And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

Hear me, O Lord; for thy lovingkindness is good:

Turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

And hide not thy face from thy servant;

For I am in trouble: hear me speedily. Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it; Deliver me because of mine enemies.

Thou knowest my reproach and my shame and my dishonour:

Mine adversaries are all before thee.

Reproach hath broken my heart; and very grievous is the wound of my soul:

I looked for one to take pity, but there was none;
And for comforters, but I found none.

They gave me gall for my food;

And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

I am poor and sorrowful :

But thy salvation, O God, will set me up on high.
I will praise the name of God with a song,
And will magnify him with thanksgiving.

And this shall please the Lord better than an ox
Or bullock with horns and hoofs.

The humble shall see this, and be glad :

Ye that seek God, let your heart revive. For the Lord hearkeneth to the needy; And despiseth not his prisoners.

Let the heaven and earth praise him,

The seas, and every thing that moveth therein.

For God will save Zion,

And will build the cities of Judah:

And men shall dwell there, and have it in possession. The seed also of his servants shall inherit it,

And they that love his name shall dwell therein.

'Confounded through me.' So can speak each individual pious Israelite. May his guilt not cause the Lord to withhold his help from the suffering brotherhood of which he is a member. The author writes for himself and for each unit of the community, For as a whole the 'party 'the true Israel-is 'righteous'; it is certainly righteous as contrasted with its foes, whether within

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or without the national pale. But each member of it is aware in his own conscience of individual lapses, which have been confessed and laid bare unto God.

§ 19. Psalm seventy-one.· The next Psalm (lxxi) is mainly a compilation or cento from other Psalms, to most of which we have already listened. The 'I' is the pious community of believers. The 'youth' refers to Israel's youth; the 'birth' to the Exodus from Egypt, when the nation was born religiously and even politically. For the date we may again look to the closing epoch of the Persian rule. Let me again emphasize the fact that the Psalmist feels what he writes. He records the experiences of his own soul, though he speaks from the heart of his community. There is no personation about the Psalms. They can be our individual solace now, even as the thoughts which are expressed in them were the solace and hope of the individual writers. Not only was God the hope of the community, but also of the individual.

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust;

Let me never be ashamed.

Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape;
Incline thine ear unto me, and save me.

Be thou my rock of refuge,

A fortified house that thou mayest save me;
For thou art my rock and my fortress.

Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked,
Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

For thou art my hope, O Lord God:

Thou art my trust from my youth,

On thee have I stayed myself from my birth;
My hope is ever in thee.

I am as a portent unto many;

But thou art my strong refuge.

Let my mouth be filled with thy praise

And with thy glory all the day.

Cast me not off in the time of old age;

Forsake me not when my strength faileth.

For mine enemies speak against me;

And they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, Saying, 'God hath forsaken him:

Pursue and take him; for there is none to deliver him.'

O God, be not far from me;

O my God, make haste for my help.

Let them be confounded and put to shame that are adversaries to my soul;

Let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.

But I will hope continually,

And will yet praise thee more and more.

My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day;

I will shew forth the mighty deeds of the Lord God; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

O God, thou hast taught me from my youth,

And hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.

Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not;

Until I have told thine arm unto the generation to come, Even thy power and thy righteousness.

Thy mighty deeds, O God, reach unto the heights,

O God, who is like unto thee!

Thou, who hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again,

And shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

So will I praise thee among the nations, O Lord,

Even thy faithfulness upon the harp, O my God:

Unto thee will I sing with the lyre, O thou Holy One of Israel.

My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee;

And my soul, which thou hast redeemed.

My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long:

For they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame, that seek my hurt.

In thy righteousness.' The Midrash is always dwelling upon God's mercy. So here: 'Israel says unto God, If thou wouldest help us, help us not through our own righteousness and good works, but redeem us through thy righteousness.' Or again, commenting on the last words of Psalm xi (p. 438), it says: If

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we have any good works to show, he gives us their recompense; but if not, he gives us righteousness and grace from his own goodness.' With their fervent belief in a future life, the Rabbinic teachers had far less difficulty than the Psalmists in reconciling the long agony of persecution and sore distress with the infinite tenderness of God.

§ 20. The seventy-seventh Psalm: Voce mea ad Dominum.-— The gist of the following Psalm (lxxvii) is apparently to point out to despondent believers in days of trouble and darkness how comfort may be won by considering God's mercies to Israel in the historic past. What has been may be again. As he saved then, so may he, nay, so will he, save again. If his arm seems stayed and its strength diminished, this is because of Israel's sin. But the tenses are difficult, and the text and meaning in one important and crucial verse are very uncertain. I have followed the rendering of Professor Driver, which coincides with Ewald's. The end is perhaps defective. Professor Cheyne thinks that the last stanza is part of another Psalm. It seems to deal in poetic elaboration with the departure from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea.

(I said,) 'I will cry unto God with my voice,

Even unto God with my voice, that he may give ear

unto me.'

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;

My hand was stretched out in the night, and wearied not; My soul refused to be comforted.

(I said,) I will remember God, and make my moan, I will muse;' but my spirit was overwhelmed.

Thou heldest mine eyelids open :

I was so troubled that I could not speak.

I considered the days of old,

The years of ancient times.

(I said,) 'I will call to remembrance my song in the night:

I will commune with my heart;'

And my spirit made search, (saying):

6 Will the Lord cast off for ever,

And will he be favourable no more?

Is his mercy clean gone for ever,

Doth his faithfulness fail for evermore?
Hath God forgotten to be gracious,
Hath he in anger shut up

II.

his tender mercies?'
H h

Then I said, 'This is my infirmity:

But I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High. (?)

I will make mention of the works of the Lord;

I will remember thy wonders of old.

I will meditate also on all thy work,

And muse on thy doings.'

Thy way, O God, is in holiness :

Who is so great a God as the Lord?

Thou art the God that doest wonders;

Thou hast declared thy strength among the peoples. Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people,

The sons of Jacob and Joseph.

The waters saw thee, O God,

The waters saw thee; they were afraid;

The depths also were troubled.

The clouds poured out water;

The skies sent out a sound;

Thine arrows also went abroad.

The voice of thy thunder was in the whirlwind;
The lightnings lightened the world;
The earth trembled and shook.

Thy way was in the sea,

And thy path in the great waters, And thy footsteps were not known. Thou leddest thy people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

§ 21. The eighty-fifth Psalm.-The following Psalm (lxxxv) may belong to the early period of the restoration from Babylon, when to the high-pitched expectations, to which the prophecies of the Second Isaiah had given rise, there succeeded disillusionment and adversity. The petty settlement in Judaea under the doubtful favour of the Persian kings was a feeble substitute for the independence and glory which had been expected and foretold. But the Psalmist clings to the same indomitable hope as the prophets. Let but the heart of his people be truly turned towards God, and the promised salvation shall soon be realized. The value of the Psalm to us lies in its fine description of what that salvation shall consist in. There is a mingling of material and spiritual blessings, but the spiritual predominate. Such salvation does not come all at once or on a sudden but it comes gradually and little by little. Is

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