1 By the streams of Babylon, there we sat, yea, wept,When we remembered Zion.2 On the willows in the midst thereofWe hung our harps.3 For there our captors required of us words of song,And our plunderers [required of us] mirth;"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."4 How can we sing Jehovah's songsIn a strange land?5 If I forget thee, Jerusalem,May my right hand forget!6 May my tongue cleave to my palate,If I remember thee not,If I set not JerusalemAbove the summit of my joy!7 Remember, Jehovah, to the children of EdomThe day of Jerusalem,Who said, "Lay bare, lay bare,To the foundation therein."8 Daughter of Babylon, thou that art laid waste,Happy he that requites theeThy doing which thou hast done to us!9 Happy he that seizes and dashes thy little onesAgainst the rock!
1 By the streams of Babylon, there we sat, yea, wept,When we remembered Zion.2 On the willows in the midst thereofWe hung our harps.3 For there our captors required of us words of song,And our plunderers [required of us] mirth;"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."4 How can we sing Jehovah's songsIn a strange land?
5 If I forget thee, Jerusalem,May my right hand forget!6 May my tongue cleave to my palate,If I remember thee not,If I set not JerusalemAbove the summit of my joy!
7 Remember, Jehovah, to the children of EdomThe day of Jerusalem,Who said, "Lay bare, lay bare,To the foundation therein."8 Daughter of Babylon, thou that art laid waste,Happy he that requites theeThy doing which thou hast done to us!9 Happy he that seizes and dashes thy little onesAgainst the rock!
The Captivity is past, as the tenses in vv. 1-3 show, and as is manifest from the very fact that its miseries have become themes for a psalm. Grief must be somewhat removed before it can be sung. But the strains of triumph heard in other psalms are wanting in this, which breathes passionate love for Jerusalem,tinged with sadness still. The date of the psalm is apparently the early days of the Return, when true-hearted patriots still felt the smart of recent bondage and sadly gazed on the dear ruins of the city. The singer passes in brief compass from tender music breathing plaintive remembrance of the captives' lot, to passionate devotion, and at last to an outburst of vehement imprecation, magnificent in its fiery rush, amply explicable by Israel's wrongs and Babylon's crimes, and yet to be frankly acknowledged as moving on a lower plane of sentiment than is permissible to those who have learned to repay scorn with gentleness, hate with love, and injuries with desires for the injurer's highest good. The coals of fire which this psalmist scatters among Israel's foes are not those which Christ's servants are bidden to heap on their enemies' heads.
Nothing sweeter or sadder was ever written than that delicate, deeply felt picture of the exiles in the early verses of the psalm. We see them sitting, as too heavy-hearted for activity, and half noting, as adding to their grief, the unfamiliar landscape round them, with its innumerable canals, and the monotonous "willows" (rather, a species of poplar) stretching along their banks. How unlike this flat, tame fertility to the dear home-land, with its hills and glens and rushing streams! The psalmist was probably a Temple singer, but he did not find solace even in "the harp, his sole remaining joy." No doubt many of the exiles made themselves at home in captivity, but there were some more keenly sensitive or more devout, who found that it was better to remember Zion and weep than to enjoy Babylon. "Alas, alas! how much less it is to hold converse with others than to remember thee!" So they sat, like Michael Angelo's brooding figure ofJeremiah in the Sistine Chapel, silent, motionless, lost in bitter-sweet memories.
But there was another reason than their own sadness for hanging their idle harps upon the willows. Their coarse oppressors bade them sing to make mirth. They wished entertainment from the odd sounds of foreign music, or they were petulantly angry that such dumb hang-dog people should keep sullen faces, like unilluminated windows, when their masters were pleased to be merry. So, like tipsy revellers, they called out "Sing!" The request drove the iron deeper into sad hearts, for it came from those who had made the misery. They had led away the captives, and now they bid them make sport.
The word renderedplunderersis difficult. The translation adopted here is that of the LXX. and others. It requires a slight alteration of reading, which is approved by Hupfeld (as an alternative), Perowne, Baethgen, Graetz, etc. Cheyne follows Halevy in preferring another conjectural alteration which gives "dancers" ("and of our dancers, festive glee"), but admits that the other view is "somewhat more natural." The roystering Babylonians did not care what kind of songs their slaves sang—Temple music would do as well as any other; but the devout psalmist and his fellows shrank from profaning the sacred songs that praised Jehovah by making them parts of a heathen banquet. Such sacrilege would have been like Belshazzar's using the Temple vessels for his orgy. "Give not that which is holy to dogs." And the singers were not influenced by superstition, but by reverence and by sadness, when they could not sing these songs in that strange land. No doubt it was a fact that the Temple music fell into desuetude during the Captivity. There are moodsand there are scenes in which it is profanation to utter the deep music which may be sounding on perpetually in the heart. "Songs unheard" are sometimes not only "sweetest," but the truest worship.
The psalmist's remembrances of Babylon are suddenly broken off. His heart burns as he broods on that past, and then lifts his eyes to see how forlorn and forgotten-like Jerusalem stands, as if appealing to her sons for help. A rush of emotion sweeps over him, and he breaks into a passion of vowed loyalty to the mother city. He has Jerusalem written on his heart. It is noteworthy that her remembrancewasthe exiles' crown of sorrow; it now becomes the apex of the singer's joy. No private occasion for gladness so moves the depths of a soul, smitten with the noble and ennobling love of the city of God, as does its prosperity. Alas that the so-called citizens of the true city of God should have so tepid interest in its welfare, and be so much more keenly touched by individual than by public prosperity or adversity! Alas that so often they should neither weep when they remember its bondage nor exult in its advancement!
Ver. 5bis emphatic by its incompleteness. "May my right hand forget!" What? Some word like "power," "cunning," or "movement" may be supplied. It would be as impossibly unnatural for the poet to forget Jerusalem as for his hand to forget to move or cease to be conscious of its connection with his body.
Ver. 6dreads literally "Above the head of my joy": an expression which may either mean the summit of my joy—i.e., my greatest joy; or the sum of my joy—i.e., my whole joy. In either case the well-being of Jerusalem is the psalmist's climax of gladness; and so utterly does he lose himself in the community foundedby God, that all his springs of felicity are in her. He had chosen the better part. Unselfish gladness is the only lasting bliss; and only they drink of an unfailing river of pleasures whose chiefest delight lies in beholding and sharing in the rebuilding of God's city on earth.
The lightning flashes of the last part of the psalm need little commenting. The desire for the destruction of Zion's enemies, which they express, is not the highest mood of the loyal citizen of God's city, and is to be fully recognised as not in accordance with Christian morality. But it has been most unfairly judged, as if it were nothing nobler than ferocious thirsting for vengeance. It is a great deal more. It is desire for retribution, heavy as the count of crimes which demands it is heavy. It is a solemn appeal to God to sweep away the enemies of Zion, who, in hating her, rebelled against Him. First, the psalmist turns to the treacherous kinsmen of Israel, the Edomites, who had, as Obadiah says, "rejoiced over the children of Judah in the days of their destruction" (Obad. 12), and stimulated the work of rasing the city. Then the singer turns to Babylon, and salutes her as already laid waste; for he is a seer as well as a singer, and is so sure of the judgment to be accomplished that it is as good as done. The most repellent part of the imprecation, that which contemplates the dreadful destruction of tender infants, has its harshness somewhat softened by the fact that it is the echo of Isaiah's prophecy concerning Babylon (Isa. xiii. 16-18), and still further by the consideration that the purpose of the apparently barbarous cruelty was to make an end of a "seed of evil-doers," whose continuance meant misery for wide lands.
Undoubtedly, the words are stern, and the temper they embody is harsh discord, when compared with theChristian spirit. But they are not the utterances of mere ferocious revenge. Rather they proclaim God's judgments, not with the impassiveness, indeed, which best befits the executors of such terrible sentences, but still less with the malignant gratification of sanguinary vengeance which has been often attributed to them. Perhaps, if some of their modern critics had been under the yoke from which this psalmist has been delivered, they would have understood a little better how a good man of that age could rejoice that Babylon was fallen and all its race extirpated. Perhaps, it would do modern tender-heartedness no harm to have a little more iron infused into its gentleness, and to lay to heart that the King of Peace must first be King of Righteousness, and that Destruction of evil is the complement of Preservation of Good.
1 I will thank Thee, Jehovah, with my whole heart,In presence of the gods will I harp to Thee.2 I will worship toward Thy holy Temple,And will thank Thy name for Thy loving-kindness and for Thy truth,For Thou hast magnified Thy promise above all Thy name.3 In the day [when] I called Thou answeredst me,Thou didst make me bold—in my soul [welled up] strength.4 Jehovah, all the kings of the earth shall thank Thee,When they have heard the words of Thy mouth.5 And they shall sing of the ways of Jehovah,For great is the glory of Jehovah.6 For Jehovah is high, and the lowly He regards,And the lofty from afar off He knows.7 If I walk in the midst of trouble Thou wilt revive me,Against the wrath of mine enemies Thou wilt stretch forth Thy hand,And Thy right hand shall save me.8 Jehovah will complete [all] that concerns me;Jehovah, Thy loving-kindness [endures] for ever;The works of Thy hands abandon not.
1 I will thank Thee, Jehovah, with my whole heart,In presence of the gods will I harp to Thee.2 I will worship toward Thy holy Temple,And will thank Thy name for Thy loving-kindness and for Thy truth,For Thou hast magnified Thy promise above all Thy name.3 In the day [when] I called Thou answeredst me,Thou didst make me bold—in my soul [welled up] strength.
4 Jehovah, all the kings of the earth shall thank Thee,When they have heard the words of Thy mouth.5 And they shall sing of the ways of Jehovah,For great is the glory of Jehovah.6 For Jehovah is high, and the lowly He regards,And the lofty from afar off He knows.
7 If I walk in the midst of trouble Thou wilt revive me,Against the wrath of mine enemies Thou wilt stretch forth Thy hand,And Thy right hand shall save me.8 Jehovah will complete [all] that concerns me;Jehovah, Thy loving-kindness [endures] for ever;The works of Thy hands abandon not.
This is the first of a group of eight psalms attributed to David in the superscriptions. It precedes the closing hallelujah psalms, and thus stands where a "find" of Davidic psalms at a late date would naturally be put. In some cases, there is no improbability in the assigned authorship; and this psalm is certainly singularly unlike those which precede it, andhas many affinities with the earlier psalms ascribed to David.
In reading it, one feels the return to familiar thoughts and tones. The fragrance it exhales wakes memories of former songs. But the resemblance may be due to the imitative habit so marked in the last book of the Psalter. If it is a late psalm, the speaker is probably the personified Israel, and the deliverance which seems to the singer to have transcended all previous manifestations of the Divine name is the Restoration, which has inspired so many of the preceding psalms. The supporters of the Davidic authorship, on the other hand, point to the promise to David by Nathan of the perpetuity of the kinghood in his line, as the occasion of the psalmist's triumph.
The structure of the psalm is simple. It falls into three parts, of which the two former consist of three verses each, and the last of two. In the first, the singer vows praise and recounts God's wondrous dealings with him (vv. 1-3); in the second, he looks out over all the earth in the confidence that these blessings, when known, will bring the world to worship (vv. 4-6); and in the third, he pleads for the completion to himself of mercies begun (vv. 7, 8).
The first part is the outpouring of a thankful heart for recent great blessing, which has been the fulfilment of a Divine promise. So absorbed in his blessedness is the singer, that he neither names Jehovah as the object of his thanks, nor specifies what has set his heart vibrating. The great Giver and the great gift are magnified by being unspoken. To whom but Jehovah could the current of the psalmist's praise set? He feels that Jehovah's mercy to him requires him to become the herald of His name; and therefore he vows,in lofty consciousness of his mission, that he will ring out God's praises in presence of false gods, whose worshippers have no such experience to loose their tongues. Dead gods have dumb devotees; the servants of the living Jehovah receive His acts of power, that they may proclaim His name.
The special occasion for this singer's praise has been some act, in which Jehovah's faithfulness was very conspicuously shown. "Thou hast magnified Thy promise above all Thy name." If the history of David underlies the psalm, it is most natural to interpret the "promise" as that of the establishment of the monarchy. But the fulfilment, not the giving, of a promise is its magnifying, and hence one would incline to take the reference to be to the great manifestation of God's troth in restoring Israel to its land. In any case the expression is peculiar, and has induced many attempts at emendation. Baethgen would strike out "Thy name" as a dittograph from the previous clause, and thus gets the reading "done great things beyond Thy word"—i.e., transcended the promise in fulfilment—which yields a good sense. Others make a slight alteration in the word "Thy name," and read it "Thy heavens," supposing that the psalmist is making the usual comparison between the manifestation of Divine power in Nature and in Revelation, or in the specific promise in question. But the text as it stands, though peculiar, is intelligible, and yields a meaning very appropriate to the singer's astonished thankfulness. A heart amazed by the greatness of recent blessings is ever apt to think that they, glittering in fresh beauty, are greater, as they are nearer and newer, than the mercies which it has only heard of as of old. To-day brings growing revelations of Jehovah to the waiting heart. The psalmistis singing, not dissertating. It is quite true that if his words are measured by the metaphysical theologian's foot-rule, they are inaccurate, for "the name of God cannot be surpassed by any single act of His, since every single act is but a manifestation of that name"; but thankfulness does not speak by rule, and the psalmist means to say that, so great has been the mercy given to him and so signal its confirmation of the Divine promise, that to him, at all events, that whole name blazes with new lustre, and breathes a deeper music. So should each man's experience be the best teacher of what God is to all men.
In ver. 3bthe psalmist uses a remarkable expression, in saying that Jehovah had made him bold, or, as the word is literally,proud. The following words are a circumstantial or subsidiary clause, and indicate how the consciousness of inbreathed strength welling up in his soul gave him lofty confidence to confront foes.
The second part (vv. 4-6) resembles many earlier psalms in connecting the singer's deliverance with a world-wide manifestation of God's name. Such a consciousness of a vocation to be the world's evangelist is appropriate either to David or the collective Israel. Especially is it natural, and, as a fact, occurs in post-exilic psalms. Here "the words of Thy mouth" are equivalent to the promise already spoken of, the fulfilment of which has shown that Jehovah the High has regard to the lowly—i.e., to the psalmist; and "knows the lofty"—i.e., his oppressors—"afar off." He reads their characters thoroughly, without, as it were, needing to approach for minute study. The implication is that He will thwart their plans and judge the plotters. This great lesson of Jehovah's providence, care for the lowly, faithfulness to His word, has exemplificationin the psalmist's history; and when it is known, the lofty ones of the earth shall learn the principles of Jehovah's ways, and become lowly recipients of His favours and adoring singers of His great glory.
The glowing vision is not yet fulfilled; but the singer was cherishing no illusions when he sang. Itistrue that the story of God's great manifestation of Himself in Christ, in which He has magnified His Word above all His name, is one day to win the world. Itistrue that the revelation of a God who regards the lowly is the conquering Gospel which shall bow all hearts.
In the third part (vv. 7, 8), the psalmist comes back to his own needs, and takes to his heart the calming assurance born of his experience, that he bears a charmed life. He but speaks the confidence which should strengthen every heart that rests on God. Such an one may be girdled about by troubles, but he will have an inner circle traced round him, within which no evil can venture. He may walk in the valley of the shadow of death unfearing, for God will hold his soul in life. Foes may pour out floods of enmity and wrath, but one strong hand will be stretched out against (orover) the wild deluge, and will draw the trustful soul out of its rush on to the safe shore. So was the psalmist assured; so may and should those be who have yet greater wonders for which to thank Jehovah.
That last prayer of the psalm blends very beautifully confidence and petition. Its central clause is the basis of both the confidence in its first, and the petition in its last, clause. Because Jehovah's loving-kindness endures for ever, every man on whom His shaping Spirit has begun to work, or His grace in any form to bestow its gifts, may be sure that no exhaustion orchange of these is possible. God is not as the foolish tower-builder, who began and was not able to finish. He never stops till He has completed His work; and nothing short of the entire conformity of a soul to His likeness and the filling of it with Himself can be the termination of His loving purpose, or of His achieving grace. Therefore the psalmist "found it in his heart to pray" that God would not abandon the works of His own hands. That prayer appeals to His faithfulness and to His honour. It sets forth the obligations under which God comes by what He has done. It is a prayer which goes straight to His heart; and they who offer it receive the old answer, "I will not leave thee till I have done unto thee that which I have spoken to thee of."
1 Jehovah, Thou hast searched me and known [me].2 Thou, Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising,Thou understandest my thought afar off.3 My walking and my lying down Thou siftest,And with all my ways Thou art familiar.4 For there is not a word on my tongue,—Behold, Thou, Jehovah, knowest it all.5 Behind and before Thou hast shut me in,And hast laid upon me Thy hand.6 [Such] knowledge is too wonderful for me,Too high, I am not able for it.7 Whither shall I go from Thy spirit?And whither from Thy face shall I flee?8 If I climb heaven, there art Thou,Or make Sheol my bed, lo, Thou [art there].9 [If] I lift up the wings of the dawn,[If] I dwell at the farthest end of the sea,10 Even there Thy hand shall lead me,And Thy right hand shall hold me.11 And [if] I say, "Only let darkness cover me,And the light about me be [as] night,"12 Even darkness darkens not to Thee,And night lightens like day;As is the darkness, so is the light.13 For Thou, Thou hast formed my reins,Thou hast woven me together in my mother's womb.14 I will thank Thee for that in dread fashion I am wondrously madeWondrous are Thy works,And my soul knows [it] well.15 My bones were not hid from Thee,When I was made in secret,[And] wrought like embroidery [as] in the depths of the earth.16 Thine eyes saw my shapeless mass,And in Thy book were they all written,The days [that] were fashioned,And yet there was not one among them.17 And to me how precious are Thy thoughts, O God,How great is their sum!18 Would I reckon them, they outnumber the sand;I awake—and am still with Thee.19 Oh, if Thou wouldest smite the wicked, O God!—And [ye] men of blood, depart from me,20 Who rebel against Thee with wicked deeds,They lift up [themselves] against Thee vainly (?)21 Do not I hate them which hate Thee, Jehovah?And am not I grieved with those who rise against Thee?22 With perfect hatred I hate them,They are counted for enemies to me.23 Search me, O God, and know my heart,Try me and know my thoughts,24 And see if there be any way of grief in me,And lead me in a way everlasting.
1 Jehovah, Thou hast searched me and known [me].2 Thou, Thou knowest my down-sitting and my up-rising,Thou understandest my thought afar off.3 My walking and my lying down Thou siftest,And with all my ways Thou art familiar.4 For there is not a word on my tongue,—Behold, Thou, Jehovah, knowest it all.5 Behind and before Thou hast shut me in,And hast laid upon me Thy hand.6 [Such] knowledge is too wonderful for me,Too high, I am not able for it.
7 Whither shall I go from Thy spirit?And whither from Thy face shall I flee?8 If I climb heaven, there art Thou,Or make Sheol my bed, lo, Thou [art there].9 [If] I lift up the wings of the dawn,[If] I dwell at the farthest end of the sea,10 Even there Thy hand shall lead me,And Thy right hand shall hold me.11 And [if] I say, "Only let darkness cover me,And the light about me be [as] night,"12 Even darkness darkens not to Thee,And night lightens like day;As is the darkness, so is the light.
13 For Thou, Thou hast formed my reins,Thou hast woven me together in my mother's womb.14 I will thank Thee for that in dread fashion I am wondrously madeWondrous are Thy works,And my soul knows [it] well.15 My bones were not hid from Thee,When I was made in secret,[And] wrought like embroidery [as] in the depths of the earth.16 Thine eyes saw my shapeless mass,And in Thy book were they all written,The days [that] were fashioned,And yet there was not one among them.17 And to me how precious are Thy thoughts, O God,How great is their sum!18 Would I reckon them, they outnumber the sand;I awake—and am still with Thee.
19 Oh, if Thou wouldest smite the wicked, O God!—And [ye] men of blood, depart from me,20 Who rebel against Thee with wicked deeds,They lift up [themselves] against Thee vainly (?)21 Do not I hate them which hate Thee, Jehovah?And am not I grieved with those who rise against Thee?22 With perfect hatred I hate them,They are counted for enemies to me.23 Search me, O God, and know my heart,Try me and know my thoughts,24 And see if there be any way of grief in me,And lead me in a way everlasting.
This is the noblest utterance in the Psalter of pure contemplative theism, animated and not crushed by the thought of God's omniscience and omnipresence. No less striking than the unequalled force and sublimity with which the psalm hymns the majestic attributes of an all-filling, all-knowing, all-creating God, is the firmness with which the singer's personal relation to that God is grasped. Only in the last verses is there reference to other men. In the earlier parts of the psalm, there are but two beings in the universe—God and the psalmist. With impressive reiteration, God's attributes are gazed on in their bearing on him. Not mere omniscience, but a knowledge which knowshimaltogether, not mere omnipresence, but a presence whichhecan nowhere escape, not mere creative power, but a power which shapedhim, fill and thrill the psalmist's soul. This is no cold theism, butvivid religion. Conscience and the consciousness of individual relation to God penetrate and vitalise the whole. Hence the sudden turn to prayer against evil men and for the singer's direction in the right way, which closes the hymn, is natural, however abrupt.
The course of thought is plain. There are four strophes of six verses each,—of which the first (vv. 1-6) magnifies God's omniscience; the second (vv. 7-12), His omnipresence; the third (vv. 13-18), His creative act, as the ground of the preceding attributes; and the fourth (vv. 19-24) recoils from men who rebel against such a God, and joyfully submits to the searching of His omniscient eye, and the guidance of His ever-present hand.
The psalmist is so thoroughly possessed by the thought of his personal relation to God that his meditation spontaneously takes the form of address to Him. That form adds much to the impressiveness, but is no rhetorical or poetic artifice. Rather, it is the shape in which such intense consciousness of God cannot but utter itself. How cold and abstract the awestruck sentences become, if we substitute "He" for "Thou," and "men" for "I" and "me"! The first overwhelming thought of God's relation to the individual soul is that He completely knows the whole man. "Omniscience" is a pompous word, which leaves us unaffected by either awe or conscience. But the psalmist's God was a God who came into close touch with him, and the psalmist's religion translated the powerless generality of an attribute referring to the Divine relation to the universe into a continually exercised power having reference to himself. He utters his reverent consciousness of it in ver. 1 in a single clause, and expands that verse in the succeeding ones. "Thou hast searchedme" describes a process of minute investigation; "and known [me]," its result in complete knowledge.
That knowledge is then followed out in various directions, and recognised as embracing the whole man in all his modes of action and repose, in all his inner and outward life. Vv. 2 and 3 are substantially parallel. "Down-sitting" and "up-rising" correspond to "walking" and "lying down," and both antitheses express the contrast between action and rest. "My thought" in ver. 2 corresponds to "my ways" in ver. 3,—the former referring to the inner life of thought, purpose, and will; the latter to the outward activities which carry these into effect. Ver. 3 is a climax to ver. 2, in so far as it ascribes a yet closer and more accurate knowledge to God. "Thou siftest" orwinnowestgives a picturesque metaphor for careful and judicial scrutiny which discerns wheat from chaff. "Thou art familiar" implies intimate and habitual knowledge. But thought and action are not the whole man. The power of speech, which the Psalter always treats as solemn and a special object of Divine approval or condemnation, must also be taken into account. Ver. 4 brings it, too, under God's cognisance. The meaning may either be that "There is no word on my tongue [which] Thou dost not know altogether"; or, "The word is not yet on my tongue, [but] lo! Thou knowest," etc. "Before it has shaped itself on the tongue, [much less been launched from it], thou knowest all its secret history" (Kay).
The thought that God knows him through and through blends in the singer's mind with the other, that God surrounds him on every side. Ver. 5 thus anticipates the thought of the next strophe, but presents it rather as the basis of God's knowledge, and as limitingman's freedom. But the psalmist does not feel that he is imprisoned, or that the hand laid on him is heavy. Rather, he rejoices in the defence of an encompassing God, who shuts off evil from him, as well as shuts him in from self-willed and self-determined action; and he is glad to be held by a hand so gentle as well as strong. "Thou God seest me" may either be a dread or a blessed thought. It may paralyse or stimulate. It should be the ally of conscience, and, while it stirs to all noble deeds, should also emancipate from all slavish fear. An exclamation of reverent wonder and confession of the limitation of human comprehension closes the strophe.
Why should the thought that God is ever with the psalmist be put in the shape of vivid pictures of the impossibility of escape from Him? It is the sense of sin which leads men to hide from God, like Adam among the trees of the garden. The psalmist does not desire thus to flee, but he supposes the case, which would be only too common if men realised God's knowledge of all their ways. He imagines himself reaching the extremities of the universe in vain flight, and stunned by finding God there. The utmost possible height is coupled with the utmost possible depth. Heaven and Sheol equally fail to give refuge from that moveless Face, which confronts the fugitive in both, and fills them as it fills all the intervening dim distances. The dawn flushes the east, and swiftly passes on roseate wings to the farthest bounds of the Mediterranean, which, to the psalmist, represented the extreme west, a land of mystery. In both places and in all the broad lands between, the fugitive would find himself in the grasp of the same hand (compare ver. 5).
Darkness is the friend of fugitives from men; but is transparent to God. In ver. 11 the language is somewhat obscure. The word rendered above "cover" is doubtful, as the Hebrew text reads "bruise," which is quite unsuitable here. Probably there has been textual error, and the slight correction which yields the above sense is to be adopted, as by many moderns. The second clause of the verse carries on the supposition of the first, and is not to be regarded, as in the A.V., as stating the result of the supposition, or, in grammatical language, the apodosis. That begins with ver. 12, and is marked there, as in ver. 10, by "even."
The third strophe (vv. 13-18) grounds the psalmist's relation to God on God's creative act. The mysteries of conception and birth naturally struck the imagination of non-scientific man, and are to the psalmist the direct result of Divine power. He touches them with poetic delicacy and devout awe, casting a veil of metaphor over the mystery, and losing sight of human parents in the clear vision of the Divine Creator. There is room for his thought of the origin of the individual life, behind modern knowledge of embryology. In ver. 13 the word rendered in the A.V. "possessed" is better understood in this context as meaning "formed," and that rendered there "covered" (as in Psalm cxl. 7) here means toplaitorweave together, and picturesquely describes the interlacing bones and sinews, as in Job x. 11. But description passes into adoration in ver. 14. Its language is somewhat obscure. The verb rendered "wondrously made" probably means here "selected" or "distinguished," and represents man as thechef d'œuvreof the Divine Artificer. The psalmist cannot contemplate his own frame, God's workmanship, without breaking into thanks, nor without being touchedwith awe. Every man carries in his own body reasons enough for reverent gratitude.
The word for "bones" in ver. 15 is a collective noun, and might be rendered "bony framework." The mysterious receptacle in which the unborn body takes shape and grows is delicately described as "secret," and likened to the hidden region of the underworld, where are the dead. The point of comparison is the mystery enwrapping both. The same comparison occurs in Job's pathetic words, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." It is doubtful whether the word rendered above "wrought like embroidery" refers to a pattern wrought by weaving or by needlework. In any case, it describes "the variegated colour of the individual members, especially of the viscera" (Delitzsch). The mysteries of antenatal being are still pursued in ver. 16, which is extremely obscure. It is, however, plain thatasets forth the Divine knowledge of man in his first rudiments of corporeity. "My shapeless mass" is one word, meaning anything rolled up in a bundle or ball. But inbit is doubtful what is referred to in "they all." Strictly, the word should point back to something previously mentioned; and hence the A.V. and R.V. suppose that the "shapeless mass" is thought of as resolved into its component parts, and insert "my members"; but it is better to recognise a slight irregularity here, and to refer the word to the "days" immediately spoken of, which existed in the Divine foreknowledge long before they had real objective existence in the actual world. The last clause of the verse is capable of two different meanings, according as the Hebrew text or margin is followed. This is one of a number of cases in which there is a doubt whether we shouldread "not" or "to him" (or "it"). The Hebrew words having these meanings are each of two letters, the initial one being the same in both, and both words having the same sound. Confusion might easily therefore arise, and as a matter of fact there are numerous cases in which the text has the one and the margin the other of these two words. Here, if we adhere to the text, we read the negative, and then the force of the clause is to declare emphatically that the "days" were written in God's book, and in a real sense "fashioned," when as yet they had not been recorded in earth's calendars. If, on the other hand, the marginal reading is preferred, a striking meaning is obtained: "And for it [i.e., for the birth of the shapeless mass] there was one among them [predestined in God's book]."
In vv. 17, 18, the poet gathers together and crowns all his previous contemplations by the consideration that this God, knowing him altogether, ever near him, and Former of his being, has great "thoughts" or purposes affecting him individually. That assurance makes omniscience and omnipresence joys, and not terrors. The root meaning of the word rendered "precious" isweighty. The singer would weigh God's thoughts towards him, and finds that they weigh down his scales. He would number them, and finds that they pass his enumeration. It is the same truth of the transcendent greatness and graciousness of God's purposes as is conveyed in Isaiah's "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are . . . My thoughts than your thoughts." "I awake, and am still with Thee,"—this is an artless expression of the psalmist's blessedness in realising God's continual nearness. He awakes from sleep, and is conscious of glad wonder to find that, like a tender mother by her slumbering child, God hasbeen watching over him, and that all the blessed communion of past days abides as before.
The fiery hatred of evil and evil men which burns in the last strophe offends many and startles more. But while the vehement prayer that "Thou wouldest slay the wicked" is not in a Christian tone, the recoil from those who could raise themselves against such a God is the necessary result of the psalmist's delight in Him. Attraction and repulsion are equal and contrary. The measure of our cleaving to that which is good, and to Him who is good, settles the measure of our abhorrence of that which is evil. The abrupt passing from petition in ver. 19ato command inbhas been smoothed away by a slight alteration which reads, "And that men of blood would depart from me"; but the variation in tense is more forcible, and corresponds with the speaker's strong emotion. He cannot bear companionship with rebels against God. His indignation has no taint of personal feeling, but is pure zeal for God's honour.
Ver. 20 presents difficulties. The word rendered in the A.V. and R.V. (text) "speak against Thee" is peculiarly spelt if this is its meaning, and its construction is anomalous. Probably, therefore, the rendering should be as above. That meaning does not require a change of consonants, but only of vowel points. The difficulty of the last clause lies mainly in the word translated in the A.V.adversariesand in the R.V. "enemies." That meaning is questionable; and if the word is the nominative to the verb in the clause, the construction is awkward, since the preceding "who" would naturally extend its influence to this clause. Textual emendation has been resorted to; the simplest form of which is to read "against Thee" for "Thine adversaries," achange of one letter. Another form of emendation, which is adopted by Cheyne and Graetz, substitutes "Thy name," and reads the whole, "And pronounce Thy name for falsehoods." Delitzsch adheres to the reading "adversaries," and by a harsh ellipsis makes the whole to run, "Who pronounce [Thy name] deceitfully—Thine adversaries."
The vindication of the psalmist's indignation lies in vv. 21, 22. That soul must glow with fervent love to God which feels wrong done to His majesty with as keen a pain as if it were itself struck. What God says to those who love Him, they in their degree say to God: "He that toucheth Thee toucheth the apple of mine eye." True, hate is not the Christian requital of hate, whether that is directed against God or God's servant. But recoil there must be, if there is any vigour of devotion; only, pity and love must mingle with it, and the evil of hatred be overcome by their good.
Very beautifully does the lowly prayer for searching and guidance follow the psalmist's burst of fire. It is easier to glow with indignation against evil-doers than to keep oneself from doing evil. Many secret sins may hide under a cloak of zeal for the Lord. So the psalmist prays that God would search him, not because he fancies that there is no lurking sin to be burned by the light of God's eye, like vermin that nestle and multiply under stones and shrivel when the sunbeams strike them, but because he dreads that there is, and would fain have it cast out. The psalm began with declaring that Jehovah had searched and known the singer, and it ends with asking for that searching knowledge.
It makes much difference, not indeed in the realityor completeness of God's knowledge of us, but in the good we derive therefrom, whether we welcome and submit to it, or try to close our trembling hearts, that do not wish to be cleansed of their perilous stuff, from that loving and purging gaze. God will cleanse the evil which He sees, if we are willing that He should see it. Thoughts of the inner life and "ways" of the outer are equally to be submitted to Him. There are two "ways" in which men can walk. The one is a "way of grief or pain," because that is its terminus. All sin is a blunder. And the inclination to such ways is "in me," as every man who has dealt honestly with himself knows. The other is "a way everlasting," a way which leads to permanent good, which continues uninterrupted through the vicissitudes of life, and even (though that was not in the psalmist's mind) through the darkness of death, and with ever closer approximation to its goal in God, through the cycles of eternity. And that way is not "in me," but I must be led into and in it by the God who knows me altogether and is ever with me, to keep my feet in the way of life, if I will hold the guiding hand which He lays upon me.
1 Deliver me, Jehovah, from the evil man,From the man of violence guard me,2 Who plot evils in heart,Every day they stir up wars.3 They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent,Adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.4 Keep me, Jehovah, from the hands of the wicked man,From the man of violences guard me,Who have plotted to overthrow my steps.5 The proud have hidden a snare for me and cords,They have spread a net hard by the path,They have set gins for me. Selah.6 I said to Jehovah, My God art Thou,Give ear, Jehovah, to the voice of my supplications.7 Jehovah, Lord, my stronghold of salvation!Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle8 Grant not, Jehovah, the desires of the wicked,Further not his plan. Selah.9 They who compass me about lift up the head—The mischief of their own lips cover them!10 [Jehovah] rain hot coals on them! (?)Let Him cause them to fall into fire,Into floods, that they rise no more!11 The man with a [slanderous] tongue shall not continue on earth;The man of violence—evil shall hunt him with blow upon blow.12 I know that Jehovah will maintain the cause of the afflicted,The right of the needy.13 Surely the righteous shall thank Thy name,The upright shall dwell with Thy face.
1 Deliver me, Jehovah, from the evil man,From the man of violence guard me,2 Who plot evils in heart,Every day they stir up wars.3 They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent,Adders' poison is under their lips. Selah.
4 Keep me, Jehovah, from the hands of the wicked man,From the man of violences guard me,Who have plotted to overthrow my steps.5 The proud have hidden a snare for me and cords,They have spread a net hard by the path,They have set gins for me. Selah.
6 I said to Jehovah, My God art Thou,Give ear, Jehovah, to the voice of my supplications.7 Jehovah, Lord, my stronghold of salvation!Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle8 Grant not, Jehovah, the desires of the wicked,Further not his plan. Selah.
9 They who compass me about lift up the head—The mischief of their own lips cover them!10 [Jehovah] rain hot coals on them! (?)Let Him cause them to fall into fire,Into floods, that they rise no more!11 The man with a [slanderous] tongue shall not continue on earth;The man of violence—evil shall hunt him with blow upon blow.
12 I know that Jehovah will maintain the cause of the afflicted,The right of the needy.13 Surely the righteous shall thank Thy name,The upright shall dwell with Thy face.
In tone and contents this psalm has many parallels in the earlier books, especially among the psalms ascribed to David. Its originality lies principally in its use of peculiar words, and in the extreme obscurity of a part of it. The familiar situation of a man ringed about by slanderous enemies, the familiar metaphors of snares and traps, the familiar venture of faith flinging itself into God's arms for refuge, the familiar prayers for retribution, are all here. One cannot argue about impressions, but the present writer receives the impression strongly from the psalm that it is cast in the Davidic manner by a later singer, and is rather an echo than an original voice, while, no doubt, the feelings expressed, both of distress and of confidence, are none the less felt by the singer, though he falls back on familiar forms for their expression.
The arrangement is in four strophes of approximately equal length, the first and third of which consist of three verses of two clauses each, while the fourth is abnormally elongated by having three clauses in ver. 10, and the second (vv. 4, 5) has two verses of three clauses each. Selah again appears as dividing the strophes, but is omitted at the end of the fourth, to which a closing strophe of two verses is appended.
The first two strophes (vv. 1-3 and 4, 5) cover the same ground. Both set forth the psalmist's need, and plead for deliverance. The first verse of the second strophe (ver. 4) is almost identical with ver. 1. Both paint the psalmist's enemies as evil and violent, plotting against him privily. The only difference in the two strophes is in the metaphors describing the foes and their devices, and in the prominence given in the first to their slanderous and sharp tongues. The forms of their malice are like those in earlier psalms. Acharacteristic of the Psalter is the prominence given to hostility which has but bitter speech for its weapon (Psalm x. 7, lviii. 4). The slanderer's tongue is sharp like a serpent's, with which the popular opinion supposed that the venom was injected. The particular kind of serpent meant in ver. 3ais doubtful, as the word is only found here.
The figures for hostility in the second strophe are the other equally familiar ones of setting snares and traps. The contrivers are here called "proud," since their hostility to God's servant implies haughty antagonism to God. But they are not too proud to resort to tricks. Cunning and pride do not go well together, but they are united in these enemies, who spread a net "by the hand of the path."
In the third strophe, Faith rouses itself to lay hold on God. The psalmist turns from contemplating what his foes are doing, to realise what Jehovah is to him, and is wont to do for him. Since He is the singer's God and protects him in all conflict, he "finds it in his heart" to ask confidently that the plots of the foe may be wrecked. Consciousness of danger drove the poet in the former strophes to prayer; Jehovah's character and loving relations to him draw him, in this one.
"The day of battle" is literally "the day of armour"—when weapons clash and helmets are fitting wear. Then Jehovah will be as a head-piece to him, for He always gives the shape to His help which is required at the moment. The words in ver. 8 for "desires" and "plan" are found here only.
The text here is evidently in some disorder, and the word which is now awkwardly attached to the end of ver. 8 is by most commentators carried over to ver. 9. The change of position clears away difficulties in bothverses, but a considerable crop remains in this fourth strophe. The language becomes gnarled and obscure under the stress of the poet's emotion, as he prays for the destruction of his persecutors. If the transference of the word from ver. 8 to ver. 9 is accepted, that verse describes in vivid fashion what in prose would have been cast into the form of, "Whenmy encompassers lift up the head [i.e., in proud assault],then," etc. The psalmist omits the particles which would give a hypothetical form, and prefers to set the two things side by side, and leave sympathetic readers to feel their connection. Ver. 10 is very obscure. According to the Hebrew text, the first clause would have to be rendered, "Let coals be thrown on them"; but such a rendering is "contrary to the usage of the language." The Hebrew margin, therefore, corrects into, "Let them [i.e., men indefinitely] cast down coals"; but this is harsh, and the office is strange as one attributed to men. The emendation which finds favour with most moderns substitutes for the inappropriate verb of the present text that which is used in precisely the same connection in Psalm xi. 6, and gives the reading, "Let Him [i.e., Jehovah] rain coals on them." The following clause then swiftly adds another element of horror. Fire rains down from above; fire yawns below. They are beaten down by the burning storm, and they fall into a mass of flame. The noun in ver. 10cis found only here, and is by some rendered "pits," by others "floods," and by others is corrected into "nets." If "floods" is taken as the meaning, destruction by water is set by the side of that by fire, as if the antagonistic elements forgot their opposition and joined in strange amity to sweep the wicked from the earth. The terrible strophe ends with the assured declaration of theDivinely appointed transiency of the evil-doers, especially of the slanderers against whom the psalmist took refuge in Jehovah. They shall be soon cut off, and the hunters (ver. 5) shall become the hunted. "Evil"—i.e., the punishment of their evil deeds—shall dog their heels, and with stroke after stroke chase them as dogs would follow vermin.
In vv. 13, 14, the poet comes back to brighter thoughts, and his words become limpid again with his change of mood. He "knows," as the result of meditation and experience, that not only he, but all the afflicted and needy, who are righteous and upright, have God on their side. He will stand by their side in their hour of distress; He will admit them to dwell by His side, in deep, still communion, made more real and sweet by the harassments of earth, which drive them for shelter and peace to His breast. That confidence is a certitude for the psalmist. He announces it with an "I know," and seals it with a "surely." Such is the issue of trouble which was spread before Jehovah, and vented itself in prayer.