THE PSALMS.
BOOK
III.
PSALMS
LXXIII.-LXXXIX.
CONTENTS.
THE
PSALMS.
BOOK
III.
PAGE
PSALMS
LXXIII.-LXXXIX. I-157
BOOK
IV.
PSALMS
XC.--CVI 159-267
BOOK V.
PSALMS
CVII.-CL 269-487
APPENDIX:--
I. MESSIANIC INTERPRETATION 489-499
II. THE MASSORETH 500-503
GENERAL
INDEX 505-520
GRAMMATICAL
AND CRITICAL INDEX 521-523
PSALM LXXIII.
THERE are some questions which never
lose their interest, some
problems
of which it may be said, that they are ever old and yet
ever
new. Not the least anxious of such questions are those which
deal
with God's moral government of the world. They lie close to
man's
heart, and are ever asking and pressing for solution. They
may
differ in different times, they may assume various forms; but
perhaps
no man ever looked thoughtfully on the world as it is with-
out
seeing much that was hard to reconcile with a belief in the love
and
wisdom of God.
One form of this moral difficulty
pressed heavily upon the pious
Jew
under the Old Dispensation. It was this: Why should good
men
suffer, and bad men prosper? This difficulty was aggravated,
we
must remember, by what seemed to be the manifest contradiction
between
the express teaching of his Law, and the observed facts of
human
experience. The Law told him that God was a righteous
Judge,
meting out to men in this world the due recompense of their
deeds.
The course of the world, where those who had cast off the
fear
of God were rich and powerful, made him ready to question
this
truth, and was a serious stumbling-block to his faith. And
further,
"the Hebrew mind had never risen to the conception of
universal
law, but was accustomed to regard all visible phenomena
as
the immediate result of a free Sovereign Will. Direct interposi-
tion,
even arbitrary interference, was no difficulty to the Jew, to
whom
Jehovah was the absolute Sovereign of the world, not acting,
so
far as he could see, according to any established order."* Hence
it
seemed to him inexplicable that the world of life should not reflect
perfectly,
as in a mirror, the righteousness of God.
This is the perplexity which appears
in this Psalm, as it does in
the
37th, and also in the Book of Job. Substantially it is the same
problem:
but it is met differently. In the 37th Psalm the advice
given
is to wait, to trust in Jehovah, and to rest assured that in the
end
the seeming disorder will be set right even in
this world. The
wicked
will perish, the enemies of Jehovah be cut off, and the
* For some valuable suggestions on
this Psalm I am indebted to a friend,
the
Rev. J. G. Mould.
4 PSALM
LXXIII.
righteous
will be preserved from evil, and inherit the land. Thus
God
suffers wickedness for a time, only the more signally to manifest
His
righteousness in overthrowing it. That is the first, the simplest,
the
most obvious solution of the difficulty. In the Book of Job,
where
the sorrow and the perplexity are the darkest, where the ques-
tion
lies upon the heart, "heavy as lead, and deep almost as life,"
the
sufferer finds no such consolation. As a Gentile, he has no need
to
reconcile his experience with the sanctions of the Pentateuch.
But
he has to do that which is not less hard, he has to reconcile it
with
a life's knowledge of God, and a life's love of God. He
searches
his heart, he lays bare his life, he is conscious of no trans-
gression,
and he cannot understand why chastisement should be laid
upon
him, whilst the most daring offenders against the Majesty of
God
escape with impunity. Sometimes with a bitterness that cannot
be
repressed, sometimes with a sorrow hushing itself into resig-
nation,
he still turns to God, he would fain stand before His
judgement-seat,
plead with Him his cause, and receive a righteous
sentence.
But Job does not find the solution of the Psalmist. He
is
driven to feel that all this is a mystery. God will not give an
account
of any of His matters. "I go
forward, but He is not there
and
backward, but I cannot perceive Him " (Job xxiii.). And when
Jehovah
appears at the end of the Book, it is to show the folly of
man,
who would presume to think that, short-sighted and ignorant
as
he is, he can fathom the counsels of the Most High. He appears,
not
to lift the veil of mystery, but to teach the need of humiliation
and
the blessedness of faith.*
In this Psalm, again, a different
conclusion is arrived at. In part
it
is the same as that which has already met us in Psalm xxxvii., in
part
it is far higher. The Psalmist here is not content merely with
visible
retribution in this world. He sees it indeed in the case of the
ungodly.
When he was tempted to envy their lot, when he had all
but
yielded to the sophistry of those who would have persuaded
him
to be even as they, the temptation was subdued by the reflection
that
such prosperity came to an end as sudden as it was terrible.
But
he does not place over against this, on the other side, an earthly
portion
of honour and happiness for the just. Their portion is in
* There is a difficulty, no doubt,
in reconciling this solution, or rather
non-solution
of the problem, with that which is given subsequently in the
historical
conclusion of the Book. There we find Job recompensed in
this
life for all his sufferings. If the historical parts of the Book are by
the
same author as the dialogue (as Ewald maintains), then we must
suppose
that when Job is brought to confess his own vileness, and his own
ignorance
and presumption, then, and not till then, does God reward him
with
temporal prosperity.
PSALM LXXIII. 5
God.
He is the stay and the satisfaction of their hearts now. He
will
take them to Himself and to glory hereafter. This conviction it
is
which finally chases away the shadows of doubt, and brings light
and
peace into his soul. And this conviction is the more remark-
able,
because it is reached in spite of the distinct promise made
of
temporal recompense to piety, and in the absence of a full and
definite
Revelation with regard to the life to come. In the clear
light
of another world and its certain recompenses, such perplexities
either
vanish or lose much of their sharpness. When we confess
that
God's righteousness has a larger theatre for its display than this
world
and the years of man, we need not draw hasty conclusions
from
"the slight whisper" of His ways which reaches us here.
It is an interesting question
suggested by this Psalm, but one
which
can only be touched on here, how far there is anything in
common
between doubts, such as those which perplexed the ancient
Hebrews,
and those by which modern thinkers are harassed.* There
are
some persons, who now, as of old, are troubled by the moral
aspect
of the world. To some, this perplexity is even aggravated by
the
disclosures of Revelation. And men of pious minds have been
shaken
to their inmost centre by the appalling prospect of the ever-
lasting
punishment of the wicked. But the difficulties which are,
properly
speaking, modern difficulties, are of another kind. They
are,
at least in their source, speculative rather than moral. The
observed
uniformity of nature, the indissoluble chain of cause and
effect,
the absolute certainty of the laws by which all visible phe-
nomena
are governed, these are now the stumbling-blocks even to
devout
minds. How, it is asked, can we reconcile these things with
the
belief in a Personal God, or at least with an ever-active Personal
Will?
Had the world ever a Maker? or, if it had, does He still
control
and guide it? Knowing as we do that the order of cause
and
effect is ever the same, how can we accept miracles or Divine
interpositions
of any kind? What avails prayer, when every event
* This point has been touched on by
Dr. A. S. Farrar in his "Bampton
Lectures,"
a work which, for breadth and depth of learning, has few
parallels
in modern English literature, and which combines in no common
degree
the spirit of a sound faith and a true philosophy. Dr. Farrar
says: "It is deeply interesting to observe,
not merely that the difficulties
concerning
painfully
perplex the modern mind, but also that the friends of Job
exhibit
the instinctive tendency which is observed in modern times to
denounce
his doubt as sin, not less than to attribute his trials to evil as
the
direct cause. These two books of Scripture [Job and Ecclesiastes],
together
with the seventy-third Psalm, have an increasing religious
importance
as the world grows older. The things written aforetime were
written
for our learning."—
6 PSALM
LXXIII.
that
happens has been ordained from eternity? How can any words
of
man interrupt the march of the Universe? Ships are wrecked
and
harvests are blighted, and famine and pestilence walk the earth,
not
because men have forgotten to pray, but in accordance with the
unerring
laws which storm, and blight, and disease obey. Such are
some
of the thoughts—the birth, it may be said, of modern science
—which
haunt and vex men now.
Difficulties like these are not
touched upon in Scripture. But the
spirit
in which all difficulties, all doubts should be met, is the same.
If
the answer lies in a region above and beyond us, our true wisdom
is
to wait in humble dependence upon God, in active fulfilment of
what
we can see to be our duty, till the day dawn and the shadows
flee
away. And it is this which Scripture teaches us in this Psalm,
in
Job, and in that other Book, which is such a wonderful record of
a
doubting self-tormenting spirit, the Book of Ecclesiastes. It has
been
said that the Book of Job and the 73rd Psalm "crush free
thought."*
It would have been truer to say that
they teach us that
there
are heights which we cannot reach, depths which the intellect
of
man cannot fathom; that God's ways are past finding out; that
difficulties,
perplexities, sorrows, are best healed and forgotten in the
Light
which streams from His throne, in the Love which by His
Spirit
is shed abroad in the heart.
But the Psalm teaches us also a
lesson of forbearance towards
the
doubter. It is a lesson perhaps just now peculiarly needed.
Christian
sympathy is felt, Christian charity is extended toward
every
form of misery, whether mental or bodily, except toward that
which
is often the acutest of all, the anguish of doubt. Here it
seems
as if coldness, suspicion, even denunciation, were justifiable.
And
yet doubt, even to the verge of scepticism, as is plain from this
Psalm,
may be no proof of a bad and corrupt heart; it may rather
be
the evidence of an honest one. Doubt may spring from the very
depth
and earnestness of a man's faith. In the case of the Psalmist,
as
in the case of Job, that which lay at the bottom of the doubt,
that
which made it a thing so full of anguish, was the deep-rooted
conviction
of the righteousness of God. Unbelief does not doubt,
faith
doubts.† And God permits the doubt in
His truest and noblest
* Quinet, OEuvres, tome i. c. 5, § 4.
† The expression has been criticised
as paradoxical, but the following
admirable
passages, which I have met with since the first edition of this
work
was published, may justify my language. They are quoted by
Archbishop
Whately in his Annotations on Bacon's
Essays, pp. 358, 359.
The
first is from a writer in the Edinburgh
Review for January, 1847,
on
"The Genius of Pascal": "So little inconsistent with a habit of
intelligent
faith are such transient invasions of doubt, or such diminished
PSALM
LXXIII.
7
servants,
as our Lord did in the case of Thomas, that He may
thereby
plant their feet the more firmly on the rock of His own ever-
lasting
truth. There is, perhaps, no Psalm in which Faith asserts
itself
so triumphantly, cleaves to God with such words of lofty hope
and
affection, and that precisely because in no other instance has
the
fire been so searching, the test of faith so severe. It may be
well
to remember this when we see a noble soul compassed about
with
darkness, yet struggling to the light, lest we "vex one whom
God
has smitten, and tell of the pain of His wounded ones " (Ps.
lxix.
26).
The Psalm consists of two parts:--
I. The Psalmist tells the story of
the doubts which had assailed
him,
the temptation to which he had nearly succumbed. Ver. 1-14.
II. He confesses the sinfulness of
these doubts, and explains how
he
had been enabled to overcome them. Ver. 15-28.
These principal portions have their
further subdivisions (which are
in
the main those given by Hupfeld):
which
his struggle with doubt brought him, ver. 1; then the general
statement
of his offence, ver. 2, 3.
b. The reason of which is more fully
explained to be the prosperity
of
the wicked, ver. 4, 5; and their insolence and pride in con-
sequence,
ver. 6-11.
c. The comfortless conclusion which
he had thence drawn, ver.
12-14.
perceptions
of the evidence of truth, that it may even be said that it is
only
those who have in some measure experienced them, who can be said
in
the highest sense to believe at all. He who has never had a doubt,
who
believes what he believes for reasons which he thinks as irrefragable
(if
that be possible) as those of a mathematical demonstration, ought not
to
be said so much to believe as to know; his belief is to him knowledge,
and
his mind stands in the same relation to it, however erroneous and
absurd
that belief may be. It is rather he who believes — not indeed
without
the exercise of his reason, but without the full satisfaction of his
reason—with
a knowledge and appreciation of formidable objections—it
is
this man who may most truly be said intelligently to believe."
The other is from a short poem by
Bishop Hinds:
"Yet so it is;
belief springs still
In souls that nurture doubt;
And we must go to Him,
who will
The baneful weed cast out.
"Did never thorns
thy path beset?
Beware—be not deceived;
He who has never doubted
yet
Has never yet believed.'
8 PSALM LXXIII.
II. a. By way of transition, he
tells how he had been led to
acknowledge
the impiety of this conclusion, and how, seeking for
a
deeper, truer view, he had come to the sanctuary of God, ver. 15—
17,
where he had learned the sudden and fearful end of the wicked,
ver.
18-20, and consequently the folly of
his own speculation.
b. Thus recovering from the almost
fatal shock which his faith had
received,
he returns to a sense of his true position. God holds him
by
his right hand, God guides him for the present, and will bring him
to
a glorious end, ver. 23, 24; hence he rejoices in the thought that
God
is his great and only possession, ver. 25, 26.
c. The general conclusion, that
departure from God is death and
destruction;
that in His presence and in nearness to Him are to be
found
joy and safety, ver. 27, 28.
[A PSALM OF
ASAPH.a]
I SURELYb God is good to
(Even) to such as are of
a pure heart.
2 But as for me, my feet were almost
gone,c
|
I.
SURELY. This particle, which occurs
twice again in this Psalm, is rendered
differently in each case by the
E. V.; here truly, in ver. 13 verily,
in ver. 18 surely: but one rendering
should be kept through- out.
The Welsh more correctly has,
yn ddiau (ver. I), diau (ver. 13, 18).
The word has been already discussed
in the note on lxii. 1, where
we have seen it is capable of two
meanings. Here it is used affirmatively,
and expresses the satisfaction
with which the con- clusion
has been arrived at, after all the
anxious questionings and de- batings
through which the Psalmist has
passed: "Yes, it is so; after all,
God is good, notwithstanding all
my doubts." It thus implies at the
same time a tacit opposition to a
different view of the case, such as that
which is described afterwards. "Fresh
from the conflict, he some- what
abruptly opens the Psalm with the
confident enunciation of the truth,
of which victory over doubt had
now made him more, and more |
intelligently,
sure than ever, that God
is good to as
are of a clean heart."—Essential Coherence of the Old
and New Testament, by my brother, the
Rev. T.
T. Perowne, p. 85, to which I may,
perhaps, be permitted to refer for
a clear and satisfactory view of the
whole Psalm. It is of importance to remark that
the result of the conflict is stated
before the conflict itself is described.
There is no parade of doubt
merely as doubt. He states first, and in the most
natural way, the
final conviction of his heart. this,
and reminds us that "they are not
all To
the true Israel God is Love; to them
"all things work together for good." OF A PURE HEART, lit. "pure of heart,"
as in xxiv. 4. Comp. Matt.v.8. 2. BUT AS FOR ME. The pro- noun
is emphatic. He places him- self,
with shame and sorrow, almost in
opposition to that Israel of God |
PSALM
LXXIII. 9
My steps had well-nigh slipt.
3
For I was envious at the arrogant,
When I saw the prosperity of the
wicked.
4
For they have no bands in their death,d
And their strengthe
(continueth) firm.
5
They are not in trouble as (other) men,
|
of
which he had just spoken. He has
in view the happiness of those who
had felt no doubt. Calvin some- what
differently explains: Even I, with
all my knowledge and advan- tages,
I who ought to have known better. GONE, lit. "inclined," not so much
in the sense of being bent under
him, as rather of being turned
aside, out of the way, as in Numb.
xx. 17, 2 Sam. ii. 19, 21, &c. The
verb in the next clause ex- presses
the giving way from weak- ness,
fear, &c., HAD . . . SLIPT, lit. "were
poured out" like water. 3. ENVIOUS, as in xxxvii. 1, Prov. xxiii.
17, wishing that his lot were like
theirs who seemed to be the favourites
of heaven. Calvin quotes the
story of Dionysius the Less, who,
having sacrilegiously plundered a
temple, and having sailed safely home,
said: "Do you see that the gods
smile upon sacrilege?" The prosperity
and impunity of the wicked
invite others to follow their example. THE ARROGANT. The word de- notes
those whose pride and in- fatuation
amounts almost to mad- ness.
It is difficult to find an exact equivalent
in English. Gesenius renders
it by superbi, insolentes, and J.
D. Michaelis by stolide gloriosi, "vain
boasters." It occurs in v. 5
[6], where see noted, and again in xxiv.
4 [5]. The LXX., in all these instances,
render vaguely, a@nomoi, para<nomoi. 4. BANDS. This word "bands," or
"tight cords,"or "fetters," occurs only
once besides, Is. lviii. 6. I have
now [2nd Edit.] adopted the simplest
and most straightforward rendering
of the words, "They |
have
no bands in their death" (lit. at or for their death, i.e. when they die),
because the objection brought against
it, that such a meaning is at
variance with the general scope of
the Psalm, the object of which is not
to represent the end of the un- godly
as happy (the very reverse is
asserted ver. 17, &c.), but to describe
the general prosperity of their
lives, no longer appears to me to
be valid. For we must remember that
the Psalmist is describing here not
the fact, but what seemed to him to
be the fact, in a state of mind which
he confesses to have been unhealthy.
Comp. Job xxi. 13, and see
the note on ver. 18 of this Psalm.
Otherwise it would be possible
to render [as in 1st Edit.], "For
no bands (of suffering) (bring them)
to their death." No fetters are,
so to speak, laid upon their limbs,
so that they should be de- livered
over bound to their great enemy.
They are not beset with sorrows,
sufferings, miseries, which by
impairing health and strength bring
them to death. This sense has
been very well given in the P.B.V.,
which follows Luther: "For
they are in no peril of death, But are lusty and strong." 5. The literal rendering of this verse
would be:-- "In
the trouble of man they are not, And with mankind they are not plagued." |