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'holy place' is semi-metaphorical. The Temple suggests the idea, but the idea is not limited to the Temple.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;

The world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.

Who may go up unto the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
Who hath not set his soul upon wickedness,
Nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive blessing from the Lord,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of them that seek him,
That seek thy face, O God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates,

And be ye lift up, ye ancient doors,
That the King of glory may come in.

'Who is the King of glory?'

The Lord, strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates,

Yea, lift them up, ye ancient doors,

That the King of glory may come in.

"Who is the King of glory?'

The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

'Clean hands and a pure heart' a fine summing up of the noble character. Deed and thought correspond. Wellhausen renders sinless hands and a pure conscience.'

'Who hath not set his soul upon wickedness.' The phrase is not quite easy. Wellhausen renders: Who cherishes no longing for evil;' Driver: 'who hath not lifted up his soul unto unreality,' and unreality' he explains as 'what is either frivolous or insincere.'

§ 3. The thirty-second Psalm.-The third Psalm in this group (xxxii) strikes another note. It deals with the great central

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FORGIVENESS OF SIN

585

problem of religion, which is Sin. We might on another plan of grouping unite it with the fifty-first. The Psalmist, who speaks in his own individual person of personal experience, tells a tale of his soul. The main facts are not outward but inward. Or rather, even if the facts be outward, it is the inner feelings accompanying them which alone give to these facts their value and their meaning. The Psalmist had sinned, and had obstinately sought to conceal' his sin from God by refusing to recognize it to himself. Then calamity overtook him. But he refused to show penitence or to feel it. He persisted perchance in evildoing— in evilbeing. And yet his soul was sore: anguish, unacknowledged but yet real, possessed him. Silent before God, his guilty conscience roared within him. Then at last he found the remedy. He poured forth his soul's burden unto God, and the wall of severance fell. He was once more at one' with God. The removal of his outward calamity accompanied his inward peace and testified to God's forgiveness. Therefore he

bids all who, in spite of human frailty, love God to pray unto him when distress and danger overtake them. The great waters shall not reach them. Here the Psalm may seem to sink to lower levels. For all the words imply is that God will save the humble worshipper in times of peril. To the Psalmists the consciousness of guilt was often awakened by the presence of trouble, so that the Hebrew word for 'guilt' is sometimes almost equivalent to 'punishment.' Nevertheless it would not seem overstrained to give the first three stanzas of the poem the more spiritual interpretation. Even if guilt' in the last line of the third stanza includes punishment, it certainly also includes the inward feeling of alienation from God. And the opening adjective means more than 'fortunate.' It implies inward contentment and joy.

Happy is he whose transgression is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered.

Happy is the man unto whom the Lord reckoneth not iniquity,

And in whose spirit there is no guile.

When I kept silence, my bones wasted away
Through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me:
My sap was turned into the drought of summer.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity I hid not:
I said, 'I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord;"
And thou forgavest the guilt of my sin.

Therefore let every loving one pray unto thee in a time of distress;

When the flood of great waters is heard, they will not reach him.

Thou art my hiding place; thou wilt preserve me from trouble;

Thou dost encompass me with security. (?)

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go:

I will direct mine eyes upon thee. (?)

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding:

Who must be held in with bit and bridle,

Else they will not come near unto thee.

Many sorrows have the wicked:

But he that trusteth in the Lord, lovingkindness shall compass him about.

Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous:

And shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

'In whose spirit there is no guile.' The guileless man here is he who has freely and unreservedly confessed his whole sin unto God.

'Thy hand was heavy upon me.' There seems to have been a combination of outward and inward trouble. God sent misfortune, but this misfortune was not humbly accepted as the punishment of sin. Nevertheless the Psalmist was ill at ease: he tried to deny his sin to himself and to God. But the more he did so, the more the inward conflict, sharpened by the outward trouble, raged within him. When he confessed his sin, he was at peace with God, and the removal of his punishment showed him that God had forgiven him. The words of the Psalm are not satisfactorily accounted for on the supposition that the whole experience was inward, and that there is no question of external calamity at all; on the other hand, a purely outward interpretation is still less adequate. We have apparently to assume a double and parallel process both at the outset and the close: the punishment sharpens, but does not cause, the inward conflict; the peace of confession is followed and increased by the removal of the punishment-the outward and visible sign of God's forgiveness.

The first five lines of the last stanza (beginning 'I will instruct thee') are somewhat obscure. Is God or the Psalmist the speaker? The transition too seems abrupt.

MAGNIFY THE LORD WITH ME

587

'Be ye not as the horse.' The meaning seems to be that there is no absolute necessity for man to undergo the lessons of adversity. He who trusts in God and gives good heed (in other words, he who tries his best) will not need to be brought back from a sinful life by the bit and bridle of calamity. He need not enter on the life

of sin at all. And there is truth in this doctrine. No man is sinless, but prosperity need not necessarily make a man a sinner, nor is calamity the necessary precedent of righteousness. And yet the highest developments of human character have been produced by calamity, just as without suffering there could be no sacrifice. And sacrifice is love's opportunity.

The gladness of the opening is repeated chorus-like at the close. Professor Cheyne is right when he notes that the religion of the Hebrew Bible is throughout one of joy.' But he is wrong when he says that 'the final ruin of the outward forms of Judaism' (i. e. temple and state) alone destroyed this joyousness.' Religious joy has ever been a characteristic of Judaism, and it was probably deeper and more widely spread after the destruction of the Temple than before it. There is a deep meaning in the words of the Midrash: The Holy Spirit does not rest where there is sloth or despondency or jesting or frivolity or vanity, but it rests only where there is joy.' As strangers can rarely know the inner joy of a home, so outsiders can rarely understand the joy and rapture of a religion which is not their own.

§4. The thirty-fourth Psalm: Benedicam Domino.'-The following Psalm (xxxiv) is alphabetical, like the twenty-fifth, with which it has other affinities. The last verse was added subsequently in order that the Psalm might not end inauspiciously. The fine thoughts explain themselves, and need no commentary.

I will bless the Lord at all times:

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make her boast in the Lord:
The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.

O magnify the Lord with me,

And let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
O look unto him, and shine with joy :
And your faces will not be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that

fear him,

And delivereth them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good:

Happy is the man that trusteth in him.

O fear the Lord, ye his saints:

For there is no want to them that fear him.

The young lions do pine, and suffer hunger:

But they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Come, ye children, hearken unto me:

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

What man is he that desireth life,

And loveth many days, that he may see good?

Keep thy tongue from evil,

And thy lips from speaking guile.

Depart from evil, and do good;

Seek peace, and

and pursue it.

The face of the Lord is against them that do evil,

To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous,

And his ears are open unto their cry.

They cry, and the Lord heareth,

And delivereth them out of all their troubles.

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart;
And saveth such as are of a contrite spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous:

But the Lord delivereth him out of them all.

He keepeth all his bones:

Not one of them is broken.

Calamity shall slay the wicked:

And they that hate the righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants:

And none of them that trust in him shall be condemned.

§ 5. The thirty-seventh Psalm: Noli aemulari.'-Another 'alphabetic' Psalm follows (xxxvii). It deals with, or perhaps I should rather say, it touches on, the same subject as the Book of Job, but hardly rises very far above the doctrine of the friends. The wicked end miserably; the righteous are rewarded. Many verses in the Psalm we can still accept with profit, but many others we have to interpret in a sense other than that intended by their author. Only so can we make them accord with the truths of experience. And religion cannot be ultimately

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