'O LORD, SAVE THE KING'

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was the chief official or magistrate of the community. According to another hypothesis the king' may be the people, succeeding to the place formerly occupied by the Davidic line. And lastly, Professor Cheyne now holds that the king is the Messiah, 'who is supposed to be on the throne. In Psalm xx he is represented as just starting to fight with the enemies of Israel. It is perhaps his first campaign, for in Psalm xxi the church-nation, in praising God for the king's victory, represents the total destruction of the enemies as still future.' Between all these conflicting hypotheses I will not attempt to decide.

The Lord answer thee in the day of trouble;

The name of the God of Jacob set thee up on high; Send thee help from the sanctuary,

And support thee out of Zion;

Remember all thy meal offerings,

And accept thy burnt sacrifice;

Grant thee according to thine own heart;
And fulfil all thy purpose.

We will rejoice in thy victory,

In the name of our God we will exult:
The Lord fulfil all thy petitions.

Now know I that the Lord saveth his anointed;
He will answer him from his holy heaven
With the saving strength of his right hand.
Some through chariots, and some through horses,

But we will prevail through the name of the Lord our God. They are brought down and fallen :

But we are risen, and stand upright.

O Lord, save the king,

And answer us on the day when we call.

The change of tone at the opening of the second stanza is usually explained to mean that 'a sacrifice has probably been just offered to make the war a "holy war." The Psalmist is confident that his prayer is granted, and sees the victory in advance.

In Psalm xxi the invocation of the king seems couched in terms of oriental exaggeration, but Professor Cheyne notices that Pliny, in writing to Trajan, speaks of his aeternitas.' In the second stanza the commentators dispute whether the 'thy's' and 'thou's'

refer to God or the king. In either case the sentiment resembles that of the majority of warlike songs of other nations.

The king joyeth in thy strength, O Lord;

And in thy salvation how greatly doth he rejoice!
Thou hast given him his heart's desire,

And hast not withholden the request of his lips.
For thou meetest him with excellent blessings:
Thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him,
Even length of days for ever and ever.
His glory is great through thy salvation:

Honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
For thou makest him most blessed for ever:

Thou gladdenest him with joy before thy countenance.

For the king trusteth in the Lord,

And through the lovingkindness of the Most High he shall not be moved.

Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies :

Thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time when thou shewest thy face:

The Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath.

And the fire shall devour them.

Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth,

And their seed from among the children of men.

If they intend evil against thee,

If they imagine a mischievous device, they will not be able to perform it.

For thou wilt make them turn their back,

Thou wilt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength:
So will we sing and praise thy power.

§4. The sixty-first Psalm.-In the next Psalm (lxi) the singer is far from the Temple, and yearns for the spiritual comfort which he had found within it. Yet even in his apparent dependence upon an outward building he was winning his way to inward freedom. Half unconsciously to himself the 'covert of God's wings' was

'THE COVERT OF THY WINGS

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affording to him the protection which they are wide enough to give throughout the world.

Who the king may be is little less uncertain here than in Psalms xx and xxi.

Hear my cry, O God;

Attend unto my prayer.

From the end of the earth I cry unto thee, for my heart

is overwhelmed :

Lead me to the rock that is too high for me.

For thou art my refuge,

And a strong tower from the enemy.

May I dwell in thy tent for ever:

May I take refuge in the covert of thy wings.

For thou, O God, hearest my vows:

Thou grantest the request of those that fear thy name. Mayest thou prolong the king's life:

May his years be as many generations.

May he abide before God for ever:

Appoint thy lovingkindness and truthfulness to guard him. (?)

So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever,

As I daily perform my vows.

'Too high for me.' The rock of safety is too hard and high for him to climb by his own unaided powers. It is not mere physical safety to which the singer refers. He prays God to help him to inward as well as to outward security, to the confidence of faith as well as to protection from the enemy.

§ 5. The seventy-second Psalm.-Of the sixth Psalm of this group (lxxii) there are, as it seems to me, only two probable interpretations. Either the Psalm was written as a congratulatory ode upon the accession of some foreign potentate, of whose kingdom Judæa formed a province, or it refers to the Messiah. If the first hypothesis be true, the king is probably Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B. C.). It may also be that when the Psalm was admitted into the second collection, it was given a Messianic interpretation, and was touched up and expanded to suit the new meaning. The second stanza may be such an addition. But it is also quite conceivable that the king was from the beginning (in the mind and intention of the original writer) the Messiah of the future.

Professor Cheyne, who had before argued for Ptolemy, now adopts the Messianic explanation, and to me too it appears the more probable.

Give the king thy judgements, O God,

And thy righteousness unto the king's son.
May he judge thy people with righteousness,
And thy poor with judgement.

May the mountains bear peace to the people,
And the hills righteousness.

May he judge the afflicted of the people,
May he save the children of the needy,
And crush the oppressor.

May they fear him as long as the sun

And the moon endure, throughout all generations. (?) May he come down like rain upon

As showers that water the earth.

the mown grass:

In his days may righteousness flourish;

And abundance of peace till the moon be no more.

May he have dominion also from Sea to Sea,

And from the River unto the ends of the earth.

May his foemen bow before him;

And his enemies lick the dust.

May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles bring presents: May the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts.

May all kings fall down before him,

And all nations serve him.

For he delivereth the needy when he crieth;

The poor also, and him that hath no helper.

He spareth the poor and needy,

And saveth the souls of the needy.

He releaseth their soul from oppression and violence:

And precious is their blood in his sight.

May he live, and may there be given him of the gold of Sheba: (?)

Let prayer be made for him continually;

All day long let them bless him.

May there be abundance of corn in the land upon

of the mountains;

the top

KINGLY VIRTUES

The fruit thereof shall rustle like Lebanon:

573

And let them blossom out of the city like grass of the earth. (?)

May his name endure for ever:

May his name have increase as long as the sun :

May all nations bless themselves by him.

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel,
Who alone doeth wondrous things.

And blessed be his glorious name for ever:

And let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.

'The king's son.' If the Messiah is meant, we have to assume that the Psalmist leaps over the interval between the last king of Judah and the accession of the Messiah, and represents the latter as the son of all the kings who have gone before' (Cheyne). 'May he judge.' These optatives can also be rendered by simple futures.

The afflicted of the people. If the king is Ptolemy, this is merely a synonym for the Jews. Undoubtedly the Jews of the post-exilic period frequently describe themselves as 'poor,' 'afflicted,' 'needy.'

'The River': the Euphrates. Wellhausen, who adopts the Ptolemaic explanation, comments thus: Palestine being included, this river must be mentioned as forming the north-eastern boundary. Consequently it is neither a Chaldaean, nor a Persian, nor a Seleucid king that is meant, but an Egyptian. His power extends over the islands of the Mediterranean, over Sheba (in Southern Arabia) and Seba (in Ethiopia): Egypt, then, is the centre.'

'For he delivereth.' We may equally well translate: 'for he will deliver.'

'May he live.' A difficult line. Wellhausen connects it with what precedes, translating, Their blood in his sight is precious, so that they live and give him gold of Sheba'; and his explanation is that it is the Jews who are spoken of, not the poor literally. 'These poor are rich: they promise the king that if he will treat them well, they will give him much gold and will pray for him. They pay tribute, and, in consideration thereof, enjoy protection.' Blessed be the Lord God': the doxology closing the second book of the five into which the Psalter is now divided.

The picture of the righteous king may be compared with that in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah (p. 336). Here as there the external blessings are the outward accompaniment of inward