'THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM' I was glad when they said unto me, Within thy gates, O Jerusalem; Thither the tribes went up, Even the tribes of the Lord, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : May they prosper that love thee. And prosperity within thy towers. Because of the house of the Lord our God I would seek thy good. 549 § 5. Psalm one hundred and twenty-three: 'Ad te levavi oculos meos.'-In the next Psalm the situation seems the same as in cxx. Unto thee I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, And as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, Until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: Our soul is exceedingly filled With the mocking of those that are at ease, And with the contempt of the proud. 'The contempt of the proud' is the scorn which the proud feel for the singers. In the later Jewish liturgy the conception of God as a Master is often combined with the conception of him as a Father. Thus in the service for the New Year it is said: This is the birthday of the world; thereon God brings all his creatures to judgement. We stand before thee as children or as servants: if as children, be thou merciful to us as a father hath pity upon his children; if as servants, our eyes are fixed on thee until thou art gracious unto us and bringest our judgement to the light.' § 6. Psalm one hundred and twenty-four: 'Nisi quia Dominus.'— The particular occasion which is celebrated in the following song (cxxiv) is now unknown. Professor Wellhausen supposes that the era of freedom,' here commemorated, 'is that of the Maccabees.' If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,— If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, When men rose up against us: Then they had swallowed us up alive, When their wrath was kindled against us: Then the waters had overwhelmed us, The torrent had gone over our soul: Then the proud waters Had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, Who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: The snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. It is well worth while to read the spirited metrical version of this Psalm written by John Wedderburn on the basis of a German rendering by Hans Sachs. Except the Lord with us had stand, For lyke the welterand wallis brym, Like burnis that in spait fast rin, Thay had o'erthrawin us with slycht. And reft fra us our lyfe full rycht. THE BROKEN SNARE But loving to the Lord, allone, That gaif us nocht to be thair pray, Bot hes us fred full well thame fray, The net is brokin in pecis small, Be in the Lord, and in his name, 551 (Schorit, threatened; wallis, waves; brym, fierce; burnis, streams; spait, flood; bulrand, roaring; loving, praise; anone, at once; fray, from ; ferleis, wonders.) § 7. The one hundred and twenty-fifth Psalm.-Foreign domination and continued misfortune have made many Israelites abandon their faith or careless in its practice. The Psalmist trusts that these causes of ungodliness will not long endure. They that trust in the Lord Shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the Lord is round about his people From henceforth even for ever. For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous, Lest they put forth their hands unto iniquity. Do good, O Lord, unto those that are good, And to them that are upright in their hearts. As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, The Lord shall cast them away with the workers of iniquity. (Peace be upon Israel.) The 'lot of the righteous' is the land of Israel. 'Do good, O Lord,' &c. This has been the prayer of the honest religious partisan of all ages and creeds. His enemies are ever described as those who 'turn aside unto their crooked ways.' But even for the truly evil as for the truly good, God surely works on a higher principle than the crudities of tit-for-tat. The wicked would be a greater puzzle to faith than the suffering good, if we had to believe that any of them would be utterly cast away. The life after death seems more needful for the regeneration of the wicked than for the reward of the good. § 8. Psalm one hundred and twenty-six.—In the beautiful little song which follows (cxxvi), the singer seems to contrast the exquisite joy and the rapturous expectations which the return from Babylon produced with the depression and wretchedness under which he actually lived. We must not assume too hastily that the writer had himself witnessed the return. The community is one throughout its generations. The Psalmist is still confident that the good time will surely come. Present fidelity may have to sow its seed in tears, but those who now sow in sorrow, or their descendants, shall reap the results of that fidelity amid joy. Such seems to be the thought. It is said that this Psalm was a favourite with the noble band of religious Englishmen who struggled for the emancipation of the slaves in the colonies of the Empire and for the abolition of the slave trade. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton quoted the second verse ("Then was our mouth filled with laughter") when he heard that the slaves were freed and the work accomplished' (Mason: The Psalms at work). When the Lord turned the fortunes of Zion, We were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing: Then said they among the nations, "The Lord hath done great things for them.' The Lord had done great things for us; We were glad. Turn our fortunes, O Lord, As the streams in the south land. They that sow in tears Shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth weeping, as he scattereth his seed, 'The dry watercourses in the parched south land are filled with rushing torrents by the autumn rains.' 'Bearing his sheaves.' But it is not necessarily implied that the same Israelites who are faithful amid sorrow now shall also reap the reward of joy. The sowers may be one generation; the reapers another. TEARFUL SOWING; JOYOUS REAPING 553 Note that the phrase turn the fortunes' is also and more usually translated bring back the captivity.' But although there may have doubtless been many involuntary Jewish exiles when the Psalmist wrote, the petition, bring back the captivity,' at the beginning of stanza two would sound strangely after the statement of stanza one that such a bringing back had already been accomplished. Or is a new captivity' referred to, the exiles deported by Artaxerxes Ochus ? § 9. Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven: 'Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum.'-In the following Psalm (cxxvii) the connexion between its two halves is hard to trace. For the first half seems to say that the blessing of God must be the guard and guarantee of human toil; the second praises the active help which children can give. The first part seems to say, Vain is human effort without God's stamp of approval; the second points out the most effective instrument which has been granted by God through which a man can maintain his place and assert his rights. Hence Baethgen supposes that we have here two separate little lyrics accidentally joined together. The addition of the second part may perhaps be accounted for by its relation to the Psalm of the following paragraph :— Except the Lord build the house, They labour in vain that build it: Except the Lord keep the city, The watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit down late, Even so he giveth his beloved in sleep. Lo, sons are an heritage of the Lord: As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man: Happy is the man That hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, When they speak with enemies in the gate. A German Proverb runs, An Gottes Segen ist Alles gelegen, and the first part of the Psalm is an extension of the Proverb. But many different nuances of thought can be elicited from it, and it might be hard to say what was the precise meaning |