THE SACRIFICE OF THANKSGIVING

I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices,

Thy burnt offerings are continually before me.
I will take no bullock out of thy house,

Nor he-goats out of thy folds.
For every beast of the forest is mine,

And the cattle upon the hills of God.
I know all the birds of the mountains:

And the moving creatures of the plain are in my mind. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee:

For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

Or drink the blood of goats?

Sacrifice unto God thanksgiving;

And pay thy vows unto the Most High:

And call upon me in the day of trouble:

I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.'

But unto the wicked, God saith,

"What business hast thou to declare my statutes, Or to take my covenant in thy mouth?

Seeing thou hatest instruction,

And castest my words behind thee.

When thou seest a thief, thou runnest after him,

And with adulterers is thy portion.

Thou givest thy mouth to evil,

And thy tongue frameth deceit.

Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother;
Thou slanderest thine own mother's son.

These things hast thou done, and I have kept silence;

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Thou thinkest that I am altogether such an one as thyself; But I will chastise thee, and set it before thine eyes. (?)

'Now consider this, ye that forget God,

Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Whoso sacrificeth thanksgiving glorifieth me:

And to him that is upright in his way I will shew the salvation of God.'

'Gather my loving ones.' The phrase is sarcastic. They are only duteous outwardly: the covenant which secured God's lovingkindness (Chesed) and demanded man's is on their side but formally obeyed.

Two of my helpful critics deny that any sarcasm is here intended.

One writes: 'It seems to me that because they do love God, they are to be taught what is truly acceptable to him. The wicked are addressed in quite a different fashion.' And the other writes: 'I cannot see the sarcasm. A child might give his parent a toy, wishing to show his love. Without really thinking about it, he imagines that a toy will please his father even as it satisfies and pleases himself. And God in this passage is virtually telling his "loving ones" to think: to make their gifts to him in fitting form. Quite otherwise does he speak to them who are evil in heart and mind, and have no love for him at all.'

'A covenant with me by sacrifice.' It should be made by something deeper, more spiritual. 'I desired lovingkindness and not sacrifice,' as Hosea said in the olden days.

'Sacrifice unto God thanksgiving.' True praise and true gratitude: these are the true sacrifice. And this inward thanksgiving is as the payment of our vows. 'Vowing too has become spiritualized' (Cheyne). This interpretation rests on the presupposition that the verb sacrifice' (zabach) is here used in a metaphorical sense, and also that the second line of the distich means virtually, and so pay thy vows unto the Most High,' i.e. your gratitude to God is equivalent to the payment of a vow. It should be stated that Dr. B. Jacob most strongly combats and denies this interpretation. According to him the Psalmist desires to attack that false conception of sacrifice which regards it as a present offered to God, a present by which man can get some advantage in his turn. The only form of sacrifice which is free from such a superstitious misconception is a thank-offering rendered for some deliverance or mercy already vouchsafed to us by God. Moreover, if any vow has been promised, it must be performed. So the Psalmist makes God say: 'Sacrifice the thank-offering and pay your vows, then you may (again) call on me in the day of trouble (no vows are needful), and I will deliver you, and you may honour me again (by a thank-offering). For he who sacrifices a thank-offering does me honour.' Ingenious and plausible as Dr. Jacob's interpretation is, I hardly think it does justice to the deeper thought of the Psalmist.

'Whoso sacrificeth thanksgiving.' The same questions crop up again. The second line of the distich is obscure. Some would translate the existing Hebrew text by: 'He who prepares his way,' i. e. prepares it rightly; but this rendering puts more in the words than they can bear. The emendation I have chosen only involves the change of a single letter. It is also adopted by Professor Cheyne, who translates: 'He that sacrifices thanksgiving glorifies me, and to him that is of blameless life, I will show

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the deliverance of God.' 'Here,' he says, we have not only sacrifices, but even vows, which affected daily life still more than sacrifices, abrogated by being spiritualized. The only right vows are vows of amendment of life; the only right sacrifice is thanksgiving for God's innumerable mercies to Israel.'

§ 9. The ninety-first Psalm.-The following Psalm (xci) is familiar to us from its liturgical use. Some would regard it as the consoling answer to its predecessor, Psalm xc, with which let the reader by all means compare it. It sets forth the high faith of the believer to which all Israel may attain. False to experience literally (for the good suffer as well as the wicked), there is an ideal sense in which the believer has ever striven to say, 'Whatever befall me, I am with thee; therefore whatever befall me, it is well.'

(Happy is) he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High,

That abideth under the shadow of the Almighty.

Who sayeth unto the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress:
My God, in whom I trust.'

For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his pinions,

And under his wings shalt thou take refuge:
His faithfulness shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night;
Nor of the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor of the pestilence that walketh in darkness;
Nor of the plague that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,

And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh unto thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold it,
And see the retribution of the wicked.

But as for thee, the Lord is thy shelter,

Thou hast made the Most High thy refuge. There shall no evil befall thee,

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, To keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee on their hands,

Lest thou strike thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:

The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

'Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him:

I will set him on high, because he knoweth my name. When he calleth upon me, I will answer him:

I will be with him in trouble;

I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him,

And shew him my salvation.'

§ 10. The one hundred and seventh Psalm: Confitemini Domino. To group the following Psalm (cvii) accurately is again most difficult. It could with reasonable justification be regarded as one of the Psalms of thanksgiving, or again as one of the Psalms of praise. But perhaps the main intention is didactic, and so it may claim a place here.

Its date is doubtful; it may belong to the Grecian period, or it may be earlier. It refers to deliverances,' but it is not certain whether any, and if so what, special deliverances are intended. There is always in such post-exilic retrospects a general allusion either to the return from Babylon or to the Exodus from Egypt.

The main part of the Psalm (in stanzas two, three, four and five) gives four typical examples of deliverance, and urges gratitude to the Divine Saviour. In the last stanza 'the treatment becomes more meagre, the connexion less cared for, and the thought less original. The refrains too are dropped' (Cheyne). It is indeed not certain (so elastic are Hebrew tenses) what the relation of this last stanza to the foregoing five may actually be.

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good:

For his lovingkindness endureth for ever.'

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

Whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy;

And gathered them out of the lands,

From the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.

They wandered in the wilderness and the desert,

They found no city to dwell in;

'LET THESE GIVE THANKS'

Hungry and thirsty,

Their soul fainted within them:

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,
And he delivered them out of their distresses.

And he led them forth by a straight way,

That they might go to a city of habitation.

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Oh let these give thanks unto the Lord for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he hath satisfied the longing soul,

And hath filled the hungry soul with good.

They who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
Being bound in affliction and iron,—

Because they had rebelled against the words of God,
And reviled the counsel of the Most High:

So that he humbled their heart with travail;
They stumbled, and there was none to help-
Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble,
And he saved them out of their distresses.

He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
And brake their bands in sunder,

Oh let these give thanks unto the Lord for his goodness,
And for his wonderful works to the children of men !

For he hath broken the gates of brass,

And cut the bars of iron in sunder.

Sick men because of their transgression,

And because of their iniquities, are afflicted;
Their soul abhorreth all manner of food ;
And they draw near unto the gates of death;
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
And he saveth them out of their distresses.

He sendeth his word, and healeth them,
And delivereth them from their graves.

Oh let these give thanks unto the Lord for his goodness,
And for his wonderful works to the children of men!
And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving,
And declare his works with rejoicing.

They that go down to the sea in ships,
That do business on the great waters;
These have seen the works of the Lord,
And his wonders in the deep.