'THOU KNOWEST MY PATH'

Incline not my heart to any evil thing,

To practise wicked deeds with men that work iniquity: And let me not eat of their dainties.

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Let the righteous smite me in lovingkindness and chasten me; Such good oil let not my head refuse.

For mine eyes are unto thee, O God, the Lord;

In thee is my trust; pour not out my soul.

Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me,
And the gins of the workers of iniquity.

Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
Whilst that I withal escape.

'I cry unto thee; make haste unto me.' The Midrash says: 'What does "make haste unto me" mean? I hastened to fulfil thy commands; so hasten thou to me. What is the matter like? It is like a man who had to defend himself before a judge. He saw that all his opponents had advocates to plead for them. So he called to the judge, and said: All require advocates and have them, but I have no advocate. Be thou my advocate as well as my judge. So spake David: Some rely on their good works, and some on the good works of their fathers, but I rely on thee. Though I have no good works, yet since I cry unto thee, answer me.'

The following Psalm (cxlii) repeats familiar complaints and ends in customary confidence.

I cry unto the Lord with my voice;

With my voice unto the Lord I make my supplication. I pour out my complaint before him;

I shew before him my trouble,

When my spirit is overwhelmed within me.

In the way wherein I walk, they have privily laid a snare

for me;

But thou knowest my path.

I look on my right hand, and gaze on my left;

Escape hath failed me; no man careth for my soul.

I cry unto thee, O Lord:

I say, Thou art my refuge,

My portion in the land of the living.

Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low:

Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger

than I.

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: The righteous shall glory in me; for thou wilt deal bountifully with me.

"The righteous shall glory in me.' The verb is doubtful. Who are the righteous? Have we here a purely 'individual' Psalm, and is the 'prison' to be taken quite literally? Or is it the members of the community who bewail their lot? In that case the 'prison' must be interpreted metaphorically of misfortune, and the 'righteous' must be the future proselytes, whom Israel's deliverance and triumph will surely bring to the knowledge and worship of the true God. The term 'righteous' would then be used, as the grammarians say, 'proleptically,' i. e. by way of anticipation.

§ 29. The one hundred and forty-third Psalm.—We have now reached the last Psalm to be included in the present group from the third collection (cxliii). It is largely made up of reminiscences, yet original touches are not wanting. The fifth line is notable: In thy sight no man living is righteous' (translated in the Authorized Version: 'In thy sight shall no man living be justified'). The Psalmist does not ask for God's deliverance on the ground of his righteousness. In an appeal to the All-righteous, what can his own feeble, human righteousness avail? At the best it is but poor. But God's righteousness is merciful. It does not expect from man more than man can render. Therefore even a cry for deliverance can appeal to God's righteousness. With him and in him, goodness, justice, righteousness and love are one and the same: mere synonyms and nothing more. For God alone is truly One. Note too the appeal to the Divine Spirit. Once again we have an allusion to that mysterious interchange and combination of human effort and divine grace which render man capable of his best deeds and highest self. The right or level path' is used here in a moral sense; elsewhere it is a metaphor for prosperity. The only jarring note is struck in the last two lines. Shall we who use this Psalm for our own devotional purposes give to them another interpretation? For who are our real enemies? Who most sorely afflict our soul? Our own evil thoughts, our own wicked desires, our own temptations. From these, O God, deliver us indeed. Help us, O Lord, in thy lovingkindness, to overcome them through thine aid may we destroy them and cut them off.

Hear my prayer, O Lord,

In thy righteousness give ear to my supplications,
Answer me in thy righteousness.

THE GOOD SPIRIT

And enter not into judgement with thy servant:
For in thy sight no man living is righteous.
For the enemy hath pursued my soul;

He hath crushed my life down to the ground;

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He hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me;

My heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old;

I meditate on all thy works;

I muse on the works of thy hands.

I stretch forth my hands unto thee:

My soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth:

Hide not thy face from me,

Lest I become like unto them that go down into the pit. Satisfy me with thy lovingkindness in the morning;

For in thee do I trust:

Make me to know the way wherein I should walk;

For I lift up my soul unto thee.

Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies:

I hope in thee.

Teach me to do thy will,

For thou art my God:

Let thy good spirit lead me in the right path. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake:

Through thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. And in thy lovingkindness cut off mine enemies, And destroy all them that afflict my soul:

For I am thy servant.

'Enter not into judgement.'To enter into judgement is an expression used of the plaintiff, not of the judge. God's righteousness consists in this very fact, that he does not appear as a complainant against the pious, endeavouring to detect their most secret sins and bring them to punishment. In that case no one could win his suit against him' (Wellhausen).

Teach me to do thy will.' These six short words are the concentrated essence of true prayer. Make us see what action is in best accordance with thee-that is, with Righteousness; give

us power to do it. Direct our understanding; purify our hearts; strengthen our will.

$30. The eightieth Psalm.-I propose to close the group with four Psalms which seem to reflect one and the same definite historical situation. I have therefore taken them out of the order in which they come in the Psalter, and we go back from the third collection to the second. They are national Psalms written amid persecution, suffering and war. From all we know of the postexilic history of the Jews, they must be assigned either to the reign of Artaxerxes Ochus or to the era of the Maccabees. With regard to the last three of them, at any rate, the later date seems to me by far the more probable. The intense consciousness that they were suffering for a religious cause was more characteristic of the Jews under Antiochus than of those under Ochus. And were synagogues already frequent in the Persian period?

As I have already said, all the four Psalms belong to the second collection. That is one reason why Professor Robertson-Smith and other scholars think they cannot be Maccabean. They would limit the appearance of Maccabean Psalms to the third and latest collection.

First shall come Psalm 1xxx. Note that 'Turn us again' means 'Restore our prosperity.' The 'vine' is of course Israel; the 'mountains' represent the southern, the 'cedars of God' the northern frontier; the 'sea' is the Mediterranean, and the 'river' the Euphrates: i. e. the western and eastern boundaries.

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,

Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock;

Thou that art enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. Stir up thy strength,

And come and save us.

Turn us again, O God,

Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

O Lord God of hosts,

How long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?

Thou feedest them with the bread of tears;

And givest them tears to drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours:

And our enemies laugh among themselves.

Turn us again, O God of hosts,

Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

THE VINE FROM EGYPT

Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt:

Thou didst cast out the nations and plant it.
Thou madest room before it,

And it put forth its roots and filled the land.
The hills were covered with the shadow of it,
And the cedars of God with its boughs.
It spread out its branches unto the sea,
And its shoots unto the river.

Why hast thou then broken down its hedges,

So that all they who pass by the way do rend it?

The boar out of the wood doth tear it,

And the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Turn us again, O God of hosts

[Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved].

Look down from heaven, and behold,

And visit this vine and establish it.

They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down:
May they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand,

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Upon the son of man whom thou hast chosen for thyself. So will we not go back from thee:

Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name,

Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts,

Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.

§ 31. The seventy-ninth Psalm: 'Deus, venerunt gentes.'— Of the next Psalm (lxxix) the only adequate commentary is the story of the Maccabean persecutions, which we shall hear in the next

section.

O Lord, the nations are come into thine inheritance;
They have defiled thy holy temple,

They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be food unto the birds of the heaven,

The flesh of thy loving ones unto the beasts of the earth. Their blood they have shed like water round about Jerusalem, And there was none to bury them.

We are become a reproach to our neighbours,

A scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

How long, O Lord, will thou be angry for ever,

How long will thy passion burn like fire?