The present publication owes its origin to Hengstenberg’s Commentary on the Psalms. The original design was to make that work, by abridgment and other unessential changes, more acceptable and useful to the English reader than it could be in the form of an exact translation. It was soon found, however, that by far the most important part of such a book would be a literal version of the Hebrew text, and that this was precisely what could not be obtained at second hand, by the awkward and unsatisfying process of translating a translation, but must be derived directly from an independent scrutiny of the original. In attempting this, the deviations from Hengstenberg, continually in form and not unfrequently in substance, rendered it wholly inexpedient and improper to make him responsible for what was really a new translation. The only course remaining therefore was to make this general acknowledgment, that his work is the basis of the one now offered to the public, and that more has been directly drawn from that source than from all others put together. The present writer has so freely availed himself of Hengstenberg’s translations, exegetical suggestions, and illustrative citations, in preparing his own version and explanatory comments, that nothing could have led him to forego the advantage of inserting that distinguished name upon his title-page, except a natural unwillingness to make it answerable for the good or evil which is really his own. At the same time, he considers it by no means the least merit of the book, that it presents, in a smaller compass and a more familiar dress, the most valuable results of so masterly an exposition.
In justice to his work and to himself, the author wishes it to be distinctly understood, that he has aimed exclusively at explanation, the discovery and statement of the meaning. To this he has confined himself for several reasons: first, because a wider plan would have required a larger book than was consistent with his general purpose; then, because this is really the point in which assistance is most needed by the readers of the Psalter; and lastly, because he had especially in view the wants of ministers, who are better able than himself to erect a doctrinal, devotional, or practical superstructure on the exegetical basis which he has endeavoured here to furnish. It follows of course, that the book is not designed to supersede the admirable works in common use, except so far as it may be found to correct their occasional errors of translation or verbal exposition.
It may be thought that, in order to accomplish this design, the author might have satisfied himself with a bare translation. But experience has more and more convinced him, that the meaning of an author cannot be fully given in another language by the use of exact equivalents, which are in fact so few, that the deficiency can only be supplied by the addition of synonymous expressions or by explanatory paraphrase, or by exegetical remark directly added to the text, or by the use of all these means together. The idea which he has endeavoured here to realize is that of an amplified translation. In the version properly so called, he has endeavoured to preserve, not only the strength but the peculiar form of the original, which is often lost in the English Bible, by substituting literal for figurative and general for specific terms, as well as by a needless deviation from the order of the words in Hebrew, upon which the emphasis, if not the sense, is frequently dependent, and which has here been carefully restored wherever the difference of idiom would suffer it, and sometimes, it may possibly be thought, without regard to it. Another gratuitous departure from the form of the original, which has been perhaps too scrupulously shunned, but not, it is believed, without advantage to the general character of the translation, arises from the habit of confounding the tenses, or merging the future and the past in a jejune and inexpressive present. The instances where this rule has been pushed to a rigorous extreme may be readily detected, but will not perhaps be thought to outweigh the advantage of preserving one of the most marked and striking features of the Hebrew language.
The plan of the book, as already defined, has excluded not only all devotional and practical remark, but all attempt to give the history of the interpretation, or to enumerate the advocates and authors of conflicting expositions. This, although necessary to a complete exegetical work, would rather have defeated the design of this one, both by adding to its bulk and by repelling a large class of readers. It has therefore been thought better to exclude it, or rather to reserve it for a kindred work upon a larger scale, if such should hereafter be demanded by the public. The same course has been taken with respect to a great mass of materials, relating to those topics which would naturally find their place in a Critical Introduction. Many of these, and such as are particularly necessary to the exposition, have been noticed incidentally as they occur. But synoptical summaries of these, and full discussions of the various questions, as to the age and authors of the several psalms, the origin and principle of their arrangement, the best mode of classification, and the principles on which they ought to be interpreted, would fill a volume by themselves, without materially promoting the main object of the present publication. As the topics thus necessarily excluded will probably constitute a principal subject of the author’s private and professional studies for some time to come, he is not without the hope of being able to bring something of this kind before the public, either in a separate work upon the Psalms, or in a general Introduction to the Scriptures.
The difficulty of discussing these preliminary matters within reasonable compass, although great in the case of any important part of Scripture, is aggravated by the peculiar structure of the Psalter, the most miscellaneous of the sacred books, containing a hundred and fifty compositions, each complete in itself, and varying in length, from two sentences (Ps. cxvii.) to a hundred and seventy-six (Ps. cxix.), as well as in subject, style, and tone, the work of many authors, and of different ages; so that a superficial reader might be tempted to regard it as a random or fortuitous collection of unconnected and incongruous materials.
A closer inspection shews, however, that this heterogeneous mass is not without a bond of union; that these hundred and fifty independent pieces, different as they are, have this in common, that they are all poetical, not merely imaginative and expressive of feeling, but stamped externally with that peculiar character of parallelism, which distinguishes the higher style of Hebrew composition from ordinary prose. A still more marked resemblance is that they are all not only poetical but lyrical, i. e. songs, poems intended to be sung, and with a musical accompaniment. Thirdly, they are all religious lyrics, even those which seem at first sight the most secular in theme and spirit, but which are all found on inquiry to be strongly expressive of religious feeling. In the fourth place, they are all ecclesiastical lyrics, psalms or hymns, intended to be permanently used in public worship, not excepting those which bear the clearest impress of original connection with the social, domestic, or personal relations and experience of the writers.
The book being thus invested with a certain unity of spirit, form, and purpose, we are naturally led to seek for something in the psalms themselves, which may determine more definitely their relation to each other. The first thing of this kind that presents itself is the existence, in a very large proportion, of an ancient title or inscription, varying in length and fulness; sometimes simply describing the composition, as a psalm, a song, a prayer, &c.; sometimes stating the subject or historical occasion, either in plain or enigmatical expressions; sometimes directing the performance, by indicating the accompanying instrument, by specifying the appropriate key or mode, or by naming the particular performer: these various intimations occurring sometimes singly, but frequently in combination.
The strenuous attempts which have been made by modern writers to discredit these inscriptions, as spurious additions of a later date, containing groundless and erroneous conjectures, often at variance with the terms and substance of the psalm itself, are defeated by the fact that they are found in the Hebrew text, as far as we can trace its history, not as addenda, but as integral parts of the composition; that such indications of the author and the subject, at the commencement of a composition, are familiar both to classical and oriental usage; and that the truth of these inscriptions may in every case be vindicated, and in none more successfully than those which seem at first sight least defensible, and which have therefore been appealed to, with most confidence, as proofs of spuriousness and recent date. The details included in this general statement will be pointed out as they occur, but are here referred to by anticipation, to explain and vindicate the constant treatment of the titles in this volume as an integral part of the sacred text, which in some editions of the Bible has been mutilated by omitting them, and in others dislocated or confused, for purposes of reference, by passing them over in the numeration of the verses. As this last arrangement is familiar to all readers of the English Bible, an attempt has been made in the following exposition to consult their convenience, by adding the numbers of the English to those of the Hebrew text, wherever they are different.
Another point of contact and resemblance between these apparently detached and independent compositions is the frequent recurrence of set phrases and of certain forms extending to the structure of whole psalms, such as the alphabetical arrangement, in which the successive sentences or paragraphs begin with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This is the more remarkable, because these alphabetic psalms have all a common character, distinguishing them from the rest, to wit, that instead of a progression of ideas, they consist of variations on a theme propounded at the outset, whether this be regarded as the cause or the effect of the peculiar form itself.
The same inquiries which have led to these conclusions also shew that the arrangement of the psalms in the collection is by no means so unmeaning and fortuitous as may at first sight seem to be the case, but that in many instances at least, a reason may be found for the juxtaposition, in resemblance or identity of subject or historical occasion, or in some remarkable coincidence of general form or of particular expressions. If in some cases it is difficult to trace the reason of the collocation, there are others in which two psalms bear so intimate and obvious a mutual relation, that they seem to constitute a pair or double psalm, either because they were originally meant to match each other, or because one has been subsequently added for the purpose. Sometimes, particularly in the latter part of the collection, we may trace not only pairs but trilogies, and even more extensive systems of connected psalms, each independent of the rest, and yet together forming beautiful and striking combinations, particularly when the nucleus or the basis of the series is an ancient psalm; for instance one of David’s, to which others have been added, in the way of variation or of imitation, at a later period, such as that of the Captivity.
Although the facts just mentioned are sufficient to evince that the Book of Psalms was not thrown together at random, but adjusted by a careful hand, the principle of the arrangement is not always so apparent, or of such a nature as to repress the wish to classify the psalms and reduce them to some systematic order. The most obvious arrangement would be that by authors, if the data were sufficient. But although the titles ascribe one to Moses, seventy-two to David, two to Solomon, twelve to Asaph, one to Ethan, and eleven to the Sons of Korah, it is doubtful in some of the cases, more particularly those last mentioned, whether the title was designed to indicate the author or the musical performer, and more than fifty are anonymous. In some of these the hand of David may be still distinctly traced, but as to most, we are abandoned to conjecture, which of course affords no solid basis for a satisfactory or useful distribution.
Another principle of classification is the internal character, the subject, style, and manner of the psalms. This was applied by the older writers, in accordance with the forms of artificial rhetoric, and with endless variety in the result. But the best application of the principle is that proposed by Hengstenberg, and founded on the tone of pious feeling which the psalm expresses: whether joyous, as in the general psalms of praise, and more especially in those of thanksgiving; or sad, as in the querulous and penitential psalms; or calm, as in most of the prophetic and didactic psalms. All these, however, are arrangements which the reader can make best to please himself, and which are rather the results of exposition than preliminary aids to it.
Apart from these attempts at systematic distribution and arrangement, there is also a question with respect to the division of the Psalter as it stands. There is an ancient division into five parts, corresponding, as the Rabbins say, to the five books of Moses, and indicated by doxologies at the close of Ps. xli., lxxii., lxxxix., cvi., while Ps. cl. is itself a doxology, winding up the whole. The modern critics, more especially in Germany, have tasked their ingenuity to prove that these are distinct collections, contemporaneous or successive, of detached compositions, afterwards combined to form the present Psalter. But they never have been able to account, with any plausibility or show of truth, for the remarkable position which the psalms of David occupy in all parts of the book. A much more probable hypothesis, though coupled with a theory, to say the least, extremely dubious, is that of Hengstenberg, who looks upon the actual arrangement as the work of Ezra, or some other skilful and authoritative hand, and accounts for the division into five books as follows. The first book (Ps. i.-xli.) contains only psalms of David, in which the use of the divine name Jehovah is predominant. The second (Ps. xlii.-lxxii.) contains psalms of David and his contemporaries, i.e., Solomon, Asaph, and the Sons of Korah, in which the predominant divine name is Elohim. The third (Ps. lxxiii.-lxxxix.) contains psalms of Asaph and the Sons of Korah, in which the name Jehovah is predominant. The fourth (Ps. xc.-cvi.) and fifth (cvii.-cl.) contain, for the most part, psalms of later date, the principal exceptions being one by Moses (Ps. xc.), and several of David’s, to which others in the same strain have been added, in the way already mentioned.
However ingenious this hypothesis may be, it will be seen at once that it contributes very little to the just appreciation or correct interpretation of the several psalms, except by enabling us, in certain cases, to derive illustration from a more extended context, as the reader will find stated in its proper place. Even granting, therefore, the historical assumption upon which it rests, and the favourite doctrine as to the divine names, with which it is to some extent identified, it will be sufficient for our present purpose to have stated it in outline, leaving the reader to compare it with the facts as they successively present themselves, and reserving a more full investigation of the general question to another time and place.
The best arrangement for the ordinary student of the Psalter is the actual arrangement of the book itself: first, because we have no better, and the efforts to invent a better have proved fruitless; then, because, as we have seen, there are sufficient indications, of a principle or purpose in this actual arrangement, whether we can always trace it there or not; and lastly, because uniform tradition and analogy agree in representing it as highly probable that this arrangement was the work of Ezra, the inspired collector and redacteur of the canon, so that even if nothing more should ever be discovered, with respect to his particular design or plan, we have still the satisfaction of relying, not on chance, but on a competent or rather an infallible authority, as well as the advantage of studying the psalms in a connection and an order which may possibly throw light upon them, even when it seems to us most fortuitous or arbitrary.
If any subdivision of the book is needed, as a basis or a means of more convenient exposition, it may be obtained by taking, as the central column of this splendid fabric, its most ancient portion, the sublime and affecting Prayer of Moses, known from time immemorial as the Ninetieth Psalm, and suffering this, as a dividing line, to separate the whole into two great parts, the first composed entirely of psalms belonging to the times of David, the other of a few such, with a much greater number of later compositions, founded on them and connected with them.
This simple distribution seems to secure all the substantial advantages of Hengstenberg’s hypothesis, without its complexity or doubtful points. Among the latter may be reckoned the extraordinary stress laid by this eminent interpreter on what may be called Symbolical Arithmetic, or the significance ascribed to the number of verses, of Selahs, of Jehovahs, of Elohims, used in any given psalm. Setting out from the unquestionable fact, that certain numbers are symbolically used in the Old Testament; that seven is the symbol of the covenant, twelve of the theocracy, ten of completeness or perfection, five of the reverse, &c., he attempts to trace the application of this principle throughout the psalms, and not, as might have been expected, without many palpable failures to establish his favourite and foregone conclusion. The effect which this singular prepossession might have had upon his exposition is prevented by his happily restricting it entirely to form and structure, and putting it precisely on a level with the alphabetical arrangement of the Hebrews, and with rhyme as used by other nations. There is still, however, reason to regret the space allotted to this subject in his volumes, and good ground for excluding it from works of an humbler and more popular description. As all the views of such a mind, however, are at least entitled to consideration, this subject may appropriately take its place among the topics of a Critical Introduction.
With respect to the historical relations of the Psalter and its bearings on the other parts of Scripture, it will be sufficient to remind the reader, that the Mosaic system reached its culminating point and full development in the reign of David, when the land of promise was in full possession, the provisions of the law for the first time folly carried out, and a permanent sanctuary secured, and, we may even say, prospectively erected. The chain of Messianic promises, which for ages had been broken, or concealed beneath the prophetic ritual, was now renewed by the addition of a new link, in the great Messianic promise made to David (2 Sam. vii.) of perpetual succession in his family. As the head of this royal race from which the Messiah was to spring, and as the great theocratical model of succeeding ages, who is mentioned more frequently in prophecy and gospel than all his natural descendants put together, he was inspired to originate a new kind of sacred composition, that of Psalmody, or rather to educe from the germ which Moses had planted an abundant harvest of religious poetry, not for his own private use, but for that of the Church, in the new form of public service which he added by divine command to the Mosaic ritual. As an inspired psalmist, as the founder and director of the temple-music, and as a model and exemplar to those after him, David’s position is unique in sacred history. As his military prowess had been necessary to complete the conquest of the land, so his poetical and musical genius was necessary to secure his influence upon the church for ever. The result is, that no part of the Bible has been so long, so constantly, and so extensively familiar, both to Jews and Christians, as the Psalms of David. This denominatio a potiori is entirely correct, as all the other writers of the psalms, excepting Moses, merely carry out and vary what had been already done by David; and as if to guard the system from deterioration, the farther we proceed the more direct and obvious is this dependence upon David, as “ the man raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. xxiii. 1), the master and the model of all other psalmists, from the days of Solomon to those of Ezra.
The interesting questions which have so often been discussed, as to the theology and ethics of the Psalter, and especially in reference to the doctrine of a Messiah and a future state, and to the so-called imprecations of the psalms, can be satisfactorily settled only by detailed interpretation of the passages concerned, and any summary anticipation of the general result may here be spared, although it would be highly appropriate in a Critical Introduction.
After this brief statement of preliminary points which might be fully treated in an Introduction, it only remains to add, in explanation of the plan adopted in the work itself, that the reader is constantly supposed to be familiar with the Hebrew text and with the authorised version, but that, in order to make the exposition accessible to a larger class of educated readers, the original words have been introduced but sparingly, and only for the purpose of saving space and avoiding an awkward circumlocution. The translation of the text is printed in italic type as prose, partly for a reason just assigned, to save room; partly because it is really prose, and not verse, according to the common acceptation of those terms; partly because the effect of the poetical element, so far as it exists, is weakened rather than enhanced when printed as irregular blank verse: but especially because the version is not meant to stand by itself, or to be continuously read, but to be part and parcel of the exposition, and to be qualified by the accompanying paraphrase and comments.
The religious uses of the Psalms, both doctrinal and practical, though not directly aimed at in these volumes, are so far from being undervalued by the author, and indeed so essential to his ultimate design, that any effect which the book may have, however humble or remote, in the promotion of this end, will be esteemed by him as its most flattering success, and the most acceptable reward of his exertions.
