built their nests in the sanctuary. Some scholars for metrical and other reasons think that a few words have fallen out, and would render thus:

(So Cheyne.)

Even the sparrow finds a house
And the swallow a nest,

Where she lays her callow brood,

[So have I found, even I,

A home] by thine altars,

O my king and my God.

The second stanza is very obscure. It seems to refer to the pilgrims' journey to Jerusalem. The 'vale of Baca' (weeping) is puzzling. It seems to be a particular place which the pilgrims pass through. To the casual passer-by it was arid and waterless, but being on the road to Jerusalem-the goal of desire-it was as if God had filled it with blessings and changed its very look.

'From strength to strength' is also doubtful. If the text and punctuation be correct, it must mean that fatigue is banished by the prospect' of Zion.

'Thine anointed.' Either the high priest, or more probably the whole people of Israel. The prayer, however, seems to come awkwardly between the second and fourth stanzas. Perhaps it has been inserted here by mistake. At any rate, the noble verse 'A day in thy courts' follows well after the stanza which brings the pilgrims to their goal at Zion.

Notwithstanding all these obscurities, how beautiful the Psalm is! How easily it adapts itself to our modern moods, so that we are able to give, if we will, a spiritual meaning to those courts and altars of God which the Psalmist praises so sweetly. And for this there are two reasons: first, our Psalm is a true lyric, occasional' in origin, and yet capable of wide application; and secondly, the Temple was no mere material building to the Psalmist, but rather a vehicle or stimulus for spiritual religion. Hence the spirit transforms the letter. His words grow plastic and pliable. We may put a meaning into them somewhat different from that intended by their author, and yet what they suggest to us is essentially the same as that which suggested them to him. He is to us a true spiritual ancestor.

§ 8. Once more the I' of the Psalter.-I may take this opportunity of saying a few more words on this question, for the idea that the Psalmist is often speaking not merely of or for himself but also for the community or the nation may seem to many readers to rob the Psalms of their religious value. But such a

INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNITY

513

supposition would be a grave mistake. The bearing of the communal 'I' may be perhaps most easily realized by substituting the plural for the singular. It would not destroy the religious value and truth of the twenty-third Psalm if, instead of reading The Lord is my shepherd,' we were to read, 'The Lord is our shepherd; we shall not want.' It would not impair the greatness and spirituality of the fifty-first Psalm if the words ran: 'Purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow. Cast us not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy presence from us.' It would even bring out the full meaning of the twenty-second Psalm more clearly if it said: 'We will declare thy name unto our brethren; in the midst of the congregation we will praise thee.' Rarely if ever does a Psalmist, when he uses the 'first person singular,' say anything which is not true of himself as a unit of Israel, which is not the outcome of his own experience, which he has not realized in his own religious life. All or almost all that the communal or national 'I' means is that the sufferings, petitions, aspirations and joys recorded in the Psalter are those of Israel, and therefore of every Israelite whose heart beats in unison with the heart of his people. (The Israel may be the nation as a whole or the 'true Israel' within the nation, but for the present argument this makes no difference.) Just as Aristotle shows that logically and ' according to nature' the state is prior to the individual, so in the same sense is Israel prior to the Israelite, the community to the members which compose it. Each individual enters into the communal consciousness; he carries it on, and perhaps he strengthens and purifies it, but what he receives in almost every case is more than what he gives. The Israelite's religion was sustained and vitalized by his being a member of the community. He shared and experienced its joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears. It is these which are recorded in the Psalter, recorded by men who expanded, strengthened and purified the religion of their community, but at the same time stood in the closest relation to it, receiving from it their own religious sustenance and seeking to give vocal expression to it in their songs. I do not therefore believe that the national or communal interpretation of the 'I' (if properly understood) impairs the religious significance of the Psalter. Rather does it add to it a peculiar poetical and religious distinction. Here is the religion not so much of isolated men but of a community. The community is nothing outside its members; it does not exist without them or beyond them. The religion of a community is either the religion of its members or it is nothing at all-a dead letter, a series of written propositions, an echo of

the past. But the Psalter is instinct with vitality. It breathes and lives. Its religion was not made up to order: it was no laborious imitation of a pattern which no longer represented the real religious feelings and beliefs of its authors. The fusion between the individual and the community is complete and organic. The Psalmist does not merely speak in the name of his community for the time being he is the community, and the community for the moment is summed up and expresses itself in him.

THE TRIUMPH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

515

CHAPTER V

PSALMS OF THANKSGIVING

§1. The Present and the Future.-The Psalms which I bring together in this group under the title of Psalms of Thanksgiving are not all of one type. Some render thanks to God for actual deliverance; some, as in the first group, anticipate, and are songs of praise and gratitude for the deliverance which is yet to come. The Psalmists see the end at the beginning. For the deliverance they celebrate is always connected with the final deliverance of the Messianic or Golden Age. Any movement among the nations is sufficient to rouse their hopes and stir their expectations. Especially eager, as it would seem, were their anticipations during the conquering career of Alexander. No wonder that the immense and sudden changes which he wrought on the map and history of the world provoked their enthusiasm and excitement. Their hopes for the speedy coming of that Golden Age of righteousness, the age in which God should be king over all the earth, and every human soul should praise him, were doomed to disappointment; but some of the hymns to which those hopes gave birth are probably still preserved to us in the Psalter. And though the Psalmists were too confident in their expectations for the immediate future, they were no whit too confident in the goodness of God and in the triumph of righteousness. Sharing this faith with them, clinging to it with all our might and main, we can also appropriate their Psalms for our own use and comfort, and find in them the expression of our own highest hopes and aspirations. For the events of the moment which produced their hymns were transmuted by the Psalmists into forms and figures that are suitable for all time. They looked at the present, and utilized it for their poetry, sub specie aeternitatis, as the philosophers would say. Their words, though prompted by or even written for special circumstances, were in manner and

expression general enough to endure through the ages. Particular events were regarded in a universal light, and thus a poem for the occasion was capable of becoming a poem for eternity. The Psalmists, true poets as so many of them were, followed unconsciously the maxim of Rückert :—

'Nur wenn es Ewiges im Zeitlichen enthält,

Ist heut' es für das Fest und morgen für die Welt.'

§ 2. The thirtieth Psalm: 'Exaltabo te, Domine.'-I include twenty-three Psalms in this group. Only two belong to the first collection, and these stand out sharply in tone and language from the rest. Of the twenty-one others, the majority fall into minor groups of their own, and are so found together in the Psalter. Thus we get the three successive Psalms xlvi to xlviii, the six Psalms xcv to c, and the six Psalms cxiii to cxviii.

Beginning with Psalm xxx, we find it difficult to decide whether it has an individual or a national signification. Is the deliverance personal to the singer, or is he the spokesman of his people? Probably the latter. The heading to the Psalm is very interesting: 'A song at the dedication of the house' (i. e. the Temple). It is tolerably certain that these words may be taken to mean that this Psalm was used at the re-dedication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus. It still remains the Psalm for the festival of Chanukah. When it was written is doubtful. If it be a national Psalm, the distressful close of the Persian period may mark the troubles from which the career of Alexander the Great either brought or was expected to bring deliverance. There are frequent parallels in thought and language to many Psalms in the first group, which we have already heard. These the reader can find out for himself. The famous verse, 'For his anger is but for a moment,' is rendered in Coverdale's translation :

For his wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye,

And in his pleasure is life :

Heaviness may endure for a night,

But joy cometh in the morning.

The Hebrew word which I, borrowing from the Revised Version, have rendered 'tarry' means literally to lodge,'' to pass the night as a traveller,' and thus beautifully expresses the central idea. Weeping is the passing guest, joy will come to stay.

I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up,

And hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.

O Lord my God,

I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.