PROMISE AND REALITY

My lovingkindness will I keep for him for evermore,
And my covenant shall stand fast with him.
His seed also will I make to endure for ever,

And his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake my law,

And walk not in my judgements;

If they break my statutes,

And keep not my commandments;

Then will I visit their transgression with the rod,

And their iniquity with stripes.

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Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from

him,

Nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.

My covenant will I not break,

Nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

Once have I sworn by my holiness,

Surely I will not be false unto David:

"His seed shall endure for ever,

And his throne as the sun before me.
It shall be established for ever as the moon,
And the witness in heaven is faithful.”' (?)

But thou hast cast off and abhorred,

Thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.
Thou hast spurned the covenant of thy servant:
Thou hast profaned his crown even to the ground.

Thou hast broken down all his hedges;

Thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin.

All that pass by the way spoil him:

He is a reproach to his neighbours.

Thou hast exalted the right hand of his adversaries;
Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.
Thou hast turned back the edge of his sword,

And hast not made him to stand in the battle.

Thou hast made his glory to cease,

And cast his throne down to the ground.

The days of his youth hast thou shortened:
Thou hast covered him with shame.

How long, Lord? wilt thou hide thyself for ever?
How long will thy wrath burn like fire?

Remember how short my time is :

For what vanity thou hast created all the children of men!

What man is he that liveth, and will not see death,
Who will deliver his soul from the hand of Sheol?
Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses,

Which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?
Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants;

How I bear in my bosom the shame of many peoples; Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O Lord;

Wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed.

Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen.

'For I have said, Lovingkindness shall be built up for ever.' If the text be correct, we must explain with Wellhausen: 'In spite of all, I hold fast to my belief in God's fidelity.'

"The holy ones' and the sons of the mighty' are the angels. "The festal shout.' The shout with which many religious festivities were celebrated' (Driver).

'Thy loving one,' i.e. David. The Hebrew text reads 'loving ones,' which might mean that the Psalmist regarded the prophecy for all intents and purposes as addressed to the nation.

"Thine anointed': in view of what follows, the anointed' is clearly the people of Israel. But the 'king' at the end of the third stanza must be explained to refer to the ideal or Messianic king, the hoped-for descendant of David. It may however be that Wellhausen is right in translating this verse like the Authorized Version: For the Lord is our shield; and the holy one of Israel is our king.'

The Psalm ends somewhat abruptly. Perhaps the real end has been lost. The words in italics are the doxology closing the third book and the second collection of the Psalms.

§ 3. Psalms twenty and twenty-one.-We now hark back to the first collection and halt at Psalms xx and xxi. Here the king appears to be actually existent. Who is he? Some scholars think that these Psalms must be pre-exilic, and suppose the king to be Hezekiah or Josiah. But there is nothing else in the Psalm to specially favour a pre-exilic date, and phraseological parallels would rather point in the contrary direction. Some have thought of Simon the Maccabee. Captain and high priest of the Jews as he was, an enthusiastic Psalmist might conceivably call him 'king.' Others, again, have supposed that the anointed one' is the High Priest, who is called 'king' by an inaccuracy which is rather verbal than real. For in the post-exilic period the High Priest

'O LORD, SAVE THE KING'

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was the chief official or magistrate of the community. According to another hypothesis the king' may be the people, succeeding to the place formerly occupied by the Davidic line. And lastly, Professor Cheyne now holds that the king is the Messiah, 'who is supposed to be on the throne. In Psalm xx he is represented as just starting to fight with the enemies of Israel. It is perhaps his first campaign, for in Psalm xxi the church-nation, in praising God for the king's victory, represents the total destruction of the enemies as still future.' Between all these conflicting hypotheses I will not attempt to decide.

The Lord answer thee in the day of trouble;

The name of the God of Jacob set thee up on high; Send thee help from the sanctuary,

And support thee out of Zion;

Remember all thy meal offerings,

And accept thy burnt sacrifice;

Grant thee according to thine own heart;
And fulfil all thy purpose.

We will rejoice in thy victory,

In the name of our God we will exult:
The Lord fulfil all thy petitions.

Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed;
He will answer him from his holy heaven
With the saving strength of his right hand.
Some through chariots, and some through horses,

But we will prevail through the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen:

But we are risen, and stand upright.

O Lord, save the king,

And answer us on the day when we call.

The change of tone at the opening of the second stanza is usually explained to mean that a sacrifice has probably been just offered to make the war a "holy war." The Psalmist is confident that his

prayer is granted, and sees the victory in advance.

In Psalm xxi the invocation of the king seems couched in terms of oriental exaggeration, but Professor Cheyne notices that Pliny, in writing to Trajan, speaks of his 'aeternitas.' In the second stanza the commentators dispute whether the 'thy's' and 'thou's'

refer to God or the king. In either case the sentiment resembles that of the majority of warlike songs of other nations.

The king joyeth in thy strength, O Lord;

And in thy salvation how greatly doth he rejoice!
Thou hast given him his heart's desire,

And hast not withholden the request of his lips.
For thou meetest him with excellent blessings:
Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him,
Even length of days for ever and ever.
His glory is great through thy salvation:

Honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
For thou makest him most blessed for ever:

Thou gladdenest him with joy before thy countenance.

For the king trusteth in the Lord,

And through the lovingkindness of the Most High he shall not be moved.

Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies :

Thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time when thou shewest thy face:

The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath.

And the fire shall devour them.

Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth,

And their seed from among the children of men.

If they intend evil against thee,

If they imagine a mischievous device, they will not be able to perform it.

For thou wilt make them turn their back,

Thou wilt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength:

So will we sing and praise thy power.

§ 4. The sixty-first Psalm.-In the next Psalm (lxi) the singer is far from the Temple, and yearns for the spiritual comfort which he had found within it. Yet even in his apparent dependence upon an outward building he was winning his way to inward freedom. Half unconsciously to himself the covert of God's wings' was

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affording to him the protection which they are wide enough to give throughout the world.

Who the king may be is little less uncertain here than in Psalms xx and xxi.

Hear my cry, O God;

Attend unto my prayer.

From the end of the earth I cry unto thee, for my heart

is overwhelmed:

Lead me to the rock that is too high for me.

For thou art my refuge,

And a strong tower from the enemy.

May I dwell in thy tent for ever :

May I take refuge in the covert of thy wings.

For thou, O God, hearest my vows:

Thou grantest the request of those that fear thy name. Mayest thou prolong the king's life :

May his years be as many generations.

May he abide before God for ever:

Appoint thy lovingkindness and truthfulness to guard him. (?)

So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever,

As I daily perform my vows.

'Too high for me.' The rock of safety is too hard and high for him to climb by his own unaided powers. It is not mere physical safety to which the singer refers. He prays God to help him to inward as well as to outward security, to the confidence of faith as well as to protection from the enemy.

$5. The seventy-second Psalm.-Of the sixth Psalm of this group (lxxii) there are, as it seems to me, only two probable interpretations. Either the Psalm was written as a congratulatory ode upon the accession of some foreign potentate, of whose kingdom Judæa formed a province, or it refers to the Messiah. If the first hypothesis be true, the king is probably Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B. C.). It may also be that when the Psalm was admitted into the second collection, it was given a Messianic interpretation, and was touched up and expanded to suit the new meaning. The second stanza may be such an addition. But it is also quite conceivable that the king was from the beginning (in the mind and intention of the original writer) the Messiah of the future.