'HE LOVETH RIGHTEOUSNESS'

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'The upright shall behold his face.' A metaphorical expression to indicate the fullest measure of divine grace and of spiritual happiness. We shall meet with the idea again.

The next Psalm (xii) represents the party of piety as a mere remnant amid a crowd of mocking oppressors. The true Israelites are frequently identified in the Psalter with the poor, the afflicted and the needy. On the other hand, we do not find denunciations of the rich qua rich. In this Psalm too we find an early use of Chasid as a party term. The Chasid is the man who shows Chesed, or lovingkindness, to his fellow-man, even as God shows Chesed to him. The term, as Professor Cheyne says, is untranslatable in English. The 'loving,' the 'pious,' the 'godly,' are all more or less inapposite and inaccurate. (With a slight correction of the text, Professor Wellhausen would render the first two lines, 'Help me, O Lord; love is clean gone, and faithfulness vanished from men.')

Help, Lord; for the godly man is no more;

For the faithful have ceased from among the children of men.

They speak falsehood every one with his neighbour:

With flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.

May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,

And the tongue that speaketh proud things: Who say, 'Through our tongue will we prevail; Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?'

"For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, Now will I arise,' saith the Lord;

'I will set him in safety that panteth towards me.' (?) The words of the Lord are pure words:

As smelted silver, as gold purified seven times.

The wicked walk on every side,

When vileness is exalted among the sons of men: () Thou wilt keep us, O Lord.

Thou wilt preserve us from this generation for ever.

In the following Psalm (xiii), which belongs still to the same period and group, the speaker is again a representative of his persecuted party. Note the fine transition from heavy complaint to the joyful assurance of faith.

How long wilt thou for ever forget me, O Lord?
How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
How long shall I lay up sorrows in my soul,
And have trouble in my heart day by day?
How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
Look and hear me, O Lord my God:

Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest mine enemy say, 'I have prevailed against him';
And those that trouble me rejoice that I am moved.
But as for me, I trust in thy lovingkindness;

My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.

I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me.

From the next Psalm (xvii) some verses have been omitted. The text is frequently corrupt and uncertain.

Hear my right, O Lord, attend unto my cry,

Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence;

Thine eyes see uprightly.

If thou provest mine heart and visitest my reins;

Yea, if thou triest me, thou wilt find no evil thought;
My mouth doth not transgress. (?) . . .

By the word of thy lips

I have kept me from the paths of the spoiler.
My goings have held fast unto thy paths,
My footsteps have not slipped.

I call upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God:
Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.

Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness,

O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee

From those that rise up against them.

Keep me as the apple of the eye,

Hide me under the shadow of thy wings,

From the wicked that oppress me,

From my deadly enemies that compass me about. As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness:

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thine image. (?)

The last line is exceedingly obscure. Perhaps the text is faulty. Some have seen in it a reference to a future life, but this is

WAS THE PSALMIST SELF-RIGHTEOUS ? 441

improbable. For the speaker is Israel or the pious community. Others suppose that the night, from which the Psalmist will 'awake,' is the darkness of calamity-the awakening is at the dawning of the Messianic age. Some, with a slight change of text, would read, when thou awakest;' that is, when God's judgement has been executed, when the wicked have been destroyed and the pious delivered, the Psalmist, or the community of believers in whose name he speaks, will be undisturbed in their pure enjoyment of the divine communion.

'judgement'] come forth How can it be proved "He takes a bribe out

On the verse, 'Let my sentence [or from thy presence,' the Midrash asks: that God takes bribes? Because it says, of the bosom of the wicked" (Prov. xvii. 23. The real translation is, "The wicked takes a bribe out of his bosom "). And what is the bribe which he takes from the wicked in this world? Repentance and prayer and charity. God says, "My children, so long as the doors of prayer are open, repent; for in this world I take a bribe, but when hereafter I sit in judgement, I take no bribe, as it is said, He will not regard any ransom, neither will he consent, though thou multiply thy bribes."'

Noteworthy in this Psalm is the strong expression of the speaker's own righteousness. But it is very unlikely that the Psalmist believed himself personally free from all wrongdoing. Such conceit would show that he was far even from that degree of virtue which it is possible for man to acquire. For humility and the consciousness of imperfection-the vivid recognition of the more one might do and the better that one might be―are the foundation of human excellence. But the Psalmist is convinced of one thing his faith and joy in God. It is this which he urges in contrast to the impiety (as he believes) of his adversaries. And as he speaks of his party rather than of his own individual self, the character of his assertion is changed. His party, as a matter of fact, comprised those who did honestly try to order their lives in accordance with the mandates of the Law, who did 'set the Lord before them.' I admit that self-righteousness was a spiritual and moral fault into which the pious Jews of the post-exilic period were sometimes liable to fall. For it was possible with a certain moderate effort to obey the ritual and ceremonial law; it was even possible to obey all the negative commands of the moral law, and some of its positive commands as well. And then, especially at a time when there were others who did not obey the ritual and ceremonial ordinances, it was easy and tempting to think yourself a pattern of moral and religious excellence, and so thinking to be in truth anything but that which you thought

yourself to be. But I cannot believe that the Psalmist, whose words show such keen faith in God and such joy in communing with him, was guilty of arid self-righteousness or of spiritual conceit.

§ 7. The twenty-second Psalm: Why hast thou forsaken me ?'— Another group of prayerful hymns from days of persecution and sorrow opens with one of the most famous Psalms in the Psalter (xxii). The speaker, though in one sense the representative of the pious in Israel, and writing in their name, is in another sense an ideal figure, and almost a dramatic creation. In some respects he is the Psalmic counterpart of the Servant in the prophecies of the Second Isaiah, of whose book the author of this Psalm was a devout student and admirer. The date is once more some season of gloom and danger during the Persian rule. As with other Psalms, so here, the change from agonized petition to jubilant assurance is sudden and significant. The faithful believers obtain through prayer the conviction of their sure deliverance. Then they will fulfil the Servant's mission, and sing God's praises to the whole people of Israel, and to the world at large. We may note that no word of impatience escapes from the lips of the Psalmist, above all none of revenge against the enemies who have filled the cup of his miseries to overflowing.'

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Thou art far from my cry, and from the words of my roaring.

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;
And in the night season, and have no rest.
But thou art the Holy One,

Enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in thee:

They trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered:

They trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man;

A reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn:

They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, "His redeemer is the Lord; He will rescue him!

Let Him deliver him, seeing He delighteth in him!' But thou art my God from of old,

Thou hast been my trust from the beginning.

'THOU ART THE HOLY ONE'

Be not far from me; for trouble is near;

For there is none to help.

Many bulls have compassed me:

Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

For dogs have compassed me:

The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They gape upon me with their mouths,

As a ravening and a roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

And all my bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax;

It is melted within me.

My palate is dried up like a potsherd;

And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;

And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs encompass me;

A company of villains encircle me.

I may

number all my bones:

They look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, And cast lots upon my vesture.

But be not thou far from me, O Lord:

O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul from the sword;

My dear life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth:

Deliver me from the horns of the wild ox.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren:

In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him;

All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him;

And fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

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For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;

Neither hath he hid his face from him;

But when he cried unto him, he heard.

Thy faithfulness shall be my praise in the great congre

gation:

I will pay my vows before them that fear him.