Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

formed by a didactic -prophetic couplet of psalms (Ps. i. ii), introductory to the whole Psalter and therefore in the earliest times regarded as one psalm, which opens and closes with vrota; and its close is formed by four psalms (Ps. cxlvi — cxlix) which begin and end with nnWl- We do not include Ps. cl. for this psalm takes the place of the beracha of the Fifth book, exactly as the recurring verse Isa. xlviii. 22 is repeated in lvii. 21 with fuller emphasis, but is omitted at the close of the third part of this address of Isaiah to the exiles, its place being occupied by a terrifying description of the hopeless end of the wicked. The opening of the Psalter celebrates the blessedness of those who walk according to the will of God in redemption, which has been revealed in the law and in history; the close of the Psalter calls upon all creatures to praise this God of redemption, as it were on the ground of the completion of this great work. Bede has already called attention to the fact that the Psalter from Ps. cxlvi ends in a complete strain of praise; the end of the Psalter soars upward to a happy climax. The assumption that there was an evident predilection for attempting to make the number 150 complete, as Ewald supposes, cannot be established; the reckoning 147 (according to a Haggadah book mentioned in Jer. Sabbath xvi, parallel with the years of Jacob's life), and the reckoning 149, which frequently occurs both in Karaitic and Rabbinic MSS., have also been adopted; the numbering of the whole and of particular psalms varies.*

There are in the Psalter 73 psalms bearing the inscription 7)1^, viz. (reckoning exactly) 37 in book i; 18 in book ii; 1 in book iii; 2 in book iv; 15 in book v. The redaction has designed the pleasing effect of closing the collection with an imposing group of Davidic psalms, just as it begins with the bulk of the Davidic psalms. And the Hallelujahs which begin with Ps. cxlvi (after the 15 Davidic psalms) are the preludes of the closing doxology.

* The LXX, like our Hebrew text, reckons 150 psalms, but with variations in separate instances, by making ix and x, and cxiv and cxv into one, and in place of these, dividing cxvi and cxlvii each into two. The combination of ix and x, of cxiv and cxv into one has also been adopted by others; cxxxiv and cxxxv, but especially i and ii, appear here and there as one psalm. Kimchi reckons 149 by making Ps. cxiv and cxv into one. The ancient Syriac version combines Ps. cxiv and cxv as one, but reckons 150 by dividing Ps. cxlvii.

The Korahitic and Asaphic psalms are found exclusively in the Second and Third books. There are 12 Asaphic psalms: 1. lxxiii — lxxxiii, and also 12 Korahitic: xlii. xliii. xliv — xlix. lxxxiv. lxxxv. lxxxvii. lxxxviii, assuming that Ps. xliii is to be regarded as an independent twin psalm to xlii and that Ps. lxxxviii is to be reckoned among the Korahitic psalms. In both of these divisions we find psalms belonging to the time of the Exile and to the time after the Exile (lxxiv. lxxix. lxxxv). The fact of their being found exclusively in the Second and Third books cannot therefore be explained on purely chronological grounds. Korahitic psalms, followed by anAsaphic,open the Second book; Asaphic psalms, followed by four Korahitic, open the Third book.

The way in which Davidic psalms are interspersed clearly sets before us the principle by which the arrangement according to the matter, which the collector has chosen, is governed. It is the principle of homogeneousness, which is the old Semitic mode of arranging things: for in the alphabet, the hand and the hollow of the hand, water and fish, the eye and the mouth, the back and front of the head have been placed together. In like manner also the psalms follow one another according to their relationship as manifested by prominent external and internal marks. The Asaphic psalm, Ps. 1. La followed by the Davidic psalm, li., because they both similarly disparage the material animal sacrifice, as comp with that which is personal and spiritual. And the Davidic psalm lxxxvi is inserted between the Korahitic psalms lxxxv and lxxxvii, because it is related both to Ps. lxxxv. 8 by the prayer: "Shew me Thy way, 0 Jahve" and "give Thy conquering strength unto Thy servant", and to Ps. lxxxvii by the prospect of the conversion of the heathen to the God of I - rael. This phenomenon, that psalms witli similar promin thoughts, or even with only markedly similar pa cially at the beginning and the end, arc thus strum may be observed throughout the whole collection. Thus Ps. hi with the inscription, "after (the melo dove among strangers", is placed after Ps. h • the occurrence of the words: »0A that I hud wing &c, in that psalm; thus Ps. xxxiv and xxxv as being the only psalms in which Bthc Vngcl of Jahvc curs; and just so Ps. ix and x which coincide in the expression msa mny.

Closely connected with this principle of arrangement is the circumstance that the Elohimic psalms {i. e., those which, according to a peculiar style of composition as I have shewn in my Symlolce, not from the caprice of an editor, * almost exclusively call God CH^N, and beside this make use of such compound names of God as niN2S mrp, mtfDSJ D^K HIPP and the like) are placed together without any intermixture of Jehovic psalms. In Ps. i — xli the divine name mrp predominates; it occurs 272 times and OWN only 15 times, and for the most part under circumstances where mrp was not admissible. With Ps. xlii the Elohimic style begins; the last psalm of this kind is the Korahitic psalm lxxxiv, which for this very reason is placed after the Elohimic psalms of Asaph. In the Ps. lxxxv — cl TtiTV again becomes prominent, with such exclusiveness, that in the psalms of the Fourth and Fifth books nii"P occurs 339 times (not 239 as in Symbolce p. 5), and DnSK of the true God only once (cxliv. 9). Among the psalms of David 18 are Elohimic, among the Korahitic 9, and the Asaphic are all Elohimic. Including one psalm of Solomon and four anonymous psalms, there are 44 in all (reckoning Ps. xlii and xliii as two). They form the middle portion of the Psalter, and have on their right 41 and on their left 65 Jahve-psalms.

Community in species of composition also belongs to the manifold grounds on which the order according to the subject-matter is determined. Thus the 7>2i2?l? (xlii — xliii. xliv. xlv. lii — lv) and CPrp (lvi — lx) stand together among the Elohim-psalms. In like manner we have in the last two books the rv6s|Bn Ttt>(cxx — cxxxiv) and, divided into groups, those beginning with nin (cv — cvii) and those beginning and ending with nj-wH (cxi — cxvii, cxlvi — cl) — whence it follows that these titles to the psalms are older than the final redaction of the collection.

It could not possibly be otherwise than that the inscriptions of the psalms, after the harmless position which the mono-

* This is Ewald's view (which is also supported by Riehm in Slud. v. Krit. 1857 S. 16S). A closer insight into the characteristic peculiarity of the Elohira-psalras, which is manifest in other respects also, proves it to be superficial and erroneous.

graphs of Sonntag (1687), Celsius (1718), Irhof (1728) take with regard to them, should at length hecome a subject for criticism; but the custom which has gained ground since the last decade of the past century of rejecting what has been historically handed down, has at present grown into a despicable habit of forming a decision too hastily, which in any other department of literature where the judgment is not so prejudiced by the drift of the enquiry, would be regarded as folly. Instances like Hab. iii. 1 and 2 Sam. i. 18, comp. Ps. lx. 1, shew that David and other psalm-writers might have appended their names to their psalms and the definition of their purport. And the great antiquity of these and similar inscriptions also follows from the fact that the LXX found them already in existence and did not understand them; that they also cannot be explained from the Books of the Chronicles (including the Book of Ezra, which belongs to these) in which much i^ Baid about music, and appear in these books, like much besi as an old treasure of the language revived, so that the h the understanding of them must have been lost very early, also appears from the fact that in the last two books of the Psalter they are of more rare, and in the first three of m frequent occurrence.

The early Hebrew poetry has neither rhyme nor met, both of which (first rhyme and then afterwards w< * first adopted by Jewish poesy in the seventh century Christ. True, attempts at rhyme are not wanting in the po try and prophecy of the Old Testament, especially in tli philla style, Ps. cvi. 4—7 cf. Jer. iii. 21 — 25, where the en nestness of the prayer naturally causes the heaping similar flexional endings; bnt this assonance, in thi state towards rhyme proper, had not yet assm established form as is found in Syriac* It i difficult to point out verses of four Lines only, wh uniform or mixed metre running through I standing, Augustine, Ep. cxiii ad Mcmorium, is [>* ranted in saying of the Psalms: cert

♦ Vid. Zingcrle in the Deutsche Morgcnlan credo Mis qui earn linguam probe callenl, and it is not a mere fancy when Philo, Josephus, Eusebius, Jerome and others have detected in the Old Testament songs, and especially in the Psalms, something resembling the Greek and Latin metres. For the Hebrew poetry indeed had a certain syllabic measure, since, — apart from the audible Shebd and the Chateph, both of which represent the primitive shortenings, — all syllables with a full vowel are intermediate, and in ascending become long, in descending short, or in other words, in one position are strongly accented, in another more or less slurred over. Hence the most manifold rhythms arise, e. g. the anapaestic wenaslilicha mimennu abothemo (ii. 3) or the dactylic az jedabber elemo beappo (ii. 5). The poetic discourse is freer in its movement than the Syriac poetry with its constant asxending (_ JL) or descending spondees (-_); it represents all kinds of syllabic movements and thus obtains the appearance of a lively mixture of the Greek and Latin metres. But it is only an appearance — for the forms of verse, which conform to the laws of quantity, are altogether foreign to early Hebrew poetry, as also to the oldest poetry; and these rhythms which vary according to the emotions are not metres, for, as Augustine says in his work Be Musica, "Ornne metrum rhythmus, non omnis rhythmus etiatn metrum est" Yet there is not a single instance of a definite rhythm running through the whole in a shorter or longer poem, but the rhythms always vary according to the thoughts and feelings; as e. g. the evening song Ps. iv towards the end rises to the anapaestic measure: ki- atta Jaliarve lebadad, in order then quietly to subside in the iambic: labetach toshibeni.* With this alternation of rise and

* Bellermann's Versuch ilber die Mctrik der Hebrder (1813) is comparatively the best on this subject even down to the present time; for Saalschiitz {Von der Form der hebr. Poesic, 1825, and elsewhere) proceeds on the erroneous assumption that the present system of accentuation does not indicate the actual strong toned syllable of the words — by following the pronunciation of the German and Polish Jews he perceives, almost throughout, a spondseo-dactylic rhythm (e. g. Judg. xiv. 18 lule chardshtem beegluthi). But the traditional accentuation is proved to be a faithful continuation of the ancient proper pronunciation of the Hebrew; the trochaic pronunciation is more Syrian, and the tendency to Hraw the accent from the final syllable to the penult, regardless of the conditions originally governing it, is a phenomenon which belongs only fall, long and short syllables, harmonizing in lively passages with the subject, there is combined, in Hebrew poetry, an expressiveness of accent which is hardly to be found anywhere else to such an extent. Thus e. g. Ps. ii. 5a sounds like pealing thunder, and 5& corresponds to it as the flashing lightning. And there are a number of dull toned Psalms as xvii. xlix. lviii. lix. lxxiii, in which the description drags heavily on and is hard to be understood, and in which more particularly the suffixes in mo are heaped up, because the indignant mood of the writer impresses itself upon the style and makes itself heard in the very sound of the words. The non plus ultra of such poetry, whose very tones heighten the expression, is the cycle of the prophecies of Jeremiah chap, xxiv — xxvii.

Under the point of view of rhythm the so-called parallelisms membrorum has also been rightly placed: that fundamental law of the higher, especially poetic, style for which this appropriate name has been coined, not very long since.* The relation of the two parallel members does not really differ from that of the two halves on either side of the principal caesura of the hexameter and pentameter; and this is particularly manifest in the double long line of the caesural schema (more correctly: the cliaeretic schema) e. g. Ps. xlviii. 6, 7: They beheld, straightway they marvelled, \ bewildered they look to flight. Trembling took hold upon them there \ anguish, as a woman in travail. Here the one thought is expanded in the Bame verse in two parallel members. But from the fact of the rhythmical organization being carried out without ref to the logical requirements of the sentence, as in th psalm vers. 4,8: Elohim in her palaces \ was known as a ref With an east wind Thou breakest \ the ships of Tarshish, to the later period of the language (vid. HupfelJ in the Deui Zeilschr. vi. 16").

* Abenezra calls it btt duplication, and Kimclii ffiWn*;D2 duplicatio sentcnlicc verbis variatis; both regard it as an expression (mn$J "pi). Even the punctuation does B01 real understanding of the rhythmical relation of the meml to one another, and when it divides every verse thai is mai wherever it is possible into two parts, it musl not be ii rhythmical relation is actually always one consisting although (as Hupfeld has Bhewn in his admirable n the fold law of the rhythm and accent, in the D. H exists it always consists of at least two members.

see that the rhythm is not called into existence as a necessity of such expansion of the thought, but vice versa this mode of expanding the thought results from the requirements of the rhythm. Here is neither synonymous or identical (tautological), nor antithetical, nor synthetical parallelism, but merely that which De Wette calls rhythmical, merely the rhythmical rise and fall, the diastole and systole, which poetry is otherwise (without binding itself) wont to accomplish by two different kinds of ascending and descending logical organization. The ascending and descending rhythm does not usually exist within the compass of one line, but it is distributed over two lines which bear the relation to one another of rhythmical antecedent and consequent, of irpotpoo; and stkoBo?. This distich is the simplest ground-form of the strophe, which is visible in the earliest song, handed down to us, Gen. iv. 23 sq. The whole Ps. cxix is composed in such distichs, which is the usual form of the apophthegm; the acrostic letter stands there at the head of each distich, just as at the head of each line in the likewise distichic pair, Ps. cxi, cxii. The tristich is an outgrowth from the distich, the ascending rhythm being prolonged through two lines and the fall commencing only in the third, e. g. xxv. 7 (the n of this alphabetical Psalm):

iijave not the sins of my youth and my transgressions in remembrance,

According to Thy mercy remember Thou me

This at least is the natural origin of the tristich, which moreover in connection with a most varied logical organization still has the inalienable peculiarity, that the full fall is reserved until the third line, e. g. in the first two strophes of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, where each line is a long line in two parts consisting of rise and fall, the principal fall, however, after the caesura of the third long line, closes the strophe: 3h! how doth the city sit solitary, otherwise full of people! She is become as a widow, the great one among nations,

The princess among provinces, she is become tributary.

*3y night she weepeth sore and her tears are upon her cheeks;

There is not one to comfort her of all her lovers, All her friends have betra}red her, they are become her enemies. If we now further enquire, whether Hebrew poesy goes beyond these simplest beginnings of the strophe-formation and even extends the network of the rhythmical period, hy combining the two and three line strophe with ascending and descending rhythm into greater strophic wholes rounded off into themselves, the alphabetical Psalm xxxvii furnishes us with a safe answer to the question, for this is almost entirely tetrastichic, e. g.

2U>out the workers of iniquity be thou not envious.

For as grass they shall soon be cut down,

And as the green herb they shall wither, but it admits of the compass of the strophe increasing even to the pentastich, (ver. 25, 26) since the unmistakeable landmarks of the order, the letters, allow a freer movement:

How I, who once was young, am become old, Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken And his seed begging bread. He ever giveth and lendeth And his seed is blessed.

From this point the sure guidance of the alphabel Psalms* fails us in investigating the Hebrew strophe-system. But in our further confirmatory investigations we will take with us from these Psalms, the important conclusion that the verse bounded by Sophpasuk, the placing of which harmonizes with the accentuation first mentioned in the post-Talmudic tractate Sofrim, ** is by no means (as, since Koster, 1831, it has been almost universally supposed) the original form of the strophe but that strophes are a whole i ing of an

* Even the older critics now and then supposed that make these Ps. the starting point of our enquiries. For in pilius says: "It may perhaps strike some one whether an opini some of the modes of the Davidic species of \ not be formed from his, so-to-speak, alphabeti<;)l psalms.'1

** Even if, and this is what Hupfeld and Riehm (Lu S. 300) advance, the Old Testament books were dirided D'plDD, even before the time of the Ma verses, as we now have it and especially that of the I is Masoretic.

*** It was these stichs, of which the Talmud [B eight more in the Psalter than in the Thdra, inally called Q^piDD. Also in Angustine oti/o;. With him the words Popuhts ejus I versus. There is no Hebrew MS. which coul '

450) has objected against this, that "this is diametrically opposed to the nature of rhythm = parallelism, which cannot stand on one leg, but needs two, that the distich is therefore the rhythmical unit/

But does it therefore follow, that a strophe is to be measured according to the number of distichs? The distich is itself only the smallest strophe, viz. one consisting of two lines. And it is even forbidden to measure a greater strophe by the number of distichs, because the rhythmical unit, of which the distich is the ground-form, can just as well be tristichic, and consequently these so-called rhythmical units form neither according to time nor space parts of equal value. But this applies still less to the Masoretic verses. True, we have shewn in our larger Commentary on the Psalms, ii. 522 sq., in agreement with Hupfeld, and in opposition to Ew aid, that the accentuation proceeds upon the law of dichotomy. But the Masoretic division of the verses is not only obliged sometimes to give up the law of dichotomy, because the verse (as e. g. xviii. 2, xxv. 1, xcii. 9,) does not admit of being properly divided into two parts; and it subjects not only verses of three members (as e. g. i. 1, ii. 2) in which the third member is embellishingly or synthetically related to the other two — both are phenomena which in themselves furnish proof in favour of the relative independence of the lines of the verse — but also verses of four members where the sense requires it (as i. 3, xviii. 16) and where it does not require it (as xxii. 15, xl. 6), to the law of dichotomy. And these Masoretic verses of such various compass the arrangement of the Psalms in stichs; those which we possess only break the Masoretic verse, (if the space of the line admits of it) for ease of writing into the two halves, without even regarding the general injunction in c. xiv of the tractate Sofrhn and that of Ben-Bileam in his Ilorajoth ha-Kore, that the breaks are to be regulated by the beginnings of the verses and the two great pausal accents. Nowhere in the MSS., which divide and break up the words most capriciously, is there to be seen any trace of the recognition of those old □"'plDD being preserved. These were not merely lines determined by the space, as were chiefly also the oxiyoi or ettt] according to the number of which, the compass of Greek works was recorded, but lines determined by the sense, -/.uiXa (Suidas: xuiXov 6 d^TjpTta^svTjV ewoiav eycuv criyo<;)> as Jerome wrote his Latin translation of the Old Testament after the model of the Greek and Ptoman orators {c. g. the MSS. of Demosthenes), per cola et commata i. e. in lines breaking off according to the sense.

are to be the constituent parts according to which strophes of a like cipher shall be measured! A strophe only becomes a strophe by virtue of its symmetrical relation to others, to the ear it must have the same time, to the eye the same form and it must consequently represent the same number of lines (clauses). The fact of these clauses, according to the special characteristic of Hebrew poetry, moving on with that rising and falling movement which we call parallelism until they come to the close of the strophe where it gently falls to rest, is a thing sui generis, and, within the province of the strophe, somewhat of a substitute for metre; but the strophe itself is a section which comes to thorough repose by this species of rhythmical movement. So far, then, from placing the rhythm on one leg only, we give it its two: but measure the strophe not by the two feet of the Masoretic verses or even couplets of verses, but by the equal, or symmetrically alternating number of the members present, which consist mostly of two f often enough however of three, and sometimes even of four i

Whether and how a psalm is laid out in strophes, is shewn by seeing first of all what its pauses are, where the flow thoughts and feelings falls in order to rise anew, and then by trying whether these pauses have a like or symmetrically correspondent number of stichs (e. g. 6. 6. 6. G or 6. i or, if their compass is too great for them to be at oi garded as one strophe, whether they cannot be divided smaller wholes of an equal or symmetrical number of For the peculiarity of the Hebrew strophe do< in a run of definite metres closely united to form on monious whole (for instance, like the Sapphic strophe, wl the four membered verses, Isa. xvi. 9, 10, with their ■ closing lines corresponding to the Adonic Terse, Btrikii resemble), but in a closed train of thought which is unrolled after the distichic and tristichic ground-form of the rhytl mical period. The strophe-schemata, which arc th are very diverse. We find not only that all the stroph( a poem are of the same compass (e. </. 4. 4. 4. 4), ' that the poem is made up of symmetrical relati( of strophes of different compass. The condition laid d by some,* that only a poem that consists of stroph<

ForTnstance Meier in his Gcschichlc tUf length can be regarded as strophic, is refuted not only by the Syriac* but also by the post-biblical Jewish poetry.** We find the following variations: strophes of the same compass followed by those of different compass (e. g. 4. 4. 6. 6); as in the chiasmus, the outer and inner strophes of the same compass (e. g. 4. 6. 6. 4); the first and third, the second and fourth corresponding to one another (e. g. 4. 6. 4. 6); the mingling of the strophes repeated antistrophically, i. e. in the inverted order (e. g. 4. 6. 7. 7. 6. 4); strophes of equal compass surrounding one of much greater compass (e. g. 4. 4. 10. 4. 4.), what Koster calls the pyramidal schema; strophes of equal compass followed by a short closing stanza (e. g. 3. 3. 2); a longer strophe forming the base of the whole (e.g. 5. 3. 3. 7), and these are far from being all the different figures9 which the Old Testament songs and more especially the Psalms present to us, when we arrange their contents in stichs.

With regard to the compass of the strophe, we may expect to find it consisting of as many as twelve lines according to the Syrian and the synagogue poetry. The line usually consists of three words, or at least only of three larger words; in this respect the Hebrew exhibits a capacity for short but emphatic expressions, which are inadmissible in German [or English]. This measure is often most uniformly preserved throughout a considerable length, not only in the Psalms but also in the Book of Job. For there is far more reason for saying that the strophe lies at the basis of the arrangement of the Book of Job, than for G. Hermann's observation of strophic arrangement in the Bucolic writers and Kochly's in the older portions of Homer.

The Thora contains no directions respecting the use of song and music in divine worship except the commands confer dcr Hcbracr, S. 67, who maintains that strophes of unequal length are opposed to the simplest laws of the lyric song and melody. But the demands which melody imposes on the formation of the verse and the strophe were not so stringent among the ancients as now, and moreover — is not the sonnet a lyric poem?

cerning the ritualistic use of silver trumpets to be blown by the priests (Numb. ch. x). David is really the creator of liturgical music, and to his arrangements, as we see from the Chronicles, every thing was afterwards referred, and in times when it had fallen into disuse, restored. So long as David lived, the superintendence of the liturgical music was in his hands (1 Chron. xxv. 2). The instrument by means of which the three choir-masters (Heman, Asaph, and Ethan-Jeduthun) directed the choir was the cymbals (DTfcp or D^^tf*) which served instead of wands for beating time; the harps (c^z:) represented the soprano, and the bass (the male voice in opposition to the female) was represented by the citherns an octave lower (1 Chron. xv. 17 — 21), which, to infer from the word Hato? used there, were used at the practice of the pieces by the n&E appointed. In a Psalm where Pi^D is appended (vid. on Ps. iii), the stringed instruments (which r6o j'pjjnix. 17 definitely expresses), and the instruments generally, are to join in** in such a way as to give intensity to that which is being sung. To these instruments, besides those mentioned in Ps. cl, 2 Sam. vi. 5, belonged also the flute, the liturgical use of which (vid. on v. 1) in the time of the first as of the second Temple is undoubted: it formed the peculiar musical accompaniment of the hallel (vid. Ps. cxiii) and of the nightly torch -light festival on the semi-festival days of the Feast of Tabernacles (Succa 15 a). The trumpets (nll^u) were blown exclusively by the priests to whom no part was assigned in the singing (as probably also the horn IBV^ lxxxi. 4, xcviii. G, cl. 3), and according to 2 Chron. v. 12 sq. (where the number of the two Mosaic trumpets appears to be raised to 120) took their turn unisono with the singing and the music of the Levites, At the dedication of Solomon's Temple the Levites sin- and plaj and the priests sound trumpets Dltt, 2 Chron. vii. G, and at

* Talmudic hu\U. The usual Levitic orchestra of the temple ofH consisted of 2 Nabla players, 9 Cithern players and one who struck the Zelazal,N\z. Ben-Arza {Erachin 10 a, &c; Tamidxu. 3), who alto ha oversight of the duchan {Tosiphta to Shekalim ii).

** Comp. Mattheson's "Erlaulcrtcs Sclair 1745: Selah U a word marking a prelude, interlude, or after-piece with instran ting the places where the instruments play alone, in ehori ritorncllo.

the inauguration of the purified Temple under Hezekiah the music of the Levites and priests sound in concert until all the burnt offerings are laid upon the altar fire, and then (probably as the wine is being poured on) began (without any further thought of the priests) the song of the Levites, 2 Chron. xxix. 26 — 30. In the second Temple it was otherwise: the sounding of the trumpets by the priests and the Levitical song with its accompanying music alternated, they were not simultaneous. The congregation did not usually sing with the choir, but only uttered their Amen; nevertheless they joined in the Hallel and in some psalms after the first clause with its repetition, after the second with hallelujah (Maimonides, Hilchoth Megilla, 3). 1 Chron. xvi. 36 points to a similar arrangement in the time of the first Temple. Just so does Jer. xxxiii. 11 in reference to the '•''Give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good". Antiphonal singing on the part of the congregation is also to be inferred from Ezra iii. 10 sq. The Psalter itself is moreover acquainted with an allotment of the niD/y, comp. nmtt'D Ezra ii. 65 (whose treble was represented by the Levite boys in the second Temple, vid. on xlvi 1) in choral worship and speaks of a praising of God "in full choirs", xxvi. 12, lxviii. 27. And responsive singing is of ancient date in Israel: even Miriam with the women answered the men (QI"6 Ex. xv. 21) in alternating song, and Nehemiah (ch. xii. 27 sqq.) at the dedication of the city walls placed the Levites in two great companies which are there called nmn, in the midst of the procession moving towards the Temple. In the time of the second Temple each day of the week had its psalm. The psalm for Sunday was xxiv, for Monday xlviii, Tuesday lxxxii, Wednesday xciv, Thursday lxxxi, Friday xciii, the Sabbath xcii. This arrangement is at least as old as the time of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse, for the statements of the Talmud are supported by the inscriptions of Ps. xxiv, xlviii, xciv, xciii in the LXX, and as respects the connection of the daily psalms with the drink-offering, by Sir. 1. 14 — 16. The psalms for the days of the week were sung, to wit, at the time of the drink-offering (~DJ)) which was joined with the morning Tamid*: two priests, who stood on the right and left of the player upon the cymhal (Zelazal) by whom the signal was given, sounded the trumpets at the nine pauses (c^TlD), into which it was divided when sung by the Levites, and the people bowed down and worshipped.* The Levites standing upon the suggestus (pn)j — i. e. upon a broad staircase consisting of a few steps, which led up from the court of the laity to that of the priests, — who were both singers and musicians, and consequently played only on stringed instruments and instruments of percussion, not windinstruments, were at least twelve in number, with 9 citherns, 2 harps, and one cymbal: on certain days the flute was added to this number.** The usual suggestus on the steps at the side of the altar was changed for another only in a few cases; for it is noticed as something special that the singers had a different position at the festival of water-drawing during the Feast of Tabernacles {vid. introduction to Ps. cxx — cxxxiv), and that the flute-players who accompanied the Hallel stood before the altar, PCTED ^zb (Erachin 10 a). The treble was taken

** According to B. Erachin 10 a the following were the customary accompaniments of the daily service: 1) 21 trumpet blasts, to as many as 48; 2) 2 nablas, to 6 at most; 2 flutes (pWn), to 12 at most. Blowingflute is called striking the flute, Wm nSil. On 12 days of the year the flute was played before the altar: on the 14th of Nisan at the slayi: Passover (at which the Hallel was sung), on the 14th of Ijar at th of the little Passover, on the 1st and 7th days of the Passover an I eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles. The mouth-piece (:*:> to the explanation of Maimonides) was not of metal but a reed (com anbub, the blade of the reed), because it sounds more melodic it was never more than one flute (TIT 3DH, playing a solo), which continned at the end of a strain and closed it, because this | finest close (pAffc On the 12 days mentioned, the Hallel flute accompaniment. On other days, the Psalm appointed for th accompanied by nablas, cymbals and citherns. This paa /■rac/«n also tells who were the flute-players. Onthefiute-pl ival of water-drawing, vid. my Getchichte der Jtdiscken P the Temple of Herod, according to Erachin 10 bt tl This was however not a water-organ (D^iTin, h, organ (HSHJO) with a hundred different tones pQT « like sound',' according to Jerome {Opp. cd. Mart. v. 101). * rusalcm usque ad monlcm OUvcli ct *tnplhu% iM B '», by the Levite youths, who stood below the suggestus at the feet of the Levites (vid. on Ps. xlvi). The daily }2^.p7) TE' (t. e. the week-day psalm which concluded the morning sacrifice) was sung in nine (or perhaps more correctly 3*) pauses, and the pauses were indicated by the trumpet-blasts of the priests (vid. on Ps. xxxviii. lxxxi. 4). Beside the seven Psalms which were sung week by week, there were others appointed for the services of the festivals and intervening days (vid. on Ps. lxxxi), and in Biccurim 3, 4 we read that when a procession bearing the firstfruits accompanied by flute playing had reached the hill on which the Temple stood and the firstfruits had been brought up in baskets, at the entrance of the offerers into the Azara, Ps. xxx was struck up by the Levites. This singing was distinct from the mode of delivering the Tefilla (vid. on Ps. xliv ad fin.) and the benediction of the priests (vid. on Ps. lxvii), both of which were unaccompanied by music. Distinct also, as it seems, from the mode of delivering the Hallel, which was more as a recitative, than sung (Pesachim 64 #, ^PID HN ttHP). It was probably similar to the Arabic, which delights in shrieking, long-winded, trilling, and especially also nasal tones. For it is related of one of the chief singers that in order to multiply the tones, he placed his thumb in his mouth and his fore finger pD'OH V2 (between the hairs, i. e. according to Kashi: on the furrow of the upper lip against the partition of the nostrils), and thus (by forming mouth and nose into a trumpet) produced sounds, before the volume of which the priests started back in astonishment.** This mode of psalm-singing in the Temple of Herod was no longer the original mode, and if the present accentuation of the Psalms represents the fixed form of the Temple song, it nevertheless does not convey to us any im-

* This is the view of Maimonides, who distributes the 9 trumpetblasts by which the morning sacrifice, according to Succa 53 £>, was accompanied, over the 3 pauses of the song. The hymn Haazinu, Deut. xxxii, which is called D^?D tVP& par excellence, was sung at the Sabbath Musaph - sacrifice — each Sabbath a division of the hymn, which was divided into six parts — so that it began anew on every seventh Sabbath, vid. J. Afegilla, sect, iii, ad fin.

pression of that before the Exile. It does, however, neither the one nor the other.

The accents are only musical, and indirectly interpunctional, signs for the chanting pronunciation of the syna^o^ue. And moreover we no longer possess the key to the accents of the three metrical (t. e. consisting of symmetrical stichs and strophes) books as musical signs. For the so-called Sarkatables (which give the value of the accents as notes, beginning with Zarka, Npll), e. g. at the end of the second edition of Nagelsbach's Gramm., relate only to the reading of the pentateuchal and prophetic pericope, — consequently to the system of prose accents. In the German synagogue there is no tradition concerning the value of the so-called metrical accents as notes, for the Psalms were not recited according to the accents; but for all the Psalms, there are only two different modes, at least in the German ritual, viz. 1) the customary one according to which verse after verse is recited by the leader and the congregation, as e. g. Ps. xcv — xcix. xxix. every Friday evening; and 2) that peculiar to Ps. cxix in which the first seven verses of the eight are recited alternately by the leader and the congregation, but the eighth as a concluding verse is always closed by the congregation with a cadence. This psalmody does not always follow the accents. We can only by supposition approximately determine how the Psalms were to be recited according to them. For we still | least a few statements of Ben-Asher, Shemtob and M Provenzalo (in his grammatical didactic poem |TD1p 02 '- cerning the intonation of single metrical accents. 1 md

Shalsheleth have a like intonation, which rises with a trill; though Shalsheleth is more prolonged, about a third than that of the prose books. Legarme (in form Mahp Azla followed by Psik) has a clear high pitch, b however, a deeper and more broken tone; soft tone tending to repose. By Silluk the tone then diminishes. The tone of Mercha i andante and sinking into the depths; the ton responds to adagio. Further hints cannot we may infer with respect to Ole we-jored 1 M chatum) and Athnach, that their intonati cadence, as that Rebia parvum and I intonation hurrying on to the following distinctive accent. Further, if we place Dechi (Tiphcha initiale) and Rebia gereshatum beside the remaining six servi among the notes, we may indeed produce a sarka- table of the metrical accentuation, although we cannot guarantee its exact agreement with the original manner of singing.

Following Gerbert (Be musica sacra) and Martini (Storia della musica), the view is at present very general that in the eight Gregorian tones together with the extra tone (tonus peregrinus)* used only for Ps. cxiii (= cxiv — cxv in the Hebrew numeration), we have a remnant of the ancient Temple song; and this in itself is by no means improbable in connection with the Jewish nationality of the primitive church and its gradual severance at the first from the Temple and synagogue. In the convents of Bethlehem, which St. Paula founded, psalms were sung at six hours of prayer from early morn till midnight, and she herself was so well versed in Hebrew, ut Psal- 7110s hebraice caneret et sermonem absque vlla Lathice lingucc proprietate per sonar et (Ep. 108 ad Exist och. c. 26). This points to a connection between the church and synagogue psalmmelodies in the mos orientalium partium, the oriental psalmody, which was introduced by Ambrose into the Milanese church. Nevertheless, at the same time the Jewish element has undergone scarcely any change; it has been developed under the influence of the Greek style, but is, notwithstanding, still recognizable.** Pethachja of Ratisbon, the Jewish traveller in the 12th century, when in Bagdad, the ancient seat of the Geonim (00 1*0), heard the Psalms sung in a manner altogether peculiar;*** and Benjamin of Tudela, in the same century, became acquainted in Bagdad with a skilful singer of the Psalms used in divine worship. Saadia on Ps. vi. 1,

* vid. Friedr. Hommel's Psalter nach der deutschen Vebersetzung D. M. Luthers fur den Gesang eingericntet, 1S59. The Psalms are there arranged in stichs, rightly assuming it to be the original mode and the most appropriate, that antiphonal song ought to alternate not according to the verses, as at the present day in the Romish and English church, but according to the two members of the verse.

infers from rWBttfT"^ that there were eight different melodies (^LsaJI). And eight rWH are also mentioned elsewhere;* perhaps not without reference to those eight church -tones, which are also found among the Armenians.** Moreover the two modes of using the accents in chanting, which are attested in the ancient service-books,*** may perhaps he not altogether unconnected with the distinction between the festival and the simpler ferial manner in the Gregorian style of church -music.

The earliest translation of the Psalms is the Greek Alexandrine version. When the grandson of the son of Sirach came to Egypt in the year 132 B. C, not only the Law and the Prophets, but also the Hagiographa were already trans* lated into the Greek; of course therefore also the Psalms by which the Hagiographa are directly named in Luke xxiv. 44. The story of the LXX (LXXII) translators, in its original form, refers only to the Thora; the translations of the ot: books are later and by different authors. All these translators used a text consisting only of consonants, and tl. moreover were here and there more or less indistinct; this text had numerous glosses, and was certainly not j later, settled on the Masoretic basis. This they translated li! ally, in ignorance of the higher exegetical and artistic tions of the translator, and frequently the translation 1 obscure. From Philo, Josephus and the New Testara see that we possess the text of this translation snl in its original form, so that criticism, which since the 1 of the last century has acquired many hitherto on] helps,f more especially also in the province off will not need to reverse its judgment of the chai

*** Zunz, Synagogalc Poesie, S. 115. t To this period belong 1) the Psatteriim Blanchini 1740, the Greek text in Roman at the side belonging to the 5th or 6th centnry of the LXX, IbOt;, Prolcrjy. p. Mil work. Nevertheless, this translation, as being the oldest key to the understanding of the language of the Old Testament writings, as being the oldest mirror of the Old Testament text, which is not to be exempted from modest critical investigation, and as an important check upon the interpretation of Scripture handed down in the Talmud, in the Midrash, and in that portion of the national literature in general, not originating in Egypt, — is invaluable.

In one other respect this version claims a still greater significance. Next to the Book of Isaiah, no book is so frequently cited in the New Testament as the Psalter. The Epistle to the Hebrews has grown up entirely from the roots of the language of the Old Testament psalms. The Apocalypse, the only book which does not admit of being referred back to any earlier formula as its basis, is nevertheless not without references to the Psalter: Ps. ii in particular has a significant part in the moulding of the apocalyptic conceptions and language. These New Testament citations, with few exceptions (as John xiii. 18), are based upon the LXX, even where this translation (as. e. g., Ps. xix. 5, li. 6, cxvi. 10), only in a general way, correctly reproduces the original text. The explanation of this New Testament use of the LXX is to be found in the high esteem in which this translation was held among the Jewish people: it was accounted, not only by the Hellenistic, but also by the Palestinian Jews, as a providential and almost miraculous production; and this esteem was justified by the fact, that, although altogether of unequal birth with the canonical writ- pureum described by Breitinger 1748, Greek Text likewise of the 5th or 6th century {vid. ibid. p. lix sq.); 3) Palmorum Fragmenta papyracea Londinensia (in the British Museum), Ps. x. 2 — xviii. 6, xx. 14 — xxxiv. 6, of the 4th century, given in Tischendorf s Monumenia Sacra Inedita. Nova CoUectio t. i; 4) Fragmenta Psalmorum Tischendorfiana Ps. cxli (ii). 7 — 8, cxlii (iii). 1 — 3, cxliv (v). 7 — 13, of the 5th or 4th century in the Monumenta t. ii. There still remain unused to the present time 1) the Psalterium Gr&co-Latinum of the library at St. Gall, Cod. 17 in 4to, Greek text in uncial characters with the Latin at the side; 2) Psalterium GaUico-Romano-Hebraico- Grcecum of the year 909, Cod. 230 in the public library at Bamberg {vid. a description of this MS. by Schonfelder in the Scrapcum, 1505, No. 21) written by Solomon, abbot of St. Gall and bishop of Constance (d. 920), and brought to Bamberg by the emperor Henry II (d. 1024), who had received it as a gift when in St. Gall; as regards the criticism of the text of the LXX it is of like importance with the Veronensc which it resembles.

ings, it nevertheless occupies a position in the history of divine revelation which forms a distinct epoch. For it was the first opportunity afforded to the gentile world of hecoming acquainted with the Old Testament revelation, and thus the first introduction of Japheth into the tents of Shem. At the same time therewith, a distinct breaking down of the barriers of the Old Testament particularism was effected. The Alexandrine translation was, therefore, an event which prepared the way for that Christianity, in which the appointment of the religion of Israel to be the religion of the world is perfected. This version, at the outset, created for Christianity the language which it was to use; for the New Testament Scriptures are written in the popular Greek dialect (xoivf,) with an Alexandrine colouring. And in a general way we may say that Alexandrinism moulded the forms beforehand, which Christianity was afterwards to fill up with the substance of the gospel. As the way of Jesus Christ lay by Egypt (Matth. ii. 15), so the way of Christianity also lay by Egypt, and Alexandria in particular.

Equally worthy of respect on account of its antiquity and independence, though not of the same importance as the LXX from a religio- historical point of view, is the Targum or Chaldee version of the Psalms: a version which only in a few passages assumes the form of a paraphrase with reference to Midrash interpretations. The date of its composition is uncertain. But as there was a written Targum to the Book of Job* even during the time of the Temple, there was also a Targum of the Psalms, though bearing in itself traces of manifold revisions, which probably had its origin during the <1; tion of the Temple. In distinction from the Targuma of Onkelos to the Pentateuch and of Jonathan to the minor Prophets the Targum of the Psalms belongs to the BO-calle<3 Jerusalem group,** for the Aramaic idiom in which is written, — while, as the Jerusalem Talmud Bhe* always distinguished in no small degree from the Pal< popular dialect as being the language of the literature abounds in the same manner as the former in

(as ]^:x cq-^Xoi, pVlcrx iSsopat, D*Tj? xtfpios), and like it also closely approximates, in sound and formation, to the Syriac. From this translation which excels the LXX in grammatical accuracy and has at its basis a more settled and stricter text, we learn the meaning of the Psalms as understood in the synagogue, as the interpretation became fixed, under the influence of early tradition, in the first centuries of the Christian era. The text of the Targum itself is at the present day in a very neglected condition. The most correct texts are to be found inBuxtorf and Norzi's Bibles. Critical observations on the Targums of the Hagiographa are given in the treatise *i\s PlEiy by Benzion Berkowitz (Wilna, 1843).

The third most important translation of the Psalms is the Peshito, the old version of the Syrian church, which was made not later than in the second century. Its author translated from the original text, which he had without the vowel points, and perhaps also in a rather incorrect form: as is seen from such errors as xvii. 15 (""jruiEN instead of "jnJIDn), lxxxiii. 12 (ijTQKI lETtf dele eos et perde eos instead of 1CDHJ ttXW)i cxxxix. 16 (y?l2) retributionem meam instead of "»D^). In other errors he is influenced by the LXX, as lvi. 9 ("p^D LXX £va)7u6v goo instead of *p&G2), he follows this version in such departures from the better text sometimes not without additional reason, as xc. 5 (generationes eorum annus erunt, i. e. VPP T\M ITfljnTj LXX toc s;oo5svu>ji.aTa auxaiv It*] eaovxai), ex. 3 (populus tuus glo?iosus, i. e. rvo~0 *]E>y in the sense of POTT), Job xxx. 15, nobility, rank, LXX jisxaooo tj ap^). The fact that he had the LXX before him beside the original text is manifest, and cannot be done away by the supposition that the text of the Peshito has been greatly distorted out of the later Hexaplarian translation; although even this is probable, for the LXX won such universal respect in the church that the Syrians were almost ashamed of their ancient version, which disagreed with it in many points, and it was this very circumstance which gave rise in the year 617 A. D. to the preparation of a new Syriac translation from the Hexaplarian LXX -text. It is not however merely between the Peshito and the LXX, but also between the Peshito and the Targum, that a not accidental mutual relation exists, which becomes at once apparent in Ps. i (e. g. in the translation of Qpxb by

*jp*DO and of mm by *OM) and hardly admits of explanation by the use of the Christian Peshito on the part of the Jewish Targumist. * It may be more readily supposed that the old Syriac translator of the Psalms, of whom we are now speaking was a Jewish Christian and did not despise the welcome assistance of the Targum, which was already at hand, in whatever form it might be. It is evident" that he was a Christian from passages like xix. 5, ex. 3, also from lxviii. 19 comp. with Ephes. iv. 8, Jer. xxxi. 31 comp. with Hebr. viii. 8; and his knowledge of the Hebrew language, with which, as was then generally the case, the knowledge of Greek was united, shews that he was a Jewish Christian. Moreover the translation has its peculiar Targum characteristics: tropical expressions are rendered literally, and by a remarkable process of reasoning interrogative clauses are turned into express declarations: lxxxviii. 11 — 13 is an instance of this with a bold inversion of the true meaning to its opposite. In general the author shuns no violence in order to give a pleasing sense to a difficult passage e. g. xii. 6&, lx. 6. The musical and historical inscriptions, and consequently also the rPC ing D^D JVJD ix. 17) he leaves untranslated, and the division of verses he adopts is not the later Masoretic. All these peculiarities make the Peshito all the more interesting U memorial in exegetico -historical and critical enquiry: and yet, since Dathe's edition, 17G8, who took the text of Er as his ground-work and added valuable notes,** sear anything has been done in this direction.

In the second century new Greek translations wen made. The high veneration which the LXX had hith enjoyed was completely reversed when the ruptui the synagogue and the church took place, so that tl when this translation was completed was no 1 pared to the day of the giving of the Law, but to I

* Although more recently we are told, H he came upon a difficult passage in fa

Psalms enquired of the patriarch of th h,"w:

** The fragments of the translation of the 1 the name 6 Ztyoc, Dathc has also th< the golden calf. Nor was it possible that it should be otherwise than that its defects should become more and more perceptible. Even the New Testament writers found it requiring correction here and there, or altogether unfit for use, for the Palestinian text of the Old Testament which had been handed down, was not merely as regards the consonants but also as to pronunciation substantially the same as that which has been fixed by the Masoretes since the sixth century. Consequently Aquila of Pontus (a proselyte from heathenism to Judaism) in the first half of the 2nd century, made a Greek translation of the Old Testament, which imitated the original text word for word even at the risk of un-Greek expressions, and in the choice of the Greek words used is determined by the etymology of the Hebrew words. Not to lose any of the weighty words he translates the first sentence of the Thora thust'Ev xscpaXaia) sxtigev 6 0eo? ouv (nN) xov oupavov xal oov (HK) tt]v 77J v. In the fragments of the translation of the Psalms, one of which has been preserved in the Talmudic literature (vid. on Ps. xlviii. 15), we do not meet with such instances of violence in favour of literalness, although also even there he forces the Greek into the form of the Hebrew, and always renders the words according to their primary meaning (e. g. TiTI XPYilJLaTtax^PL0V? m^O eiX^jia, nnD avoi-^a, 2m op|i7]{xa, |ON i:2iuaT£0[iiva><;), sometimes unhappily and misled by the usage the language had acquired in his time. In some passages he reads the text differently from our present pointing (e. g. x. 4 Slav u^a)&^), but he moreover follows the tradition (e. g. PPD aet, HIP' ixavo?, CHZD too Taireivocppovo? xal airXou = *jD Dm) and also does not despise whatever the LXX may offer that is of any worth (e. g. D^DD sv ^opSatc), as his translation throughout, although an independent one, relies more or less upon the pioneering work of its predecessor, the LXX. His talent as a translator is unmistakeable. He has perfect command of the Hebrew, and handles the treasures of the Greek with a master-hand. For instance, in the causative forms he is never in difficulty for a corresponding Greek word (^DPI 7:Ta>fxaTiC£iv, V^n Spo|xouv, ^DCTI £maT7]|iouv and the like). The fact that he translated for the synagogue in opposition to the church is betrayed by passages like ii. 12, xxii. 17, ex. 3 and perhaps also lxxxiv. 10, comp. Dan. ix. 26, where he pre- fers fiX£t[i[i£voo to Xpioxoa: nevertheless one must not in this respect charge him with evil intentions throughout. Even Jerome, on calmer reflection, moderated his indignation against Aquila's translation to a less harsh judgment: ut amicce menti fatear, quce ad nostram /idem pertineant roborandam plura reperio, and praised it even at the expense of the translations of Theodotion and Symmachus: Isti Semichristiani Judaice transtulerunt, et Judceus Aquila interpretatus est ut Christianus.

The translation of Theodotion is not an original work. It is based upon the LXX and brings this version, which was still the most widely used, into closer relation to the original text, by making use of Aquila's translation. The fragments that are preserved to us of passages independently translated contain nothing pre-eminently characteristic. Symmachus also takes the LXX as his basis, but in re-moulding it according to the original text he acts far more decidedly and independently than Theodotion, and distinguishes himself from Aquila by endeavouring to unite literalness with clearness and verbal accuracy: his translation of the Psalms has even a poetic inspiration about it. Both Aquila and Symmachus issued their translations twice, so that some passages are extant translated in a twofold form (vid. ex. 3).

Beside the LXX. Aq. Symm. and Theod. there are also a fifth, sixth and seventh Greek translation of the Psalms. The fifth is said to have been found in Jericho under the emperor Caracalla, the sixth in Nicopolis under the emperor Alexander Severus. The former, in its remains, shews a knowledge of the language and tradition, the latter is sometimes (xxxvii. 35, Hab. iii. 13) paraphrastic. A seventh is also mentioned besides, it is most like Theodotion. In the Hexapla of Origen, which properly contains only six columns (the Hebrew text, the Hebr. text in Greek characters, Aq., Symm., LXX, Theod.), in the Ps. and elsewhere a Quinta (E), (0, and Septima (Z) are added to these six columns: thus the Hexapla (apart from the Seventh) became an Octapla, the remains of these old versions as compiled by Oi the labours of his predecessors Nobilius and D most complete collection is that of Bernard d in his Hexaplorum Origenis quce supcrsunt (2 vols, foil 1713); the rich gleanings since handed down from m;my different quarters* are unfortunately still scattered and uncollated.

Euthymius Zigadenus mentions beside the LXX, Aq., Symra., Theod., V., and VI., as a Seventh version that of Lucian which attempts to restore the original Septuagint-text by a comparison with the original text. Lucian died as a martyr 311 A. D. in Nicomedia, whither he had been dragged from Antioch. The autograph of this translation was found in Nicomedia, hidden in a small rough-plastered tower.** We are as little able to form a conception of this Septuagint-recension of Lucian as of that of the cotemporary Egyptian bishop Hesychius, since not a single specimen of either is extant. It would be interesting to know the difference of treatment of the two critics from that of Origen, who corrected the text of the xoiv7) after the Hebrew original by means of Theodotion's, obelis jugulans quce dbundare videbantur, et quce deerant sub aster isc is inter ser ens, which produced a confusion that might easily have been foreseen.

From the old Latin translation, the so-called Itala, made from the LXX, we possess the Psalter complete: Blanchini has published this translation of the Psalms (1740) from the Veronese Psalter, and Sabbatier in the second volume of his Latince Ver stones Antiques (1751) from the Psalter of the monastery of St. Germain. The text in Faber Stapulensis' Quincuplex Psalterium (1509) is compiled from Augustine; for Augustine, like Hilary, Ambrose, Prosper, and Cassiodorus, expounds the Psalms according to the old Latin text. Jerome first of all carefully revised this in Kome, and thus originated the Psalterium Romanum, which has been the longest retained

* Thus e. g. Montfaucon was only able to make use of the Psalter-MS. Cod. Vat. 754 for 16 Psalms; Adler has compared it to the end and found in it valuable Hexapla fragments (vid. Report, fur Bibl. u. Morgenl. Lit. xiv. S. 183 f.). The Psalm-commentary of Barhebraeus and the Psalterium Mcdiolancnsc have also been begun to be worked with this object; but as yet, not the Syriac Psalter of the Medici library mentioned by Montfaucon, Bibliuthcca Bibliothecarum i. 240 and supposed to be based upon the Quinta.

by the church of Milan and the Basilica of the Vatican. He then in Bethlehem prepared a second more carefully revised edition, according to the Hexaplarian Septuagint-text* with daggers (as a sign of additions in the LXX contrary to the original) and asterisks (a sign of additions in the LXX from Theodotion in accordance with the original), and this second edition which was first adopted by the Gallican churches obtained the name of the Psalterium Gallicanum. It is not essentially different from the Psalter of the Vulgate, and appeared, with its critical signs, from a MS. of Bruno, bishop of Wurzburg (died 1045), for the first time in the year 14(J4 (then edited by Cochleus, 1533): both Psalters, the Romish and the Gallican, are placed opposite one another in Faber's Quincuplex Psalterium, in t. x. p. 1 of the Opp. Hieronymi, ed. Vallarsi and elsewhere.

The Latin Psalters, springing from the common or from the Hexaplarian Septuagint-text, as also the Hexaplaand the remaining Oriental versions based upon the LXX and the Peshito, have only an indirectly exegetico-historical value. On the contrary Jerome's translation of the Psalter, j% Hebraicam veritatem, is the first scientific work of translation, and, like the whole of his independent translation of Old Testament from the original text, a bold act by which he has rendered an invaluable service to the church, without allowing himself to be deterred by the cry raised against such innovations. This independent translation of Jeroi become the Vulgate of the church: but in a text in many ways estranged from its original form, with the simple ception of the Psalter. For the new translation of this book was opposed by the inflexible liturgical use it had attain the texts of the Psalterium Itomanum and Gallicanum tained their ground and became (with the omission of the critical signs) an essential portion of the Vul account it is the more to be desired that Jerome's I ■

* Mud brcvitcr admonco — says Jerome, Bp. < lam — utsciatis, aliam esse cditi<mcm, quam Origi bins omnesque Gratia iractalorcs Koiv^v, Vulfjatam el a plerisque nunc Aooxiav6« dicitur; alia prelum, qua fa EfcxitXoTc codicibu* rtperitm ncm fiddlier versa est ct Hierototym*,r.

ex Hebrceo (Opp. ed. Vallarsi t. ix. p. iii) were made more generally known and accessible by a critical edition published separately. It is not necessary to search far for critical helps for such an undertaking. There is an excellent MS., Cod. 19, in the library of St. Gall, presented by the abbot Hartmot (died 895).

Origen and Jerome learnt the language of the Old Testament from Jewish teachers. All the advantages of Origen's philological learning are lost to us, excepting a few insignificant remains, with his Hexapla: this gigantic bible which would be the oldest direct monument of the Old Testament text if it were but extant. Whereas in Jerome's Old Testament translated from the original text (canon Hebraicce veritatis) we have the maturest fruit of the philological attainments of this indefatigable, steady investigator inspired with a zeal for knowledge. It is a work of the greatest critical and historical value in reference to language and exegesis. The translation of the Psalter is dedicated to Sophronius who had promised to translate it into Greek: this Greek translation is not preserved to us.

Jerome's translation of the Psalter has not its equal either in the synagogue or the church until the time of Saadia Gaon of Fajum, the Arabian translator of the Psalms. Two MSS. of his translation of the Psalms are to be found at Oxford; but the most important, which also contains his annotations complete, is in Munich. Schnurrer (1791) contributed Ps. xvi, xl and ex to Eichhorn's Biblioth. der Bibl. Lit. iii, from Cod. Pocock. 281, then Haneberg (1840) Ps. lxviii and several others from the Munich Cod.; the most extensive excerpts from Cod. Pocock, 281 and Cod. Huntingt. 416 (with various readings from Cod. Mon. appended) are given by Ewald in the first vol. of his Beiirage zur altesten Ausleg. u. Spracherklarung des A. T. 1844. The gain which can be drawn from Saadia for the interpretation of the Psalms, according to the requirements of the present day, is very limited; but he promises a more interesting and rich advantage to philology and the history of exegesis. Saadia stands in the midst of the still ever mysterious process of development out of which the finally established and pointed text of the Old Testament came forth. He has written a treatise on the punctuation

(Tlp'O) to which Rashi refers in Ps. xlv. 10, but in his treatment of the Old Testament text shews himself to be unfettered by its established punctuation. His translation is the first scientific work on the Psalms in the synagogue. The translation of Jerome is five hundred years older, but only the translation of Luther has been able to stand side by side with it and that because he was the first to go back to the fountain head of the original text.

The task, which is assigned to the translator of the sacred Scriptures, was recognised by Luther as by no one before him, and he has discharged it as no one up to the present day since his time has done. What Cicero said of his translation of the two controversial speeches of Demosthenes and iEschines holds good also of Luther: Non converti ut interpres, sed ut orator } sententiis iisdem et earum formis tanquam figuris, verbis ad nostram consuetudinem aptis: in quibus non verbum pro verbo necesse hdbui reddere, sed genus omnium verborum vimque servavi; non enim ea me adnumerare lectori putavi oportere, ted tanquam adpendere — he has lived in thought and feeling in the original text in order not to reproduce it literally with a slavish adherence to its form, but to re-mould it into <:ood and yet spiritually renewed German and at the same time to preserve its spirit free and true to its deepest meanii This is especially the case with his translation of the Psalms, in which even Moses Mendelssohn has thought it to his adrantage to follow him. To deny that here and there it is capable of improvement by a more correct understanding of th< and in general by greater faithfulness to the original (without departing from the spirit of the German language old indicate an ungrateful indifference to the advance whi been made in biblical interpretation — an advan merely promised, but which we see actually achitf

If we now take a glance over tin* history of the of the Psalms, we shall see from it how late it i proper function of scientific exposition waa 1 begin with the apostolic exposition. The Old 1 according to its very nature tends towards and I