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THE HOLY SPIRIT

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He himself yearns

has himself in view as well as the community. for the clean heart, as we all, following in his footsteps and echoing his words, yearn and pray for it. But at the same time he asks it for Israel.

'Cast me not away.' God's presence and his holy spirit are synonyms. The expression 'holy spirit' is only found in one other passage in the Hebrew Bible. The Holy Spirit,' says Professor Wellhausen, 'is the prophetic inspiration, the divine influence from which Revelation springs.' But this verse too has an individual as well as a national significance. For the speaker, as we have again and again to remember, is an Israelite, and the attitude of God towards Israel (as he believed it) was also the attitude of God towards himself. It is only that his relation to God was more influenced by national considerations than ours; with us it is man and God; with him it was rather Israel and Jehovah. The punishment of Israel consists in a mysterious withdrawal of the Divine Spirit from its midst; the prerogative and privilege of Israel consist in its mysterious presence. The Spirit is holy. When Israel is holy, then the Spirit is in its midst; when the Spirit is 'there,' Israel is holy. Sin means alienation from God; virtue attracts the divine presence. And the mystery remains: goodness brings us near to God; sin removes us from him. But our effort to approach him is never unaided; our strength is not wholly our own. The joy of thy salvation.' Outward blessings,' says Professor Cheyne, are at any rate included. Sin is attended by chastisement; forgiveness by an equally visible deliverance. So it is with the individual; so also with the nation. The Psalmist, even if referring to his own sins and chastisements, regards them as shared by every other Israelite. The burden of guilt removed, he (and such as he) can obey the divinely given impulse, walking in the ways of God.' Professor Wellhausen translates: Give me once more the glad sense of thy help.'

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'A willing spirit.' 'A spirit eager and ready to do right' (Driver).

'Then will I teach.' Another verse which, in its close parallelism with many similar passages, requires a national interpretation. When Israel has been divinely purified, it can turn to its true mission: it can teach the true religion among the nations. The aspirations of the Second Isaiah are accepted and endorsed by the Psalmist, just as the teachings of the older prophets about material sacrifices have also been absorbed by him. The 'sinners' are the erring nations, the 'transgressors' may include a reference to apostate Jews. For the mission of the Servant is first to them and then to the Gentiles.

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'Deliver me from bloodguiltiness.' A very difficult verse. Perhaps Professor Cheyne's explanation is the most satisfactory. It runs as follows: 'The Hebrew writers are wont to specify some typical sin or sins, where we should rather employ a generic term. Thus, "Your hands are full of bloodshed;" "they build up Zion with bloodshed;" "for his unjust gain I smote him." Another peculiarity of theirs is to speak of sins when they mean rather the punishment of sins. So that the petition, "Deliver me from bloodshed" (so literally), means "Deliver me from those heinous sins (such as murder) which led Israel captive in the past." This accounts for the reference which follows to God's " righteousness." Jehovah is equally "righteous," when he sends and when he removes chastisements.'

But other commentators explain quite differently. The Hebrew word is the plural of 'blood,' and, as Professor Cheyne says, must primarily mean 'bloodshed.' Hence it is supposed by some that the 'bloodshed' does not refer to any sin which Israel has committed or might commit, but to bloodshed inflicted by others upon it. 'Save me from my blood being shed,' or, as Professor Wellhausen says, 'from peril of death. The danger arises from the heathen. As against them Israel is in the right, and can appeal to the righteousness of God.'

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‘A broken and a contrite heart.' The word 'contrite' (which accurately translates the Hebrew nidkeh, literally 'crushed') comes from the Vulgate. The verse there runs: Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.' Contribulo means to bruise, to crush, and contribulatus effectively renders the Hebrew nishbarah, broken. Contero also means properly to crush, to pound, to crumble; and contritum is here used as a synonym for contribulatum. The Hebrew has the same word as before: nishbar, broken. The metaphorical use in English of contrite for penitent is derived from this passage of the Vulgate. Thus Wycliffe's first version runs: Sacrifise to God, a spiritt holly trublid; a contrit herte and mekid, God, thou shalt not despise. In the second version, revised by John Purvey (about 1388), the rendering is much the same: A sacrifice to God is a spirit troblid; God, thou shalt not dispise a contrit herte and maad meke. (Troubled' is used in a subjective sense, as meaning 'anxious,' grieved,' 'in trouble,' 'in tribulation.') When we come to Coverdale, the troubled spirit is still retained; but for the less accurate meek' (representing the Vulgate 'humiliatum') is now substituted 'contrite,' while 'broken' takes the place of 'contrite' in the translation of nishbar. So we get: The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt

'A BROKEN AND A CONTRITE HEART

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not despise.' The Genevan Bible renders: The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit; a contrite and broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' The Bishops' Bible introduces a new rendering which did not maintain itself: Sacrifices for God is a mortified spirit; O Lord, thou wilt not despise a mortified and an humble heart. Finally, in the Authorized Version, we get at last to a version which is no less literal than beautiful: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise-a rendering which the Revised Version has rightly found no necessity to change. I hope my readers may be as interested as I have been myself in tracing the various forms which this superb verse has assumed in the various English translations.

§ 5. The last two verses of the Psalm.-'For thou desirest not sacrifice.' In these sublime and soul-stirring sentences the great Psalm culminates and (as I believe) concludes. True penitence can no further go. I cannot perceive myself that we have here no true end of the Psalm; I discern no abruptness.' The Psalmist ends with a noble asseveration of the doctrine upon which his whole prayer depends. Can we really imagine that in one and the same breath he would declare that God has no pleasure in sacrifices, and that for his (the Psalmist's) purpose they are valueless, and then immediately proceed to pray for an opportunity to offer them? Such a juxtaposition seems to me a contradiction in terms. And yet in the Hebrew after the line, 'A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,' the following two verses are appended :—

O do good in thy favour unto Zion;

Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Then shalt thou delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering and whole offering;

Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

The relation of the last two verses to the rest of the Psalm depends partly on a question of date. On the old idea that the Psalm was written by David, the last two verses are clearly an addition, and the Jewish commentator, Ibn Ezra, mentions and approves of this supposition. But if the whole Psalm was written in the Exile, the particular difficulty of date disappears. It is this period to which most modern commentators assign it, and the majority of them strenuously maintain that the supposed 'appendix' is really an integral portion of the Psalm. So, for instance,

Professor Robertson-Smith: At present, says the Psalmist, God desires no material sacrifice, but will not despise a contrite heart. . . . But does the Psalmist then mean to say, absolutely and in general, that sacrifice is a superseded thing? No; for he adds that when Jerusalem is rebuilt, the sacrifice of Israel will be pleasing to God. He lives, therefore, in a time when the fall of Jerusalem has temporarily suspended the sacrificial ordinances, but-and this is the great lesson of the Psalm-has not closed the door of forgiveness to the penitent heart.' Professor Cheyne, who does not himself share this view, points out nevertheless that it is in full accordance with a continuous line of Jewish thought. We know how in the mediaeval Jewish liturgy there are constant prayers for the return to Zion, for the rebuilding of the Temple, for the renewal of sacrifices. At present, and while the dispersion lasts, prayer and penitence must take the place of sacrifice. But even while acknowledging their intrinsic superiority, it is never stated that because they are superior, therefore sacrifice will never be restored and need not be prayed for again. The Hymn of Unity for the first day of the week' quotes our Psalm and other similar passages, and adds

'I will build an altar with my broken heart,

And I will break my spirit within me.

I will humble the haughtiness of my heart and of mine eyes,
And I will rend my heart because of the Lord.

The sherds of my spirit are thy sacrifices;

May they come up with favour upon thine altar.'

Yet the author of this hymn could and did also pray for the restoration of the Temple and of its service as the mark and sign of the divine forgiveness unto Israel. He was not conscious of the smallest contradiction.

In one of a remarkable series of articles on the Psalms, Dr. B. Jacob argues strongly for the same view; he undoubtedly proves the close connexion of the Psalter with the Temple, and the intense devotion of the Psalmists to its services. We commit an anachronism if we suppose that spiritual religion and material sacrifices could not go hand in hand. This must be freely acknowledged, and yet I am not persuaded that in this particular instance the proposed application of this undoubted truth is either accurate or justifiable.

The fifty-first Psalm may have been written during the Exile, and the 'appendix' added on to it by another writer of the same period. Or the Psalm may have been written in the Exile, and the appendix added before the building of the walls by Nehemiah. Or the

'LEST WE FORGET

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Psalm may be post-exilic, and the appendix added in the days of Artaxerxes Ochus. (This latter theory would have to assume a breaking down of the walls at that date' as a part of the cruel punishment inflicted upon the Jews for their revolt.') Or lastly, though the Psalm itself is hardly Maccabean, as Olshausen supposed, I do not see why the appendix could not be so. At any rate, an exilic or post-exilic date is not adverse to a separation of the body of the Psalm from the appendix. And is not the close contiguity of the verses against sacrifices with the prayer for their restoration and acceptance a further proof that both could not have proceeded from the same pen? The Psalmist makes no qualifications: Thou hast no pleasure in sacrifices. These are his words. He does not say, 'Thou hast no pleasure now, but thou wilt have in the future.' The statement is absolute and general. It seems to me a psychological impossibility that the man whose prayer culminated in the doctrine of the 'broken heart,' could at that very moment have put up a petition for the speedy restoration of those outward rites whose value in the eyes of God he had so deliberately denied. The very form of the last verse, with its overloaded first half and awkward third person in the second half, seems to plead for its later date and separate origin. That for us to-day the worth of the Psalm closes with the contrite heart' would be acknowledged on all hands. I am glad to think that on exegetical grounds also the appendix may rightly be omitted.

The greatness and importance of this Psalm have, as I think, not only justified me in placing it in a chapter by itself, but also in commenting upon it at quite exceptional length. I will conclude by recalling the grand use of it made by Rudyard Kipling in his famous Jubilee hymn :

'The shouting and the tumult dies,

The captains and the kings depart,
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
A humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.

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