28 "My mercy will I keep for him for ever,

"And my covenant shall stand faithful to him. 29 "And I will establish his seed for ever,

'And his throne as the days of heaven.

30 "If his children shall forsake my law,

"And walk not in my judgments:

31 "If they profane my statutes,

"And keep not my commandments;

32 "Then will I visit their offence with the rod, "And their iniquity with stripes ;—

33 "But my mercy will I not withdraw from him19, "Nor fail my plighted faithfulness.

34 "I will not profane my covenant,

"And what has gone from my lips I will not alter.

35 "One thing have I sworn in my holiness,—

Assuredly I will not be false to David :—

36 "His seed shall exist for ever,

37

"And his throne as the sun before me.

'As the moon, shall it be steadfast for ever;-
"And the Witness20 in the skies is faithful." SELAH.

38 Yet THOU21-Thou hast cast off and rejected,

His commands, . . . then shall the Lord thy God make thee supreme (¿lyon) above the nations of the earth."-Here again Israel had failed, through disobedience; but the Lord's Anointed,-perfect in obedience,-should attain the "Name above every name." Cp. Rev. i. 5.

19 Lit. "annul from (being) with him." Cp. Levit. xxvi. 44. Obs. As v. 33 is antithetic to v. 32, so is 34 ("profane") to 31, 35 to 30, 36 ("his seed for ever") to 29, and 37 ("faithful") to 28. (That is; vv. 33-37 are in inverted parallelism to vv. 28-32.)

20 God Himself. Delitzsch well compares Job xvi. 19, "Also now behold, my Witness (edi) is in Heaven." (Sachaq was used in n. 6.) Symm. has ó diapapтupóμevos. Cp. Rev. i. 5, iii. 14.

Thou, the "faithful witness,”-hast cast off David's royal line.

Thou hast dealt wrathfully with Thine anointed. 39 Thou hast flung down22 Thy servant's covenant,

Thou hast profaned his crown to the earth23. 40 Thou hast broken down all his fences, Thou hast made his castles a ruin.

41 All who pass by the way plunder him,

He has become a reproach to his neighbours. 42 Thou hast exalted the right hand of his foes, Thou hast gladdened all his enemies.

43 Thou hast also turned the flint edge25 of his sword, And not sustained him in the fight.

44 Thou hast put an end to his purity 28,

And dashed his throne to the ground.

45 Thou hast cut short the days of his youth,

Thou hast wrapt him round with shame. SELAH.

46 How long, O LORD, wilt Thou unceasingly hide Thyself,

While Thy anger burns like fire?

47 Remember I am but-oh how fleeting!

For what vanity27 hast Thou created all the sons of

men!

48 Who is the man that shall live on and not see death,

22 Néarta:-only here and in Lam. ú. 7.

23 Cp. lxxiv. 7; Lam. v. 16; and v. 44 below.

24 Cp. lxxx. 12.

25 Tsur:-once, as if edged with flint ;-now, bending in feeble

ness.

26 So that he has been cast out as unclean; lxxxviii. 8. (Cp. Levit. xiii. 13, 17.) LXX. κaðapıσμov.

27 Piscator: Ad quantam vanitatem. Del. Zu welcher Nichtig. keit.

That shall deliver his soul from the hand of Hades?
SELAH.

49 Where are those ancient28 mercies of Thine, O Lord, Which Thou swarest unto David in Thy faithfulness?

50 Remember, Lord, the reproach of Thy servants,

How I bear in my bosom the whole (burden) of many peoples29;

51 Who cast reproach,—in enmity to Thee, O Lord,— Who cast reproach upon the footsteps of Thy Anointed One 30,

Blessed be the LORD evermore. Amen. Amen.

28 Rishonim, "primitive." The word points back to Levit. xxvi. 45-only that the "sure mercies" (Isai. lv. 3) promised to David are now the basis of appeal. So in Micah iv. 8, "the primitive dominion" is David's. (Cp. on lxxix. 8, cxxxii. 1.)

29 With manifest allusion to Numb. xi. 11-14; "Thou layest the burden of all this people upon me. . . . Thou sayest to me, Bear it in thy bosom. . . . I am not able, I alone, to bear all this people; for it is too heavy for me."

The burden on Moses was Israel's impatient and unbelieving reproaches; cast upon him, because the covenanted mercies were (owing to the people's own disobedience) deferred.

Now the burden is heavier. The King, whom all peoples are to call blessed (lxxii. 17), delays His coming.-How shall the faithful any longer endure the reproaches (Jer. xv. 15) cast on God's covenant by an unbelieving world?

Only the "Good Shepherd" (cp. on lxxxii. 6, 8) could bear that burden. (Isai. xl. 11, be-cheyqo yissa, as here and in Numb. xi. 11-14.)

30 The Chaldee has: "They have scoffed at the tardiness of Thy Messiah's footsteps." So Kimchi :" He delays so long, they say He will never come." (Cp. 2 St. Peter iii. 4, 9.) The Arabic aqaba is used in the sense of "delaying."

In spite of all the sufferings He has inflicted,-in spite of the prostration of David's family and the destruction of the Temple,— "Blessed be the Lord evermore." All His promises are "Amen," -sure and steadfast. Cp. Job i. 21.

The Fourth Book.

INTRODUCTION.

1. In Book III we had the trial endured by faith, when the fires of Divine Justice consumed the outward framework of the Davidic Covenant;-when Israel as a nation seemed to have been exterminated.

In Book IV we have faith rising up in calm assurance to stay itself on the everlasting God; and amidst the wreck of old hopes to sing a "new song" (xcvi. 1, xcviii. 1), to rejoice that "the Lord is King" (xciii. 1, xcvi. 10, xcvii. 1, xcix. 1), and that "all the earth" shall now be embraced within His visible sovereignty.

2. This purification and elevation of faith, effected during the Captivity, appears already in the conclusion of the Book of Lamentations (v. 16, 19): "The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! Thou, O LORD, remainest for ever: Thy throne through all generations" (ledor vador, cp. xc. 1).

3. Many passages in Bk. IV sound as if they looked back to passages in Bk. III. Thus :—with lxxiv. 1, "Why, O God, hast Thou cast off for ever?" compare xciv. 14, "The Lord will not reject His people, neither will He forsake His heritage." With lxxvii. 9, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" compare xcviii. 3, "He has remembered His mercy and faithfulness." With lxxiii. 11, "They say, Does God know? is there knowledge in the Most High?" compare xciv. 7-11. With lxxix. 11, "Let the groaning of the captive come before Thee; according to the might of Thy

INTRODUCTION TO BOOK IV.

297

arm enlarge Thou the sons of death," cp. cii. 19, 20; "From heaven did the Lord behold the earth: To hear the groaning of the captive, to set free the sons of death." With lxxxix. 45, cp. cii. 23: with lxxxix. 51, cp. xcii. 10, etc.

4. The only Psalms ascribed to any author in Bk. IV are xc (to Moses), ci and ciii (to David).

There are many obvious points of contact between xcvixcviii and Isaiah; between xciv, cii, and Jeremiah. But these are not such as to determine the date of the composition of the Psalms.

According to 1 Chr. xvi. 7, 23, Psalm xcvi appears to belong to David. The LXX. assign xciii and the seven following Psalms to David. The argument in Hebr. iv requires that xcv should be held to be at least not earlier than David ("after so long a time :" Hebr. iv. 7).

PSALM XC.A

A Prayer of Moses §, the Man of Godt.

A The afflicted Penitent staying Himself by faith on the mercy of the Everlasting God.

During those forty "years of adversity" (v. 15) in the wilderness, the life of the Covenant People had seemed suspended. It was a monotonous, uneventful, deathlike slumber. But a "morning" (v. 14) was in reserve, when God's abundant, soul-satisfying mercy would appear. The youthful Israel, purged from the old leaven, would have the "majesty" and the "comeliness" of the Lord (v». 16, 17) resting upon them. (Cp. Josh. iii. 7-10, v. 9.)

Might not the penitents in Babylonia hope that their captivity was a like period of preparation? that a bright morning was in store for them too?

Obs. 1. In lxxxix. 50 we had a reference to the burden Moses had to bear in the wilderness,—the reproaches uttered against him for the delay in the fulfilment of God's promises which foreshadowed the reproaches attendant on the "lingering footsteps of Messiah." P3. xc follows with the answer, which St. Peter (2 St.