Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

SEVEN whole years have passed since the publication of my Commentar iXber den Psalter (2 vols. 1859-60), and during this period large and important contributions have been made towards the exposition of the Psalms. Of Hupfeld's Commentary the last two volumes (vol. iii., 1860; vol. iv., 1862) have appeared since the completion of my own. Hitzig's (1835-36) has appeared in a new form (2 vols., 1863-65), enriched by the fruit of nearly thirty years' progressive study. And the Commentary of Ewald has taken the field for the third time (1866), with proud words scorning down all fellowworkers, in order that all honour may be given to itself alone. In addition to these, Bottcher's Neue Kritisclie Aehrenlese, issued by Miihlau after the author's death, has furnished valuable contributions towards the exposition of the Psalms (Abth. 2, 1864); Von Ortenberg in the department of textual criticism (Zur Textkritik der Psalmen, 1861), and Kurtz in that of theology (Zur Theologie der Psalmen, in the Dorpater Zeitschri/t, 1864-65), have promoted the interpretation of the Psalms; and side by side with these, Bohl's Zwolf Messianische Psalmen (" Twelve Messianic Psalms," 1862) and Kamphausen's exposition of the Psalms in Bunsen's Bibelwerk (1863) also claim attention.

I hud therefore no lack of external inducements for the revision of my own Commentary; but I was also not unconscious of its defects. Despite all this, Hupfeld's inconsiderate and condemnatory judgment caused me pain. In an essay on the faithful representation of the text of the Old Testament according to the Masora (Lutherisclie Zeitschrift, 1863) I incidentally gave expression to this feeling. On the 20th of October 1863 Hupfeld wrote to me, " I have only just seen

your complaint of my judgment at the close of my work on the Psalms. The complaint is so gentle in its tone, it partakes so little of the bitterness of my verdict, and at the same time strikes chords that are not yet deadened within me, and which have not yet forgotten how to bring back the echo of happier times of common research and to revive the feeling of gratitude for faithful companionship, that it has touched my heart and

conscience." He closes his letter with the hope that he may one day have an opportunity of expressing publicly how that harsh and untempered judgment is now repugnant to his own feelings. Up to the present time I have made no use whatever of this letter. I regarded it as a private matter between ourselves. Since, however, Kiehm has transferred that judgment unaltered to the second edition of the first volume of the Commentary of Hupfeld, I owe it not to myself alone, but also to him who is since deceased, to explain that this has not been done in accordance with his wish.

Hitzig's new Commentary has been of the greatest service to me in the revision and re-working of my own. In it I found mine uniformly taken into account from beginning to end, either with or without direct mention, and subjected to severe but kindly-disposed criticism; and here and there not without a ready recognition of the scientific advance which could not but be observed in it. In comparison with such an unmerciful judgment as that which Hupfeld pronounced upon me, and which Ewald a few years later with very similar language pronounced upon him, I here met with reasonable criticism of the matter, and, notwithstanding the full consciousness of the thoroughly original inquirer, an appreciation of the toil bestowed by others upon their work.

I am the more encouraged to hope that all those who do not hold scientific love of truth and progress to be the exclusive privilege of their own tendencies, will find in this new thoroughly revised edition of my Commentary much that is instructive, and much that is more correctly apprehended. The fact that I have still further pressed the Oriental learning of Fleischer and Wetzstein into the service of Biblical science will not be unwelcome to my readers. But that I have also laid Jewish investigators under contribution is due to my desire to see the partition wall between Synagogue and Church broken down. The exposition of Scripture has not only to serve the Church of the present, but also to help in building up the Church of the future. In this spirit I commend the present work to the grace and blessing of the God of the history of redemption.

JaJive is (1) the traditional pronunciation, and (2) the pronunciation to be presupposed in accordance with the laws of formation and of vowel sounds. It is the traditional, for Theodoret and Epiphanius transcribe 'lafte. The mode pronunciation "Aid (not 'Ia/3a), on the contrary, is the reproduction of the form of the name.T, and the mode of pronunciation 'Iau of the form of the name VT, which although occurring only in the Old Testament in composition, had OD according to traces that can be relied on, an mdepend existence. Also the testimonies of the Talmud an. I talmudical writings require the final sound to be n, and corresponding name by which God calls Him F, ""-• « authentic security for this ending. When it is hut).

sidered that)*}] (whence WTJ) according to analogous contractions has grown out of njJV^ and not out of ^y}^ and that the Hebrew language exhibits no proof of any transition from n— to n — which would not at the same time be a transition from the masculine to the feminine, it must be conceded that the pronunciation Jahve is to be regarded as the original pronunciation. The mode of pronunciation JeJiova has only come up within the last three hundred years; our own u Jahavd " [in the first edition] was an innovation. We now acknowledge the patristic 'Iafte, and hope to have another opportunity of substantiating in detail what is maintained in this prefatory note.

The Psalter is everywhere regarded as an essential part of the Kethubim or Hagiographa; but its position among these varies. It seems to follow from Luke xxiv. 44 that it opened the Kethubim in the earliest period of the Christian era.* The order of the books in the Hebrew MSS. of the German class, upon which our printed editions in general use are based, is actually this: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and the five Megilloth. But the Masora and the MSS. of the Spanish class begin the Kethubim with the Chronicles which they awkwardly separate from Ezra and Nehemiah, and then range the Psalms, Job, Proverbs and the five Megilloth next.** And according to the Talmud (Baba Bathra \\b)

* Also from 2 Mace. ii. 13, where xd tou Aau(8 appears to be the designation of the D\3H"D according to their beginning; and from Philo, Dc vita contempt. (Opp. II. 475 ed. Mangcy), where he makes the following distinction v6|j.ou<; jtal Xoyia OeoTciaOivxa Sid itpocpTjTdiv xal Guvg-j; xal Ta aXXa ot; etugt^iay] xal eda£(3eia ouvaOSovtat v-ai teXeiouvxat.

** In all the Masoretic lists the twenty four bcoks are arranged in the following order: 1) rTON"Q; 2) niD*: rbsi; 3) Nnp^i; 4) "DTI | the following is the right order: Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs; the Book of Ruth precedes the Psalter as its prologue, for Ruth is the ancestor of him to whom the sacred lyric owes its richest and most flourishing era. It is undoubtedly the most natural order that the Psalter should open the division of the Kethubim, and for this reason: that, according to the stock which forms the basis of it, it represents the time of David, and then afterwards in like manner the Proverbs and Job represent the Chokma -literature of the age of Solomon. But it is at once evident that it could have no other place but among the Kethubim.

The codex of the giving of the Law, which is the foundation of the old covenant and of the nationality of Israel, as also of all its subsequent literature, occupies the first place in the canon. Under the collective title of DWD3, a series of historical writings of a prophetic character, which trace the history of Israel from the occupation of Canaan to the first gleam of light in the gloomy retributive condition of the Babylonish Exile {Prophetce priores) is first attached to these five books of the Thora; and then a series of strictly prophetical writings by the prophets themselves which extend to the time of Darius Nothus, and indeed to the time of Nehemiah's second sojourn in Jerusalem under this Persian king {Prophetce posterior es). Regarded chronologically, the first series would better correspond to the second if the historical books of the Persian period (Chronicles with Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther) were joined to it; but for a very good reason this has not been done. The Israelitish literature has marked out two sharply defined and distinct methods of writing history, viz. the annalistic and the prophetic. The so-called Elohistic and so-called Jehovistic form of historical writing in the Pentateuch might serve as general types of these. The historical books of the Persian period are, however, of the annalistic, not of the prophetic character (although the Chronicles have taken up and incorporated many remnants of the prophetic form of historical writing, and the Books of the Kings, vice versa, many remnants of the annalistic): they could not therefore stand among the Prophetce priores. But with the Book of Ruth it is different. This short book is so like the end of the Book of the Judges (ch. xvii — xxi), that it might very well stand between Judges and Samuel; and it did originally stand after the Book of the Judges, just as the Lamentations of Jeremiah stood after his prophecies. It is only on liturgical grounds that they have both been placed with the so-called Megilloth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, as they are arranged in our ordinary copies according to the calendar of the festivals). All the remaining books could manifestly only be classed under the third division of the canon, which (as could hardly have been otherwise in connection with rmn and DW3D) has been entitled, in the most general way, CQIPD, — a title which, as the grandson of Ben-Sira renders it in his prologue [to Ecclesiasticus], means simply xa aXXa iraxpia pipXia, or xa, Xoiira xuW |3ij3)aa)v, and nothing more. For if it were intended to mean writings, written VftpT) m*n, — as the third degree of inspiration which is combined with the greatest spontaneity of spirit, is styled according to the synagogue notion of inspiration, — then the words t&Hpn nrp would and ought to stand with it.

At the close of the seventy -second Psalm (ver. 20) wo find the subscription: "Are ended the prayers of David, the Son of Jesse" The whole of the preceding Psalms are here comprehended under the name rrfen. This strikes one as strange, because with the exception of Ps. xvii (and further on Ps. lxxxvi, xc, cii, cxlii) they are all inscribed otherwise; and because in part, as e.g. Ps. i and ii, they contain no supplicatory address to God and have therefore not the form of prayers. Nevertheless the collective name Tephilloth is suitable to all Psalms. The essence of prayer is a direct and undiverted looking towards God, and the absorption of the mind in the thought of Him. Of this nature of prayer all Psalms partake; even the didactic and laudatory, the containing no supplicatory address, — like Hannah's boh praise which is introduced with ^DnW (1 8:im- jl- l)« title inscribed on the Psalter is D^ITfl (IK?) for which D\ (apocopated ^r.) is also commonly used, as Hippolytufl de Lag circle p. 188) testifies: cEj3paTot irspisypa^av r/^v pLpXov Secppa 6sXei[A.* This name may also seem strange, for the Psalms for the most part are hardly hymns in the proper sense: the majority are elegiac or didactic; and only a solitary one, Ps. cxlv, is directly inscribed n^nn. But even this collective name of the Psalms is admissible, for they all partake of the nature of the hymn, to wit the purpose of the hymn, the glorifying of God. The narrative Psalms praise the magnalia Dei, the plaintive likewise praise Him, since they are directed to Him as the only helper, and close with grateful confidence that He will hear and answer. The verb t^H includes both the Magnificat and the Be profundis.

The language of the Masora gives the preference to the feminine form of the name, instead ofc6nn, and throughout calls the Psalter n^DD "1BD (e. g. on 2 Sam. xxii. 5).** In the Syriac it is styled kctobo demazmure, in the Koran zabiir (not as Golius and Freytag point it, zubur), which in the usage of the Arabic language signifies nothing more than "writing" (synon. kitdb: vid. on iii. 1), but is perhaps a corruption of mizmor from which a plural mezdmir is formed, by a change of vowels, in Jewish-Oriental MSS. In the Old Testament writings a plural of mizamor does not occur. Also in the post -biblical usage mizmorim or mizmor oth is found only in solitary instances as the name for the Psalms. In Hellenistic Greek the corresponding word ^aX[ioi (from ^dXXsiv =* *"]£]) is the more common; the Psalm collection is called fk'pXo; ^aXfitov (Lk. xx. 42, Acts i. 20) or ^aXxrjpiov, the name of the instrument (psanterin in the Book of Daniel) *** being

* In Eusebius, vi. 25: 2scpY]p GiXX-^v; Jerome (in the Preface to his translation of the Psalms juxta Hebraicam veritatem) points it still differently: SEPHAR THALLIM quod interpretatur volumen hymnorum. Accordingly at the end of the Psalterium ex Hcbrceo, Cod. 19 in the Convent Library of St. Gall we find the subscription: Sephar Tallim Quod interpretatur volumen Ymnorum explicit.

** It is an erroneous opinion of Buxtorf in his Tiberias and also of Jewish Masoretes, that the Masora calls the Psalter nWh {liallela). It is only the so-called Hallcl, Ps. cxiii — cxix, that bears this name, for in the Masora on 2 Sam. xxii. 5, Ps. cxvi. 3 a is called nW»TJ VCD (the similar passage in the Hallel) in relation to xviii. 5 a.

*** Nrij3Xa — say Eusebius and others of the Greek Fathers — stotp' E|3pa(oi<; Aeyexai to ^aXx^piov, & 8tj jagvov tujv p-ouaixcSv dpyavwv opQoxatov transferred metaphorically to the songs that are sung with its accompaniment. Psalms are songs for the lyre, and therefore lyric poems in the strictest sense.

Before we can seek to obtain a clear idea of the origin of the Psalm -collection we must take a general survey of the course of the development of psalm writing. The lyric is the earliest kind of poetry in general, and the Hebrew poetry, the oldest example of the poetry of antiquity that has come down to us, is therefore essentially lyric. Neither the Epos nor the Drama, but only the Mashal, has branched off from it ano1 attained an independent form. Even prophecy, which is distinguished from psalmody by a higher impulse which the mind of the writer receives from the power of the divine mind, shares with the latter the common designation of N2J (1 Chron. xxv. 1 — 3), and the psalm -singer, TWO, is also as such called njh (1 Chron. xxv. 5; 2 Chron. xxix. 30, xxxv. 15, cf. 1 Chron. xv. 19 and freq.); for just as the sacred lyric often rises to the height of prophetic vision, so the prophetic epic of the future, because it is not entirely freed from the sub- vert jat] GuvEpyoSfxevov d; -Tjyov kv. t&v -/axiuTaTu) ^spuiv, dXX avu>9e.v e/cuv tov uTCY]/ouvxa yaXxov. Augustine describes this instrument still more clearly in Ps. xlii and elsewhere: Psalterium istud organum dicitur quod dc superiore parte habet testudinem, illud scilicet tympanum et concavum lignum cut chorda; innitentes resonant, cithara vero id ipsum lignum cavum et sonorum ex inferior e parte habet. In the cithern the strings pass over the sound-hoard, in the harp and lyre the vibrating body runs round the strings which are left free (without a bridge) and is either curved or angular as in the case of the harp, or encompasses the strings as in the lyre. 1! with an upper sounding body (whether of metal or wood, viz. lignum concavum i. e. with a hollow and hence sonorous wood, which protects the strings like a lestudo and serves as a tympanum) are found both on Egyptian on Assyrian monuments. By the psalterium described by Augustine, I siodorus and Isidorus understand the trigonum, which is in the form of an inverted sharp-cornered triangle; but it cannot be this that ifl mi because the horizontal strings of this instrument ar a three-sided sounding body, so that it must be a triangular lyi over there is also a trigon belonging to the Macedonian era wWc formed like a harp {vid. Weiss' Kostumkundc, Fig. 347) and this fu: tends to support our view.

jeetivity of the prophet, frequently passes into the strain ol the psalm.

The time of Moses was the period of Israel's birth as a nation and also of its national lyric. The Israelites brought instruments with them out of Egypt and these were the accompaniments of their first song (Ex. xv.) — the oldest hymn, which re-echoes through all hymns of the following ages and also through the Psalter (comp. ver. 2 with Ps. cxviii. 14; ver. 3 with Ps. xxiv. 8; ver. 4, xiv. 27 with Ps. cxxxvi. 15; ver. 8 with Ps. lxxviii. 13; ver. 11 with Ps. lxxvii. 14, lxxxvi. 8, lxxxix. 7 sq.; ver. 13, 17 with Ps. lxxviii. 54, and other parallels of a similar kind). If we add to these, Ps. xc and Deut. xxxii, we then have the prototypes of all Psalms, the hymnic, elegiac, and prophetico- didactic. All three classes of songs are still wanting in the strophic symmetry which characterises the later art. But even Deborah's song of victory, arranged in hexastichs, — a song of triumph composed eight centuries before Pindar and far outstripping him, — exhibits to us the strophic art approximating to its perfect development.. It has been thought strange that the very beginnings of the poesy of Israel are so perfect, but the history of Israel, and also the history of its literature, comes under a different law from that of a constant development from a lower to a higher grade. Theredemptive period of Moses, unique in its way, influences as a creative beginning, every future development. There is a constant progression, but of such a kind as only to develope that which had begun in the Mosaic age with all the primal force and fulness of a divine creation. We see, however, how closely the stages of this progress are linked together, from the fact that Hannah the singer of the Old Testament Magnificat, was the mother of him who anointed, as King, the sweet singer of Israel, on whose tongue was the word of the Lord.

In David the sacred lyric attained its full maturity. Many things combined to make the time of David its golden age. Samuel had laid the foundation of this both by his energetic reforms in general, and by founding the schools of the prophets in particular, in which under his guidance (1 Sam. xix. 19 sq.), in conjunction with the awakening and fostering of the prophetic gift, music and song were taught. Through these ccenobia, whence sprang a spiritual awakening hitherto unknown in Israel, David also passed. Here his poetic talent, if not awakened, was however cultivated. He was a musician and poet born. Even as a Bethlehemite shepherd he played upon the harp, and with his natural gift he combined a heart deeply imbued with religious feeling. But the Psalter contains as few traces of David's Psalms before his anointing (vid. on Ps. viii, cxliv.) as the New Testament does of the writings of the Apostles before the time of Pentecost. It was only from the time when the Spirit of Jahve came upon him at his anointing as king of Israel, and raised him to the dignity of his calling in connection with the covenant of redemption, that he sang Psalms, which have become an integral part of the canon. They are the fruit not only of his high gifts and the inspiration of the Spirit of God (2 Sam. xxiii. 2), but also of his own experience and of the experience of his people interwoven with his own. David's path from his anointing onwards, lay through affliction to glory. Song however, as a Hindu proverb says, is the offspring of suffering, the cloka springs from the coka. His life was marked by vicissitudes which at one time prompted him to elegiac strains, at another to praise and thanksgiving; at the same time he was the founder of the kingship of promise, a prophecy of the future Christ, and his life, thus typically moulded, could not express itself otherwise than in typical or even consciously prophetic language. Raised to the throne, he did not forget the harp which had been his companion and solace when he fled before Saul, but rewarded it with all honour. He appointed 4000 Levites, the fourth division of the whole Levitical order, as singers and musicians in connection with the service in the tabernacle on Zion and partly in Gibeon, the place of the Mosaic tabernacle. Tb he divided into 24 classes under the Precentors, Asaph, 11- - man, and Ethan=Jeduthun (1 Chron. xxv.comp.xv. IT Bqq.), and multiplied the instruments, particularly the stringed instruments, by his own invention (1 Chron. xxiii. 5, Neh.: 36*). In David's time there were three places

* I tended, says David in the Greek Psalter, at the my father's sheep, my hands made pipes («pr«vov - put together (or: tuned) harps (^aXtijpiov — ») cf. Humeri (f. 2G4a) and the Targum on Am. vi. 5.

on Zion beside the ark (2 Sam. vi. 17 sq.), in Gibeon beside the Mosaic tabernacle (1 Chron.xvi.39sq.) and later, on the threshing-floor of Oman, afterwards the Temple-hill (1 Chron. xxi. 28 — 30). Thus others also were stimulated in many ways to consecrate their offerings to the God of Israel. Beside the 73 Psalms bearing the inscription ii"6, — Psalms the direct Davidic authorship of which is attested, at least in the case of some fifty, by their creative originality, their impassioned and predominantly plaintive strain, their graceful flow and movement, their ancient but clear language, which becomes harsh and obscure only when describing the dissolute conduct of the ungodly, — the collection contains the following which are named after cotemporary singers appointed by David: 12 f)DiO (Ps. 1. lxxiii — lxxxiii) of which the contents and spirit are chiefly prophetic, and 12 by the Levite family of singers, the rnp""tia (Ps. xlii — xlix, lxxxiv, lxxxv, lxxxvii, lxxxviii, including Ps. xliii), bearing a predominantly regal and priestly impress. Both the Psalms of the Ezrahites, Ps. lxxxviii by Heman and lxxxix by Ethan, belong to the time of Solomon whose name, with the exception of Ps. lxxii, is borne only by Ps. cxxvii. Under Solomon psalm -poesy began to decline; all the existing productions of the mind of that age bear the mark of thoughtful contemplation rather than of direct conception, for restless eagerness had yielded to enjoyable contentment, national concentration to cosmopolitan expansion. It was the age of the Chokma, which brought the apophthegm to its artistic perfection, and also produced a species of drama. Solomon himself is the perfecter of the Mashal, that form of poetic composition belonging strictly to the Chokma. Certainly according to 1 Kings v. 12 [Hebr.; iv. 32, Engl.] he was also the author of 1005 songs, but in the canon we only find two Psalms by him and the dramatic Song of Songs. This may perhaps be explained by the fact that he spake of trees from the cedar to the hyssop, that his poems, mostly of a worldly character, pertained rather to the realm of nature than to the kingdom of grace.

Only twice after this did psalm -poesy rise to any height and then only for a short period: viz. under Jehoshaphat and under Hezekiah. Under both these kings the glorious services of the Temple rose from the desecration and decay into

which they had fallen to the full splendour of their ancient glory. Moreover there were two great and marvellous deliverances which aroused the spirit of poesy during the reigns of these kings: under Jehoshaphat, the overthrow of the neighbouring nations when they had banded together for the exstirpation of Judah, predicted by Jahaziel, the Asaphite; under Hezekiah the overthrow of Sennacherib's host foretold by Isaiah. These kings also rendered great service to the cause of social progress. Jehoshaphat by an institution designed to raise the educational status of the people, which reminds one of the Carlovingian missi (2 Chron. xvii. 7 — 9); Hezekiah, whom one may regard as the Pisistratus of Israelitish literature, by the establishment of a commission charged with collecting the relics of the early literature (Prov. xxv. 1); he also revived the ancient sacred music and restored the Psalms of David and Asaph to their liturgical use (2 Chron. xxix. 25 sqq). And he was himself a poet, as his 2TDO (DTDD?) (Isa. xxxviii) shews, though certainly a reproductive rather than a creative poet. Both from the time of Jehoshaphat and from the time of Hezekiah we possess in the Psalter not a few Psalms, chiefly Asaphic and Korahitic, which, although bearing no historical heading, unmistakeably confront us with the peculiar circumstances of those times.* With the exception of these two periods of revival the latter part of the regal period produced scarcely any psalm writers, but is all the more rich in prophets. When the lyric became mute, prophecy raised its trumpet voice in order to revive the religious lit the nation, which previously had expressed itself in psalms. In the writings of the prophets, which represent the Xetp.pa '/yy-^ in Israel, we do indeed find even psalms, as Jon. ch. ii, Isa. xii, Hab. iii, but these are more imitations of the ancient com gational hymns than original compositions. It was not until after the Exile that a time of new creations set in.

As the Reformation gave birth to the German churchhymn, and the Thirty years' war, without which perhaps there might have been no Paul Gerhardt, called it into afresh, so the Davidic age gave birth to psalm-poe8y and the

* With regard to the time of Jehoshaphat even Xie. NonM knowledged this in his Diss, de Tzippor ct Dcror (BremeD 1741, 4to has reference to Ps. lxxxiv. 4.

Exile brought back to life again that which had become dead. The divine chastisement did not fail to produce the effect designed. Even though it should not admit of proof, that many of the Psalms have had portions added to them, from which it would be manifest how constantly they were then used as forms of supplication, still it is placed beyond all doubt, that the Psalter contains many psalms belonging to the time of the Exile, as e. g. Ps. cii. Still far more new psalms were composed after the Return. When those who returned from exile, among whom were many Asaphites,* again felt themselves to be a nation, and after the restoration of the Temple to be also a church, the harps which in Babylon hung upon the willows, were tuned afresh and a rich new flow of song was the fruit of this re-awakened first love. But this did not continue long. A sanctity founded on good works and the service of the letter took the place of that outward, coarse idolatry from which the people, now returned to their fatherland, had been weaned while undergoing punishment in the land of the stranger. Nevertheless in the era of the Seleucidse the oppressed and injured national feeling revived under the Maccabees in its old life and vigour. Prophecy had then long been dumb, a fact lamented in many passages in the 1st Book of the Maccabees. It cannot be maintained that psalm -poesy flourished again at that time. Hitzig has recently endeavoured to bring forward positive proof, that it is Maccabean psalms, which form the proper groundwork of the Psalter. He regards the Maccabean prince Alexander Jannseus as the writer of Ps. i and ii, refers Ps. xliv. to 1 Mace. v. 56 — 62, and maintains both in his Commentary of 1835 — 36 and in the later edition of 1863 — 65 that from Ps.lxxiii onwards there is not a single pre-Maccabean psalm in the collection and that, from that point, the Psalter mirrors the prominent events of the time of the Maccabees in chronological order. Hitzig has been followed by von Lengerke and Olshausen. They both mark the reign of John Hyrcanus (B. C. 135 — 107) as the time when the latest psalms were composed and wheo the collec-

* In Barhebrseus on Job and in his Chronikon several traditions are referred to "Asaph the Hebrew priest, the brother of Ezra the writer of the Scriptures."

tion as we now have it was made: whereas Hitzig going somewhat deeper ascribes Ps.i.ii.cl.with others, and the arrangement of the whole, to Hyrcanus' son, Alexander Jannaeus.

On the other hand both the existence and possibility of Maccabean psalms is disputed not only by Hengstenberg, Hlivernick, and Keil but also by Gesenius, Hassler, Ewald, Thenius, Bottcher, and Dillmann. For our own part we admit the possibility. It has been said that the ardent enthusiasm of the Maccabean period was more human than divine, more nationally patriotic than theocratically national in its character, but the Book of Daniel exhibits to us, in a prophetic representation of that period, a holy people of the Most High contending with the god-opposing power in the world, and claims for this contest the highest significance in relation to the history of redemption. The history of the canon, also, does not exclude the possibility of there being Maccabean psalms. For although the chronicler by 1 Chron. xvi. 36 brings us to the safe conclusion that in his day the Psalter (comp. xa too AaoiS, 2 Mace. ii. 13*) was already a whole divided into five books (vid. on Ps. xcvi. cv. cvi): it might nevertheless, after having been completely arranged still remain open for later insertions (just as the "it^n HDD cited in the Book of Joshua and 2 Sam. i., was an anthology which had grown together in the course of time). When Judas Maccabseus, by gathering together the national literature, followed in the footsteps of Nehemiah (2 Mace. ii. 14: (baa6xu>; os xal'Io68a? ti Bteoxopm*- |xsva ota tov ttoXsjxov tov ^s^ovoxa yjjaTv Imaovrfltrfz itavra, xat eoTt irap' rjfuv), we might perhaps suppose that the Psalter was at that time enriched by some additions. And when Jewish tradition assigns to the so-called Great Synagogue (riDE r6mn) a share in the compilation of the canon, this is unfavourable to the supposition of Maccabean psalms, Bince this oova7«J7Yj \izyllt] was still in existence under the domi tion of the Seleucidae (1 Mace. xiv. 28).

It is utterly at variance with historical fact to mainl that the Maccabean period was altogether incapable of producing psalms worthy of incorporation in the canon.

* In the early phraseology of the Eastern and Psalter is simply called David, e.g. in Chrysostom: Aa^io, and at the close of the Ethiopic Psalter: "Dartd I though the Maccabean period had no prophets, it is nevertheless to be supposed that many possessed the gift of poesy, and that the Spirit of faith, which is essentially one and the same with the Spirit of prophecy, might sanctify this gift and cause it to bear fruit. An actual proof of this is furnished by the so-called Psalter of Solomon (lFaXxrjpiov 2aXojxd>vio<; in distinction from the canonical Psalter of David)* consisting of 18 psalms, which certainly come far behind the originality and artistic beauty of the canonical Psalms; but they shew at the same time, that the feelings of believers, even throughout the whole time of the Maccabees, found utterance in expressive spiritual songs. Maccabean psalms are therefore not an absolute impossibility — no doubt they were many; and that some of them were incorporated in the Psalter, cannot be denied a priori. But still the history of the canon does not favour this supposition. And the circumstance of the LXX version of the Psalms (according to which citations are made even in the first Book of the Maccabees) inscribing several Psalms ' Affouoo xai Za^apioo, while however it does not assign the date of the later period to any, is against it. And if Maccabean psalms be supposed to exist in the Psalter they can at any rate only be few, because they must have been inserted in a collection which was already arranged. And since the Maccabean movement, though beginning with lofty aspirations, gravitated, in its onward course, towards things carnal, we can no longer expect to find psalms relating to it, or at least none belonging to the period after Judas Maccabaeus; and from all that we know of the character and disposition of Alexander Jannseus it is morally impossible that this despot should be the author of the first and second Psalms and should have closed the collection.

The Psalter, as we now have it, consists of five books.** Touto as jAY] TrapsXGot, 5) cpdoXo^s — says Hippolytus, whose

* First made known by De la Cerda in his Adversaria sacra (1626) and afterwards incorporated by Fabricius in his Codex Pseudepigraphus V. T. pp. 914 sqq. (1713).

words are afterwards quoted by Epiphanius — 8ti xal to 6aXxrjpiov &U kIvtb SieTXov (3tp)aa ol cEppatot, woxs elvai xal auxo aXXov 7i£vxdx£U)(ov. This accords with the Midrash on Ps. i. 1: Moses gave the Israelites the five books of the Thora and corresponding to these (d"u:d) David gave them the book of Psalms which consists of five books (onED HlSton 12 Vfrtf D^Dn *1BD). The division of the Psalter into five parts makes it the copy and echo of the Thora, which it also resembles in this particular: that as in the Thora Elohistic and Jehovistic sections alternate, so here a group of Elohistic Psalms (xlii — lxxxiv) is surrounded on both sides by groups of Jehovistic (i — xli, lxxxv — cl). The five books are as follow: — i — xli, xlii — lxxii, lxxiii — lxxxix, xc — cvi, cvii — cl.* Each of the first four books closes with a doxology, which one might erroneously regard as a part of the preceding Psalm (xli. 14, lxxii. 18 sq., lxxxix. 53, cvi. 48), and the place of the fifth doxology is occupied by Ps. cl. as a full toned finale to the whole (like the relation of Ps. cxxxiv to the so-called Songs of degrees). These doxologies very much resemble the language of the liturgical Beracha of the second Temple. The jCNl JDJK coupled with) (cf. on the contrary Num. v. 22 and also Neh. viii. G) is exclusively peculiar to them in Old Testament writings. Even in the time of the writer of the Chronicles the Psalter was a whole divided into five parts, which were indicated by these landmarks. We infer this from 1 Chron. xvi. 3G. The chronicler in the free manner which characterises Thucydidea or Livy in reporting a speech, there reproduces David's festal hymn that resounded in Israel after the bringing home of the ark; and he does it in such a way that after he has once fallen into the track of Ps. cvi., he also puts into the mouth of David the beracha which follows that Ps. From this we see that the Psalter was already divided into books at that period; the closing doxologies had already become thoroughly grafted upon the body of the Psalms after which they stand. The chronicler however wrote under the pontificate of Johanan, the son of Eliashib, the predecessor of Jaddua, towi the end of the Persian supremacy, but a considerable time before the commencement of the Grecian.

Next to this application of the beracha of the Fourth book by the chronicler, Ps. lxxii. 20 is a significant mark for determining the history of the origin of the Psalter. The words: "are ended the prayers of David the son of Jesse", are without doubt the subscription to the oldest psalm- collection, which precededthe present psalm-pentateuch. The collector certainly has removed this subscription from its original place close after lxxii. 17, by the interpolation of the beracha lxxii. 18 sq., but left it, at the same time, untouched. The collectors and those who worked up the older documents within the range of the Biblical literature appear to have been extremely conscientious in this respect and they thereby make it easier for us to gain an insight into the origin of their works, — as, e. g. the composer of the Books of Samuel gives intact the list of officers from a later document 2 Sam.viii. 16 — 18 (which closed with that, so far as we at present have it in its incorporated state), as well as the list from an older document (2 Sam. xx.23 — 26); or, as not merely the author of the Book of Kings in the middle of the Exile, but also the chronicler towards the end of the Persian period, have transferred unaltered, to their pages, the statement that the staves of the ark are to be found in the rings of the ark "to this day", which has its origin in some annalistic document (1 Kings viii. 8, 2 Chron. v. 9). But unfortunately that subscription, which has been so faithfully preserved, furnishes us less help than we could wish. We only gather from it that the present collection was preceded by a primary collection of very much more limited compass which formed its basis and that this closed with the Salomonic Ps. lxxii; for the collector would surely not have placed the subscription, referring only to the prayers of David, after this Psalm if he had not found it there already. And from this point it becomes natural to suppose that Solomon himself, prompted perhaps by the liturgical requirements of the new Temple, compiled this primary collection, and by the addition of Ps. lxxii may have caused it to be understood that he was the originator of the collection. But to the question whether the primary collection also contained only Davidic songs properly so called or whether the subscribed designation Tn rv6nn is only intended a potiori, the answer is entirely wanting. If we adopt the latter supposition, one is at a loss to understand for what reason only Ps. 1. of the Psalms of Asaph was inserted in it. For this psalm is really one of the old Asaphic psalms and might therefore have been an integral part of the primary collection. On the other hand it is altogether impossible for all the Korahitic psalms xlii — xlix to have belonged to it, for some of them, and most undoubtedly xlvii and xlviii were composed in the time of Jehoshaphat, the most remarkable event of which, as the chronicler narrates, was foretold by an Asaphite and celebrated by Korahitic singers. It is therefore, apart from other psalms which bring us down to the Assyrian period (as lxvi, lxvii) and the time of Jeremiah (as lxxi) and bear in themselves traces of the time of the Exile (as lxix, 35 sqq.), absolutely impossible that the primary collection should have consisted of Ps. ii — lxxii, or rather (since Ps. ii appears as though it ought to be assigned to the later time of the kings, perhaps the time of Isaiah) of Ps. iii — lxxii. And if we leave the later insertions out of consideration, there is no arrangement left for the Psalms of David and his cotemporaries, which should in any way bear the impress of the Davidic and Salomonic mind. Even the old Jewish teachers were struck by this, and in the Midrash on Ps. iii we are told, that when Joshua ben Levi was endeavouring to put the Ps.in order, a voice from heaven cried out to him: arouse not the slumberer (ifPKVTH p'TrriN) t* e. do not disturb David in his grave! Why Ps. iii follows directly upon Ps.ii, or as it is expressed in the Midrash BAfcfcK HinD follows XiJDl n: HtthD, may certainly be more satisfactorily explained than is done there: but to speak generally the mode of the arrangement of the first two books u{ the Psalms is of a similar nature to that of the last three, viz., that which in my Symbolce ad Psalmos illustrandos teagogicm ( 1 1 is shewn to run through the entire Psalter, more accordin external than internal points of contact. *

* The right view has been long since perceived by E his exposition of Ps. lxiii (LXX. lxii), among other thinself thus: i^m os TjYoa^ai xffi t<3v ^T£YPa!J-!x^vcuv 8| dXXrjXuw to-jc 6aX(i.ouc xeio9ai xaxA to nXeiaxov, prjaa? 7.ai eup&v, 6t6 xal auvrj<p0ai a6xo&« dbaa\ dxoXouOlav irpic dXX^Xooc IvOev p.4) xaxd toi« / xaxd xip xlfi 5iavo(a« dxoXouQtav (in Montfaucon' I 300). This dxoXojOte 5iavo(a« is however not nlwi The attempts of Luther (Walch, iv. col. C4C bf|«|

On the other side it cannot be denied that the groundwork of the collection that formed the basis of the present Psalter must lie within the limits of Ps. iii — lxxii, for nowhere else do old Davidic psalms stand so closely and numerously together as here. The Third book (Ps. lxxiii — lxxxix) exhibits a marked difference in this respect. We may therefore suppose that the chief bulk of the oldest hymn book of the Israelitish church is contained in Ps. iii — lxxii. But we must at the same time admit, that its contents have been dispersed and newly arranged in later redactions and more especially in the last of all; and yet, amidst these changes the connection of the subscription, lxxii. 20, with the psalm of Solomon was preserved. The two groups iii — lxxii, lxxiii — lxxxix, although not preserved in the original arrangement, and augmented by several kinds of interpolations, at least represent the first two stages of the growth of the Psalter. The primary collection may be Salomonic. The after portion of the second group was, at the earliest, added in the time of Jehoshaphat,at which time probably the book of the Proverbs of Solomon was also compiled. But with a greater probability of being in the right we incline to assign them to the time of Hezekiah, not merely because some of the psalms among them seem as though they ought to be referred to the overthrow of Assyria under Hezekiah rather than to the overthrow of the allied neighbouring nations under Jehoshaphat, but chiefly because just in the same manner "the men of Hezekiah" appended an after gleaning to the older Salomonic book of Proverbs (Prov. xxv. 1), and because of Hezekiah it is recorded, that he brought the Psalms of David and of Asaph (the bulk of which are contained in the Third book of the Psalms) into use again (2 Chron. xxix. 30). In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah the collection was next extended by the songs composed during and (which are still more numerous) after the Exile. But a gleaning of old songs also had been reserved for this time. A psalm of Moses was placed first, in order to give a pleasing relief to the beginning of the new psalter by this glance back into the earliest time. And to the 56 Davidic psalms of the first three books, there are lomon Gesner, to prove a link of internal progress in the Psalter are not convincing.

seventeen more added here in the last two. They are certainly not all directly Davidic, hut partly the result of the writer throwing himself into David's temper of mind and circumstances. One chief store of such older psalms were perhaps the historical works of an annalistic or even prophetic character, rescued from the age "before the Exile. It is from such sources that the historical notes prefixed to the Davidic hymns (and also to one in the Fifth hook: Ps. cxlii) come. On the whole there is unmistakeahly an advance from the earliest to the latest; and we may say, with Ewald, that in Ps. i — xli the real bulk of the Davidic and, in general, of the older songs is contained, in Ps. xlii — lxxxix predominantly songs of the middle period, in Ps. xc — cl the large mass of later and very late songs. But moreover it is with the Psalmcollection as with the collection of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel: the chronological order and the arrangement according to the matter are at variance; and in many places the former is intentionally and significantly disregarded in favour of the latter. We have often already referred to one chief point of view of this arrangement according to matter, viz., the imitation of the Thora; it was perhaps this which led to the opening of the Fourth hook, which corresponds to the Book of Numbers, with a psalm of Moses of this character.

Among the Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa has attempted to shew that the Psalter in its five books leads upward as by five steps to moral perfection, az\ itpbt xb 6^X6xspov 1 XV 6irepxi8eW, (k av fol to axooiotTov kyUrpm xm fr) and down to the most recent times attempts have bei Q mi to trace in the ^Ye books a gradation of principal thi which influence and run through the whole collection. ' fear that in this direction, investigation has Bet before r unattainable end. Nevertheless, as we shall Bee, th< bears the impress of one ordering mind. Fur ita opi OM