878 



LMS. 



concerning them, may safely In- left to tin- division of 

 any intelligent reader who will read carefully, in each 



case first the pa.-.-are referred to in Samuel, in 

 full connection, and then I In- psalm referring to it 



IV lii. to IWg, Ps. 11 v. to the Zip! with their coming from T>avi<l and Rolnmon, 



tte, PB. lix. to David when watched in his house liy that ran l'st be decided liy any "lie |i>r himself, by 

 Saul. implies an absolute lack of the ver\ elements of reading the psalms in i|in's(ion. 'I'll. \ kr I ' 

 hiltorieM judgment." Tin- question which displays cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii., and cxxvii. Any ordr 

 the greater hu-k of historical judgment, tin- man who reader, reading with this question in inin;l. will prob- 

 Wrote these titles, or tin* man who made this remark a)>ly decide that tin- sentiment- psalms arc 



-iichas would come with pccuharappropriatencss from 

 D.i\ id and from Suloinon. 



"'I'lu' notes htruck in the Lamentations and in 

 Isaiah xl.-l.xvi meet our ears again in not a lew psalm* 

 of book i." The psalms cite. 1 in proof of this are 

 xxii.. xxv., xxxiv., JLXXV., xxxviii., xli., and xxxi., 

 "with many points of NMBblMMM to .Jeremiah. " 

 "Other psalms of the collection treat the problem- of 

 individual religion in the line of thought first opened 

 by Jeremiah. Such a psalm is . \xxix. and above all 

 Ps, ivi." But (lie phenomena referred to iii 

 statements are best explained by the view that these 

 (Malms were already ancient in the times of the pro- 

 writer identifies himself with ^ho poor and needy, the | pheticauthors mentioned, and were familiarly known 



to them as the ancient sacred songs of the nation. It 



i' the canes does the psalm contain a description 

 of the incident referred to. so that some later editor 

 would be likely to identify the iisalui with the incident; 

 but in each ease the psalm delineates thoughts and 

 feelings such aa might naturally arise from tin- inci- 

 dent, in an earnest, religious younir man. who held 

 somewhat large views in regard to God's purposes with 



1-: M ! 



"There is a whole series of hymns in which the 



righteous people of God suffering in silence at the 



hands of the wicked, without other nope than patiently 

 to wait for the interposition of Jehovah (Ps. xii.. 

 xxv. , xxxvii., xxxviii. , etc. ). Nothing can be further re- 

 moved than this from any possible situation in the life 

 of the David of the books of Samuel." On the con- 

 trary, if any one will carefully read what the books of 

 Samuel say concerning David and his relations with 

 Saul, up to a point of time when David had become a 

 fugitive, but before the time of his defection to the 

 Philistines, he will see that the Twelfth psalm accu- 

 rately fits a situation in the life of David. If any one 

 ,will get distinctly into mind the situation of David in 

 the period after his domestic troubles began, say from 

 the time of the murder of Annum by Absalom to the 

 close of David's life, and will observe the extent to 

 which David had brought these troubles ujion himself, 

 by practising polygamy, by the sin with I riah's wife, 

 and in other ways, he will see that just such a situation 

 a- tl'is is the situation contemplated in such psalms a-s 

 the Twenty-fifth and Thirty-eighth. If he will think 

 of David in these later years, repentant, but bound 

 fast to such men as Joab, Absalom, Ahithophe), by 

 bonds that were partly creditable, but partly discredit- 

 able, he will find a situation that fits the Thirty -> 

 p aim, as it also fits the shorter psalui found in li .Sam. 

 xxiii. 1-7. 



" lv.cn the bare names of the old history were no 

 Lifter correctly known when Abiuielech (the Philis- 

 tine king in the stories of Abraham and Isaac) could 

 be sulistituted in the title of Ps. xxxiv. lor Achish, 

 king of iiath." Hut if this argument proves anything. 

 it proves that this title has not yet been written, and 

 never will be ; for the time has not yet come when the 

 name of Achish is "no longer correctly known. " 

 Whatever explanation maybe given for the variation 

 of names here (variant names are too common in the 

 Old Testament to require much explanation), there is 

 nothing in it that has the slightest weight to prove 

 either that the title was written after the name of 

 Aehish was forgotten, or that the title is unhistorical. 



" 1's. xx., xxi. are not spoken by a king, but ad- 

 dressed to a king by his people." If this were true, it 

 would prove nothing against the Davidic authorship of 

 these psalms ; why should not this poet, like other 

 lyiie p limes write from the point of' view of 



others, esjM-i-ially when be writes a wing for others to 

 .iii.l siiiu' ? Hut I'.- \xi. Ix-ars every mark of 

 having been written by the king in question, as well an 

 to the king. 



"The titles which ascribe four of the pilgrimage 

 Bongs to David and one to Solomon are laekin;: in I he 



- LXX.. and inconsistent with the contents of the 

 psalms." Considering the extent to which the o.pi. s 

 of the .Scptuagint differ both among thcmscK 

 with the Hebrew, no one should rcr.anl the omission 

 of these titles by the Scptuagint as very significant. 



quo 

 the 



follows that " the line of thought" alluded to was not 

 " first opened by Jeremiah," but was found by Jere- 

 miah in the Davidic psalms, and used accordingly. 



If any reader of the preceding paragraphs takes the 

 trouble to verify them by carefully readinir the p:i- 

 sages of Scripture referred to, he will probably find 

 himself wondering how any man could possibly be led 

 to make such statements as those that ha\. 



noted ; perhaps the fact that the misstatcments in 

 quoted passages are so very palpable may lead him 

 to question whether the present treatment of them is 

 not one-sided and unfair. Hut to explain this puzzling 

 fact, he need only plant himself at the point of view 

 from which the quoted statements are made. If it 

 were true that the lYotateuchal legislation came into 

 existence long after the times of David, and the cere- 

 monial parts of it mostly after the exile, then it would 

 be true that all the psalms that mention this ii 

 tion are of correspondingly late date. Again, those 

 who hold, as a fundamental part of their theory of the 

 origin of the Hexateuch. that literary and humane 

 culture in Israel practically began several generations 

 later than David, are obliged so to understand the 

 history of the times of David that it will be consist cut 

 with their view. It is a part of their work to analyze. 

 emend, and correct the books of Samuel, to submit 

 these books to what they call a process of sifting, so as 

 to make the books conform to the truth, as the truth 

 seems to them. The statements quoted almve in re- 

 gard to the character of David and his times are 

 based, not on the books of Samuel a< found in the 

 texts, but on what these critics understand to be the 

 credible portions of the books of Samuel, interpreted 

 according to a certain scheme for the historical devel- 

 opment of Israel. Facts like this at once account for 

 the statements that have been quoted, Mid corroborate 

 the reo-sons that have been given for condemning them. 



The article in the BdOTOLOPJBDU HillT.\N\n v 

 regards 1's li. as a psalm of the exile, purely on t In- 

 ground of its meiitioninir. in the last two verses, the 

 offering of sacrifices and the building of the- walls of 

 Jerusalem ; but according to the- historical books of 

 the Bible these marks fit David's time. l-'mm the 

 mention of /ebiilon and Nnphtali along with Henjamin 

 and Judah. in 1's. Ixviii. li", it infers that this psalm 

 must have been written later than Nehemiah's time : 

 but. according to the historical books, this mark ac- 

 curately tits the time of David. It is useless to multiply 

 examples. Evidently, the reasons alleged to discredit 

 the titles of the psalms have no great weight, and the 

 titles remain. ILS a whole, historically credible. 



The 'J't'xliiiiniii/ ii/ lln' \in- 'l'ifliniii;it.--\n many 

 different pa-~ai:es the New Testament Inioks nimicct 

 ie of David with the following psalms that have 

 this name in their titles : Ps. xvi.. xxxii.. Ixix., cix., 

 ex. (see Concordance), ami also with I's. ii., cxxxii., 



Afl to whether tb mutant! of these psalms are incon- and xcv., which aru anonymowt in the Psalter. Tho 



