PSALMS 



469 



(which properly form but one book) are later as 

 collections than the three first. These five books 

 are (1) Pa. i.-xli., (2) Ps. xlii.-lxxii., (3) Ps. 

 Ixxiii.-lxxxix., (4) Ps. xc.-cvi., (5) Ps. cvii.-cl. 

 And that of the third is that within these five 

 ' books ' there are certain minor books or psalters, 

 which have certain common characteristics, and 

 may, at any rate at the outset of the inquiry, be 

 presumed to contain works of the same (not too 

 strictly defined ) period. These minor psalters are 

 the Davidic (to which the ' Davidic psalms in 

 Books iv. and v. do not belong), the Korahite, the 

 Asaphite, and the Songs of Ascent (i.e. of pilgrim- 

 age), commonly miscalled 'Songs of Degrees,' in 

 addition to which there are various other groups of 

 psalms, not marked bv traditional headings, such 

 as the Hallel and the Hallelujah psalms, the deut- 

 ero-Isaianic (i.e. those which suggest the writer's 

 acquaintance with the exilic portions of Isaiah), 

 and the Jeremianic (i.e. those which from internal 

 evidence were written either by Jeremiah or by a 

 follower of that great prophet). 



Thus, the conscious or unconscious object of 

 recent criticism of the Psalms has been the impart- 

 ing a stricter and more scientific character to the 

 argument from internal evidence. Not the least 

 difficult part of the work is that which relates to 

 the linguistic phenomena, the evidential value of 

 which has often been too much depreciated. This 

 kind of evidence is no doubt rarely conclusive, but 

 even in the case of the highly imitative psalm- 

 literature will lead the critical student to some 

 perhaps unforeseen results, unless indeed his way 

 is barred by the arbitrary assumption that all the 

 evidences of later date in the supposed pre-exilic 

 psalms have been introduced by editors. And 

 what upon the whole are the results of a criticism 

 which does not float 'upon a sea of uncertainty?' 

 Two very definite ones may l>e mentioned, with a 

 warning, however, to the student that the criticism 

 of the Psalter is so interwoven with that of other 

 Old Testament books that many good Hebraists 

 mi^'lit hesitate to endorse even these moderately- 

 Htated results. First, that there is a considerable 

 niinilxT of psalms belonging to the pre-Maccabean 

 and Maccabean Greek portion of the post-exilic 

 period (see especially Ps. xlix., Ixxiv., Ixxix., ex., 

 cxviii., cxlix.). The possibility of this theory 

 (which was virtually held by Theodore of Mop- 

 Htiestia) is expressly admitted in the margin of 

 our own 'Geneva Bible.' The objections to it 

 are of various degrees of plausibility ; none of 

 them, however, are conclusive. It has been urged, 

 for instance, that the so-called Psalms of Solomon 

 (the composition of which falls l>etween 63 B.C. and 

 46 B.C.) breathe an entirely different spirit from the 

 jMiilms which may most plausibly be referred to the 

 period of the Greek rule and of the Maccabean 

 rising. But it can be easily shown that the latter 

 event was a turning-point in Jewish religion, after 

 which we might fairly expect a considerable differ- 

 ence in the tone even of liturgical poetry. More- 

 over, the phrase ' an entirely different spirit ' is an 

 exaggeration. There are certainly the germs of 

 Icgalism in Psalms i. t xix. 7-14, cxix., and those 

 of later doctrines of immortality and resurrection 

 may (if the late dates of Ps. xvi., xvii., xlix., Ixxiii. 

 l>e granted) be not unreasonably found in parts of 

 the Psalter, while several of the ' Pharistean Psalms 

 of Solomon contain passages strikingly parallel to 

 our Ps. xlix. A second result is that none of the 

 extant psalms are the genuine work of David, who 

 wan doubtless a gifted musician and poet (the early 

 tradition on this point is clear), but whose hymns 

 were probably too little in accordance with later 

 ideas of art and of religion to escape the great 

 literary as well as political catastrophe of the Exile. 

 Contrast the life of David in the Books of Samuel 



with the character sketched, evidently from life, 

 in the so-called Davidic psalms. Granting that 

 David lived in the service of an ideal which lie 

 sought, but often failed, to realise, could that ideal 

 have agreed with the picture presented to us in the 

 Psalter? How much is there in the tone or the 

 ideas or the implied circumstances of the psalms 

 which agrees with the tone or ideas of the tradi- 

 tional speeches of David and with his traditional 

 history ? Enough perhaps to permit us to regard 

 him as a far-off adumbration of the nobler members 

 of the post-exilic church, and therefore also of Him 

 who was the ' root and offspring of David ' ( Rev. 

 xxii. 16), but scarcely more than this. Indeed the 

 only doubt is, not so much whether any psalms 

 are Davidic, hut whether any are even pre-exilic 

 at all. The fact ( which, even without scientific 

 proof, it would be unreasonable to doubt) that 

 David composed some psalms was enough to make 

 collectors call certain psalms, or collections of 

 psalms, by his name, somewhat as the various 

 expansions of the older law in different ages were 

 usually referred to Moses. David was in fact the 

 traditional founder of psalmody and to some ex- 

 tent (see below) a precursor of the religion of the 

 Psalter. Perhaps, too, psalms which David really 

 wrote may have been expanded or added to by 

 later writers. The most plausible instance is Ps. 

 Ix. ; but there is nowhere any necessity to adopt 

 this view. It is safer to hold provisionally that 

 certain psalms are as old as the epoch-making 

 reign of Josiah. Yet the arguments for this view 

 are seldom, if ever, cogent, and mainly depend 

 for their acceptance on our ideas of historical 

 probability, which ideas again depend on the 

 picture we have formed, on critical grounds, of 

 the Babylonian and Persian periods of the history 

 of the Jews. Psalm xviii. is no doubt the psalm 

 which would, more generally than any other, be 

 pronounced pre-exilic. Some of the older critics 

 were even quite sure that it was Davidic, influ- 

 enced partly by the admission of the poem into 

 what is called the appendix to Samuel (see 2 Sam. 

 xxiii. ), which, however, only proves that the poem 

 was conjectural!} 1 ascribed to David ( the idealised 

 David of later times) by the editor of Samuel, who 

 lived not long Ijefore the Exile. To the present 

 writer an early pre-exilic date for this psalm seems 

 incompatible with the internal evidence. He thinks 

 that, though perhaps written in the reign of Josiah 

 as a literary illustration of the life of David, it was 

 only adopted as a temple-hymn after the return 

 from exile, when it was doubtless interpreted as 

 prophetic of a great future Davidic ruler or line of 

 rulers (see Ps. xviii. 50). The final editing of the 

 Psalter he ascribes to the temple-authorities in the 

 time of Simon the Maccabee. The book would 

 quickly be carried to ' Israel in Egypt,' and soon 

 afterwards translated into Greek for the benefit of 

 the great Jewish community at Alexandria. The 

 date of this event cannot be fixed with precision, 

 but it was at any rate before the Christian era. 



Among the arguments for the post-exilic date of 

 the Psalms none perhaps is more cogent than that 

 which is based on their essential unity of tone. 

 They have, in short, such a strong family likeness 

 that it would be rash to spread their composition 

 over too extensive a space. And if they all, or 

 nearly all, belong to one period, can we be in 

 doubt which that period is ? Is it not obvious that 

 these temple-songs were written for a community 

 which hau absorbed, in some real though still 

 imperfect degree, the high teaching of the pre- 

 exilic and exilic prophets? Now, though it would 

 be absurd to say that there were no psalms before 

 the Exile, the writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah 

 prove that the nation, as a whole, was as yet far 

 from having assimilated the pure and spiritual 



