1. Praise God in his sanctuary. This psalm in general commends the spiritual worship of God, which consists in sacrifices of praise. By the sanctuary there is little doubt that heaven is here meant, as is often the case elsewhere. The second clause is exegetical, for the same thing is repeated. But for sanctuary we read רקיע, rekia, that is, the expanse of heaven, to which is added the epithet of power, because there we have a proof of the matchless power of God, so that we cannot look to the heavens without being lost in admiration. As to the interpretation which some give — Praise God, ye angels who inhabit the heavens, and ye men who dwell under the firmament, it is forced and unnatural; for the Psalmist, in order to awaken men who grow languid in God’s praises, bids them lift their eyes towards the heavenly sanctuary. That the majesty of God may be duly reverenced, the Psalmist represents him as presiding on his throne in the heavens; and he enlarges upon the same truth in the second verse, celebrating his power and his greatness, which he had brought under our notice in the heavens, which are a mirror in which they may be seen. If we would have our minds kindled, then, to engage in this religious service, let us meditate upon his power and greatness, which will speedily dispel all such insensibility. Though our minds can never take in this immensity, the mere taste of it will deeply affect us. And God will not reject such praises as we offer according to our capacity.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

INTRODUCTION

Dean Perowne speaks of this Psalm as the great closing Hallelujah, or Doxology, of the Psalter, in which every kind of musical instrument is to hear its part as well as the voice of man, in which not one nation only, but everything that hath breath, is invited to join. It is one of those Psalms which declare their own intention as anthems, adapted for that public worship which was the glory and delight of the Hebrew people; a worship carrying with it the soul of the multitude by its simple majesty and by the powers of music, brought in their utmost force to recommend the devotions of earth in the ears of heaven. Take it,says Isaac Taylor, as a sample of this class, and bring the spectacle and the sounds into one, for the imagination to rest in. It was evidently to subserve the purposes of music that these thirteen verses are put together; it was no doubt to give effect first to the human voice, and then to the alternations of instruments,loud and tender and gay,with the graceful movements of the dance, that the anthem was composed and its chorus brought out,

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise ye the Lord!

And so did the congregated thousands take up their part with a shout, even as the voice of many waters.

THE DOXOLOGY

I. The sphere of the Divine praise.

Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in the firmament of His power.

1. In His temple upon earth. Praise God in His sanctuary. We understand this of the earthly temple, the place which He had chosen for the special manifestation of His presence and bestowment of His grace.

2. In the heavens. Praise Him in the firmament of His power; or in the expanse of His power. The call here is on all that dwell above that expanse, in heaven, to unite with those on earth in His praise. It is called the expanse of His power because it is in the heavensin the sun, the moon, the starsthat the power of God seems to be principally displayed. The earthly temple and heaven are mentioned together probably to indicate the universality of His praise. (Comp. 1Ki. 8:39; 1Ki. 8:43; 1Ki. 8:49; Psa. 11:4.)

II. The reason of the Divine praise.

Praise Him for His mighty acts.

1. In creation. By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, &c. (Psa. 33:6-9).

2. In providence. What marvellous and mighty acts He had wrought on behalf of the Israelites!

3. In redemption. In this the power of His wisdom and grace is most clearly and impressively displayed.

III. The measure of the Divine praise. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Hebrew: The multitude of His greatness. Conant: His abundant greatness. We are to endeavour to praise Him in a manner which shall be in proportion to His greatness and glory. Mans praise should correspond with Gods perfections, as far as this is possible. But when the most perfect praise is offered by the whole universe to God, it will still fall below His infinite greatness and glory. He who will review only his own life will discover so many of Gods deeds that he will not be able to thank Him sufficiently through eternity.

IV. The manner of the Divine praise.

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet, &c. (Psa. 150:3-5). These verses suggest the following observations as to the manner in which God should be praised:

1. The praise of God should be joyous. Beyond doubt, says Hengstenberg, the pipe (A. V., organ), which otherwise did not belong to the Temple service, was brought into requisition here only because the feast had at the same time the character of a popular rejoicing. In like manner also timbrels and dances. The cymbals were used only at festivals of a joyful kind. (Comp. 2Sa. 6:5; Ezr. 3:10; Neh. 12:27.) Joyful worship is acceptable to God and honours Him.

2. The praise of God should be as perfect as possible. Everything pertaining to worship should surely indicate a reverent solicitude to bring to God the best that we can profferan offering perfect in every appliance that can give emphasis to its adoration, intensify its rapture, or beautify its love. Hence, the devoutest worshippers will provide for their praise hymns of the highest poetry, and music of the richest harmony.Dr. H. Allon.

3. The praise of God should thoroughly engage the powers of our spirits. It behoves us to stir up our warmest and holiest affections to praise God. Where these are not engaged, the most perfect poetry and music will not find acceptance with God. The finest music before God is the harmonious praise and glorifying of God by the soul united in all its powers, with all the senses and all the members.

V. The offerers of the Divine praise.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. The very ambiguity of all breath gives, says Alexander, an extraordinary richness of meaning to the closing sentence. From the simple idea of wind-instruments mentioned in the context, it leads us by a beautiful transition to that of vocal, articulate, intelligent praise, uttered by the breath of living men, as distinguished from mere lifeless instruments. Then, lastly, by a natural association, we ascend to the idea expressed in the common version, everything that hath breath not merely all that lives, but all that has a voice to praise God. There is nothing in the Psalter more majestic or more beautiful than this brief, but most significant, finale, in which solemnity of tone predominates, without, however, in the least disturbing the exhilaration which the close of the Psalter seems intended to produce, as if in emblematical allusion to the triumph which awaits the Church and all its members, when, through much tribulation, they shall enter into rest. All living creatures are summoned to unite in celebrating the praises of God,all in the air and in the waters, all on earth and all in heaven,let everything according to its capacity and power join in the universal anthem. All creatures, says Moll, should join their voices to the praise of God; but the members of His Church should lead the choir.

THE SUBJECTS AND EXPRESSIONS OF PRAISE

Gospel worship should be joyful worship. Speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. The Gospel was sung at Bethlehem before it was preached. We may well say with Greg. Nazianzen: Lord, I would be a musical instrument for Thee to touch, that I may show forth Thy praise.

I. Some subjects of praise in which we should unite, derived from these closing Psalms. Praise the great Head of the Church

1. For what He is in Himself.

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness; and according to the display of that greatness in each succeeding dispensation.

(1.) Rejoice in the plenitude of His Divine perfections. The inspired writers always speak of Christ as of One who was far greater than any description that could be given of Him. God has given Him as Mediator, a Name which is above every nameabove every name on earth or in heaven. For power: He has all power in heaven and on earth. For wisdom: in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. For love: His love passeth knowledge. For unchanging truth and faithfulness: His righteousness is like the great mountains. Thy faithfulness hast thou established in the very heavens.
(2.) Rejoice in the tenderness of His human sympathies. It is remarkable that those who have suffered the most for the cause of Christ, replete with His consolations, have spoken the most loudly of His name. As Davids Psalms in the wilderness are the sweetest of his psalms, so Pauls letters in prison are the most delightful of his epistles.
2. For the wonders of His Providence in the defence and preservation of His Church. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Some of these are enumerated in these last five Psalms; e.g., the bringing back of Israel from the Babylonish captivity; the rebuilding and the fortification of Jerusalem; the erection of the second Temple, which was a wonderful thing for a colony of returned exiles to attempt. All Providence is subordinated to the interests, and to the Church, of the Messiah. The government of earth and heaven is upon His shoulder. (Comp. Isa. 9:6.) The world was built by Him and for Him, for this very purpose, that it might be the scene and theatre of His Divine and gracious government in the great economy of human salvation. (Comp. Joh. 1:1-3; Joh. 1:16.) With the work of Redemption in promise, the Psalmist might well say, and with the work of Redemption in fulfilment, we may well add with him, Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

3. For the special relation in which He stands to us; that is, to all who bow to His sceptre, and experience the efficacy of His redeeming grace. He is their King; and they have the greatest reason to rejoice in Him.

II. In what way our love and loyalty to Christ should be made manifest.

1. In a more full and frequent contemplation of His infinite excellence, His ineffable love. In Psa. 148:14 He is said to be The praise of all His saints,a people near unto Him. Especially should this be the case with us when we are called to contemlate the great mystery of redemption, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. In other events and providential deliverances we see the putting forth of the power of His arm; but here we see unveiled the movements of His heart. Think then of the mighty acts of our all-glorious Redeemer, &c. These are the trophies of Christs power; these the putting forth of the resources of His boundless and ineffable love.

2. By a careful study of His Providencestowards the Church in general, or towards ourselves in particular. A great cluster of Providences is referred to in these Psalms. Great and signal revolutions of empire among the Persians, the Babylonians, and the Medes, brought about their return from captivity;their conquerors being moved only by political considerations, as our public men are this day, and not at all about Gods designs. He girded Cyrus with his might, though Cyrus knew Him not (Isa. 45:5). So the great Reformation in Germany was backed by reasons of state, as they are called; it being the interest of many princes there to countenance Luthers doctrines to stop the growing greatness of Charles V., who designed to enslave them. How wonderful that the building and the fortification of Jerusalem should have been consented to and brought about by their original enemies and enslavers, and even at the cost of their conquerors! How much we may see the hand of God in our national history! in the Norman Conquestthe encouragement of the Reformation by Henry VIII.the defeat of the Spanish Armadaand the glorious Revolution by William III.

3. In zealous efforts for the extension of His kingdom. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

III. What great losers they are who have no part in these benefits!

Samuel Thodey.

UNIVERSAL PRAISE

(Psa. 150:6)

This summons to praise Jehovah with which the Book of Psalms closes, is not Jewish, but human; not narrow or exclusive, but broad and catholic. Let us look at universal praise

I. As the grand prerogative of God.

Praise is due to Him from all His creatures because

1. Of the perfections of His Being. We should praise Him for what He is in Himselfthe Supremely Great and Good. His character is fitted to awaken the devout admiration, and inspire the reverent affection, and enkindle the hearty praise of all His intelligent creatures.

2. Of his relations to the universe.

(1.) Creator. Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. We are also His offspring.

(2.) Sustainer. Constantly and completely all things depend upon Him. By Him all things consist. Everything that hath breath draws that breath from Him. He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. For in Him we live and move and have our being.

(3.) Sovereign. All things are ordered by Him. He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou? Therefore, everything that hath breath should praise Him. The lower orders of creation praise Him as embodiments of His ideas, and by fulfilling in their existence His purpose concerning them. And the intelligent orders of creation should praise Him by their loyal obedience, reverent worship, and supreme affection. This is due to Him. He has a most righteous and powerful claim upon this.

3. Praise is due to Him especially from man. Mans creation is a higher thing than that of other creatures, and brings him into closer relations with God. Mans origin as to his essential inward being, the intellectual, moral, and spiritual, is not so much a creation as an outbirth The Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. The God of the spirits of all flesh. Hence mans increased obligation to praise God. The position assigned to man still further increases his obligation to honour God. The Creator made man sovereign over the lower ranks of creatures; and gave the earth to him for his sustentation and service (Gen. 1:28-29; Psa. 115:16). And man, as a sinner, was redeemed by God at an immense cost. Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, &c. (1Pe. 1:18-19). The obligations of man to praise God are of the most sacred and binding character. Universal worship belongs by right to God: it is His prerogative. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His Name, &c.

II. As the precious privilege of man.

To contribute to the universal worship of God is not only the binding duty, but the exalted privilege of man.

1. Because of the acceptance of our praise by Him. That we are permitted to approach God with our praises, and assured of a gracious welcome, is surely great condescension on His part, and a great privilege on ours. Holy angels worship Him with intensest ardour and humblest reverence (Isa. 6:3); yet He deigns to hear and receive the praises of such ignorant and sinful beings as we are.

2. Because of the influence of our praise upon us. The worship of God has the most blessed effect upon the true worshipper.

(1.) Worship is joygiving. It affords richest and purest delight to the devout spirit. One of the highest joys of heaven is the joy of worship. (Comp. Rev. 4:10-11; Rev. 5:9-14; Rev. 7:9-12.)

(2.) Worship is transforming. Man becomes like unto the thing or the being whom he really worships. The worship of God pronotes in the worshipper the attributes of humility, reverence for all that is true and holy, self-forgetfulness, sanctity, and the highest spiritual beauty. They who worship God in spirit and in truth are changed into likeness to Him from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Brothers, behold your privilege! To worship God doubtless is your duty; but it is much more than that: more beautiful and blessed than a mere duty; it is a sacred, precious, exalted privilege. Regard it as such; practise it as such.

III. As the fervent desire of the good.

It is the wish of all godly souls that everything that hath breath would praise the Lord. They manifest their desire by

1. Praising Him themselves. To praise Him is to them a rich delight By their songs and by their services, by their profession and by their practice, they honour Him.

2. Calling upon others to praise Him. Let everything that hath breath praise Jah. Praise ye Jah. The godly soul would incite others to join in this blessed service, and would have all creatures to unite in the melodious and mighty chorus to the praise and glory of God.

This is the best mode of attaining to this universal praise to God. The time advances when everything that hath breath will praise the Lord. We may contribute to its advent by sincerely praising Him ourselves, and by inducing others to join us in praising Him.

Dear Lord, our God and Saviour! for Thy gifts
The world were poor in thanks, though every soul
Should nought but breathe them; every blade of grass,
Yea, every atomie of earth and air
Should utter thanks like dew.
Wherefore let us Him ceaselessly adore;
Praise Him, ye chosen of the earth and skies,
Ye visible raylets of invisible Light,
Blend with the universal Heavens your lays!
Immortal leaflets of Loves holy flower,
Breathe forth the perfume of eternal praise.

Bailey.

LET EVERYTHING THAT HATH BREATH PRAISE JAB!
HALLELUJAH!

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Psalms 150

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE

An Expansion and Enforcement of the Public Readers Invitation to the People to Join in the Responses in the Temple-Worship.

ANALYSIS

1. The Public Readers InvitationHallelu-yah, Praise ye Yah, is first given in the Usual Way at the Head of the Psalms 2. Then follow Ten Lines of Expansion: consisting of (a) a Ten-fold Repetition of the Invitation hallelu, praise ye; (b) a Ten-fold Statement of the Object of Praiseonce by the familiar Divine Name EL, the Mighty One, and nine times by the use of the pronoun him, referring back to El and virtually repeating it; (c) a Ten-fold use of the Hebrew preposition beth, in or withemployed four times to denote GROUNDS OR REASONS for praise, and six times to bring in ACCOMPANIMENTS of praise. 3. These ten steps thus lead up to the Eleventh Line, which constitutes THE CLIMAX OR GRAND IMPERATIVE OF THE PSALM; and consists of another form of the verb hallel to praise (namely, the third person feminine imperfect or incipient) agreeing with the feminine noun neshamah (literally breath, more freely breather), whichwith its qualifying word all or everyshould be rendered, Every one who hath breath, Let EVERY ONE WHO HATH BREATH [the subject emphatically preplaced for emphasis] praise Yah. 4. The Twelfth Line of the psalmwhether, with M.T., consisting of one occurrence of the phrase hallelu-yah, or, after Briggs conjecture, of three occurrences, to fill out the linebeing, as it is, a bare Repetition of the Primary Invitation, makes no further demand on Exposition, as it can only enhance the General Effect. It is only by close adherence to the true character of (i) the Primary Invitation, and (ii) the Expanded Commentary thereon, that this twelfth line, in either form, is saved from being Superfluous.

(P.R.I.) Praise ye Yah[902]

[902] Apparently doubled. See Exposition of 147.

1

Praise ye GOD for[903] his holiness,[904]

[903] N.B.: in view of=for.
[904] So P.B.V. SanctityBr.

Praise ye him for the spreading out[905] of his strength,

[905] So Br.

2

Praise ye him for his heroic deeds,

Praise ye him for the abundance of his greatness;

3

Praise ye him with[906] the blast of the horn,

[906] N.B.: In and through the accompaniment of=with.

Praise ye him with lute and lyre;

4

Praise ye him with timbrel and dance,

Praise ye him with strings and pipe;[907]

[907] Or: flute; or organ in the simple sense of a collection of reeds. See Exposition.

5

Praise ye him with cymbals of clear tone,

Praise ye him with cymbals of loud clang;

6

Let every one who hath breath praise Yah.

Praise ye Yah. [Praise ye Yah. Praise ye Yah.] [908]

[908] Should be thrice repeated for measureBr.

(Nm.)

PARAPHRASE

Psalms 150

Hallelujah! Yes, praise the Lord! Praise Him in His Temple, and in the heavens He made with mighty power.[909]

[909] Literally, in the firmament of His power.

2 Praise Him for His mighty works. Praise His unequalled greatness.
3 Praise Him with the trumpet and with lute and harp.
4 Praise Him with the timbrels and processional. Praise Him with stringed instruments and horns.
5 Praise Him with the cymbals, yes, loud clanging cymbals.
6 Let everything alive give praises to the Lord! You praise Him!

*

*

*

*

*

Hallelujah!

EXPOSITION

As this psalm is unique and makes urgent demands on exegesis, the reader will not be surprised if this endeavour to interpret it extend beyond the length which the brevity of the psalm may have led him to anticipate. For clearness, and to enable MORE and LESS critical readers respectively to find their own, it will be convenient to divide the Exposition into two parts: I. A Critical Defence of the Title, Text and Translation; and II. A Practical Interpretation of the psalm as thus presented.

I.

A CRITICAL DEFENCE OF THE TITLE, TEXT AND TRANSLATION.

1. As to the TITLE here presented, it is respectfully submitted: That this psalm is not a Doxology, and that the continued classification of it as such diverts attention from its true character. As this conclusion rests mainly on Dr. Ginsburgs opinion that the phrase hallelu-yah was, originally, not one word but two, which together constituted the Public Readers Invitation to the People to join in the Responses in Temple Worship (Ginsburgs Intro., pp. 375381), it is necessary that this Expert Opinion be well kept in mind; since it is only when that opinion is accepted as sufficiently valid to form a basis of reasoning, that the character of this psalm as an Expansion and Enforcement of that Invitation can be expected to disclose itself. The thoroughness with which, on that assumption, it does vindicate itself, is the sufficient justification of the ultimate conclusion reached as to the character of this psalm.

2. Next, as to TEXT, it is necessary to say: That the extraordinary symmetry of this psalm, coupled with the notorious confusion into which the Hebrew letters beth and kaph are known from the ancient versions to have not infrequently fallen, through infirmities incident to copying, conducts to the assured conviction that the NINE occurrences of the preposition beth in this psalm must have been originally TEN, and that the Syriac version is right in having preserved the ten intact. This strong conviction is similar to that of which a critic of modern hymns becomes conscious, when, in examining a new hymn-book, he observes a hymn, otherwise perfect in its rhymes, utterly breaking down in one particular verse. As he would exclaim, Impossible and Incredible! so any one with a fair amount of sensitiveness to symmetry of form and a passing acquaintance with the incidents of textual transmission, becomes irresistibly possessed by the persuasion that the one straggling kaph in this psalm is neither more nor less than a clerical error, however ancient, and the more so, that the irregularity serves no good purpose whatever, seeing that the difference between in view of, for and according to cannot in the circumstances be made evident to the common mind.

3. In respect of TRANSLATION, two points claim attention: the rendering of the ten beths; and, that of the word neshamah in the climax of the psalm.

(a) Manifestly, the ten beths should be rendered as uniformly as possible: which at once throws out the upon (of A.V. and R.V.) before the two classes of cymbals, as a perfectly gratuitous variation; seeing that Jehovah may be praised with as well as upon any musical instrument. Unfortunately we cannot have a perfectly uniform rendering of beth, simply because this Hebrew preposition is broader than our with, easily looking in such two directions as in view of = for and with (the help or accompaniment of), but beyond these two meanings there is, in this psalm, no need to go; as will be seen as soon as we are prepared to deal vigorously with lines one and two, and (with Briggs), without change of consonants, say: for his holiness, for the spreading out of his strength. We shall then have four good, strong, uniform lines:

Praise ye GOD for his holiness,
Praise ye him for the spreading out of his strength,
Praise ye him for his heroic acts,
Praise ye him for his abundant greatness.

Against the introductionwith many translationsof place in the first line, may be urged: that it is first, needless; secondly, feeble; thirdly, puzzling: Needless, inasmuch as the extension of Jehovahs praise through space (and place) is fully and grandly wrought out in Psalms 148; feeble, because, if we merely say in his sanctuary, no mention is made of the beings who dwell in that sanctuary; and puzzling, because we are left in doubt which sanctuary is intended, the earthly or the heavenly, as to which expositors are very uncertainat least they come to diverse conclusions. But by accepting the four lines as a fourfold reference to the attributes and activities of the Mighty One, an obviously stable foundation is laid on which His praise may rest. Praise him in view of=forall these.

(b) As to the important noun neshamah, in the climax of the psalm, whichpreceded by the little qualifying word kol, the totality of, the whole of, all, or everyis literally every breath, more freely every breather: the one important question is, Does it mean Every ONE who hath breath, or Every THING that hath breath? In other words, Does it (poetically) include animals; or is it strictly and properly confined to mankind? It will probably become evident that it does include all mankind, and is not limited to Hebrew worshippers, even though Temple worship is all the time in view. If we conclude that it is confined to mankind, it will still be left over to ask, in the second part of our Exposition, WHY this peculiar phrase is employed to denote mankind, rather than simply all nations, all men, or all flesh. In answer to the primary question here submitted, it may be said, with confidence: That the word under consideration is here confined to mankindfor the following reasons: (i) it stands alone, and is not one of a series which conceivably might leave this term over to mean animals: (ii) the whole context is charged to the full with the notion of human personality. Praise ye! eleven times repeated (including the Public Readers Invitation), so that, if the eleven-fold appeal of the ye be to MEN, then the climax, which is the emphasised sum of all that has gone before, must still mean MEN, and cannot be poetically lavished on animals; (iii) other examples may be found in which every breath or every breather is limited to human kind; as for example Deu. 20:16; Deu. 20:18; Jos. 11:11; Jos. 11:14, confirmed by Isa. 57:16, wherein neshahmoth, the plural of the term before us, is clearly synonymous with the souls of men (not animals). We may, then safely rest in the translation: Let every ONE who hath breath praise Yah.

II. A PRACTICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PSALM AS THUS PRESENTED.

We at once find ourselves in a practical atmosphere, if we resume where just now we left off. Frankly admittingas we have already admittedthat we are (metaphorically) within the Temple area, that we have just heard the Public Reader in the Temple Courts give the Invitation Praise ye Yah; and that we are now (in all probability) listening to a Levitical or Orchestral prolongation of the Readers Invitation,granting all this, we are constrained nevertheless to maintain that we have been brought under no restrictive influences which can rightfully cramp the terms Every one who hath breath, so that they shall mean no more than Every Hebrew.

In support of this protest we offer the following reasons:(a) The psalmist avoids all the many current designations by which he could have restricted his appeal to Hebrews; such as Men of Israel, Sons of Zion, Seed of Jacob, and the like: instead of which he says, simply and broadly, Every one who hath breath. (b) Previous psalms have already familiarised us with a class of worshippers outside Hebrews; as where (Psa. 115:9-11; Psa. 135:19-20)after exhaustively classifying all Israelwe are taken outside Israel by the familiar New Testament designation, Ye that revere God. (c) Other psalms, unquestionably prophetic (and therefore probably carrying us beyond the present Church dispensation into the coming age of the Kingdom) have thrown open the Temple Courts to all nations, or all the earth; and invited them to enter and bow down (Psa. 100:1-4; see Exposition.). (d) The prophetic word from Isaiahs hands (Psa. 56:7) distinctly predicts that My house, a house of prayer shall be called, for all the peoples (cp. Isa. 66:18-23). For these reasons it is plainly not permissible to restrict the description Every one who hath breath to any narrower limits than ALL MANKIND.

But why should this peculiar description have been selected, and not one of the more obvious phrases, such as All nations, All men, or All flesh? This we now proceed to indicate by submitting the following proposition: The praises of Jehovah primarily call for Song; and for the production of song Breath is essential; hence the inherent fitness of couching the Invitation in these terms rather than any others.

The primary appeal made by the songs of Israel is to the Human Voice, to articulate them. They are not mere sounds, but senses; they celebrate, among other things, the doings and perfections of Jehovah; they appeal to the mind of the listener through his ear. No artificial sounds can articulate them. Song is essential to the praise of Jehovah; and Breath is essential to song.

The present psalm, which may be described as the magnified appeal of Hebrew praise, is absolutely true to this master-thought. The Public Readers appeal is not to musical instruments, but to musical men. He does, indeed, call for music, because he calls for praise in Song; and mere brute sound is not Song; is not, cannot be, intelligent, simultaneous, harmonious, melodious Song. Therefore he appeals to men with minds, men capable of adoring purpose. But MEN standing first and foremost, first and last, in his call. He calls on them for tuneful breath. But they must have breath; and therefore the Orchestral Amplification rises to its climax on that clear note. Eleven times Praise ye, (O men): never once, Praise ye (O instruments)!

And this reduces all instrumentation to its right dimensions: in rendering the praises of Israel, instrumentation is always, everywhere, evermore secondary and subservient. To guide, prolong, sustain the HUMAN VOICE, is its only place here.
But in this, its legitimate, subservient relation to the human voice, instrumentation is not only permitted but invited!Divinely invited. And there is this further to be said in passing: That no musical instrument can play itself, nor play at all until a human soul moves it to its subservient end.

According to this Divine Ideal of Sacred Song, it is Man who is sounding the high praises of Jehovah all the while: Man with the instrument, Man in the instrument. All good instrumental music throbs and thrills with human intelligence.

There is something unspeakably pathetic, and immeasurably instructive, in this final appeal to Every one who hath breath. When a mans breath departs, his power of song in this world is at an end. When, amid the advancing infirmities of old age, his breath for song fails him, and he is compelled to excuse himself from complying with this Invitation, by pleading: I would fain, O Divine Master, respond to thy call; but alas, I have no available breath,may we not believe that his excuse will be accepted? If he is compelled to lean on OTHERS, but still puts his own mind into the song which he has to leave others to sing,will he not be accepted? If he has a HARP, and his right hand has not yet lost its cunning, and he throws his soul into the strings and by them climbs to Jehovahs throne in adoration,will he not be accepted? The very pathos of old age illustrates and accentuates the principle. He who is aged and infirm is, with others, invited to sing; but, if he cannot, what then? He is invited to play; but if he cannot, what then? Is there in the Divine Code no such thing as a Law of Liberty? Happily, to his own Master he standeth or falleth. Meanwhile, and all the while, the gracious Invitation goes on resounding through the ages, and to earths remotest bounds,Let every one who hath breath praise Yah!

Before we close, a particularisation of the accompaniments of praise here enumerated may be acceptable:

1.Horn, Heb. shophar: the curved horn, prob. at first a rams horn, which was used by watchmen, warriors, etc., as well as priestsO.G., 348. To be distinguished from the straight silver trumpets for the use of the priests (Num. 10:1-10, the only instance of which in the Psalms is Psa. 98:6). It is remarkable that this is the only instrument still in use which goes back to Mosaic times.

2.Lute, Heb. nebhel: prob. smaller than the lyre, and occasionally more elaborate (Psa. 33:2, Psa. 144:9). In O.G. named also portable harp, guitar. For uniformity of rendering, see under next word.

3.Lyre, Heb. kinnor: prob. larger than the lute, and fitted by its deeper and louder tones to accompany the bass voices in the Temple worship (1Ch. 15:21). Lyre is the only name given it in O.G. Hence, throughout this translation of the Psalm, this distinction has been uniformly observedlute for nebhel and lyre for kinnor.

4.Timbrel, Heb. toph: the well-known tambourine or hand-drum, chiefly used as an accompaniment to dancing; and, therefore, favouring that translation of the next word.

5.Dance, Heb. mahol: dance is the only meaning given in Fuerst, T.G., and O.G.: in the last of which it is followed by the wordsaccompanied by Timbrel (toph) and sometimes other instruments. Stainer inclines to flute (Bible Educator, ii., 70): in favour of whose opinion it may be saidthat thereby absolute uniformity is secured for all six lines; and, if EIGHT of the items specified are instruments, and not mere accompaniments, why not the NINTH?

6.Strings, Heb. minnim: so O.G.; regarded by Stainer as a generic name for stringed instruments (Bible Educator, ii., 72).

7.Pipe, Heb. ugabh: in O.G., reed pipe or flute, or a Pans-pipe or organmade up of several reeds together. Stainer evidently concludes that, although the ugabh may have been originally a simple collection of reeds, a syrinx, or Pans-pipe, yet it afterwards was developed into the parent of our modern organ, and was identical with the magrepha mentioned in the Talmud. This organ, says Steiner, for it is entitled to the name . . . was capable of producing 100 sounds. These were brought under the control of the player by means of a clavier or key-board. Its tones were said to be audible at a very great distance (Bible Educator, ii., 73).

8.Cymbals of clear tone, Heb. zilzelei-shama.

9.Cymbals of loud clang, Heb. zilzelei-teruah: There is a general agreement among scholars in favour of substantially the above distinction. It is quite conceivable that the clanging cymbals may have found their place in Temple worship by serving to drown and overpower all other noises, and so secure universal silence throughout the Temple courts; in which case the clear-sounding cymbals could be appropriated to the service of beating time, and possibly of making other concerted signals.

If the main position respecting the foregoing psalm is correct, several corollaries follow from it: one of them is thisThat we must look elsewhere than here for the actual response of the people. The more sure we are that this psalm is none of it of the nature of a response, but all of it of the nature of a continued appeal for a response, the mure urgently it becomes us to indicate the kind of thing which would constitute such a responsein other words, which would serve as an appropriate answer to this appeal. Fortunately, we have not to look far to discover what we seek. The refrain of Psalms 136 is just what we want. On the face of it, that refrain is a peoples response. It is in itself, not a call for praise, but praise: what is therein said is evidently uttered in Jehovahs praise, and appears in no other light. Its brevity renders it adapted to a peoples lips. Every one, having heard it, could remember it. Its frequent repetition indelibly engraved it on every recollection. Being known to all, and perfectly familiar, it was available on any occasion, at a moments notice. All could join in it. Infant voices could lisp it; feeble voices could utter it; faltering voices could sustain it; uncultured voices could pronounce it. Calling only for faith and gratitude, and of course the pure intention of obedience to Jehovahs claimsit called for no more, as a condition for the appropriation of its God honouring sentiment. It was heart-searching enough to test the deeply tried, who would have to draw upon all their faith and patience and hopefulness, before they could sincerely affirm it; and at the same time it was comprehensive and emphatic enough to suit the bounding hearts and hopes of such as realised that they were laden with mercies.

How popular and general it became in the praises of Israel is evident from a comparison of such passages as 1Ch. 16:24; 1Ch. 16:41, 2Ch. 5:13; 2Ch. 7:3; 2Ch. 7:6; 2Ch. 20:21, Ezr. 3:11, Psa. 106:1; Psa. 107:1; Psa. 118:1-4; Psa. 118:29; Psa. 135:3-4; Psalms 136 throughout, Jer. 33:11. Some of these passages suggest that the Levites led the people in the rendering of this response, and nothing is inherently more likely. The people would need some signal as to the precise time when their reply should be given; and, it may be, the indication of some note on which they might pitch their voices. Moreover, this hypothesisthat the peoples responses were led by the Levitesat once very simply disposes of a difficulty which might otherwise be raised as an objection to the general view of this psalm here given. But for this explanation, it might have been askedHow can this psalm be a continued appeal to the people? If so, then the people are invited to play the various instruments of music: is not that very unlikely? The sufficient answer is ready: They are invited to do this by the hands of the Levitestheir Divinely appointed Representatives and Helpers: which explanation falls into line with the general teaching of the Psalms throughoutthat the Levites were the tribal embodiment of the Ideal Israel. But none of these considerations would alter the character of the popular response itself: it would be and remain briefdirectcomprehensivefundamental.

Perhaps Israel had other popular responses, worded differentlya little expanded or a little contracted; and it is quite possible that out of the Psalms themselves examples of such other responses may be discriminated and commended to our attention. Meanwhile, the above well-sustained example (from Psalms 136) may settle beyond reasonable question the difference between an Appeal for a Responsewhether said or sung, whether coming from one or many voices; and the Reply to that Appeal in the form of the Response itself.

Another thing that follows from our main position respecting the character of this last psalm is this: that instead of being considered as fixed here by way of a doxologya character we have seen it does not bearit should be regarded as well placed here, indeed, for convenience having to appear somewhere,but as being by original intention MOVABLE, adapted to be lifted into any other position where its presence might be desired. So that, whenever and wherever the Public Reader might give his Invitation, then and there, by means of this short psalm, A SINGER, A CHOIR, OR THE WHOLE ORCHESTRA MIGHT ENFORCE HIS INVITATION.

This alone would account for the twofold appearance of the original compound hallelujah in connection with these last five psalms; which critics have classified as, so to speak, Double HALLELUJAH PSALMS. The so-called Double Hallelujah may be taken either as a mistaken repetition or more probably as a double putting forth of one and the same Invitation; first to be said, and then to be sung; first to be uttered by one voice, and then to be uttered by many voiceswithout change of destination or alteration of significance, its destination being, both ways, to the people, and its significance being, both times, that of an Appeala Callan Invitation for a Response. This disposes of all the doublings of the phrase halleluyah in this part of the psalter.

In fine, the peculiar character of the last psalm is alone sufficient to account for the appearance of halleluyah at the end of that psalm as well as at its beginning. The psalm itself being nothing else than an Invitation, though Expanded, there could be no possible reason to hinder the repetition of it in brief. It would still remain for the people to respond and say:-

For he is good,
For to the ages is his kindness.

With the disappearance of the Hebrew compound word hallelu-yah from the end of this psalm, and from all the previous places where it occurs, and the setting down in its stead of its exact English equivalent, is completed a process of thoroughness in translation in behalf of which a good defence can be made. No one doubts that proper names should be transferred in the process of translation; and therefore it is admittedly rightas indeed it is absolutely necessaryto pass on into English the abbreviated Divine Name Yah, a shortened form of Yahweh (commonly pronounced Jehovah); but when this is done, there is no more reason for reproducing the Hebrew word hallelu twice in this psalm than in the remaining nine (practically ten) times of its occurrence. Now as no one dreams of saying, in Psa. 150:1, Hallelu God, and then Hallelu him for nine times more in succession,the inconsistency of retaining Hallelu at all becomes evident,that is to say, becomes evident the moment it is admitted that hallelu-yah is a phrase and not a word, a phrase with a meaning, a meaning intended to serve a practical purpose. Not then to TRANSLATE it, is to convert it into a flourish, which may mean anything or nothing according to the fancy of the reader; and meanwhile it is to miss, one knows not how much guidance to the knowledge of the ancient Temple worship. If the foregoing Exposition of this mis-named Doxology has served its purpose, it has already corrected and safeguarded several phrases in the psalm itself; and has probably further opened the way to valuable conclusions which cannot at present be foreseen. For one thing, it haseven within the compass of this short psalmemphasised the subserviency of accompaniments of worship, as towards worship proper, to a degree which could not have been attained in any other way. It is only when we know what the Public Readers Invitation means, that we can see how his meaning is caught up, repeated, and emphasised by all that follows. Practically the appeal of the psalm might almost as well have been addressed to musical instruments, instead of being addressed mainly and sustainedly, throughout, to worshipful and musical men.

In this particular instance, as in so many others, fidelity may appear to entail loss; but let us rest assured that in all such cases, temporary loss means permanent gain. We may lose our blessed word Hallelu-jah; and, after it, several other idols may have gradually to disappear; but lasting advantage will more than compensate for any sacrifice, if we thereby learn more thoroughly than ever how all aids to public devotion may be transformed and uplifted by the devout intelligence and intentions of worshipful men.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.

At the opening of several of the psalms is a little phrase addressed to the Public Reader. Who is this person? Why address him?

2.

If this psalm is not a doxology, what is it?

3.

There seems to be some question as to the proper translation, or transmission of the text. What is it?

4.

How much importance is there (i.e. to the average reader) in the technical discussion of the use of the Hebrew words? Discuss.

5.

To the practical use and understanding of this psalm, we ask; When was this psalm used? Where? If in the Hebrew Temple are all mankind, called upon to praise God?

6.

There is a strong discussion of the use of the human voice in singing. How shall we understand the sentence; all good instrumental music throbs and thrills with human intelligence.

7.

What of the aged man who can neither sing nor play his praise to Jehovah?

8.

There are eight (or seven) musical instruments defined by Rotherhamin one definition we have a justification for our present organ. Do you agree? Discuss.

9.

What possible response was given to this psalm? How was it given?

10.

What suggestion was made as to the possible frequent use of this psalm? How can we use it today?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) SanctuaryThat is, the temple. Some take it in direct parallelism with firmament, and understand the heavenly palace, or Temple (comp. Psa. 11:4); but, as in Psalms 148, the invocation to praise includes heaven and earth; so here, but in the reverse order, the earthly sanctuary first, and the sublime things done on earth (Psa. 150:2), then heaven and the exalted greatness there.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. As the theme is praise, the psalm opens with a very specific designation of the Being to be praised. Two titles are given. First, Praise ye , ( Yah,) or Jehovah the name of God as in covenant with his people. Secondly, Praise , ( El,) God, the Almighty, the name denoting strength, power, by which God is known as the creator, the upholder of the universe, the deliverer and defender of Israel.

Sanctuary This is the rendering we should here give to the word kodesh, “holy,” for, having spoken of the Being to be praised, the author now mentions the chief places of his praise; and this also best agrees with the prefix preposition be, in “Praise God in his holy place.” Had it been of the abstract holiness of God that he was speaking, and not the holy place of his worship, he would have used the causal particle, kee, “for” “Praise God for his holiness.”

Firmament of his power “Firmament,” here, is used synonymously with what we would call the visible heavens. In the “sanctuary” God is celebrated specially for his redemptive work; in the “firmament,” as creator and ruler of all worlds. These are the visible seats of his manifested power.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psalms 150

Characteristics – This last Psalm is a doxology of doxologies, a praise of praise songs, the highest praise of praises. Psalms 146-150 begin a crescendo of praise to finish the book of Psalms.

Outline Here is a proposed outline of Psalms 150:

Psa 150:1 – Where is God to be praise?

Psa 150:2 – Why is God to be praised?

Psa 150:3-5 – How is God to be praised?

Psa 150:6 – Who is to praise God?

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Concluding Hymn of Praise.

The last Hallelujah Psalm is a fitting doxology for the whole Book of Psalms, proclaiming the place, theme, mode, and extent of God’s praise.

v. 1. Praise ye the Lord! Praise God in His Sanctuary, in the places set aside for His worship here on earth, no matter where they may be; praise Him in the firmament of His power, which was considered the foundation of the heavens. Earthly and heavenly places of dwelling and worship are mentioned together to indicate the universal extent of God’s worship.

v. 2. Praise Him for His mighty acts, the miraculous exhibitions of His creative power; praise Him according to His excellent greatness, or “abundance of greatness,” the absolute and limitless manifestation of His attributes.

v. 3. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet, or cornet, as used by the Jews to announce religious assemblies, Num 10:1-10; praise Him with the psaltery, a kind of lute, and harp, or zither.

v. 4. Praise Him with the timbrel, a form of tambourine, and dance, rather, the pipe; praise Him with stringed instruments and organs, the latter being a series of graduated pipes used by shepherds.

v. 5. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals, or castanets; praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals, the larger form, with deeper and fuller tones. Musical instruments of every kind, wood instruments, string instruments, and instruments of percussion a full orchestra is needed if one would even attempt adequately to sing the praises of Jehovah.

v. 6. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, all living beings joining with their voices to proclaim the glory of His name. Praise ye the Lord! “There is nothing in the Psalter more majestic or more beautiful than this brief, but most significant finale, in which solemnity of tone predominates, without, however, in the least disturbing the exhilaration which the close of the Psalter intended to produce, as if in emblematical allusion to the triumph which awaits the Church and all its members when, through much tribulation, they shall enter into rest. “

The Proverbs

Introduction

The third poetical book of the Old Testament is that of the Proverbs of Solomon, not a collection of popular sayings or a product of human speculation and observation, but a book setting forth the principles of true wisdom and making the divine truths the object of believing contemplation. The scope of the wise sayings in this book is to direct all men, but especially the believers, so to order their life and conduct as to please God and promote their welfare here on earth. And there is one outstanding feature in this book, namely, the revelation of the true Source and Fountain of wisdom, the Son of God. He who knows and accepts the Son of God, Jesus Christ, by faith, will bring his entire conduct in life in agreement with the true reverence and fear of the Lord over against the foolishness and blindness of such as despise this true wisdom, the sum of all instruction in the Word of God.

The entire book is ascribed to Solomon, although the last Proverbs, which were added to the collection at a later time, have as their authors Agur, the son of Jakeh, and King Lemuel. Of Solomon it is stated that he spoke three thousand proverbs, 1Ki 4:32. Some of these Solomonic proverbs were gathered together in our book, as the superscriptions of the various sections show: “The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David,” Pro 1:1; “The proverbs of Solomon,” Pro 10:1; “These are the proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out,” Pro 25:1.

The three superscriptions also indicate the divisions of the book. The first section, 1 to 9, inclusive, contains a description and recommendation of true wisdom, directed especially to young people. The second section, 10 to 24, is more loosely constructed, the pearls of wisdom following one another in a most telling manner. The third section 25 to 29, contains such proverbs as were selected by a committee of prophets at the time of Hezekiah. The book closes with three additions, Pro 30:1-33; Pro 31:1-31.

The practical wisdom contained in the Book of Proverbs is intended by the Lord for the instruction of all men of all times and should be heeded in this sense also by the Christians of the New Testament. It is the Lord Himself who speaks to men in these sayings, and therefore they are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that a man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished ‘into every good work’, 2Ti 3:15-17.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

COMMENTATORS generally are agreed that this is a most noble psalm, a fit conclusion to the noble collection which here terminates. Professor Cheyne says, “Psa 150:1-6 closes this Hallelujah group not less worthily than the whole group concludes the Psalter. It is the finale of the spiritual concert.” Hengstenberg observes, “We have here a full-toned call to the praise of God, quite appropriate to the close of this psalm-cycle and of the whole Psalter.” The “Four Friends” say, “With these grand words the Psalter closes.” Dr. Mason Good points out, as the speciality of the psalm, that it sets before us in detail the various elements of the temple music. “The enraptured minstrel,” he remarks, “now rises upon the full stretch of his pinions, and addresses himself to all the powers and faculties of his symphonious brotherhood; to the enchantment of flowing numbers, and the overwhelming ecstasy of an harmonious peal, poured forth in all its strength, from pipe and string and shell of every kind, each, with devotional rivalry, striving to surpass each in pealing forth his praise, from whom they derive breath, vibration, and sound.” No psalm rises more grandly from verse to verse, or terminates in a nobler or grander climax, “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.”

Psa 150:1

Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary. This is the right rendering, and not that of the Prayer-book Version, “Praise God in his holiness.” Israel is called upon to give God praise in his holy temple. Praise him in the firmament of his power; i.e. in the broad expanse of heaven, the sign and seat of his power.

Psa 150:2

Praise him for his mighty acts; i.e. for the great acts of his providence, especially for his deliverances of Israel. Praise him according to his excellent greatness; rather, his abounding greatness (Kay); or, his manifold greatness (Cheyne).

Psa 150:3

Praise him with the sound of the trumpet, (On the use of the trumpet in Divine service, see Le 23:24; Psa 25:9; Num 10:10; 2Sa 6:15; 1Ch 13:8; 1Ch 15:24; 1Ch 16:6; 2Ch 5:12, 2Ch 5:13; 2Ch 7:6; 2Ch 29:27; Psa 81:3; Psa 98:6.) Praise him with the psaltery and harp (comp. Psa 57:8; Psa 81:2; Psa 108:2; 1Ch 15:16; 2Ch 5:12, etc.).

Psa 150:4

Praise him with the timbrel and dance (comp. Psa 149:3). Praise him with stringed instruments and organs; literally, with strings and pipe. “Organs” are, of course, out of the question. The “pipe” intended is probably the double pipe so often represented on the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, and Phoenicia.

Psa 150:5

Praise him upon the loud cymbals; praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals. “We can hardly,” says Professor Cheyne, “venture to distinguish two kinds of cymbals on the ground of these two epithet” The mention of “cymbals” is reserved to the last, as being the instrument of music most expressive of joy and jubilation. It completes the musical climax, as Psa 150:6 completes the ideal one.

Psa 150:6

Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord; literally, the whole of breath (comp. Rev 5:13, “And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever;” see also Psa 148:7, Psa 148:10-12). Praise ye the Lord. “As the life of the faithful, and the history of the Church, so also the Psalter, with all its cries from the depths, runs out in a hallelujah” (Hengstenberg).

HOMILETICS

Psa 150:1-6

Hallelujah: our life a psalm.

There is no distinctive truth taught here; each verse gives utterance to that which has been sung before (see especially Psa 148:1-14.). But the strain of the psalm is that of an earnest summons to make the praise of God the prevailing note of our life. Let life be charged and crowned with praise.

1. If regularly at the sanctuary, there in order that it may be offered elsewhere, everywhere.

2. If on the sabbath day, then that it may be presented every day.

3. If with trumpet and cymbal, thus that it may be sounded on every instrument that can make music unto the Lord.

4. If rendered for his “mighty acts” especially, it is not to be withheld for his daily and hourly loving-kindnesses.

5. Praise should, in its fullness and sweetness and heartiness on our part, answer to “the abundance of his greatness””his excellent greatness” (Psa 150:2).

6. Praise should proceed from every lip, from every life (Psa 150:6); from the youngest who is old enough to lisp his Name, and from the oldest who has strength enough left to make mention of his grace; from the sick on their couch as they anticipate the time when there will be “no more pain;” from the bereaved as they realize all that their departed friends were to them through years of health and service, and as they look forward to the glad day of reunion, and from the strong and active in the midst of the strife of life; from those who study, and from those who “labor, working with their hands;” from those who rule, and from those who serve. A life of praise is a life of holy fragrance, acceptable to God and well-pleasing to man. It is excellent in itself, and it is pro-motive and prophetic of the time when “the whole earth shall be filled with his glory.”

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK

Psa 150:1

Places to praise God in.

“This psalm is a rapture. The poet-prophet is full of inspiration and enthusiasm.” Lamartine says, “In this closing psalm we see the almost inarticulate enthusiasm of the lyric poet; so rapidly do the words press to his lips, floating upwards towards God, their Source, like the smoke of a great fire of the soul wafted by the tempest.” “In former times, when the casting of church-bells was more of a religious ceremony, this psalm was chanted by the brethren of the guild, as they stood ranged around the furnace, while the molten metal was prepared to be let off into the mould ready to receive it.”

I. THE SANCTUARY. Not “his holiness,” as in the Prayer-book Version, nor merely “his temple;” but the whole earth, as the sphere in which he has displayed his power and his grace. It is quite true that praise is to be offered in those buildings which are set apart for God’s worship; but we must always regard them as representative of God’s great temple of nature and of human history. The old tabernacle represented wandering Israel as the dwelling-place of God. The temple, later on, represented the organized nation as the dwelling-place of God. But such localization and limitations only represented and taught the truth that the whole earth is the sanctuary of God. In tabernacle, temple, church, whole earth, where God is, God’s praise must be sounded forth. He says, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.”

II. THE FIRMAMENT OF HAS POWER. This is usually taken to mean “heaven,” but it is more in accordance with Hebrew repetition to see in it another figure for what is called the “sanctuary.” “Firmament” simply means sphere. Every place becomes a holy place if God’s power is put forth in it; then the whole earth, and the entire range of history, become a sanctuary in which God’s praise is properly called forth. If we are to praise God in the spheres in which he has put forth his power and grace, we shall have to be praising him everywhere.R.T.

Psa 150:2

Things to praise God for.

For “excellent greatness,” read “muchness of greatness.” Praise is to be offered in recognition both of God’s inherent power, and of its manifestation in mighty acts.

I. PRAISE IS CALLED FOR BY DIVINE POWER. He who knows God knows him through a series of mighty, wonderful acts, interventions, provisions, deliverances, punishings, all of which produce overwhelming impressions of almighty power. Illustration may be taken from

(1) the Divine creations;

(2) the Divine maintainings;

(3) the Divine redemptions.

Divine power is seen in God’s ordering and controlling the gigantic forces of nature and the lawless willfulness of man. Modern artistic and poetic feeling, perhaps responding to the revelations of the microscope, can find Divine power in the gentle and the minute; but Hebrew genius dealt almost exclusively with the august, tremendous, and awful in nature; so power in God was the thing most impressed on the Hebrew mind as the inspiration of praise. And still a necessary ground of entire Confidence in God is a conviction of his absolute and unquestionable almightiness everywhere, and in relation to everything. We praise him because we feel sure that our God is mightier than the mightiest.

II. PRAISE IS CALLED FOR BY DIVINE CHARACTER BEHIND POWER. “Excellent greatness.” An adjective is applied which directs us to moral quality. God must never be thought of as we think of giants. We are altogether absorbed by thinking of their bodily size and strength; it does not matter to us whether they hi, re either mental faculty or moral character. Some think of God as a mere embodiment of august and awful power. He is not known aright, nor can he be praised aright, until the character inspiring the exercise of his power is apprehended. Then we realize that he stands in relation to us, and for his gracious relations we praise him in the highest.R.T.

Psa 150:3, Psa 150:4

Instruments to praise God with.

Bishop Wordsworth notes that all kinds of faculty are engaged in the work of praise. The breath is employed in blowing the trumpet; the fingers are used in striking the strings of the psaltery and the harp; the whole hand is exerted in beating the timbrel; the feet move in the dance. The introduction of various musical instruments, as well as choirs of human voices, into the regular worship of the tabernacle and temple, is traceable to the time and probably to the personal influence of David. “David did so much for the public worship of God in that he brought it so near to men; he gave it so much interest to them; and he lifted it out of mere duty into pleasure by adding the features of music and of song.” It is interesting, but only a matter of curiosity, to identify and describe the different instruments mentioned here. We need only see that they include all the musical instrumentswind, string, and clanging. The point to fix attention on is that, when a man wants to praise God, he may bring into his service every kind of power that he possesses, and every agency through which he can find expression for his power.

I. ALL KINDS OF INSTRUMENTS MAY BE USED IN PRAISE. Only sentiment ever puts limitations on the instruments that may be used for Divine worship. Sentiment imagines some kinds to be more solemn and reverent than others. Curiously, those which some regard as specially solemn, e.g. the organ, are wholly repudiated by others (the Scotch). No instrument is in itself unsuitable. The kind of use man makes of it, and the kind of associations man causes to gather round it, may make an instrument unsuitable. In this matter the good sense of Christian people must decide.

II. THE PRAISE IS NOT IN THE INSTRUMENT, BUT IN WHAT THE MAN EXPRESSES THROUGH THE INSTRUMENT. With our temptation to rest in things, we need this reminder for every age. The praise is in the man’s soul. And the most exquisite musical expression is worthless as praise if it is soulless.R.T.

Psa 150:6

Persons and things that should unite in God’s praise.

“It is difficult to conceive how any man who believes in God can need to be reminded of the duty of praise. In every age and country the adoration of the Supreme Being has risen with the illumination of the human mind, and borne a very exact proportion to its restoration in the Divine image.” “Our whole life should speak forth our thankfulness.” “Let all the breath [i.e. the entirety of animate creation] praise Jehovah.” If a comprehensive view of God be taken, and it is seen that “his tender mercies are over all is works,” and that “the eyes of all wait upon him, and he giveth them their meat in due season,” this call to the entire animate creation to join man in his praise will become to us more than poetry and sentiment. It is to be noticed that the Hebrew poet had no glimpse of the idea of Wordsworth, that a living soul animates the inanimate creation. The Hebrew limits his call to creatures that have breath and can make sounds; and of this great choir man is the leader. They may be likened to the great band of musicians in a chorus, who never utter an articulate sound, yet are in perfect harmony with the singers whose intelligent voices lead the chorus. “As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there.”

I. EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY OUGHT TO PRAISE GOD. Ought to harmoniously unite in praising God. And this is only possible when each does what he can, and does it in the best way he can. The grand song of redeemed nature and man is well given in Pollok’s ‘Course of Time,’ pp. 189-191.

II. WE OUGHT TO PRAISE GOD. For the last exclamation, “Praise ye the Lord!” should be taken as a personal call and application. It can never he enough to us that praise is being offered. Nor can it be enough to offer formal praise with ours. It must be our praise-our soul-praise, and our praise at its best.R.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Psalms 150.

An exhortation to praise God with all kinds of instruments.

THIS is likewise a psalm of praise, in which the author calls upon men to magnify the Lord in every thing in which he chose principally to manifest his glory; and upon every kind of instrument. See the title to the fourth psalm.

Psa 150:1. Praise God in his sanctuary Or, In his holiness; i.e. “For the inexpressible purity and holiness of his nature.” In the firmament of his power, means, “For the vast extent of his power, which is expanded and diffused over all his works.” Mudge renders it, Praise him in the expanse of his strength.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Psalms 150

1Praise ye the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary:
Praise him in the firmament of his power.

2Praise him for his mighty acts:

Praise him according to his excellent greatness.

3Praise him with the sound of the trumpet:

Praise him with the psaltery and harp.

4Praise him with the timbrel and dance:

Praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

5Praise him upon the loud cymbals:

Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

6Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

Praise ye the Lord.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Contents and Composition.The Psalm calls upon all the living to praise God in all places of His worship, with all the accompaniments of solemn pomp and joy, for the glory of His deeds and His nature. This closing Psalm is of liturgical character throughout. Nothing is known of the time when it was composed. We can hardly believe that it was added by the latest Collector of the Psalter to form the conclusion (Hitzig). For it sounds too fresh and unalloyed to justify the opinion, that the short doxology closing the First Book (Ps. 41:14), which appears enlarged at the end of the second (Ps. (Psa 72:18-20), and is also found at the close of the Third (Ps. 89:53) and Fourth Books (Psa 106:48), here assumes the form of an entire Psalm, taking the place of a final doxology. It is supposed by Delitzsch that the tenfold exhortation enclosed by two Hallelujahs, and in the same form of words, while in Psa 150:6 another form is adopted, is connected with the number ten, as the number of conclusion, exclusion, completion, and exhausted possibility. This might be more easily established than the attempt to gain a connection with the number ten by making praise in Psa 150:6 one of the instruments, and thus obtaining ten instruments (Amyrald, Hengst.). The thirteen-fold occurrence of the word has been artificially connected with the thirteen divine attributes (Kimchi), reckoned by the Synagogue after Exo 34:6 f. It is uncertain, at all events, whether the form , which appears on the twelfth occasion, and the three-fold Jah, betray design, and have a symbolical meaning. In either case a division into three strophes cannot be grounded upon this (Hengstenberg).

Psa 150:1. Sanctuary.Hitzig renders: in His holiness, i.e., unapproachableness. But, on account of the parallelism it is best to assume the local designation. This, however, is not to be understood attributively of God as the heavenly object of praise (Delitzsch), but of the earthly sanctuary, corresponding to the rakia stretched out by Gods power and giving testimony concerning Him (Psa 68:35). Earthly and heavenly places of dwelling and worship are mentioned together, as in 1Ki 8:39 f.; 43 f.; 49 f.; Psa 11:4, to indicate universality. On the instruments, see Introd. 11.

[Psa 150:4-6. Translate the last word of Psa 150:4 : pipe. Hengstenberg: In Psa 150:4 the pipe, as a wind instrument, forms a contrast to the stringed instruments. There is no trace elsewhere of the pipe being used in the public worship of God; the only instruments in use for blowing upon were trumpets. Beyond doubt the pipe, which did not belong otherwise to the temple service, was brought into requisition here, only because the feast had, at the same time, the character of a popular rejoicing. In like manner, also, timbrels and dances. The last verse is generally supposed to refer to the living voice of man in contrast to the dead instruments. Alexander, who translates: Let all breath, etc., sees a further gradation: The very ambiguity of all breath gives an extraordinary richness of meaning to the closing sentence. From the simple idea of wind-instruments mentioned in the context, it leads us by a beautiful transition to that of vocal, articulate, intelligent praise, uttered by the breath of living men, as distinguished from mere lifeless instruments. Then, lastly, by a natural association, we ascend to the idea expressed in the common version, everything that hath breath, not merely all that lives, but all that has a voice to praise God. There is nothing in the Psalter more majestic or more beautiful than this brief, but most significant finale, in which solemnity of tone predominates, without, however, in the least disturbing the exhilaration which the close of the Psalter seems intended to produce, as if in emblematical allusion to the triumph which awaits the Church and all its members, when, through much tribulation, they shall enter into rest.J. F. M.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Not only the Psalter, but the life of believers and the history of the Church, should conclude with Hallelujah, and celebrate their completeness in God with the praise of His glory.All creatures should join their voices to the praise of God; but the members of His Church should lead the choir.

Starke: With regard to Gods praise, true Christians make, as it were, a circle whose beginning, middle, and end are hallelujah.Our churches should be houses of praise and thanksgiving, in which we assemble to praise God for His blessings.Every believing soul is Gods sanctuary, wherein He should be praised.Since, O soul, thou hast so many and great reasons to praise God, do not become weary of it! How many things are still forgotten! If thou dost consider well, thou hast scarcely begun to praise.He who will review only his own life will discover so many of Gods deeds that he will not be able to thank Him sufficiently through eternity.God displays His glory both in the deliverance of the pious and the punishment of the wicked; for both praise and honor are due.Avoid the abuse of music, and check it as far as possible in others. Many have played and piped themselves to hell. Do not be ensnared by it.The finest music before God is the harmonious praise and glorifying of God by the soul united in all its powers, with all the senses and all the members. As many instruments in a musical performance make a single harmony, so there is produced a spiritual harmony, when the various gifts of the Holy Spirit are directed by the members of Christ to one end.If it grieves you that your praise is so weak, remember: let everything that hath breath praise the Lord, and there must be many weak ones in such a host. But they praise their God, and you are joining with them.If you cannot succeed with strong cries and loud notes, only keep breathing forth to God the desires of your heart, and this will be acceptable to Him: He is still praised by you.In heaven alone will Gods praise rightly sound forth; everything will there have a better sound. What we shall know better, we shall be able to praise better. In Gods praise, the end must be as the beginning, that is, it must continue without end. Thy praise, O God, shall also be forever in my mouth. Amen. Hallelujah!

[Matt. Henry: It is a comfort to us, when we find we praise God so poorly, that it is done so well in heaven.Be not afraid of saying too much in the praises of God, as we often do in praising great and good men. Deus non patitur hyperbolen.The best music in Gods ears is devout and pious affections. Non musica chordula sed cor. The New Testament concert, instead of this, is with one mind and one mouth to glorify God.Let every one that breathes forth to God in prayer, finding the benefit of that, breathe forth His praises too. Having breath, let the praises of God perfume our breath; let us be in this work as in our element; let it be to us as the air we breathe, and which we could not do without. Having our breath in our nostrils, let us consider that it is still going forth, and will shortly go and not return. Since, therefore, we must shortly breathe our last, while we have breath let us praise the Lord, and then we shall breathe our last with comfort; and when death runs us out of breath, we shall remove to a better state to breathe Gods praises in a freer, better air.The nearer good Christians come to their end, the fuller they should be of the praises of God.Hallelujah is the word there, Rev 19:1; Rev 19:3. Let us therefore echo to it now, as those that hope to join in it shortly.Bp. Horne: If the worshippers of Baal join in a chorus to celebrate the praises of their idol, the servants of Jehovah should drown it by one that is stronger and more powerful, in praise of Him who made heaven and earth.J. F. M.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The Holy Ghost with this short but precious Psalm concludes this book of divine hymns and praises. It contains a general invitation to everything that hath breath to praise Jehovah.

Psa 150

No less than thirteen times, within the compass of six verses, is there a call to the praise of Jehovah! How the Lord is to be praised: where the Lord is to be praised: for what the Lord is to be praised; and by whom the Lord is to be praised: all set forth in these few stanzas. May the Holy Ghost open, unfold, explain, and direct the Reader’s mind to a full apprehension concerning these things!

I should not think it necessary to detain the Reader with any farther observation upon the subject of praise in general; neither should I offer any comment upon what is here said, if there was not one point which I deem too interesting wholly to pass over though I do not presume to propose anything decidedly upon it; I mean, concerning the musical instruments, with which the Lord is said to be praised. Having in the preceding Psalm humbly offered my ideas concerning the dancing spoken of in the hymns of Saints I venture to offer a thought upon the melody also, with which those hymns and songs of praise are commanded to be accompanied. I never have been able to satisfy my mind that the expressions here used of psaltery and harp, organs and loud cymbals, have the smallest reference to, musical instruments. I am well aware that some Commentators have conceived that they find authority for their use, in what is said of the harps used in heaven, Rev 14:2 . But this, in my view, is advancing nothing; they might have as well contended that what is said of the streets of heaven being paved with gold, literally means so. Rev 21:21 . If musical instruments were used in the temple-service, we may humbly observe, that they were suited to a dispensation of types and shadows only; similar to what the apostle saith of other figurative services in the Church, which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation, Heb 9:9-10 . According to my apprehension, under a gospel dispensation, and in a gospel Church, the only stringed instruments to be used, are the strings of the heart; that the loud swelling organ and the timbrel, mean the full chord of the renewed soul: so that when the Holy Ghost calls upon the Church to praise God in the holiness of his sanctuary, the believing soul who obeys this command, praiseth God in Christ for the holiness of his nature, and the holiness of the renewed soul in Jesus. When the demand is, praise him in his mighty acts, the soul of the redeemed swells in the loud notes of a conscious interest in the mighty acts of Jesus’s redemption. Here, Reader! let you and I join the song which the Church in glory are unceasingly singing, and with sacred timbrel and dance, with the stringed instruments of all the affections of the soul, praise God in Christ. Yea, let us strive who shall sing the loudest notes of faith, and love, and obedience. Looking up to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, let us bless Him for redemption; let us bless God the Son in redemption; and let us bless God the Spirit by the sweet enjoyment of redemption. Let us bless the holy undivided Three in One, with ardent lively faith, and holy triumph, and in a daily endeavor to forward the interests of the divine glory upon earth among men, until we come to the everlasting enjoyment of it heaven. Thus may we, with everything that hath breath, praise the Lord. And when that breath which is in our nostrils shall cease, the last accent on the trembling lips in Hallelujah, will join the first loud note of Hallelujah in the eternal world. Amen.

And now, Reader! the Lord having mercifully brought me on my way through my poor Comment on this most precious book of the Psalms; I cannot, I dare not indeed, take leave of it, until I have first bowed the knee in thankfulness to the great Author of all good, for all the grace, and mercy, and condescension manifested to me during those labours. And while I set up afresh my Ebenezer at this renewed instance of divine favor, I would fall down with the lowest prostration of soul and body, intreating pardon and forgiveness for the numberless errors with which, I am truly conscious, these poor writings abound. Lord! forgive all that is wrong; for all that is wrong is wholly mine! Let nothing of error here found prove injurious to thy Church and people! And if there be a single line of the Holy Ghost’s teaching to the glorifying of God in Christ, Lord, own it, and bless it to the Reader’s good, for that is wholly thine, and to thy name be all the praise.

Perhaps, many that sit under my poor ministry (if they should condescend to read these feeble offerings on the Psalms) will recollect some of the observations here brought together which they have heard by word of mouth in my Evening Lectures. I write, as I speak, without much attention to style or manner. For if Jesus be but glorified, the whole, both of preaching or writing, according to my apprehension of what is right, is fully answered. And if God the Holy Ghost, whose blessed office it is to glorify Christ, should graciously condescend to bless this little work, when I am no more, and make it an instrument in His almighty hand of spreading the sweet savour of Jesus’s name among the people; and if any of those, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, should, as they read these lines after my decease, call to mind what they have heard in my personal ministry, and say, “we remember those words as they came warm from his heart, which we now read, while his ashes are mouldering in the cold grave” – the very thought comforts my soul in the moment of writing, and prompts me to hope that the prayer of faith I leave behind me for the Lord’s blessing on my poor labours, will have its answer in mercy, and that God in all things may be glorified in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Music As a Factor in Culture

Psa 150:1

Music is a gift of God. Like all the sciences it is a radiation of Divine truth.

I. The Divinity of music further appears in the fact that the greatest musicians have been good men; and to develop the mighty impulses which they have felt in their souls, the great musicians have chosen lofty Divine themes. It is a mission of music to soften and remove the asperities of men. It helps to unify the race and make men homogeneous in spite of controversy and unbelief, the music of all the Christian Church is saving this world for the Christmas of Christ. The hymn and the singer are often a long way in advance of the sermon and hearer in evangelizing influences. Music refines and ennobles. Music brightens life’s dark places, and soothes the heart in trouble.

II. Music could not enjoy its best development until man had passed beyond his feudal age and reached the time when the lion and the tiger were being eliminated from his nature. Men had to pass beyond their barbaric, belligerent, and boisterous eras before they could realize that the highest expression of mind and spirit is in music. Music, if not more perfect than printing, the art preservative of all arts, is surely the best interpreter of all art and science. The mystery and miracle of truth reveal their open sesame when studied through the atmosphere of music. Music is thus an intellectual factor. It is not so much a truth-seeker as a truth-finder.

III. Instrumental as well as vocal music should be made a part of the public school curriculum of every child. True religion like true love is emotional, and music is the most adequate impression of the emotional faculties. Faith sings, unbelief never. Music reveals God. All revivals of religion have been accompanied by revivals of sacred songs. Music is the language of celestial throngs. True eloquence is thought winged with music. The infinite God is more perfectly worshipped with musical accompaniment because music goes beyond language and logic and opens up the vistas of faith through which can be seen the King in His beauty.

Music and Religion

Psa 150:6

I. All concerted music has an educational value far higher than that of music written for a single performer. It is the work of people associated together as they are in society, and thus it teaches the lesson of life to those who are willing to learn. For, first, it demands preparation, careful and continuous. And that be sure of it is one of the most valuable lessons that we can learn; we can compass nothing great, we cannot even understand anything great, without patience and pains. Once more. In life as in music we cannot all take leading parts. Most of us are but members of the great chorus, our voices serve to swell and deepen the harmonies of human life. In life as in music, perhaps many of us shall do our work the better the less we make a show of doing it publicly.

II. Music has an important office to fulfil in religion, in those great duties which we call duties to God. For noble music reveals to us that there is another world beside that which we can see; it gives expression to the inarticulate yearnings of our souls after something higher and better than earth can give. It is the language of emotion, as speech is the language of intellect. It speaks to us of that which we feel, as distinct from that which we can be said to know. Thus we put it to its worthiest and most fitting use when we employ it to express religious emotion, to be the vehicle of prayer and of praise. Religious music, then, is the language of religious emotions. Through it we express the unspeakable desire of our hearts. But religion is not altogether made up of emotion. Our feelings are so unstable and so changeful that they have to be controlled by intellect. And as the most perfectly developed man is he who has developed both his feelings and his reason, who is neither the slave of sentiment on the one hand, nor the slave of logic on the other, so the worthiest way we have of expressing the deliberate yet passionate devotion of thankful hearts is neither by words alone nor by music alone, but by song, by perfect music wedded to noble words.

III. And this perhaps explains for us in some measure those mysterious pictures in the Revelation of St. John of the employments of the saints in heaven. Every faculty, every instinct of their glorified humanity they consecrate to God’s glory. How does St. John describe their occupation? He sums it up as eternal praise. Music is the symbol of perfect consecration, the consecration of body and soul to the glory and praise of God. And as the best incentive to faithful service here is that love of God in redemption which was consummated in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the perpetual burden of the Anthem of Saints is, Worthy the Lamb that was slain!

J. H. Bernard, Via Domini, p. 294.

References. CL. 6. A. W. Hare, Alton Sermons, p. 371. H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 276.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Grand Doxology

Psalms 146-150

How could the Book of Psalms end but in this way? Psalms cannot end in prose. Whether the arrangement is mechanical or inspired, it is the best possible. There is a fitness of things, and that fitness is realised in this peroration. It is as if a great broad river had suddenly become a resounding cascade; these five psalms are the final cataract. The Psalmist will have everything pressed into the choir. He will not have a small band. He ranges creation through, and brings everybody and everything into the orchestra. There goes out from him a great sound, “Praise ye the Lord.” Not only will he deliver this exhortation, he will exemplify what he means, and therefore he continues, “Praise the Lord, O my soul.” We must be on fire ourselves if we would set other people on fire. “While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.” He will have all instruments pressed into this service. He knows all the instruments by name; he says, There are three sorts of instruments at least: the wind instruments, which a man seems to play with his soul “the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and with that heaven-given afflatus the truly praising soul addresses itself to the instrument; and there are stringed instruments as the harp and lute to which a man speaks through his hands, the soul running out at the finger-tips; there are also percussive instruments which a man must smite, as the drum, and the tambourine, the cymbals, the triangles, and instruments many. So he would have skilled fingers that know how to operate upon stringed instruments, and skilled strong fingers and hands quite a muscular service to make the drum throb, and take a share in this offering of hallelujah and acclaim unto God. He must have read all the Psalms before he wrote these five. He seems to have written all the Psalms as well as read them. There is a way of reading a book, which is the next best thing to having written it. To hear the book well read, to hear your own letter well uttered! There is an authorship of reading. It would seem as if this man had taken up all the great psalms and had rewritten them in his heart, and had come out at last with an appropriate conclusion.

In these five psalms we have great burst of praise. The instruments were made for the psalms. Everything was made for the Church. Perversions many there have been, and probably will be, but they are perversions, and must be recognised and stigmatised as such. No bad man has a right to any instrument of music. He holds it by no right that can be established in the court of equity; he does not know how to handle that thing of beauty, he does not know how to speak to that secret of sweet sounds. There is nothing more horrible than that a blaspheming man should sing at a sacred concert. There is no irony so unpardonable. Christian men should not support it. Christian service should be rendered by Christian people. For a man who has been guilty of anything that is vilely wrong to sing in any of the great oratorios is a lie seven times told; a black and most pestilent thing quite a horrible outrage to taste, to decency, to the genius of piety. Some have supposed that the Psalmist really did not desire to have all these instruments, but that he is simply struggling or working his way towards a great human appeal, namely, Praise ye the Lord: especially let Israel praise the Lord; he is simply trying to construct a great altar of Hebrew music. Grammatically that may be partly right; in a narrow sense of the terms, the Psalmist may have been fixing his thoughts wholly upon the human temple, and when he calls for a universal song his universe may have been restricted to Israel. Some men do not know the meaning of their own words. Great religious utterances have to be interpreted to the speakers themselves. Isaiah might profitably listen to a modern discourse upon his own prophecies, and be told what he meant when he used his own mother-tongue. I prefer, therefore, to take the larger construction, and to believe that the Psalmist was seeking to press everything into God’s service. He saw that the universe itself is silent music, a dumb poem, a most marvellous miracle in the expression of fitness, interdependence, harmony. Said he, This great universe wants but one little spark to fall upon it, and the whole will rise as if in flames of praise. Man has nothing to do in the way of improving the universe. Poor man! he can but take a little part of the universe to pieces, and call it science. He cannot improve the rotundity of the earth, he cannot add a beam to the moon. The Psalmist, looking upon these things from a great height, said, All this means something more than has yet been articulated: this silence is supreme eloquence, this is all that prose can do: God is waiting for the man whom he will inspire with the spirit of poetry, and if that man will let fall one short syllable on this miracle of prose it will become poetry infinite, ineffable. It will be a sad thing when a man can tell all he means. Do not believe that the grammarian can exhaust the Bible. Do not entertain the thought that the Bible-writers knew one ten-thousandth part of what they were writing about. They were instruments, they were the clerks of God, they were but scribes hired to do the work of human education. All things are tending in the direction of universal praise. If this were mere reverie, we might applaud it as such, and dismiss it; but all through these five concluding psalms there runs a line of sternest logic, boldest, truest, sweetest reasoning. This is so with the whole Bible. All its flowers are grown upon rocks; far below the fecundant soil lies the stable masonry. The flowers are thousands upon thousands, squared and cubed, and then redoubled and multiplied again; but under all there lies the base of truth.

Shall we join this praise? Which God shall we worship in song? The Psalmist says, I will give you his full address: this is the God “which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is.” That is force, energy: how can I blow the instrument, or strike the string, or smite the drum in praise of force, though it be set out in strong typography on the printed page? Then saith the Psalmist, You have interrupted me, that is not the full address of the Most High; he but begins there, the continuance thereof is this, “Which keepeth truth for ever: which executeth judgment for the oppressed.” That is majesty, moral, spiritual, sublime. We might raise a tremulous hymn to such a Personality, but we should almost have to look down whilst we sang the adoring psalm. But, said the Psalmist, you have interrupted me, that, is not the full address of the Most High “Which giveth food to the hungry:” now he is domestic, companionable, approachable. “The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind:” now how tender, gentle, pitiful!” The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down:” then he is almost like one of them. “Praise ye the Lord.” Certainly! we must. We can adore majesty, and run away from it because it may overpower us by its intolerable sublimity, but if God feed the hungry, open the eyes of the blind, and raise them that are bowed down, we can look at him in the face whilst we are singing his hymns. But, saith the Psalmist, that is not all: “The Lord preserveth the strangers:” why, we are all strangers when we are two miles from the beaten track. “He relieveth the fatherless and widow:” what! the God of suns and constellations and universes on which no measuring-line has been laid, does he care for the widow and the orphan in their affliction? “Praise ye the Lord.” Here is an end of ecstasy. This is no sentimental rapture; this is a reply, praise answering love, a glorious consent, a concert which the universe approves. Herein must our musical education be perfected. An impious singer ought to be frowned down, avoided, and left desolate. It will be a sad thing when we admire the music and neglect the sentiment. The choir constituted by the Psalmist is a choir of appreciative, grateful, responsive hearts. Nor can he get away altogether from this line of annotation. He puts the same thought in many different ways. He does not neglect the majesty of the Lord; he represents the Lord as telling the number of the stars, and calling them all by their names; as covering the heaven with clouds, preparing rain for the earth, making grass to grow upon the mountains: he represents God as giving snow like wool, scattering the hoarfrost like ashes, casting forth his ice like morsels, and coming upon the universe with a cold before which it perishes. Then he runs parallel with all this, a line more than golden, a line more than loving: “Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite:” hear how the trumpets blare and roar as they utter that glorious sentiment! Now “he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” The Lord is the doctor of the family, the physician of the soul; as if neglecting the stars awhile, he comes down to human hearts.

Let us not then say that the Psalmist is a mere contemplatist or rhapsodist; he is a man who recognises the providential side of life, and will have a hymn appropriate thereto. If we made our providences the beginning of our psalms our psalms would never end. “He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him.” “The Lord taketh pleasure in his people; he will beautify the meek with salvation.” This is the providential aspect. Here is God working in human history. Here the Lord is building his own monument of love, and writing his own memorial of tender mercy, and the Psalmist calls us around this memorial and this monument that we may join him in holy rapturous song. We should count our family mercies before we determine where our hymn shall begin and end. We are poor reckoners if we begin with our disadvantages. We do not mean to end well; we are trying, however subtly or unconsciously, to get up a case against the goodness and mercy of God. We should begin at the other end: with the sunshine and the music, with all little things and great things that make up the best aspect of our home-life. Then when the Psalmist says, “I am going to sing,” we shall say, So am I: let us sing together that we may create an opportunity for others; let us announce our intention far and wide, and mayhap some will sing as followers who could not well begin the holy tune themselves. Thus praise becomes contagious, thus song begets song, until the whole universe is full of melody. There are some who have never sung. By the term “sung” we do not here mean anything that is technical or mechanical. There is a singing without words, there is a silent singing; there is a way of singing by sympathy. Sometimes people think they are not singing unless they can hear their own voices; certainly to uplift the voice is one way of singing: some can sing better through sympathy, they feel that others are expressing what they wanted to say, and in the expression of others they find rest and joy. Whether in this way or in that, every man should sing. Every man should recognise the providences of God. You were brought low, and he helped you; you were in the jungle of a tremendous thicket, and he relieved you; you were trying to thread your way through a labyrinth, and you found yourself coming back again and again upon your own steps, and he gave you the clue, and in an hour or two you were out at the wicket-gate free again, and you met the Psalmist there; for that Psalmist stands for us at every turn in life, and he said, “Praise ye the Lord;” and if you had not instantly answered in song, personal or sympathetic, you would have proved yourself unworthy of the divine deliverance.

The Psalmist indicates a retributive element in the service of praise: “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron.” These words have been fruitful of oppression. They have been misused by nearly all sections of the Church. No one section can blame another, saying, “You have perverted these words,” because we are all in one condemnation. We have mistaken fury for reasoning: we have forgotten that the democracy is heathenism, if it be not educated and morally inspired. It is not our business to strike off the ears of men, nor to throw chains upon kings, and fetters of iron upon nobles. They have to come down that is written in the books that cannot be burned but they must come down otherwise; not by violence, but by the uplifting of the general mass of the people; so there shall not be so much a coming down of some as the raising up of all; then the new democracy shall be the true aristocracy. Let us beware of religious oppression above all other. No one man, as we have often seen, has all the truth, nor ought to set himself up as the papal administrator of all that is right and wrong in intellectual beliefs. This man has part of the truth, and his brother has another part; they should meet, and mutually contribute; and the third man should add his share, and every other man contribute his quota, that from the sum-total of humanity we may get the sum-total of the revelation of God. You do not improve your oppression by singing to it. You do not make murder less murder because you dance your way to the scene of execution. Keep the high praises of God for holy hearts and holy mouths.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

PSALMS

XI

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS

According to my usual custom, when taking up the study of a book of the Bible I give at the beginning a list of books as helps to the study of that book. The following books I heartily commend on the Psalms:

1. Sampey’s Syllabus for Old Testament Study . This is especially good on the grouping and outlining of some selected psalms. There are also some valuable suggestions on other features of the book.

2. Kirkpatrick’g commentary, in “Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,” is an excellent aid in the study of the Psalter.

3. Perowne’s Book of Psalms is a good, scholarly treatise on the Psalms. A special feature of this commentary is the author’s “New Translation” and his notes are very helpful.

4. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This is just what the title implies. It is a voluminous, devotional interpretation of the Psalms and helpful to those who have the time for such extensive study of the Psalter.

5. Hengstenburg on the Psalms. This is a fine, scholarly work by one of the greatest of the conservative German scholars.

6. Maclaren on the Psalms, in “The Expositor’s Bible,” is the work of the world’s safest, sanest, and best of all works that have ever been written on the Psalms.

7. Thirtle on the Titles of the Psalms. This is the best on the subject and well worth a careful study.

At this point some definitions are in order. The Hebrew word for psalm means praise. The word in English comes from psalmos , a song of lyrical character, or a song to be sung and accompanied with a lyre. The Psalter is a collection of sacred and inspired songs, composed at different times and by different authors.

The range of time in composition was more than 1,000 years, or from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra. The collection in its present form was arranged probably by Ezra in the fifth century, B.C.

The Jewish classification of Old Testament books was The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings. The Psalms was given the first place in the last group.

They had several names, or titles, of the Psalms. In Hebrew they are called “The Book of Prayers,” or “The Book of Praises.” The Hebrew word thus used means praises. The title of the first two books is found in Psa 72:20 : “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The title of the whole collection of Psalms in the Septuagint is Biblos Psalman which means the “Book of Psalms.” The title in the Alexandrian Codex is Psalterion which is the name of a stringed instrument, and means “The Psalter.”

The derivation of our English words, “psalms,” “psalter,” and “psaltery,” respectively, is as follows:

1. “Psalms” comes from the Greek word, psalmoi, which is also from psallein , which means to play upon a stringed instrument. Therefore the Psalms are songs played upon stringed instruments, and the word here is used to apply to the whole collection.

2. “Psalter” is of the same origin and means the Book of Psalms and refers also to the whole collection.

3. “Psaltery” is from the word psalterion, which means “a harp,” an instrument, supposed to be in the shape of a triangle or like the delta of the Greek alphabet. See Psa 33:2 ; Psa 71:22 ; Psa 81:2 ; Psa 144:9 .

In our collection there are 150 psalms. In the Septuagint there is one extra. It is regarded as being outside the sacred collection and not inspired. The subject of this extra psalm is “David’s victory over Goliath.” The following is a copy of it: I was small among my brethren, And youngest in my father’s house, I used to feed my father’s sheep. My hands made a harp, My fingers fashioned a Psaltery. And who will declare unto my Lord? He is Lord, he it is who heareth. He it was who sent his angel And took me from my father’s sheep, And anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brethren were goodly and tall, But the Lord took no pleasure in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine. And he cursed me by his idols But I drew the sword from beside him; I beheaded him and removed reproach from the children of Israel.

It will be noted that this psalm does not have the earmarks of an inspired production. There is not found in it the modesty so characteristic of David, but there is here an evident spirit of boasting and self-praise which is foreign to the Spirit of inspiration.

There is a difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint. Omitting the extra one in the Septuagint, there is no difference as to the total number. Both have 150 and the same subject matter, but they are not divided alike.

The following scheme shows the division according to our version and also the Septuagint: Psalms 1-8 in the Hebrew equal 1-8 in the Septuagint; 9-10 in the Hebrew combine into 9 in the Septuagint; 11-113 in the Hebrew equal 10-112 in the Septuagint; 114-115 in the Hebrew combine into 113 in the Septuagint; 116 in the Hebrew divides into 114-115 in the Septuagint; 117-146 in the Hebrew equal 116-145 in the Septuagint; 147 in the Hebrew divides into 146-147 in the Septuagint; 148-150 in the Hebrew equal 148-150 in the Septuagint.

The arrangement in the Vulgate is the same as the Septuagint. Also some of the older English versions have this arangement. Another difficulty in numbering perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another, viz: In the Hebrew often the title is verse I, and sometimes the title embraces verses 1-2.

The book divisions of the Psalter are five books, as follows:

Book I, Psalms 1-41 (41 chapters)

Book II, Psalms 42-72 (31 chapters)

Book III, Psalms 73-89 (17 chapters)

Book IV, Psalms 90-106 (17 chapters)

Book V, Psalms 107-150 (44 chapters)

They are marked by an introduction and a doxology. Psalm I forms an introduction to the whole book; Psa 150 is the doxology for the whole book. The introduction and doxology of each book are the first and last psalms of each division, respectively.

There were smaller collections before the final one, as follows:

Books I and II were by David; Book III, by Hezekiah, and Books IV and V, by Ezra.

Certain principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection:

1. David is honored with first place, Book I and II, including Psalms 1-72.

2. They are grouped according to the use of the name of God:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovah psalms;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohim-psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovah psalms.

3. Book IV is introduced by the psalm of Moses, which is the first psalm written.

4. Some are arranged as companion psalms, for instance, sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more. Examples: Psa 2 and 3; 22, 23, and 24; 113-118.

5. They were arranged for liturgical purposes, which furnished the psalms for special occasions, such as feasts, etc. We may be sure this arrangement was not accidental. An intelligent study of each case is convincing that it was determined upon rational grounds.

All the psalms have titles but thirty-three, as follows:

In Book I, Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 33 , (4 are without titles).

In Book II, Psa 43 ; Psa 71 , (2 are without titles).

In Book IV, Psa 91 ; Psa 93 ; Psa 94 ; Psa 95 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 97 ; Psa 104 ; Psa 105 ; Psa 106 , (9 are without titles).

In Book V, Psa 107 ; III; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 135; 136; 137; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150, (18 are without titles).

The Talmud calls these psalms that have no title, “Orphan Psalms.” The later Jews supply these titles by taking the nearest preceding author. The lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; and 10 may be accounted for as follows: Psa 1 is a general introduction to the whole collection and Psa 2 was, perhaps, a part of Psa 1 . Psalms 9-10 were formerly combined into one, therefore Psa 10 has the same title as Psa 9 .

QUESTIONS

1. What books are commended on the Psalms?

2. What is a psalm?

3. What is the Psalter?

4. What is the range of time in composition?

5. When and by whom was the collection in its present form arranged?

6. What the Jewish classification of Old Testament books, and what the position of the Psalter in this classification?

7. What is the Hebrew title of the Psalms?

8. Find the title of the first two books from the books themselves.

9. What is the title of the whole collection of psalms in the Septuagint?

10. What is the title in the Alexandrian Codex?

11. What is the derivation of our English word, “Psalms”, “Psalter”, and “Psaltery,” respectively?

12. How many psalms in our collection?

13. How many psalms in the Septuagint?

14. What about the extra one in the Septuagint?

15. What is the subject of this extra psalm?

16. How does it compare with the Canonical Psalms?

17. What is the difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint?

18. What is the arrangement in the Vulgate?

19. What other difficulty in numbering which perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another?

20. What are the book divisions of the Psalter and how are these divisions marked?

21. Were there smaller collections before the final one? If so, what were they?

22. What principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection?

23. In what conclusion may we rest concerning this arrangement?

24. How many of the psalms have no titles?

25. What does the Talmud call these psalms that have no titles?

26. How do later Jews supply these titles?

27. How do you account for the lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ?

XII

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS (CONTINUED)

The following is a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms:

1. The author: “A Psalm of David” (Psa 37 ).

2. The occasion: “When he fled from Absalom, his son” (Psa 3 ).

3. The nature, or character, of the poem:

(1) Maschil, meaning “instruction,” a didactic poem (Psa 42 ).

(2) Michtam, meaning “gold,” “A Golden Psalm”; this means excellence or mystery (Psa 16 ; 56-60).

4. The occasion of its use: “A Psalm of David for the dedication of the house” (Psa 30 ).

5. Its purpose: “A Psalm of David to bring remembrance” (Psa 38 ; Psa 70 ).

6. Direction for its use: “A Psalm of David for the chief musician” (Psa 4 ).

7. The kind of musical instrument:

(1) Neginoth, meaning to strike a chord, as on stringed instruments (Psa 4 ; Psa 61 ).

(2) Nehiloth, meaning to perforate, as a pipe or flute (Psa 5 ).

(3) Shoshannim, Lilies, which refers probably to cymbals (Psa 45 ; Psa 69 ).

8. A special choir:

(1) Sheminith, the “eighth,” or octave below, as a male choir (Psa 6 ; Psa 12 ).

(2) Alamoth, female choir (Psa 46 ).

(3) Muth-labben, music with virgin voice, to be sung by a choir of boys in the treble (Psa 9 ).

9. The keynote, or tune:

(1) Aijeleth-sharar, “Hind of the morning,” a song to the melody of which this is sung (Psa 22 ).

(2) Al-tashheth, “Destroy thou not,” the beginning of a song the tune of which is sung (Psa 57 ; Psa 58 ; Psa 59 ; Psa 75 ).

(3) Gittith, set to the tune of Gath, perhaps a tune which David brought from Gath (Psa 8 ; Psa 81 ; Psa 84 ).

(4) Jonath-elim-rehokim, “The dove of the distant terebinths,” the commencement of an ode to the air of which this song was to be sung (Psa 56 ).

(5) Leannoth, the name of a tune (Psa 88 ).

(6) Mahalath, an instrument (Psa 53 ); Leonnoth-Mahaloth, to chant to a tune called Mahaloth.

(7) Shiggaion, a song or a hymn.

(8) Shushan-Eduth, “Lily of testimony,” a tune (Psa 60 ). Note some examples: (1) “America,” “Shiloh,” “Auld Lang Syne.” These are the names of songs such as we are familiar with; (2) “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” are examples of sacred hymns.

10. The liturgical use, those noted for the feasts, e.g., the Hallels and Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 146-150).

11. The destination, as “Song of Ascents” (Psalms 120-134)

12. The direction for the music, such as Selah, which means “Singers, pause”; Higgaion-Selah, to strike a symphony with selah, which means an instrumental interlude (Psa 9:16 ).

The longest and fullest title to any of the psalms is the title to Psa 60 . The items of information from this title are as follows: (1) the author; (2) the chief musician; (3) the historical occasion; (4) the use, or design; (5) the style of poetry; (6) the instrument or style of music.

The parts of these superscriptions which most concern us now are those indicating author, occasion, and date. As to the historic value or trustworthiness of these titles most modern scholars deny that they are a part of the Hebrew text, but the oldest Hebrew text of which we know anything had all of them. This is the text from which the Septuagint was translated. It is much more probable that the author affixed them than later writers. There is no internal evidence in any of the psalms that disproves the correctness of them, but much to confirm. The critics disagree among themselves altogether as to these titles. Hence their testimony cannot consistently be received. Nor can it ever be received until they have at least agreed upon a common ground of opposition.

David is the author of more than half the entire collection, the arrangement of which is as follows:

1. Seventy-three are ascribed to him in the superscriptions.

2. Some of these are but continuations of the preceding ones of a pair, trio, or larger group.

3. Some of the Korahite Psalms are manifestly Davidic.

4. Some not ascribed to him in the titles are attributed to him expressly by New Testament writers.

5. It is not possible to account for some parts of the Psalter without David. The history of his early life as found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1and 2 Chronicles, not only shows his remarkable genius for patriotic and sacred songs and music, but also shows his cultivation of that gift in the schools of the prophets. Some of these psalms of the history appear in the Psalter itself. It is plain to all who read these that they are founded on experience, and the experience of no other Hebrew fits the case. These experiences are found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

As to the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition, I have this to say:

1. This theory has no historical support whatever, and therefore is not to be accepted at all.

2. It has no support in tradition, which weakens the contention of the critics greatly.

3. It has no support from finding any one with the necessary experience for their basis.

4. They can give no reasonable account as to how the titles ever got there.

5. It is psychologically impossible for anyone to have written these 150 psalms in the Maccabean times.

6. Their position is expressly contrary to the testimony of Christ and the apostles. Some of the psalms which they ascribe to the Maccabean Age are attributed to David by Christ himself, who said that David wrote them in the Spirit.

The obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result if it be Just, is a positive denial of the inspiration of both Testaments.

Other authors are named in the titles, as follows: (1) Asaph, to whom twelve psalms have been assigned: (2) Mosee, Psa 90 ; (3) Solomon, Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ; (4) Heman, Psa 80 ; (5) Ethem, Psa 89 ; (6) A number of the psalms are ascribed to the sons of Korah.

Not all the psalms ascribed to Asaph were composed by one person. History indicates that Asaph’s family presided over the song service for several generations. Some of them were composed by his descendants by the game name. The five general outlines of the whole collection are as follows:

I. By books

1. Psalms 1-41 (41)

2. Psalms 42-72 (31)

3. Psalms 73-89 (17)

4. Psalms 90-106 (17)

5. Psalms 107-150 (44)

II. According to date and authorship

1. The psalm of Moses (Psa 90 )

2. Psalms of David:

(1) The shepherd boy (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 ).

(2) David when persecuted by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ).

(3) David the King (Psa 101 ; Psa 18 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 110 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 21 ; Psa 60 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 3:4 ; Psa 64 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 ).

3. The Asaph Psalms (Psa 50 ; Psa 73 ; Psa 83 ).

4. The Korahite Psalms (Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 84 ).

5. The psalms of Solomon (Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ).

6. The psalms of the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah (Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 )

7. The psalms of the Exile (Psa 74 ; Psa 79 ; Psa 137 ; Psa 102 )

8. The psalms of the Restoration (Psa 85 ; Psa 126 ; Psa 118 ; 146-150)

III. By groups

1. The Jehovistic and Elohistic Psalms:

(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovistic;

(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohistic Psalms;

(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovistic.

2. The Penitential Psalms (Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 )

3. The Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134)

4. The Alphabetical Psalms (Psa 9 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 37 ; 111:112; Psa 119 ; Psa 145 )

5. The Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 11-113; 115-117; 146-150; to which may be added Psa 135 ) Psalms 113-118 are called “the Egyptian Hallel”

IV. Doctrines of the Psalms

1. The throne of grace and how to approach it by sacrifice, prayer, and praise.

2. The covenant, the basis of worship.

3. The paradoxical assertions of both innocence & guilt.

4. The pardon of sin and justification.

5. The Messiah.

6. The future life, pro and con.

7. The imprecations.

8. Other doctrines.

V. The New Testament use of the Psalms

1. Direct references and quotations in the New Testament.

2. The allusions to the psalms in the New Testament. Certain experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart, such as: (1) his peaceful early life; (2) his persecution by Saul; (3) his being crowned king of the people; (4) the bringing up of the ark; (5) his first great sin; (6) Absalom’s rebellion; (7) his second great sin; (8) the great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 ; (9) the feelings of his old age.

We may classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time, thus:

1. His peaceful early life (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 )

2. His persecution by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 7 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 120 ; Psa 140 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ; Psa 17 ; Psa 18 )

3. Making David King (Psa 27 ; Psa 133 ; Psa 101 )

4. Bringing up the ark (Psa 68 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 15 ; Psa 78 ; Psa 96 )

5. His first great sin (Psa 51 ; Psa 32 )

6. Absalom’s rebellion (Psa 41 ; Psa 6 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 109 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 39 ; Psa 3 ; Psa 4 ; Psa 63 ; Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 5 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 )

7. His second great sin (Psa 69 ; Psa 71 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 103 )

8. The great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 (Psa 2 )

9. Feelings of old age (Psa 37 )

The great doctrines of the psalms may be noted as follows: (1) the being and attributes of God; (3) sin, both original and individual; (3) both covenants; (4) the doctrine of justification; (5) concerning the Messiah.

There is a striking analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms. The Pentateuch contains five books of law; the Psalms contain five books of heart responses to the law.

It is interesting to note the historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms. These were controversies about singing uninspired songs, in the Middle Ages. The church would not allow anything to be used but psalms.

The history in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah is very valuable toward a proper interpretation of the psalms. These books furnish the historical setting for a great many of the psalms which is very indispensable to their proper interpretation.

Professor James Robertson, in the Poetry and Religion of the Psalms constructs a broad and strong argument in favor of the Davidic Psalms, as follows:

1. The age of David furnished promising soil for the growth of poetry.

2. David’s qualifications for composing the psalms make it highly probable that David is the author of the psalms ascribed to him.

3. The arguments against the possibility of ascribing to David any of the hymns in the Hebrew Psalter rests upon assumptions that are thoroughly antibiblical.

The New Testament makes large use of the psalms and we learn much as to their importance in teaching. There are seventy direct quotations in the New Testament from this book, from which we learn that the Scriptures were used extensively in accord with 2Ti 3:16-17 . There are also eleven references to the psalms in the New Testament from which we learn that the New Testament writers were thoroughly imbued with the spirit and teaching of the psalms. Then there are eight allusions ‘to this book in the New Testament from which we gather that the Psalms was one of the divisions of the Old Testament and that they were used in the early church.

QUESTIONS

1. Give a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms.

2. What is the longest title to any of the psalms and what the items of this title?

3. What parts of these superscriptions most concern us now?

4. What is the historic value, or trustworthiness of these titles?

5. State the argument showing David’s relation to the psalms.

6. What have you to say of the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition?

7. What the obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result, if it be just?

8. What other authors are named in the titles?

9. Were all the psalms ascribed to Asaph composed by one person?

10. Give the five general outlines of the whole collection, as follows: I. The outline by books II. The outline according to date and authorship III. The outline by groups IV. The outline of doctrines V. The outline by New Testament quotations or allusions.

11. What experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart?

12. Classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time.

13. What the great doctrines of the psalms?

14. What analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms?

15. What historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms?

16. Of what value is the history in Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah toward a proper interpretation of the psalms?

17. Give Professor James Robertson’s argument in favor of the Davidic authorship of the psalms.

18. What can you say of the New Testament use of the psalms and what do we learn as to their importance in teaching?

19. What can you say of the New Testament references to the psalms, and from the New Testament references what the impression on the New Testament writers?

20. What can you say of the allusions to the psalms in the New Testament?

XVII

THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS

A fine text for this chapter is as follows: “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Psalms concerning me,” Luk 24:44 . I know of no better way to close my brief treatise on the Psalms than to discuss the subject of the Messiah as revealed in this book.

Attention has been called to the threefold division of the Old Testament cited by our Lord, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44 ), in all of which were the prophecies relating to himself that “must be fulfilled.” It has been shown just what Old Testament books belong to each of these several divisions. The division called the Psalms included many books, styled Holy Writings, and because the Psalms proper was the first book of the division it gave the name to the whole division.

The object of this discussion is to sketch the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah, or rather, to show how nearly a complete picture of our Lord is foredrawn in this one book. Let us understand however with Paul, that all prophecy is but in part (1Co 13:9 ), and that when we fill in on one canvas all the prophecies concerning the Messiah of all the Old Testament divisions, we are far from having a perfect portrait of our Lord. The present purpose is limited to three things:

1. What the book of the Psalms teaches concerning the Messiah.

2. That the New Testament shall authoritatively specify and expound this teaching.

3. That the many messianic predictions scattered over the book and the specifications thereof over the New Testament may be grouped into an orderly analysis, so that by the adjustment of the scattered parts we may have before us a picture of our Lord as foreseen by the psalmists.

In allowing the New Testament to authoritatively specify and expound the predictive features of the book, I am not unmindful of what the so-called “higher critics” urge against the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and the use made of them. In this discussion, however, these objections are not considered, for sufficient reasons. There is not space for it. Even at the risk of being misjudged I must just now summarily pass all these objections, dismissing them with a single statement upon which the reader may place his own estimate of value. That statement is that in the days of my own infidelity, before this old method of criticism had its new name, I was quite familiar with the most and certainly the strongest of the objections now classified as higher criticism, and have since patiently re-examined them in their widely conflicting restatements under their modern name, and find my faith in the New Testament method of dealing with the Old Testament in no way shattered, but in every way confirmed. God is his own interpreter. The Old Testament as we now have it was in the hands of our Lord. I understand his apostle to declare, substantially, that “every one of these sacred scriptures is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching us what is right to believe and to do, for convincing us what is wrong in faith or practice, for rectifying the wrong when done, that we may be ready at every point, furnished completely, to do every good work, at the right time, in the right manner, and from the proper motive” (2Ti 3:16-17 ).

This New Testament declares that David was a prophet (Act 2:30 ), that he spake by the Holy Spirit (Act 1:16 ), that when the book speaks the Holy Spirit speaks (Heb 3:7 ), and that all its predictive utterances, as sacred Scripture, “must be fulfilled” (Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:16 ). It is not claimed that David wrote all the psalms, but that all are inspired, and that as he was the chief author, the book goes by his name.

It would be a fine thing to make out two lists, as follows:

1. All of the 150 psalms in order from which the New Testament quotes with messianic application.

2. The New Testament quotations, book by book, i.e., Matthew so many, and then the other books in their order.

We would find in neither of these any order as to time, that is, Psa 1 which forecasts an incident in the coming Messiah’s life does not forecast the first incident of his life. And even the New Testament citations are not in exact order as to time and incident of his life. To get the messianic picture before us, therefore, we must put the scattered parts together in their due relation and order, and so construct our own analysis. That is the prime object of this discussion. It is not claimed that the analysis now presented is perfect. It is too much the result of hasty, offhand work by an exceedingly busy man. It will serve, however, as a temporary working model, which any one may subsequently improve. We come at once to the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah.

1. The necessity for a Saviour. This foreseen necessity is a background of the psalmists’ portrait of the Messiah. The necessity consists in (1) man’s sinfulness; (2) his sin; (3) his inability of wisdom and power to recover himself; (4) the insufficiency of legal, typical sacrifices in securing atonement.

The predicate of Paul’s great argument on justification by faith is the universal depravity and guilt of man. He is everywhere corrupt in nature; everywhere an actual transgressor; everywhere under condemnation. But the scriptural proofs of this depravity and sin the apostle draws mainly from the book of the Psalms. In one paragraph of the letter to the Romans (Rom 3:4-18 ), he cites and groups six passages from six divisions of the Psalms (Psa 5:9 ; Psa 10:7 ; Psa 14:1-3 ; Psa 36:1 ; Psa 51:4-6 ; Psa 140:3 ). These passages abundantly prove man’s sinfulness, or natural depravity, and his universal practice of sin.

The predicate also of the same apostle’s great argument for revelation and salvation by a Redeemer is man’s inability of wisdom and power to re-establish communion with God. In one of his letters to the Corinthians he thus commences his argument: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? -For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach-ing to save them that believe.” He closes this discussion with the broad proposition: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and proves it by a citation from Psa 94:11 : “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”

In like manner our Lord himself pours scorn on human wisdom and strength by twice citing Psa 8 : “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:25-26 ). “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Mat 21:15-16 ).

But the necessity for a Saviour as foreseen by the psalmist did not stop at man’s depravity, sin, and helplessness. The Jews were trusting in the sacrifices of their law offered on the smoking altar. The inherent weakness of these offerings, their lack of intrinsic merit, their ultimate abolition, their complete fulfilment and supercession by a glorious antitype were foreseen and foreshown in this wonderful prophetic book: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goat out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all of the birds of the mountains; And the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:8-13 .

Yet again it speaks in that more striking passage cited in the letter to the Hebrews: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers, once purged should have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb 10:1-9 ).

This keen foresight of the temporary character and intrinsic worthlessness of animal sacrifices anticipated similar utterances by the later prophets (Isa 1:10-17 ; Jer 6:20 ; Jer 7:21-23 ; Hos 6:6 ; Amo 5:21 ; Mic 6:6-8 ). Indeed, I may as well state in passing that when the apostle declares, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” he lays down a broad principle, just as applicable to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With reverence I state the principle: Not even God himself by mere appointment can vest in any ordinance, itself lacking intrinsic merit, the power to take away sin. There can be, therefore, in the nature of the case, no sacramental salvation. This would destroy the justice of God in order to exalt his mercy. Clearly the psalmist foresaw that “truth and mercy must meet together” before “righteousness and peace could kiss each other” (Psa 85:10 ). Thus we find as the dark background of the psalmists’ luminous portrait of the Messiah, the necessity for a Saviour.

2. The nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah. In no other prophetic book are the nature, fullness, and blessedness of salvation so clearly seen and so vividly portrayed. Besides others not now enumerated, certainly the psalmists clearly forecast four great elements of salvation:

(1) An atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit offered once for all (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:4-10 ).

(2) Regeneration itself consisting of cleansing, renewal, and justification. We hear his impassioned statement of the necessity of regeneration: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” followed by his earnest prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,” and his equally fervent petition: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psa 51 ). And we hear him again as Paul describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin Psa 32:1 ; Rom 4:6-8 .

(3) Introduction into the heavenly rest (Psa 95:7-11 ; Heb 3:7-19 ; Heb 4:1-11 ). Here is the antitypical Joshua leading spiritual Israel across the Jordan of death into the heavenly Canaan, the eternal rest that remaineth for the people of God. Here we find creation’s original sabbath eclipsed by redemption’s greater sabbath when the Redeemer “entered his rest, ceasing from his own works as God did from his.”

(4) The recovery of all the universal dominion lost by the first Adam and the securement of all possible dominion which the first Adam never attained (Psa 8:5-6 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 ; 1Co 15:24-28 ).

What vast extent then and what blessedness in the salvation foreseen by the psalmists, and to be wrought by the Messiah. Atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; heavenly rest as an eternal inheritance; and universal dominion shared with Christ!

3. The wondrous person of the Messiah in his dual nature, divine and human.

(1) His divinity,

(a) as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Psa 45:6 and Heb 1:8 ) ;

(b) as creator of the heavens and earth, immutable and eternal: Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end Psa 102:25-27 quoted with slight changes in Heb 1:10-12 .

(c) As owner of the earth: The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein, Psa 24:1 quoted in 1Co 10:26 .

(d) As the Son of God: “Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee” Psa 2:7 ; Heb 1:5 .

(e) As David’s Lord: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:41-46 .

(f) As the object of angelic worship: “And let all the angels of God worship him” Psa 97:7 ; Heb 1:6 .

(g) As the Bread of life: And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them food from heaven Psa 78:24 ; interpreted in Joh 6:31-58 . These are but samples which ascribe deity to the Messiah of the psalmists.

(2) His humanity, (a) As the Son of man, or Son of Adam: Psa 8:4-6 , cited in 1Co 15:24-28 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Compare Luke’s genealogy, Luk 3:23-38 . This is the ideal man, or Second Adam, who regains Paradise Lost, who recovers race dominion, in whose image all his spiritual lineage is begotten. 1Co 15:45-49 . (b) As the Son of David: Psa 18:50 ; Psa 89:4 ; Psa 89:29 ; Psa 89:36 ; Psa 132:11 , cited in Luk 1:32 ; Act 13:22-23 ; Rom 1:3 ; 2Ti 2:8 . Perhaps a better statement of the psalmists’ vision of the wonderful person of the Messiah would be: He saw the uncreated Son, the second person of the trinity, in counsel and compact with the Father, arranging in eternity for the salvation of men: Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 . Then he saw this Holy One stoop to be the Son of man: Psa 8:4-6 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Then he was the son of David, and then he saw him rise again to be the Son of God: Psa 2:7 ; Rom 1:3-4 .

4. His offices.

(1) As the one atoning sacrifice (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 ).

(2) As the great Prophet, or Preacher (Psa 40:9-10 ; Psa 22:22 ; Heb 2:12 ). Even the method of his teaching by parable was foreseen (Psa 78:2 ; Mat 13:35 ). Equally also the grace, wisdom, and power of his teaching. When the psalmist declares that “Grace is poured into thy lips” (Psa 45:2 ), we need not be startled when we read that all the doctors in the Temple who heard him when only a boy “were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luk 2:47 ); nor that his home people at Nazareth “all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luk 4:22 ); nor that those of his own country were astonished, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Mat 13:54 ); nor that the Jews in the Temple marveled, saying, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15 ) ; nor that the stern officers of the law found their justification in failure to arrest him in the declaration, “Never man spake like this man” (Joh 7:46 ).

(3) As the king (Psa 2:6 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 45:1-17 ; Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:42-46 ; Act 2:33-36 ; 1Co 15:25 ; Eph 1:20 ; Heb 1:13 ).

(4) As the priest (Psa 110:4 ; Heb 5:5-10 ; Heb 7:1-21 ; Heb 10:12-14 ).

(5) As the final judge. The very sentence of expulsion pronounced upon the finally impenitent by the great judge (Mat 25:41 ) is borrowed from the psalmist’s prophetic words (Psa 6:8 ).

5. Incidents of life. The psalmists not only foresaw the necessity for a Saviour; the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation; the wonderful human-divine person of the Saviour; the offices to be filled by him in the work of salvation, but also many thrilling details of his work in life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. It is not assumed to cite all these details, but some of the most important are enumerated in order, thus:

(1) The visit, adoration, and gifts of the Magi recorded in Mat 2 are but partial fulfilment of Psa 72:9-10 .

(2) The scripture employed by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luk 4:10-11 ) was cited from Psa 91:11-12 and its pertinency not denied.

(3) In accounting for his intense earnestness and the apparently extreme measures adopted by our Lord in his first purification of the Temple (Joh 2:17 ), he cites the messianic zeal predicted in Psa 69:9 .

(4) Alienation from his own family was one of the saddest trials of our Lord’s earthly life. They are slow to understand his mission and to enter into sympathy with him. His self-abnegation and exhaustive toil were regarded by them as evidences of mental aberration, and it seems at one time they were ready to resort to forcible restraint of his freedom) virtually what in our time would be called arrest under a writ of lunacy. While at the last his half-brothers became distinguished preachers of his gospel, for a long while they do not believe on him. And the evidence forces us to the conclusion that his own mother shared with her other sons, in kind though not in degree, the misunderstanding of the supremacy of his mission over family relations. The New Testament record speaks for itself:

Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them Luk 2:48-51 (R.V.).

And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Joh 2:3-5 (R.V.).

And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without; they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him. Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.).

Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not fulfilled. Joh 7:2-9 (R.V.).

These citations from the Revised Version tell their own story. But all that sad story is foreshown in the prophetic psalms. For example: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. Psa 69:8 .

(5) The triumphal entry into Jerusalem was welcomed by a joyous people shouting a benediction from Psa 118:26 : “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 21:9 ); and the Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem predicts continued desolation and banishment from his sight until the Jews are ready to repeat that benediction (Mat 23:39 ).

(6) The children’s hosanna in the Temple after its second purgation is declared by our Lord to be a fulfilment of that perfect praise forecast in Psa 8:2 .

(7) The final rejection of our Lord by his own people was also clear in the psalmist’s vision (Psa 118:22 ; Mat 21:42-44 ).

(8) Gethsemane’s baptism of suffering, with its strong crying and tears and prayers was as clear to the psalmist’s prophetic vision as to the evangelist and apostle after it became history (Psa 69:1-4 ; Psa 69:13-20 ; and Mat 26:36-44 ; Heb 5:7 ).

(9) In life-size also before the psalmist was the betrayer of Christ and his doom (Psa 41:9 ; Psa 69:25 ; Psa 109:6-8 ; Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:20 ).

(10) The rage of the people, Jew and Gentile, and the conspiracy of Pilate and Herod are clearly outlined (Psa 2:1-3 ; Act 4:25-27 ).

(11) All the farce of his trial the false accusation, his own marvelous silence; and the inhuman maltreatment to which he was subjected, is foreshown in the prophecy as dramatically as in the history (Mat 26:57-68 ; Mat 27:26-31 ; Psa 27:12 ; Psa 35:15-16 ; Psa 38:3 ; Psa 69:19 ).

The circumstances of his death, many and clear, are distinctly foreseen. He died in the prime of life (Psa 89:45 ; Psa 102:23-24 ). He died by crucifixion (Psa 22:14-17 ; Luk 23 ; 33; Joh 19:23-37 ; Joh 20:27 ). But yet not a bone of his body was broken (Psa 34:20 ; Joh 19:36 ).

The persecution, hatred without a cause, the mockery and insults, are all vividly and dramatically foretold (Psa 22:6-13 ; Psa 35:7 ; Psa 35:12 ; Psa 35:15 ; Psa 35:21 ; Psa 109:25 ).

The parting of his garments and the gambling for his vesture (Psa 22:18 ; Mat 27:35 ).

His intense thirst and the gall and vinegar offered for his drink (Psa 69:21 ; Mat 27:34 ).

In the psalms, too, we hear his prayers for his enemies so remarkably fulfilled in fact (Psa 109:4 ; Luk 23:34 ).

His spiritual death was also before the eye of the psalmist, and the very words which expressed it the psalmist heard. Separation from the Father is spiritual death. The sinner’s substitute must die the sinner’s death, death physical, i.e., separation of soul from body; death spiritual, i.e., separation of the soul from God. The latter is the real death and must precede the former. This death the substitute died when he cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” (Psa 22:1 ; Mat 27:46 ).

Emerging from the darkness of that death, which was the hour of the prince of darkness, the psalmist heard him commend his spirit to the Father (Psa_31:35; Luk 23:46 ) showing that while he died the spiritual death, his soul was not permanently abandoned unto hell (Psa 16:8-10 ; Act 2:25 ) so that while he “tasted death” for every man it was not permanent death (Heb 2:9 ).

With equal clearness the psalmist foresaw his resurrection, his triumph over death and hell, his glorious ascension into heaven, and his exaltation at the right hand of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, as a high Driest forever, as invested with universal sovereignty (Psa 16:8-11 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 68:18 ; Psa 2:6 ; Psa 111:1-4 ; Psa 8:4-6 ; Act 2:25-36 ; Eph 1:19-23 ; Eph 4:8-10 ).

We see, therefore, brethren, when the scattered parts are put together and adjusted, how nearly complete a portrait of our Lord is put upon the prophetic canvas by this inspired limner, the sweet singer of Israel.

QUESTIONS

1. What is a good text for this chapter?

2. What is the threefold division of the Old Testament as cited by our Lord?

3. What is the last division called and why?

4. What is the object of the discussion in this chapter?

5. To what three things is the purpose limited?

6. What especially qualifies the author to meet the objections of the higher critics to allowing the New Testament usage of the Old Testament to determine its meaning and application?

7. What is the author’s conviction relative to the Scriptures?

8. What is the New Testament testimony on the question of inspiration?

9. What is the author’s suggested plan of approach to the study of the Messiah in the Psalms?

10. What the background of the Psalmist’s portrait of the Messiah and of what does it consist?

11. Give the substance of Paul’s discussion of man’s sinfulness.

12. What is the teaching of Jesus on this point?

13. What is the teaching relative to sacrifices?

14. What the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah and what the four great elements of it as forecast by the psalmist?

15. What is the teaching of the psalms relative to the wondrous person of the Messiah? Discuss.

16. What are the offices of the Messiah according to psalms? Discuss each.

17. Cite the more important events of the Messiah’s life according to the vision of the psalmist.

18. What the circumstances of the Messiah’s death and resurrection as foreseen by the psalmist?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

XV

PSALM AFTER DAVID PRIOR TO THE BABYLONIAN EXILE

The superscriptions ascribed to Asaph twelve palms (Psa 50 ; 73-83) Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David. Their sons also directed the various bands of musicians (1Ch 25 ). It seems that the family of Asaph for many generations continued to preside over the service of song (Cf. Ezr 3:10 ).

The theme of Psa 50 is “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” or the language of Samuel to Saul when he had committed the awful sin in respect to the Amalekites. This teaching is paralleled in many Old Testament scriptures, for instance, Psa 51:16-17 . For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

The problem of Psa 73 is the problem of why the wicked prosper (Psa 73:1-14 ), and its solution is found in the attitude of God toward the wicked (Psa 73:15-28 ). [For a fine exposition of the other psalms of this section see Kirkpatrick or Maclaren on the Psalms.]

The psalms attributed to the sons of Korah are Psa 42 ; Psa 44 ; Psa 45 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 ; Psa 49 ; Psa 84 ; Psa 85 ; Psa 87 . The evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem is internal. There are three stanzas, each closing with a refrain. The similarity of structure and thought indicates that they were formerly one psalm. A parallel to these two psalms we find in the escape of Christian from the Castle of Giant Despair in Pilgrim’s Progress .

Only two psalms were ascribed to Solomon, viz: Psa 72 and 127. However, the author believes that there is good reason to attribute Psa 72 to David. If he wrote it, then only one was written by Solomon.

The theme of Psa 72 is the reign of the righteous king, and the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold, is as follows: (1) righteous (Psa 72:1-4 ) ; (2) perpetual (Psa 72:5-7 ); (3) universal (Psa 72:8-11 ); (4) benign (Psa 72:12-14 ); (5) prosperous (Psa 72:15-17 ).

Psa 127 was written when Solomon built the Temple. It is the central psalm of the psalms of the Ascents, which refer to the Temple. It seems fitting that this psalm should occupy the central position in the group, because of the occasion which inspired it and its relation to the other psalms of the group. A brief interpretation of it is as follows: The house here means household. It is a brief lyric, setting forth the lessons of faith and trust. This together with Psa 128 is justly called “A Song of Home.” Once in speaking to Baylor Female College I used this psalm, illustrating the function of a school as a parent sending forth her children into the world as mighty arrows. Again I used this psalm in one of my addresses in our own Seminary in which I made the household to refer to the Seminary sending forth the preachers as her children.

The psalms assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah are Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 . The historical setting is found in the history of the reign of Hezekiel. Their application to Judah at this time is found in the historical connection, in which we have God’s great deliverances from the foreign powers, especially the deliverance from Sennacherib. We find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in Psa 74 ; Psa 79 .

The radical critics ascribe Psa 74 ; Psa 79 to the Maccabean period, and their argument is based upon the use of the word “synagogues,” in Psa 74:8 . The answer to their contention is found in the marginal rendering which gives “places of assembly” instead of “synagogues.” The word “synagogue” is a Greek word translated from the Hebrew, which has several meanings, and in this place means the “place of assembly” where God met his people.

The silence of the exile period is shown in Psa 137 , in which they respond that they cannot sing a song of Zion in a strange land. Their brightening of hope is seen in Psa 102 . In this we have the brightening of their hope on the eve of their return. In Psa 85:10 we have a great text:

Mercy and truth are met together;

Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

The truth here is God’s law demanding justice; mercy is God’s grace meeting justice. This was gloriously fulfilled in Christ on the cross. He met the demands of the law and offers mercy and grace to all who accept them on the terms of repentance and faith.

Three characteristics of Psa 119 are, first, it is an alphabetical psalm; second, it is the longest chapter in the Bible, and third, it is an expansion of the latter part of Psa 19 . Psalms 146-150 were used for worship in the second temple. The expressions of innocence in the psalms do not refer to original sin, but to a course of conduct in contrast with wicked lives. The psalmists do not claim absolute, but relative sinlessness.

The imprecations in the psalms are real prayers, and are directed against real men who were enemies of David and the Jewish nation, but they are not expressions of personal resentment. They are vigorous expressions of righteous indignation against incorrigible enemies of God and his people and are to be interpreted in the light of progressive revelation. The New Testament contains many exultant expressions of the overthrow of the wicked. (Cf. 1Co 16:22 ; 2Ti 4:14 ; Gal 5:12 ; Rev 16:5-6 ; Rev 18:20 .) These imprecations do not teach that we, even in the worst circumstances, should bear personal malice, nor take vengeance on the enemies of righteousness, but that we should live so close to God that we may acquiesce in the destruction of the wicked and leave the matter of vengeance in the hands of a just God, to whom vengeance belongs (Rom 12:19-21 ).

The clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con, are found in these passages, as follows: Psa 16:10-11 ; Psa 17:15 ; Psa 23:6 ; Psa 49:15 ; Psa 73:23-26 . The passages that are construed to the contrary are found in Psa 6:5 ; Psa 30:9 ; Psa 39:13 ; Psa 88:10-12 ; Psa 115:17 . The student will compare these passages and note carefully their teachings. The first group speaks of the triumph over Sheol (the resurrection) ; about awaking in the likeness of God; about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever; about redemption from the power of Sheol; and God’s guiding counsel and final reception into glory, all of which is very clear and unmistakable teaching as to the future life.

The second group speaks of DO remembrance in death; about no profit to the one when he goes down to the pit; of going hence and being no more; about the dead not being able to praise God and about the grave as being the land of forgetfulness ; and about the dead not praising Jehovah, all of which are spoken from the standpoint of the grave and temporal death.

There is positively no contradiction nor discrepancy in the teaching of these scriptures. One group takes the spirit of man as the viewpoint and teaches the continuity of life, the immortality of the soul; the other group takes the physical being of man as the viewpoint and teaches the dissolution of the body and its absolute unconsciousness in the grave.

QUESTIONS

1. How many and what psalms were ascribed to Asaph?

2. Who presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David?

3. What is the theme of Psa 50 , and where do we find the same teaching in the Old Testament?

4. What is the problem of Psa 73 , and what its solution?

5. What psalms are attributed to the sons of Korah?

6. What is the evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem and what the characteristic of these two taken together?

7. What parallel to these two psalms do we find in modern literature?

8. What psalms were ascribed to Solomon?

9. What is the theme of Psa 72 ?

10. What is the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold?

11. When was Psa 127 written and what the application as a part of the Pilgrim group?

12. Give a brief interpretation of it and the uses made of it by the author on two different occasions.

13. What psalms are assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah, and what their historical setting?

14. What is their application to Judah at this time?

15. Where may we find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem?

16. To what period do radical critics ascribe Psalms 74-79; what is their argument, and what is your answer?

17. Which psalm shows the silence of the exile period and why?

18. Which one shows their brightening of hope?

19. Explain Psa 85:10 .

20. Give three characteristics of Psa 119 .

21. What use was made of Psalms 146-150?

22. Explain the expression of innocence in the psalms in harmony with their teaching of sin.

23. Explain the imprecations in the psalms and show their harmony with New Testament teachings.

24. Cite the clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Psa 150:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.

Ver. 1. Praise ye the Lord ] See Psa 148:1 .

Praise God in his sanctuary ] It is probable, saith Beza, that hoc Psalmo mirifici ardoris plano, by this psalm, which is so full of wonderful ardour, the holy singers of the sanctuary did mutually stir up one another to praise the Lord. It hath been noted before, that here we have in six verses twelve hallelujahs. Some by “sanctuary” understand heaven; others, the hearts of believers.

Praise him in the firmament of his power ] Or, for the firmament wherein appeareth his power, Psa 21:1 . Or, for the Church, and the firmament of faith.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

“Praise ye Jah.” Thus fitly ends this inspired collection of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, in a grand chorus of praise on this long travailing but soon to be delivered and rejoicing earth, when the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is come.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 150:1-2

1Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;

Praise Him in His mighty expanse.

2Praise Him for His mighty deeds;

Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.

Psa 150:1-6 The only verb is praise (BDB 237, B 248) used thirteen times.

1. twelve Piel imperatives (in Psalms 146-150, thirty-three times)

2. one Piel imperfect used in a jussive sense (cf. Psa 150:6 a)

Notice the prepositions.

1. in a place

a. in His sanctuary

b. in His mighty expanse

2. because

a. His mighty deeds

b. His excellent greatness

3. with musical instruments (what type is not always clear)

a. trumpet (BDB 1051)

b. harp (BDB 490, cf. 2Sa 6:5)

c. lyre (BDB 614, cf. 2Sa 6:5)

d. timbrel (BDB 1074)

e. stringed instruments (BDB 577 I)

f. pipe (BDB 721, NIDOTTE, vol. 3, p. 334)

g. cymbals (BDB 852, cf. 2Sa 6:5)

4. with dancing, Psa 150:4

5. with breath, Psa 150:6

Psa 150:1 This verse may be a literary way of paralleling Psa 150:6 a.

The sanctuary (i.e., temple or on earth, cf. Psa 148:7-12; the LXX has among His saints) would denote earth and the expanse (the celestial realm, cf. Psa 148:1-4).

It is possible that both Psa 150:1 b and 1c refer to YHWH’s (El in Psa 150:1 b) abode (cf. Psa 11:4).

Psa 150:2 His mighty deeds See notes on Psa 145:4-7; Psa 145:9; Psa 145:12.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

The fifth of the last five Hallelujah Psalms, answering to the great thought of DEUTERONOMY. Compare Psa 150:2 with Deu 3:24, and Deu 32:43.

Praise ye THE LORD. Hebrew Hallelu-JAH. App-4.

GOD. Hebrew El. App-4.

sanctuary. The earthly sanctuary and the heavenly: the lower being formed on the pattern of the higher. See Heb 8:5; Heb 9:23; and compare 1Ch 28:13-13, 1Ch 28:19.

firmament: Hebrew = expanse (Gen 1:6).

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Psa 150:1-6

Now, again, the final psalm is an exhortation of praise and to praise the Lord in unusual ways, as far as we firstly perhaps are concerned.

Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. [And then] Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and the dance: praise him with the stringed instruments and the organs. Praise him on the loud cymbals: praise him on the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD ( Psa 150:1-6 ).

I love these young men, uninhibited, as they are who have gone out from Calvary and established many different related works around the area. I love the beautiful simplicity of their heart towards God. They’re not all complex and bound up in a lot of theology that has had an effect of stultifying our worship in many cases. I’m thinking of Mike Macintosh, who pastors the Calvary Chapel in San Diego. And he said, “Now on Wednesday night we’re just going to have a praise night. And if any of you play any instruments, bring your instruments. Everybody bring your instruments. Whatever it is that you might play. And we’re just going to worship the Lord. If your thing is cymbals, or your thing is drums, or if your thing’s a harmonica, whatever, you know, just bring it and we’re just going to have a praise service on Wednesday night.” And they had quite a praise service with everybody just bringing whatever they could play or tambourines or whatever, bells, cymbals, triangles, whatever. And just had a time of sort of uninhibited kind of praising of the Lord. I love that… for them.

I think I would love it for us as long as we understood, hey, we’re just going to praise the Lord and that’s the purpose. So just come and worship the Lord with your little finger cymbals or whatever it is that you’re adept at. Just bring it and just have a time of praising the Lord. And I think that we need to become a little freer in our praise of the Lord. Not quite as inhibited as we usually are. We even, if we lift our hands to praise the Lord, begin to feel awkward and think, you know. And we are so inhibited in our expressions unto the Lord. And I think that we could be less inhibited and find a great blessing. And yet, “Let all things be done decently and in order” ( 1Co 14:40 ). And so as I say, there’s a balance. I’m sure there is, and I recognize where I am, and the Lord is dealing with me. You just keep praying.

Father, we do offer our praise unto You. How grateful we are, Lord, for Your Word. How sad it is that we have to be exhorted to praise Thee, that which should just be spontaneous from our heart as we think of Thy goodness and Thy mercy which endures forever. Thy mercy that we have received, Lord, daily. Oh, how we praise and give thanks unto You for all of Your blessings and all of Your benefits that You have given unto us, especially Father, for sending Your only begotten Son, that through Him we might have life and that more abundantly. Now Lord, just bless Your people. May they go forth with praises upon their hearts and upon their lips. We thank You that we are Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, and that we, Lord, have been called to serve You. Guide us, Lord, in that which You would have us to do as servants of the King. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 150:1. Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary:

Notice how, in this last Psalm, it is praise, praise, praise, all the way through. I think we have the word praise some thirteen times in the six verses. It is all praise him, praise him, praise him. It is not enough to do it once, or twice, we should keep on praising the Lord till we should make the very heavens ring with the music of his praises. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: that is, in his holy place where he dwells. Begin, ye angels, cherubim, and seraphim, pour forth his praise.

Psa 150:1. Praise him in the firmament of his power.

Let every star shine forth his praises, and sun and moon cease not to extol him: Praise him in the firmament of his power.

Psa 150:2. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. There is a task for us; we shall never attain to that height. We sometimes sing,-

Wide as his vast dominion lies,

Make the Creators name be known;

Loud as his thunder shout his praise,

And sound it lofty as his throne;

but who can compass such a feat as that?

Psa 150:3-4. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

So that there were all kinds of music in those days praising God,-the wind and the stringed instruments, the timbrel and the pipe. Everything that can praise God should praise him. The spiritual significance of these verses is this, let men of different orders and different sorts praise the Lord,-men, women, children, those who are deeply taught and those who know but little, those who are great and those who are small. Let every heart regard itself as an instrument of praise, and use itself wholly for the Lords praise. Having got so far, the psalmist recollected that there were discs of brass, which were struck together, and gave forth a sound to be heard at a great distance, so he said,-

Psa 150:5. Praise him upon the loud cymbals:

Crash!

Psa 150:5. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

Then came another crash!

Psa 150:6. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

A Jewish Rabbi once remarked to me that the name Jehovah was not made up of letters, but only of a series of breathings. (The preacher here uttered the three syllables of the sacred name, Jehovah, as though they were not composed of letters, but only a succession of breathings.) That is the nearest approach to the name of God, three breathings; therefore since all breath comes from him, and his very name can only be pronounced by breath, Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Hallelujah! THERE IS FORGIVENESS.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Psa 150:1-6

Psalms 150

CALL TO PRAISE GOD WITH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

“Praise ye Jehovah.

Praise God in his sanctuary:

Praise him in the firmament of his power.

Praise him for his mighty acts:

Praise him according to his excellent greatness.

Praise him with trumpet sound:

Praise him with psaltery and harp.

Praise him with timbrel and dance:

Praise him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise him with loud cymbals;

Praise him with high sounding cymbals.

Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah.

Praise ye Jehovah.”

This is the last of the Hallelujah’s and also the last of the Psalter, as it appears in our version. Other versions of the Bible, notably the Syriac and the Arabic have as many as fourteen other psalms which are added to the 150 psalms here.

Addis noted that, “Each of the five books has a doxology. This is the doxology that closes Book V and the whole Psalter as well. Miller agreed that, “It could easily serve as a doxology not only to the last section but to the entire Psalter.

“Praise God in his sanctuary” (Psa 150:1). “This is probably God’s sanctuary in heaven not the temple on Zion. In view of the fact that the second clause here, “Praise him in the firmament of his power,” is parallel to the first clause, and since “the firmament of his power” is a reference to heaven, it is quite likely that Addis’ comment is correct.

“Praise him with … trumpet … psaltery … harp” (Psa 150:3). “The trumpet here is the ram’s horn. “`Psaltery’ is the same as viol. The Douay Version renders “psaltery and harp,” here as “harp and lyre.”

“Praise him with timbrel … dance … stringed instruments … and pipe” (Psa 150:4). The timbrel was a percussion instrument made of skin stretched over a hoop, “something like a tambourine.

“Dance” (Psa 150:4). Adam Clarke insisted that the word here rendered dance “never means dance, but a species of violin. All of the translations we have render it “dance”.

Moffatt renders “timbrel” as “drum”.

Stringed instruments would identify a number of different items such as harps, viols, guitars, violins, psalters, dulcimers, and perhaps the sackbut.

“Pipe” (Psa 150:4). This identifies such instruments as organs and horns.

“Loud cymbals and high sounding cymbals” (Psa 150:5). These were percussion instruments which made no music at all, but were valuable in the religious dances as marking the rhythm, or accenting highlights in the music. Their loudness and “high pitch” would seem to indicate that they were valued principally as aids in increasing the deafening decibels of the production.

“Let everything that hath breath praise Jehovah” (Psa 150:6). Technically, this expression includes animals and all of the lower creations that breathe, but in the light of Mar 16:16, where “whole creation” has the restricted meaning of the “whole human creation,” we must assume that the same restriction applies here.

Briggs made the following arrangement of this psalm:

Praise Yah.

Praise him for his sanctity:

Praise him for the spreading out of his strength:

Praise him for his great might:

Praise him for the abundance of his greatness:

Praise him with the blast of the horn:

Praise him with harp and lyre.

Praise him with timbrel and dance:

Praise him with strings and pipe:

Praise him with sounding cymbals:

Praise him with clashing cymbals:

Praise him all ye that have breath:

Praise Yah.

The purpose of this arrangement is to emphasize the occurrence of the word’s “Praise him (praise Yah)” thirteen times in this passage, corresponding to the thirteen attributes of God, “As the Jewish Rabbis reckoned them upon the basis of Exo 34:6-7.

There are some who view this psalm as giving instructions for the worship of God, but if that is what it is, the omission of any of these things mentioned would be sinful; and what proves too much proves nothing. To us, it appears that this doxology is a poetic production having a single message only: “that every man who breathes should praise God.”

Of course, it is freely admitted that the use of all kinds of musical instruments prevailed in Jewish worship, along with a great many other things which are inappropriate and forbidden in Christian worship.

Regarding the use of such instruments in Christian worship, the reader is referred to my excursus on that subject which follows immediately.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

This psalm which concludes the book, and all the Psalter as final doxology, is the most comprehensive, and illuminative illustration of perfect praise in the whole Psalter. In our analysis of it as doxology at the beginning of the book, its essential values are stated. The central place of prayer is the sanctuary, that is, the place of Divine manifestation, whether the earthly temple or the heavenly, matters nothing. The circumference is the firmament of His power which is the outer confine of human consciousness. The reason for praise is that of His mighty acts, whether in creation, redemption, or government. The measure of praise is His excellent greatness, so that it can never end until all the story be exhausted. The method is set forth by a description of the instruments of music constituting a perfect orchestra.

Finally, the one condition of praise is the possession of breath, that is to say, life received from Him must return in praise to Him. The function of life is praise, and the force of praise is life. The note of responsibility and the dignity of choice are alike indicated in the fact that the final psalm is not merely an expression of praise, but a call to its exercise. Thus it is seen that the worship which perfectly glorifies God is not mechanical, but volitional.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Praise-Songs of Gods People

Psa 149:1-9; Psa 150:1-6

Israel was formed into a nation and delivered from Babylon, that her singers should lead the praises of mankind, and her teachers provide the metaphors and phrases for the worlds religious nurture. This people have I made for myself, said the Most High, that they might show forth my praise. Is it not also our Christian duty to be joyful in our King? Our religious life has not enough ecstasy and gladness in it to attract the world, which is sad enough beneath its outward gaiety.

Psa 150:1-6

A worthy close to the Psalter. Ten times the summons to praise rings out, and ten is the number of perfection. Think of the tears and groans, the questionings and perplexities, the feeble faith and disappointed aspiration, that have preceded! Now it all finishes thus! So life will finish! Our Misereres will be forgotten in the outbursting Jubilates . The first three books of the Psalter end with Amen and Amen, the firm expression of faith. The fourth book with Amen, Hallelujah, as though faith were beginning to be lost in glad realization. But here, at the end of all, there is one abounding and unhesitating Hallelujah!

For Review Questions, see the e-Sword Book Comments.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 150:1-3, Psa 150:6

I. Consider the nature of praise. (1) From such passages as Isa 6:1-3, Rev 4:8, Rev 14:1-3, we collect with certainty thus much: that praise is the main element of the homage of saints and angels in the eternal world. And indeed it is difficult to imagine what besides it could be. The worship which created beings render to the Almighty is divisible into two acts: prayer and praise. But from the nature of the case the spirits of the blessed can hardly be considered as having occasion for the former. With the necessities of the saints, their prayers, as far as regards themselves, must have an end; but, on the contrary, the passing away of these necessities will itself minister occasion for the commencement of an unbroken service of praise. From the simple fact that prayer is the religious exercise of those still in the flesh, and praise the employment of the redeemed from among men, we seem at once to deduce the greater nobility of praise itself. (2) The perfection of praise is not found in thanksgiving. We are to thank God not for what He has done for us, but for what He is. Praise is the travelling forth of the mind into the depths of the Divine nature; it is the folding of the mantle around us, so as to shut out the visible creation, and to be alive only to the sense of the uncreated Majesty.

II. Consider the application of music to the purposes of praise. (1) Whatever has a tendency to withdraw the mind from care must promote in a measure the disposition required for praise. (2) All along God has recognised the principle of making religion a visible, tangible thing. Adam possessed in paradise a perfect nature, and what was his religion? Essentially a sacramental one. He was to refrain from the fruit of one tree and systematically eat of another to secure his immortality. If ever outward rites could be dispensed with, surely they might have been in paradise, with the creature so elevated and God so near; and yet even there an outward sign was made to accompany inward grace. Just in the same way with music as a help to praise. We grant that the mind which without extrinsic aid can rise to the level of this great employment is more angelic than that which must be stimulated by luxury of sound; but are we therefore to neglect a means which God has furnished of elevating the weak, and warming the cold, and carrying away, in spite of itself, the earthly heart?

Bishop Woodford, Sermons in Various Churches, p. 283.

Psa 150:6

Consider in what praise consists, what are its elements, or rather from what source it flows.

I. It arises from a consciousness of blessings already received, as, for example, the gift of regeneration, the grace of conversion, the spirit of repentance, the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ, and the numberless, and therefore nameless, blessings and gifts of this world and the next, both for the body and for the soul, of which our life is full. The spirit of conscious gratitude consists in a watchful, minute attention to the particulars of our state, and to the multitude of God’s gifts, taken one by one. It fills us with a consciousness that God loves and cares for us, even to the least event and smallest need of life; and that we actually have received, and do now possess as our own, gifts which come direct from God.

II. Another source of praise is a sense of our own unworthiness. To receive blessings as if they were no more than we might expect betrays a strange unconsciousness of what we are, and of what they imply. Every blessing is to us as the ring and the best robe which were given to the prodigal: a token of forgiveness and fatherly compassion. The more conscious we are of our unworthiness, the larger will God’s gifts appear, the more full of all kinds of sweetness. It is this that fills the humble with such especial joy.

III. This sense of unworthiness opens another, and that the highest, source of praise: the pure love of God. The pure love of God is to love Him as He loves us, freely, because He is love. God is the desired end of love, as the running brook is of thirst. Here is the true fountain of praise and worship, love ascending out of self to rejoice in God. This is the meaning of the psalmist. Let all created life bow itself before the majesty of God, before the beauty of holiness, the glory of uncreated love. “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.” (1) Praise is a sacrifice most acceptable in the sight of God. (2) Praise is most blessed for us. To live in a spirit of praise is to live a life as near to heaven as earth can be.

H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 276.

References: Psa 150:6.-Bishop Ryle, Homiletic Magazine, vol. ix., p. 1; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 371.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

Praise ye the Lord: Heb. Hallelujah, Psa 149:1

in his sanctuary: Psa 29:9, Psa 66:13-16, Psa 116:18, Psa 116:19, Psa 118:19, Psa 118:20, Psa 134:2

in the firmament: Gen 1:6-8, Eze 1:22-26, Eze 10:1, Dan 12:3

Reciprocal: Job 37:18 – spread Psa 19:1 – the firmament Psa 105:45 – Praise ye the Lord Psa 112:1 – Praise ye the Lord Rev 19:1 – Alleluia

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

HALLELUJAH!

O praise God in His holiness: praise Him in the firmament of His power, etc.

Psa 150:1-3; Psa 150:6 (Prayer Book Version)

I. Consider the nature of praise.(1) From such passages as Isa 6:1-3, Rev 4:8; Rev 14:1-3, we collect with certainty thus much: that praise is the main element of the homage of saints and angels in the eternal world. And indeed it is difficult to imagine what besides it could be. The worship which created beings render to the Almighty is divisible into two actsprayer and praise. But from the nature of the case the spirits of the blessed can hardly be considered as having occasion for the former. With the necessities of the saints, their prayers, as far as regards themselves, must have an end; but, on the contrary, the passing away of these necessities will itself minister occasion for the commencement of an unbroken service of praise. From the simple fact that prayer is the religious exercise of those still in the flesh, and praise the employment of the redeemed from among men, we seem at once to deduce the greater nobility of praise itself. (2) The perfection of praise is not found in thanksgiving. We are to thank God not for what He has done for us, but for what He is. Praise is the travelling forth of the mind into the depths of the Divine nature; it is the folding of the mantle around us, so as to shut out the visible creation, and to be alive only to the sense of the uncreated Majesty.

II. Consider the application of music to the purposes of praise.(1) Whatever has a tendency to withdraw the mind from care must promote in a measure the disposition required for praise. (2) All along God has recognised the principle of making religion a visible, tangible thing. Adam possessed in paradise a perfect nature, and what was his religion? Essentially a sacramental one. He was to refrain from the fruit of one tree and systematically eat of another to secure his immortality. If ever outward rites could be dispensed with, surely they might have been in paradise, with the creature so elevated and God so near; and yet even there an outward sign was made to accompany inward grace. Just in the same way with music as a help to praise. We grant that the mind which without extrinsic aid can rise to the level of this great employment is more angelic than that which must be stimulated by luxury of sound; but are we therefore to neglect a means which God has furnished of elevating the weak, and warming the cold, and carrying away, in spite of itself, the earthly heart?

Bishop Woodford.

Illustration

The 84th Psalm is the Christians preparation before worship; the 150th is his thanksgiving after. Having risen, as it were, by five steps, the Psalter hovers over its summit. The chorus of mankind in contact with the angelic choir becomes one cymbal of Divine praise, and a final song of victory peals out to God. The Psalter dies away, after all its depths, not as the first three books in Amen, not as the fourth in Amen Hallelujah, but in Hallelujah. Is this a development of the inarticulate cries of brutal wooers yelling from the branches?

(SECOND OUTLINE)

The theme of the whole psalm is the praise of God

I.Where? (Rev 14:1).

II.Why? (Rev 14:2).

III.How? (Rev 14:3-5).

IV.Who? (Rev 14:6).

Can there be any juster employment for our powers than the praise of Jehovah?

Illustration

Thirteen notes of praise in this short psalm! Count your blessings, and then you will praise too!

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Praise according to full capacity.

Of the last psalm of this series and of the whole book we have unhappily little indeed to say. God is praised, or there is the call to praise Him, as now manifestly enthroned in the earthly as in the heavenly sanctuary; for His acts, all without exception; mighty and of abundant greatness.

Then He is to be praised with all sorts of instruments, according to the full capacity of each. This waking up of inanimate Nature, responsive to the touch or breath of man; is a blessed thing to anticipate. Nature is waiting upon man, and as yet he has evoked little but discord out of it. But this shall a be changed; and then what glorious music shall fill man’s abode. But at present we cannot even distinguish the parts of this wondrous concert. Who shall tell us what trumpet and psaltery and harp represent to us here? -what spiritual significance we are to find in them? Most would, perhaps, think even the thought of it to be mere fantasy; and we must, at least, yet wait for the answer. But it will come, and might come soon enough, if -“more of reverence in us grow ” -and more simplicity of faith in every word of God. Meanwhile let us be sure that everywhere there are notes now of that grand chorus that is to be, which are but out of the reach of ill-attuned ears. Much may be heard that we have not heard; and while the discord, though most real, is that which is first heard, most heeded by the mass, the more we listen the more we shall catch of the deep, sweet notes that lie under. “Seek and ye shall find” is still he Master’s word.

“Let every thing that hath breath praise Jehovah! Halleluiah!”

Appendices

Appendix 1.

The Witness of Arithmetic to Christ:

A Leaf from the Gospel of the Exact Sciences.

“Doth not nature itself teach you?” (1Co 11:14.)

“There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification” (1Co 14:10).

The natural sciences need to be converted to Christ. Nature indeed does not: for (apart from man, the crown of it,) it has never fallen from Him. It knew at the beginning the touch of His creating hand, when; as the “Word,” the Revealer of the mind of God, He called it into existence; and the work must, of course, bear witness to the Worker. If it be the work of the Revealer, we may well take it as a revelation. And this it is, and as this it must be read, to understand it.

But the sciences, so called, are drifting away from Christ. Man wants no more of God than he ever did; and science being the order of the day, his aim must be to make it such as he would have it. He must use it as Adam his father did the trees of the garden, to put a hedge between himself and Him who is pursuing him. The old story, if it be no more than a tradition, has its features of most uncomfortable resemblance to men’s conduct now; all the more uncomfortable because every one now believes in “heredity.”

So much the more earnestly does science “offer itself,” as a well-known professor has told us, “to purify theology,” -necessarily after its own fashion: to make it as purely natural -as little supernatural -as it is itself. And from hence has come an attack on Christianity, (which is nothing if not supernatural,) an attack which in the multiplicity of forces enlisted under it, and in the pretentiousness of the learning out of which it springs, is the most formidable of its kind which perhaps the centuries have ever witnessed.

There has been, too, already, on the part of those who maintain the defence, so large a yielding of the ground in dispute, as brings into peril of loss all that remains of it. They have allowed the principle -at least the mass have -that “Scripture was not intended to teach science,” to be pushed so far as practically to separate from one another God’s two witnesses. The natural has been cut off from the supernatural, and become thus merely secular. We may, perhaps, indeed find God in it, but scarcely the God of revelation: rather a heathen than the Christian God or God reduced to the features common to the two. The effect of which, for those to whom Christ is the revelation, and the only revelation, of God, is to make natural theology but the dullest, coldest candlelight to those accustomed to the warmth and glory of the noonday sun. Thus it is no wonder if Nature be left as neutral territory, or debateable ground, for the materialistic or agnostic squatter to build upon, with only scant and ineffective protest.

But for Christianity such a division of the empire must be ruin in the end. Christ, if not a, universal King, is none. If the physical universe say “I know Him not,” where, then, is this kingdom of His? Thus science has gone on, taking fullest advantage of the concession made to it, pushing further and further its limits continually, insisting on full freedom for speculation, -on having room to add to the history of the world its dreams of the beginning, its prophecies of the end, and to fill up all the gaps between after its own fashion. If we object, we are told that “the world moves still,” in spite of the efforts of theologians to arrest it. “Scripture was not intended to teach science.” If science, then, can only conjecture a cosmogony, how life was produced, how species originated, how man descended (or ascended), nay, as to the birth of religion itself, the spectre of Galileo warns off interference, and Scripture, by the concession, must retire before it. Science is knowledge reasoned out and verified, -knowledge verified by facts of observation. But then the first of Genesis has not the value of the poorest text-book of geology: it is not reasoned out, but revealed authoritatively. And here, after all, is the stumbling-block for the mere “naturalist”: can the supernatural be upon any terms with the natural? -can it, above all, be admitted as really “super” to the “natural”? -which means, of course, can it have leave to exist?

But we are not going into the argument whether Scripture teaches science, still less to plunge into the conflict as to the first of Genesis. I believe, indeed, that there still exists a method of proof as to this, accessible, not merely to scientists or to the learned of any kind, but also to any common man who deems the matter worthy of sufficient attention. And after all, if Scripture is, in fact, a revelation from God, one would expect in it a kind of authentication which would appeal to common men, and not leave them wholly dependent upon the lagging evolution of nineteenth century science, and the not very tender ministry of its priesthood of today.

Still we are not going to attempt such proof at this time. Our purpose is rather to interrogate Nature itself, by no means as a whole, but in a mere fragment of it, -a few letters of its alphabet indeed, -to listen to its voice, to see if we are able to interpret at all its language, and for this compare it (after the approved method of philology) with the alphabet of another language, well known to us all as theological, and see, if possibly they may not be near akin. If we should find them, in fact, so much so, as that the one, with the help of the other, should spell out a central truth of theology itself, -and if, moreover, the text used for this could be proved to be as old as, nay, involved in the very constitution of the alphabet itself, -then, without any possible question, as it would appear, the theological truth, whatever it be, must be at least as old as that old natural alphabet, and will be enforced with all the power of demonstration that Nature itself possesses. Then it will be seen that, as Scripture on its side has no quarrel with Nature, but can put sanction on its teaching, as the text at the head of this paper does, -so Nature, on its own side, far from being at issue with Scripture, owns it loyally as the word of the living God.

It is evident that the more simple and elementary the truth taken up for this, the more simple and perspicuous the argument will be. The more fundamental also in Nature, and the more it belongs to that part of it which bears, most of all, the stamp of mind upon it, the more will it seem in order for the light illuminating it to flash out here. Now I know of nothing in which the stamp of mind is more readily discovered than in that numerical system which is more and more being seen to manifest itself in Nature, and most of all in that foundation science where the Builder’s hieroglyph would most certainly be found. Chemistry deals with the very substance of all material things, with the primitive atoms and molecules themselves and “Chemistry,” says Herschel, “is, in a most pre-eminent degree, the science of quantity; and to enumerate the discoveries which have arisen for it from the mere determination of weights and measures would be merely to give a synopsis of this branch of knowledge.” And he goes further than this, and affirms that “Indeed it is a character of all the higher laws of Nature to assume the form of a precise quantitative statement.”

Similarly, Alexander von Humboldt declares that “the only remaining and widely diffused hieroglyphic characters still in our writing -numbers -appear to us again as powers of the cosmos, although in a wider sense than that applied to them by the Italian school.”

Once more, Prof. Flint says: “The physical universe has, perhaps, no more general characteristic than this -its laws are mathematical relations. . . . If we are to give any credit to science, there can be no doubt about the weights and measures and numbers. This question, then, is alone left: could anything else than intelligence weigh, measure, and number? Could mere matter know the abstrusest properties of space and time and number, so as to obey them in the wondrous way it does? Could what has taken so much mathematical knowledge and research to apprehend, have originated with what was ignorant of all quantitative relations? . . . The belief in a Divine Creator is alone capable of rendering rational the fact that mathematical truths are realized in the material world.” (“Theism,” pp. 136, 137.)

May we not be able to go further than this, however? May it be possible not merely to assure ourselves that there are such, but even to interpret the hieroglyphics? That would indeed be a revelation, if it could be achieved! But is there any hope of it? Would it not be utopian to indulge such a hope? Is there, in fact, any meaning behind them, beyond that which Prof. Flint has given? Now we propose to inquire into the significance of only the first three numbers, -literally, the arithmetical A B C, -and to compare them with the fundamental truths of Christianity (which certainly give us, if this be true, the Name of the Builder of all this glorious fabric), the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, and the respective offices of these three Persons. If there be any real correspondence apparent, then it will be surely fair to ask what can be the cause of this, except that the God thus presented to us is the Author alike of Nature and of Scripture? And this is a verification which it does not need a scientific expert to make, though it be really scientific; nor indeed any enlarged capacity or attainment of any kind. It is a manifestation of Himself such as God in His care and love to all might exhibit for the help of His creatures, and expect them to give heed to. How many such proofs must there be facing us everywhere in Nature, overlooked from sheer incredulity as to His having come so near us, even by those who believe in a Saviour’s birth in Bethlehem, -incredulity as to His desire to be known and. understood by every soul caring thus to know Him! With what a blazon of proof would the natural sciences, if converted to Christ, surround us!

I have elsewhere shown in detail -a detail which claims investigation at the hands of every candid seeker after truth -that there is a numerical structure of Scripture, as there is of Nature; and that these two have a common key in the spiritual significance of these numbers, as given in Scripture itself. I am only giving here one remarkable example on the side of Nature, and of Nature self-interpreted, although in perfect harmony with the scriptural use, and one which may well claim to be decisive. Certainly Christians have not had in their hands to lay the foundations of arithmetic, nor agreed to hide there in so secure a manner the evidences of their own belief. Nor, again, can it be supposed that they have constructed their belief out of the powers of these primary numbers. But “it is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” as “it is the glory of kings to search out a matter.” (Pro 25:2.) And “if thou criest after wisdom, and liftest up thy voice for understanding, -if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.” (Pro 2:3-5.)

There are then hidden things which are of priceless value to us. The earth but partially discloses her lodes and treasures of ore. But how little thought is there of these being such, even in the word of God itself; necessarily, therefore, how little search for them! If they are found also, how little belief is there in their value! The gems are counted but as common stones. How soon shall those who think so much of reason be waked up to find that there is reason everywhere, -divinest reason, put there by the Creator of the human mind, and who condescends to “reason” with the beings He has made?

Let us proceed to consider the numbers. Of each there are two forms, the cardinal and the ordinal. Taking both into account, primacy, unity, soleness, are evidently the thoughts that inhere in the first number. We shall seek out what other thoughts may be involved in, or connect themselves in a natural way with these. Then we shall inquire as to the possible theological bearings of all this. The argument must necessarily be weak at first, but it will be cumulative, and rapidly gather strength as we proceed. At least, so it is contended; and the thing to be proved has interest enough in it surely to provoke inquiry.

The ordinal of “one” is “first.” If we apply this in the sphere of Nature, it is plain that what is first -the true beginning of all (and science does not now doubt a beginning ) must be, without doubt, the cause of all; the first, if we really get back to that, is cause; and the first of all is thus the cause of all.

Suppose we could go back to the beginning, and that we found there, to the collapse of all our hopes, no God at all; nothing but such a cloud of elementary particles as our modern materialists can well believe in, -they must and will allow that this world-mist has been the cause of everything that exists today. Whatever the method -however the thing has evolved, -yet there cannot be really a single thought in the mind, or a particle of the air we breathe, that that mist shall not account for. And so Prof. Tyndall, in those “musings on the Matterhorn,” which have been the occasion of so much musing on the part of others since, tells us, that his

“Thought naturally ran back to its remoter origin and sculpture. Nor did thought halt there, but wandered on through molten worlds to that nebulous haze which philosophers have regarded, and with good reason; as the proximate source of all material things. I tried to look at this universal cloud, containing within itself the prediction of all that has since occurred. I tried to imagine it as the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in solar and stellar systems, and all that they involve. Did that formless fog contain potentially the sadness with which I regarded the Matterhorn?”

And this is all so clear to him that to make good he thinks we might well even “recast our definitions of matter and force”!

For it is plain that no one of us can believe in a self-creation of things, or their coming out of absolute nothing; no matter how long a time you allow them to do it in. Even. the growth of a smaller into a larger substance (as of a seed into a plant) would of course be quite impossible, except by the ministration to it of surrounding elements, as moisture, air, and soil, in the case instanced. We may refuse the gross materialism of Prof. Tyndall; but the passage quoted well illustrates the impossibility we have noted, of separating in this way between “first” and “cause.”

Of course, it is not meant, however, that a “first” always implies this. You may have the first of a series, which in no wise depend on it, but (along with itself) upon what is back of all together. We are not now concerned with these smaller beginnings, but with what is so in its highest and fullest sense. We are on the search after God, and must expect that what is less full and high will give the less perfect view or image of Him. Our contention is simply this, that, in the most absolute way of looking at it, the “first” implies cause. “The First” is the Name God claims as His, and this implies His being the Cause of all else. That nothing comes out of nothing, which is, in its rightful meaning, the faith of all, assures us that the great First of all must be the Fountain of all.

But we may take another step now, and a very easy step it shall be. A cause implies power, and mark, for its effect, sufficient, and so almighty power. So Prof. Tyndall speaks of the primeval world-fog as containing “potentially” his sadness on a certain occasion. Clear it is, surely, that a cause is not that till it has produced the effect; and thereby it has demonstrated its perfect power (quoad hoc, almighty) to produce it. The First Cause of the Universe must at least thus far be Almighty. There can be no need to dwell on this.

A third step now: we are seeking what is highest of its kind: the highest kind of cause we know, what is it? Perhaps one might urge even that we should not know cause or potency at all, if we had not found it in our will as potent. I take this to be true, although it was so early a lesson, shrouding itself in the first instinctive impulse of the babe seeking its mother’s breast, that it may be better to take safer ground, and say that the highest cause we know is in will, choice, determination. “I will” would have no meaning, apart from the sense of power. True, that for executive ability an apparatus of nerves and bones and muscles has been somehow, and as it were in knowledge of my need, provided for me. True, my will may, from the failure of this, be practically impotent in a given case: yet even here this will of mine makes me, spite of all opposition to it, in this sense master of myself, sovereign in my inner citadel, -able, in fact, to distinguish myself by this very means from the outer machinery of flesh, which I ought to control and cannot.

Just as the highest “first” we know, then, is cause and potency; so, and as clearly, the highest cause we know is will. And it is highest, not because of the amount of power that is wielded by it, but because it is measured, controlled, purposive. No one doubts that this is the highest quality of cause, and for this reason; and no one would give up the possession of an insect’s strength, governed by an intelligent will, for the resistless might of a hurricane, which is not so, -if, after all, there be a hurricane, even, of this kind!

Put together all this, then, by most easy suggestion, there emerges for us a Figure far more definite than the “nebulous haze” that shrouds the beginning of Prof. Tyndall’s world; and which is a true figure of PRIMACY, of a first. It has been legitimately evolved under the careful curb of reason, demanding what is implied in the idea, as yet only of the ordinal form of a single number, and already we have got what may well stand as a fundamental conception of Deity. The King’s image appears already, if faintly, upon the current medium of exchange: a Supreme Will acting in power as the sufficient Cause of the Universe, intelligent, purposive. If this be the image on the coin, we know Whose image and superscription it alone can be.

But we have still to look at the cardinal form of the number -“one,” unity. And here, as before, we have to give this its highest and most varied expression; then, putting all this together, to ask to what it points. It need not even now be doubted that this will be by a whole heaven removed from Tyndall’s world-fog.

And first, physically, what is the highest and fullest expression of unity which we find in the material world? Manifestly, it is organic unity; and that is as much as to say, the unity of life. Life is the great organizer; and, from plant to man, weaves together its matchless tissues into wholes of marvelous symmetry and adaptation. Every part is fitted to every other part and to the whole, in a working practical unity far beyond the mere naked oneness of a single element. A mountain-mass of this would be but a bigger lump. The self-contained living thing is an individual.

The thought here is indeed hardly needed to complete the ideal image which has been rising before us: for the intelligent, purposive Will-Cause of the universe must needs be a “living God.” And of course this organic unity is not true of Him, but only the shadow of what is ineffably higher than itself. We are but using earth-boundary-lines to mark off -not to measure -the heavens. But above this unity of life, however connected with it, rises another unity far higher, and therefore pointing more toward God, -the personality, which is other than the corporeity, and other than its life. But this, if disputed, we need not here contend about. Life and personality are at least the expression of unities which plainly enter into the idea of God, if we are to possess one; and no one will contend that He of whom Scripture speaks is not Living and Personal.

But this does not end the correspondence: personality itself leads us further, in that character which seems very clearly to distinguish it from the constantly changing material body. The unity of consciousness is such as our bodies, ever in flux, have not -a unity in time. With all the changes wrought in the course, say, of fifty years, we are witnesses to ourselves that we are, after all, the same persons as fifty years ago. We have not, in that sense, changed in all that time, though the body has been renewed, physiologists tell us, some seven times over. Here there is a unity in time, an unchangeable identity, which, if carried to its highest conceivable terms, develops yet further that thought of God which has been growing steadily, and keeping step with us, as we have pursued our way. Now it overshadows us with the suggestion of the Unchangeable, and so, the Eternal. “Jehovah” meant this for the Hebrew and here the figure of the Hebrew’s God is on the coin. But the Hebrew did not stamp it there: who did?

But again: there is another personal unity, which man necessarily conceives, and some aim after, but which is seen but fragmentarily among those that dwell on earth; all the more fittingly the attribute of Him we are seeking. This is moral unity, a character of consistent harmony in which nothing is disproportionate, nothing defective, nothing discordant. Righteousness (which is practical harmony with one’s relationships) and truth, which is identity between the representation and the fact, come naturally under this. Self-consistency in all positions is only possible to perfect goodness: and this fills out the full blessedness that we conceive as God’s.

Add to this one last thing, which still the number covers, that God is One: there is no other; -none to dispute His absolute sway. Here again the old Hebrew creed is that of Nature.

All these ideas, then, find unforced expression under this first arithmetical number. Together they present us with a very sufficient summary of our faith as to God: not, of course, yet the Trinity; but God as One, living, personal, immutable, eternal, righteous, and true, the Almighty, Maker of the universe, and whom, in this sense at least, we must call Father, perfect in this relationship as in all other. Atheism, polytheism, pantheism, agnosticism, are all set aside by such a faith as this. There is not a main thought, as it would appear, that can be developed out of the number that is incongruous with this, or does not help, indeed, to set it forth. Primacy, unity, soleness, in their highest developments, speak of Him. This would seem a most extraordinary fact, and worthy of attentive consideration. This correspondence between Nature and Scripture can hardly be accidental, and cannot be of man. Is it possible that Nature is meant in this way to bear witness of the Hand that has moulded her? Is anything, in fact, more reasonable than this?

Two.

But the full Christian image of God we do not yet see; and we must now take up the second number to find if it will continue the story of the first. If it do so, the wonder must increase, and the difficulty of any solution of it, save one, be felt correspondingly. For the testimony now required is of a very different, almost of an opposite character to that which we have been considering, and, though Father and Son are indeed one God, the distinction between them we must expect to find now dwelt upon, even while we are reminded of this oneness also! Diverse, almost self-contradictory characters, one might think, to be found here together! And yet this will not be too hard a test, if we are right in believing that the handwriting we are reading is meant to convey such a message to us.

Now, at first sight, the second number is, in some sense, the very opposite of the first; One, in whatever way it applies, excludes difference; but two affirms it. And this is the key-note of its significance both in nature and in Scripture. Two individuals, even though exactly alike, are yet different by the whole breadth of that individuality. But difference easily runs into the thought of opposition, conflict, and so begins to suggest the possibility of evil. This thought of evil enters largely into the natural use. “They are not one,” we say; “there is a difference between them.”

“Two” is also the first number that divides. “One” cannot do so, as we all know. So evil too divides: it has separated man from God; it separates man from man; it has brought in death, which is the separation of soul from body.

Two tends thus to evil, but it is not necessarily evil, or we should have no possible use for it in the quest we are now upon. Only with two comes in the thought of relationship; and language presents the other side in its use of seconding. To “second” is to “confirm, succour, help,” and to take even an inferior place in order to do this. And here there begins to dawn on us the light we are seeking.

But notice first that the idea of difference, and to a large extent the assumption of evil as present, enters into the better significance itself. “The testimony of two men is true,” says Scripture. But how is it “true”? May not the testimony of one be true too? Undoubtedly, the meaning is, it can be taken as true; it is valid as evidence. But why cannot the testimony of one be taken as true? Well; the witness may be mistaken, of course: even that will be probably due to defect in some way, -to evil, in this sense of evil; but how often, even so, may real mistake be due to something worse than this! how frequently is it due to prejudice, passion, enmity, and such like! And the moral reason is, in fact, the principal one, why a single witness is to be distrusted so much, if not refused: evil has come in; and there is the main need of a second witness to confirm the first.

But in any case the truth or validity of the double witness is founded upon difference. If upon examination we find the second witness only repeating the testimony, -still more, the words of the first, this correspondence, instead of producing greater confidence, destroys it. We say, this is a contrived affair: the one has learned his lesson from the other. We need the evidence of two persons, not of one; and this is only one person talking with two mouths. We need to have diversity of interests, feelings, general standard, with yet a confirmation of the point in question, -a sort of stereoscopic view of the facts, which shall give them due solidity. Thus the very help given in seconding implies a difference, often a moral one: in other words, the presence of evil.

What then, are the ideas presented to us under this number, two? On the one hand, those of difference, opposition, conflict; of evil, producing division between God and man, between man and man, and going on to division between soul and body, the natural extreme of evil -death.

In connection with this, though in an opposite interest, judgment is the putting of difference, the dividing according to difference: “who made me a judge or a divider over you?”

On the other hand, we have the thought of “seconding,” confirmation, valid witness, help, taking an inferior place to give help; even here with the implication of evil having come in and created the necessity for this.

How different is the sphere of ideas in which we are moving here from that into which we were brought in the case of the former number! And again, we have not travelled outside of nature for these suggestions: they have come to us from the natural use of language, with no sort of help from theology at all, save perhaps as far as the view that sin has brought in death may be held to be theological. But how is it that there rises up before us here a Figure, in most respects so different from the former one, yet so familiar, and so allied to it in our thoughts? We have got back of Christianity, outside of all possible influence from it, yet to find, some way, the Christ of Christianity meeting us, as if the very stones of earth’s foundations were in fact rising up to prophesy of Him! And is not this indeed prophecy, where no “human element” can come in to discredit the inspiration? Is not the king’s image upon the coin again? And if so, what primeval workman stamped it there?

Christ is as manifestly before us here, with all the sacred sorrow of His humiliation; as in the first place we had the Father. God and man in one person; He exhibits in this way a marvellous difference within Himself, -two natures far apart brought into mysterious relationship. In Himself, therefore, at the very first thought, He claims -and it is His glory to claim -this number as His own. Who in the whole range of personal existence can claim it as He?

And what is He in Godhead? As we know, the Son; the Second Person. And what in manhood? The Son of man the Second Man! And why the Second Man? Why, because evil has come in; and spoiled the glory of the first. And here too is an unspeakable difference: for, if manhood is to be raised up again, it cannot be in the old condition merely; no good in simply bringing back into that so soon lost, and which might be, therefore, so soon lost again! God never simply restores: He replaces the first with what is different from it and far better. Yet it is not the mere setting aside in judgment of man, but help, salvation for him, and “the Second Man is the Lord from heaven” (1Co 15:1-58).

With Him comes in a second -a “new creation;” a second paradise, -not the lost Eden, but the garden of God. “Behold,” says the Voice from the Throne, “I make all things new.” (Rev 21:5).

Thus He is the Seconder, -the Helper, Saviour. He has met in conflict the adversary of our souls, that He might deliver us; and for this He has come down into the lower place, far below His natural equality with the Father, -below angels; nay, below the proper estate and dignity of man himself. He has come down to the place where the division which sin has caused is found at its worst -into the place of separation from God Himself, as witness the cry from the cross, out of the darkness it interpreted: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

He has come down, too, to the place of death, the division of soul from body: “He humbled Himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the Cross.”

The number cleaves to Him in this way all through His path. No wonder; for throughout it He is the “True Witness,” testifying, amid all the contradiction that sin has brought in, to the perfection of Him to do whose will alone He came: Nay, in creation He has already been. that, -the Logos, the Word of God, -the utterance and revelation of His mind. No wonder then, that creation should bear witness of Him, as it truly does.

No wonder, either, that, being this, after His work accomplished, He should be the appointed judge of all, the Divider to every man. according to the difference found in each, the “quick and dead” alike.

Examine this throughout, and see if the “exact sciences” have no Gospel in them. Who has had power over nature, to place it there? Who has graven upon the current money of the realm of thought the sacred figure of the thorn-crowned King?

Three.

What then of the number 3? Does it too change the manner of speech, and yet continue the story to which thus far we have been listening? In one respect, the help to interpretation that we have been finding hitherto fails with the third numeral. We have no record in language of any significance attaching to the third numeral. Even this lack may, however, itself have significance; and we may note it and store it up for such use as every natural fact should have, if one supreme Mind produced and rules in nature. Meanwhile there must be surely some other way of arriving at the end desired. If a worker may be known by his work, is there no work accomplished by this numeral, which will give it character? This question must, we think, be answered affirmatively; such work there is; and the more we examine it, the more, perhaps, we shall be impressed with the value of its testimony.

Some have speculated upon the possibility of a fourth dimension. But, according to the witness of all around us there are but three, -length, breadth and thickness: three modes of extension which alone are actually existent in the world, and which, it would seem, are alone possible to thought either. Moreover, to have any solid, tangible reality whatever, we must have this third dimension. What are length and breadth without thickness? A pencil line drawn upon paper is really more than that. Thus the number 3 attached to any other number denotes the cube of it. It is the sign of cubic -that is, solid -measure; and the third measurement is the measure of content.

Three, then, so taken, is ideally the great producer, the materializer, that which converts the idea into reality; thus manifests it, reveals it, brings out what it is. The architect’s plan is practically in two dimensions: it cannot be carried out except the third comes in to help.

Let us keep this in mind, and still pursue the inquiry. Two dimensions cannot give solidity: correspondingly, two straight lines cannot enclose a space. That is one of the things which reason, transcending experience, affirms as an absolute, universal truth. I have not compared all possible two lines when I declare this, nor do I need to do so. It is one of those judgments which reveal the native power of the mind.

Two straight lines cannot enclose a space. They cannot therefore in this sense effect a proper separation. Two, as we have seen, is the number of division; but we are not thinking of mere division now, but of separation as enclosure, -setting apart. As if, for instance, I had a field to cultivate, and for which my hedge must go all round.

Connect this thought with that of the third dimension. The moment you get this, a thought -as the architect’s plan -becomes a realization, and, embodying itself in space, separates itself from what is round about it. It is not a destructive separation, but a constructive one, and in the interests of what is positive gain and fruit.

Yet there may be implied, as in a hedge around a field, a previous or an outside evil from which the hedge is to separate; but if the field is to grow nothing, the hedge has no significance: it separates to, not simply from, -sets apart. Here, for the present, then, we may pause; we have got a distinct, workable idea of the number; let us consider the application.

For the Christian and in Scripture, the Holy Spirit is, as we know, the third Person of the Trinity. Apart from Him, we could not, of course, speak of a Trinity at all. With Him the Godhead is manifest: too obvious and easy a thought, perhaps, to impress us much with its significance.

But the Holy Spirit is also the Revealer. In another sense from that in which Christ is the Witness of God, the Holy Spirit is the witness. He is the Inditer of Scripture, through men inspired of Him -the Relator, as Christ is in Person and Work the substance of the relation. The Spirit is the productive witness, as in creation, brooding upon the face of the deep, or, garnishing the heavens.

But He is the Producer in another way. Apart from Him, salvation itself is not actualized in the soul. New birth is of the Spirit; and “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” With new birth sanctification begins in the soul; and as in the number of which we have been speaking, production and, setting apart are found together: the separation is from evil to bring forth fruit to God. As saith the Bridegroom of the Song of Songs: “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse.” And the heart of the spouse answers: “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.”

So, once more, the figure is on the coin: the full, glorious image now. But the office of the Spirit may explain to us, what a little while since was left aside for consideration. As the worker in men it will be found that His Personality, though revealed distinctly enough in the word of God, is yet characteristically much hidden in His work. He is no mere “influence,” far from it. He can be grieved and vexed, searches and knows, sends and is sent, divides unto men severally as He will, guides into truth, makes intercession. Yet, while this is true, wherever pictures, types, parables of the Spirit, He is presented rather in His work, or as identified with those in whom His work is.

Take an illustration from the book of Exodus: God speaks of Himself to Moses as identifying Himself with three men, who are thus in some way the display of what He is. “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob:” this He declares to be His memorial Name (Exo 3:15). Now, looking back to Moriah, the mount of sacrifice, we can see in Abraham’s offering of Isaac no obscure picture of the Father and the Son (Gen 22:1-24.) But where is the Spirit seen in Jacob? Why, in that divine work which makes out of the “supplanter” an Israel, a “prince with God.”

Take an example from the New Testament. In the 15th of Luke, where the Lord shows us the heart of God told out in the recovery of the lost, the Father comes into plain sight in the last parable; in the first, the Shepherd’s search after the sheep shows quite plainly too the Saviour-Son. But in the woman seeking the lost piece of silver, the Spirit can be only seen, not personally, but in the Church, commonly figured in that way.

Once indeed, when the Spirit is seen in a bodily shape as a dove, at the baptism of Jesus, we have a partial exception; partial, as it seems, because the bird of love and sorrow is, as one of the sacrificial birds, rather the figure of the Man of sorrows, upon whom it descends.

Again, where the Lord seems to be making the strictest comparison, and where the word He uses is actually that used for the Spirit also, -“the wind (pneuma) bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth,” -not only is the figure that of invisibility, and it is known by its effect, but the Lord adds, not as you would expect, “so is the Spirit,” but “so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (Joh 3:8).

No more need be said in this respect but, looking back now at this third numeral, to note again, that we had to find its character not in itself but in its effects, how complete once more is the parallel. The very anomaly, as it might seem, is really what makes more striking the analogy. The type is perfect.

The Three One.

Not that we have yet done with it, however. We have found, distinctly enough, in this nature-witness, the three Persons of the Godhead have we no intimation that these three Persons are One God? Is it too much to expect, when we have found so much, still to find more? Well, let us put the question: how many answers may we not miss -answers of precious import too, -just because we do not put the question!

We must now then look at these three numbers as a whole, and test them by their common significance: if we find this, we must further ask, do these common elements point in the direction of our search? is their message really this, that these three Persons are One God?

Now there is one very evident feature in which these three numbers are united: they are all prime numbers. That means, as we know, that they are incapable of true division. But we could not go a single step beyond and find this. The number 4 splits at once into two halves, when tested by that divisive number two, which in that way so strongly suggests evil. Four is thus in Scripture the number of weakness and tendency to failure, -thus of the creature and, divided by this number, it yields again the fatal number of division and of death.

But the three numbers preceding maintain their integrity, and thus equally and together bear the stamp of the divine. But this is only a first step in the direction we are taking.

Let us now, as we are surely by this time warranted in doing, take, up Scripture as a means of inquiry, and compare it with what we have already ascertained. Scripture uses with full confidence these natural analogies, and thus frankly and fully commits itself to nature, -has no suspicion or jealousy of it at all. The apostle’s saying, which he gives as the “message” of One much greater, is an illustration of this, “God is light” is a direct comparison of Him to that which still in its inmost being is a mystery, though men. may have their theories about it. As a phenomenon it is a very complex one. Still, it is plain that the beam of light, as refracted in its spectral image, shows not merely a seven-fold glory of harmonious colour, but is a

trinity of radiant energy, disclosing itself as heat, light, and chemical power, which is now called “actinism.” In the spectrum, the central light-rays blend at one end with the heat, at the other with the actinic rays, only the central band of colors, standing between the others, being, of course, the visible light. The analogy is so far obvious, though it is one which the science of the apostle might well be incapable of making. Christ, Himself the witnessing “Light,” brings the message to us that God is this: Father and Spirit being alike unseen of man. The warming, vivifying rays, which the manifest light carries with it, are no unapt symbol of the Father. The unseen, actinic rays, with their transforming power, are the no less apt symbol of the Spirit’s energy. The sun, with his luminous photosphere, -the light on a material candlestick, -is again He in whom “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9), “and who is the effulgence of [the Father’s] glory” (Heb 1:3). Christ as God and man alike, “the Sun of Righteousness” yet to “arise with healing in His wings” (Mal 4:2), and bring the day. The harmony of Nature and Scripture is here maintained throughout and even the numerical progression is in harmony also.

But let us follow this leading also further. “Light” is “that which makes manifest” (Eph 5:13). The fantasies begotten of obscurity are dispelled by it, and the truth becomes apparent. Truth is the accordance of the idea with the fact and this unity or identity comes under the range of the first number, even as in the Genesis-record of creation the light appears on the first day. God as One in His moral nature is the True, -consistent with Himself, and with the reality of things everywhere.

But Christ also is the Light, and the Radiator of the light, the True Witness, bringing into the soul the valid evidence of the truth. As God and Man, He is the two-fold Witness, entirely competent as such, true and trustworthy. Who could believe in the light, and yet not accept the Sun?

But again, the Spirit as the Sanctifier, the Worker of reality, the Actualizer of the divine idea in man; is no less the True and the scriptural phrase for holiness agrees with this: it is the taking things as they are, accepting things at their real value. It is “the holiness of truth” (Eph 4:24, R.V. ) and the Spirit is truth” (1Jn 5:6).

Once more, the numbers agree: the three are one in the self-same respect as the Scripture testifies as to the Persons of the Godhead. The three are a tri-unity, a trinity, even as the God of the Scriptures is a Triune God.

But there is another thing beside Light, that the same apostle bears witness that God is: “God is Love” (1Jn 4:8) and this too will be most manifest in Him who is God manifest, and who is God’s love-gift to mankind. But this is found in all three Persons, and must be capable of deduction under all three numbers, if there is to be no defect in this natural presentation of things. This is what we seek, the testimony of nature as parallel with Scripture, and which all that we have found hitherto encourages us to expect.

Now, under the first number, we got the idea of consistency, harmony, accord. The number one, we have seen never to divide. This “atoneness” is assuredly the atmosphere of love: “love worketh no ill to his neighbor” (Rom 13:10). This may be a negative, rather than a positive character still it is a character of that which we are seeking. As we do not come under this number to the breach caused by evil, so we have not yet the activity of love to heal the breach. The preservative spirit of concord, therefore, is as yet all that one can expect.

Under the second number, evil is seen as having come in, and divine love in its fullness is revealed. “Hereby know we love, because He laid down His life for us” (1Jn 3:16, Gk.). God and man are brought together in the very Person of the Mediator and in His work for men, love stays at nothing whereby the end may be attained. The spirit of concord is here become the spirit of reconciliation: the Witness to God is the Saviour of men.

Under the third number, the work of the Spirit of God is the carrying out and making effectual the work of Christ in man’s behalf. The soul of man becomes the garden of God, and receives the nurture necessary for the production of the fruit in which He takes pleasure. In him that keepeth His word is the love of God perfected (1Jn 4:6).

Here then, with whatever imperfection told, is the first leaf only of that gospel of which we may be sure, if this be the beginning, the natural sciences must have much to say. The effort of the day is largely to force them into indifference, if not hostility to divine truth. Nature is neither hostile nor indifferent. And that numerical structure which we find in chemistry undeniably impressed upon the foundations of the world, but which as truly exists in nature and in Scripture everywhere, is, I believe, a God-given key to the correspondence of one with the other -a most signal help to the consistent interpretation of both. Mere utilitarianism, though quite unworthy of the name, may despise what it would consider the mysticism of all this. Harness nature to the machinery by which man’s work is to be done, that it can understand. Nay, “speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee,” -that will be approved, so long as the lessons gathered are to be merely earthy, and plenty of room is allowed for man’s imagination to roam free from the control of God. You may speculate, as you please, upon elemental fogs as the cause of the sadness of a man of science, and even so your sanity shall not be questioned: for the imagination, even though it be but the whirl of the livelier brain-particles, still must be admitted to belong to man. But gravely to make nature talk in parables, -seriously to believe that they are there, -to credit God with sending messages to us by such a channel, -this will be for many too preposterous even for examination. Here induction, deduction, argument of every kind will perhaps be vain: the prophets of such things must be held for an anachronism. They should have lived when the world was in its credulous youth.

This is not the age of gold but the age of iron, and we are rightly doubtful about that age of gold.

And yet, if even a time of universal scepticism were upon us, it should be lawful, one would think, to doubt the doubt. The perplexity and unrest, the sorrow and strife, with which the world is filled, are certain: there was One who dared to say once, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” It would be good if one could believe in God speaking to us in a voice like that! It would be good to believe even that Nature were His other hand put round us, clasping the hand of revelation, in His earnest desire to draw us to Himself. The belief that such is the fact is perhaps apology enough for speaking.

Appendix 2.

A Study of the Numerical Symbolism of Scripture

There is, I suppose, no student of Scripture who has not caught sight, to a greater or less extent, of a symbolism of numbers to be found in it. He who has implicit faith in “all Scripture” being given by inspiration of God will not doubt that the numbers in it, being part of it and sharing its inspiration, must therefore be “profitable,” as all else in it; and spiritually, which is the profitableness which God has given it for us. But a spiritual meaning attaching to the use of numbers can hardly be other than a symbolic one; falling in thus with the general typical and parabolic language of the Bible, which evidently pervades so much of it. Take the sevens of the book of Revelation generally , or the twelves of the heavenly city, no one could, probably doubt it; but upon all this I need not now dwell, the whole present volume with others of the series being such an extended proof of consistent meaning running through the numbers of Scripture, and imbedded in the very structure of it as, if it does not satisfy any one who will patiently examine it, as to its truth in the main, nothing else that I can say will be likely to do so.

I say “its truth in the main,” because it would be a very strange presumption to suppose that there were no blots or disfigurements such as are apt every where to affect all human work, and especially where it is employed upon that which is best and highest. Any one who would take such signs of human infirmity to invalidate the whole of that with which they are connected will have in consistency to reject almost all that man has ever put his hand to. And yet such arguments prevail with many, if not to disprove, at least to cast such doubt upon what is presented to them, as to prevent all real examination of the matter. The thing is shelved: if, with Gamaliel, they will not fight against it, lest haply they should be found to strive against God, like him too, they will leave it to prove this by its success elsewhere, and not trouble themselves in the meanwhile overmuch about it.

To those who are disposed to settle the matter by minute criticism of the kind referred to, I would suggest a consideration of the very opposite kind, an argument drawn not from particulars, but from a general view of the subject, and which ought to stand the more securely because of the breadth of its foundation. In the present volume the material of such foundation is gathered out of the whole book of Psalms. every psalm, every verse of every psalm, is cited in evidence and that not in any disorderly manner, or with any fancifully devised arrangement of the proof, but taken from first to last in the very order of Scripture, and with jealous respect to every hint that can be gathered from any source, as title or alphabetic arrangement, or aught else. All this, remember, is taken together in the whole and in every part of it, not merely to prove a numerical structure of the book, which would be comparatively a small thing, but through this to show the meaning of the whole and of every part of it. Every division, subdivision, section, verse, must more or less contribute to this end. The numerical harmony must be the key to a spiritual harmony which emphasizes everywhere the distinctive features of each part in such a way as to combine them into an intelligible and intelligent whole. If this can be done, -if it has been with any success accomplished, -who can even imagine it to be a mere flight of fancy, working in obedience to a strong will to have it so, that has accomplished this?

If, on the other hand, there be no way of accounting for this, except by there being somewhere a Mind behind it, which has arranged these marvellous harmonies, then assuredly the book in which they are found is a book which has upon it the seal of its inspiration, not only as a whole but in its details, in such a manner as to bid defiance to all the higher criticism of the day to remove it from it. And this alone would make it of inestimable value to every truth-seeking mind: But not merely this: the seal is set at the same time upon the interpretation of the book. Granting, of course, that there may be mistakes shown here and there, as is fully admitted, yet, the main features cannot be a mistake and even the details cannot be to any large extent: they are the artist’s strokes which combine to make the picture and the truthfulness of the picture as a whole insures the general truthfulness of color and shade.

However, my purpose now is to take up the numbers, and to inquire more fully than I have yet done into their symbolic meanings. These are the keys to the locks, for they are not one but various: and it will be understood that they need to be carefully modeled to the wards that are to receive them, if they are to turn without being forced. Much difficulty has arisen from lack of precision as to these meanings, while the positively contradictory ones advocated by different writers have been a stumbling-block with many as to any faith in them at all. I do not propose, however, to examine these differences, but to give the grounds only for those which satisfy myself, and which have abundantly proved themselves in experimental application. It will be found also that these meanings have their roots in nature as well as in Scripture, and are thus counter-checked on either side while the numbers themselves are not indefinite, but few in number the larger ones being but resultants of their factors, as 10, is 5 X 2, or of the addition of certain others together, according to warrant in Scripture itself as 7 is 4 + 3 and 5, as will be shown hereafter, is 4+1. Plainly, without some Scriptural or natural warrant, the latter method would be quite unjustifiable, as any numbers might be arbitrarily taken in this way, and entire uncertainty of all meaning be the result.

The series of numbers which we may consider fundamental is, I believe, but seven: answering to the seven notes in music, which by their combinations produce all the various melody and harmony with which we are acquainted. Seven is the well-known number of perfection, which, taken from the completion of God’s six days’ work with the Sabbath of His approving rest, has been used for the division of time ever since, and in Israel was the basis of most of the larger divisions, except the year itself. Thus the months were lunar, (except the partial one intercalated to keep the year straight,) and the 7th month specially marked out by the day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles (Israel’s celebration of rest); while there was a sabbatic year as well as day, and a jubilee at the end of a week of sabbatic years -a still more joyous rest.

Consistently with this, the number 8 speaks always in Scripture of a new beginning -what is new in contrast with the old. But this I shall give proof of later, and it is largely accepted in this way. It needs only to be mentioned here to give definiteness to the assurance that in Scripture the numerical series is in fact of seven numbers only. All others seem to be but compounds of these.

Let us now take up the numbers separately.

One.

The number speaks for itself of the ideas connected with it. They are rooted in all language, so that it cannot be hard to test the applicability of any that we attribute to it. Yet it is naturally one of the fullest in meaning in the whole series, and it will be seen how various are the applications that can be made of a few primary thoughts here: a thing of essential importance to any numerical structure, as every series of numbers must of course, begin with this, which must have, therefore, a largeness suited to such various connection. After the first two numbers we shall find this rapidly diminishing in proportion to their less constant use.

We may for lucidity divide the meanings of the number into subheads under which to group its different applications.

1. Soleness.

Soleness is the exclusion of another: as where Zechariah says of the day of the Kingdom soon to come: “In that day there shall be one Lord, and His Name one.”

Under this head we may group also

Singularity, uniqueness;

Solitariness; which leads on to

Barrenness; the solitude of impotence.

In the opposite direction to this, however, soleness may imply

Sufficiency, power; that which stands alone must have power to stand alone; thus

Independency; admitting no other; which in a bad sense may be a mere synonym for

Pride; and in a creature in his relation to the Creator

Rebellion.

But soleness may have also another set of meanings, as where I have to pronounce what are apparently two things to be but one, I affirm their

Unchangeableness, consistency, perpetuity, are but identity in progressive time; and again

Truth is the identity of an idea with fact or object; as

Knowledge is but the identification of these.

2. Unity.

Unity we may distinguish as the oneness which proceeds from the uniting of different elements, whether these be physical, mental, moral or spiritual. One cannot divide. Thus we have

At-oneness, harmony, consistency, congruity, integrity, righteousness, which is consistency with relationship, and of which obedience to authority is only one form; concord, peace.

We may pass on now to thoughts which are connected with the ordinal form of the number, which here have special importance, as

3. Primacy.

The first natural suggestion is that of

Supremacy, headship, rule;

Beginning; and putting these things together, the supreme, the absolute beginning is the controlling cause of all that exists beside (see Appendix I). We may put down therefore

Cause, source, occasion (which is a lesser cause); and then -foundation, ground, (and so) plea.

Of course, it will be understood that not all these thoughts are synonymous with soleness, unity, primacy,

as contained in this first number. But these three ideas naturally lead to them all, suggest them. A symbol is just that which in this way suggests what it does not explicitly convey. A cock crowing is not the symbol of a cock at all; but it may be a symbol of the dawn. The numbers come far closer than this to what they stand for. Their meanings have, as stated, their roots in nature, and have all been worked out in this very way. Thus when we find such things as these characterizing the first psalm of a series, or the first section of a psalm, or the first verse of a section, there can be no doubt that this fulfills the requirement of a numerical structure; nor, when we find such conformity continually maintained, that a numerical structure is in fact what we have before us.

But yet this does not complete entirely the range of thought which may be found under this number; as it is evident that there may be combinations of these thoughts which may equally find place under it. Thus

Life is the great organizer, or cause of the unity which is every where found in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; while

Personality is the proper unity of man as a spiritual being. Then

Will is allowed to be that which gives us our original conception of cause, and is plainly the assertion of personal independence. Thus we reach

Choice, Election. Then again,

Grace is a state of favor (at-oneness) with God freely (i.e., sovereignly) conferred.

It is remarkable how the greater part by far of all these thoughts unite together to image God as the sole personal First Cause and Ruler of all, omniscient, almighty, unchangeable, eternal, righteous and yet gracious; God of the Old Testament and of the New, -Jehovah, Father. And this tends greatly to confirm the naturalness of this grouping as designed of God. Gathered together entirely without thought of this, we find that we have gathered a group of special witnesses, all giving testimony in one direction, and uniting to put God in the first place, which is always His! If we think yet that this is chance, what can we think when we find the second number as much bearing witness to the Second Person of the Godhead as the first to the First Aye, and again the third to the Third? If this looks like arrangement, who has arranged it? If it be chance, does it not seem as if chance itself had become a worshiper of God? Let us worship Him in it then, too.

But this has been already taken up at more length (Appendix 1). We must now go on to consider the number

Two.

If One points to the exclusion of difference, difference is the very thing which Two proclaims. This note of difference runs through all its meanings. We will group them, as in the former case, under sub-heads for better distinction.

1. Relation.

With the thought of “another” there comes in necessarily that of relation. A second, if only as that, must have some relation to the first, If it be a true second, as we say, then it is a relation of

Help, support, confirmation, assurance; and thus it is in Scripture the number of

Competent testimony. We have this idea expressed in our word “seconding,” and in Scripture in Ecc 4:9-12. Already this supposes need and something adverse, and thus we are naturally led to the thought of

Preservation, deliverance, salvation.

Another thought naturally contained in it is that of

Service, ministry.

Then we have, as still connected, but in a more external way,

Addition, increase, growth; and these lead on to

Progress, movement, activity.

Spiritually, attachment is almost synonymous with love, near akin to which we have desire, the expression of which, to one thought able to grant it, is in prayer.

Attachment, too, may be otherwise read as association, partnership, fellowship.

In its ordinal form as

2. Second.

The number is clearly expressive of

Dependence, which leads naturally on to faith, which is dependent attachment. But otherwise it may be read in the sense of inferiority; and so lowliness, humiliation, subjection may be associated with it as ideas.

As the number which expresses

3. Difference.

It is very apt to connect itself with the thought of evil, whether moral or physical. Running through the grades of

Diversity and contrast, it goes on to

Contradiction, opposition, conflict, to enmity, and the enemy’s work.

And evil comes out again, unmistakably, in the thought of

Doublemindedness, duplicity, deceit.

It is also the first number which divides, and so stands for

4. Division.

Which we may have as

Separation. Here it may be related to knowledge as analysis, differentiation; discernment; and so judgment, wisdom; in an external manner, sight.

But death also is separation, dissolution.

Combining such thoughts as these, we shall easily find, as already said, how they cluster round the Person and work of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, God and yet Man, the Second Man, the Word of God, the true Witness, the Saviour, come down into the inferior place, to be the Minister and Servant of our need, serving even to death for this, and that death the death of the Cross. All through, the number two links itself with this, which covers, it is plain, both His Person and His glorious work. How unlike are all these things to what we had under the first number! what contrasts are contained in them! But it is the number of contrast, and all speak of Him. Let the reader pause again and consider here how the Lord the True Witness, puts His seal on the numerical system in all this. There is nothing in it that is recondite or hard to follow, surely; nothing that is forced or unnatural. If it speak, and speak truly, after such a fashion as this, how much may we expect from the use which the Spirit of God has made of it.

Two is also, as I take it, the number of the soul, the emotional part of man’s nature, as the spirit is the mental and moral. This I have elsewhere spoken of,* and it does not seem so much to concern us here.

{*”Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” pp. 103, 109-113.}

It is also the number of the woman, full of contrasts, as she is: dependent on man, but his help-meet, the type of increase, yet through whom came sin and death, and yet again, through her victorious “Seed,” salvation.

Three.

When we come to the number three, the help of language fails, for man has penetrated indeed but a little way into the divine mysteries of the book of Nature. We have no words that express the inner meaning of this number, as “unity” and “seconding” speak for the former ones. Nevertheless we are not left without efficient help for ascertaining this.

Three, the number of the Spirit, is revealed to us, like the Spirit Himself, by the work it does. The Lord shows himself to us in it, not merely as Master of arithmetic, but as the One to whom geometry bears equal witness. There seem to be just three things which mark respectively three groups of meanings. The first is that there are three dimensions to every solid body; the second, that it takes three straight lines to enclose a space; the third, that the third line of a triangle returns to the first. Let us look at them in this order.

1.

According to the first of these, three is the symbol of cubic -that is, of solid measure; of solidity. Two dimensions give you a measure of surface only, length and breadth without thickness: but there is no such thing in fact: the thinnest line that you can draw upon paper is more than that.

Three is thus the symbol of reality, realization; of fulfillment, fullness, of manifestation, as the statue or the house manifests what is in the maker’s mind, -the telling out of the heart. Cubic measure is a measure not of surface, but of content.

As the place of divine manifestation, the sanctuary, God’s dwelling-place, was a cube -of ten cubits in the tabernacle, twenty in the temple. So is the final city, which the glory of God lightens: “the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.”

The glory of God is but the manifestation of Himself; and “whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me,” says the Lord Himself (Psa 50:23): displays Him in His rightful character, as the “blessed God.” To know Him really is to bless Him. Praise is thus the occupation of the sanctuary; not otherwise than freely, while and because necessarily.

God’s name, too, is the manifestation of Himself.

The Trinity is alone His full manifestation. The Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, is He who manifests in the creature the counsels of God, whether in creation or in new creation.

2.

It is remarkable how the meanings under the second head run into the first, though reached in such a different manner. Here, if three straight lines enclose a space, the number will speak of separation from what surrounds, but not (as the last number,) of simple division. Like the enclosure of a field, it speaks of setting apart for purpose, specialization, which, if we apply it Godward, we know as sanctification, and in the spiritual result to be attained, as holiness. For, uniting the present with the former line of thought, let us remember that cubic measure is a measure of content and speaks of what is internal, as the Spirit’s work is. Specialization means here therefore transformation, as in some sort it generally does: sanctification of heart is holiness. Thus we are reaching the sanctuary from another side, and have the symbolism of the number doubly witnessed to. Both sides are needed: for the manifestation of things, which only the presence of God rightly gives, realizes the “truth,” the maintenance of which in its full character is holiness -the “holiness of truth” (Eph 4:24).

The sanctuary is God’s dwelling-place; but as speaking of setting apart, the number is competent to symbolize the dwelling place in general, possession, portion; what is set apart to you. And so also of marriage, which is essentially the same idea.

The ban, too, we must remember, was in Israel the setting apart of holiness, though in destruction, -the sanctification of God in judgment; and we find this, therefore, sometimes under the same number that speaks of the glory and praise of God.

3

The third head is that which most evidently furnishes us with the symbol of resurrection, -the return of the third line of a triangle to the first. Here it is most striking that “life” comes under the first number, “death” under the second, just as the first two sides separate from one another. In the third line then, symbolically, death returns to life: we have resurrection. We see why in Scripture it is on the third day.

Return, remembrance, recovery, revival of every kind would be symbolized by it, of course, as fitly. One would suppose, reproduction.

And the triangle becomes as a whole a sort of mathematical trinity: the witness of how divine truth underlies every where the Kosmos -the ordered world.

That the Spirit of God, the Third Person of the Trinity, is borne witness to also in this number, there is no need to cite more than this in proof. But I may add that it is by the indwelling of the Spirit that our bodies are made the temples of the Holy Ghost, and the Church as a whole the “habitation of God.”

Four.

That the first three numbers have this definite reference to the Persons of the Godhead, they being also all prime numbers, may prepare us to find in the following one the number of the creature, as in some sense it is generally, perhaps, taken to be. Its character is seen in this, that it is the first number that is not a prime: that is, it is the first number that is capable of division without remainder by some other than itself. Thus it speaks emphatically of weakness, which does not belong to God but to the creature in contrast with Him: of that which yields itself to be fashioned by the divine hand, and may yield itself, alas, to another. This yieldingness gives, I believe, the real significance of its symbolism whether good or evil.

In Scripture 4 divides thus in two ways either as 3+1, the number of manifestation and that of divine sovereignty (and this is the good sense, when the creature reveals the divine hand that is over it) or else by true division, 2X2, which seems to be invariably significant of evil.

Yieldingness may be on the part of man meekness or mercy; and the latter even on God’s part.

It may be failure under testing, of which last also the number is clearly competent to remind us. But failure is the sign also of transitoriness and change; and testing, the putting to proof, leads to experience, experimental knowledge.

These various thoughts with which 4 connects show it to be the world-number: and in Scripture it is that of the “four corners of the earth,” of earthly completeness and universality, which thus has on it the stamp of weakness, whatever men may boast. It is the number of the “four winds of heaven” -the various and opposing influences of which the earth is the scene, and which so depict the moral contrasts and opposition which mark the fallen creature’s ways. These ways of the creature are but the practical walk on earth; which typically the fourth book of Scripture (Numbers) presents as to the people of God.

The connection with the number 2, of which it is the square, is seen all through, while yet it is sufficiently distinct from it.

Five.

In the cleansing of the leper and the consecration of the priest alike, the blood is put upon three parts of man: the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, the great toe of the right foot; and these three parts manifest man in his responsibility to God. The ear is to receive His word; the hand to do the enjoined work; the foot to walk in His ways. Each of these parts is connected with the number 5.

The ear is one of five senses, the avenues of perception, by which as a rational being he can be appealed to.

The hand is that by means of which he moulds and fashions the natural world around him. It is the expression of active power, the four fingers with the opposing thumb, the consecrated, because the governing part. These on the two hands give ten, the number of the commandments in the two tables of the law, the measure of natural responsibility.

The foot, the expression of personal conduct (the walk) gives a similar division, much less marked, however, and the two feet a similar ten. Five stands thus as the number of man, exercised and responsible under the government of God.

Notice how carefully man’s power is characterized as creature, dependent power. His hand is the sign of it as the vicegerent of God in the world: no beast has, in any proper sense, a hand. Yet the power is in no way like divine power, -simple and without effort, but a co-operation of forces, in which (as he recognizes) “union is strength;” the four fingers, every way significant of weakness, helped by the strong, opposing thumb; the two hands also assisting one another.

In perfect agreement with this, the Scripture commonly gives us 5 as 4+1, that is, man the creature in connection with God, his Ruler yet his Helper. Here the divine ways give him constant and needed exercise; and 5 will be found often associated with this thought of exercise under responsibility; and also with the kindred one, that man’s way (4) under the control of God (1), according to its character leads to a corresponding end.

Capacity, as identified with responsibility, and leading thus to recompense are thus symbolized by the number 5: this as God’s governmental way, implying necessarily conditions.

But man may be in relation to God other than governmental; and we shall find it not infrequently spelling for us the blessed word “Immanuel,” and pointing us directly once again to Christ.

It is plainly seen in all this how the significance of the lower numbers enters into the higher; and when we rise to

Ten.

We have only, so far as I can see, a 5 X 2, while

Forty.

The number of probation, is only 4X10, or 4 X (5 X 2).

Six.

Six is the second number capable of true division. Divided, its factors are 2 and 3, which easily yield the thought of the manifestation (or fullness) of evil, or of the enemy’s work. But evil is weakness, as again this divisibility teaches; and as such it must yield to God. Read in a good sense, the number of conflict (2) brings forth from it sanctification and the glory of God (3).

It is the number of man’s work-day week, the appointed time of labor for him, type of his life labor, his “few and evil” days, limited because of sin. It thus speaks plainly of limit, and of a limit which is God’s discipline, because of sin, -His curb and victory over it. It speaks thus of mastery, overcoming.

In the “number of the beast” (666) we find it in three successively higher powers, -evil in fullest activity, yet its feebleness ever apparent, and God’s hand controlling it: it increases only responsibility and judgment. It is but “the number of a man,” vainly and impiously aspiring to be as God.

In the tenth Psalm is the description of this “wicked one” (vers. 2-11). It is, conjointly with the preceding one, an alphabetic psalm, from which in this place exactly six letters (Mem to Tzaddi) are dropped out.

Goliath’s height is 6 cubits; a giant of his race has six fingers and six toes.

Nebuchadnezzar’s idolatrous image is 60 cubits high and 6 broad.

One sixth of Gog’s host is spared (Eze 39:2.) That is, 6 parts are the spiritual measure of the host, of which God spares one in divine sovereignty.

Lastly, the darkness at the cross began at the sixth hour, and ended at the ninth (3X3) -God now fully displayed.

Seven and Twelve.

I put these numbers together because they are in some respects so much alike, and because in comparing them the character of each comes out the better.

Seven is well-known as the number of perfection and so of rest. But it may be applied to evil, and simply show “completeness” of any kind.

Twelve is in Scripture as commonly divided into 4X3 as seven is into 4+3. The factors are the same; but, whereas in the one case they are added, in the other they are multiplied. Seven and twelve should be, in some way therefore, allied in meaning. It is only in the relation of its factors that twelve differs from seven:* the number of the world and of divine manifestation characterize it; but these are not (as in 7) merely side by side. It is God manifesting Himself in relation to the world of His creation, as seven is, but now in active energy laying hold of and transforming it. Thus twelve is the number of manifest sovereignty as it was exercised in Israel, for instance, by the Lord in the midst of them, or as it will be exercised in the world to come.

{*”Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” pp. 74, 75. The application of numbers to the interpretation of nature I have sought to give in the book quoted here.}

“Turn now to the complete rest of the people of God -to the New Jerusalem, which has the glory of God, whose light God is, and the Lamb the lamp of it, to which the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple. Here perfection and rest are found, if anywhere, the thought connected, as abundantly plain, with seven: yet what do we find? Look at the foundations of the city: they are twelve in number. Look at the gates: there are twelve gates. Measure the city: its length, breadth and height are equal -twelve thousand furlongs each. Measure the height of the wall, 144 cubits, -12 X12. Behold the tree of life planted by the river that issues from the throne of God: it bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields its fruit every month, -twelve times a year. Everywhere this number twelve meets us where we would expect to find the seven. It has the factors of seven; it is, as it were, the expansion of seven; and the spiritual idea that shines through it, that God is everywhere the manifest Ruler, what does it speak of to our hearts but that complete subjection to Him, which is indeed the perfection of the creature and its rest?”

The regular numerical series is here complete; the next number to seven,

Eight

simply showing that it is complete by indicating a new beginning, as the eighth day is the first of a new week. It thus speaks of what is new in contrast with the old, as the new covenant or the new creation. It will be noticed that this is closely akin to the meaning of two, and that eight is but the cube of two.

There is no difficulty with the number wherever we find it, except only that we must remember that here also the significance may be evil as well as good; and also that the overpassing of the week of time brings us to the commencement of eternity. Eight has not infrequently such a thought in it.

Appendix 3.

The Numerals in Relation to the Six Days’ Work

In its relation to nature the symbolism of numbers is a matter of the deepest interest. If it has, as we have seen, its roots in nature, and at the very basis of all arithmetic there is such a testimony to Christ as, I may venture to say, has been proved to exist, then it is hardly possible to believe that it ends with this, or that this is other than just a beginning of what must extend indefinitely throughout nature. Moreover to pursue such an investigation need not be alarming to those who most fear imagination. A bubble is not capable of being stretched very far, as every body knows; and the attempt to stretch it most surely ends in revealing its nature. The safe-guard as to imagination is to test it in every direction, and there is no test more severe than a mathematical one.

I propose, then, briefly to take up the six days’ work as given in the first chapter of Genesis, to test the numerical structure more closely than has been done hitherto, with regard to the natural facts themselves. This has, as may be easily realized, its peculiar difficulties, -most of all, perhaps, in this, that the symbolism of the numbers gives us rather a moral than a physical vocabulary by which to interpret. I have been content therefore generally hitherto to apply it to the typical meaning which in all the six days’ work is double, and affords a secure enough basis for application, especially as a concurrent natural one more or less appears.

But there is another thing to be taken into account also, as yet has not been done. The days being expressly announced in order from the first to the seventh, these numbers must of course, remain for interpretation, as I have elsewhere used them. But besides this, it has been very generally noticed that the six days run into two parallel divisions, according both to subject and mode of arrangement: thus

1st day -Light. (1) 4th day -Lights.

2nd day -Waters dividing (2) 5th day -Waters producing.

3rd day -Dry Land and vegetation. (3) 6th day -Dry land producing, and man.

Here is an evident parallelism which must divide the 6 days into two parts, and give to the second part a second series of numbers also, as I have indicated. Both must find their place in the interpretation.

Dana in his well-known “Geology” remarks

“In this succession we observe not merely an order of events, like that deduced from science; there is system in the arrangement, and a far-reaching prophecy, to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.

“The account recognizes in creation two great eras, each of three days, -an Inorganic and an Organic.

“The last day of each era, included one work typical of the era, and another related to it in essential points, but also prophetic of the future. Vegetation, while for physical reasons a part of the creation of the third day, was also prophetic of the future organic era in which the progress of life was the grand characteristic. The record thus agrees with the fundamental principle in history, that the character of an age has its beginnings within the age preceding. So again, Man, while like other Mammals in structure, . . . was endowed with a spiritual nature, which looked forward to another era, that of spiritual existence.”

Thus we have three great divisions, -including the Sabbath as a third: let us characterize them each numerically:

1. (Gen 1:1-13): The reign of the inorganic.

I do not say more than the reign, because of that with which it closes, the introduction of vegetable life. But how does the inorganic bear its numerical stamp? Plainly, because it is of simple, uniform constitution, not differentiated into organs. Thus Dana as a physicist has characterized it by what agrees fully with the numerical division.

But the second division will not be classed numerically as the “reign of the organic;” and this certainly would not characterize it in any proper way. “The progress of life” says Dana,” was its grand characteristic.” We can express it more fully and precisely every way, and numerically, as

2. (Gen 1:14-31): The two-fold, active life, in progress towards the discernment characterizing man.

“Two-fold” -not like the plant, but with life and soul; and thus “active” -the moving creature; this crowned finally, (not by evolution, but according to the plan and by the creative power of God,) with the “discernment” which is not the mere intuitive instinct of the beast, but the discriminating knowledge of the human spirit.

The third division, which consists of the seventh day alone, is simple:

3. (Gen 2:1-3): The Sanctification of the Sabbath of rest.

The numerical structure in each case seems to seize upon the central character, and define it sufficiently for its purpose. But let us go on now to the smaller divisions.

The account of the original creation of the heavens and earth shows itself by the structure to be but an introduction, however necessary as that, to the six days’ work. It does not belong to that work, yet cannot form a section apart, without throwing the rest of the chapter into disorder. It must come in with the first day, and there is most suited to the spiritual meaning as making the work of the first day a beginning of restoration; thus:

1. (vers. 1-5): Introduction and first day: light.

(1) Original creation.

(2) The earth as it were in dissolution: darkness upon a deep.

(3) Restoration beginning with Light.

The stamp of the God of resurrection is clearly upon this history at the beginning, and it is repeated every day in the common daily cycle as it is recorded, the “evening and the morning” being the day. Notice that the beginning of the first day is not before the light, but with it, or it could not begin with evening: for evening implies already light. But the light strangely comes only to fade and darken into night, through this to reach its morning by a new birth as it were, when (for that day, of course) the darkness is wholly past. How earnest is God to impress us with these spiritual lessons! Faith in all times has had to learn the ruin of the creature and the sole sufficiency of God; and that is what resurrection teaches. It is the end seen from the beginning: the final lesson written on the first page of the book.

We are here too much at the beginning of things to reason as to them in their physical aspect, which is what we are just now concerned with. Why light should be the first thing in physical restoration we may have no means of knowing, while the spiritual meaning is clear enough. If there is indeed that deep sympathy in the natural with the spiritual, upon which all our belief in analogy is based, then we have in this what may commend the history as true in such respect, and suggest a means of insight even into nature itself, which has had at present (as I think) no advocates. It may not the less merit consideration.

“Light,” it will be seen, comes under two Num 1:1-54; Num 3:1-51, and does not seem as if it could be spared from either. The meanings of the numbers can in fact each be given in terms of the other with reference to it: for “that which doth make manifest is light,” and it is thus a source of knowledge. This may justify its double place according to the spiritual meaning, and so justify it really; for the spiritual is that which governs everywhere in Scripture. Yet it must also be a canon of all true interpretation that no spiritual interpretation can set aside the text which it interprets, and the text here is physical. Plainly then light as making manifest would seem as yet not to be called for, when there were no eyes yet to be blessed by it, as there are not till the fifth day.

When we remember, however, that light is not merely what we call by that name, but in fact a trinity of light, heat, and actinism, or power for chemical change, for this, if we cannot trace it, we can easily infer a meaning in connection with the next step in the preparation of the earth to be the home of life, the making of the expanse or firmament.

Thus a physical meaning may well underlie the spiritual one, and light in its triune character answer to the third place in which we find it here as an active agent in the restoration just beginning.

But we must go on to the second day, in which we find the formation of the expanse by which the waters are divided. Two is the number both of progress and increase (and so of expansion), and also of division and thus the numerical stamp is fully upon the second day.

All this seems at first sight to be purely phenomenal; but, if we consider it more deeply, does it not point to some adjustment, if no more, of those laws of the expansion and diffusion of gases, which are among the most remarkable and important for the needs of every living and breathing thing? While the division of the waters is of course that which provides for the water-supply of the dry land next to come into existence. This is all obvious enough to be perhaps even common place as a suggestion; but if so, does it not show that the numerical structure, which emphasizes just such central points as these, has a real physical as well as spiritual significance?

Upon the third day, the earth is separated from the waters, and we have the beginning of organic life in the plant, the link with the next division. Both these things bear upon them very plainly the numerical stamp.

As to the earth, it is the habitable earth, man’s future dwelling-place, set apart from the waters which had ingulfed it, and thus in true resurrection. The number of its section -of the day itself -is fully set upon it.

Then as to the vegetable life, three is the number of specialization, of setting apart for specific purpose, which organization so fully exemplifies. Besides which, as I have elsewhere shown,* there are three organic kingdoms in nature, of which the vegetable stands third; man, by virtue of the spirit with which he is endowed, standing first and the animal, the mere “living soul,” the second. The vegetable occupies the third place among these as the great transformer of the inorganic into the organic; while the animal reduces again the organic to the inorganic. The vegetable is the producer, as the animal is the consumer.

{*”Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” p. 99.}

Another thing which is specially noticed in the account, and which would seem to come under this number is the phenomenon of reproduction. All living things must of course reproduce themselves, if life is to continue on the earth; for as a fact death comes in with life. Thus “its seed in itself” is characteristic.

Thus the numerical structure is justified all round: for these matters to which it directs our thoughts are not points of slight importance, but which have direct and essential relation to the account before us, which is in fact that of the preparation of the earth for man. Let this be duly weighed, and the argument for the symbolism of the numbers will be convincing.

But we have not closed the account of the third day: we have yet to consider numerically these two divisions of it as such.

The first seems to refer to the gathering together of the waters into one place, by which in fact the dry land was laid bare. It naturally raises the question whether the land was elevated, or by the opening of interior receptacles in the earth the waters were drained off: a point which it certainly is not for us to take up here. The word of the Creator seems to imply action upon the waters, rather than upon the land; but of the import of the whole question we have too little knowledge to venture anything.

As to the second, we have not the same clue in the language; but growth, which is characteristic of the living thing, comes under the number; and if the transforming power of the cell is the fundamental thing in it, there must be growth as the immediate consequence of this, and for anything beyond the mere cell-unit. The cell must be reproduced; and the addition of material is followed by division in order to effect this. If tissue is to be formed, this is done by transformation once more of the newly formed living matter into it; in which that which has begun to live gives up its life, the protoplasm or bioplasm as it has been variously called “dies into” -so Dr. Beale expresses it -the formed material of the tissue, membrane or bone or muscle.

So hard does death follow upon life! and yet so really also does it minister to it. Weighty lessons to reach so early in our Nature primer!

But notice how in “growth,” “addition,” “division,” “death,” we are taking up the ideas expressed under the number two of the subdivision; and notice that as “transformation” and “reproduction” are the inherent powers of organic life, “growth,” “division,” “death” are modes of their accomplishment. Thus the numbers appear throughout; and while that of the division gives the governing principle, the modes are given in the subdivision! Is this system or what is it? Aye, what? For the first subdivision of this third day follows the same rule: gathering of the waters into one place is just the mode by which the dry land is produced! I leave to the reader to decide what all this may mean or not mean.

But we have only reached half-way through the six days’ work, and in the second division the numerals are doubled, as we have seen. In this way they are more exacting in their requirements, but if intended as helps and verification of interpretation there must be more than compensation in the result attained. Let us go on then carefully and hopefully to consider what is still before us.

Here though life in its progress is, as we have seen, the great theme of the division, we have yet an introduction which does not take up this, though it is a preparation for it. The fourth day with its “lights” is here the analogue of the “light” of the first. These two numbers, then, 4 and 1, are what we have to consider in reference to this day.

The number 1 speaks naturally, as in the former case, of light upon the earth as the great subject: and this is plainly stated to be so: “God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.”

The number 4 is that of the earth, eminently of matter, as passive, recipient, thus would remind us of the bodies to which the light is attached, making them “luminaries.” Thus both numbers are significant and point together to what no one can fail to see to be the central feature of the fourth day.

But the number 1 is the number of rule also; and here sun. and moon are especially appointed to be respectively the rulers of the day and of the night. As the result, upon these now depend the alternations of light and of darkness, and the seasons -here first named. Four, let us remember, is the number that speaks of transitoriness and change, which naturally point here to the “seasons.” But the seasons are dependent upon the rule of sun and moon: so that the 4 and the 1 come for the second time together. Surely there is some meaning in all this.

These changing seasons, while they affect all living things, have yet plainly their chief significance for God’s responsible creature, man, so soon now to appear upon the scene, and thus the word “signs” precedes “seasons” in the command given. The earth being dependent upon heaven in the way it is, it could not but be that man would seek the significance of all appearances in sun and moon; with which the stars would soon. come to be conjoined. By all these he would learn his littleness and his dependence, as we find in an exaggerated form and turned to evil, as he turned away from God, in his wide-spread worship of the heavenly bodies. Their power for evil shows their power for good; upon which it is not here for me to dwell. It is enough here to point out how plainly all this heralds the near approach of man, and the tender interest shown by God in His creature. Purpose of love is read in the Scripture physics from the beginning; and the book of Scripture opens for us the book of Nature with lessons for the heart.

But to come now to the fifth day, which is also the second of the second series: the Num 5:1-31; Num 2:1-34 are those therefore which have now to be considered in relation to the work of this day, the introduction of animal life. But two, as has elsewhere been shown,* is the number of the animal kingdom or simple “living soul,” above which man is raised by his possession of spirit. The “soul” in Scripture is the seat of that emotional, appetitive, instinctive life, which needs for its full development the guidance and control of that intelligent, moral nature, which in man is joined to it. This dependent nature of the beast suits the place for which it was ordained, of subjection to man, which in the domestic animals we find them filling, and which, spite of the fall, the wild beast itself recognizes still to a large extent. The full meaning of it now we can hardly realize.

{*”Spiritual Law in the Natural World,” pp. 109-113.}

The soul as the motive, emotional faculty full of the unreasoning contrasts which we find in passion; comes fully under this number two. But in its relation to instinct proper, it seems to transcend this. Instinct, within a certain range, does, as we know, the work of mind, more promptly and satisfactorily than mind itself will do it. Reason will pause, waver, get perplexed and blunder, where instinct will at a dash and almost unfailingly accomplish its end. If it were mind, it were a higher mind than man’s; and yet man’s mind rectifies its mistakes and rises above instinct, and into spheres into which it is impossible for this to enter. The wisdom of the beast in its lower sphere seems more divine than that of man, which has marked upon it in its readiness to err, the creatureliness which is for him so wholesome an admonition. The beast, in fact, as having no personality to distract it, acts from its own God-given nature, unperverted by the fall; and laws of nature have, as we all realize, the same character of promptness, certainty and effectiveness which we recognize in the instinct of the beast. Its Maker has (as we may reverently say) the responsibility of its actions in a way that cannot be said of man with his free personality: hence it is necessarily, what man should be freely, weakness which withal testifies of an energy beyond itself. And this is just what would be covered by the number 5, which, as 4 and 1, speaks of creature weakness allied with divine strength. This as applied to man suggests of necessity responsibility as we have elsewhere seen, while in the beast it would speak only of an energy which wrought in it beyond its own.

Thus the 5 and the 2 unite here, as previously the numbers of the fourth day, just to point out the central feature of the work accomplished. A perfect system seems to develop itself in these numbers, which should induce us to inquire more earnestly into it; and which in Moses manifests a mind beyond Moses, -is a mark of inspiration which will turn the keenest-eyed of critics most of all, as that, into the adoring worshipper.

There is more than this, one may feel sure, as to the meaning of the fifth day’s work, but I do not possess the competence to utter it. Let us go on to the sixth day, which is the third of the second series: where again the numbers are manifest. Notice, throughout, that there is no possibility of manipulating any of these, no choice at all which can be exercised with regard to them. We are rigorously shut up to these and none but these. If imagination is permitted, it is restricted within the narrowest limits: and this, for the purpose we have before us, is what is most of all to be desired.

On the sixth day, as on the third, we have a double work: the earth bringing forth the living soul, as on the fifth day the water did; now the land-animal; and after this man is made in the image of God.

As to the first part of the work, the land-animal, I can, I fear, say very little to the purpose. The living soul is introduced on the fifth day, and there characterized: as such it is not distinctive here. Of the three classes “cattle” might seem to suit the number of discipline; but of the “creeping things” we do not seem to have a clearly defined idea; while “the beast of the earth,” said to be the more freely moving wild beast, is not by this either much more fully defined. They are all beasts of the earth, in the sense of moving upon it, and the “cattle,” put first, shows that the definitions here are not in the way of zoological classification, while the thought of relation to man is prominent if not ruling.

As to the creation of man we can happily see more clearly. What is said of him is that he is “created in the image of God, as His likeness:” in some sort the reflection of Himself. The word “created” is very important; for it shows that the “image of God” does not refer, as many have thought, to the sovereignty man was to exercise over the earth, but that it was inherent in his very constitution. And it shows more than this: it enables us to say definitely in what it consists. For the word “created” is used as a different thing from simple “making,” and implies the bringing forth of some new element of being, not involved in former production. Thus it is used in this chapter in regard to the original creation of heaven and earth, not of anything merely material afterward. It is used next of the introduction of the “living soul,” soul being such a new element. And next it is used here, where in man spirit is added to soul. If this be really so, then spirit is that which is really the image of God in man.

Scripture confirms this from every side. For “God is a Spirit,” and the “Father of spirits.” (Joh 4:24; Heb 12:9). Had it said “souls,” the beast is also a soul; but “the spirit of man which is in him” is that by which alone human things are known (1Co 11:1-34). It is the intelligent and moral part. Here then is manifestly what is necessary to the image of God; and if “we are His offspring” (Act 17:28) then we can understand how as “Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Gen 5:3), man too can be said to be brought forth -only here it is creation, and the child is but a creature, -in the image of God.

Out of this comes indeed his capacity for the place into which he is immediately put, as the vicegerent of God upon earth: “Let us make man in our image, as our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

The word for “have dominion” is radah, “let them tread down” or “subdue:” implying a dominion to be maintained with power, and the moulding of those subject to him to his will. Thus we find in the next chapter that Adam is put into the garden, “to dress it and to keep it;” and the mention of “cattle” in the present one implies the same thing. There was yet no existing evil; but here were plastic natures for him to mould and convert to fullest use. While the need of this would be for himself such needed discipline -if we may yet use such a word -such training by exercise, if that be fitter, as would call out in himself the vigilance and carefulness suited to one under needful trial, and liable to temptation.

These then are the main features of the sixth day’s work as to man; and here it is not hard again to trace the fitness of the numbers. Three is the number of reproduction, perhaps of reflexion, and shows us man in the image and likeness of God. Six is the number of mastery and of discipline; that which springs out of his being alone in God’s image, and in relation to the earth on which he is placed. Thus again the numbers have the most fitting and beautiful relation to the subject in hand.

As to the two divisions of the sixth day as such, -their relation to these first two numbers, -I can only give what suggests itself to me, and something of the mode by which I reach it, that it may be the better tested by those who put things to the test. The lack of clearness as to the first division of necessity occasions difficulty.

In the first place, it would seem likely that the two divisions, the beast of the earth and the man, are here exhibited in contrast with one another. Contrast there is necessarily, and the number 2 speaks often of this, especially where we have, as here, two as the whole measure of what is before us.

What is before us is something characteristic of the beast and of the man respectively. As we know the man best, it is natural to turn first to him; and here, if we consider how he is presented to us as one in the image of God, His offspring, we must think of this link with God as being the great contrast between man and beast. Two, the number of this section that speaks of man, may naturally, therefore, suggest fellowship, -that fellowship for which the beast is totally inapt. He can look up into the face of God, listen and respond to Him. A wondrous privilege and dignity, which has not as yet been pointed out to us, but which is based upon that which has been pointed out: that which comes first has been put first, and now we have the inference which is to be noted from it.

On the other hand, the beast’s life is in this respect alone, nay, we may say, barren. He has on this account no link with eternity; he is but the beast that perishes. Neither desire nor thought in him craves anything better; and death is to him no shadow, no perplexity. Thus he fills evidently the numerical place assigned him; and I see no other way in which he could fill it. The number one as applied to him seems to point absolutely in this direction alone. The method of exclusion may be here permitted to the argument; though it only furnish as to it the smallest part.

This examination may not be unfitting as an appendix to the book of Psalms, which has in it such constant references to nature, and indeed to the first of Genesis. It should confirm us in the conviction of how important a place the numerals have in Scripture, and encourage us as to their application in the field of nature also. They are open books put into our hand by the same divine Teacher: would only that there were more to pursue their deeper study in that faith in the perfectness of all His work, which alone will give us the profit of such labor.

Appendix 4.

A Plea for the Possessing Ourselves of All God’s Revelation

“I have more understanding than all my teachers,” says the psalmist enthusiastically, “for Thy testimonies are my meditation.” The Christian can surely not think him too emphatic. That is the voice of the disciple; but it is the voice of the Master that has said: “Search the Scriptures: for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they that testify of Me.”

In their own line, therefore, every believer recognizes that they are absolutely unique. Not all the books that have ever been produced in all the ages of human history outside of them are equal even to the small dust of the balance when weighed against these.

It is well to remember in such days as ours, that it was of the Old Testament, and almost certainly of only part of the Old Testament that the writer spoke. As it was of the Old Testament also that the apostle spoke when he reminded Timothy that from a child he had “known the holy Scriptures; which are able,” he adds, “to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ Jesus.” How small a part of what we have today was the wisdom for which the psalmist disclaimed in comparison all that the world beside could show!

But this is not now what I intend to take up or speak about. I am not writing for those that would contest it. In their own line, it is admitted, let us say, that the Scriptures are unique. I would yet propose the question, -and it will be by no means so readily or unanimously answered, even by the Christian, -what is then “their own line?” How far does this unique value of theirs extend? Supposing we desire to use the Bible fairly, and (as given of God,) for all for which He gave it, how could we define this? is it not desirable to do so? at least to have some practical idea of how to use it, if not an absolute definition?

If God had meant by Scripture only to teach us the way to heaven, or, along with this, how to live a good life here (and this, I suppose, is pretty much the definition that would be adopted by the many) the first thing that would naturally occur to any one thinking seriously about it, would be that the Bible is a very large book and a very strange book, on this view of the matter.

It is a very large book: for it surely does not take so many words to tell: us the way to heaven: and any one that knows the gospel knows well (and thank God that it is so) that a very few texts will suffice to show this with the most absolute clearness. As to the living a good life here, the simplest way to show us this would be in something like the ten commandments, with applications to suit the varied circumstances of life or, if that were too legal, a catalogue raisonn of Christian principles.

Scripture on the face of it is not at all like this. Though there are blessed statements of the gospel, as we very well know, and many a page of Christian exhortation, yet these are not put together as we might imagine they would be, and they are mixed with much else and various matter very different from all this. Things are not so definitely stated that there should be no possible mistake about them, as witness the conflict of Christian men over their meaning. What a help to a common understanding would be at least a divine summary of faith and practice, such as the various churches have adopted and which for this purpose they find so useful. But then these articles of faith separate: they are but the expression after all of the judgment of a section of Christendom suppose there had been given us by divine inspiration as plain a creed as any of these, would it not have united instead of scattering us? if the Westminster Confession had been written by apostles instead of theologians of the seventeenth century, would we not have all subscribed it? and would not Arminianism have been effectively excluded from the minds of all honest-minded and believing men?

But such help as this it has not pleased God to give us and we have to hunt up even texts upon any given subject -not always sure even that we have got the right ones -from every part of Scripture! Does not God care for the poor? Does He not know the dullness of our minds at best, the multifarious occupations that we have to be engaged in, the trouble and anxiety caused by our many differences, the darkness in which true-hearted saints grope often after His will, the tendency we have on account of all this, to follow the men who will do our thinking for us, and in whom in some way or other we have concluded to put confidence?

Yes, surely: all this and more God knows and, knowing it, has written Scripture as He has, a book so large, so various, so needing to be searched, studied; so certain to exercise most the most careful, earnest, conscientious, God-fearing. His thought then for us, whatever it may be, is not to save us from thought, -not to let us of from the necessity of labor for what we get from it. It was not to a class of theological students, but to men so poor that they could follow Him for the loaves with which He fed them, that He said: “Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you.” (Joh 6:27.) Notice, therefore, that this applies not merely to the more hidden things of the Old Testament, but to the plain speech of the New as well, that it calls for labor -for more earnest and untiring labor than our daily food does and that not from a special class of selected, capable workmen, but from all who need and desire such spiritual food.

Evidently the Lord distinguishes the thing that is to be labored after in the way He does in order to challenge our interest by the exceeding importance of it. “Meat that endureth to everlasting life” is a very significant title indeed, and one that we shall do well if we seek to realize what we can of the depth of its meaning. I have seen it interpreted as signifying “food that will give you entrance into everlasting life,” -by which you will become possessors of it: and that is true enough as a thought, and afterwards affirmed also: “he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” It is a true thought in itself, and a thing justly worthy of all the emphasis that can be put upon it. And yet, if that were all, for the Christian, who has already the possession of eternal life, the urgency of the exhortation would necessarily pass out of it. He is not to be persuaded that he needs labor to get what he has already got, or to keep what it is as certain he can never lose.

Here too, it may be pleaded that the Lord is actually speaking to men who were not believers but it is plain all the way through the chapter that there were disciples also among them, while in the open synagogue He is not hindered from speaking of such things and in such a way as to test disciples themselves. Here in seeking to attract men to Himself He might, as with the woman of Samaria, speak of things the depth of which they would not yet be able to penetrate, and yet of what they would understand to be a blessing set before them and those who sought it would not be stumbled to find at last greater than at first they had realized.

After all, the truth itself is not so difficult to conceive, and the Lord’s words to the Samaritan are strictly parallel. To her He speaks of “living water springing up unto eternal life,” and under this figure of the Spirit’s presence, permanent and operative ever, not to bring one into life, but throughout it. So here with the bread of life, the living bread, it too abides unto eternal life, in opposition to the “meat that perisheth.” Not only the life is eternal, but all that ministers to it partakes of the same eternity. Christ abides, and abides as the unfailing support of a life which though eternal is dependent too, and which never ceases to realize its dependence.

An image of this, and to which the Lord also, in His epistles to the churches, refers us, was that “hidden manna,” which was preserved in the golden pot and carried into the land, the type of our glorious heritage, that the children of Israel might see the food with which Jehovah had fed them in the wilderness. (Exo 16:32.) Thus the food of the wilderness abode, but abode simply as a memorial, to be seen. To the overcomer at Pergamos on the other hand, the promise is: “I will give him of the hidden manna” (Rev 2:17): he shall partake of it, not simply see it. Christ as enjoyed in the wilderness shall be enjoyed afresh in the glorious land to which we are going: more perfectly, surely, for all shall be perfect there, and yet, let us mark it well, the very wilderness-food itself. For the manna is Christ in His humiliation, and in heaven He is no longer in humiliation, yet it is the hidden manna of which the saint in heaven still partakes.

A serious consideration presses upon one here, that, if this be the food partaken of, -and since one cannot call up again the wilderness-condition, save in memory, -he who has not had the wilderness experience cannot have the repetition of it in heaven: he cannot recall what he has never known. Thus, too, there must be some correspondence between the measure of apprehension of Christ here and the measure of such apprehension of Christ there. Take an angel’s knowledge: it could not in this respect be the knowledge of the redeemed from among men. There is no sin in the angel, and it is not sin that limits his view; nay, his very freedom from it -his never having had the experience of it -would be a necessary limitation. And so would it be with the babe, only coming into the world to be taken out of it. The perfecting of its faculties in another scene would not give it experiences of a state in which it had never been.

Perfecting of experiences that we have had is, of course, another thing. This there will surely be: for we shall look back with eyes purged from the films of earth, and with memories that will themselves be perfected. But the knowledge will still be measured -finite, not infinite; and with limitations, whatever may be the enlargement of its scope.

If Christ then be the “meat that endureth unto everlasting life,” and the manna so laid up must be manna gathered here, how important must this gathering of the manna be! Surely there can be no “meat that perisheth” to be compared with it; and one can no longer wonder at being called to seek it with proportionate earnestness.

Now it is Scripture that is to give us this knowledge of Christ, though of course there is in Christ more than can be justly spoken of as manna. This will not make Scripture of less importance to us surely. Christ it is that is the knowledge of the “new man,” and Christ is “all” that knowledge. (Col 3:11.) God has “predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He may be the First-born among many brethren.” (Rom 8:29.) The “edifying of the body of Christ” also is “till we all come unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:13.) We are now growing up to this; and for this it is that the word of God is given to us, not simply that we may be saved, or even live here a life of piety and good works, but to form in us the mind of Christ, that “we may grow up unto Him in all things.” (ver. 15.) No wonder Scripture is as large, therefore, as it is: communion with God, though we talk quietly enough about it, yet if it be realized in the depth and fullness of its meaning, how immense a thing it is! Communion with God, realized in this way would be nothing less than sharing all His thoughts as He has revealed them to us; thoughts which have Christ as centre and circumference; for “all things were created by Him and for Him.” (Col 1:16.)

Here then is what we are called to enter into: here is a field to be worked which will call for all our faculties in all their energy to be engaged with. God does not tell us that it is easy work: how could it be? delightful work it is, and that increases all the energy that it demands. But it requires that we yield ourselves unreservedly to it, subordinating everything else to God’s great purpose with regard to us. Christ must come to fill the whole range of our vision; but, so filling, to enlarge and rectify and illumine it with divine glory.

Here the nature of man finds what it craves, and expands in all parts and in equal proportions. Mind, heart and conscience develop together. Scripture, while it makes men of might, produces no monsters: no men of intellect without heart; no conscience urging one to self-devised torment; and yet no self-complacent egotism either: “I live, not I,” says one who is without question a competent witness to us; “but Christ liveth in me.” (Gal 2:20.)

This is not simply doctrine, nor even faith in a doctrine. A glorious truth underlies it, but this is more; it is the apprehension of the truth, and the experience which flows from it. He who spoke this had accepted what Christ had done for him, the death in which he himself for faith had died, and which enabled him to turn away from himself, the man down here, to the One with whom he was now identified before God, and with whom he had in the joy of his heart accepted identification.

His old life had ended therefore: he was now a man in Christ; though realizing that there was still upon earth a “self” in which he could not glory, save in the infirmity which made him conscious of the need, -a need continually met as realized, -“that the power of Christ should rest upon” him. (2Co 12:5; 2Co 12:9.) This for the pursuit of Christ’s interests on earth to whom he belonged, while, beholding Him above, he was “changed into His image” (2Co 3:18.)

I believe that a most false and limited idea of the design of Scripture is shutting masses of Christian people out of the very desire to possess themselves of what our gracious God has given them in it. It is a book larger by far than they have any use for. To find salvation and to live a good life on earth, these are the ends they have before them, and which they suppose to be all that God has in His mind for them. But for these ends, I say again, Scripture is too large; I may say boldly, it is very much too large. Did they think that they had any particular responsibility about it, they would perhaps even be distressed to know what to do with it all. As it is they read it more or less, perhaps conscientiously all through, but with a languid interest in much of it at best, and with a wonder which they scarcely like to admit, why it should have been written.

Of searching it for themselves, save certain parts, they know very little. They get light here and there upon it through others, and read books, if they are not too deep. They have really no thought that what God means by it all is to form in them the mind of Christ -to give them fellowship with Himself -to train them for co-heirship with His Son; and that all this means not a little need of teaching, not a little exercise, as well as the disciplinary dealings of His hand by the way; -“exercised to discern both good and evil, -“suffering that they may reign with Him.”

To accomplish this the word of God is not too large; though that of course, does not imply but that it will always be beyond us. It is plain that He means us to be busy with it, -would not let us off thinking, -would not leave any vacuity with us for the thorn and thistle-seed always floating in the air, to plant themselves in and spring up. To His people of old He spoke earnestly about this: “And these commandments that I command thee today shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them as a sign upon thy hands, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes; and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and upon thy gates” (Deu 6:6-9). All this implies a constant keeping the words of God before themselves and others, constant confession of them and meditation upon them. And how thoroughly a saint of old could respond to this, the delight he could have in it, and the fruit he could find, the 119th Psalm alone is sufficient to assure. Is it to be supposed that God would have us less fully occupied or give us less joy or profit from the occupation?

The whole heart also, if it be this we bring to it, needs the whole Word. How could it do less than this, if only because God has given it? Has He misjudged our need, or put upon us useless labor? Certainly He does not mean to have it drudgery for us, nor does He give us mere chaff to thresh out for the granary. If there be what may seem strange to be from Him, would He not have us inquire the more because of its strangeness? If we seem sometimes to be laying up useless store, we should find, if we keep it long enough, occasion for it. We have (if we are Christians) the Spirit of God as our Teacher; and He, let us remember, “searcheth the deep things of God.” (1Co 2:10). If the heart is only enough engaged, and the throne of grace is yet accessible, we need not despair of learning because things are “deep.”

I have found too that one of the most fruitful causes of not understanding or misunderstanding a portion of Scripture is just the lack, as the man of science would say, of a perfect induction. That is to say, something -perhaps obvious enough -has escaped me. It was there, but I was too careless, too much in a hurry, -perhaps too doubtful of being able to find any meaning -actually to find it. The key too may be some distance off, and in a part I have not read or remembered. Hence the necessity of storing the mind with Scripture. It is all valuable -too valuable yet perhaps, for me to appreciate, just as a savage might have no use for a sewing-machine. Let us be assured that in Scripture there is nothing barren or unprofitable anywhere.

The whole Word, then; and all to be honestly thought upon and sought into. But even so, we have not got all the riches God designs for us. There is the great book of Nature, wide open, and inviting us by its appeal to all our senses. Here again, if we have minds that work, we shall find what will give them full activity. “Too much,” perhaps, you may say; “there is no end to it.” No, truly: no end to all God’s wonders, nor to the riches He has spread around us.

But here, also, is a field which has been much worked of late in man’s interests, and he is very proud of what he has done in it. It has for the most part to do with a world which has been put under the dominion of man, as meant for his use, and he has only lately begun to find how rich is his inheritance.

But God has taken care, also, that this world with which man has so much to do should be full of witness to His power who is above him, as well as the love that has strewn this munificence around him: a witness he can never lose, never escape. It shines upon him from the lights of the spangled sky above him; it breathes in the whisper of the gentle breeze around, which before night may have increased to a hurricane; the various voices of the day and night preach it in melody and in dissonance: and everywhere man has acknowledged this witness to be divine, and worshiped.

Scripture has brought nigh God and perfected this witness. In the mirror of Nature every spiritual truth has its reflection; and these images appear throughout Scripture and become the familiar language in which its doctrines are conveyed. In the New Testament the Creator Himself is declared to be the Word -thus the Revealer -of God, and creation therefore by implication to be a revelation. God’s witness is twofold and on the face of heaven and earth Scripture again is written out in incorruptible signs that may be appealed to. Not in vain, surely, has God done this: He can still “call to the heavens and to the earth that He may judge His people” (Psa 50:4); and rebuke the unbelief which uplifts itself against Him in the very face of such tokens.

Now, if Christ be indeed the One by whom and for whom all things were created, it is only the one to whom Christ has become what we see He was with the apostle, who can be at the centre of any branch of knowledge. All roads must lead to Him. The spiritual must everywhere underlie the natural, give meaning to it, make it really what it is meant to be, clothe it with the power that should belong to it. No science but must run into theology. All the analogies of nature become but witnesses of this inner reality, without the knowledge of which the savant and scientist becomes indeed but a pitiful agnostic all his utterances but broken fragments of sentences, -the stammerings of infirmity and impotence itself.

And if this be true, what must be the value of Scripture, what must be its comprehensiveness? what field of knowledge will you shut off from it? what shall we think, for instance, of the so readily accepted dictum, that Scripture was not intended to teach science? and which is meant -not to assert of it that it is infinitely beyond a mere primer or text-book of science, but -to rule it out as incompetent in this sphere, as without help or authority as regards the visible, and to relegate it to the sphere of the invisible alone.

The effect is that as to the immensity of nature round us we may think what thoughts we please, unhindered by anything in Scripture. Guesses we may have, and theories, and “working hypotheses” ad libitum, which even palpable self-contradictions shall not destroy,* and they must not be even limited by any intrusion of the divine. Thus practically we get a. world -yea, a universe as far as man has explored it -Christless, if not godless; to which Scripture, with its old-time child-notions of miracles and a God nigh at hand, is in plain opposition.

{*See as to Ether and the Wave-Theory of Light, Prof. J. P. Cooke’s “Credentials of Science the Warrant of Faith,” pp. 223, seq.}

Take the common theory of evolution in proof of this. It has been lately said of it that “Whatever differences of opinion as to this theory may still exist, few naturalists can feel reluctant to acquiesce in Wallace’s statement that Darwin did his work so well that descent with modification is now universally accepted as the order of nature in the organic world.'”*

{* Prof. Calderwood: “Evolution and Man’s Place in Nature,” p, 1.}

Now, if this be so, open your Bibles at the second chapter of Genesis, and ask yourself how on the principle of “descent with modification” Eve could have have been by any possibility evolved out of Adam! That is evidently not in the order of nature: it is the exact opposite of it; it is miracle and nothing else. Apply to it the slow successive changes demanded by Darwinism, and the absurdity is heightened at every step; but the absurdity is there at the beginning in the male producing the female for the continuance of the race. It is not even the poetry some have claimed for it. It is simply absurdity, or miracle and divine truth.

Let us take our stand then with Scripture, or give it up: compromise is impossible. If the account of creation is not true, Scripture opens with falsehood in its face. It asserts knowledge of what only revelation could make known; or else gives conjecture, and then. how much else of the same sort follows it, who shall say?

In fact the history has been amply safeguarded. I venture to say that the proofs of divine inspiration in it can challenge the world to refute them; and thank God, the evidence is of a sort as accessible to the non-scientific as to the scientific mind. If it can be shown that according to the Genesis account the story of the restoration of the earth out of its “waste and desolate” condition is but the symbolic picture of the restoration of the same earth morally to God, as history and prophecy combine to picture it; -a picture also of the restoration of an individual sou/ to God, but in terms which we have to go to the New Testament to make clear to us; -if we can show a numerical symbolism running through the whole, uniting the physical, dispensational and individual aspects of the history together, and uniting itself to a symbolic numerical structure running through other parts of Scripture; -then assuredly we have a threefold cord which shall not be broken, binding it into a wondrous whole which can only be from God. This has been already done in measure,* but deserves to be done in a much more thorough and painstaking way. The whole is a many-linked proof of the underlying of the natural by the spiritual of which I have already spoken, and of which every parable in Scripture speaks, to which every one of those analogies of which we all so confidently and as it were instinctively avail ourselves, bears witness.

{*See “Genesis in the Light of the New Testament” “Numerical Bible,” vol. 1 notes and the last “Appendix.”}

This analogy, if it be real, can be used also in another and a reverse way from that in which we usually employ it: a fact which deserves the most attentive consideration. If the spiritual and the natural run. thus in parallel lines, why should we not trace the natural by means of the spiritual, as well as the spiritual by means of the natural? Take, for instance, once more, the first chapter of Genesis. If it be indeed a picture of either the soul or the world being restored to God, then we cannot possibly miss what is here so plain, that this restoration implies a fall having taken place, which the waste and desolate condition of the earth, darkness upon the face of the deep, so strikingly symbolizes. May we not see in it, then, physically, a lapsed condition of the earth, the effect of some cataclysmic overthrow, instead of the condition in which it was originally created, as many believe? This can be proved, I am sure, otherwise; but that therefore proves that such a conclusion would, in this case, lead us aright. Would it not in every case in which the grounds of the conclusion were as plain as this?

But if so, again how valuable must Scripture be for the knowledge of Nature! It should be in every way the firm ground of the naturalist, and induction be here as reliable as that directly from nature; the microscope also being as great a revealer in one case as in the other. Ah, how little patient, believing work has been done in this direction with regard to Scripture: a neglect which has shut us out so much from the light it could have given, just in the very matters hidden from the mere man of science. The beginnings of things and their points of connection with the unseen, are things largely thus hidden: how good would it be to have all the light that Scripture can give thrown into those dark inmost recesses of the constitution of things. What a thing it would be to have a faithful company of devout explorers giving themselves to explore nature with the light of Scripture, and Scripture also, one may reverently say, in the light of nature. For both are God’s books and both alike truthful, and Christ the theme of and the key to both.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” In every corner of it He is to be found; upon every part of it His Name stands written. Oh for the students that shall make His glorious sanctuary their college, and see in nature that which only the anointed eye can see, and hear the worship of the things we call inanimate, but through which the Life of life is pulsating everywhere.

If we desire this, we must bring the word and the work of God together in a way that yet, it seems to me, we nowhere see. It seems almost as if we had here believed that we had the incompatible service of two masters, to one of which whosoever clings will despise the other. And so it will be until we discern that the Master is in fact only One, not two at all. And when Christ reigns over the whole of science -over all that is worthy to be called knowledge, -then we shall have an education in which heart, mind, and moral nature, shall find equal and true development; and in the heart and mind of those so taught there shall be no distraction between secular and sacred, no divided life from one half of which God is banished; but for these “there shall be,” as the prophet says, “One Lord over all the earth; in that day there shall be One Lord, and His Name One.”

Appendix 5.

Christ in the Book of Psalms

The Lord’s own words to His disciples assure us of “things written in the Psalms concerning” Him. (Luk 24:44.) In the New Testament sixteen psalms are quoted as referring to Him;* and there is nothing to show us that this is the whole number, although all the fundamental ones are doubtless in this list. Outside of it, the Rabbinic writers, though blind to Christ, rightly emphasize the twenty-first and seventy-second psalms also as Messianic;** and the twentieth psalm can hardly be separated from the twenty-first. The tendency with some Christian writers has been to see Christ almost everywhere in them, while naturally the drift of the so-called “higher criticism” is all the other way: the effort to imagine the circumstances under which they were written, as well as the intention of the writers, necessarily leading them away from the divine intention, which is all-important. And when it can be boldly questioned, as by Cheyne, whether David was the writer of any of them; the apostle’s comment, “he being a prophet . . . spake of . . . Christ (Act 2:30-31) may be dismissed, as “contemporary Jewish exegesis,” from all consideration.

{* Psa 2:1-12; Psa 8:1-9; Psa 16:1-11; Psa 18:1-50; Psa 22:1-31; Psa 40:1-17; Psa 41:1-13; Psa 45:1-17; Psa 68:1-35; Psa 69:1-36; Psa 91:1-16; Psa 97:1-12; Psa 102:1-28; Psa 109:1-31; Psa 110:1-7; Psa 118:1-29.

** The list given by Edersheim in his ninth Appendix to “The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” contains five psalms accepted throughout as Messianic: Psa 2:1-12; Psa 21:1-13; Psa 45:1-17; Psa 72:1-20; Psa 110:1-7, and seven others partially so, Psa 18:1-50; Psa 22:1-31; Psa 40:1-17; Psa 61:1-8; Psa 68:1-35; Psa 89:1-52; Psa 92:1-15. Other psalms are contained in the list, but not as having personal reference to Messiah.}

It is only the knowledge of the structure of the book of Psalms as a whole that can show us how fully in place the Messianic psalms are, and define clearly their limits. They will then be seen in clear relation to those surrounding them, and in fact as the life-centre of the whole. As long as the individual psalms are looked at as in no particular order or relation to one another, or the order a merely artificial one, so long, of course, it will be possible to find a Messianic psalm in any position whatever in the book. The divisions and their meaning once ascertained, each psalm will be found to have its place, from which it could not be removed without a gap resulting. The numerical structure is everywhere also a test and confirmation of the reality of this. My purpose now is very briefly to trace the connection of these Messianic psalms, both among themselves and with those in the midst of which they are, -certainly not scattered at random, nor without divine meaning in these connections.

The first book, as we have seen, is the largest in scope, and necessarily the introduction to all the rest. Its theme is in fact mainly Christ Himself, and that as the Source of blessing to His people. This people is Israel; and we must not forget this, which, so far from depriving us of our portion, only reminds us continually of the larger character of this, as “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” (Eph 1:3.) There cannot therefore be a spiritual blessing from which we are shut out; while their being ours in heavenly places lifts us into the sphere to which Christ Himself belongs, and where we possess a relationship to Him of which the Psalms know nothing.

But our intelligence as to Scripture depends upon our taking it as it is written, and our spiritual profit also largely upon our distinguishing things that differ, that both we may have what is our own unmixed, and that Christ also may be seen in all His glories, and in connection with all the interests which are His. And these we must learn, not from any preconceptions of our own about them, but patiently and humbly as led of Scripture. God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, but deeper and higher every way.

In the first book there are three subdivisions, of which the first and third alike speak of Christ; while the second shows us rather the circumstances of the latter days, to which we find ourselves in the Psalms so constantly carried forward. The first subdivision (Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12; Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17; Psa 8:1-9) speaks of Christ’s dominion, King in Zion (Psa 2:1-12), and Son of Man, the creation put under Him (Psa 8:1-9). The first is His open claim, though resisted by man. The second is a secret told into the ear of faith alone.

The King! that is the first and last thought in the Psalms, whatever else may grow up around and unite itself to this: a King with power, although long patience may be exercised before it is put forth. Power: for not only is God for Him, but He is Son of God. Thus it is in the right hands; out of which it will never slip and never can be forced; and being divine power, it is a revelation. How long the world has been waiting wearily for this, without knowing for what it waited; nay, rejecting Him when He came in fulfillment of this very prophecy, to claim His right.

The King! because obedience is the very thing from which man has broken away, and to which he must return in order to blessing. Thus the very first psalm is the psalm of obedience, while in the second is the One to whom it must be rendered; who as the Son of God is the Revealer of God; faith in whom turns back the heart to Him, and finds the blessing. We see why, then, it should be the first thought of Christ in the Psalms that He is King: -the proclamation of the King.

That this is not all, when the heart turns back to its allegiance, the psalms, that follow (Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17) are proof enough. The remnant of true followers, amid the mass of those that reject Him, learn in the very trials that ensue from their true-heartedness the need of mercy because of sin; from whence but a little, and a new figure rises before them, not now of the Son of God, though with links of unmistakable connection with Him. It is now of a Son of man in whom both God is glorified and the dominion of man is restored; while along with this, there are thoughts of humiliation and the mysterious joy of a trodden wine-press, -intimations of fruitful suffering, by and by to be more at large declared.

The meaning here Israel as yet has not recognized, and will not until the day that they look upon Him whom they have pierced. But, united with the first picture -the Son of God joined to the Son of man -we have emphasized the two parts of a wondrous whole, in which a glory of God is manifested above the heavens, as His name is declared by it in all the earth: to us at least a clear outlining of what is to be filled up in the psalms that follow, -an inscription on the door of the temple of praise to Messiah’s Name.

To this the second subdivision has nothing that I am aware to add. But with the third we come at once to the heart of our subject. Here we have Christ before us, not simply in His glory, but also in the path of suffering leading up to it, and in which we learn His perfection and the fullness of His grace toward us also. We find Him identifying Himself with His people, making their cause His own, and the consequences of this in the unequalled sorrow of the Cross; but as that in which the Son of man was glorified, and God was glorified in Him. His inmost heart is seen: we learn to know Him as we know no other, and are made His doubly, redeemed by His blood, and won by the perfection we have found in Him.

First of all in the sixteenth psalm, we see Him as a pilgrim on the way; as a servant also for the need of His people. His heart is with the saints; and the obedience, so new a thing for Him to render, is not to avail for Himself to spare Him one drop of the cup of sorrow He is to drink for others: it is an obedience by which they are to be made righteous. On the other hand, and none the less on this account, God is His all, “the measure of His portion, and of His cup;” and we find Him guided by His counsel, and maintained by Him in human weakness, perfect Leader in a path of faith in which we are to follow Him. We see Him in it, down to death itself through which the “path of life” passes on up to the presence of God, whence the light also shines for us by the way which He has gone.

In the next psalm (Psa 17:1-15) we find Him, spite -nay, because of all that He is, the object of the hatred of the men of the world, and His pleading against this which, though made as in His own behalf, we find to be intercession for others, with whom He identifies Himself.

In the eighteenth, we have the answer of God to Him, which lifts Him into the place of power. Delivered from the strivings of the people, He is made the head of the nations. Here, of course, we are brought evidently to the latter days. Judgment has its course upon earth, the rod of power being in the hands of the rejected One, and long-suffering patience no longer holding back what is needed for the deliverance of His people and the blessing of the earth at large. For in result He praises among the nations, as the anointed King of all the earth. This is the close of the first series and these psalms are all subjective -the utterances of the Messiah Himself.

In the next three, on the contrary, we have the utterances of faith as to Him, and thus the nineteenth psalm is accounted for as coming where it does in this series: creation and the law being now seen by it as the introduction to Christ. Thus the glory of the sun is dwelt upon -the typical picture of the Lord from the beginning of Genesis and then the law is seen in its effects, by its own perfection convicting the soul of sin, beyond even the knowledge of the one who as the servant of the Lord seeks to be admonished by it. This prepares, as is evident, the way for sacrifice but it is not to the sacrifices of the law that we now turn. No: the next psalm does indeed speak of sacrifice but it is Another that offers it, and that other the King Himself. In His salvation His people shall rejoice, for it is the Name of the God of Jacob that is declared in it: as we should say, the God of Grace. The whole psalm is a prophecy of Christ and of His work, though in relation (as all through) with Israel, and the following psalm speaks of Him in His glory.

These are but hints of what atonement is. In the third series, however, it is fully declared with its blessed effects and the twenty-second psalm returns once more from the objective to the subjective: no voice but His own can declare to us worthily the inmost heart of it.

The link with the day of atonement is shown in the third verse. The sufferer is undergoing what no righteous man ever did beside. A martyr for God, He is forsaken of God. And why? He answers His own question: it is because He who is the Holy One would dwell amid the praises of His people and this was what (typically and governmentally only,) the blood of the sin-offering accomplished on the day of atonement. Here we see, then, the reality of what that sin-offering meant, and all other sufferings are as nothing compared with this. But the latter part of the psalm shows the glorious results in blessings welling out in wider and wider circles to the ends of the earth. The name of God is newly declared to those in new relationship to Him who has accomplished the wondrous work, and His righteousness is declared in it to generations following.

The sin-offering psalm gives character in a certain way to all the remaining psalms of this first book. The twenty-third psalm shows us now the great Shepherd of the sheep brought again from the dead, and the pleasant pastures in which He leads His flock. The twenty-fourth, Jehovah’s house established on the earth, and the people who enter it. Jehovah Himself enters it as King of glory to take His place among His ransomed ones.

This ends the nine psalms which are characteristically Messianic, and the fifteen psalms following are “remnant” psalms, or such as show us the exercises and experiences of the faithful in Israel, the background being circumstances of the latter days. But the apprehension of divine grace enters into them in a different manner from anything before. Sin is confessed, and God for His name’s sake forgives as promptly as the confession is made. The twenty-fifth and thirty-second psalms are especially characteristic, and have much of the New Testament style, if they do not reach its standard. After these the first book closes with two psalms (40 and 41), both of which speak once more of atonement, though in a different manner from before.

The fortieth psalm is the burnt-offering aspect of the cross, the Lord seen as come to do the will of God, His law (which man has continually broken) in His heart, and its provision of sacrifice realized as written of Him. The awful burden of sin is experienced but not the forsaking of God endured.

It is striking that this comes at the end, as if it were almost an appendix to the book, and does not seem to be the basis of other experience psalms, as does the sin-offering psalm (Psa 22:1-31). In fact, is not the value of the burnt-offering that which rather belongs to Christianity, though not altogether lacking in Israel’s blessing? At any rate, there must be a reason for the supplementary place here occupied by the burnt-offering psalm.

The forty-first, as the closing psalm of the book, depicts the cross as the stumbling-block to unbelief, while faith, penetrating the disguise assumed by love in this “poor man’s” humiliation, finds blessing from Jehovah: a natural and solemn admonition at the close of the book. Thus we see throughout how the Messianic psalms govern it, and that it has a fullness and completeness of its own in this respect, no main feature being altogether omitted, though some may be more fully developed elsewhere.

The second book is more limited in scope and more external in character. Though redemption be a leading feature of it, it is more a redemption by power than by purchase, and seen rather in its effects for man therefore, than from the divine side of what sin is before God. The sixty-ninth is its psalm of atonement, and presents the trespass-offering side of it. But here again Christianity had to bring out the full character of this, and the “fifth part more” of the trespass-offering cannot be as yet developed. The Kingship of Christ is, of course, the prominent feature in the psalm which speaks of Him.

The structure resembles that of the first book, the Messianic psalms being found in the first and third subdivisions, the second being devoted to psalms of experience, which are not however, excluded from the other parts.

The first subdivision opens with the cry of the remnant in their distress, in answer to which in the forty-fifth psalm we have the glorious picture of Christ as King. Still more plainly than in the second psalm, God and man meet in Him; and for the first time, and the only one in the Psalms, He is seen as Israel’s Bridegroom. His rule is righteous and eternal: all enemies are put down, and the nations worship. This is the only view of Christ in the first part.

The second gives the circumstances of the last days, the rule of Antichrist and not Christ, and then the exercises of the people, looking on toward deliverance. The third closes the book with a series of psalms which put before us Christ as the Restorer of the nation: first, as the King of Israel, taking up their cause as their Representative before God to bring them to blessing; and then in His work on the cross as involved in this.

In the first series, the sixty-first psalm shows us the King’s vows as heard by God, and the possession of those that fear God’s name given to Him in consequence. He sojourns in the Tent which God had pitched among men, and dwells there as King in the presence of God forever, the eternal link between God and man.

The sixty-second psalm has in it no clear evidence of Messianic character, except its place in this series between two psalms of the King. As the experience of the Leader and Finisher of faith it is, however, perfectly suited; being the utter rejection of all other dependences than God Himself. And after this the sixty-third psalm breathes after God as seen in the sanctuary, whose loving-kindness is better than life. Thus the soul follows hard after Him, while its enemies drop off and are destroyed. The next psalm is but a lament over the folly and wickedness of man; but the sixty-fifth with its single and plural voices points to the settlement of the deeper question of how the iniquities of those for whom their Head has undertaken are purged away, and through the Chosen One of God now dwelling in the Sanctuary, they too are satisfied with the goodness of God’s house established in their midst. The blessing following runs through two more psalms; then in the sixty-eighth there bursts out a strain of glory and triumph, in which God is celebrated under all His Names, which have all been illustrated and endeared to them through Him who has gone up on high, leading captivity captive, and receiving gifts for men: yea, (they acknowledge in humble gratitude) even for the rebellious, that Jah Elohim, might dwell among them. Now the dove’s wings are over them, the beauty of Christ is seen upon them; and under the leadership of their glorious and divine King, Israel’s tribes throng up to the sanctuary. Thus the first series of psalms ends.

The second bases the blessing on the sacrifice of Christ -on atonement, which here, in connection with Israel’s restoration has its restitutive aspect, as in the trespass-offering. As the result of this, in the seventy-first psalm Israel is seen reviving, taking bold of Jehovah’s strength alone, and making mention only of Jehovah’s righteousness. While in the seventy-second psalm the whole earth comes under the rule of the Saviour-King, who is seen in character as a true Melchizedek. Thus the salvation-book of the Psalms is completed. That it is Jewish and in sphere earthly is plain, and may be a disappointment to us; but we may be sure that inspiration has made no mistake: the limits of the law are too narrow to contain the fullness of the Christian gospel, and the divine side of the work of Christ has been more fully expressed already in the opening book. The essential outlines are, of course, preserved.

The theme of the third book, as we know, is holiness. Much briefer than either of the preceding, the Messianic psalms are in the same proportion, while they are also much fainter sketches of the commanding figure for which we are looking.

Very much as in the first subdivision of the second book, the first appearance of Christ here is in answer to the cry of distress on the part of the people. The earth and all its inhabitants are dissolved, but at the appointed time for which He has been waiting, He sets up the pillars of the earth once more. It has been dissolved by its corruption: He establishes it by just judgment carried out. He is the divine Interpreter, and with God alone it is to abase or to exalt. For this, however, that any may be exalted, grace must come in, and not merely judgment. Grace is His delight, judgment His strange work: and so we find here. “I will psalm,” He says “unto the God of Jacob: the God of Jacob is the God of grace. All this is in character with the third book.

In the eightieth psalm, which is again the third psalm of a second section of the same division, there is just an appeal to God to act in their behalf through Messiah, “the Man of Thy right hand, the Son of man whom Thou madest strong for Thyself.” Here they have found the secret of blessing, and the next psalm shows the light of divine favor beginning to shine upon them.

The cry of the eighty-fourth psalm is quite similar to this: “Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of Thine Anointed;” and in the next psalm we find all the attributes of God united in the salvation of His people. While in the next two psalms, but more mysteriously, we have Christ in the form of a Servant, owned, in the last, by God and by His people: all their fresh springs found in Him.

But one other psalm in this book speaks of Christ, -the eighty-ninth, -in which He is seen as the One contemplated in the covenant with David. Here we have typical prophecy, and again the King, though to be made of God His firstborn, supreme as to the kings of the earth.

The fourth book has two psalms of special importance, and is remarkable for the development of its blessed theme. It begins with a psalm of Moses, a lament over the generation dying in the wilderness, which is but a typical example of man’s doom as man. The reason of it is, he has lost the knowledge of God, who has always been a habitation for men, but men have turned their backs upon Him. Of this departure from Him death is the universal witness. With God is the fountain of life; turning from Him, man has accepted death as His portion, but which as an admonition God would have him lay to heart.

But he cannot find the way back: first, man is helpless to recover himself. The second psalm of the book (the ninety-first) introduces us, therefore, to the Second Man.

Here is One who has never wandered. He has “made Jehovah, even the Most High, His habitation,” and He can claim; therefore, all the consequences of this. Dwelling in His secret place -secret, alas, now to man at large -He abides therefore under the shadow of the Almighty. Plague and pestilence pass by Him harmless; the young lion and serpent He can trample under foot. The angels have Him in charge, lest He should dash. His foot against a stone. Here is a Man, in short, with whom (as in the next psalm) earth can enjoy once more a Sabbath-rest; and the world be established on immovable foundations. (Psa 93:2.)

But this shows no title as yet for the failed children of the first man; and though there are assurances given as to the righteous, that leaves, as we know, Job’s question unanswered. Meanwhile Jehovah’s kingdom is seen as coming, then as come, and the second subdivision ends amid the praises of the whole earth (Psa 100:1-5); and still this vital question remains unanswered.

With the third subdivision again a Messianic psalm appears, the old refrain; sounding through the whole book, of a King of righteousness. The King after Jehovah’s heart is come; and we readily connect Him with the Second Man of the ninety-first psalm: He is King of Israel now; and when we go on to the 102nd, Israel’s time has come for blessing, and Zion’s to be built up once more: the throne is ready for the King, but in this psalm where is the King?

The voice here is of One not in power but in weakness -in extreme distress. Nay, Jehovah’s hand is upon Him and in wrath: He is dying, His days shortened, and He contrasts these shortened years with God’s eternity in His cry to Him. Is this the King of Israel? Nay, is this the glorious Man who has the secret of life and of enduring blessing?

The answer is an amazing one, and it is God Himself who gives it. He is not only King of Israel: He is not only the Second Man, over whom death has no title: He is God Himself; He is Creator of heaven and earth; He is the deathless One, the fountain of Life Himself. “The Second Man is the Lord from heaven;” and in the sacrifice which is here accomplished, divine-human arms hold us fast to God.

Although the fifth book is the longest of the whole five, there are but six psalms that are Messianic; and this is to be accounted for, no doubt, by its deuteronomic, governmental character.

The 109th and 110th go together as the divine ways with the Perfect Man. They are complete contrasts: the first being One who for His love finds only hatred; until love itself can only pronounce the doom of its rejectors. The 110th is that which speaks directly of His Melchizedek Priesthood. He is exalted to God’s right hand, and waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool, and for an obedient people to be made willing in the day of His power. Here the principle in divine government is contained in the last verse, though not apart from the psalm before it. The path of humiliation and suffering has ever been the way ordained of God to lead to glory, a principle which our Lord distinctly enunciated for His disciples, as He accepted it for Himself, drank only of the brook in the way -took but the refreshment provided of God in the common way of faith and patience in which He led His followers. His trials have enabled Him to be the true Priest, the sympathetic Intercessor that His people crave, as well as the truly human King, the succorer of the needy.

The 118th psalm shows us the Stone which the builders rejected becoming the Head of the Corner: and here His humiliation is nevertheless the stumbling-stone to men: the Stone was low enough for them to stumble over, and yet thus for the foundation-stone upon which faith builds, and the temple to God’s praise alone can stand.

Among the “songs of degrees,” three short psalms alone remain. The first (Psa 132:1-18) turns upon the history of David and the house of God, and David is here plainly a type of a higher King. The promise as to his house is connected with that as regards Zion and the dwelling-place of God in it.

In the next psalm we have not David but Aaron, and the unity of brotherhood in Israel at last established among her jarring tribes: a spiritual unity now produced by the Spirit outpoured upon the head of her true High-priest, of whom it is here implied that Aaron was but a figure. In these two psalms, therefore, the Melchizedek Priest-King is again before us and the following brief psalm gives us the blessing of God by man and of man by God which is the glorious work of the true Melchizedek.

Brief as this outline of the Messianic psalms is, it is surely enough to show the divine order in which they are arranged, and the fullness of the presentation of Christ which is found in them. His peculiar relation to us, of course, will not be found. Throughout the Old Testament times it was a “mystery hid in God.” (Eph 3:4-9.)

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Psa 150:1. Praise God in his sanctuary In his temple, where this work was to be performed constantly and solemnly. Let his priests and people that attend there, attend him with their praises. Where should he be praised, if not where he in a special manner both manifests his glory and communicates his grace? Or praise him for, or on account of, his sanctuary, and the great privileges that we enjoy by having it among us. Or, as , may be rendered, for his holiness; that is, for the inexpressible purity and holiness of his nature. Praise him in, or for, the firmament, or expansion, as the word signifies, (see on Gen 1:16,) of his power Which power is peculiarly displayed in the formation of the firmament, or expansion of the material heavens, and their incessant operations, by means of the luminaries placed in them, and the light and the air of which they are composed, upon the earth, and all things therein. These are the appointed instruments of life and motion in the natural world, and they afford us some idea of that power of God unto salvation which is manifested in the church, by the effects produced on the souls of men, through the gracious influence of the light divine, and the Spirit of holiness, constituting the firmament of Gods power in the new creation. Horne.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The full choir, the full band, and the full heart, are here exhorted to praise the Lord. Surely this, when holy prophets joined in the worship, must resemble heaven itself. But oh how can drunkards, swearers, harlots, and infidels go about polluting churches by singing their Messiah?

Psa 150:3. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the psaltery. 1Sa 10:5. Praise him with the harp, the kinnor.

Psa 150:4. Praise him with the timbrel, the tambour. Praise him with the machol, as in Psa 149:3. Praise him with the minnim, a stringed instrument. Praise him with the uggab, a kind of organ.

Psa 150:5. Praise him with the cymbals. Praise him with the cymbals of jubilee. If the machol be counted, Psa 149:3, here are nine instruments. Tirinus, the learned jesuit, has the following note on this subject. See Cassiodorus, Bothius, and Marianus, where the use of instruments of music in the church, is not only accounted pious, but grateful to God; and not for young men only, as St. Justin thinks, but likewise in heaven also, where St. John heard the utmost perfection of the harp. Rev 5:8; Rev 14:2. Yet the use of instruments in christian worship was by no means general, though the three fathers here cited speak positively of its existence. Nothing can exceed the voice of a whole congregation praising God.

REFLECTIONS.

We are now come to the close of this ancient and most excellent book of Psalms. It is an exhortation to praise God in the full concert of heaven and earth. The singers of the sanctuary, and every musician, from him who touched the tender lyre, to him who could blow the shrillest trumpet, are here called upon to use his utmost skill, and to utter all the fervours of his heart in giving glory to JEHOVAH, who dwelleth in his sanctuary on earth, which is figurative of his eternal abode in the highest firmament of heaven. Thirteen times in this way does the Spirit call upon them to the glorious duty; and well knowing the inadequacy of all human efforts to give him the glory that is due, he closes with all that language can utter Let all that have breath praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Amen: so be it for evermore.

Now, as these sacred songs trace sad scenes of war, of exile, of treasons, and of sins, and as they are mixed with songs of joy, and finally close with praise in the loudest strains; so, poor, weak and dejected soul, may all thy tears terminate in joy, and all thy griefs in everlasting hymns of praise in Gods holy place below, and in the high firmament of his eternal abode.

Yet though the version be clothed in the happiest dress that pious poets, aided by a divine influence, can possibly give; and though the sentiments of piety everywhere expressed in the psalms be of the purest kind; still they are not adequate, without a collection of hymns in the language of the new testament, to supply all that is wanted in a christian congregation. Then a congregation connects in hymn, the substance of revelation, and worships God on earth in the language of heaven.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

CL. Each book ends with a doxology. Here we have a much longer doxology, which closes Book V and the whole Psalter also. The praise of God begins from His sanctuary, i.e. probably from His sanctuary in heaven, not from the Temple on Zion.

(See also Supplement)

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

PSALM 150

Earth and heaven, with everything that has breath, called to praise the Lord.

(v. 1) Very blessedly these five psalms of praise close with a call to earth and heaven to join in the praise of the Lord. God is to be praised in His earthly sanctuary of His holiness, and in the firmament of heaven in which His power and majesty are displayed. He is to be praised for His mighty acts, and His excellent greatness.

Every instrument in the temple service is to be employed in His praise; but, over and above all, the voice of man is to sound the praise of the Lord. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.

Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

150:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his {a} sanctuary: praise him in the {b} firmament of his power.

(a) That is, in the heaven.

(b) For his wonderful power appears in the firmament, which in Hebrew is called a stretching out, or spreading abroad, in which the mighty work of God shines.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Psalms 150

The inspired poet called on every person to praise Yahweh for His powerful deeds and supreme greatness (10 times out of the 13 uses of "praise" in this psalm). This psalm serves as a final doxology, bringing the collection of psalms to a solemn and joyful conclusion.

"The conclusion of the Psalter is this extravagant summons to praise, which seeks to mobilize all creation with a spontaneous and unreserved act of adoration, praise, gratitude, and awe. There are no ’bases’ given; no reason needs to be given." [Note: Brueggemann, p. 167.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. The call 150:1

The psalmist called on his audience to praise God in His heavenly sanctuary. This psalm, like so many of the Hallel psalms (113-118, 120-136, 146-150), opens and closes with a call to worship. The term "sanctuary" (lit. holy place) is evidently in apposition to "mighty expanse," and both terms are parallel synonyms for "heaven," i.e., God’s home-the universe.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 150:1-6

THIS noble close of the Psalter rings out one clear note of praise, as the end of all the many moods and experiences recorded in its wonderful sighs and songs. Tears, groans, wailings for sin, meditations on the dark depths of Providence, fainting faith and foiled aspirations, all lead up to this. The psalm is more than an artistic close of the Psalter: it is a prophecy of the last result of the devout life, and, in its unclouded sunniness, as well as in its universality, it proclaims the certain end of the weary years for the individual and for the world. “Everything that hath breath” shall yet praise Jehovah. The psalm is evidently meant for liturgic use, and one may imagine that each instrument began to take part in the concert as it was named, till at last all blended in a mighty torrent of praiseful sound, to which the whirling dancers kept time. A strange contrast to modern notions of sobriety in worship!

The tenfold “Praise Him” has been often noticed as symbolic of completeness, but has probably no special significance.

In Psa 150:1 the psalmist calls on earth and heaven to praise. The “sanctuary” may, indeed, be either the Temple or the heavenly palace of Jehovah, but it is more probable that the invocation, like so many others of a similar kind, is addressed to men and angels, than that the latter only are meant. They who stand in the earthly courts and they who circle the throne that is reared above the visible firmament are parts of a great whole, an antiphonal chorus. It becomes them to praise, for they each dwell in Gods sanctuary.

The theme of praise is next touched in Psa 150:2. “His mighty deeds” might be rendered “His heroic [or, valiant] acts.” The reference is to His deliverance of His people as a signal manifestation of prowess or conquering might. The tenderness which moved the power is not here in question, but the power cannot be worthily praised or understood, unless that Divine pity and graciousness of which it is the instrument are apprehended. Mighty acts, unsoftened by loving impulse and gracious purpose, would evoke awe, but not thanks. No praise is adequate to the abundance of His greatness, but yet He accepts such adoration as men can render.

The instruments named in Psa 150:3-5 were not all used, so far as we know, in the Temple service. There is possibly an intention to go beyond those recognised as sacred, in order to emphasise the universality of praise. The horn was the curved “Shophar,” blown by the priests; “harp and psaltery were played by the Levites, timbrels were struck by women; and dancing, playing on stringed instruments and pipes and cymbals, were not reserved for the Levites. Consequently the summons to praise God is addressed to priests, Levites, and people” (Baethgen). In Psa 150:4 b “strings” means stringed instruments, and “pipe” is probably that used by shepherds, neither of which kinds of instrument elsewhere appears as employed in worship.

Too little is known of Jewish music to enable us to determine whether the epithets applied to cymbals refer to two different kinds. Probably they do; the first being small and high pitched, the second larger, like the similar instrument used in military music, and of a deep tone.

But the singer would fain hear a volume of sound which should drown all that sweet tumult which he has evoked; and therefore he calls on “everything that has breath” to use it in sending forth a thunder chorus of praise to Jehovah. The invocation bears the prophecy of its own fulfilment. These last strains of the long series of psalmists are as if that band of singers of Israel turned to the listening world, and gave into its keeping the harps which, under their own hands, had yielded such immortal music.

Few voices have obeyed the summons, and the vision of a world melodious with the praise of Jehovah and of Him alone appears to us, in our despondent moments, almost as far off as it was when the last psalmist ceased to sing. But his call is our confidence; and we know that the end of history shall be that to Him whose work is mightier than all the other mighty acts of Jehovah, “Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary