The Psalms

There is a sense in which all the books of the Bible may be spoken ot as equally important. It is the same sense in which every member of the body may be regarded as equally essential: it is essential to the symmetry and perfection of the whole. If even the smallest joint of the smallest finger were wanting, the body would be mutilated. In this sense every book of Scripture may be spoken of as being of equal importance. Each has in it the same divine breath; it is a note in the perfect strain of revelation; and its absence would cause an ugly blank and would spoil the beauty of the whole. But there is another sense in which the books of the Bible may be said to be of very various value, just as the organs and members of the body are of unequal importance. In this sense the little finger is of far less importance than the eye; and the hair is far less essential than the heart, which is the very seat of life. So, there are books of the Bible which embody the message of the whole far more amply than others; and there are books which contribute far more than others to the edification of the people of God.

Judged by such a test, the Psalms would undoubtedly occupy the foremost place among the books of the Old Testament. If the Bible of an average Bible-reader were examined, this book would be found to be far more thumbed than its neighbours. It has drawn forth more than any other the praises of Bible-readers of all classes and of all generations. The late Mr. Gladstone issued from the press an edition of the Psalter, accompanied by a concordance compiled with his own hand; and, in a chapter on the Psalms in his volume entitled The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, he mentions the interesting fact that the late John Bright once, in conversation with him, remarked that on the Book of Psalms, as it stands, he would be content to stake the great question whether or not there exists a divine revelation. Elsewhere he said himself — and the testimony came with peculiar force from so enthusiastic a student of Homer — that all the wonders of Greek civilisation, heaped together, were less wonderful than the simple Book of Psalms. Sibbes, one of the Puritan divines, says that, if the Scriptures be compared to the body, the Psalms may well be the heart; and Hooker, the foremost writer in the opposite camp, calls the Psalms the choice and flower of all things profitable in other books.

Melanchthon calls this book the most beautiful in the whole world; and Luther, among many similar

remarks, asks: “Where are more beautiful words of joy than the Psalms of praise and prayer? There thou seest into the heart of all the saints, as into fair and pleasant gardens, as into heaven itself, and walkest amongst the heart-rejoicing flowers, the happy and gladsome thoughts which rise to God and His goodness. And, again, where findest thou deeper and more touching words of sorrow than in the Penitential Psalms? There thou seest again into the heart of all the saints, as if into death or hell itself. How dark and gloomy it is there, when God hides His face! And, when they speak in fear and hope, it is in such words that no painter could give the colours and no Cicero the language.” Calvin, perhaps the greatest of all the commentators on the Psalter, says of it: “I may truly call this book an anatomy of all the parts of the soul, for no one can feel a movement of the Spirit which is not reflected in this mirror. All the sorrows, troubles, fears, doubts, hopes, pains, perplexities, stormy outbreaks by which the hearts of men are tossed, have been here depicted to the very life.”

The late Dr. John Ker, in a choice little work entitled The Psalms in History and Biography, made a collection of tributes paid to this book by famous men; and it would be easy to add to the number, because scarcely any devout scholar has been able to occupy his mind long with this book of Scripture without breaking into laudation of its heights and depths. The rest of Dr. Ker’s work is devoted to incidents in which single Psalms or verses of Psalms have been made precious to God’s people; and many of these also contain enthusiastic and grateful recognition of the divine value of the book; and for everyone who has had occasion to express such sentiments in public there have been tens of thousands who have expressed the same in private.* Every crisis in national or personal history tends to make the Psalms more precious; the present period of storm and stress being no exception to the rule. Never before have Christian minds turned more instinctively to this book, certain of finding expression for their deepest emotions. The truth is, appreciation for the Psalter is a test both of literary perception and of saintliness; and the aspect of this book, in a copy of the Bible in constant use, may serve to anyone as an index of his own spiritual progress.!

* Compare also Prothero: The Psalms in Human Lijc.

t The author may be allowed to mention, that in botJi his pastorates, at Kirkcaldy and at Glasgow, he lectured through the Psalms at the Prayer Meeting, not omitting a single Psalm or giving to any of them more than a single evening. He always read beforehand the best scientific commentary, Hupfeld’s, and the best practical one, Spurgeon’s, generally adding, besides, something from other famous expositors, such as Calvin or Ewald, Delitzsch or Cheyne; and from the works of these scholars he deiived not a little enrichment; but it was to the text itself, as its

II

We call the whole book the Psalms of David; and once at least in the New Testament it is called simply “David.” Yet it has never been the sober opinion of the Church that David wrote all the Psalms. As is well known, there are in our Bible over many of them superscriptions, mentioning, among other things, who wrote them; but these superscriptions do not attribute quite the half of the whole hundred-and-fifty to the Hebrew king. They ascribe twelve to Asaph, a friend of David; eleven to the Korahites, a family of Levites, who had charge of the temple music; one each to Ethan and Heman, also Levites; one to Solomon, and one to Moses. In this way about a hundred are accounted for; but the rest are anonymous; that is to say, it is acknowledged that their authors are unknown.

But who put the names above those the authors of which are mentioned? Unfortunately this is a very obscure point. Some have, indeed, supposed it was done by the authors themselves. But it is more probable that these superscriptions form no part of the inspired Word, but merely express the knowledge or the conjectures of those who

reality, variety and spiritual power revealed themselves to his mind week by week in ever fresh surprise and delight, that be owed many of the happiest hours of his life.

collected the pieces and arranged them in their present form.

If this be so, the question arises, Can we be sure that their information was correct? It was manifestly defective, for they have rendered no account of the fifty anonymous Psalms. But can we rely on it being correct as far as it goes? Here again, unfortunately, the answer is very dubious, some being inclined to put a great deal of reliance on these names, while others attach to them no importance whatever. The worst is that there are at least one or two cases where they are manifestly wrong, and this raises prejudice against them all.

If, then, the superscriptions are not to be trusted, how can we ascertain the dates?

One indication, which at first sight promises well, does not help us very far. This is, that in the original the Psalter is divided into five books; and, though this division is unknown in the ordinary Bible, it is given in the Revised Version. The first book ends with Psalm xli., the last verse of which:

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
From everlasting and to everlasting.
Amen, and amen:

is in all probability an editorial addition. The second book ends with Psalm lxxii., at the close of which we find not only a somewhat more lengthened doxology, but also the curious remark:

“The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended,”

where “prayers” would seem to be an equivalent

for Psalms. The third book ends with Psalm lxxxix.,

the last verse of which is a doxology briefer than

either of the two foregoing ones. The fourth book

ends with Psalm cvi., in the last verse of which

the doxology assumes the following form:

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
From everlasting even to everlasting.
And let all the people say, Amen.
Praise ye the Lord.

At the end of the last book there is no formal doxology, unless, as some have thought, the whole of Psalm cl. be intended to serve this purpose.* In the Odes of Horace there is a similar division into four books, the utility of which, in following the growth of the poet’s mind, is undeniable; and it might be thought that similar service could Be derived from this division in the Psalter. Especially might the two first divisions be supposed to represent two issues of David’s Psalms made by the author at different times, since the last of the second book, as has just been remarked, says that his “prayers” are ended. But, as plenty of Psalms are attributed to him in the books which follow, the meaning of this statement becomes very doubtful. The fact

* Inside this last division occur the Songs of Degrees, cxx.-cxxxiv “Songs of Ascents” these are styled in the Revised Version; and by “ascents” are almost certainly intended the pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the annual feasts. This collection was the hymn-book of the pilgrims. Other conjectures as to the meaning of the term are scarcely worthy of mention. Cox:* The Songs of Degrees.

that Psalm xiv. in the first book and Psalm liii. in the second are almost identical would seem to show that the formation of these two books did not proceed from the author, but a compiler. The name for God in Psalm xiv. is Jehovah, but in liii. Elohim, and this difference extends to the books to which these severally belong; for the prevailing name in the first book is Jehovah and in the second Elohim; and this also is suggestive of a compiler.* In short, in this division into books we are dealing with work similar to that of the compilers of modern hymn-books, who may issue new editions, in which the numbers of pieces are increased; but this has nothing to do with dates of composition. We do not know with any certainty either when or for what purpose the division into books was made; and the utmost that can be inferred from it with confidence is that, on the whole, the earlier Psalms are those of the earlier and the later those of the later books; this being a judgment which is confirmed by the character of the Psalms themselves.

The surest indication is when in a Psalm itself there is mention made of some historical circumstance which fixes the date. Thus, if a Psalm commences,” By the rivers of Babylon we sat

In the First Book Jehovah is found 272 times, Elohim 15; in the Second Jehovah 30 times, Elohim 164; in the Third Jehovah occun 44 times and Elohim 43; but in the last two Books Jehovah occurs very frequently, while Elohim almost disappears.

down and wept, when we remembered Zion,” it is certain that it was not written before the Exile in Babylon. If the temple be mentioned, we conclude that the Psalm must have been written after Solomon built the temple. Psalm xxiv. seems manifestly to be a description of thebringingup of the ark to Zion on the day when David danced before it; and Psalm xlvi. is almost as certainly a celebration of the destruction of the host of Sennacherib under the walls of Jerusalem in the reign of Hezekiah. But the cases are rare in which the indications are thus clear. Even when the situation is obvious enough — when, for example, we can say that it is a victory or a coronation that is celebrated, or a defeat is deplored or an invasion dreaded — it is frequently impossible to say with precision which victory or coronation or defeat or invasion, there being several, perhaps many, occasions of the kind narrated in the history of Israel, to anyone of which it might answer.

Language might be expected to help here. In English it is quite easy, at the first glance, to distinguish between pieces written in Chaucer’s time and pieces written in the twentieth century, or in French between what was written in the age of Montaigne and what was written in the age of Voltaire. But, except in rare instances, there are no such differences in the Hebrew language at different periods; and it is nothing unusual to find two scholars of equal linguistic eminence attributing the same piece, the one to the age of David and the other to that of the Maccabees — a difference of eight centuries. It would almost appear as if the language of the sacred Book had been submitted at some stage to a modernising editorial process by which the marks of the different stages through which it had passed had been obliterated.

Something may be made for this purpose of the thought or sentiment. If it be highly original and expressed in few and pregnant words, it is presumably old; if, on the contrary, it be more commonplace and expressed in well worn phrases, it is presumably late; or, if it agree closely with the sentiments of a prophet whose age is known, it is probably of about his date. But such indications are rather uncertain. To some minds that may seem highly original which to others appears the reverse; and the brevity of most of the Psalms makes it difficult to identify their sentiment with any particular age.

The truth seems to be, that in the majority of the Psalms there are no indubitable indications of date. Therefore, there is the widest scope for differences of opinion among critics, and of this full advantage has been taken, those of a conservative cast of mind inclining as a rule to early, while those who wish to be distinguished for freedom and originality of view generally favour late dates. In one generation there is a tendency in the one direction and in another in the other. At present the tendency is to make everything as late as possible. Even so cautious a critic as Driver affirmed “with tolerable confidence” that very few of the Psalms are earlier than the seventh century b.c.; and another, less cautious, consigned practically the entire Psalter to the period subsequent to the Babylonian Captivity, and a considerable portion of it to a date later than the last of the writing prophets. But against such statements may be placed the characteristic remark of Professor A. B. Davidson, that the Psalter no more has its origin at the date of the Babylonian Captivity than the Thames takes its rise at London Bridge; and there are certain grounds, easily comprehensible by all, which militate against a very late origin.

First, the lyrical is the earliest form of literature. Peoples destined for civilisation learn at a very early stage to sing, and they attain astonishing proficiency in expressing their sentiments in verse before they are able to record their thoughts in other forms. Now, in such prophets as Amos, Hosea and Isaiah we find, eight centuries before Christ, not only a comprehensive and well-arranged body of religious ideas, but also a very advanced perfection of literary expression; and, looking at these attainments from the human side, we ask how they were reached. Must there not have been many imperfect attempts to express the religious ideas

65 E of Israel before such success was attained? Must not these thoughts have been expressed many a time in the fragmentary form of the lyric before they could avail themselves of the copious language of Isaiah? It would make the composition of a book like Isaiah’s a literary miracle if we were not at liberty to assume that there must have been numerous lyrics, like the Psalms, in existence before his age.

Another general consideration worthy of attention is the character of the period to which the Psalter is assigned by those who carry the modern view to extremes. They place its origin after the return from the Babylonian Captivity, and assume many Psalms to be subsequent to Malachi. But what was the character of this period of history? It was parochial and uninspired. The community was extremely small, and it sank more and more under those influences which in the New Testament we see embodied in the Scribes and Pharisees. Even in the latest products of Old Testament revelation, such as Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, it is evident, the river of inspiration was drying up, and literary form crumbling into dust. Now, is it credible that out of such a dry ground there should have grown a root of the magnitude and vigour of the Psalter? That a few of the more stunted trees may have grown in that age there is no reason to doubt; but that this noble forest should have risen then is out of the question. Literature is not so utterly divorced from life. As well might the Elizabethan literature have been produced in the age of Queen Anne. In the Psalter there is the vibration of a great and vigorous national life.

A third consideration which will weigh heavily in the minds of most is the strength of the Davidic tradition. It was not for nothing that David came to be known to posterity as “the sweet psalmist of Israel.”* A considerable number of Psalms fit into situations in his life, and to take them away from these attachments and send them floating uncertainly down the stream in search of other attachments is to rob them of a great deal of their interest. To deny to him a Psalm like the twenty-third, which contains the very essence of the experience of the two great periods of his life — when he was a shepherd and when he was a kingf — is to reject indications which would be thankfully accepted in solving literary problems in

* 2 Sam. xxiii. I.

t To the end of verse 4 the imagery is that of the shepherd, but in vv. 5, 6 it is that of a king, entertaining his warriors; and the reason why the poet passes from the one to the other is that the first -was not able to express nearly so fully as the second the intimacy between his soul and God. It cannot be denied that any poet might have chanced on both comparisons; but the likelihood is strong that the combination proceeded from one in whose experience both the functions had been at different times combined. The attempt made in a very popular American work, The Song of our Syrian Guest, to prove that the shepherd-metaphor continues to the end of the Psalm, though ingenious, is not convincing.

any other literature but that of the Bible. There is a true sense in which the whole book may still be called the Psalms of David: his stamp is on it all; his spirit is in it all; his was the first great Psalmist mind, all who followed him being his imitators; and, just as a river, though swollen on its way to the ocean by a hundred tributaries, still retains its own name, so to the end of time will David’s name be given to the river of sacred song the primary source of which was his inspired soul.

There is, however, no religious interest in ignoring the other psalmists. It matters comparatively little who the author of any particular Psalm was; if it was not one good man, it was another.* Indeed, there is something extremely pleasant in thinking that the divine afflatus entered into many minds, rendering them capable of such efforts. Age after age, as God’s revelation went on growing clearer and fuller, and as His providence changed its aspects to meet the necessities of man’s changing life, ever the inspired human echo was given back from earth

* During the progress of the Robertson Smith Case Dr. Moody Stuart, a devout and scholarly man, declared that for him Psalm li. had lost its savour, if it did not come out of the penitent heart of David; and many would still agree with him. Yet it is not only by the last two verses,which may be a later addition, that a different origin is suggested; for how could David, after a sin which had given great occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme, say, as is said in v. 4:

Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in Thy sight?

to heaven, and gem was added to gem in the treasury of song. The harp first tuned by a king was taken up by men of all ranks and conditions — princes and nobles, priests and prophets, vinedressers and shepherds — perhaps women too with the genius of Deborah and Hannah, Mary and Elizabeth. Into a single utterance one of these favoured ones might pour the experiences of a lifetime, or sometimes gather into it the essence of the experience of God’s people in a generation; and now it is preserved forever, to whisper its secret to all generations of the faithful and awaken in their hearts the chord of sympathy. The greater the number of the psalmists is assumed to be, the closer is the contact into which the Psalter brings us with the generations of revelation.

The contents of the Psalter are of such variety that it is no easy task to reduce them under special heads; and every division must be more or less arbitrary. Yet four divisions may be indicated under which at least a great many Psalms would fall.

(i) Divine Psalms. — While all the lyrics admitted into the Psalter have reference to God directly or indirectly, some of them have Him for their exclusive theme. They are mere jets of emotion produced by contemplation of the divine Being — calls to praise Him for His power and goodness or to fear Him for His holiness and omniscience. Two aspects particularly of the divine character inspire the Hebrew muse — “grace and truth,” or, as they are sometimes called, “lovingkindness and faithfulness “; the one being the love of God as manifested to sinners, and the other the perseverance with which He keeps hold of those whose case He has once taken in hand. Of such Psalms no more perfect specimen could be found than Psalm c, which is an enthusiastic summons to all the inhabitants of the world to laud and bless God for what He is and what He does; and it is brief, pregnant and perfect. To the same class may be reckoned Psalms about the worship of God, like Psalm lxxxiv., in which the singer declares that a day in God’s house is better than a thousand,* and those about His Word, like the Psalm cxix., in everyone of the hundred-and-seventy-six verses of which, except two, the Word of God is mentioned. f

(2) Psalms of Nature. — Of these there is a considerable number, and, from the literary point of view, they are of unusual excellence, describing the beauty and glory of creation as the handiwork of God. Psalm viii., for example, describes the heavens by night with their starry hosts, and Psalm xix. the heavens by day, through which the sun

* Also Psalms xlii., xliii., lxiii., cxxii., cxxxii. t Also Psalms xix., xxxiii., cxi., cxviii.

pursues his course, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. Psalm xxix. is a description of a thunder-storm, in which the tempest, rising on the waves of the Mediterranean, strikes into the mountains of Lebanon on the north and then sweeps down over the face of the country to the desert of Judah in the south. The thunder is called “the voice of Jehovah,” and through the repetition of this phrase the successive peals are so skilfully imitated that the reader seems to feel the shudder with which the hinds of the forest quail beneath the branches of the cedars. Yet, as in the East a prolonged and violent storm not infrequently ends suddenly, and the moon is seen riding in a cloudless sky, so this Psalm of noise and terror closes with the word “peace.” Psalm civ. is a panoramic view of the wealth and variety of the creation, following the lines of the first chapter of Genesis; and in Psalm cxlviii. all the most prominent objects in nature — sun, moon and stars, fire and hail, snow and vapour, mountains and cedars, fowl and cattle, with human beings high and low, old and young — are summoned to form themselves into a gigantic choir and together hymn the praise of the Author of their being.* In the hearts of the Hebrew psalmists there was a deep and passionate enjoyment of natural beauty; and their compositions are still teaching the generations, as these in succession come into possession * Also Psalms xxiv., xxxiii., lxv., lxvi., lxxiv., cxlvii.

of this beautiful and wonderful world, to rise from nature up to nature’s God.

(3) Patriotic Psalms. — This is a large and varied class. Some countries are remarkable for their power of casting a spell over their children and making these devoted to their soil and proud of their history; and no country has in this respect excelled the Holy Land. It laid hold of the hearts of its inhabitants by its beauty, which was incomparable, by its great names and by the stirring incidents in its history. In the Psalms this patriotic fervour finds continual expression; although, true to their religious standpoint, the Psalms look upon the history not as a record of human heroes, but as the work of Jehovah. Many Psalms are poetical renderings of historical events. The great event especially in which the national existence originated — the deliverance from Egypt — was an inexhaustible theme, and all its features, such as the contest with Pharaoh, the plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, and the wanderings in the Wilderness, were commemorated for encouragement and warning, in Psalms like lxxvii. and lxxviii., cv. and cvi., exxxv. and exxxvi. As has been already remarked, later incidents were sometimes put into song at the time of their occurrence. Thus Psalm xxiv. describes the bringing- up of the ark to Mount Zion, Psalms xlvi. and xlviii. the destruction of the host of Sennacherib, and Psalms exxvi. and cxxxvii. the Babylonian Captivity, the latter, which

begins,

By the rivers of Babylon,

There we sat down, yea, we wept,

When we remembered Zion,

being perhaps the most pathetic outburst of patriotic

feeling ever penned.*

Patriotic sentiment centred in the capital of the

country, which accordingly comes in for ample

notice from the sacred poets, who declare that they

take pleasure in her stones and that her very dust

to them is dear:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her cunning.

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I remember thee not;

If I prefer not Jerusalem

Above my chief joy.

It was a beautiful city; and, besides, it laid hold of religious minds as the centre of worship. The sacred singers loved to describe the pilgrims trooping up from every corner of the land to the annual festivals, and the multitudes in the streets, in their holiday array and the happiness of their unity, are compared to the dewdrops of the morning glistening on far-off Hermon.f

There was still another association of the Holy

* Also Psalms xlvii., xlviii., lx., lxxiv., lxxvi., lxxix., lxxx., lxxxi., lxxxiii., lxxxix., cii., cxiv., exxiv., exxix., cxliv.

t Psalm exxxiii. 3. Also lxxxiv., lxxxvii., exxii., exxv., exxix., cxxxvii., cxlvii.

City which deeply touched the heart — it was the seat of government and the residence of the Davidic house. Loyalty is a conspicuous note of these compositions, a considerable number of which might be styled Royal Psalms. Psalms lxxv. and ci., for example, embody the reflections of a prince on his accession to the throne; Psalm xx. is a prayer for the king going forth to battle, and Psalm xxi. a thanksgiving for his victorious return; Psalms lxxxvii., lxxxix. and exxxii. are prayers for the continuance of the Davidic line.* These Royal Psalms culminate in a class which may be termed Messianic, in which is predicted the coming of a King in David’s line who is to be greater than David and to rule over a kingdom which shall know no limits and have no end. In some respects these are the loftiest flights of Hebrew poetry; and among them Psalms ii., lxxii. and ex. are the most remarkable — Psalm ii. celebrating the Messiah as the Prince of Victory, Psalm lxxii. as the Prince of Peace, and Psalm ex. as the Priest- King after the order of Melchizedek; for to psalmists, as well as to patriarchs and prophets, it was vouchsafed to behold the day of Christ afar-off and to be glad.f

* Also Psalms xlv., lxi., lxiii., lxxii., exxxviii.

t The national Psalms may be much more numerous if there be reality in a theory, put forth recently with confidence, that the “I” of the Psalms is frequently not the individual but the nation. It is contended that in many passages where an individual seems to be complaining of the misrepresentation and cruelty perpetrated (4) Psalms of Life. — These form the largest and most varied section; and in them all the incidents of human life, from the cradle to the grave, and all the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow through which the heart can pass, are poetically described with the light of God upon them. Psalm exxxix., for example, touches with incomparable delicacy of feeling, as well as depth of thought, on the mystery of birth; Psalm xlv. is a marriage hymn; Psalms cxx. and exxviii. present matchless pictures of the happiness of home; Psalm xxx. is a thanksgiving on recovery from illness; Psalm lxxi. is an old man’s prayer; and Psalm xc. is a threnody on human mortality.

There is a theory of life running through the Psalter from beginning to end. It is the same as that which is discussed in the Book of Job; and, as will be noticed in the chapter on that book, it is laid down with absolute simplicity in Psalm i., which may have been intended as a kind of introduction to the whole book. At all events the

by personal enemies, it is really the nation that is crying out under the tyranny of foreign oppression. Although the undue extension of this notion would deprive many Psalms of their chief interest, which consists in the personal note, there may be in it a good deal of truth; and it may throw light on what are known as the Imprecatory Psalms (xxxv., Hi., lviii., lix., lxix., lxxxiii., cix., exxix., exxxvii.); because the vindictive spirit betrayed in these is much less difficult to account for if, instead of being individual resentment, it is the voice of a nation complaining to Heaven against the tyrant and oppressor.

truth which it expresses is repeated in the Psalter in so many forms that it may be called the Wisdom ot the Psalms. Godliness, it teaches, will prosper under the blessing of God, but iniquity will sooner or later bring retribution on the heads of those who practise it. In harmony with this doctrine many Psalms denounce the curse and the judgment of God against evildoers, while others describe the sunny side of the picture — the welfare of those who have chosen the will of God as their rule of life.* Of the latter class — the Happy Psalms, as they may be designated — the gem is Psalm xxiii., “the most complete picture of happiness,” as the author of Ecce Homo has called it, “which ever was or can be drawn.” f On the other hand, the sacred singers are sometimes plunged in misery; but well do they know for what reason: it is because they have fallen into sin. Seven of their outbursts of confession are called the Penitential Psalms; but these do not exhaust this class. The greatest of them is Psalm li., which is usually looked upon as a memorial of David’s backsliding, but from its profundity and pathos is well fitted to be the vehicle for the penitence of the whole world.

* Besides Psalm i. see also xxv., xxxiv., xxxvii., xlix., lii., lxxiii., xci., xcii., xciv., xcvii., ciii., civ., cxii., exxv., exxviii., cxlv., cxlvi.

t Psalms iv., xvi., xxiv., xxvii., xxxvi., xxxvii., xliii., xlvi., xlviii., lxi., lxii., lxiii., lxvi., lxvii., lxxiii., lxxxiv., lxxxv., xcii., ciii., cxi., cxvi., exxi., exxviii., exxxviii.

I Also vi., xxxii., xxxviii., cii., exxx., cxliii.

It is not always the case, however, that the people of God, when they fall into misfortune, are able to trace their calamities to their own misdeeds. On the contrary, they have sometimes to suffer for their goodness; and, in such a case, what becomes of the maxims of Psalms i. and the Wisdom of the Psalter: What becomes of these, again, when the wicked arc seen to prosper? For sometimes these do prosper; they even prosper by means of their wickedness:

They are not in trouble as other men,

Neither are they plagued like other men;

Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck,

Violence covereth them as a garment.

Their eyes stand out with fatness:

They have more than heart could wish.

They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression:

They speak loftily.

They have set their mouth in the heavens,

And their tongue walketh through the earth.*

This was the great puzzle of the saints in the Old Testament; to some it may still be the puzzle of life. Psalmist after psalmist confesses that it had almost made him an atheist, and that it had forced from his lips words which were a scandal to the youthful and timorous. In some of the profoundest compositions of the Book of Psalms we are allowed to see the human mind wrestling with this problem, as

* Psalm lxxiii. 3-9.

we shall more fully see it doing in the Book of Job.* To the reader of the New Testament the solution of the difficulty is belief in a life to come, where the inequalities of present lots will be redressed, and conduct, good or bad, will receive its just retribution. But the doctrine of immortality was but faintly revealed in the Old Testament. Apparently it was the will of God that, before this splendid secret was disclosed, His people should first learn thoroughly the lesson that even for this life godliness is best: even if there were no life to come, to serve God and live in His favour would be the best way of spending our time on earth. It is in this conviction that these perplexed spirits in the Psalter come to rest: they are persuaded that God’s love, even accompanied with suffering, is better than godless prosperity — one day of God’s favour better than a lifetime of sinful pleasure.

But, when they were able to climb as high as this, they sometimes obtained a glimpse of the immortal country. In their intensest moments of communion with God the conviction overmastered them that they were united to Him by a tie which nothing — not even death — could sever. Few perhaps attained to such hopes, and fewer may have been able long to keep the heights they were competent to gain. But this reaching-forth of the human spirit in the direction of its immortal birth-

* See Psalms xxxvii., xlix., lii., lxxiii., xciv., exxii.

right was the preparation for the revelation which was to be made by Him who brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel. The sweet singer of Psalm lxxiii., after a penitent account of how he had been baffled by the problem, being like a beast in his ignorance, yet rises to this lofty strain:

Nevertheless I am continually with Thee;

Thou hast holden my right hand.

Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel,

And afterward receive mc to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but Thee?

And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.

My heart and my flesh faileth:

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

But the most serene and musical expression of this hope is in Psalm xvi.:

I have set the Lord always before me:

Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth:

My flesh also shall dwell in safety.

Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol;

Neither wilt Thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption.

Thou wilt show me the path of life:

In Thy presence is fulness of joy;

In Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

IV

What has just been said about the hope of immortality shows the connection between the Psalter and the revelation of grace and truth in Jesus Christ; and the same is further illustrated by what was said above about Messianic Psalms. But the connection between this book of the Bible and our Lord Jesus Christ is of a still more extensive and varied character. The quotations of Jesus prove that this was His own favourite book in the Old Testament; and it is with a strange wistfulness that we hear falling from His lips, on the cross, the verse from Psalm xxii., “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” as well as the prayer from Psalm xxxi., which formed His dying utterance, “Into Thine hand I commit My spirit.” Into this last quotation, however, He introduced a characteristic alteration, by commencing it with the word, “Father,” adapting it for Christian use by the introduction of His own favourite name for God. Such modification was carried much further by the martyr Stephen, who, in dying, addressed the same prayer to the Saviour Himself, in the words, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This is a still closer adaptation to Christian use; and these two august examples convey a profound hint as to the spirit in which to read the Old Testament. Many an aspiration in the Psalter can only be fully satisfied by Christ, and many a divine promise can only be fulfilled through Him. To him, for example, who penned Psalm xxiii. and to the Old Testament saints who sang it after him every verse had a deep meaning, but to us every verse has a meaning far more profound. What was silver to them, is gold to us, since the day when Jesus exclaimed, “I am the Good Shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”