Book of Psalms

“ THE right of the book of Psalms to a place in the sacred canon hath never been disputed; and it is often cited by our Lord and his apostles, in the New Testament, as the work of the Holy Spirit. Whether David, therefore, or any other prophet, was employed, as the instrument of communicating to the church such or such a particular Psalm, is a question, which, if it cannot always be satisfactorily answered, need not disquiet our minds. When we discern, in an epistle, the well known hand of a friend, we are not solicitous about the pen with which it was written. ”

“ The whole Book of Psalms is a manual of devotion, consisting alternately, or rather intermixedly, of prayers and praises, composed some by Moses, some by other inspired Israelites of less note, but the greater part by David himself; and what is the force and tendency of their example? Words are spoken in collaudation of "Moses and Aaron among the saints of the Lord," and of "Samuel among such as called upon his name;" and mention is made with becoming reverence of the holy angels; but not one word ever falls from the pen of the Psalmist, addressed, by way of invocation, to saint or angel. ”

“ There are psalms of deep religious experience like the 32d.—“Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and whose sin is covered . . . Thou art a place to hide me in. . . . Thy hand is heavy upon me day and night . . . I will acknowledge my sin unto Thee.”
There are psalms, and these are almost the most important of all, such as the 9th, the 24th and 36th Psalms, which declare the providence and the kingdom of the Living God, with that great and prophetic 2d Psalm (ver. 1-5) : “Why do the heathen so furiously rage together, and the people imagine vain things. ”

“ As I see it, the apostle's distinction of the three words—psalms, hymns and spiritual songs—is this: "psalms" properly indicates those productions of David and others constituting the Book of Psalms; "hymns" refers to the songs of the prophets occasionally mentioned in the Scriptures—songs of Moses, Deborah, Solomon, Isaiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, with the Magnificat, the Benediction, and the like, called "Canticles"; "spiritual songs" are those not written in the Scriptures but of daily origin with men. ”

“ PSALM (from the Gr. word ψάλλειν, to play the harp) , the name used to designate the religious poems of the Hebrews, which are contained in the Psalter (see Psalms, Book of) . Modern collections of religious poetry sometimes bear the title of Psalms and Hymns, but these are always more or less directly connected with the actual Psalms of David. ”

“ Not only do they breathe through every part a divine spirit of eloquence, but they contain numberless illustrious prophecies that were remarkably accomplished, and are frequently appealed to by the evangelical writers. The sacred character of the whole book is established by the testimony of our Saviour and his Apostles, who, in various parts of the New Testament, appropriate the predictions of the Psalms as obviously apposite to the circumstances of their lives, and as intentionally composed to describe them. The veneration 795for the Psalms has in all ages of the church been considerable. ”

“ As nothing is so ordinary amongst us as the reading of Psalms, I thought fit to help them to a better understanding of that divine book. I could have given abundance of notes to clear many places which are dark in the translation, but I think I have given light enough by a short preface, and by the arguments which are prefixed to every psalm, if the readers are willing to consult diligently the places which I have remitted them to, and to consider them attentively. ”

“ They cover the whole field of religious experience for both individual believers and the church at large. Many of them—the so-called Messianic psalms—are prophetic of the Saviour's offices and work. We need not wonder, therefore, that the Psalms are quoted in the New Testament oftener than any other book of the Old Testament, Isaiah not excepted. ”

“ Unto the end, a canticle of a psalm of the resurrection. Shout with joy to God, all the earth,
65:2. Sing ye a psalm to his name; give glory to his praise.
65:3. Say unto God, How terrible are thy works, O Lord! in the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee.
65:4. Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name.
65:5. Come and see the works of God; who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. ”

“ PSALM vi. Domine, ne in furore
Ash Wednesday, morning (Prayer Book)
The prayer of the human soul suffering the temporal punishments, bodily and mental, of sin. Christ Himself endured these sufferings to the utmost, not for Himself, but for His people, and in this sense it, with the other penitential Psalms, may be called a Psalm of the Incarnation.
PSALM vii. Domine, Deus meus
The declaration of the Innocency of Christ against the persecution and treachery of His enemies; His appeal to the Father's justice. ”

“ If the community is a large one, let the Psalms be sung with antiphons; but if small, let them be sung straight through.
Let the Psalms of the Vesper Office be limited to four, with antiphons. After these Psalms the lesson is to be recited, then the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse, the canticle from the Gospel book, the litany, the Lord’s Prayer and the concluding prayers. ”

“ The conclusion of the Psalm, in which the holy prophet pronounces how it may be inferred from the preceding, how good and useful it is to love God and serve him with one’s whole heart, for, in the day of judgment, which cannot be far distant, such people alone can have any confidence. ”

“ The variety of strong expressions used in the nineteenth, and the hundred and nineteenth psalms, to extol the enlivening, saving, healing, comforting efficacy of a law, which, in the letter of it, could minister nothing but condemnation to guilty men, do sufficiently prove, that the Psalmist understood the spirit of it, which is the gospel itself, or the law as fulfilled by the Messiah. ”

“ Besides general principles, we are also to consider some of the general difficulties in the use of the Psalter as a Christian book. The Psalms are certainly not easy. Nothing as great as they are ever could be easy. None of the books of the Bible yield their secret except to labour and prayer, and the Psalms present special difficulties of their own. ”

“ Antiphons drawn from the Psalms themselves, or from the opening sentences given in the Offices, or from other passages of Scripture may be used with the Psalms and biblical Canticles.
Gloria Patri is always sung or said at the conclusion of the entire portion of the Psalter; and may be used after the Invitatory Psalm or the Canticle “Christ our Passover,” after each Psalm, and after each section of Psalm 119. ”

“ I advise the Reading and Meditation of it more frequently than any single Book of Scripture; and what I advise I practise. Nothing is more proper to furnish our Souls with devout Thoughts, and lead us into a World of Spiritual Experiences: The Expressions of it that are not Jewish or peculiar, give us constant Assistance in Prayer and in Praise: But yet if we would prepare David's Psalms to be sung by Christian Lips, we should, observe these two plain Rules. ”

“ Professor Murray supposes that this particular psalm was used for rehearsal by the women singers.
Some of these inscriptions designate the airs to which the psalms were set, part of which seem to be sacred, and part secular. Such is "Shushan Eduth," over Psalm lx., meaning "Fair as lilies is thy law," apparently the name of a popular religious air. Another, probably secular, is over Psalm xxii., "Aijeleth Shahar," "The stag at dawn," and another, over Psalm 1vi., "Jonathelem Rechokim," which is, being interpreted, "O silent dove, what bringest thou us from out the distance?" ”

“ A psalm of a canticle on the sabbath day.
91:2. It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O most High.
91:3. To shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night: 91:4. Upon an instrument of ten strings, upon the psaltery: with a canticle upon the harp.
91:5. For thou hast given me, O Lord, a delight in thy doings: and in the works of thy hands I shall rejoice.
91:6. O Lord, how great are thy works! thy thoughts are exceeding deep.
91:7. The senseless man shall not know: nor will the fool understand these things. ”

“ There are psalms again which are prayers for guidance and teaching like the 5th Psalm—“Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies: make thy way plain before my face.”
There are psalms, again, of Natural Religion, such as the 8th and the 19th and the 29th, the words p. 115of a man who had watched and studied nature by day and night, as he kept his sheep upon the mountains, and wandered in the desert with his men. “I will consider thy heavens, the works of thy hand, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained . . . the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea” . ”

“ The sixty-eighth psalm, though apparently conversant about Israelitish victories, the translation of the ark to Zion, and the services of the tabernacle; yet does, under those figures, treat of Christ’s resurrection, his going up on high, leading captivity captive, pouring out the gifts of the Spirit, erecting his kingdom in the world, and enlarging it, by bringing the Gentiles to the knowledge of the truth ”

“ "Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names." ”

“ This Psalm closes the series of deutero-Isaianic Psalms, which began with Ps 91. There is common to all of them that mild sublimity, sunny cheerfulness, unsorrowful spiritual character, and New Testament expandedness, which we wonder at in the second part of the Book of Isaiah; and besides all this, they are also linked together by the figure anadiplosis, and manifold consonances and accords. ”

“ Are you fond of it?”
“I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah.”
“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?” ”

“ The most casual reader is struck by the constancy with which an outlook of hope and joy succeeds to the sorrow and stress of the opening verses of Psalm after Psalm. Even the darkest have their gleams of promise. And so the Christian Church, having learned what the hope of Israel meant, found the Psalms come naturally to her lips. ”

“ And the Psalms are not all of equal excellence. Some contain terrible outpourings of hatred and vengeance. Many contain fierce and resentful expressions. And though these things were excusable in early times, and were, in fact, not wicked, but only a lower form of virtue, we cannot but feel their great inferiority to the teachings and spirit of Jesus. But taken as a whole, the Psalms are miracles of beauty and sublimity, of tenderness and majesty, of purity and piety, of wisdom and righteousness. They are a heaven of bright constellations; a world of glory and blessedness. ”

“ The Psalms appeal to mankind in every age and land because, being so divine and yet so human, they rest on the foundations of universal experience. Whenever a heart is breaking with sorrow or pulsating with thanksgiving and adoration, its strongest emotions find adequate expression in the simple and yet sublime language of the Psalter. ”

“ The third quality of the poetry of the Psalms is their intense joy in God. No lover ever poured out the longings of his heart toward his mistress more eagerly than the Psalmist voices his desire and thirst for God. No conqueror ever sang of victory more exultantly than the Psalmist rejoices in the Lord, who is his light and his salvation, the strength of his life and his portion forever. ”

“ Undoubtedly greater far than any of the preceding psalms is Psalm 90, which, transcending the limitations of the nation and the sect, laments the brevity and troubled nature of human life, and pleads for some knowledge of the plan of the eternal God, some permanency for human effort, some small measure of happiness in life’s brief day. ”

“ At Clavisson the mayor prohibited the protestants the practice of singing the psalms commonly used in the temple, that, as he said, the catholics might not be offended or disturbed. ”

“ The great themes of the Psalms are, Christ, Jehovah, the Law, Creation, the future of Israel, and the exercises of the renewed heart in suffering, in joy, in perplexity. The promises of the Psalms are primarily Jewish, and suited to a people under the law, but are spiritually true in Christian experience also, in the sense that they disclose the mind of God, and the exercises of His heart toward those who are perplexed, afflicted, or cast down. ”

“ I declare that the effect of this amazing lyric grows upon me every time that I hear it. Some Psalms, like the delicate and tender cxix., steal into the heart after long and quiet use. How dull I used to find it as a child; how I love it now! But this is not the case with the Venite; its noble simplicity and directness has no touch of intentional subtlety about it. Rather the subtlety was in the true insight, which saw that, if ever there was a Psalm which should at once give the reins to joy, and at the same time pierce the careless heart with a sharp arrow of thought, this was the Psalm. ”

“ And the ninetieth psalm, as its title in the original in our Bible translation shows, is attributed to Moses. There is no subject upon which learned men are so much at variance as the authorship of the Psalms, and the meaning of their titles. ”