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TITLE, "Mahalath Leannoth."-Concerning the first of these words, see the note on the title of Psalm liii.; the other ys, from anah, "to answer") is supposed to denote that the psalm was to be sung responsively by opposite choirs. (See Lowth's 19th Lecture, and Henley's note thereon.)

"Heman the Ezrahile."-This might be supposed to be the same as the chief musician of the name, in the time of David. But he was a Levite, whereas the present Heman is called an Ezrahite, which is understood to denote a descent from Zerah, the son of Judah, who had a son called Heman (1 Chron. ii. 6). If therefore the chief musician be intended, some transcriber must have made a mistake in assigning to him a paternity that belonged to another person of the same name. But this psalm is generally concluded to have been written during the Captivity; and, if so, we may suppose that it was written by a person called Heman, descended from the son of Zerab of that name, or else, supposing the term "Ezrahite" erroneously applied, by a person descended from the chief musician, and belonging to the band founded by him, and perhaps distinguished by his name.

PSALM LXXXIX.

1 The psalmist praiseth God for his covenant, 5 for his wonderful power, 15 for the care of his church, 19 for his favour to the kingdom of David. 38 Then complaining of contrary events, 46 he expostulateth, prayeth, and blesseth God.

Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite.

I WILL Sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.

2 For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.

3 I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have 'sworn unto David my servant,

4 Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne 'to all generations. Selah.

5 And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O LORD: thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints.

6 For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD?

7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

8 O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?

9 Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

10 Thou hast broken 'Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.

11 The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.

12 The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name.

1 Or, a psalm for Ethan the Ezrahite, to give instruction. Heb. to generation and generation. 5 Or, Egypt.

13 Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.

14 Justice and judgment are the 'habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

15 Blessed is the people that know the 10joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance.

16 In thy name shall they rejoice all the day: and in thy righteousness shall they be exalted.

17 For thou art the glory of their strength: and in thy favour our horn shall be ex

alted.

18 For the LORD is our defence; and the Holy One of Israel is our king.

19 Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people.

20 I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him : 21 With whom my hand shall be established: mine arm also shall strengthen him.

22 The enemy shall not exact upon him; nor the son of wickedness afflict him.

23 And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him.

24 But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.

25 I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.

26 He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.

27 Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.

28 My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.

29 His seed also will I make to endure for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.

2 Heb. to generation and generation.

6 Heb, with the arm of thy strength.

32 Sam. 7. 11, &c.

7 Gen. 1. 1. Psal. 24. 1, and 50 12. 8 Heb. an arm with might, 9 Or, establishment. 10 Num. 10. 6. 11 Or, our shield is of the LORD; and our king is of the holy one of Israel.

12 1 Sam. 16. 12.

30 If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments;

31 If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments,

32 Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. 33 Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness 15to fail.

34 My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. 35 Once have I sworn by my holiness 16that I will not lie unto David.

36 "His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.

37 It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.

38 But thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wroth with thine anointed.

39 Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.

40 Thou hast broken down all his hedges; thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin. 41 All that pass by the way spoil him: he is a reproach to his neighbours.

42 Thou hast set up the right hand of

his adversaries; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice.

43 Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle.

44 Thou hast made his "glory, to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground.

45 The days of his youth hast thou shortened thou hast covered him with shame. Selah.

46 How long, LORD? wilt thou hide thyself for ever? shall thy wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?

48 What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.

49 LORD, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou "swarest unto David in thy truth?

50 Remember, LORD, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;

51 Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O LORD; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen, and Amen.

14 Heb. I will not make void from him.

13 Heb. profane my statutes.
15 Heb. to lie.
16 Heb. If I lie.
17 2 Sam. 7. 16. Luke 1. 33. John 12. 34. 18 Heb. brightness. 19 2 Sam. 7. 15.

TITLE, “Ethan.”—A person of this name was one of the chief musicians in the time of David (see the note at p. 320); but he was a Levite, whereas the present is called an Ezrahite. In fact, the considerations stated in the note to the preceding psalm are exactly applicable here also. It is generally believed that this psalm was written very early in the Captivity, probably soon after the ruin of the city and temple by the Babylonians.

Verse 10. "Broken Rahab in pieces."-This doubtless alludes to the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. 25. “I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers"—This means that his power should extend from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. There is a similar form of expression in the speech which, according to Quintus Curtius (vii. 8), was addressed to Alexander by the Scythian ambassadors, If," said they, "the gods had given thee a body proportionable to thy insatiable mind, the world would not be able to contain thee. Thou wouldst stretch forth one hand to the furthest extremities of the east, and the other to the utmost west."

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38. "Thine anointed."-This and what follows may be supposed to refer to Zedekiah, who was blinded, and kept as a prisoner at Babylon for the remainder of his life.

52. "Amen."-Here ends the third of the five books into which the Hebrews divide the Psalms.

PSALM XC.

1 Moses, setting forth God's providence, 3 complaineth of human fragility, 7 divine chastisements, 10 and brevity of life. 12 He prayeth for the knowledge and sensible experience of God's good providence.

'A Prayer of Moses the man of God. LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday 'when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

1 Or, A prayer, being a psalm of Moses. Heb. in generation and generation. 82 Pet. 3. 8. 4 Or, when he hath passed them,

5 Or, is changed.

8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. 9 For all our days are 'passed away in thy wrath we spend our years as a tale

that is told.

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. 12 So teach us to number our days, that we may 'apply our hearts unto wisdom.

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13 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.

17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

8 Heb, as for the days of our years in them are seventy years.

Heb. cause to come.

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TITLE, “Moses.”—-It is generally agreed that this psalm was really written by Moses, as the title intimates. To him also the Hebrews attribute the nine following psalms; for which they do not appear to have any other foundation tha: their own absurd canon of criticism, under which they assign all anonymous psalms to that author whose name occurel in the last preceding title. It is clear, for instance, that the ninety-ninth psalm could not have been written by Moses, since the sixth verse mentions Samuel, who was not born till very long after his death.

Verse 6. “In the morning it flourisheth," &c.—Here is another comparison, derived from the transitory character of vegetable life, not less beautiful than that which we have noticed in Ps. xxxvii. 35. We illustrated that instance by an extract from one of our elder poets; and we cannot forbear from here quoting a fine passage in which Tasso adops and amplifies the same image which the present text offers.

"The gently budding rose (quoth he) behold,

That first scant peeping forth with virgin beams,
Half ope, half shut, her beauties doth up-fold

In their dear leaves, and less seen fairer seems,
And after spreads them forth more broad and bold,
Then languishes and dies in last extremes.

So in the passing of a day doth pass

The bud and blossom of the life of man,
Nor e'er doth flourish more, but, like the grass
Cut down, becometh withered, pale, and wan."

FAIRFAX. Edit. Windsor, 1817.

10. "Threescore years and ten.”—Drs. Kennicott, Geddes, and others, incline to consider that this furnishes evidence that the psalm must have been of later date than the time of Moses. He lived himself to the age of a hundred and twenty years, when "his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated ;" and the days of the other eminent persons ei that period, whose ages are recorded, considerably exceeded fourscore years. Aaron lived to the same age as Moses, Joshua to a hundred and ten years, and Caleb could scarcely have been younger when he died. But all these were probably special instances of the Divine favour. "The decree which abbreviated the life of man as a general rule, to seventy or eighty years," observes Dr. J. M. Good, "was given as a chastisement upon the whole race of Israelites in the wilderness; and with these few exceptions none of them, at the date of this psalm, could have reached more than seventy, and few of them so high a number. But it does not appear that the term of life was lengthened afterwards. Samuel died about seventy years old, David under seventy-one, and Solomon under sixty; and the history of the world shows that the abbreviation of life in other countries was nearly in the same proportion."

PSALM XCI.

1 The state of the godly. 3 Their safety. 9 Their habitation. 11 Their servants. 14 Their friend; with the effects of them all.

HE that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I my God; in him will I

trust.

3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; 6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

2 Matth. 4. 6. Luke 4. 10.

8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

9 Because thou hast made the LORD which is my refuge, even the most high, th habitation;

10 There shall no evil befall thee, nei ther shall any plague come nigh thy dwell ing.

11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my

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3 Or, asp.

4 Heb. length of days.

1 Heb. lodge. PSALM XCI.-This psalm is ascribed to David in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic; and many acquiesce in this determination, while others prefer, with the Jews, to attribute it to the author of the preceding psalm. There is no internal evidence that bears very distinctly on the question: but such as can be traced seems rather to favour the latter than the former alternative. For instance, the preceding psalm dwells on the brevity of human life, and the present concludes with a promise of lengthened days to the righteous.

Verse 1. "Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."-In the figurative language of the East, it is still very com mon to describe a protected person as sitting or dwelling under the shadow of his protector.

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