So Israel's love of Zion, her love of self, her prayers for blessings and her hopes of vengeance,' are all included in their higher part, Jehovah's love of her, her love of him, and her desire to extend his kingdom. This is the reach of Israel's desire, as it is her final hope that Jehovah will come and reign on earth, a hope which broadens, humanizes to the wish that not as victor over foes cast down, but as one God and King over one people, Jehovah from Zion may reign throughout the earth, when he cometh to judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with his faithfulness:'

For he hath looked down from his holy height,
From heaven hath Jehovah beheld the earth,
To hear the sighing of the prisoner,

To set at liberty those that are doomed unto death;
That men may declare the name of Jehovah in Zion,
And his praise in Jerusalem;

When the peoples are gathered together,

And the kingdoms to serve Jehovah.'

His foundation upon the holy mountains doth Jehovah love, [He loveth] the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Glorious things are spoken of thee, O City of God!

'I will mention Rahab and Babylon among them that know

me;

Lo Philistia and Tyre and Ethiopia:

This one is born there.'

And of Zion it is said:

One after another is born in her,

And the Most High himself shall stablish her.''

Jehovah is king, king in Zion,' king over all the earth in righteousness, no alien peoples any more, but all his subjects and his heritage; the afflicted is comforted, the

'See that perfect lyric, cxxxvii. 9 xcvi, cf. xxii, 27, 28.

3

3 cii, 19-22. 4 lxxxvii. "See xciii-xcix.

The

Victory.

prisoner is set free; no more sighing, no more sorrow, no more sin. This is the farthest, sweetest vision of the psalms. In faith the psalmist has conquered; through deep waters has he come, but Jehovah has led him by the hand, as he led his people out of Egypt, through the sea, through the wilderness, giving them food and drink, guidance and the law of righteousness, till he brought them to their land, there still to guide and help them, try them, purify them with affliction, drive them thence in exile, unto redemption, unto him, that they might be a purer light to all the earth. In faith the psalmist conquers; all that his faith knows and foreknows, his eyes had not seen nor were to see. Never had he been unsurrounded by sorrow and by sin; never had Israel attained the purpose of her God. And still in faith the psalmist conquers; the light in his eyes is from Jehovah,—that farthest light disclosing to him God's power of righteousness, which underlay and overshone all the shortcoming and backsliding, the actual sin and degradation wherein he lived, he the striving, god-turned soul, symbol of Israel's best righteousness; his loftiest words were those which she might speak; his farthest hopes were those which she might feel; his joyful certitude of faith was hers as she gathered in festal throng before her God. Praise Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits! Forget not all his faithfulness; fear not man; be righteous, sure in thy God. If the Psalter opened with the firm words: "Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked," it were most fitting that songs of Hallelujah—praise to Jah -should press each other towards the end, and that the Psalter close with the high call on sun and moon and stars and heavens, on angels and on fire and hail, on everything that hath breath, to swell the anthem.'

The manner of great art is essentially the same, whether that art be the lyrical expression of religious sentiment as

1 cxlviii; cl.

The Psalter's Lyric Universality.

in the psalms, or the epic expression of national godguided, man-attained majesty as in the Æneid, or the expression of ideal manhood and man-reflecting divinity as in Phidian sculpture. The last, seeking man's ideal perfection of being, avoided every hampering reference to near historical events and the delineation of features stamped with the actual imperfection of contemporary and historic forms. As Phidian art avoided all shortcoming of the actual in import and in form, so Virgil chose the tale of the mighty qualities which founded Rome and made her mistress of the world, because it was a tale whose setting lay far back of actual entanglements and was untouched by the small deed and selfish motive which needs must fill up the history of known events. And so the psalmist,-the many psalmists who are one in their great strain of lyric outpour of the soul to God,-if he gave his thought a setting of historical events, he chose them from the deliverances wrought by his God, ideal events, free from failure and shortcoming, free from the littleness of selfish aim.' Otherwise, with the true instinct of great art, which is but another name for the fulness of the human soul in universal attitudes and modes which may relate to every man and may by every man be taken to himself as of himself,-otherwise the psalmist avoided reference to special circumstances which might narrow the application of the psalm,' pre

1 The seventy-eighth psalm is an instance; and between it and the fourth Pythian ode of Pindar interesting comparisons as to matters of form might be made. In form and contents this psalm is to other psalms as the fourth Pythian is to other odes of Pindar, and it may be noticed from these two poems how there is but one great lyric mode of narration-to mark the striking facts, suggest the rest, and with quick flight pass from fact to similar or contrasted fact. And, of course, the narrative verses must make for the setting forth of the dominant thought or mood; and nothing be out of accord with that. Herein lies the lyric unity.

? It may be said that hardly a single psalm, except for those who credit the headings, has been by any scholar attached to any special event of Israel's history, so as to carry conviction to the majority of other scholars.

vent its being a fit expression of an attitude of man towards God, of every man, man universal, crushed with the woe which casts a shadow over his vision of his God, touched with the sorrow which opens new knowledge of God's love; man praising God, wondering at his works, ascribing all to him; man moved with awe at thought of the creation's Lord, or filled with love, feeling the tender hand which leads him on.

It were foolish to cite and analyze passages in order to illustrate this universality; the proof of it is in the hearts of Jew and Gentile, in the hearts of all who in joy or sorrow, in every deep experience of life, feel the shadowing presence, the inner strength and consolation, guidance and light, which is from God in man: My soul waits on God-My heart and flesh cry aloud to the living God -Like as the hart panteth for the water-brooks-By the rivers of Babylon-Cast thy burden on the LordHow long, O Lord!-I am ever with Thee—In joy and praise I will wake the morning dawn-My times are in thy hand-Cast me not away in old age-The Lord is my Shepherd-A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand-He that keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep'-Not unto us, not unto us!— Praise God !

The unconvincingness of such attempts may be seen by a perusal of Prof. Cheyne's Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter (Bampton Lectures for 1889). As for David's authorship, see ante, note to p. 111.

'Speaking critically, notice how these words in terms of the concrete -He that keepeth Israel,—and in terms of the near human,-Doth neither slumber nor sleep,-express a sense of the divine watchfulness over all men,

over me.

Α'

CHAPTER XXI.

WISDOM AND THE LAW-LATER JUDAISM.

LL Hebrew wisdom was turned towards God. It was religious wisdom directed towards right conduct, and no motive or justification was considered apart from the character of God and his relations to men. The Wisdom-literature (Chokhmah) of the Old Testament should be viewed as the lower stage of Chokhmah. Israel's religious thought; yet this lower stage was not the foundation of the rest, but rather derived its own validity from the more direct revelation, the more immediate sense of God's personality and commands, and the more intense religious feeling, which mark the books of the prophets and the Psalms. It sets forth the reason of right conduct, showing in gnomic rather than syllogistic fashion, that for man wisdom and fear of God and righteousness are one, having their single source and transcendent sanction in the character of Jehovah, creator and ordainer. This literature, from standpoints looking towards God, yet not identical with his simple fiat, considers men, their ways, and conduct, nature and fortunes. And Israel's wisdom and observation, the best consideration of life that was in her, sets the stamp of approval on Israel's religion. The Proverbs contain the general teaching; Job and Ecclesiastes consider certain problems which Israel's thought could not avoid.

The teaching of Proverbs rests on the primary truths of Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, all things therein, and finally man in his own