Keil & Delitzsch CommentaryPsalms 1
C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch · Page 2 of 2
Read Psalms 1 in the BiblePsalms 1:4-6
Psa 1:4-6 The ungodly (הרשׁעים, with the demonstrative art.) are the opposite of a tree planted by the water-courses: they are כּמּץ, like chaff (from מוּץ to press out), which the wind drives away, viz., from the loftily situated threshing-floor (Isa 17:13), i.e., without root below, without fruit above, devoid of all the vigour and freshness of life, lying loose upon the threshing-floor and a prey of the slightest breeze-thus utterly worthless and unstable. With על־כּן an inference is drawn from this moral characteristic of the ungodly: just on account of their inner worthlessness and instability they do not stand בּמּשׁפּט. This is the word for the judgment of just recompense to which God brings each individual man and all without exception with all their words (Ecc 12:14), - His righteous government, which takes cognisance of the whole life of each individual and the history of nations and recompenses according to desert. In this judgment the ungodly cannot stand (קוּם to continue to stand, like עמד Psa 130:3 to keep one’s self erect), nor sinners בּעדת צדיקים. The congregation (עדה( noi = ‛idah, from ועד, יעד) of the righteous is the congregation of Jahve (עדת ה), which, according to its nature which is ordained and inwrought by God, is a congregation of the righteous, to which consequently the unrighteous belong only outwardly and visibly: ου ̓ γὰρ πάντες οἱ ἐξ Ἰσραήλ οὗτοι Ἰσραήλ, Rom 9:6. God’s judgment, when and wheresoever he may hold it, shall trace back this appearance to its nothingness. When the time of the divine decision shall come, which also separates outwardly that which is now inwardly separate, viz., righteous and unrighteous, wheat and chaff, then shall the unrighteous be driven away like chaff before the storm, and their temporary prosperity, which had no divine roots, come to a fearful end. For Jahve knoweth the way of the righteous, יודע as in Psa 37:18; Mat 7:23; 2Ti 2:19, and frequently. What is intended is, as the schoolmen say, a nosse con affectu et effectu, a knowledge which is in living, intimate relationship to its subject and at the same time is inclined to it and bound to it by love. The way, i.e., the life’s course, of the righteous has God as its goal; God knows this way, which on this very account also unfailingly reaches its goal. On the contrary, the way of the ungodly תּאבד, perishes, because left to itself, - goes down to אבדּון, loses itself, without reaching the goal set before it, in darkest night. The way of the righteous only is דּרך עולם, Psa 139:24, a way that ends in eternal life. Psa 112:1-10 which begins with אשׁרי ends with the same fearful תאבד.
Keil & Delitzsch Commentary — C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch. Public domain
Psalms 1:1
9. History of the Exposition of the Psalms
If we now take a glance over the history of the exposition of the Psalms, we shall see from it how late it was before the proper function of scientific exposition was recognised. We begin with the apostolic exposition. The Old Testament according to its very nature tends towards and centres in Christ. Therefore the innermost truth of the Old Testament has been revealed in the revelation of Jesus Christ. But not all at once: His passion, resurrection, and ascension are three steps of this progressive opening up of the Old Testament, and of the Psalms in particular. Our Lord himself, both before and after His resurrection, unfolded the meaning of the Psalms from His own life and its vicissitudes; He showed how what was written in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms was fulfilled in Him; He revealed to His disciples the meaning τοῦ συνιέναι τάς γραφάς Luk 24:44. Jesus Christ’s exposition of the Psalms is the beginning and the goal of Christian Psalm-interpretation. This began, as that of the Christian church, and in fact first of all that of the Apostles, at Pentecost when the Spirit, whose instrument David acknowledges himself to have been (2Sa 23:2), descended upon the Apostles as the Spirit of Jesus, the fulfiller and fulfilment of prophecy. This Spirit of the glorified Jesus completed what, in His humiliation and after His resurrection, he had begun: He opened up to the disciples the meaning of the Psalms. How strongly they were drawn to the Psalms is seen from the fact that they are quoted about seventy times in the New Testament, which, next to Isaiah, is more frequently than any other Old Testament book. From these interpretations of the Psalms the church will have to draw to the end of time. For only the end will be like the beginning and even surpass it. But we must not seek in the New Testament Scriptures what they are not designed to furnish, viz., an answer to questions belonging to the lower grades of knowledge, to grammar, to contemporary history and to criticism. The highest and final questions of the spiritual meaning of Scripture find their answer here; the grammatico-historico-critical under-structure, - as it were, the candlestick of the new light, - it was left for succeeding ages to produce. The post-apostolic, patristic exposition was not capable of this. The interprets of the early church with the exception of Origen and Jerome possessed no knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, and even these two not sufficient to be able to rise to freedom from a dependence upon the lxx which only led them into frequent error. Of Origen’s Commentary and Homilies on the Ps. we possess only fragments translated by Rufinus, and his ὑπόμνημα εἰς τοὺς ψαλμοὺς (edited complete by Kleopas, 1855, from a MS in the monastery of Mar-Saba). Jerome, contra Rufinum i. 19, indeed mentions Commentarioli on the Ps. by himself, but the Breviarium in Psalterium (in t. vii. p. ii. of his Opp. ed. Vallarsi) bearing his name is allowed not to be genuine, and is worthless as regards the history of the text and the language. The almost complete Commentary (on Ps 1-119 according to the Hebrew reckoning) of Eusebius, made known by Montfaucon (Collectio nova Patrum et Scriptorum Graec. t. i.) is unsuspected. Eusebius, though living in Palestine and having a valuable library at command, is nevertheless so ignorant of the Hebrew, that he considers it is possible Μαριαμ (מרחם) in Psa 110:1-7 may refer to Mary. But by contributions from the Hexapla he has preserved many acceptable treasures of historical value in connection with the translation, but of little worth in other respects, for the interpretation is superficial, and capriciously allegorical and forced. Athanasius in his short explanation of the Psalms (in t. i. p. ii. of the Benedictine edition) is entirely dependent on Philo for the meaning of the Hebrew names and words. His book: πρὸς Μαρκελλῖνον εἰς τὴν ἑρμηνείαν τῶν ψαλμῶν (in the same vol. of the Benedictine edition) is a very beautiful essay. It treats of the riches contained in the Psalms, classifies them according to their different points of view, and gives directions how to use them profitably in the manifold circumstances and moods of the outward and inner life. Johann Reuchlin has translated this little book of Athanasius into Latin, and Jörg Spalatin from the Latin of Reuchlin into German (1516. 4to.). Of a similar kind are the two books of Gregory of Nyssa εἰς τὴν ἐπιγραφὴν τῶν ψαλμῶν (Opp. ed. Paris, t. i.), which treat of the arrangement and inscriptions; but in respect of the latter he is so led astray by the lxx, that he sets down the want of titles of 12 Ps. (this is the number according to Gregory), which have titles in the lxx, to Jewish ἀπιστία and κακία. Nevertheless there are several valuable observations in this introduction of the great Nyssene. About contemporaneously with Athanasius, Hilarius Pictaviensis, in the Western church, wrote his allegorizing (after Origen’s example) Tractatus in librum Psalmorum with an extensive prologue, which strongly reminds one of Hippolytus'. We still have his exposition of Ps. 1, 2, 9, 13, 14, 51, 52, 53-69, 91, 118-150 (according to the numbering of the lxx); according to Jerome (Ep. ad Augustin. cxii) (The following Greek expositors of the Psalms are mentioned there: 1) Origen, 2) Eusebius of Caesarea, 3) Theodore of Heraclea (the Anonymus in Corderius’ Catena), 4) Asterius of Scythopolis, 5) Apollinaris (Apolinarios) of Laodicea, 6) Didymus of Alexandria. Then the following Latin expositors: 1) Hilary of Poictiers, who translated or rather remodelled Origen’s Homilies on the Psalms (Jerome himself says of him, Ep. lvii. ad Pammach.: captivos sensus in suam linguam victoris jure transposuit), 2) Eusebius of Vercelli, translator of the commentary of Eusebius of Caesarea, and 3) Ambrose, who was partly dependent upon Origen. Of Apollinaris the elder, we have a Μετάφρασις τοῦ ψαλτῆρος διὰ στὶχων ἡρωΐκῶν preserved to us. He has also translated the Pentateuch and other Old Testament books into heroic verse.) it is transferred from Origen and Eusebius. It is throughout ingenious and pity, but more useful to the dogmatic theologian than the exegete (t. xxvii., xxviii. of the Collectio Patrum by Caillau and Guillon). (Vid., the characteristics of this commentary in Reinkens, Hilarius von Poitiers (1864) S. 291-308.) Somewhat later, but yet within the last twenty years of the fourth century (about 386-397), come Ambrose’s Enarrationes in Psa 1:1-6, 35-40, Psa 43:1-5, 45, Psa 47:1-9, Psa 48:1-14, Psa 61:1-8, 118 (in t. ii. of the Benedictine edition). The exposition of Psa 1:1-6 is likewise an introduction to the whole Psalter, taken partly from Basil. He and Ambrose have pronounced the highest eulogiums on the Psalter. The latter says: Psalmus enim benedictio populi est, Dei laus, plebis laudatio, plausus omnium, sermo universorum, vox Ecclesiae, fidei canora confessio, auctoritatis plena devotio, libertatis laetitia, clamor jucunditatis, laetitiae resultatio. Ab iracundia mitigat, a sollicitudine abdicat, a maerore allevat. Nocturna arma, diurna magisteria; scutum in timore, festum in sanctitate, imago tranquillitatis, pignus pacis atque concordiae, citharae modo ex diversis et disparibus vocibus unam exprimens cantilenam. Diei ortus psalmum resultat, psalmum resonat occasus. After such and similar prefatory language we are led to expect from the exposition great fervour and depth of perception: and such are really its characteristics, but not to so large an extent as might have been the case had Ambrose - whose style of writing is as musical as that of Hilary is stiff and angular - worked out these expositions, which were partly delivered as sermons, partly dictated, and his own hand. The most comprehensive work of the early church on the Psalms was that of Chrysostom, which was probably written while at Antioch. We possess only the exposition of 58 Ps. or (including Psa 3:1-8 and Psa 41:1-13, which in their present form do not belong to this work) 60 Ps. (in t. v. of Montfaucon’s edition). Photius and Suidas place this commentary on the Psalms in the highest rank among the works of Chrysostom. It is composed in the form of sermons, the style is brilliant, and the contents more ethical than dogmatic. Sometimes the Hebrew text according to the Hexapla is quoted, and the Greek versions which depart from the original are frequently compared, but, unfortunately, generally without any name. There is hardly any trace in it of the renowned philologico-historical tendency of the school of Antioch. Theodoret (in t. ii. p. ii. of the Halle edition) was the first to set before himself the middle course between an extravagant allegorising and an unspiritual adherence to the literal historical sense (by which he doubtless has reference to Theodore of Mopsuestia), and thus to a certain extent he makes a beginning in distinguishing between the province of exegesis and practical application. But this scientific commencement, with even more of the grammatico-historical tendency, is still defective and wanting in independence. For example, the question whether all the Psalms are by David or not, is briefly decided in the affirmative, with κρατείτω τῶν πλειόνων ἡ ψῆφος. (In the Talmud R. Meir, Pesachim 117 a, adopts the view that David is the author of all the Ps.: כל תשׁבחות שׁבספר תהלים כולן דוד אמרן, which in Bathra 14 b ten authors are supposed: דוד כתב ספר תהלים על ידי ערשׂה זקנים, vid., on this Midrash to Sol 4:4 and Ecc 7:19. In the former passage לתלפיות is explained as an emblematic name of the Psalter: ספר שׁאמרוהו לו פיות הרבה, the book of David, to which the mouths of many have contributed. And there are two modern commentaries, viz., by Klauss, 1832, and Randegger, 1841, which are written with the design of proving all the Psalms to be Davidic.) The designed, minute comparison of the Greek translators is most thankworthy; in other respect, this expositor, like the Syrians generally, is wanting in the mystic depth which might compensate for the want of scientific insight. All this may be also said of Euthymius Zigadenus (Zigabgenues): his commentary on the Psalms (in Greek in t. iv. of the Venetian edition of the Opp. Theophylacti), written at the desire of the emperor Alexius Comnenus, is nothing but a skilful compilation, in the preparation of which he made good use of the Psalm-catena, likewise a compilation, of the somewhat earlier Νικήτας Σερρῶν, (This information is found in the modern Greek edition of Euthemius’ Commentary on the Ps. by Nicodemos the Agiorite (2 vols. Constantinople 1819-21), which also contains extracts from this catena of Nicetas Serronius.) which is to be found on Mount Athos and is still unprinted. The Western counterpart to Chrysostom’s commentary are Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos (in t. iv. of the Benedictine edition). The psalm-singing in the Milaneses church had contributed greatly to Augustine’s conversion. But his love to his Lord was fired still more by the reading of the Psalms when he was preparing himself in solitude for his baptism. His commentary consists of sermons which he wrote down in part himself and in part dictated. Only the thirty-two sermones on Ps 118 (119), which he ventured upon last of all, were not actually delivered. He does not adopt the text of Jerome as his basis, but makes use of the older Latin version, the original text of which he sought to establish, and here and there to correct, by the lxx; whereas Arnobius, the Semi-Pelagian, in his paraphrastic Africano-Latin commentary on the Psalms (first edition by Erasmus, Basileae, Forben. 1522, who, as also Trithemnius, erroneously regarded the author as one and the same with the Apologist) no longer uses the so-called Itala, but takes Jerome’s translation as his basis. The work of Augustine far surpassing that of Chrysostom in richness and depth of thought, has become, in the Western church, the chief mine of all later exposition of the Psalms. Cassiodorus in his Expositiones in omnes Psalmos (in t. ii. of the Bened. ed.) draws largely from Augustine, though not devoid of independence. What the Greek church has done for the exposition of the Psalms has been garnered up many times since Photius in so-called Σειραί, Catenae. That of Nicetas archbishop of Serra in Macedonia (about 1070), is still unprinted. One, extending only to Ps 50, appeared at Venice 1569, and a complete one, edited by Corderius, at Antwerp 1643 (3 vols., from Vienna and Munich MSS). Folckmann (1601) made extracts from the Catena of Nicetas Heracleota, and Aloysius Lippomanus began a Catena from Greek and Latin writers on the largest scale (one folio vol. on Psa 1:1, Romae 1585). The defects to be found in the ancient exposition of the Psalms are in general the same in the Greek and in the Western expositors. To their want of acquaintance with the text of the original was added their unmethodical, irregular mode of procedure, their arbitrary straining of the prophetic character of the Psalms (as e.g., Tertullian, De spectaculis, takes the whole of Psa 1:1-6 as a prophecy concerning Joseph of Arimathea), their unhistorical perception, before which all differences between the two Testaments vanish, and their misleading predilection for the allegorical method. In all this, the meaning of the Psalms, as understood by the apostles, remains unused; they appropriate it without rightly apprehending it, and do not place the Psalms in the light of the New Testament fulfilment of them, but at once turn them into New Testament language and thoughts. But the church has never found such rapturous delight in the Psalms, which it was never weary of singing day and night, never used them with richer results even to martyrdom, than at that period. Instead of profane popular songs, as one passed through the country one might hear psalms resounding over the fields and vineyards. Quocunque te verteris, writes Jerome to the widow of Marcellus from the Holy Land, arator stivam tenens Alleluja decantat, sudans messor psalmis se avocat et curva attondens vitem falce vinitor aliquid Davidicum canit. Haec sunt in hac provincia carmina, hae (ut vulgo dicitur) amatoriae cantiones, hic pastorum sibilus, haec arma culturae. The delights of country life he commends to Marcella in the following among other words: Vere ager floribus pingitur et inter querulas aves Psalmi dulcius cantabuntur. In Sidonius Apollinaris we find even psalm-singing in the mouth of the men who tow the boats, and the poet takes from this a beautiful admonition for Christians in their voyage and journey through this life:Curvorum hinc chorus helciariorum Responsantibus Alleluja ripis Ad Christum levat amicum celeusma. Sic, sic psallite, nauta et viator! And how many martyrs have endured every form of martyrdom with psalms upon their lips! That which the church in those days filed to furnish in writing towards the exposition of the Psalms, it more than compensated for by preserving the vitality of the Psalms with its blood. Practice made far more rapid progress than theory. (Vid., besides the essay by Otto Strauss, already mentioned: Armknecht, Die heilige Psalmodie oder der psalmodirende König David und die singende Urkirche, 1855; and W. von Gülick, Das Psalterium nach seinem Hauptinhalte in seiner wissenschaftlichen und praktischen Bedeutung (a Catholic prize essay) 1858; partly also Rudelbach’s Hymnologische Studien in the Luther. Zeitschrift 1855, 4, 1856, 2. and especially no penitential psalm-singing Zöckler’s Geschichte der Askese (1863) S. 256-264.) These patristic works are patterns for every age of the true fervour which should characterise the expositor of the Psalms. The mediaeval church exposition did not make any essential advance upon the patristic. After Cassiodorus, came Haymo (d. 853) and Remigius of Auxerre (d. about 900), still less independent compilers; the commentary of the former, edited by Erasmus, appeared Trib. 1531, of the latter, first Colon. 1536, and then in the Bibl. maxima Lugdunensis. That of Petrus Lombardus (d. about 1160) is a catena taken directly from earlier expositors from Jerome to Alcuin. Of a more independent character are the commentaries of Thomas Aquinas, who however only completed 51 Ps., and Alexander of Hales, if the Commentary which appeared under his name (Venet. 1496) is not rather to be attributed to cardinal Hugo. Besides, these, Bonaventura (d. 1274) and Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) stand out prominently in the Middle Ages as expositors of the Psalms; and on the border of the Middle Ages Michael Ayguanus (about 1400) whose commentary has been frequently reprinted since its first appearance, Mediol. 1510. If you know one of these expositors, you know them all. The most that they have to offer us is an echo of the earlier writers. By their dependence on the letter of the Vulgate, and consequently indirectly of the lxx, they only too frequently light upon a false track and miss the meaning. The literalis sensus is completely buried in mysticae intelligentiae. Without observing the distinction between the two economies, the conversion of the Psalms into New Testament language and thought, regardless of the intermediate steps of development, is here continued. Thus, for example, Albertus Magnus in his commentary (Opp. t. vii.), on the principle: Constat, quod totus liber iste de Christo, at once expounds Beatus vir (Psa 1:1), and the whole Ps., de Christo et ejus corpore ecclesia. But as we find in the Fathers occasional instances of deep insight into the meaning of passages, and occasional flashes of thought of lasting value, so even here the reading, especially of the mystics, will repay one. - The greatest authority in psalm-exposition for the Middle Ages was Augustine. From Augustine, and perhaps we may add from Cassiodorus, Notker Labeo (d. 1022), the monk of St. Gall, drew the short annotations which, verse by verse, accompany his German translation of the Psalms (vol. ii. of H. Hattemer’s Denkmahle des Mittelalters). In like manner the Latin Psalter-catena of bishop Bruno of Würzburg (d. 1045), mentioned above, is compiled from Augustine and Cassiodorus, but also from Jerome, Bede and Gregory. And the Syriac annotations to the Psalms of Gregory Barhebraeus (d. 1286), - of which Tullberg and Koraen, Upsala 1842, and Schröter, Breslau 1857, have published specimens, - are merely of importance in connection with the history of exposition, and are moreover in no way distinguished from the mediaeval method. The mediaeval synagogue exposition is wanting in the recognition of Christ, and consequently in the fundamental condition required for a spiritual understanding of the Psalms. But as we are indebted to the Jews for the transmission of the codex of the Old Testament, we also owe the transmission of the knowledge of Hebrew to them. So far the Jewish interpreters give us what the Christian interpreters of the same period were not able to tender. The interpretations of passages from the Psalms scattered up and down in the Talmud are mostly unsound, arbitrary, and strange. And the Midrash on the Ps., bearing the title טוב שׁוחר (vid., Zunz, Vorträge, 266ff.), and the Midrash-catenae entitled ילקוט, of which at present only ילקוט שׁמעוני (by Simeon Kara ha-Darshan) is known, and ילקוט מכירי (by Machir b. Abba-Mari), contain far more that is limitlessly digressive than what is to the point and usable. This class of psalm-exposition was always employed for the thoroughly practical end of stimulating and edifying discourse. It is only since about 900 a.d., when indirectly under Syro-Arabian influence, the study of grammar began to be cultivated among the Jews, that the exposition and the application of Scripture began to be disentangled. At the head of this new era of Jewish exegesis stands Saadia Gaon (d. 941-2), from whose Arabic translation and annotations of the Ps. Haneberg (1840) and Ewald (1844) have published extracts. The Karaites, Salmon b. Jerocham and Jefeth, both of whom have also expounded the Psalms, are warm opponents of Saadia; but Jefeth whose commentary on the Psalms (It is to be found in MS partly in Paris, partly in St. Petersburg: the former having been brought thither from Egypt by Munk in 1841 and the latter by Tischendorf in 1853.) has been in part made known by Bargès (since 1846), nevertheless already recognises the influence of grammar, which Saadia raised to the dignity of a science, but which Salmon utterly discards. The next great expositor of the Psalms is Rashi (i.e., Rabbi Salomo Isaaki) of Troyes (d. 1105), who has interpreted the whole of the Old Testament (except the Chronicles) and the whole of the Talmud; (But on some parts of the Talmud, e.g., the tractate Maccoth, we have not any commentary by Rashi.) and he has not only treasured up with pithy brevity the traditional interpretations scattered about in the Talmud and Midrash, but also (especially in the Psalms) made use of every existing grammatico-lexical help. Aben-Ezra of Toledo (d. 1167) and David Kimchi of Narbonne (d. about 1250) are less dependent upon tradition, which for the most part expended itself upon strange interpretations. The former is the more independent and genial, but seldom happy in his characteristic fancies; the latter is less original, but gifted with a keener appreciation of that which is simple and natural, and of all the Jewish expositors he is the pre-eminently grammatico-historical interpreter. Gecatilia’s (Mose ha-Cohen Chiquitilla) commentary on the Psalms written in Arabic is only known to us from quotations, principally in Aben-Ezra. In later commentaries, as those of Mose Alshêch (Venice 1601) and Joel Shoëb (Salonica 1569), the simplicity and elegance of the older expositors degenerates into the most repulsive scholasticism. The commentary of Obadia Sforno (d. at Bologna 1550), Reuchlin’s teacher, is too much given to philosophising, but is at least withal clear and brief. Their knowledge of the Hebrew gives all these expositors a marked advantage over their Christian contemporaries, but the veil of Moses over their eyes is thicker in proportion to their conscious opposition to Christianity. Nevertheless the church has not left these preparatory works unused. The Jewish Christians, Nicolaus de Lyra (d. about 1340), the author of the Postillae perpetuae, and Archbishop Paul de Santa Maria of Burgos (d. 1435), the author of the Additiones ad Lyram, took the lead in this respect. Independently, like the last mentioned writers, Augustinus Justinianus of Genoa, in his Octaplus Psalterii (Genoa, 1516, folio), drew chiefly from the Midrash and Sohar. The preference however was generally given to the use of Aben-Ezra and Kimchi; e.g., Bucer, who acknowledges his obligation to these, says: neque enim candidi ingenii est dissimulare, per quos profeceris. Justinianus, Pagninus, and Felix were the three highest authorities on the original text at the commencement of the Reformation. The first two had gained their knowledge of the original from Jewish sources and Felix Pratensis, whose Psalterium ex hebreo diligentissime ad verbum fere translatum, 1522, appeared under Leo X, was a proselyte. We have now reached the threshold of the Reformation exposition. Psalmody in the reigning church had sunk to a lifeless form of service. The exposition of the Psalms lost itself in the dependency of compilation and the chaos of the schools. Et ipsa quamvis frigida tractatione Psalmorum - says Luther in his preface to Bugenhagen’s Latin Psalter - aliquis tamen odor vitae oblatus est plerisque bonae mentis hominibus, et utcunque ex verbis illis etiam non intellectis semper aliquid consolationis et aurulae senserunt e Psalmis pii, veluti ex roseto leniter spirantis. Now, however, when a new light dawned upon the church through the Reformation - the light of a grammatical and deeply spiritual understanding of Scripture, represented in Germany by Reuchlin and in France by Vatablus - then the rose-garden of the Psalter began to breathe forth its perfumes as with the renewed freshness of a May day; and born again from the Psalter, German hymns resounded from the shores of the Baltic to the foot of the Alps with all the fervour of a newly quickened first-love. “It is marvellous” - says the Spanish Carmelite Thomas à Jesu, - “How greatly the hymns of Luther helped forward the Lutheran cause. Not only the churches and schools echo with them, but even the private houses, the workshops, the markets, streets, and fields.” For converted into imperishable hymns (by Luther, Albinus, Franck, Gerhardt, Jonas, Musculus, Poliander, Ringwaldt, and many more) the ancient Psalms were transferred anew into the psalmody of the German as of the Scandinavian (The Swedish hymns taken from the Psalms have been recently remodelled for congregational use and augmented by Runeberg (Oerebro 1858).) Lutheran church. In the French church Clément Marot translated into verse 30 Ps., then 19 more (1541-43) and Theodore Beza added the rest (1562). (Vid., Félix Bovet, Les Psaumes de Marot et de Bèze, in the Lausanne magazine, Le Chrétien Evangélique, 1866, No. 4.) Calvin introduced the Psalms in Marot’s version as early as 1542 into the service of the Geneva church, and the Psalms have since continued to be the favorite hymns of the Reformed church. Goudimel, the martyr of St. Bartholemew’s night and teacher of Palestrina, composed the melodies and chorales. The English Established church adopted the Psalms direct as they are, as a portion of its liturgy, the Congregational church followed the example of the sister-churches of the Continent. And how industriously the Psalter was moulded into Greek verse, as by Olympia Morata (d. 1555) (Vid., examples in Bonnet’s life of Olympia Morata. Germ. transl. by Merschmann 1860 S. 131-135.) and under the influence of Melanthon (Vid., Wilhelm Thilo, Melanchthon im Dienste an heil. Schrift (Berlin, 1859), S. 28.) into Latin! The paraphrases of Helius Eoban Hesse (of whom Martin Herz, 1860, has given a biographical sketch), (His Psalms (to which Veit Dietrich wrote notes) passed through forty editions in seventy years.) Joh. Major, Jacob Micyllus (whose life Classen has written, 1859), Joh. Stigel (whose memory has been revived by Paulus Cassel 1860), Gre. Bersmann (d. 1611), and also that begun by Geo. Buchanan during his sojourn in a Portuguese monastery, are not only learned performances, but productions of an inward spiritual need; although one must assent to the judgment expressed by Harless, that the best attempts of this kind only satisfy one in proportion as we are able first of all to banish the remembrance of the original from our mind. But since the time of the Reformation the exegetical functions of psalm-exposition have been more clearly apprehended and more happily discharged than ever before. In Luther, who opened his academical lectures in 1514 with the Ps. (in Latin in Luther’s own hand writing in Wolfenbüttel) and began to publish a part of them in 1519 under the title Operationes in duas Psalmorum decades, the depth of experience of the Fathers is united to the Pauline recognition (which he gave back to the church) of the doctrine of free grace. It is true, he is not entirely free from the allegorising which he rejected in thesi, and, in general, from a departure a sensu literae, and there is also still wanting in Luther the historical insight into the distinctive character of the two Testaments; but with respect to experimental, mystical, and withal sound, understanding he is incomparable. His interpretations of the Psalms, especially of the penitential Ps. and of Ps 90, excel every thing hitherto produced, and are still a perpetual mine of wealth. Bugenhagen’s exposition of the Psalms (Basel 1524, 4to. and freq.) continued the interrupted work of Luther, who in a brief but forcible preface says in its praise, that it is the first worthy of the name of an exposition. Penetration and delicacy of judgment distinguish the interpretation of the five books of the Psalms by Aretius Felinus i.e., Martin Bucer (1529, 4to. and freq.). The Autophyes (= a se et per se Existens), by which throughout he translates יהוה, gives it a remarkable appearance. But about the same time, as an exegete, Calvin came forward at the side of the German reformer. His commentary (first published at Geneva 1564) combines with great psychological penetration more discernment of the types and greater freedom of historical perception, but is not without many errors arising from this freedom. Calvin’s strict historical method of interpretation becomes a caricature in Esrom Rüdinger, the schoolmaster of the Moravian brethren, who died at Altorf in 1591 without being able, as he had intended, to issue his commentary, which appeared in 1580-81, in a new and revised form. His is an original work which, after trying many conjectures, at last assigns even the first Psalm to the era of the Seleucidae. Within the range of the post-Reformation exposition the first that meets us is Reinhard Bakius, the persevering and talented pastor of Magdeburg and Grimma during the Thirty-years’ war, whose Comm. exegetico-practicus on the Ps. (in the first edition by his son 1664) is a work of extensive reading and good sense, in many respects a welcome supplement to Luther, crammed full of all kinds of notable things about the Psalms, under which, however, the thread of simple exposition is lost. Martin Geier keeps the work of the exposition most distinctly before him, adhering more closely to it and restraining himself from digression. His lectures on the Psalms delivered at Leipzig extended over a period of eighteen years. Deep piety and extensive learning adorn his commentary (1668), but the free spirit of the men of the Reformation is no longer here. Geier is not capable of turning from dogmatics, and throwing himself into the exegesis: a traditional standard of exegesis had become fixed, to overstep which was accounted as heterodox. In the Reformed church Cocceius stands prominently forward (d. 1669). He was an original and gifted man, but starting from false principles of hermeneutics, too fond of an eschatological literalness of interpretation. Not only the two Protestant churches, but also the Romish church took part in the advancing work of psalm-exposition. Its most prominent expositors from 1550-1650 are Genebrardus, Agellius, and De Muis, all of whom possessing a knowledge of the Semitic languages, go back to the original, and Gallarmin, who brings to the work not merely uncommon natural talents, but, within the limits of papistical restraint, a deep spiritual penetration. Later on psalm-exposition in the Romish church degenerated into scholasticism. This is at its height in Le Blanc’s Psalmorum Davidicorum Analysis and in Joh. Lorinus’ Commentaria in Psalmos (6 folio vols. 1665-1676). In the protestant churches, however, a lamentable decline from the spirit of the men of the Reformation in like manner manifested itself. The Adnotationes uberiores in Hagiographa (t. i. 1745, 4to.: Ps. and Prov.) of Joh. Heinrich Michaelis are a mass of raw materials: the glossarial annotations groan beneath the burden of numberless unsifted examples and parallel passages. What had been done during the past sixteen hundred years remains almost entirely unnoticed; Luther is not explored, even Calvin within the pale of his own church no longer exerts any influence over the exposition of Scripture. After 1750, the exposition of Scripture lost that spiritual and ecclesiastical character which had gained strength in the seventeenth century, but had also gradually become torpid; whereas in the Romish church, as the Psalm-expositions of De Sacy, Berthier and La Harpe show, it never sank so low as to deny the existence of revealed religion. That love for the Ps., which produced the evangelical hymn-psalter of that truly Christian poet and minister Christoph Karl Ludwig von Pfeil (1747), (Vid., his Life by Heinr. Jerz (1863), 111-117.) prefaced by Bengel, degenerated to a merely literary, or at most poetical, interest, - exegesis became carnal and unspiritual. The remnant of what was spiritual in this age of decline, is represented by Burk in his Gnomon to the Ps. (1760) which follows the model of Bengel, and by Chr. A. Crusius in the second part of his Hypomnemata ad Theologiam Propheticam (1761), a work which follows the track newly opened up by Bengel, and is rich in germs of progressive knowledge (vid., my Biblisch-prophetische Theologie, 1845). We may see the character of the theology of that age from Joh. Dav. Michaelis’ translation of the Old Testament, with notes for the unlearned (1771), and his writings on separate Psalms. From a linguistic and historical point of view we may find something of value here; but besides, only wordy, discursive, tasteless trifling and spiritual deadness. It has been the honour of Herder that he has freed psalm-exposition from this want of taste, and the merit of Hengstenberg (first of all in his Lectures), that he has brought it back out of this want of spirituality to the believing consciousness of the church. The transition to modern exposition is marked by Rosenmüller’s Scholia to the Ps. (first published in 1798-1804), a compilation written in pure clear language with exegetical tact and with a thankworthy use of older expositors who had become unknown, as Rüdinger, Bucer, and Agellius, and also of Jewish writers. De Wette’s commentary on the Psalms (first published in 1811, 5th edition by Gustav Baur, 1856) was far more independent and forms an epoch in exegesis. De Wette is precise and clear, and also not without a perception of the beautiful; but his position in relation to the Scripture writers is too much like that of a reviewer, his research too sceptical, and his estimate of the Ps. does not sufficiently recognise their place in the history of redemption. He regards them as national hymns, partly in the most ordinary patriotic sense, and when his theological perception fails him, he helps himself out with sarcasm against the theocratic element, which he carries to the extreme of disgust. Nevertheless, De Wette’s commentary opens up a new epoch so far as it has first of all set in order the hitherto existing chaos of psalm-exposition, and introduced into it taste and grammatical accuracy, after the example of Herder and under the influence of Gesenius. He is far more independent than Rosenmüller, who though not wanting in taste and tact, is only a compiler. In investigating the historical circumstances which gave rise to the composition of the different psalms, De Wette is more negative than assumptive. Hitzig in his historical and critical commentary (1835. 36), which has appeared recently in a revised form (Bd. 1, 1863, Bd. 2. Abth. 1, 1864, Abth. 2, 1865), has sought to supplement positively the negative criticism of De Wette, by ascribing to David fourteen Ps. of the seventy three that bear the inscription לדוד, assigning all the Ps. from the 73 onwards, together with 1, 2, 60 (these three, as also 142-144, 150, by Alexander Jannaeus) to the Maccabean period (e.g., 138-141 to Alexander’s father, John Hyrcanus), and also inferring the authors (Zechariah, 2Ch 26:5; Isaiah, Jeremiah) or at least the date of composition of all the rest. Von Lengerke, in his commentary compiled half from Hengstenberg, half from Hitzig (1847), has attached himself to this so-called positive criticism, which always arrives at positive results and regards Maccabean psalms as the primary stock of the Psalter. Von Lengerke maintains that not a single Ps. can with certainty be ascribed to David. Olshausen (in his Comment. 1853), who only leaves a few Ps., as 2, 20, 21, to the time of the kings prior to the Exile, and with a propensity, which he is not able to resist, brings down all the others to the time of the Maccabees, even to the beginning of the reign of John Hyrcanus, also belongs to the positive school. Whereas Hupfeld in his commentary, 1855-1862 (4 vols.), considers it unworthy of earnest investigation, to lower one’s self to such “childish trifling with hypotheses” and remains true to De Wette’s negative criticism: but he seeks to carry it out in a different way. He also maintains that none of the Ps. admit of being with certainty ascribed to David; and proceeds on the assumption, that although only a part of the inscriptions are false, for that very reason none of them can be used by us. We stand neither on the side of this scepticism, which everywhere negatives tradition, nor on the side of that self-confidence, which mostly negatives it and places in opposition to it its own positive counter-assumptions; but we do not on this account fail to recognise the great merit which Olshausen, Hupfeld and Hitzig have acquired by their expositions of the Psalms. In Olshausen we prize his prominent talent for critical conjectures; in Hupfeld grammatical thoroughness, and solid study so far as it is carried; in Hitzig the stimulating originality everywhere manifest, his happy perspicacity in tracing out the connection of the thoughts, and the marvellous amount of reading which is displayed in support of the usage of language and of that which is admissible according to syntax. The commentary of Ewald (Poetische Bücher, 1839, 40. 2nd edition 1866), apart from the introductory portion, according to its plan only fragmentarily meets the requirements of exposition, but in the argument which precedes each Ps. gives evidence of a special gift for piercing the emotions and throbbings of the heart and entering into the changes of feeling. None of these expositors are in truly spiritual rapport with the spirit of the psalmists. The much abused commentary of Hengstenberg 1842-1847 (4 vols. 2nd edition 1849-1852) consequently opened a new track, in as much as it primarily set the exposition of the Psalms in its right relation to the church once more, and was not confined to the historico-grammatical function of exposition. The kindred spirited works of Umbreit (Christliche Erbauung aus dem Psalter 1835) and Stier (Siebenzig Psalmen 1834. 36), which extend only to a selection from the Psalms, may be regarded as its forerunners, and the commentary of Tholuck (1847) who excludes verbal criticism and seeks to present the results of exegetical progress in a practical form for the use of the people, as its counterpart. For the sake of completeness we may also mention the commentary of Köster (1837) which has become of importance for its appreciation of the artistic form of the Psalms, especially the strophe-system, and Vaihinger’s (1845). Out of Germany, no work on the Psalms has appeared which could be placed side by side with those of Hengstenberg, Hupfeld and Hitzig. And yet the inexhaustible task demands the combined work of many hands. Would that the examples set by Björk, by Perret-Gentil, Armand deo Mestral and J. F. Thrupp, of noble rivalry with German scholarship might find many imitators in the countries of the Scandinavian, Latin, and English tongues! Would that the zealous industry of Bade and Reinke, the noble endeavours so Schegg and König, might set an example to many in the Romish church! Would that also the Greek church on the basis of the criticism of the lxx defended by Pharmakides against Oikonomos, far surpassing the works on the Ps. of Nicodimos and Anthimos, which are drawn from the Fathers, might continue in that rival connection with German scholarship of which the Prolegomena to the Psalm-commentary of the Jerusalem patriarch Anthimos, by Dionysios Kleopas (Jerusalem 1855. 4to.) give evidence! Non plus ultra is the watchword of the church with regard to the word of God, and plus ultra is its watchword with regard to the understanding of that word. Common work upon the Scriptures is the finest union of the severed churches and the surest harbinger of their future unity. The exposition of Scripture will rear the Church of the Future. 10. Theological Preliminary Considerations The expositor of the Psalms can place himself on the standpoint of the poet, or the standpoint of the Old Testament church, or the standpoint of the church of the present dispensation - a primary condition of exegetical progress is the keeping of these three standpoints distinct, and, in accordance therewith, the distinguishing between the two Testaments, and in general, between the different steps in the development of the revelation, and in the perception of the plan, of redemption. For as redemption itself has a progressive history, so has the revelation and growing perception of it a progressive history also, which extends from paradise, through time, on into eternity. Redemption realizes itself in a system of facts, in which the divine purpose of love for the deliverance of sinful humanity unfolds itself, and the revelation of salvation is given in advance of this gradually developing course of events in order to guarantee its divine authorship and as a means by which it may be rightly understood. In the Psalms we have five centuries and more of this progressive realizing, disclosing, and perception of salvation laid open before us. If we add to this the fact that one psalm is by Moses, and that the retrospective portions of the historical psalms refer back even to the patriarchal age, then, from the call of Abraham down to the restoration of Israel’s position among the nations after the Exile, there is scarcely a single event of importance in sacred history which does not find some expression in the Psalter. And it is not merely facts external to it, which echo therein in lyric strains, but, because David, - next to Abraham undoubtedly the most significant character of sacred history in the Old Testament, - is its chief composer, it is itself a direct integral part of the history of redemption. And it is also a source of information for the history of the revelation of redemption, in as much as it flowed not from the Spirit of faith merely, but mainly also from the Spirit of prophecy: but, pre-eminently, it is the most important memorial of the progressive recognition of the plan of salvation, since it shows how, between the giving of the Law from Sinai and the proclamation of the Gospel from Sion, the final, great salvation was heralded in the consciousness and life of the Jewish church. We will consider 1) the relation of the Psalms to the prophecy of the future Christ. When man whom God had created, had corrupted himself by sin, God did not leave him to that doom of wrath which he had chosen for himself, but visited him on the evening of that most unfortunate of all days, in order to make that doom the disciplinary medium of His love. This visitation of Jahve Elohim was the first step in the history of redemption towards the goal of the incarnation, and the so-called protevangelium was the first laying of the foundation of His verbal revelation of law and gospel - a revelation in accordance with the plan of salvation, and preparing the way towards this goal of the incarnation and the recovery of man. The way of this salvation, which opens up its own historical course, and at the same time announces itself in a form adapted to the human consciousness, runs all through Israel, and the Psalms show us how this seed-corn of words and acts of divine love has expanded with a vital energy in the believing hearts of Israel. They bear the impress of the period, during which the preparation of the way of salvation was centred in Israel and the hope of redemption was a national hope. For after mankind was separated into different nations, salvation was confined within the limits of a chosen nation, that it might mature there, and then bursting its bounds become the property of the human race. At that period the promise of the future Mediator was in its third stage. The hope of overcoming the tendency in mankind to be led astray into evil was attached to the seed of the woman, and the hope of a blessing for all peoples, to the seed of Abraham: but, at this period, when David became the creator of psalm-poesy for the sanctuary service, the promise had assumed a Messianic character and pointed the hope of the believing ones towards the king of Israel, and in fact to David and his seed: the salvation and glory of Israel first, and indirectly of the nations, was looked for from the mediatorship of Jahve’s Anointed. The fact that among all the Davidic psalms there is only a single one, viz., Psa 110:1-7, in which David (as in his last words 2Sa 23:1-7) looks forth into the future of his seed and has the Messiah definitely before his mind, can only be explained by the consideration, that he was hitherto himself the object of Messianic hope, and that this hope was first gradually (especially in consequence of his deep fall) separated from himself individually, and transferred to the future. Therefore when Solomon came to the throne the Messianic desires and hopes of Israel were directed towards him, as Ps 72 shows; they belonged only to the one final Christ of God, but they clung for a long time enquiringly and with a perfect right (on the ground of 2 Sam 7) to the direct son of David. Also in Ps 45 it is a son of David, contemporary with the Korahite singer, to whom the Messianic promise is applied as a marriage benediction, wishing that the promise may be realized in him. But it soon became evident that He, in whom the full realization of the idea of the Messiah is to be found, had not yet appeared either in the person of this king or of Solomon. And when in the later time of the kings the Davidic line became more and more inconsistent with its vocation in the sacred history, then the hope of the Messiah was completely weaned of its expectation of immediate fulfilment, and the present became merely the dark ground from which the image of the Messiah, as purely future, stood forth in relief. The בן־דוד, in whom the prophecy of the later time of the kings centres, and whom also Psa 2:1-12 sets forth before the kings of the earth that they may render homage to Him, is an eschatological character (although the אחרית was looked for as dawning close upon the border of the present). In the mouth of the congregation Ps 45 and 132, since their contents referred to the future, have become too prophetically and eschatologically Messianic. But it is remarkable that the number of these psalms which are not merely typically Messianic is so small, and that the church of the period after the Exile has not enriched the Psalter with a single psalm that is Messianic in the stricter sense. In the later portion of the Psalter, in distinction from the strictly Messianic psalms, the theocratic psalms are more numerously represented, i.e., those psalms which do not speak of the kingdom of Jahve’s Anointed which shall conquer and bless the world, not of the Christocracy, in which the theocracy reaches the pinnacle of its representation, but of the theocracy as such, which is complete inwardly and outwardly in its own representation of itself, - not of the advent of a human king, but of Jahve Himself, with the kingdom of God manifest in all its glory. For the announcement of salvation in the Old Testament runs on in two parallel lines: the one has as its termination the Anointed of Jahve, who rules all nations out of Zion, the other, the Lord Himself sitting above the Cherubim, to whom all the earth does homage. These two lines do not meet in the Old Testament; it is only the fulfilment that makes it plain, that the advent of the Anointed one and the advent of Jahve is one and the same. And of these two lines the divine is the one that preponderates in the Psalter; the hope of Israel, especially after the kingship had ceased in Israel, is directed generally beyond the human mediation directly towards Jahve, the Author of salvation. The fundamental article of the Old Testament faith funs ישׁועתה ליהוה (Ps. 3:9; Jon 2:10). The Messiah is not yet recognised as a God-man. Consequently the Psalms contain neither prayer to Him, nor prayer in His name. But prayer to Jahve and for Jahve’s sake is essentially the same. For Jesus is in Jahve. Jahve is the Saviour. And the Saviour when he shall appear, is nothing but the visible manifestation of the ישׁועה of this God (Isa 49:6). In considering the goal of the Old Testament history in its relation to the God-man, we distinguish five classes of psalms which are directed towards this goal. After 2 Sam 7 the Messianic promise is no longer in a general way connected with the tribe of Judah, but with David; and is referred not merely to the endless duration of his kingdom, but also to one scion of his house, in whom that to which God has appointed the seed of David in its relation to Israel first, and from Israel to all the other nations, shall be fully realised, and without whom the kingdom of David is like a headless trunk. Psalms in which the poet, looking beyond his own age, comforts himself with the vision of this king in whom the promise is finally fulfilled, we call eschatological psalms, and in fact directly eschatologically Messianic psalms. These connect themselves not merely with the already resisting prophetic utterances, but carry them even further, and are only distinguished from prophecy proper by their lyric form; for prophecy is a discourses and the psalms are spiritual songs. The Messianic character of the Psalms is, however, not confined to prophecy proper, the subject of which is that which is future. Just as nature exhibits a series of stages of life in which the lower order of existence points to the next order above it and indirectly to the highest, so that, for instance, in the globular form of a drop we read the intimation of the struggle after organism, as it were, in the simplest barest outline: so also the progress of history is typical, and not only as a whole, but also most surprisingly in single traits, the life of David is a vaticinium reale of the life of Him, whom prophecy calls directly עבדי דוד Eze 34:23., Psa 37:24. and דוד מלכם Hos 3:5; Jer 30:9, as the David who is, as it were, raised from the dead in a glorified form. Those psalms in which David himself (or even a poet throwing himself into David’s position and mood) gives expression in lyric verse to prominent typical events and features of his life, we call typically Messianic psalms. This class, however, is not confined to those, of which David is directly or indirectly the subject, for the course of suffering of all the Old Testament saints, and especially of the prophets in their calling (vid., on Psa 34:20. and Ps 69), was to a certain extent a τύπος τοῦ μέλλοντος. All these psalms, not less than those of the first class, may be quoted in the New Testament with the words ἵνα πληρωθῇ, with this difference only, that in the former it is the prophetic word, in the latter the prophetic history, that is fulfilled. The older theologians, especially the Lutheran, contended against the supposition of such typological citations of the Old Testament in the New: they were destitute of that perception of the organic element in history granted to our age, and consequently were lacking in the true counterpoise to their rigid notions of inspiration. But there is also a class of Psalms which we call typico-prophetically Messianic, viz., those in which David, describing his outward and inward experiences, - experiences even in themselves typical, - is carried beyond the limits of his individuality and present condition, and utters concerning himself that which, transcending human experience, is intended to become historically true only in Christ. Such psalms are typical, in as much as their contents is grounded in the individual, but typical, history of David; they are, however, at the same time prophetic, in as much as they express present individual experience in laments, hopes, and descriptions which point far forward beyond the present and are only fully realised in Christ. The psychological possibility of such psalms has been called in question; but they would only be psychologically impossible, if one were obliged to suppose that David’s self-consciousness must under such circumstances pass over into that of his antitype; but it is in reality quite otherwise. As the poet in order to describe his experiences in verse, idealises them, i.e., seizes the idea of them at the very root, and, stripping off all that is adventitious and insignificant, rises into the region of the ideal: so David also in these psalms idealises his experiences, which even in itself results in the reduction of them to all that is essential to their continuance as types. This he does, however, not from his own poetic impulse, but under the inspiration of the Spirit of God; and a still further result which follows from this is, that the description of his typical fortunes and their corresponding states of feeling is moulded into the prophetic description of the fortunes and feelings of his antitype. Beside these three classes of Messianic psalms one may regard psalms like Psa 45:1 and Psa 72:1 as a fourth class of indirectly eschatologically Messianic psalms. They are those in which, according to the time of their composition, Messianic hopes are referred to a contemporary king, but without having been fulfilled in him; so that, in the mouth of the church, still expecting their final accomplishment, these psalms have become eschatological hymns and their exposition as such, by the side of their chronological interpretation, is fully warranted. A fifth class is formed by the eschatologically Jehovic psalms, which are taken up with describing the advent of Jahve and the consummation of His kingdom, which is all through brought about by judgment (vid., Psa 93:1-5). The number of these psalms in the Psalter greatly preponderates. They contain the other premiss to the divine-human end of the history of salvation. There are sudden flashes of light thrown upon this end in the prophets. But it remains reserved to the history itself to draw the inference of the unio personalis from these human and divine premises. The Redeemer, in whom the Old Testament faith reposed, is Jahve. The centre of the hope lay in the divine not in the human king. That the Redeemer, when He should appear, would be God and man in one person was alien to the mind of the Old Testament church. And the perception of the fact that He would be sacrifice and priest in one person, only penetrates in single rays into the Old Testament darkness, the cynosure of which is יהוה, and יהוה only. Coming now to consider 2) the relation of the Psalms to the legal sacrifice, we shall find this also different from what we might expect from the stand-point of fulfilment. Passages certainly are not wanting where the outward legal sacrifice is acknowledged as an act of worship on the part of the individual and of the congregation (Psa 66:15; Ps 51:21); but those occur more frequently, in which in comparison with the λογικὴ λατρεία it is so lightly esteemed, that without respect to its divine institution it appears as something not at all desired by God, as a shell to be cast away, and as a form to be broken in pieces (Psa 40:7, Psa 50:1, Psa 51:18). But it is not this that surprises us. It is just in this respect that the psalms contribute their share towards the progress of sacred history. It is that process of spiritualisation which beings even in Deuteronomy, and which is continued by reason of the memorable words of Samuel, 1Sa 15:22. It is the spirit of the New Testament, growing more and more in strength, which here and in other parts of the Psalter shakes the legal barriers and casts off the στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου as a butterfly does its chrysalis shell. But what is substituted for the sacrifice thus criticised and rejected? Contrition, prayer, thanksgiving, yielding one’s self to God in the doing of His will, as Pro 21:3 to do justly, Hos 6:6 kindness, Mic 6:6-8 acting justly, love, and humility, Jer 7:21-23 obedience. This it is that surprises one. The disparaged sacrifice is regarded only as a symbol not as a type; it is only considered in its ethical character, not in its relation to the history of redemption. Its nature is unfolded only so far as it is a gift to God (קרבן), not so far as the offering is appointed for atonement (כפרה); in one word: the mystery of the blood remains undisclosed. Where the New Testament mind is obliged to think of the sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ, it is, in Psa 51:9, the sprinkling of the legal ritual of purification and atonement that is mentioned, and that manifestly figuratively but yet without the significance of the figure. Whence is it? - Because the sacrifice with blood, as such, in the Old Testament remains a question to which Isaiah, in Isa 53:1, gives almost the only distinct answer in accordance with its historical fulfilment; for passages like Dan 9:24., Zec 12:10; Zec 13:7 are themselves questionable and enigmatical. The prophetic representation of the passion and sacrifice of Christ is only given in direct prophetic language thus late on, and it is only the evangelic history of the fulfilment that shows, how exactly the Spirit which spoke by David has moulded that which he says concerning himself, the type, into correspondence with the antitype. The confidence of faith under the Old Testament, as it finds expression in the Psalms, rested upon Jahve even in reference to the atonement, as in reference to redemption in general. As He is the Saviour, so is He also the one who makes the atonement (מכפר), from whom expiation is earnestly sought and hoped for (Psa 79:9; Psa 65:4; Psa 78:38; Psa 85:3 and other passages). It is Jahve who at the end of His course of the redemptive history is the God-man, and the blood given by Him as the medium of atonement (Lev 17:11) is, in the antitype, His own blood. Advancing from this point, we come to examine 3) the relation of the Psalms to the New Testament righteousness of faith and to the New Testament morality which flows from the primary command of infinite love. Both with respect to the atonement and to redemption the Psalms undergo a complete metamorphosis in the consciousness of the praying New Testament church - a metamorphosis, rendered possible by the unveiling and particularising of salvation that has since taken place, and to which they can without any reserve be accommodated. There are only two points in which the prayers of the Psalms appear to be difficult of amalgamation with the Christian consciousness. These are the moral self-confidence bordering on self-righteousness, which is frequently maintained before God in the Psalms, and the warmth of feeling against enemies and persecutors which finds vent in fearful cursings. The self-righteousness here is a mere appearance; for the righteousness to which the psalmists appeal is not the merit of works, not a sum of good works, which are reckoned up before God as claiming a reward, but a godly direction of the will and a godly form of life, which has its root in the surrender of one’s whole self to God and regards itself as the operation and work of justifying, sanctifying, preserving and ruling grace (Psa 73:25., Psa 25:5-7; Psa 19:14 and other passages). There is not wanting an acknowledgement of the innate sinfulness of our nature (Psa 51:7), of the man’s exposure to punishment before God apart from His grace (Psa 143:2), of the many, and for the most part unperceived, sins of the converted (Psa 19:13), of the forgiveness of sins as a fundamental condition to the attainment of happiness (Psa 32:1.), of the necessity of a new divinely-created heart (Psa 51:12), in short, of the way of salvation which consists of penitential contrition, pardon, and newness of life. On the other hand it is not less true, that in the light of the vicarious atonement and of the Spirit of regeneration it becomes possible to form a far more penetrating and subtle moral judgment of one’s self; it is not less true, that the tribulation, which the New Testament believer experiences, though it does not produce such a strong and overwhelming sense of divine wrath as that which is often expressed in the psalms, nevertheless sinks deeper into his inmost nature in the presence of the cross on Golgotha and of the heaven that is opened up to him, in as much as it appears to him to be sent by a love that chastens, proves, and prepares him for the future; and it is not less true, that after the righteousness of God - which takes over our unrighteousness and is accounted even in the Old Testament as a gift of grace - lies before us for believing appropriation as a righteousness redemptively wrought out by the active and passive obedience of Jesus, the distinctive as well as the reciprocally conditioned character of righteousness of faith and of righteousness of life is become a more clearly perceived fact of the inner life, and one which exercises a more powerful influence over the conduct of that life. (Cf. Kurtz, Zur Theologie der Psalmen, III: The self-righteousness of the psalmists, in theDorpater Zeitschrift 1865 S. 352-358: “The Old Testament righteousness of faith, represented by the evangelium visibile of the sacrificial worship, had not as yet the fundamental and primary, helpful position assigned to it, especially by Paul, in the New Testament, but only a more secondary position; justification is conceived not as a condition of the sanctification which is to be striven after, but as a supplementing of that which is wanting in the sanctification thus defectively striven after.) Nevertheless even such personal testimonies, as Psa 17:1-5, do not resist conversion into New Testament forms of thought and experience, for they do not hinder the mind from thinking specially, at the same time, of righteousness of faith, of God’s acts which are performed through the medium of sacraments, and of that life resulting from the new birth, which maintains itself victorious in the old man; moreover the Christian ought to be himself earnestly warned by them to examine himself whether his faith is really manifest as an energising power of a new life; and the difference between the two Testaments loses its harshness even here, in the presence of the great verities which condemn all moral infirmity, viz., that the church of Christ is a community of the holy, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin, and that whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. But as to the so-called imprecatory psalms, (Cf. Kurtz, ibid. IV: The imprecatory Psalms, ibid. S. 359-372 and our discussions in the introductions to Ps 35 and 109, which belong to this class.) in the position occupied by the Christian and by the church towards the enemies of Christ, the desire for their removal is certainly outweighed by the desire for their conversion: but assuming, that they will not be converted and will not anticipate their punishment by penitence, the transition from a feeling of love to that of wrath is warranted in the New Testament (e.g., Gal 5:12), and assuming their absolute Satanic hardness of heart the Christian even may not shrink from praying for their final overthrow. For the kingdom of God comes not only by the way of mercy but also of judgment; and the coming of the kingdom of God is the goal of the Old as well as of the New Testament saint (vid., Ps 9:21; Psa 59:14 and other passages), and every wish that judgment may descend upon those who oppose the coming of the kingdom of God is cherished even in the Psalms on the assumption of their lasting impenitence (vid., Psa 7:13., Psa 109:17). Where, however, as in Ps 69 and Ps 109, the imprecations go into particulars and extend to the descendants of the unfortunate one and even on to eternity, the only justification of them is this, that they flow from the prophetic spirit, and for the Christian they admit of no other adoption, except as, reiterating them, he gives the glory to the justice of God, and commends himself the more earnestly to His favour. Also 4) the relation of the Psalms to the Last Things is such, that in order to be used as prayer expressive of the New Testament faith they require deepening and adjusting. For what Julius Africanus says of the Old Testament: οὐδέπω δέδοτο ἐλπίς ἀναστάσεως σαφής, holds good at least of the time before Isaiah. For Isaiah is the first to foretell, in one of his latest apocalyptic cycles (Psa 24:1), the first resurrection, i.e., the re-quickening of the martyr-church that has succumbed to death (Isa 26:19), just as with an extended vision he foretells the termination of death itself (Psa 25:8); and the Book of Daniel-that Old Testament apocalypse, sealed until the time of its fulfilment-first foretells the general resurrection, i.e., the awakening of some to life and others to judgment (Dan 12:2). Between these two prophecies comes Ezekiel’s vision of Israel’s return from the Exile under the figure of a creative quickening of a vast field of corpses (Psa 37:1) - a figure which at least assumes that what is represented is not impossible to the wonder-working power of God, which is true to His promises. But also in the latest psalms the perception of salvation nowhere appears to have made such advance, that these words of prophecy foretelling the resurrection should have been converted into a dogmatic element of the church’s belief. The hope, that the bones committed, like seed, to the ground would spring forth again, finds expression first only in a bold, but differently expressed figure (Psa 141:7); the hopeless darkness of Sheôl (Psa 6:6; Psa 30:10; Psa 88:11-13) remained unillumined, and where deliverance from death and Hades is spoken of, what is meant is the preservation of the living, either experienced (e.g., Psa 86:13) or hoped for (e.g., 118:17) from falling a prey to death and Hades, and we find in connection with it other passages which express the impossibility of escaping this universal final destiny (Psa 89:49). The hope of eternal life after death is nowhere definitely expressed, as even in the Book of Job the longing for it is never able to expand into a hope, because no light of promise shines into that night, which reigns over Job’s mind, - a night, which the conflict of temptation through which he is passing makes darker than it is in itself. The pearl which appears above the waves of temptation is only too quickly swallowed up again by them. Also in the Psalms we find passages in which the hope of not falling a prey to death is expressed so broadly, that the thought of the final destiny of all men being inevitable is completely swallowed up by the living one’s confidence of living in the strength of God (Ps 56:14 and esp. Psa 16:9-11); passages in which the covenant relation with Jahve is contrasted with this present life and its possession, in such a manner that the opposite of a life extending beyond the present time is implied (Psa 17:14., Psa 63:4); passages in which the end of the ungodly is compared with the end of the righteous as death and life, defeat and triumph (Psa 49:15), so that the inference forces itself upon one, that the former die although they seem to live for ever, and the latter live for ever although they die at once; and passage in which the psalmist, though only by way of allusion, looks forward to a being borne away to God, like Enoch and Elijah (Psa 49:16; Psa 73:24). Nowhere, however, is there any general creed to be found, but we see how the belief in a future life struggles to be free, at first only, as an individual conclusion of the believing mind from premises which experience has established. And far from the grave being penetrated by a glimpse of heaven, it has, on the contrary, to the ecstasy of the life derived from God, as it were altogether vanished; for life in opposition to death only appears as the lengthening of the line of the present ad infinitum. Hence it is that we no more find in the Psalms than in the Book of Job a perfectly satisfactory theodicy with reference to that distribution of human fortunes in this world, which is incompatible with God’s justice. - Ps 7, Ps 49, Ps 73 certainly border on the right solution of the mystery, but it stops short at mere hint and presage, so that the utterances that touch upon it admit of different interpretation. (Vid., Kurtz, ibid. II: The doctrine of retribution in the Psalms, ibid. S. 316-352.) But on the other hand, death and life in the mind of the psalmists are such deep-rooted notions (i.e., taken hold of at the very roots, which are grounded in the principles of divine wrath and divine love), that it is easy for the New Testament faith, to which they have become clear even to their back ground of hell and heaven, to adjust and deepen the meaning of all utterances in the Psalms that refer to them. It is by no means contrary to the meaning of the psalmist when, as in passages like Psa 6:6, Gehenna is substituted for Hades to adapt it to the New Testament saint; for since the descent of Jesus Christ into Hades there is no longer any limbus patrum, the way of all who die in the Lord is not earthwards but upwards, Hades exists only as the vestibule of hell. The psalmists indeed dread it, but only as the realm of wrath or of seclusion from god’s love, which is the true life of man. Nor is it contrary to the idea of the poets to think of the future vision of God’s face in all its glory in Psa 17:15 and of the resurrection morn in Psa 49:15; for the hopes expressed there, though to the Old Testament consciousness they referred to this side the grave, are future according to their New Testament fulfilment, which is the only truly satisfying one. There is, as Oetinger says, no essential New Testament truth not contained in the Psalms either νοΐ́ (according to its unfolded meaning), or at least πνεύματι. The Old Testament barrier encompasses the germinating New Testament life, which at a future time shall burst it. The eschatology of the Old Testament leaves a dark background, which, as is designed, is divided by the New Testament revelation into light and darkness, and is to be illumined into a wide perspective extending into the eternity beyond time. Everywhere, where it begins to dawn in this eschatological darkness of the Old Testament, it is the first morning rays of the New Testament sun-rise which is already announcing itself. The Christian also here cannot refrain from leaping the barrier of the psalmists, and understanding the Psalms according to the mind of the Spirit whose purpose in the midst of the development of salvation and of the perception of it, is directed towards its goal and consummation. Thus understood the Psalms are the hymns of the New Testament Israel as of the Old. The church by using the language of the Psalms in supplication celebrates the unity of the two Testaments, and scholarship in expounding them honours their distinctiveness. Both are in the right; the former in regarding the Psalms in the light of the one great salvation, the latter in carefully distinguishing the eras in the history, and the steps in the perception, of this salvation.FIRST BOOK OF THE PSALTER Ps. I.-XLI.
PSALM I.
THE RADICALLY DISTINCT LOT OF THE PIOUS AND THE UNGODLY.
The collection of the Psalms and that of the prophecies of Isaiah resemble one another in the fact, that the one begins with a discourse that bears no superscription, and the other with a Psalm of the same character; and these form the prologues to the two collections. From Act 13:33, where the words: Thou art My Son... are quoted as being found ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ ψαλμῷ, we see that in early times Psa 1:1-6 was regarded as the prologue to the collection. The reading ἐν τῷ ψαλμῷ τῷ δευτέρῳ, rejected by Griesbach, is an old correction. But this way of numbering the Psalms is based upon tradition. A scholium from Origen and Eusebius says of Psa 1:1-6 and Psa 2:1-12 : ἐν τῷ Ἑβραΐκῷ συνημμένοι, and just so Apollinaris: Ἐπιγραφῆς ὁ ψαλμὸς εὑρέθη δίχα Ἡνωμένος δὲ τοῖς παῤ Ἑβραίοις στίχοις. For it is an old Jewish way of looking at it, as Albertus Magnus observes: Psalmus primus incipit a beatitudine et terminatur a beatitudine, i.e., it begins with אשׁרי Psa 1:1 and ends with אשׁרי Psa 2:12, so that consequently Psa 1:1-6 and Psa 2:1-12, as is said in B. Berachoth 9b (cf. Jer. Taanith ii. 2), form one Psalm (חדא פרשׁה). As regards the subject-matter this is certainly not so. It is true Psa 1:1-6 and Psa 2:1-12 coincide in some respects (in the former יהגה, in the latter יהגו; in the former תאבד...ודרך, in the latter ותאכדו דוך; in the former אשׁרי at the beginning, in the latter, at the end), but these coincidences of phraseology are not sufficient to justify the conclusion of unity of authorship (Hitz.), much less that the two Psalms are so intimately connected as to form one whole. These two anonymous hymns are only so far related, as that the one is adapted to form the proaemium of the Psalter from its ethical, the other from its prophetic character. The question, however, arises whether this was in the mind of the collector. Perhaps Psa 2:1-12 is only attached to Psa 1:1-6 on account of those coincidences; Psa 1:1-6 being the proper prologue of the Psalter in its pentateuchal arrangement after the pattern of the Tôra. For the Psalter is the Yea and Amen in the form of hymns to the word of God given in the Tôra. Therefore it begins with a Psalm which contrasts the lot of him who loves the Tôra with the lot of the ungodly, - an echo of that exhortation, Jos 1:8, in which, after the death of Moses, Jahve charges his successor Joshua to do all that is written in the book of the Tôra. As the New Testament sermon on the Mount, as a sermon on the spiritualized Law, begins with maka'rioi, so the Old Testament Psalter, directed entirely to the application of the Law to the inner life, begins with אשׁרי. The First book of the Psalms begins with two אשׁרי Psa 1:1; Psa 2:12, and closes with two אשׁרי Psa 40:5; Psa 41:2. A number of Psalms begin with אשׁרי, Psa 32:1-11; Psa 41:1-13; Psa 112:1-10; Ps 119; Psa 128:1-6; but we must not therefore suppose the existence of a special kind of ashrê-psalms; for, e.g., Psa 32:1-11 is a משׂיל, Psa 112:1-10 a Hallelujah, Psa 128:1-6 a שׁיר המעלות. As regards the time of the composition of the Psalm, we do not wish to lay any stress on the fact that 2Ch 22:5 sounds like an allusion to it. But 1st, it is earlier than the time of Jeremiah; for Jeremiah was acquainted with it. The words of curse and blessing, Jer 17:5-8, are like an expository and embellished paraphrase of it. It is customary with Jeremiah to reproduce the prophecies of his predecessors, and more especially the words of the Psalms, in the flow of his discourse and to transform their style to his own. In the present instance the following circumstance also favours the priority of the Psalm: Jeremiah refers the curse corresponding to the blessing to Jehoiakim and thus applies the Psalm to the history of his own times. It is 2ndly, not earlier than the time of Solomon. For לצים occurring only here in the whole Psalter, a word which came into use, for the unbelievers, in the time of the Chokma (vid., the definition of the word, Pro 21:24), points us to the time of Solomon and onwards. But since it contains no indications of contemporary history whatever, we give up the attempt to define more minutely the date of its composition, and say with St. Columba (against the reference of the Psalm to Joash the protegé of Jehoiada, which some incline to): Non audiendi sunt hi, qui ad excludendam Psalmorum veram expositionem falsas similitudines ab historia petitas conantur inducere. (Vid., Zeuss, Grammatica Celtica (1853) ii. 1065. The Commentary of Columba on the Psalms, with Irish explanations, and coming from the monastery of Bobbio, is among the treasures of the Ambrosiana.) Psa 1:1-3 The exclamatory אשׁרי, as also Psa 32:2; Psa 40:5; Pro 8:34, has Gaja (Metheg) by the Aleph, and in some Codd. even a second by שׁ, because it is intended to be read asherê as an exception, on account of the significance of the word (Baer, in Comm. ii. 495). It is the construct of the pluralet. אשׁרים (from אשׁר, cogn.ישׁר, כּשׁר, to be straight, right, well-ordered), and always in the form אשׁרי, even before the light suffixes (Olsh. §135, c), as an exclamation: O the blessedness of so and so. The man who is characterised as blessed is first described according to the things he does not do, then (which is the chief thought of the whole Ps.) according to what he actually does: he is not a companion of the unrighteous, but he abides by the revealed word of God. רשׁעים are the godless, whose moral condition is lax, devoid of stay, and as it were gone beyond the reasonable bounds of true unity (wanting in stability of character), so that they are like a tossed and stormy sea, Isa 57:20.; (Nevertheless we have not to compare רעשׁ, רגשׁ, for רשׁע, but the Arabic in the two roots Arab. rs' and rsg shows for רשׁע the primary notion to be slack, loose, in opposition to Arab. tsdq, צדק to be hard, firm, tight; as Arab. rumhun tsadqun, i.e., according to the Kamus Arab. rmh ṣlb mtı̂n mstwin, a hard, firm and straight spear. We too transfer the idea of being lax and loose to the province of ethics: the difference is only one of degree. The same two primary notions are also opposed to one another in speaking of the intellect: Arab. hakuma, wise, prop. thick, firm, stout, solid, and Arab. sachufa, foolish, simple, prop. thin, loose, without stay, like a bad piece of weaving, vid., Fleischer’s translation of Samachschari’s Golden Necklace pp. 26 and 27 Anm. 76. Thus רשׁע means the loose man and indeed as a moral-religyous notion loose from God, godless comp. Bibl. Psychol. p. 189. transl.].) חטּאים (from the sing. חטּא, instead of which חטא is usually found) sinners, ἁμαρτωλοί, who pass their lives in sin, especially coarse and manifest sin; לצים (from לוּץ, as מת from מוּת) scoffers, who make that which is divine, holy, and true a subject of frivolous jesting. The three appellations form a climax: impii corde, peccatores opere, illusores ore, in accordance with which עצה (from יעץ figere, statuere), resolution, bias of the will, and thus way of thinking, is used in reference to the first, as in Job 21:16; Job 22:18; in reference to the second, דּרך mode of conduct, action, life; in reference to the third, מושׁב which like the Arabic méglis signifies both seat (Job 29:7) and assembling (Psa 107:32), be it official or social (cf. Psa 26:4., Jer 15:17). On הלך בּ, in an ethical sense, cf. Mic 6:16; Jer 7:24. Therefore: Blessed is he who does not walk in the state of mind which the ungodly cherish, much less that he should associate with the vicious life of sinners, or even delight in the company of those who scoff at religion. The description now continues with כּי אם (imo si, Ges. §155, 2, 9): but (if) his delight is, = (substantival instead of the verbal clause:) he delights (חפץ cf. Arab. chfd f . i. with the primary notion of firmly adhering, vid., on Job 40:17) in תורת ה, the teaching of Jahve, which is become Israel’s νόμος, rule of life; in this he meditates profoundly by day and night (two acc. with the old accusative terminations am and ah). The perff. in Psa 1:1 describe what he all along has never done, the fut. יהגּה, what he is always striving to do; הגה of a deep (cf. Arab. hjj, depressum esse), dull sound, as if vibrating between within and without, here signifies the quiet soliloquy (cf. Arab. hjs , mussitando secum loqui) of one who is searching and thinking. With והיה, (By the Shebâ stands Metheg (Gaja), as it does wherever a word, with Shebâ in the first syllable, has Olewejored, Rebia magnum, or Dechî without a conjunctive preceding, in case at least one vowel and no Metheg-except perhaps that standing before Shebâ compos. - lies between the Shebâ and the tone, e.g., ננתּקה (with Dechî) Psa 2:3, ואענהוּ Psa 91:15 and the like. The intonation of the accent is said in these instances to begin, by anticipation, with the fugitive ĕ.) in Psa 1:3, the development of the אשׁרי now begins; it is the praet. consec.: he becomes in consequence of this, he is thereby, like a tree planted beside the water-courses, which yields its fruit at the proper season and its leaf does not fall off. In distinction from נטוּע, according to Jalkut §614, שׁתוּל means firmly planted, so that no winds that may rage around it are able to remove it from its place (אין מזיזין אתו ממקומו). In פּלגי מים, both מים and the plur. serve to give intensity to the figure; פּלג (Arab. fal'g, from פלג to divide, Job 38:25) means the brook meandering and cleaving its course for itself through the soil and stones; the plur. denotes either one brook regarded from its abundance of water, or even several which from different directions supply the tree with nourishing and refreshing moisture. In the relative clause the whole emphasis does not rest on בּעתּו (Calvin: impii, licet praecoces fructus ostentent, nihil tamen producunt nisi abortivum), but פּריו is the first, בּעתּו the second tone-word: the fruit which one expects from it, it yields (equivalent to יעשׂה it produces, elsewhere), and that at its appointed, proper time (= בּעדתּו, for עת is = עדת or עדת, like רדת, לדת, from ועד), without ever disappointing that hope in the course of the recurring seasons. The clause ועלהוּ לא יבּול is the other half of the relative clause: and its foliage does not fall off or wither (נבל like the synon. Arab. dbl, from the root בל). The green foliage is an emblem of faith, which converts the water of life of the divine word into sap and strength, and the fruit, an emblem of works, which gradually ripen and scatter their blessings around; a tree that has lost its leaves, does not bring its fruit to maturity. It is only with וכל, where the language becomes unemblematic, that the man who loves the Law of God again becomes the direct subject. The accentuation treats this member of the verse as the third member of the relative clause; one may, however, say of a thriving plant צלח, but not הצליח. This Hiph. (from צלח, Arab. tslh, to divide, press forward, press through, vid., Psa 45:5) signifies both causative: to cause anything to go through, or prosper (Gen 34:23), and transitive: to carry through, and intransitive: to succeed, prosper (Jdg 18:5). With the first meaning, Jahve would be the subject; with the third, the project of the righteous; with the middle one, the righteous man himself. This last is the most natural: everything he takes in hand he brings to a successful issue (an expression like 2Ch 7:11; 2Ch 31:21; Dan 8:24). What a richly flowing brook is to the tree that is planted on its bank, such is the word of God to him who devotes himself to it: it makes him, according to his position and calling, ever fruitful in good and well-timed deeds and keeps him fresh in his inner and outward life, and whatsoever such an one undertakes, he brings to a successful issue, for the might of the word and of the blessing of God is in his actions.