Chapter XIV: Book III: Psalms Lxxiii.-Lxxxix (3)

From the midst of this sad narrative of faithlessness, springs up, like a fountain in a weary land, or a flower among half-cooled lava blocks, the lovely description of God's forbearance in vv. 38, 39. It must not be read as if it merely carried on the narrative, and was in continuation of the preceding clauses. The psalmist does not say "He _was_ full of compassion," though that would be much, in the circumstances; but he is declaring God's eternal character. His compassions are unfailing. It is always His wont to cover sin and to spare. Therefore He exercised these gracious forbearances towards those obstinate transgressors. He was true to His own compassion in remembering their mortality and feebleness. What a melancholy sound, as of wind blowing among forgotten graves, has that summing up of human life as "a breath that goes and comes not again"!

With ver. 40 the second portion of the psalm may be regarded as beginning. The first group of historical details dealt first with God's mercies, and passed on to man's requital. The second starts with man's ingratitude, which it paints in the darkest colours, as provoking Him, grieving Him, tempting Him, and vexing Him. The psalmist is not afraid to represent God as affected with such emotions by reason of men's indifference and unbelief. His language is not to be waved aside as anthropomorphic and antiquated. No doubt, we come nearer to the unattainable truth, when we conceive of God as grieved by men's sins and delighting in their trust, than when we think of Him as an impassive Infinitude, serenely indifferent to tortured or sinful hearts. For is not His name of names Love?

The psalmist traces Israel's sin to forgetfulness of God's mercy, and thus glides into a swift summing up of the plagues of Egypt, regarded as conducing to Israel's deliverance. They are not arranged chronologically, though the list begins with the first. Then follow three of those in which animals were the destroyers: namely, the fourth, that of flies; the second, that of frogs; and the eighth, that of locusts. Then comes the seventh, that of hail; and, according to some commentators, the fifth, that of the murrain, in ver. 49, followed by the tenth in ver. 51. But the grand, sombre imagery of ver. 49 is too majestic for such application. It rather sums up the whole series of plagues, likening them to an embassy (lit., a sending) of angels of evil. They are a grim company to come forth from His presence--Wrath, Indignation, and Trouble. The same power which sent them out on their errand prepared a way before them; and the crowning judgment, which, in the psalmist's view was also the crowning mercy, was the death of the first-born.

The next quartet of verses (vv. 52-55) passes lightly over the wilderness history and the settlement in the land, and hastens on to a renewed narration of repeated rebellion, which occupies the next group (vv. 56-59). These verses cover the period from the entrance on Canaan to the fall of the sanctuary of Shiloh, during which there was a continual tendency to relapse into idolatry. That is the special sin here charged against the Israel of the time of the Judges. The figure of a "deceitful bow," in ver. 57, well describes the people as failing to fulfil the purpose of their choice by God. As such a weapon does not shoot true, and makes the arrow fly wide, however well aimed and strongly drawn, so Israel foiled all Divine attempts, and failed to carry God's message to the world, or to fulfil His will in themselves. Hence the next verses tell, with intense energy and pathos, the sad story of Israel's humiliation under the Philistines. The language is extraordinarily strong in its description of God's loathing and rejection of the nation and sanctuary, and is instinct with sorrow, blended with stern recognition of His righteousness in judgment. What a tragic picture the psalmist draws! Shiloh, the dwelling-place of God, empty for evermore; the "Glory"--that is, the Ark--in the enemy's hands; everywhere stiffening corpses; a pall of silence over the land; no brides and no joyous bridal chaunts; the very priests massacred, unlamented by their widows, who had wept so many tears already that the fountain of them was dried up, and even sorrowing love was dumb with horror and despair!

The two last groups of verses paint God's great mercy in delivering the nation from such misery. The daring figure of His awaking as from sleep and dashing upon Israel's foes, who are also His, with a shout like that of a hero stimulated by wine, is more accordant with Eastern fervour than with our colder imagination; but it wonderfully expresses the sudden transition from a period, during which God seemed passive and careless of His people's wretchedness, to one in which His power flashed forth triumphant for their defence. The prose fact is the long series of victories over the Philistines and other oppressors, which culminated in the restoration of the Ark, the selection of Zion as its abode, which involved the rejection of Shiloh and consequently of Ephraim (in whose territory Shiloh was), and the accession of David. The Davidic kingdom is, in the psalmist's view, the final form of Israel's national existence; and the sanctuary, like the kingdom, is perpetual as the lofty heavens or the firm earth. Nor were his visions vain, for that kingdom subsists and will subsist for ever, and the true sanctuary, the dwelling-place of God among men, is still more closely intertwined with the kingdom and its King than the psalmist knew. The perpetual duration of both is, in truth, the greatest of God's mercies, outshining all earlier deliverances; and they who truly have become the subjects of the Christ, the King of Israel and of the world, and who dwell with God in His house, by dwelling with Jesus, will not rebel against Him any more, nor ever forget His wonders, but faithfully tell them to the generations to come.

PSALM LXXIX.

1 O God, [the] heathen have come into Thine inheritance,
They have profaned Thy holy Temple,
They have made Jerusalem heaps of stones.
2 They have given the corpses of Thy servants [as] meat to the fowls
of the heavens,
The flesh of Thy favoured Ones to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water round Jerusalem,
And there was none to bury [them].
4 We have become a reproach to our neighbours,
A scoff and a scorn to those round us.

5 How long, Jehovah, wilt Thou be angry for ever?
[How long] shall Thy jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out Thy wrath upon the heathen who know Thee not,
And upon [the] kingdoms which call not upon Thy name.
7 For they have eaten up Jacob,
And his pasture have they laid waste.
8 Remember not against us the iniquities of those before us,
Speedily let Thy compassions [come to] meet us,
For we are brought very low.

9 Help us, O God, for the sake of the glory of Thy name,
And deliver us, and cover over our sins for the sake of Thy name.
10 Why should the heathen say, Where is their God?
Let there be known among the heathen before our eyes
The revenging of the blood of Thy servants which is poured out.
11 Let there come before Thee the groaning of the captive,
According to the greatness of Thine arm preserve the sons of death.
12 And return to our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom
Their reproach [with] which they have reproached Thee, O Lord.

13 And we, we the people and the flock of Thy pasture,
Will thank Thee for ever;
To generation after generation will we recount Thy praise.

The same national agony which was the theme of Psalm lxxiv. forced the sad strains of this psalm from the singer's heart. There, the profanation of the Temple, and here, the destruction of the city, are the more prominent. There, the dishonour to God; here, the distresses of His people, are set forth. Consequently, confession of sin is more appropriate here, and prayers for pardon blend with those for deliverance. But the tone of both psalms is the same, and there are similarities of expression which favour, though they do not demand, the hypothesis that the author is the same. Such similarities are the "how long" (lxxiv. 10 and lxxix. 5); the desecration of the Temple (lxxiv. 3, 7, and lxxix. 1); the giving over to wild beasts (lxxiv. 19, and lxxix. 2); the reproach of God (lxxiv. 10, 18, 22, and lxxix. 12). The comparison of Israel to a flock is found in both psalms, but in others of the Asaph group also.

The same remarks which were made as to the date of the former psalm apply in this case. Two arguments have, however, been urged against the Maccabean date. The first is that drawn from the occurrence of vv. 6, 7, in Jer. x. 25. It is contended that Jeremiah is in the habit of borrowing from earlier writers, that the verse immediately preceding that in question is quoted from Psalm vi. 1, and that the connection of the passage in the psalm is closer than in the prophet, and, therefore, that the words are presumably _in situ_ here, as also that the verbal alterations are such as to suggest that the prophet rather than the psalmist is the adapter. But, on the other hand, Hupfeld maintains that the connection in Jeremiah is the closer. Not much weight can be attached to that point, for neither prophet nor poet can be tied down to cool concatenation of sentences. Delitzsch claims the verbal alterations as indubitable proofs of the priority of the prophet, and maintains that "the borrower betrays himself" by changing the prophet's words into less accurate and elegant ones, and by omissions which impair "the soaring fulness of Jeremiah's expressions." The critics who hold that the psalm refers to the Chaldean invasion, and that Jeremiah has borrowed from it, have to face a formidable difficulty. The psalm must have been written after the catastrophe: the prophecy preceded it. How then can the prophet be quoting the psalm? The question has not been satisfactorily answered, nor is it likely to be.

A second argument against the Maccabean date is based upon the quotation of ver. 3 in 1 Macc. vii. 16, which it introduces by the usual formula of quotation from Scripture. It is urged that a composition so recent as the psalm would be, if of Maccabean date, would not be likely to be thus referred to. But this argument confuses the date of occurrence recorded in 1 Maccabees with the date of the record; and there is no improbability in the writer of the book quoting as Scripture a psalm which had sprung from the midst of the tragedy which he narrates.

The strophical division is not perfectly clear, but it is probably best to recognise three strophes of four verses each, with an appended verse of conclusion. The first spreads before God His peoples miseries. The second and third are prayer for deliverance and confession of sin; but they differ, in that the former strophe dwells mainly upon the wished-for destruction of the enemy, and the latter upon the rescue of Israel, while a subordinate diversity is that ancestral sins are confessed in the one, and those of the present generation in the other. Ver. 13 stands out of the strophe scheme as a kind of epilogue.

The first strophe vividly describes the ghastly sights that wrung the psalmist's heart, and will, as he trusts, move God's to pity and help. The same thought as was expressed in Psalm lxxiv. underlies the emphatic repetition of "Thy" in this strophe--namely, the implication of God's fair name in His people's disasters. "_Thine_ inheritance" is invaded, and "_Thy_ holy Temple" defiled by thee "heathen." The corpses of "_Thy_ servants" lie unburied, torn by vultures' beaks and jackals' claws. The blood of "_Thy_ favoured Ones" saturates the ground. It was not easy to hold fast by the reality of God's special relation to a nation thus apparently deserted, but the psalmist's faith stood even such a strain, and is not dashed by a trace of doubt. Such times are the test and triumph of trust. If genuine, it will show brightest against the blackest background. The word in ver. 1 rendered "heathen" is usually translated "nations," but here evidently connotes idolatry (ver. 6). Their worship of strange gods, rather than their alien nationality, makes their invasion of God's inheritance a tragic anomaly. The psalmist remembers the prophecy of Micah (iii. 12) that Jerusalem should become heaps, and sadly repeats it as fulfilled at last. As already noticed, ver. 3 is quoted in 1 Macc. vii. 16, 17, and ver. 4 is found in Psalm xliv. 13, which is by many commentators referred to the Maccabean period.

The second strophe passes to direct petition, which, as it were, gives voice to the stiffened corpses strewing the streets, and the righteous blood crying from the ground. The psalmist goes straight to the cause of calamity--the anger of God--and, in the close of the strophe, confesses the sins which had kindled it. Beneath the play of politics and the madness of Antiochus, he discerned God's hand at work. He reiterates the fundamental lesson, which prophets were never weary of teaching, that national disasters are caused by the anger of God, which is excited by national sins. That conviction is the first element in his petitions. A second is the twin conviction that the "heathen" are used by God as His instrument of chastisement, but that, when they have done their work, they are called to account for the human passion--cruelty, lust of conquest, and the like--which impelled them to it. Even as they poured out the blood of God's people, they have God's wrath poured out on them, because "they have eaten up Jacob."

The same double point of view is frequently taken by the prophets: for example, in Isaiah's magnificent prophecy against "the Assyrian" (x. 5 _seq._), where the conqueror is first addressed as "the rod of Mine anger," and then his "punishment" is foretold, because, while executing God's purpose, he had been unconscious of his mission, and had been gratifying his ambition. These two convictions go very deep into "the philosophy of history." Though modified in their application to modern states and politics, they are true in substance still. The Goths who swept down on Rome, the Arabs who crushed a corrupt Christianity, the French who stormed across Europe, were God's scavengers, gathered vulture-like round carrion, but they were each responsible for their cruelty, and were punished "for the fruit of their stout hearts."

The closing verse of the strophe (ver. 8) is intimately connected with the next, which we take as beginning the third strophe: but this connection does not set aside the strophical division, though it somewhat obscures it. The distinction between the similar petitions of vv. 8, 9, is sufficient to warrant our recognition of that division, even whilst acknowledging that the two parts coalesce more closely than usual. The psalmist knows that the heathen have been hurled against Israel because God is angry; and he knows that God's anger is no arbitrarily kindled flame, but one lit and fed by Israel's sins. He knows, too, that there is a fatal entail by which the iniquities of the fathers are visited on the children. Therefore, he asks first that these ancestral sins may not be "remembered," nor their consequences discharged on the children's heads. "The evil that men do lives after them," and history affords abundant instances of the accumulated consequences of ancestors' crimes lighting on descendants that had abandoned the ancient evil, and were possibly doing their best to redress it. Guilt is not transmitted, but results of wrong are; and it is one of the tragedies of history that "one soweth and another reapeth" the bitter fruit. Upon one generation may, and often does, come the blood of all the righteous men that many generations have slain (Matt. xxiii. 35).

The last strophe (vv. 9-12) continues the strain begun in ver. 8, but with significant deepening into confession of the sins of the existing generation. The psalmist knows that the present disaster is no case of the fathers having eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth being set on edge, but that he and his contemporaries had repeated the fathers transgressions. The ground of his plea for cleansing and deliverance is the glory of God's name, which he emphatically puts at the end of both clauses of ver. 9. He repeats the same thought in another form in the question of ver. 10, "Why should the heathen say, Where is their God?" If Israel, sinful though it is, and therefore meriting chastisement, is destroyed, there will be a blot on God's name, and the "heathen" will take it as proof, not that Israel's God was just, but that He was too feeble or too far off to hear prayers or to send succours. It is bold faith which blends acknowledgment of sins with such a conviction of the inextricable intertwining of God's glory and the sinners' deliverance. Lowly confession is wonderfully wedded to confidence that seems almost too lofty. But the confidence is in its inmost core as lowly as the confession, for it disclaims all right to God's help, and clasps His name as its only but sufficient plea.

The final strophe dwells more on the sufferings of the survivors than the earlier parts of the psalm do, and in this respect contrasts with Psalm lxxiv., which is all but entirely silent as to these. Not only does the spilt blood of dead confessors cry for vengeance, since they died for their faith, as "Thy servants," but the groans and sighs of the living who are captives, and "sons of death"--_i.e._, doomed to die, if unrescued by God--appeal to Him. The expressions "the groaning of the captive" and "the sons of death" occur in Psalm cii. 20, from which, if this is a composition of Maccabean date, they are here quoted. The strophe ends with recurring to the central thought of both this and the companion psalm--the reproach on God from His servants' calamities--and prays that the enemies' taunts may be paid back into their bosoms sevenfold--_i.e._, in fullest measure.

The epilogue in ver. 13 has the image of a flock, so frequent in the Asaph psalms, suggesting tender thoughts of the shepherd's care and of his obligations. Deliverance will evoke praise, and, instead of the sad succession of sin and suffering from generation to generation, the solidarity of the nation will be more happily expressed by ringing songs, transmitted from father to son, and gathering volume as they flow from age to age.

PSALM LXXX.

1 Shepherd of Israel, give ear,
Thou who leddest Joseph like a flock,
Thou that sittest [throned upon] the cherubim, shine forth.
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up Thy strength,
And come for salvation for us.
3 O God, restore us,
And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

4 Jehovah, God [of] Hosts,
How long wilt Thou be angry against the prayer of Thy people?
5 Thou hast made them eat tears [as] bread,
And hast given them to drink [of] tears in large measure.
6 Thou makest us a strife to our neighbours,
And our enemies mock to their hearts' content.
7 God [of] Hosts, restore us,
And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

8 A vine out of Egypt didst Thou transplant,
Thou didst drive out the nations and plant it.
9 Thou didst clear a place before it,
And it threw out its roots and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow,
And its branches [were like] the cedars of God.
11 It spread its boughs [even] unto the sea,
And to the River its shoots.

12 Why hast Thou broken down its fences,
So that all who pass on the way pluck from it?
13 The boar of the wood roots it up
And the beasts of the field feed on it.
14 God [of] Hosts, turn, we beseech Thee,
Look from heaven and see,
And visit this vine.
15 And protect what Thy right hand has planted,
And the son whom Thou madest strong for Thyself.
16 Burned with fire is it--cut down;
At the rebuke of Thy countenance they perish.
17 Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand,
Upon the son of man [whom] Thou madest strong for Thyself.
18 And we will not go back from Thee;
Revive us, and we will invoke Thy name.
19 Jehovah, God [of] Hosts, restore us,
And cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

This psalm is a monument of some time of great national calamity; but its allusions do not enable us to reach certainty as to what that calamity was. Two striking features of it have been used as clues to its occasion--namely, the designation of the nation as "Joseph," and the mention of the three tribes in ver. 2. Calvin, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, and others are led thereby to regard it as a prayer by an inhabitant of Judah for the captive children of the northern kingdom; while others, as Cheyne, consider that only the Persian period explains the usage in question. The name of "Joseph" is applied to the whole nation in other Asaph psalms (lxxvii. 15; lxxxi. 5). It is tempting to suppose, with Hupfeld, that this nomenclature indicates that the ancient antagonism of the kingdoms has passed away with the captivity of the Ten Tribes, and that the psalmist, a singer in Judah, looks wistfully to the ideal unity, yearns to see breaches healed, and the old associations of happier days, when "Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh" encamped side by side in the desert, and marched one after the other, renewed in a restored Israel. If this explanation of the mention of the tribes is adopted, the psalm falls in some period after the destruction of the northern kingdom, but prior to that of Judah. The prayer in the refrain "turn us" might, indeed, mean "bring us back from exile," but may as accurately be regarded as asking for restored prosperity--an explanation which accords better with the rest of the psalm. We take the whole, then, as a prayer for the nation, conceived of in its original, long-broken unity. It looks back to the Divine purpose as expressed in ancient deeds of deliverance, and prays that it may be fulfilled, notwithstanding apparent thwarting. Closer definition of date is unattainable.

The triple refrain in vv. 3, 7, 19, divides the psalm into three unequal parts. The last of these is disproportionately long, and may be further broken up into three parts, of which the first (vv. 8-11) describes the luxuriant growth of Israel under the parable of a vine, the second (vv. 12-14) brings to view the bitter contrast of present ruin, and, with an imperfect echo of the refrain, melts into the petitioning tone of the third (vv. 15-19), which is all prayer.

In the first strophe "Shepherd of Israel" reminds us of Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, in which he invoked "the God who shepherded me all my life long" to "bless the lads," and of the title in Gen. xlix. 24, "the shepherd, the stone of Israel." The comparison of the nation to a flock is characteristic of the Asaph psalms, and here refers to the guidance of the people at the Exodus. Delitzsch regards the notions of the earthly and heavenly sanctuary as being blended in the designation of God as sitting throned on the cherubim, but it is better to take the reference as being to His dwelling in the Temple. The word rendered "shine forth" occurs in Psalm l. 2, where it expresses His coming from "Zion," and so it does here. The same metaphor underlies the subsequent petition in ver. 3. In both God is thought of as light, and the manifestation of His delivering help is likened to the blazing out of the sun from behind a cloud.

In reference to the mention of the tribes in ver. 2, we need only add to what has been already said, that the petitions of ver. 1, which look back to the wilderness marches, when the Ark led the van, naturally suggested the mention of the three tribes who were together reckoned as "the camp of Ephraim," and who, in the removal of the encampment, "set forth third"--that is, immediately in the rear of the tabernacle. The order of march explains not only the collocation here, but the use of the word "Before." Joseph and Benjamin were children of the same mother, and the schism which parted their descendants is, to the psalmist's faith, as transient as unnatural. Once again shall the old unity be seen, when the brothers' sons shall again dwell and fight side by side, and God shall again go forth before them for victory.

The prayer of the refrain, "turn us," is not to be taken as for restoration from exile, which is negatived by the whole tone of the psalm, nor as for spiritual quickening, but simply asks for the return of the glories of ancient days. The petition that God would let His face shine upon the nation alludes to the priestly benediction (Numb. vi. 25), thus again carrying us back to the wilderness. Such a flashing forth is all that is needed to change blackest night into day. To be "saved" means here to be rescued from the assaults of hostile nations. The poet was sure that Israel's sole defence was God, and that one gleam of His face would shrivel up the strongest foes, like unclean, slimy creatures which writhe and die in sunshine. The same conviction is valid in a higher sphere. Whatever elevation of meaning is given to "saved," the condition of it is always this--the manifestation of God's face. That brings light into all dark hearts. To behold that light, and to walk in it, and to be transformed by beholding, as they are who lovingly and steadfastly gaze, is salvation.

A piteous tale of suffering is wailed forth in the second strophe. The peculiar accumulation of the Divine names in vv. 4, 19, is found also in Psalms lix. 5 and lxxxiv. 8. It is grammatically anomalous, as the word for God (Elohim) does not undergo the modification which would show that the next word is to be connected with it by "of." Hence, some have regarded "Ts'bhaoth" (hosts) as being almost equivalent to a proper name of God, which it afterwards undoubtedly became; while others have explained the construction by supposing the phrase to be elliptical, requiring after "God" the supplement "God of." This accumulation of Divine names is by some taken as a sign of late date. Is it not a mark of the psalmist's intensity rather than of his period? In accordance with the Elohistic character of the Asaph psalms, the common expression "Jehovah of Hosts" is expanded; but the hypothesis that the expansion was the work of a redactor is unnecessary. It may quite as well have been that of the author.

The urgent question "How long?" is not petulant impatience, but hope deferred, and, though sick at heart, still cleaving to God and remonstrating for long-protracted calamities. The bold imagery of ver. 4 _b_ cannot well be reproduced in translation. The rendering "wilt Thou be angry?" is but a feeble reproduction of the vigorous original, which runs "wilt Thou smoke?" Other psalms (_e.g._, lxxiv. 1) speak of God's anger as smoking, but here the figure is applied to God Himself. What a contrast it presents to the petition in the refrain! That "light" of Israel has become "as a flaming fire." A terrible possibility of darkening and consuming wrath lies in the Divine nature, and the very emblem of light suggests it. It is questionable whether the following words should be rendered "against the prayer of Thy people," or "while Thy people are praying" (Delitzsch). The former meaning is in accordance with the Hebrew, with other Scripture passages, and with the tone of the psalm, and is to be preferred, as more forcibly putting the anomaly of an unanswering God. Ver. 5 presents the national sorrows under familiar figures. The people's food and drink were tears. The words of _a_ may either be rendered "bread of tears"--_i.e._, eaten with, or rather consisting of, tears; or, as above, "tears [as] bread." The word rendered "in large measure" means "the third part"--"of some larger measure." It is found only in Isa. xl. 12. "The third part of an ephah is a puny measure for the dust of the earth, [but] it is a large measure for tears" (Delitzsch, _in loc._). Ver. 6 adds one more touch to the picture--gleeful neighbours cynically rejoicing to their hearts' content (lit., for themselves) over Israel's calamities. Thus, in three verses, the psalmist points to an angry God, a weeping nation, and mocking foes, a trilogy of woe. On all he bases an urgent repetition of the refrain, which is made more imploring by the expanded name under which God is invoked to help. Instead of the simple "God," as in ver. 3, he now says "God of Hosts." As sense of need increases, a true suppliant goes deeper into God's revealed character.

From ver. 8 onwards the parable of the vine as representing Israel fills the singer's mind. As has been already noticed, this part of the psalm may be regarded as one long strophe, the parts of which follow in orderly sequence, and are held closely together, as shown by the recurrence of the refrain at the close only. Three stages are discernible in it--a picture of what has been, the contrast of what is now, and a prayer for speedy help. The emblem of the vine, which has received so great development in the prophets, and has been hallowed for ever by our Lord's use of it, seems to have been suggested to the psalmist by the history of Joseph, to which he has already alluded. For, in Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix. 22 _seqq._), Joseph is likened to a fruitful bough. Other Old Testament writers have drawn out the manifold felicities of the emblem as applied to Israel. But these need not concern us here, where the point is rather God's husbandry and the vine's growth, both of which are in startling contrast with a doleful present. The figure is carried out with much beauty in detail. The Exodus was the vine's transplanting; the destruction of the Canaanites was the grubbing up of weeds to clear the ground for it; the numerical increase of the people was its making roots and spreading far. In ver. 10 _b_ the rendering may be either that adopted above, or "And the cedars of God [were covered with] its branches." The latter preserves the parallelism of clauses and the unity of representation in vv. 10, 11, which will then deal throughout with the spreading growth of the vine. But the cedars would not have been called "of God,"--which implies their great size,--unless their dimensions had been in point, which would not be the case if they were only thought of as espaliers for the vine. And the image of its running over the great trees of Lebanon is unnatural. The rendering as above is to be preferred, even though it somewhat mars the unity of the picture. The extent of ground covered by the vine is described, in ver. 11, as stretching from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates (Deut. xi. 24; 1 Kings iv. 24). Such had been the glories of the past; and they had all been the work of God's hand.

In ver. 12 the miserable contrast of present desolation is spread before God, with the bold and yet submissive question "Why?" The vineyard wall is thrown down, and the vine lies exposed to every vagrant passenger, and to every destructive creature. Swine from the woods burrow at its roots, and "whatever moves on the plain" (Psalm l. 11, the only other place where the expression occurs) feeds on it. The parallelism forbids the supposition that any particular enemy is meant by the wild boar. Hupfeld would transpose ver. 16 so as to stand after ver. 13, which he thinks improves the connection, and brings the last part of the psalm into symmetrical form, in three equal parts, containing four verses each. Cheyne would put vv. 14, 15, before vv. 12, 13, and thereby secures more coherence and sequence. But accuracy in these matters is not to be looked for in such highly emotional poetry, and perhaps a sympathetic ear may catch in the broken words a truer ring than in the more orderly arrangement of them by critics.

Ver. 14 sounds like an imperfect echo of the refrain significantly modified, so as to beseech that God would "turn" Himself, even as He had been implored to "turn" his people. The purpose of His turning is that He may "look and see" the condition of the desolated vineyard, and thence be moved to interfere for its restoration. The verse may be regarded as closing one of the imperfectly developed strophes of this last part; but it belongs in substance to the following petitions, though in form it is more closely connected with the preceding verses. The picture of Israel's misery passes insensibly into prayer, and the burden of that prayer is, first, that God would behold the sad facts, as the preliminary to His acting in view of them.

The last part (vv. 15-19) is prayer for God's help, into which forces itself one verse (16), recurring to the miseries of the nation. It bursts in like an outcrop of lava, revealing underground disturbance and fires. Surely that interruption is more pathetic and natural than is the result obtained by the suggested transpositions. The meaning of the word in ver. 15 rendered above "protect" is doubtful, and many commentators would translate it as a noun, and regard it as meaning "plant," or, as the A.V., "vineyard." The verse would then depend on the preceding verb in ver. 14, "visit." But this construction is opposed by the copula (_and_) preceding, and it is best to render "protect," with a slight change in the vocalisation. There may be an allusion to Jacob's blessing in ver. 15 _b_, for in it (Gen. xlix. 22) Joseph is called a "fruitful bough"--lit., "son." If so, the figure of the vine is retained in ver. 15 _b_ as well as in _a_.

The apparent interruption of the petitions by ver. 16 is accounted for by the sharp pang that shot into the psalmist's heart, when he recalled, in his immediately preceding words, the past Divine acts, which seemed so contradicted now. But the bitterness, though it surges up, is overcome, and his petitions return to their former strain in ver. 17, which pathetically takes up, as it were, the broken thread, by repeating "right hand" from ver. 15 _a_, and "whom Thou madest strong for Thyself" from ver. 15 _b_. Israel, not an individual, is the "man of Thy right hand," in which designation, coupled with "son," there may be an allusion to the name of Benjamin (ver. 2), the "son of the right hand." Human weakness and Divine strength clothing it are indicated in that designation for Israel "the son of man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself." The inmost purpose of God's gifts is that their recipients may be "the secretaries of His praise." Israel's sacred calling, its own weakness, and the strength of the God who endows it are all set forth, not now as lessons to it, but as pleas with Him, whose gifts are without repentance, and whose purposes cannot be foiled by man's unworthiness or opposition.

The psalm closes with a vow of grateful adhesion to God as the result of His renewed mercy. They who have learned how bitter a thing it is to turn away from God, and how blessed when He turns again to them, and turns back their miseries and their sins, have good reason for not again departing from Him. But if they are wise to remember their own weakness, they will not only humbly vow future faithfulness, but earnestly implore continual help; since only the constant communication of a Divine quickening will open their lips to call upon God's name.

The refrain in its most expanded form closes the psalm. Growing intensity of desire and of realisation of the pleas and pledges hived in the name are expressed by its successive forms,--God; God of Hosts; Jehovah, God of Hosts. The faith that grasps all that is contained in that full-toned name already feels the light of God's face shining upon it, and is sure that its prayer for salvation is not in vain.

PSALM LXXXI.

1 Shout for joy to God our strength,
Shout aloud to the God of Jacob.
2 Lift up the song, and sound the timbrel,
The pleasant lyre with the harp.
3 Blow the trumpet on the new moon,
On the full moon, for the day of our feast.
4 For this is a statute for Israel,
An ordinance of the God of Jacob.
5 For a testimony in Joseph He appointed it,
When He went forth over the land of Egypt.
--A language which I know not I hear.

6 I removed his shoulder from the burden,
His hands were freed from the basket.
7 In straits thou didst call and I delivered thee,
I answered thee in the secret place of thunder,
I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.
8 Hear, My people, and I will witness to thee;
O Israel, would that thou wouldest hearken to Me!
9 There shall be no strange god in thee,
And thou shalt not bow down to an alien god.
10 I, I am Jehovah thy God,
Who brought thee up from the land of Egypt.
Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it.

11 But My people hearkened not to My voice,
And Israel did not yield to Me.
12 Then I let them go in the stubbornness of their heart,
That they might walk in their own counsels.

13 Would that My people would hearken to Me,
That Israel would walk in My ways!
14 Easily would I humble their enemies,
And against their adversaries turn My hand.
15 The haters of Jehovah would come feigning to Him,
But their time should endure for ever.
16 And He would feed thee with the fat of wheat,
And with honey from the rock would I satisfy thee.

The psalmist summons priests and people to a solemn festival, commemorative of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, and sets forth the lessons which that deliverance teaches, the learning of which is the true way of keeping the feast. There has been much discussion as to which feast is in the psalmist's mind. That of Tabernacles has been widely accepted as intended, chiefly on the ground that the first day of the month in which it occurred was celebrated by the blowing of trumpets, as the beginning of the civil year. This practice is supposed to account for the language of ver. 3, which seems to imply trumpet-blowing both at new and full moon. But, on other grounds, the Passover is more likely to be intended, as the psalm deals with the manifestations of Divine power attending the beginning of the Exodus, which followed the first Passover, as well as with those during the desert sojourn, which alone were commemorated by the feast of Tabernacles. True, we have no independent knowledge of any trumpet-blowing on the first day of the Passover month (Nisan); but Delitzsch and others suggest that from this psalm it may be inferred "that the commencement of each month, and more especially the commencement of the month (Nisan), which was at the same time the commencement of the ecclesiastical year, was signalised by the blowing of horns." On the whole, the Passover is most probably the feast in question.

Olshausen, followed by Cheyne, regards the psalm as made up of two fragments (vv. 1-5 _a_, and 5 _c_-16). But surely the exhortations and promises of the latter portion are most relevant to the summons to the festival contained in the former part, and there could be no more natural way of preparing for the right commemoration of the deliverance than to draw out its lessons of obedience and to warn against departure from the delivering God. Definiteness as to date is unattainable. The presupposed existence of the full Temple ceremonial shows that the psalm was not written in exile, nor at a time of religious persecution. Its warning against idolatry would be needless in a post-exilic psalm, as no tendency thereto existed after the return from captivity. But beyond such general indications we cannot go. The theory that the psalm is composed of two fragments exaggerates the difference between the two parts into which it falls. These are the summons to the feast (vv. 1-5), and the lessons of the feast (vv. 6-16).

Delitzsch suggests that the summons in ver. 1 is addressed to the whole congregation; that in ver. 2 to the Levites, the appointed singers and musicians; and that in ver. 3 to the priests who are intrusted with blowing the Shophar, or horn (Josh. vi. 4, and 2 Chron. xx. 28). One can almost hear the tumult of joyful sounds, in which the roar of the multitude, the high-pitched notes of singers, the deeper clash of timbrels, the twanging of stringed instruments, and the hoarse blare of rams' horns, mingle in concordant discord, grateful to Eastern ears, however unmusical to ours. The religion of Israel allowed and required exuberant joy. It sternly rejected painting and sculpture, but abundantly employed music, the most ethereal of the arts, which stirs emotions and longings too delicate and deep for speech. Whatever differences in form have necessarily attended the progress from the worship of the Temple to that of the Church, the free play of joyful emotion should mark the latter even more than the former. Decorum is good, but not if purchased by the loss of ringing gladness. The psalmist's summons has a meaning still.

The reason for it is given in vv. 4, 5 _a_. It--_i.e._, the feast (not the musical accompaniments)--is appointed by God. The psalmist employs designations for it, which are usually applied to "the word of the Lord"; statute, ordinance, testimony, being all found in Psalms xix., cxix., with that meaning. A triple designation of the people corresponds with these triple names for the feast. _Israel_, _Jacob_, and _Joseph_ are synonyms, the use of the last of these having probably the same force here as in the preceding psalm--namely, to express the singer's longing for the restoration of the shattered unity of the nation. The summons to the feast is based, not only on Divine appointment, but also on Divine purpose in that appointment. It was "a testimony," a rite commemorative of a historical fact, and therefore an evidence of it to future times. There is no better proof of such a fact than a celebration of it, which originates contemporaneously and continues through generations. The feast in question was thus simultaneous with the event commemorated, as ver. 5 _b_ tells. It was God, not Israel, as is often erroneously supposed, who "went forth." For the following preposition is not "from," which might refer to the national departure, but "over" or "against," which cannot have such a reference, since Israel did not, in any sense, go "over" or "against" the land. God's triumphant forth-putting of power over the whole land, especially in the death of the first-born, on the night of the Passover, is meant to be remembered for ever, and is at once the fact commemorated by the feast, and a reason for obeying His appointment of it.

So far the thoughts and language are limpid, but ver. 5 _c_ interrupts their clear flow. Who is the speaker thus suddenly introduced? What is the "language" (lit., lip) which he "knew not"? The explanation implied by the A.V. and R.V., that the collective Israel speaks, and that the reference is, as in Psalm cxiv. 1, to the "strange language" of the Egyptians, is given by most of the older authorities, and by Ewald and Hengstenberg, but has against it the necessity for the supplement "where," and the difficulty of referring the "I" to the nation. The more usual explanation in modern times is that the speaker is the psalmist, and that the language which he hears is the voice of God, the substance of which follows in the remainder of the psalm. As in Job iv. 16 Eliphaz could not discern the appearance of the mysterious form that stood before his eyes, and thus its supernatural character is suggested, so the psalmist hears an utterance of a hitherto unknown kind, which he thus implies to have been Divine. God Himself speaks, to impress the lessons of the past, and to excite the thoughts and feelings which would rightly celebrate the feast. The glad noises of song, harp, and trumpet are hushed; the psalmist is silent, to hear that dread Voice, and then with lowly lips he repeats so much of the majestic syllables as he could translate into words which it was possible for a man to utter. The inner coherence of the two parts of the psalm is, on this explanation, so obvious, that there is no need nor room for the hypothesis of two fragments having been fused into one.

The Divine Voice begins with recapitulating the facts which the feast was intended to commemorate--namely, the act of emancipation from Egyptian bondage (ver. 6), and the miracles of the wilderness sojourn (ver. 7). The compulsory labour, from which God delivered the people, is described by two terms, of which the former (burden) is borrowed from Exodus, where it frequently occurs (Exod. i. 11, v. 4, vi. 6), and the latter (basket) is by some supposed to mean the wicker-work implement for carrying, which the monuments show was in use in Egypt (so LXX., etc.), and by others to mean an earthen vessel, as "an example of the work in clay in which the Israelites were engaged" (Hupfeld). The years of desert wandering are summed up, in ver. 7, as one long continuance of benefits from God. Whenever they cried to Him in their trouble, He delivered them. He spoke to them "from the secret place of thunder" ("_My thunder-covert_," Cheyne). That expression is generally taken to refer to the pillar of cloud, but seems more naturally to be regarded as alluding to the thick darkness, in which God was shrouded on Sinai, when He spoke His law amid thunderings and lightnings. "The proving at the waters of Meribah" is, according to the connection and in harmony with Exod. xvii. 6, to be regarded as a benefit. "It was meant to serve the purpose of binding Israel still more closely to its God" (Baethgen). It is usually assumed that, in this reference to "the waters of Meribah," the two similar incidents of the miraculous supply of water--one of which occurred near the beginning of the forty years in the desert, at "Massah and Meribah" (Exod. xvii. 7), and the other at "the waters of Meribah," near Kadesh, in the fortieth year--have been blended, or, as Cheyne says, "confused." But there is no need to suppose that there is any confusion, for the words of the psalm will apply to the latter miracle as well as to the former, and, if the former clause refers to the manifestations at Sinai, the selection of an incident at nearly the end of the wilderness period is natural. The whole stretch of forty years is thereby declared to have been marked by continuous Divine care. The Exodus was begun, continued, and ended amid tokens of His watchful love. The Selah bids the listener meditate on that prolonged revelation.

That retrospect next becomes the foundation of a Divine exhortation to the people, which is to be regarded as spoken originally to Israel in the wilderness, as ver. 11 shows. Perowne well designates these verses (8-10) "a discourse within a discourse." They put into words the meaning of the wilderness experience, and sum up the laws spoken on Sinai, which they in part repeat. The purpose of God's lavish benefits was to bind Israel to Himself. "Hear, My people," reminds us of Deut. v. 1, vi. 4. "I will bear witness to thee" here means rather solemn warning to, than testifying against, the person addressed. With infinite pathos, the tone of the Divine Speaker changes from that of authority to pleading and the utterance of a yearning wish, like a sigh. "Would that thou wouldest hearken!" God desires nothing so earnestly as that, but His Divine desire is tragically and mysteriously foiled. The awful human power of resisting His voice and of making His efforts vain, the still more awful fact of the exercise of that power, were clear before the psalmist, whose daring anthropopathy teaches a deep lesson, and warns us against supposing that men have to do with an impassive Deity. That wonderful utterance of Divine wish is almost a parenthesis. It gives a moment's glimpse into the heart of God, and then the tone of command is resumed. "In ver. 9 the keynote of the revelation of the law from Sinai is given; the fundamental command which opens the Decalogue demanded fidelity towards Jehovah, and forbade idolatry, as the sin of sins" (Delitzsch). The reason for exclusive devotion to God is based in ver. 10, as in Exod. xx. 2, the fundamental passage, on His act of deliverance, not on His sole Divinity. A theoretic Monotheism would be cold; the consciousness of benefits received from One Hand alone is the only key that will unlock a heart's exclusive devotion and lay it at His feet. And just as the commandment to worship God alone is founded on His unaided delivering might and love, so it is followed by the promise that such exclusive adhesion to Him will secure the fulfilment of the boldest wishes, and the satisfying of the most clamant or hungry desires. "Open wide thy mouth, and I will fill it." It is folly to go to strange gods for the supply of needs, when God is able to give all that every man can wish. We may be well content to cleave to Him alone, since He alone is more than enough for each and for all. Why should _they_ waste time and strength in seeking for supplies from many, who can find all they need in One? They who put Him to the proof, and find Him enough, will have, in their experience of His sufficiency, a charm to protect them from all vagrant desire to "go further and fare worse." The best defence against temptations to stray from God is the possession by experience, of His rich gifts that meet all desires. That great saying teaches, too, that God's bestowals are practically measured by men's capacity and desire. The ultimate limit of them is His own limitless grace; but the working limit in each individual is the individual's receptivity, of which his expectancy and desire are determining factors.

In vv. 11, 12, the Divine Voice laments the failure of benefits and commandments and promises to win Israel to God. There is a world of baffled tenderness and almost wondering rebuke in the designation of the rebels as "My people." It would have been no cause of astonishment if other nations had not listened; but that the tribes bound by so many kindnesses should have been deaf is a sad marvel. Who should listen to "My voice" if "My people" do not? The penalty of not yielding to God is to be left unyielding. The worst punishment of sin is the prolongation and consequent intensifying of the sin. A heart that wilfully closes itself against God's pleadings brings on itself the nemesis, that it becomes incapable of opening, as a self-torturing Hindoo fakir may clench his fist so long, that at last his muscles lose their power, and it remains shut for his lifetime. The issue of such "stubbornness" is walking in their own counsels, the practical life being regulated entirely by self-originated and God-forgetting dictates of prudence or inclination. He who will not have the Divine Guide has to grope his way as well as he can. There is no worse fate for a man than to be allowed to do as he chooses. "The ditch," sooner or later, receives the man who lets his active powers, which are in themselves blind, be led by his understanding, which he has himself blinded by forbidding it to look to the One Light of Life.