1. K. 11 : 1** Now king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of 2 Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go among them, neither shall they come among you for surely they will turn away your heart after their 3 gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and 4 three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was 5 not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milom the abomination of the Am 6 monites. And Solomon did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully 7 after the LORD, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, in the mount that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomi-

8 nation of the children of Ammon. And so did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. 9 And the LORD was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the LORD, 10 the God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods : but he kept not that which the LORD commanded. Wherefore the LORD said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee, and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee, I will surely 11 rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant. Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it, for David thy father’s sake : but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. 12 Howbeit I will not rend away all the kingdom ; but I will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.

The final effects of Solomon’s prosperity. With an impartial fidelity that pertains always to the inspired historians, the result is told as it affects himself, and implied as it bears upon the future of the people. Inexpressibly sad is the record of his own declension and fall. First, he became more and more secularized by the increasing absorption of mind and heart in his schemes of acquisition, of pleasure, and of aggrandizement. In the gratification of ambition and self-indulgence, his extravagance of expenditure kept pace with the excess of God’s bounties. In accumulating thousands of horses and chariots out of Egypt, he not only disobeyed an express law given by Moses, but by his reliance upon these rather than upon the footmen of Israel, who had hitherto proved an overmatch for all hostile armies, he reversed the great principle that God had commanded—the principle so touchingly expressed by David, “Some trust in chariots and in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”

Further, he disobeyed God’s express command by multiplying wives, in foolish, rivalrous compliance with a custom by which Oriental monarchs were wont to estimate and display their grandeur. And in this he also transgressed another law in marrying women of strange nations who retained the observance of their idolatrous worship.

But worse than all, under the deteriorating effect of utter selfish worldliness, and through the example and influence of his heathen wives, at last he dared openly deny and defy the God whose Temple he had built, and whose worship he had re-established among the people ; the God who had dealt so kindly and bountifully with him. Upon the hill before Jerusalem, face to face with the beautiful Temple, with its pure worship prescribed and approved of God, with its still visible symbol of God’s personal presence, he built high places, altars of sacrifice, for “Moloch and Chemosh, the abominations of Ammon and Moab,” himself becoming an open public idolater in sight of priests and people. And all this he did, in despite of so many solemn, tender warnings from the very mouth of God himself. So deeply self-degraded at last became this royally gifted, divinely favored king of kings !

And the effect of his misused prosperity upon the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, was a deterioration as rapid as its growth in greatness had been. Priests and people rapidly declined in religious, industrial, and social culture. The orderly rule and organized industry by which a powerful unity and a vigorous national life had been created, were speedily displaced by the old social disorders and sectional divisions, which broke the kingdom in twain, and which were never afterward healed. From thenceforth the Jewish character steadily degenerated, and the fortunes of the Jewish people gradually declined until the period of the Messiah’s advent, when an utter godlessness prevailed, and the long disintegrated tribes were ground to the dust under the enslaving tyranny of Herod and the Roman power.

This, in brief, is the history, these the effects of Solomon’s prosperity upon himself and upon the Jewish people. Of the gradual inner change in his character we have no Scriptural record. But of three marked stages in his life we possess distinct intimations in his three Books : the Songs, written in the outset of his reign and the fervor of his youthful devotion ; the Proverbs extending through mid-life, while he was making experience, and his wisdom rightly interpreted that experience in the spirit of God’s commands ; and Ecclesiastes, the confession of a wasted and miserable life, wrung out of conscience in his latest days.

We know that God disquieted his latter years by raising up enemies to annoy, and by the announcement that his grand kingdom should be dismembered and the chief part taken from his son. But himself, his own power, God did not directly strike, and this for David’s sake. And nowhere in the Sacred History find we such testimony to the amazing patience and forbearance of God in the holding back of judgment; such an exhibition of His fidelity to promise, even under a dispensation so necessarily rigid and severe. Only the promise of long life was withheld because utterly forfeited. He was not old in years, but prematurely so through excessive indulgence, when from his own experience he drew that graphic picture of bodily decay which completes his writings; and which is itself completed by the concentrated “conclusion” or lesson of his own mournful life: Fear God and keep his commandments! From God’s love to David and his wonderful regard to his own covenant with the father, and from the son’s words of confession, we may hope that Solomon was at length brought back to repentance and found forgiveness. But the hope is dim and the inference is not certain. B.

I-8. The story of Solomon’s defection and degeneracy. He doted on strange women, many strange women. Here his revolt began. He should have taken warning by his father David’s fall. He took many women, so many, that, at last, they amounted to 700 wives and 300 concubines; 1000 in all, and not one good one among them, as he himself owns in his penitential sermon (Ec. 7: 28). God had, by his law, particularly forbidden the kings to multiply either horses or wives (De. 17: 16, 17). How he broke the former law, in multiplying horses, and having them out of Egypt, too (which was expressly prohibited in that law), we read (ch. 10: 29), and here how he broke the latter, which proved of more fatal consequence. But this was not all. They were strange women, Moabites, Ammonites, etc., of the nations which God had particularly forbidden them to intermarry with (verse 2). To complete the mischief, Solomon clave unto these in love (verse 2). He not only kept them, but set his heart upon them. He was drawn by them to the worship of strange gods; as Israel to Baal-peor, by the daughters of Moab. None of these consequences were so bad as this, His wives turned away his heart after other gods (verses 3, 4). He grew cool and indifferent in his own religion, and remiss in the service of the God of Israel. His heart was not perfect with the Lord his God (verse 4), nor did he follow him fully (verse 6), like David. His father David had many faults, but he never neglected the worship of God, nor grew remiss in that, as Solomon did, his wives using all their arts to divert him from it, and there began his apostasy. And he not only tolerated and maintained his wives in their idolatry, but made no scruple of joining with them in it. At last he reached that degree of impiety that he set up high places for the foulest heathen gods in the hill that is before Jerusalem, the mount of Olives, as if to confront the temple which he himself had built; these high places continued here, not utterly demolished, till Josiah did it (2 K. 23: 13). This is the account here given of Solomon’s apostasy. H.

We may infer from the repeated warnings of God that Solomon was long in danger of falling into idolatry. This danger was increased no doubt by the inclination to foreign customs. But this inclination itself was again occasioned by circumstances and relations of his reign, which must be regarded as remote concurring causes of his final fall. Among these is first to be reckoned the commerce carried on by Solomon, which on the one hand enhanced his love of splendor by the accumulation of great wealth, and produced a luxury scarcely to be reconciled with the simple manners of a theocratic king, and on the other hand, introduced a degree of tolerance toward heathen customs and religious views, which was scarcely consistent with the religion of Jehovah. Next the great wisdom of Solomon might become itself a perilous rock, because the widespread fame of this wisdom brought a multitude of men to Jerusalem, whose homage not only awakened his vanity but led him to a still greater tolerance and approximation to the heathen world. These things diminished the partition wall between the true worship of God and the heathen idolatry, and so prepared the way for the possibility of the apostasy. The proper immediate causes of his fail was his connection with many foreign heathen wives. Keil.

Since the first man Adam, the world hath not yielded either so great an example of wisdom or so fearful an example of apostasy as Solomon. What human knowledge Adam had, in the perfection of nature by creation, Solomon had by infusion; both fully, both from one fountain. If Adam called all creatures by their names, Solomon “spake from the cedars of Lebanon to the moss that springs out of the wall;” and besides these vegetables, there was no beast, nor fowl, nor fish, nor creeping thing, that escaped his discourse. Both fell; both fell by one means; as Adam, so might Solomon have said, “The woman deceived me.” It is true, indeed, that Adam fell as all; Solomon, as one; yet so as that this one is the pattern of the frailty of all. If knowledge could have given an immunity from sin, both had stood.

Affections are those feet of the soul on which it either stands or falls. “Solomon loved many outlandish women.” Every word hath bane enough for a man : women ; many women ; outlandish ; idolatrous ; and those, not only had, but doated on. Sex, multitude, nation, condition, all conspired to the ruin of a Solomon. If one woman undid all mankind, what marvel is it, if many women undid one? Yet had those many been the daughters of Israel, they had tempted him not to mis-devotion ; now they were of those nations whereof the Lord had said to the children of Israel, " Go not ye in to them, nor let them come in to you ; for surely they will turn your hearts after their gods." To them did Solomon join in love. Who can marvel if they disjoined his heart from God? Bp. II.

4. When Solomon was old.** At least half of the king’s reign was over before the Temple and the king’s house and the other buildings were completed. It was therefore toward the close of his reign when the influence of his wives gained undue sway over him. Lumby.

It was when he was old, says the historian, when the ardor of his youthful devotion had sadly waned ; when wealth and luxury had induced effeminacy, and after unbounded admiration and high position had stealthily undermined his piety—it was upon a heart long exposed to these subtle influences that the social power of so many wives—princesses of leading influence, of high culture, and commanding social position—was brought to bear upon him to his sad fall. Many of them, we know not definitely how many, came with the prestige of royalty, representing the dignity of courts and kingdoms. Shall not the king of Israel receive them with all the honors due to the kingdoms and thrones which they represent? Shall he not respect the religions they severally profess? Politeness, complaisance, the demands of civilized society, the interests of international peace and commerce—all concur in demanding unrestricted toleration of their idolatrous worship. So it would seem ; so, but for the higher claims of God, and of truth, and of his holy covenant, it would be. When to these demands of worldly sort we add the fact that Solomon clave to these wives and concubines in love—that his sensitive nature yielded to such powerful attractions—we have no need to go further to seek the occasion of Solomon’s relapse into great sin. He became an idolater. " His wives turned away his heart after other gods ; " his heart was no longer perfect with the Lord his God as the heart of David his father." Specifically it is stated (verses 5 and 7), that Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zido-

Zidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. He also built high places and furnished every facility for the worship of these gods—the abominations of Moab and Ammon. H. C.

5. Ashtoreth-Karnaim.** The word Ashtoreth is the Hebrew plural of Ashtoreth (the Greek Astarte), name of a female divinity widely worshipped among the ancient inhabitants of Canaan ; for example, by the Zidonians (1 K. 11 : 33 ; 2 K. 23 : 13), by the Philistines (1 S. 31 : 10), and also on the east side of the Jordan, as is seen in this passage. The Israelites were often seduced into this debasing worship ; see Ju. 2 : 13 ; 10 : 6 ; 1 S. 7 : 3, 4 ; 12 : 10 ; 1 K. 11 : 5, 33 ; 2 K. 23 : 13. This form of idolatry originated in the worship of the heavenly bodies (" the host of heaven," De. 4 : 19), regarded as presiding over the seasons, regulating their return, and dispensing their blessings. As Baal was the Sun-god, representing the sun’s dominion over earth (and also the planet Jupiter, " the star of Jove, the guardian and giver of good fortune"), so Ashtoreth represented the moon, and also the planet Venus " the goddess of love and fortune." Under the former character, the image of the idol bore on the head the figure of a crescent moon ; and hence the name Ashtoreth-Karnaim (literally, Ashtoreth of two horns), the crescented, or moon-ed, Ashtoreth. Here it has the plural form, Ashtoreth ; either from the number of images erected as objects of worship, or indicating different modifications of the same divinity. Conant.

Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. This is the same Divinity who is called below (verse 7) Molech, and in Zeph. 1 : 5 Malcham. Molech was a fire god, and was worshipped with human sacrifices. There are numerous allusions in the Old Testament to the worship of this god, the phrase most common being " to make their children to pass through the fire to Molech."

8. And likewise did he for all his strange wives.** For such of them as desired a special place for their worship. Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Molech would suffice for the greater number, but we know of other gods among the nations round about, and the text implies that all were equally regarded. Lumby.

There seems no possibility of explaining the language of the sacred historian, but as intimating that Solomon became an actual and open idolater, worshipping images of wood or stone in sight of the very temple which, in early life, he had erected to the true God. Hence that part of Olivet was called the high place of Tophet (Jer.

7 : 30-34), and the hill is still known as the Mount of Offence, or the Mount of Corruption (2 K. 23 : 13). Jamieson.

Whether he forsook his own temple and the worship of the God of his own covenant is of the least possible account. If he did not in form, he certainly did in spirit, for none can serve both God and Mammon—both Jehovah and idol gods. If he attempted it, his example could scarcely be less pernicious than if he had utterly deserted his magnificent temple. In either case his moral power must have gone solid against real religion—against the true worship of the holy God. The contrast between Solomon on his knees before all the assembled thousands of Israel in his prayer consecrating the new temple, and this same Solomon, going with his scores or hundreds of heathen wives to worship their gods on the high places of the land, must have been terribly impressive—to all pious hearts sad, not to say revolting; but to the masses, we have reason to fear, seductive toward the same idol worship. So much we must infer from the well-known laws of the human mind, and from the relations of the throne to the people under the religious system of Israel. H. C.

It was short-sighted policy in Solomon, as well as worldly want of faith, to seek to conciliate the foreign heathen at the expense of the devoted allegiance of God’s chosen ones in Israel. He won at best a momentary good-will from Ammonites, Moabites, or Sidonians, by such an affinity, and by such an introduction of their favorite idols; he lost the heart of the prophets of Jehovah, and, as a result, he could not transmit to his son more than a fraction of his kingdom. It is no mere fiction of priestly prejudice, but an historical certainty, that David owed his rise mainly to the overruling and pervading power exerted on him by the pure and monotheistic faith of the prophets; while Solomon lost (for his posterity) the kingdom of the ten tribes, and perpetuated strife, weakness, debasement, and superstition, by preferring the attractive splendors of this world to that godliness which would in the end have been rewarded even in the present life. F. W. Newman.

Disasters followed before long as the natural consequence of what was politically a blunder as well as religiously a sin. The strength of the nation rested on its unity, and its unity depended on its faith. Whatever attractions the sensuous ritual which he introduced may have had for the great body of the people, the priests and Levites must have looked on the rival worship with entire disfavor. Dic. B.—There was also an increase in the old evil of disunion in the nation itself. Its chief bond of union lay in its religion; and through the royal tolerance and support of idolatry the religious tie was being rapidly weakened. Would religious men make pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the feasts only to be scandalized when they arrived there by high places for Chemosh and for Molech, “on the hill that is before Jerusalem,” within sight of the temple itself? (verse 7). And if Jerusalem was an offence to them, why should it remain their capital? And what offended religious Israelites did not attract others; for those who lapsed into idolatry could have their own impious altars at home. There was no need to go to the Mount of Olives to worship. Thus for all classes, religious and irreligious alike, the tie that bound them to the capital was fast becoming weaker, and in the next reign it snapped altogether. Plummer.

The man who had been specially favored of God, who on two distinct occasions had been visited by him in dreams or visions of the night, who had built for his worship a temple which was the glory of the kingdom and the wonder of the world, and who in wisdom had excelled all the men of his age—this man was seen going into the temples of Ashtoreth, bowing before the altars of Milcom, burning incense to Chemosh, and even joining in the bloody rites of Molech. It was not the good that sanctified the evil, it was the evil that corrupted the good. An.

He encouraged immorality and cruelty. It must never be forgotten what the “abominations” of these Semitic divinities were like. The idolatry of the East always involved impurity; hence its powerful hold on a nation like the Jews, for whom the worship of “silver and gold, the works of men’s hands,” could have had but little charm. Its “vile affections” (Rom. 1 : 26) were its chief attractions. And Solomon, who knew what the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth meant, who knew how unclean were their rites, and what painful and shameful sacrifices Molech and Chemosh demanded of their votaries, nevertheless gave the word, and presently the hills about Jerusalem were crowned with chapels of devils.

He dishonored the one true God. For if “Polytheism is not exclusive,” Monotheism, in the very nature of things, is and must be. Its basis, its fundamental conception, is that there are not “gods many and lords many.” Its keynote is the Shema Israel (De. 6 : 4), “the Lord our God is one Lord.” It proclaims a “jealous God” who will not give His glory to another, nor His praise to graven images (Is. 42 : 8). But

Solomon robbed Him of His rights; of the exclusive sovereignty and the undivided authority which belonged to Him alone. By building idol altars he claimed homage for idol deities; before the eyes of the Lord’s people, he thrust rivals and pretenders on to the Lord’s throne, and degraded “the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man” (Rom. 1 : 23).

He defied the Holy One of Israel. For these altars of lust and cruelty were not built in a corner. They rose “on the hill that is before Jerusalem;” they fronted the altar of Jehovah; their priests were visible to the priests in the temple court; their smoke ascended to the sky along with the smoke of the daily sacrifice. If insult had been designed, it could hardly have been more open or obtrusive.

And these shrines of infamy were built by the wisest of men, the most enlightened and favored of men, the builder of the temple, the teacher of the Church, and a man who warned others. Furthermore, these degrading results were not occasioned by sudden or special temptation, nor after great trials and adversity, nor in the days of inexperienced and warm-blooded youth. It was when his blood was coolest, his knowledge ripest, his experience most mature, when his riches were most abundant, and his prosperity at the highest. And it was after repeated warnings, from the law of Moses, the special injunctions of David, and the three distinct, supernatural warnings of God; the perfect apprehension of all which warnings he discloses in his own repeated and emphatic admonitions addressed to others. Hammond.

Who can but yearn and fear, to see the woful wreck of so rich and goodly a vessel! O Solomon, wert not thou he, whose younger years God honored with a message and style of love? to whom God twice appeared; and, in a gracious vision, renewed the covenant of his favor? whom he singled out from all the generation of men, to be the founder of that glorious temple, which was no less clearly the type of heaven, than thou wert of Christ, the Son of the ever-living God? Wert not thou that deep sea of wisdom, which God ordained to send forth rivers and fountains, of all Divine and human knowledge to all nations, to all ages? Wert not thou one of those select secretaries, whose hand it pleased the Almighty to employ, in three pieces of the Divine monuments of Sacred Scriptures? Which of us dares ever hope to aspire unto thy graces? Which of us can promise to secure ourselves from thy rains? We fall, O God, we fall to the lowest hell, if thou prevent us not, if thou sustain us not. “Up-hold thou me, according to thy word, that I may live; and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Order my steps in thy word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” All our weakness is in ourselves; all our strength is in thee. O God, be thou strong in our weakness, that our weak knees may be ever steady in thy strength. Bp. II.

The Judgment of Jehovah Announced.

Verses 9-13.

The Divine appearance, first at Gibeon, and then at Jerusalem, after the dedication of the temple, with the warnings given him on both occasions, had left Solomon inexcusable; and it was proper and necessary that on one who had been so signally favored with the gifts of Heaven, but who had grossly abused them, a terrible judgment should fall. The Divine sentence was announced to him probably by Ahijah; but there was mercy mingled with judgment, in the circumstance that it should not be inflicted on Solomon personally—and that a remnant of the kingdom should be spared—“for David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, which had been chosen” to put God’s name there; not from a partial bias in favor of either, but that the Divine promise might stand. Jamieson.

Time was when the Lord loved Solomon (2 S. 12 : 24), and delighted in him (ch. 10 : 9); but now the Lord was angry with Solomon. There was in his sin the most base ingratitude; he turned from the Lord which had appeared unto him twice, once before he began to build the temple, and once after he had dedicated it. God keeps account of the gracious visits he makes us, whether we do or no; knows how often he has appeared to us, and for us, and will remember it against us, if we turn from him. God’s appearing to Solomon, was such a sensible confirmation of his faith, as should have forever prevented his worshipping of any other God; it was also such a distinguishing favor, and put such an honor upon him, as he ought never to have forgotten, especially considering what God said to him in both these appearances. There was also the most wilful disobedience: this was the very thing concerning which God had commanded him—that he should not go after other gods, yet he was not kept right by such an express admonition (verse 10). The sentence is just, that since he had revolted from God, part of his kingdom should revolt from his family; he had given God’s glory to the creature, and therefore God would give his crown to his servant, “I will read the kingdom from thee, in thy posterity, and will give it to thy servant, who shall bear rule over much of that for which thou hast labored.” Yet the mitigations of it are very kind, for David’s sake (verses 12, 13); that is, for the sake of the promise made to David; thus all the favor God shows to man is for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the covenant made with him; the kingdom shall be rent from Solomon’s house, but Solomon shall not live to see it done, but it shall be rent out of the hand of his son, a son that was born to him by one of his strange wives, for his mother was an Ammonitess. One tribe, that of Judah, the strongest and most numerous, shall remain to the house of David (verse 13), for Jerusalem’s sake, which David built, and for the sake of the temple there, which Solomon built, these shall not go into other hands. H.

The execution of the sentence is both delayed and modified. Not in Solomon’s own reign shall the thing be done; “nor shall the kingdom be wholly torn from his house.” This is partly from tender regard for the sacred memory of David his father, and partly, we may believe, in mercy to himself, that space may be given him for repentance. We have here a type and example of the general method of God’s ways. “In wrath he remembers mercy.” Something of gracious forbearance is seen in the severest of His judgments. His chastisements are fatherly. And beneath the darkest providences and the sternest retributions there is the steady flow of a loving-kindness that endures throughout all generations, the strength of a covenant that shall never be broken.

The smile of God that rested as glad sunshine on his head, has turned to “anger.” The cause of the change is in the secrecy of his own soul. The Scripture narrative is silent about the course of his inner life, the phases of thought and feeling through which he may have passed; so that this sudden note of discord in the midst of the harmony strikes us with something of sad surprise. Enough, however, is said to show that it was a moral change in the man himself. The Lord God of Israel had not changed in his purpose or method; it is Solomon whose “heart is turned from him.” How far this was a fatal change, a real apostasy, we know not. We need not attempt to solve the purely speculative question as to whether he ever recovered from his fall; his later writings suggest at least the hope that it was so. Waite.

The Course and Steps of Solomon’s Fall.

It is not difficult to conjecture what was the first beginning of declension on Solomon’s part. We find it in the erection of the palaces, or rather in the carnal mind and the self-love and the desire for ostentation which led to their erection. Solomon is now no longer the “little child” he once was. Now that he has “strengthened himself,” like his son after him, he begins to forget his God and to forsake His law. It has been promised him that he shall exceed all other kings in wisdom and riches and honor; but this is not enough for him, he must surpass them also in the outward tokens of wealth and power. His palaces, to begin with, must be greater than theirs. He no longer covets the best gifts. The fine gold is become dim. Still, so far, there has been no deliberate, or perhaps even conscious infraction of the law—only the worldly and selfish mind.

It is impossible to say in what precise order the records of Solomon’s reign are to be arranged, but it is probable that the next downward step is to be traced in the alliance in which he engaged with the Tyrians. Contact and copartnership with idolaters could hardly be for the advantage of the faith. Nor is it difficult to see that Solomon’s commerce grew at the expense of his religion. Riches, proverbially a dangerous possession, were with him—wise though he was—a step toward utter ruin. All the time that his fleets were ploughing the main, that caravans of merchants were filling his store cities, that he was driving bargains with the Syrians and Hittites, leanness was spreading in his soul—he was becoming more and more a secular prince. And yet this commerce, it is easy to see, may have been in its commencement unexceptionable. Possibly it was in part undertaken to provide gold for the embellishment of the temple. But it soon engendered, if, indeed, it was not engendered by, that “love of money which is the root of all evil.” As Solomon grew richer he loved riches more. Verse 23 is full of significance. “So Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and wisdom.” Time was when wisdom held the first place (ch. 3 : 11). And so it came to pass that he who at first was “rich toward God,” and who, like David his father, had only accumulated gold for the glory of the sanctuary, proceeded to “multiply silver and gold to himself” (De. 17 : 17).

And so the years passed by. To all outward appearance his glory and magnificence increased. It is very suggestive to consider how hollow was that prosperity which was the marvel of the world, and how that wisdom which was so renowned was foolishness with God.

The court became more splendid, more voluptuous, more dazzling, but the man became year by year poorer and meaner and baser. It only needed one step more—and apparently he was not long in taking that—to complete his defection. The other monarchs of his time had their seraglios. It was necessary that he, too, should have an establishment of this kind, and he must have it even greater than theirs. He knew that the law forbade the multiplication of wives, but he had violated the law already; he might just as well do it again. And so the Lord’s anointed gathered round him in the holy city a thousand strange, immodest women. His fleets and merchants brought him mistresses from every land. And they brought with them their foreign rites, and the effeminate king was taken captive by their charms, and they had their way, and nothing would suffice them but he must tolerate their religion, and what he did for one he must do for all, and so the end of sin and shame is reached, and the decline becomes a fall, and “the darling of Jehovah,” the wisest of men, the representative of Heaven, the builder of the temple, the type of our Lord, builds altars to the “abominations” of Moab and Ammon “in the hill that is before Jerusalem.” Hammond.

So fatally may the noblest personal endowments and the richest advantages of life foster the evil tendencies of the heart when once it has surrendered itself to their control. If it be true that “there is a soul of goodness in things evil,” it is equally true that nothing is so good but that the spirit of evil may transform it into an instrument of moral injury. The fascinations of outward life are full of danger when that spirit lurks within. The wealth of a man’s intellectual resources, the multitude of his possessions, the range of his influence, do but put into his hands the more abundant means of wrong-doing when his heart is not loyal to the good and true. Waite.

Causes of His Fall.

How came this wisest of men, without fellow before or since, whose wisdom was so profound, so real, so boundless, whose wisdom came from God and led to God, and who though dead yet speaketh, how came he of all men to go astray? Was it not—

Because the heart was not kept. The intellect, i.e., was developed and cultivated at the expense or to the neglect of the spiritual life. “His wives turned away his heart.” But how came one of so much wisdom to let his wives turn it away? Because the wisdom had dwarfed and overshadowed the soul; because the moral did not keep pace with the intellectual growth, and it became flaccid and yielding. It is dangerous for wisdom to increase unless piety increases with it. The higher the tower, the broader should be its foundations. If all the weight and width is at the top, it will come to the ground with a crash. Even so, if wisdom is not to destroy its possessor, the basis of love and piety must be broadened. “Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up.” The head of a colossus needs the trunk of a colossus to sustain it.

Because his own precepts were not kept. It was because he leaned to his own understanding that this giant form fell prostrate. It was because he forgot his warnings against the strange woman that he fell a prey to strange women. The keeper of the vineyards did not keep his own (Cant. 1: 6). He was not true to himself, and he soon proved false to his God. After preaching to others, he himself became a cast-away. A solemn warning this to every preacher and teacher.

Because pride poisoned his wisdom and perverted his gifts. There was no decay of mental power; the force was unabated, but it was misdirected. Pride took her place at the helm. It is pride, not sensuality, accounts for his army of wives and concubines. But if pride brought them, pleasure kept them. Hammond.

Its Chief Lesson.

Solomon’s great sin was the encouragement and the establishment of idolatry in and about Jerusalem. The great providential purpose of Israel was the maintenance of faith in, and worship of, one true God. It was to this inheritance of faith and duty, consecrated by the struggles of so many generations, that Solomon had succeeded. The building of the temple was the great work of his life, and it is this fall which throws his later apostasy into such painful relief. The temptation came to him chiefly through his affections. Solomon’s wives could do what probably no one man in his empire could possibly have done—they perverted the heart of the wisest of men.

Solomon’s fall was not prevented by his old age, nor by his knowledge, nor by previous sincerity. We have no means of solving the question of Solomon’s final salvation; but this is certain, that his sin brought its penalty in this world: “I will surely rend the kingdom from him.” The practical lesson of such a fall as Solomon’s is, that perseverance in God’s service is not a matter of course with any one of us, but that it is a distinct gift or grace of God, to be secured by watchfulness and prayer. We who are neither kings nor sages may well take warning by this history of the wisest of kings. Let us watch the issues, we can never fully explore the depths of these hearts of ours. Let us grasp the hands that were pierced in mercy for us on the cross. Let us look constantly, humbly, to God, as the source of our strength. H. P. L.

ADVERSARIES TO SOLOMON RAISED UP BY JEHOVAH: HADAD THE EDOMITE, REZON OF DAMASCUS, AND JEROBOAM, AN EPHRAIMITE.

1. K. 11 : 14** And the LORD raised up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite : 15 he was of the king’s seed in Edom. For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, and had smitten every male in Edom ; 16 (for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom ;) that Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, to go into Egypt ; Hadad being yet a little child. And they arose out of Midian, and came to Paran : and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt, unto Pharaoh king of Egypt ; which gave him an house, and appointed him victuals, and gave him land. 19 And Hadad found great favor in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him to wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen. And the sister of Tahpenes bare him Genubath his son, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house : and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh. And when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers, and that Joab the captain of the host was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, Let me depart, that I may go to mine own country. Then Pharaoh said unto him, But what hast thou lacked with me, that, behold, thou seekest to go to thine own country? And he answered, Nothing : howbeit let me depart in any wise. 23 And God raised up another adversary unto him, Rezon the son of Eliada, which had fled from his lord Hadadezer king of Zobah : and he gathered men unto him, and became captain over a troop, when David slew them of Zobah ; and they went to Damascus, and dwelt therein, and reigned in Damascus. And he was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon, beside the mischief that Hadad did : and he abhorred Israel, and reigned over Syria. 26 And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow woman, he also lifted up his hand against the king. And this was the cause that he lifted up his hand against the king : Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breach of the city of David his father. And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor : and Solomon saw the young man that he was industrious, and he gave him charge over all the labor of the house of Joseph. And it came to pass at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way ; now Ahijah had clad himself with a new garment ; and they two were alone in the field. And Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces ; for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee : (but he shall have one tribe, for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel ;) because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon ; and they have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father. Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand : but I will make him prince all the days of his life, for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept my command-

35 ments and my statutes : but I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it 36 unto thee, even ten tribes. And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a lamp alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my 37 name there. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul de- 38 sireth, and shalt be king over Israel. And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that which is right in mine eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did ; that I will be with thee, and 39 will build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee. And I will 40 for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever. Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam ; but Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

Solomon’s adversaries. As the historian has collected together in chaps. 6, 7, 8, all the information he can convey respecting the temple, and in chaps. 9, 10, all the scattered notices respecting Solomon’s power and greatness, so here he arranges in one section the history of Solomon’s adversaries. It must not be supposed that the following records stand in due chronological order. The enmities here mentioned did not date from the delivery of the message of which we have just heard ; on the contrary, the hatred and opposition of Hadad and Rezon began at an early period, though not the earliest (ch. 5 : 4), of Solomon’s reign. It was only in his later life, however, that they materially affected his position and rule ; hence it is that they are brought before us at this stage of the history, and also because they are manifestly regarded as chastisements for Solomon’s sin. Hammond.

Solomon’s sin shall not escape the rod of men. Rather than so wise an offender shall want enemies, God shall raise up three adversaries unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite, Rezon the king of Aram, Jeroboam the son of Nebat ; whereof two were foreign, one an Israelite. Nothing but love and peace sounded in the name of Solomon ; nothing else was found in his reign while he held in good terms with his God ; but when once he fell foul with his Maker all things began to be troubled. There are whips laid up against the time of Solomon’s foreseen offence, which are now brought forth for his correction. On purpose was Hadad the son of the king of Edom hid in a corner of Egypt from the sword of David and Joab, that he might be reserved for a scourge to the exorbitant son of David. God would have us make account, that our peace ends with our innocence. The same sin that sets debate betwixt God and us arms the creatures against us. Bp. H.

14. Ill-suppressed enmity in Edom (far southeast) and more active opposition and intrigue at Damascus (in the northeast)—in short, the danger of a combination like that which had so severely taxed the resources of David : such, so far as concerned external politics, were the darkening prospects of Solomon’s later years. But the terms in which Holy Scripture speaks of these events deserve special notice. We are told, that “Jehovah stirred up” or, rather, “raised up” these adversaries unto Solomon (verses 14, 23). The expression clearly points to Divine Causality in the matter (comp. De. 18 : 15, 18 ; Ju. 2 : 18 ; 1 S. 2 : 35 ; Jer. 29 : 15 ; Ezek. 34 : 23). Not, indeed, that the ambitious or evil passions of men’s hearts are incited of God, but that while each, in the exercise of his free will, chooses his own course, the Lord overrules all, so as to serve for the chastisement of sin and the carrying out of His own purposes (comp. Ps. 2 : 1, 2 ; Is. 10 : 1-3). A. E.

15-21. Story of Hadad. In Joab’s ruthless war of extermination against Edom (verses 15, 16), the king of Edom seems to have been slain, and all his immediate household, save this then infant prince, Hadad. Some faithful servants carried off their young master, and being joined by other fugitives on the road, went down into Egypt. The king of that country received the young prince with truly royal hospitality and consideration. He assigned to him and his followers a suitable provision : “he gave him a house, appointed him victuals, and gave him land ;” and when Hadad grew up, he bestowed upon him the sister of his queen Tahpenes in marriage. By her he had a son, Genubath, who as soon as he was old enough to be separated from his mother, was removed to the royal palace, where he was weaned by the queen and brought up with the royal children. When Hadad reached to riper years, the keen remembrance of his native land, his lost kingdom, and the slaughter of all his house, gathered strength within him ; and all the ease and princely honor which he enjoyed in Egypt, availed not against the claims of ambition, vengeance, and patriotism. He dreamed of recovering the throne of his fathers; he dreamed of exacting stern vengeance for the blood of his kin and country; he dreamed of making to himself a name like unto the names of the great ones that were upon the earth. These things he dreamed, and

“Dreams grow realities to earnest men.”

And he was earnest. It was not without difficulty that he obtained leave of the Egyptian king, by whom he had been so generously entertained, to take his departure. It does not appear that he ventured fully to disclose his real objects, for which a reason may be found in the fact that this king was in amicable relations with Solomon, and the same, apparently, whose daughter had been espoused to the Hebrew king.

Proceeding to Edom, the attempts which Hadad made to recover his kingdom seem to have given considerable trouble to the Hebrew government; but the strong garrisons which David had left in the land, and which Solomon maintained there, prevented them from being successful. Seeing that his case was for the time hopeless in that quarter, Hadad, instead of returning to Egypt, determined to push his fortunes in another direction. He therefore went and joined himself to Rezon, who had already given considerable disturbance to Solomon’s power in Syria. This Rezon had some command under that great Hadadezer, king of Zobah, whose overthrow formed one of the most renowned military acts of David’s reign. It seems that, on the defeat of the Syrian host, Rezon succeeded in drawing off the force under his command, and enlisting their service in his own interest. Subsisting them for a time in the wilderness by the then common method of predatory warfare, he gradually acquired a sort of fixed power over a portion of Syria nearest to the desert, and eventually established a kingdom, of which Damascus became the capital. All this could not have been effected without much loss and disadvantage to the Hebrew king, especially by interrupting his communication with Tadmor and the Euphrates, and by harassing, if not destroying, the important trade established on that line of route.

It was to this prince that Hadad carried his sword when he found that he could not employ it with any advantage in Edom. Hadad seems to have been a very engaging or very plausible person, for he is well received and wins high favor wherever he goes. Rezon gave him and his followers a most encouraging reception, and afforded them assistance in establishing themselves in another and neighboring portion of Syria, where Hadad seems to have had ample opportunities of disturbing the peace of Solomon. Nor is this all: for when Rezon died, Hadad added his dominions to his own; and thus became the virtual founder of that important kingdom of Damascene-Syria, which we afterward find in powerful and often successful warfare with the Israelites. Hadad was, on account of his success and his royal qualities, so much honored by his successors, that Ben-Hadad, “son of Hadad,” became a common name among them, if, indeed, it was not made an official title, like that of Pharaoh in Egypt.

The reader will not find all this in Scripture, for the intimations respecting Hadad and Rezon, and, in particular, respecting the connection between them, are too brief; but these facts appear plainly in the succeeding history. Kit.

These hostile neighbors, who had been long kept in check by the traditional fame of David’s victories, took courage, and breaking out toward the latter end of Solomon’s reign, must have not only disturbed his kingdom by their inroads, but greatly crippled his revenue by stopping his lucrative traffic with Tadmor and the Euphrates. Jamieson.

Verses 26-40.

We have here the first mention of that infamous name, Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that made Israel to sin; he is here brought upon the stage as an adversary to Solomon, whom God had expressly told, that he would give the greatest part of his kingdom to his servant, and Jeroboam was the man. H. —Jeroboam was an internal enemy of a still more formidable character. He was a young man of talent and energy, who, having been appointed by Solomon superintendent of the engineering works projected around Jerusalem, had risen into public notice, and on being informed by a very significant act of the prophet Ahijah of the royal destiny which, by Divine appointment, awaited him, his mind took a new turn. Jamieson.

In order to give still more weight to this announcement, the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh discharges his commission to Jeroboam by a symbolical action, followed by an explanatory statement, as the prophets were often accustomed to do. Verses 34-36 append to verse 32 the precise determination that Solomon shall remain prince during life, and that the separation of the ten tribes from his kingdom shall take place only under his son; both of these from regard to David, who was chosen to be prince and kept the commandments of God. For his sake also Solomon’s son is to retain one tribe, that David may have a light alway before the Lord in Jerusalem, the chosen city—that is, that he may never fail in a successor to the throne in Jerusalem. The promise that a light should remain to David, which is repeated four times afterward, is explained by 2 S. 21 : 17, where David is called the light of Israel, which he was only through the Lord, inasmuch as God himself was his light (2 S. 22 : 29); or, as it is in the parallel passage (Ps. 18 : 29), the Lord had made his light clear and his darkness light—that is, had raised him from a state of humility and poverty to high honor and great prosperity, for the lighting of the light is a figure of great prosperity, as the extinguishing of it is a figure of adversity (verses 37-39). The condition on which Jeroboam’s prosperity is to rest is the same under which the continuance of his sovereignty was promised to Solomon also—namely, true obedience to the commandments of God and upright walking in the ways of the Lord. Jeroboam did not fulfil this condition, and therefore his house was extirpated under his son. Keil.

The story, and the prediction connected with it, probably reached the king’s ears, and Jeroboam became a marked man. His aspiring ambition, impatient for the death of Solomon, led him to form plots and conspiracies, in consequence of which he was compelled to flee to Egypt. Though chosen of God, he would not wait the course of God’s providence, and therefore incurred the penalty of death by his criminal rebellion. The heavy exactions and compulsory labor (verse 28) which Solomon latterly imposed upon his subjects, when his foreign resources began to fail, had prepared the greater part of the kingdom for a revolt under so popular a demagogue as Jeroboam. Jamieson.—His power became shorn at the borders, and eventually shaken at home, where the discontinuance of many outer supplies of revenue, and probably the interruption of his various lines of trade—no longer in his undisputed possession—urged him, not to economy and retrenchment, but to make good the deficiency by the taxation of his subjects. Kit.

The burden which the new monarch imposed on the people must, in the course of time, have weighed heavily upon them. The succession of great architectural undertakings in Jerusalem and its neighborhood, as well as the building of extensive cities and storehouses all over the land, however useful and necessary some of these might be, involved a long continuance of forced labor, wholly foreign to the spirit of a free people, and which diverted from their proper channels the industrial forces of the country. Nor was this all. The support of such a king and court must have proved a heavy demand on the resources of the nation. To have to pay enormous taxes, and for many long years to be deprived during so many months of the heads and the bread-winners of the family, that they might do what seemed slaves’ labor for the glorification of a king, whose rule was every year becoming weaker, would have excited dissatisfaction even among a more enduring people than those tribes who had so long enjoyed the freedom and the privileges of a federated Republic. It only needed a leader, and once more Ephraim furnished him. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat and of a widow named Zeruah, was a native of Zereda or Zererath, within the territory of Ephraim. The sacred text describes him as a “mighty man of valor.” His energy, talent, and aptitude pointed him out as a fit permanent overseer of the forced labor of his tribe. It was a dangerous post to assign to a man of such power and ambition. His tribesmen, as a matter of course, came to know him as their chief and leader, while in daily close intercourse he would learn their grievances and sentiments. In such circumstances the result which followed was natural. The bold, strong, and ambitious Ephraimite, “ruler over all the burden of the house of Joseph,” became the leader of the popular movement against Solomon.

It was, no doubt, in order to foment the elements of discontent already existing, as well as because his position in the city must have become untenable, that “Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem” (verse 29). When “the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way, Jeroboam had already planned, or rather commenced, his revolt against Solomon. Himself an Ephraimite (from Shiloh), the prophet would not only be acquainted with Jeroboam, but also know the sentiments of his tribesmen and the views of their new leader. It was not, therefore, Ahijah who incited Jeroboam to rebellion by the symbolical act of rending his new garment in twelve pieces, giving him ten of the pieces, while those retained were emblematic of what would be left to the house of David. Rather did he act simply as the Divine messenger to Jeroboam, after the latter had resolved on his own course. The event was, indeed, ordered of God in punishment of the sin of Solomon (verses 11-13); and the intimation of this fact, with its lessons of warning, was the principal object of Ahijah’s mission and message. But the chief actor had long before chosen his own part, being prompted, as Holy Scripture puts it, by a settled ambition to usurp the throne (verse 37); while the movement of which he took advantage was not only the result of causes long at work, but might almost have been forecast by any observer acquainted with the state of matters. Thus we learn once more how, in the Providence of God, a result which, when predicted, seems miraculous, and is really such, so far as the Divine operation is concerned, is brought about, not only through the free agency of man, but by a series of natural causes while at the same time all is guided and overruled of God for His own wise and holy purposes.

Indeed, closely considered, the words of the prophet, so far from inciting Jeroboam to rebellion against Solomon, should rather have deterred him from it. The scene is sketched in vivid outline: Jeroboam, in whose soul tribal pride, disgust at his work, contempt for the king, irrepressible energy, and high-reaching ambition, combined with a knowledge of the feelings of his tribesmen, have ripened into stern resolve, has left Jerusalem. The time for secret intrigue and dissimulation is past; that for action has arrived. As he leaves the hated city-walls—memorials of Ephraim’s servitude—and ascends toward the heights of Benjamin and Ephraim, a strange figure meets him. It is his countryman from Shiloh, the prophet Ahijah. No salutation passes between them, but Ahijah takes hold of the new square cloth or upper mantle in which he has been wrapped, and rends it in twelve pieces. It is not, as usually, in token of mourning, though sadness must have been in the prophet’s heart, but as a symbol of what is to happen—as it were, God’s answer to Jeroboam’s thoughts. Yet the judgment predicted is not to take effect in Solomon’s lifetime (verses 34, 35); and any attempt at revolt, such as Jeroboam seems to have made (verses 26, 40), was in direct contravention of God’s declared will. Unlike David, who, though anointed king, would make no attempt upon the crown during Saul’s lifetime, Jeroboam, despite the express warning of God, “lifted up his hand against the king.” The result was failure and flight into Egypt. Nor did Jeroboam keep the statutes and commandments of the Lord; and after a brief reign his son fell by the hand of the assassin (1 K. 15: 28). Lastly, and most important of all—the Messianic bearing of the promise to David, and the Divine choice of Jerusalem and its Temple, were fatally put aside or forgotten by Jeroboam and his successors on the throne of Israel. The schism in the kingdom became one from the Theocracy; and the rejection of the central Sanctuary resulted, as might have been expected, in the establishment of idolatry in Israel. A. E.

1. That which he suffered in his own person.

His life was shortened. Probably by the operation of natural laws. It is not suggested that he was directly smitten of God; it is quite possible that his rank voluptuousness destroyed his energies and induced premature decay. But his days were cut short. Not only was long life the principal sanction of the dispensation under which he lived, but it had been expressly promised him as the reward of piety. But his sun went down while it was yet noon. He was not sixty when the mandate went forth, “Remove the diadem, and take off the crown” (Ez. 21: 26). And if it be true, what Dr. Johnson said to David Garrick when the latter showed him his elegant house at Richmond, that great and rare earthly possessions “make deathbeds miserable,” it must have cost Solomon a sharp pang to leave so soon his cedar palace and his chryselephantine throne.

His life was embittered. If, as is most probable, we have in the Book of Ecclesiastes a chapter of his autobiography, it is clear that his glory brought him little satisfaction; there was a worm at the root of all his pleasures. Of what avail were his houses, his gardens, his pools of water, so long as he had not the heart to enjoy them?

“It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch’d or happy, rich or poor, For some, that hath abundance at his will, Hath not enough, but seeks a greater store.”

He knew nothing of “the royalty of inward happiness.” How different Paul, “Having nothing, yet possessing all things,” etc. (2 Cor. 6: 10). What a commentary on the “confessions” of Solomon, as they have been called, with their everlasting refrain, their vanitas vanitatum, is that confession of a man who suffered one long martyrdom of pain—the Baptist minister, Robert Hall—“I enjoy everything.”

He was tortured by remorse. This surely may with good reason be inferred. For the wisest of men could not be so insensate, when he heard the message of doom, as not to reflect how different his end was to be from his beginning; how fair the flower and how bitter the fruit. Surely the cry he has put into others’ lips would often rise from his own, “How have I hated instruction,” etc. (Prov. 5 : 12).

He was haunted by forebodings. “This great Babylon” which he had builded, how soon should it be destroyed. The empire which he had consolidated should barely last his life. “One tribe”—how those words would ring in his ears! Then he had good reason, too, to fear that his son was one of the class he had himself described (Prov. 10 : 1 ; 15 ; 20 ; 17 ; 25 ; 29 ; 13), and no match for Jeroboam, of whose designs upon the throne he cannot have been ignorant. He had the mortification of knowing that his “servant” would enter into his labors. And to the prospect of dissensions within was added the certainty of disaffection without. Hadad and Rezon were already on his border, and were only biding their time. The political horizon was, indeed, black and lowering.

2. The calamities which befell Solomon’s house and kingdom.

In the infatuation of his son. Was there ever a political crisis so wofully mismanaged as that which marked Rehoboam’s accession? A few pacific words, a graceful concession, and all would have gone well. But his brutal obstinacy precipitated his downfall. It is for us to remember that “his mother’s name was Naamah, an Ammonitess.” And this is the result of multiplying wives.

In the dismemberment of his kingdom. The vast empire which Solomon had founded with so much care and pains, how short a time sufficed to tear it asunder. What a contrast between the “one tribe,” with its barren territory, and the description of ch. 4 : 20, 21. How had he spent his strength for naught, or rather for his slave Jeroboam, who inherited all the fairest and wealthiest portions of the realm.

In the invasion of Shishak. For he had not long slept with his fathers when the vast treasures which he had lavished on the palace of the Lord and his own palaces were carried away to Egypt. All the precious metals which David had accumulated, all the acquisitions of Solomon’s mon’s fleets, all the royal offerings of the queen of Sheba and of tributary kings—gone to the sons of the stranger, to the swart children of Ham. He had amassed prodigious wealth, but it was for aliens and enemies. Not only the shields and drinking vessels, but the candlesticks, bowls, and the very laminae which had glorified the sanctuary, all fell to the invader. And this was the end of multiplying silver and gold to himself. He had put it all into a bag with holes (Hag. 1 : 6).

In the demoralization of his people. For the idolatries of Judah, the images, the groves, the Sodomites (ch. 14 : 23), were but the continuation and development of the idolatries which Solomon had inaugurated. His son did but reap the crop which himself had sown. Nay, so exact is the lex talionis that we presently find a queen of Judah erecting a “horror” for the most shameful of rites (ch. 15 : 13). And this was the result of building altars for his queens and princesses “on the hill that is before Jerusalem,” that within a few years the Lord’s people, whose was the law and the temple, built them high places, “on every high hill and under every green tree” (ch. 14 : 23).

In the captivity of the nation. For the dispersion and enslavement of the Jewish people, though consummated some four centuries later, and though it was the retribution of a long series of sins, was, nevertheless, in a sense, the result of Solomon’s sin. That is to say, his sin was (as ch. 9, verses 6, 7 show) the first beginning of that ever-deepening apostasy from the Lord, of which the captivity was, from the first, denounced as the punishment. Other princes, no doubt, followed in his steps and filled up the measure of iniquity, but the Grand Monarque of their race had first showed them the way. And so the people who had held sway even to the Euphrates were carried beyond the Euphrates, and those who had seen subject kings in their land became subjects in a foreign land (Jer. 5 : 19). How full of instruction and warning is it that the captivity which Solomon foretold (ch. 8 : 46) he should have done so much to precipitate. He predicted both his own and his nation’s downfall. Hammond.

1. K. 11 : 41** Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the 42 acts of Solomon? And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was 43 forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father : and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

2. Chron. 9 : 29** Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat? And Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel 31 forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his father : and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

Solomon died at Jerusalem in the fortieth year of his reign, and was buried in the royal sepulchre in the city of David. The history of his reign was written by the prophets Nathan and Ahijah, by Iddo the seer, in his “Visions against Jeroboam,” and in the “Book of the Acts of Solomon.” The first three works probably formed the basis of the narrative in the First Book of Kings; while the substance of the last is preserved in epitome in the Second Book of Chronicles. Notwithstanding his immense harem, we only read of his having one son, his successor Rehoboam, the son of Naamah, a princess of Ammon. P. S.

Nor did King Solomon either live or die as his father David. A feeble attempt—perhaps justifiable—to rid himself of Jeroboam, and no more is told of him than that, at the close of a reign of forty years, he “slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father.” So far as we know, in that death-chamber no words of earnest, loving entreaty to serve Jehovah were spoken to his successor, such as David had uttered ; no joyous testimony here as regarded the past, nor yet strong faith and hope as concerned the future, such as had brightened the last hours of David. It is to us a silent death-chamber in which King Solomon lay. No bright sunset here, to be followed by a yet more glorious morning. He had done more than any king to denationalize Israel. And on the morrow of his death, rebellion within the land ; outside its borders, Edom and Syria ready to spring to arms, Egypt under Shishak gathering up its might ; and only a Rehoboam to hold the rudder of the State in the rising storm. A. E.

From whatever cause, the one institution of the Jewish commonwealth which received no visible growth or encouragement during Solomon’s reign, was the Prophetical order. Of Nathan, his Prophet-teacher, we hear nothing after his inauguration, except that the Prophet’s two sons, Azariah and Zabud, held, as we have seen, distinguished offices in the court, and that Solomon’s reign was partially recorded by Nathan. The only Prophet who takes an active part, and that quite in the close of the reign, is Ahijah of Shiloh. It is not clear whether it was through his mouth in the first instance, or through a dream, as in the earlier periods of Solomon’s life, that the Divine intimation was conveyed, announcing the disruption of his kingdom and the fall of his house. But in either case, it was a significant token of the approaching calamity, that the Prophet once more, as in the time of Saul, stood opposed to the King. Stanley.

As to the inner changes of mind and heart which ran parallel with this history, Scripture is comparatively silent. Something may be learned from the books that bear his name (Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs), which stand in the Canon of the Old Testament as representing, with profound, inspired insight, the successive phases of his life ; something also from the fact that so little remains out of so much, out of the songs, proverbs, treatises of which the historian speaks. The books that remain, as has been said, represent the three stages of his life. The Song of Songs brings before us the brightness of his youth. Then comes in the Book of Proverbs, the stage of practical, prudential thought. The poet has become the philosopher, the mystic has passed into the moralist. But the man passed through both stages without being permanently the better for either. They were to him but phases of his life which he had known and exhausted (Ec. 1; 2). And therefore there came, as in the Confessions of the Preacher, the weariness which sees written on all things, “Vanity of vanities.” Slowly only could he recover from that “vexation of spirit,” and lay again, with painful relapses, the foundations of a true morality. The teaching of the New Testament adds nothing to the materials for a life of Solomon, but it enables us to take the truest measure of it. The teaching of the Son of Man passes sentence on all that kingly pomp: Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of the lilies of the field. Jesus of Nazareth was one “greater than Solomon.” It was reserved for the true, the later Son of David, to fulfil the prophetic yearnings which had gathered round the birth of the earlier. He was the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace; the true Jedidiah, the well-beloved of the Father. Dic. B.

Although Solomon’s reign lasted forty years, he was only about sixty at his death. The promise, “I will lengthen thy days,” was not fulfilled, because the condition attached to it was not kept. Never was a brighter morning of life followed by a sadder sunset. Generals of tried ability and statesmen of wide experience maintained the dignity of the crown in his early years. At his death he had no generals to lean on or to recommend his successor to; while his counsellors were discredited by the policy which had brought the kingdom to ruin, and which, if they did not support, they were powerless to prevent. Wealth, wisdom, resources of all kinds, had blessed the commencement of his reign. Utter failure of every plan and of every hope darkened its close. Solomon received a mighty empire from his father; he bequeathed to his son a tottering throne, a kingdom crumbling away at the extremities and assailed at the heart. The causes of this complete failure in administration are not difficult of discovery. One word sums them up in the thoughts of the historian. That word is apostasy. Cause and effect were closely joined together in Solomon’s fall. Ill-treatment of his brethren preceded; disregard of Jehovah followed. Slowly but surely the end came, apostasy from the faith and the breaking up of the kingdom. The brightness of poetic genius, with its keen love of nature’s sights and sounds as evidenced in the Song of Songs, could not save king or kingdom. Philosophic reflection on the vanity of all things, and especially of a ceaseless round of pleasure, was equally unavailing. By failing to obey the great law of doing good to all men, he soon failed to do good to himself. But that law of the Hebrew faith could not be broken without entailing a departure, which ever grew greater, from the law of God. And so the end came to Solomon in the sorrow and in the shame of apostasy from the faith. Three centuries and a half after his death, while his greatness and his wisdom were still acknowledged, a memorial of the ruin caused by his apostasy is seen in the name given to the mount “on the east of Jerusalem,” which, from his time downward, had been polluted with the worst forms of heathenism—“The Destroyer’s Hill!” Sime.

A bright morning that promised the best thing was soon sullied; and, if the noon is brilliant, it shines with a sickly and pretentious glare, and not with the clear, full radiance of the sunlight that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The life of Solomon, in its general aspect, as it is portrayed to us in Scripture, is sadly like that of a worldling and a voluptuary. We do not discover, indeed, that the sense of God and his claims ever wholly forsook him; but if the good seed still grew, it was among thorns, so surrounded with “cares and pleasures of this life” as to mature no excellent fruit. Luxury and splendor blinded his eyes and hardened his heart. His domestic life became encumbered with an overgrown seraglio. The means of unlimited indulgence, love of luxury and display, had intoxicated him, and shut out God and spiritual interest from his soul. And here the direct testimony of history leaves him with all the bright auguries of his early life hidden under a dismal eclipse, and he recites as the experience of his life “vanity of vanity.” Hallam.

He did not obey his own maxim. He ceased to rejoice with the wife of his youth; and, loving many strangers, they drew his heart away from God. Luxury and sinful attachments made him an idolater, and idolatry made him yet more licentious; until, in the lazy enervation and languid day-dreaming of the Sybarite, he lost the perspicacity of the sage, and the prowess of the sovereign; and when he woke up from the swoon, he woke to find his faculties, once so clear and limpid, all perturbed, his strenuous reason paralyzed, and his healthful fancy poisoned. He woke to find the world grown hollow and himself grown old. He woke to see the sun bedarkened in Israel’s sky and a special gloom encompassing himself. He woke to recognize all round a sadder sight than winter—a blasted summer. Like a deluded Samson starting from his slumber, he felt for that noted wisdom which signalized his Nazarite days; but its locks were shorn; and, cross and self-disgusted, wretched and guilty, he woke up to the discovery which awaits the sated sensualist; he found that when the beast gets the better of the man, the man is cast off by God. Hamilton.

Of Solomon’s last days and death we know nothing. If the traditional belief, that the Book of Ecclesiastes is his confession of the vanity of his life, is correct, we are still far from knowing in what state he died. The book itself is an enigma. But whatever be the interpretation of its half melancholy, half-scornful estimate of life in general, and specially of the Preacher’s own, how different is it from the fifty-first Psalm! In his persistence in sin and in the gloominess of his repentance Solomon is utterly unlike his father. There is a calculating reflectiveness about the Preacher’s recantation, as apparently also about his sins, which forms the strongest contrast to the passionate yearning with which the Psalmist flings himself and his sin before Jehovah, and leaves all to Him. This, then, is the mournful conclusion: the wisest, wealthiest, and most powerful king of the noblest nation—at that time the only noble nation—in the world, at the most glorious period of its career, writes this at the end of a long life and reign as the sum of his experiences: “All is vanity.” Plummer.

Solomon is the man who excels more through knowledge and science than through deeply rooted piety; the man of Proverbs more than of Psalms; the builder of the temple indeed, but not, therefore, the devoted priest of the Lord. Is he not in this respect the type of numbers in our time, whose intellect is more fully developed than their moral being, the direction of whose life is eminently practical, but still not really in the fear of God; who can dilate with eloquence on the idea of God, but who cannot abide the claim of personal fellowship with him? Solomon’s history shows that no intellectual gifts, however brilliant, can compensate for the want of a faithful, undivided heart. Van O.

Human history can present no spectacle so strange and so awful as that of a wise man making of himself a fool. Solomon did that; and he was a wise man, even the wisest of men. If the deep sagacity of Solomon—if his keen discernment—if his strong reason—if his profound knowledge of human life and character—if even his intimate acquaintance with the law and counsels of the Lord—did not preserve his name from that stamp of “foolishness” which we find impressed upon so many of the great names and great acts of men, who is there that can hope to stand? Not one, as of himself; but there is without us and above us a power that can exalt even the lowly to high things, and can sustain them in all true wisdom, so long as they rest upon it, and think not that the light which shines upon their path and glorifies their way, shines out of themselves, and not into them. Solomon was wise; Solomon was foolish. Astonishing contradiction and contrast of terms! Yet it does not astonish us, though it may astonish angels. We are used to this kind of experience. We see it—the same in kind, if not in degree—every day; and that which would amaze us from any other point of view than that from which we look, becomes familiar to our thoughts. We see men who are foolish without being wise; but we see not one who is wise without being also foolish. It is “foolishness,” and not wisdom, that “is bound up in the heart of a child.” Foolishness, which every man certainly has, is his nature; wisdom, if he has it, is a gift bestowed upon him—bestowed as freely upon him as it was upon Solomon. The wisdom does not suppress or drive out the foolishness, but is a weapon—it may be a staff, it may be a glittering sword—given into his hands to fight against it, to keep it under; a weapon to be used with daily and ever-watchful vigilance, and not to rest idly in the scabbard. This was king Solomon’s fault. Having been victor in many a deadly fray, until victory became easy and habitual, he forgot that the enemy of his greatness and peace still lived—was not mortally wounded—did not even sleep. He suffered his weapon to rest until its keen edge was corroded—until it clung in rust to the scabbard, and could not be drawn forth.

If there be on earth one sight more sorrowful than that of wisdom become foolishness—or, rather, suffering foolishness to be victorious,—it is that of the fall of an old man whose youth had been promising, and whose manhood glorious and beautiful. Yet this also was the case of Solomon, and the thought of it is enough to draw forth most bitter tears. The fall of an old tree, or of some noble old ruin, is beheld with some regret, but it occasions no rending of heart. It was their doom. Age ripened them but for their fall; and we wondered more that they stood so long, than that they fell so soon. But man is expected to ripen in moral and religious strength, to harden into rock-like fixedness as his age increases. He whom we have looked up to so long,—he whose words were wise as oracles, and from whose lips we had so long gathered wisdom,—he who had borne noble testimonies for the truth,—he who had labored for the glory of God, who had withstood many storms of human passion and many temptations of human glory, and in whose capacious mind are garnered up the fruits of a life’s knowledge and experience,—for such a man to fall from his high place fills the most firm of heart with dread, and makes the moral universe tremble. It is altogether terrible. It is a calamity to mankind; it is more than that;—it is a shame, a wrong, and a dishonor. The righteous hide their heads and the perverse exult;—hell laughs.

There is something more; the grace of God is blasphemed. To see a man set forth as one specially gifted of God—as endowed with a surpassing measure of wisdom from above, to fit him to become a king and leader of men,—for him to fall, is, with the unthinking, an awful scandal upon the gifts of God. If he who ascribes heaven-given powers to the influence of demons commits, as most suppose, the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost, of what sin, think you, is he guilty, who gives occasion to that blasphemy by his misconduct and his fall?

Yet amid this dreadful scene of wreck and ruin something profitable to our own souls may be gathered up. It may well teach us not to rely too implicitly upon any past attainments or present convictions. The time of danger to our souls is never past, the time when the great troubler of spirits is wholly discomfited and despairs of all advantage over us. There is no time wherein we can be safe while we carry this body of sin about us. “Youth is impetuous, mid-age stubborn, old age weak,—all dangerous.” In the conviction of this ever-present peril, and of the sleepless vigilance of the enemy, may we be led to look out of ourselves altogether for strength and sustainment. When we are the strongest, it is best to be weak in ourselves; and when at our weakest, strong in him in whom we can do all things. “If God uphold us not, we cannot stand; if God uphold us, we cannot fall.” Then, why did he not uphold Solomon, that he might not fall? There can be but one answer,—Solomon did not want to be upheld. He thought he could stand alone—he relied upon his own strength—he trusted in his own heart; and we have Scripture and experience to tell us, that “he who trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” He, in the pride of his intellectual wealth, was like the rich man in the parable with his material goods,—“I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing.” It was at that moment, when he had realized the conviction that he had need of nothing, that the word went forth against him—“Thou fool!” So also, assuredly, was it then—when Solomon thought himself perfect in wisdom, and that he had need of nothing—that the word went forth—“Thou fool!” and he became foolish indeed. Kit.

Concerning Solomon’s Repentance.

The history says nothing of his repentance, nor, indeed, of any result produced by God’s warnings and chastisements. His whole character had probably become too worldly for the heartfelt penitence of his father. But yet we have in the Book of Ecclesiastes a review of the whole experience of his life, based on the recognition of the fear of God: the review of a religious philosopher, rather than of a spiritual believer. It gives the experience of a man who has tasted every form of pleasure, and pronounces all to end in disappointment; and from this restless search after excitement—in which every supposed novelty is found to be the same thing over and over again, generation after generation, the Royal Preacher comes back to this simple result—that true life consists in the discharge of duty from religious motives: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole [life] of man.” P. S.

Did Solomon repent? Scripture says nothing positively; but it may be hoped that he did. If the Book of Ecclesiastes be correctly ascribed to Solomon—and we are of those who think that it is—it is most natural to suppose that it exhibits his maturest convictions and experiences; and although there are no such direct expressions of repentance as we find in the Psalms of David—no such lamenting cries for sin, it may be considered that the framework of the book did not well admit them. But there is much in the warnings against the vanity and vexation of spirit by which the wicked and profligate are deceived and tormented, to remind us of the sad and sorrowful experience which the history ascribes to the latter days of Solomon. Kit.

One reason for the hope that Solomon repented of his great sin before he died, is found in the tenor of God’s promise to David in 2 S. 7: 12-16, which has special reference to Solomon. “He shall build an house for my name” (Solomon only): “If he commit iniquity” (which he did) “I will chasten him with the rod of men” (it was Solomon who wrote—“Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth,” Prov. 3: 12): “But my mercy shall not depart away from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away from before thee.” Saul was abandoned of God and never brought to repentance. God “took his mercy away from him” in that awful sense of giving him over to his righteous doom. But the Lord distinctly declares that he will not in this special sense take his mercy away from Solomon. Upon Solomon he will still hold fast and restore him to repentance—to his ultimate salvation. I do not see how the contrast between Saul and Solomon, indicated in this promise, can mean less than a pledge on the part of God to bring Solomon to repentance after his committing iniquity. Another reason is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. This book bears ample evidence of having been written by Solomon late in his life. He is no longer a young man. He has lived long enough to have given all forms of worldly pleasure a full trial and to have proved their utter vanity. He has thought over his guilty life of pleasure-loving and pleasure-seeking until he not only sees its folly but feels it. He sees that such a life is inconsistent with fearing God and keeping his commandments; and he most unequivocally declares that such fear of God and such obedience are the supreme duty of mortals. These points in this Book of Ecclesiastes afford strong proof of his real repentance—much the more strong when seen in the light of the special design of this book—viz., written for those who had admired his pleasure-loving life, and intended as his protest and warning against the very life he had lived before them which they had so much admired. The book should be taken as Solomon’s testimony to the grand mistake of his life, and as the warning of a penitent man against what he then saw to have been his great life-sin. H. C.

We cannot conclude that Solomon himself did not at last repent; but this has always been considered as very doubtful, to say the least. All we know is, that Scripture has fully made known to us his falling away from God, but has said nothing of his repentance. The very silence is awful and impressive. What more melancholy than the fall of one so great—so wise? What words could have been spoken to him more powerful than his own? What eloquence could describe his fall with more feeling and beauty than his own words? What could more powerfully paint the loveliness of that holiness from which he fell? What the overpowering sweetness of that Divine love which he has consented to give up to feed on ashes? Who can describe the temptations to those very sins by which he was ensnared in a more searching manner than he has done? How must his own sweet and Divine words sound to him like music of Paradise to the lost spirits; yea, as songs of heaven would come back to fallen angels in sad remembrance? It is very awful to think how God may use men as instruments of good that His Spirit may teach them, and through them teach others, and guide them to the living fountains of waters, yet they themselves at last fail of the prize of their high calling. What a warning for fear! I. Williams.

Influence of the Temple and Its Service Upon the Religious Life of the People.

There is another point on which all thoughtful minds will be moved to inquire—viz., the influence for good or for ill of the unsurpassed magnificence of Solomon’s temple. During the twenty-nine years (the maximum) intervening between its dedication and Solomon’s death, this temple stood in all its glory; the impressions made by it, then fresh and new, were in their fullest strength;—What was the result?

Under David the Mosaic Institutions had manifestly developed an immense power. The worship at the one place; the daily morning and evening sacrifice; the new moons; the great day of atonement, and the three great annual festivals—these normal seasons of public worship, enlivened and enforced by the thrilling service of sacred song—not to say, also, by the constant and devout attendance of their beloved king David, must have made the tabernacle worship a powerful agency for religious culture in Israel. It is safe to assume that these seasons of national worship were well attended during the greater part of David’s reign. “The tribes went up;” the masses of the people thronged to the sacred city. The social and religious forces of their sacred institutions were in full operation, were, we may probably say, in their glory.

Under Solomon’s reign the public worship at the sanctuary opened with the quickening inspirations of that mighty movement for temple-building. Immense contributions of gold, silver, treasure, the presence of materials borne laboriously from Joppa to Jerusalem and piled up there year after year, stone upon stone, as the building advanced, in growing magnificence;—these seven years of previously unknown experience among this people were crowned at length by the unsurpassed solemnity of its dedication when God came down in fire and in the visible glory of the Shechinah and took possession—all constituting an era in their national history rarely surpassed in its interest and its promise.

As Christian philosophers, it behooves us to put and press the question: What were the results? Was religion mightily revived, and were its sweet, hallowed influences for the religious culture and for the moral life of the people, powerfully sustained? Did the magnificence of this temple take hold with transforming power upon the heart of the masses and elevate them in piety and purity? And specially to our purpose, in view of the great national temptation of the age, Did this gorgeous temple plant itself as a breast-work of protection against idolatry? It may be said, The problem is not before us in its simple elements, because the influence of the king and his court became so entirely adverse, and interposed so much counteraction. But why should we not reckon in the power of this temple upon king as well as upon people? Did the magnificent temple conduce toward the piety and stability of Solomon himself? Did it hold his court with a strong grasp to the steadfast service and worship of the God of Israel? Did the aesthetic power of architecture, ornamentation, and magnificence, grasp the souls of either the cultured or the uncultured Hebrews, and did these elements extend their influence to the foreigners who gathered to the great city and to the royal court, so as to move them all effectively toward the true worship of Israel’s God? It was a great experiment; it was novel—altogether untried before. What contribution does it supply to our wisdom and knowledge on these great points?

In reply, a few things may be safely said. There is no evidence that this temple, after its dedication, improved the tone of the religious life of Israel; in other words, that it promoted a real revival of pure religion. It is quite certain that it did not avail to counteract the various tendencies which came in powerfully upon the nation in the age of Solomon toward idolatry. It is therefore quite certain that too much may be expected of religious architecture and of the aesthetic influence of the place and surroundings of public worship. While this case of Solomon’s temple may be quite too much mixed to justify the conclusion that its influence was evil rather than good; while under all the circumstances it might be quite illogical to infer that it brought no blessings to the people; yet surely the case must suffice to prove that these external influences are far less than omnipotent; that too much may be expected of them, and that “the excellency of the power” that saves men from sin and builds up real holiness in human souls must come more directly from God than this. H. C.

The Old Testament Discloses a Living God and a Living Religion.

It is impossible not to feel the power of the Divine Spirit which is in these older Scriptures a breath of life. The thing which is borne in upon us most strongly from almost every page of the Old Testament is—the Living God. It is not that He is so often called so; not that there is anything like a doctrine of the personality of God, but that through all prophecy and history, through hymns and laws pulsates the Life itself. Men’s thoughts of Him, their words about Him and to Him are not those of philosophers, or theologians. Often both are beautifully child-like, but we feel everywhere that to these children of His, He was very real and very near. The great critical historian Mebuler, once said for himself, that the God whom he wanted was none other than the God of the Bible, the living God, “Who is heart to heart.” Every religious soul, I am sure, feels just so. With the idol of the intellect, which men, in their very zeal to exalt Him above all imperfections, have often put in His place, our souls can make nothing. “Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” is nowhere truer than in our thought of God.

But a Living God, revealing himself to the religious life of men from generation to generation, means a living religion. Physical life has by some one been defined as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. We may apply the description to religion. If a religion should loose this power of adjustment to new conditions, it would be dead and ought to be buried. The measure of life in a religion is precisely the energy and completeness with which it fulfills the function. The religion of Israel had a strong and healthy life. Revelation, so far from being a restraint upon it, is itself the exponent of it; the potent instrumentality through which religion adapted itself to new needs and changed surroundings, to the demands of the progress which was its own work.

A Living God and a living religion, the Old Testament gives us. What is the substance of that religion? What do men learn to think about God? A modern scholar has put these “thoughts of faith” very well. The Living God is the God of righteousness, righteous and loving righteousness; the standard or the vindicator of right; a God whom you cannot bribe nor deceive with gifts or prayers; who will not take religiousness for righteousness. But also the God of deliverance; the Saviour of them who put their trust in Him; who restores His people, being penitent. And finally, the God of history, in whose hand are men and nations, who uses them as He will, ignorant or unwilling, to accomplish in His time His purpose of judgment unto Salvation. And this God, it is not enough to know; he will be loved. “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah: and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” That is the sum of religious faith and duty. G. F. Moore.

| JOSHUA. | | | JUDGES. | | | RUTH and 1 SAMUEL. | | | 1 SAMUEL. | | | | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | | I. | 1-9 | 202 | I. | 1-9 | 219 | RUTH. | | | XII. | 1-25 | 238 | | | 10-18 | 204 | | 10-15 | 216 | I. | 1-22 | 224 | XIII. | 1-23 | 239 | | II. | 1-24 | 203 | | 16-36 | 219 | II. | 1-23 | 224 | XIV. | 1-46 | 239 | | III. | 1-5 | 204 | II. | 1-5 | 219 | III. | 1-18 | 225 | | 47-52 | 240 | | | 6-17 | 205 | | 6-10 | 218 | IV. | 1-22 | 225 | XV. | 1-35 | 240 | | IV. | 1-24 | 205 | | 11-23 | 219 | | | | XVI. | 1-23 | 241 | | V. | 1-15 | 206 | III. | 1-4 | 219 | | | | XVII. | 1-58 | 242 | | VI. | 1-27 | 207 | | 5-31 | 222 | | | | XVIII. | 1-5 | 242 | | VII. | 1-26 | 209 | IV. | 1-24 | 223 | | | | | 6-30 | 243 | | VIII. | 1-29 | 209 | V. | 1-31 | 224 | | | | XIX. | 1-24 | 243 | | | 30-35 | 210 | VI. | 1-40 | 226 | | | | XX. | 1-42 | 244 | | IX. | 1-27 | 211 | VII. | 1-8 | 226 | | | | XXI. | 1-15 | 245 | | X. | 1-43 | 212 | | 9-25 | 227 | | | | XXII. | 1, 2 | 245 | | XI. | 1-23 | 213 | VIII. | 1-32 | 227 | | | | | 3-23 | 246 | | XII. | 1-24 | 213 | | 33-35 | 228 | | | | XXIII. | 1-13 | 246 | | XIII. | 1-33 | 215 | IX. | 1-57 | 228 | 1 SAMUEL. | | | | 14-29 | 247 | | XIV. | 1-5 | 215 | X. | 1-18 | 229 | I. | 1-28 | 232 | XXIV. | 1-22 | 248 | | | 6-15 | 216 | XI. | 1-40 | 229 | II. | 1-11 | 232 | XXV. | 1-44 | 249 | | XV. | 1-12 | 215 | XII. | 1-15 | 229 | | 12-36 | 233 | XXVI. | 1-25 | 250 | | | 13-19 | 216 | XIII. | 1-25 | 230 | III. | 1-21 | 233 | XXVII. | 1-12 | 251 | | | 20-63 | 215 | XIV. | 1-20 | 230 | IV. | 1 | 233 | XXVIII. | 1, 2 | 251 | | XVI. | 1-10 | 215 | XV. | 1-8 | 230 | | 1-22 | 234 | | 3 | 253 | | XVII. | 1-18 | 215 | | 9-20 | 231 | V. | 1-12 | 234 | | 4 | 254 | | XVIII. | 1-28 | 215 | XVI. | 1-31 | 231 | VI. | 1-21 | 234 | | 5-25 | 253 | | XIX. | 1-48 | 215 | XVII. | 1-13 | 220 | VII. | 1 | 234 | XXIX. | 1 | 254 | | | 49, 50 | 216 | XVIII. | 1-31 | 220 | | 2-17 | 235 | | 2-11 | 251 | | | 51 | 215 | XIX. | 1-30 | 221 | VIII. | 1-22 | 235 | XXX. | 1-31 | 252 | | XX. | 1-9 | 216 | XX. | 1-48 | 221 | IX. | 1-27 | 236 | XXXI. | 1-13 | 254 | | XXI. | 1-45 | 216 | XXI. | 1-25 | 221^{3} | X. | 1-16 | 236 | | | | | XXII. | 1-34 | 217 | | | | | 17-27 | 237 | | | | | XXIII. | 1-16 | 218 | | | | XI. | 1-13 | 237 | | | | | XXIV. | 1-33 | 218 | | | | | 14, 15 | 238 | | | |

| 2 SAMUEL. | | | 1 KINGS. | | | 1 CHRONICLES. | | | 2 CHRONICLES. | | | | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | CHAP. | VERSES. | SECTION. | | I. | 1-27 | 255 | I. | 1-53 | 278 | X. | 13, 14 | 254 | I. | 1-13 | 283 | | II. | 1-32 | 256 | II. | 1-9 | 279 | XI. | 1-9 | 258 | | 14 | 293 | | III. | 1-39 | 257 | | 10, 11 | 282 | | 10-47 | 259 | | 15 | 294 | | IV. | 1-12 | 257 | | 12-46 | 284 | XII. | 1-22 | 259 | | 16, 17 | 293 | | V. | 1-10 | 258 | III. | 1-3 | 292 | | 23-40 | 258 | II. | 1-18 | 285 | | | 11-25 | 260 | | 4-28 | 283 | XIII. | 1-14 | 261 | III. | 1-17 | 285 | | VI. | 1-23 | 261 | IV. | 1-19 | 293 | XIV. | 1-17 | 260 | IV. | 1-22 | 285 | | VII. | 1-29 | 262 | | 20, 21 | 296 | XV. | 1-29 | 261 | V. | 1 | 285 | | VIII. | 1-18 | 263 | | 22, 23 | 293 | XVI. | 1-43 | 261 | | 2-14 | 287 | | IX. | 1-13 | 260 | | 24, 25 | 296 | XVII. | 1-27 | 262 | VI. | 1-11 | 287 | | X. | 1-19 | 266 | | 26-28 | 293 | XVIII. | 1-17 | 263 | | 12-42 | 288 | | XI. | 1-27 | 267 | | 29-34 | 295 | XIX. | 1-19 | 266 | VII. | 1-10 | 289 | | XII. | 1-25 | 268 | V. | 1-18 | 285 | XX. | 1-3 | 269 | | 11-22 | 291 | | | 26-31 | 269 | VI. | 1-38 | 286 | | 4-8 | 259 | VIII. | 1-10 | 293 | | XIII. | 1-39 | 269 | VII. | 1-12 | 292 | XXI. | 1-30 | 277 | | 11-16 | 292 | | XIV. | 1-33 | 269 | | 13-51 | 286 | XXII. | 1 | 277 | | 17, 18 | 294 | | XV. | 1-29 | 270 | VIII. | 1-21 | 287 | | 2-16 | 279 | IX. | 1-9 | 295 | | | 30-37 | 271 | | 22-53 | 288 | | 17-19 | 280 | | 10, 11 | 294 | | XVI. | 1-14 | 271 | | 54-66 | 289 | XXIII. | 1 | 279 | | 12 | 295 | | | 15-23 | 272 | IX. | 1-9 | 291 | | 2-32 | 264 | | 13-24 | 294 | | XVII. | 1-23 | 272 | | 10-23 | 293 | XXIV. | 1-31 | 264 | | 25 | 293 | | | 24-29 | 273 | | 24, 25 | 292 | XXV. | 1-31 | 264 | | 26 | 296 | | XVIII. | 1-33 | 273 | | 26-28 | 294 | XXVI. | 1-32 | 264 | | 27 | 294 | | XIX. | 1-40 | 274 | X. | 1-10 | 295 | XXVII. | 1-34 | 264 | | 28 | 293 | | | 41-43 | 275 | | 11, 12 | 294 | XXVIII. | 1-10 | 280 | | 29-31 | 299 | | XX. | 1-26 | 275 | | 13 | 295 | | 11-21 | 279 | | | | | XXI. | 1-14 | 276 | | 14-25 | 294 | XXIX. | 1-22 | 280 | | | | | | 15-22 | 259 | | 26 | 293 | | 23-25 | 283 | | | | | XXII. | 1-51 | 265 | | 27 | 294 | | 26-30 | 282 | | | | | XXIII. | 1-7 | 281 | | 28, 29 | 293 | | | | | | | | | 8-39 | 259 | XI. | 1-13 | 297 | | | | | | | | XXIV. | 1-25 | 277 | | 14-40 | 298 | | | | | | | | | | | | 41-43 | 299 | | | | | | |

[The titles and publishers of leading works, additional to those given in previous volumes, are here appended to the names of authors. A helpful service in the interest of readers and writers is thus subserved.]

| | William Adams, D.D. | | — | — | | W. F. A. | Rev. W. F. Adeney. Pol. Com. Judges. | | J. W. A. | Jas. W. Alexander, D.D. | | W. L. A. | W. Lindsay Alexander, D.D. Bp. W. Alexander. Rev. A. Ainger. Rev. S. R. Aldridge. Henry Alford, D.D. Peter Allix, D.D., d. 1717. Henry Allon, D.D. | | An. | Unknown Writer. Duke of Argyle. Geo. D. Armstrong, D.D. Thomas Arnold, D.D. William Arnot, D.D. C. A. Auberlen, D.D. | | Aug. | Augustine. | | | C. E. Babb, D.D. J. T. Bannister, D.D. | | C. G. B. | C. G. Barth, D.D. S. C. Bartlett, D.D. William Bates, D.D. M. Baumgarten, D.D. J. R. Beard, D.D. | | W. J. B. | Wm. J. Beecher, D.D. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. Abp. Benson. T. D. Bernard, D.D. E. C. Bissell, D.D. Rev. J. Blaney. Rev. J. J. Blunt. W. E. Boggs, D.D. Rev. Chas. Bradley. Wm. I. Budington, D.D. | | B. | J. Glentworth Butler, D.D. | | W. G. B. | Wm. G. Blaikie, D.D. 1st and 2d Books of Samuel. H. Bonar, D.D. Francis Bowen. Thomas Brooks, d. 1680. |

| | John Bunyan. George Bush, D.D. Joshua and Judges. | | — | — | | N. C. B. | N. C. Burt, D.D. Horace Bushnell, D.D. | | | George W. Cable. John Caird, D.D. Augustine Calmet, d. 1757. John Cameron, d. 1625. R. S. Candlish, D.D. Joseph Caryl, d. 1673. A. Caspars, D.D. D. Cassel, D.D. Alfred Cave, D.D. J. L. Chamberlain. L. T. Chamberlain, D.D. | | T. C. | Thomas Chalmers, D.D. T. W. Chambers, D.D. Sam’l Chandler, D.D., d. 1766. C. Chapman, D.D. Pol. Com. 1 Samuel. Stephen Charnock, D.D., d. 1680 W. Chillingworth, D.D., d. 1644 Clark’s Travels. S. Clark, D.D., d. 1729. Rev. J. Clifford. L. Coleman, D.D. S. T. Coleridge. Thos. J. Conant, D.D. Claude R. Conder. Pal. Exp. Reports. E. R. Conder, D.D. | | H. C. | Henry Cowles, D.D. Samuel Cox, D.D. Howard Crosby, D.D. Joshua; Jewish Church. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. | | B. D. | Rev. B. Dale. Pol. Com. 1 Samuel. A. D. Davidson, D.D. |

Rev. J. T. Davidson. George E. Day, D.D. P. Delaney, D.D., d. 1768. Life and Reign of David. John De Liefde. Franz Delitsch, D.D. E. de Pressensé, D.D. Pol. Com. 1 Kings. Dic. B. Dictionary of Bible. (Smith.) Marcus Dods, D.D. Henry Downton, D.D. John W. Dulles, D.D. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D. A. E. Alfred Edersheim, D.D. Israel under the Judges, Samuel, etc. Jonathan Edwards, D.D. History of Redemption. T. E. Espin, D.D. G. H. A. Ewald, D.D. P. F. Patrick Fairbairn, D.D. Canon Falloon. Samuel Fallows, D.D. Fred’k W. Farrar, D.D. A. R. Fausset, D.D. Com. on Judges. Henry M. Field, D.D. G. P. F. Geo. P. Fisher, D.D. S. W. F. Sam’l W. Fisher, D.D. E. T. Fitch, D.D. John Foster. Donald Fraser, D.D. Synop. Lectures; Pul. Com. 1 Sam. William Fraser, D.D. H. D. Ganse, DD. E. H. Gillett, D.D. Rev. R. Glover. Pol. Com. F. Godet, D.D. Bp. H. Goodwin. E. M. G. E. M. Goulburn, D.D. Life of Samuel. Richard Graves, D.D. E. C. Gray. Robert Gray, D.D. W. H. G. Wm. H. Green, D.D. David Gregg, D.D. Thomas Guthrie, D.D. H. B. Hackett, D.D. William Hales, D.D., d. 1819. Bp. H. Bp. Joseph Hall. Contemplations on O. T. Robert Hall, D.D. R. Hallam, D.D. James Hamilton, D.D. Joseph Hammond, D.D. Pul. Com. 1 Kings. William Hanna, D.D. Saul; Good Words. Rev. S. A. Harlow.

Rev. F. Hastings. Rev. C. C. Hemenway. H. Matthew Henry, D.D. Commentary. William Herbert, d. 1646. G. F. Herrick, D.D. A. C. H. Bp. A. C. Hervey. Pul. Com. Judges. Sir Richard Hill, d. 1808. H. S. Holland, D.D. Sermons. W. F. Hook, D.D. Sermons. E. L. Hull, D.D. Sermons. F. D. H. Bp. F. D. Huntington, D.D. J. L. Hurlbut, D.D. Interior, (Chicago) Edward Irving, D.D. Robert Jamieson, D.D. Commentary. Rev. T. C. Jerome. Herrick Johnson, D.D. Rev. J. B. Johnstone. Joseph Jones, D.D. Wm. Jones, of Nayland. J. F. Keil, D.D. Com. on Joshua, etc. Rev. John Kennedy. Kepler. John Ker, D.D. Sermons. Charles Kingsley, D.D. Sermons. A. F. K. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. 1st and 2d Samuel. Kit. John Kitto, D.D. Bible Illustrations. Kit. Enc. Kitto’s Encyclopedia. Wm. E. Knox, D.D. Chas. E. Knox, D.D. David the King. F. W. Krummacher, D.D. David, King of Israel. J. H. Kurtz, D.D. Hist. Old Covenant. S. L. Stanley Leathes, D.D. William Lee, D.D. Bible Educator. Rev. William Lewis. J. J. Lias, D.D. Com. Judges. H. P. L. Henry P. Liddon, D.D. John Lightfoot, D.D., d. 1675. J. R. Lumby, D.D. Com. 1 Kings. D. M. Donald Macdonald, D.D.

A. M. Alexander Maclaren, D.D. Life of David; Sermons, etc.

Rev. A. Macleod.

Hugh Macmillan, D.D.

Bp. W. C. Magee.

Rev. S. Martin.

E. M. Erskine Mason, D.D.

Fred’k D. Maurice, D.D.

Prophets and Kings.

P. D. Medd, D.D.

Joseph Mede, d. 1638.

Rev. E. Mellor.

Henry Melvill, D.D.

Sermons.

A. G. Mercer, D.D.

Bible Characters.

Selah Merrill, D.D.

Henry H. Milman, D.D.

History of the Jews.

Arthur Mitchell, D.D.

Monday Club (Sermons).

Rev. Geo. F. Moore.

Wm. G. Moorehead, D.D.

James Morison, D.D.

Pul. Com. on Ruth.

J. B. Mozley, D.D.

Ruling Ideas in Early Ages.

Rev. A. F. Muir.

Pul. Com. Judges.

Murray’s Hand Book.

Rev. James Neil.

Palestine Explored.

J. H. Newman, D.D.

Sermons.

Rev. F. W. Newman.

Sam’l J. Niccolls, D.D.

O. G. F. Oehler, D.D. Theology of O. T.

C. Von Orelli, D.D.

O. T. Prophecy of God’s Kingdom.

Rev. J. Orr.

J. F. Ostervald, d. 1747.

Rev. G. S. Outrain.

Joseph Parker, D.D.

Prof. J. A. Paine.

Rev. F. E. Paget.

William Paley, D.D.

Palestine Fund Reports.

E. H. Palmer, D.D.

C. H. P. C. H. Parkhurst, D.D.

Bp. Symon Patrick, d. 1707.

Wm. M. Paxton, D.D.

F. N. Peloubet, D.D.

Alfred Plummer, D.D.

Pul. Com.

E. H. P. E. H. Plumptre, D.D.

Presbyterian (Phila.).

J. L. P. J. L. Porter, D.D.

J. Pulsford, D.D.

Philip Pyle, D.D., d. 1799.

Alex. Raleigh, D.D. Sermons.

G. R. George Rawlinson, D.D. Hist. Illus. O. T., etc.

Rev. P. Richardson.

Carl Ritter.

Francis Roberts., D.D., d. 1665.

Fred’k W. Robertson, D.D. Sermons.

Edward Robinson, D.D. Bib. Researches.

S. R. Stuart Robinson, D.D. Sermons, etc.

Rev. A. Rowland. Pul. Com. 1 Kings.

Rev. A. H. Sayce.

A. F. Schauffler, D.D.

Shaw’s Travels.

Samuel Shuckford, D.D.

James Sime.

Kingdom of All-Irrad.

Bp. Matthew Simpson.

P. S. Philip Smith. Hist., O. T.

R. P. S. R. Payne Smith, D.D. Pul. Com. 1 Samuel.

Thornley Smith.

Robert South, D.D. Sermons.

Thos. Stackhouse, D.D., d. 1752.

Rev. J. Stalker.

A. P. S. A. P. Stanley, D.D. Hist. Jewish Church.

Geo. B. Stevens, D.D.

O. Strauss.

Rev. W. M. Statham. Pul. Com. Ruth.

I. T. Isaac Taylor.

Bp. Fred’k Temple.

Tent Work in Palestine.

Milton S. Terry, D.D.

J. B. T. Jesse B. Thomas, D.D.

J. P. T. Joseph P. Thompson, D.D.

Wm. M. Thompson, D.D. Land and Book.

Andrew Thomson, D.D. In the Holy Land.

Rev. J. R. Thomson.

J. H. Thornwell, D.D.

S. S. T. Sunday-School Times, Phila.

Archbishop R. C. Trench. Sermons.

H. B. T. H. B. Tristram, D.D. Bible Places, etc.

Van O. J. J. Van Oosterzee, D.D.

C. J. Vaughan, D.D.

E. V. Edmund Venables, D.D.

Rev. C. Vince.

Rev. J. Waite.

Pul. Com. 1 Kings.

William Wall, D.D., d. 1737.

Robert Walker, D.D., d. 1783.

Waller.

Bp. Warburton, d. 1779.

Bp. H. W. Warren

Capt. Warren.

Pul. Expedition.

D. Waterland, D.D., d. 1740.

Edward Wells, D.D., d. 1727.

Rev. N. W. Wells.

Rev. E. White.

Bp. Sam’l Wilberforce.

Heroes of Hebrew History.

Rev. I. Williams.

Sir Chas. Wilson.

Bib. Educator.

Bp. Thos. Wilson, d. 1755.

E. C. Wines, D.D.

Laws of Anc. Hebrews.

T. D. Witherspoon, D.D.

Bp. Woodford.

Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D.

Sermons.

NOTE.—Several names are omitted from lack of accurate information.

THE

Usalms I-LXXII.

THE REVISED TEXT; WITH COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST ILLUMINATING AND HELPFUL THOUGHTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.

| | PAGE | | — | — | | Title; Five Books: Formation of the Psalter. | 5 | | Inscriptions; Authorship; Varieties of Composition. | 7 | | Inspired Origin of the Psalms. | 8 | | David the Originator of Psalmody. | 9 | | Themes, or Subject Matter, of the Psalter. | 11 | | The Psalms as Related to the Law of Moses. | 16 | | As Related to Old Testament History and Prophecy. | 17 | | As Related to Messianic Promise and Prophecy. | 18 | | The Hope of Eternal Life in the Psalter. | 21 | | Imprecatory Psalms. | 22 | | Hebrew Poetry. | 30 | | Exposition of the Psalms: Historical. | 33 | | English Versions of the Psalter. | 34 | | Estimates and Testimonies of Devout and Learned Men. | 35 |

| Psalm I. | 41 | | — | — | | “ II. | 48 | | “ III. | 54 | | “ IV. | 57 | | “ V. | 63 | | “ VI. | 68 | | “ VII. | 72 | | “ VIII. | 76 | | “ IX. | 86 | | “ X. | 90 | | “ XI. | 96 | | “ XII. | 100 | | “ XIII. | 103 | | “ XIV. | 106 | | “ XV. | 113 | | “ XVI. | 118 | | “ XVII. | 125 | | “ XVIII. | 134 | | “ XIX. | 146 | | “ XX. | 163 | | “ XXI. | 166 | | “ XXII. | 168 | | “ XXIII. | 179 | iv

| | | PAGE | | — | — | — | | Psalm | XXIV., | 188 | | “ | XXV., | 193 | | “ | XXVI., | 200 | | “ | XXVII., | 203 | | “ | XXVIII., | 212 | | “ | XXIX., | 215 | | “ | XXX., | 224 | | “ | XXXI., | 228 | | “ | XXXII., | 236 | | “ | XXXIII., | 246 | | “ | XXXIV., | 250 | | “ | XXXV., | 259 | | “ | XXXVI., | 262 | | “ | XXXVII., | 269 | | “ | XXXVIII., | 285 | | “ | XXXIX., | 288 | | “ | XL., | 295 | | “ | XLI., | 304 |

| Psalm | XLII., | 310 | | — | — | — | | “ | XLIII., | 320 | | “ | XLIV., | 323 | | “ | XLV., | 326 | | “ | XLVI., | 332 | | “ | XLVII., | 338 | | “ | XLVIII., | 342 | | “ | XLIX., | 347 | | “ | L., | 355 | | “ | LI., | 363 | | “ | LII., | 376 | | “ | LIII., | 380 | | “ | LIV., | 384 | | “ | LV., | 386 | | “ | LVI., | 394 | | “ | LVII., | 399 | | “ | LVIII., | 404 | | “ | LIX., | 407 | | “ | LX., | 409 | | “ | LXI., | 412 | | “ | LXII., | 415 | | “ | LXIII., | 424 | | “ | LXIV., | 433 | | “ | LXV., | 434 | | “ | LXVI., | 442 | | “ | LXVII., | 449 | | “ | LXVIII., | 452 | | “ | LXIX., | 467 | | “ | LXX., | 472 | | “ | LXXI., | 473 | | “ | LXXII., | 478 |

NOTE.—A few changes have been made in the Revised Text, mainly in accordance with the rendering preferred by the American Committee; and some variant readings have been added in parenthesis. B.

OR

TITLE.—We have unusually high authority for the title of this book. Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His apostle Peter, alike refer to it as “the Book of Psalms” (Luke 20 : 42 ; Acts 1 : 20). In Hebrew, the collection is entitled T’Hillim, praises : in Greek, Psalmoi, songs with a musical accompaniment. D. F.—The title Psalter, a collective term for the Book of Psalms, originated from the Alexandrian or Greek version. Lange.—As a large number of the Psalms are not strictly speaking hymns, but prayers for deliverance from trouble or poems of an elegiac or didactic character, it has been thought surprising that they should be styled collectively “Songs of Praise.” But a more suitable title could hardly be found ; for thanksgiving is the very life of the Psalms, even of those in which there breathes most the language of complaint. “To the glory of God” might stand as the inscription of each. The narrative Psalms praise whilst they record his mighty deeds ; the didactic Psalms declare his goodness as worthy of grateful acknowledgment ; the Psalms of sorrow are turned into songs of joy in the recollection or anticipation of his saving help. P.

FIVE BOOKS.—We have here 150 lyrical poems, designed for use in Divine worship. They vary, as do all collections of hymns, in beauty and excellence ; but all are Divine songs, composed by men that were moved by

• For a full presentation of points pertaining to the history, structure, and themes of the Psalter, the reader is referred to the volumes of Perowne, Delitzsch, Alexander, Cowles, Murphy, Lange, Thrupp, Barnes, Fausset, Binnie, and Isaac Taylor. For the average student and general reader the known and needful points are here given concisely, clearly, and in a natural order. B.

the Holy Ghost. There are really five Books of Psalms gathered into one. Those five may be distinguished as follows :—

First Book.—Psalms 1-41 ; ending with Doxology and double Amen.

Second Book.—Psalms 42-72 ; ending in the same way (with the addition that “the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended”).

Third Book.—Psalms 73-89 ; ending in the same way.

Fourth Book.—Psalms 90-106 ; ending with Doxology, Amen, and Hallelujah.

Fifth Book.—Psalms 107-150 ; ending with many Hallelujahs.

There is thus a Pentateuch of the Psalms, as well as a Pentateuch of the Law. There is also something like the same variation in the use of the Divine name, in this later Pentateuch, that is found in the earlier. In the 1st, 4th, and 5th Books of Psalms, the Divine Being is usually spoken of and addressed as Jehovah ; in the 2d and 3d Books, commonly as Elohim, God.

FORMATION.—The Psalter was gradually formed during the times of the kingdom ; and comprises some odes that were evidently written after the Captivity. Chronological order is not carefully observed ; but, in the main, the oldest Psalms stand first ; the latest, last. D. F.

First Collection of Psalms. The internal evidence leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the original collection was of smaller compass, and consisted, we may reasonably suppose, of those poems mainly, if not exclusively, which are now classed in the first book. These, I incline to think, were first collected by Solomon, who would naturally provide for the preservation and transmission of his father’s poetry, the more so as the musical services of the Temple were by his direction conducted with the utmost magnificence. It is not necessary to assume that all the Psalms of the first book were written by David or his contemporaries; for at a later period some might have been added to the collection as first made by Solomon.

Collection under Hezekiah. The next collection was probably not completed till the time of Hezekiah. To “the men of Hezekiah” we owe the preservation of many proverbs of Solomon not included in the first collection of his Proverbs 25 : 1). To them we may in like manner be indebted for the discovery and preservation of many of those Psalms attributed to David, which we find grouped together in the second book. The peculiarity of this book is, that it consists first of a group of Psalms attributed to the sons of Korah, then of a single Psalm said to be by Asaph, then of another group mostly bearing the name of David. In the third book we meet with a similar phenomenon. Here we have but one Psalm, the eighty-sixth, which is said to be a Psalm of David, and we have first a group of Psalms called Psalms of Asaph (73-83), and then a group of Korahite Psalms, forming a supplement to those in the second book, precisely as David’s Psalms in the second book form a supplement to those in the first. Now we are told, in 2 Chr. 29 : 30, that Hezekiah, when he kept that great passover which filled all Jerusalem with joy, and which seemed the beginning of a better and happier time, appointed the Levites to “praise Jehovah in the words of David and of Asaph the seer.” Such a fact harmonizes exactly with what we have seen as to the formation of the second and third books of the Psalms. Psalms of David are contained in the one, Psalms of Asaph in the other. And what more likely than that the compiler (or compilers) of these two books should have appended the remark at the end of 72 : 20, in order to intimate that he knew of no more Psalms which could with any show of reason be assigned to David? The fact that we have but one Psalm going by his name in the third book, lends color to the supposition that the person who compiled that book wrote the words which now stand as the conclusion of Psalm 72.

Collection under Ezra and Nehemiah. No further additions were made to the Psalter till the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, when it was enriched by a large number of songs written during and after the Exile. To this period are due, in the main, the fourth and fifth books. With these later Psalms were incorporated, howhowever, some gleanings from earlier times; some precious relics of the ancient Psalmody of Israel not hitherto classed in any collection, and possibly preserved some of them only by oral repetition from father to son. The fourth book opens with a Psalm said to be “a prayer of Moses, the man of God.” Then follows a series without names, and in this book two only, the one hundred and first and one hundred and third, are said to be by David. In the fifth book we have fifteen more attributed to him, some obviously by mistake, others, as the one hundred and tenth, beyond all doubt rightly so attributed. From all this we conclude, first, that the formation of the present Psalter was a gradual work, and next, that though several individual Psalms have been dislocated, so as to disturb the chronological order, another order having been substituted for that of sequence in time, yet that in the main, the oldest Psalms stand first; the latest, last. The most ancient songs, those of David and of David’s time, are chiefly contained in Psalms 1-41. In 42-89 mainly those of the middle period of Hebrew poetry. In 90-150 by far the majority are of a later date, composed during or after the Babylonish captivity.

But as in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, so here the chronological order seems to be recognized, only to be crossed and broken by another. The groups, as a whole, are chronologically disposed, but not so the several Psalms. Here a different principle of arrangement has been observed, and one to a great extent of a merely external kind. Psalms are placed together, sometimes because the instruction conveyed in both is the same; sometimes because the same word or expression occurs in both: thus, for instance, Psalm 51 (David’s) follows Psalm 50 (Asaph’s), because both disparage the sacrifices of slain beasts, as compared with the personal sacrifice of a broken heart and an obedient will. Again, Psalm 35 follows Psalm 34, because in both mention is made of “the angel of Jehovah.” Psalms 54 and 55 are associated, because in verse four of the one we have, “O God, hear my prayer;” and in verse two of the other, “Give ear, O God, to my prayer.” This principle being once recognized, we may understand how it comes to pass that later Psalms may be found in the earlier books, and earlier Psalms in the later. P.

It thus appears that this book of Psalms, as we have it, was a growth—the accumulation of religious odes composed during the lapse of several centuries, and hence a natural product of the piety and talent, on the one hand, and of providential circumstances on the other, which make up the religious history of the covenant people during those most favored ages of their national life. H. C.

In a very large proportion, we find an ancient title or inscription, varying in length and fulness; sometimes simply describing the composition, as a psalm, a song, a prayer, etc.; sometimes stating the subject or historical occasion, either in plain or enigmatical expressions; sometimes directing the performance, by indicating the accompanying instrument, by specifying the appropriate key or mode, or by naming the particular performer; sometimes giving the name of the author; these various intimations occurring sometimes singly, but frequently in combination. These inscriptions are found in the Hebrew text, as far as we can trace its history, not as addenda, but as integral parts of the composition; and such indications of the author and the subject, at the commencement of a composition, are familiar both to classical and oriental usage. A.—These superscriptions are very old; for they are found in the Greek translation called the Septuagint, which was begun as early as 285 B.C. They were then so old that some of them were not understood by the translators, and are therefore merely represented in Greek letters. They must therefore have been at least as old as Ezra. The authority of these titles has been variously estimated. The ancients generally regarded them as equally inspired with the text itself. Some, however, as Theodore of Mopsuestia, at the close of the fourth century, began to reject their authority. Among these may be found the greater number of modern critics. But Hengstenberg and Tholuck, Delitzsch, Perowne, Alexander, and Moll attach weight to them. Their antiquity and their greater frequency in the earliest books, as Delitzsch observes, afford a strong presumption that they are not due to a later editor. They are mostly from a remote date, if not from the very age of the authors. M.—These ancient superscriptions have a real and unimpeachable historical value. They give the earliest accessible information respecting the origin of the compositions to which they are attached. They come down to us, along with the original text, from an age that had already become antiquity when the Septuagint appeared. The very musical notes that accompany them were unintelligible to the scholars of the Maccabean times. E. C. B.

Authorship. When we come to examine the

Psalms more closely, and to compare their contents with their reputed authorship, we find ourselves compelled very often to reject the latter. Facts prove convincingly that all the inscriptions are not trustworthy, and consequently that they must be tested by a careful examination of the style and contents of the Psalms to which they are severally prefixed. P.—Great uncertainty must necessarily rest upon the authorship of the Psalms. Internal evidence, whether of thought or style or language, is a precarious guide. As a whole they suffer less from this uncertainty than might be expected. Their interest is human and universal. They appeal to the experience of all ages. A. F. K.

It is of less consequence to determine precisely by whom the Holy Spirit delivered these oracles, since we have indubitable evidence of the sacred character of the whole book; for it is collectively cited in Scripture (generally by the name of David), and is prophetic in almost every part; and several of the persons who are supposed to have contributed to the composition of the book are expressly represented as prophets in Scripture. Gray.

—Whatever differences of historical relation appear in different parts of the Psalter, the whole constitutes, plainly, a realm by itself, in the imperial compass of the Scripture; as much so as does the earlier Pentateuch, whose division into five books, the somewhat similar traditional division of the Psalter into five associated parts has often been said to resemble. The whole collection of petitions and praises grew out of the unique career of the People of God, from the day of Moses, the Servant of God, down toward if not to the day of the Maccabees. It is equally available, in all its extent, to those who would use it for present ministration to spiritual feeling. And it is obviously wholly unimportant whether two Psalms were composed or not by the same writer, were composed or not at about the same time; whether they sprang out of one set of circumstances, or out of two, resembling each other, though separated by years. R. S. S.

Varieties of Composition. Six varieties of poetical compositions are mentioned. These are the Shir, the Mizmor, the Maschil, the Michtam, the Shiggaion, and the Tehillah. The word Shir is best rendered “song,” as in our version. It indicates simply a lyrical composition in general, and is not unfrequently joined either with certain notices (historical and liturgical), or with some other poetical designation intended to define more accurately the character of the poetry.

There are altogether thirty-one of these compositions, seventeen of which are simply shir, the other fourteen are shir combined with some other title. The term Mizmor, rendered “psalm” in our version, occurs in the superscription of not less than fifty-nine Psalms, being the designation most frequently used. Twelve times it occurs combined with shir, when our version translates “psalm or song,” or else “song or psalm.” The term mizmor means a poem or song intended to be accompanied by music. The designation Maschil occurs at the head of thirteen Psalms. The derivation of the word seems to point to wisdom and instruction, hence to the maschil as the didactic hymn. Such is really the meaning of the term. All the psalms which are so designated present a remarkable unity of thought and purpose. They are all didactic. Six Psalms bear the superscription of Michtam, in the margin of the Authorized Version “Golden Psalm.” The derivation of the word (whether from the verb “to grave” or “to hide”) seems to point to personal experience of a deep kind, of which the michtam is the record. This entirely agrees with the contents of these Psalms, especially of Psalms 66-70, which refer to imminent dangers from which the Psalmist obtained deliverance. All the michtams are of Davidic authorship. A. E.

Minor Notations. 1. “To the chief musician.” The public use of a Psalm is indicated by the phrase “to the precentor” or master of song. This phrase occurs fifty-five times in the titles of the Psalms, and once in Hab. 3 : 18. M. —In three Psalms the name of Jeduthun (or Ethan) is added, who we know was one of David’s three famous choir-masters. 2. “For teaching,” Psalm 60. This may perhaps intimate that the Psalm was intended to be taught publicly by the Levites to the people, but it may also mean that it was to be taught to the Levites themselves. 3. “To bring to remembrance,” Psalms 38 and 70. In 1 Chr. 16 : 4, it is joined with, “to give thanks and to praise,” as a part of the special duties of the Levites who were set by David before the ark, and there it would seem to mean “to call to memory,” so as to praise and celebrate the goodness of Jehovah. 4. “For thanksgiving,” Psalm 100, Delitzsch explains as a direction that the Psalm should be sung when the thank-offering was offered; Ewald, that it should be sung as a thanksgiving. P.

The Mosaic system, while it was defensive against the surrounding iniquity, was also something more and something higher. That system, both institutional and doctrinal, fenced in, as it were, a clear space, a free and secure domain, for the fuller development of a religion, inward and personal, devotional and spiritual, the materials for which it could hardly have supplied by presenting, as it did. God as ruler and judge, and man as a servant who continually either sinned, or was on the brink of falling into sin. In the inner sanctuary, thus provided for the most capable human souls, was reared the strong spiritual life which appears to have developed itself preeminently in the depth, richness, tenderness, and comprehensiveness of the Psalms. To the work they have here accomplished there is no parallel upon earth. For the present I put aside all details, and am content to stand upon this fact—that a compilation, which began (at the latest) with a shepherd of Palestine, three thousand years ago, has been the prime and paramount book of devotion from that day to this; first for the Hebrew race, both in its isolation and after it was brought by the translation of its sacred books into relations with the Gentile world; and then for all the Christian races, in all their diversities of character and circumstance. Further, that there is now, if possible, less chance than ever of the displacement of these marvellous compositions from their supremacy in the worship of the Christian Church. And beyond doubt it may be also said that their function has not been one of ritual pomp and outward power alone. They have dwelt in the Christian heart, and at the very centre of that heart; and wherever the pursuits of the inner life have been most largely conceived and cultivated, there, and in the same proportion, the Psalms have towered over every other vehicle of general devotion. We have a conspicuous illustration of their office in the fact that of two hundred and forty-three citations from the Old Testament found in the pages of the New, no less than one hundred and sixteen are from the single Book of Psalms, and that a similar proportion holds with most of the early Fathers. The result of a careful examination made by Bishop Alexander is that reference is made to the Psalms, either by quotation or otherwise, in no fewer than two hundred and eighty-six passages of the New Testament.

We have thus before us the fact that the Psalms, composed for the devotions of the Hebrews from two to three thousand years ago, constitute down to the present day for Christians the best and highest book of devotion. A noteworthy fact even on the surface of it; more noteworthy still when we go below the surface into the meaning. The Hebrews were Semitic, Christendom is Aryan; the Hebrews were local, Christendom is world-wide; the Hebrews were often tributary, and finally lost their liberties and place; Christianity has risen over every obstacle, and has long been the dominating power of the world. The Hebrews had no literature outside their religion, nor any fine art; Christendom has appropriated, and even rivalled, both the literature and the art of the greatest among the ancients. This strange book of Hebrew devotion had no attractions outside Hebrewism except for Christians; and Christians have found nothing to gather, in the same kind, from any of the other religions in the world. The stamp of continuity and identity has been set upon one, and one only, historic series; one, and one only, thread runs down through the whole succession of the ages; and, among many witnesses to this continuity, the Psalms are probably among the most conspicuous. This stamp purports to be, and to have been all along, divine, and the unparalleled evidence of results all goes to show that it is not a forgery. The wonderful phenomenon thus presented to us can hardly be said to admit of enhancement: and yet it is, perhaps, enhanced when we bear in mind that the long period of this perpetual youth, exhibited by the Psalms, has been broken by the promulgation of a new religion, together with all the changes of fact and developments of principle which transformed the heathen world.

Moreover, we should remember that the shapings of all language merely human are essentially short-lived, and forms of speech succeed one another as wave follows upon wave. But herein seems probably to lie one of the ways in which the Divine revelation asserts itself. It seems to have the faculty of giving to things mutable the privilege and the power of the immutable, and to endow fashions of speech, when they belong to the heart’s core of human nature, with a charter that is to endure throughout all time. I submit, then, that the fact of so wonderful a power as was thus exercised by the Psalms, in such diversities of time, race, and circumstances, is not only without parallel, but is removed by such a breadth of space from all other facts of human experience in the same province, as to constitute in itself a strong presumption that the cause also is one lying beyond the range of ordinary human action, and may most reasonably be set down as consisting in that speciality of Divine suggestion and guidance which we term revelation. W. E. Gladstone.

The Mosaic system reached its culminating point and full development in the reign of David, when the land of promise was in full possession, the provisions of the law for the first time fully carried out, and a permanent sanctuary secured and, we may even say, prospectively erected. The chain of Messianic promises, which for ages had been broken, or concealed beneath the prophetic ritual, was now renewed by the addition of a new link, in the great Messianic promise made to David (2 Sam. 7) of perpetual succession in his family. As the head of this royal race from which the Messiah was to spring, and as the great theocratical model of succeeding ages, who is mentioned more frequently in prophecy and gospel than all his natural descendants put together, he was inspired to originate a new kind of sacred composition, that of Psalmody, or rather to educe from the germ which Moses had planted an abundant harvest of religious poetry, not for his own private use, but for that of the Church, in the new form of public service which he added by divine command to the Mosaic ritual. As an inspired psalmist, as the founder and director of the temple-music, and as a model and exemplar to those after him, David’s position is unique in sacred history. As his military prowess had been necessary to complete the conquest of the land, so his poetical and musical genius was necessary to secure his influence upon the church forever. The result is, that no part of the Bible has been so long, so constantly, and so extensively familiar, both to Jews and Christians, as the Psalms of David. This is entirely correct, as all the other writers of the Psalms, excepting Moses, merely carry out and vary what had been already done by David; and as if to guard the system from deterioration, the further we proceed the more direct and obvious is this dependence upon David, as “the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. 23: 1), the master and the model of all other psalmists, from the days of Solomon to those of Ezra. J. A. A.

The great era of lyric poetry begins with David. Born with the genius of a poet, and skilled in music, he had already practised his art whilst he kept his father’s sheep on the hills of Bethlehem. It is probable that he had added careful study to his natural gifts, for we find him closely associated with Samuel and his schools of prophets—men who, like himself, were both poets and musicians. The art which he had thus acquired, and thus carefully studied, was his solace through life. His harp was the companion of his flight from Saul and of his flight from Absalom. It was heard in the caves of Engedi, on the broad uplands of Mahanaim, on the throne of Israel. We have songs of his which date from all periods of his life—from the days of his shepherd youth to his old age, and within a short time of his death. Both his life and his character are reflected in his poetry. That life, so full of singular vicissitudes, might of itself have formed the subject of an epic, and in any other nation but that of the Hebrews would certainly have been made the ground work of a poem. It is a life teeming with romantic incidents and those sudden turns of fortune which poets love to describe. The latter portion of his history, that which begins with his great crimes, and which traces, step by step, their fearful but inevitable chastisement, is itself a tragedy—a tragedy, in terror and pathos, equal to any which the great poets of the Grecian drama have left us, and, in point of human interest as well as divine instruction, incomparably beyond them. P.

It has often been asserted that the David of the Psalms is an entirely different character from the David of history. But the difference is often exaggerated. Not a few of the Psalms illustrate and are illustrated by the history of David’s life. In that history, fragmentary and incomplete as it necessarily is, are to be found abundant traces of the religious side of his character; of the confidence which in the midst of danger and difficulty threw itself unperplexed upon God; of the patience which could await God’s time instead of rushing to revenge; of the simple faith which ascribed all success and advancement to God; of the hope which looked trustingly forward into the unknown future, in calm assurance that God would fulfil his promises; last, but not least, of the penitence which humbled itself in unfeigned sorrow for sin. A. F. K.

His Psalms are the fruit not only of his personality, which was richly endowed and sustained by the Spirit of God (2 Sam. 23 : 2), but also of his peculiar experiences, and of those of his people that were interwoven with his. From the time of his anointing, David’s path led through suffering to glory; song, however, as an Indian proverb says, has sprung from suffering. His life was rich in vicissitudes, which must have tuned him, now to elegiac plaints, now to hymnic strains of praise; the founder of the kingdom of promise, he was at the same time a prophecy of the coming Christ; his typically moulded life could not otherwise utter itself than in words that were typical or even consciously prophetic. D.

His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy and of sorrow swept over the chords as he passed. For the hearts of a hundred men strove and struggled together within the narrow continent of his single heart; and will the scornful men have no sympathy for one so conditioned, but scorn him because he ruled not with constant quietness the unruly host of divers natures which dwelt within his single soul? With the defence of his backslidings, which he hath himself more keenly scrutinized and more bitterly lamented than any of his censors, we do not charge ourselves, because they were, in a manner, necessary, that he might be the full-orbed man which was needed to utter every form of spiritual feeling. The Lord did not intend that His Church should be without a rule for uttering its gladness and its glory, its lamentation and its grief; and to bring such a rule and institute into being, He raised up His servant David, as formerly He raised up Moses, to give to the Church an institute of Law; and to that end He led him the round of all human conditions, that he might catch the spirit proper to every one, and utter it according to truth. He allowed him not to curtail his being by treading the round of one function; but by every variety of function He cultivated his whole being, and filled his soul with wisdom and feeling. He found him objects for every affection, that the affection might not slumber and die. He brought him up in the sheep-pastures, that the groundwork of his character might be laid among the simple and universal forms of feeling. He took him to the camp and made him a conqueror, that he might be filled with nobleness of soul and ideas of glory. He placed him in the palace, that he might be filled with ideas of majesty and sovereign might. He carried him to the wilderness, and placed him in solitudes, that his soul might dwell alone in the sublime conceptions of God and His mighty works; and He kept him there for long years, with only one step between him and death, that he might be well schooled to trust and depend upon the providence of God. Irving.

Sacred song had been cultivated in Israel from the earliest times; but it was not till after it had been elevated by David into an essential element of worship, and the people had received from him and other poets of his times a copious supply of sacred songs, that they could learn how to bring before God in music and song the joy and grief, the hope and fear, the prayer and praise that moved their inmost heart. It is impossible to rate too highly the treasure that Israel possessed in the Psalms, that copy-book of the saints, as Luther called them; nor can it be doubted that it was chiefly by means of the Psalms that the word of God dwelt in the homes of Israel, and that the knowledge of the sacred history was kept up among the people. O.

It was not without a wise forecast of the world’s necessities, and an insight into human nature all around, that God ordained that the Bible, which should contain our best models of sanctified culture, should be constructed in the East, and by the inspiration of minds of an Eastern stock and discipline; whose emotive nature could be broken up like the fountains of a great deep. Our unimpassioned, taciturn, and often cloudy temperament in religion needs an infusion of the Oriental life-blood into the stock of our Christian experience to render the Psalms of David a natural expression of our devotions. We need a culture of sensibility which shall demand these Psalms as a medium of utterance. We need habits of feeling, disciplined indeed, not effervescent, not mystic, but, on the other hand, not crushed, not fearful of outflow, not bereaved of speech. We need a sensitiveness to the objects of our faith, which shall create desire for the objects of prayer, not passionate, not devoid of self-possession, but fluent and self-forgetful in its earnestness, so that it shall have more of the grace of a child in its outgoings. A. Phelps.

In the long and dreary night, one race alone—and one by no means the most distinguished for art, learning, and refinement—upheld the torch of a spiritual faith and a belief in the one true God. The Hebrew theology appears in those remote ages, amid the otherwise universal prevalence of the grossest idolatry, as a miraculous light “streaking the darkness radiantly.” I do not need here to insist upon anything in the literature or the history of this wonderful people which has been called into doubt by the subtle questionings of modern scepticism. I will take only the Psalms, which, as products of the Hebrew mind of a very high antiquity, no scholar has ever thought of questioning. Many of them are undoubtedly as old as the Iliad and the Odyssey, some are probably much older. Contrast their pure and sublime monomono-theism with the theogony of Homer and Hesiod, and with the popular gods of Egypt and India; and account for it, if you can, consistently with the laws of the human mind, and with the history of human progress in civilization, philosophy, and religion, without the aid of immediate inspiration or an antecedent revelation. F. Bowen.

What sources of religious instruction and of quickening impulse were accessible to these writers? Comprehensively, they had two sources: (1) They saw God in creation and in nature. As we may, so might they look abroad of a starry night, and “consider the heavens the work of divine fingers” (Psalm 8); they could listen and hear the heavens “telling the glory of God” (Psalm 19). Or they could look forth upon the fresh face of the earth and see the valleys covered with corn, the pastures with flocks, and the hills girding on joy (Psalm 65). C.—The various tribes could find their several occupations of shepherds, of warriors, of traffickers, according as they were settled on the margin of the desert, in the mountain fastnesses, or on the shores of the Mediterranean. The sacred poetry, which was to be the delight and support of the human soul in all regions of the world, embraced within its range the natural features of almost every country. Stanley.—But (2) more and better than this, the long ages of God’s covenant people had a history. God had come down and talked with men of faith, and had condescended to enter into covenant with them. He had given them his name “Jehovah,” the faithful God, the maker and fulfiller of promise. It is interesting to see how constantly the authors of these sacred songs fall back upon the revelations of God in history; how naturally their thoughts recur to the promise of Canaan to the patriarchs, to the wonders wrought in fulfilment thereof in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the desert, and in the conquest of Canaan; how constantly their faith seeks and finds support in those marvellous “works” of the right hand of the Lord. At these fountains of truth they drank all along the otherwise unwatered desert of their earthly pilgrimage. These wonderful facts were good material to work into poetry and song as well as into the warp and woof of the religious life; and hence we shall not be surprised to find allusions made often, yet not too often—allusions simple yet always impressive, and sometimes sublime—to those wonderful works of their own ever-faithful Jehovah. H. C.

While the Psalms refer largely to nature as God’s work, to the law of Moses and Israel’s early history, their great theme is man himself, the subject of God. The Psalmist naturally divides man into the man or the people of God, and the wicked or the nations that know not the true God, but make to themselves, in their folly, gods many and lords many. He himself is in communion with God, being one of the holy men of God, moved by the Holy Ghost to compose the Songs of Zion. He speaks at one time of the private individual, at another of the public official. He sings of personal experience in strains now plaintive, now joyful, now telling of holiness and sin and all that is involved in the sublime principles of our moral being, now dwelling on pleasure and pain and all that is implied in the varied emotions of our susceptible nature, and now acknowledging, with mingled feelings of gratulation and solemnity, the bearing which the former have upon the latter. He celebrates the high place and privilege of the people of God, and signalizes the righteous man as the constituent unit of the peculiar people, the holy nation, the Church of God. He sets his brand upon oppression and wrong, and pleads the cause of the widow and the fatherless. He touches not unfrequently on the wicked, whether an individual whom he has occasion to single out for special denunciation, or the nations that have forgotten God, or those who are of Israel and yet are not Israel, but double traitors to the God who redeemed them. M.

The ideal man, considered apart from the realization in Christ, as portrayed by the Psalmists, has these characteristics: unshaken trust in God, entire devotion to His service, submission to His will, reliance on His love met by a corresponding affection, a more than filial tenderness; a longing for His presence in the sanctuary, and for fruition of that presence in heaven; a thorough appreciation of the righteousness of all His dispensations; a confident, nay certain, anticipation of a full manifestation of His righteousness. Faith, hope, and love assume thus their true relative position in the development of the spiritual man. On the other side we find single-heartedness, transparent truthfulness, utter absence of guile, purity of heart as the centre and mainspring of moral life; justice, fortitude, self-control, rectitude in dealings between man and man; generosity, sympathy with all forms of suffering, warm and tender toward friends, but ever prompt and earnest toward all men, even opponents; loyalty of subjects to their king, unselfish self-sacrificing love of princes to their people. Here too, not for the first time, but in a higher dedegree than ever, and with a singular nearness to the Christian ideal, we remark the grace of humility; the sense of poverty and need; the first distinct intimation that a broken heart and contrite spirit are acceptable sacrifices to God, and that the meek and lowly are especial objects of His favor and grace. Nor is there any book in ancient literature, profane or sacred, which shows so wide and perfect a sympathy with man in his weakness, and in his strength, in his joy, and in his sufferings. Deep humility and oneness of mind with the poor are traits, of which scarcely a shadow is found in the lyrical poetry of those Gentile nations, which attained the highest degree of culture; as expressed in this book they present a direct contrast to the characteristics of Hellenic genius. The Psalmists one and all, but none so perfectly as David, to whom the book owes its traditional title, while opening their own heart with all its depths of agony and earnestness of aspiration, give full expression to the yearnings of mankind. We find, however, throughout a combination of feelings elsewhere unknown, or imperfectly developed; a deep sense of inherent sin and unworthiness, together with a consciousness of integrity in purpose and intent; a full recognition of a standard of morals and holiness, so perfect as to involve the condemnation of the sinner, yet withal a loving trust in the mercy and grace of the lawgiver and judge; in short, a true preparation for the special work of Christ. Cook.

Not any of these objects, however, is clearer to his perception than the great Being to whom he refers all—nature, scripture, and humanity. In Him, according to the Psalmist, we live and move and have our being; of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. Whenever he speaks of anything, he speaks of it as originating from Him, dependent on Him, and subsisting for Him. And what gives any importance or significance to man and the sphere of earthly things, of which he is, without his own option, the centre and end, is simply his essential relation and accountability to the One Great Eternal Spirit. M.—Manifold as are the Psalms, they all speak to one Person—God. All meet in Him as the one centre toward which they are directed. In their various utterances to God there is the same spirit; the same principle seems to dictate each. They all speak the language of faith in God. And you will find this faith in God unfolding itself into: Faith in God as the Creator and Preserver of the world; as the living King and Ruler of men; as the righteous Judge; as having compassion upon all who suffer; as One who will not reject the penitent. G. Forbes.

The attentive student of Scripture observes that there is a growth in Revelation keeping pace with the growth of the human race. The roots and stems of all revealed truth are in the Pentateuch; they bud and branch out and blossom in the rest of the Old Testament; and they bear their full fruit in the New. This property belongs to the Psalms as well as the other parts of Scripture. M.—Not only redemption itself but also the revelation and the knowledge of it have had a progressive history, which reaches on from Paradise down through time into eternity. Redemption realizes itself in a system of facts, in which God’s loving purpose to redeem sinful humanity is unfolded; and the revelation of redemption anticipates this gradual realization, in order at once to guarantee its Divine authorship, and to render its comprehension possible. In the Psalms there is presented to us more than half a millennium of this progressive realization, disclosure, and apprehension of redemption. And when we take into account the fact that one Psalm is dated from the time of Moses, and that the retrospective glances of the historical Psalms go back even to the age of the patriarchs, we may say that there is scarcely an occurrence that constituted an epoch in connection with the history of redemption, from the election of Abraham down to the new position assigned in the world to the post-exilic nation, which does not somehow or other find its expression in the Psalter. Nor is it merely facts external to it that re echo in its lyrics; but seeing that David, next to Abraham undoubtedly the most significant religious character of the Old Testament, is its chief author, it is itself a direct, integral portion of the history of redemption. And it is also a source of information for the history of the revelation of redemption, inasmuch as it flowed not merely from the spirit of faith, but also at the same time largely from the spirit of prophecy; above all, however, it is our most important memorial of the progressive apprehension of the knowledge of redemption, seeing it shows how, between the giving of the law from Sinai, and the proclamation of the gospel from Zion, the final and essential redemption broke a path for itself in the consciousness and the spiritual life of the Jewish Church. D.

There is a theology of the Psalms, as there is a theology of the prophetic books. And these two are one in spirit and contents, though in the Old Testament hymnal that theology takes the form of personal testimony, while in the prophetic literature it assumes the form of authoritative instruction. It is an intensely vital and vitalizing theology. It is in no sense speculative. It has little to say about the future. It deals almost exclusively with the mortal life of man. It is a philosophy of history; and the forces by which national and universal history is shaped are regarded as identical with those by which the individual life is mastered. In the moral experiences of the soul are mirrored the processes and the issues of God’s universal government. Psalmist and prophet alike conceive of God as the Living One, ruling in eternal righteousness and grace. Hence the song of personal deliverance strikes the key of a worldwide anthem; and the most august predictions find their response in the prayers of the servant of God. This combination of the practical and the theoretical, of experience and doctrine, of psalmody and prophecy, is in the highest degree suggestive and instructive. The true theology is always one which can be fearlessly and fully preached, and which commands the prompt and joyful testimony of the heart; and in all true personal experience stir the living germs of all that is deepest and highest in doctrine. Nor is it difficult to discover the general features of this common doctrinal system. Sin is the awful crime of which man has been guilty; and sin is forgetfulness of God, and abandonment of Him. That plunges the soul, and the nation, into darkness. That leads to an ever-deepening and widening moral degradation. That provokes the righteous judgment of God. Yet that judicial economy is always an economy of redemption. Retribution is subordinate to rescue. The infinite mercy of God co-ordinates and crowns all His penal and disciplinary afflictions. True, in psalmist and prophet, this great thought moves within national limitations. It is applied to the seed of Abraham, the people of the covenant. Its universal application would have been premature. It needed confinement for its development and maturity; but it requires even now no other qualification than that which the universal tone of Christianity supplies. The philosophy of history is here; sin provokes judgment, and judgment clears the way for repentance and redemption! Thus the gospel beats within the bosom of the law, and the fair city of God emerges from the smoke and confusion of the world’s long and bitter discipline! Behrends.

The Theistic ideas of the Psalter are those which we find in our creeds; the Attributes of God are laid down, and reasoned from, as

Augustine might have done. And no sufficient cause can be discovered for considering the Theistic teaching of the Psalms to be the mere poetical adornment and imaginative vesture of thought. The Christological ideas of the Psalms supply a key which unlocks many passages. The soul, turning to questions which more immediately concern its own salvation, and inquiring the grounds of its acceptance, can find no answer in Paul more profoundly evangelical than those which are given by David and other psalmists. The Psalter thus bears witness to Christian theology. Bishop Alexander.

In the Book of Psalms it may be safely affirmed that every point in the gospel doctrine of justification is brought out by anticipation and strikingly exhibited in connection with the faith and worship of Old Testament believers. Here is the same confession of sin (14 : 1) ; the same conviction of guilt and demerit (130 : 4, 7) ; the same fear of God’s righteous judgment (6 : 1) ; the same sense of inevitable condemnation on the ground of God’s law (143 : 2) ; the same earnest cry for undeserving mercy (51 : 1) ; the same faith in His revealed character as the just God and the Saviour (25 : 8) ; the same hope of pardon, resting on a propitiation (130 : 7) ; the same pleading of God’s name, or the glory of all His perfections (25 : 11) ; the same joy and peace in believing (89 : 15, 16) ; the same trust in God and the faithfulness of His promises (89 : 1, 2) ; the same trust in the Saviour of sinners (2 : 12) ; the same confidence in another righteousness than their own (84 : 9) ; the same patient, persevering, hopeful waiting upon God (62 : 5-8). J. Buchanan.—We have the truest view of sin before us in the Psalms. We do find there (in the fifty-first Psalm) the confession of a sinful nature, as well as of sinful acts. We find the confession that all sin, as sin, is committed against God, even when the act is done against our neighbor. We find the ever-living consciousness that God looks at the heart, and not merely at the outward act. “The righteous God trieth the heart and reins.” We find the blessedness of forgiveness stated in words which the Apostle Paul cites in his Epistle to the Romans, when asserting the doctrine of justification by faith. We find the need, and the longing for sanctification through the Spirit, plainly and feelingly declared. P.

The Psalmist deals with the profoundest mysteries, the purest and tenderest emotions, the most sublime and sacred questions that can perplex or thrill, or solemnize the soul. He sings of love, mercy, truth, power ; of conscience, duty, freedom, responsibility ; of hatred, cruelty, falsehood, sin ; of death and hell, of life and heaven, of man and God. These will ever be absorbing themes. Much that can stir the depths of the soul in a healthy and hopeful way is found in the Psalms. And the Psalmist speaks with authority. We hear the voice of the Spirit of truth in these sacred songs. We may now and then find it difficult to catch the meaning ; but when we understand the import of the strain, we are sure it is the truth. This makes the book of Psalms unspeakably precious to the anxious soul, unable to solve its own doubts, meeting with its searchings of heart put into fitting terms, and satisfied that the answers given are the findings of truth. It is full of these heart problems, and leaves none of them without a solution resting on the authority of God. M.

“My voice is unto God, and I will cry” (Psalm 77 : 1), might well stand as a motto to the whole of the Psalter ; for, whether immersed in the depths, or whether blessed with greatness and comfort on every side, it is to God that the Psalmist’s voice seems ever to soar spontaneously aloft. Alike in the welcome of present deliverance or in the contemplation of past mercies, he addresses himself straight to God as the object of his praise. Alike in the persecutions of his enemies and the desertions of his friends, in wretchedness of body and in the agonies of inward repentance, in the hour of impending danger and in the hour of apparent despair, it is direct to God that he utters forth his supplications. Connected with this is the faith by which he everywhere lives in God rather than in himself. God’s mercies, God’s greatness, form the sphere in which his thoughts are ever moving ; even when through excess of affliction reason is rendered powerless, the naked contemplation of God’s wonders of old forms his effectual support. It is of the essence of such faith that the Psalmist’s view of the perfections of God should be true and vivid. The Psalter describes God as He is ; it glows with testimonies to His power and providence, His love and faithfulness, His holiness and righteousness. Correspondingly it testifies against every form of idol which men would substitute in the living God’s place ; whether it be the outward image, the work of men’s hands, or whether it be the inward vanity of earthly comfort or prosperity, to be purchased at the cost of the honor which cometh from God alone. The solemn ’ See that there is no idol-way in me’ of Psalm 139, the striving of the heart after the very truth and nought beside, is the exact anticipation of the " Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” of the loved apostle in the New Testament.

The Psalms not only set forth the perfections of God; they proclaim also the duty of worshipping Him by the acknowledgment and adoration of His perfections. They encourage all outward rites and means of worship; new songs, use of musical instruments of all kinds, appearance in God’s courts, lifting up of hands, prostration at His footstool. Among these they recognize the ordinance of sacrifice as an expression of the worshipper’s consecration of himself to God’s service. But not the less do they repudiate the outward rite when separated from that which it was designed to express; a broken and contrite heart is, from erring man, the genuine sacrifice which God requires. Similar depth is observable in the view taken by the psalmists of human sin. It is to be traced not only in its outward manifestations, but also in the inward workings of the heart, and is to be primarily ascribed to man’s innate corruption. It shows itself alike in deeds, in words, and in thoughts; nor is even the believer able to discern all its various ramifications. Connected with this view of sin is, on the one hand, the picture of the utter corruption of the ungodly world; on the other, the encouragement to genuine repentance, the assurance of divine forgiveness, and the trust in God as the source of complete redemption. In regard of the law, the Psalmist, while warmly acknowledging its excellence, feels yet that it cannot so effectually guide his own unassisted exertions as to preserve him from error. He needs an additional grace from above, the grace of God’s Holy Spirit. But God’s Spirit is also a free spirit; led by this he will discern the law, with all its precepts, to be no arbitrary rule of bondage, but rather a charter and instrument of liberty (119: 45). Dic. B.

The Psalms are in their leading character devotional summaries, expressing the pious thoughts and feelings which the consideration of God’s ways and the knowledge of His revelations were fitted to raise in reflecting and spiritual minds. But the singular thing is, that they are this for the New as well as for the Old Testament worshipper. They are still incomparably the most perfect expression of the religious sentiment, and the best directory to the soul in its meditations and communings about divine things, which is anywhere to be found. There is not a feature in the divine character, nor an aspect of any moment in the life of faith, to which expression, more or less distinct, is not there given. How could such a book have come into existence centuries before the Christian era, but for the fact that the Old and the New dispensations—however they may have differed in outward form, or in the ostensible nature of the transactions belonging to them—were founded on the same relations, and pervaded by the same essential truths and principles? No otherwise could the Book of Psalms have served as the great handbook of devotion to the members of both covenants. There the disciples of Moses and Christ meet as on common ground—the one still readily and gratefully using the fervent utterances of faith and hope which the other had breathed forth ages before. And where in all Scripture can the believer, who now “worships in spirit and in truth,” more readily find for himself the words that shall fitly express his loftiest conceptions of God, embody his most spiritual and enlarged views of the divine government, or tell forth the feelings and desires of his soul even in many of its most lively and elevated moods? P. F.

Aside from the individual psalms, the critics must tell us how the collection came to reach in Israel that high plane of spiritual feeling and utterance, which has never yet been passed, and that amid the densest moral darkness of neighboring peoples. There is but one Psalter for the whole Bible. And it has proved sufficient. Its buttresses are deep and strong enough to bear up a structure that was twenty centuries building; its invisible arch lofty enough to cover the grandest architectures of prophetic vision and of Christian hope. On any principle of development, let them inform us, if the Mosaic laws and institutions were not behind it, what was behind it, to push it upward, before the period of the exile, and to some extent before the acme of prophetic influence had been reached, to such a pitch of moral grandeur, to such hitherto unknown ideas of God and man’s relations to him? What long stretches of time, what mighty moral forces, what terrible wrestlings of the human spirit must have gone before that story of temptation and blessed escape found in the seventy-third Psalm! What an experience of precious rest in God, whose sweet depth no plummet has since fully sounded, is found in Psalm twenty-third! How striking, and how Christian withal, the solution of the mystery of individual immortality conveyed in the words: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee! . . . My flesh and my heart faileth; God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” First a house, then a church, is the maxim of our critics. But surely here is an altar and holiest worship, souls who pant after God. Here are songs in every key, from the tumultuous depths to serenest heights, and hearts to feel them and voices to sing them. And here is He who dwelteth not in temples made with hands; who inhabiteth the praises of Israel; and dwelteth with him that is of a contrite heart and who trembleth at his word. E. C. B.

The Psalms lift us into a purer air than psalmists themselves ever breathed. The authors of these sacred songs touched the chords of a finer human heart than that which beat in their own breasts or those of their contemporaries. The Psalms presuppose men to use them, full of the sense of sin and the blessedness of reconciliation—rejoicing in God—seeking for inward purity—gentle, tender, childlike. This anticipation of the Christian character, so long before Pentecost—this provision of fitting utterance for all the moods of Christian sanctity—is a continuous prophecy ever fulfilling itself in the Church. Every single Christian man who thus, as Athanasius wrote to Marcellinus, “thoroughly perceives and learns the affections of his own soul in the Psalter,” finds in himself a separate witness of the Psalms to Christianity. “The Psalmists,” said Donne, “were not only clear prophets of Christ, but of every particular Christian. They foretold what I, what any, shall do, and suffer, and say.” Bishop Alexander.—Judged only by the clear thought they create, the pure emotion they kindle, the love of right they inflame, the energy they infuse, the Psalms are positively unmatched in the whole literary expression of the world. Like magnets, they have attracted to the acceptance of the highest ideals, and sustained the bravest as they have forgotten what was behind and striven to reach the mark of the prize of their high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The family has been sanctified by their purity, the weary refreshed by their sweetness, and the hopeless revived by their light. Old and young, the living and the dying, have drunk from this perennial fount of the waters of everlasting life, and lived forevermore. Clifford.

Not one inharmonious note do we discover in the Psalms of David and his successors, not one element of discord. The singer “Asaph” was known not only as Levite, but also as prophet. The sons of Korah, recognized as Levites of the Levites, are recognized in their productions as first of all Israelites. Their songs are strikingly national in tone. They honor the sanctuary, but in no spirit of ecclesiasticism. Both, like Ethan, are significantly introduced as David’s singers. They sing in his measures. They reflect his spirit. They teach his doctrine. To find any marked cleavage-lines dividing these compositions such as is supposed to exist in the law; to find opposing tendencies and dissentient opinions on such matters as the cultus, the history, the moral and political outlook, the dangers, the goal of Israel, we will venture to say is impossible. Priestly, kingly, and prophetical elements are found mingling in every part and blending without disharmony. It is “Asaph,” perhaps, who makes most of God as Judge. It is the “sons of Korah” who chiefly exalt Him as King. It is David who strikes every chord in the gamut and in an ethical and doctrinal, as well as an historical, sense is, above all others, the “sweet psalmist of Israel.” E. C. B.

The relation of the Psalms to the legal sacrifices is different from what we would naturally expect. It is true there are not wanting passages in which the offering of the outward, legal sacrifice is recognized as a taking part in religious worship on the part of the individual and the Church; but those passages are more numerous, in which the external sacrifice appears as something not really desired by God at all, as a shell that should be cast away, as a form that should be broken in pieces. It is not this, however, that surprises us. This is the very point, wherein the Psalms contribute their share toward the progress of the history of redemption; it is the process of writing the law upon the heart, commenced already in Deuteronomy, that is continued here upon the ground of the memorable word of Samuel (1 Sam. 15: 22); it is the gradually waxing spirit of the New Testament that in this and in other respects in the Psalter is breaking down the legal barriers. But what is put in the place of the sacrifices that are criticised so disparagingly? Contrition of heart, prayer, thankfulness, self-surrender to God in the doing of His will; just as in Prov. 21: 3, doing justly; in Hos. 6: 6, kindness; in Micah 6: 6-8, doing justly, love, humility; and in Jer. 7: 21-23, obedience. This is what is surprising. The sacrifice that is depreciated is looked upon merely as a symbol, not as a type; it is regarded only ethically, not in its connection with the history of redemption; it is only so far as it is a gift to God, not so far as the gift is appointed to be an expiation, that its character is brought out. Speaking generally, the sacrifice of blood, as such, remains a question in the Old Testament, to which almost only Isa. 53 (in addition to Zech. 12: 10 and 13: 7) gives a plain answer that is in keeping with the historical fulfilment. It is in such late prophetic words as these that the delineation of the Passion and the self-sacrifice of Christ first becomes the subject of direct prediction; and it is the history of the fulfilment given in the Gospels that first shows how closely in keeping with the Anti-type was the form that the Spirit, which spoke through David in his passion Psalms, gave to the utterances of the type regarding himself. In regard to reconciliation as well as redemption in general, the believing confidence of the Old Testament, as it expresses itself in the Psalms, rested upon Jehovah. He is not only the Saviour, but also the Reconciler, from whom propitiation is entreated and hoped for (79 : 9 : 65 : 4 : 78 : 38 : 85 : 3, etc.). At the end of the way which He took through history to redemption Jehovah is indeed God in Christ, and the blood that was given by Him as a typical means of propitiation is, in the Anti-type, that of the God-man, and so far His own. D.

There is indeed little or nothing in all the Book of Psalms of the ceremonial law. Though sacrifice and offering were yet to continue many ages, yet they are here represented as things which God did not desire (Psalms 40 : 6 : 51 : 16), as things comparatively little, and which in time were to vanish away. But the word and law of God, those parts of it which are moral and of perpetual obligation, are here all along magnified and made honorable, nowhere more. And Christ, the Crown and Centre of revealed religion, the Foundation, Corner, and Top-stone of that blessed building, is here clearly spoken of in type and prophecy; both His sufferings and the glory that should follow, and the kingdom that He should set up in the world, which God’s covenant with David concerning his kingdom was to have its accomplishment in. What a high value does this book put upon the word of God, His statutes and judgments, His covenant, and the great and precious promises of it; and how does it recommend them to us as our guide and stay, and our heritage forever! H.

The Book of Psalms bears both on the historic and the prophetic elements of the Old Testament, and so forms a link in the integrity and unity of its structure. The historic Psalms, such as the seventy-eighth, the hundred and fifth, the hundred and sixth, the hundred and thirty-fifth, and hundred and thirty-sixth, whatever may be their date, are of priceless value, because they serve to confirm the substantial truth of the national records. They are an independent witness to the salient points of the national history. It is important to observe the limit at which these historical summaries respectively end. The first goes no farther than the reign of David, who may have been still king when it was written. The second ends with the occupation of Canaan. The third is doubtful, as it may either embrace the period of the judges, or may be a review of the entire history down to the close of the monarchy, though the former is more likely. The fifth and sixth go no farther than the wars of Joshua, if so far. It is not possible to pronounce with certainty on the date of these Psalms, but there can be no doubt that from their contents a presumption exists in favor of their high antiquity, as it would have been natural in any late writer to carry down his allusions to the history nearer to his own time, which it is manifest has not been done. But in proportion to the antiquity of these Psalms is the value of their independent witness to the history of the nation. And the mere fact of their silence as to any events of which we have not the written record, is a strong reason for inferring that this record was in existence at the time when they were written, and a proof that it was deeply imprinted on the memory of the people. It is this double stream of historical narration, and of national poetry corroborating it, that is so characteristic of the Hebrew literature, and that is at once unique in the Old Testament, and an evidence of its structural unity. S. Leathes.

These marvellous compositions are indissolubly bound up with the Israelitish history. There are hardly a dozen of them—whether of the narrative, the didactic, or the lyrical class—which do not either derive from that history some element of their power, or presuppose it as the basis of all the thought and the spring of all the feeling that is in them. Some of the most stirring portions of the Psalter are little else than the great historical events of the Pentateuch in their devotional aspect—as if the sweet singers of Israel, reading the Pentateuch with wonder and joy, had chanted forth its leading incidents with the thoughts which they inspired in their burning bosoms, and thus turned all into a hymnal. As for those Psalms which are strictly personal—embodying the varying emotions of him whose name is associated with the entire collection, recording the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, the struggles and reliefs of his eventful history, as if they had come fresh from his pen from day to day as he went through them, and stretching as they do over the most glorious period of the Israelitish history, from the first establishment of the royalty till it rose to its zenith on the accession of Solomon—this large class of the Psalms has positively no meaning at all, apart from the History; insomuch, that if you give up the authenticity of the history, not only will the religion be found to have dissolved with it, but the life and soul and sense even of the poetry will have lost all power of stirring the heart. But if the Old Testament history be genuine and reliable history, the question whether the Hebrew faith is supernatural and divine is settled; for that history is nothing else than a record of supernatural communications made to men, and of men’s treatment of them; of stupendous supernatural occurrences, for the purpose of forming into a nation the recipients of those divine communications and establishing them in a land of their own; of institutions divinely framed for hedging up this nation, and of fresh communications made to them from time to time as depositaries of the true faith, and witnesses for the living God to the nations around, until a destined period should arrive when this faith should take a brighter form, and burst its narrow bounds, and fill the whole earth.

One other prominent feature of the Psalms must not be passed by—the constant reference in them to a written Word, by the faith of which the psalmists were nurtured into intelligent and spiritual subjection to the God of their fathers, and by devout meditation on which their souls were attuned to those lofty strains which have furnished a matchless liturgy for all ages, all lands, all classes alike. This written Word was beyond all doubt just the Pentateuch—called variously “the law of the Lord,” His “statutes,” “commandments,” “testimonies,” “judgments,” etc. On this Word the whole religious life of believers turned, as on a pivot, “Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. Great peace have they who love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. My lips shall utter praise when thou hast taught me thy statutes.” Thus, as the religious life of these sweet singers of Israel began with faith in this “law of the Lord”—the written record of God’s revelations to men from the beginning—so their stability in the ways of God, their recovery from backsliding, their triumph over all that would separate between God and them, and their assurance forever, were all built on that Word, on which, as their divinely provided ladder, their souls rose to God as their refuge and strength in every time of trouble. “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.” “Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction. I will never forget thy precepts; for with them thou hast quickened me. Nay, they confidently expect that Word to subjugate the whole world to God whenever the time shall arrive for its universal proclamation. “All the kings of the earth shall praise Thee, O Lord, when they hear the words of Thy mouth.” D. Brown.

It is a question fairly under discussion, on what principle Psalms in whole or part are Messianic—i.e., whether they are direct predictions of Jesus Christ to come, or indirect, in this sense, that they are originally and properly written of David or Solomon, and are found applicable to Christ, because David and Solomon were types of Him. To us it appears that these theories are not so opposed as to exclude each other, and there is no reason why both should not be true. The latter explanation best suits some of the Messianic passages, while others require the former theory. D. F.—All sober interpreters since the time of the Reformation, following the guidance of Luther and Calvin, have avoided both extremes of error. On the one hand, they have recognized the existence of the Messianic element; on the other, they have abandoned those strained and fanciful interpretations by which violence is done to the plain language of many Psalms, when they are regarded as predictive of our Lord. Still much difference of opinion exists, more especially among English commentators, as to the principle of interpretation to be followed in those Psalms which are confessedly Messianic. One class of expositors, of whom Bishop Horsley may be taken as a chief representative, have laid it down as a certain principle, that whenever any part of a Psalm is by any of the writers of the New Testament applied to our Lord, there we are bound to explain the whole Psalm as prophetic of Him. Nav, every Psalm, it has been contended, which may reasonably be held, even without express New Testament sanction, to be Messianic, is Messianic in all its parts, from first to last. But, in the first place, this canon of interpretation fails, because it, at least tacitly, assumes that in all these Psalms the writer is consciously uttering a prediction; that the Psalmist, although he is speaking, it may be, in some lower sense of himself, has ever consciously before the eye of his mind One greater than he, in whom he knew that his words would find their ultimate fulfilment. But there is no proof that such is the case, but rather the reverse. In the next place, the difficulties involved in this canon of interpretation are far more serious than those which it is intended to surmount. It compels us constantly to take words and phrases in a sense which is obviously not their proper and natural sense. Besides these inherent difficulties, the canon has all analogy against it, as well as the authority of the New Testament writers. It has analogy against it; for no one thinks of expounding the prophetic books in this manner. Thus, no one contends that because part of a prophecy is Messianic, therefore every portion of it must be Messianic. But, in the next place, the invariable practice of the New Testament writers overthrows the canon referred to, and establishes for us a safe and consistent rule of interpretation. Never does any writer of the New Testament, evangelist or apostle, never does our Lord Himself, sanction the application of any passage of the Old Testament to Him in which the writer confesses and deplores his own sinfulness. This fact of itself ought to be a guide to us in our interpretation. It is a beacon against the shoals and quicksands of human error. Frequently and freely as the New Testament writers cite passages from the Old Testament, and especially from the Psalms, as fulfilled in Christ—some, perhaps, which, without their authority, we should hardly have dared so to interpret—they most cautiously abstain from that perversion of language which in modern theology has been pushed to such an extreme. To them it would have seemed nothing short of an awful profanation to have spoken of the sins laid upon Christ as His sins. They would never have thought it possible to speak of Him as a sinner, who to them was the Holy One of God. Words which expressed devotedness, self-sacrifice, high and holy aspirations, these they felt, and we all feel, however true in some sense of a righteous Israelite of old, uttering them in the communion of his heart with God, and carried beyond himself while he uttered them, were infinitely truer, yea, only true in the fullest sense, of Him who came not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. Hence these, even where no direct prediction was intended, were more fitting in His mouth than in theirs. So likewise the language of sorrow, the cry poured out from the depths of a troubled spirit, however truly expressive of the feelings of a pious Jew bowed down by calamities, persecutions, miseries untold, never came with so true a force of utterance from any lips as from the lips of Him whose sorrows and whose sufferings were such as it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.

What, then, is the conclusion at which we arrive from these observed facts? Surely it is this: That the Psalms to a large extent foreshadow Christ, because the writers of the Psalms are types of Christ. And it is of the very nature of a type to be imperfect. It foretells in some particulars, but not in all, that of which it is the type. Were it complete in itself, it would not point further; through its very incompleteness it becomes a prophecy. Now, the Psalms are typical. They are the words of holy men of old—of one especially, whose life was fashioned in many of its prominent features to be a type of Christ. But just as David’s whole life was not typical of Christ, so neither were all his words. His suffering and his humiliation first, and his glory afterward, were faint and passing and evanescent images of the life of Him who was both Son of David and Son of God. But the sorrowful shadow of pollution which passed upon David’s life, that was not typical, and, therefore, the words in which it was confessed are not typical or predictive, or capable of application to our Lord. Once let us firmly grasp this idea, that any Psalm in which a suffering saint of God under the Old Testament addresses God has but a typical reference to Christ, where it has any such reference at all, and we are freed at once from all embarrassment of interpretation. Then we can say without hesitation: Every word in that Psalm is the true expression of the feelings of him who wrote it; the suffering is a real suffering; the sorrow is a real sorrow; the aspiration, so high, so heavenly, is a real aspiration; the joy and the triumph of deliverance are real; the confession of sin comes from a heart to which sin is a real burden. But the sorrow, the suffering, the aspiration, the joy, the triumph—all but the sin—never found all their fulness of meaning save in the life and on the lips of the Perfect Man.

Another great advantage of this system of interpretation is, that it not only saves us from a forced and unnatural interpretation of language in particular instances, but that it falls in so completely with the whole history of the Old Testament. That history is throughout typical. We have the key to its meaning in that quotation by the evangelist Matthew: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” The history of Israel and the history of Christ are, in a certain sense, one. And as the history of Israel was fashioned to be typical of the history of redemption, in its capital features, so the history of the great representative characters in Israel was designed to foreshadow, each in some distinct particular, the life of Christ. Christ our Lord is prophet, priest, and king. All these offices find their highest significance in Him; and, accordingly, those who bore these offices in the Mosaic economy were, in their several degrees, types of Christ. Of these three principal figures in the Jewish typical system, two appear prominently in the Psalms, the prophet and the king. This is what might be expected. The priest was typical by his acts rather than by his words. And sacrifice and ritual might be enjoined and described in the law, but they find no place in the Psalms. They are mentioned only to be depreciated. Hence in one Psalm only does Messiah appear as priest, and there He is both king and priest. There, moreover, He stands as a priest after the order of Melchisedec, and not after the order of Aaron. But with regard to the other two offices—those of prophet and king—the Messianic Psalms may be divided into two classes, according as they are represented by the one or the other of these two characters.

1. Prediction of the Messiah as King. We have a series of Psalms—the second, the twentieth, the twenty-first, the forty-fifth, the seventy-second, the hundred and tenth—in all of which a king is celebrated. In one Psalm a king is described who goes forth conquering and to conquer; in another, a king whose reign is a reign of righteousness and peace. In another, the occasion of the royal nuptials has been selected as the subject. In all, some Jewish monarch, either on his accession or at some critical period of his reign, is the immediate object before the eyes of the inspired poet. But in all the monarch grows larger and fairer than the sons of men. He is seen ever in the light of the promise made to David, and in that light he is transfigured. Human he is, no doubt; many words spoken of him pertain only to a human king; but many also are higher; many cannot, except by force of exaggeration, be made to apply to one who wears the frailty together with the form of man. There is but one interpretation by which the apparently discordant elements in these Psalms can be held together. It is that according to which the Psalms are regarded not as simply predictive, but as properly typical in their character.

2. As Prophet and Sufferer. Many other Psalms there are which, in the New Testament, are said to have their fulfilment in the sufferings of Christ. In these, again, the writer himself is a type of Christ, and he is so in his character as a prophet, or preacher of righteousness. In all these Psalms a servant of God appears as a sufferer, and a sufferer for righteousness’ sake; often, indeed, confessing that he suffers the just punishment of his sins at the hands of God, but always complaining that he is unjustly persecuted of men. In such Psalms, more particularly, as the twenty-second and sixty-ninth we find, moreover, language used which implies that the sufferer occupies a prominent position, and that he is, in some sense, the representative of Israel in his sufferings. The issue of those sufferings is to be a subject of joy and thanksgiving, not to himself only, but to all who, like himself, fear God, and endure persecution for His name’s sake. Hence the Psalmist, both as prophet and as righteous sufferer, is a type of Christ; for every Jewish prophet or preacher was also conspicuous as a sufferer, a martyr for the truth. But we never find these two characters—that of the suffering prophet and the victorious king—united in the same Psalm. This, of itself, is surely remarkable. This, of itself, teaches us how purely typical the Psalms are, so far as their Messianic import is concerned. Everywhere we find imperfection; everywhere only a partial representation of that which could not as yet be conceived of in its completeness. Lastly, there is another remarkable circumstance, which lends ample confirmation to the view here advocated. It is this. Nowhere in the Psalms are the redemption of the world and Israel’s final glory bound up with the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah is, for a time at least, associated with the present, and only with the present. The anointed of God is David, or Solomon, till both the one and the other fail to fulfil the longings of men’s hearts. But the advent to which Israel looks forward is the advent of JEHOVAH. It is He who is Israel’s true King. It is His coming which shall be her redemption and her glory; but His coming is never identified with the coming of the Messiah. The earthly hope and the heavenly run on in parallel lines, but they never meet. In the light of the New Testament only do we see how David’s Son is also his Lord.

All these facts, then, point in one direction. The fact that the Messiah and the Divine Deliverer are not as yet seen by the Psalmists to be the same; the fact that the king and the sufferer are two, not one; the fact that the New Testament writers never quote confessions of sinfulness as in any way applicable to Christ, whilst they do quote other words expressive of devotion or suffering as so applicable—all these tend to the same conclusion, namely, that whilst all the great characters of Israelitish history are typical of Him, they are so only partially and imperfectly. Hence we can freely and safely adopt this principle of interpretation in all cases. We can see in every Psalm which may reasonably be regarded as Messianic, a primary reference to the writer and to his own circumstances; and, so far as confessions of sin meet us, an exclusive reference; whereas in all else, without maintaining a conscious prophecy, we can recognize the language of a type waiting its proper accomplishment in the antitype. P.

The Royal Messiah. Psalms 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 61, 72, 89, 110, 132. The kingdom of Israel was at once the expression of God’s purpose to establish a universal kingdom upon earth, and the means for the accomplishment of that purpose. The people of Israel was Jehovah’s Son, His first born, and His servant; and the Davidic king as the representative of the nation was Jehovah’s Son, His first born, and His servant. He was no despot, reigning in his own right, but the “anointed of Jehovah,” who was the true King of Israel, appointed by Him as His viceroy and representative.

The Suffering Messiah. Psalms 22, 35, 41, 55, 69, 109. Men’s minds had to be prepared not only for a triumphant King, but for a suffering Saviour. The great prophecy of Isa. 52, 53 finds preludes and echoes in what may be called the Passion Psalms. The sufferings of David and other saints of the old dispensation were typical; they helped to familiarize men with the thought of the righteous suffering for God’s sake, of suffering as the path to victory, of glory to be won for God and deliverance for man through suffering. A. F. K.

If the Psalms contain not the narratives of Messiah’s birth, and life, and death, where, in the whole Scriptures, can we find such declarations of the work of Christ, in its humiliation and its glory, the spiritual agonies of His death, the glorious issues of His resurrection, the wrestling of His kingdom with the powers of darkness, its triumph over the heathen, and the overthrow of all its enemies, until the heads of many lands shall have been wounded, and the people made willing in the day of His power? Irving.

The Psalms, which are so full of the experiences and hopes of David, and other holy men of old, while they express only fear and discomfort in regard to the state after death, not infrequently point to the resurrection from the dead as the great consummation of desire and expectation: “Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave; or He shall receive me”—thus expressing belief, not only in a prolonged existence in Sheol, but in an ultimate return from its chambers. The prophets, who are nearly silent regarding the state of the disembodied soul, speak even more explicitly of a resurrection from the dead, and evidently connect with it the brightest hopes of the Church. P. F.

In a half-dozen passages in the Psalms the hope of everlasting life casts its light upon the present. In this, as in all things else, God’s revelation was gradual. At no time could they who trusted in God and loved Him dream that their trust and love were only for this world. But in the life of Abraham, nothing is said of his hope after death. In the life of Moses it is the same. With David the hope begins to assert itself; it is not, indeed, clear; it speaks in no certain accents; but still it wears the aspect, and utters the voice, of a hope. It is a hope of that which may be, rather than of that which shall be; but yet, even in its weakness, it tramples upon the world and time and death. With Isaiah this hope becomes clearer. Ezekiel, in the parable of a national resurrection, draws his image from the resurrection of the dead. Daniel asserts it in language which cannot be mistaken. From this time onward it becomes an undoubted article of Jewish belief. They who deny it are counted for a sect, and our Lord confutes them with an unanswerable argument drawn from the books of Moses. Finally, by His resurrection, life and immortality were brought to light; and from the days of the apostles to the present hour, Jesus and the resurrection have been the prominent subjects of all Christianity, and a future life the most consoling hope in all times of affliction, and in the presence of death. But it was otherwise with the fathers of the Jewish Church. God was teaching them the capital truth on which all other truth was to rest, that He, and nothing else, was their sufficient portion. “I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward,” this was His great word to Abraham. It was by this that Abraham lived. All else was promise; this was present possession. The promised land he could never call his own; the promised seed was given to him only to be demanded back by Him who gave it. The whole discipline of Abraham’s life had this purpose in it: to lead him to find the everlasting God, his strength, his portion, his all. He was called “the friend of God;” and he who had God for his friend could need, could have, nothing more; for all was implied in this. On this fact Abraham’s life was built; on this the lives of all his true children. The Jews were not merely designed to be witnesses to the world of the unity of God. They were this, no doubt; but they were far more. They were witnesses to a better truth—that the eternal God loves men, and calls them his children and his friends, and that men can be, and know themselves to be, his friends and his children. It is of this truth that the Psalms are full. They give proof in every verse of the reality of a communion and fellowship between the living God and His creatures. The poetry of the Hebrews, it has been well said, is a “poetry of friendship between God and man.” And it seems to have been designed that the truth of this divine communion should stand alone in its grandeur, because it is upon this that man’s life must be built. We must rest upon the broad foundation of faith before we can have the hope which maketh not ashamed. If hope is the anchor within the veil, faith is the victory which over cometh the world. We cannot wonder, therefore, that so little, comparatively, is said of a future life in the Psalms. It was not yet time, God was training his children to lean only upon Him. When the fulness of the time was come, the veil was rent away, paradise opened, and the church militant made one with the church triumphant. P.

In the view of the psalmists, death and life are such radical notions (notions, that is to say, apprehended by them as rooted in the principles of divine wrath and divine love) that it is easy for New Testament faith, to which they have been fully disclosed even to their background in hell and heaven, to adjust and deepen all the utterances in the Psalms that refer to them. It is by no means contrary to the mind of the psalmist, if in such passages as 6 : 6 the New Testament suppliant substitutes Gehenna for Hades; for the psalmists dread Hades only as being the realm of wrath or of separation from God’s love, which is the true life of men. Nor is it contrary to the mind of the poets to think in 17 : 15 of the future beholding of the face of God in all His glory, and in 49 : 15 of the resurrection morning; for the hopes that are expressed there in a spiritually exalted condition of soul are really, so far as regards their truly satisfying fulfilment, hopes that belong to the future life. As Oetinger says, there is no essential New Testament truth that is not contained in the Psalms, if not in its unfolded sense, at least in the spirit. The Old Testament barrier already encompasses the gradually developing life of the New Testament, which is one day to break through it. The eschatology of the Old Testament leaves a dark background, which is laid out, as it were, to be divided by the New Testament revelation into light and darkness, and to be lit up into a wide perspective that extends into the eternity that lies beyond time. Wherever it begins to dawn in the eschatological darkness of the Old Testament, it is already the first morning rays of the sunrise of the New, that is thus announcing itself. In this respect also the Christian cannot refrain from disregarding the barrier of the psalmists, and understanding the Psalms according to the mind of the Spirit, who, even during the development of redemption and of the knowledge of it, kept the goal and the consummation steadily in view. Thus understood the Psalms are hymns of the Israel of the New Testament no less than of that of the Old. The Church, when it uses the language of the Psalms as supplications, celebrates the unity of the two Testaments, and science, when expounding them, does honor to the distinction between the Old and the New. They are both in the right; the former in regarding the Psalms in the light of the one essential salvation, the latter in keeping apart the sacred eras, and the various stages through which the knowledge of salvation has passed. D.

The Scripture imprecations do not belong to any one period nor any one individual, race, or country. They stretch along the whole line of revelation from Moses and David to Paul and John, from the Pentateuch to the Apocalypse. They not only cover the entire period of God’s revelation to man, but extend their sweeping condemnations and judgments to the material and spiritual, the temporal and eternal, interests of the enemies of God and His people. Not one of these imprecations is local or personal. Each and all belong to one vast system, and in each and every instance he who utters the imprecation is completely identified with God, and speaks as His representative, and denounces woe upon, not his private and personal enemies, but the enemies of God. If they were in every case the representatives of God, if they spake His mind, then the case is cleared of many difficulties, and the true ground of complaint is that God should feel and speak thus concerning any portion of the human race. The wish expressed for the destruction of the enemies of God and His people was realized. Israel’s enemies were time and again punished with defeat and slaughter. For their sins they were given over to be destroyed, and the imprecation was the prophetic announcement of their doom. The imprecation is never uttered until the case is hopeless, until the sin is incurable. How David or Jeremiah could love the sinner whom they devoted to destruction is just the old problem of how God can love the sinner and punish him for his sins. The spirit of all these imprecations is simply righteous abhorrence of all unaton, unpardon, unrepented, and incurable sin, the holy hatred on the part of God and all godlike spirits of sin. And still more light is thrown upon this subject when we remember that God is ceaselessly doing with incurable sinners what Moses, Job, David, Jeremiah, and Paul asked him to do. The mere expression of a desire and purpose to punish sin is of insignificant importance compared with the deliberate and persistent execution of that purpose. In all human history God’s enemies have been punished, and the Scriptures tell us plainly that they have been in the past. If men wish to find a God who will not punish sin, they will have to remove to some realm utterly unlike any of which the race has knowledge. Pitzer.

As regards the so-called imprecatory Psalms, it is certainly true that, in the attitude of the Christian and the Church to the enemies of Christ, the longing for their removal is outweighed by the longing for their conversion. On the assumption, however, that they will not be converted and will not anticipate the penal judgment by repenting, the passing over of the jealousy of love into that of anger is justified also in the New Testament (e.g., Gal. 5 : 12); and on the assumption that their obduracy has become absolute, even the Christian need not shrink from praying for their ultimate overthrow. For the kingdom of God does not come only by the way of grace, but also by the way of judgment; the coming of God’s kingdom is what is longed for by the suppliant of the Old Testament as well as of the New; and in the Psalms also every imprecation of judgment upon those who set themselves to oppose the coming of this kingdom is made upon the assumption of their persistent impenitence. D.

The Psalmist was inspired to delineate and denounce the sins of his own and of other times with a knowledge and a certainty which the uninspired mind cannot possess. While, therefore, we may learn grave and salutary lessons from him concerning the exceeding sinfulness of sin, it is plain that we can only detect the sinner so far as the poet himself has pointed him out. We may read with solemn awe the depths of evil which he condemns, but we can neither search the heart nor take upon us to judge our neighbor. These high functions we must leave to the Judge of all the earth. All that we shall do will be to concur sadly and solemnly in the sentence which the eternal Judge will pronounce in that strange work of judgment which the entrance of sin has compelled Him to perform. If any transgressor, reading the awful doom of ungodliness in these Psalms, will repent, the sentence of judgment melts into the accents of pardon and the entire future of the soul is reversed. After all, then, there is not in these few awful Psalms an irreversible path of perdition set before the offender; but a firm, faithful, terrible warning, to which if he will but give heed his soul will escape forever. Behind the dark cloud of a premonitory curse lies the bright light of a present and perpetual blessing, concealed, indeed, from the stony look of haughty ungodliness, but open to the soft eye of penitent faith. M.—We are justified in saying that the imprecations in the Psalms, though springing from a righteous zeal for the glory of God, and not from any mere thirst of personal revenge, still are not such as a Christian can lawfully, in their natural sense, use now. They may have their lesson for us, nevertheless. They may show us what zeal for God is; how it consumes one who is truly filled by it. They may be a warning against laxity of belief, indifference, softness of spirit, even whilst we know that our zeal is to be a zeal of love, not of hate; our fervor a fervor of devotion to God rather than of opposition even to those whom we may count to be His enemies. The imprecations which may not pass over our lips where even one of God’s enemies is concerned, may still remind us that there is a holy jealousy of love, may rouse us to greater moral earnestness, may rebuke us, and put us to shame because we are neither cold nor hot. P.

It would be of no avail, if we were permitted, to render certain passages in a declaratory or prophetic sense which are now rendered as indicating a wish or desire. The difficulty would exist elsewhere in its full extent. It is hardly necessary to say that the affirmation itself, in regard to the Hebrew language, is untenable. There are forms of the verb in Hebrew, and there are connected particles, which oblige us to translate by the terms let, may, and others which are expressive of wish or desire. Often, too, the context will not justify any other rendering.

Another way in which it has been attempted to remove the difficulty is to consider it as a peculiarity of the old dispensation, as one of the things engrafted upon the Mosaic economy which the Christian dispensation does not recognize; as consonant with the general spirit of the Jewish theocracy, but which a clearer revelation would annul. But God is the author of these dispensations, and the general spirit of the two must be the same. We ought not to vindicate one Testament at the expense of the other. What is essentially bad at one period must be so at all times. It is no less wrong for Joshua to indulge in malice toward the Canaanites than it is for the Apostle Paul toward Nero. Cruelty is no more tolerated in the Pentateuch than it is in the Epistle. He has not been a careful reader of the Book of Deuteronomy who has not observed the special pains which God took to impress upon the hearts of the Israelites the importance of treating kindly not only the widow and the orphan, but the stranger, the Egyptian, the hired servant who was not of their own nation. No small part of the Levitical law is taken up with commands and appeals designed to counteract the narrow and selfish spirit of the Hebrews. Besides, the principle runs through the entire Scriptures, the New Testament as well as the Old. “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. May the Lord reward him according to his works!” It is not easy to see how this differs materially from the imprecations in the Book of Psalms.

It has been supposed by some that the passages in question are to be understood in a spiritual sense; that the reference to individuals is not real but imaginary, assumed for the time being, and for an ultimate purpose wholly different from what lies on the face of them—that is, we are to apply these various maledictions to our spiritual foes, imprecating on them the terrible calamities which were apparently, but only apparently, intended for the personal enemies of the sacred writers. The simple statement of such a position is enough to show its absurdity. If Doeg, Ahithophel, and Alexander the coppersmith were not real persons, what were they? Besides, whether would such a principle of interpretation carry us? B. B. E.

Undoubtedly a certain number of passages are not defensive, they are denunciatory; such as 54 : 5, 7 ; 59 : 10 ; 92 : 11 ; 143 : 12. This last verse brings into view the sentiment which forms the base of all these passages: “And of

Thy goodness slay mine enemies, and destroy all them that vex my soul, for I am Thy servant.” If we put these words into paraphrase, the Psalmist pleads that he is engaged in the service of God; that in this service he is assailed and hindered; that, powerless in himself, he appeals to the source of power; and that he invokes upon the assailants and hinderers of the Divine work the Divine vengeance, even to their extinction. There is not one of these passages which tampers with truth or justice; they are aimed at sin, to blast and wither it. “Lead me, O Lord, in Thy righteousness, because of mine enemies” (Psalm 5 : 8). This is the universal strain. All these passages are strokes delivered with the sword of righteousness, in its unending warfare with iniquity. Nor is there one among them of which it can be shown that they refer to personal feuds, passions, or desires. Everywhere the Psalmist speaks in the name of God, on behalf of His word and will.

But it may be said that such denunciations are excessive in degree, that they are too severe. With respect to their severity, I suggest, and if need be contend, that we in our ignorance and weakness are no fit judges of the extent to which the wisdom of the Almighty may justly carry the denunciation and the punishment of guilt. Man, and even civilized man, contemplates with much equanimity the taking of human life for the occasions which he deems sufficient. He knows that in all wars one party must be guilty, and that in most or many wars neither have had a justification for the wholesale bloodshed which floods the path of destruction that they necessarily follow. Life, which he did not give and cannot restore, he takes away for the repression of crime, with general though not unanimous approval. It is also taken, even now, in most Christian countries, through duels for private injury or insult. But the scruples, which for ourselves we so easily thrust aside, become active, feverish, and even violent, when, in a world to the abundant wickedness of which our own practice witnesses, the Ruler of that world, who gave life for use, and who sees and judges its abuse, is to be arraigned before our mock tribunal; and we who cannot and do not rightly guide each our own action, are to undertake to determine His. And this when we have not fully learned and cannot measure either the deep and frightful depravity of the Canaanitish nations, or the purposes with which penalty descends. We know not whether it comes in mercy to correct the growth of evil before it shall become incurable, and whether or how far, when opportunity had been exhausted here, resources may still have been held in reserve to be expended for good in the great elsewhere. To pronounce verdicts upon these terrible denunciations may be impious, and is surely at the least unreasonable. W. E. Gladstone.

There is a principle that, I think, must be regarded as a justification of the passages in question. The principle may be best stated by three or four illustrations. Doeg, an Edomite herdsman, in the time of Saul, killed eighty-five unarmed, helpless priests, when he knew that they were wholly innocent of the charge made against them, and when no one else dared to touch these consecrated servants of the Lord. But with this he was not satisfied; every woman and child, every breathing thing, fell under the assassin’s knife. Now the very mention of the atrocity stirs up feelings in us which cannot be repressed, and which are only rendered the more poignant by reflection on the attendant circumstances. The murder of the children at Bethlehem, by Herod, another Edomite, was an act of gratuitous cruelty, which the imagination utterly refuses to carry out into its details. The horrors of conscience that he suffered on account of his murder of his wife Marianne, and which almost antedated those pains that shall never have an end, do not awaken for him the slightest degree of sympathy. A happy end to that turbulent life would have shocked us. The woman that wished the head of the venerable forerunner of our Lord to be brought to her in a basin—who desired to enjoy a sight which would have curdled the blood of any one else—has excited a feeling in every reader’s breast that no lapse of time has in the least degree diminished. The simple words of the Gospel are enough. We wish not a word of commentary. Every right-minded man has one, on the living fibres of his heart. The striking of a great bell at midnight in Paris was the signal of a deed at which men shudder now, at the distance of four hundred years. It was an outrage upon the nature which God has given to His creatures, which admits of no apology, and which necessarily demanded an atonement. And there are those who, in the horrors of the French Revolution, beheld the cup of retribution pressed to the lips of the nation stained with this blood; and when they saw her compelled to drink the very dregs, they felt that a debt to divine justice had been paid, God’s moral government had been vindicated, and His word had come to pass—“They who sowed the wind had reaped the whirlwind.”

Now, what is the character of the principle thus manifested? what the nature of the emotions with which such transactions as these are regarded? A primary element of it is indignation. Before we have had time to reflect there is an instant, a spontaneous burst of anger toward the wrong-doer. We cannot prevent it if we would. It is prior to all deliberation. In its first outbreak it is beyond control. It is outraged nature, and will have vent. Another element is compassion toward the injured party. We have an instinctive pity for weakness crushed to the dust, for innocence betrayed and violated. The wailing cry of infancy is in our ears; the white locks of age dragging in the dust are in our sight. Another and principal ingredient is a sense of justice. When a crime of extraordinary atrocity goes unpunished, we feel that justice is defrauded of its dues. We are indignant that so great a wrong should go unredressed. While the crime is unatoned we have a feeling not only of insecurity, but that justice has been violated. Public order is disturbed. A shock has been given to that sense of rectitude which is common to man. This is not of momentary duration, as the indignant or compassionate feeling may be. It grows stronger with the lapse of time, and reflection only adds to its intensity. When a great outrage is perpetrated nothing will calm the perturbation of our moral nature but the infliction of a penalty. The grievance must be redressed. A voice within us calls imperatively for reparation, whether we or others are the authors of the deed. The endurance of suffering is an indispensable condition for the return of peace. We secretly desire the speedy infliction of the penalty on ourselves, if we are conscious of guilt, and on others, also, if they are the evil-doers. And what we crave by an irrepressible instinct of our moral nature, may we not, on fit occasions, express in language? Furthermore, this is an original principle of our nature. It has all the marks of being a simple and ultimate fact, which can be affirmed in relation to any attribute of our nature. In this respect it stands precisely on the ground of the other original properties of our constitution. Again, it is universal, and therefore original. It has shown itself in all ages, in every state of society and period of human life, among the rudest and the most refined. Wherever the voice of a brother’s blood has cried from the ground, it has found an answering echo in every bosom.

It may be maintained, further, that this feeling is not necessarily accompanied with any malice or ill-will toward the sufferer. An atrocious crime is committed in our neighborhood; we have the strongest sympathy for the injured party, and indignation toward the evil-doer. We unite in all proper measures to bring him to what we call a condign—that is, a deserved punishment. We rejoice when we learn that he has been apprehended, and that justice is permitted to take its appointed course. If we do not, in so many words, imprecate calamities upon him, we feel, and we perform, what amounts to the same thing. We ardently desire and pray that he may suffer punishment. If he is proved to be guilty, we are disappointed if he escape. We are even eager to co-operate in efforts to bring him within the arm of the law. But all this is not attended with any desire to witness the sufferings of a human being, or that those sufferings, in themselves, should be felt. We have no malice or private revenge to gratify. The absorbing emotion is for the good of society. We have the persuasion that if the criminal escapes the bonds that hold men together will be weakened, if they are not destroyed. That there may be this entire freedom from personal ill-will is shown by the fact that our feelings are precisely similar, in kind at least, toward an offending contemporary or neighbor, and toward a notorious culprit who lived ages ago, or may now live at the ends of the earth, and whose punishment or escape from it cannot possibly affect us personally. The utterance of this moral feeling is the utterance of humanity within us.

The connection of this original principle of our nature, which has been briefly developed, with the imprecations in the Psalms and in other parts of the Bible, is obvious. If it does not account for all, it still lies at the foundation of a large portion of them. In other words, these imprecatory passages are justified by a primary and innocent feeling of our nature. Were we placed in the condition of the sacred penmen, we should feel, and properly feel, as they felt. The feeling in the minds of those who penned the fifty-fifth and sixty-ninth Psalms was not malice. It was the indignation excited by cruelty and injustice, and the desire that crime should be punished. They, doubtless, followed the precept, Be ye angry, and sin not. If we were acquainted with the circumstances which called forth the imprecatory Psalms, we should doubtless find, as the cause or occasion, striking cases of treachery, practised villainy, and unblushing violations of law.

Our Saviour uttered awful anathemas against the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees. These were authorized, not simply on the ground that he knew the hearts of men and, as Judge of the world, had a right to anticipate the final sentence, but from the atrocity of their crimes. On account of the reputed sanctity of their characters, they were often made the depositaries for safe keeping of the pittance of widows, or they became guardians of the estates of orphans. These sacred funds, they artfully embezzled and appropriated to their personal use, while the helpless owner sought for redress in vain, because the judge in the case might be the swindler himself. No wonder our Saviour denounced the vengeance of Heaven on these sanctimonious thieves and repudiators. His anathemas were sanctioned by a feeling which we have in common with Him, and which, on extraordinary occasions, we not only cherish, but express or imply in language. If we had been fully possessed of the facts, and all the attendant circumstances, as He knew them, or as His disciples might, in a degree, have known them, we should have seen ample ground for His terrible denunciations. B. B. Edwards.

The truth seems to be, then, that it is only a morbid benevolence, a mistaken philanthropy, which takes offence at these Psalms; for in reality they are not opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, or to that love of enemies which our Lord enjoined. Resentment against evil-doers is so far from being sinful, that we find it exemplified in the meek and spotless Redeemer Himself, as when He looked around upon the Pharisees “with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.” If the emotion and its utterance were essentially sinful, how could Paul wish the enemy of Christ to be accursed; or say of his own enemy: “The Lord reward him according to his work?” How, then, could he say to the high priest, “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall,” or how could Peter say to Simon, the sorcerer: “Thy money perish with thee?” Above all, how, then, could the spirits of the just in heaven be represented as calling upon God for vengeance upon their enemies and persecutors? (Rev. 6 : 10) Assuredly it is not in the Old Testament only that God is set forth not only as a Father, but as a Judge and Vindicator—as one “angry with the wicked every day.” The God of the New Testament is also “a consuming fire;” and it is still “dreadful to fall into the hands of the living God;” and to those who fall away after having received the knowledge of the truth there is “a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation to consume the adversaries.” The divine righteousness has indeed lost so little of its rigor under the new covenant that he who despises the far richer means of grace offered under it becomes the heir of a much sorer punishment than he who perished under the old law (Heb. 10, 12). Let us be satisfied. The Bible, even here, where many have deemed it most vulnerable, most open to attack, does not stand in need of any apology. Kitto.

In thus briefly considering one of the sterner features of our constitution, and some of its practical developments, we cannot but be struck with the morbid type of much of the philanthropy and religion current at the present day. Love degenerates into weakness; compassion becomes itself an object of pity; benevolence is degraded into an indiscriminating instinct. The employment of force is branded as a relic of barbarous times. The exercise of authority is scouted as contrary to the spirit both of the Gospel and of an enlightened age. The world must now be controlled by persuasion. It was formerly supposed that law, with its rigorous penalty, was a chief instrument in moral reformations; that it was one of the main elements in the means which God and man must employ in meliorating the state of society. So, likewise, in respect to religion. In our days, there is such a prominent and reiterated exhibition of the paternal character of God as to endanger, if not destroy, its legitimate effect on the character of His intelligent creatures. There is such a protrusion of the promises of the Bible, and such a concealment of its threatenings, as to neutralize the influence of both. Religion is sometimes so divested of its grander and sterner qualities as to fail to secure any respect. It becomes a mere collection of pleasant counsels, an assemblage of sweet recommendations, which it would be very well to observe; instead of presenting, as it does, an alternative of life or death, an authoritative code of morals, a law with inflexible sanctions, a Gospel to be rejected on peril of eternal damnation.

These shallow philanthropists and religionists are as ignorant of the nature of man as they are of the revelation of God; as little versed in the more imposing features of our constitution as in the high and solemn themes of Christianity. They have little to do with the deeper wants of our moral being. They do not understand how curious and almost contradictory a piece of workmanship is man. They seem never to have imagined that he has the closest relations to a moral law, to an atoning Saviour, to a righteous moral Governor, and to an impartial judgment seat. Equally ignorant are they of the bonds which hold society together. Much of the doctrine which is industriously promulgated at the present day tends to form a counterfeit philanphilanthropy; to make men sympathize with the misfortunes of the criminal, rather than with injured virtue, or with public morals; to weaken the arm of the law, and reduce government itself into a compact remarkable for nothing but its weakness. B. B. Edwards.

We underrate the evil of sin. We gloss it over with smooth words. We enfold it in the contradictions of fatalistic philosophy. We transmute penalty into vengeance, and law into tyranny. In the ultimate issue the whole idea of retributive inflictions becomes abhorrent to our silken tastes. We jump to conclusions which dethrone God. This deterioration of moral sense needs to be reversed. We need to go back to the beginning and start anew, taking God’s idea of retribution as our model. There is in every erect conscience an element of robustness which does not flinch at the spectacle of pain inflicted on wrong. For truthful convictions on this subject we need a cordial recognition of the intrinsic excellence of the retributive sentiment in a right mind. This is a vital point in our departure from the divine ideal in this thing. We repel from us the retributive idea because we mask it in unrighteousness. We make wrong right and right wrong; evil good and good evil. That which in the divine government is vindicative of right, we degrade into the vindictive. What, in the last analysis, is sin? It is pure malignity. It ripens into malign passion toward God. This is the germ and the efflorescence and fruitage of it. The retributive sentiment, in all untainted minds, is nothing else than an instinctive antagonism to malignity. It is hatred of that which hates God. Its assumption is that it is right to punish that which hates God, and that, in the nature of things, such punishment is a necessity. Like all other right things, righteous punishment is intrinsically glorious. Pure justice is pure benevolence. Justice and love are twin stars of a binary constellation in which each revolves around the other. This was the sentiment which inspired the imprecatory Psalms. This is that inspires gratulatory song in heaven in view of God’s retributive dealing with guilt. To hate guilt or to hate God—this is the alternative. Sin, matured, brings these intense extremes into contrast and conflict, and the loyalty of holy minds, in heaven or on earth, does not waver in its choice. A. Phelps.

An Additional Ground of Defence. It will not be disputed that there are circumstances which not only warrant, but so absolutely and manifestly call for the feeling and expression of indignation, that, in failing then to exhibit such feelings, a man so far comes short of being a good man. When we see men devoted to evil courses we may well wish and pray that they may be brought to higher views and sounder principles. But perverse, obstinate persistence, in spite of experience and clear knowledge, in practices grossly evil justly excites something besides—something different from the mere desire for the amelioration of the evil-doers. Sin involves misery, and that misery excites a good man’s compassion; but sin is something more than misery, and the perception of that “something more” has its legitimate effect upon our minds. We pity a man even when his destitution arises from his own folly. But when he takes ignoble advantage of our pity, and underlying his apparent simplicity we see a cruel selfishness, a base, deliberate unrighteousness, our pity gives place to hot indignation. Nor is this indignation to be blamed. No doubt it becomes us to cherish benevolent feelings toward our fellow-men. But while benevolence is a high and beautiful principle, it is not the highest, much less the only principle that should regulate our conduct. And further, nowhere is he thought the best man who is least disposed to feel and express indignation at the sight of meanness and cruelty in man to man. And when the case of cruelty or meanness is flagrant, it is a mere necessity of an upright and generous nature to demand that punishment be inflicted on the evil-doers. Now, this being so, it needs but to believe as firmly in the existence of God as in the existence of man; to love God as sincerely as we love man, and to realize as truly the rights of God as the rights of man, to justify the feeling and the expression of indignation against wilful and persevering wickedness. This consideration avails so far as to convince us that whatever other objections may be brought against the imprecatory Psalms, the feelings which they express of indignation against determined sinners against God are neither misplaced nor unjustifiable. It carries us further and warrants this stronger position, that the man who has at heart the glory of God, and who entertains a genuine reverence for truth and holiness, would not desire that those who trample truth and holiness under foot should go unpunished. The general spirit of indignation against determined persisters in unrighteousness and against the enemies of the nation’s welfare, is a spirit which our own consciences approve; and there are few, if any, of the imprecatory Psalms in which it is not manifest that this is the preponderating spirit. Dismissing, then, as groundless the charge that these Psalms, by manifesting an inhuman spirit, violate the principles of ordinary morality, we proceed to state the peculiar ground on which a complete defence can be built.

The condition on which the Hebrews retained possession of their land was obedience to God and faithful adherence to His worship. National disaster was threatened as the consequence of departure from this obedience and worship. This threatening was pronounced in the law; and the facts of their history, as recorded in the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges, showed that the principle was acted on, the threatenings actually carried out. The facts of their history showed that political disaster had ensued upon religious declension; that, in consequence of their departure from the worship of God, the nation had often been subjected to grievous afflictions, and brought sometimes to the very verge of ruin. It must have been impressed upon the nation as almost a first principle that God’s ordinary and settled method of vindicating His own cause was by inflicting temporal judgments upon those who opposed His truth. On the one hand, the sincere and zealous worshippers of God would not only regard this history as illustrative and corroborative of the threatenings of the law, but would regard these threatenings, thus illustrative and corroborative, as being still in force and reality of application in their own day. They would expect that in similar circumstances Divine interpositions would occur in their own time similar to those which had characterized the nation’s earlier history. They must have expected this if they really believed, as they did, that the law was from Jehovah and that Jehovah was supreme. Consequently they would take the certain fulfilment of these threatenings as a source of encouragement to themselves, and as a ground of solemn warning to a wavering people. The open enemies of Jehovah-worship, on the other hand, in proportion to the length of time during which their avowed infidelity or idolatry failed to call forth any such Divine visitation, would all the more boldly challenge the authenticity of the law and the veracity, or, at least, the received meaning of the historical record, and would dispute the fact, therefore, of Jehovah’s supremacy and covenant relationship to the people. “Observe,” they would be ready to say—“observe how long we have neglected your law and are still prosperous; your law disproves itself, for the curses it threatens have not befallen us.”

Thus, whether we consider these Divine interpositions as confidently relied on by the worshippers of Jehovah, or questioned and disbelieved by irreligious men, the result is so far the same. To them would both parties appeal, believers and unbelievers alike. Both parties would willingly accept the issue; if Jehovah be the sole and supreme God and the covenant God of the Hebrews, then infidelity and idolatry must be followed by temporal judgments, and that the more certainly and terrible in proportion as the infidelity and idolatry are open and prevalent. The religious party would claim as testimony in their favor whatever judgments befall the land during the prevalence of irreligion. Their opponents would regard whatever prosperity they enjoyed as proof that strict Jehovah-worship was an unfounded delusion; that either Jehovah was now superior to other deities, or that, at least, He claimed no special relationship with, and exercised no special control over, the Hebrew nation. In other words, temporal prosperity becomes to the people the criterion, and the only criterion, of religious truth. And since the plain and reiterated teaching of the law was that true religion should be rewarded by temporal blessings, and opposition to it visited with temporal punishments, the people were warranted to try the law by its own test, judging it by its own criterion to decide that if Baal-worshippers prospered, then Jehovah-worship was on its own showing false. Since, therefore, temporal prosperity was with the people the criterion of religious truth; since the universally admitted maxim was that God’s special covenant relationship to the Hebrews involved the infliction of temporal judgments on account of covenant unfaithfulness on the part of the people; and since the criterion and maxim were founded on God’s own declared law and practice, the following result necessarily ensued: If the opponents of Jehovah-worship enjoyed freedom from any such manifestations of Divine displeasure; if temporal judgments did not follow their open disavowal of God, not only would they be themselves encouraged and confirmed in their opposition; not only would the faith of God’s people be shaken and their souls be distressed, but the nation at large, whose religious affections were, at the best, but shallow and wavering, would be too likely to accept the omen and pass over to the enemy. Thus would the worship of Jehovah be overthrown, and idolatry or atheism triumphant.

What, then, was left for the Psalmist to do, when he saw idolatry prevalent and opposition to Jehovah active and abounding? There was but one way which God had as yet revealed as His method of vindicating and establishing His own cause; there was but one test which was acknowledged as convincing by the people whom it was necessary to convince; what, then, was left to the Psalmist but to wish that that method might be adopted—that test employed? And what, therefore, are these imprecatory Psalms but earnest prayers that God would, for the sake of His own cause on the earth, apply that criterion which He Himself had established—that in that manner which He had declared as His own, He would prove His cause and worship to be true? And since God, not only as King of the universe, but as the covenant God and King of Israel, had clearly indicated temporal judgments as the special means which He had chosen to employ, the ignoring of these indications would have argued unbelief or want of loyalty. Besides, when these Psalms were not only prayers, but public prayers; when substantially the whole contest was as to whether Jehovah really did exercise authority and control; when special proofs or tests were inseparably bound up with the assertion of that control; when the enemy challenged these proofs; when the people were wavering, and some already going over to the enemy, because the proof was delayed; when the people would have listened to no other argument, would have been convinced by no more spiritual reasoning, simply because they had already so plain and practical a test and argument provided by the law itself; when these things were so, the prayers of the imprecatory Psalms were not only legitimate but unavoidable.

This, then, is our explanation. The law and the history taught the Hebrews to regard temporal judgments as the penalty of religious declension, and of open departure from God’s service, and to regard temporal prosperity as the reward of obedience. The people, therefore, adopted this test, and would accept and be convinced by this test alone. In times of doubt and conflict this was the only recognized and effective way of proving the reality of Jehovah’s supremacy and covenant relationship. Consequently, in the imprecatory Psalms the Psalmist is simply praying in the manner which irresistible circumstances determined for the triumph of truth—praying in the only way and for the only thing intelligible and convincing to the people, and authorized by that method of disciplining his people which God had adopted. And it is to be noticed that, while the history contains many instances of both general and singular judgments on account of sin—general, as in the times of bondage recorded in the Book of Judges; singular, as in the case of Nadab and

Abihu, Dathan and Abiram, Abimelech (Gideon’s son), Eli, Solomon, etc.—there is no instance of intercession being made either for person or people during their sin—i.e., in case of disobedience or revolt against God the believer was not taught or required to pray for the conversion of the sinner, and, through that, for his salvation. He was required to take his stand promptly on the Lord’s side, and to acquiesce in, and, if need be, execute His judgments against the ungodly. One of the duties required of them was solemnly to record this acquiescence. The Levites shall say, “Cursed be the man, and all the people shall say, Amen.” Men must first be made to realize the majesty of righteousness in its opposition to sin before it is well, even for their own sakes, to show them righteousness glorified in grace to the sinner. The imprecatory Psalms, then, were but the responsive cadence that arose from those breasts which submitted to the discipline whereby God taught them to realize the truth which alone could fit them to receive, in its full beneficence, the larger truth that was to follow. It may be—for in this, as in other respects, the law was weak through the flesh—it may be that some in the ancient Church sang these Psalms without adequate apprehension of their true spirit and purpose; that, in the impatience of fear, or the extremity of sore suffering, they thought of little beyond a full retaliation upon their enemies. But these Psalms themselves bear a far nobler and grander impress. The earnest desire they breathe is that the truth, the righteousness, the reality of God may shine forth to man. And if this be incompatible with the impunity to the enemies of all truth and righteousness, then let that impunity cease, for the earth must not remain in bondage, nor God’s name in dishonor, that wicked men may prosper.

We have shown that these Psalms, even taken by themselves, must be acquitted of the charge of cruelty and revenge, and of inconsistency with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time we think it unfair to isolate them, as they are so generally isolated from the rest of the Psalter. They form one member which is in living relation to the whole, and the character of the whole should be taken into account before the character of this one part is determined. It is not that we would soften down one word uttered in them. They were meant to speak sternly. But no theory of these Psalms is a right one which does not recognize that, though the Psalmists did speak sternly when occasion compelled them, yet, when circumstances permitted it, they rejoiced to contemplate the glory of

God and extension of His kingdom in connection with the peace and happiness of all men.

In conclusion, if we are now asked whether, after all, the spirit of these Psalms is consistent with the spirit of the Gospel, we think it enough to answer, as we have now a right to answer, that the question as to these Psalms is involved in and really identical with the question as to the reasonableness and righteousness of the whole discipline by which the people were trained under the Old Testament dispensation. If the Divine origin of that dispensation be denied, then it is useless to discuss the inspiration of these Psalms; the battle must be fought on another field; but if the Divine origin of that dispensation be admitted, the admission covers the case of the imprecatory Psalms. But, more particularly, the essential spirit of these Psalms is the earnest desire that God would defend and further His own cause in His own appointed way. It is our duty to cherish that desire still; and the more we do so, the more are our hearts in unison with these Psalms and with the Gospel. Eng Review.

The Book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs we call POETICAL BOOKS, not because they are the only poetical books, but because the other books which also contain poetry come better under the designation of Prophetic Books, and because these five are usually distinguished as the Poetical Books, when separately regarded. Kitto.

The Hebrew language is full of life. Its entire structure is remarkably fitted for lyrical effect. The verb, adapted to express every variety of action and passion, contains the substance of the language. It is developed in some respects more fully than any Western dialect. The verb is wonderfully expressive. The number of adjectives and abstract nouns is extremely small. And these are mostly derived from verbs, or are themselves infinitives, and partake of the living nature of their root. In the English language the great number of particles is a serious impediment to the free movement of poetry. Prepositions and other connectives impart logical precision to a sentence, but it is at the expense of its fire and energy. The Hebrew particles are very few, and some of them exhibit a doubly compound relation, and thus greatly contribute to the vivacity of a sentence. B. B. E.

In the structure of the Old Testament the poetic element is a conspicuous feature. It lies like grains of gold in the unwashen sand, or a rich vein of silver in the mine. It springs naturally out of the stem of national life like a fruitful bough of graceful and luxuriant growth. It is the fairest, loftiest, and most fragrant flower in the whole garden of the national literature, and is as inseparable from that literature, and as characteristic of it, as the rose is among flowers, or the diamond among gems. And if it is true that it is a far higher privilege to make a nation’s songs than to frame its laws, that maxim has received striking illustration in the songs of Zion; for while the bulk of the nation’s legal code has long ago fulfilled its purpose, which was essentially national and transient, the area of the moral and spiritual influence of its poetry is destined to expand indefinitely till it is commensurate with the family of man, and co-extensive with his speech and thought. Leathes.

Ancient Hebrew poetry was rather the poetry of thought and feeling than that of form. Of course, it had a style and diction of its own. But its chief characteristic consists in what has been called “parallelism” or “thought-rhythm” in the members which compose each verse, forming, like the double beat of the heart, a rise and fall in which the two thoughts which constitute the substance of the verse are expressed. The following example will illustrate this:

“Give to Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty,

Sometimes, however, the verse, and with it the rhythm or parallelism, consists not of two, but of three, four, and even more members. Subjoined is an instance of a threefold rhythm, which has been described as a “logical parallelism,” on account of its progression of thought.

“Happy the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers.” A. E.

This is obviously the poetry of unsophisticated nature. There is no appearance of adjusting the flow of the verse to any recurring air. The Hebrew style is free from complication, and consists of the simple sentence with very little involution. It therefore naturally falls into this species of rhythmical verse. Hence Hebrew poetry is poetry still even in a translation. The sentence measurement is insensibly impressed upon it, and lingers in the fine rhythm and poetic beauty of our Authorized Version. The translators seem to have been constrained by the mere harmony of the thought to express themselves in a simple and smoothly flowing stream of words. M.

The Hebrew poetry is remarkable for conciseness; the sentences are short; no superfluous words. It is highly figurative, and abounds with the noblest and most beautiful metaphors and comparisons, derived from a variety of sources; bold transitions; abrupt change of persons; and, in general, all the acknowledged ornaments of discourse. The Bible exhibits specimens of almost all kinds of poetry; agreeing in the same general features, but with differences suitable to the peculiar nature of each; didactic in the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and many of the Psalms; elegiac in Jeremiah’s Lamentations, and several lesser pieces; pastoral in Solomon’s Song; and lyric in hymns, as most of the Psalms, and several interspersed both in the historical and prophetic books; besides Job, the nature of which is disputed. Gerard.—Oriental poetry abounds with strong expressions, bold metaphors, glowing sentiments, and animated descriptions, portrayed in the most vivid colors. Hence the words of the Hebrew poets are neither to be understood in too lax a sense, nor to be interpreted too literally. In the comparisons introduced by them, the point of resemblance between the object of comparison and the thing with which it is compared should be examined, but not strained too far; and therefore the personifications, allegories, or other figures should be fully considered. Above all, it should be recollected that, as the sacred poets lived in the East, their ideas and manners were totally different from ours, and consequently are not to be considered according to our modes of thinking. H. Horne.

The poetry of the Old Testament is devotional in tone, and treats of the moral government of the world. It thus has to speak of the duty and the destiny of man as affected by the commands and promises, by the character and attributes, of the Almighty. This is at once the grandest and most interesting theme which can be presented for human contemplation. The unity and infinity, together with the holiness of God are topics which the Hebrew poets are never weary of enforcing. Hence their sustained loftiness of expression, their grandeur of conception, the unequalled majesty and force of their style. The truths which they have to present are of no doubtful import, are no matters of human speculation, but are absolute and eternal; they express the unchangeable purposes of the infinite One, of Him who created and governeth all things. The ideas of eternity and infinity, of absolute holiness, justice, and truth are the most awful and impressive that can be placed before the human mind. They not only stimulate the imagination, but produce the emotions of sublimity and awe which no other theme can equally generate. It is on this account that Hebrew poetry stands alone in all literature. Except so far as admiration of it has induced in modern times attempts to imitate it, and has thus created such poems as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Byron’s Cain, there is not only nothing second to it, but nothing like it in the whole recorded range of human thought. F. Bowen.—In no Greek writer, in none anterior to the diffusion of the Gospel, are there to be found any rudiments whatever—any mere fragments, however small—of that LIFE OF THE SOUL TOWARD GOD, and of that DIVINE CORRESPONDENCE WITH MAN, which, in every Psalm, in every page of the Prophets, shines, burns, rules with force—overrules poetry—drives from its area the feeble resources of human art, and brings down upon earth those powers and those profound emotions which bespeak the nearness of the Infinite and the Eternal, when God holds communion with those that seek to live in the light of His favor. I. T.

The Hebrew poets never represent the Deity as an impassive principle; a mere organizing intellect removed at infinite distance from human hopes and fears. He is for them a Being of like passions with themselves, requiring heart for heart, and capable of inspiring affection, because capable of feeling and returning it. Awful, indeed, are the thunders of His utterance, and the clouds that surround His dwelling-place; very terrible is the vengeance He executes on the nations that forget Him; but to His chosen people, and especially to the men “after His own heart,” whom He anoints from the midst of them, His “still, small voice” speaks in sympathy and loving kindness. Every Hebrew, while his breast glowed with patriotic enthusiasm at those promises, which he shared as one of the favored race, had a yet deeper source of emotion, from which gushed perpetually the aspirations of prayer and thanksgiving. He might consider himself alone in the presence of his God; the single being to whom a great revelation had been made, and over whose head “an exceeding weight of glory” was suspended. His personal welfare was infinitely concerned with every event that had taken place in the miraculous order of Providence. For him the rocks of Horeb had trembled, and the waters of the Red Sea were parted in their course. The word given on

Sinai with such solemn pomp of ministration was given to his own individual soul, and brought him into immediate communion with his Creator. That awful being could never be put away from him. He was about his path, and about his feet, and knew all his thoughts long before. Yet this tremendous, enclosing presence, was a presence of love. It was a manifold, everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling—a desire for human affection. Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct tendency to excite the best passions of our nature. Love is not long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being never absent, but standing beside the life of each man with ever-watchful tenderness, and recognized, though invisible, in every blessing that befell them from youth to age, became naturally the object of their warmest affections. Their belief in Him could not exist without producing, as a necessary effect, that profound impression of passionate individual attachment which in the Hebrew authors always mingles with and vivifies their faith in the Invisible. All the books in the Old Testament are breathed upon by this breath of life. Especially it is to be found in the Psalms, which remain, after some thousand years, the most perfect form in which the religious sentiment of man has been embodied.

“But what is true of Judaism is yet more true of Christianity, matre pulchrâ filia pulchrior.” In addition to all the characters of Hebrew monotheism there exists in the doctrine of the Cross a peculiar and inexhaustible treasure for the affectionate feelings. The idea of the God-Man, the God whose goings forth have been from everlasting, yet visible to men for their redemption as an earthly temporal creature, living, acting, and suffering among themselves, then (which is yet more important) transferring to the unseen place of His spiritual agency the same humanity He wore on earth, so that the lapse of generations can in no way affect the conception of His identity; this is the most powerful thought that ever addressed itself to a human imagination. Here was solved at once the great problem which so long had distressed the teachers of mankind, how to make virtue the object of passion, and to secure at once the warmest enthusiasm in the heart, with the clearest perception of right and wrong in the understanding. The character of the blessed Founder of our faith became an abstract of morality to determine the judgment, while at the same time it remained personal and liable to love. The written Word and established

Church prevented a degeneration into ungoverned mysticism, but the predominant principle of vital religion always remained that of self-sacrifice to the Saviour. Not only the higher divisions of moral duties, but the simple, primary impulses of benevolence, were subordinated to this new absorbing passion. The world was loved “in Christ alone.” The brethren were members of His mystical body. All the other bonds that had fastened down the Spirit of the Universe to our narrow round of earth were as nothing in comparison to this golden chain of suffering and self-sacrifice, which at once riveted the heart of man to One who, like himself, was acquainted with grief. Pain is the deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more holy and more real than any other. Arthur Hallam.

Our Lord’s interpretation of the Psalms is at once the starting-point and the goal of Christian interpretation of them. The interpretation of them by the Church begins with that of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, upon which day the Spirit, whose organ David in his last words (2 Sam. 23: 2) confesses himself to have been, descended upon the Apostles as the Spirit of Jesus, the fulfiller and the fulfilment of prophecy. This Spirit of the Glorified One completed what He, in the days of His humiliation and after His resurrection, had begun; it opened up to the disciples the meaning of the Psalms. With what predilection they turned to these, we may gather from the fact that they are cited some seventy times in the New Testament—next to Isaiah, the most frequently of all the books of the Old Testament. From these disclosures regarding the Psalms the Church will have to draw even to the end of time. For only the end will be equal to the beginning and even surpass it. We must not, however, seek in the New Testament what it does not profess to offer, an answer to the questions of lower science, of grammar, contemporary history, and criticism. The highest and final questions relating to the spiritual meaning of Scripture find here an answer. The post-Apostolic patristic interpretation was incapable of performing this task. With the exception of Origen and Jerome, the expositors of the early Church possessed no knowledge of Hebrew; and even these two did not possess enough to enable them to emancipate themselves entirely from the dependence upon the LXX. that only too frequently led them astray. The exposition of the Church of the Middle Ages produced nothing that has advanced in anything essential beyond that of the Fathers. At the threshold of the Reformation the exposition of the Psalms had become a slavish compilation of the comments of others and a heaping up of scholastic rubbish. When in consequence of the Reformation there dawned upon the Church the new light of a grammatical and spiritually deep comprehension of the Scriptures, the rose-garden of the Psalter began to diffuse its odors as in the renewed freshness of a May morning, and German hymns, born again out of the Psalter, resounded from the shores of the Baltic to the foot of the Alps with all the fervor of a renewed first love. Rendered into imperishable hymns (by Luther, Albinus, Franck, Gerhard, Jonas, Musculus, Poliander, Ringwaldt, and many others), the old Psalms passed once more into the congregational singing of the German as well as of the Scandinavian Lutheran Church; in the French Church Clément Marot turned first thirty and then other nineteen Psalms into hymns (1541-43), and Theodore Beza afterward added the rest (1562). As early as 1542 Calvin introduced the Psalms in Marot’s translation into the public worship of the Geneva Church, even translating a few of them himself (e.g., 25, 46). The Psalter remained the exclusive hymn-book of the Reformed Church down to the eighteenth century. In respect of experimental, mystical, and yet healthy knowledge of the meaning of Scripture, Luther is incomparable; his expositions of the Psalms, especially of the penitential Psalms and of Psalm 90, are superior to all previous works on the subject, and will always remain a mine of wealth for future laborers. As an exegete, Calvin takes the place of equal honor alongside of the German reformer. His commentary on the Psalms (first published at Geneva in 1557, folio) combines with psychological penetration a clearer discernment of the nature of the type and greater freedom in its way of looking at history. D.

For the first true exposition of Scripture, of the Old Testament more especially, we must come to the time of the Reformation. Here Luther and Calvin hold the foremost place, each having his peculiar excellence. Luther, in his own grand, fearless way, always goes straight to the heart of the matter. He is always on the lookout for some great principle, some food for the spiritual life, some truth which can be turned to practical account. He is pre-eminently what in modern phrase would be called subjective as a commentator. Every word of Scripture seems to him instinct with life and meaning for himself and his own immediate circumstances. But on that very account he not unfrequently misses the proper and original force of a passage, because he is so intent on a personal application; not to mention that he cannot always shake himself free of the allegorical cobwebs of patristic interpretation. Calvin, on the other hand, may justly be styled the great master of exegesis. He is always careful to ascertain as exactly as possible the whole meaning and scope of the writer on whom he comments. In this respect his critical sagacity is marvellous, and quite unrivalled. He keeps close, moreover, to the sure ground of historical interpretation, and, even in the Messianic Psalms, always sees a first reference to the actual circumstances of the writer. Of the general soundness of his principles of exegesis, where he is not under the influence of doctrinal prejudices—as, indeed, he rarely is in his Commentary on the Psalms—I am thoroughly convinced. He is the prince of commentators. He stands foremost among those who, with that true courage which fears God rather than man, have dared to leave the narrow grooves and worn ruts of a conventional theology and to seek truth only for itself. It is well to study the writings of this great man, if only that we may learn how possible it is to combine soundness in the faith with a method of interpretation varying even in important particulars from that commonly received. Nothing, I believe, is so likely to beget in us a spirit of enlightened liberality, of Christian forbearance, of large-hearted moderation, as the careful study of the history of doctrine and the history of interpretation. We shall then learn how widely good men have differed in all ages, how much of what we are apt to think essential truth is not essential, and, without holding loosely what we ourselves believe to be true, we shall not be hasty to condemn those who differ from us. P.

[In this connection it may subserve a helpful purpose to cite a paragraph from Bishop Perowne’s preface to his master-work upon the Psalms. B.]

Truth has been my one object, I can truly say; mindful, I hope, that truth can only be attained through “the heavenly illumination of the Holy Ghost.” Yet I would not forget what Luther has so beautifully said, that none can hope to understand for himself or teach to others the full meaning of every part of the Psalms. It is enough for us if we understand it in part. “Many things doth the Spirit reserve to Himself that He may ever keep us as His scholars, many things He doth but show to allure us, many more He teacheth to affect us; and, as Augustine hath admirably said, no one has ever so spoken as to be understood by every one in every particular, much more doth the Holy Ghost Himself alone possess the full understanding of all His own words. Wherefore I must honestly confess that I know not whether I possess the full and proper understanding of the Psalms or not, though I doubt not that that which I give is in itself true. For all that Augustine, Jerome, Athanasius, Hilary, Cassiodorus, and others have written on the Psalter is very true, though sometimes as far as possible from the literal meaning. One falls in one thing, another in another; others will see what I do not. What then follows, but that we should help one another, and make allowance for those who err, as knowing that we either have erred, or shall err, ourselves. I know that he must be a man of most boundless hardihood who would venture to give it out that he understands a single book of Scripture in all its parts; nay, who would venture to assume that one Psalm has ever been perfectly understood by any one. Our life is a beginning and a setting out, not a finishing; he is best who shall have approached nearest to the mind of the Spirit.” P.

The first metrical version of the Psalms in English was made in 1538, by Miles Coverdale, who with Tyndale has the high honor of being the first to give the printed Bible to the English people in their own tongue. The prose version of the Psalms, now read in the English prayer-book, is his also. And in Scotland, three brothers named Wedderburn, in Dundee, published versions known as the Dundee Psalms, even before Knox’s time.

The first complete version of the Psalms in English was that known as “Sternhold and Hopkins.” Thomas Sternhold was groom of the robes to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.; and John Hopkins was a minister in Suffolk. Additions by other hands were made to those they translated. It was issued in portions, first in London; then in Geneva by refugees driven into exile by Bloody Mary; and finally it was completed in 1563, and adapted under Elizabeth as the metrical version to be used in the Church of England. Its popularity may be inferred from the fact that three hundred and nine editions of it were issued by 1698, when it was superseded in the Established Church by the version of Tate and Brady. But the Non-conformists used it till the version of Watts was published. In the year following its completion, the General Assembly of Scotland adopted the Sternhold and Hopkins version, with certain omissions which were filled with others made by Scotch authors.

Francis Rouse, a native of Cornwall, in England, and at his death provost of Eton College, made in 1646 the version of the Psalms which is best known. He was a member of Parliament in the reign of Charles I., and of Cromwell’s privy council. The Westminster Assembly, of which he was a member, gave it their approval. With some changes it was adopted also by the Scotch General Assembly, and it has been displaced for a more melodious version only in this generation.

Nahum Tate, poet laureate under William III. and Queen Anne, with the assistance of Rev. Dr. Nicholas Brady, published by royal authority a new version of the Psalms which has been the standard of the Established Church in England and of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, till within very recent years.

Isaac Watts was a pioneer in a new field when he published, in 1719, his “Imitation of the Psalms of David in the Language of the New Testament.” Hitherto versions were commended in proportion as they were literal. Watts boldly abandoned the custom of adhering closely to the text, and adopted the privilege of paraphrasing and introducing into them the Christian ideas of the New Testament. His “Hymns” appeared twelve years earlier. Both were received with immediate favor and had no unimportant share in the great awakening of that century. When Watts died, an old man, his mantle fell upon the Wesleys. Charles Wesley composed one hundred and nine Psalms, in the method of imitation begun by Watts, besides a great flood of hymns. From this time began that indiscriminate use of Psalms and hymns by English speaking people, which had been the custom in Germany for two centuries. So slowly did nations interact upon one another, even Christian and Protestant nations, till this century. J. H. Thomas.

The Revised Version. The revision of the Psalter was attended with peculiar difficulty. For generations it has been endeared to multitudes as the vehicle of their devotional feelings. This has rendered its words and phrases inexpressibly dear; and the least alteration seems like the touch of a desecrating hand. It is fortunate that alteration is not nearly so much called for here as in some other books, particularly in Job. The early English translators generally seized the sense of the original, and expressed it with force and beauty, yet there are cases in which faithfulness requires a new rendering. It is believed that in the main the revisers have been wisely conservative. T. W. C.—The revised Psalter is certainly a great improvement on that of two hundred and seventy-four years ago. One who reads the two side by side will be surprised to discover how many really important changes have been made. One who reads the Revision by itself, while noticing, possibly, no great difference in sound or sense, will still wonder at the ease with which he comprehends some hitherto beclouded texts, and, here and there, will be at once startled and charmed by the new light that bursts upon him from quite unexpected places. E. C. B.

[The sweetness and helpfulness of these citations will serve as excuse for any apparent repetitions in the thought. B.]

What the heart is in man, that the Psalter is in the Bible. Joh. Arnd — If the Scriptures be compared to a body, the Psalms may well be the heart, they are so full of sweet affections and passions. For in other portions of Scripture God speaks to us; but in the Psalms holy men speak to God and to their own hearts. Sibbes. — In the Psalms the soul turns inward on itself, and their great feature is that they are the expression of a large spiritual experience. They come straight from “the heart within the heart,” and the secret depths of the spirit. Where, in those rough cruel days, did they come from, those piercing, lightning-like gleams of strange spiritual truth, those magnificent outlooks over the kingdom of God, those raptures at His presence and His glory, those wonderful disclosures of self-knowledge, those pure outpourings of the love of God? Surely they tell of higher guiding, prepared for all time; surely, as we believe, they repeat the whispers of the Spirit of God, they reflect the very light of the Eternal Wisdom. Dean Church.

No one can read the Psalms with a devout sympathetic spirit without being thoroughly impressed with their immortal beauty. They are as modern as they are ancient. They fit themselves as perfectly, as spontaneously to the needs and the aspirations of Christian souls today in the midst of every change of centuries and of civilization as they did to those of the devout and reverent Hebrew soul in the days when first they were written. R. S. S.—Lyrical art has never produced anything comparable to the Psalms. Purifying every joy, sanctifying every grief, reaching higher than ourselves when at our greatest height, deeper than ourselves when we feel plunged into the depths of the abyss, they alone fit all human conditions, and seem always to have been composed precisely with a view to the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed. Hence their everlasting freshness. Other collections of poetry pass away and give place to new ones; the Psalms live on forever. Godet.

No single book of Scripture, not even of the New Testament, has, perhaps, ever taken such hold on the heart of Christendom. None, if we may dare judge, unless it be the Gospels, has had so large an influence in moulding the affections, sustaining the hopes, purifying the faith of believers. With its words, rather than with their own, they have come before God. In these they have uttered their desires, their fears, their confessions, their aspirations, their sorrows, their joys, their thanksgivings. By these their devotion has been kindled and their hearts comforted. The Psalter has been, in the truest sense, the Prayer-Book both of Jews and Christians. The nature of the volume accounts for this; for it is in itself, to a very great extent, the converse of the soul with God. Hence it does not teach us so much what we are to do or what we are to be, as how we are to pray; or, rather, it teaches us what we are to do and to be through prayer. “This,” says Luther, “is the great excellence of the Psalter; that other books, indeed, make a great noise about the works of the saints, but say very little about their words. But herein is the pre-eminence of the Psalter, and hence the sweet fragrance which it sheds, that it not only tells of the works of the saints, but also of the words with which they spake to God and prayed, and still speak and pray.” P.

The Psalms are interwoven with the texture of the New Testament. Christianity is responsible for the Psalter with its very life. The golden key of the Psalter lies in a pierced hand. There are many who profess to expel Christ from the Psalms in the interest of the Psalms themselves. But the Psalter as a living thing, and the association with it of our Incarnate Lord, stand together. Those were memorable words which Mr. Coleridge wrote upon the margin of his Prayer-Book: “As a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by comcommon day, with the lamps from within removed, even such would the Psalms be to me, uninterpreted by the Gospel.” Bishop Alexander.

As long as the career of mortal man is what it is in life, checkered by trial, danger, and bereavement; as long as the human heart is what it is, full of want and sin, and ever liable to sorrow, so long will the Psalms of David find their echo there, and not fail of earnest and anxious readers. They are the voice of man as man, and they are the truest expression of what must ever be permanent and unchanging, man’s relation to God. Leathes.—They pass through every mode of the lyre, and strike every chord of the human heart. There is hardly any devout sentiment or tender affection of which man’s nature is capable to which they do not give utterance. There is no lofty topic of contemplation in the outward universe, or in the relations of God with man, which they do not set forth and elevate with new grandeur and impressiveness. Some of them, such as the 19th, the 90th, the 104th, and the 139th are so majestic and sublime that they can hardly be read from beginning to end without awe and tears. F. Bowen.

During a large portion of a period of a thousand years, from Moses to Nehemiah, the Psalms shine like “a light in a dark place.” They tell us how, amid corruption, idolatry, and apostasy, God was truly loved and faithfully worshipped. Not only as “given by inspiration of God” are they a witness to the fact that God was teaching His people. So far they are what the prophetic books are. Psalmists, as well as prophets, were chosen by Him to be the interpreters of His will, to declare His truth. Both the one and the other are the organs and vehicles of the divine communications. But there is this further significance in the Psalms. They are not only—not chiefly, it may be said—the voice of God to man; they are the voice of man to God. They are prayers, indeed, far beyond merely human utterances; they are prayers which the Spirit of God Himself has given as the model of all prayer and intercession; but they bear witness, at the same time, to the reality of the soul’s spiritual life in those who uttered them. Truly divine, they are also truly human. They go infinitely beyond us; they have a depth and height and length and breadth of meaning to which the best of us can never fully attain. We feel that they rise into regions of peaceful and holy communion with God to which we may aspire, but which we have not reached. But meanwhile they have a reality which satisfies us that they are the true expression of human hearts pouring themselves out toward God, though often themselves carried beyond themselves through the power of the Holy Ghost. P.

These treasures of sacred song are, beyond measure, rich and precious. They witness to the deep Christian emotion of good men who lived three thousand years ago. Here are their experiences, their trials, their straits, their conflicts against temptation; and here, also, are the records of their precious faith in God, through which they gained the victory over the world and the wickedness thereof. Here stand recorded their exultant songs of triumph in the day of their deliverance; here the outflowings of their grateful hearts in praise to the power that redeemed, and to the loving kindness that remembered them with plenteousness of mercy and salvation. These forms of uttering devout affection are so rich, so full, and so various that Christians in all ages have delighted to find here the very words prepared to their hand in which their souls, burdened or lightened, might speak before the Lord of their wants, or of the fulness of their joy when those wants were supplied. H. C.—The very excellence of the Psalms is their universality. They spring from the deep fountains of the human heart; and God, in His providence and by His Spirit, has so ordered it that they should be for His church an everlasting heritage. Hence they express the sorrows, the joys, the aspirations, the struggles, the victories not of one man, but of all. And if we ask, How comes this to pass? the answer is not far to seek: One object is ever before the eyes and the heart of the Psalmists. All enemies, all distresses, all persecutions, all sins are seen in the light of God. It is to Him that the cry goes up; it is to Him that the heart is laid bare; it is to Him that the thanksgiving is uttered. This it is which makes them so true, so precious, so universal. No surer proof of their inspiration can be given than this, that they are “not of an age, but for all time,” that the ripest Christian can use them in the fulness of his Christian manhood, though the words are the words of one who lived centuries before the coming of Christ in the flesh. P.

The Psalms show the individual soul in its God-ward attitude, wrestling with the thought of the Divine, standing naked in the light of His presence. They open to our view the Holy of Holies of the human consciousness, when the self meets and talks with its God, and trembling, yearning, despairing, exulting, faces the bared realities of its own and its Creator’s bosom.

Nowhere else has the heart spoken as in these Psalms. Nowhere else has it found expression so intelligible, so deep, so sad and joyous, so varied and tuneful and thrilling, so true and adequate, as in these sacred songs. The Psalms are beloved because they speak to and for the heart, because they give it the outlet that it needs. When exultant or cast down, when yearning, burdened, passion-swept, it seeks an utterance and finds no words, it has recourse to the Psalmist of Israel, whose sweet harp notes soothe it as they did the mad spirit of Saul, give form to its feelings, faith and desires, and waft them up to the waiting ear of God. An.

Psalmody supplies that greatest of blessings, love. A Psalm puts demons to flight, procures the aid of angels, is armor in nightly fears, refreshment in daily toils; it teaches rudiments to the beginner in things spiritual, it helps the proficient to further advances, it establishes the perfected, it is the voice of the Church. It is this which gives brightness to our festivals, it is this which forms in us godly sorrow; for a Psalm calls forth a tear even from a stony heart. O what a wise plan of our Teacher, who so manages that we shall at the same time be singing and learning useful lessons; whereby His instructions are the more deeply impressed upon our souls. For what is there that we cannot learn from the Psalms? Can we not learn majestic courage, strict justice, dignified self-control, consummate wisdom, the method of repentance, the measures of patience, every good thing that one can name? Here we find a perfect theology, a prediction of Christ’s sojourn in the flesh, a warning of judgment, a hope of resurrection, a fear of punishment, promises of glory, revelations of mysteries; all are treasured up, as in some great and general storehouse, in the Book of Psalms. Basil.

The choice and flower of all things profitable in other books the Psalms doth more briefly contain, and more movingly express by reason of their poetic form. The ancients show how, above the rest, the Psalter doth set forth and celebrate all the considerations and operations which belong to God; it magnifieth the holy meditations and actions of divine men; it is of things heavenly a universal declaration, working in them whose hearts God inspireth with the due consideration thereof, a habit or disposition of mind whereby they are made fit vessels both for receipt and delivery of every spiritual perfection. What is there necessary for man to know which the Psalms are not able to teach? They are to beginners an easy and familiar introduction; a mighty augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as are entered before; a strong confirmation to the most perfect among others. Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of providence over this world, and the promised joys of the world which is to come; all good to be necessarily either known, or done, or had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth. There is not any grief or disease incident unto the soul of man, any wound or sickness for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found. Hereof it is that we covet to make the Psalms especially familiar unto all. Hooker.

Where do we find a sweeter voice of joy than in the Psalms of thanksgiving and praise? There you look into the heart of all the godly, as into a beautiful garden, as into heaven itself. What delicate, sweet, and lovely flowers are there springing up of all manner of beautiful, joyous thoughts toward God and His goodness! On the other hand, where do you find more profound, mournful, pathetic expressions of sorrow than the plaintive Psalms contain? The Psalter forms a little book for all saints, in which every man, in whatever situation he may be placed, shall find Psalms and sentiments which shall apply to his own case, and be the same to him as if they were for his own sake alone; so expressed as he could not express them himself, nor find nor even wish them better than they are. In the other books we are taught both by word and by example what we ought to do; this not only teaches, but imparts both the method and the practice with which to fulfil the word, and to copy the example. For we have no power of our own to fulfil the law of God, or to copy Christ; but only to pray and to desire that we may do the one and copy the other, and then, when we have obtained our request, to praise and give thanks. But what else is the Psalter, but prayer to God and praise of God; that is, a book of hymns? Therefore the most blessed Spirit of God, the Father of orphans, and the Teacher of infants, seeing that we know not what or how we ought to pray, as the apostle saith, and desiring to help our infirmities, after the manner of schoolmasters who compose for children letters or short prayers, that they may send them to their parents, so prepares for us in this book both the words and feelings with which we should address our Heavenly Father, and pray conconcerning those things which in the other books He had taught us we ought to do and to copy, that so a man may not feel the want of anything which is of import to his eternal salvation. So great is the loving care and grace of our God toward us, who is blessed forevermore. Luther.

This book I am wont to style an anatomy of all parts of the soul; for no one will discover in himself a single feeling whereof the image is not reflected in this mirror. Nay, all griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, and anxieties—in short, all those tumultuous agitations wherewith the minds of men are wont to be tossed—the Holy Ghost hath here represented to the life. The rest of Scripture contains the commands which God gave to His servants to be delivered unto us. But here the prophets themselves, holding converse with God, inasmuch as they lay bare all their inmost feelings, invite or impel every one of us to self-examination, that of all the infirmities to which we are liable, and all the sins of which we are so full, none may remain hidden. Moreover, whatever would serve to encourage us in our prayer to God is shown us in this book. Nor only promises meet us here; but we have often set before us one who, with the invitation of God calling one way and the hindrances of the flesh another, girds himself bravely to prayer; so that if at any time we be harassed by doubts of one kind or another, we may learn to wrestle against them till our soul takes wings and mounts up with glad freedom unto God. Nor that only, but that through hesitations, fears, alarms, we may still strive to pray till we rejoice for the consolation. And we have secured to us in this book what is of all things most desirable, not only a familiar access unto God, but the right and the liberty to make known to Him those infirmities which shame does not suffer us to confess to our fellow-men. Further, the sacrifice of praise, which God declares to be a sacrifice of sweetest savor and most precious to Him, we are here accurately instructed how to offer with acceptance. Rich, moreover, as the book is in all those precepts which tend to form a holy, godly, and righteous life, yet chiefly will it teach us how to bear the cross, which is the true test of our obedience, when, giving up all our own desires, we submit ourselves to God, and so suffer our lives to be ordered by His will that even our bitterest distresses grow sweet because they come from His hand. Finally, not only in general terms are the praises of God’s goodness uttered, teaching us so to rest in Him alone, that pious spirits may look for His sure succor in every time of need, but the free forgiveness of sins, which alone reconciles God to us and secures to us true peace with Him, is so commended that nothing is wanting to the knowledge of eternal salvation. Calvin.

From whatever point of view any church hath contemplated the scheme of its doctrine, by whatever name they have thought good to designate themselves, and however opposed to each other in church government or observance of rites, you will find them all, by harmonious and universal consent, adopting the Psalter as the outward form by which they shall express the inward feelings of the Christian life. Thus the universal Church of Christ hath given its witness that these Psalms are made not for one age, but for all ages; nor for one place, but for all places; not for one soul, but for all souls. . . . The songs of Zion are comprehensive as the human soul and varied as human life; where no possible state of natural feeling shall not find itself tenderly expressed and divinely treated with appropriate remedies; where no condition of human life shall not find its rebuke or consolation; because they treat not life after the fashion of an age or people, but life in its rudiments, the life of the soul, with the joys and sorrows to which it is amenable, from concourse with the outward necessity of the fallen world. For pure pathos and tenderness of heart, for sublime imagination, for touching pictures of natural scenery, and genial sympathy with nature’s various moods; for patriotism, whether in national weal or national woe; for beautiful imagery, whether derived from the relationship of human life or the forms of the created universe; and for the illustration, by their help, of spiritual conditions; moreover, for those rapid transitions in which the lyrical muse delighteth—her lithesome graces at one time, her deep and full inspiration at another, her exuberance of joy and her lowest falls of grief, and for every other form of the natural soul which is wont to be shadowed forth by this kind of composition—we challenge anything to be produced from the literature of all ages and countries, worthy to be compared with what we find even in the English version of the Book of Psalms. Irving.

How great is the history of the Psalms! David sang them, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and all the prophets. With Psalms Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah celebrated their victories. Psalms made glad the heart of the exiles who returned from Babylon. Psalms gave courage and strength to the Maccabees in their brave struggles to achieve their country’s independence, and were the repeated expression of their thanksgivings. The Lord of Psalmists and the Son of David by the words of a Psalm proved Himself to be higher than David; and sang Psalms with His apostles on the night before He suffered, when He instituted the Holy Supper of His love. In His last awful hour on the cross He expressed in the words of one Psalm “His fear and His need of God,” and in the words of another gave up His spirit to His Father. With Psalms Paul and Silas praised God in the prison at midnight, when their feet were made fast in the stocks, and sang so loud that the prisoners heard them. And, after his own example, the apostle exhorts the Christians at Ephesus and Colosse to teach and admonish one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Jerome tells us that in his day the Psalms were to be heard in the fields and the vineyards of Palestine, and that they fell sweetly on the ear, mingling with the songs of birds and the scent of flowers in the spring. The ploughman as he guided his plough chanted the Hallelujah, and the reaper, the vine-dresser, and the shepherd sang the songs of David. “These,” he says, “are our love-songs, these the instruments of our agriculture.” Sidonius Apollinaris makes his boatmen, as they urge their heavily laden barge up stream, sing Psalms, till the river-banks echo again with the Hallelujah, and beautifully applies the custom, in a figure, to the voyage of the Christian life. With the verse of a Psalm, “Turn again, then, unto thy rest, O my soul,” the pious Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, comforted himself, while awaiting his martyrdom in the Decian persecution, saying, “From this we learn that our soul comes to rest when it is removed by death from this restless world.” Paulla, the friend of Jerome, was seen by those who were gathered around her in her last hour to move her lips, and when they stooped to listen they heard the words, “How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts.” A Psalm was the best utterance for the overflowing joy of Augustine’s heart at his conversion, and a Psalm was his consolation when he lay upon his death bed. With the words of Psalms, Chrysostom comforted himself in his exile, writing thus, “When driven from the city, I cared nothing for it. But I said to myself, If the empress wishes to banish me, let her banish me; ’the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’” And again: “David clothes me with armor, saying, ‘I will speak of thy testimonies before kings, and will not be ashamed.’ With the words of a Psalm holy Bernard expired. With the words of a Psalm, Huss and Jerome of Prague gave up their souls to God, without fear, in the midst of the fire. Chanting the twelfth verse of the hundred and eighteenth Psalm, with voices that rose high above the din of battle, the Protestant army rushed to victory at Courtras. With the voice of a Psalm, Luther entered Worms, singing brave defiance to pope and cardinals, and all the gates of hell. With Psalms that faithful servant of God, Adolphe Monod, strengthened himself to endure the agonies of a lingering and painful disease. And what shall I say more? The history of the Psalms is the history of the Church, and the history of every heart in which has burned the love of God. It is a history not fully revealed in this world, but one which is written in heaven. It is a history which, could we know it, might teach us to hush many an angry thought, to recall many a bitter, hasty, uncharitable speech. The pages of that book have often been blotted with the tears of those whom others deem hard and cold, and whom they treated with suspicion or contempt. Those words have gone up to God, mingled with the sighs or scarcely uttered in the heart-broken anguish of those whom pharisees called sinners, of those whom Christians denounced as heretics or infidels, but who loved truth and God above all things else. Surely it is holy ground. We cannot pray the Psalms without realizing in a very special manner the communion of saints, the oneness of the Church militant and the Church triumphant. We cannot pray the Psalms without having our hearts opened, our affections enlarged, our thoughts drawn heavenward. He who can pray them best is nearest to God, knows most of the Spirit of Christ, is ripest for heaven. Bishop Perowne.