Chapter X: Book II: Psalms Xlii.-Lxxii (9)

The psalm reaches its climax in God's enthronement on Zion. Its subsequent strophes set forth the results thereof. The first of these, the fifth of the psalm (vv. 19-23), suddenly drops from strains of exultation to a plaintive note, and then again as suddenly breaks out into stern rejoicing over the ruin of the foe. There is wonderful depth of insight and tenderness in laying side by side the two thoughts of God, that He sits on high as conqueror, and that He daily bears our burdens, or perhaps bears us as a shepherd might his lambs.

Truly a Divine use for Divine might! To such lowly offices of continual individualising care will the Master of many legions stoop, reaching out from amid their innumerable myriads to sustain a poor weak man stumbling under a load too great for him. Israel had been delivered by a high hand, but still was burdened. The psalmist has been recalling the deeds of old, and he finds in them grounds for calm assurance as to the present. To-day, he thinks, is as full of God as any yesterday, and our "burdens" as certain to be borne by Him, as were those of the generation that saw His Sinai tremble at His presence. To us, as to them, He is "a God of deliverances," and for us can provide ways of escape from death. The words breathe a somewhat plaintive sense of need, such as shades our brightest moments, if we bethink ourselves; but they do not oblige us to suppose that the psalm is the product of a time of oppression and dejection. That theory is contradicted by the bounding gladness of the former part, no less than by the confident anticipations of the second half. But no song sung by mortal lips is true to the singer's condition, if it lacks the minor key into which this hymn of triumph is here modulated for a moment.

It is but for a moment, and what follows is startlingly different. Israel's escape from death is secured by the destruction of the enemy, and in it the psalmist has joy. He pictures the hand that sustained him and his fellows so tenderly, shattering the heads of the rebellious. These are described as long-haired, an emblem of strength and insolence which one is almost tempted to connect with Absalom; and the same idea of determined and flaunting sin is conveyed by the expression "goes on in his guiltinesses." There will be such rebels, even though the house of God is open for them to dwell in, and there can be but one end for such. If they do not submit, they will be crushed. The psalmist is as sure of that as of God's gentleness; and his two clauses do state the alternative that every man has to face--either to let God bear his burden or to be smitten by Him.

Vv. 22, 23, give a terrible picture of the end of the rebels. The psalmist hears the voice of the Lord promising to bring some unnamed fugitives from Bashan and the depths of the sea in order that they may be slain, and that he (or Israel) may bathe his foot in their blood, and his dogs may lick it, as they did Ahab's. Who are to be brought back? Some have thought that the promise referred to Israel, but it is more natural to apply it to the flying foe. There is no reference to Bashan either as the kingdom of an ancient enemy or as envying Zion (ver. 15). But the high land of Bashan in the east and the depths of the sea to the west are taken (_cf._ Amos ix. 1-3) as representing the farthest and most inaccessible hiding-places. Wherever the enemies lurk, thence they will be dragged and slain.

The existing text is probably to be amended by the change of one letter in the verb, so as to read "shall wash" or bathe, as in Psalm lviii. 10, and the last clause to be read, "That the tongue of thy dogs may have its portion from the enemy." The blood runs ankle-deep, and the dogs feast on the carcasses or lick it--a dreadful picture of slaughter and fierce triumph. It is not to be softened or spiritualised or explained away.

There is, no doubt, a legitimate Christian joy in the fall of opposition to Christ's kingdom, and the purest benevolence has sometimes a right to be glad when hoary oppressions are swept away and their victims set free; but such rejoicing is not after the Christian law unless it is mingled with pity, of which the psalm has no trace.

The next strophe (vv. 24-27) is by some regarded as resuming the description of the procession, which is supposed to have been interrupted by the preceding strophe. But the joyous march now to be described is altogether separate from the majestic progress of the conquering King in vv. 17, 18. This is the consequence of that. God has gone into His sanctuary. His people have seen His solemn entrance thither, and therefore they now go up to meet Him there with song and music. Their festal procession is the second result of His enthronement, of which the deliverance and triumph described in the preceding strophe were the first. The people escaped from death flock to thank their Deliverer. Such seems to be the connection of the whole, and especially of vv. 24, 25. Instead of myriads of angels surrounding the conquering God, here are singers and flute-players and damsels beating their timbrels, like Miriam and her choir. Their shrill call in ver. 26 summons all who "spring from the fountain of Israel"--_i.e._, from the eponymous patriarch--to bless God. After these musicians and singers, the psalmist sees tribe after tribe go up to the sanctuary, and points to each as it passes. His enumeration is not free from difficulties, both in regard to the epithets employed and the specification of the tribes. The meaning of the word rendered "ruler" is disputed. Its form is peculiar, and the meaning of the verb from which it is generally taken to come is rather to _subdue_ or _tread down_ than to _rule_. If the signification of _ruler_ is accepted, a question rises as to the sense in which Benjamin is so called. Allusion to Saul's belonging to that tribe is thought of by some; but this seems improbable, whether the psalm is Davidic or later. Others think that the allusion is to the fact that, according to Joshua xviii. 16, the Temple was within Benjamite territory; but that is a far-fetched explanation. Others confine the "rule" to the procession, in which Benjamin marches at the head, and so may be called its leader; but ruling and leading are not the same. Others get a similar result by a very slight textual change, reading "in front" instead of "their ruler." Another difficulty is in the word rendered above "their shouting multitude," which can only be made to mean a company of people by a somewhat violent twist. Hupfeld (with whom Bickell and Cheyne agree) proposes an alteration which yields the former sense and is easy. It may be tentatively adopted.

A more important question is the reason for the selection of the four tribes named. The mention of Benjamin and Judah is natural; but why are Zebulun and Naphtali the only representatives of the other tribes? The defenders of a late date answer, as has been already noticed, Because in the late period when the psalm was written, Galilee and Judæa "formed the two orthodox provinces." The objection to this is that in the post-exilic period there were no distinct tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, and no princes to rule.

The mention of these tribes as sharing in the procession to the sanctuary on Zion would have been impossible during the period of the northern kingdom. If, then, these two periods are excluded, what is left but the Davidic? The fact seems to be that we have here another glance at Deborah's song, in which the daring valour of these two tribes is set in contrast with the sluggish cowardice of Reuben and the other northern ones. Those who had done their part in the wars of the Lord now go up in triumph to His house. That is the reward of God's faithful soldiers.

The next strophe (vv. 28-31) is the prayer of the procession. It falls into two parts of two verses each, of which the former verse is petition, and the latter confident anticipation of the results of answered prayer. The symmetry of the whole requires the substitution in ver. 28 of "command" for "hath commanded." God's strength is poetically regarded as distinct from Himself and almost personified, as "loving-kindness" is in Psalm xlii. 8. The prayer is substantially equivalent to the following petition in ver. 28 _b_. Note how "strength" occurs four times in vv. 33-35. The prayer for its present manifestation is, in accordance with the historical retrospect of the first part, based upon God's past acts. It has been proposed to detach "From Thy Temple" from ver. 29, and to attach it to ver. 28. This gets over a difficulty, but unduly abbreviates ver. 29, and is not in harmony with the representation in the former part, which magnifies what God has wrought, not "from the Temple," but in His progress thither. No doubt the retention of the words in ver. 29 introduces a singular expression there. How can presents be brought to God "from Thy Temple"? The only explanation is that "Temple" is used in a restricted sense for the "holy place," as distinguished from the "holy of holies," in which the ark was contained. The tribute-bearers stand in that outer sanctuary, and thence present their tokens of fealty. The city is clustered round the Temple mount, and therefore the psalm says, "Thy Temple above Jerusalem." One is tempted to read "unto" instead of "from"; for this explanation can scarcely be called quite satisfactory. But it seems the best that has been suggested. The submission of kings of unnamed lands is contemplated as the result of God's manifestation of strength for Israel. Ver. 30 resumes the tone of petition, and maintains it throughout. "The beast of the reeds," probably the crocodile, is a poetic designation for Egypt, the reference to which is claimed by both the defenders of the Davidic and of the post-exilic date as in their favour. The former say that, in David's day, Egypt was the greatest world-power known to the Hebrews; and the latter, that the mention of it points to the time when Israel lay exposed to the attacks of Seleucidæ on the one hand and of Ptolemies on the other. Why, then, should only one of the two hostile neighbours be mentioned here? "Bulls" are a standing emblem of leaders of nations, and "calves" are accordingly their subjects. The two metaphors are naturally connected, and the correction "leaders of the peoples" is unnecessary, and a prosaic intermingling of figure and fact.

Ver. 30 _c_ is extremely obscure. Baethgen roundly says, "The meaning of the words can no longer be ascertained, and in all probability they are corrupt." The first word is a participle, which is variously taken as meaning "casting oneself to the ground" (_i.e._, in submission), and "trampling to the ground." It is also variously referred to the nations and their leaders spoken of in the previous verse, and to God. In the former case it would describe their attitude of submission in consequence of "rebuke"; in the latter, God's subjugation of them. The slightest change would make the word an imperative, thus bringing it into line with "rebuke"; but, even without this, the reference to God is apparently to be preferred. The structure of the strophe which, in the first verse of each pair, seems to put petitions and to confine its descriptions of the resulting subjugation of the enemy to the second verse in each case, favours the latter interpretation. The next words are also disputed. One rendering is, "with bars of silver"; another, "those that delight in silver." The former presupposes a very unusual word for "bars." It is necessarily adopted by those who refer the first word to the submission of the "herd of bulls." The enemies come with tribute of silver. The other rendering, which avoids the necessity of bringing in an otherwise unknown word, is necessarily preferred by the supporters of the second explanation of the preceding word. God is implored to crush "those who delight in silver," which may stand for a description of men of this world, but must be acknowledged to be rather a singular way of designating active enemies of God and Israel. Cheyne's rendering, "That rolls itself in mire for gain of money," brings in the mercenaries of the Seleucidæ. But "rolling oneself in mire" is a strange way of saying "hiring oneself out to fight." Certainty seems unattainable, and we must be content with the general trend of the verse as supplication for an exhibition of God's strength against proud opponents. The last clause sums up the whole in the petition, "Scatter the peoples that delight in wars."

One verse then tells what the result of that will be. "Great ones" shall come from the land of the beast of the reeds, and Ethiopia shall make haste to stretch out tribute-bearing hands to God. The vision of a world subjugated and loving its subjugation is rising before the poet. That is the end of the ways of God with Israel. So deeply had this psalmist been led into comprehension of the Divine purpose; so clearly was he given to see the future, "and all the wonder that should be."

Therefore he breaks forth, in the last strophe, into invocation to all the kingdoms of the earth to sing to God. He had sung of His majesty as of old Jehovah "rode through the deserts"; and that phrase described His intervention in the field of history on behalf of Israel. Now the singer calls for praise from all the earth to Him who rides in the "most ancient heavens"; and that expression sets forth His transcendent majesty and eternal, universal sway. The psalmist had hymned the victory won when "God gave the word." Now he bids earth listen as "He gives His voice, a voice of strength," which moves and controls all creatures and events. Therefore all nations are summoned to give strength to God, who gives all fulnesses of strength to His people. The psalm closes with the utterance of the thought which has animated it throughout--that God's deeds for and in Israel are the manifestation for the world of His power, and that these will one day lead all men to bless the God of Israel, who shines out in dread majesty from the sanctuary, which is henceforth His abode for evermore.

PSALM LXIX.

1 Save me, O God;
For the waters have come in even to [my] soul.
2 I am sunk in the mud of an abyss, without standing-ground
I am come into depths of waters, and a flood has overwhelmed me.
3 I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched,
My eyes fail whilst I wait for my God.
4 More than the hairs of my head are they who hate me without
provocation.
Strong are my destroyers, my enemies wrongfully
What I did not rob, then I must restore.
5 O God, Thou, Thou knowest my folly,
And my guiltinesses are not hidden from Thee.
6 Let not those who wait for Thee be put to shame through me, Lord,
Jehovah of hosts:
Let not those be confounded through me who seek Thee, O God of
Israel.

7 For Thy sake have I borne reproach;
Confusion has covered my face.
8 I have become a stranger to my brothers,
And an alien to my mother's sons.
9 For zeal for Thine house has consumed me,
And the reproaches of those that reproach Thee have fallen upon
me.
10 And I wept, in fasting my soul [wept];
And that became [matter of] reproaches to me.
11 Also I made sackcloth my clothing;
And I became to them a proverb.
12 They who sit at the gate talk of me,
And the songs of the quaffers of strong drink [are about me].

13 But as for me, my prayer is unto Thee, Jehovah, in a time of
favour,
O God, in the greatness of Thy loving-kindness,
Answer me in the troth of Thy salvation.
14 Deliver me from [the] mire, that I sink not,
Rescue me from those who hate me, and from depths of waters.
15 Let not the flood of waters overwhelm me,
And let not the abyss swallow me,
And let not [the] pit close her mouth over me.
16 Answer me, Jehovah; for Thy loving-kindness is good:
In the multitude of Thy compassions turn toward me.
17 And hide not Thy face from Thy servant,
For I am in straits; answer me speedily.
18 Draw near to my soul, redeem it,
Because of my enemies set me free.

19 Thou, Thou knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my confusion.
Before Thee are all my adversaries.
20 Reproach has broken my heart; and I am sick unto death,
And I looked for pitying, and there was none,
And for comforters, and found none.
21 But they gave me gall for my food,
And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

22 Let their table become before them a snare,
And to them in their peacefulness, [let it become] a trap.
23 Darkened be their eyes, that they see not,
And make their loins continually to quake.
24 Pour out upon them Thine indignation,
And let the glow of Thy wrath overtake them.
25 May their encampment be desolate!
In their tents may there be no dweller!
26 For him whom Thou, Thou hast smitten, they persecute,
And they tell of the pain of Thy wounded ones.
27 Add iniquity to their iniquity,
And let them not come into Thy righteousness.
28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
And let them not be inscribed with the righteous.

29 But as for me, I am afflicted and pained,
Let Thy salvation, O God, set me on high.
30 I will praise the name of God in a song,
And I will magnify it with thanksgiving.
31 And it shall please Jehovah more than an ox,
A bullock horned and hoofed.

32 The afflicted see it; they shall rejoice,
Ye who seek God, [behold,] and let your heart live.
33 For Jehovah listens to the needy,
And His captives He does not despise.
34 Let heaven and earth praise Him,
The seas, and all that moves in them.
35 For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah,
And they shall dwell there, and possess it.
36 And the seed of His servants shall inherit it,
And those who love His name shall abide therein.

The Davidic authorship of this psalm is evidently untenable, if for no other reason, yet because of the state of things presupposed in ver. 35. The supposition that Jeremiah was the author has more in its favour than in the case of many of the modern attributions of psalms to him, even if, as seems most probable, the references to sinking in deep mire and the like are metaphorical. Cheyne fixes on the period preceding Nehemiah's first journey to Jerusalem as the earliest possible date for this psalm and its kindred ones (xxii., xxxv., and xl. 13-18). Baethgen follows Olshausen in assigning the psalm to the Maccabean period. The one point which seems absolutely certain is that David was not its author.

It falls into two equal parts (vv. 1-18 and 19-36). In the former part three turns of thought or feeling may be traced: vv. 1-6 being mainly a cry for Divine help, with plaintive spreading out of the psalmist's extremity of need; vv. 7-12 basing the prayer on the fact that his sufferings flow from his religion; and vv. 13-18 being a stream of petitions for deliverance, with continuous allusion to the description of his trials in vv. 1-6. The second part (vv. 19-36) begins with renewed description of the psalmist's affliction (vv. 19-21), and thence passes to invocation of God's justice on his foes (vv. 22-28), which takes the place of the direct petitions for deliverance in the first part. The whole closes with trustful anticipation of answers to prayer, which will call forth praise from ever-widening circles,--first from the psalmist himself; then from the oppressed righteous; and, finally, from heaven, earth, and sea.

The numerous citations of this psalm in the New Testament have led many commentators to maintain its directly Messianic character. But its confessions of sin and imprecations of vengeance are equally incompatible with that view. It is Messianic as typical rather than as prophetic, exhibiting a history, whether of king, prophet, righteous man, or personified nation, in which the same principles are at work as are manifest in their supreme energy and highest form in the Prince of righteous sufferers. But the correspondence of such a detail as giving gall and vinegar, with the history of Jesus, carries us beyond the region of types, and is a witness that God's Spirit shaped the utterances of the psalmist for a purpose unknown to himself, and worked in like manner on the rude soldiers, whose clumsy mockery and clumsy kindness fulfilled ancient words. There is surely something more here than coincidence or similarity between the experience of one righteous sufferer and another. If Jesus cried "I thirst" in order to bring about the "fulfilment" of one verse of our psalm, His doing so is of a piece with some other acts of His which were distinct claims to be the Messiah of prophecy; but His wish could not influence the soldiers to fulfil the psalm.

The first note is petition and spreading out of the piteous story of the psalmist's need. The burdened heart finds some ease in describing how heavy its burden is, and the devout heart receives some foretaste of longed-for help in the act of telling God how sorely His help is needed. He who knows all our trouble is glad to have us tell it to Him, since it is thereby lightened, and our faith in Him is thereby increased. Sins confessed are wholly cancelled, and troubles spoken to God are more than half calmed. The psalmist begins with metaphors in vv. 1, 2, and translates these into grim prose in vv. 3, 4, and then, with acknowledgment of sinfulness, cries for God's intervention in vv. 5, 6. It is flat and prosaic to take the expressions in vv. 1, 2, literally, as if they described an experience like Jeremiah's in the miry pit. Nor can the literal application be carried through; for the image of "waters coming in unto the soul" brings up an entirely different set of circumstances from that of sinking in mud in a pit. The one describes trouble as rushing in upon a man, like a deluge which has burst its banks and overwhelms him; the other paints it as yielding and tenacious, affording no firm spot to stand on, but sucking him up in its filthy, stifling slime. No water was in Jeremiah's pit. The two figures are incompatible in reality, and can only be blended in imagination. What they mean is put without metaphor in vv. 3, 4. The psalmist is "weary with calling" on God; his throat is dry with much prayer; his eyes ache and are dim with upward gazing for help which lingers. Yet he does not cease to call, and still prays with his parched throat, and keeps the weary eyes steadfastly fixed, as the psalm shows. It is no small triumph of patient faith to wait for tarrying help. Ver. 4 tells why he thus cries. He is compassed by a crowd of enemies. Two things especially characterise these--their numbers, and their gratuitous hatred. As to the former, they are described as more numerous than the hairs of the psalmist's head. The parallelism of clauses recommends the textual alteration which substitutes for the unnecessary word "my destroyers" the appropriate expression "more than my bones," which is found in some old versions. Causeless hatred is the portion of the righteous in all ages; and our Lord points to Himself as experiencing it in utmost measure (John xv. 25), inasmuch as He, the perfectly righteous One, must take into His own history all the bitterness which is infused into the cup of those who fear God and love the right, by a generation who are out of sympathy with them.

The same experience, in forms varying according to the spirit of the times, is realised still in all who have the mind of Christ in them. As long as the world is a world, it will have some contempt mingling with its constrained respect for goodness, some hostility, now expressed by light shafts of mockery and ridicule, now by heavier and more hurtful missiles, for Christ's true servants. The ancient "Woe" for those of whom "all men speak well" is in force to-day. The "hatred" is "without a cause," in so far as its cherishers have received no hurt, and its objects desire only their enemies' good; but its cause lies deep in the irreconcilable antagonism of life-principles and aims between those who follow Christ and those who do not.

The psalmist had to bear unjust charges, and to make restitution of what he had never taken. Causeless hatred justified itself by false accusations, and innocence had but to bear silently and to save life at the expense of being robbed in the name of justice.

He turns from enemies to God. But his profession of innocence assumes a touching and unusual form. He does not, as might be expected, say, "Thou knowest my guiltlessness," but, "Thou knowest my foolishness." A true heart, while conscious of innocence in regard to men, and of having done nothing to evoke their enmity, is, even in the act of searching itself, arrested by the consciousness of its many sins in God's sight, and will confess these the more penitently, because it stands upright before men, and asserts its freedom from all crime against them. In so far as men's hatred is God's instrument, it inflicts merited chastisement. That does not excuse men; but it needs to be acknowledged by the sufferer, if things are to be right between him and God. Then, after such confession, he can pray, as this psalmist does, that God's mercy may deliver him, so that others who, like him, wait on God may not be disheartened or swept from their confidence, by the spectacle of his vain hopes and unanswered cries. The psalmist has a strong consciousness of his representative character, and, as in so many other psalms, thinks that his experience is of wide significance as a witness for God. This consciousness points to something special in his position, whether we find the speciality in his office, or in the supposed personification of the nation, or in poetic consciousness heightened by the sense of being an organ of God's Spirit. In a much inferior degree, the lowliest devout man may feel the same; for there are none whose experiences of God as answering prayer may not be a light of hope to some souls sitting in the dark.

In vv. 7-12 the prayer for deliverance is urged on the ground that the singer's sufferings are the result of his devotion. Psalm xliv. 13-22 may be compared, and Jer. xv. 15 is an even closer parallel. Fasting and sackcloth are mentioned again together in Psalm xxxv. 13; and Lam. iii. 14 and Job xxx. 9 resemble ver. 12 _b_. Surrounded by a godless generation, the psalmist's earnestness of faith and concern for God's honour made him an object of dislike, a target for drunken ridicule. These broke the strong ties of kindred, and acted as separating forces more strongly than brotherhood did, as a uniting one. "Zeal for God's house" presupposes the existence of the Temple, and also either its neglect or its desecration. That sunken condition of the sanctuary distressed the psalmist more than personal calamity, and it was the departure of Israel from God that made him clothe himself in sackcloth and fast and weep. But so far had deterioration gone that his mourning and its cause supplied materials for tipsy mirth, and his name became a by-word and a butt for malicious gossip. The whole picture is that of the standing experience of the godly among the godless. The Perfect Example of devotion and communion had to pass through these waters where they ran deepest and chilliest, but all who have His Spirit have their share of the same fate.

The last division of this first part (vv. 13-18) begins by setting in strong contrast the psalmist's prayer and the drunkard's song. He is sure that his cry will be heard, and so he calls the present time "a time of favour," and appeals, as often in the Psalter, to the multitude of God's loving-kindnesses and the faithfulness of His promise of salvation. Such a pleading with God on the ground of His manifested character is heard in vv. 13, 16, thus inclosing, as it were, the prayer for deliverance in a wrapping of reminders to God of His own name. The petitions here echo the description of peril in the former part--mire and watery depths--and add another kindred image in that of the "pit shutting her mouth" over the suppliant. He is plunged in a deep dungeon, well-shaped; and if a stone is rolled on to its opening, his last gleam of daylight will be gone, and he will be buried alive. Beautifully do the pleas from God's character and those from the petitioner's sore need alternate, the latter predominating in vv. 17, 18. His thoughts pass from his own desperate condition to God's mercy, and from God's mercy to his own condition, and he has the reward of faith, in that he finds in his straits reasons for his assurance that this is a time of favour, as well as pleas to urge with God. They make the black backing which turns his soul into a mirror, reflecting God's promises in its trust.

The second part of the psalm (ver. 19 to end) has, like the former, three main divisions. The first of these, like vv. 1-6, is mainly a renewed spreading before God of the psalmist's trouble (vv. 19-21). Rooted sorrows are not plucked up by one effort. This recrudescence of fear breaking in upon the newly won serenity of faith is true to nature. On some parts of our coasts, where a narrow outlet hinders the free run of the tide, a second high water follows the first after an hour or so; and often a similar bar to the flowing away of fears brings them back in full rush after they had begun to sink. The psalmist had appealed to God's knowledge of His "foolishness" as indorsing his protestations of innocence towards men. He now (ver. 19) appeals to His knowledge of his distresses, as indorsing his pitiful plaints. His soul is too deeply moved now to use metaphors. He speaks no more of mire and flood, but we hear the moan of a broken heart, and that wail which sounds sad across the centuries and wakes echoes in many solitary hearts. The psalmist's eyes had failed, while he looked upwards for a God whose coming seemed slow; but they had looked yet more wearily and vainly for human pity and comforters, and found none. Instead of pity He had received only aggravation of misery. Such seems to be the force of giving gall for food, and vinegar to His thirst. The precise meaning of the word rendered "gall" is uncertain, but the general idea of something bitter is sufficient. That was all that His foes would give Him when hungry; and vinegar, which would make Him more thirsty still, was all that they proffered for His thirst. Such was their sympathy and comforting. According to Matthew, the potion of "wine (or vinegar) mingled with gall" was offered to and rejected by Jesus, before being fastened to the cross. He does not expressly quote the psalm, but probably refers to it. John, on the other hand, does tell us that Jesus, "that the scripture might be accomplished, said, I thirst," and sees its fulfilment in the kindly act of moistening the parched lips. The evangelist's expression does not necessarily imply that a desire to fulfil the scripture was our Lord's motive. Crucifixion was accompanied with torturing thirst, which wrung that last complaint from Jesus. But the evangelist discerns a Divine purpose behind the utterance of Jesus' human weakness; and it is surely less difficult, for any one who believes in supernatural revelation at all, to believe that the words of the psalmist were shaped by a higher power, and the hands of the Roman soldiers moved by another impulse than their own, than to believe that this minute correspondence of psalm and gospel is merely accidental.

But the immediately succeeding section warns us against pushing the Messianic character of the psalm too far, for these fearful imprecations cannot have any analogies in Christ's words (vv. 22-28). The form of the wish in "Let their table become a snare" is explained by remembering that the Eastern table was often a leather flap laid on the ground, which the psalmist desires may start up as a snare, and close upon the feasters as they sit round it secure. Disease, continual terror, dimmed eyes, paralysed or quaking loins, ruin falling on their homes, and desolation round their encampment, so that they have no descendants, are the least of the evils invoked. The psalmist's desires go further than all this corporeal and material disaster. He prays that iniquity may be added to their iniquity--_i.e._, that they may be held guilty of sin after sin; and that they may have no portion in God's righteousness--_i.e._, in the gifts which flow from His adherence to His covenant.

The climax of all these maledictions is that awful wish that the persecutors may be blotted out of the book of life or of the living. True, the high New Testament conception of that book, according to which it is the burgess-roll of the citizens of the New Jerusalem, the possessors of eternal life, does not plainly belong to it in Old Testament usage, in which it means apparently the register of those living on earth. But to blot names therefrom is not only to kill, but to exclude from the national community, and so from all the privileges of the people of God. The psalmist desires for his foes the accumulation of all the ills that flesh is heir to, the extirpation of their families, and their absolute exclusion from the company of the living and the righteous. It is impossible to bring such utterances into harmony with the teachings of Jesus, and the attempt to vindicate them ignores plain facts and does violence to plain words. Better far to let them stand as a monument of the earlier stage of God's progressive revelation, and discern clearly the advance which Christian ethics has made on them.

The psalm ends with glad anticipations of deliverance and vows of thanksgiving. The psalmist is sure that God's salvation will lift him high above his enemies, and as sure that then he will be as grateful as he is now earnest in prayer, and surest of all that his thankful voice will sound sweeter in God's ear than any sacrifice would smell in His nostrils. There is no contempt of sacrifices expressed in "horned and hoofed," but simply the idea of maturity which fits the animal to be offered.

The single voice of praise will be caught up, the singer thinks, by a great chorus of those who would have been struck dumb with confusion if his prayer had not been answered (ver. 6), and who, in like manner, are gladdened by seeing his deliverance. The grace bestowed on one brings thanksgivings from many, which redound to the glory of God. The sudden transition in ver. 32 _b_ to direct address to the seekers after God, as if they stood beside the solitary singer, gives vividness to the anticipation. The insertion of "behold" is warranted, and tells what revives the beholders' hearts. The seekers after God feel the pulse of a quicker life throbbing, when they see the wonders wrought through prayer. The singer's thoughts go beyond his own deliverance to that of Israel. "His captives" is most naturally understood as referring to the exiled nation. And this wider manifestation of God's restoring power will evoke praise from a wider circle, even from heaven, earth, and sea. The circumstances contemplated in vv. 33-36 are evidently those of a captivity. God's people are in bondage, the cities of Judah are in ruins, the inhabitants scattered far from their homes. The only reason for taking the closing verses as being a liturgical addition is unwillingness to admit exilic or post-exilic psalms. But these verses cannot be fairly interpreted without recognising that they presuppose that Israel is in bondage, or at least on the verge of it. The circumstances of Jeremiah's life and times coincide closely with those of the psalmist.

PSALM LXX.[2]

1 _O God_, [be pleased] to deliver me,
Jehovah, hasten to my help.
2 Shamed and put to the blush be the seekers after my soul!
Turned back and dishonoured be they who delight in my calamity!
3 _Let them turn back_ by reason of their shame who say, Oho! Oho!
4 Joyful and glad in Thee be all who seek Thee!
_And "God_ be magnified" may they ever say who love Thy salvation!
5 But as for me, I am afflicted and needy;
_O God, hasten_ to me:
My help and my deliverer art Thou;
_Jehovah_, delay not.

This psalm is all but identical with the last verses of Psalm xl. 13-17. Some unimportant alterations have been made, principally in the Divine names; but the principle on which they have been made is not obvious. It is scarcely correct to say, with Delitzsch, that the psalm "has been transformed, so as to become Elohistic"; for though it twice replaces the name of Jehovah with that of God (vv. 1, 4), it makes the converse change in ver. 5, last clause, by reading Jehovah instead of "God," as in Psalm xl.

Other changes are of little moment. The principal are in vv. 3 and 5. In the former the vehement wish that the psalmist's mockers may be _paralysed with shame_ is softened down into a desire that they may be _turned back_. The two verbs are similar in sound, and the substitution may have been accidental, a slip of memory or a defect in hearing, or it may have been an artistic variation of the original. In ver. 5 a prayer that God will hasten to the psalmist's help takes the place of an expression of confidence that "Jehovah purposes [good]" to him, and again there is similarity of sound in the two words. This change is like the subtle alteration which a painter might make on his picture by taking out one spot of high light. The gleam of confidence is changed to a call of need, and the tone of the whole psalm is thereby made more plaintive.

Hupfeld holds that this psalm is the original, and Psalm xl. a composite; but most commentators agree in regarding this as a fragment of that psalm. The cut has not been very cleanly made; for the necessary verb "be pleased" has been left behind, and the symmetry of ver. 1 is destroyed for want of it. The awkward incompleteness of this beginning witnesses that the psalm is a fragment.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Italics show variations from Psalm xl.

PSALM LXXI.

1 In Thee, Jehovah, do I take refuge,
Let me not be put to shame for ever.
2 In Thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me,
Bend Thine ear and save me.
3 Be to me for a rock of habitation to go to continually:
Thou hast commanded to save me,
For my rock and my fortress art Thou.

4 My God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked,
From the fist of the evil-doer and the violent man.
5 For Thou [art] my hope,
O Lord Jehovah, [Thou art] my trust from my youth.
6 On Thee have I been stayed from the womb,
From my mother's bowels Thou hast been my protector:
Of Thee is my praise continually.

7 As a wonder am I become to many,
But Thou art my refuge--a strong one.
8 My mouth is filled with Thy praise,
All the day with Thine honour.
9 Cast me not away in the time of old age,
When my strength fails, forsake me not.

10 For mine enemies speak concerning me,
And the watchers of my soul consult together,
11 Saying, God has left him,
Chase and seize him; for there is no deliverer.
12 O God, be not far from me,
My God, haste to my help.

13 Ashamed, confounded, be the adversaries of my soul,
Covered with reproach and confusion be those who seek my hurt.

14 But as for me, continually will I hope,
And add to all Thy praise.
15 My mouth shall recount Thy righteousness,
All the day Thy salvation,
For I know not the numbers [thereof].
16 I will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord Jehovah,
I will celebrate Thy righteousness, [even] Thine only.
17 O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth,
And up till now I declare Thy wonders.
18 And even to old age and grey hairs,
O God, forsake me not,
Till I declare Thine arm to [the next] generation,
To all who shall come Thy power.
19 And Thy righteousness, O God, [reaches] to the height.
O Thou who hast done great things,
Who is like Thee?
20 Thou who hast made us see straits many and sore,
Thou wilt revive us again,
And from the abysses of the earth will bring us up again.
21 Thou wilt increase my greatness,
And wilt turn to comfort me.

22 Also I will thank Thee with the lyre, [even] Thy troth, my God,
I will harp unto Thee with the harp, Thou Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall sing aloud when I harp unto Thee,
And my soul, which Thou hast redeemed.
24 Also my tongue shall all the day muse on Thy righteousness,
For shamed, for put to the blush, are they that seek my hurt.

Echoes of former psalms make the staple of this one, and even those parts of it which are not quotations have little individuality. The themes are familiar, and the expression of them is scarcely less so. There is no well-defined strophical structure, and little continuity of thought or feeling. Vv. 13 and 24 _b_ serve as a kind of partial refrain, and may be taken as dividing the psalm into two parts, but there is little difference between the contents of the two. Delitzsch gives in his adhesion to the hypothesis that Jeremiah was the author; and there is considerable weight in the reasons assigned for that ascription of authorship. The pensive, plaintive tone; the abundant quotations, with slight alterations of the passages cited; the autobiographical hints which fit in with Jeremiah's history, are the chief of these. But they can scarcely be called conclusive. There is more to be said for the supposition that the singer is the personified nation in this case than in many others. The sudden transition to "us" in ver. 20, which the Massoretic marginal correction corrects into "me," favours, though it does not absolutely require, that view, which is also supported by the frequent allusion to "youth" and "old age." These, however, are capable of a worthy meaning, if referring to an individual. Vv. 1-3 are slightly varied from Psalm xxxi. 1-3. The character of the changes win be best appreciated by setting the two passages side by side.

PSALM XXXI. PSALM LXXI.

1 In Thee, Jehovah, do I take 1 In Thee, Jehovah, do I take
refuge; let me not be ashamed refuge:
for ever: Let me not be put to shame
In Thy righteousness rescue for ever.
me.
2 In Thy righteousness deliver
2 _a_ Bend Thine ear to me and rescue me:
me; deliver me speedily. Bend Thine ear and save me.

The two verbs, which in the former psalm are in separate clauses ("deliver" and "rescue"), are here brought together. "Speedily" is omitted, and "save" is substituted for "deliver," which has been drawn into the preceding clause. Obviously no difference of meaning is intended to be conveyed, and the changes look very like the inaccuracies of memoriter quotations. The next variation is as follows:--

PSALM XXXI. PSALM LXXI.

2 _b_ Be to me for a 3 Be to me for a rock of
strong rock, for a house of habitation to go to continually:
defence to save me. Thou hast commanded to save
me;
3 For my rock and my fortress For my rock and my fortress
art Thou. art Thou.

The difference between "a strong rock" and "rock of habitation" is but one letter. That between "for a house of defence" and "to go to continually: Thou hast commanded" is extremely slight, as Baethgen has well shown. Possibly both of these variations are due to textual corruption, but more probably this psalmist intentionally altered the words of an older psalm. Most of the old versions have the existing text, but the LXX. seems to have read the Hebrew here as in Psalm xxxi. The changes are not important, but they are significant. That thought of God as a habitation to which the soul may continually find access goes very deep into the secrets of the devout life. The variation in ver. 3 is recommended by observing the frequent recurrence of "continually" in this psalm, of which that word may almost be said to be the motto. Nor is the thought of God's command given to His multitude of unnamed servants, to save this poor man, one which we can afford to lose.

Vv. 5, 6, are a similar variation of Psalm xxii. 9, 10. "On Thee have I been stayed from the womb," says this psalmist; "On Thee was I cast from the womb," says the original passage. The variation beautifully brings out, not only reliance on God, but the Divine response to that reliance by life-long upholding. That strong arm answers leaning weakness with firm support, and whosoever relies on it is upheld by it. The word rendered above "protector" is doubtful. It is substituted for that in Psalm xxii. 9 which means "One that takes out," and some commentators would attach the same meaning to the word used here, referring it to God's goodness before and at birth. But it is better taken as equivalent to benefactor, provider, or some such designation, and as referring to God's lifelong care.

The psalmist has been "a wonder" to many spectators, either in the sense that they have gazed astonished at God's goodness, or, as accords better with the adversative character of the next clause ("But Thou art my refuge"), that his sufferings have been unexampled. Both ideas may well be combined, for the life of every man, if rightly studied, is full of miracles both of mercy and judgment. If the psalm is the voice of an individual, the natural conclusion from such words is that his life was conspicuous; but it is obvious that the national reference is appropriate here.

On this thankful retrospect of life-long help and life-long trust the psalm builds a prayer for future protection from eager enemies, who think that the charmed life is vulnerable at last.

Vv. 9-13 rise to a height of emotion above the level of the rest of the psalm. On one hypothesis, we have in them the cry of an old man, whose strength diminishes as his dangers increase. Something undisclosed in his circumstances gave colour to the greedy hopes of his enemies. Often prosperous careers are overclouded at the end, and the piteous spectacle is seen of age overtaken by tempests which its feebleness cannot resist, and which are all the worse to face because of the calms preceding them. On the national hypothesis, the psalm is the prayer of Israel at a late stage of its history, from which it looks back to the miracles of old, and then to the ring of enemies rejoicing over its apparent weakness, and then upwards to the Eternal Helper.

Vv. 12, 13, are woven out of other psalms. 12 _a_, "Be not far from me," is found in xxii. 11, 19; xxxv. 22; xxxviii. 21, etc. "Haste to my help" is found in xxxviii. 22; xl. 13 (lxx. 1). For ver. 13 compare xxxv. 4, 26; xl. 14 (lxx. 2). With this, as a sort of refrain, the first part of the psalm ends.

The second part goes over substantially the same ground, but with lighter heart. The confidence of deliverance is more vivid, and it, as well as the vow of praise following thereon, bulk larger. The singer has thinned away his anxieties by speaking them to God, and has by the same process solidified his faith. Aged eyes should see God, the helper, more clearly when earth begins to look grey and dim. The forward look of such finds little to stay it on this side of heaven. As there seems less and less to hope for here, there should be more and more there. Youth is the time for buoyant anticipation, according to the world's notions, but age may have far brighter lights ahead than youth had leisure to see. "I will hope always" becomes sublime from aged lips, which are so often shaped to say, "I have nothing left to hope for now."

This psalmist's words may well be a pattern for old men, who need fear no failure of buoyancy, nor any collapse of gladness, if they will fix their thoughts where this singer did his. Other subjects of thought and speech will pall and run dry; but he whose theme is God's righteousness and the salvation that flows from it will never lack materials for animating meditation and grateful praise. "I know not the numbers thereof." It is something to have fast hold of an inexhaustible subject. It will keep an old man young.

The psalmist recognises his task, which is also his joy, to declare God's wondrous works, and prays for God's help till he has discharged it. The consciousness of a vocation to speak to later generations inspires him, and assures him that he is immortal till his work is done. His anticipations have been fulfilled beyond his knowledge. His words will last as long as the world. But men with narrower spheres may be animated by the same consciousness, and they who have rightly understood the purpose of God's mercies to themselves will, like the psalmist, recognise in their own participation in His salvation an imperative command to make it known, and an assurance that nothing shall by any means harm them till they have fulfilled their witnessing. A many-wintered saint should be a convincing witness for God.

Ver. 20, with its sudden transition to the plural, may simply show that the singer passes out from individual contemplation to the consciousness of the multitude of fellow-sufferers and fellow-participants in God's mercy. Such transition is natural; for the most private passages of a good man's communion with God are swift to bring up the thought of others like-minded and similarly blessed. "Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising." Every solo swells into a chorus. Again the song returns to "my" and "me," the confidence of the single soul being reinvigorated by the thought of sharers in blessing.

So all ends with the certainty of, and the vow of praise for, deliverances already realised in faith, though not in fact. But the imitative character of the psalm is maintained even in this last triumphant vow; for ver. 24 _a_ is almost identical with xxxv. 28; and _b_, as has been already pointed out, is copied from several other psalms. But imitative words are none the less sincere; and new thankfulness may be run into old moulds without detriment to its acceptableness to God and preciousness to men.

PSALM LXXII.

1 O God, give Thy judgments to the king,
And Thy righteousness to the king's son.
2 May he judge Thy people with righteousness,
And Thine afflicted with judgment!
3 May the mountains bring forth peace to the people,
And the hills, through righteousness!
4 May he judge the afflicted of the people,
Save the children of the needy,
And crush the oppressor!

5 May they fear Thee as long as the sun shines,
And as long as the moon shows her face, generation after
generation!
6 May he come down like rain upon mown pasture,
Like showers--a heavy downpour on the earth!
7 May the righteous flourish in his days,
And abundance of peace, till there be no more a moon!