1 Happy the man who considers the helpless;In the day of calamity will Jehovah deliver him2 Jehovah will preserve him and keep him alive,—He shall be counted happy in the land,—And do not Thou give him up to the wrath of his enemies.3 Jehovah will sustain him on the bed of languishing;All his lying down in his sickness Thou hast turned into health.4 As for me, I said, Jehovah, be merciful to me,Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.5 My enemies speak evil against me:"When will he die, and his name perish?"6 And if one [of them] comes to see [me], he speaks falsehood (insincere sympathy);His heart collects malice for itself;He goes forth, he speaks it.7 Together against me do all my haters whisper;Against me they plan my hurt:8 "A fatal thing is fixed upon him,And he who has [now] lain down will rise no more."9 Even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread,Has lifted his heel against me.10 But Thou, Jehovah, be merciful to me and raise me up,That I may requite them.11 By this I know that Thou delightest in me,Since my enemy triumphs not over me.12 And as for me, in my integrity Thou upholdest me,And settest me before Thy face for ever.13 Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel,From everlasting and to everlastingAmen and Amen.
The central mass of this psalm describes the singer as suffering from two evils: sickness and treacherous friends. This situation naturally leads upto the prayer and confidence of the closing strophe (vv. 10-12). But its connection with the introductory verses (1-3) is less plain. A statement of the blessings ensured to the compassionate seems a singular introduction to the psalmist's pathetic exhibition of his sorrows. Cheyne thinks that the opening verses were added by the framer of the collection to adapt the poem to the use of the Church of his own time, and that "the original opening must have been different" ("Orig. of Psalt.," 246,n.). It is to be observed, however, that the two points of the psalmist's affliction are the two from which escape is assured to the compassionate, who shall not be "delivered to the desire of his enemies," and shall be supported and healed in sickness. Probably, therefore, the general promises of vv. 1-3 are silently applied by the psalmist to himself; and he is comforting his own sorrow with the assurance which in his humility he casts into impersonal form. He has been merciful, and believes, though things look dark, that he will obtain mercy. There is probably also an intentional contrast with the cruel exacerbation of his sufferings by uncompassionate companions, which has rubbed salt into his wounds. He has a double consciousness in these opening verses, inasmuch as he partly thinks of himself as the compassionate man and partly as the "weak" one who is compassionated.
The combination of sickness and treachery is remarkable, especially if the former is taken literally, as the strongly marked details seem to require. The sick man is visited by an insincere sympathiser, who is all eyes to note symptoms of increasing weakness, and all tongue, as soon as he gets out of the sick-room, to give the result, which is to his malice the better the worse it is. Such a picture looks as if drawn from life, and thesketch of the traitor friend seems to be a portrait of a real person. The supporters of the post-exilic date and national interpretation of the psalm have not succeeded in pointing out who the false friends of Israel were, who seemed to condole with, and really rejoiced over, its weakness, or who were the treacherous allies who failed it. The theory of the Davidic origin has in its favour the correspondence of Ahithophel's treason with the treachery of the trusted friend in the psalm; and, while it must be admitted that there is no mention of sickness in the narrative in 2 Samuel, the supposition that trouble of conscience had brought illness gains some countenance from Psalm xxxii., if it is Davidic, and would naturally explain David's singular passiveness whilst Absalom was hatching his plot.
The psalm may be divided into four strophes, of which, however, the two middle ones cohere very closely. Vv. 1-3 give the mercy requited to the merciful; vv. 4-6, after a brief prayer and confession begin the picture of the psalmist's sufferings, which is carried on through the next strophe (vv. 7-9), with the difference that in the former the scene is mainly the sick man's chamber, and in the latter the meeting-place of the secret conspirators. Vv. 10-12 build on this picture of distress a prayer for deliverance, and rise to serene confidence in its certain answer. The closing doxology is not part of the psalm, but is appended as the conclusion of the first book of the Psalter.
The principle that God's dealings with us correspond to our dealings with men, as clouds are moulded after the curves of the mountains which they touch, is no less characteristic of the New Testament than of the Old. The merciful obtain mercy; God forgives thosewho forgive their brethren. The absoluteness of statement in this psalm is, of course, open to misunderstanding; but the singer had not such a superficial view of his relations to God as to suppose that kindly sympathy was the sole condition of Divine compassion. That virtue, the absence of which added pangs to his pains, might well seem to a sufferer writhing under the bitterness of its opposite the Divinest of all excellencies, and worthiest of recompense. That its requital should be mainly considered as consisting in temporal deliverance and physical health is partly due to the characteristics of the Old Testament promises of blessedness, and partly to the psalmist's momentary needs. We have noted that these are reflected in the blessings promised in vv. 1-3. The "happy" of ver. 1 is caught up in the abruptly introduced "He shall be counted happy" of ver. 2, which may carry tacit reference to the malicious slanders that aggravated the psalmist's sufferings, and anticipates deliverance so perfect that all who see him shall think him fortunate. The next clause rises into direct address of Jehovah, and is shown by the form of the negative in the Hebrew to be petition, not assertion, thus strongly confirming the view that "me" lurks below "him" in this context. A similar transition from the third to the second person occurs in ver. 3, as if the psalmist drew closer to his God. There is also a change of tense in the verbs there: "Jehovahwillsustain"; "Thouhastturned," the latter tense converting the general truth expressed in the former clause into a fact of experience. The precise meaning of this verse is questioned, some regarding both clauses as descriptive of tender nursing, which sustains the drooping head and smoothes the crumpled bedding, while others, noting that the word rendered "bed"(A.V. and R.V.) in the second clause means properly "lying down," take that clause as descriptive of turning sickness into convalescence. The latter meaning gives a more appropriate ending to the strophe, as it leaves the sick man healed, not tossing on a disordered bed, as the other explanation does. Jehovah does not half cure.
The second and third strophes (vv. 4-9) are closely connected. In them the psalmist recounts his sorrows and pains, but first breathes a prayer for mercy, and bases it no longer on his mercifulness, but on his sin. Only a shallow experience will find contradiction here to either the former words, or to the later profession of "integrity" (ver. 12). The petition for soul-healing does not prove that sickness in the following verses is figurative, but results from the belief that sorrow is the effect of sin, a view which belongs to the psalmist's stage of revelation, and is not to be held by Christians in the same absolute fashion. If the Davidic origin of the psalm is recognised, the connection of the king's great sin with all his after-sorrows is patent. However he had been merciful and compassionate in general, his own verdict on the man in Nathan's parable was that he "showed no pity," and that sin bore bitter fruit in all his life. It was the parent of all the sensual outrages in his own house; it underlay Ahithophel's treachery; it had much to do in making his reign abhorred; it brought the fuel which Absalom fired, and if our supposition is right as to the origin of the sickness spoken of in this psalm, that sin and the remorse that followed it gnawed at the roots of bodily health. So the psalmist, if he is indeed the royal sinner, had need to pray for soul-healing first, even though he was conscious of much compassion and hoped for its recompense. Whilehe speaks thus to Jehovah, his enemies speak in a different tone. The "evil" which they utter is not calumny, but malediction. Their hatred is impatient for his death. The time seems long till they can hear of it. One of them comes on a hypocritical visit of solicitude ("see" is used for visiting the sick in 2 Kings viii. 29), and speaks lying condolence, while he greedily collects encouraging symptoms that the disease is hopeless. Then he hurries back to tell how much worse he had found the patient; and that ignoble crew delight in the good news, and send it flying. This very special detail goes strongly in favour of the view that we have in this whole description a transcript of literal, personal experience. There were plenty of concealed enemies round David in the early stages of Absalom's conspiracy, who would look eagerly for signs of his approaching death, which might save the need of open revolt and plunge the kingdom into welcome confusion. The second strophe ends with the exit of the false friend.
The third (vv. 7-9) carries him to the meeting-place of the plotters, who eagerly receive and retail the good news that the sick man is worse. They feed their ignoble hate by picturing further ill as laying hold of him. Their wish is parent to their thought, which is confirmed by the report of their emissary. "A thing of Belial is poured out on him," or "is fastened upon him," say they. That unusual expression may refer either to moral or physical evil. In the former sense it would here mean the sufferer's sin, in the latter a fatal disease. The connection makes the physical reference the more likely. This incurable disease is conceived of as "poured out," or perhaps as "molten on him," so that it cannot be separated from him.Therefore he will never rise from his sick-bed. But even this murderous glee is not the psalmist's sharpest pang. "The man of my peace," trusted, honoured, admitted to the privileges, and therefore bound by the obligations, of hospitality so sacred in the old world, has kicked the prostrate sufferer, as the ass in the fable did the sick lion. The treachery of Ahithophel at once occurs to mind. No doubt many treacherous friends have wounded many trustful hearts, but the correspondence of David's history with this detail is not to be got rid of by the observation that treachery is common. Still less is it sufficient to quote Obad. 7, where substantially the same language is employed in reference to the enemies of Edom, as supporting the national reference of the present passage. No one denies that false allies may be described by such a figure, or that nations may be personified; but is there any event in the post-exilic history which shows Israel deceived and spurned by trusted allies? The Davidic authorship and the personal reference of the psalm are separable. But if the latter is adopted, it will be hard to find any circumstances answering so fully to the details of the psalm as the Absalomic rebellion and Ahithophel's treason. Our Lord's quotation of part of ver. 9, with the significant omission of "in whom I trusted," does not imply the Messianic character of the psalm, but is an instance of an event and a saying which were not meant as prophetic, finding fuller realisation in the life of the perfect type of suffering godliness than in the original sufferer.
The last strophe (vv. 10-12) recurs to prayer, and soars to confidence born of communion. A hand stretched out in need and trust soon comes back filled with blessings. Therefore here the moment of truepetition is the moment of realised answer. The prayer traverses the malicious hopes of enemies. They had said, "He will rise no more"; it prays, "Raise me up." It touches a note which sounds discordant in the desire "that I may requite them"; and it is far more truly reverential and appreciative of the progress of revelation to recognise the relative inferiority of the psalmist's wish to renderquid pro quothan to put violence on his words, in order to harmonise them with Christian ethics, or to slur over the distinction between the Law, of which the keynote was retribution, and the Gospel, of which it is forgiveness.
But the last words of the psalm are sunny with the assurance of present favour and with boundless hope. The man is still lying on his sick-bed, ringed by whispering foes. There is no change without, but this change has passed: that he has tightened his hold of God, and therefore can feel that his enemies' whispers will never rise or swell into a shout of victory over him. He can speak of the future deliverance as if present; and he can look ahead over an indefinite stretch of sunlit country, scarcely knowing whether the furthest point is earth or no. His integrity is not sinless, nor does he plead it as a reason for Jehovah's upholding, but hopes for it as the consequence of His sustaining hand. He knows that he will have close approach to Jehovah; and though, no doubt, "for ever" on his lips meant less than it does on ours, his assurance of continuous communion with God reached, if not to actual, clear consciousness of immortality, at all events to assurance of a future so indefinitely extended, and so brightened by the sunlight of God's face, that it wanted but little additional extension or brightening to be the full assurance of life immortal.
Psalm xlii.
1 Like a hind which pants after the water-brooks,So pants, my soul after Thee, O God.2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;When shall I come and appear before God?3 My tears have been bread to me day and night,While they say to me all the day, Where is thy God?4 This would I remember, and pour out my soul in me,How I went with the throng, led them in procession to the house of God,With shrill cries of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.5 Why art thou bowed down, my soul, and moanest within me?Hope in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks,[As] the help of my countenance and my God.6 Within me is my soul bowed down;Therefore let me remember Thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermons, from Mount Mizar.7 Flood calls to flood at the voice of Thy cataracts;All Thy breakers and rollers are gone over me.8 [Yet] by day will Jehovah command His loving-kindness,And in the night shall a song to Him be with me,[Even] a prayer to the God of my life.9 Let me say to God my Rock, Why hast Thou forgotten me?Why must I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?10 As if they crushed my bones, my adversaries reproach me,Whilst all the day they say to me, Where is thy God?11 Why art thou bowed down, my soul, and why moanest thou within me?Hope thou in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks[As] the help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm xliii.
1 Do me right, O God, and plead my plea against a loveless nation;From the man of fraud and mischief rescue me.2 For Thou art God my stronghold; why hast Thou cast me off?Why must I wearily go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?3 Send out Thy light and Thy troth; let them lead me;Let them bring me to Thy holy hill and to Thy tabernacles,4 That I may come in to the altar of God,To God, the gladness of my joy,And give Thee thanks with the harp, O God, my God.5 Why art thou bowed down, my soul, and why moanest thou within me?Hope in God, for I shall yet give Him thanks,[As] the help of my countenance and my God.
The second book of the Psalter is characterised by the use of the Divine name "Elohim" instead of "Jehovah." It begins with a cluster of seven psalms (reckoning Psalms xlii. and xliii. as one) of which the superscription is most probably regarded as ascribing their authorship to "the sons of Korach." These were Levites, and (according to 1 Chron. ix. 19seq.) the office of keepers of the door of the sanctuary had been hereditary in their family from the time of Moses. Some of them were among the faithful adherents of David at Ziklag (1 Chron. xii. 6), and in the new model of worship inaugurated by him the Korachites were doorkeepers and musicians. They retained the former office in the second Temple (Neh. xi. 19). The ascription of authorship to a group is remarkable, and has led to the suggestion that the superscription does not specify the authors, but the persons for whose use the psalms in question were composed. The Hebrew would bear either meaning; but if the latter is adopted, all these psalms are anonymous. The same construction is found in Book I. in Psalms xxv.-xxviii., xxxv.,xxxvii., where it is obviously the designation of authorship, and it is naturally taken to have the same force in these Korachite psalms. It has been ingeniously conjectured by Delitzsch that the Korachite Psalms originally formed a separate collection entitled "Songs of the Sons of Korach," and that this title afterwards passed over into the superscriptions when they were incorporated in the Psalter. It may have been so, but the supposition is unnecessary. It was not exactly literary fame which psalmists hungered for. The actual author, as one of a band of kinsmen who worked and sang together, would, not unnaturally, be content to sink his individuality and let his song go forth as that of the band. Clearly the superscriptions rested upon some tradition or knowledge, else defective information would not have been acknowledged as it is in this one; but some name would have been coined to fill the gap.
The two psalms (xlii., xliii.) are plainly one. The absence of a title for the second, the identity of tone throughout, the recurrence of several phrases, and especially of the refrain, put this beyond doubt. The separation, however, is old, since it is found in the LXX. It is useless to speculate on its origin.
There is much in the psalms which favours the hypothesis that the author was a Korachite companion of David's in his flight before Absalom; but the locality, described as that of the singer, does not entirely correspond to that of the king's retreat, and the description of the enemies is not easily capable of application in all points to his foes. The house of God is still standing; the poet has been there recently, and hopes soon to return and render praise. Therefore the psalm must be pre-exilic; and while there is no certainty attainable as to date, it may at least be said that the circumstancesof the singer present more points of contact with those of the supposed Korachite follower of David's fortunes on the uplands across Jordan than with those of any other of the imaginary persons to whom modern criticism has assigned the poem. Whoever wrote it has given immortal form to the longings of the soul after God. He has fixed for ever and made melodious a sigh.
The psalm falls into three parts, each closing with the same refrain. Longings and tears, remembrances of festal hours passed in the sanctuary melt the singer's soul, while taunting enemies hiss continual sarcasms at him as forsaken by his God. But his truer self silences these lamentations, and cheers the feebler "soul" with clear notes of trust and hope, blown in the refrain, like some trumpet-clang rallying dispirited fugitives to the fight. The stimulus serves for a moment; but once more courage fails, and once more, at yet greater length and with yet sadder tones, plaints and longings are wailed forth. Once more, too, the higher self repeats its half-rebuke, half-encouragement. So ends the first of the psalms; but obviously it is no real ending, for the victory over fear is not won, and longing has not become blessed. So once more the wave of emotion rolls over the psalmist, but with a new aspect which makes all the difference. He prays now; he had only remembered and complained and said that he would pray before. Therefore now he triumphs, and though he still is keenly conscious of his enemies, they appear but for a moment, and, though he still feels that he is far from the sanctuary, his heart goes out in hopeful visions of the gladness of his return thither, and he already tastes the rapture of the joy that will then flood his heart. Therefore the refrain comes fora third time; and this time the longing, trembling soul continues at the height to which the better self has lifted it, and silently acknowledges that it need not have been cast down. Thus the whole song is a picture of a soul climbing, not without backward slips, from the depths to the heights, or, in another aspect, of the transformation of longing into certainty of fruition, which is itself fruition after a kind.
Perhaps the singer had seen, during his exile on the eastern side of Jordan, some gentle creature, with open mouth and heaving flanks, eagerly seeking in dry wadies for a drop of water to cool her outstretched tongue; and the sight had struck on his heart as an image of himself longing for the presence of God in the sanctuary. A similar bit of local colour is generally recognised in ver. 7. Nature reflects the poet's moods, and overmastering emotion sees its own analogues everywhere. That lovely metaphor has touched the common heart as few have done, and the solitary singer's plaint has fitted all devout lips. Injustice is done it, if it is regarded merely as the longing of a Levite for approach to the sanctuary. No doubt the psalmist connected communion with God and presence in the Temple more closely together than they should do who have heard the great charter, "neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem"; but, however the two things were coupled in his mind, they were sufficiently separate to allow of approach by longing and prayer while distant in body, and the true object of yearning was not access to the Temple, but communion with the God of the Temple.
The "soul" is feminine in Hebrew, and is here compared to the female deer, for "pants" is the feminine form of the verb, though its noun is masculine. It isbetter therefore to translate "hind" than "hart." The "soul" is the seat of emotions and desires. It "pants" and "thirsts," is "cast down" and disquieted; it is "poured out"; it can be bidden to "hope." Thus tremulous, timid, mobile, it is beautifully compared to a hind. The true object of its longings is always God, however little it knows for what it is thirsting. But they are happy in their very yearnings who are conscious of the true direction of these, and can say that it is God for whom they are athirst. All unrest of longing, all fever of thirst, all outgoings of desire, are feelers put out blindly, and are only stilled when they clasp Him. The correspondence between man's needs and their true object is involved in that name "the living God"; for a heart can rest only in one all-sufficient Person, and must have a heart to throb against. Neither abstractions nor dead things can still its cravings. That which does must be living. But no finite being can still them; and after all sweetnesses of human loves and helps of human strengths, the soul's thirst remains unslaked, and the Person who is enough must be the living God. The difference between the devout and the worldly man is just that the one can only say, "My soul pants and thirsts," and the other can add "after Thee, O God."
This man's longing was intensified by his unwilling exile from the sanctuary, a special privation to a door-keeper of the Temple. His situation and mood closely resemble those in another Korachite psalm (lxxxiv.), in which, as here, the soul "faints for the courts of the Lord," and as here the panting hind, so there the glancing swallows flitting about the eaves are woven into the song. Unnamed foes taunt the psalmist with the question, "Where is thy God?" There is nonecessity to conclude that these were heathens, though the taunt is usually put into heathen lips (Psalms lxxix. 10; lii. 2) but it would be quite as natural from co-religionists, flouting his fervour and personal grasp of God and taking his sorrows as tokens of God's abandonment of him. That is the world's way with the calamities of a devout man, whose humble cry, "My God," it resents as presumption or hypocrisy.
But even these bitter sarcasms are less bitter than the remembrance of "happier things," which is his "sorrow's crown of sorrow." Yet, with the strange but universal love of summoning up remembrance of departed joys, the psalmist finds a certain pleasure in the pain of recalling how he, a Levite, led the festal march to the Temple, and in listening in fancy again to the shrill cries of joy which broke from the tumultuous crowd. The form of the verbs "remember" and "pour out" in ver. 4 indicates set purpose.
The higher self arrests this flow of self-pity and lamentation. The feminine soul has to give account of her moods to calmer judgment, and to be lifted and steadied by the strong spirit. The preceding verses have given ample reason why she has been dejected, but now she is summoned to repeat them to a judicial ear. The insufficiency of the circumstances described to warrant the vehement emotions expressed is implied in the summons. Feeling has to vindicate its rationality or to suppress itself, and its grounds have often only to be stated to the better self, to be found altogether disproportioned to the storm they have raised. It is a very elementary but necessary lesson for the conduct of life that emotion of all sorts, sad or glad, religious or other, needs rigid scrutiny and firm control, sometimes stimulating and sometimes chilling. The truecounterpoise to its excess lies in directing it to God and in making Him the object of hope and patient waiting. Emotion varies, but God is the same. The facts on which faith feeds abide while faith fluctuates. The secret of calm is to dwell in that inner chamber of the secret place of the Most High, which whoso inhabits "heareth not the loud winds when they call," and is neither dejected nor uplifted, neither disturbed by excessive joys nor torn by anxieties.
Ver. 5 has the refrain in a form slightly different from that of the other two instances of its occurrence (ver. 11 and xliii. 5). But probably the text is faulty. The shifting of the initial word of ver. 6 to the end of ver. 5, and the substitution ofMyforHis, bring the three refrains into line, and avoid the harsh expression "help of His countenance." Since no reason for the variation is discernible, and the proposed slight change of text improves construction and restores uniformity, it is probably to be adopted. If it is, the second part of the psalm is also conformed to the other two in regard to its not beginning with the Divine name.
The break in the clouds is but momentary, and the grey wrack fills the sky once more. The second part of the psalm takes up the question of the refrain, and first reiterates with bitter emphasis that the soul is bowed down, and then pours out once more the stream of reasons for dejection. But the curb has not been applied quite in vain, for throughout the succeeding verses there is a striking alternation of despondency and hope. Streaks of brightness flash through the gloom. Sorrow is shot with trust. This conflict of opposite emotions is the characteristic of the second part of the psalm, while that of the first part is an all but unrelieved predominance of gloom, and that ofthe third an all but undisputed victory of sunshine. Naturally this transition strophe is marked by the mingling of both. In the former part, memory was the handmaid of sorrow, and came involuntarily, and increased the singer's pain; but in this part he makes an effort of will to remember, and in remembrance finds an antidote to sorrow. To recall past joys adds stings to present grief, but to remember God brings an anodyne for the smart. The psalmist is far from the sanctuary, but distance does not hinder thought. This man's faith was not so dependent on externals that it could not come close to God while distant from His temple. It had been so far strengthened by the encouragement of the refrain that the reflux of sadness at once rouses it to action. "My soul is cast down; ...thereforelet me remember Thee." With wise resolve he finds in dejection a reason for nestling closer to God. In reference to the description of the psalmist's locality, Cheyne beautifully says, "The preposition 'from' is chosen (rather than 'in') with a subtle purpose. It suggests that the psalmist's faith will bridge over the interval between himself and the sanctuary: 'I can send my thoughts to Thee from the distant frontier'" (in loc.). The region intended seems to be "the north-eastern corner of Palestine, near the lower slopes of Hermon" (Cheyne,u.s.). The plural "Hermons" is probably used in reference to the group of crests. "Mizar" is probably the name of a hill otherwise unknown, and specifies the singer's locality more minutely, though not helpfully to us. Many ingenious attempts have been made to explain the name either as symbolical or as a common noun, and not a proper name, but these need not be dealt with here. The locality thus designated is too far north for the scene of David's retreat beforeAbsalom, unless we give an unusual southward extension to the names; and this makes a difficulty in the way of accepting the hypothesis of the author's having been in his retinue.
The twofold emotions of ver. 6 recur in vv. 7, 8, where we have first renewed despondency and then reaction into hope. The imagery of floods lifting up their voices, and cataracts sounding as they fall, and breaking waves rolling over the half-drowned psalmist has been supposed to be suggested by the scenery in which he was; but the rushing noise of Jordan in its rocky bed seems scarcely enough to deserve being described as "flood calling to flood," and "breakers and rollers" is an exaggeration if applied to any commotion possible on such a stream. The imagery is so usual that it needs no assumption of having been occasioned by the poet's locality. The psalmist paints his calamities as storming on him in dismal continuity, each "flood" seeming to summon its successor. They rush upon him, multitudinous and close following; they pour down on him as with the thunder of descending cataracts; they overwhelm him like the breakers and rollers of an angry ocean. The bold metaphors are more striking when contrasted with the opposite ones of the first part. The dry and thirsty land there and the rush of waters here mean the same thing, so flexible is nature in a poet's hands.
Then follows a gleam of hope, like a rainbow spanning the waterfall. With the alternation of mood already noticed as characteristic, the singer looks forward, even from the midst of overwhelming seas of trouble, to a future day when God will give His angel, Mercy or Loving-kindness, charge concerning him and draw him out of many waters. That day of extrication will surelybe followed by a night of music and of thankful prayer (for supplication is not the only element in prayer) to Him who by His deliverance has shown Himself to be the "God of" the rescued man's "life." The epithet answers to that of the former part, "the living God," from which it differs by but one additional letter. He who has life in Himself is the Giver and Rescuer of our lives, and to Him they are to be rendered in thankful sacrifice. Once more the contending currents meet in vv. 9 and 10, in the former of which confidence and hope utter themselves in the resolve to appeal to God and in the name given to Him as "my Rock"; while another surge of despondency breaks, in the question in which the soul interrogates God, as the better self had interrogated her, and contrasts almost reproachfully God's apparent forgetfulness, manifested by His delay in deliverance, with her remembrance of Him. It is not a question asked for enlightenment's sake, but is an exclamation of impatience, if not of rebuke. Ver. 10 repeats the enemies' taunt, which is there represented as like crushing blows which broke the bones. And then once more above this conflict of emotion soars the clear note of the refrain, summoning to self-command, calmness, and unfaltering hope.
But the victory is not quite won, and therefore Psalm xliii. follows. It is sufficiently distinct in tone to explain its separation from the preceding, inasmuch as it is prayer throughout, and the note of joy is dominant, even while an undertone of sadness links it with the previous parts. The unity is vouched by the considerations already noticed, and by the incompleteness of Psalm xlii. without such triumphant close and of Psalm xliii. without such despondent beginning. The prayer of vv. 1, 2, blends the two elements, which wereat war in the second part; and for the moment the darker is the more prominent. The situation is described as in the preceding parts. The enemy is called a "loveless nation." The word rendered "loveless" is compounded of the negative prefix and the word which is usually found with the meaning of "one whom God favours," or visits with loving-kindness. It has been much disputed whether its proper signification is active (one who shows loving-kindness) or passive (one who receives it). But, considering that loving-kindness is in the Psalter mainly a Divine attribute, and that, when a human excellence, it is regarded as derived from and being the echo of experienced Divine mercy, it is best to take the passive meaning as the principal, though sometimes, as unmistakably here, the active is more suitable. These loveless people are not further defined, and may either have been Israelites or aliens. Perhaps there was one "man" of special mischief prominent among them, but it is not safe to treat that expression as anything but a collective. Ver. 2 looks back to xlii. 9, the former clause in each verse being practically equivalent, and the second in xliii. being a quotation of the second in ver. 9, with a variation in the form of the verb to suggest more vividly the picture of weary, slow, dragging gait, fit for a man clad in mourning garb.
But the gloomier mood has shot its last bolt. Grief which finds no fresh words is beginning to dry up. The stage of mechanical repetition of complaints is not far from that of cessation of them. So the higher mood conquers at last, and breaks into a burst of joyous petition, which passes swiftly into realisation of the future joys whose coming shines thus far off. Hope and trust hold the field. The certainty ofreturn to the Temple overbears the pain of absence from it, and the vivid realisation of the gladness of worshipping again at the altar takes the place of the vivid remembrance of former festal approach thither. It is the prerogative of faith to make pictures drawn by memory pale beside those painted by hope. Light and Troth—i.e., Loving-kindness and Faithfulness in fulfilling promises—are like two angels, despatched from the presence-chamber of God, to guide with gentleness the exile's steps. That is to say, because God is mercy and faithfulness, the return of the psalmist to the home of his heart is sure. God being what He is, no longing soul can ever remain unsatisfied. The actual return to the Temple is desired because thereby new praise will be occasioned. Not mere bodily presence there, but that joyful outpouring of triumph and gladness, is the object of the psalmist's longing. He began with yearning after the living God. In his sorrow he could still think of Him at intervals as the help of his countenance and call Him "my God." He ends with naming Him "the gladness of my joy." Whoever begins as he did will finish where he climbed. The refrain is repeated for a third time, and is followed by no relapse into sadness. The effort of faith should be persistent, even if old bitternesses begin again and "break the low beginnings of content"; for, even if the wild waters burst through the dam once and again, they do not utterly wash it away and there remains a foundation on which it may be built up anew. Each swing of the gymnast lifts him higher, until he is on a level with a firm platform on which he can spring and stand secure. Faith may have a long struggle with fear, but it will have the last word, and that word will be "the help of my countenance and my God."
1 O God, with our ears we have heard,Our fathers have told to us,The work Thou didst work in their days,In the days of yore.2 Thou [with] Thy hand didst dispossess nations, and didst plantthem,Didst afflict peoples and spreadthemforth.3 For not by their own sword did they possess the land,And their own arm did not save them,But Thy right hand and Thine arm, and the light of Thy face,Because Thou hadst delight in them.4 Thou Thyself art my King, O God;Command salvations for Jacob.5 Through Thee can we butt down our oppressors;In Thy name can we trample those that rise against us.6 For not in my own bow do I trust,And my own sword does not save me.7 But Thou hast saved us from our oppressors,And our haters Thou hast put to shame.8 In God have we made our boast all the day,And Thy name will we thank for ever. Selah.9 Yet Thou hast cast [us] off and shamed us,And goest not forth with our hosts.10 Thou makest us turn back from the oppressor,And our haters plunder to their hearts' content.11 Thou makest us like sheep for food,And among the nations hast Thou scattered us.12 Thou sellest Thy people at no profit,And hast not increased [Thy wealth] by their price.13 Thou makest us a reproach for our neighbours,A mockery and derision to those around us.14 Thou makest us a proverb among the nations,A nodding of the head among the peoples.15 All the day is my dishonour before me,And the shame of my face has covered me,16 Because of the voice of the rebuker and blasphemer,Because of the face of the enemy and the revengeful.17 All this is come upon us, and [yet] have we not forgotten Thee,Nor been false to Thy covenant.18 Our heart has not turned back,Nor our footsteps swerved from Thy way.19 That Thou shouldest have crushed us in the place of jackals,And covered us with thick darkness.20 If we had forgotten the name of our GodAnd spread out our hands to a strange God,21 Would not God search out this? for He knows the secrets of the heart.22 Nay, for Thy sake are we killed all the day;We are reckoned as sheep for slaughter.23 Awake; why sleepest Thou, Lord?Arise; cast not off for ever.24 Why hidest Thou Thy face,Forgettest our affliction and oppression?25 For bowed to the dust is our soul;Our body cleaves to the earth.26 Arise [for] a help for us,And redeem us for Thy loving-kindness' sake.
Calvin says that the authorship of this psalm is uncertain, but that it is abundantly clear that it was composed by any one rather than David, and that its plaintive contents suit best the time when the savage tyranny of Antiochus raged. No period corresponds to the situation which makes the background of the psalm so completely as the Maccabean, for only then could it be truly said that national calamities fell because of the nation's rigid monotheism. Other epochs have been thought of, so as to avoid the necessity of recognising Maccabean psalms, but none of them can be said to meet the conditions described in the psalm. The choice lies between accepting the Maccabean date and giving up the attempt to fix one at all.
Objections to that late date based upon the history of the completion of the canon take for granted more accurate and complete knowledge of a very obscure subject than is possessed, and do not seem strong enough to negative the indications arising from the very unique fact, asserted in the psalm, that the nation was persecuted for its faith and engaged in a religious war. The psalm falls into four parts: a wistful look backwards to days already "old," when God fought for them (vv. 1-8); a sad contrast in present oppression (vv. 9-16); a profession of unfaltering national adherence to the covenant notwithstanding all these ills (vv. 17-22); and a fervent cry to a God who seems asleep to awake and rescue His martyred people (vv. 23-26).
The first part (vv. 1-8) recalls the fact that shone so brightly in all the past, the continual exercise of Divine power giving victory to their weakness, and builds thereon a prayer that the same law of His providence might be fulfilled now. The bitter side of the retrospect forces itself into consciousness in the next part, but here Memory is the handmaid of Faith. The whole process of the Exodus and conquest of Canaan is gathered up as one great "work" of God's hand. The former inhabitants of the land were uprooted like old trees, to give room for planting the "vine out of Egypt." Two stages in the settlement are distinguished in ver. 2: first came the "planting" and next the growth; for the phrase "didst spread them forth" carries on the metaphor of the tree, and expresses the extension of its roots and branches. The ascription of victory to God is made more emphatic by the negatives in ver. 3, which take away all credit of it from the people's own weapons or strength. The consciousness of our own impotence must accompanyadequate recognition of God's agency in our deliverances. The conceit of our own power blinds our vision of His working hand. But what moved His power? No merit of man's, but the infinite free grace of God's heart. "The light of Thy face" is the symbol of God's loving regard, and the deepest truth as to His acts of favour is that they are the outcome of His own merciful nature. He is His own motive. "Thou hadst delight in them" is the ultimate word, leading us into sacred abysses of self-existent and self-originated Deity. The spirit, then, of Israel's history is contained in these three thoughts: the positive assertion of God's power as the reason for their victories; the confirmatory negative, putting aside their own prowess; and the tracing of all God's work for them solely to His unmerited grace.
On this grand generalisation of the meaning of past centuries a prayer is built for their repetition in the prosaic present. The psalmist did not think that God was nearer in some majestic past than now. His unchangeableness had for consequence, as he thought, continuous manifestation of Himself in the same character and relation to His people. To-day is as full of God as any yesterday. Therefore ver. 4 begins with an emphatic recognition of the constancy of the Divine nature in that strong expression "Thou Thyself," and with an individualising transition for a moment to the singular in "my King," in order to give most forcible utterance to the thought that He was the same to each man of that generation as He had been to the fathers. On that unchanging relation rests the prayer, "Command salvations for (lit.of) Jacob," as if a multitude of several acts of deliverance stood before God, as servants waiting tobe sent on His errands. Just as God (Elohim) takes the place of Jehovah in this second book of the Psalter, so in it Jacob frequently stands for Israel. The prayer is no sooner spoken than the confidence in its fulfilment lifts the suppliant's heart buoyantly above present defeat, which will in the next turn of thought insist on being felt. Such is the magic of every act of true appeal to God. However dark the horizon, there is light if a man looks straight up. Thus this psalmist breaks into anticipatory pæans of victory. The vivid image of ver. 5 is taken from the manner of fighting common to wild horned animals, buffaloes and the like, who first prostrate their foe by their fierce charge and then trample him. The individualising "my" reappears in ver. 6, where the negation that had been true of the ancestors is made his own by the descendant. Each man must, as his own act, appropriate the universal relation of God to men and make God his God, and must also disown for himself reliance on himself. So he will enter into participation in God's victories. Remembrance of the victorious past and confidence in a like victorious future blend in the closing burst of praise and vow for its continuance, which vow takes for granted the future continued manifestation of deliverances as occasions for uninterrupted thanksgivings. Well might some long-drawn, triumphant notes from the instruments prolong the impression of the jubilant words.
The song drops in the second part (vv. 9-16) from these clear heights with lyric suddenness. The grim facts of defeat and consequent exposure to mocking laughter from enemies force themselves into sight, and seem utterly to contradict the preceding verses. But the first part speaks with the voice of faith, and thesecond with that of sense, and these two may sound in very close sequence or even simultaneously. In ver. 9 the two verbs are united by the absence of "us" with the first; and the difference of tense in the Hebrew brings out the dependence of the second on the first, as effect and cause. God's rejection is the reason for the nation's disgrace by defeat. In the subsequent verses the thoughts of rejection and disgrace are expanded, the former in ver. 9bto ver. 12, and the latter in vv. 13-16. The poet paints with few strokes the whole disastrous rout. We see the fated band going out to battle, with no Pillar of Cloud or Ark of the Covenant at their head. They have but their own weapons and sinews to depend on—not, as of old, a Divine Captain. No description of a fight under such conditions is needed, for it can have only one issue; and so the next clause shows panic-struck flight. Whoever goes into battle without God comes out of it without victory. Next follows plundering, as was the savage wont of these times, and there is no force to oppose the spoilers. The routed fugitives are defenceless and unresisting as sheep, and their fate is to be devoured, or possibly the expression "sheep for food" may be substantially equivalent to "sheep for the slaughter" (ver. 22), and may refer to the usual butchery of a defeated army. Some of them are slain and others carried off as slaves. The precise rendering of ver. 12bis doubtful. Calvin, and, among the moderns, Hitzig, Ewald, Delitzsch, Cheyne, take it to mean "Thou didst not set their prices high." Others, such as Hupfeld, Baethgen, etc., adhere to the rendering, "Thou didst not increase [Thy wealth] by their price." The general sense is clear, and as bold as clear. It is almost sarcasm, directed against the Divine dealings: little has He gained by letting Hisflock be devoured and scattered. Hupfeld attaches to the bitter saying a deep meaning: namely, that the "sale" did not take place "for the sake of profit or other external worldly ends, as is the case with men, but from higher disciplinary grounds of the Divine government—namely, simply as punishment for their sins, for their improvement." Rather it may indicate the dishonour accruing to the God, according to the ideas of the old world, when His votaries were defeated; or it may be the bitter reflection, "We can be of little worth in our Shepherd's eyes when He parts with us so easily." If there is any hint of tarnish adhering to the name of God by His people's defeat, the passage to the second main idea of this part is the easier.
Defeat brings dishonour. The nearer nations, such as Edomites, Ammonites, and other ancestral foes, are ready with their gibes. The more distant peoples make a proverb out of the tragedy, and nod their heads in triumph and scorn. The cowering creature, in the middle of this ring of mockers, is covered with shame as he hears the babel of heartless jests at his expense, and steals a glance at the fierce faces round him.
It is difficult to find historical facts corresponding with this picture. Even if the feature of selling into captivity is treated as metaphor, the rest of the picture needs some pressure to be made to fit the conditions of the Maccabean struggle, to which alone the subsequent avowals of faithfulness to God as the cause of calamity answer. For there were no such periods of disgraceful defeat and utter devastation when once that heroic revolt had begun. The third part of the psalm is in full accord with the religious consciousness of that Indian summer of national glories; but it must be acknowledged that the state of things described inthis second part does not fit quite smoothly into the hypothesis of a Maccabean date.
The third part (vv. 17-22) brings closely together professions of righteousness, which sound strangely in Christian ears, and complaints of suffering, and closes with the assertion that these two are cause and effect. The sufferers are a nation of martyrs, and know themselves to be so. This tone is remarkable when the nation is the speaker; for though we find individuals asserting innocence and complaining of undeserved afflictions in many psalms, a declaration of national conformity with the Law is in sharp contradiction both to history and to the uniform tone of prophets. This psalmist asserts not only national freedom from idolatry, but adherence in heart and act to the Covenant. No period before the exile was clear of the taint of idol worship and yet darkened by calamity. We have no record of any events before the persecutions that roused the Maccabean struggle which answer to the martyr cry of ver. 22: "For Thy sake we are killed all the day." It may, indeed, be questioned what is the relation in time of the two facts spoken of in vv. 17-19. Which comes first, the calamity or the steadfastness? Does the psalmist mean, "We are afflicted, and yet we are in affliction true to God," or "We were true to God, and yet are afflicted"? Probably the latter, as in the remainder of this part. "The place of jackals" is apparently the field of defeat referred to in the second part, where obscene creatures would gather to feast on the plundered corpses. The Christian consciousness cannot appropriate the psalmist's asseverations of innocence, and the difference between them and it should not be slurred over. But, on the other hand, his words should not be exaggerated intocharges of injustice against God, nor claims of absolute sinlessness. He does feel that present national distresses have not the same origin as past ones had had. There has been no such falling away as to account for them. But he does not arraign God's government. He knows why the miseries have come, and that he and his fellows are martyrs. He does not fling that fact down as an accusation of Providence, but as the foundation of a prayer and as a plea for God's help. The words may sound daring; still they are not blasphemy, but supplication.
The fourth part is importunate prayer. Its frank anthropomorphisms of a sleeping God, forgetting His people, surely need little defence. Sleep withdraws from knowledge of and action on the external world, and hence is attributed to God, when He allows evils to run unchecked. He is said to "awake," or, with another figure, to "arise," as if starting from His throned calm, when by some great act of judgment He smites flourishing evil into nothingness. Injustice is surely done to these cries of theEcclesia pressawhen they are supposed to be in opposition to the other psalmist's word: "He that keepeth Israel slumbers not, nor sleeps." Some commentators call these closing petitions commonplace; and so they are. Extreme need and agony of supplication have other things to think of than originality, and so long as sorrows are so commonplace and like each other, the cries of the sorrowful will be very much alike. God is pleased with well-worn prayers, which have fitted many lips, and is not so fastidious as some critics.
1 My heart seethes [with] goodly speech:I speak my work (poem) to a king:My tongue is the pen of a swift scribe.2 Thou art fair beyond the sons of men;Grace is poured on thy lips:Therefore God has blessed thee for ever.3 Gird thy sword on thy thigh, O hero,Thy splendour and thy majesty.4 [And [in] thy majesty] press forward, ride on,For the help of truth, and meekness-righteousness:And thy right hand shall teach thee awe-striking deeds.5 Thine arrows are keen—The peoples fall under thee—Into the heart of the enemies of the king.6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and aye:7 A sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity:Therefore God, thy God, has anointed theeWith the oil of gladness above thy fellows.8 Myrrh and aloes [and] cassia [are] all thy robes;Out of palaces of ivory, stringed instruments make thee glad.9 Kings' daughters are among thy favourites:The consort stands at thy right hand in Ophir gold.10 Hearken, O daughter, and behold, and incline thine ear;And forget thy people, and thy father's house;11 So shall the king desire thy beauty:For he is thy lord; and bow thou down to him.12 And the daughter of Tyre [shall come] with a gift;The richest among the peoples shall seek thy favour.13 All glorious is the king's daughter in the inner palace:Of cloth of gold is her garment.14 In embroidered robes is she led to the king:Maidens behind her, her friends, are brought to thee.15 They are brought with gladness and exultation:They enter into the palace of the king.16 Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children:Thou wilt make them princes in all the earth.17 I will commemorate thy name through generation after generation:Therefore shall the peoples praise thee for ever and aye.
This is an epithalamion or ode on a king's marriage. The usual bewildering variety of conjectures as to his identity meets us in commentaries. The older opinion points to Solomon's marriage to an Egyptian princess, to which it is objected that he was not a warrior king, as the monarch of the psalm is. Hitzig regards "daughter of Tyre," in ver. 12, as a vocative, and therefore looks for a king who married a Tyrian woman. He is obliged to go to the northern kingdom to find one, and pitches on Ahab, because Jezebel was the daughter of "a king of the Zidonians," and Ahab had an "ivory house" (1 Kings xxii. 39). It is hard to believe that that wedded pair of evil memory are the originals of the lovely portraits in the psalm, or that a psalmist would recognise the kingdom of Israel as divinely established and to be eternally upheld. Besides, the construction of ver. 12, on which this theory pivots, is doubtful, and the daughter of Tyre there mentioned is more probably one of the bringers of gifts to the bride. The attributes of the king and the promises for his descendants cannot be extended, without incongruity, beyond the Davidic line. Hence Delitzsch has selected Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, principally because his wife, Athaliah, was of Tyrian descent, being Jezebel's daughter, and partly because his father had been a trader, which accounts for the allusions to gold of Ophir and ivory.These are slender grounds of identification, to say nothing of the miserable contrast which Jehoram's reign—a dreary record of apostasy and defeat, culminating in a tragic death and a dishonoured grave (2 Chron. xxi.)—would present to the psalm. Some commentators have thought of the marriage of a Persian king, mainly because the peculiar word forconsortin ver. 9 is employed for Persian queens (Neh. ii. 6), and also because the Tyrians were tributary to Persia, and because the sons of the king are to be "called princes in all lands," which reminds us of Persian satraps. Ewald finally fixed on Jeroboam II. of Israel. Cheyne ("Orig. of Psalt.") finds the king of the psalm in Ptolemy Philadelphus, the inspirer, as was believed, of the LXX. translation, whom Josephus and Philo extol. Its author puts this identification only as "tentative." Notwithstanding his anticipatory protest against making Philadelphus' moral character an objection, he feels that it is an objection; for he urges that its darker shades had not yet disclosed themselves, and confesses that "a haze of illusion encompassed our poet," who "overrated this Ptolemy, from taking too external a view of the Messianic promise, and being flattered by a Hellenic king's partiality for his people" (u.s., 172). Philadelphus afterwards married his sister. His hands were red with blood. Was a Jewish psalmist likely to take "up the singing robes of a court poet" (u.s.) in honour of a Ptolemy, or to transfer the promises to the Davidic line to, and to speak of God as the God of, a foreign king? Or how, if he did, came his song to find and keep a place in the Psalter? All these conjectures show the hopelessness of identifying the person intended addressed in the psalm. It is said that a knowledge of the historical allusions in thePsalter is indispensable to enjoying it. They would often be helpful if they could be settled, but that is no reason for elevating conjecture to the place of knowledge.
One reason for the failure of attempts at identification is that the language is a world too wide for the best and greatest of Jewish kings. Much in the psalm applies to a historical occasion, the marriage of some monarch; but there is much that as obviously goes beyond it. Either, then, the psalm is hyperbole, outstripping even poetical licence, or there appear in it characteristics of the ideal monarch whom the psalmist knew to be promised to Israel. Every king of Judah by descent and office was a living prophecy. The singer sees the Messiah shining, as it were, through the shadowy form of the earthly king, whose limitations and defects, no less than his excellences and glories, pointed onwards to a greater than Solomon, in whom the "sure mercies" promised to David should be facts at last.
The psalm has two main divisions, prefaced by a prelude (ver. 1), and followed by prediction of happy issue of the marriage and enduring and wide dominion. The two main parts are respectively addressed to the royal bridegroom (vv. 2-9) and to the bride (vv. 10-15).
The singer lays claim to at leastpoeticinspiration. His heart is seething or boiling over with goodly words, or perhaps with the joyful matter which occasions his song—namely, the royal nuptials. He dedicates his "work" (like the original meaning of "poem"—a thing made) to "a king," the absence of the definite article suggesting that the office is more prominent than the person. He sings to a king; therefore his strains must be lofty. So full is his heart that the swift words pour out as the stylus of a rapidwriter races over the parchment. The previous musing has been long, the fire has burned slowly; but at last all is molten, and rushes out, fluent because fervent.
The picture of the king begins with two features on which the old-world ideal of a monarch laid stress—personal beauty and gracious speech. This monarch is fairer than the sons of men. The note of superhuman excellence is struck at the outset; and though the surface reference is only to physical beauty, that is conceived of as the indication of a fair nature which moulds the fair form.