Studies in the Psalter.

BY TALBOT W. CHAMBERS, D.D.

NO. XXXVI.-THE 22D PSALM. The Great Sufferer and His Relief.

The

THIS Psalm sets forth the last extremity of human suffering, yet without any confession of sin, and closes with the sure hope of deliverance. title, "Set to Aiyeleth Hash-Shahar," by some considered an enigmatic reference to the sentiment of the Psalm, rather indicates the melody to which it was to be sung. There is no reason for doubting the correctness of its ascription to David. We indeed know of no circumstances in his life to which its various details can be referred, and the New Testament represents it as fulfilled in Christ. Its first words were uttered by Him on the cross; the scorn of the passers-by in ver. 7 and the reproach in ver. 8 are reproduced in Matt. xxvii. 39, 43; the intense thirst of ver.

15 is seen in John xix. 28; the parting of the garments in ver. 18 in John xix. 23; the piercing of the hands and feet in ver. 16 in the crucifixion; and the triumphant praise of ver. 22 is applied

We are

swerest not,

And by night and keep not silence: Yet Thou art Holy,

Enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In Thee our fathers trusted;

They trusted, and Thou didst deliver them: Unto Thee they cried and were rescued, In Thee they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I-am a worm and not a man,

A reproach of men and despised of the people:

All that see me laugh me to scorn,

They shoot out the lip, they wag the head (saying) "Cast thyself on Jehovah. him :

Let Him deliver

Let Him rescue him, seeing He delighteth in
him."

Yea, Thou art He that took me from the womb,
That kept me secure upon my mother's breast.
Upon Thee was I cast from my birth,
From the bowels of my mother THOU art my
God.

The cry with which the Psalm opens is not an utterance of impatience or despair, but of grief and entreaty. It is the question of faith as well as of anguish, for the sufferer says, “My God, O My God." The rendering of the second line (taken from Dr. De Witt) suggests the great chasm between his outcry and the help he implores. The thought is expanded in the next verse, which states that his entreaty continued day and night, and still is unavailing. God stands afar off, ie, withholds His help. What makes this the more remarkable is the nature of God, as Holy, i.e., separated from all imperfection, a God of infinite excellence, sitting as king upon the praises of Israel,* i.e., the thankful recognitions of his former tokens of favor. Upon these acts of deliverance and redemp tion the sufferer dwells with emphasis. In the olden time the fathers trusted and were not put to shame; why, why is the present case made an exception? It is such, for alas! he is mean, and weak, and helpless as a worm-re proached and despised not merely by a single person or a few, but by the community at large. All the spectators

A fine expression, taken from the common description of Jehovah as seated above the cher ubim.

join in derision, gesticulating with the lip and the head to express their malicious joy at his sufferings. Nay, they taunt him with his presumed piety, asking him to call on Jehovah for relief, and using solemn and comforting words with hideous mockery, but the ridicule fails of its object. Faith turns the mockery of foes into an argument for deliverance. The derision only casts him back more trustfully upon the One who does delight in him, for He had sustained him from his very birth. The remembrance of past mer-1 cies and deliverances is a great stimulus to patience and hope.

II. The Prayer against Violence (vv. 11-21).

Be not far from me, for distress is near,
For there is none to help.

Many bulls have come about me;

Bashan's strong ones have beset me round.
They open their mouth wide against me,—
The rending and roaring lions.

I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are disjointed;
My heart has become like wax,

It is melted in the midst of my body.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
And thou layest me in the dust of
death.

For dogs have come about me,

A band of evil-doers have enclosed me,
Piercing my hands and my feet.

I can tell all my bones;

They stand gazing and staring at me.
They part my garments among them,
And upon my vesture they cast lots.
But THOU, O Jehovah, be not far off,

O my Strength, come quick to my aid.
Deliver my soul from the sword,

My only one from the power of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth,

Yea, from the horns of wild oxen Thou

answerest me.

In the first strophe the great subject of complaint was the scorn and derision of his enemies; here it is their violence. Having shown that he was justified in expecting Divine aid, he now shows that the necessity for it exists. It was no time for God to be far off, when distress was so near, and there was no other helper. The figures that follow are from pastoral life. The bulls fed in the rich and solitary pastures of

Bashan, where the absence of men would increase their wildness, well express the strength and fierceness of his persecutors. This is enhanced by the thought of lions rending and roaring with open mouth. The consequence is weakness and utter exhaustion. His bones are out of joint, his strength is gone, his heart has melted away. He is as destitute of vigor as a broken piece of pottery is of moisture. His tongue is parched with thirst. Death must be the end, and the sufferer recognizes God as the author of this event and men as only His instruments (cf. Acts ii. 23). His enemies are still compared to savage animals, "dogs" in the East being much wilder than with us, and being also considered as especially unclean. These represent an organized body engaged in the persecution, and they pierce the sufferer's hands and feet. And now he is so emaciated that he can count all his bones, while his enemies look with malicious satisfaction upon his sufferings. Upon this follows the last act of indignity which completes the picture. His clothes are stripped from him and divided as plunder among his focs. Again recurs the same prayer as in vv. 1 and 11, "Be not far," but with greater emphasis, But, THOU, Jehovah, be not far." The sword is a general expression for life-destroying agents. "My only one" is shown by the parallelism to mean life, the only one he had to lose, and therefore precious. In the next verse, in the very act of praying for deliverance from the lion or the wild ox, there occurs an assurance of success, and he announces it. There are many examples in the Psalter of a song beginning in deep anguish and ending in a shout of triumph, but none is so conspicuous as this. The transi tion is immediate and immense.

III. The Expression of Thanks and Hope (vv. 22-31).

The Masoretic interpunction reads, "Like a lion," but the impossibility of making sense of this justifies one in following the oldest version (LXX), which gives the sense inserted above.

I will tell Thy name to my brethren,
In the midst of the assembly will I praise
Thee.

Ye that fear Jehovah, praise Him;

All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him;

And stand in awe of Him, all ye the seed of Israel.

For He despised not nor abhorred the suffering of the sufferer,

Neither did He hide His face from him; But when he cried unto Him, He heard. From Thee cometh my praise in the great assembly,

My vows will I pay before them that fear Him.

The lowly shall eat and be satisfied,

They shall praise Jehovah that seek Him:
May your heart live forever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Jehovah,

And all the families of the nations shall worship before Thee.

For Jehovah's is the kingdom,

And He is ruler over the nations.

All the rich of the earth shall eat and worship; All that go down to the dust shall bend before Him,

Even he that cannot preserve his own life. A seed shall serve Him,

It shall be told of the Lord to the next gener ation.

They shall come and shall declare His righteous

ness

To a people yet to be born, that He hath done it.

The sufferer's certainty of deliverance is shown by his intention to give thanks for it. This will be done not in private, but before the whole nation. And he proceeds, as if in the midst of the assembly, to summon all the race to join in the ascription. The reason is God's faithfulness to His promise in hearing and rescuing one so hardly bestead. Then the singer turns to God, and says that his praise has Him for its source, since He furnished the occasion for it. With this are connected the thank-offerings which he vowed when in mortal danger. When these are performed it is not a solitary service, but the lowly are to join in the banquet, even all who fear God and who seek Him, to whom there is expressed the wish that this may prove a refreshment that shall endure forever. The next verse tells of a still wider diffusion of the thanksgiving. Not only one race, but every race is to participate. The ends of the

earth and all that lies between them, the entire human family, are to join in the service, and acknowledge God as the sole and rightful ruler of the world and the author of this great salvation. Here the singer recurs to the figure of the banquet, and represents all classes as joining in; the rich and mighty and also the very opposite condition, such as are just ready to return to dust and unable to recover themselves, shall together occupy seats at the table, and bend in thankful acknowledgment of the privilege. Nor is this to be only for a time. Posterity shall continue the service, and generations yet unborn shall hear and celebrate the righteousness of Jehovah in what He has done in the whole treatment of His faithful servant, alike in the previous suffering and in the subsequent exaltation.

It is very manifest that the experi ence here recorded, alike of sorrow and of joy, far transcends anything which we have reason to think that David passed through. So far as we can learn he had no such depth of anguish or so near an approach to a violent and painful death, nor did he cherish for himself or for his posterity such a widespread and unending fame as the chosen of God, as we see recounted here. His person was never pierced, so far as we know, nor did his captors gamble for his garments; nor were his individual fortunes made the theme of public praise in the assemblies of Israel; nor did men in his day or that of his lineal descendants come from far-off regions, and offer thanks and worship to the God of Israel for the manifestations He made of Himself to the cove nant people.

No; David was a poet and a proph et. He was lifted above himself. He idealized an experience of his own, intensifying every feature and heaping together all that could make the picture impressive and startling, and then left the poem on record as an outline which one day was to be filled up, both in its dark and in its bright features. by one who as Messiah would be both

a sufferer and a conqueror. The coincidences between the Gospel narratives and the first half of the lyric, and between the fortunes of the Church and the second half are too striking in number and character for any one to doubt the existence of a real relation between them. The Psalm is an epitome of redemption, setting forth the cross in the first half and the crown in the second, beginning with a cry of despairing anguish and ending with a shout of triumph. It was sung by North African churches at the Easter celebration of the Lord's Supper, and hymns founded upon it still are put to the same holy and solemn use. No. will the people of God ever be persuade, to regard the theme of this striking lyric as other than the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.

An Exegetical Study of 1 Peter iii. 18-22.

BY REV. D. F. BONNER, D.D., FLORIDA, N. Y.

IN seeking to ascertain the meaning of an obscure passage in any writing, close attention must be given to three things: 1. The exact language of the passage; 2. The manifest teachings of plain portions of the same writing; and 3. The line of thought, if any such be discoverable, in the preceding and succeeding contexts.

In the present paper it is proposed, by means of the strict application of these rules, to seek the meaning of this much discussed passage in the first epistle of Peter.

There is a distinct line of thought running through both the preceding and succeeding contexts. It can be easily traced up to the passage before us, and passing over the passage it can be easily picked up again at its close. This being the case, the natural inference is that that line of thought somehow or other runs through the passage itself, and that a true interpretation of the passage will reveal it. Peter has

been urging the Christians of the Dis. persion to lead holy and beneficent lives. He presents various motives to induce them to live such lives. (a) By so doing they will place themselves under the protection and gracious Providence of Almighty God. "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous," etc. (ver. 12). (b) If they live such lives few will molest them. "And who is he," etc. (ver. 13). (c) Should they even suffer for such a life they will be happy. "But and if," ctc. (ver. 14). The mention of this possibility leads to a brief digression. Resuming his argument, he maintains that suffering for righteousness ought to bring happiness because it brings success, "For it is better," etc. All recognize the fact that it is well to suffer for evil-doing, but it is even better, if wills the will of God (mark the condition) to suffer for well-doing. This position he justifies by the experience of Christ," For Christ also hath once suffered," etc. (ver. 18). Then follows a statement respecting the sufferings of Christ. It is a very suggestive statement, and contains an admirable summary of Christian soteriology. It presents in the briefest form the great features of Christ's redemptive sufferings. They were penal, “for sins ;" vicarious, "for the unjust;" propitiatory, "to bring us to God." But the richness and suggestiveness of the passage in the domain of soteriology should not be permitted to prevent a clear recognition of its place in the apostle's argument. It is not the uniqueness of the sufferings of Christ which the apos tle has now specially in mind, but the fact that they were sufferings for welldoing, and as such were wondrously beneficent. We must keep this fact clearly and constantly in mind, if we would follow the apostle in his argument.

It is true that actually, as viewed in the light of the accomplishment of God's purpose of redemption, Christ suffered for sins. It is true also that ostensibly, in the light of the judicial sentence under which the extreme meas