YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY Gift of Prof. Samuel Harris THE PSALMS A NEW TRANSLATION THE PSALMS £ $eto Cranglatton WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND NOTES BY JOHN DE WITT D.D., LL.D., L.H.D. SENIOR BIBLICAL PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J., AND A MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN OLD TESTAMENT REVISION COMPANY NEW YORK ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. 1891 Copyright, 1891, By John De Witt. Uttnujetsttg $wbb : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. IT may reasonably be expected that one who has lived in long and close contact with the Psalms as a translator, will contribute some thoughts at the beginning that shall be help ful to their intelligent and appreciative study. The Psalms are unspeakably precious to all who call upon the one true and living God. This attachment, moreover, is very little, if at all, impaired by the fact that several of them contain much that seems inconsistent with the mild and for giving spirit of the Gospel, if not absolutely shocking to Chris tian consciousness. These portions we learn to pass over, as belonging to different conditions and a period of inferior en lightenment, and not intended for us. Or else, going deeper than the words, we cast aside philological trammels, and in geniously translate them into thought that is not incongruous with our later revelation. In spite of them, we all love the "Psalms, and are more and more coming to regard them as of immeasurable importance in the worship of God. What do they contain that has given them this permanent hold upon the hearts of men? What master spirits are these "that can touch the deepest and most secret springs of feeling, and have expressed the transports of the soul in all its contact with evil so exquisitely that no other can surpass and super sede them? The work of the translator is a matter of detail and micro scopic examination. He takes up severally the words, clauses, vi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. and sentences of each Psalm by itself, for the closest scrutiny. If he be merely a cold-blooded philologist, provided that he have the requisite knowledge of the languages he handles, together with tact and skill in the application of sound exe getical principles, his efforts will be richly repaid, and he will perform thankworthy service for us all. But he may bring all this to his task, and much more, and may execute it with un impeachable fidelity, yet know very little of the Psalms in their higher aspects. His necessary nearness to his work, arising from its peculiar nature, may have excluded him from any just conception of their glorious import, severally, or in their com bination. So one may bring his eye so near a painting as to discern clearly every brushmark, and yet be in absolute igno rance of the conception of the artist in its breadth and fulness, and of the masterly execution by which he has achieved his grand success. Let us not become so absorbed in the correct translation of words and phrases in the Book of Psalms, as not to raise a question with regard to its contents in their unity, suitableness, and coherence, or as to whether their constituting elements have drifted together by chance, and have been clumsily or cleverly combined, or, on the contrary, have a common source and an inner principle of harmony that has attracted, and holds them together inseparably. Any competent treatment of the Book will not neglect such consideration. Perchance we may find in it something like or ganic unity, and this animated by a spirit and a life, if inferior in potency, not different in kind from that which our Saviour claims for his own words. We may then come to see in the Psalms what we never saw before, and in their separate sen tences a depth, a breadth, and a fulness of meaning that are splendidly illuminative, and shall prove to ourselves personally the affirmation, — " The unfolding of Thy words giveth light, To the simple it giveth discernment." INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. vii Two questions are before us with reference to the Book of Psalms : the first relating to its contents, including both sub stance and form; the second, to the mode of its production. Most of the Psalms are direct addresses to God. The rest of them are devout meditations upon the Divine word, and the blessedness of those who receive it into their hearts, or varied expressions of spiritual life arising from the most intimate and inspiring relations with God, and suitable to the sanctuary. The central and ruling idea of the whole is worship in its most comprehensive sense, and is embodied in a single impressive sentence in Psalm xcv. : — 5. " Oh come, bowing down let us worship, Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker ; 6. For He is our God, And we are the people of His care, The flock of His hand." Defining more particularly the word worship in the light of this invitation, it is the expression of all thoughts and feelings which man, in view of his complex relations with God, may suitably pour out before Him. It recognizes Him as the su preme and infinite personal Intelligence, from whom we have received our immortal nature, and on whose almighty and gracious care we are dependent, and it has regard to everything that affects our relations with Him, or in reference to which we may hopefully appeal to Him for sympathy and help. We add here, in a word, that the principle in this worship is not constrained homage to a superior, enforced by arbitrary pains and penalties, but the cultivation of the higher nature in man by the encouragement of gracious affections in unreserved personal intercourse with God, and this as the only means of preserving him from utter moral deterioration and debasement. The leading elements in acceptable worship are well under stood by all who know these Psalms. It begins with adoring recognition of the infinite perfections viii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. of God ; of His wisdom, power, and other natural perfections without stint, as surpassing all thought or speech, and of the moral even more, — His holiness, justice, faithfulness, and love, each of them most comprehensive, and covering the whole ground of human aspiration and need. Although the main purpose of the Book of Psalms is not instruction, yet with respect to the person and nature of God it is a text-book, even fuller than the New Testament. In the latter, this pre vious revelation is assumed as not needing to be repeated. The knowledge of God that is imparted in these adoring ap peals to Him in the Psalms is for the whole world and for all time. Very closely connected with adoration, in the material for intelligent worship, is the conception of God as our Creator, and of consequent dependence on Him, as also of obligation, constantly accumulating, and which no gratitude of ours can cancel, for all Divine activities in sustaining us, and in filling our lives with good. This needs only to be mentioned. Thus far, however, we are on the same footing before God as the angels, save in their different natural conditions. They are not constituted as we are, and the sphere of their existence is not the earth with its bountiful supplies. Yet alike, angels and men are dependent creatures, and in the same throng may bless and adore God for all His goodness and His wonderful works in their behalf. But for our use a book of worship must be adapted to our special relations and circumstances under God's moral govern ment. In this connection the first idea that will obtrude itself before some minds, is that of suffering ; before others, that of sin. The recognition of both is indispensable, and they are inseparable. The thought of sin, when we approach a holy and just God, is entitled to the precedence as the originating cause. Yet man is liable to torture so intense that sometimes he can only wail in misery, and cry out for relief. These two INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. ix elements are consequently intermingled. The early church fathers distinguished from the rest, as a class by themselves, seven Penitential Psalms. They are Psalms vi., xxxii., xxxviii., lvi., cii., cxxx., cxliii. But the incidental introduction of sin, and of feelings suitable to one who feels himself guilty before God, occurs in many of the others. It is not necessary to dwell upon all that has place here, unless confession of sin before God is to be a mere mockery. There is a recognition of the heinousness of sin as an offence against the Divine purity, and a violation of the highest and most sacred obligations, and therefore as something which God's own grace must put out of the way by a free and abso lute pardon, or it will forever separate between Himself and us. And there will further be combined with sincere confession an intelligent consideration of sin in the nature, as a deep-seated and fell disease, which requires a new act of creative power, restoring moral purity and love to the inner life ; and besides these, surely some suitable expression of hearty loathing and abhorrence of sin as in contrast to the holiness of God, like the contrast between light and darkness, and of a turning away of the whole nature, in the act of renewing its fellowship with God, from that which as God He must necessarily loathe and hate. A truly penitent and regenerated soul will separate itself in its preferences, purposes, and practices, from all evil, and the separation will be most pronounced. Here we are disposed to enlarge, and every one who has followed our thought through these commonplaces of practi cal religious truth, will surely follow us further, as we lead the way into a consideration of the most painful and perplexing problem that confronts us in the Book of Psalms. We al lude to what are called the Imprecatory Psalms. It may be questioned by some what place they have in connection with penitence and a reinstatement in the Divine favour, as we now introduce them. But it is just here that we find their x INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. most satisfactory explanation, and we shall be thankful if we can suggest thoughts that will afford any measure of relief. But first let us face the subject boldly. Here are Psalms that seem to be full of hatred and revenge for personal wrongs. Their imprecations seem in one place to pass into the unseen world, calling upon God to strike the name of an evil-doer out of the book of the living, and even include his progenitors and descendants. This cannot be overlooked, or dismissed, without an explanation, and one which shall com mend itself to sound judgment. Not unfrequently it is asked, on the assumption that David was the author of these Psalms, how could a sincere and accepted worshipper of God, indulge such feelings of hatred against his enemies, and how can we in our worship make use of expressions so contrary to the spirit of the Gospel? We cannot set aside as valueless, although it may not en tirely relieve our perplexity, what is often said about the characteristic difference between the Old and New Testament dispensations. As a man, David, or whoever wrote these Psalms, is entitled to the plea that he could not be expected to express himself in accordance with a revelation so far dis tant in the future, and that feelings that would now be intol erable, are not discordant with the standard of right, in feeling and action, of the times in which he lived ; and further, that even the inspiring Spirit did not detach him from his relations to those times, and the standard of moral propriety that he had in the only Scriptures of God he possessed. This is solid fact, and it is good so far as it goes. It may further be said that these Psalms are poetry, and should not be read as prose. The language of poetry, and especially of Oriental poetry, is that of exaggerated passion. It must be judged by the conditions and rules that are pecu liar to itself. This does not imply deception. No figure of speech is more common in the productions of Oriental genius, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xi ancient or modern, than hyperbole, which is a rhetorical ex aggeration, employed when language in its poverty must necessarily fail in expressing the fact in its full dimensions. Descriptions of this kind must not be pressed too literally. Instances of hyperbole can be found elsewhere, both in the Old Testament and the New, and are not confined to poetry. We need only refer to the people " like the sand upon the seashore," in Gen. xxii. 17, and to the books so many that " the whole world could not contain them " in the last verse of the Gospel of John. But there are no illustrations that will serve us so well here as those which are found in this very Book of Psalms, where suffering is the subject. This David was a man of great personal heroism. The his tory of his persecuted life indicates wonderful endurance. He was ready to face any enemy, or to bear any privation, with undaunted courage and firm trust in God. Not an instance occurs of his having been unmanned by suffering, or the fear of suffering. The history to which we refer with confidence in this connection, which does not deal tenderly with his known moral weaknesses, is prose. Yet this fearlessness is sometimes expressed vehemently in the Psalms, for even poetry is not always hyperbolical. But in how many of them he appears in a quite different character, moaning, groaning, wailing, roaring, overwhelmed with grief day and night, mak ing his bed to swim with tears, and through the hours of dark ness calling aloud to God, — because evil-minded men were plotting against his life, or perhaps because some one man was persecuting him with vile slander. One would say, this is not manly, but childish. Such weakness is despicable. Surely neither David nor any man prominent in Israelitish history could have written these sentences. But not more foreign to David's actual life was this cowardly spirit, than the revenge that seems to breathe out in others of the Psalms. We must not forget in any of them that we are xii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. in the fervid, impassioned, and demonstrative East, where to this day feeling of any kind is scarcely thought of as genuine, unless it is expressed extravagantly. Another consideration occurs to us, as entitled to some weight. Those who draw contrasts between David's feelings toward his enemies and their own placid indifference, un favourable to the former, do not consider that they know nothing of such enemies as he describes, — men that were the incarnation of treachery, cruelty, and diabolical malignity, who were seeking his life like veritable wolves and hyenas. It might be said that there is no Gospel against the extermi nation of wild beasts, and these were worse than wild beasts in their disposition and power to destroy. It is possible that in the presence of such enemies the equanimity and meekness of the critics would be disturbed, and they might so far forget the spirit of the Gospel as to long, and even to pray, for the destruction of men so savage and ruthless, not merely on their own account, but for the sake of the innocent lives that are exposed to the deadly arts of the malignant. But in all this we leave out of view the actual problem to be solved, which pertains to these Psalms not merely as expres sions of individual feeling, but as embraced in an inspired manual of worship. It is much more distressing. It is only those who believe them to be Divinely inspired that are seriously disturbed by the Imprecatory Psalms. Others in dulge in flippant and captious remark, reflecting upon these fierce words as blots on the character of one who is claimed to be a man after God's own heart, or as strange incon sistencies in the Bible, one part of the book claimed to be Divine totally contradictory to another. They enjoy the difficulty that Christians find in reconciling them. Such expressions of latent scepticism are most easily and thoroughly silenced, and our own perplexity soonest relieved, by stating the difficulty in its most formidable shape. It is not INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xiii how a man, supposed to be sincerely religious, could deal in these strong denunciations. For we find them in a prayer- book which we believe to have been provided for us by the in spiration of the God whom we worship. The human penman riow__G£asco to be rooponsible. We are arraigning the great Being who has distinctly defined in this book what worship will be acceptable to Him — unless we are prepared on ac count of the unworthiness of its contents to abandon our belief in its Divine origin. But we will surely not do this without the fullest consideration. We then face the paradox, that the God of love has put into our lips words of hatred and wrath. Can we show it to be mere paradox, — an apparent contradiction to the ac tual, or even possible, which is really true and right and good? We find the relief by going back to our starting- point. We have already alleged, that in coming before God as wor shippers, we must confess our sins with penitent hearts, and must ask for pardoning mercy and renewing grace. This fur ther point, also, we reached, and now resume : that God has the right to insist that the heart of the worshipper shall turn away with loathing and hatred from the falsehood, the injus tice, and the malignity, that are desolating the world. These were not mild and inoffensive forms of evil that in God's name were denounced, but those most opposite to the light and love, the purity and truth, of His own nature. One loyal to God must hate them, and must declare himself on the Lord's side in the great battle against His person and government that was going on in the world. And this sin, so hated by God, was not an abstraction, an impalpable something floating in the region of the upper clouds, but an activity of deadly hate in the hearts and lives of men. If it were merely an abstraction, there need have been no Imprecatory Psalms. Then with the utmost composure it might have been con- xiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. signed to oblivion. Whatever is harmless may be hideous, but we relieve ourselves simply by looking in another direc tion. But sin only exists concretely and in sinful men; and God, because he is the ideal and absolute love and purity and truth and goodness, must detest incarnate hatred, treach ery, and malignity; and so must we, if we love Him. Per haps in the earlier times, when men were less practised in abstract, philosophic thought than they are now, it was more difficult to separate the sin from the sinner than it is for us. This may have produced a tendency to clothe abstractions in an ideally personal and concrete dress. For the strong lan guage of these hard sentences does not seem to reflect the actual feelings and conduct of the composer against living persons guilty of foul wrong. There is no evidence in the life of David, or of any good man of those times, that he was really malignant and revengeful. Rather the contrary. But the language of poetry is not that of philosophic thought. It does not deal in abstractions, but in vivid representations ot human life as it is, and from this personality is inseparable. Unquestionably most of these Psalms have their historic background in the conflicts and trials of the individual com poser. But we have taken pains in some of the following notes (see on vii. 6, and ix. 1,2) to show briefly that in adapt ing them to a higher and broader use by the assembly of God's people in their worship, the very license that distin guishes poetry from prose serves an admirable purpose. His tory is idealized. The individuals lose their own personality, and come to represent classes of men. Whatever personal hostility to leaders in persecution and injury may once have stirred in the heart of the poet, perhaps years ago, when great wrong was committed, now disappears in his higher thought. The identification with actual living persons he had once known as enemies, fades away, and the hostile feeling so strongly declared is only a more vivid and graphic expression INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xv of hatred to sin, as then and thereafter existent, rampant, defiant, triumphing over everything holy and good, and there^- fore accursed forever. Why, the man described and held up to detestation in Ps. cix. has become already a fiend, before descending into the pit, and is not one for whom a claim upon our charity and forbearance could be asserted, if he were now upon the earth. This fierceness of denunciation has its reason: — 1 6. " Because he forgat to show kindness ; But the suffering and needy, and broken in heart, He pursued unto death. 1 7. The cursing he loved, it alighted upon him ; Since from blessing he gathered no pleasure, It removed far away from himself. 18. He clothed him with cursing as a robe, And it entered his substance like water, And like oil it coursed in his bones. 19. Let it be like the coat he puts on, Like the belt which he ever girds about him. 20. This is the wage of my foes from Jehovah, Of those that plan harm to my life." There may have been first in the poet's mind the counte nances, called up from his earlier life, of those who had long before gone to their reward ; and, so far as it related to them, the form of imprecation is only a graphic way of stating his toric fact. The face before him may have been that of the crafty and malignant Ahithophel, responsible directly and in directly for unnumbered lives, including that of Absalom, his father's idol ; or, as in Ps. Iii., that of Doeg the Edomite, the dastardly spy and informer, who occasioned the slaughter of eighty-five priests, with their families. But presently these features from the past fade away, and are replaced by the black face of Judas, " the son of perdition," with whose base ness this picture is connected in the New Testament, and to whom all thoughts turn as the ideal incarnation of evil. See John xvii. 12, and Acts i. 20. y.y- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. This prepares us, with reference to some of these Psalms, to take higher ground. We note here a loftier than poetic inspiration. The pen, and harp, and voice that swept on in these stirring measures, were those of a prophet. What stands before his illuminated vision is not a personified principle, incarnations wrought by poetic fancy, to be dissipated pres ently into thin air. They are indeed persons, yet not as known individuals of our race, each standing for himself, against whom for personal wrong his darker human passions are roused, — but impersonations, standing for men always and everywhere, who crush innocent lives under their iron heel, who know neither pity nor kindness, justice nor truth, but with determined will identify themselves with evil of devil ish stamp, hating men and defying God. It is no base human passion, but impassioned prophecy, in the name of Him to whom vengeance belongs, that calls down upon them a doom from which, if they repent not, there is no escape. And with whatever sadness, yet with firmness unflinching, let all people that are loyal to God pronounce their Amen ! A crucial instance of the relief afforded by the prophetic character of Psalms of this severe type is found in the closing verses of Ps. cxxxvii. : — 7. " Remember, Jehovah, to the children of Edom The day at Jerusalem, When they cried, Lay it bare, lay it bare, Even down to its base. 8. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, Blest is he that requites thee, That does unto thee as thou didst unto us; 9. Blest is he that shall seize and dash down Thy babes on a rock.'' This may be thought of as poetic justice, not to be pressed too closely as fact. The precise act described is intensely realistic, yet not too shocking for Oriental taste, nor for high- wrought tragic poetry in any age. The slaughter of babes INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xvii in the most brutal manner is not the most horrid of the bar barities practised by conquering armies when cities with their innocent inhabitants are given up to their wanton fury. In this case the historic background is twofold : an earlier, in the barbarity of the Chaldean invaders of Judea, seventy years before, of which we have here a single representative fact; a later, in the retribution inflicted at the capture of Babylon by the Persian army, within a few years. It points to Cyrus, who was raised up as the avenger of the sufferings of God's people during their long and merciless bondage. An old Israelite, just returned from the exile, is gazing with a tortured heart on the ruins of the holy city and temple, and the terrible past comes up freshly before him, as if actually witnessing the savage act he describes. From this assumed standpoint he speaks as a prophet of God, declaring of the ruthless invader, that as he has sown even so also he shall reap. But what is thus ideally exhibited for the sake of higher poetic effect has already become historic fact. The judgment has fallen, and the man who is felicitated as having redressed the ancient wrong is the king of the Medes and Persians, brought forward in the far-seeing providence of God for this express purpose. As the representative of the King of kings, in accomplishing a great deliverance, he has inflicted punish ment in kind upon the desolators of Zion, so that all the earth may stand in awe of Him that lives and reigns forever. A repulsiveness remains; but it is the repulsiveness of fact, in a world that is full of such horrid facts, which we must make the best of, till the earth is delivered from its curse. It could not have been omitted from a faithful picture of the wrongs of Jerusalem and their reparation. In this place alone the English Bible translates 'ashre, happy, as of personal enjoyment, a meaning it never has. See note on Ps. ii. I. It expresses here emphatic approval of Divinely ordered retribution. It would apply to a tender-hearted xviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. judge, as once seen by the writer, with streaming eyes pro nouncing the death penalty on one guilty of brutal murder. The only questions that remain with reference to the Impre catory Psalms are such as these: What are they to us? Can we use them in our worship without being faithless to the Divine spirit of love that irradiates the Gospel and is some time to irradiate the world? Am I to unite with the great congregation in uttering these terrible sentences, and what is their meaning as issuing from my lips? Surely we are to use them ; but whatever else they mean for us, they cannot mean that we are thus to express our hatred to the enemies of David, or of some unknown writer of sacred song, and to unite with him in praying for their extermination. He and they have passed from the earth long ago, and everything that relates to them is irreversibly settled. They exist here only in the images they suggest to the thoughts of men as shades of the past. Nor does our use of them mean that we are thus to denounce our own enemies. We have no such enemies as these, and they are never to be classed with the facts of our personal life. They stand before us as vivid rep resentations of the hostility to God that is the black curse of the world, and which we, as born of God, must hate and denounce forever. The more I love God, and love my fellow- men in their actual personality, each and all, the more heartily and bitterly I shall detest and curse the principle of evil, incar nate or unincarnate, that, if it could, would blot out the light of the world, and leave us all in the blackness of darkness forever. This is the solution of our paradox. Love, because it is love, must hate hate. And God, because He is love, hates it. And we, if we have the love of God and man in our hearts, always and everywhere must hate it. Closely connected with all that relates to sin, are man's appeals to God for sympathy and relief under suffering. This also is a universal experience, and one in which Divine aid INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xix is indispensable. Our worship recognizes God as gracious and full of compassion, and looks confidently to His great heart as directing His infinite power. How many Psalms besides the one hundred and thirtieth are De profundis, and how many that have misery as their key-note lie out side the few that are called "Penitential"! And these have touched a responsive chord in hearts wrung with anguish ever since they were written. We have alluded to them as abounding in hyperbole. To express our meaning more pre cisely, for our worship they describe not more than the literal fact, but other than the literal fact. They substitute the exter nal for the internal, and so there is an underlying truthfulness. In actual use their most exaggerated expressions are hardly thought of as exaggerations needing apology. Like other hyperbole in Scripture they have their ground in the impossi bility of describing in words the agonies of a tortured spirit. The nearest approach to truth that language can attain is found in the natural expression of extreme physical suffering, and so they deal in groans and tears, in wasting and faintness, in loud outcries and heart-rending complaints, which are understood to be figures of a wretchedness that none but God can know. Some of these Psalms of the suffering have special interest and sacredness in their connection with the agonies of the great Sufferer who gave His life for the world. These too in their inception are founded upon the sufferings of the com poser, but almost immediately he is carried away from them into the presence of woes such as he never experienced, and yet with which his personal being seems to be mysteriously blended. He becomes a typical representative, and so con tinues to speak of himself, and yet really of another identified with himself by prophetic laws. These descriptions are some times thought of as hyperbolical, and they come within the limits of what we have remarked on that subject. It may be said that the inspiring spirit of prophecy carries the poet into xx INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. what, as relates to himself, and perhaps in his own conscious ness, is merely poetical exaggeration, but is intended by the higher power that masters and sways his spirit to portray the sufferings of One who by and by, using as His own language borrowed from one of the most wonderful of these Psalms, shall cry from the cross of agony and shame, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " It may be that in this Psalm the poet intended to describe an ideal sufferer, typical for all anguish and for all time, but he evidently finds his starting-point in the persecutions of the malignant in his per sonal life. Yet the sufferings of Christ are inseparably bound up with those of His people, or rather, theirs with His. Those who preceded His own life on the earth prefigure Him that suffered for us all, and they that come after " fill up what was lacking of the afflictions of Christ." So all may find comfort in the language of these sublime wailings of a deeper than mortal woe, as including every throe of anguish they ever endured. We cannot dwell on all that the Psalms contain : their fervent expressions of gratitude for God's saving mercy, of desire after God, of delight in Him, of unfailing confidence and hope under every apprehension of danger, and even in death itself. These all belong legitimately to Old Testament times. Surely they are not less suitable now. ¦*"- Yet Judaism is not Christianity. Since the latest of these Psalms were written a richer grace has enveloped the world, and their utmost bound is too narrow for us. For worship, in order to be adequate to its conditions and purpose, must adapt itself to all new occurrences that materially affect man's relations with God. From the time of the sacrifice and as cension of our Lord, prayer has assumed a new character, joyfully recognizing these transcendent facts in all their sig nificance. In the earlier time, His coming and kingdom were only seen in the dim vision of prophecy. But since then, INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxi His dying love is ever remembered, and His name ever urged before God, as the only ground of acceptance and blessing. A distinctively Christian office of prayer has a language of its own, rich, varied, and gracious. It could have no existence till the Son of God was revealed from heaven to give life to the dead. But all this is not a sub stitution, but simply an addition. Our primary relations with God are unchanged. We retain all that is permanent in the older worship, and enjoy it the more because its acceptance is secured through the grace of our glorified Redeemer ; and we gratefully add to it the later, as bringing us still nearer to God, and giving us fresh hope in His mercy. It must yet be observed, that intercession in behalf of the evil-minded scarcely appears in the Psalms. When the Cruci fied was enthroned, He immediately organized a " ministration of the Spirit," and set in operation the mighty agencies that by individual regeneration shall bring all nations into living fellowship with God. Our prophetic Psalms give charming glimpses of this in a far distant future ; see notably Ps. Ixxxvii. But they disclose no grace as then present, and available in answer to prayer, by which the savage natures that were regarded with horror might be transformed, and wolves be come lambs. It is our rejoicing that for us this lacking element is abundantly supplied. It was intimated at the beginning that a consideration of the form and character of the Psalms should not be omitted. We can notice only one or two of the more obvious points. It has been incidentally stated that they are poetical, and that their main purpose is not instruction. The meaning of " poetical " in that connection is that the thought and dic tion are elevated. Under the impulse of strong emotion the imagination is set free, and the result must not be measured by prosaic rules. To this should be added that they are poetical in form, and intended for musical accompaniment. xxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. David was a poet, not only lofty in thought, and able to stir the hearts of men by the beauty, the grandeur, or the tender pathos of his conceptions, but of no mean skill in constructing verse with due regard to the charm of song, and the most effective instrumental rendering. He was probably a magnifi cent harpist, and could lead an orchestra. All this was made subservient, by Him who created us with a susceptibility to be powerfully wrought upon by such means, to the principal pur pose of the Psalms, which are not addressed to the intellect so much as to the emotional nature. The combined force of music and poetry is here employed to arouse man's sluggish nature in response to the tender appeals which the God of all grace, in deeds more than in words, is ever making to his heart. If this be so, how can we separate the inspiration of the Psalmist from the external form of his productions, in cluding their adaptation to such audible enhancement as shall charm and soothe the hearts of men, and incline them to all gracious desires, purposes, and hopes, lifting them ever nearer to the centre of light and truth and love. This result of inspiration cannot be literally transferred to another language. But it follows by necessary consequence that there can be no adequate rendering of the Psalms for the worship of God that does not aim at similar effects by similar methods. Their whole value for instruction may be enjoyed, and not without some deep effects in spiritual life, if they are translated into prose, to be quietly read. But the Divine pur pose in providing them in this form would fail, were they not supplemented by the spiritual songs, only less directly inspired, that have since enriched the worship of the Church. One consideration more seems worthy of mention that may not have appeared in anything that has been written upon the subject of Hebrew psalmody. It relates to the combination of words with musical expression, as requiring the strictest adjustment of one to the other. The more intense and im- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxiii passioned of these songs are not to be judged as if intended to be read in soft, melodious voice in the contracted inner chamber with its shut door, or in the somewhat broader, yet narrow, family and social circles, or even for the subdued and solemn utterances, alternately by minister and people, to which we are accustomed in our modern worship of the sanctuary. Some of the Psalms, in their subject and their manifestly gentle ' intonation, remind us of the soft purling of the brook, or the sweet lay of the nightingale. They suggest the nablum and cithern, the softest and sweetest stringed instruments with which the solitary worshipper might accompany the flow from his heart before God. But some of them were composed and inwrought with suitable musical expression for the spacious courts of the temple, or for the open air. The elaborate culti vation of the art of music among the Hebrews should be re membered, and especially in connection with Divine worship. Large bands of the Levites were detailed for the service of song. Singers and players upon instruments were there in thousands, who devoted their lives to it. Besides the lute and the harp, or their nearest ancient equivalents, there was every instrumental device that genius could create, that could give loud and strong expression to strong feeling. The cry went forth to Israel in Ps. cl., the doxology of the whole Book: — 3. " Praise Him with blasts of the trumpet, Praise Him with the lute and the harp; 4. Praise Him with timbrel and dance, Praise Him on strings and the pipe ; 5. Praise Him with clear-sounding cymbals, Praise Him with cymbals loud clashing." Yet not only in praise, but in every deep and intense emo tion common to them all, while their hearts are throbbing before God as the heart of one man, there must be vehement expression. Not only must joy have its glad tumult, but fear its shriek, and agony its loud wail. Music, considered merely xxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. as sound addressed to the ear, must do its part, — producing vibrations upon the heart-strings of men, recalling them from their worldliness, rousing them from their torpor, and engag ing them in the high service of God ; and it must be allowed to produce its most intense effects by means best adapted to its principles and nature. To such music, language that is not impassioned, and that does not at times exhibit even violent emotion, would be altogether inappropriate^ Witness the exaggerated expression in words and gesture in the dra matic accompaniment adapted to that modern masterpiece of musical genius, — the Italian opera. Such accompani ment, apart from the music, seems strained and grotesque; but with it, is felt to be suitable, and even indispensable to the finest impression. May it not be allowed that this is true in a measure of the Psalms? It accounts in some degree for expressions of suffering more intense than the known circum stances account for, but which utter only too feebly the secret sorrows of the heart before God. We approach now the second principal question proposed at the outset : How was this Book of Psalms produced ? The key to the answer has already been furnished in the reference that has been made to their connection with the facts of individual life, whether of David or some later mas ters of sacred song. The royal poet, who calls himself in his last words (2 Sam. xxiii. 1) "the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel," is the representative singer of the Old Testament. Others after him sang in like strains, after similar experienpe, and by inspiration of the same Divine Spirit; but he is the leader and type of them all. There is no good reason to doubt that he produced the grand est and sweetest of the Psalms, and probably the largest num ber; and, further, that they relate to the circumstances of his own history. This accounts for the tenacity with which those who know them hold them in deep affection, — that they are INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxv genuine, as having originated in an actual human life. What ever imaginative activity they manifest, they are not, like much of our most charming poetry, mere fiction. We do not depreciate such poetry, but admire and enjoy it beyond measure. A true poet may hold men rapt and spell-bound by the creations of his own fancy. He moves them to shouts of joy or to tears on the hollow basis of simulated fact. Such productions are sources of refined and exalted gratification in ordinary life. But when we come to face the stern realities of human existence, with its conflicts and its woes, we must have truth. One who has suffered sore trouble, and found help in God, is the man whose words are seized with avidity by the suffering, and such words are these in the Psalms. They do not work upon our emotional nature by cunning counterfeits of genuine feeling. Their heroes are not those of the stage, exhibiting before us mock transports of grief and of joy. They lay bare their own bleeding hearts ; they give us the outpouring before God of their actual hopes and fears, their struggles and conflicts, their dangers and deliverances. We see how and where they found comfort in their sorrow and hope in their despair, and on this basis they sway our hearts and control our lives. In approaching the Majesty on high we have solid ground under our feet in using words which sinful men like ourselves have used, and the Lord heard them, and saved them from all their fears. We thus reach the very heart of the inquiry proposed. We believe that the Psalms have come to us by inspiration of God. But this does not reach the whole truth. Inspiration is very commonly thought of as a Divine power working mys teriously in the heart of some selected man, and producing in words spoken or written immediate results. If this only were true of the Psalms, if they came without human admixture right out of the mind and heart of God in some mechani cal way, the man who wrote them would have passed out of xxvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. mind, and we should have gloried in our Psalms as Divine, and doubtless should have found them very helpful and comforting. But God designed something better for us, and long prepa ration had to be made. In order that our hearts might be more surely and effectively reached, as they are by the actual in the lives of men of like passions with ourselves, than by the purely ideal, even though Divinely produced, the fountains must be created out of which the healing streams shall flow. This at once carries us very far back of the time when the Psalms were composed, and of everything usually in our minds when we speak of inspiration. The story of the Psalms in their inception is somewhat like that of the Gospels. It is comparatively recent in Biblical thought that the four fold Gospel, on which we depend for our portraiture of the earthly life of our Saviour, was produced by men whose whole previous life had been Divinely ordered for this special pur pose, and that these were brought into continued personal contact with our blessed Lord, that each might give us in a simple, truthful way the impression that had been made upon himself in the use of his own faculties. It was necessary that these witnesses should be typical men, who would fairly repre sent great classes of mankind to whom their story must be told. We cannot doubt that the individual traits of these men had been regarded, and their circumstances and surroundings arranged from their birth, so that each artless narrative should have the stamp of individuality and genuineness, and that in their combination the picture should be round and full, vivid and lifelike, and that the hearts of men might be seized by the conviction: This man actually lived upon the earth as here described, and he is the Son of the living God. We pass back to David, the representative psalmist of the Psalter. There is no record in the Old Testament of the Divine ordering of a life more marked than we find here. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxvii The prophet Samuel was sent to the house of Jesse to anoint, for the throne of Israel, the youngest of his sons, — the one his own father thought least eligible for high position. But we cannot believe that the Divine ordering began then. Al ready he had rich endowments for the future he was to attain. Not only were there excellencies of character, Divinely imparted, to be trained and developed as God best knows how, but he must have been a born poet. While his medita tive and devout nature first responded to the claims of God during his shepherd life, it was then that his fledgling efforts at song were put forth. But in order that he might voice in poetic strains the most profound emotions of sinners and sufferers before God, he must become a pupil in their hard school, and not one stroke of the rod must be spared. We are prepared now to fit what we have gotten into its place, and to speak emphatically. It was the gracious thought of God to provide for His people a book of worship which should cultivate their personal association with Himself, and thus lift them out of sin and misery, and one that should abide through all time, more clearly understood, and more highly prized with the advance of years. In order to accomplish this He first produced the men, appointed their circumstances of temptation and suffering, accompanied by such timely mani festations of His grace as should enable them to write Psalms that would stir the hearts of men to their depths, — Psalms on the face of which genuineness should be inerasably stamped. David, the father of all who cultivated sacred song in Israel, He brought up from the pastures and sheepfolds, to wear a crown indeed, foreshadowing the Messiah, but to find no comfort nor rest until he had been hunted like a wild beast through deserts and mountains, not until he had passed through a furnace seven times heated in the treachery of his friends and the malignity of his enemies, not until his own son, his pride and his joy, had basely turned against him, xxviii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. and had driven him from his home and from the altars of God, not until his heart had been wrung by the untimely and violent death of that son, whom in all his wickedness he had loved more than his own life, not until a combina tion of great powers had threatened to wipe him and his kingdom off the face of the earth. David, the author of a large number of these Psalms, so suffered that he might pro duce for the world this truly Divine book. But there is a darker record in the life of the chief psalmist than that of suffering, and even more important to us. The man who shall furnish prayer of the right tone and quality for us must have sinned grievously against his neighbour, and even more against God. It has been a standing mystery and marvel how a man like David could commit such foul wicked ness, or, in a harder form, how one guilty of such sin could be so near to God. We have our solution now. We must have prayers that shall give voice to agonies deeper and more terrible than those produced from without, by the pressure of other men's sins. We must have the outcries of remorse, of shame, of penitence most profound, of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. We must have supplications for purity and pardon, for all that it might seem the hardest for a holy and a just God to give. We must learn, too, that the contrition has prevailed, that the prayer has been granted, and that peace is restored where all was uproar and confusion. We must have a fifty-first Psalm, put always within reach for time of need. For this is not the last man upon the earth that shall come thus before God. At what time have there not been many such as he, whose wretchedness might have been voiceless and despairing without such a prayer as this? Not so marvellous is the inspiration that enabled him, this royal poet, long after he had sinned and received pardon, to repro duce truly and in suitable accents his pleadings before God, as the far-seeing wisdom and grace that had brought him INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxix up into a position of great temptation to indulge every evil passion of his nature, in the almost irresponsible power of royalty, and had then withheld the grace that up to that time had strengthened his heart in honour, and purity, and truth. How poorly furnished for us miserable sinners, our Book of Prayer would have been without the Penitential Psalms! The Psalms were produced separately, but it was no acci dent that brought them together as here. We might almost say that it was a matter of natural attraction and cohesion. They could not be kept apart. But not less naturally, nor less surely, than if there were some occult law drawing to gether things that are in affinity, men of devout minds, recog nizing their common suitableness for helping the utterance of sinful men when bowing in worship before God, without miracle, yet Divinely illuminated, have given us this Psalter. It only remains to say something concerning the following version and its appendages. The thought of an independent translation of the Psalms had its beginning in connection with the Anglo-American revision of the Old Testament. In that revision conservatism and compromise were character istic features and controlling principles. The revisers were bound by the rules they had heartily and wisely adopted, to respect the attachment of English-speaking people to the Authorized Version, and to confine themselves to the most necessary changes. This was adhered to most rigidly in the more familiar portions of Scripture, and most of all in the Psalms. It constituted the most delicate and difficult part of their work. They were continually reminded that they were merely revisers, and not independent translators, and often felt obliged to put aside manifest improvement, in favour of the more ancient and familiar rendering that had the ground. They were unanimous in acting on this principle, although they might occasionally differ about details. Yet they knew very well how often by a delicate touch here xxx INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. and there, a Psalm may be illuminated, and its beauty, as well as its clearness and power, 'immeasurably enhanced. The ef fect may be produced by bringing out an emphatic pronoun, by the change of a connective particle, by the closer observa tion of a misconceived tense, by the transposition of words into the Hebrew order for the recovery of lost emphasis, or by other like changes not affecting the substance of the Psalm. Singly they may seem of little consequence, but unitedly they often produce a wonderful transformation. It was this that induced the attempt to translate the Psalms into language that should exhibit the thought of the original more faithfully, and yet more poetically; and those associated with the author in Bible revision in Great Britain and at home, have manifested their kindly interest and hearty approval. Some of our English Psalms are nearly faultless, while others fail in bringing out the spirit and rhythm of the old Hebrew bards, or are even prosaic, awkward in expression, and ob scure. Why should not individual scholarship and taste be laid under contribution to perform for David and other mas ters of Hebrew song what so many gifted minds have done for the poetry of Homer? Many such translations might be made for private use, or in the interest of Bible study, with the greatest benefit. It is easy to distinguish between their use in public worship, where our grand old English Psalter, with comparatively little change, must hold its ground, and the less sacred use to which we now refer. The first result of the author's efforts in this direction was published in 1884 under the title, "The Praise Songs of Israel," and a second revised edition in 1889. The promise was made with the former, and repeated with the latter, that when it should be practicable, explanatory notes would be given, hav ing in view a further edition to which they might be attached. The promise of notes is herewith fulfilled, but the text has been so thoroughly rewrought that it may fairly be called a INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxi new translation. The kindly and generous comments upon the work in its first form produced no blindness to its imper fections. On the contrary, they occasioned a more severe scrutiny, in which every word was challenged anew, and the structure of every sentence and phrase carefully pondered. Those who know how difficult it is to translate Hebrew poetry into a language so different in its idioms as the Eng lish, and at the same time preserve something of the poetic aspect, cadence, and flow of the original, will not wonder that this jealous re-examination suggested improvement. They will understand that one coming back to such work after a con siderable interval, knowing well every difficult or doubtful point, remembering what renderings had been least satisfac tory to himself, found many places where, by the change of a word, line, or couplet, a blemish might be removed, or some desirable effect produced, bringing out more distinctly the beauty, force, and impressiveness of the old inspiration, that had been at the best so imperfectly rendered. It was thought possible, by additional labour, to approach one degree nearer success in the attempt to weave into a fabric uniform in tex ture, colour, and all that produces impression upon the mind and heart, the various materials that compose these translated Psalms, Hebrew thought and English expression, renderings from the Authorized Version that can never be excelled, and fresher results that have been reached by masters in philologi cal and exegetical science, together with some personal ventures where the sense is admitted to be doubtful. In this fresh work special attention has been given to rhythmic effect. We cannot accept the views concerning the structure and rhythm of Hebrew verse which some Se mitic scholars ardently insist upon, claiming exact measure ment, — so many lines to the strophe, and so many syllables to the line. We strongly object to the temerity with which this is made the principle and basis of a new Textual Criti- xxxii INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. cism, — making the fact conform to the theory, and freely omitting or inserting syllables or lines to bring the Massoretic text into harmony with the artificial schema of the restora- tionist. See our note at Psalm xiv. 6. But unquestionably this poetry has a free swinging rhythm, marked by the ac cents, which has sometimes been compared to the galloping of a horse. A Rabbi accomplished in reading Hebrew poetry will exhibit it charmingly; but the literal reproduction of this in English, syllable for syllable, beat for beat, and interval for interval, is not possible, or if it were, it would not be mellifluous to ears educated to different rhythmic expression. The nearest approach to it that could be read with pleasure is that of some of the most beautiful lines in our mother version, — indeed of a very large number with scarcely notice able change. An instance occurs at the opening of that plaintive melody, Psalm cxxxvii. : — " By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; Yea, we wept, remembering Zion." Its adaptation to varied and vehement emotion on a different key may be estimated in Psalms lxviii., lxxiv., and lxxxix. It comes nearest to the rhythmic cadence of anapaestic verse, yet perfectly free as regards the comparative length of lines and other requirements of such verse in metre and rhyme. The question had to be practically solved whether these features could be dispensed with without a feeling of loss, as if one were reading prose rather than poetry. This last, however, was not the most important question to be encountered. It was whether one could yield himself to this rhythmic current without sacrificing faithfulness as a translator. The attempt has been made, with the most con scientious determination, to exhibit the thought truly, what ever else might have to suffer, and it is hoped not without some success. The translator bound himself to this at the INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxiii outset, by resolving to attach to his rendering the exegetical notes he had largely prepared before his work was recast in the present form. It is believed in fact that in many cases he has come nearer to the original than in his first effort, as that represented it: more nearly than the Authorized Version, and more nearly than the conservative rules of the Bible Revision Company permitted them even to attempt. It may be added that he could not have abandoned himself to this special verse movement, were it not manifestly the only one to which the most literal translation from the Hebrew easily accommodates itself. This is shown conclusively by the circumstance already referred to, that the early English trans lators so frequently fell into it unconsciously. The lines in the English Bible that exhibit it the most distinctly are most literal and exact as translations ; and it is worthy of men tion that it aids greatly in the intelligent and effective read ing of the Psalms, throwing the emphasis on the accented syllable of each principal word in a sentence, and leaving the unaccented particles, or other short subsidiary words or syl lables, to fill up the intervals. The grammatical principles underlying this new translation are identical with those of the former work as exhibited and illustrated in the prefaces to the two editions. The most important of these relates to the use of the so-called Hebrew tenses. They were treated in the early grammars of the language as representing past and future time. The trans lators were confronted by the fact that the so-called future has almost the entire ground in historic narrative, and the so- called past in prophecy. They disposed of this ingeniously by attributing to the connective " and " a mysterious power of converting past into future, and future into past, calling it " vav-conversive." Having this, they did very well till they reached the poetical portions of the Bible, where they were helpless. They often found themselves compelled, in intelli- xxxiv INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. gent disregard of their grammar, to translate either form by the present tense. But their work exhibits no uniformity, and is often perplexing. Modern Hebrew scholarship has dis cerned that neither form of the verb properly represents either the past or the future. They are really present as respects either of the three conceptions of time, as indicated, adverbi ally or otherwise, outside of the form itself. In poetry they are continually intermingled. Very often both forms occur in the same verse as describing present emotion or fact under different aspects, and the same conception of time passes on without change from verse to verse, where translators confuse us by constant and needless variation. As to the distinction between the two forms thus treated as present, the perfect tense, formerly called the praeter, includes with the act its completed issue in the present. It is some thing that lies in the mind of the writer or speaker as fully matured and permanent. The imperfect tense, formerly the future, exhibits the act in its inception and continuance until another act succeeds. The English language obliges us to render both aspects by the simple present tense. It should be always borne in mind that in the Hebrew, the imperfect tense is the natural and predominant expression of gracious affections in their active flow and succession — of love, trust, gratitude, joy in God, desire and praise as springing up re- sponsively to the Divine touch upon the heart. The Revised Old Testament has recognized the true significance of these forms by giving us in Psalms xviii. I, "I love Thee, O LORD, my strength," and in xxvi. 8, " I love the habitation of Thy house," where the Authorized Version has in the former, the future, and in the latter, the past. There are a thousand other cases where the same change might have been introduced with great advantage. It will be noted that in Hebrew poetry nearly every verse is divided into two parts, called hemistichs (half- verses), in- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. xxxv dicated by a strong disjunctive accent at the close of the former. These principal lines are subdivided by minor dis junctives. Wherever in the following translation a line is thus subdivided, giving three or more lines to the verse, the begin ning of the second half-verse is indicated by its being placed at the extreme left, the subordinate lines in either part being thrown somewhat forward. Something should yet be said with regard to the material attached to the translated text, before and after. It required strong and constant repression to avoid increasing it, so as to make a very large book. A continued exposition, verse by verse, that might be called a commentary, was never intended. It was assumed that the translation had done all that lay in its province, leaving nothing obscure that it could legitimately clear up. In doing this it was sometimes obliged to be less mechanical than its wont, and to give the thought in its con nection without adhering rigidly to the precise words, for to one unacquainted with Hebrew idioms, these are often hope lessly unintelligible. Yet more frequently our differences from the English Psalter arise from a closer adherence to the origi nal. In determining what should be added or prefixed, it was designed to furnish in prefatory remark, in analytical outline, and in notes explanatory of words and phrases, or calling at tention to the connection and drift of thought, whatever might be needed for the removal of obscurity. It was the combined purpose that the reader might be put, as nearly as possible, into the position of intelligent Israelites, who first sang these songs of Zion. Consequently the notes principally touch the points at which the true sense might not be readily discerned, or where it seemed hopeful that a few simple words would illuminate the Psalm in its unity of thought, and render the impression of the whole more vivid. It was part of the plan, whenever it might be found neces sary, for the sake of the just expression of the thought in xxxvi INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. English, to depart slightly from precise mechanical literalness, to give in a note the Hebrew or its exact translation; and also, to avoid repetition by referring back to the explanation of a word or clause once given, whenever it should again occur. The former purpose has been executed as far as seemed necessary, and the latter to a considerable extent. It was found that a uniform system of back reference would needlessly overload the pages, for a single important word might require such notice ten, twenty, or a hundred times. The translation of the Psalms by Prof. T. K. Cheyne, D.D., of Oxford, has been consulted with practical advantage. His renderings are usually excellent, often admirable. His critical material is important; partly, as indicating some necessary changes in the Massoretic text, but more, as proving its sub stantial correctness. His notes are able and suggestive, ex tending to matters not embraced in the practical purpose of this volume. It is impossible to do justice to the kindness of Professor Cheyne's frequent reference to " The Praise Songs of Israel," or to his generous deprecation of being supposed in rivalry with its author. In this fresh effort to elucidate the Psalms the author has been encouraged by the hearty commendation of his former work by other Biblical scholars in Great Britain and America ; such as the Right Rev. Edward Henry Bickersteth, D.D., Bishop of Exeter, the Very Rev. R. Payne Smith, D.D., Dean of Canterbury, Prof. A. H. Sayce, D.D., of Oxford, Prin cipal David Brown, D.D., of the Free Church College at Aberdeen, Prof. John Dury Geden, D.D., of Didsbury Col lege, and Prof. Alexander Roberts, D.D., of St. Andrews; and in the United States, the Rev. Drs. Howard Crosby, Charles A. Briggs, T. W. Chambers, and William Hayes Ward, of New York, and Professors G. Emlen Hare, D.D., of Philadelphia, George E. Day, D.D., of Yale, and J. Henry Thayer, D.D., of Harvard. THE PSALMS. THE PSALMS. BOOK I THE RIGHTEOUS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE WICKED. THE first Psalm is anonymous. It is supposed to have been written as an introduction to the First Book. But it is admirably fitted for its place at the head of the whole collection. For it touches the key-note of them all, unswerving loyalty in heart and life to God and His law, in con trast with faithlessness and disobedience. That in character and destiny there is "a difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not" (Mai. iii. 18), is a lesson that stands out in these Psalms in bold relief, like raised letters for the blind. In accordance with this difference our introductory Psalm is sharply separated into two strophes or stanzas, each consisting of three verses. 1. The righteous, his character, life, and happy tot (1-3). 2. The wicked, his character, light and worthless as chaff, and his condemnation before Cod (4-6). I How blest is this man ! — In the counsel of the wicked he walks not. Nor stands in the way of the sinner, Nor sits where the scoffing assemble ; 2 But delights in the law of Jehovah, And rehearseth His law day and night: 3 As a tree planted in by the trenches of water, Yields fruit in due time, And its leaf does not fade, So in all that he does he shall prosper. i THE PSALMS. 4 Not so are the wicked, But like chaff blown about by the wind ; 5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners where the righteous shall meet; ... 6 For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked shall perish. (i) How blest. Heb. 'ashre, O the happinesses of. A noun abso lute and exclamatory. The plural form intensifies and enlarges the conception, implying abundant and various felicity. This word is not to be confounded with the pass. participle of the verb barak, to bless, as if the meaning were that God has blessed the man referred to, as in Jer. xvii. 7. The rendering happy, as describing an enviable condition, would convey the true sense, but not as necessarily in cluding personal enjoyment. It is equivalent in this respect to the Greek fia.Kapi.os (see Matt. v. 3-1 1), and the Latin felix. The rendering how blest is less likely to be misun derstood, and exhibits the exclama tory emphasis of the Hebrew — The Hebrew verbs in this verse are in the perfect tense. But they are not to be translated by the English per fect (Cheyne and others), as if the felicity were confined to those who have never sinned. They rather describe the abandonment of sinful deeds and associations as now an accomplished fact, and steadfastly adhered to as a permanent charac teristic. The so-called perfect tense in Hebrew often bears this sense and like the Greek perfect is to be rendered by our present. — The ¦wicked . . . the sinner. The terms most commonly employed to de scribe men of immoral life. Here the former seems to refer to charac ter and principle, t^e latter to activ ity in evil-doin