perceive that to be understood by the peo
ple" of the reign of Anne, the forms which had be
come archaic in their time must be given up ; — to
suit it to the intoned reading, the original sounds
must receive an unnatural and artificial pronuncia
tion. We should possess the early literature of Eng
land, no doubt, with unchanged credibility and his
torical interest, but we should have lost all the land
marks for determining its growth — it would be early
English literature in the language of the time of
Anne. We should have lost beside the only sure
clue to determining the age of the writings, whose
authorship was for any reason in dispute. The his
tory of English literature could only be gathered
from allusions in the writings themselves to places,
persons or events, that we knew, from the con
temporaneous literature of other peoples which were
not so evilly entreated, had lived or occurred in some
one period or another. Probably, however, if we

HEBREW LITERATURE.

55

wrote English literary history we should form some
subjective and dogmatic standard in our minds as to
how it should have been developed, and then with
as much literary skill as we were capable of, fit its
remains to this Procrustean bed of our ideal.
Such is precisely the condition in which the He
brew writings have come to us. The liturgical revi
sion of the Tiberian theologians has obliterated all
the distinctive forms of the earlier time. The lan
guage of Moses is similar to that of Isaiah, and that
of Isaiah to Malachi, all being in common flattened
out into the low (of course I mean in the sense we
say low Dutch) pronunciation in vogue in Tiberias in
the sixth century subsequent to our era. Bear in
mind what I said as to the supposed case in early
English. We have the old Hebrew literature with
unchanged credibility and historical value ; what it
has lost is its original literary form. So you may
understand why Hebrew literature has furnished
ground for opinions as to its origin and development,
so diametrically opposed to one another. Approach
ing it from the purely literary side, scholars whose
learning can not be called in question, have referred
its beginning to periods as remote from one another
as Moses and Ezra, and there is scarce one of its writ
ings the opinions as to whose origin does not range
over several centuries. Subjective standards have

56 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
indeed been raised and vehemently insisted on by the
varying schools, for the very reason that there is not
in the writings themselves that sure standard of
literary form which alone enables scholars to trace
the development of any literature and establish be
yond controversy the age of its several writings.1
The beginnings of the literature of Israel are coin
cident with the beginnings of its national conscious
ness at the time of Moses. Compared with other
literatures of the Orient, it is of comparatively recent
qrigin. The pyramids which to-day look down on
us had, when Moses was born, been keeping watch
over Egypt for five '' centuries, and the heyday of
Egyptian literature and culture had long before him
begun to wane. Even in the • Shemitic people there
had been a long period of literary development, and
to the eyes of the western nations there has in this
century been unearthed a literature written by the
Chaldean ancestors of Abraham.
Drawing the line again more closely we find even
in the " language of Canaan," clear traces of a litera
ture prior to the Mosaic age, for when, forty years
1 That the author does not here mean to exclude wholly other notes of
age than the phonetic-grammatical of which he speaks, is evident from
the judgments he passes pp. 62, 131, on the dates of various Old
Testament writers. His object is to warn against arbitrary subjective
critical conclusions, and to insist on a strict scientific critical method. (T.)
2 Leading Egyptologists assign to the oldest of the pyramids a much
greater antiquity even than this. (T.)

HEBRE W LITERA TURE.

57

later Israel enters Canaan there is mention of a city
so celebrated by its library as to have been named
after it.1 Doubtless, even the tribal fragments out of
which Israel was welded into a nation, had their own
traditions, some of which may have been committed
to writing. We find throughout the Genesis constant
evidence of the use of older material, partially ex
plainable as transmitted by verbal tradition, as the
refrain from the sword-song of Lamech; but in a
measure, only explainable, as the old chronicle in
chap. xiv. by being preserved in some written shape.
In the strict sense of the word, however, we have no
trace of a distinct literary activity, in any of the peo
ples who made up Israel prior to the beginning of
their national existence. It is a literary problem of
the greatest moment, just how much of the literature
which the pious reflection of a later generation refers
to its eponymous lawgiver, can justly be given to
him. The discussion of the origin of the Mosaic
literature would in itself involve many lectures. I
am fully aware with what force and learning the ob
jections to the Mosaic origin of the Hebrew litera
ture both have been and are being urged. Perhaps
that which is most celebrated and widely accepted
among scholars at the present day, is the one pre
sented with great lucidity by Kuenen in his "Re-
1 Kirjath-sepher, " City of books." Josh. xv. 15. (T.)

58 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
ligion of Israel," that the beginnings of Jewish
literature were the prophetic writings of the eighth
century. To me it seems impossible that the litera
ture of any people should have writings like those
of the eighth century for its incunabula.1 If the
canons gained from the study of other literatures be
of any value, these eighth century writings, now so
much discussed, are inexplicable save as the ripe
fruitage of a long previous literary period. It is im
possible, however, for even the most conservative
student of the Mosaic literature, to deny that in its
present shape it shows such traces of editing and an
notation, as to render it inconceivable that it should
have come from any one man or any one time. Into
the so-called theory of manuscripts, with whose pain
ful minutiae the Hitzigian school first confused their
readers, and then befogged themselves, I do not now
propose to enter. The fairest summing up of the
outcome of the whole discussion, is probably this;
that the Mosaic literature in its main lines, its docu
ments, its genealogies, and its laws, is the product of
the great mind who laid the foundation of the Jewish
state ; that it first passed from documentary to liter-
1 Kuenen holds that none of the present books of the Old Testament
were committed to writing before the eighth century, but admits a pre
ceding unwritten literature, assigning the Song of Deborah, for example,
to the period of the judges. (Religion of Israel, English Translation, i.
313, 314.) (T.)

HEBRE W LITERA TURE. 5 g
ary shape, after the rise of the Jewish kingdom had
given the order and leisure necessary to literature,
and finally was edited after the Exile by those who
collected the canon, with annotations on many points
of interest to their time, which in the original were
obscure. This to me adequately explains all the
phenomena which these writings offer, and I am una
ble to perceive either on scholarly or literary grounds
sufficient warrant for the more radical theories.
The period of the entry into Canaan, of its conquest
and gradual occupation, was one of anarchy and un
rest, such as produces among most peoples myths
and ballads, but rarely sustained and consecutive lit
erature. Its products in Israel are war songs like
that of Deborah, fables, like that of Jotham, narra
tives, current in the mouth of the people, of their
heroes and warriors, like Samson and Jephthah.
First after the establishment of internal quiet
through the Davidic kingdom, together with the set
ting up of the Temple and court in Jerusalem, did
there grow up any literary class, or a literature in our
sense of the word. There seems early to have been
attached to the court stated officials, called chron
iclers, who were doubtless the compilers of many of
the books — such as " Chronicles of the Reign of
David," which are quoted from or referred to in the
works which remain to us. There was another class

60 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
called "keepers of the archives," whose duty, no
doubt, was the collection and preservation not only of
the earlier written laws and documents, but also the
traditions of the wilderness and those disordered years
of the conquest which were fast fading from men's
minds. It was from these collections that the books
of Joshua and Judges were edited, by whom we know
not, in the times of the early kings.
With the luxury and culture of the reign of Solo
mon came a contact with and knowledge of foreign
literatures, from which arose a branch of literature in
the Hebrew which seems almost exclusively confined
to the Solomonic times, that of translations. The
book of Job, which I shall speak of at a later time,
and many chapters of the Proverbs come under this
head. Poetry was the earliest, and it continued until the
extinction of the language to be the most exquisite
flowering of its literature. Much of the poetry which
comes from pre-Davidic times — the Blessing of Jacob
. — the Song by the Sea — the Song of Deborah — is as
perfect in form as, and perhaps even more forcible in
language than any of the later poetry. But it was first
with the establishment of the liturgical worship and
orders of singers in the temple that Hebrew, poetry
assumed its most characteristic form in the religious
song. We shall hereafter see that somewhat more

HEBRE W LITERA TURE. 6 1
than half of the poems remaining to us in the Book of
Psalms were written during the duration of the Judean
kingdom. Prophetic literature had its origin in the schools of
the Prophets — communities half ascetic, half religious,
which have existed in the orient with different names,
under every form of religion, from the earliest times
until the present. It is the characteristic literature of
the period of the Kings, but I must defer its more
general consideration until I come to speak of Isaiah.
Its representatives in this period are Joel (870),
Jonah (800), Amos (790), Hosea (785), Micah (725),
Isaiah (717), Nahum (700), Zephaniah (640), Ha-
bakkuk (604), Obadiah (?), Jeremiah running into
the Exile.
Of the profane literature of this period, which we
have evidence was an extensive one, there is naught
preserved to us save perhaps it be the Song of Songs,
or Song of Solomon, in regard to which many of the
Church Fathers held the view now far from uncom
mon among scholars, that it is a popular drama which
some strange chance of tradition or editing had
brought into its present place.
The golden period of Jewish letters ends with the
Exile. From the post-exilic times we have literature
perfect in form, and classical in language; but the
evident imitation of antique models, and the constant

62 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
striving to conceal, through finished shape, the dearth
of originality, betray it to us as a literary aftermath.
We have already seen that the upper, the writing
and reading class, were those who most suffered from
the Exile. On their return to their old home, imme
diately after ensuring their own safety, there naturally
came the desire to secure what was most sacred to
them from their early literature, in some permanent
form, lest a new catastrophe might utterly obliterate
it. Whether it were Ezra, to whom the unanimity
of tradition points, or his contemporaries in the so-
called great Synagogue who inaugurated this move
ment, we do not know. All the writings were not
collected at once, but gradually through several cen
turies and in three separate collections, in which they
still remain in the original.
The first endeavor seems to have been to secure
the remains of the Mosaic writings, the most venerable
and sacred literary heritage of the nation. These
were collected almost immediately upon the return,
and becoming the religious and political constitution
of the new State, have retained for Israel ever since
an importance so much greater than that of the rest
of its literature, as almost to place them in a category
of their own. The remnant of Ephraim, who some
what later, with motives not unmixed, offered aid to
the returned colony, and were alienated for all time

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. 63
by the refusal, accept alone as sacred the Mosaic
writings in the form in which they were collected at
this time.
The Mosaic writings, as those first collected, stand
at the beginning of all our Bibles as they do in the
original. Their final editing and arrangement in five
books — in fact the whole literary shape in which we
now have them is the work of this period. Only the
chapters and Verses in our English Bibles are of late
origin, and these, in some cases, are subsequent to
the Protestant Reformation. The name we give these
writings — Pentateuch — and that of their divisions —
Genesis, Exodus, etc., either come directly or are
translations from the Septuagint, a Greek transla
tion made in the second century before our era, as
tradition informs us, for one of the Ptolemies, who
secured for the Alexandrian library, somewhat as
Professor Miiller is now striving to do for Oxford, a
collection of translations from the chief religious
books of the world. The name in the original Mosaic
literature is ^m Tora, one of the many Bedouin
words preserved by the Israelites from their nomadic
days. It means some landmark, be it a tree, a rock,
a ruin, by which the traveller traces his way through
a trackless wild; hence in the ethical sense the
land-mark set to guide men on the way of life —
unfortunately translated 6 vofioz in the Greek of

64 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the New Testament— whence we have our name,
" The Law."
No sooner was this collection completed than there
seems to have come the popular impulse to gather
and preserve the writings of the men whose memories
were held sacred by them from the former time, and
to put in some permanent and compendious form the
history of the Davidic kingdom with its departed
glories. The result of this was a second collection
called D'N^J Nebiim, a name whose force is obscured
to us through the unfortunate translation of the Greek
ol npoyrpai — The Prophets.
A prophet, as we shall see hereafter, was, and still
is in Shemitic conception, any holy man who comes
with a divine message-^-we should not be far from
right were we to paraphrase the original as, " Writ
ings of the Saints."
From the pre-exilic time, they received into this
collection, the writings of Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah,
Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Obadiah, also
Jeremiah, whose activities as writer and orator extend
into exilic times. We can also readily understand
the reason for the acceptance of Ezekiel who belongs
wholly to the Exile, and whose rhetoric clearly be
trays his Babylonian surrounding ; the reason of the
acceptance of Haggai and Zechariah, one an old man
through whom the prophetic spirit had come down

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. 65
from the former time, the other the messenger to the
new state, is none the less plain. It is not clear why
Jonah should have been included.
This collection was probably not completed until a
number of years after the Exile, as it includes an
anonymous prophecy, made by one who calls himself
the messenger of Jehovah — Malachi — a designa
tion and not a proper name, and which is usually
referred to a period somewhat subsequent to Nehe-
miah. Observe that the book of Daniel is not found
in this original prophetic collection. According to
all Jewish canonical tradition, it is a much later book,
and in the Hebrew text is found in a collection of
writings which was not inaugurated until after the
prophetic collection had been closed. Daniel has
come into its position among the Prophets, in our
English Scripture, from the Greek translation, which,
I fear, the scholars of King James' time were some
what more conversant with than with the Hebrew
original. The arrangement of books in this collec
tion (at least in the form we have it preserved to us)
is partly chronological, but in the main regulated by
size; — thus there come first Isaiah, Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, though none of them are as early as some of
the so called minor prophets. When we follow further
the same collection and inquire into the arrangement of
the twelve minor writings, we find Hosea immediately

66 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
following Ezekiel, and in turn followed by Joel and
Amos, merely on the principle of comparative bulk.
Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi were placed at the
end, for reasons purely chronological, after the rest
of the collection had been made up. We can not
now see any clear or consistent reason for the posi
tion of Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
and Zephaniah, which stand together in the middle of
the collection. Probably for the most part synchro
nous with the making up of this collection there was
being gathered the material for the ancestral history
from the close of the Mosaic literature until the
breaking up of the Exile. The collectors, whoever
they may be, possessed ready to their hand the writ
ings, named from the period they cover, Joshua and
Judges, which we have already seen were compiled
in the preceding age from the royal archives. These
they made use of in their existing form. They seem
then to have addressed themselves to preparing a
history of the people to cover the gap which
remained, from the last of Judges until the Exile. In
doing this they evidently make use of all the mate
rial available to them, not only the archives and
chronicles which had been saved from the Assyrian
invasions, but even the very traditions and songs
which lingered in the mouths of the people. The
result is a work whose style and consecution betray

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. 67
the offspring of single effort, but which for later
reasons of convenience has been separated into four
parts, 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings —
these names, which often, by the way, vary, being
meant as in the case of Joshua and Judges, to indi
cate the subject and not the author of the book.
Chronicles, which is adjacent in our English Bibles,
is a much later book. It is the product of a school
of thought and an historical method almost diamet
rically opposed to the one which has given us this
earlier history. In the original Hebrew, Chronicles
stands at the very end of the last collection of writ
ings, which could hardly have been made until some
centuries later. The annals thus completed from the
' older writings Joshua and Judges, and the new com-
pend of the subsequent history, were not set in a
separate collection, but placed one might almost say
as an introductory historical preface, to the writings
of the worthies of this same period which had
already been collected. To the whole collection was
given the name of its chief part — " The Writings of
the Saints " — seemingly confirming what I have just
remarked, that the historical part was regarded as
secondary ; perhaps no more than an historical sketch
of the time in which lived and acted those whose
writings it was the main end of the collection to pre
serve and hand down to the after time. In the orig-

68 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
inal this second collection is placed with correctness
immediately after the Mosaic literature. The arrange
ment in our English Bibles represents an endeavor
borrowed from some of the old versions to group the
writings topically rather than historically.
After the collection, both of the Mosaic literature
and of the prophetic writings had been completed,
there was still a remainder of writings, hallowed in the
affections of the people, which did not come from the
Mosaic time, neither were they by prophetic authors.
So by the canon which had been set up in the two
former collections they were of necessity excluded
from them. These were gathered in the third and
last collection, which received the name D'^na —
Kethubim, writings — or, as the Greek aptly para
phrases it, hi bff'uu ypayat — "The Hagiographa" —
" Holy Writings." From the pre-exilic times there
was received into it, first of all, such portions of the
Psalms as were then existing, which were from a great
variety of authors ; the Book of Job, whose author
was unknown, and which was probably an adaptation
from some foreign literature ; the collection of Pro
verbs, including not only Jewish, but also Edomite and
Arabic proverbial sayings — (as you may assure your
self by looking at the later chapters) — and the
Lamentations, wrung from some pious heart by the
desolations of the city of his worship. A slight gap

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. 69
in the previous history between Judges and Samuel is
supplied by the little book of Ruth, scarcely as much
history, as it is the most exquisite of pastoral idyls.
A new historical book, unfortunately severed in twain
in a later day, and known to us as Ezra and Nehe-
miah, was written to preserve the story of the later
uprising of the Jewish State, and to complete the
historical narrative of the earlier books. Thus the
collection at the beginning of the fourth century
probably included Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamenta
tions, Ruth, and the Ezra books. Unlike the other
collections, this was not then closed, but remained
open to receive both the writings of a later time and
some earlier ones, whose sanctity and value first be
came established during the succeeding two centuries.
Among the later writings are clearly to be placed
Esther, the reason of whose right in the collection is
still in dispute among scholars, and the Chronicles,
founded on the Temple records and a mass of docu
ments, unused or inaccessible to the compilers of the
previous history of the same period. I have said
already that Chronicles stands the last book of the
Hebrew original — who the author was we do not
know — he seems often overmastered by his matter,
and some have gained the impression in reading him
that he is writing in an imperfectly acquired lan
guage.

70 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Of early literature which was not till late received
in the collection is the Song of Songs — a book
whose sacred character remains until this day an
undecided subject of inquiry. It was one of the
burning questions of Jewish theology in the first
century of our era, whether it might be read with
washen or unwashen hands ; i. e., whether it was
sacred or profane.
There remain but two books more, Daniel and
Ecclesiastes. The opinions as to the age of these
books are now very widely variant ; for Daniel, from
the Exile to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes ;
for Ecclesiastes, that it is a reflection of the aged
Solomon, or a Stoic pamphlet of the year 50. The '
views of both positive and negative critics are held
on grounds of dogmatic prepossession which will not
bear literary criticism. It is impossible, I imagine,
while men's minds are unable to investigate these
books without the present prejudice, to determine
with accuracy either their age or their authorship.
When this collection of " Holy Writings " was
closed is not known, and must be largely determined
by the dates we assign to its later books. We know
with reasonable surety that it existed in its present
shape at the beginning of our era. In the New Tes-
ment the collection is called the Psalms, a name
taken from its principal book ; — the reference to the

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. Ji
Law, the Prophets and the Psalms being an allusion
to the three-fold collection in the Hebrew Scriptures,
which was then as it is now in existence. In the
arrangement of the several writings in this collection,
there is a great divergence even between the manu
scripts of the original — a reflection of the uncertainty
prevailing until a time subsequent to our era as to
the age and authority of one or more of the books.
The more common arrangement in our best printed
editions of the original is : Psalms, Proverbs, Job,
Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes,
Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles.
This arrangement is topical — First, three poetical ^
books, then five so called nivJO Megilloth, or Rolls —
read by the later Synagogue on certain feast-days : the
Song of Songs at the Passover; Ruth at Pentecost
(Whitsuntide) ; Lamentations on the anniversary of
the Temple Burning; Ecclesiastes at Tabernacles,
and the most prized of all, Esther on Purim, often no
more than a Saturnalia, and lastly, the four historical
books. As to Ruth and Lamentations there is some reason
for supposing that at one time they may have be
longed to the older collection of prophets ; at a later
period, for a certain convenience in the arrangement
of the synagogue reading lessons, which I cannot
pause to explain, they were transferred hither from

72 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
their original position. All the other writings just
named clearly belong in this last collection. Their
position in our version is borrowed from the some
what eclectic arrangement of Ptolemy's translators.
Thus we have finished our brief sketch of the
Hebrew language, of its early literature, and of its
collection. The name this literature is wont to receive
is " canonical," i. e., in conformity to some standard
which is set up. I had desired to explain what this
standard was and how it led to the rejection as
apocryphal, viz. : for private and not public reading —
of a number of valuable and instructive writings
disapproved of, mayhap, because unread, by many
who were contemporaneous with the later books of
the canonical collection. I will not broach the
question now, for the closing hour leaves me insuffi
cient space to satisfactorily discuss it. At some time
ere I conclude these lectures I will take an opportu
nity to further speak of it to you.

LECTURE III.

After considering in my first lecture the position
of the Shemitic peoples and languages, I endeavored
in my second hour to sketch for you in most hasty
outline the history of the Hebrew people and their
language, of their literature and its collection. I
have been asked to make more clear to some of you
our sources of information as to the three collections
of which I then spoke — The Mosaic writings, or
Pentateuch — "The Writings of the Saints," known "to
us as " Prophets " — and the Kethubim (Hagiographa)
or miscellaneous writings. None of you need be
appalled at my suggesting your confirming what I
then said by looking in any printed Hebrew Bible,
for, in the better editions, the indexes and rubrics are
all printed in Latin. You will find the arrangement
to be precisely as I stated.
You will also trust me when I say to you that the
manuscripts contain in all respects a similar arrange
ment. But some one may say, may it not be an ar-
4 73

74 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
rangement peculiar to the occidental manuscripts on
which our printed versions of the Hebrew are based,
none of which as we well know are older than the
twelfth century ? This is possible, as the western
manuscripts have many arrangements both of books
and text peculiar to themselves, but if you will
come with me to St. Petersburg, I will show you
Hebrew manuscripts of a school whose principles of
text and arrangement are radically diverse from those
of the Tiberian school from whom our western manu
scripts have come. Rescued within a decade from
the cellars of a certain Firkowitzsh of Kschefet Kali
in the Crimea, (whose being a rabbi did not prevent
his turning an honest penny at forging,) these so-
called Babylonian codices, reaching back to the first
century, are a treasure to the Russian Imperial
Museum, even more unique and valuable than the
famous Sinaitic manuscript of the New Testament.
In these again we find the three collections in an
order exactly parallel to that in our western manu
scripts. Now an arrangement common to the manu
scripts of both these schools cannot well be younger
than the dispersion of the Jewish scholars consequent
on the Roman invasions at the taking of Jerusalem
by Titus; or the greater dispersion of fifty years later
when Hadrian crushed out in a bloody massacre the
last hope of national independence which had shown

COLLECTION OF THE HEBREW WRITINGS. 75
itself in the foolhardy sedition of the fanatic Simeon
bar-Kokhba. Thus we have manuscript evidence for saying that
these three collections existed in the original as early
as our era. In the time of Christ we know they ex
isted, for He speaks of the Old Testament, not as a
whole, but as existing in three separate collections.
The Greek, through which we have His words, but
in a mirror from the original, makes Him say the
Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms ; there can be no
doubt, however, that He Himself as a Jew, speaking
to Jews, would use the very designations I mentioned
in the last hour.
But one more supposition can be left to the objec
tor, and that is that the arrangement in use by the
Jews at the opening of our era was one made for con
venience in the Synagogue worship — a sort of lesson
book, as it were, while the Greek Septuagint transla
tion, almost two centuries older, has really an earlier
arrangement of the books which has, with wisdom,
been borrowed by the Vulgate and by our English
version. Fortunately we have evidence of these three
collections being in existence, which is contempora- j
neous with, if not earlier than the translation of the
Septuagint. The Wisdom of Jesus Sirach is the most important
of the so-called Apocryphal writings, and one, the

76 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
reason of whose exclusion from the canon, while a
book like Esther is admitted, is hard to see even on
religious grounds. Its author lived in the third cen
tury. We have it preserved in the Greek transla
tion alone, prepared by the piety of his grandson,
about the middle of the second century, and in Egypt,
the very home of the Septuagint. In the preface to
this Greek translation his grandson speaks constantly
of, and refers to, as well known, the three collections
of the national literature under precisely the same
names by which we know them now. The evidence,
therefore, is conclusive, and I have endeavored to
clinch it on purely objective grounds, without refer
ring either to the Talmud in which it is recognized as
of long standing in its time, the fifth century, A.D., or
to the unanimous consensus among Shemitic scholars,
whose opinion is worth the quoting, to its undoubted
originality and to the eclecticism of arrangement in
the translation of the Septuagint, which our English
version has followed. The object of these lectures is
not to broach novel theories or suggest any new ar
rangement of Hebrew Literature. However remote
from your ordinary consciousness some of the views
here stated may be, they are in every case what has
seemed to me a fair summing up of the researches of
those scholars who have devoted themselves to the
investigation of this literature.

THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

77

Let us now turn to that part of this early Hebrew
literature which will occupy our attention during the
next few lectures :
"THE BOOK OF PSALMS,"
and on consideration I have deemed it better to
gather in the form of lectures the points of greatest
interest as to its collection, arrangement and author
ship, rather than take up the more technical exposi
tion of some of the poems which, I imagine, would
be of less interest and value to the majority of my
hearers. As I have already said, the " Psalm Book " has its j
proper historical position as the opening book of the
third and last collection of the early literature of the >
Jews — the Kethubim or " Miscellaneous Writings."
That it stood there in the early time is clear from the
naming of the entire collection of these writings as
"Psalms" in the New Testament, a method of naming
a book or collection after its first part which is found
until this day , in the orient, and is familiar to every
scholar (so in Philo and II Maccabees).
It is no argument against this that in the so-called
Spanish Manuscripts, as in the Masora, Chronicles
precedes, as it was placed there on the purely subjec
tive ground that the collection might begin with the

78 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
genealogy from Adam ; while similar in kind is the
reason of the Talmudic arrangement of Ruth before
Psalms — that the Davidic songs might be preceded
by a sketch of David's ancestors. We have seen that
its position in our version is unfortunately borrowed
from the topical arrangement adopted for easy refer
ence by the scholars of Ptolemy, in the early Greek
translation prepared by them for the great library of
the Museum at Alexandria, whose books by the way
had all heated the baths of the fanatical bishop Theo-
philus two centuries before the Caliph Omar or Amru
the Arab conqueror of Egypt was born. Of course
you know the very good, though apocryphal story of
Omar's reply, " If the books are in accord with the
Koran they are useless — if riot they are heretical, so
in any case to be destroyed."
The name our version gives this collection is " The
Book of Psalms." This is not however the name
the collection bears in the original — it is there called
°>{?Vp Tehillim, B'Sn Tillim, Aramaic \jp, Tillin,
Praises, i. e., Songs of Praises, or Praise Book. This
/'"name Praise Book I had thought it almost too self-
evident to say, had not my attention been called
to a misapprehension on this very point since last
we met, was first given by the final editors and com
pilers of this collection, whoever they may have been.
In fact, the titles of all the books . of the Hebrew

TITLES OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES.

79

Scriptures are from the hand of the editor rather than
the author. This is shown very clearly by the great
variance of these titles among the older manuscripts
of the original ; moreover the utter dissimilarity of
the oldest versions from the original in the matter of
titles, indicates that there was in the early time
nothing sacred in them nor any authoritative tradi
tion. If ever any of my hearers come to have the
pleasure and toil of studying oriental letters, they
will find that the title of his work is that which the
author elaborates with most loving devotion. As the
Arabs say, it is the cord on which he hangs the
pearls of his rhetoric. So there can be little doubt
that each of these several books had at one time
some distinctive title of its own.
A few traces of such older titles are still found
embodied in the text and treated there as the first
verse of the book: Habbakuk i. I., Nahum, i. i.,
Obadiah i., Micah, i. i., etc., though here there rises
again in every case, the question as to whether this
or that particular title be from the author or his first
editor. If we had the titles which the authors themselves
gave their works, they would doubtless possess the
same credibility and historical authority, be it less or
greater, which we predicate of the works themselves.
What we now have, or rather, call titles are .scarcely

80 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
more than very late descriptive headlines, and a
plainly editorial device for helping the memory and
facilitating the reading of the rolls. I need not enter
upon or endeavor to explain the almost endless di
versity of these titles both in the original and its
early translations. As they exist in our English
King James, eleven of them are borrowed from ver
sions other than the original. Of these so-called
titles, twenty-two are names of persons, either, as in
the case of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel,
Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk,
Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah, the authors of the
writings, or, as in the case of Joshua, Ruth, Samuel,
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job and Daniel, the heroes
of the period the book describes. Malachi should
be reckoned in the former class though it is as we
have seen an anonymous prophecy — Malachi being
a designation and not a proper name.
The rest of the titles, fourteen in number, are
simply descriptive of the contents of the books,
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Judges, Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Proverbs, Ec
clesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations. Similar
in kind with this latter descriptive class is the name
" Book of Praises," which is found in the original.
We might justly paraphrase it- as " Hymn Book,"
uptvot; (hymnos, " hymn ") being as you know a " song

HISTORY OF THE NAME PSALM. 8 1
of praise ;" and this will agree precisely with what I
will presently show as to the book itself, that in the
form we have it, it is simply the Hymn Book pre
pared for the liturgical song of the second Temple.
The name we have just mentioned was the oldest
name of the collection, and is so recognized by the
few Christian writers of the first centuries whose
knowledge extended to the Hebrew. We find an
"allusion to it as early as the second century by Hip-
polytus of Rome, who may be known to you from
Baron Bunsen's very readable book " Hippolytus and
his Times " {Hippolytus und seine zeit, 2 volumes,
1853). You may not be aware that it is to Bunsen
though a foreigner and a diplomate, we are in no
small degree indebted for the re-awakening of the
critical study of the Old Testament in England,
which had almost lain dormant since Castell and
the great scholars who co-operated with him in the
London Polyglot.
Somewhat later this same name is mentioned as
being the original one in the preface of Jerome's
revision of the old Latin translation, which is now
known to us as the Vulgate, a revision which
has shared the fate of almost all critical versions of
the Scriptures. In his own age its author was ana
thematized even by so great an authority as Augus
tine, as an innovator and disturber of men's minds,
4*

82 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
only in a later time to be canonized by a grateful
church, and to have his version pronounced by the
Tridentine Council the ultimate appeal in all matters
of faith.
This name, Tehillim, or Hymn Book, further pos
sesses among the Jews an unbroken tradition in its
favor, so there can remain no reasonable doubt that
it is the title which was given this collection by those
who first collated and edited it into its present shape.
Our common name, Psalms, comes from the Greek
translation to which I have already alluded, as having
in one way or another such influence in shaping the
nomenclature of our English version.
Wolpbz (Psalmos, Psalm), in Greek means prima
rily the twanging of a harp or any stringed instru
ment — then a Song which is sung to such stringed
accompaniment, or later to any musical accompani
ment, finally means no more than "a piece set to
music." In this latter sense it is used to translate the
original "^J? mizmor. — " A Song to be sung to the
orchestral accompaniment of the Temple," which we
find in the inscription of fifty-seven of these Psalms.
Of the musical arrangements of the Temple service
I will speak later, but be good enough to look a
moment at the fourth Psalm for the origin of this
word. We lose in the English " Psalm of David " the
real pith and meaning of the inscription, whose sense

HIS TOR Y OF THE NAME PSALM. 83
is " belonging to David, that is, to the collection of
sacred songs called after David's name," a literary
note as to the author for the benefit of the reader —
the further musical note (mizmor), added for the
benefit of the Temple-choir, indicates that this com
position was to be accompanied in the service by the
music of the orchestra; the two notes having no
connection, and being probably from different hands
— one from the literary, the other from the musical
editor of this collection. We should have, — "by
David, an orchestral melody." The Greek renders
this musical note fairly well by Wolpbz, psalmos.
As it was found in the reading of so large a num
ber of the Songs, (and moreover when the Greek
translation was made, this collection had long been
used in the musical service of the Temple,) they give
to the entire collection the name Wo.Xp.6t, psalmoi,
" musical compositions," or " musical collection " —
" of the Temple," of course, being understood.
You are doubtless aware that all the Christian
writings which are collected in the New Testament
were, perhaps with the exception of the Gospel of
Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews, written for
Greek speaking peoples, few if any of whom were
conversant with the Hebrew. It is for this reason
that the writers when referring to the older Scripture
both in their quotations and their nomenclature

84 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
make use of the Greek translation and not of the
original. The Bifiloz Wolpwv, " Psalm Book " mentioned in
Luke xx. 42, Acts i. 20, is the title taken from the
Septuagint, and shows that as early as our era this
title was the common one in the Greek version for
this collection.
So far there could be no misapprehension in the
name; to all the Greek speaking peoples the name
Psalm carried the meaning of a song set to music.
The Book of Psalms was understood as the collection
of such songs used in the musical service of the Tem
ple. The confusion arises with the old Latin version,
made during the second century in the provincial
Latin of North Africa and from imperfect manuscripts
of the Greek, but which early gained such hold upon
the people of the Latin tongue, that it was only after
a long struggle and many anathemas that the later
version from the original by Jerome succeeded in
replacing it. In the Psalter however this old version
had acquired a peculiar sacredness through its con
stant use in the daily service, and neither the clergy
nor people were willing to give up for a new version,
however accurate, the old Psalter whose very words
and rhythm had grown to be an integral part of their
worship. I cannot here go into the history of the Latin

HISTORY OF THE NAME PSALM. 85
versions, nor would it be profitable that I should do
so. Jerome's translation from the original text in the
Psalter did not gain acceptance beyond scholars.
The old Latin with all the errors of the Septuagint
and a goodly number which must be laid at its own
door, continued with slight revisions in the Roman
and Gallican Psalter to be the service book of the
Roman Church, and at the Reformation was simply
translated into the vernacular by those bodies who
retained the liturgical forms.
It is to this old Latin version we owe, I can hardly
say a debt of gratitude for our word Psalm. If you
ever come to compare this old Latin with the Greek,
you will find it, in its minute and painful verbalness,
betraying not the accuracy but the ignorance of the
translators. Whenever they meet with a word which
is obscure, they simply transcribe it as best they can
with Latin letters. So it is that there has come into
the Psalter, both in the inscriptions and the Psalms
themselves, a mass of mongrel words belonging to no
language under the heaven, that have furnished
food for much mystical speculation which might as
well have been spared.
Most important of these creations of the old Latin
translators is the word Psalm. Evidently at a loss
for the meaning of the Greek WaXpoz, they adopted
the easy method of transliterating it with Latin letters

86 ORIGIN A AD GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
into Psalmus. Of course, to the Latin peoples, to
whom the word had no association, no natural signi
ficance, it became emptied of all the meaning, " Song
set to music," with the allusion to the Temple service
ever borne with it to the Alexandrian Jews. It con
veyed no idea extending beyond this collection, or
some part of it. In this sense it came into use in
ecclesiastical Latin, and with unessential changes of
form, has passed into all the languages of Europe,
which have come under the influence of the Latin
Church. In good English usage the word carries
with it no shade of its original meaning nor of its
history. It has almost come to be a proper name,
designating, in the plural, Psalms, this collection of
Hebrew sacred poems — in the singular, Psalm, some
one of them ; thence in modern English it signifies
any song or poem written after the same fashion.
I trust I have made clear to you the history of our
name Psalms, i. It originated in the Greek translation,
where it designates the collection as one of " Songs
set to music," in a word" Music Book of the Temple."
2. That the name as we now have it, evacuated of all
its old meaning, and .simply designating, as a pro
per name, this collection, comes from the Latin of the
old Itala. Should we too closely interrogate the his
tory of our nomenclature, in any department, I fear
our vocabulary would be small. The name has be-

HISTORY OF THE NAME PSALTER. 87
come fixed in the best technical and popular usage,
and as it conveys an intelligible idea, there is no
reason for a change. Only bear in mind that the
name is not the original one of this collection, and
even in the sense in which we now use it in English,
it has lost its characteristic meaning.
Another name in common use with us for this col
lection is " Psalter." As the name Psalm which we
have just explained, this also comes from the Greek.
WaXzijpcov (Psalterium) is a stringed instrument in re
gard to which there is some dispute among archaeolo
gists as to whether it were over or under-strung, that
is, as to whether it were a harp or a lyre. The name
seems to have been used metaphorically by the Jews
of Alexandria for their Psalm Book, just as the
present wont is to call our collections of sacred melo
dies The Harp, The Lyre, The Trumpet or some
similar name. It was probably not given by the
Greek translators, but through long popular usage
grew to be the generally accepted name of the collec
tion among the Greek- speaking communities of the
dispersion. It was the Harp which, as they met from
Sabbath to Sabbath, afar among the Gentiles, recalled
to them the sacred music of their Temple.
The early Latin versions were good borrowers,
even if they were nothing else, so this term could not
fail them. That they do not understand it is of small

88 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
moment. They have the Latin alphabet and can
transliterate, so the Latin is speedily blessed with a
new word, Psalterium, or perhaps I should say a new
meaning for an older word, as Psalterium had been
borrowed from the Greek as early as the Augustan
age, in its original sense of harp.
In ecclesiastical Latin this name came to be the
technical term for the Psalm collection as used in
the Church service. Thus we have the celebrated
Gallican and Roman Psalters', so named from their
respective use in the Gallican or Roman Church ser
vice, which represent the first unsuccessful attempt
of Jerome to improve the text of the old Latin, and
to the former of which the Anglican Prayer Book is
in no small degree beholden.
From the Latin the name passed in a similar sense
into all the modern languages of Europe. In English
we find the term most in use by those reformed reli
gious bodies in whose service the reading of the
Psalms forms some stated part.
Psalter then is a Greek word — meaning Harp, which
becomes first the vulgar, then the generally accepted
name of their collection of sacred melodies among the
Jews of the Dispersion. Passing into the Latin with
the loss of its original meaning, it becomes the techni
cal name of the Psalm collection, as used statedly in the
service — a meaning it still largely retains in English.

LITERARY ARRANGEMENT OF THE PSALTER. 89
There are other less important names in use in
English to designate this collection, but I cannot
pause to speak of them now. You perceive our
common names all come from the Greek translation.
Should we call the book as its original editors have
done, we should be obliged to say, " Praise Book, or
Hymn Book."
But let us now turn to the Arrangement of the
collection. The " Book of Psalms" is a collection of religious
poems from all ages and styles of Hebrew literature,
which have been critically and metrically edited for
use in the service of song of the Second Temple.
None of the early literature of the Hebrew people
which has come down to us is so varied in character,
none bears such traces of editorial emendation and
arrangement as does this collection.
Let me ask you to examine with me,
I. Its Literary, and II. Its Liturgical Arrangement.
The Psalms, as we now have them, are divided into
Five Books, which are clearly distinguished from one
another in the original by appropriate spacing and
by the names, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth
Books before each of the succeeding sections.
The only traces we have of these books in the
English version are the closing formulae or doxolo-
gies at the end of each section, which are lost to

9<D ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the ordinary reader by their being attached as a final
verse to the preceding Psalm.
The first book is from Psalm ii. to Psalm xli.,
with the closing formula, Psalm xli. 13.
The second book, Psalms xlii — Ixxii., the formula
Psalm Ixxii. 18, 19, — on the twentieth verse I will
speak in a moment.
The third book, Psalms lxxiii — lxxxix. — final for
mula, Psalm 'lxxxix. 52.
The fourth book, Psalms xc-cvi., formula Psalm
cvi. 48.
The fifth book, Psalms cvii.-cxlix. ; as a closing
formula, we may regard Psalm cl. which became a
sort of epilogue to the entire collection when this fifth
and final book was added to it.
What we call the first Psalm was also added in
the final making up of the collection as an introduc
tion or prologue, and does not in the early time seem
to have been counted in the number of the Psalms.
If you will turn to Acts xiii. 33 you will find in
our English version Psalm ii. 7 quoted from the
second Psalm, but we are able to say on manuscript
authority (for which see Tischendorf's eighth edition)
that it was quoted in the original hand as from the
first Psalm. Some later reader finding the quotation
in what in his Psalter had become the second Psalm,
corrects what he supposes was the oversight of the

LITERARY ARRANGEMENT OF THE PSALTER.

91

original writer, by setting second in the place of first.
From this later hand it is that second in this passage
has come into the received Greek text, and thence
by translation into the English. We can see now how
the writer of the Acts could with perfect accuracy
have quoted this passage as in the first Psalm, and
have a striking illustration of the little learning which
has done so much to improve and destroy for us
nearly all the literary remains of antiquity.
The number of Psalms in our version is one hundred
and fifty — merely an accidental agreement with the
later form of the original. One hundred and fifty is
not, as many suppose, either the sacred or constant
number of the Psalms. The number at an earlier
time more common in the original was one hundred
and forty-seven gained from the same material by a
somewhat dissimilar arrangement. It is this number
that the Hagadic exegesis of the Talmud — an
exegesis whose highest flight was to make acrostic —
has in view when it compares the Psalms to the years
of Jacob. We know, moreover, that in the Hebrew
manuscripts of a different school from those on which
our printed text is based the number is one hundred
and forty-nine. Though the Septuagint has also
one hundred and fifty Psalms, they are arranged
either by union or separation of several of the poems
in a way materially different from that in our version

92 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
— it unites into one, Psalms ix., x., and Psalms cxiv.,
cxv., and divides into two, Psalm cxvi. (verses 1-9
and 10-19), and Psalm cxlvii. (verses 1-11 and 12-20).
In this arrangement of the Greek the Vulgate has
followed, and it remains the common usage of the
Latin Church.
The Greek translators add to their collection an
apocryphal Psalm, known as the hundred and fifty-
first, which the later Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic
versions copy from them. It pretends to be the
thanksgiving of David on his victory over Goliath,
and I had thought of reading it to you. However, I
will not occupy your time with it. It is simply of no
value, and bears on its face such clear marks of manu
facture that even Ptolemy's scholars who drew into
their canon all accessible Hebrew Literature, whether^
good or bad, have to state in a note their disbelief
in its genuineness.
As regards the number and arrangement of the
Psalms in our English version, though this agrees in
the main with the printed editions of the Hebrew, it
seems to the best scholars probable that in several in
stances' for textual and internal reasons it would be
difficult to make clear to you, it should be slightly
changed. If ever you have an old oriental manuscript
in your hands, and notice how with but the slightest
spacing, without number and without other outward

LITERARY ARRANGEMENT OF THE PSALTER. 93
indication, the sections of a book or the cantos of a
poem are divided, you can understand how without
design or conscious intent, but simply through the
haste or carelessness of copyists, there has often
come into the later manuscripts an arrangement in
many respects dissimilar from that of the original.
It is a phenomenon found in all literature, which
has come to us in a written state, and there is no
reason why Hebrew literature should be exempted
from it.
One of the most important tasks of the science
known to us as " textual criticism," is to determine
from internal evidence whether the arrangement of
the matter, as we find it in the late manuscripts which
have come to us, is that of the original authors or
editors. This kind of criticism, applied to the text of
the Psalms, leads us to believe that the arrangement
of our English version, in one or two cases, differs
from that of the original editors. It seems probable
that originally a few Psalms, which are now separated,
formed but one poem, namely :
Psalms ix., x., both parts of one long, alphabetic
poem and correctly united in the Greek.
Psalms xlii., xliii., shown to be but one Psalm by
their common style and rhythm, and so found in
our best manuscripts.
Psalm cxvii., with its two verses, seems to be

94 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
merely the opening verses of the following Psalm,
cxviii., or the close of the preceding Psalm, cxvi.
The further union of Psalms cxiii., cxiv., and Psalms
cxxxiv., cxxxv., which not a few scholars have ap
proved, does not seem to me to rest on either in
ternal or manuscript grounds of sufficient weight.
It seems probable that there are united as one
Psalm in our version, poems which were originally
separate, namely:
Psalm xxiv., one poem, verses 1-6; a new and
entirely different one, verses 7—10.
Psalm xxvii., first poem, verses 1-6 ; second poem,
verses 7-14.
Psalm xxxii., first poem, verses 1-7 ; second poem,
Verses 8-1 1.
Psalm xix., is also regarded by many as composed
of two separate poems.
That each of the three Psalms, xxiv., xxvii., xxxii.,
is composed of two poems, is clear to any one who
has sufficient acquaintance with the original to appre
ciate the evidence of literary form and style. It is
not clear, however, and this is the point I wish to
make, that their combination is due to the error of
copyists; it is rather the work of the first editors,
who combined them for liturgical reasons I shall
hereafter make plain to you.
Our arrangement then agrees in the main with

COLLECTION OF THE PSALMS. 95
what we have reason to believe was the original one.
The only changes we can make in our version with
reasonable surety are the combination into one Psalm
of Psalms ix., and x., xlii., and xliii., cxvi., and cxvii.,
leaving, you perceive, one hundred and forty-seven
Psalms, just the number mentioned as the old one in
the Talmudic legend spoken of above.
We are told in the Midrash1 to Psalm iii., that
when Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi was beginning some
investigations into the authorship of the Psalms, he
was arrested at the very outset by a voice from Hea
ven saying to him, " Wake not those who have fallen
asleep — disturb not the grave of our king David." It
is a voice which has not reached modern scholars, for
no book of antiquity has been submitted to such
minute and constant investigation.
The result of these investigations in respect to our
next point, the collection of these poems into their
present shape, is very clear, and on all the essential
points practically unanimous.
Please remember the object for which this collec
tion was made, to furnish a hymn-book for the service
of the Second Temple, and you will have a clue to
help you in our investigation. It was not designed as
an anthology from their best poems, nor was it com-
1 A Midrash is an old Jewish exposition or commentary, usually full
of anecdote. (T.)

96 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
menced and carried through with any purely literary
motive. The first and sole object of its editors was to
compile from the religious poetry of their nation a col
lection of sacred songs for the worship of the Temple.
We saw in the last hour that the shape in which
we have the Hebrew literature is post-exilic, i. e., it is
the result of the movement then inaugurated to place
their sacred literature, much of which had been scat
tered or destroyed through the Assyrian invasions, in
some more permanent and compendious form, which
would be safe amid the new dangers which environed
and threatened to obliterate it.
One of the first of these collections would be of
religious songs for their re-established Temple wor
ship. Here the compilers would not be obliged to
make an original collection — they needed simply
to draw on the old " Hymn Books " of the former
Temple. That such existed we should a priori be led
to suppose from the necessities of the musical service
of the former Temple, as to which we shall presently
speak. Not only this, but we have preserved in
Psalm Ixxii., 20, the very name of the principal source
which our present editors have made use of in form
ing their collection, the Tn rrtSflfi Tephilloth David,
"The Prayers of David," the verse here being the
closing formula of the old roll containing this Davidic
collection, which the new editors with the unthinking

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS.

97

accuracy so characteristic of the Shemitic mind, have
taken into their collection with the poem which
immediately preceded it. That these " Prayers of
David" can not refer to the previous Psalms or
Psalm Book scarcely needs the saying, as many of
these are referred to other authors (xlii.-xlix.-l.) It
is of a kind with the subscription we find, Jeremiah
li., 64 ; Job xxxi., 40.
The name translated here " Prayer " means rather
" Devotional Hymn," " Sacred Hymn." It is found
in the original as the inscription of Psalms xvii.,
lxxxvi., xc, cii., cxlii., also in Habakkuk iii., 1, and in
Hannah's triumphant Magnificat, 1 Samuel ii.
Many scholars suppose that these " Sacred Hymns 1
of David " were an old Temple-collection begun by j
David, to whom the organization of the religious
music is very constantly referred, and which to a large
degree, though not exclusively, was composed of his
own melodies. Whenever we have an inscription in
our version stating that the Psalm is " of David " it
is almost invariably a mistranslation of the original.
The original T1.T? (literally "to David") is a note,i
made by the compilers having the simple meaning
that the poem in question either was taken by them
from this Davidic collection or supposed by them to
belong to it — this notice of course giving no judg
ment as to whether any particular Psalm be of
5

98 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
David's own personal composition or not, merely
stating it belonged to the collection which bore his
name, and leaving open to us to decide from the in
ternal evidence of the poem itself, and such outside
allusion as may be accessible, whether it be his or not.
I am aware that this view can not be found in the
commentaries, while our lexicons give a force to the
much discussed Hebrew particle which they have
borrowed from their knowledge of its translation in
the modern versions. I am convinced however on a
careful investigation of the textual phenomena of the
Psalms that it is the only theory that can enable us,
with any regard to the results of linguistic and critical
study, to retain our respect for the old tradition as to
their origin, preserved to us in the editorial inscrip
tions. The English translation " of David " " by
David," is not only incorrect in itself, but also mislead
ing, as the theories built upon it satisfactorily attest
I say the note as to the authorship is clearly of
editorial origin. Take any modern Hymn Book, and
from whom is the foot or head-note as to the author
of the hymn or tune ? Clearly from the compiler or
editor of the collection, who, if he be accurate and
painstaking, endeavors to gather information as to the
age and authorship of the hymns in his collection from
all sources he deems trustworthy. It would seem a
fact too patent to need proof that Wesley or Watts

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. 99
did not write over each of their hymns " by Charles
Wesley," or "by Isaac Watts." When we find
such an inscription in any hymn book of to-day,
no one for a moment supposes that it has been
copied from the manuscript of the author, but it is
universally recognized as a note by the editor for
the information of his reader. And yet a theory
precisely like this has been held by many scholars as
to the Psalms, that David, or the other singers when
they wrote a poem, wrote over it " by David " and the
like, and the later editors have simply transcribed
with the poem this also, and so it must have equal
authority with the poem itself, and must be regarded
as a sure clue to the authorship of the Psalm.
If you are at all conversant with the literature of
the Psalms,you will know with what hot words the
question of the authority and origin of these inscrip
tions has been debated, and what seas of ink have
been shed in settling it. Perhaps I may now, as well
as later, sum up the controversy in a few words.
The Jewish schoolmen and doctors were too busy
in the early time with their questions of liturgy and
ethics, which they have embodied for us in the Tal
mud, to produce any rational or critical exegesis.
The Midrash, perverting the truth which lies hid in
their old tradition that God has revealed His Law in
seventy-two languages, i. e., has given it a new force

IOO ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
and meaning to each people to whom it comes,
endeavored to read as many interpretations as pos
sible into the word of Scripture, and so degenerated
into a system of conceits or allegorizing. When
the Talmud had been completed and they came
to study and explain the Scripture, it was to count
its letters and invent a subtle system of signs to
mark their quantity. Do you ask bread of the Jew
ish schoolmen, they give you a stone, for in the very
things in which they had all the tradition, all the
knowledge, and might have been the world's teachers,
they have left it in ignorance. But no one dares
bring a railing accusation against their scholarship.
They were, through the mediaeval time, when not
only their books but their bodies lit the fires of
bigotry and hypocrisy, in their purity of life, their
good citizenship, and their thrift, the very leaven of
society. It is alone the result of the environments
into which they had been forced by misfortune that
their exposition of their own writings has remained
so meagre and of so small value.
Scholars in these later times have been obliged to
lay anew the foundations for the study of their na
tional literature, which they themselves were unable
to lay broad and deep enough.
They evidently did not understand these inscrip
tions, and often treat them as the Muhammedan theo-

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE~ PSALMS. IOI
logians do the not dissimilar inscriptions to the
Surahs of the Koran, as unrevealed mysteries into
which it is unlawful to look.
Few Christian scholars of the early time knew the
Psalms, save through the Greek and Latin versions,
by whose transliteration, rather than translation, the
sense of the inscription was rendered unintelligible.
Text and notes were not distinguished by them, and
they read to a people even more ignorant than them
selves the names of tunes and directions to the Temple
orchestra as though they were part of the inspired
Scripture. It was alone the acute mind of Theodore
of Mopsuestia (a. d. 429), most original among the
Church Fathers, condemned as a heretic by the party
of the ins because he happened to be of the party of
the outs, who seemed to have divined the real differ
ence of these inscriptions and notes, but his was the
only voice in a thousand years.
The scholars of the Protestant Reformation, which
was the return to the authority of an infallible Scrip
ture from the authority of an infallible Church, had
tasks of establishing the doctrine of Scripture more
essential than questions as to its text.
With the increasing study of the text of Scripture,
and the comparison of its versions, together with the
growing knowledge of the other oriental languages
and their literary usage, these mysterious inscriptions

102 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
were gradually unravelled. As it became apparent
that they were musical and literary notes, it also be
came apparent that they were no part of the inspired
text of Scripture, but mere remarks added to give in
formation to the reader or facilitate the use of the col
lection in the Temple service. Among the first to
announce this view was Richard Simon, a priest of
the Oratory at Paris, but he was met by a storm of op
position which has not yet altogether ceased. Bibli
cal scholarship here, as too often elsewhere, forgetting
that any inspiration must inhere in the message and
not in its literary form, took stand on ground where
it has had to make a losing fight, in which many
who would fain have wished it well, could not join.
The^literature of this inscription discussion on one
side or another, is a very large, and, I might add,
profitless one.
There are, probably, at the present day, no scholars
whose opinion carries weight, who recognize in these
inscriptions more than an editorial origin and an edi
torial authority. Some of the grounds that have led
them to reach this view are the following :
I. That it is contrary to all we know of Shemitic
style for the author to add notes or inscriptions such
as these to his poems or works, of course a technical
argument of weight to those alone who can appreciate
such style.

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. 103
II. That in the early time they were regarded so
clearly as editorial, that there was little scruple in
either changing them or omitting them altogether,
when the later scribe or translator imagined he had
better information as to the authorship of any Psalm.
The manuscripts of the Hebrew are far from agree
ing in them, but even still better illustrative of their
lack of authority is their form in the Septuagint.
This old Greek version gives an inscription of author
ship of some kind to every Psalm, even the late Hal
lelujah Psalms ; ascribes to David some thirteen or
fourteen which the Hebrew does not, and drops his
name from several ascribed to him in the original.
It gives a number of historical data in addition to or
at variance with those of the Hebrew text. Some of
the Psalms, which in the Hebrew are inscriptionless,
it ascribes, without any reason, to Jeremiah or one of
the later prophets. Of so little importance do they
seem, that some of the versions made from the Greek
omit them altogether, from reasons of convenience.
Do you turn to the Targum, or early Jewish para- \
phrase, you find many of these inscriptions different,
not only from the original, but from the almost con
temporaneous translation into the Greek. In a word,
their varying form, in all the early versions, evinces
that they were regarded as no part of the inspired text.
That any modern scholars should have claimed for

104 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
them more than editorial value is simply one of the
unaccountable whims of scholarship. It has never
occurred to any Christian scholar to lay any stress or
make any claim for the inscriptions or subscriptions of
the New Testament books, which a priori one would
imagine of more value than those of the Psalms.
These inscriptions or notes added by the editors of
our collection are of two kinds :
(i.) Giving information as to the author of the
Psalm with any circumstances accompanying or
occasioning its composition, but more frequently,'
merely the name of the collection from which it
had been borrowed. When the author of the Psalm
was not known, or, as some of the later Psalms, (as
cviii., made up from lvii. and lx.), it is simply a cento
from older poems arranged for the liturgical worship,
it has no inscription.
(2.) Even more numerous than these literary notes
are the musical ones, found, not only in the inscrip
tions, but in the body of the text, fy? Selah, for
example. These give us the tune to which the songs
are set, the instrument upon which they are to be
performed, with various minute instructions for the
proper tone and time to the Temple choir and orches
tra. These we will take up when we come hereafter
to speak of the musical editing of the Psalms.
The literary notes I will strive to make clear to

INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS.

105

you, as we now consider the growth and arrangement
of the several books, through whose final collection
into one our present Psalter is made up. We must
bear' in mind, then, that these inscriptions are no more
than annotations by the collectors, and our idea of
their authority in determining beyond dispute the au
thorship and age of a Psalm, is to be determined by
our judgment of the authority inhering in these col
lectors. One school insists they must in every case be
regarded as of last resort; another that they have no
value, but are merely marginal annotations of later
readers which have by mistake crept into the text,
and so should have no influence upon our indepen
dent opinion gained from personal study and analysis
of the Psalm.
The wiser view is that they give us the earliest
information we have as to the origin and authorship
of these poems and are therefore of priceless histori
cal value; that we should regard them of the same
authority that we do the annotations of any hymn
collector of the present time, who has in his hands
the best original material and has evinced himself
skilful, painstaking and trustworthy in its use. We
accept his annotations as correct in all cases where
there are not convincing internal or external reasons
which force us to believe that in this or that particular
case he has been mistaken. 5*

106 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Just so the literary inscriptions of the Psalms are
to be regarded as correct and trustworthy guides to
the authorship of the poems, save in the case of some
one or other particular Psalm, where there are
internal reasons either of literary form or allusion
to events, which we are able to fix from contem
poraneous history, compelling us to believe that the
editor must have been misinformed or mistaken.
This may seem a long discussion of a small matter,
but it is one on which have hinged all the mani
fold opinions which have prevailed as to the
Psalms. I have already pointed out the division of the
Psalms into five books. These were not collected
simultaneously, but separately, by different hands and
at longer or shorter intervals, during a period which
has been variously estimated, but probably cannot
exceed two centuries. All these separate collections,
or the best part of each, were then finally combined
into one general and received "Hymn Collection"
for the Temple service, which ever thereafter conti
nued to be the one in common use.
We shall first examine the collection of each sepa
rate book, and then their union into one larger col
lection. Book I. includes Psalms ii.-xli., with the closing
formula xli., 13. Psalm i., does not belong to this

FIRST BOOK OF THE PSALTER.

107

book, but was first added as a prologue to the entire
collection, when later this was formed from these five
older hymn books. We saw that the writer of the
Acts did not count it among the Psalms.
This book, as is attested both by its position and
the general style of its poetry, is the oldest of the five
books. It was probably formed immediately upon the
reestablishment of the worship after the return from
the Exile. It is composed of forty hymns, which are
not, however, an original collection of the editors,
but were taken by them entirely from the earlier
prse-exilic book, "The Devotional Songs of David," 
perhaps a selection from its more familiar melodies.
That it was thus collected is indicated by the note
as to the authorship, ^Tp. " to David," found before
all the poems save three — ii., x., xxxiii.
Psalm x., as we have seen, was at a late date sepa
rated from Psalm ix., through the carelessness of copy
ists, and so is, in reality, part of the preceding Psalm.
There is reason to believe that the inscription of
Psalm xxxiii. has fallen out, though it is possible
that it is anonymous.
Psalm ii. is the only one in the first book where an
inscription clearly seems to have been originally lack
ing. This Psalm may be considered either as an
introductory Psalm to this single book as Psalm i. is
to the entire collection, or as a favorite melody of the

108 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
old worship, which did not belong to the Davidic
collection, and whose author is unknown. By whom
and when it was written, as we have no hint from
either history or tradition, we are obliged to decide
upon the internal evidence of style and situation.
It may be said once for all in regard to the thirty-
four " widowed or bereaved " (D">?m]) i. er, inscrip-
tionless Psalms, that the only grounds for any decision
as to the authorship are of necessity internal. The
early editors gave no inscriptions because they were
not clear as to them. The inscriptions found with
them in the early versions vary so greatly among
themselves, that they but further confirm us in the
belief that there was no sure tradition in regard to
them in the early time.
When we examine Psalm ii., it appears that it can
not have been written by any King of Israel, such as
David was, for it is addressed to some King of Israel
by one of his people. The situation is besides ap
parently non-Davidic. Delitzsch, perhaps the most
conservative expositor of the Psalms, who can lay
any claim to oriental scholarship, refers it to the
Assyrian (the heathen of the first verse) invasions
during the reign of Hezekiah. Were we to read the
Psalm together, as I had at one time proposed, I am
convinced you would find that this is the position
in Jewish history which most strikingly illustrates

THE SECOND PSALM. 1 09
it. But this is the earliest period which can, with
reasonable fairness, be assumed for it. The opinions
as to its date among scholars have ranged through
the next seven centuries. It has been referred to the
inroads of the Scythian hordes — to the Chaldean
invasion, which ended in the overthrow of the Jewish
state — to the dangers which environed the colony of
returned Exiles, while rebuilding their city and
Temple — to the vexatious oppressions of the Persian
General Bageses — to the siege of Jerusalem by
Ptolemy Lagi — to the miseries of the people during
the dynastic strife between the Ptolemies and the Se-
leucidae — to the dangers threatened from the Sama
ritans, under the High Priest Onias — to the persecu
tions of Antiochus Epiphanes.

LECTURE IV.

We proceed to-day with our lectures on the
Psalms from the point at which we were obliged to
leave off with the closing of the last hour.
I then endeavored to make clear to you that the
original name of our Psalm collection was Praise
Book or Hymn Book, so called because it was a col
lection of religious songs made for the worship of the
Temple, and that our English names Psalms and
Psalter came to us from the early Latin translations
of the Septuagint, in a sense quite different from that
in which they were used in the Greek.
Taking up the arrangement of the Psalter, I
showed you the five books into which it was divided,
and, after discussing at some length the question of
the inscriptions, arrived at the conclusion that neither
of the extreme views in regard to them was, on lite
rary ground, tenable — that their origin was demon
strably editorial and chiefly of historical value.
110

THEORIES OF MACCABEAN AUTHORSHIP. I II
We then began our survey of the separate Psalms,
and had proceeded no farther than the Second Psalm.
As the last word in closing, I mentioned that
not a few scholars had referred its composition to the
reign of Alexander Jannaeus, b. c. 105-79, a period
which, despite the ever recurring internal disorder
and foreign invasion, was one of literary activity, and
from which we have preserved to us the Apocryphal
books of Judith and Tobit.
This last view was on the point of leading me to
call your attention to an interesting question in the
critical study of the~ Psalms, still under discussion,
and yet very far from any satisfactory settlement,
which we will now take up.
It is a view which seems to have forced itself upon
many scholars, even as long ago as Esrom Rudinger,
(who was professor for a. time in Wittenberg, a col
league there of Melancthon, and who died in 1591,)
that the historical situation and allusions in some of
the Psalms can only be explained by their authorship
in the Maccabean times. Despite Ewald^ assertion,
made with his customary bitterness and haste, that
the very inclining toward this view argues such
blunting of the moral and critical judgment as to ren
der one incapable of justly weighing the evidence at
issue, the great majority of Shemitic scholars who
have been capable of weighing the evidence, do, at

112 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the present day, in one form or another, hold this
view. Justus Olshausen, formerly Professor in Kiel, and
now Chief Secretary of the Prussian Ministry of Edu
cation, in his Commentary on the Psalms, which for
textual and grammatical study is, beyond dispute, the
most valuable we have, takes the ground which to
most of you will doubtless be startling, that the old
songs of the Temple worship were all displaced in the
Maccabean times by a new collection of religious and
patriotic songs, which had sprung from the inspiration
of that period of national and intellectual revival —
that, at the utmost, not more, than half a dozen
Psalms, ii., xx., xxi., xxviii., lxi., lxiii., which contain
too clear allusions to a Jewish kingdom to be ex
plained away, can possibly have come from prae-exilic
times. It is this Maccabeaji collection, he endeavors
to prove, on many grounds that seem to him of great
weight, which we have in our Book of Psalms. I do
not call your attention to this view for the sake of its
novelty. Were it the vagary of an erratic scholar, I
should not have mentioned it, but as the carefully
elaborated theory of a master in the front rank of his
profession, in which the study and reflection of years
have only confirmed him, it demands our considera
tion. With the sharpness of definition, which Olshau
sen gives to his theory, there are probably few who
hold it.

ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.

"3

In the modified form, that the last three books of
the Psalter are Maccabean in origin, it is held by a
considerable number, and thence through all grades
of belief or disbelief, until we reach the four Psalms
xliv., lxxiv., lxxix., lxxxiii., which, fairness compels me
to say, are regarded as undoubtedly of Maccabean
origin by many of the best authorities of the present
day. I think myself that the authorities may be in
error here, but before I can tell you why, we must see
clearly just what the Maccabean era is. The discus
sion of it will be of further value in fixing for us the
period from which came the latest songs of our col
lection. Antiochus the Fourth, known in history by the
name Epiphanes, the Illustrious, given him by his
flatterers, was the son of Antiochus the Great. His
fame has come down to us through the Jewish Apo
crypha as a bloody and ferocious tyrant; through
Diodorus and the Greek historians as an eccentric
voluptuary. And yet it seems to me that neither the
one or the other fairly gauges the character of
Epiphanes — that he is one of the little understood
and misjudged characters of history. Like Diocletian
he was a man by natural bent liberal in mind and
kindly in disposition, whom political circumstances
beyond his control forced to assume unwillingly the
role of a persecutor. Educated in Rome, he was

114 0RIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
through an intrigue which ended in the poisoning of
his brother, brought to the throne of Syria while still
a young man. He inherited from his house their
military traditions and boundless ambition. Con
scious of his ability to play a wider part than that of
mere viceroy of Syria, and holding in his hand suf
ficient force to at last crush out his hated rivals, the
Ptolemies, his hopes were dashed, and his plans, just
ready to mature, were blighted by the interference of
the Romans, who reduced him to a vassal. His dis
appointed ambition beat its wings against the narrow
bounds of his own territory; his failure embittered
him and prepared him to wreak on the Jews, when
later they opposed him, the indignities to which he
himself had been exposed. He was beside a vision
ary. When all hope of increasing his territory by
arms had passed away, he endeavored to bring to
gether the diverse nationalities and religions under
his sway, through some one cultus which might
become a common bond of union to all his people.
There seems to have been in his mind some dim pre-
figurement of that coincident church and state which
became the ideal of the mediaeval ages. Least of all
did he expect resistance from the Jews. He was sur
rounded by Jewish parasites who assured him their
people were eager for a change, and he could gain
small reverence for, a religion, the candidates for

ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.

H5

whose most sacred office — the High Priesthood —
bargained and wrangled at his doors over the price of
their investiture. There were very many among the
Jews themselves, who looked upon his first innova
tions with undisguised sympathy and favor — their
cultured and monied class had long since been
Hellenized. He built a gymnasium in Jerusalem
which became a centre for the Greek learning and the
Greek games. On his first return from Egypt he
entered an illuminated city amid the acclamations of
the inhabitants. He should not bear the blame of
misinterpreting a popular sentiment which seemed so
favorable to him. It was but the natural outgrowth
of his theocratic policy for him to set up in the Temple
at Jerusalem some symbol of the national cultus on
the Altar of Jehovah, who, education taught him,
was a mere local divinity though one to whom his
belief and disposition led him to show tolerance and
respect. The placing of the Eagle of Zeus as a
tutelar divinity on the Altar of Burnt Offering was
accompanied by riots in Jerusalem, which the Hellen
ized Jews of his Court assured him were the results of
political sedition. He sends an army to enforce
order, which is met by open defiance. In a moment
of despairing passion at seeing what were his fondest
dreams for the union and well-being of his people
miscarry, he gives orders to crush out with fire and

1 1 6 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
sword, all opposition to his commands. Once more
he is advised by the apostate Jews of his court that
the only way to crush the sedition is by crushing the
distinctive religion which was its rallying point, so he
committed the folly of his life by inhibiting, under
pain of death, the worship and customs they held
most sacred. He matched his armies against the
moral and religious force of the Jews, and to such a
conflict, as history has often shown, there could be
but one result. Justice to his memory should compel
even his enemies to admit that he himself did not
take part in the persecution ; he left it to his generals
and to renegades, who in all ages have been the most
willing instruments for persecuting the faith they once
professed. Starting on an expedition to Persia to
replenish his impoverished exchequer, he fails in
this too, and dies on his homeward way, February,
164, b. c, a broken and disappointed man, all whose
schemes for the •aggrandizement of his state and
welfare of his subjects have been misunderstood and
have failed. He can only leave to his nine years
old son a heritage of disorder, war and speedy
murder. I have thus sketched to you the character of Epi
phanes, because I conceive that history has done him
injustice. He was not a great man even as the world
estimates greatness. With the ambition of an Alex-

THE MACCABEAN ERA.

117

ander, and the theocratic ideal of a Leo, he was
confined to a narrow stage where his every plan was
thwarted. He is chiefly known to the after time by
his persecution of the Jews, which resulted in their
revolt, and ushered in a period of their history of
which they may justly be proud, — the Maccabean
Era. Had Epiphanes confined himself to his first Greek
innovations, the Hellenizing element of the Jewish
people would probably have been strong enough to
hold the Puritan party in check. It was not until,
when maddened by the first show of resistance he
strove to crush out the religion of Israel, that all par
ties became united into one. The blood of the first
martyrs cemented together all elements of the people
into a common resistance. A priest in an obscure
village slays an officer of the royal dragonnade, flies
to the desert with his sons, and becomes there the
- nucleus of a religious and military awakening of the
Jewish people without parallel in their previous or
subsequent history. Driven asunder again and again
by the royal troops, it is only to rally in gathering
force. It was a conflict, not for aggrandizement, not even
for national existence, for all hope of either had long
ago faded away ; it was a struggle for the toleration
of their religion and the right to worship Jehovah.

1 1 8 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Rarely have a people fought with such noble devotion
for their faith, even when their arms have been steeled
by this holiest passion of which men are capable.
Under the lead of Judas the Maccabi — the Hammerer,
i. e., the one through whom God beats down his ene
mies, they defeat, after varying fortunes, the Syrian
forces who more than thrice outnumber them, restore
the worship of Jehovah to His Temple, and compel a
religious toleration.
The furnace of persecution through which they had
passed, had purified the people from its worthless ele
ments, and with the restoration of their worship,
came a revival of religious devotion such as they had
never known before. Of their political and military
success, it is not in place to speak here, but it was
evanescent. Within a few years it was marred by an
intolerance and corruption which confirm clearly the
lesson of all history, that no hands are so unfit to
hold the sceptre of government as those of a priest.
The religious reformation and revival were alone
of enduring influence, and cast the Jewish character
into a mould, which it has since then, to a large de
gree, maintained. In modern history we have no
period parallel to it. In some small degree we may
compare it with the resistance of the Scotch Kirk
to the Anglican Prelacy, or the struggles of the Wal-
densians against the interdict of Pope Lucius III.

THE ORIES OF MA CCABEAN A UTHORSHIP. \\g
It is periods of persecution such as this which
always produce the most tender and delicate religious
poetry among every people. An examination of our
choicest hymns will show this to the satisfaction of
any of you. Now, say the scholars who hold the
theory of Maccabean Psalms, it would be a fact no
less than remarkable if a religious revolution, so far-
reaching in its influence, had left no trace of itself in
the religious songs of the Temple worship.
A priori, there can be no objection to this theory,
either first, on religious grounds, for no period of
Jewish history shows so pure a religious fervor as
does this. If Jehovah ever dwelt among His people,
and inspired His servants, it was at this time, when
they were, with small hope of success, exposing them
selves to the death for His worship. There are few of
the prophets or saints of the older time who can com
pare in religious devotion or moral force with the men
of this age. The writer of the Hebrews sees this well
in borrowing from this period many of his figures of
the men of faith of whom the world was not worthy.
Nor second, can there be any objection on canoni
cal ground. Despite all positive assertions pro
and contra, we simply do not know when the canon
was closed, that is, when the books came into their
present shape, nor can I see any interest save a pure
ly historical one in the inquiry. We only know that

1 20 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
at a much later time men were still discussing the
canonicity of several or all the writings. It is the
decision of this question, as to whether these are Mac
cabean Psalms or not, which forms one of the chief
factors in our subsequent decision as to the time
when the canon was closed. Of course you well
know that neither in mathematics or literature can
one unknown quantity be used to solve another.
But even granting the canon was closed, there can be
no possible objection to the view of many of the more
conservative scholars that several hymns of this
period, which had grown sacred to the people, were
added either on the margin, or at the end of the
rolls for use in worship, and finally, by the hand of
later copyists came into the body of the text. The
view of the New Testament text, which guides the
scholars now preparing our new English version, is
that there may be, and are, additions (for instance,
the narrative in John vii. 53-viii. 11,) which have
come into the text at a later time. I am unable to
see why the same course of criticism is not applica
ble to the Hebrew text.
Nor lastly, is the linguistic ground, which has been
urged by many, of any weight. Doubtless the He
brew had, in a large measure, ceased to be a spoken
language ere the period of the Maccabees, but it was
still the language of the Temple service and of

THE ORIES OF MA CCABEAN A UTHORSHIP. I 2 1
scholars. As little as does the beautiful Latinity of
the hymns of Thomas of Celano (1255) or Bernard of
Clairvaux (1 1 53) prove that the Latin must, in their
time, have been a spoken dialect, does the purity of
the Hebrew in any Psalm prove, beyond necessity
of further discussion, that it could not have been writ
ten in the Maccabean era.
We have, then, you perceive, no inherent impossi
bility of such Psalms ; let us now inquire what the
real facts in the case are.
And first, the theory of Olshausen is, without
hesitation, on every literary and linguistic ground to
be rejected. Olshausen belongs to a school of criti
cism to whom tradition is of no value, and who use
history only as a means of confirming their own sub
jective judgments as to how things ought to have
been. In Biblical criticism this school has received,
by way of disapprobation I suppose, the name German,
but we must not give our neighbors unjustly a bad
name. It had its origin in England in the seven
teenth century, and not until a much later day does it
pass through France to Germany. Its hasty judg
ments, and unproven theories," have been the reason
why, in this country, the legitimate critical study of
the Bible, even by those who cherish its accredited
and ascertained teachings as a guide of life, and who
have no end in view save by their studies the better
6

122 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
to understand it, has fallen into such disrepute.
Olshausen's theory involves literary difficulties twice
as insuperable as those from which he endeavors to
escape. It gives the lie to all the traditions which the
editors of the Psalm collection have embodied in the
inscriptions, and necessitates a reshaping of all Jewish
history, which of course is no difficulty to one who
believes that there was no Jewish literature prior to the
eighth century. There is no limit to the credulity of
those who assume that there is no truth in history.
On literary ground it is inconceivable how the old
religious melodies should have so irrecoverably
perished. A religious revival such as the Maccabean
would only fix them the firmer in the affections of the
people. If they are Maccabean in origin, how is it that this
same collection is found in the translation of the Sep
tuagint, contemporaneous at the latest with the
Maccabean period, and made by Greek scholars who
if not hostile, were at least indifferent to the Macca
bean struggle, and would have taken as the old Tem
ple melodies no collection of Maccabean hymns, and
whose ascriptions of the Psalms, in the titles, to the
early prophets, show that they were not consciously
translating any contemporaneous songs.?
In fact so strong is the argument here that if pressed
home on all its lines, it would even show that the

THE ORIES OF MA CCA BE AN A UTHORSHIP. I 2 3
Greek version was made prior to the Maccabean
period. Of course, if this be so, it is all over with
the Maccabean Psalm collection.
How is it that, not fifty years after this Maccabean
struggle, when its memories were still fresh in men's
minds, this collection is constantly spoken of as
by David and the men of the older time, without any
trace of reference to the persecution whose scars had
not yet been healed ?
Lastly, if we accept as the date of Chronicles the
pontificate of the High Priest Jochanan, toward the
close of the Persian period, b. c. 405-359, where it is
most generally referred, we shall have convincing
internal proof against the Maccabean origin of our
book, for in 1 Chronicles xvi. 36 we find a cento
made up of fragments from Psalms xcvi., cv., cvi., with
certain liturgical notes which could not very well
have been borrowed until the collection had assumed
its present shape.
In a word, could we believe the Psalm Book to be
a collection of Maccabean poems, we should have to
resign all confidence in history which was not coinci
dent with our own personal experience. Thus you
see how a wise investigation of Scripture in many
cases but confirms what on other grounds we had
been led to have faith in. There is and can be no
conflict between scholarship and anything which is

124 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
really divine in Scripture. The province of lite
rary scholarship is to investigate the literary forms
which Scripture has assumed. It must, by its very
terms, treat the Hebrew literature as a part of the
world's literature. Nothing of permanent value can
be touched or destroyed by it. We thus gain for
the Hebrew Scripture rational value for all time,
which is infinitely more precious than any which is
the result of unthinking preconception.
The arguments we have adduced above will be
valid as against all the more radical theories of the
Maccabean Psalms which are now so commonly held.
It is not so clear that there are not three or four
Psalms which have in some way come into our col
lection from this Maccabean revival.
The Psalms which seemingly bear clearest traces of
this revival are Psalms lxxiv. and lxxix. I can not
pause now to go into a minute exegesis of them, but,
to a candid mind, there are many allusions apparently
only explicable from the situation of a people perse
cuted for their religion by heathen enemies, with their
Temple the seat of a foreign cultus, and their syna
gogues all burned, such as we know existed in the
Maccabean time, and such as we do not know existed
at any other. By some they have been referred very
unfitly to the period of the Chaldean invasion, but
this had immediately no religious end in view, nor

THE ORIES OF MA CCABEAN A UTHORSHIP. 125
was, in any sense of the word, a persecution ; it was
a piece of political and military strategy to break the
defensive power of Egypt by removing from its
boundary a people who were naturally friendly to it.
I am inclined myself to leave the question of these
two Psalms, as John Calvin did, an open one and for
the present undecided. There is a possibility that
these two poems are from the Maccabean period;
if so, they came into the collection at a later time
from the margin or the appendix of the roll. On the .
other hand, the Greek translation, which contains
these same Psalms, creates so strong a case against
their Maccabean origin that we are obliged to leave
the decision open.
I have dwelt thus long upon this question because
it is one of the most widely discussed and important
ones in Hebrew literature. If you ever take up the
minute study of the Bible, you will find three main
and essential points of controversy between scholars
in the Old Testament Scriptures — the origin of the
Mosaic literature— the authorship of the last twenty-
seven chapters of Isaiah, — and this question as to the
Maccabean Psalms. We have endeavored to show in
regard to it, that, while there is no a priori ground
against such Psalms, and that the Maccabean era was
one in every way fitted to inspire the highest reli
gious poetry, there are overwhelming literary and

126 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
historical grounds for rejecting any such origin either
of the collection or any considerable part of it; it
remaining just possible that one or two Psalms from
this period, may, through their constant use in the
worship, have come into the Temple Hymn Book in
the later form in which we have it preserved to us.
Thus we can fix the hither terminus of our Psalm-
collection, and we reject without further question the
Maccabean origin of Psalm ii., and the other Psalms
which is being pushed with such vigor by the newest
and most learned school of Hebrew philology. The
collection existed substantially in its present shape
before the translation of the Septuagint.
We said that the Psalms of this first book, with the
exceptions I have mentioned (ii., x., xxxiii.,) all belong
to the older Davidic collection; the further question
now arises as to how many of them may with justice
be referred to David himself. That the inscription
" of David " in the English does not necessarily imply
personal Davidic authorship, but merely that the
Psalm is taken from the older Davidic collection, I
have already endeavored to make clear, and will not
how revert to it. That a book in the orient is
named after the one whose works stand first, or
form the most considerable part in it, I might have
further illustrated from the Ethiopic Psalter, which is
simply known as " David," and the similar usage of

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP. \ 27
the old oriental Greek church ; we will read " David,
etc." l
There are two diametrically opposite views as to the
Davidic Psalms, both of which I presume we shall,
without discussion, be prepared to pronounce unten
able. I. That David wrote all the Psalms.
We are told in the Talmud that David either wrote
in person all the Psalms, or, when other names are
mentioned, they are simply those through whom his
inspirations have assumed the form in which we now
have them. A similar view was held by many of the
Church Fathers, as Augustine and Chrysostom, while
we find the same in Beda, earliest and far from least
of our English scholars. At the present day, it
is held by some few scholars of the Latin Church.
In the Protestant Church 'it has been alone defended
with more heat than wisdom by a certain Dr. Lud-
wig Clauss of Berlin, in a book published in 183 1.
No one of course who accepts even the editorial
accuracy of the inscriptions ascribing the Psalms to
so many other authors, can for a moment hold such
a view. II. Equally untenable with this is the view that
David wrote none of the Psalms.
1 That is, the title of the Book of Psalms : " David " is to be under
stood as meaning : " David and other writers." (T.)

128 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
As an almost necessary corollary to his view of the
Maccabean Psalms, Olshausen asserts that there are
clearly no Psalms in our collection so old as the Da-
vidic-Solomonic era ; while Csesar Lengerke, in his
Psalm Commentary, a book of no value save as a
literary curiosum and unworthy of a scholar who
could write as ably as he did of Jewish antiquities,
maintains that it is a mistake to suppose that David
was a religious poet at all.
Probably there is no one here to whom it would be
necessary to prove the Davidic authorship of a large
number of the Psalms. Fortunately we are able to do
so on purely literary ground, which of course is alone
recognized by those who deny all Davidic authorship.
Kuenen and the Dutch scholars who are endeavor
ing to restore the history of Israel, tell us that the ap
pearance of Amos was the 'dawn of the religious con
sciousness of the nation, and his prophecy the earliest
literature which has come down to us. But here, as
elsewhere, the famous eighth century theory is prov
ing too much for those who have elaborated it with
such pains, and it is only fair to add, with such skill.
Granted the sure authenticity and trustworthiness of
the eighth century prophets, we have all the ground
which any scholar needs for proving that there must
have been a precedent literary period. Quite to the
point here we find David mentioned in Amos vi. 5,

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP. 129
an authority which Kuenen, by the very terms of his
theory, can not deny,as having been a famous musi
cian. We can, moreover, prove that he was no mean
poet, even leaving the Psalms out of consideration,
and without regard to the Chronicles, which the
newer school refuse to consider an authority. There
is not to be found in the Greek elegiacs, a song with
sentiment so exquisite, or feeling so tender, as his
elegy on Saul and Jonathan, a poem whose choicest
beauty has evaporated in our English translation. In
the lament over Abner we have a beautiful fragment
from a longer song, and in II. Samuel xxiii., we have
preserved still another poem of David's, which has not
been included in the Psalm collection. The concep
tion of him by the Hebrew historians is as the chief
master of their lyric song ; not creator of it, for it had
existed long before him — but as the one whose poetry
opens the golden age of their literature with a perfec
tion of form which made it the model for all the later
time. If there be anything in the past attested by the
evidence of history or the unanimity of tradition, it is
that David was a poet.
And when I say this I am not unaware that the
newest histories of Israel characterize David as an
oriental despot unredeemed by any virtue or any
spark of genius ; that it is charged by. scholars of
great learning that he was a freebooter who displaced
6*

I30 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
his rightful sovereign, and that the annalists employed
by and attached to his dynasty have written his
history at the expense of Saul, who was really the
one great man of the early time. I further know that
the rising school of Shemitic mythology whose cen
tre is at the Hungarian University of Buda-Pesth,
and which has not a few followers in England, regard
him as a mythical character, whose main features are
borrowed from the Sun*myth ; for example, that his
fight with Goliath, like the fable of our Scandinavian
ancestors, where Thor throws his hammer into
Hrungnir's forehead, is but a symbol of the ray of
the dawning shooting through and dispersing the
heavy overhanging mist of the night, and so on to
the end of the chapter. But this is not serious
history. There is scarcely any character in the olden
time painted with such fidelity of detail, such mani
fest honesty in concealing none of the darker lines, as
is the character of David by the compilers of the
books of Samuel. If we know any figure of history
we know his. If it is all a myth, as the latest school
tells us, there is then no history of the world save as
it commends itself to our own subjective judgments;
history is but the internal panorama of our mind and
no longer an external series of acts and phenomena.
I cannot go further now in speaking of David's per
sonality ; the few scholars who deny the possibility of

DAVIDIC AUTHORSHIP. 131
Davidic Psalms do so on ground we are forced to
regard as untenable. The great majority of scholars
accept, as clearly proven, the Davidic authorship of
some Psalms, but differ very widely as to the number.
We have in our present Psalm Book seventy-three
Psalms, which, according to their inscription, have
been taken from the older Davidic Collection:, the
entire First Book, thirty-seven in accurate count;
eighteen in the Second Book ; only one in the Third
Book, and two in the Fourth Book, then rising again
to fifteen in the Fifth Book.
Of the thirty-four inscriptionless and anonymous
Psalms, there is no ground to believe that any came
from this " Davidic Collection," and there is no one
of them in regard to which we* do> not have convinc
ing reasons for saying it cannot have come from the
Davidic age. Jerome makes a mistake, when, in his
letter to his brother ascetic Cyprian, he establishes as
the canon of authorship, " that all Psalms without in
scriptions must be referred to the last author named."
It is neither suitable to this time nor place to dis
cuss the various views of inspiration ; suffice to say it
has not freed men from the invariable personal equa
tions of their character and their style. Isaiah writes
the purest Hebrew; the Chronicler blunders in his
grammar, and the Ecclesiast has a half Aramaic pa
tois; the author of Job soars to the heights of poetry;

132

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.

the writer of Ruth has a prose style clear as crystal,
while Ezekiel grows involved in his endless figures,
and Esther wearies one with its platitudes ; Samuel
and Kings are set together with some regard to con
ciseness and historical sequence, while Genesis ever
anew surprises the reader with the artlessness of its
compiler in his use of his material. Such being the
case, the sufficiency of the canons gained from the
study of other literatures must be granted, else there
can be no study of the Hebrew writings as literature.
Of course this would not preclude their study from
other, perhaps more valuable, standpoints, but it
would raise an insuperable barrier against any such
purely literary study as these lectures are alone en
gaged with.
Taking up the Psalms of the Davidic Book, scho
lars have been accustomed, first of all, by means of
the dozen or so poems which, from internal setting or
external allusion, have a consensus in their favor as of
Davidic authorship, to fix what they call David's style
of writing, and make this the standard for judging
the other poems of the collection. Now style,
though, on the whole, the surest purely literary test
of authorship, is not a complete one, especially when
dealing with ancient literature. I doubt, if the writings
of the English Poet-Laureate should have the good
fortune to survive two thousand years, and then be

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP.

133

the sole remains of English letters from the Victorian
period, whether any one will be inclined to refer the
" In Memoriam " and " The Princess " to the same
author. Perhaps they will say they have been placed
together through the misapprehension of some later
editor, while the " Northern Farmer " will doubtless
be rejected as spurious by all, and made the point of
many an argument as to the decay of English speech.
In the study of any ancient literature, the argument
from literary style can only be used with the greatest
caution. It has broken down in the literary study of
the Hebrew Scriptures just at a point where most was
expected of it — in the comparison of the earlier and
later chapters of Isaiah..
In studying the Psalms of this Davidic collection,
scholars too often have used the argument in a logical
circle, by first choosing poems which, from certain pe
culiarities of style, approved themselves as Davidic,
and then making them a norm for determining all the
rest. Style has, and ever will have, so long as litera
ture is studied, great value when employed by cautious
hands. There is essential to its use a delicate aesthetic
perception and a wide knowledge of literature, such
as are combined in very few. It furnishes, when one
can rightly use it, complete subjective satisfaction as
to the age and authorship of a literature, but is not
objectively conclusive unless confirmed by the further

I34 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
evidence of grammatical form and historical allusion.
The argument from grammatical form is alone of
value to the specialist who is conversant with the
niceties of the language, but the argument from his
torical allusion appeals to every one, with quite as
much force to the student of a translation as to the
student of the original. For example: we have a
very celebrated paraphrase of the Pentateuch — the Je
rusalem Targum — which has sometimes been referred
to a period prior to our era. When scholars came to
study it critically, they found allusions to Muham
med, to the rise of Islam, and even to the capture of
Constantinople. Surely it will be clear to the dullest
mind that the literary form in which we have this
work must be subsequent to the events to which it
alludes. Or again, take an example from our own
English literature : you all well know that there are
certain plays which were long attributed to Shaks-
pere, but on examination it has been found that they
contain allusions to a later time. Now the moment
this was proven on sufficient grounds, the Shaksperean
authorship was given up. In other words, in all liter
ary investigations, an unmistakable and clearly proven
allusion to some well known event, shows the piece in
question to be contemporaneous with or subsequent
to such event. When to the argument from histori
cal allusion we add that of grammatical form, and

DA VIDIC AUTHORSHIP.

135

style, we have a chain of evidence which is un
breakable. We are fully justified in applying the
same canons in any critical investigation of the He
brew literature, taking care however to exclude the
prophetic writings, which, by their definition, include
such an element of introspective and prospective
vision as to place them beyond measurement by the
standard of "historical allusion." At least, I speak
for myself as to the prophetic writings. I know it is
not an exception which would be allowed by very
many, who see no more in the prophetic intuition
than an acute discernment and political sagacity ; but
this we will discuss at another time. There can be
no objection to applying these canons in the study of
those works which make ho pretence to be propheti
cal, so least of all to the study of the Psalms.
Let us apply them then to this Davidic Collection
we are now investigating.
First, we have the argument from style, and this
seems to show, that certain of these poems are proba
bly not of Davidic authorship — of course by itself
this establishes no more than a probability. The
Davidic style as we learn it from undoubted Davidic
Psalms, such as viii., xv., is terse, vigorous and
rapid. When we come to a Psalm whose style is
heavy, whose metre is halting, and whose rhetoric is
turgid, as Psalm lxxxvi.,— we have reason, if there be

136 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
no external convincing grounds, to assume that it must
be from some other author. David's writings attest
him as a man of original mind ; his poetry is easy and
limpid, showing no trace of conscious effort When
we come to Psalms like lxxxvi., civ., cxliv., roughly
pieced together from many different sources which
we can trace, elaborated with conscious effort and yet
with so artless a skill that the joints of the workman
ship can even now be discerned, it is but fair to
assume, as above, that it must be from some other
hand than the master one of David.
Again, David's Psalms show a unity of treatment
and consecution of thought; when therefore we
come to a Psalm where there is a sudden break in
the style and which is made up of two parts radically
different in treatment, as Psalm xxiv., it is not unwar
ranted to say that here are either two Psalms of
David which have been later united, or it is the
product of some later singer.
Finally, the argument from style helps us on. the
positive as well as the negative side. Psalm xxiii., the
choicest gem of the Hebrew lyric, has had its
Davidic authorship disputed for many centuries, yet
in the turn of its expression it brings to a student of
style a flavor so unmistakably similar to the proven
Davidic Psalms, that he has little hesitation, despite
the arguments from its peculiar vocabulary, to say
that it is David's.

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP. \ 3 7
The second canon which we may apply in the
investigation of our Davidic Book, is the one from
grammatical form. As I said in the second hour, all
language, like the human organism whose peculiar
faculty it is, has a birth, growth and decay, and the
traces of this growth in the inflection* and form of
words is one of our surest landmarks in ascertaining
the age of any piece of literature at issue.
The English language has grown and changed in
the four hundred years between Chaucer (1400) and
Pope (1744.) The grammatical form in the poetry of
Pope and Gray (1771) and Thomson (1748) is so
essentially different from that of Chaucer and Lyd-
gate (1461) and Occleve (1454), that no one, for a
moment, even were the knowledge of the authorship
lost, could refer the Canterbury Tales to the age of
the House of Hanover, or the Elegy in a Country
Church Yard to the age of Richard II.
There must have been a similar growth in the
Hebrew during the still longer five hundred years
between David and the Exile, say, 1055-555 b. c. Did
we possess the Psalms in their original shape, we
should be able, with reasonable surety, to make use of
this canon in determining the age, and thus in a mea
sure the authors of the several poems of the " Davidic
Collection." I showed you, however, that the old
Hebrew literature has been alone preserved to our

138 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
time in a service book prepared as late as the sixth
century after our era, in which all that was character
istic in grammatical form has been flattened out into
a uniform liturgical pronunciation. We can therefore
make little use of this standard. Though it has been
used occasionally by scholars, the results have pos
sessed no assured value. The only instances where
it may suggest a clue as to the age of the poems are
Psalms ciii., cxxiv., cxxxix.
David lived in an age when the language was still
spoken and written in its purity. He himself writes
with classical exactness. When we find one or two
Psalms of the collection whose grammar shows
traces of Aramaic forms, it is not unfair to con
clude that they may have come from some author
exposed to Aramaic influence, or from a time when
the Aramaic had commenced encroaching on the
Hebrew. Would any scholar be blamed for referring a
Spanish poem, whose grammar betrays the influence of
the Arabic, to a period when it would have been pos
sible for the Arabic to have exerted an influence on
the Spanish ? Would any literary study of the
Spanish be possible, were this disallowed ?
The last canon in our investigation of this Davidic
collection is that of historical allusion. If a German
poem contains allusions to the horrors of the Thirty

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP. \ 3 9
Years War, and the burning of Magdeburg by its in
habitants to escape the sack of Tilly, we at once con
clude that it must belong either to a contemporaneous
or to a subsequent era. Let me ask you how we
should treat poems in this Davidic collection, mak
ing no pretence to be prophecy, which might happen
to contain allusions to the Exile not as future, but as
a present and stern reality.
We do find such allusions in the last verses of
several of the Psalms, as xiv., Ii., and this has led
many scholars to refer these poems to the time of the
Exile. A priori there can be no reason why the old
collection, "The Sacred Songs of David," could not
contain hymns from any period during five hundred
years, but in respect to these Psalms there is another
and more adequate explanation, which shows us that
even the argument from historical allusion may not
be conclusive unless accompanied and confirmed by
that from style and grammatical form. The style
of the earlier verses in each of these Psalms is
clearly different from that of the last verse, in which
is found the prayer for deliverance from the cap
tivity, and for the return of the people to Zion. The
style of the first verses is so strikingly similar to
David's, that we conclude that they may have been
older poems which were in frequent use during the
Exile, when they received as a final refrain or doxolo-

140

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.

gy this last verse; that this was so commonly
sung with them, that it was taken by the compilers
into our collection, and by a mistake of later
editors and scribes it came to be treated as part
of the poem rather than its liturgical refrain. Of
course the question still remains as to the author
ship of the previous verses, in which the style has
created an impression in favor of the Davidic au
thorship. But there is another class of Psalms whose histori
cal allusions are too ingrained in the poem itself to
be explained fairly in any such way. Several Psalms,
as lxix., lxxi., seem to refer so clearly to the situation
of Jeremiah when imprisoned for proclaiming the ap
proach of the storm of foreign invasion, whose lower
ing clouds his eye alone had been opened to behold,
that most scholars, with justice, refer them to the
period of Jeremiah. When they further discover that
the phraseology and turn of expression are similar to
that which is found in Jeremiah's prophetic writings,
you perceive, that in the absence of authoritative
proof to the contrary, it creates as strong evi
dence as we can have to the authorship of any
piece of literature which has come down to us from
antiquity. We might go through the Davidic Book, as
scholars have often done, with these three canons of

DA VI DIC A UTHORSHIP.

141

style, grammatical form, and historical allusion, but
we can no longer dwell upon it.
Its result has been a double one :
I. It has shown on literary and historical ground,
not alone of value, as too many arguments used in the
discussion of this question are, for one party, or one
confession, or one time, that a large number of poems
in the Davidic Book are, beyond question, of Davidic
authorship. II. It has shown that standards such as we deem
authoritative in all other literary investigation com
pel us to refer some of the poems to a later au
thor, whom in a few cases like that of Jeremiah just
mentioned, we are able to fix, but in the majority of
cases we have to leave undetermined.
As to the number of David's own compositions, I
personally side with the more conservative view which
assigns him the much larger number of Psalms in this
collection. I will not however conceal from you,
that the ablest defender within our century of the
historical and poetical character of David, Professor
Ewald, in his Commentary on the Psalms, which will
ever remain a monument to his own poetical genius,
can not see his way clear to assign to David more
than a small number.
Scholars differ widely as to the number of David's
personal compositions, from the fact that in the

142 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Davidic Book are so many Psalms of uniform and
colorless style which can be attributed with equal
justice to David, or to any one else; so many poems
destitute of all local setting and allusion which
may equally belong to the Davidic or some later
time. There is a good story told in a Mediaeval Jewish
poem — a sort of Inferno one might call it — where
David, who has grown anxious to know how he has
been entreated by the after time, is represented as
sending out for all who have commented on his book
to appear before him. He finds, as we might expect,
that all the commentators have been consigned to, the
Inferno — whence being hastily summoned, they come
running, books in hand, David Kimhi at the head,
make obeisance before him, and open their books.
Thereupon David asks them to show .him what they
have written on the sixty-eighth Psalm, — perhaps the
hardest of the collection. No sooner do they hear
the sixty-eighth Psalm mentioned, than they fall out
among themselves,first with words, then with blows, as
to whether David could have written it, and still con
tending, the king drives them, in disgust, away from
him. The story would not lack application even now.
There are many Psalms well-nigh as doubtful or
difficult as the sixty-eighth, in regard to which
scholars differ irreconcilably, and where their previous

DA VIDIC A UTHORSHIP. 1 43
training, their habit of thought, and their literary
method can alone determine their opinion. A con
servative mind will probably refer all the doubt
ful Psalms to David — one more radically disposed
will perhaps refer none of them to him. There
fore it is that among scholars who acknowledge
Davidic authorship, there is such disagreement as to
the authorship of the Psalms of the " Davidic Book."
It is hard to make an estimate of the differing
views — perhaps of the seventy-three Psalms borrowed
by our Psalter from the older collections, the most
conservative attribute to David himself between fifty
and sixty, the more radical no more than eight or
ten. It is a question which can only be decided for
each through a patient, minute and loving study of
the separate poems.
However the historian may settle David's cha
racter, whether he be a just ruler, great in his
own right, or an astute usurper who has snatched
the laurels of another, his authentic writings will
hand him down to all future time as the world's
greatest master of lyric song. He has entered closest
to the heart of nature ; he has caught, as none other,
its ever manifold expression ; he has soared nearest
heaven, and lifted mankind toward divinity.

LECTURE V.

In the closing moments of the last hour I was
speaking to you of the "Davidic Song Book." I
endeavored to make clear to you that it was one,
probably the chief one, among the many song books
of the prae-exilic Temple, to whose other service
books, as the " Songs of the Sons of Korah " and the
" Songs of Asaph," I will later refer. I further showed
that from this older " Davidic Book " the collectors
of our present post-exilic service book, or rather
books, for there are five of them, have borrowed
almost half their songs — seventy-three out of one
hundred and fifty.
Permit me, as supplementary to add one or two
remarks : ist. It is not probable that the Psalter
contains all the songs of the older book. It seems to
have been a source which was drawn on gradually
and in various measure by the several compilers of
the five books which make up our later collection.
144

DA VIDIC SONG-B OOK. 145
We saw that the first book was composed entirely
from the " Davidic Songs," and was doubtless a selec
tion of its choicest and most familiar melodies, and
that in the second book another draft of eighteen
songs is made on the same source. For some reason
unknown to us the compiler of the third book bor
rows but a single song from this "prae-exilic book ; and
in this he is followed by the compiler of the fourth
book, who borrows but two — both, in common, seem
ingly preferring to draw on the stores of religious
melody of the people which until this time had not
been collected and which naturally, to a great extent,
were anonymous. The much later compiler of the
fifth book again borrows for his collection, designed
largely for choral and liturgical use, fifteen melodies,
which were evidently used in much the same way in
the older collection. Of course no one can, of know
ledge, assert that our Psalter does or does not contain
all the melodies of the Davidic collection used in the
worship of the prae-exilic Temple. All we can say is
that the way in which the compilers of the present
book use the hymns seems to imply that they bor
rowed only such as they considered of value for the
re-established Temple worship.
We have shown before that the guiding principle
in their collection was a religious one — their only
aim being to furnish a suitable service book for the
7

I46 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
worship of Jehovah. The Psalter cannot be said to be
an anthology of the best Hebrew poetry, even of the
best religious poetry, for much that we know must have
been accessible to the collectors, as the Song by the
Sea and the Song of Deborah, as poetry superior to
anything in their collection, has not been made use of
If we can make clear to ourselves the design of
their collection, we can then understand why they
borrow so largely from the worship books of
the First Temple, which had grown sacred and fa
miliar to the people. In the present lies mirrored
all the history of the past, be it for politics, or art, or
literature. There is no school whose discipline is so
essential to the student of letters as is a knowledge of
the method of his own age and race. Grote, by his
conversance with the English finance and politics of
his own time, made clear many problems in the his
tory of the Greek states which had for centuries baf
fled scholars who had approached it alone from the
standpoint of their Greek studies. Perhaps a study
of the old Temple hymns from the standpoint of a
modern hymn collector might yield equally valuable
results, for with all the differences of conception and
expression peculiar to an alien race and an early time,
the Hebrew hymn collectors of twenty-three centu
ries ago seem to have followed the same canons in
their collection as any skilful and painstaking collec-

METHOD OF COLLECTION.

H7

tor would use at the present. And let me illustrate
this by showing you the method in which they
treated the hymns which they have collected.
You well know the loving care with which a
modern collector gathers from all sources those
hymns, which through use or association have grown
sacred, with what diligence he seeks the earliest form
through their manifold versions and improvements by
later editions, with what minute accuracy he collates
and restores the text, how he searches musty archives
to establish date and authorship, and acquaints him
self with all the contemporaneous history that he may
understand clearly their local allusions. Could we
conceive of our Psalm collectors, whoever they may
have been, acting in somewhat the same way, I be
lieve they would be more human to us without being
one whit less inspired. We have, in the Psalms
themselves, convincing evidence that their literary
workmanship was not unlike that of collectors in the
present day.
The thirteenth poem in the first book, numbered as
fourteenth in our English Bibles, is a very celebrated
one, more perhaps for its general sentiment than its
poetical expression, and in the early time, as its re
frain in the last verse shows, it was a very popular
and familiar one. The text, judging from the few
marks which can guide one, has been edited with

148 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
care. Quite remarkably we find the same poem (the
fifty-third in the English version) in the second book
(xlii.-lxxii.) which as we have seen, was made later
than the first and by another hand. Whether the com
piler of the second book was aware of the existence of
the same Psalm in the former collection or not, we
have no means of knowing. Of great value however,
for our insight into the literary method of the com
pilers, is the fact that with the undoubted similarity of
the two Psalms patent to any one even in the English,
we find so many slight differences as to compel us to
assume that both collectors could not have had before
them the same text of the poem. (And let me remark
here for those conversant with the Hebrew text that
differences such as this must be referred back to the
compilers of the separate books ; as with the collec
tion of the five books in one common Psalter or ser
vice-book came a tendency toward unification of the
textual diversities, which shows itself in several note
worthy ways.) When we minutely scrutinize the fifty-
third Psalm, we find its textual diversities from the
fourteenth precisely of such a kind that did they occur
in a modern hymn collection, we should say that both
the collectors have had before them the same old
hymn ; that the fourteenth has been edited with great
care and from good manuscripts, while the fifty-
third has been edited from imperfect manuscripts, or,

METHOD OF COLLECTION.

149

more probably, taken from some later hymn book
where it had suffered the attrition necessarily conse
quent upon constant use. A similar case occurs in
the great mediaeval hymn, the Dies Ira, which pre
sents two versions almost precisely in a similar re
lation to one another as are the fourteenth and the
fifty -third Psalms. Is there any reason why the same
should not be true for our Psalm collection ? If it is
not true, how then shall we explain the diverse editing
of the same poem?
Or again, Psalm xl. is one of the longer Psalms,
whose heavily drawn out lines produce a feeling
of satiety utterly foreign to the impression of
gracefulness and ease which come to us from the
acknowledged Davidic Psalms ; its authorship has
also been long in dispute on the ground of external
allusion. But this is not to our point here. What
we wish to call your attention to is that Psalm
Ixx., is no more than the final verses of Psalm
xl., which have been borrowed by the collector
of our second book for a purpose which no one could
ever divine from the senseless translation of the
inscription in the English version — "to bring to
remembrance." As the original inscription informs
us, it is a choral refrain sung by the priest as the
incense cast on the altar began to rise with its sweet
savor toward heaven. You may know that there is a

I50 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
not dissimilar choral sung now in some of the
oriental churches at the kindling of the incense. In
this case the collector has not borrowed the entire
song in the shape in which, as we know from Psalm
xl., it existed in the older book, but has merely se
lected the few verses from it which seemed to him
best adapted for his new choral; the marks of his work
manship being so clear that even a tyro can perceive
them. The treatment of the older poem is not unlike
that of the well known " Mother dear, Jerusalem,"
selections from which are often made use of for
recessionals or doxologies. The compiler of Psalm
lxx., evidently had before him the same text as
the compiler of Psalm xl.; the minute differences
between the two Psalms show that he allowed himself
to change in the fragment those references to the
body of the poem which would have rendered it
unfit to be used as a separate piece. Does he not
thus unconsciously, and therefore most convincingly,
disclose his literary method as one precisely similar
to that which you or I would now make use of
under" like circumstances ? Once more —
We have said that the fifth and last book of our
Psalter (cvii.-cl.) was much later than the other
books and was designed as a liturgical supplement to
them, perhaps not unlike the supplemental collection
of chants which we now so often see at the close of

METHOD OF COLLECTION. 15 1
the hymn books of some Protestant bodies which are
hovering on the verge of liturgical song.
When we examine the second poem in this col
lection (Psalm cviii. in the English version) we find it
composed of fragments from two poems in the second
book, with a single new introductory verse of its
own — verses 2-6 being identical with Psalm Ivii., 8-
12; verses 7-14 identical with Psalm lx., 7-14. The
"make-up," as an artist would say, betrays the me
thod of the collector of the fifth book. If you will
compare the opening verses of Psalm cviii., with
the corresponding verses of Psalm Ivii., you will
see that he has borrowed them, even to the final
liturgical refrain, which could hardly have been
added ere Psalm Ivii. had been adapted to the
Temple worship. If you will then compare in
Psalm cviii. itself, verses 2-6 with verses 7-14,
you will find even in the English a radical dif
ference between the two fragments in style, in treat
ment, and in situation. The first is a fragment from
a peaceful pastoral idyl — the second, a fragment from
a song brdathing of war, whose very measure re
echoes the din of the camp. They possess no com
mon idea which would suggest their union, while
placed together as they are, without any effort toward
unity of treatment or any trace of design to form from
them a new poem, we are forced to conclude that

152 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
they were united for some purely liturgical purpose.
Had we the phenomena exhibited by the text of
Psalm cviii., as compared with Psalms Ivii., Ix., pre
sented in any modern collection, we should without
hesitation say that the collector of the liturgical sup
plement had before him the older hymn book from
which, for some liturgical purpose, he had taken
these two fragments. When we found further in one
of the fragments a refrain first added to the original
hymn by the compiler of the previous hymn book,
would it not be conclusive evidence that the liturgical
collector has made this later hymn book his source,
and not gone back to the original ? I leave it with
you to decide whether for literary phenomena, for
which, when occurring in our own day, we have a
clear explanation, we must, when occurring in our
Psalm collection, form some new theory.
I have thus endeavored briefly to present some few
of the clues which rightly followed will lead us
into the secret of the literary methods of the post-
exilic Psalm-collectors. I have not striven to present
the strongest points, but rather those where the
evidence lay on the surface, and might, in some meas
ure, be estimated at its proper value even by those
who have only the English version at their control.
Did time permit and were I speaking to an audience
who could follow the detail of linguistic minutiae, on

THEORIES OF INSPIRATION.

153

which every literary investigation of value must be
founded, I imagine a convincing case could be made
out In these lectures I have repeatedly had occasion to
say that we are dealing with Hebrew literature solely
as literature and can not discuss the varying views of
inspiration. Am I asked what effect this proved
editorial and literary growth of our Psalter has on its
inspiration, I reply none at all, but further, and most
important of all, that it must first be settled in whom
inspiration inheres and just to how many it extends.
I presume there are few, if any, of us who would be
disposed to deny inspiration to the original form in
which these poems came from their authors, but
whatever our views may be on this point, none of you
can fail to see what difficulties arise the moment we
extend this principle to the editors. It has been
the rock on which the varying confessions have gone
asunder. The moment inspiration has been pre
dicated of the first remove from the original authors,
it has seemed impossible to draw an authoritative line.
.The Latin church by the authority of the Tridentine
Council predicates inspiration of Jerome's transla
tion; the oriental churches regard the Greek Septu
agint as of final resort, while, till the present day
many people of our English tongue hold as authori
tative a version, which though in the main correct, in

/

I54 0RIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
many obscurer passages gives not only not the words
but not the sense of the original. I imagine that
those of you to whom inspiration means most will
agree with me that it must reside in the original,
and will also agree with me in the effort to press
back, through the literary form in which later editors
have cast the writings, to the ipsissima verba of the
authors. It is generally granted that the form in
which all the early Hebrew literature has come to us
is that into which it has been cast by later editors,
while the manifold differences of readings in each and
all the books attest the changes of text which have
come in by the hand of copyists.
The literary study of the Hebrew, or the investiga
tion of the method through which its writings have
assumed their present shape, at no point therefore
trenches on any rational theories of inspiration which
may be sacred to any one. So let us now press back
one point further and ask what this Davidic Book is
on which the editors of our Psalter have drawn so
liberally for their collection.
I have said that it was one of the books of the
/ earlier Temple service. This is shown by many
musical expressions in the inscriptions and the litur
gical refrains of the Psalms themselves which were
borrowed by our Psalter collectors as an integral part
of the songs which they took from the older book.

"SACRED SONGS QF DAVID."

155

It was therefore not a collection of Davidic poems
but a service-book which had been used in the
Solomonic Temple worship.
It was called "Sacred Songs of David," not because
it was composed exclusively of Davidic songs, but
because David either inaugurated the collection, or his
songs were its largest element. It contains no poem
older than the time of David, so in any account we
may make of it to ourselves we need not antedate his
reign ; of the previous development of poetry among
the Hebrew people I will speak when I come to take
up the form of the poems. The collector of the
third book does, it is true, begin his collection with a
poem of Moses whose authenticity has been doubted
by very many scholars, but for whose later origin
there is no conclusive literary ground save we accept
the stat nominis umbra theory of Moses common
in the Leyden school. This poem of Moses, however,
does not come from the Davidic collection, but has
been taken from some source which is not known to
us, perchance the old song book — the '"'5'"?" "~l"§
Sepher hayyashar — the " Book of Valor," ( jj*. \
Hamasat—" heroic poetry,") which is quoted
from so often in the early historical books.
The fables of the Talmud that some of the inscrip^-
tionless Psalms are by Adam and Noah, are too
worthless to be more than mentioned ; disproven

156 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
without further words by the fact that neither of these
could have spoken or written Hebrew, which had not
evolved itself as a dialect of the mother Shemitic
tongue until long after their time. We come then to
the period of David as the time when the Davidic
Book must have had its origin.
The eulogies which are lavished upon David as the
creator of religious song are founded on misappre
hension or incorrect information. In the last hour
we studied briefly his poetical character, and saw that
as the great master of lyric song he needs no laurels
plucked from his predecessors ; it would be as little
to say for him that he created religious song as it
would be to say for Shakspere that he created the
English drama. It is granted but to few rare spirits,
as Dante, to create a literature and remain its master
and model for all future time. We cannot anticipate
what we have at some future time to say of the rise
of religious song, but four centuries before David was
born, the priest Pentaur had sung the immortal hymn
to Amun-Ra, the source of life and light, in which we,
three thousand years later and of a different creed,
could well greet, morning by morning, the rising sun.
Even in the Shemitic orient and among the Hebrews
'themselves there had been not a few religious singers
ere the master appeared, some of whom, as Deborah,
touched a few keys with more power than he himself
ever attained.

DAVID AND SHAKSPERE COMPARED. 157
David's appearance on the stage of history was
not unlike to that of our English master Shaks
pere. Both came just at the same linguistic period;
Shakspere, when the purest English born of Saxon
and Norman was still undefiled — David when Jewish,
born of the patois of the south had not yet been
touched by the blight of Aramaic ; Shakspere at the
opening of the heroic age of England, when Eng
lishmen, weary of being rent asunder by intestine
feuds, begin to feel for the first that they are a nation /
and are just entering on a splendid career of coloni
zation which is to carry their power and language
round the world — David, when Israel, weary of the
unrest and anarchy of the Judges,feels for the first its
nationality and begins its brief period as a foreign
power; Shakspere, at the close of a religious refor
mation which had upturned and reshaped English so
ciety — David at the close of the religious reformation
under Samuel, which, if rightly understood, would
seem more remarkable to us than the Protestant Re
formation of Europe. Both came at epochs known
in literature as creative, at periods when both their
peoples were entering on a new era, when the national
life coursed quickest, and the spirits of the people
were most buoyant.
But even with all the likeness in the surrounding
of the two masters, it is in their mind and art we

158 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
must look for the closest link between them, and
when I say this I am aware of the necessary
unlikeness of mind between a dramatic and a
lyric poet — perhaps the two masters are the nearer
together because each so strikingly illustrates this
dissimilarity. The dramatist who deals with human
passion must know men and human motives, that he
may be able to reproduce, in pantomime, the mimic
play of life. Never was there one who knew and
drew life as surely as did our English master — there
is hardly a poet who lacks this element as much as
David. The lyrist is nothing if not a subjective artist
— the world to him is a panorama, pictured by the
imagination, before the illumined eye of his mind.
He is the creature of the moment, his art is to catch
on his canvas the rainbow colors of his distant hori
zons ere they fleet from view. Necessarily in paint
ing nature he reproduces himself, and we have elegy
or idyl as the poet himself is grave or gay. Scarcely
in any literature do we have so subjective an artist as
David; one whose poetry is more the expression of
the passion of the moment, or one who so constantly
.'betrays his personal emotion; perhaps in no literature
do we have so objective an artist as Shakspere, or
one whose personality so completely withdraws itself
behind the characters he causes to pass before us.
And yet with this dissimilarity there is a similarity

DA VID'S LITERAR Y METHOD.

159

in their art, for each was perfect in its kind— in their
mind, for each was most delicately adapted for its
work. Had David possessed the dramatic mind, the
world would have lost the eighth Psalm — had Shaks
pere possessed the lyric mind, the world would have
lost Hamlet, and I know not which were the greater
loss. They may stand forever together as the two
great masters ,of the world's poetry, dissimilar, no
doubt, in that they fill different spheres, but still alike
in that in their art they are equally great.
In the last hour I said that David was an original
artist, and so he was. He created for the Hebrew
lyric a new and perfect form which his successors
could only strive to imitate and approach. But as
every other literary artist, he drew on the stores of
the past. We can trace very clear recollections of
the older "Song by the Sea" in several of his poems,
and did we have more remains of the secular and re
ligious poetry current in his day, we should doubtless
find this only the more confirmed. Whether he col
lected his own poems or not, we do not know ; busied
as he was in the organization of the service for the
Temple he was not suffered to build, possibly he may
have collected, doubtless he did collect, a book for
the liturgical worship. Judging from David's literary
method shown in the composition of his Psalms, we
should have reason to believe that he drew on the

l6o ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
stores of older religious hymns in the composition
of his book. It may have contained the old songs so
freely made use of by the compilers of the historical
books ; he may have drawn on the still earlier col
lections, the "Book of Valor" and the "Book of War
Songs," which the annalists of his time so frequently
quote from. We are told that there were religious
D'/P0, Moshelim, troubadours who wandered from
village to village among the people, singing the
melodies of the desert and the olden time. It is not
impossible that his book contained some of these
religious songs which had been handed down by
word of mouth.
David's reign, with all the brilliancy of its foreign
conquests, was internally a failure, and ended disas
trously. Napoleon once said of a monarch known to
you all that ]one trouvere on the throne would suffice
Europe for a century. Israel showed by its constant
sedition and revolts, that it had grown weary of its
poet king who could rule neither his family nor his
subjects. It was alone his praetorian guard of foreign
mercenaries, the Crethi and Plethi, and the cunning
of his councillors, which saved him from the revolt of
Absalom. First in the after time, when his foreign
conquests had all been lost, and Israel, divided against
itself, had fallen a prey to the stranger, men began to
look back with pride and sorrowful longing to the

SOL OMONIC A UTHORSHIP. \ 6 j.
son of Jesse, who from a shepherd boy had risen to
be a king who had conquered their enemies and made
Israel great.
Whether Solomon cast the Davidic Book into a new
shape for the more elaborate ritual of the Temple,
built for him by Tyrian artificers, we do not know.
Some have gone so far as to state the theory on the
ground of the seventy-second Psalm, that he issued a
new edition of it for the dedication service of the
Temple, a good instance of the many theories of the
commentators, reminding one of the attempt in
palaeontology to restore a mammoth from a single
tooth. Solomon, if we consider authentic the writings
ascribed to him, was not a lyric poet. His habit of
mind tended rather to that sententious and aphoristic
gnomic poetry, which in the Orient, where it has been
the most common species of literature from the earli
est times to the present, is always connected with his
name as its great master. It seems probable that the
two Psalms Ixxii., cxxvii., which in the original bear
the inscription " to Solomon," are dedicated to him
and not by him, a sense which is well conveyed to
the English reader by the " for Solomon " of our ver
sions. The seventy-second Psalm is an invocation of
blessing upon him by some contemporary poet whose
name is not given us by our Psalter collectors — it is

1 62 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
not even ascribed by them to the Davidic Book,
though the supplemental note at the end of the
Psalm points to their having taken it from there. The
Psalm is so clearly dedicated to the king that those
who, against language and tradition, insist on regard
ing the Psalm as of Solomonic authorship, are com
pelled to assume that he must have written it for
his people to sing in his own honor. The one hun
dred and twenty-seventh Psalm is one of the late
Pilgrim Songs whose inscription " to Solomon " or
" for Solomon " fails in the Septuagint and many of
the early versions ; there is reason to believe it is of
late origin in the Hebrew. We simply then do
not know whether David originally collected his
book while Solomon revised and re-edited it or not.
As, however, it contained so many later hymns, we
must look to some subsequent literary period for its
revision into the shape in which it lay before the com
pilers of our Psalter. There is little difficulty in the
quest, for there is but one distinctly literary period
subsequent to the time of Solomon.
The reign of Solomon is known in history as the
golden age of Hebrew letters and of the Hebrew
nation, but one may hear in it the mutterings of the
coming storm as clearly as in the reign of Louis XIV.
It was indeed a reign of magnificence, and unprece
dented WPplfri flnwprl infn tllf* rr»iral r-r\ff,=>rc ft-r»m fVi**

REIGN OF SOLOMON. \ 63
shrewd commercial policy of opening up through his
territory a new and shorter line to the Phoenician
trade. His splendid court, his retinue of wives, the
ivory palaces of Jerusalem, bear witness to the wealth
and extravagance of the age. But it was, even for the
orient, an intensely personal government which the
men of Israel with their inbred spirit of liberty could
not willingly brook. The people were ground to the
earth by the oppressive taxation necessary to main
tain the royal state. The tribes of the north, dissat
isfied by the aggrandizement of Judah at their ex
pense, even before his death show open resistance to
his authority, and are on the verge of a general revolt.
In the closing years of his reign he is forced to
accept humiliating treaties rather than risk the in
ternal disorder which a foreign war would have
brought on. His vain, weak and obstinate successor
but garners the whirlwind which his father had
sown. After the northern kingdom had cast off the
authority of the Davidic house it seemed as if no
other could hold its ground. Dynasty after dynasty
of usurpers whose right to the throne was secured by
murder, followed and displaced one another in rapid
succession— within the first century there are no less
than five. It is a history of two centuries of internal
disorder which only at intervals ceased that all might

164 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
unite against the. common foe on the north. There
was no learned class in the Ephraimitic state, nor if
there had been one would there have been the
leisure and repose essential to a literary period.
The kingdom of Judah, on the other hand,
governed, save for occasional and short intervals, as
when a pretender like Athaliah ("v?-?) seizes the
throne, by the dynasty of David to which the people
had grown attached, remained almost exempt from
internal disorder. It rarely measured arms with
Ephraim without its northern rival's proving too
strong for it, and it seems probable that after the fight
at Beth-Shemesh,1 Israel for a number of years held
complete control of Judah. The quiet assured by the
regular and undisputed succession of its monarchs
gave to the smaller state the leisure for internal devel
opment, which Israel with its greater power never
secured — the Temple and schools of Jerusalem fur
nished a centre for the literary class which Israel did
not possess. Notwithstanding this quiet, there seem
to be but two periods of the Jewish monarchy — that
of Jehoshaphat and that of Hezekiah — which can lay
claim to be regarded in any sense of the word as
literary epochs. Jehoshaphat's reign is an afterglow
of the glories of the Solomonic age. It was a period
1 Victory of Jehoash of Israel over Amaziah of Judah. 2 Kings xiv.
11-14. (T.)

REIGN OF HEZEKIAH.

165

of peace and prosperity, but more than all it was a
period of educational reform. Its abiding interest to
us is the pedagogic commission, which the king sends
through the land to reform the public instruction and
arrange for the proper primary education of the
rural districts, antedating by two thousand years our
modern educational reformers. It might of course in
a certain sense be called a literary period, but as the
movement does not seem to have extended beyond
educational reform, I prefer to compare it with the
period of the Carlovingian " Missi"1, and not class it
as a distinctly literary time. We have beyond doubt
in the Davidic book and thence in our Psalter several
songs which unmistakably breathe of this time, but
there is no record of any collection of the older liter
ature such as would lead us to refer a revision of the
Davidic Temple Book to this period.
The only period between Solomon and the Exile
which can be given, with justice, the name literary,
is the reign of Hezekiah. Hezekiah is often sketched
to us as the Hebrew Pisistratus, one who played in
the collection and preservation of Hebrew letters
somewhat the same role that the tyrant of Athens,
who lived a century after him, (Hezekiah 716-687,
Pisistratus 600-527), did in collecting the songs of
1 The Missi were special judges sent out to inquire into and correct
abuses. (T.)

1 66 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Homer. In studying the character of Hezekiah
one gains the impression that he was a man cast
in much the same mould as James I. of England
— a vain and conscious pedant, whose faith serves
him as a matter of controversy rather than a guide of
life — in his internal management weak and shifty, by
turns despotic and tolerant — in his foreign policy
seeking to gain by a tortuous overreaching of his
neighbors what directness alone coujd accomplish,
and more than once bringing himself and his state to
the verge of ruin. It is here, as so often elsewhere
in history, that we have to thank the pedantry and
the desire of weak men to be considered as patrons of
letters, for the collection and preservation of some of
our most priceless remains of antiquity. He appointed
a board of scholars to whom he gave commission to
collect all the accessible remains of the earlier litera
ture, and to edit them in new and revised form.
Have you never noticed even in your English Bibles
the note this old commission has left in Proverbs
xxv. i ? All the last seven chapters of Proverbs have
been saved to us by their efforts — were probably col
lected by them from the old manuscripts which they
were collating to establish the text of the book, and
added - by them as a supplement to the imperfect
copies of their own day. The Talmud refers to them
the collection and revised edition of all the Hebrew

THE DA VIDIC BOOK.

167

literature existing in their time, but whether this be
so or not, we find, as of utmost importance for our pre
sent study, that Hezekiah set on foot a reorganization
of the Temple worship, and for this purpose had a new
collection made of the older Davidic songs. The
liturgical inscription of Hezekiah's own poem pre
served to us incidentally (Isaiah xxxviii. 9, 3^?? mik-
tab for DV,9? miktam) renders it probable that this
too, was included in the same collection.
We have thus reached the time when the " Davidic
Book " was collected substantially into the form in
which it lay before the compilers of the post-exilic
Psalter. The one or two Jeremianic poems which
the book seems later to have contained, came gra
dually into use in the communities of the Exile,
to whose feeling of despairing supplication they
gave expression as none of the older songs were
able to do.
I trust the sequence of my thought has been clear :
that our Psalter as it exists in the Hebrew original
and thence in our English translation was the hymn
book collected for the worship of the Second Temple;
that on a priori grounds it was natural to suppose
that the collectors of this new praise book would draw
largely on the similar books in use in the former
Temple. Further, this supposition was shown to be a
fact, by the preservation, either in the inscriptions or

1 68 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
foot notes, of the names of many of the sources from
which they have drawn. Chief among these sources
was a book whose very name, " Sacred Songs of
David," is preserved to us in the subscription of one
of the Psalms.
Taking up then the examination of this Davidic
Book, we saw that many of the songs borrowed from
it, contain such musical and liturgical notes, as to
point to its having been used as a service book in the
older Temple worship. We then stated some literary
and critical canons whose proper application to the
study of this collection can not with justice be dis-
, puted. These seemed to show us that the collectors of
our post-exilic Psalter drew on the Davidic collection
much in the same way that hymn collectors of the pre
sent day would draw on any older collection which
was accessible to them, and that they made use alone
of such hymns or such parts of hymns as were suitable
for the later worship. Consequently it is not probable
that our Psalter contains more than a selection from
the Davidic Book.
We saw that the older book received the title
Davidic, from the usage, so common in the Orient, of
naming a collection from the one who inaugurates it,
or whose contributions form its oldest or most con
siderable part ; that though the Davidic authorship
of each and all of these hymns has been sharply dis-

THE DA VIDIC BOOK. 169
puted, it may be shown on grounds as reasonably
assuring as we can have for any ancient literature, that
David wrote many, perhaps most of the poems that
have been preserved to us from the service-book
which bore his name. On the other hand, we saw
that a number of the poems in the Davidic Book so
clearly belong to a time subsequent to David, that it
cannot have lain before our Psalter-collectors in the
form into which it was cast by him ; that they pro
bably used it in the revised and enlarged shape given
it at the reorganization of the Temple-service in the
reign of Hezekiah, and to this last view we showed
there could be no objection, as we possess at least the
Proverbs in the shape in which they were edited by a
literary commission which was appointed by the same
king.1 I believe that this view which I have endeavored to
present without laying stress on any point which was
not evident or stretching any to an interpretation it
would not bear, will clear up for many of you the
difficulties which can not but have presented them
selves in reading the Davidic Psalms contained in our
Psalter. It satisfies completely the demands from the
literary side and also all claims which can be made
by any consistent theory of inspiration. But even
should this particular explanation not be convincing
1 That is, a part of our present book of Proverbs, Prov. xxv.-xxix. (T.)
8

170 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
or adequate, and its flaws no one sees more clearly
than myself, any explanation to be satisfactory must
lie somewhere in this line. Bear in mind, ere you
reject it, that the prevalent extreme conservative view
of the Davidic Psalms is only possible by a disregard
of their literary form — the radical view is only possi
ble by a denial of their inspiration. I believe that
none of us would be willing to take either horn of
this dilemma.
There remains now that we have finished (satisfacto
rily or unsatisfactorily) the discussion of the literary
form in which the Davidic Psalms are preserved to
us, still another point for consideration, that though
without exception they appear in liturgical form
and in a service book, there are few of them which
were originally composed with this object in view.
Take any modern hymn collection and you will
see that none of its grandest hymns were written
primarily for a liturgical purpose. They are poems
expressing some feeling or sentiment which renders
them suitable to be used in worship ; when they
come to be adapted to a liturgical service, it is fre
quently with the loss of much of the beauty of the
original poem. There are no doubt hymns written
for use in the service, but one needs not a poet's
vision to discern them. They betray in their mea
sured form, their meagre thought, and their servile

THE DA VIDIC BOOK.

171

following of certain standards of religious expression
common to their time, both their origin and design.
The highest lyric song is the spontaneous outpour
ing of the sentiment, the passion, the intuition of the
moment, and has, can have, no end in view otitside the
utterance of itself. Do you imagine that the mediaeval
singers could have written their hymns which have
become immortal, for the liturgical service of their
church ? Does not, for example, Xavier's " O Deus
ego amo te " bear on its face that it was a rapt vision
and contemplation of some solitary singer which was
first at a later day taken by the church into its service
because it seemed so fit an expression of the feeling
of hearts other than the poet's ? Or even in our own
time was not the tenderest of our modern religious
lyrics, " Lead, kindly light," the overflow of expression
of the troubled soul of the most gifted Englishman
of the last generation ? Do any of" you imagine that
he could of set purpose and in cold blood have
composed it or anything like it for a liturgical choral ?
In our study of the Psalms we must bear the same
in mind. Could David have written the nineteenth
Psalm, " The heavens declare the glory of God and
the firmament showeth his handiwork," or the un
known author of the one hundred and fourth Psalm
have framed his wonderful poetical cosmos for the use
of the Temple choir ? If you compare them with the

172 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Psalms written for purely liturgical use, of which we
have abundance in our Psalter, you can not hesitate
with an answer.
It is then as lyric poetry, the immediate, spontane
ous, unfettered expression of the feelings which
moved the minds of David and other singers, that
most of the songs in the Davidic Book had their
origin. He who compiled this Temple song book —
be it David or Solomon or Hezekiah — selected and
adapted from these poems such as seemed suitable for
the liturgical service of the Temple.'
We have however now pressed our literary inquiry
almost as far back as the data in our possession will
safely carry us. For the most part we have these
poems preserved to us alone in the liturgical form in
which they were adapted for the Temple service, and
can follow them no further. The comparison of
Psalm xviii., with the similar poem in 2 Sam. xxii.,
which might occur to some of you as furnishing a
clue for this investigation is for several reasons of
little value. The most important of them is that the
compilers of Samuel who lived in the later Jewish
kingdom, or more probably at the beginning of the re
stored State, do not preserve for us the original poem
of David, but have borrowed from the Davidic Book
precisely the same Temple song of which the compi
lers of our Psalter have made use. The few variances

DAVID AS A POET.

173

between the form of the song in Samuel and that in
the Psalms may be accounted for by the state in
which, through the carelessness of copyists or the
abuse and neglect of the rolls, the text of the Books
of Samuel has come down to us. It is no longer
possible unless we are willing to make use of the
somewhat two edged "restorative criticism" so popu
lar with certain French scholars, to ascertain to what
extent the Davidic poems have been abridged or
amended to fit them to become Temple songs.
That all the Davidic poetry has been preserved in
the Davidic Psalms would be improbable from the
exclusively religious character and liturgical design
of the Temple book, and is conclusively disproven by
the fragments of David's poetry we find scattered
through the historical books. No doubt he soared to
his loftiest height and touched his sweetest key in the
religious song, but it is a loss to the world's imagina
tion that the secular poetry of so great a master has
perished. Would that we had the songs that the
youthful minstrel sang to the troubled king of the old
heroes of the people and the wild days of the judges
which were just past; his idyls of shepherd life, some
of which, preserved in his Psalms, are painted with
more skilful touch than ever Theocritus or Bion pos
sessed ; his songs of love and the dance, to both of
which his nature inclined him ; his war ballads from

174 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the days that he and his little company of moss
troopers lived in outlawry along the Judean border.
David as a poet is an attractive study, but we have
given to him, his Psalms, and his Psalm-Book, all
the space that we can in justice spare in so brief a
course of lectures.
Our Psalter collectors drew on early sources for
their service book, other than the " Sacred Songs of
David," and to consider these we must pass in the
next hour.

LECTURE VI.

In the last hour we endeavored to present to you
the ascertainable facts as to the origin and time of
compilation of the " Davidic Temple Book " which the
Psalter compilers have so largely drawn on. We
now must pass on to consider some new problems of
interest in connection with our Psalter.
In one of our early lectures we saw that the present
Psalter is made up of five distinct books, which at that
time I strove to clearly mark out for you. These were
not collected simultaneously or by the same hand,
but at intervals, one after another, during several
centuries and by collectors whose literary methods
very widely vary. We have since seen that the first
book was taken entirely from older material, being
made up of selections from the "Sacred Songs of
David" — a hymn book used in the service of the
former Temple, in regard to which we have already
175

176 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
spoken at sufficient length. It now remains but
briefly to consider when and by whom this first book
was collected — we will then pass on to the second
book. One of the most celebrated books1 of the Orient, if
not of the world, begins thus : " Moses received the law
from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, (and) Joshua to
the Elders, (and) the Elders to the Prophets, and the
Prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue." Jew
ish myth has much to tell us of this great Synagogue
of one hundred and twenty members which sat as the
supreme arbiter of morals and religion, from the
return from the Exile until about the time of Simeon
the Just.2 To them the Jews refer the collection and
editing of their sacred writings, and in this they have
been followed by the unanimity of tradition in the
Christian Church, which here as most often elsewhere,
when the Old Testament is concerned, is an un
acknowledged loan from the Jews. When we examine
the earlier Jewish writings we find the accounts given
of this body contradictory, confused, and projected
1 The tract of the Mishna called Pirke Aioth, ' • sections of the fathers,"
that is, " sayings of the fathers," a collection of apothegms uttered by the
great rabbis, beginning with Simeon or Simon the Just, about B. c.
300. (T.)
2 He is by some identified with Simon I., B. c. 310-291, by others
with Simon II., B. c. 221-202. The former seems the more probable
date. (T.)

HISTORY OF THE SYNAGOGUE. 1 77
into mythical outline. All we can gather is that there
was a tradition of some such body who, in the dis
ordered times succeeding the return from the Exile,
exercised great influence in reorganizing the worship
and collecting and setting in order the older litera
ture. Cyrus' motive in allowing the return was a natural
and largely political one. He doubtless regarded it
as a piece of astute statecraft to secure on the border
of Egypt a people whose gratitude for restoration to
their land would bind them firmly to the Persian
monarchy. The exulants return with their range
of political and religious ideas greatly enlarged by
their contact with the administrative system and
dualistic faith of the Persian.
Here, as so often in its subsequent history, Israel
showed, with all its wonderful tenacity in holding fast
the monotheistic idea which has been its mission to
the world, its subtle capacity of adapting itself to the
religions and civilizations with which it was envi
roned. It has been said that away from native land
and Temple the exiles would naturally have met from
time to time, perhaps every Sabba'th day, for reading
the law or one of the prophetic oracles, and then
singing some of the old Temple melodies. But those
who hold this view forget how the very idea of wor
ship in the older Judaism was bound up with an ap-

178 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
pearance before Jehovah in the Temple, or at some
holy shrine, and with the attendant sacrifice to Him
there. We find no trace of any domestic or commu
nal worship of the people away from the Temple at
any period previous to the Exile. Synagogue-wor
ship grew up during the Exile under the influence of
the Persians, or perhaps one might phrase it better
by saying that the idea of it was first suggested to the
Jews through their contact with the Persians, whose
worship was not confined as that of the Jews had
been to any definite place, but whose custom was,
wherever they might be, to come together at fixed in
tervals and in stated places to read their sacred books,
to repeat the ancient prayers, and to chant their reli
gious songs. The idea germinated in fruitful soil, and
the synagogue, foreign to the original genius of Juda
ism, and only as a late exotic transplanted from Par-
seeism, in subsequent centuries became the distinctive
feature of the religion of Israel, and little by little eli
minated from it all necessity of the Temple worship.
I am not, however, to speak to you at present of
the history of the synagogue. I mention it alone with
the purpose of calling your attention to the new prin
ciple which was introduced into the Jewish worship.
In the prae-exilic times the worship was ceremonial.
There had been collected some few books of song for
the liturgical chanting of the Temple choirs, but be-

THE POST-EXILIC COLLECTORS. i>jg
yond that there was no official collection of their
sacred literature, nor was there need of any, for the
reading of these writings did not form a stated or
usual part of their service. With the growth, subse
quent to the Exile, of the synagogue worship, whose
essence was not ceremonial but social, consisting
chiefly in reading from their sacred literature, there
came the necessity for the sake of order and unifor
mity that this literature should be collected, edited
with an assured text, and arranged in a consecutive
and convenient form by some body whose authority in
such matters would be recognized. There would also
speedily arise another necessity of determining what
books were adapted from their religious character, to be
read with edification or instruction to the people who
gathered in these assemblies, and this could alone be
decided by those whose position in the theocracy lent
weight and authority to their decisions.
There is therefore no inherent reason for refusing
credence to the Jewish tradition that there was a
body of scholars, under the presidency of the High
Priest in connection with the Temple in Jerusalem,
whose duty it was to adjudicate on these questions.
We must bear in mind however, that our present
ideas of a canonical or authoritative collection of the
Hebrew writings could not have been that of these
post-exilic collectors. Both our idea and name

l8o ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
originated under Greek influence at a period subse
quent to our era.
The technical name Canon has been derived from
the terminology of the Greek schools and gramma
rians of Alexandria. Canon is a word allied to our
English "cane," meaning a rod, a rule, a measure,
and hence a standard. By the Alexandrian gram
marians there was fixed a certain standard of correct
Greek style. All writings which conformed to this
were called by them canonical, that is standard,
or as we should now say classical. For example,
^Eschylus was said to be a canonical writer, and
it was also said he wrote a canonical style, pre
cisely in the sense that we should now say he was a
classical writer and wrote a classical style. No doubt
this standard of style was first fixed for literary uses
in the Alexandrian schools much as at the present we
establish certain standards of correct and elegant
English, and those writers who conform to it we call
our standard or classical writers.
The name does not come until late into ec
clesiastical nomenclature. After the early church
councils had set up, whether justly or unjustly
it is no part of these lectures to inquire, a cer
tain standard for those writings which might be
used in the service, there came gradually into use
the technical term of the Alexandrian rhetori-

FORMATION OF THE CANON. 181
cians — canonical — to designate all writings which
conformed to this standard. If I mistake not, the
name canon, as an ecclesiastical term, is first found
in one of the " Festal Letters " of the Alexandrian
bishop Athanasius (373),1 a man whose patient en
durance of persecution and whose personal beauty of
character, far more than his doctrine, should have
secured him the title of Saint. Consequently when
we use the terms canon and canonical in regard
to the writings of Scripture, we can only mean — if we
attach any meaning at all to the words — by canon, a
regulative standard for them, set up by some body
which we regard as authoritative — by the Canonical
Books, such writings as conform to this standard
which has been established. The meaning given in a
later day to the term canonical book, as one which
furnishes men with a standard or guide of life, is
foreign alike to the history and etymology of the
word. In all the canonical controversies of both the
earlier and later time it has been generally conceded
that the history of the word is as I have just sketched
it, and the conflict has turned on the precise nature
of the canon or standard which the Jewish or Chris
tian Fathers established, and the extent of the Autho
rity inhering in it.
1 Athanasius uses the term " canonized " (39th Festal Epistle), which
supposes tha word " canon ;" but it probably occurs earlier than this. (T.)

1 82 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Essential as would be the investigation and discus
sion of the Canon, were we studying the final form
which the writings have assumed, you perceive that
of necessity it cannot be a factor in the present inves
tigation into the method in which the earlier Jewish
collectors brought together, arranged and edited the
Hebrew literature during the. century succeeding the
Exile. Not until many centuries after their time did
there grow up any fixed canon or standard as we now
understand it. Of course the collectors must have
had some standard in their work, but we can alone
ascertain what this was by an examination of the
literature which they have^ collected.
A careful study of the literature which passed
through their hands, and of the way in which they
edited it, makes several things apparent as to the
design and method of their collection which I can but
summarize in a few words, for an adequate develop
ment of it would lead us too far away from the main
point which these lectures have in view.
It is clear that the chief motive of the collectors,
perhaps primarily the sole motive, was to prepare for
the various synagogues, a standard book of sacred
literature for use in their service. The nature of the
collection was determined by the necessity of the
synagogue worship. That the collectors had no
design of gathering all the sacred literature of the

FORMATION OF THE CANON. 183
Jewish people may be made evident by the constant
reference in the books which have been preserved to
a sacred literature, well known and current in their
day, which they made no effort to bring into their
collection. For example we have the titles preserved
of " The Inspiration of Ahijah," and " The Vision of
Iddo the Prophet," (2 Chron. ix. 29) both men whose
divine sending and message are familiar to us from
the historical books. For some reason unknown to
us the collectors did not deem them suitable for read
ing in the assemblies of the people, so have not made
use of them. I do not know how I can make the na
ture of their collection clearer to you than by saying
it was a Lesson Book, not unlike that prepared for
the English Church service by a commission of the
Anglican clergy. It did not contain all the sacred
literature of the Jews, but only so much of it as they
considered of edification to the people.
Had we space to speak to you of the gradual
growth of the collection, of the Jews of the Disper
sion, who, passing from the ecclesiastical authority of
this board, read in their worship many books which
it refused to permit to be read in the synagogues
under its control; of the bitter discussions in this
body itself attendant on the endeavor made by many
of its members in the first century before our era to
withdraw authority from Ezekiel, and the even hotter

1 84 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
debate which preceded the licensing of the reading of
Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon in the century
subsequent to our era, there would be manifest to
you the whole point we wish to make, namely, that
there was a board of scholars and ecclesiastics con
nected with the Temple at Jerusalem to whose hands
was committed the care for the order and uniformity
of the worship after the Exile. Should we para
phrase the original name of this body into our mod
ern parlance, we might with justice call it a "board
of public worship." Among their numerous labors
was the preparation of a book of selections from the
older sacred literature for uniform use in the service
of the synagogues. This book they arranged in ap
propriate weekly lessons or sections which are still
preserved to us in the original text. It would further
be evident that subsequent to their first collection
they added, from time to time, several books which
seemed suitable for use in the service, and that
not until the meeting of the doctors of the San-
hedrin held at Jabne in the year 118, A. D., was it
finally determined that the collection be regarded
as definitely closed, and no additions to or sub
tractions from it should be made for all future time.1
1 The date of this Sanhedrin is in dispute, but it was certainly after the
destruction of Jerusalem; it is spoken of in the Talmud-tract Yadayim
v. 3, where the discussions on Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs are

FORMATION OF THE CANON. 185
The Protestant Bibles, as a rule, contain the Old
Testament in the form determined on by the council
at Jabne, while the Bibles of the old Greek and Latin
Churches are based on the old Greek or Septuagint
version, and contain a number of books read in the
synagogue at Alexandria, which were not allowed by
the Jerusalem board or commission to be used in the
synagogues which were under their immediate juris
diction. I imagine the bearing of this somewhat lengthy
prologue will be evident to you all, for it would have
been impossible for us to follow the collection of our
Psalter, unless we had first learned somewhat of the
methods through which it, with the other books,
came into the collection of Hebrew literature which
we have preserved to us. At some future time I
may be able to present to you this whole subject
more fully and consequently more satisfactorily.
The action of this body, so famous in history, pro
bably alone had influence on the final shaping of our
Psalter out of the five Temple books from which it
was made-up. At all events, the collection of its First
mentioned. It seems, however, that sometime after this the Old Testa
ment Canon was to some extent in a fluid condition ; we find, for ex
ample, that in the fourth century the Jews are spoken of as reading
Baruch in their public religious gatherings (Apostolical Constitutions, v.
20). (T.)

1 86 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Book (iii.-xli.) must be assigned to a period prior to
any in which we can suppose such a body as the great
synagogue to have been in existence — to a period
contemporaneous with the first return from the Exile
under Joshua and Zerubbabel. One gains the impres
sion in reading of this first return that its object was
not so much for general colonization and resettlement
as for the more specific purpose of rebuilding Jerusalem
and restoring the Temple. In the list of those who re
turned we find no less than five thousand, or a sixth
of the entire number belonging to the Temple staff,
either as Priests, Levites, Singers, Porters or Nethi-
nim, in which latter some of the expositors of the La
tin church see a monkish order, but which were, as
the name suggests, merely the Temple slaves on
whom fell the menial and unclean service which no
Israelite would willingly undertake.
Though they thus return with all their plans ma
tured for the restoration of the Temple, unseen difficul
ties immediately arose and their main object remained
for many years unattainable. The Samaritans, angered
by the refusal of their proffered co-operation in the
rebuilding of the Temple, make such effectual repre
sentations through their attorneys at the Persian
court as to the disloyalty of the Jews, that the prose
cution of the work is forbidden by the authorities. It
was an evil time for the returned Exiles, held under

FIRST BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 187
suspicion by the Persian officials — dissension and dis
cord among themselves, blight and famine in the land.
But I will not draw the picture which lies sketched
in outline for you in the concise and nervous sen
tences of Haggai. Suffice to say, that during fifteen
years they could not lay their hand to the work.
Thanks to the enthusiastic patriotism of the prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, the people and their leaders
are at last moved to make one more appeal to the
Persian court, which receives a favorable reply. The
work of rebuilding begun in earnest is eagerly pushed
forward, and within four years a modest Temple is
completed and dedicated, B.C. 516, sixty years before
the arrival of Ezra and the later colonists.
Now in all probability it was for the restored service
of this Temple that the First Book in our Psalter was
compiled by some one of the early return. Whether
by Joshua, who we glean from Zechariah was a man of
varied parts, of course we do not know. As we have
seen, the collector, whoever he may have been, ga
thered about forty of the choicer and more familiar
melodies from one of the books of the early Temple —
"The Sacred Songs of David." As a careful editor he
gives to each song an inscription, showing the source
from which he had taken it; moreover to several
of the more noteworthy of them he adds a note, stat
ing the occasion on which it was composed or the

1 88 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
circumstances which gave rise to it. In some few
cases these notices are taken from the historical books
which we still have, but more frequently from the
current belief of the time as to the origin of the Psalm.
Psalm iii., first of an exquisite pair of morn and
even songs placed at the opening of the book, is
accompanied by the notice that it was written on
David's flight from his son Absalom.
Psalm vii., whose pathetic and broken rhythm
accords well with the wild melody to which it was
set by the Temple choir, has a note by the editor that
it was written by David as he learned of the words
spoken against him by a certain man named Cush of
the tribe of Benjamin. Who this Cush was we do
not know. His name is nowhere else mentioned, and
the editor evidently has taken his notice from some
writing which has not come down to us. He proba
bly was David's enemy at the court who succeeded
in poisoning Saul's mind with stories of his disaffec
tion. A number of the modern translators have
made sad work of this inscription through a misun
derstanding of Cush as a common instead of a
proper noun. Luther actually has " a Benjamite
colored man," anticipating by several centuries the
black Jews of Abyssinia, and not a few translate " the
black Benjamite " with a metaphrastic reference to
the black-hearted Saul.

FIRST BOOK OF THE PSALTER. \ 89
Psalm xviii. is the longest of the purely lyric songs
in the collection. It is shown to be beyond question
Davidic by its appearance in the account of David's
life in the historical books. The theophany in the
opening lines and an occasional turn of the verse
betray the master's hand, but the style is on the
whole so broad and repetitious that it betrays as well
a hand touched with the palsy of age. The editor
tells us in his note that it was written by David at the
close of his life when he had been delivered and given
rest from all his enemies.
Psalm xxx. was fixed by the Jewish ritual to be
read on the feast of Hanuka, or Dedication, that is,
the re-dedication of the Temple after it had been de
filed by the Syrian troops of Antiochus. The form
of inscription in the English version, " at the dedica
tion of the house of David," conveys the wrong im
pression that this was the occasion of the composition
of the song. It belongs however to the purely liturgi
cal notes, found in such abundance in the Psalter as
to have led many scholars to imagine that our manu
scripts of this book are based on the musically anno
tated copy of some one of the Temple choir, and
states no more than that this Psalm was to be sung
on the Feast of Dedication.
We should think much less of David's poetical ge
nius could we believe he wrote Psalm xxxiv., an al-

I90 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
phabetic poem bearing the strongest marks of the
lamp and artificiality of treatment, the metre by con
stant straining and the use of obsolete words being
forced to so come out that each succeeding verse may
begin with a new letter of the alphabet. But to crown
all, there seems to be an acrostic in the last line,
through which the -author discloses himself as a cer
tain Pedaiah (ma). In all events there is a prima facie
case against the correctness of the editorial inscrip
tion, that it was written by David when to escape
from Achish, king of Gath, he was obliged to feign
insanity, an affliction which in the Orient from the
earliest time until the present has been regarded as a
direct visitation from God, and secured not only im-.
munity but even consideration for the afflicted one.
It is a beautiful principle, which lies at the basis of the
regulations for the treatment of the insane in modern
Arab jurisprudence, that the mind of one who is in
sane is in heaven, and so engaged in immediate con
verse with the Deity that it can give no attention to
the body which is on earth. Most scholars, even
many whose convictions would lead them to do so
unwillingly, have been forced to admit that in the
case of Psalm xxxiv., the editor is clearly wrong in
his note as to the occasion on which it was composed.
The only remaining editorial inscription in this
book is that to Psalm xxxviii., of which I spoke in the

FIRST BOOK OF THE PSAL TER. \ g \
last hour. The form of it in our English version "to
bring to remembrance" is senseless. The song, as the
inscription really informs us, is a choral refrain sung by
the officiating priests at the kindling of the incense.
The other inscriptions of this book are without
exception musical, and come from the chief musician
or some of his assistants in the Temple choir. They
will all be considered in their proper place.
There is but one more question of literary interest
as to this First Book, and that is as to the arrange
ment of the songs in it. The Shemitic mind, which
so dwells on minutiae, very naturally sets great store
by the formal arrangement of its literary material.
Take up any of the poets of the famed cycle of the
Moallakat, which stands for Arab literature much as
the Nibelungen or the Round Table of good King
Arthur does for us — or any of the later poets, as Mu-
tanabbi, the Arab Spenser, or Hariri, the Arab
Cervantes, and you will find that their poems have
been, without regard to their subject or history, cast
by the editors into what are called Divans — that is
certain rubrics where all poems of similar metre or
assonance are collected under the same head. To
gain this purely formal, almost tabular arrangement,
the editors have not hesitated to unite or sever many
poems in utter defiance of those literary relations
which would form the main evidence for any Aryan

192 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
editor. Further study shows this to be a common
Shemitic method of editing, and not a few scholars
have imagined they could trace a similar metrical
arrangement in the several books of the Psalm collec
tion. Though there are some few resemblances of
metre between adjacent Psalms, such as might be,
were there necessity, construed as an argument for
this view, they are so sporadic as probably to be only
accidental, and do not furnish sufficient ground for
predicating any general principle of arrangement of
any one of the five collections in our Psalter. What
principle of arranging his material the collector of the
first book, or of any of the books had, we no longer
know — possibly they had none at all. It does not
seem to be the metrical one, elsewhere so common
among the Shemitic people ; nor is there any dis
coverable arrangement by author or subject or age,
such as we are more familiar with. The elaborate
arrangements in many modern commentaries are no
more than a reflex of the subjective impression of the
commentator. The Second Book of our Psalter is somewhat small
er than the first, and contains the thirty songs which
in our version are numbered from xlii.-lxxii., inclu
sive. The method of the collector is more eclectic
than that of the one who collected the first book, and
he draws on sources other than the Davidic Songs.

SONG BOOK OF THE SONS OF KORAH. 193
The most characteristic songs in his collection are the
seven he has taken from the " Song Book of the Sons
of Korah," from which same source the collector of
the third book has borrowed three. These songs
from the Korahite book are the most exquisite
poetry preserved to us, not only in the Psalter, but
any where in Hebrew literature. They exhibit a
daintiness of workmanship and delicate sensibility of
the niceties of metre which place them side by side
with the lyrics of "Pindar or Horace. If the highest
art reside in form rather than idea, as the latter day
critics are now teaching the world, there are prob
ably few literatures which offer such models of pure
art as we find in one or two of these poems. The
reserve of the poet in conscious power over his
material, the delicate touch, the keen sense of the
beauty of mere form, the plastic skill which repro
duces in word the many-voiced utterances of nature,
the evident love of the beautiful for its mere beauty,
remind us of the very best of Greek art. It is so
un-Hebraic, so un-Shemitic, that one is constantly
surprised in reading these poems with the artist's
technique. Were there a score of poems like the
forty-second Psalm, the history of Shemitic art would
have to be re-written, and the student of style would
have to learn of the Hebrew, rather than the Hellen.
These songs represent a poetiy of culture which
9

I94 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
finds its end in a perfect and artistic expression of 'it
self. They lack the originality, the breadth, the natu
ralness of David's poetry. There is no such intuition
of nature, no struggling of the thought seeking utter
ance in words, no painting in grand relief such as we
ever find in the work of the master. The art is deli
cate, elaborated, subtle — in a word it is art, not
nature. I have no adequate parallel in mind from our
modern verse — perhaps if a comparison at a remove
were not unfair, I would say somewhat as the dainty
and cameo-like Canzone of Petrarch, as compared
with the Divina Commedia, or in our own time and
speech, as Swinburne's elaborate and elegant form
might be compared with the breadth and originality
of the Poet Laureate.
But we must see who these Sons of Korah were.
Korah, the son of Izhar, of the tribe of Levi, is known
to you through the revolt inaugurated by him against
the authority of Moses and Aaron. His own motive
seems to have been personal ambition or jealousy at
seeing another house of his tribe preferred before his
own. His movement, however, did not gain weight
or become dangerous until it was joined by the
influential chiefs of the tribe of Reuben, Dathan and
Abiram, who were smarting under the inferior role
which their tribe, the first-born to whom of right
belonged the leadership, were obliged to play.

THE SONS OF KORAH. 195
They take their stand on ground which to any
Bedouin Shemitic people, and above all to the Israel
ites, would have great weight ; that the office of
priesthood and right of sacrifice could not be dele
gated to any particular class of the community, but of
necessity belonged to the father or head of each house
for his own family. They carry a large number,
apparently a large majority of the community with
them, but rashly submitting their claims to the test of
an ordeal by fire, not unlike that in the middle ages,
they are defeated and destroyed in the manner you
well know. The narrative, which not many verses
further on states in plain terms that " the children of
Korah were not destroyed," (Numbers xxvi., 1 1) seems
to imply that none perished save those who attempted
the ordeal by fire. However this may be, no attain
der seems to have attached to Korah's descendants —
Samuel the prophet and reformer was of their lineage,
and at the time of Saul they were a numerous and
influential clan. They came armed to the support of
David's feeble fortunes when at Ziklag, and until the
end of the monarchy remain the devoted adherents of
the Davidic dynasty. David rewards their fidelity, by
assigning them a prominent position in the Temple
service. They are frequently spoken of in the histor
ical books as being custodians of the Temple, but their
position, which now alone concerns us, was as forming

I96 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
a part of the Temple choir and orchestra. From the
very necessity of their duties they would receive the
best musical culture of their time. The musical art
being thus their profession, we can the better under
stand the evident pains taken by them in perfecting
the technical detail of their songs.
They seem to have had a book of their own, whose
full title we are not so fortunate as to possess, but
which was called, doubtless, by some familiar title, as
" The Songs, or Lyrics of the Sons of Korah."
Whether this was a Temple book like the " Davidic
Book," collected from various sources and adapted to
the use of the choir by the Korahites, or whether it
was a book containing no more than songs by the
members of their own singer family, scholars are
still not clear, and probably never will be, aS there
are not sufficient data in our hands to reach a sure
conclusion. The ten songs preserved by our Psalter
bear traces of so kindred an artistic tradition and
poetical method, that it seems more probable that the
" Book of the Sons of Korah " was a book contain
ing only songs by members of this family.
As in the " Davidic Book," no mention is made of
the authors pf the separate poems, the inscription of
the editor stating no more than the collection from
which the song was taken. We are, in every case, re
ferred back to the song itself for all information as to

THE KORAHITE SONGS.

197

age and authorship. Let us glance hastily through the
few songs taken from this older Korahite collection.
The first of them is Psalm xlii., or rather xlii.— xliii.,
for Psalm xliii. is clearly the final strophe of Psalmxlii.,
which has only been separated from it by the blunder
of some copyist. The union of the two Psalms is
shown to be necessary by the forty-second's remain
ing incomplete and fragmentary without the addition
of the forty-third — it is shown to be a fact by their
being found as one Psalm in all the older and better
manuscripts. The singer is in exile or captivity among heathen
enemies to whom his religion is a source of mocking.
The situation is in the outlying spurs of Anti-Leb
anon. He hears the Jordan gush seething from its
fountain heads at Baneas and dash roaring down its
rocky defile, cataract calling to cataract, on its way
toward Merom. He sees the sunny dome of Her-
mon rising before him, but deems it of less beauty
than the little hill of Zion, where rises the city and
Temple of his affection. He is one of the Temple
singers, who recalls with fondest recollection the time
when among his brethren he had led with music and
song the festal procession into the holy place. When
the Psalm was written we cannot say, but it must
have been long after the establishment of the Temple
and its worship. If we accept any hypothesis at all

198 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
that of Vaihinger is the more probable, that its author
•was one of the Levites banished by the usurper
Athaliah. Ewald draws a picturesque sketch of
King Jechoniah as its author. On his way as prisoner
to Babylon he passes a night in the royal burg at
Baneas ; unable to sleep and scared by visions he rises
and paces by moonlight the battlement of the castle,
in full view of Hermon and the Jordan valley. It is
a beautiful picture which Ewald sketches, but one
may doubt if it would have occurred to him had he
not read of Hamlet and the battlement of Elsinore.
Whoever wrote the Psalm, it marks the highest at
tainment of the fyric art among the Shemitic people
— same say among any people. The balance of the
rhythm, the exquisite poise of the sentences, the
minute and dainty touch in the setting of the words,
give to the song an almost indescribable beauty.
There lies hid under the general name, "Sons of
Korah," an artist whose name should be inscribed on
the roll of the world's literature as chief among the
masters of pure form.
We have already seen that Psalm xliv. was one of
those whose composition has been referred to the
Maccabean era. Those who hold this view say it
was written after the defeat of Joseph and Azariah by
the Syrian mercenaries at the Valley of Jackals, near
Jamnia. We have no right to refuse to consider

THE KORAHITE SONGS. 1 99
this, as many have done, for the chief lament of the
singer is over some defeat of the Jewish armies at
this very place which he mentions by name in the
nineteenth verse. Reasons we have before endeavored
to make plain to you, create so strong a presumption
against all Maccabean Psalms, that it seems pre
ferable to refer its composition to the time of the
invasion of Judah and the pillage of Jerusalem by the
allied armies of the Philistines and Arabs in the reign
of Jehoram, toward the close of the ninth century, or
to the troubled years which immediately preceded
the Exile. The Psalm is so impersonal in treatment
that it offers no clue as to who the singer was. It is
written in evil days, when the Jewish armies have
just suffered a disastrous defeat. The city and Tem
ple lie open to the enemy, and unless Jehovah perso
nally help, utter ruin seems to stare his religion and
country in the face. The song is elegiac in charac
ter, and does not lack strong touches, as the appeal
in the twenty-third verse, " Awake ! why slumberest
Thou, O Jehovah ? " but taking it for all in all, it is
the weakest of the songs in the Korahite book.
There runs through it also a vein of quid pro quo
ethics, to say the least, foreign to the feelings of one
who has learned that man in his very best estate
can neither deserve nor lay claim to anything from
Divinity.

200 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Psalm xlv. is unique in more senses than one. As
the inscription informs us, it is a marriage song or
Epithalamium. Primarily, it is a personal and secu
lar song, whose reception in the Psalter can only be
explained by the later and secondary spiritual refer
ence of it, which of course does not concern us now.
It is a marriage song, written for the nuptials of some
king of Judah with a princess of Tyrian descent.
Some few have referred it to the marriage of Solomon
with a daughter of Hiram. It seems more probable
that the occasion of it was the festivities which
accompanied Joram's bringing his Israelitic bride '
home to Jerusalem. Joram was married in the reign
of his father Jehoshaphat, of which we spoke to you in
the last lecture as not unlike the Solomonic in the
splendor of the court and the prosperity of the state.
It is true that Joram's vanity and headstrong obsti
nacy lost all his father had acquired, and involved his
state in war and disaster, but he started life with the
fairest promise, and amid the blessings of all his sub
jects. The Psalm is evidently composed for a choral,
in which without difficulty the parts may be traced.
Those may not have been far from right who suppose
it to have been the song of greeting sung by the Tem
ple choirs on the entry of the bridal pair into their
capital. Who the poet was we do not know. From
the paternal tone of his advice we may assume him to

THE KORAHITE SONGS. 201
have been an aged man ; from the way he speaks of
the king some have imagined that he was his tutor,
though this of course is no more than supposition.
The song is admirably adapted to the purpose for
which it was composed, and is by far the- best choral
in the Psalter, From its very nature we do not ex
pect delicacy of work, such as we find in Psalm
xlii., but though drawn with broader lines it does not
lack, in brilliant color and the quick swing of the
measure, many peculiar beauties of its own. For
pureness and elevation of thought and style no mar
riage song has come down to us from classical
antiquity comparable to it. Our King James transla
tion is rarely less fortunate than in rendering this
song, and the English reader gains an utterly
different idea from that which the original means to
convey. Psalm xlvi. is in every way worthy to be placed
side by side with Psalm xlii., and has been the inspira
tion of many of the choicest of modern religious
lyrics, for example, Luther's " Ein' feste Burg ist
unser Gott." The situation is not clear. It could
have been equally well written on any of the half-
dozen occasions to which its composition has been
referred by the commentators or on none of them.
A citizen of Jerusalem and a devoted adherent of its
Temple worship expresses in verse, whose softness
9*

. 202 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
and delicate melody is almost elegiac, his confidence
amid the thickening rumors of war, in the security
and abiding prosperity of the city which Jehovah has
chosen for His abode. It is one of the sweetest
idyls of the Psalm collection, and one which men will
read and enjoy so long as they take pleasure in re
ligious song.
Psalm xlvii. has a much clearer historical situation.
Toward the close of the reign of Jehoshaphat there
was an incursion of the Bedouin hordes of Moabites
and Ammonites from the East Jordan steppe, into the
remarkable and confused particulars of whose inva
sion we cannot enter now. They advance within
sight of Jerusalem, whose court and people are thrown
into a panic. During the night a quarrel arises in the
Bedouin camp over the division of the spoil, and they
are ; utterly routed on the morrow by a force advanc
ing on the flank to attack them. On the fourth day
thereafter a festival is held in the valley of Beraka,
and the people, led by the Sons of Korah, march to the
music of trumpets and psalteries in triumphal proces
sion back into the city. The historical allusions in
l:his Psalm have persuaded many scholars of its com
position for this occasion. Most admirably was the
Psalm adapted for the martial music of such a proces
sion. One hears reechoed in the very words the
shouts of the rejoicing multitude and the blare of the

THE KORAHITE SONGS. 203
trumpets. Even were it not written for this occasion
it must have been for some similar one. Ewald sug
gests that it was the triumphal processional with
which the restored Temple was reentered. The art of
any such hymn written for music and popular song
cannot be an elaborate one, and this song shows its
origin and design on its face. It is now the New
Year Psalm of the Synagogue, and through a curious
mistake of some of the Greek fathers, not conversant
with the original, it has come to be used in the Church
on Ascension Day.1
Psalm xlviii. is not unlike Psalm xlvi.; its style how
ever lacks the terseness and compactness of diction
which lends such an irresistible attraction to the lat
ter. We find in it many exquisite word-pictures, as
in the second verse, where the poet paints Zion as be
held from the north, beautiful for situation, the joy of
the whole earth. Did we not possess Psalm xlvi., it
would be the masterpiece of this kind of song. It
was composed at a time when Jerusalem had just been
delivered from the danger of attack by an army of
allied peoples — probably at the same period as Psalm
xlvii. — the incursion of the allied Bedouin in the reign
of Jehoshaphat. The author has outlived the danger,
and returned in safety to the city he pours Torth in
1 In ver. S (of the English version) the going up of God was interpreted
of the ascension of Christ. (T.)

204 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
these graceful measures his th'anksgiving for its de
liverance. Psalm xlix. is a didactic poem, and we well know
that not even the genius of Lucretius has succeeded
in making a didactic poem readable. The didactic
habit of mind is so incompatible with the poetic that
either the thought lames the verse or the verse runs
away with the thought. This Psalm is no exception
to the rule, for the metre is sacrificed to the poet's
wrestling to explain the enigma of life — the apparent
success in this world of the evil and the vicious at the
expense of the good. If any of you have read She
mitic literature extensively you will know that liter
ary modesty is a quality of which even the best
Shemitic writers seem utterly oblivious, but they
should not be judged by Aryan standards, for this,
as well as a lack of all high conception of the mean
ing of literary property, is a racial and not a personal
defect. The author of this Psalm is a striking case
in point. He begins like Elihu in the Book of Job by
calling aloud on all the world, rich and poor, high
and low, to attend while his mouth speaks wisdom
and his mind unfolds the solution of it all. But he
has no solution to offer which goes beyond the shal
lows of the current thought in his time. His conclu
sion penetrates no deeper into the mystery than that
of the Ecclesiast — that all worldly good is, in its

THE KORAHITE SONGS.

205

nature, a vain thing unworthy of pursuit, because it
cannot save man from that death, which he says is to
end all, and of aught beyond which the singer has no
hope or intuition. A poem of such a nature is
excluded from judgment by the canons of pure art,
so it is much when we say for it that the poet has not
utterly sacrificed form to thought as have the authors
of some of the other didactic poems in our Psalter.
Who the author was we do not know. His vocabu
lary and terminology are so scholastic that there may
be some ground for the view of those who suppose
him to have been a Levitical teacher in one of the
Temple schools.
These seven songs are all that have been taken from
the Korahite lyrics by the collector of our Second
Book. For the sake of unity I will ask you to con
sider briefly in this connection rather than later, the
three songs borrowed from the same collection by the
compiler of the Third Book of our Psalter. Our re
view of them will then be complete.
The three songs in the Third Book, numbered in
our version Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxxvii., attributed by their
inscriptions to the Korahite collection, show in form
and measure unmistakable resemblances to the songs
from the same collection we have just been examin
ing. Psalm Ixxxiv. is to be placed side by side and com-

206 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
pared with Psalm xlii., much in the same way that we
have already compared Psalm xlviii. with Psalm xlvi.
The poet is in exile. He is a Korahite who, in
times past, stood as door-keeper in the house of his
God ; now detained by service among a heathen peo
ple, he longingly wishes himself one of the little com
pany just setting out to appear at the feast in Zion —
yea he would account himself happy were he even a
bird that he might nestle near the shrine where are all
his affections. The rhythm and sentiment are perfect.
The author and situation have not been clearly
settled. It may be from the first of the Judean cap
tivities. Psalm Ixxxv., as the opening verse distinctly in-
ft
forms us, was written subsequent to the Exile : "when
the captivity of Jacob had been brought back." It is
a song full of thankfulness for the present deliverance
and of hopeful augury for the opening era of the re
established state, when truth is to spring out of the
ground and righteousness look down from heaven.
The situation is clear. It was composed during one
of the early returns of the exulants, probably the very
first of these under Joshua and Zerubbabel. It does
not lack resemblances in style to the later chapters of
Isaiah. The last of these Korahite songs, Psalm Ixxxvii., is
but a torso which has suffered more at the hands of

THE KORAHITE SONGS.

207

its restorers and commentators than from the original
mutilators. The author seems to be a patriotic
burgher of Jerusalem who regards its citizenship as
the highest distinction and privilege, and one which
all the surrounding nations will speedily come to
seek. The rhythm and thought both flow easily.
It is usually referred to the time of exhilaration in
Jerusalem which followed Sanherib's (Sennacherib's)
defeat. Thus we have run through all these songs of the
Korahites which have been preserved to us in our
Psalter. None of them seem earlier than the time of
Jehoshaphat, none later than the close of the Exile.
The art in almost all of them, though differing in
degree, is perfect in its kind. It is a minute, elabo
rate and technical art, showing such influence of
culture and the schools as renders it probable that all
of them were composed by the Levitical singers,
whose name the book from which they were taken
bears. Their separate individuality offers a bar to
the suggestion that all of them come from the same
hand. As to who the authors may have been we can in
no case establish so much as a probability. But what
need that matter ? Does the question of authorship
ever affect the beauty, the meaning, the influence of
any song? Would not the nineteenth Psalm have

208 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the same force, the same inspiration for us and for all
time, no matter by whom or in what century it was
written ? Does the forty-second Psalm lose one
petal of its loveliness because from some obscure
singer whose name the world has forgotten ? Are
these literary questions forever to be measured by
the line and plummet of preconception ? Theodoret
was right when he told the Church of the fifth cen
tury that they attributed inspiration, not to Divinity,
but to David — " We need not care," he says further,
"who the authors were. The songs they bring us
have been inspired for man's devotion until the end
of time."

LECTURE VII

In the three lectures which now remain to us in
this present course, we shall, of necessity, be obliged
to hasten over, or touch but cursorily upon, many
points of interest in our Psalter, that we may have
space to call your attention to other matters of im
portance, which are not accessible outside the techni
cal literature, connected with the exposition of the
original text. However, the literary problems arising
in the study of the last four books are, to so great a
degree the same as those we have already discussed
at length in speaking of the collection and arrange
ment of the First Book, that we can, in general,
assume the solution of them then suggested to hold
good for all the books of the Psalter.
We were speaking to you in the last hour of the
Second Book of our Psalter, which includes Psalms
xlii=-lxxii., and is a collection of thirty-one songs,
made at a date somewhat later than that to which
209

2IO ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
we are obliged to assign the First. Book. We had
the pleasure of examining the delicate and fragrant
garland of song, gathered by the collector from the
older " Lyrics of the Sons of Korah," which form
the distinctive feature and characteristic beauty of
the Second Book. Poetry of such dainty form and
brilliant color is to be found nowhere else in He
brew literature, and rarely, if at all, in any other
literature. The English version preserves to us their
thought, but the aroma of the delicate rhythm has
been volatilized, and the subtle beauty of the word-
painting has been blurred. One leaves them with
reluctance to pass on to the other songs of the book.
The collector borrows one song, Psalm 1., from the
Book of Asaph, the leader of the Temple band at the
time of David, but songs from the Book of Asaph
form such a characteristic feature of the Third Book,
where there are no less than twelve of them, that for
the sake of unity of treatment, we will defer speaking
of this Psalm until we come to take up the next book.
The collector also differs in method from the col
lector of the First Book, in making use of three
anonymous songs, taken from no older collection of
which we have any information. These are the songs
numbered lxvi., lxvii., lxxi., in our version. Psalm
xliii. of course cannot be reckoned among them, as
it is no more than the final strophe of Psalm xlii.,

THE ANONYMOUS PSALMS. 2 1 1
first made into a separate Psalm by a copyist's blun
der ; while Psalm Ixxii., though without any super
scription of authorship, is quite clearly referred to the
"Davidic Book" by an editorial subscription, wrongly
counted in our version as the final verse of the Psalm.
The compilers are so minute and painstaking in the
information they give us as to the songs of whose
origin they have knowledge, that it is only fair to
presume in the case of all the anonymous Psalms, not
alone in this book, but also in the subsequent books,
that they were themselves ignorant of the authorship
and situation.
All peoples have their store of unwritten popular
melody which, in the early time, when writing was
an acquirement of a small learned or wealthy class,
was far more extensive than we can gain any idea of
from the habit of our own period, when the thought
of the singer is no sooner articulate than it passes
into the hands of the printer. The world has long
since outgrown its ballad period, but at the time our
Psalter was being collected, though on the verge of
the days of book-making, the Hebrew people were
still ballad-creators. We shall find later, in the Fifth
Book, a number of ballads known as the " Songs of
Degrees," which grew up among the people in their
journeys, which thrice in the year they made from
all over the land to the feasts in Jerusalem.

212 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Of the origin of poetry among the Shemitic people,
I hope, if time allow, to . give you some account ere
we close these lectures. Their ballad poetry, as that
of every other people, was born silently and unob
served from the popular consciousness; grew up in
the mouth of the people at their feasts and assem
blies, was sung by their minstrels in ever varying
form, until finally it received the literary fashion in
which it has come down to the later time from some
editor who caught and confined it in the fixed bounds
of writing.
The ballad poetry of most peoples is of two kinds,
either warlike or patriotic song, inspired by great
victories and national deliverances, or the song of
peaceful pastoral life — in both cases furnishing the
student of history and of manners, with the truest
picture of the life and surrounding of the people who
sang them.
Israel was, as we shall hereafter see, from the
earliest times in which we have record of them, a
musical people, and one devoted to song. They
celebrated their victories and feasts with dance and
with song, many fragments of which are still pre
served to us.
The motive of our Psalm collectors being purely
religious, they have of course taken from this popular
melody no songs save those fitted for use in the Tem-

THE ANONYMOUS PSALMS. 2 1 3
pie worship. Most of them are religious ballads
which grew up among the people during their feasts
at the tabernacle or Temple. In regard to some of
them it seems probable that they were first committed
to writing by those who collected our Psalter.
; But there is still another not insignificant source
whence the anonymous Psalms have come. The
service of the Temple was ceremonial and ritualistic,
and accompanied through all its parts by an elaborate
chanting of the various Temple choirs. For the pur
pose of this ceremonial Temple-song there were many
pieces prepared by the priests, or even by the choir ;
arrangements of older melodies or original adaptations
of familiar words of Scripture. As prepared for music
and the use of the Temple choir, little stress would be
laid on their arranger. When at a later time these
arrangements were taken into our Temple Books
most naturally they appeared anonymously. Their
arranger or adapter may have been a member of the
Temple choir whbse individuality was sunk in that of
the body to which he belonged, or in some cases he
may have been, as the wont in our own day is, no
more than some priest or Temple servant detailed for
this special service.
When we come to examine the Fifth Book we shall
' find it largely made up of these songs which have
been arranged for the use of the Temple-choir, whose

214 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
rhythm fitted to music, whose meagre thought, whose
reiteration of the same phrases, betray unmistakably
to the student of the original their composition in the
music-room of the Temple. Compare even in the
English version Psalms like xix., or xlii., with musical
compilations like Psalms cxxxvi., or cl., and you
will, in some small degree, gain the same impression.
Now from one of these two sources, either from
the popular religious lyrics, whose only author was
the mouth of the people who sang them, or from the
liturgical compilations for the Temple choir, the
name of whose musical adapter was deemed of no
moment, the great majority of our anonymous Psalms
have come. It requires little knowledge either of
poetry, or Hebrew style, to enable one quickly to
discern to which class to refer any given song.
There then remains a very small residuum of
anonymous songs whose personal allusions are so
distinct, and of such a nature, as to lead us to refer
them to some one or another of the poets or prophets
who are known to us from the historical books. It
is probable that these came to the Psalm collectors
by verbal tradition, (of course in its simple line of
transmission), for if they had come from any older
book, the collectors' racial habit of mind and own
personal scrupulousness of detail would have led
them to make a note of it.

THE ANONYMOUS PSALMS.

215

There can be little doubt that the collector's rea
son for giving us no inscription of authorship for
these Psalms, was his inability to assure himself of
the authorship with any certainty.
This whole question of anonymous Psalms, there
fore, of which so much has been made, is really, as
we have endeavored to present it, a very simple
one, which need occasion no one the slightest diffi
culty. The doctors of the Talmud, with their fatal
facility for finding mares' nests in every bush, have
almost hopelessly muddled it, and strange to say, it is
from them that most Christian scholars have learned,
rather than from the study and comparison of the
Psalms themselves. If you understand me then aright,
you will see that the "anonymous Psalms" lack
the inscription of authorship from so slightly mystical
a reason as that their editor did not know who the
author was. We fare no better in seeking now-a-days
for the authorship from internal evidence. In regard
to no one of them does the evidence create proof even
strong enough to be called probable.
In our Second Book there are, as I before said,
three of these anonymous Psalms.
The first of these, Psalm lxvi., is an admirable spe
cimen of a liturgical song prepared for the Temple
ritual. It seems to have been arranged for use in
the service which accompanied the fulfillment of the

21 6 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
vow in the Sanctuary. Despite the elevation of the
monotheistic idea among the more enlightened minds
in Israel, it was the common practice among the
people, when in straits of any kind, to make a vow,
conditioned upon alleviation or deliverance, of some
offering or sacrifice to Jehovah at His shrine. We
learn that no small part of the duties of the priests
was the reception and proper offering of these vowed
sacrifices. For this service the song has been pre
pared. It is divided into two parts — verses 1-12, the
responsive chant of the Temple choirs, with which
the service was introduced ; 1 3-20, the chant of the
officiating priest as he took from the worshipper his
vowed offering, and presented it to Jehovah. The
parts may be distinguished without difficulty, both
from their style and from their allusions. As in most
of the liturgical Psalms, the arranger has drawn on
older songs which he has adapted for use in the par
ticular ceremony he had in view. Such an arrange
ment for constant use can scarcely be said to have an
historical situation; whoever the arranger may have
been, he was soon forgotten.
Psalm lxvii. is an exquisite bit of popular lyric. It
is a harvest home song of thanksgiving, sung by the
reapers as they followed from the field the last of their
wains, groaning under the heavily laden bounty of
nature — or equally well, a ballad of the harvest feast,

THE ANONYMOUS PSALMS.

217

when the fruits of the earth had been garnered,
and the people were gathered for rejoicing at the
shrine in Shiloh. It is an old song preserved for
generations in the mouth of the people, and doubt
less all knowledge of its authorship or origin had
been lost.
Psalm lxxi. has too personal a stamp to be referred
either to the liturgic songs of the Temple, or to the
popular impersonal melody of the people. The singer
is an old man who has passed a troubled and varied
life; now just on the verge of the grave, he is exposed
to some new danger, from which he begs to be
delivered. His song is neither original nor forcible.
It is simply an anthology of bits from older psalms
pieced together with small art, and scarce any regard
to connection or sequence of thought. The breadth
of style, the lack of grasp, the prosaic thought of
such part of it as is original, t have led some over-
acute critics to refer it to Jeremiah, they further lay
ing stress on the anthological method as being char
acteristic of the Jeremianic style.
Jeremiah certainly is one of the least original or
acute of the Hebrew prophets whose writings have
come down to us. His thought flows sluggishly and
prosaically. He lacks all the power which Isaiah in so
marked a degree possesses, to illumine what he says
with the touch of style. His reading has surfeited
10

2l8 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
him; he has none of the mystic alembic called genius
to fuse it in the crucible of his mind, into new forms.
His writings show no sustained literary effort, and are
destitute of clear and vigorous thought. He ex
presses himself so largely not only in the ideas but in
the very words of the books he has read, that he may,
with justice, be called an anthologist. If ever you take
up a critical study of Jeremiah you will find many
scholars using a much harder word of him, and that
is plagiarism. But it is unjust, for plagiarism implies
a moral obliquity in the use of the material of an
other, which is incompatible with what we know of
Jeremiah's character. We can simply say, his style
was an unhappy one, from whose trammels his in
spiration did not free him.
Undoubtedly the style and method of the author
of our Psalm resemble Jeremiah's, but that is surely
slight ground on which to base proof of Jeremianic
authorship. Could no one else in Judea have had a
nerveless style, freely interlarded with quotation, save
Jeremiah ? Is it not probable if it had come from a
man whose writings were collected with such pious
care by his pupils as were Jeremiah's, that we should
have had some note or recollection of the author
preserved ? We know, of surety, no more of the
authorship than did the post-exilic editor who gave
it a place in his song collection.

THE ANONYMO US PSALMS. 2 1 9
The editors of the early Greek translation charac
teristically display their ignorance by attributing this
Psalm to the Rechabites, a Bedouin clan descended
from the Kenites, one of the Arab peoples allied with
Israel in their march through the desert, who seem
to have entered Palestine with them, and to have
dwelt in friendship with them there.
The Rechabites are known to us from the time
when they sought temporary refuge behind the walls
of Jerusalem, from the advance of the Chaldean armies.
Jeremiah holds up their temperance — a virtue com
mon from the earliest times among the Bedouin
Shemites, but gradually shading out in the ratio of
their increasing civilization, as an example to his own
dissolute 1 fellow-citizens. It has occurred to me that
the Greek translator, casting about for some author,
which he feels in duty bound to find for every Psalm,
and noticing in our Psalm a style not unlike that of
Jeremiah, has, from their connection with him, been
led to pitch upon the Rechabites, than which no more
unfortunate reference could be made. The song must
have been written by some one intimately acquainted
with the older Psalms, and there is not a trace in it
1 Jeremiah (Jer. xxxv.) holds up the Rechabites as an example not of
temperance, but of obedience to paternal commands, in order to rebuke
his fellow-citizens, not for dissoluteness, but for disobedience to the com
mands of Jehovah. (T.)

2 20 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
of the clear air, and glinting sand of the desert, which
are always reflected in the songs of the Bedouin.
We consequently see the value, or rather, value-
lessness of these historical notices found in the Sep
tuagint with all the anonymous Psalms.
The collector of our Second Book also makes a
supplementary draft of eighteen songs, on the older
Davidic Temple Book, which bears all the marks of a
supplemental loan. The collector of the First Book
had already culled the choicest lyrics of the older
collection. There are none of the Davidic songs in
this Second Book of our Psalter, which, for beauty of
measure, or depth of thought, can be compared with
those in the First Book.
The most interesting of the Davidic Songs in the
Second Book is the first of them, numbered in our
version Psalm li.
Metrically it cannot be called so strong a poem as
many others of the master. It is the bitter wail of a
heart-broken man, athwart whose life a curse more
fatal than ever the old Greek tragedy had painted
was beginning to darken. Incest, fratricide, and re
bellion in his own family, civil war among his peo
ple, and expulsion from his capital was the cup which
avenging justice was pressing to his unwilling lips,
and of which he was obliged to drain the last dregs.
Scholars have, without reason, impugned the accu-

THE VINDICTIVE PSALMS. 221
racy of the editor's note as to the origin of this
song. Psalm liii., we have already seen, is precisely the
same song as Psalm xiv., though taken from a later
and an imperfect manuscript, in regard to which we
have spoken sufficiently in a former lecture.
Psalm lviii. is a satirical song on the unjust judges
of the people. The figures come trooping so. rapidly
into the poet's imagination, that the outline of one is
scarcely filled out before he begins another. The
poem is, therefore, a very difficult one, and in places
our English renders it unfortunately.
In the tenth verse we find one of those touches of
the poet which betray a civilization and ethical code
far different from our own. If the teaching of our
highest ethical and religious culture be that it is far
nobler to forgive than to avenge an injury, better to
suffer than to do wrong, there can be no excuse for
the vindictive passages in the Psalms, and they have
never been defended save by a special pleading, un
worthy of the scholarship and the enlightened morals
of its authors. Israel's mission to the world was
simply a religious one, to keep alive the spark of mo
notheistic revelation, which in a new era was to be
kindled into a flame. Their civilization and moral
codes were neither better nor worse than those of the
surrounding peoples. We do not excuse their polyg-

2 22 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
amy ; why should we seek to palliate their barbarous
war-code ? Jael's treacherous slaughter of her ally ;
Jephthah's sacrifice of his virgin daughter — they
mark a civilization which the world has outgrown,
and to which none of us would willingly return.
We justly feel nothing but reprobation for David's
conduct toward the conquered Ammonites, in tearing
them asunder under his saws and harrows of iron.
We shudder at the habit of mind which could allow
him with his dying breath to curse his enemies, and
leave as a parting injunction upon his son, "to bring
down their hoary hairs in blood into the grave." It
is not an ideal which the civilized world now regards
as imitable.
What I said of the literary style of the Hebrew
Writers, is equally true of their ethical codes. As
little as inspiration changes a man's style, does it
raise him beyond the thinking of the time in which
he lives.
In David's time revenge upon personal or national
enemies was not regarded as wrong. He was
giving expression to what was the natural feeling of
himself and his people, in praying that their feet
might be dipped in the blood of their enemies, and
the tongues of their dogs might lap it up. The
make-up of the Shemitic character was altogether
unique. With great tenderness to their own tribe

THE VINDICTIVE PSALMS.

223

or family, and an acutely-strung religious sensibility,
there was, in dealing with others, an utter lack of
many of those moral standards which, to the Aryan
mind, seem primary and fundamental. As a matter
of course, their habit of mind is reflected in their
literature, and curses similar to that on Babylon, in
Psalm cxxxvii., where the singer pronounces him
happy who will take their infants and dash them
against the stones, are no novelty to any one conver
sant with the literature of the other Shemitic peoples.
The question of the vindictive Psalms is one
of the most famous ones in the theological study
of the Old Testament Scripture, which, of course, is a
side with which, in this place, we are not concerned.
But even in the literary study of the Psalter we must
make some explanation of them, and the most satis
factory seems to be, that they are the natural expres
sion of a civilization and ethical culture alien to our
own. If our standards of morals be of any value, it
was a civilization consciously lower than that of the
present, and for which, from our standpoint of doing
as we would wish to be done by, there can be no pal
liation. Bear in mind that it is the fidelity with which
the Hebrew writings preserve the acts and words of
its heroes, suppressing nothing and palliating nothing,
which furnishes, more than the most ingenious plea
of apologists, a convincing defence against the search-

224 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
ing attacks on its credibility and authenticity by many
of the most acute scholars. If inspired men have
done things which are wrong, says Tholuck, why
may they not have uttered words which were selfish,
or passionate, or resentful ? The Psalms present us
with an almost Shaksperean picture of the moral
workings in the hearts of their authors. He is blind
who cannot see in them the touch of nature which
doth make the whole world kin.
Psalm lxv. is a harvest-song from the Davidic
Book. Scholars, who imagine they can give us year
and day for each Psalm, have figured this so closely
that they tell us it was composed for the Harvest
Feast — Feast of Pentecost — held June 6, b. c.
707. All we can say is, that we do not know it was
not. Psalm lxviii. is, beyond dispute, the most difficult
of the Psalms ; perhaps, taking it all in all, the most
obscure passage of the Hebrew Scripture. It is ap
parently a war song — in style not unlike the Song of
Deborah — sung by a victorious procession, marching
in triumph into Jerusalem. In its interpretation, pro
bably no two scholars have ever agreed. The voca
bulary is extremely recondite, and in many places the
text has been so injured, that one is baffled in his
search for sense or connection.
Psalm lxx., as I showed in another connection, is a

NEHEMIAH.

225

fragment of the older Psalm xl., reshaped for certain
liturgical uses.
Psalm Ixxii., of which I have also spoken, was,
as our English version rightly has it, composed "for,"
and not " by," Solomon.
Thus we have run through all the more noteworthy
songs of the Second Book. As to their arrangement
we may remark, as we did in reference to the First
Book, that if the collector had any principle of ar
rangement, it is no longer discoverable.
The collection of the Second Book is referred by
many to Nehemiah. Though we have no sure in
formation, there is an old tradition of this, and it is
not improbable that it is correct.
t Nehemiah was a prince of the Davidic lineage. He
had been educated at tne Persian court, of which, in
the days of its greatest splendor, he was a prominent
official. From the nature of his position he must
have been a man of wealth and culture. History
further discloses him to us as a man of considerable
administrative ability, and of great force of character.
His story is told in the book, which, not written by
him, bears his name as its hero.
But there is another side of his story equally true,
which we must understand ere we can comprehend
Nehemiah's mission to his people in the right light.
The power of Persia had received a staggering blow,
10*

226 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
in the victories gained over it by the Greeks. Not
long before this time the great king was. obliged to
accept humiliating treaties both from the Greeks and
Egyptians. Milman reports that among the con
ditions of the treaty with the Greeks was a surrender
of all the maritime towns, and a stipulation that no
Persian troops were to approach nearer than three
days march from the seaboard. Jerusalem, being
about this remove from the sea, became a post of
great importance, to be occupied and fortified, if
possible, by the people themselves without any
such display of Persian force as would alarm their
enemies. Again, the people of Palestine, had begun to grow
restive, imagining in this time of disaster they saw
their opportunity for shaking off the Persian yoke.
It was essential for the sake of order, that the Jews be
gained over to the Persian cause. The Persian court
acted with wisdom in sending as a secret commis
sioner, for that his mission was secret is shown by the
stealth with which he makes his journey, an official of
the court on whose fidelity they placed reliance, and
yet one whose race and royal descent would gain him
acceptance with the Jews, who, even in their misfor
tune, remained obstinately national. Nehemiah ar
rives in Jerusalem in the spring of 444 b. c, seventy-
two years after the completion of the Temple, almost

NEHEMIAH.

227

a century after the first return under Joshua and
Zerubbabel, and fourteen years later than the arrival of
Ezra, who still survived. Of Nehemiah's civil admin
istration, in which he deserved well both of his king
and compatriots, we can not speak now. He fortified
Jerusalem with a skill which indicates a knowledge of
engineering, and then secured a sufficient garrison to
hold it, by a levy on the people of the outlying vil
lages. Despite great opposition among the upper
classes, he gains the people for the Persian cause, to
which they remain loyal until its power was shattered
in the next century by Alexander's spearmen in the
battle of Issus. But even as the agent of the king, he
does not forget his nationality. He interests himself
deeply in the welfare of his people, and introduces
many reforms both in their worship and administra
tion, which his position gives him authority to carry
through: Jewish tradition reports him to have made a collec
tion of hymns for the Temple service. If there be
any truth in the tradition at all, it probably refers to
his collection of the Second Book of our Psalter, and
also the Third, which we shall presently see is but a
supplement to the Second. Bred in the atmosphere
of a foreign court, Nehemiah's acquaintance with
the literature of his country would be largely of the
literary and aesthetic sort, and it is the hand of an

228 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
editor working with a literary instinct, which we dis
cern in the collection of the Second and Third Books.
We can understand why, at the time of the return
under Joshua a century earlier, the collector of the
First Book, some priest or Levite, whose memory
might well extend back to the former Temple, drew
his material alone from the " Davidic Temple Book,"
which use had made sacred to him.
We can equally well understand how a man of
Nehemiah's training, if he be indeed the collector,
would pass beyond the old service-books, and gather
from all sources, those songs whose beauty of thought
or rhythm had attracted him. Whoever the collector
be, he has enriched the world's imagination in preser
ving such gems from the "Songs of the Sons of
Korah." The Third Book is a much, shorter one than the
Second, and includes the eighteen songs numbered in
our version Psalms Ixxiii.-lxxxix. It was apparently
collected by the same hand as the Second Book, and
bears evidence of being a collection supplementary
to it.
It contains a small remainder of the Korahite songs,
numbered in our version Psalms Ixxxiv., Ixxxv.,
Ixxxvii., of which we spoke in the last hour.
The only Psalm taken by the collector from the
Davidic Book is the fourteenth in the book, or Psalm

THIRD BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 229
lxxxvi., as we number in our King James. It is a -
purely liturgical song, a cento made up of fragments
from older Psalms, which need not detain our atten
tion. The inscription of the last song, Psalm Ixxxix.,
attributes its authorship to Ethan the Ezrahite, of the
tribe of Judah, one of the wise men whose sayings
were proverbial in the time of Solomon, not to be
confounded with a, Levite of the same name, who was
one of the leaders of the Temple orchestra. The
song is composed in an evil time for the Jewish State.
The singer calls to mind the glorious promises made
to the Davidic house, and in words scarce articulate
through sobs, he pleads their non-fulfilment before
Jehovah. The covenant of God with His people
seems void ; the land is over-run with enemies ;
Jerusalem has been captured; the throne of David
has been cast to the ground, and the youthful king
who sat upon it has been shamefully entreated.
If there be any credence to be placed in the in
scription of authorship to a contemporary of Solo
mon, there is but one situation to which the song can
be referred, the invasion of Judea by the Egyptian
army under Shishak, in the early years of the reign
of Rehoboam.
Shashang, called in the Bible Shishak, first of the
twenty-second Egyptian dynasty, was the son of an

23O ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Assyrian captain, who met his death in Abydos, and
who set up a dynasty at Bubastis, in the Lower Nile
country, under circumstances which do not concern
us now.
Jeroboam, who in the closing years of Solomon's
reign, had become the centre for the wide-spread dis
affection with the exactions of that sovereign, obliged
to fly for his life, took refuge with and was received
with friendliness by the Egyptian king. On Solo
mon's death it was by Shashang's aid that Jeroboam
was helped to the throne of Ephraim, and it was, no
doubt, at the suggestion of his former guest, who
held the Jewish armies in check on the north, that
Shashang was moved to the invasion which proved
so disastrous to Judah.
The Hebrew chroniclers, loth to record the shame
of their people, and the utter break-up of the Solo
monic kingdom within less than a generation after
his death, hasten over their recital of the invasion
with a few lines. But in the rainless air of Egypt
has been preserved for thirty centuries the inscription
carved on his return by King Shashang as a memo
rial of thanksgiving for the victory granted him by his
divine patron, Amen of Thebes, the clear decipher
ment of which by ChampoUion, did more than any
thing else to accredit 'the study of the hieroglyphs.
In the south wall of the temple at Karnak the spec-

RE HOB OAM.

231

tator may still behold in colors almost as fresh as the
day on which they were painted, the colossal shape of
the Egyptian sovereign, dealing heavy blows with his
victorious war-mace on the troops of captive Jews
whom he drives before him. Around him are a series
of cartouches illustrative of the cities and towns he has
conquered. Near the centre is one representing
Jerusalem in which is the figure of a young man, led
a captive, and beneath him is the inscription Judh-
melek — The King of Judah. It is probably the un
fortunate Rehoboam. We could seek no more strik
ing confirmation of the situation for the song of the
now aged Ethan, who pours out in this mournful
rhythm the whole story of national ruin, disaster and
disgrace. Macaulay said if we want the truth as to any time
we must seek for it in the contemporaneous songs
and ballads, rather than in the narrations of subse
quent annalists. I think you perceive, that in this
Psalm, we gain a fuller idea of the crushing defeat of
Rehoboam, than we could do from the meagre
notices in the historical annals of the Kings and
Chronicles. Psalm lxxxviii. is pitched on the lowest and most
hopelessly mournful key of any of the Psalms. The
situation is a purely personal one. The singer repre
sents himself as a man afflicted with leprosy, which

232 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
makes him an abomination and shuts him off from all
communication with his kind. It has come to him
through no fault of his own, but by inheritance ; from
his youth up he can remember nothing but weary
and loathsome years of pain. Manifestly nothing of
the sort would be applicable to the reputed author,
. Heman, the Ezrahite, who, as the historical books
inform us, was one of the nobles of the Solomonic
court. The idea, and very words as well, remind us
so forcibly of Job, that if we accept Heman's author
ship, against which no valid ground can be urged, we
shall do better to explain the song as an adaptation
or recollection from the Book of Job. The story of
Job was a very popular one in the time of Solo
mon, when it was probably translated into Hebrew,
and received the literary form in which we now
have it.
But most deserving of attention, and most charac
teristic of the Third Book, are the eleven Psalms
the editor has borrowed from the older " Songs of
Asaph." We have, however, a far different judgment
to pass on their art and style than that of the last
hour on the cultured and delicate lyrics of the Korah
ites. Poetry is the artistic expression of the imagination
through language ; differing thus from music, which
is the expression of the imagination through sound,

L YRIC AND EPIC POE TRY. 2%%
as sculpture through form, painting through color,
and so on around the circle of the arts.
This being so, our present conception of poetry, as
coincident with rhythm, is a faulty one. In the poe
try of many peoples, and markedly in that of the
Shemitic people, there is no trace of formal rhythm
such as we understand by the term. I doubt if there
is a single song in the Psalter, which, in the original,
could be made to rhyme. The only rhythm in He
brew poetry is rhythmical thought, and what I mean
by this you may perchance understand if you are
acquainted, in contemporaneous English literature,
with the so-called prose of Ruskin or Pater, which
you are doubtless aware has more claim to be re
garded as poetry than much of our so-called verse.
From the material with which it deals, poetry is
commonly divided into Lyric and Epic.
Lyric poetry is a subjective art, in which the poet
gives expression alone to the pictures painted in his
imagination by his personal passion or emotion.
Epic poetry is an objective art, in which the poet
gives expression to the shapes into which his imagina
tion has cast the facts of the external world coming
into contact with it.
Of lyric poetry, we have already met with exam
ples in our study of the Psalter : of epic poetry we
shall speak in a moment.

234 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Now these Songs of Asaph belong to neither of
these well recognized classes of poetry, but to another
and less commonly recognized one called didactic
poetry. Didactic Poetry is commonly defined as that in
which the poet primarily proposes to himself teaching
of some kind, either ethical, or religious, or literary.
If the poet merely gives expression to his mental
processes as they reflect themselves in his imagina
tion, with no object in view beyond their utterance, of
course it is poetry, just as much as the similar ex
pression of his passion or emotion. But if he con
sciously propose to himself as a primary object, either
teaching or persuasion of any kind, there come into
play such intellectual processes as to exclude the
product from the category of poetry. So at least
critics have quibbled and split hairs over the right of
didactic poetry to a place among the arts. Probably
the truth is that the intellectual element involved in
a didactic poem, is always at the expense of the
imaginative — the better the teaching, the poorer, of
necessity, is the poetry. And yet, from the earliest
times men seem to have had an irresistible impulse
toward committing their thinking and teaching to the
one vehicle least fitted to convey it. Witness " The
Theogony '' of Hesiod, " The Georgics " of Virgil,
the " De Natura Rerum " of Lucretius ; or, coming

ASAPH. 235
to our own literature, the unreadable mass of verse
from the morally didactic school so popular at the
beginning of this century, whose best representative
is Cowper's Task.
Under this same class of didactic poetry these
Songs of Asaph are all to be placed ; but before we
can estimate aright their personal peculiarities we
must see who Asaph was.
Asaph was one of the first figures pitched upon for
attack by the Leyden school, who, to their own
satisfaction, made short work of him, leaving not even
the wrack of his name behind. My opinion of their
methods, which involve more difficulties than those
they solve, I have already alluded to, and will not
revert to now.
Asaph was born not far from the year 1050 b. c, of /
a Levitical family who lived in a country village of
the upland of Ephraim. Through all his poetry
there runs a vein of tender feeling for the home of
his childhood, and one of the most mournful of our
Psalms is his lament over Ephraim's revolt, which, as
an old man, he had lived to behold and grieve over.
His favorite figures of a shepherd and the sheep,
which are found in almost all these songs, and are
reiterated and dwelt on by him as by no other singer
in our Psalter, are perhaps recollections of his boyish
days when he himself followed the flock.

236 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
As a young man he seems to have entered one of
the prophetical schools of Samuel — a master whose
memory he revered, and whose influence is very appa
rent in his poetry. It was here, doubtless, that his
mind received that didactic cast which ever after
remained so characteristic of it, and from his stay in
this school came the appellation of "seer" or prophet,
by which he was commonly known.
The teaching of these schools was accompanied by
music, in which the young man — for he must have
been then a very young man to have lived until the
revolt of Ephraim — so excelled as to attract the atten
tion of David, who appointed him second band-master
in the Temple orchestra. There is an evident confu
sion in the chronicler's mind as to whether Heman or
Asaph was the leader of the Temple band, which finds
its solution in the probable fact that Heman was the
real leader, while Asaph was the more prominent
musician of the two.
His favorite instrument, with which he led the
band, and on which Tie is expressly spoken of as a solo
performer, was the cymbals, which, quite remarkably,
in Egypt, whence Israel borrowed their musical instru
ments, were only allowed to be used in sacred music.
He died in the reign of Rehoboam, and left a
numerous family, who seem to have retained as well
their ancestor's cast of mind as his musical ability.

ASAPH.

237

His descendants are spoken of as in the orchestra
of the Temple at the time of Jehoshaphat, and later
again, in the reign of Hezekiah ; one hundred and
forty-eight of them return from the Exile with
Joshua, and receive the same position in the restored
Temple. We learn from the inscriptions of these Psalms
that Asaph was a poet. From the Psalms them
selves, we learn, if I may say so, that he was a man
of decided poetic genius, who endeavored to set forth
in poetry, his extensive readings, and ideas of a kind
which, in their nature, are incapable of a suitable
treatment in it. The perceptible struggle in his 1
verse between the intellect and the imagination
is a painful one ; it renders it obscure to us, as,
no doubt, it must also have been to his contempo
raries. In reading him it always occurs to me that
he was a man of the same order of mind as Robert |
Browning. All the poems which bear his name cannot,
however, have been his personal composition, as
some of them contain clear allusions to events which
could not have occurred until long after his time.
It is only fair to presume that there was in his
family a book bearing his name, and containing his
poems, and that to this, little by little, there were
added other poems of the same manner. We have

238 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
already seen that this was so in the case of the
Davidic Book, and it strikingly approves itself as so
here by the statement in Chronicles, that when the
commission of Hezekiah collected the "Songs of
David," they also collected "the Writings of Asaph."
This doubtless was the " Book of Asaph," from which
the collector of the Second and Third Books has
taken the songs which appear in our Psalter.
The only one of these Asaphian Songs found in
the Second Book is Psalm 1., the most vigorous of
them all in thought and expression, seemingly pointing
r
to the collector of the Second Book's having had the
first selection of them, somewhat in the way that
the compiler of the First Book had of the Davidic
collection, or the compiler of the Second Book of
the " Songs of Korah." The poet represents in a
grand theophany, like that of old on Sinai, Jehovah
appearing, and calling His people before Him to
make clear to them the real meaning of His law,
which had become to them no more than a ceremo
nial observance. He rises to an ethical height in his
apprehension of the meaning of religion, as an order
ing aright of one's life before God, which is far beyond
his time. His teaching that sacrifice is a vain thing,
seems almost an echo of the saying of his master,
" that to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken,
than the fat of rams."

SONGS OF ASAPH. 239
The poet is a man of elevated and lucid thought,
of clear and perspicuous expression. There can be
no convincing ground urged against the author's
• being Asaph himself, nor do I see the cogency of the
evidence which has led most scholars to refer its
composition to the reign of Josiah.
It is, however, from the Third Book, that we gain
our best idea of the measure and manner of Asaph's
genius, for over half of this book is composed of
Asaphian songs, which we will briefly run through.
The first of them is Psalm lxxiii., in which the poet
is struggling with the problem which seemed for the
ancient Hebrews the hardest to solve — how, if there
be a .fhyJrtJLiiSY-SIS??--^- °^ men> can the wicked be
allowed to prosper at the jgxpense of the righteous ?
So troubled is he with the evil and oppression he sees
all around him, that he is about giving up all belief
in a moral order of the world. Thinking it over he
at length enters into the sanctuary of God, i. e., he
penetrates into the hidden thought of the divine gov
ernment and perceives that in the unhappy end of all
evil doers lies the solution - of the mystery. The
thought is sustainedly elevated, and hovers on the
very edge of an intuition of a conscious future im
mortality, which the singer, even if he were able
to grasp, seems unable to formulate. It is among
the strongest of these poems. The author and

240 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
situation, from the very nature of the poem, are not
clear. The next is Psalm lxxiv. In studying the question
of the Maccabean Psalms, we have examined this
Psalm sufficiently. We then saw there was a possi
bility that Psalms lxxiv. and lxxix. came from that
period. If you are further interested in the question
of their origin you will find the reasons, pro and con
tra, ably discussed and weighed, from the conserva
tive side, by Delitzsch in his Commentary on the
Psalms — at the best in the last German edition.
Psalm lxxv. is a prophetic vision of God's judg
ments on the heathen, etched in broad light and
shade by the lyric burin. The Septuagint is probably
correct in referring it to the judgment against the
Assyrian ; the style and allusions as well are very
similar to the burdens against Assyria in the pro
phetic writings. As a specimen of the interpretation
of the newer school, whose standard is the subjective
one of taste, I may mention Hitzig's reference to this
as the song sung by Judas Maccabeus, when he con
quered Apollonius. He actually represents him danc
ing around his fallen foe, whose head he has just
hewn off, singing, " All the horns of the wicked will
I cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be
exalted." Psalm lxxvi. is poetically the most noteworthy of

SONGS OF ASAPH. 241
the Songs of Asaph. The expression is graceful,
and the cadence melodious. The singer having no
ethical problem to work out, has devoted more at
tention to the form of the poem, but is unable
entirely to free himself from the didactic habit, which
alone prevents the song from being ranked among
the very best of the Psalter. The reference in it
to the stout-hearted who, "with their chariots and
horses, have been cast into a deep sleep," points un
mistakably to the destruction of the host of Sanhe-
rib (Sennacherib) and gives us the situation of the
poem. In Psalm lxxvii. the poet is in despair over some
national calamity — many imagine the revolt of the ten
tribes — from which he struggles free by calling to
mind the days of old, and Jehovah's former dealings
with His people, as an augury for future good. The
Psalm ends abruptly without completion, and in the
midst of a thought. Whether this be a flaw in the
manuscript, or the song was left incomplete by its
author, we do not know. The song is of chief inte
rest, as having furnished Habakkuk with the idea of
the glowing theophany in the last chapter of his pro
phecy, as a comparison will show you. It is, conse
quently, a very old song. l
Psalm Ixxviii., with its seventy-two verses, is the
1 The date of the prophecy of Habakkuk is about B. C. 610. (T.)
II

242 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
longest of the Songs of Asaph, and is one of the most
interesting specimens of Hebrew epic poetry.
Epic poetry, as I scarcely need repeat, after what I
said a moment ago, is simply narrative poetry, in
which the singer clothes with verse the facts or ob
jects, either real or imagined, of the external world
which surround him, or of which he has learned from
history. In a word, it is objective poetry, differing
thus from lyric or subjective poetry in which the
artist throws on his canvas only the pictures of the
imagination, arising from the subjective passion or
emotion of the moment, and which is purely the ex
pression of personal excitement or exaltation. There
is no inherent reason why an epic should not be writ
ten on the events and persons of one's own daily life.
The poetic faculty refuses readily to 'grasp these as too
familiar and commonplace — there is no play for fancy
in their description, so the more usual sphere of the
epic has been incidents and personages remote
enough, either in time or place, for a halo of romance
to have formed around them, on which the imagina
tion has room to work. So it is that among every
people, its early and heroic age is the favorite field of
the epic poem. We need search no further for an
illustration than our own land and time. We might
with reason hope for an epic on the Pilgrim Fathers,
or the early colonists. In fact, I do not know but

EPIC POETRY. 243
that our common conception of them is in a measure
epical, but I greatly doubt whether we can expect an
epic on our own day, until the lapse of a couple of
centuries has obliterated our failings, and projected
our virtues into mythical outline.
The epic, you further know, may have its rise
among the people, from the recollections which clus
ter around some eponymous hero, or national epoch ;
such are the Iliad, the Nibelungen, the Cid, or our
own Arthurian Cycle. Or it may be the original
product of some poetic artist, whose imagination has
cast into new shape the materials of history and tradi
tion ; such are Virgil's "^Eneid," Camoen's " Lusiad,"
or Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered."
It has, of late, become a common phrase, in all our
histories of literature, that the Shemitic mind is
utterly destitute of the creative and fictile faculty, es
sential to the composition of an epic, and that no
where in Shemitic literature is an epic to be found.
It is one of the astounding statements for which the
history of literature is indebted to M. Renan, which,
as everything he writes, is presented by him with such
grace of style, and apparent fairness, that a layman is
first charmed, and then persuaded.
One would find it difficult, however, to exclude this
Psalm from the epic cycle, under any definition of it
which could be given. The poet, to whom the

244 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
history of his people is familiar, reproduces it in an
epic song which only fails of being a great one from
his fatal didactic habit, which always clips his wings
when about to make his highest flight. The truth
is that there is not less epic poetry among the
Shemitic than other peoples. You need go no
further than our Psalter to find no less than a
dozen epic songs. Though the Shemitic habit of
mind was predisposed to lyric song, in which it
has produced the world's masterpieces, there was
nothing in it which unfitted it for epic poetry, as
we could abundantly show from the literature of each
of its peoples, were we not already at the closing of
the hour.
Psalm lxxx. contains the beautiful figure of Israel as
the goodly vine, of old transplanted from Egypt, now
broken and wasted, which the poet probably intends
as a symbol of the dissensions which had arisen be
tween Ephraim and Judah. The cadence is touch-
ingly soft and elegiac.
Psalm Ixxxi. is, one might almost say, a homily
composed, as it distinctly says, for one of the feasts ;
there is some doubt whether this was the spring feast
of the Passover or the autumn one of Tabernacles.
Psalm lxxxii. was the regular Tuesday Psalm in
the Temple. This we surely know, for we have still
preserved in the Talmud the rubrics in which the

SONGS OF ASAPH. 245
Psalms were arranged for daily, weekly and monthly
use in the service.
Psalm lxxxiii. is the last of the eleven " Songs of
Asaph " in this book. It is the petition of some
singer for the deliverance of his people from a league
of East- Jordan folk which is threatening them. The
situation is clear, as in the time of Jehoshaphat, of
which I spoke to you, in connection with Psalm
xlviii. Possibly the author may have been Jahaziel,
of the sons of Asaph, whose speech in the council of
war at this time turned the tide, and lent new courage
to the army which was about to fly. There are beside
several likenesses of style between this Psalm and the
speech of Jahaziel, reported somewhat at length in
Chronicles, which would justify this conclusion.
Our review of the songs taken into our Psalter
from the Asaphite Book is now complete. The
general sketch of their literary peculiarities was given
as we began our review, and we have now nothing
further to add to it.
The Collector of this Third Book, we have seen,
was, probably, the same as of the Second, to which
it seems to be supplemental. Of his method we
spoke sufficiently when reviewing the Second Book.
In the next hour we will pass on to consider the
Fourth and Fifth Books of our Psalter, and the new
problems which arise in connection with them.

246 ORIGIN A AD GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
The source of all true poetry must be the human
imagination, and the singer who gives utterance to
the verse is but the creature of his age. Of no
singers is this truer than of those whose songs are
preserved in our Psalm Book. They are intensely na
tional, narrowly local and personal, yet through their
verse there runs a silver thread of something which
binds it to the highest religious consciousness of the
most civilized nations of the earth. The heart of
man is, and ever will be, swayed by the songs of the
Hebrews as by none other.

LECTURE VIII,

In the last lecture, we had the pleasure of exami
ning together some of the many questions of interest
arising in connection with the Second and Third
Books of our Psalter. We found at every point invi
ting vistas, whose beauty was suggestive of delightful
and repaying study, but, in the scant space of the
hour, we could take no more than a glance down
each of them.
I often fear you may regard my treatment of the
Psalms as rather a flitting from flower to flower of its
poesy, but, in the lectures of which this brief course
has been made up, it has been infeasible to do more
than barely touch upon the more noteworthy Psalms,
and some few of the distinctive features of their lit
erary method and poetic art.
The latest French writer on aesthetics, M. Veron,
tells us that the most favorable conditions for active
personal receptivity and assimilation are found in
ruins, vanishing lines, unfinished work ; it is in
247

248 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
leaving to his reader or auditor an opportunity to fill
up and complete at will all detail of the sketch, that
the literary artist shows his power. I may at least,
therefore, have the satisfaction of knowing that these
lectures, imperfect as they are, are in accord with
both the spirit and letter of this newest canon of
aesthetics. At the closing of the hour, we were discussing the
artistic genius of Asaph, which we saw was of the
didactic order. We further saw that didactic poetry,
or that in which the artist proposes to himself to
interpret thought, and to appeal to the intellect, is, by
its very nature, excluded from the highest poetry,
which is a creation of the imagination. Asaph was
an artist of genius, and a man of clear and lofty-
thought. In discussing the limitations of his art,
we had occasion to refer to the various forms of
poetry as they appear among the Shemitic people.
In the closing moments of the hour we were endea
voring to show the falsity of the view, now so gene
rally obtaining in all histories of culture, that Shemitic
literature is destitute of the epic song.
Hand in hand with this view, of the barrenness in
the Shemitic mind of that objectivity and fictile skill
essential to the epic, is the other view, which then I
did not have time to mention, of its lack of all
dramatic power. Both are outgrowths of the brilliant

DRAMA TIC POETRY. 249
misapprehension of M. Renan as to the genius of the
Shemitic race. For proof of the absence of the drama
in Shemitic literature he has naught to urge, save a
half dozen epigrams sparkling with the style of which
he is so consummate a master, and a few stories of the
failure of French opera companies in Algiers and
Beyrout, clever enough as after dinner talk, but little
to the purpose in a literary investigation which lays
claim to be serious. One almost despairs of any
advance in the comparative study of the world's
literature and art, when theories like this, unripe
even in their author's brain, only need utterance to
be accepted. As a matter of fact, we have preserved,
even in the sacred literature of the Jews, the oldest
and perhaps most characteristic dramatic poetry
which has come down to us from antiquity.
Drama is the representation, by a poetic artist, of
the action or conversation of individuals other than
himself. They may or may not be purely the
creatures of his imagination. As through them alone
the movement of the story, or the development of the
plot is to be gathered, it is essential to a perfect
dramatic art that the artist remain in the background.
If the figures that move before us express aught
which, not arising naturally from their surrounding,
betrays the artist's inspiration of them, the effect of
the art is destroyed. There are therefore essential to
11*

250

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.

the dramatic artist two qualities, creative imagina
tion, and the power of impersonal representation of
action. Drama is the highest form of the poetic art, bor
rowing from the epic its material, from the lyric its
method, and possessing, as a subtle power fusing the
two, a keen insight into the development of character
in different measure.
It is a mistaken conception of dramatic art which
makes it coincident with scenic effect; this latter is
but a spur to the imagination, and has never obtained
save among peoples destitute of personal dramatic
power, for a background suggestive of what the artist
or actor could. not convey. I have no lance to break
with the present art-theories running counter to this
view, but I cannot but regard them as insufficient,
because gained from an observation of the artistic
phenomena peculiar to a single family of our race.
Whatever the failings of the Shemitic racial habit
may be — and that they are numerous and far-reach
ing enough to place them on a perceptibly lower
plane than the Indo-European, we have seen to
abundance in the progress of these lectures — we can
not, however, deny them the possession of a more
highly developed dramatic power than any other
people. Art, to have its highest effect, must be personal.

DRAMA TIC POETRY. 2 5 1
It is through human feature, human voice and hu
man gesture, that it can alone exercise its perfect
working. All else is subsidiary and a help to this.
Go into any coffee-house in the Levant, and ob
serve the Arab story-teller, whose only property is
the ragged mat he sits upon, whose only company
the myriad shapes which people his brain, as he
relates the romance of Antar, that story of wonder
without beginning or end. Watch the subtle facial
expression, the modulation of his voice toned to a
fineness incredible to an occidental, the skilful gesture
which interprets the thought even to one ignorant of
the speech, and you will witness a pure dramatic
effect which it would be impossible for the most
skilled European company, even with the property of
Baireuth at their disposal, to produce. You would,
without need of further argument with theorists, be
convinced of the dramatic aptitude of the Shemitic
race. Our art-critics deny them the dramatic capa
city, for no other reason than that they spurn the
crutch which we find essential for walking, that they
have the power of producing, with no other means
than the human organs, effects which our most
elaborate machinery is unable to produce.
But this is not the place nor time for elaborate art
discussion; of more importance to our present study
is the evidence of their creative dramatic power as

252 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
evinced in literature. This we will glance at a moment
ere we take up once more the thread of our Psalms.
Going no further than Hebrew literature, I would
call your attention to the Book of Job and the Song
of Songs, as characteristically representative of the
two types under which the drama is usually classed —
tragedy and comedy.
Tragedy is that form of the drama in which the
characters are represented in conflict, usually with the
powers of nature or of fate. That in most instances
they succumb to these influences is purely accidental,
and is neither inherent in tragedy, nor essential to its
working out.
Comedy is that form of the drama in which the cha
racters are represented at rest, the artistic object
being to produce pleasure ; its art, which is confined
to agreeable situations, is of a much narrower range
and on a lower plane than that of tragedy. Pleasure,
of course, is an intellectual motive, but if amusement
as distinguished from pleasure become its aim, it
degenerates into farce, and loses all claim to be con
sidered as art.
I know not in what literature there is to be found
a more perfect and artistic tragedy than the Book of
Job. The personal art of the poet is consummate,
his own personality completely retiring behind that
of his characters, which develop themselves out of

THE BOOK OF JOB. 253
what seems to be the very necessity of their situation.
There is no indication of the artist's own surround
ing ; the knowledge or manners of his time have left
no trace on the setting or development of his plot.
It is impossible for us to gather from his drama, from
what age, or religion, or race the artist has sprung.
He is unapproached by any one, either of the Greek
or English dramatists, in that suppression of himself
which is the first qualification of the dramatic artist.
Observe the perfect art with which the plot is laid
and developed.
In an epic prologue, almost Euripidean in form,
covering the first two chapters of our version, the ar
tist accomplishes at the very outset, what Sophocles,
in his prologues, so thoroughly understands how to
do. He excites our interest in the occurrences to be
brought forward, acquaints us with the hidden motive
lying concealed from the actors, and dexterously ties
the knot of the puzzle, which the subsequent action
is to disentangle. I cannot, with justice to the sub
ject, in the moment during which alone I can speak
of this drama, make clear to you the masterly way
in which the plot is developed. How the action
rises with increasing deacc;, or mystery, during the
first three scenes ; how through the skilful interlude
formed by the speech of Elihu (a lay figure), it passes
to the Xbaiz or solution, first through its unravel-

254 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
ment in the consciousness of the hero, leading him
to an humble concession of his wrong, and lastly, by
its disentanglement in outward reality, through the
appearance of Jehovah as a Deus Vindex, reconciling
the dualism which lies at the base of all tragedy, and
whose solution the Greek dramatists groped after fh
vain. It is, from beginning to end, a stream of most
dramatic action, as in Goethe's Tasso, the external
action being compensated for by the life and precision
with which the characters are drawn ; their ideas are
worked into incidents, which are brought, as it were,
before the eye. If you follow the struggle depicted
in the mind of the hero, while grappling with the
problems to man the most insoluble, his alternations
of faith and distrust, hope and black despair, and
finally triumphant confidence, you will see that he is
no less a tragic hero than the OZdipus of the Sopho-
clean drama. Even the minor art of the drama is
perfect in kind, as in the painting of the three friends
with whom the reader at first takes sides, gradually
grows indifferent, and, at last, without any con
scious break or compulsion from the artist, finds
himself drawing away from them to the side of the
hero. Did we examine the more poetic side of this drama,
and notice the inexhaustible wealth of thought, the
keenness of psychological analysis, the deep know-

BOOK OF JOB. 255
ledge of human motive, the wide acquaintance with
the ever varying mood of nature, the power to paint
human passion, and man, as acted on by the myste
rious forces of nature, the originality and vigor of the
poetic intuition, the richness of the fancy, the chaste
beauty of the color which never shows a shade too
much, we could justly join in the summing up of a
recent commentator, that neither the Hindus, nor
the Greeks, nor the English, have produced such a
lofty and purely perfected drama. We may, most
nearly, compare it with the tragedies of ^Eschylus
or Shakspere, but we can find among these not a
single one which approaches its depth of thought
or perfection of form. It is the greatest tragedy
of the world's literature. Does it not seem, there
fore, incredible that the people who have produced
the great master and masterpiece of the drama,
should, by our latter day critics, be' denied all capabil
ity for dramatic art ?
Comedy we saw, as distinguished from tragedy
whose basal idea is that of man's conflict and
struggle with the forces which surround him, is the
painting of still life, the development of character
under those influences which are normal to it, our
present idea of the humorous as connected with it
being unessential and accidental. Bearing this defini
tion in mind, you will not misunderstand me when I

256 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
say, that the literary form of the Song of Songs is
what, in the literature of other peoples, we should call
comedy. But at the outset I decline to venture on
any explanation of this book, as I have myself found,
when studying it, no less than forty-seven different
interpretations among Christian scholars alone, and
how many more there may be I do not know.
The outcome of the varied and heated discussions
of this book has been to show that it is a drama
developing a complete action through the representa
tion of character. The motive of the plot is the one,
which, old as the world, is ever new. We know the
hero was Solomon. The heroine is addressed in
words as the Shulamite (vi., 13) and we have clear
traces of a chorus of women referred to as' the
" Daughters of Jerusalem." This is the' surely gained
ground, but when we leave it we are at sea. Scholars
of equal learning tell us that Solomon is the virtuous
hero, or that he is playing a role similar to Faust's with
Gretchen ; that the Shulamite is the daughter of an
Egyptian king, or that she is a simple country maiden
beguiled to Jerusalem from her home in the vale of
Shulem; that the chorus carries with the hero and
heroine the whole action, or that there are at least
twelve chief actors accompanied with a numerous
troupe of shepherds and vintagers ; that the finale is
Solomon's marriage, or that it is the return of the

THE SONG OF SONGS.

257

Shulamite to her rustic lover ; that it is a pastoral
drama which grew up at the harvest feasts in the
kingdom of Ephraim ; that it is a play written by
Solomon for the summer theatre in his garden, or
most marvelous of all, for which we are indebted to
M. Renan, that it is a chance libretto of the royal
opera company of Jerusalem ; that it was written in
the tenth century ; that it was not written until the
first century, and under the influence of the Greek
erotic poets.
Oriental scholarship makes a ridiculous and melan
choly spectacle of itself in the hopeless way with
which it is ever anew attacking, and ever is baffled by
this literary and linguistic riddle. As I said, I have
no explanation of it to offer, for I make no pretence to
understand it, and have not the slightest idea by
whom or for what purpose it was written. So much
may be agreed on, that in literary form it belongs to
those compositions we call dramas, and that under
this we must assign it to comedy. Whether written
for public representation or not, it is impossible to say,
though its composition for such a purpose, if proven,
could have no effect on any sacred character we may
assign to it.
As a help in studying this book, we may recall the
Miracle-Plays which sprang up in the middle ages
around the service of the church, written by the clergy

258 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
for the teaching of religious truth, performed in the
church at Eastertide, or some other feast day, and exer
cising, among a rude and unlettered community, an
influence for good, far beyond that of the spoken word.
I am inclined to believe that the literary origin
of this mysterious book, may some time be found to
have been for the religious instruction of the people
gathered at one of the Temple feasts. For the pre
sent it is certainly very puzzling. A single word as
to the art of the author, and I am through with the
discussion of this book.
Art in comedy, we have seen, is, from its necessary
limitations, inferior to that of tragedy, and so it would
not be fair to compare the art of this book with that
of Job. In my personal study, I have been wont to
make use, as a means of comparison, of Hariri, an
Arab poet of the eleventh century, who is the master
of Shemitic comedy, in much the same way that
Moliere is of the Indo-European comedy. The com
parison is to the disadvantage of the author of the
Song of Songs. He is not destitute of pictorial
power, but his art is crude and rudimental, the author
seemingly lacking that grasp of human nature, which
is almost as essential to the comedian as to the trage-
dist. If you wish a comparison from English litera
ture, I would say he stands related to Hariri, some
what as Chapman to Shakspere.

FO URTH BO OK OF THE PSAL TER. 259
The question has further been raised whether there
be not dramatic song in the Psalter. This we will
endeavor to answer in our further study of it, to
which we now return.
We had, in the last hour, finished the study of the
Third Book, which brought us as far as Psalm xc, in
our collection. We now proceed with the Fourth
Book, which is one of the shorter collections which
make up our Psalter, including the seventeen songs
which are numbered in the English version xc.-cvi.,
inclusive. The collector borrows two of these songs, ci., ciii.,
from the early Davidic Temple Book, to which we
have had such frequent occasion to refer. Neither of
them is poetically or historically of importance, and
they need not long detain us.
Psalm ci. has for its author a king about entering
on his reign, who compiles for the guidance of his
conduct this poetical vade mecum of proverbial say
ings and maxims. There is no reason of weight for
doubting the personal Davidic authorship.
Psalm ciii. is one of the Psalms to which the canon
of grammatical form spoken of in one of our early
lectures can be applied. Its form is so Aramaic,
more Aramaic in fact than any of the other Psalms in
this book, that it is impossible to see how it could
have arisen until some period when the Aramaic

260 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
began to act on the Hebrew. It is consequently one
of the latest songs in the Davidic Book. It was
written for the religious song of the people as they
were assembled at one of the feasts, probably Pass
over, and is one of the few songs in the Psalter which
were primarily designed for congregational or popular
use, as distinguished from the liturgic use of the
Temple choirs. Of this kind of song it is the best
specimen we have, and there are but few songs in the
Psalter which exert, on the modern religious con
sciousness, so strong an impression as does this
Psalm, written in half patois.
The large majority of the Songs in this Fourth
Book, fourteen out of seventeen, are anonymous. In
the last hour we saw that in the main the anonymous
Psalms had a twofold source, either the ballad poetry
of the people, or the liturgic ritual of the- Temple,
with a small remainder of songs whose personal ori
gin is clear, being taken from-verbal tradition, and
remaining anonymous simply because the collectors
were not able to ascertain the authorship. All these
classes we at that time sufficiently illustrated.
A somewhat different sort of Psalm from any we
have met with hitherto in our study is the first of
these anonymous Psalms in the Fourth Book, Psalm
xci., which is a dramatic song. The motive is di
dactic, to show the security from all harm of those

FO URTH BO OK OF THE PSAL TER. 2 6 1
who trust in Jehovah. This is developed dramati
cally by the poet through the use of two voices.
When through their mutual speech and reply-, the
thought has reached its height, a third voice, that
of Jehovah, is introduced, confirming and ratifying
the trust which has been placed in Him. In speak
ing of the drama a moment since, I said that there
were supposed to be many dramatic songs in our
Psalter, but the view as generally held seems to me
to be a mistake. What are usually called dramatic
songs are no more than antiphonal chants, or at the
most, arrangements for various voices in the Temple
choir. There are but one or two Psalms in which
the poet's imagination has worked dramatically, that
is, has developed itself through the action or voice of
others. The present Psalm is one of the clearest ex
amples of this method.
Psalm xcii., as the inscription informs us, was a
" Song for the Sabbath Day," and we know was the
one sung at the early sacrifice, at day-break, on Sab
bath morning. As the stars began to appear on the
previous evening, the Temple was closed, and the
priests and Temple servants, who were to officiate on
the morrow, were locked in a large room not far from
the altar. Here they' rested as . best they could on
the stone benches, in their every-day attire, the only
luxury allowed them being to make a bundle of their

g 62 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
outer garments on which to rest their heads. About
two o'clock they were waked by one of the rounds of
the night guard, and after casting lots for their various
duties, proceeded by torch-light to the onerous task
of preparing the Temple and altar for the worship of
the coming day. All was ready long before light,
and with the first gloaming, a priest ascended the
Eastern tower to watch for the coming of the sun.
As its limb tipped the horizon, he gave a shout to
those below, and the tamid (TDJ?), or morning sacri
fice, was immediately commenced. Hastily bring
ing a lamb from the Temple stalls (a description
of which would notv increase our admiration of the
worship), it was slaughtered and laid on the altar,
ere it had become full day. As .the offering began
the Temple choir struck up this Psalm. While
they were singing it, the great doors of the Temple
were thrown back, and the multitude came throng
ing in to early worship. Somewhat later in the
morning, for the benefit of the upper and wealthy
classes, as well as those whose devotion was not of a
nature to lead them to bestir themselves at daybreak,
there was a minor sacrifice, called musaph ('l?"3), the
time of which was regulated by convenience or the
season of the year, At this a part of the song from
Deuteronomy xxxii. was sung. In the afternoon
again, not far from three or four o'clock, there was

FOURTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 263
what we might call an even-song service. The of
fering named minha (nrJ^?), was a simple one of
cakes of fine flour covered with oil, and was ac
companied by the singing of several selections from
the songs of Exodus xv., and Numbers xxi. It was
finished as twilight was coming on, and with it, ended
the Temple services of the Sabbath.
Psalm xciii. seems a fragment of an older song. Its
words and melody are winged with great freshness
of expression. It was the regular Friday Psalm in
the Temple.
Psalm xciv. is a late Psalm. The author shows
the effect of the Davidic method in which he had
been trained, yet is not without a little vein of pun
gent irony peculiar to himself.
Psalm xcv. was written for a Temple song, and was
used in its liturgy in a way not dissimilar to its pre
sent use in the Anglican church. It is held in
general terms, and contains no indication either of
authorship or situation.
Psalm xcvi. is of similar origin with Psalm xcv.
We can determine its time of composition, as in the
Second Temple, from the thought running through it
that Judaism is for the whole world, and not alone for
a single people. This higher idea of the universal
mission of their religion did not become part of the
common thought of Israel, until the destruction of

264 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
their Temple, and exile among the stranger, had
broken down the barriers of their old intolerance.
The author of Psalm xcvii. must have been a dili
gent reader of Isaiah, whose thought and language
he ever reflects and borrows.
Psalms xcviii., xcix. are Temple songs, which de
mand no special mention.
Psalm c. is of the same kind, but worthy of atten
tion for its clear and elegant style.
Psalm cii. has the remarkable inscription that it
was written by an unfortunate man who was in exile.
It is his prayer for the restoration of himself and his
people to their land, and for the rebuilding of Jerusa
lem which lay in ruins. There can be, therefore, no
doubt as to the time of its composition. In a few
places the author shows great poetic power, but as an
offset he lacks consecutive thought, and lucid ar
rangement. Who he was we know as little as did the
Psalm collector.
Psalms cv., cvi. are long compilations of reminis
cences from the early history of the people, arranged
for the antiphonal chanting of the Temple choirs.
Even in the English translation they show clearly
their art and their origin. They are fair instances of
the epical method, and confirm what we said of it in
our previous lecture.
In Psalm civ., the last of these anonymous Psalms,

FOURTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 265
we find one of the most noteworthy songs in our Psal
ter, although poetically it is not to be compared with
many other of these songs, and its grammatical forms
show traces of a speech which was rapidly passing into
desuetude. In this connection I wish to call your
attention to the fact, that the two Psalms which are
intellectually the strongest, this and the one hundred
and thirty-ninth, are both anonymous, and both in a
style showing traces of Aramaic influence. It is one
of the factors which were used in making up the
famous theory of a Ten Tribe Song Book, as it was
called, whence these and many other of the Psalms
were supposed to be taken.
The singer is a man of disciplined rather than cul
tured mind, one who has received the most advanced
scientific training of his day. He looks abroad on
nature and gathers together its diverse phenomena
into the most perfect cosmos which antiquity has pro
duced. It is with a scholar's eye he searches it
through ; he arranges his matter under accurate and
orderly classifications. His very nomenclature shows
a trained, it was on the tip of my pen to write, biolo
gist, when I bethought myself of the authority on
which we are told that biology is a science not yet
fifty years old. The scholar's conclusion is that the
whole course of visible life he has studied is but the
effect of an unseen inscrutable power. In this power
12

266 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
he discerns such traces of order, of thought, and of
adaptation as to lead him to affirm personality ; such
further traces of care and guidance that he breaks
forth into the exclamation, " How manifold are thy
works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all." The
author is a man of Aristotelian mind. He belongs to
the straitest sect of the Realists ; his observation of
phenomena is as keen as, if not keener than, that of
any of the Empiricists ; his knowledge of nature is
wider than that of the Greek Peripatetics ; his concep
tion of it reaches a height to which even Platonists
did not soar. It is the mood of the present to speak
of Aristotle .as the father of natural science, and yet
here is a scholar of an alien race and two centuries
earlier, who has been observing, collecting, and sifting
the phenomena of nature and the organic life which
surround him, and deducing from them a principle of
orderly arrangement, and of motion through some
hidden power. There are some other sciences beside
theology whose histories need rewriting.
It is in a Psalm like this, written by a careful and
inquiring scholar who shows no trace of the super
stition of the vulgar, that we may best gain an idea of
the crude scientific knowledge of that early time, and
of the Hebrew people, which has been a stumbling-
block to so many. The writers of Scripture believe
and tell us in their writings that the earth was a plane

FOURTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER.

267

surface, square in form, supported at each corner by
pillars resting on the rocky bed of the sea which sur
rounded it; that its geographical centre was Judea
and Jerusalem ; that underneath it was an enormous
cavern called Sheol, through which flitted the shades
of the departed ; that the vault above was a cube of
metal, placed like a tent-cover over the earth, and
fastened down at its corners ; that to this cover all the '
heavenly bodies were attached, and on it they moved
round for the gratification or benefit of the earth,
which was the centre and reason of the whole crea
tion; that in this overhanging arch there were
windows, through which, when opened, there de
scended the rain or snow from their storehouses just
above. But enough — their science, as we said in the
last hour of their ethics, was precisely that of their
contemporary and contiguous peoples. It was not
their mission to teach science to the world, and their
inspiration has not eliminated their ignorance of it.
Their mission was a religious one ; their eyes were
opened to behold the hidden meaning in the phenom
ena they so imperfectly comprehended. Our singer
teaches that the world sprang from a divine idea,
grew up through the development of a carefully
matured plan, and is guided by a perfect order which
is the expression of the divine will. Compare him
with the contemporary, or at least not long subse-

268 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
quent physicists of the Ionian school : Thales who
taught that a chaotic water was the origin of all —
Anaximenes who saw the beginning of life in a subtle
and potent ether — Heraclitus who believed that a fire
self-kindled and self-extinguishable had set in motion
the sequence of phenomena we call life and nature —
or even with Anaxagoras, who, rising higher, saw the
influence of a mind in the arrangement •of matter, and
you will perceive what in our Psalm is local color
and the ignorance common to the writer's age, and
what the truth for all time of which he had caught an
intuition. Each of the three books, which we have hitherto
studied, had some distinctive peculiarity. That of the
First Book was its exclusive use of older Davidic
material — that of the Second Book the Songs of
Korah— that of the Third Book the Asaphian poems.
In this Fourth Book it is the Psalm, attributed by its
inscription to Moses, the only Psalm in the entire
Psalter referred by the editors to a period prior to
David. The fable of the later Jewish schoolmen, that
certain of the Psalms were written by one or another
of the Patriarchs, does not command credence enough
to warrant our considering it. The various views as
to the accuracy of the editor's inscription have natur
ally been measured by the commentator's opinion as
to Moses and the Mosaic age. On external grounds

PSALM XC. 269
it has been questioned for some marvellous reasons ;
either because there was no such man as Moses, it be
ing but a mythical name around which had clustered
the tradition of the foretime, or granting his existence,
he was either on the one hand a rude desert Sheik, un
trained to an elaborate art such as this song displays,
or he was just the reverse, a court servant of the
Pharaohs, moved by some personal indignity to incite
a revolt among his people ; a weakling who shrank,
through sheer incapacity, from the first shock of battle
with the hill tribes on the northern edge of the de
sert ; that he was murdered secretly during a mutiny
of the people, and his expedition saved by Joshua,
with the aid of an allied Bedouin chief, named Caleb.
Such being the assumed fact, he was of course inca
pable of composing a song of such ethical purity and
sublime religious faith.
These theories as to Moses are not hid in a corner,
but elaborated with scholarship and skill in histories
of the Orient which are accessible to you all. I be
lieve myself they are capable of such convincing
historical disproof as to have no weight in our judg
ment as to the authorship of this Psalm, but bear in
mind, that our judgments on this, and all points simi
lar to it which are constantly rising in our study of
Hebrew literature, are only of value when deter
mined on historical ground. No scholar can afford

270 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
to pooh-pooh, as inherently ridiculous, any theory
which represents the careful work and conscientious
thought of any human mind capable of investigating
the literary or scientific phenomena at issue. Any
science, which allows any consideration save the
attainment of truth to be a factor in its study, is sure
to be the worst loser. Hebrew literature has suf
fered well-nigh irrecoverably from the merciless way
with which even in the circle of scholars, whose only
aim in life should be the discovery of truth, the odium
of personal ostracism has been visited upon all who
have arrived at views in regard to it running counter
to their age.
Neither Moses, nor any other character of history,
suffers from the most searching historical examina
tion. Just as was said in a former hour when we
were speaking of David, we may now say in respect
to the historical character of Moses, that it has been as
satisfactorily established as that of Charlemagne, or
William of Normandy, or in fact as the existence of
any one whom we have not ourselves seen.
The more common denial of the Mosaic authorship
of the Psalm has been from internal grounds of allu
sion and style. The singer is an aged man, who,
almost alone in his generation, has reached the three
score and ten years which seem the limit of life. In
this exquisite meditation he looks back over his gen-

PSALM XC.

271

eration, comparing the vanity and shortness of human
life with the everlasting existence and power of God.
His poem is an artistic one. Some of the touches,
as the figure of man and the grass of the field, are as
daintily worked as those in the Korahite Book. His
thought is elevated, his intuition of the meaning of
life deep, his religious spirit refined ; whoever he may
be, he must have been a man of genius. I do not
grasp the force of the historical allusions which have
led many scholars to refer its composition to the later
monarchy. The allusions of the song are held in
general terms, bearing no stamp of any particular
age ; none of them are unsuited to what we know of
the Mosaic times. When we come to closely scruti
nize the language of the Psalm, we find startling
resemblances to the two poems known as the Song
and Blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy xxxii., xxxiii.,
all of them showing traces of the same hand and
artistic method. The question of the authorship of
Psalm xc. depends in the last resort, as do so many
other literary questions, on our judgment as to the
authorship of the Pentateuch. Do we decide that
Moses wrote the songs in Deuteronomy, the argu
ment of style will irresistibly lead us to believe he
wrote this Psalm.
As to its transmission to the collector of our Book,
there can be no difficulty. Speaking of it in another

272 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
connection we showed that the Psalm was not taken
from the older Davidic Temple Book, else it would
have been cited ; nor was it transmitted through the
mouth of the people, which would have blurred its
dainty lines, but it could well have been preserved in
the early song book, " The Book of Valor," whence
the writers of Joshua and Samuel have drawn so
freely. We do not know that it did come from there,
but the possibility of it removes the difficulty.
We come now to consider when, and by whom,
this Fourth Book of the Psalter, whose songs we have
been examining in detail, was collected. That you
may clearly judge of it, we must first briefly sketch
for you the history of the period immediately suc
ceeding Nehemiah, who was the collector of the Sec
ond and Third Books.
Of Nehemiah's history subsequent to the thirty-
second year of Artaxerxes, to which we traced it in
the last hour, we know nothing. It seems probable
that he remained at his post as Persian commissioner
until the year 405 b. c, when he would have been be
tween sixty and seventy years old, and then returned
to Persia and died there. His character as a man
of culture and of letters, and as an administrator of
sagacity and decision, we have already sketched. The
period of seventy-two years, between his death and
the battle of Issus, is almost a blank in Jewish his-

GREEK CONQUEST OF PALESTINE. 2lX
tory. The people had been won for the Persian
cause by the policy of Nehemiah, and to it they
remained loyal, even in the face of the advancing
armies of Alexander.
There seems, indeed, at one time, to have been a
movement toward a league with Egypt, but it was,
doubtless, no more than an intrigue of the aristocracy,
whose traditional policy inclined them toward an
Egyptian alliance, somewhat as the policy of the
Scotch nobles always favored alliance with France.
The people were under the immediate control of the
High Priest, who was, in turn, responsible to the Per
sian Satrap of Syria, for the payment of the imposts
and the preservation of order. The names of the
High Priests during this period, until the time of Alex
ander, are preserved in the Chronicles, forming one
of the norms for determining the age of that book.
They belonged to a family famous alone for its vices,
and equally notorious for its corruption with the
family of Caiaphas, who held the sacerdotal office at
the beginning of our era. The High Priestship be
came an object of intrigue, was bought and sold in
the palace of the Persian Satrap who held the right of
preferment, and saw in the price of investiture one of
his richest emoluments.
Almost the only information preserved to us from
this period, is of a fratricidal quarrel in the Temple,
12*

274 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
between the High Priest Jochanan and his brother
Jesus, who had been intriguing against him with the
Satrap. The High Priest assassinates his brother in
the Holy Place, the fighting priests have to be driven
asunder by a body of Persian soldiery, and a seven
years' penance is laid on the city. But do not let us
call it a dark age, until we recall how one Easter day,
scarce ten years ago, in the same city, Greek and
Latin monks brained one another with their crosiers in
the very sepulchre of our Lord, until expelled at the
point of Turkish bayonets. The world does move,
but history just as truly repeats itself.
Historians tell us that it was a time of quiet inter
nal development among the people, but even that we
do not know. During the wars and disorders through
out hither Asia, which foretold the dissolution of the
Persian power, and prepared an easy victory for
Alexander, who should be called the Lucky rather
than the Great, Palestine could not have escaped un
scathed, and must have been more or less harried by
the Greek mercenaries who marched hither and thither
across it, in the pay of Artaxerxes Ochus, against the
Phenician and Egyptian towns. They were fortunately
too weak to assume a prominent role in the troubled
politics of the times, and the events of it were not
momentous enough to leave any record of them
selves either in their traditions or literature.

GREEK CONQUEST OF PALESTINE. 275
The cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which had
.been gathering over the Persian empire under Philip
of Macedon, burst into a storm under his son Alex
ander. In the battle of Issus near Tarsus, fought 333,
b. c, seventy-two years after Nehemiah left the stage,
Darius was defeated, largely through his own bad
manoeuvering, and the Persian power was irretrievably
broken. Judging it imprudent to leave in his rear an
enemy so formidable as the Phenician commercial
towns whose fleets were threatening the coasts of
Greece, Alexander immediately pushes into Pales
tine, and lays siege- to Tyre, which is not captured
until after a stubborn siege of seven months. Gaza
also makes a show of resistance which is speedily
crushed, and toward the close of the year 332 Alex
ander advances against Jerusalem, which saves itself
from pillage by a timely submission and opening of
its gates. The story of his reception by a white-robed
procession, his obeisance to the High Priest, and his
sacrifice in the Temple, contains too many anachro
nisms to be possible. It is a legend coming from the
Alexandrian Jews, by whom it was fabricated to bring
their nation and religion into honorable connection
with the Greek conqueror of the Orient.
With the capture of Jerusalem, a new era begins
for the Jewish people; intellectually, through their
contact with the occidental mind and the Greek litera-

276 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
ture; commercially, through their enforced settle
ment in Alexandria, and their dispersion as traders
throughout the then civilized world. We cannot, how
ever, follow it. In the seventy-three years we have just
been reviewing, the Fourth Book of our Psalter had
its origin, and we are only concerned with the history
of the time, as throwing light on this. It was not a
period of intellectual activity among the Jews ; there
may have been some minor writers, but their pro
ductive age was past ; the scholars and literary men
of this period were, for the most, collectors and
editors of the earlier literature.
In what contrast stand these seventy-three years'
in the literature of their conquerors !
This three-quarters of a century was the hey-day
of the splendid literary development of the Greeks.
Three years before its opening the father of history
had died in Italy; two years later died Euripides,
the dramatist of human passion, followed in the
year with which the period opens, by Sophocles,
the dramatist of character. In its early years, Thu-
cydides, whose unrivalled descriptive power and
brevity of style make him the master of Greek prose,
had met his violent death, and Socrates had taught
morals and drank the hemlock in Athens. Toward
the middle of the period Plato was teaching in the
Academy, Xenophon campaigning through Asia Mi-

COLLECTOR OF THE FOURTH BOOK. 277
nor, and Aristotle was walking in the porticoes of the
Lyceum. These are merely the greatest names. In
some part of the same period lived Agathon, Phile
mon and Menander ; Zeno, Epicurus and Pyrrho ;
Lysias, Isaus and Demosthenes. It is a galaxy of
names - within a single century to which no other
people can offer a parallel.
That the Greeks at this time knew anything of the
Jews is improbable; that their scholars knew the
Jewish literature is quite impossible. The stories of
Plato's acquaintance with the Hebrew Scripture, and
of the intercourse of Aristotle with Hebrew scholars
are fictions of the Greek Fathers, who were unable
to recognize any truth outside of revelation. Yet
there was being silently collected among this ob
scure and feeble people a literature which was des
tined, not only to rival the Greek, but greatly to
surpass it in its influence on the thought and culture
of all coming time. If the Greeks knew them it was
only as a barbarous upland folk, but they had already
developed a poetry more delicate and refined in form,
with deeper intuition of nature, than any thing which
the culture and genius of the Greeks ever produced.
Who collected the Fourth Book of our Psalter, and
to what time within this period its collection is to be
referred, we cannot, from lack of sufficient data, de
termine with any approach to accuracy.

278 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
From the number of purely liturgical songs we
might be led to suppose that the editor was some
attache of the Temple, either priest or Levite. And
this would further be confirmed by what we know
of the literary activity of the time, which centered
around the Temple and its schools.
If in lieu of external testimony, or tradition, we
make use of the internal literary evidence, and then
carefully compare this book with the one immediately
following, we shall probably reach this result, namely,
that the Fourth Book was collected by some scholar
in connection with the Temple, about the middle of
the period between Nehemiah and the Greek con
quest of Palestine, say not far from 370 b. c
I say collected by some scholar, for if the literary
evidence as to the collector's method which has
shown us that the First Book was gathered by a
priest, the Second and Third by a man of literary in
stinct and culture, be of any value here, it shows us
that this Fourth Book was collected by some one who
had the prepossessions of a scholar, and who wrought
after a scholar's fashion.
In the next lecture we will consider the Fifth Book,
and the final revision of all five books into the form
in which they have come down to us as our Psalter.
The poetic cyclus of no other people, whether of
ancient or modern times, can for a moment be put in

GREEK AND SHEMITIC POETRY COMPARED. 279
comparison with that of the Shemites. Those of
India and of Greece, which more commonly have
been compared with it, are perceptibly inferior. The
literature of India needs but to be read to see at what
a remove, both in thought and expression it stands
from the literature of the Shemites. I do not imagine
that even its most devoted students would enter a
claim for its stylistic superiority. Its value lies at
other points which do not concern us here.
No one conversant with the literature both of the
Shemites and the Hellens could venture to claim for
the Shemitic mind the breadth, the subtlety, and the
grasp of the Greek. The Greek intellect was more
many-sided, if I be pardoned the vulgarism, than that
of any people who have left a literature. It touched
in some way all the keys which the Shemite did,
beside very many which were beyond his reach.
For many things, as philosophy and plastic art in
which the Greeks have remained masters of the
world, the Shemitic mind had no adaptation. Their
art meant either the huge or the grotesque — were
Solomon's Temple restored we should think it barbar
ous. Their psychological analysis was deep and
acute, their observation of phenomena accurate and
extensive, but philosophy and science were alike im
possible to minds incapable of constructing a synthe
sis. It was perhaps for this very reason that the few

280 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
keys they do touch resound with greater sweetness
and volume. I imagine that no one widely read in
both Greek and Shemitic poetry would have any
hesitation to which to award the palm. I would not
go as far in my statement as one of the greatest
German poets of our century, Friedrich Riickert, who
said that when wearied with Homer he would refresh
himself with a draught of the desert air which effer
vesces like champagne through the Songs of the
Hamasa. Individual comparisons, whether between
books or persons, are always odious and unjust,
though the Psalms or Hamasa need not flinch even
this issue.
The only fair comparison is gained by the study of
an entire literature, and what I mean to say is, that
tried by the canons of pure art, the Shemitic poetic
literature is unexcelled by any other.
I hope to have space for the comparison between
Greek and Shemitic poetry in the next hour ; if, how
ever, it be then of necessity crowded out, as it has
been from this hour, I shall crave your permission to
call your attention to it at some future time.

LECTURE IX.

I hardly know whether the more to congratulate
my audience or myself on nearing the end of our
journey through the Psalm country. I fear the road
may have been wearisome to you, but am not without
hope that we may have obtained by the way some
outlooks into Shemitic poetry, and the habit of the
Shernitic mind, which will prove repaying.
We have so much to compass, or rather to strive
to compass, in the brief space of this final hour, that,
without further prelude, we must proceed with our
study from where we were obliged to leave off at the
close of the last lecture.
We have considered, in order and at length, four
books of our Psalter ; there now alone remains the
fifth and last book.
The Fifth Book is the longest of the Psalter collec
tions, containing the forty-four songs, which, in our
281

282 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
English version, are numbered Psalms cvii.-cl. We
find, on examination, as might be gleaned from its
position, that it is the latest of these books, and,
though containing some few remarkable poems, it
leaves upon the reader the impression of marked
inferiority to the other collections. However, we
must deal justly with it, by hastily summarizing for
you its contents
The collector has made a large draft on the early
" Davidic Temple Book," with which you are all ere
now, from frequent mention, well acquainted. He bor
rows from it no less than fifteen songs, more than one-
third of his collection, differing thus noticeably from
the collectors of the two previous books, who,
between them, borrow from the Davidic Book only
three songs.
The first of these, Psalm cviii., is of great interest as
showing us the method of the collector's workmanship.
When discussing that question in an early lecture, we
dwelt sufficiently on this Psalm. We saw that it was
a purely liturgic cento, made up of fragments from
two older songs, Psalms Ivii. and lx. We also en
deavored to show that the liturgic arranger had
before him our Second Psalter Book, from whence,
and not from the older Davidic Book, the selections
of which the Psalm is composed have been taken.
Consequently, the Psalm can only merit its inscrip-

THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 283
tion as Davidic, in the sense that the diverse material
of which it is made up, all came originally from the
Davidic collection.
Psalm cix. is one of the Psalms spoken of in our
seventh lecture, as showing traces of a vindictive ex
pression foreign to our present standards both of
ethics and religion. None of us could join with the
singer in wishing, even against our bitterest enemy,
that his children might become vagabonds, and his
widow an outcast. It is but the local color reflecting
a rude age, and a barbarous civilization, which we do
not regard imitable, which we ought not to consider
commendable. Psalm ex. has, from its peculiarly prophetic charac
ter, been the subject of as much discussion as any
other song in our Psalter. It brings into more pro
minence, than any passage even in the prophetic litera
ture, the Messianic idea running through the Old
Testament, which has formed its chief claim re
ligiously on the Christian Church. This, however, is
a secondary meaning, not inhering in the literary
form, and one which, in this study, designed to be
purely literary and objective, I have studiously striven
to avoid. Hebrew literature is one of the most
cultured and refined in the world; the prevailing
judgment among literary men as to its obscurity
and inelegance, is the prejudgment either of igno-

284 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
ranee or indolence. It yields to the Greek alone
in breadth and grasp ; it surpasses it in beauty of
color, depth of feeling and intensity of expression.
No other literature, save the Greek, is comparable
to it. It has therefore been my aim, as I well
know but imperfectly attained, to interest you in
the neglected literary study of the Psalter, rather
than to dwell on interpretations and expositions ac
cessible to you in the current books of the time.
Hence we pass this Psalm with the single remark,
that though of the utmost historical importance,
and the keystone of the Messianic interpretations
of the Old Testament, it is rather disjointed and
rugged poetry. I read it one evening after I had
been looking through Robert Browning's " Inn
Album " which' had then lately appeared, and it
struck me it must have had somewhat the same effect
on the mind of the poet's contemporaries, that the
" Inn Album " had just had on mine.
Psalm exxxviii. is quite lame enough in metre to
have been written by Jeremiah to whom it is referred
by the Septuagint. We have had occasion before
to refer to Jeremiah's unfortunate and eccentric
style, but there is really no reason to hold him
guilty of all the halting verse in the Psalter. There
is nothing in it to detain us from passing on to
Psalm exxxix., which is intellectually the strongest

FIFTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 285
poem not only in this collection, but in the entire
Psalter. Psalm exxxix. -may justly be placed side by side
with Psalm civ., which we considered in the last hour.
It is not, however, by the same author, for though the
Aramaism of the language points to its production in
the same period, the style and touch are essentially
dissimilar. The author of Psalm civ. was a student of
nature and of physical science ; the author of Psalm
exxxix. is a psychologist, or student of the human
mind. His method is that of the school known in the
present parlance as phenomenalist. Even through the
poetic clothing of the thought, his mind works, from
the physical basis of life up through its phenomenal
expression in conscious action, in a way startlingly
similar to that of a lately deceased English historian
of philosophy, who, I fear, did not include the name
of this, his earliest forerunner, in his sketch of the
development of the world's thought.1 He differs
from the modern phenomenalist alone in his result,
which is, that the external phenomena indicate that
all life is a single entity, which he regards as one of
the manifestations of Deity. On this result he further
builds up a theory, that the human soul is kindled
by the bestowal of a part of this entity on the organ
ism already developed and prepared for it ; through
1 G. H. Lewes. (T.)

286 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
the outworking of this applied force in the physical
phenomena of life, the data are to be collected which
lead to a sure definition of its nature. But this is
technical. The singer is a man of introspective
mind, who has been investigating and subtly analyz
ing the phenomena of his personality and conscious
life. With a rigorous induction and rarely lucid state
ment, he traces these back to their fountain-head, the
soul ; this soul he teaches is an emanation of the
Deity. How much of his philosophy .is the reflection
of the thought of his time, or of the mystic theosophy
which has been the peculiar habit of the Oriental
mind from the earliest times, we can not now inquire,
nor even give space for a comparison of him with
Pythagoras and contemporaneous thinkers in Greece.
He represents the highest achievements of the
Hebrew, I had almost said Shemitic, mind, in the
domain of mental science, for the Shemitic racial
habit does not predispose it to excellence in this
field. With their acute and painfully minute analysis,
there seems, for the most part, utterly lacking that
synthesis, or grouping of things according to their
analogies, through which the facts are led back to
causes, the phenomena arranged under principles,
and thus a philosophic conception gained of the ope
rations and laws, either of mind or of matter. The
Shemitic mind is, more than the Indo-European,

SHEMITIC PHIL OSOPHY.

287

endowed with those faculties which give birth to
speculative research — curiosity, imagination, reflec
tion and analysis. There are, besides, few families of
language so rich in terms appropriate to philosophical
inquiry, so indicative of analytical research among
the people who coined them, as the Shemitic.
The psychological nomenclature of the Hebrew is
well-nigh as highly and delicately articulated as that
of the Greek. Why they lacked the further histori
cal, logical, and synthetic faculty with which the
Greeks were so richly endowed, we do not see any
necessary reason, either in their mental habit, or
environment. Anthropology has no adequate solu
tion to offer, and probably never will have. Racial
peculiarities are of a kind with personal character
istics, and an explanation of their genesis is baffled
by problems equally recondite.
It is for this reason that the history of philosophy
has been the history of the development of the Aryan
mind. What answers to philosophy in native She
mitic literature is acute proverbial sayings, or minute
observations of the phenomena of mind or matter,
which the thinker lacked power to grasp into a gene
ralization. The Talmud contains more original and
epigrammatic observations of phenomena than any
book in Hebrew literature, yet remains a hopelessly
irredeemable mass of disjecta membra. It furnished the

288 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
brick and mortar; the Hebrew mind lacked power
to build. It is true there grew up in Alexandria a
semi-Shemitic school of philosophy, the new Plato-
nism, but it was the product of the Shemitic mind
fructified by Greek thought.
Arab philosophy is a myth — the Arab mind is
incapable of philosophy. The so-called Arab phi -
losophers were foreigners who had learned the Aris
totelian philosophy, and reproduced it in a manner
more or less accurate, with almost no originality, in
the Arabic, which since the seventh century has been
the French of the East. Avicenna was a Turk,
Averroes a Moor, Maimonides a Jew. With equal
reason the French might clairn Leibnitz as one of
their philosophers.
The remaining six Psalms, cxl.-cxlv., attributed
by their inscription to the Davidic collection, are
neither historically or poetically of importance enough
to detain us, and offer no peculiarities in form or
style, which we have not considered in speaking of
the other books.
Psalm cxli. is of interest from its having been the
vesper song of the early Church.
Psalm cxlii. has an editorial note, that it was
written in the cave, but whether of Adullam or En-
gedi we have no further information.
The Fifth Book also contains sixteen anonymous

FIFTH BOOK OF THE PSALTER. 289
Psalms. Of these, four are what are called alpha
betic songs. Most noteworthy among them, and at
the same time the longest in the Psalter, is the one
numbered in our English version Psalm cxix. The
art in an alphabetic poem is bric-a-brac, the same
learned trifling that is exhibited in an acrostic. It is
not the product of a creative or original mind or age,
it is only possible when artificiality has replaced art —
expression, thought — form, originality. This Psalm
is, in its endless reiterations of the same idea through
one hundred and seventy-six verses, monotonous,
inartistic, common-place, the sole handicraft — not
art, for it can lay no claim to that — displayed, is in so
arranging the matter, that every eighth verse begins
with a new letter of the alphabet; there is no trace of
a developing and consecutive thought ; no order or
connection in the maxims which are loosely strung
together. From one or two touches in the Psalm
itself, it seems that the author was both in captivity
and imprisonment, so it has been concluded by the
majority of scholars, that it was written by him to re
lieve the tedium of his confinement, a sort of effort to
construct as many verses as possible on the same sub
ject, and then arrange them under the letters of the
alphabet with which they began. Solitary confine
ment is a situation which reduces even a strong mind
to inanity. Out of sheer desperation men watch
13

29O ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
spiders, count straws, and possibly sometimes com
pose alphabetical poems. Who the imprisoned
author was we do not know; it is a mere guess
which assigns the poem to the High Priest Jonathan.
The reason for its preservation in the Psalter, was
probably the use of it for the instruction of the
youths in the Temple schools, its alphabetic form
adapting it to memorizing, which prevails far more
in the Orient than among ourselves. We may ex
plain it as somewhat of the same order of poetry as
the celebrated rhyme beginning " In Adam's fall
we sinned all," or any of the numberless produc
tions in which the muse has been harnessed to
teaching children the cardinal virtues, or the order
of the books in the Scripture.
Of the three other alphabetic poems, Psalms cxi.,
and cxii. begin each verse with a new letter of the
alphabet ; in Psalm cxlv. it is every other verse.
They seem to have been liturgic forms prepared
for the worship of the common people, to whom the
sequence of the letters would act as a suggestion
and aid to the memory. In the later Judaism they
came to be used as charms, the letters of the alpha
bet serving as a string of beads. The Talmud tells
us, that whoever repeats Psalm cxlv., thrice a day, is
sure of eternal life.
Of the anonymous Psalms in this collection, other

FIFTH BOOK OF THE PSAL TER. 2 9 1
•than the alphabetic, few are deserving of special note.
Almost all of them are songs prepared for the Tem
ple, fashioned after older models, devoid of original
thought, barren of beauty of expression.
Psalms cxiii.-cxviii. form what is called the Hallel
pssn 79n; Egyptian Hallel or Song of Praise) sung
by the people on their various feasts. In the social
service on Passover evening there was sung, when
drinking the fourth glass of wine at the end of the
meal, Psalm cxv.-cxviii., which is doubtless the hymn
sung by Christ and his followers at the close of the
Last Supper.
Psalm cxv., the " non nobis Domine," when used
in the Temple service was sung by the officiating
priest over the offering which he was presenting to
Jehovah. Psalm cxvii., the shortest Psalm, is really the two
closing verses of Psalm cxvi., which only a misad
venture to one of the early manuscripts has converted
into a separate Psalm.
We must pass by Psalm cxviii., the processional
with which the restored Temple was reentered, and
Psalms cxxxv., cxxxvi., which are arranged for the
antiphonal chanting of the Temple choirs.
Psalm cxxxvii. is an exquisite bit of lyric song '
written in Babylon, on whose willows the unknown
singer had hung his harp. The softness of its elegiac

292 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
measure makes it artistically one of the most attrac
tive of the Psalms.
Psalms cxlvi., cxlvii., are doxological Psalms with
which the service was closed, being placed very
appropriately at the end of the collection. Several
of them have interesting historical situations to which
we cannot allude.
Psalm cxlviii. should be noticed for the broad
touch and strong relief with which the artist paints
the picture of the whole creation joining in the praises
of Jehovah. As I stood once in the Sistine Chapel,
studying, in its half twilight, the mural paintings
which have made their artist immortal, it flashed
across my mind that this Psalm, which I had heard
not long before in the service, was in poetry, just
what the " Last Judgment " was in painting.
Psalm cxlix. has very often in history kindled re
bellions, fanned the fires of martyrdom, or led the
forces of persecution. It was the favorite hymn to
which inquisitors kindled their auto-da-fe. In the
Thirty Years' War, it was the battle cry with which
Tilly's forces, the representatives of barbarism and
reaction, charged on the Swedes, and has been the
watch-word of innumerable peasant revolts both in
England and on the Continent.
There yet remains for us to consider the most im
portant part poetically of the Fifth Book, the collection

SONGS OF DEGREES. 293
of fifteen short songs, numbered in our version cxx.-
cxxxiv., bearing the inscription " Songs of Degrees."
As to the meaning of the inscription you will find in
the books a disagreement well nigh irreconcilable.
The Talmud, as usual when there is doubt, chooses
the most incredible and far-fetched explanation — here
a silly story destitute alike of point or possibility.
The early versions are hopelessly at sea ; they partly
transliterate and partly paraphrase. The later Jew
ish scholars call them "Songs of Steps," and invent a
legend of their being sung from certain Temple steps
on the eve of the feast days — it is probable there
were no such steps in the Temple. Lastly most
Christian scholars refer the name either to the
metrical form, as a species of triolet, or to their
musical accompaniment, as similar to a fugue, both
foreign to what we know of Shemitic poetry and
Shemitic music, while for neither theory is there the
slightest evidence in the usage of the word, or the
form of the songs themselves. All these interpreta
tions are in common the result of the narrow literary
culture, and exclusively theologic aim with which
the Psalm poetry has been studied, and confirm the
old adage that he who knows but one literature,
knows no literature. Their freshness, their brilliant
color, their allusions, their reflection of the homely
phrase and surrounding of the folk, show them to

294 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
have no other author than the mouth of the people.
They were ballads which grew up around journeys,
which, thrice in the year, were made from all the
country round to the feasts in Jerusalem.
At Passover, at Harvest and at Tabernacles, the
people flocked together from their farms and pastures,
into their towns and villages, and in company of their
neighbors and acquaintance, marched with music
and with song to the shrine or Temple of Jehovah.
It is a mistake to suppose that these feasts were
purely religious. That was, no doubt, one element,
but we further know that they served as great fairs,
where the people bartered with one another, and
whither the Phenician traders came to purchase ;
also there were games and trials of skill. In a word,
they were not unlike the Greek games, whose origin -
was also religious. Just as in Olympia, Athenian and
Spartan met together, forgetting all save that they
were Hellens, so here, Danites from the slopes of
Hermon, Simeonites from the desert of the South,
Reubenites from the steppes of Moab, met together
in Shiloh or Jerusalem, forgetting all save that they
were Israelites ; so not the least effect of these festi
vals was to cultivate the national patriotism, and
create a bond of union for the national life.
During the feasts Jerusalem became the centre of
commerce for all the surrounding countries, and in

SONGS OF DEGREES.

295

a rude age, when there was no circulation of litera
ture, this concourse of the people, from all Israel,
afforded the fittest audience for the recital of liter
ary productions, and the publication of knowledge.
How extensive the literature which grew up around
these feasts we have no longer any means of ascer
taining; doubtless, much as the Greek games, they
afforded the motive for many works which have been
lost to us. Around such gatherings, there always
grows up a luxuriant ballad poetry, and our collector
has gathered from it some of the choicest of those
which were connected with their religious observ
ance. The meaning of the inscriptions is, Songs of
Upgoings, i. e., Songs of Feast Journeys, or as some
times paraphrased, " Pilgrim Songs."
Psalms cxxi., cxxii. seem to be the songs with
which those who remain behind dismiss the pilgrims
setting out for the feast, wishing Jehovah's blessing
for their journey and return.
Psalm cxxiii. is the reply of the pilgrims.
Psalm cxxiv. is a vesper song of the company as
they encamped for the night.
Psalm cxxv. the song when from the hills lying
round about Jerusalem, they catch the first glimpse of
the Holy City, and so on through all the songs, which
are plainly referable to one or another situation during
these festal journeys, or at the feasts themselves.

296 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
I wish I had time to analyze for you all these most
perfect of the religious ballads of the Hebrew people,
and then to supplement what Professor Child said to
you last year of European ballads, by describing the
ballad poetry of the Shemites. The choicest of them
are Hebrew, but all the Hebrew ballads which are
preserved to us being religious, they do not reflect
the characteristic life and thought of the people
as clearly as do the ballads of the Bedouin. At
a future time I may present to you some studies
in the ballad poetry of the Arabs. I am sure you
would enjoy learning of the Moallakat, which, not
unlike the " Songs of Degrees " in our Psalter, grew
up around the pilgrimages to the ancient shrine at
Mecca, the earliest Arab literature which has come
down to us, a poetry wild, vast and monotonous as
the desert whence it was born — of the Kasidas, or
Minnesongs, in which the lover, with a knightly
courtesy more exquisite than any troubadour, sings
his absent lady, the traveller his camel which bears
him over gleaming and yellow sand, the warrior his
sword and the joy of battle, the robber his swift horse
and the nightly foray, the moralist the fleeting nature
of life, which comes and goes like a tent in the desert,
r while eternal and changeless over all gleams, deep and
mysterious, the blue heaven whose secret he could
not read. Then when these roving shepherds had.

ARAB POETRY.

297

become the kings of the world, and dwelt in marble
palaces amidst the orange groves of Cordova and
Bagdad, there arose another minstrelsy which sang of
nightly boatings by torch-light, of moonlight and the
stars, of meetings in rose gardens, of palaces and
villas, of mosques and cities, of statues and painting,
of culture and luxury, and of the rough desert life
from which their fathers had come. The world
knows no more delicate poetry.
This Fifth Book, we can only say in finishing our
cursory glance through it, does not show marks of a
single and uniform effort in its collection, but seems
rather to have been the work of several hands, with
the aim of completing and supplementing the previ
ous four collections.
It alone remains for us to ascertain, if possible,
by whom and when all five books were collected
together and edited in the form we now have them in
our Psalter.
As to when, we would reply, that literary and his
torical reasons, which we endeavored to make clear to
you in an early lecture, indicate that it must have
been cast into its present form ere the Greek con
quest of Palestine, b. c. 332, and that the possibility of
one or two Psalms at a later day coming into the
collection from the1 margin does not militate against
this view, or weaken the strength of the argument.
13*

298 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
Internal literary reasons lead us to believe that
the same hands which collected the last book were
those which edited the entire Psalter into the defi
nitely final and authoritative shape which it ever after
retained. As to who they were, we have neither in
formation nor clear tradition. That it was not the
work of a single individual, we saw a moment since
when speaking of the Fifth Book. Most probably it
was the work of the body of ecclesiastics and scholars
in connection with the Temple, who collected and
gave authority to almost all the writings in the He
brew Scriptures. They seem to have made use of
the four older collections, without essential change
of text, or editorial revision, this being indicated by
the repetition of the same song in different books,
and by other proofs which you will recall our having
alluded to from time to time. Their design was
not to prepare a new book from older material, but
to collect together the older books and issue them,
with what seemed a necessary supplement, in a final
and authoritative form.
I trust that the sequence of our story of the Psalm
collection has been clear to you. What we call the
Psalter is a collection of the various books of religious
song, which grew up around and were compiled
for the sake of the worship of the Second Temple,
between the return under Joshua and Alexander's

COLLECTION OF THE FIVE BOOKS. 299
conquest of Palestine, say during the two centuries
between 537 and 337 B.C. The First Book was
compiled for the opening worship of the restored
Temple by some priest connected with the early
return, who draws his material exclusively from the
service book of the Solomonic Temple, "The Sacred
Songs of David." The Second and Third Books
were prepared by Nehemiah, about a century later,
and were part of his reform in the service. He not
only borrows from the service books of the older
Temple, but also has gathered many other poems,
whose beauty of form or religious expression com
mended them to him as of value for sacred song. The
Fourth Book was compiled by some scholar in connec
tion with the Temple, about fifty years later, to meet a
want for liturgic chorals which none of the other books
supplied. Finally, toward the middle of the fourth
century, the Temple board who had been charged with
gathering, editing, and regulating the Sacred Books
used in the service, came to take in hand the religious
song of the Temple. They took the four books which
were already in constant use, added to them a sup
plemental collection of new songs, cast the whole into
a single book, giving to it as a prologue Psalm i., and
as a doxology Psalm cl., and introduced it by their
authority into the service of the Temple, where, with
unessential variations, it ever after remained.

3°o

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.

Christianity sprang from the womb of Judaism ;
the early church sang the hymns of the Temple and
Synagogue, and thus it is that these old Jewish Tem
ple songs are still- sung by us.
Aside from the beauty of the Psalter in poetry and
lyric song, which will commend its study as long as
culture and taste and letters remain among men, it
will be sung until the latest times, wherever man in
his loneliness reaches out after the Eternal Being,
into whose nature and relation to His creatures it
penetrates deeper than any other book in the world.
Our literary study of this book and its songs is
now complete. It remains to call your attention to
its use in the service, and briefly explain the various
liturgic notes which gradually grew up around the
text, many of which are still senselessly preserved in
our English version. In order to make this clear to
you, I must say a word as to song and music among
the Shemitic people, more especially among the
Hebrews. Song and music are twin arts, both alike the ex
pression of the imagination through sound, as poetry
through words, sculpture through form, painting
through color.
Song is the expression of the imagination in
sound by means of the human voice, words of
course being unessential to song — a song in a

SHEMITIC SONG AND MUSIC.

301

foreign language, for example, may be just as per
fect in its impression on us, as one the words of
which we understand; music is- the attempt to
imitate or supplement the voice by artificial means.
There is no inherent relation, or necessary connec
tion between song and music. Song is in every na
tion the earliest of the arts ; music requires for its
development at least a rude civilization.
Our present idea of song as a melodious or har
monious rhythmical expression of sound by the
voice, is an occidental or modern one. Many peo
ples have never arrived at it; many, equal to our
selves in civilization, conceive of it quite differently.
The only definition covering the ground is the one I
have given. As a creation of the imagination music
and song differ from mere sound quite as widely as
sound does from noise.
All the books on Hebrew poetry tell us that
poetry was the earliest literature, song the ear
liest speech of the race, and tritely refer us to the
Vedas, to the songs of the Hellenic heroic epoch we
call the Iliad, to the sword-song of Lamech, to the
epic of the Canaanites preserved in Genesis x.,
further informing us that the earliest prose literature
is not older than the tenth century before our era.
For myself I do not believe that the primitive man
in Eden lisped in numbers, or that poetry and song

302 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
were developed before prose. Song has an attraction
which leads the- mind to revert to it, an assonance
which fixes it in the memory ; so, among the early
peoples devoid of writing and literature, it is the
song handed down from mouth to mouth that has
remained while the prose has perished. Poetry and
song, as products of the imagination, could not be
developed before the imaginative faculty, where they
had their genesis, and I doubt if the primitive man
possessed this.
It is with a race as with the individual, the imagi
nation can work as little in darkness as in the glare
of noon-day. It needs the half light of twilight to
give it a back-ground on which to project itself; it
can work in a rude and brutish man as little as in
one who has trained himself to see in nature naught
but a barren sequence of fact and phenomena. The
primitive man, engrossed in wringing, with scanty
appliance, a bare subsistence from the soil, and in
constant conflict with the forces which environed
and threatened to overwhelm him, would have as
little play for the imagination, as the man who has
reduced the whole creation to a form of hydrogen, or
ciphered it into an equation. It is in the period
when passing from ignorance to knowledge, from
barbarism to civilization, that the imagination of a
race hitherto latent begins to work on the dim out-

SHEMITIC SONG AND MUSIC. 303
lines which it discerns, but is not yet able to under
stand ; it is this period in which lie the beginnings,
both of the mythology and art of every people.
If we believe that the primitive Shemite was a
happy shepherd or nomad, living in blissful security
and pastoral innocence, careless of labor and with
every want supplied by the bounty of nature, we may
believe that from sheer joy of existence, in harmony
with the voices of nature, he, too, sang instinctively,
as the birds do.
If we believe man is a link in the development of
an idea, come to the world in ignorance of the laws
which govern either it or himself, compelled to win a
subsistence before he can advance to knowledge,
our ideas of the beginnings of song and of all the arts
must be • materially modified. They could not have
arisen until man had subdued nature.
We have, among the Shemitic people, no traces of
song until after they have come in contact with the
Accadian civilization of the Euphrates valley. What
their civilization was when they reached Babylonia
we do not know, nor whether they had, as yet,
arrived at their song-period. We do know that the
oldest poetry preserved in the Genesis is of Turanian
origin, and first came to the Shemites through con
tact with some Tatar people.
But whatever the origin of Shemitic song may be,

3°4

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS,

the Hebrews were a people who had cultivated song
and who celebrated with it all their occasions of joy
or sorrow. The reapers sang as they garnered the
golden harvests, the vintagers as they trod out the
wine press, the women as they toiled at the mill ;
there were love songs and marriage songs ; then the
keening of the mourners who went about the streets,
and the dirges of the funeral train who bear their
dead to the home prepared for all the living; the
armies returning from victory were received by pro
cessions of singers, and often there were choruses
who accompanied the troops to battle, and sang war-
songs to nerve them to the charge ; their banquets
were accompanied by roisterings and drinking-songs
which were a thorn in the side of the prophets.
One of the common proverbs says, "As a signet of
carbuncle set in gold, so is a concert of song at a wine
banquet." At the court there were companies of paid
singers, and Amos draws a graphic picture for us of
the luxurious manners of the later kingdom of Israel
whose effeminate nobles, reeking with perfumes, and
stretched on couches of ivory, remained singing and
feasting while the enemy was knocking at their very
doors. Through the land there wandered minstrel
troops, like the Minnesingers or Jongleurs, singing
from hamlet to hamlet among the people, at their
local feasts and gatherings.

SHEMITIC SONG AND MUSIC. 305
There is in antiquity no people about whose song
we have such clear information and yet of which we
know so little. The remains of these songs which
have been committed to writing belong to literature,
and have in a measure been considered under lyric
poetry, but the song itself, the utterance, vanished
into air with the voice of the singers, and as to how
they sang we can alone gather from uncertain analogy,
or a tradition manufactured to the order of the want.
of such knowledge. In any investigation of Shemitic
song the Arameans must be left out of account, their
native song, just as their native literature, having
irrecoverably perished.
Subsequent to the second century there sprang up,
in Mesopotamian churches, a Syriac song, more per
fect in form, more rich in thought, more exquisite
in sentiment than any produced in the occidental
churches. More than you are aware of what we now
sing both in words and melody comes from Ephraem
or Bardasenes or some of the Syrian hymn writers;
or rather I should say, did sing until our sacred
melody had been inundated by the recent outpourings
of the American Polyhymnia. But Syriac church
song was an exotic, growing up under Greek influ
ence ; it was surely no robbery for them to spoil the
Greeks, after the Greeks had so often despoiled them.
A church song thus growing up under both Christian

306 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
and Greek influence, can of course not be regarded
as representing native Shemitic song.
We have here, as elsewhere, to seek among the
Arabs the truest expression of the Shemitic mind,
the oldest type of Shemitic manners. In the song
of the desert we have preserved a form of melody
which approaches most nearly the song of the
Hebrews. In our sense of the word it is not song,
for it lacks rhythm. Rhythm is that measured rise
and fall in vocal or instrumental sound, which to our
ears creates its agreeable impression, corresponding
to what in sculpture or architecture we call sym
metry, in painting perspective. The song of the
Bedouin as he drives before him his heavily laden
camel, or recounts by the nightly camp-fire the prow
ess of his tribe, is no more than what we would call
recitative. In the utterance of the sound he does not
propose to himself, as we do in our singing, to pro
duce a melodious or agreeable impression. The
sound is regarded merely as a vehicle for the words,
and is fitted to and determined by, not only the
thought, but even the very form of the words. Hence
their singing is a matter of accent, of intonation
and assonance, bearing no resemblance to our pre
sent song.
It is probable that both the secular and religious
song of Israel were not dissimilar to this recitative

THE TEMPLE CHOIR.

307

song of the Bedouin, in fact from all we can gather
it seems to have been the kind of song peculiar to
and hereditary in the Shemitic race from the earliest
times. We must first, however, glean the few scanty
notices in the Psalter as to the religious song of the
Temple, before we can make any statement as to its
probable form.
Song being so common among the Hebrew peo
ple, David could have had no trouble in drafting the
four thousand mentioned in Chronicles as connected
with the Temple song. That these were all in ser
vice at any one time is improbable, the exaggerations
of Josephus and the absurdities of the Talmud not
deserving serious attention. There seems to have
been a chosen choir of two hundred and eighty-eight
singers and performers permanently attached to the
Temple, by detachments of whom the daily service
was sung. Drafts on the larger number were only
made to furnish choruses at the feasts and. on state
occasions, or to fill up the ranks of the smaller and
stated Temple choir. This regular choir was made
up both of bass and soprano voices, How the other
parts familiar to us were carried, or whether they
were represented at all, we do not know. The
soprano parts were carried by female singers — this
once disputed question is now very clear to all scho
lars. Here, as so often elsewhere, the Jewish ortho-

308 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
doxy of modern times in allowing no female singers
in the Synagogue, represents not a knowledge, but
an ignorance of the past. In fact, I believe that all
the restrictive religious regulations of the service and
the worship, as the " Court of the Women " and many
distinctions inimical to them, are the outgrowth of
later times and foreign influence.
The Bedouin Shemite, on his native heath -and in
his pristine state, is with all his failings nature's gen
tleman ; his courtesy and respect for woman are more
delicate and refined than any produced by our
modern civilization. When the Shemite came in
contact with the Turk in Babylonia, he was first
smudged with the touch of a race which has never
appeared in history save to defile or to destroy.
Among the early Shemitic people woman held a
position in every way co-ordinate and equal to that
of man. The regulations of the later Biblical
books and of the Talmud are as little representa
tive of primitive Shemitic or Jewish society as is the
Koran. There can, at all events, be no doubt that
they were in the Temple choir. We find them men
tioned in the tabernacle at Shiloh, in the Solomonic
Temple, and as returning both under Joshua and Ezra
for the expressly stated purpose of furnishing part of
the choir in the restored Temple. It is well known
that under some blighting influences of a later time,

MUSICAL INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. 309
what we know not, they were excluded from the
choir, but it is equally clear, and proven by all the
testimony it is capable of, that in the earlier time
they sang in the Temple.
In regard to the inscriptions of the Psalms re
ferring to song, I would say that they seem only to
appear with those songs which were used in the
worship of the First Temple. The irregular, dis
connected and irrelevant way in which they are used
show them to be chance choir notes.
Scholars who have carefully investigated the whole
matter have reached the conclusion that, at the de
struction of the Solomonic Temple, all that could be
saved from the general ruin were some few songs in
the sheets prepared for distribution among the choir,
containing such notes as would show to what part
they belonged, or suggest the key and accompani
ment. Of those relating to instrumental music we
will speak in a moment, but the most important of
them is one of equal value for a knowledge of the
song; that is the one rendered in our version, "To
the chief musician," (fh%^T)- Though barbarously
distorted and misunderstood by the old versions, the
meaning is very clear, "For the leader of the
choir;" that is, it is the copy containing the score
and the words used by the leader in directing the
choir and orchestra. From the number of Psalms

310 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
(fifty-five) which have this inscription, a German has
proposed a theory that it was the leader's portfolio
which was rescued.
Of the inscriptions bearing solely on song, we find,
ist, Shir C™, " song," in the English version) Psalm
xlvi.; meaning a song to be sung without instru
mental accompaniment.
2d, Al hash-sheminith (fn'ntitfr'J?, English version :
" upon Sheminith)," Psalms vi., xii., set for the bass
voices. 3d. Al alamoth (niD^r 'S, English version : " upon
Alamoth)," set for the soprano voices, and sung as we
saw a moment since by women. It does not mean
tenor voices, nor are the boy choirs of the First
Temple aught save a figment of some Jewish Doctor ;
they came in at a later day, perhaps not long prior to
our era, as a substitute for women's voices. The
same inscription has been preserved at the close of
Psalm xlviii.
Psalm ix. has apparently been preserved on a sheet
which was in use in one of the choir schools, for it
has the inscription, " arranged for training of the so
prano voices " (\ih. rm-hg for ja1? rViaS^ or possibly
\t> ro»7?f). One might read this inscription as it
stands in our English version, " upon Muth-lab-
ben," until gray without gaining from it the slightest
idea.

MUSICAL INSCRIPTIONS OF THE PSALMS. 3 II
Other of these inscriptions contain the name of
some familiar melody, either sacred or secular, to
whose tune the song was to be sung. You are all
conversant with the similar usage in modern hymn
collections. To test it I opened a celebrated hymn
book and within a few pages found a hymn set to
Old Hundred, and another to that bewitching Scotch
ballad, " Robin Adair." Of such inscriptions there
seem to be sacred melodies " Fair as lilies is thy
Law" (mxmv^S, or ™# D^ro-^x or simply
O'Wvrig') t0 which four Psalms, xiv., Ix., lxix., Ixxx.
were sung, and " Destroy not, O God, thy people "
(nntyrr7K) to which also four Psalms, Ivii., Iviii., lix.,
lxxv. were sung.
Of secular melodies you may note, " The stag at
dawn " pnOT rhx-hfy to which Psalm xxii. is set.
It was probably a melody as familiar to them as
" The stag at eve had drank his fill " is to us.
Another secular melody is, " O silent dove, what
bringest thou us from out the distance " (n^'~ '2?
O'prn rn« ); t0 which Psalm Ivi. is set. There are
many other inscriptions of a similar character, but I
will not detain you by dwelling upon them.
There still remains unanswered the main question,
how did they sing, but it is just the question which
cannot be answered. There were no notes or writ
ten indication of the music; indeed none of the

312

ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.

Shemitic peoples have made use of any musical nota
tion until within a few centuries. The melodies were
preserved by tradition, and handed down orally from
one generation to another, so there was constant
change and liability of loss. If any of you have
ever endeavored to unravel the Greek song, which had
notation after a fashion, you may have some concep
tion of the difficulties attending the study of the
Jewish, which had none at all. The results of minute
and technical investigations indicate that it was a
recitative melody, with a few simple cadences, not
unlike the song of the Arab.
To ,the often asked question, has any of it been pre
served until our time, I would answer that there are
possibly echoes of it to be found in two quarters ac
cessible to you even here in Baltimore, i. In the
cantillation, or chanting of Scripture in the syna
gogue; not in the synagogue-songs, for these are all of
late origin. 2. In what are known as the Gregorian
melodies, which grew up in the earliest Jewish-Chris
tian communities and were fashioned after the song
they had been wont to sing in the Temple. Most
scholars, whose musical training gives force to the re
sults of their literary investigations, seem agreed that
these Gregorian chants, though in many points dis
similar to the old Temple songs, are, on the whole, the
truest reflex of them, which has come down to us.

THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE. 313
The music of the Temple might be spoken of pro
tractedly — it need and will occupy us but a mo
ment. Artistically considered there is between music and
song somewhat the same distinction as between lyric
and epic poetry, both of which are the expression of
the imagination through words, differing alone in the
use of different material. So music and song are both
the expression of the imagination through sound,
differing alone in their use of different material —
song the more subjective art, expressed through
the human voice, music the more objective, by the
use of some artificial substitute for it. That the
origin of music among all nations was subsequent
to that of song, and that in its beginnings it was
no more than an aid to the voice, will be clear
to any who have studied the history of the art. The
Shemitic people, according to their oldest traditions,
first learned music from their contact with the Mon
gols ; there does not seem to have been any native,
or peculiar Shemitic music. Tubal, a Mongol, is re
presented as the father of all those who perform on
instruments. The Israelites, in their historic period, fojlowed
Egyptian musical methods and used, with slight
modifications, Egyptian instruments. Were there
time it would be very easy to reconstruct for you,
14

314 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
from the paintings of the Egyptian temples and
tombs, a clear picture of Egyptian music.
The Egyptians were the most cultured people of
antiquity, both in the theory and practice of music.
Whence their traditions of the art came, or how they
arose, we do not know ; like the rest of their marvel
lous and refined civilization, it seems to have almost
dropped full grown from the clouds. One grows
weary in seeing reiterated, in histories of music, the
stock fables of the Greeks, as to the origin of the art,
or the inventions and theories of Pythagoras and
Terpander. A thousand years before Pythagoras,
Egyptian music was long past its golden age; the
monuments show us musical instruments as perfect,
(some of them more perfect), as any which the world
has since produced, while there had been developed a
theory of musical art more elaborate than any known
until the revolution of music by the introduction of
harmony. I always relish the fine sneer of the Egyp
tian priest, " The Greeks ! the Greeks are but children."
We must remember there was a wide difference
between the music of antiquity, and what we under
stand by music at the present day. To appreciate it
aright, you must know the distinction between melody
and harmony ; melody being the succession, in regu
lar recurrence, of similar intonations or cadences;
harmony, the concord arising from the union of dis-

THE MUSIC OF THE TEMPLE.

315

sonant sounds. However, we cannot delay to elab
orate the distinction.
The sole office of the melodic music of antiquity
was in subordination to the song, either as an accom
paniment to, or interpreter of it ; it was no more than
a guide to the voice. This being so, we can the
better understand the Hebrew Temple music, and
why string-instruments, most suited for vocal
accompaniment, formed, almost exclusively, the
orchestra. (Neginoth, in the inscription of Psalm vi.,
means " stringed instruments.") No less than fifty.
seven Psalms contain the inscription, Midmor, which
means a song to be sung to the stringed accompani
ment ; then, as strings formed the chief part of the
orchestra, meaning no more than " to be sung to the
orchestral accompaniment."
Of stringed instruments in the Temple band, there
were, 1, the kinnor or lyre, which was a favorite
instrument of the Jews, as it was of the Greeks. It
was played either with a plectrum or with the fingers.
The classical writers deem the invention of its
eleventh string an inspiration of genius. The Egyp
tians used very constantly a lyre with eighteen
strings ; how many the Jews used we do not know.
In the ordinary band for daily service there were
two lyres. 2. The nebel, or harp, translated in our
version " Psaltery," almost precisely similar in form

31 6 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
to our harps. It had a varying number of strings,
sometimes ten (Psalm xxxiii. 2,) sometimes as many as
twenty-one, and was the chief instrument in the Tem
ple band, there being nine harps in the daily orchestra.
The only " instrument of percussion " in the Tem
ple band was a single pair of cymbals, used by the
leader in marking time, and not a direct accompani
ment to the song. They were similar in form to our
band cymbals. In Egypt the cymbals were never
used save in connection with the worship, and the
same appears to have been the usage in Israel. For
popular song the tambourine, whose inventor was
justly murdered by his incensed fellow-citizens, or the
triangles, took the place of the cymbals. Instru
ments of percussion, however, even in popular music,
were not employed to accompany the song; as in
the present Shemitic Orient, their only use was to
increase the volume of sound.
Of wind instruments there were in the band four
flutes, or rather pipes, (halil), the only instrument
besides the strings used as an accompaniment, not
regularly, but to supplement the strings on certain
set occasions, or in the more plaintive melodies. One
of the elegiac Psalms, (Psalm v.,) contains the inscrip
tion that it was to be sung to the flutes alone.
Finally, there were two straight trumpets (shophar)
which formed no part of the orchestra proper, but

ORCHESTRA OF THE TEMPLE.

317

were blown for calling the people together, or indicat
ing the different parts of the service.
The purely musical inscriptions are very obscure,
both those which indicate the time of the melody
(iniktam, maskil and the like) and the sort of melody
(the gittith, shiggaion). The most familiar of them is
the much disputed selah, found seventy-one times in
the Psalter. Scholars are for the most part now
agreed, that it is no more than one of the abbrevia
tions with which all Hebrew books are so full, stand
ing for, T*^ 1?D nS yah a'p « Let the song rise higher."
If you carefully investigate its occurrence, you will
find it almost without exception, in the copy from
which the leader directed. It was probably only a
note for guiding him in leading. Other scholars
have given it a meaning not unlike " da capo " in
our music, but whatever the exact shade of meaning
there can not be the slightest doubt that it is merely
a choir note for guiding the music. There is about
as much propriety in reading it now in our service,
as there would be in reading the Italian abbreviations
by which the time or key of our tunes is set.
Two lyres and nine harps twanging inharmon-
iously ; two dozen men and women chanting in
unrhythmed cadence; such was the ordinary daily
worship of the Solomonic Temple. On feast days it
was the same, only a little more of it. We can hear

3 1 8 ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE PSALMS.
at any concert what, to our taste, is better song and
music than was ever heard in the Temple, from its
foundation until its destruction by Titus. The world's
architecture lost very little in the destruction of the
Temple ; quite as little has the world suffered from the
loss of Hebrew music. Had the songs sung in the
Temple perished, the loss to the culture and religion
of men would have been irreparable. Preserved as
they have been until our time, we are better able to
sing and render them in music, than were the people
from whose teeming and inspired imagination they
sprang. Our treatment of the Temple song and music makes
no pretense of doing more than opening up the sub
ject, and being suggestive of the manner in which it
is to be approached. A single word further, and I
am through.
It is a question of interest to what extent the
hypophonal, or responsive singing of the people,
as opposed to the antiphonal, or responsive singing of
the choir, was in vogue in the Temple.
On ordinary occasions the people present seem to
have had no part in the song save in the final doxol-
ogies (the Amen and Hallelu-yah). There are a few
Psalms arranged for responsive singing between the
choir and the people, but they were only suno- on
special occasions. Probably the people never did sing

ORCHESTRA OF THE TEMPLE. 319
through the whole hymn with the choir, still less did
they carry the hymn themselves as is the wont in
congregational singing.
We have now reached our journey's end.
The questions connected with the translation and
transmission of the Psalter to us, are not germane to
the study of any one book, but are common to the
entire collection of Hebrew literature, and can only
justly be considered after the peculiar problems of all
the separate books have been weighed and adjusted.
It has been my aim to present the Psalter to you
from its literary and artistic side. I have striven to
consider it in the same way that the works of Chau
cer, and Shakspere, and Dante, and other master
pieces of modern poetry have been heretofore pre
sented to you in this place.
At this late moment I can only thank you for the
forbearing courtesy with which you have followed
these lectures.
Their end will have been reached, if any one in my
audience has been incited to a renewed reading and
study of the world's deepest, tenderest and most
artistic poetry, the Hebrew Psalms.
They have been the inspiration of the greatest ar
tists and poets of our race; they will fail in their
meaning for you unless they become part of your
culture as well as of your faith.

GkA

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