'WAIT UPON GOD'

For thy lovingkindness is great unto the heavens,
And thy truth unto the clouds.

Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens;
Let thy glory be above all the earth.

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§ 17. The sixty-second Psalm.-Another Psalm of Trust (xii). 'Wait for the Lord.' Fret not; be resigned. And not merely resigned passively. Let your being and your life be in harmony with what you feel to be the supremest Will, the purest Good. Live and act with God, not against him. May we thus, mystically and yet not fancifully, enlarge and paraphrase our Psalm?

Wait silently, my soul, upon God:

From him cometh my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defence; I shall not be moved.
How long will ye rage against a man,

Would ye break him down, all of you,
As a bowing wall and a tottering fence?

They only consult to drag him down from his height: (?)
They delight in lies:

They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly.

Wait silently, my soul, upon God;

For my expectation is from him.

He only is my rock and my salvation:

He is my defence; I shall not be moved.

Upon God rest my salvation and my glory:

The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

Trust in him, O assembly of the people,

Pour out your heart before him:

God is a refuge for us.

Surely men of low degree are a breath, and men of high degree are a lie:

Laid in the balance, they are altogether as a breath.

Trust not in perversity,

And become not vain through crookedness;

If riches spring up, give no heed to them.

God hath spoken once;

Twice have I heard this:

That power belongeth unto God,

And that unto thee, O Lord, belongeth lovingkindness, For thou renderest to every man according to his work.

'Against a man.' Professor Wellhausen thinks that the danger here mentioned 'is a public one, threatening the theocracy. It shows itself in an onslaught on a prominent individual, who is virtually the leader of the commonwealth. He is attacked by a Jewish faction which, while affecting piety, exerts a pernicious influence.' This individual, according to Professor Wellhausen, is probably a Maccabean leader or king.

'Surely men of low degree are a breath.' Apparently the meaning is, trust in God, and not in men, who are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and whose promises are often illusory. Or it may mean, our adversaries are mere men; their vaunted power but brief and deceptive. Or it may mean, man is frail and fleeting; his strength is deceptive: vain and irrational is it therefore for such a being to adopt crooked and perverse methods of conduct so as to obtain ephemeral power or transitory wealth. To the ill-gotten gains of others let no righteous man give heed.

The interest of the Psalm may be said to lie in its general trend of thought, and in its vivid portrayal of a great and noble mind harassed by encountering the petty intrigues of jealousy, but cleaving to God for comfort and support, and thereby obtaining a true sense of proportion and a calm serenity of soul.

'According to his work.' 'What does this imply?' says the Midrash. Many a man purposes to commit a sin, but does not commit it. But God does not account to him the sin until he has actually committed it. But if he purposes to do a good action and is hindered and does it not, God accounts it to him as if he had done it.' The Midrash desires to emphasize the mercy of God. It ignores the case where a man purposes or desires to commit a sin, but does not commit it through mere fear of the consequences or because he is accidentally prevented. Of him it might almost be said that in God's eyes he has committed it. On the other hand the words of Shakespeare are true:

'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.'

It would be ridiculous to say that the man who was greatly tempted to commit a bad action, but overcomes the temptation, is not morally superior to the man who is not only tempted, but yields.

§ 18. The sixty-ninth Psalm.—The speaker in the next Psalm (lxix) is the same as in Psalms xxii and xxxviii (§§ 7 and 11). The

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period is perhaps the same also, or it may be the Maccabean. The pious believers suffer through their fidelity: they incur enmity and are estranged from their fellow-citizens by their zeal for the Lord.

Save me, O God;

For the waters are come in unto my soul.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing;

I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is burnt up; Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head;

They that are falsely mine enemies are more in number than my bones.

O God, thou knowest my foolishness;

And my sins are not hid from thee.

Let not them that wait for thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed through me;

Let not those that seek thee be confounded through me,
O Lord God of Israel.

Because for thy sake I have borne reproach;
Shame hath covered my face.

I am become a stranger unto my brethren,
And an alien unto my mother's children.

For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;

And the reproaches of them that reproached thee are

fallen upon me.

I afflicted my soul with fasting,

Which was to my reproach.

I made sackcloth also my garment;
And I became a proverb to them.
They that sit in the gate talk of me;

And I am the song of the drunkards.

But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord,

Shew me favour, O God, in the multitude of thy mercy; Hear me in the truth of thy salvation.

Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink;

Let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.

Let not the waterflood overflow me,

Neither let the deep swallow me up,

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.'