A ROYAL MARRIAGE HYMN 579 Though the Psalmist writes as a courtier, he wears his court robes with a difference.' His conception of kingship and of its duties is no mean one. Who the king was is quite uncertain. Among the conjectures is Ptolemy Philadelphus, and he is perhaps as likely as any other. In the days of the Ptolemies it would not have been impossible for a Hebrew poet to have called Jehovah the God of the Egyptian king. We may compare the Second Isaiah's appellations of Cyrus. Jehovah is Ptolemy's God, though Ptolemy knew him not. The king's might is due to the only God who can grant it, for other god there is none. Professor Cheyne, who used to hold that the king was Ptolemy Philadelphus, now believes that here too the Psalmist is depicting the Messianic age and the Messianic king. The Messiah (who is modelled upon the idealized Solomon) has come to the throne. To complete his happiness and to continue his line he is about to contract a marriage with a "king's daughter," or rather "royal maiden." The Psalm is an encomium on the royal pair, who are supposed to have just met. The imaginative licence of the poet is great. But he does not lose his hold on the main object of the Messiah's existence, which is not mere private happiness, but the conferring of benefits on the church-nation.' One cannot help wondering whether this explanation will hold its own and make its way. But thought and language make it almost certain that the Psalm is post-exilic and late: so the choice seems to lie between a foreign prince and the Messiah. My I My heart bubbleth with a good matter; Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O hero, Ride forth prosperously On behalf of truth and humility and righteousness; Let thine arrows be sharp In the heart of the king's enemies; Let the peoples fall under thee. Thy throne shall endure for ever and ever: The sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of equity. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, Out of the ivory palace stringed instruments make thee glad. King's daughters are within thy walls: Upon thy right hand standeth the queen in gold of Ophir. 'Hearken, O daughter, and behold, and incline thine ear; Forget thine own people, and thy father's house; And let the king desire thy beauty, For he is thy lord-bow down unto him. And the daughter of Tyre shall come with a gift; All glorious is the king's daughter: Of pearls set in gold is her raiment. In broidered apparel is she brought unto the king: Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, Whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: Therefore shall peoples praise thee for ever and ever. Professor Cheyne is a Christian, and to him naturally the word 'Christian' is equivalent to 'truly or ideally religious.' A Jewish commentator might use the word Jewish' in a similar way. With that proviso in our minds as regards the first use of the word Christian in the passage I am about to quote, I do not think that we can find a truer eulogy of our forty-fifth Psalm than his. A philosopher has called the Jews the most optimistic race in history. Elastic, indeed, was their optimism; it adjusted itself to disillusionments without number, and it rested on the truth that righteousness tendeth to life, and is the only secure basis of an empire. And is not this truth a profoundly Christian one? and, as we read the "goodly words" of the forty-fifth Psalm, may we not join hands with the author across the centuries, and acknowledge a still present power in his words to delight and to instruct? HEBREW CHIVALRY 581 Lovers of the Psalms cannot admit that chivalry is a purely Christian conception. Long ages before Arthur, "truth, humility and righteousness" formed the Hebrew ideal of kingship, and for that grand fifth verse of our Psalm I know no better parallel than the song of Arthur's knights : Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust. Blow trumpet! live the strength and die the lust! CHAPTER VIII DIDACTIC PSALMS § 1. The fifteenth Psalm: Domine, quis habitabit ?'-I pass from the Royal Psalms to a very different category. For this chapter will be devoted to Didactic Psalms, songs of teaching. Some of the finest Psalms in the Psalter fall under this head. I shall include twelve Psalms in the group, of varied character and probably of various dates, but yet all didactic. Sometimes the teaching is direct, and sometimes it is, as it were, that indirect teaching which the record of personal experience can afford. The first Psalm in the group (xv) sets forth the conditions for closer intimacy with God. Who may be God's 'guest' The Hebrew word is no noun but a verb, and the question is, Who may sojourn' in the divine tent? But the verb-'Gur'-has close connexions with the noun-Ger. Ger, as we know, is usually translated stranger; the ger is the foreigner who has settled in Israel's land. In one sense we are all God's 'Gerim,' for he is the world's owner (Part I, p. 277). But in a narrower sense only they may secure the inviolability and security of guestship with God who conform to God's demands. These demands are not physical but moral, just as God's tent (here suggested by the Temple) is not physical but spiritual. You cannot get near to God locally; you cannot touch the ropes or pegs of his tent and so secure protection. You can only approach him spiritually and morally. It is goodness alone which gives you a passport, inviolable and abiding. As it is not only in days of old that the symbol has been placed above the thing signified and a superstitious efficacy attached to the externals of worship, this Psalm has an equal value for every age, in keeping before the mind the great lesson that sanctity of life and truth of heart are the absolute essentials of a spiritual religion' (The Four Friends). GOD'S SOJOURNER Lord, who may sojourn in thy tent? Who may dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, He that backbiteth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his neighbour, Nor uttereth a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is despised; But he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, Nor taketh a bribe against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. 583 'A vile person is despised,' be his wealth and station what they may. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.' A doubtful translation of a doubtful text. If it is correct, it must mean: If you have made an agreement with anybody, the agreement must be carried out, even though, contrary to your original anticipation, it should turn out to your own loss or damage. Note the strong indictment of 'usury,' which does not merely mean 'usury' in our sense, but any interest' whatever. The law had forbidden 'interest' to a fellow-citizen; here it is forbidden generally. To receive money from money, to let gold bear gold, seemed to ancient moralists unnatural and wicked. All interest on money is condemned by Aristotle. We know now that such condemnation rests on a misapprehension, but the truth is that the 'interest' with which our Psalmist was acquainted was probably usury in our sense, and he was right to condemn it. § 2. The twenty-fourth Psalm: Domini est terra.'-Closely similar to the fifteenth is the first part of the twenty-fourth Psalm, to which another psalm-fragment has apparently been added by the compiler. The added fragment seems to be a part of a processional song of victory, in which God is represented metaphorically as returning to his sanctuary after fighting for and delivering his people.' Fine as the fragment is, the first part of the Psalm is religiously far finer. The reason why the second part has been added to the first would seem to be that the idea of the 'holy place' connects them. The hill' leads to the 'gates' through which the 'place' is entered. But in the first part the |