seems but to live in vain. Of himself he has no rescue from the grave; death and the shadowy land of spirits wait for him, and he cannot save his soul from their fearful grasp. He only Who delivered His own soul from the hand of hell, can deliver them who believe in Him. 48. Lord, where are Thy old loving-kindnesses which Thou swarest unto David in Thy truth? 49. Remember, Lord, the rebuke that Thy servants have and how I do bear in my bosom the rebukes of many people; 50. Wherewith Thine enemies have blasphemed Thee, and slandered the footsteps of Thine anointed : At length the oath sworn to David was fulfilled: 'God so loved the world, that He gave His onlybegotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' The Anointed came hiding His glory, laying aside His crown, clothed with weakness, and bearing the offences of many. But they who had been waiting for Him knew Him not; they did to Him, their Friend, as their enemies had done to them: the days of His youth they shortened, and covered Him with dishonour.' They defiled His face with spitting; they wounded His heart with rebukes and scorn; they blasphemed the Son of God, and slandered Christ their Saviour. They 'spake evil of that way' which is the following in His steps. Yet through all were the mighty counsels of Almighty mercy wrought out; for the sin of man, though it bring down chastisement upon himself, cannot make void the eternal purpose of God's long-enduring love. Praised be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen. Therefore must man, weak and erring as he is, strive to join his voice to that of the angels, who sang praise in the vale of Bethlehem. Let us praise the Son of God, 'the Lord of glory,' for His grace! He saved us for no reward; He heeded not our vileness; He sought us out when we looked not for Him; He redeemed us from the bondage of the Evil one; He drew us near unto Himself. He is the Amen, the faithful and true witness.' To Him, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, be ascribed all praise and glory, not in time only, but for evermore. Amen. So be it. The title of this Psalm is "A Maschil or Instruction of Ethan the Ezrahite." Ethan, the son of Zerah, was the brother of that Herman who has been supposed to be the writer of the preceding Psalm, but while the internal evidence of that Psalm was in favour of that supposition, in the case of this one so early an authorship is altogether out of the question. Ethan was a common name among the Levites, and an Ethan was the head of the choir of Merari (1 Chron. vi. 44). In this case the word Ezrahite must be taken in the sense of a stranger or sojourner, though may also mean a Levite who dwelt among the Ezrahites of the tribe of Judah. The LXX. read "Israelite" for "Ezrahite." The Psalm was composed, it is supposed by Dr. Kennicott, as a national prayer, during the distress which Judah suffered under the combined invasion of Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah king of Israel. The literal and historical meaning of this Psalm is sufficiently plain, but the spiritual and prophetic meaning is far more difficult to disentangle. The greater number of the Jewish Rabbis own it to be prophetic of the Messiah; the fathers all agree in the same judgment, and yet it is not easy to shew where the literal meaning is to give way to the spiritual meaning, they are both so blended together. It would appear that the writer was inspired to offer a prophetic prayer for the coming of that Anointed One Who was to be the King of Israel, and that his spirit was awakened, and his intercession was called forth by the troubles and distresses of the time in which he lived; when the promises of God made by Nathan, (compare 2 Sam. vii., and 1 Chron. xvii.,) "the sure mercies of David,” seemed to be about to fail. The words "Mercy and Truth" are, as it were, the key-notes to his prayer, and are repeated again and again. St. Augustine has been followed in considering verses 36-46 to apply rather to the humiliation and fall of the Jewish kingdom and Church, than to the Passion of our Lord; yet it might be interpreted of the latter. (Compare Jer. xxxiii. 17-22, and xxii. 28-30.) This Psalm concludes the Third Book of the Psalms. THE FOURTH DIVISION OF THE BOOK OF PSALMS. PSALMS XC.-CVI. THE ascription of glory to God which stands at the end of Psalm cvi., marking the conclusion of this the fourth book of the Psalms, is 'Praised be the Lord God of Israel, And let all the people say, Amen. Hallelujah.' It was probably finally arranged in its present form, and added to the canon, during the reign of Josiah. The seventeen Psalms of which it is made up appear to present some points of difference, which would distinguish this book from the other books. They are generally neither personal, like those of David, nor national, as those of Asaph and the family of Korah; they are, for the most part, grandly devotional; rather glorifying the Almighty as the Creator, and Defender, and King of man, than as the personal Lord of the individual prophet, or as the national God of the people of Israel. It has been thought that the majority of these are ancient hymns of the Church of Israel, written at various periods, from the age of Moses to that of David; that they were collected by David at the beginning of his reign; and having been forgotten during the reigns of the idolatrous kings, were again collected and restored to the use of the temple by Josiah, when the Book of the Law, which K had been originally deposited by Moses in the sanctuary, was discovered by Hilkiah the priest, and a covenant had been made by the king and the people to observe the Law. The fact that ten of the Psalms in this book are without titles in the Hebrew, while in the LXX. they have titles which assign them to David, tends to confirm this supposition. Psalm xc. is a prayer written by Moses, the man of God,' and bears the marks of high antiquity; xci. and xciii. were also, perhaps, the work of the great Lawgiver of Israel. The six Psalms from the ninety-fifth to the hundredth are considered by Bishop Horsley to form one prophetic poem, celebrating the majesty and the righteousness of the kingdom of God, and cited by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (i. 6) under the title of 'The bringing the Firstbegotten into the world.' However this may be, it is clear that these ancient Psalms form a comvery plete series, and exhibit a connection between themselves, both in the great majesty of their poetical style, and the lofty grandeur of their teaching. |