CHAPTER VIII

DIDACTIC PSALMS

§ 1. The fifteenth Psalm: Domine, quis habitabit ?'-I pass from the Royal Psalms to a very different category. For this chapter will be devoted to Didactic Psalms, songs of teaching. Some of the finest Psalms in the Psalter fall under this head. I shall include twelve Psalms in the group, of varied character and probably of various dates, but yet all didactic. Sometimes the teaching is direct, and sometimes it is, as it were, that indirect teaching which the record of personal experience can afford.

The first Psalm in the group (xv) sets forth the conditions for closer intimacy with God. Who may be God's 'guest'? The Hebrew word is no noun but a verb, and the question is, Who may 'sojourn' in the divine tent? But the verb-' Gur'-has close connexions with the noun-Ger. Ger, as we know, is usually translated stranger; the ger is the foreigner who has settled in Israel's land. In one sense we are all God's 'Gerim,' for he is the world's owner (Part I, p. 277). But in a narrower sense only they may secure the inviolability and security of guestship with God who conform to God's demands. These demands are not physical but moral, just as God's tent (here suggested by the Temple) is not physical but spiritual. You cannot get near to God locally; you cannot touch the ropes or pegs of his tent and so secure protection. You can only approach him spiritually and morally. It is goodness alone which gives you a passport, inviolable and abiding. As it is not only in days of old that 'the symbol has been placed above the thing signified and a superstitious efficacy attached to the externals of worship, this Psalm has an equal value for every age, in keeping before the mind the great lesson that sanctity of life and truth of heart are the absolute essentials of a spiritual religion' (The Four Friends).

GOD'S SOJOURNER

Lord, who may sojourn in thy tent?
Who may dwell in thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
And speaketh the truth in his heart.

He that backbiteth not with his tongue,

Nor doeth evil to his neighbour,

Nor uttereth a reproach against his neighbour.

In whose eyes a vile person is despised;

But he honoureth them that fear the Lord.

He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury,

Nor taketh a bribe against the innocent.

He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

583

'A vile person is despised,' be his wealth and station what they

may.

He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.' A doubtful translation of a doubtful text. If it is correct, it must mean: If you have made an agreement with anybody, the agreement must be carried out, even though, contrary to your original anticipation, it should turn out to your own loss or damage.

Note the strong indictment of 'usury,' which does not merely mean 'usury' in our sense, but any 'interest' whatever. The law had forbidden 'interest' to a fellow-citizen; here it is forbidden generally. To receive money from money, to let gold bear gold, seemed to ancient moralists unnatural and wicked. All interest on money is condemned by Aristotle. We know now that such condemnation rests on a misapprehension, but the truth is that the 'interest' with which our Psalmist was acquainted was probably usury in our sense, and he was right to condemn it.

§ 2. The twenty-fourth Psalm: Domini est terra.'-Closely similar to the fifteenth is the first part of the twenty-fourth Psalm, to which another psalm-fragment has apparently been added by the compiler. The added fragment seems to be a part of a processional song of victory, in which God is represented metaphorically as returning 'to his sanctuary after fighting for and delivering his people.' Fine as the fragment is, the first part of the Psalm is religiously far finer. The reason why the second part has been added to the first would seem to be that the idea of the 'holy place' connects them. The hill' leads to the 'gates' through which the 'place' is entered. But in the first part the

'holy place' is semi-metaphorical. The Temple suggests the idea, but the idea is not limited to the Temple.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;

The world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.

Who may go up unto the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
Who hath not set his soul upon wickedness,
Nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive blessing from the Lord,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of them that seek him,
That seek thy face, O God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates,

And be ye lift up, ye ancient doors,
That the King of glory may come in.

'Who is the King of glory?'

The Lord, strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,

Yea, lift them up, ye ancient doors,

That the King of glory may come in.

"Who is the King of glory?'

The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

'Clean hands and a pure heart': a fine summing up of the noble character. Deed and thought correspond. Wellhausen renders: 'sinless hands and a pure conscience.'

'Who hath not set his soul upon wickedness.' The phrase is not quite easy. Wellhausen renders: 'Who cherishes no longing for evil;' Driver: 'who hath not lifted up his soul unto unreality,' and 'unreality' he explains as 'what is either frivolous or insincere.'

§3. The thirty-second Psalm.-The third Psalm in this group (xxxii) strikes another note. It deals with the great central

FORGIVENESS OF SIN

585

problem of religion, which is Sin. We might on another plan of grouping unite it with the fifty-first. The Psalmist, who speaks in his own individual person of personal experience, tells a tale of his soul. The main facts are not outward but inward. Or rather, even if the facts be outward, it is the inner feelings accompanying them which alone give to these facts their value and their meaning. The Psalmist had sinned, and had obstinately sought to 'conceal' his sin from God by refusing to recognize it to himself. Then calamity overtook him. But he refused to show penitence or to feel it. He persisted perchance in evildoing— in evilbeing. And yet his soul was sore: anguish, unacknowledged but yet real, possessed him. Silent before God, his guilty conscience roared within him. Then at last he found the remedy. He poured forth his soul's burden unto God, and the wall of severance fell. He was once more 'at one with God. The removal of his outward calamity accompanied his inward peace and testified to God's forgiveness. Therefore he bids all who, in spite of human frailty, love God to pray unto him when distress and danger overtake them. The great waters shall not reach them. Here the Psalm may seem to sink to lower levels. For all the words imply is that God will save the humble worshipper in times of peril. To the Psalmists the consciousness of guilt was often awakened by the presence of trouble, so that the Hebrew word for 'guilt' is sometimes almost equivalent to 'punishment. Nevertheless it would not seem overstrained to give the first three stanzas of the poem the more spiritual interpretation. Even if 'guilt' in the last line of the third stanza includes punishment, it certainly also includes the inward feeling of alienation from God. And the opening adjective means more than 'fortunate.' It implies inward contentment and joy.

Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered.

Happy is the man unto whom the Lord reckoneth not iniquity,

And in whose spirit there is no guile.

When I kept silence, my bones wasted away
Through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me:

My sap was turned into the drought of summer.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity I hid not: I said, 'I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; ' And thou forgavest the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let every loving one pray unto thee in a time of distress;

When the flood of great waters is heard, they will not reach him.

Thou art my hiding place; thou wilt preserve me from trouble;

Thou dost encompass me with security. (?)

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go:

I will direct mine eyes upon thee. (?)

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding:

Who must be held in with bit and bridle,

Else they will not come near unto thee.

Many sorrows have the wicked:

But he that trusteth in the Lord, lovingkindness shall compass him about.

Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous:

And shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

'In whose spirit there is no guile.' is he who has freely and unreservedly unto God.

The guileless man here confessed his whole sin

'Thy hand was heavy upon me.' There seems to have been a combination of outward and inward trouble. God sent misfortune, but this misfortune was not humbly accepted as the punishment of sin. Nevertheless the Psalmist was ill at ease: he tried to deny his sin to himself and to God. But the more he did so, the more the inward conflict, sharpened by the outward trouble, raged within him. When he confessed his sin, he was at peace with God, and the removal of his punishment showed him that God had forgiven him. The words of the Psalm are not satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that the whole experience was inward, and that there is no question of external calamity at all; on the other hand, a purely outward interpretation is still less adequate. We have apparently to assume a double and parallel process both at the outset and the close: the punishment sharpens, but does not cause, the inward conflict; the peace of confession is followed and increased by the removal of the punishment-the outward and visible sign of God's forgiveness.

The first five lines of the last stanza (beginning 'I will instruct thee') are somewhat obscure. Is God or the Psalmist the speaker? The transition too seems abrupt.