Say unto God, 'How terrible are thy works!

Through the greatness of thy power thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.

All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; They shall sing to thy name.'

Come and see the works of God:

He is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land:

They went through the flood on foot. We will greatly rejoice in him,

Who ruleth by his power

His eyes behold the nations:

for ever.

Let not the rebellious exalt themselves.

O bless our God, ye peoples,

And make the sound of his praise to be heard:

Who hath placed our soul in life,

And hath not suffered our feet to be moved.

For thou, O God, hast proved us:

Thou hast refined us, as silver is refined.

Thou broughtest us into the dungeon;

Thou laidest a heavy burden upon our loins.
Thou didst cause men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water:
But thou broughtest us out into freedom.

I will go into thy house with burnt offerings:
I will pay thee my vows,

Which my lips have uttered,

And my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble.
I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings,
With the sweet savour of rams;

I will offer bullocks with goats.

Come and hear, all ye that fear God,

And I will declare what he hath done for my soul.

I cried unto him with my mouth,

And was exalted from under those who hate me.

If I had concealed iniquity in my heart,

The Lord would not have heard:

But verily God hath heard;

He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.

THE PRAISE OF THE PEOPLES

Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer,
Nor his mercy
from me.

525

The second of these two companion Psalms (lxvii) we have already heard in Part I (p. 545). It was suggested by a prosperous harvest, but this glad occasion led the singer on to pray for God's salvation in the widest sense of the word. Even as Israel is grateful to God the Giver and praises him, so may all nations of the earth join in this praise till it become world-wide and universal.

God be merciful unto us, and bless us,
And cause his face to shine upon us,
That thy way may be known upon earth,
Thy salvation among all nations.
Let the peoples praise thee, O God;
Let all the peoples praise thee.

O let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
That thou judgest the peoples righteously,
And leadest the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise thee, O God;
Let all the peoples praise thee.
The earth hath yielded her increase;
God, even our God, doth bless us.

God will bless us;

And all the ends of the earth will fear him.

§ 7. The Accession Psalms: forty-seven and ninety-three.--We now come to the so-called 'Accession' or 'Theocratic' Psalms, which bear a close family likeness to one another. Were they all written on the impulse of the same series of events? These events seemed to the Psalmists to wear a strange significance. Not far distant now was the great reign of God, when the claims of his divinity would be recognized throughout the world. What, then, were the events which form the background to, or rather the suggestions for, these notable Psalms? Full of reminiscences of the Second Isaiah and his school, they are ascribed by some authorities to the first generations of the return from Babylon, or more definitely still to the era which witnessed the completion of the second Temple. Others think of Alexander the Great.

There are eight of these Psalms in all, and six follow one another in the Psalter (xcv-c). The remaining two are xlvii and xciii. We will first listen to xlvii.

O clap your hands, all ye peoples;

Shout unto God with the voice of triumph.
For the Lord Most High is terrible;
He is a great King over all the earth.

He subdued peoples under us,
And nations under our feet.
He chose our inheritance for us,

The pride of Jacob whom he loved.

God is gone up with a shout,

The Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praises to God, sing praises:

Sing praises unto our King, sing praises.

For God is the King of all the earth:
Sing ye praises with understanding.
God is become King over the nations:

God hath seated himself upon his holy throne.

Princes of peoples are gathered together,
With the people of the God of Abraham:
For the shields of the earth belong unto God:
He is greatly exalted.

The second stanza refers to the distant past-Israel's original conquest of Canaan.

'God is gone up.' A religious anachronism; a phraseological relic. God is said to "come down" when he manifests his presence by active interposition in the affairs of the world. He is said to go up" when, his work over, he as it were returns to heaven. The triumphal procession, carrying up (at least in ancient times) the Ark which was the symbol of God's presence to the Temple which was the symbol of heaven, and celebrating the victory which he had won for them with shouts and blowing of trumpets, was the outward and visible emblem of this "ascension," and suggests the form of the expression here' (Professor Kirkpatrick).

'Princes of peoples.' The completed process in a vision of the mind. The end is realized by faith. Two of the Greek Jews who translated the Hebrew Bible into their mother tongue render' as the people of the God of Abraham,' and our present Hebrew text implies the same. The meaning then would be that the princes and their peoples are now themselves become the people of the God

GOD'S KINGSHIP

527

of Abraham-a pregnant universalistic phrase. But 'with' has probably dropped out.

Professor Wellhausen translates the last two lines of the Psalm thus: Men of their own free will from the peoples join the people of Abraham's God. For to God, our shield, belongs the world; he is exalted on high.' And he has the following important note, This verse is the key to the understanding of the Psalm. The conversions to Judaism, which became much more numerous after the days of Alexander the Great, gave rise to this lofty Messianic hope: they signalized the beginning of Jehovah's universal rule. The remarkable spread of Judaism among all the heathen at that time was undoubtedly a significant fact; it arose out of the Messianic hope, to which, in turn, it gave fresh vigour.'

The second Accession Psalm (xciii) is familiar to us from its place in our Sabbath liturgy. The streams and breakers are symbols of the nations, which dash vainly against the immutable purposes of God.

The Lord hath become King; he hath clothed himself with majesty ;

The Lord hath clothed himself, hath girded himself with strength;

Now therefore is the world set firm, that it cannot be moved.

Thy throne is firm from of old,
Thou art from everlasting.

The streams have lifted up, O Lord,

The streams have lifted up their voice, The streams lift up their roaring: Mightier than the voices of many waters,

Mightier than the breakers of the sea, is the Lord on high. Thy testimonies are very sure: Holiness becometh thine house,

O Lord, for evermore.

§ 8. The ninety-fifth Psalm: 'Venite, exultemus.'-Either the next Psalm (xcv) is made up of two independent fragments, or some connecting-links have been lost. The first alternative seems the more probable, for the rebuke contained in the second part seems out of place in an Accession Psalm of thanksgiving and triumph. Moreover, the sudden change of speaker is exceedingly harsh.

O come, let us sing unto the Lord:

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving,

And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God,

And a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the recesses of the earth:
The summits of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, and he made it :

And his hands formed the dry land.
O come, let us worship and bow down:
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
For he is our God;

And we are the people of his pasture,
And the sheep of his hand.

To-day, O that ye would hear my voice!

Harden not your heart, as at Meribah,

And as in the day of Massah in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me,

Tried me, though they saw my work.

Forty years long I abhorred this generation,
And said, 'They are a people with erring heart,
And they know not my ways:'

So that I sware in my wrath

That they should not enter into my rest.

The reference in the second fragment is to a story of the wanderings of the Israelites which was not transcribed in Part I. It occurs in Exodus xvii. 1-7, and runs as follows:

'And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the Lord, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with