INTRODUCTION TO PSALM LXXIX.

A PRAYER IN TIME OF PERSECUTION.

TITLE. "A Psalm to Asaph."

THIS Psalm is to be referred to the same occasion as Ps. lxxiv. For (1) both treat of a national catastrophe involving the overthrow of Jerusalem, a great slaughter of the inhabitants, and a desecration of the Temple. (Cf. lxxiv. 3, 20, lxxix. 1—3.) (2) Both are connected with the writings of Jeremiah. It will be sufficient here to instance vv. 6, 7 of Ps. lxxix. which are to be found in Jer. x. 25, the coincidences between Ps. lxxiv. and the writings of Jeremiah having been fully treated of in the Introd. to that Psalm. (3) Similarity of expression is found in these Psalms, cf. lxxix. 5, "How long -for ever?" with lxxiv. 1, "Why, O God, hast Thou cast us off for ever?" and lxxiv. 10, “How long-shall the enemy blaspheme Thy name for ever?”; lxxix. 10, "let there be known yivvâda," with lxxiv. 6, where the same form occurs in the sense "he is known," or "he appears." (4) Both Psalms bear the Title "to Asaph."

From these common characteristics we infer that the Psalms are written by the same author, and refer to the same occasion, viz. (cf. lxxiv. Introd.) the persecution of the Jews by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes.

I. b. Lit. "they have made Jerusalem heaps." Cf. Micah's prophecy (Mic. iii. 12, Jer. xxvi. 18), "And Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest." For "heaps," LXX. have ỏπwроþvλákov, "the hut of a garden-watcher;" in Mic. i. 6 the same rendering is given for the singular a heap;" and in Is. i. 8 rightly for "a lodge” in a garden of cucumbers.

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3. In Macc. i. 16, 17, we read that Alcimus slew 60 of the Asidæans "according to the word which he [i.e. the Psalmist] wrote, ‘The flesh of thy saints and their blood have they shed, round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them.'” (Cf. Ps. lxxiv. Introd. p. 9.) The quotation confounds vv. 2 and 3, otherwise its phraseology agrees with the LXX. rendering.

4. This verse is an almost exact repetition of xliv. 13. "Our neigh

neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

5 How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

6 Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.

7 For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place.

8 O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low.

9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy

name's sake.

IO Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed.

II Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;

12 And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.

13 So we thy people, and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will shew forth thy praise to all generations.

bours," i.e. the tribes dwelling in the vicinity of the Holy Land. Cf. the rebuke of Edom in Obad. for turning away from the similar distress of their "brother in the day that he became a stranger" by the Babylonish captivity.

6, 7. Cf. Jer. x. 25, where these verses are quoted. 6. Al, "upon" is substituted in Jeremiah for the less correct el; "the families" for "the heathen." 7. "For they have devoured"-A.V. and P.B.V. rightly the verb is in the sing. in the original only as gathering up the nation in one mass; Jer. has it in the plural. After "devoured," Jer. has the additional "and consumed them."

8.

a. Rend. "The iniquities of former generations."

9. b. "Purge away," or "overlook," lit. " cover over." H. capper. 10. Rend. “Let there be known among the heathen, in our sight, vengeance for the blood of Thy servants which is shed." Cf. P.B.V. The A.V. has been misled by the construction of the fem. noun with the masc. verb, a construction however by no means unusual.

II. "Those that are appointed to die," lit. "the sons of death." The relation of a concrete to an abstract noun is frequently expressed in Hebrew, and hence in Hellenistic Greek, under the metaphor of filial relationship. Sometimes the figure expresses possession of some particular trait of character, sometimes subjection to the dominion of an outer agent. Thus on the one hand we have the terms "sons of strength," 'sons of pride,” “children of disobedience" (1 Pet. i. 14); on the other " sons of affliction," sons of death," as here and frequently, and "children of wrath" (Eph. ii. 3).

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INTRODUCTION TO PSALM LXXX.

A PRAYER FOR RENEWAL OF PROTECTION.

TITLE. "To the Precentor, unto Shoshannîm Edooth, to Asaph, a Psalm." LXX. Εἰς τὸ τέλος, ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀλλοιωθησομένων, μαρτύριον τῷ ̓Ασάφ, ψαλμὸς ὑπὲρ τοῦ ̓Ασσυρίου.

THE Psalmist prays at a time of public calamity. An enemy had trampled down the sacred vineyard, and Jehovah its planter seems to hide His countenance from His afflicted people. The date and character of this invasion are unknown, the LXX. however (v. Title) apparently identify it with one of the Assyrian invasions, perhaps, as a similar inscription occurs in Ps. lxxvi., with that of Sennacherib. From the use of the terms "Joseph," v. 1, "Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh," v. 2, it has been inferred by Calvin, Del., Hengst. that the prayer is put up in behalf of the northern kingdom. Common descent, it is urged, would draw Benjamin to Ephraim and Manasseh the grandsons of Rachel, and from 1 Kings xi. 13, 32, 36 it might be inferred that Judah alone remained faithful to the line of David.

Be this as it may, the association of these three tribes at the western or sacred side of the Tabernacle (cf. v. 2, n.) is, we think, a sufficient reason for the combination of the three names here. God is invoked as "sitting upon the Cherubim," and the nearest to the Holy of Holies and its Cherubim were the tribes Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Further, though "Joseph" may mean the northern kingdom of which Joseph's descendants Ephraim and Manasseh were the leading tribes, it is equally allowable to understand it as a national title. It occurs thus in lxxvii. 15, lxxxi. 5, Amos v. 15, vi. 6, Obad. 18. There is no occasion to search for a recondite motive in this use (Hupfeld), or to limit it to one epoch or one class of writers (Del.). Naturally enough the "children of Israel" occasionally appropriated the names of their other distinguished progenitors. Sometimes they assume the name of Joseph the preserver and second father (lxxvii. 15, n.) of his clan, sometimes, but more rarely, that of Isaac (Amos vii. 9), or that of Abraham (Micah vii. 20). The only significance in such titles lies in their tendency to recall those who first bore them. And this tendency gives us the clue to an understanding of Ps. lxxx. With the title "Joseph" is linked a history of unswerving faithfulness amidst afflictions, appropriate to the present occasion of trial, when the people were tempted

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to "go back from God." And, accordingly, from that history is borrowed the imagery of the Psalm. In Jacob's blessings of Joseph occur the terms, "God which tended me," "The shepherd, the stone of Israel," (Gen. xlviii. 15, xlix. 24): hence the Psalmist's address, Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock." And similarly, from the second blessing of Joseph, "the fruitful bough (bên), whose branches run over the wal'," whom "the archers sorely grieved, and hated," originates that with which so much of the Psalm is occupied, the conception of the vine, whose branch (bên) Jehovah had made strong for himself, whose boughs overtopped the cedars, but which now, stript of its hedges and exposed to the wild beasts, seems to have been forgotten by its Lord.

The Psalm then is best taken as a prayer for the whole nation, and its language is to be regarded as modelled after Gen. xlix. 22-24. The triple refrain, "restore us, let Thy countenance shine forth, &c." (v. 3, n.), divides the Psalm into three distinct parts: the first contains a prayer, which in the second takes the form of a remonstrance, this again in the third part is merged in the parable of the "Vine," and the concluding entreaties based upon it.

G

IVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth.

2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us.

I. a. On the expressions cf. Introd. b. lit." Thou that sittest on the cherubim," i.e. Thou that dwellest above the cherubim; for the form of expression, cf. Ps. xviii. 10.

2.

These three tribes are doubtless here associated as having occupied the station nearest to the Holy of Holies during the march through the wilderness. As in the Egyptian Temples, so in the Tabernacle, the inner adytum, or most Holy Place, was at the western end. Herein was the sacred ark with its mysterious contents, and the surmounting mercy-seat and cherubim, and the Divine Presence. Cfg. Numb. ii., we find a charge "On the west side [of the Tabernacle] shall be the standard of the children of Ephraim according to their armies,—and by him shall be the tribe of Manasseh,-then the tribe of Benjamin." We need go no further to explain the selection of these three tribes in the Psalm. The writer prays that the brightness of the Shechinah, the light of God's countenance, thus manifested in old time "before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh," may be once more vouchsafed, as a sign of favour.

3 Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

4 O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?

5 Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to

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3. Or, “O God, restore us, let Thy countenance shine forth, then shall we be delivered." Obs. that this petition forms a kind of refrain, which is expressed with increasing urgency as the Ps. advances: 0 God, becomes in ver. 7 O God of Hosts, in ver. 19 O Jehovah, God of Hosts.

4. "How long wilt thou be angry," lit. "How long wilt Thou smoke etc." Smoke, i.e. with wrath, our Engl. "fume." Cf. lxxiv. 1.

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"Against," better "notwithstanding," lit. "with." Cf. for this use Job i. 22, “in” or “with all this Job sinned not," i.e. “notwithstanding all this Job sinned not,” and Ps. lxxviii. 32.

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5. b. Better, “And givest them threefold draught of tears to drink.” lit. "and givest them tears to drink threefold." Threefold, H. b'shâlîsh. The term shâlîsh bears several meanings, all connected with the R. sh'lôshah three." Two only of these are applicable here. I. As above, "threefold." So Targ. tiltay (not tilta, "a third part"), Jer. "tripliciter." For this cf. Prov. xxii. 20, “Have I not written unto thee shalishim, where the term signifies either as Targ. LXX. Vulg. "thrice over," or as Gr. Venet. τpioμéyiora (i.e. “things most important”), in either case involving the notion of multiplying. 2. In Isaiah xl. 12 we have "Who hath comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure ?" b'shâlîsh. From this use some deduce a rendg. "Thou givest them tears to drink in a large measure," i.e. from a large measured bowl. Obj. I. The context of Is. xl. 12 shews that a small measure is there intended and shâlîsh is generally there explained as only “a third” of a large measure. 2. In Is. xl. 12 a dry and not a liquid measure is apparently meant.

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We believe that shalîsh may express either a division or a multiplying by three, according to the context. In Is. xl. 12, and in those places where it means “a warrior of third rank” the one idea is involved in Prov. xxii. 20, and in 1 Sam. xviii. 6 (where shâlîsha musical instrument of triple strings, or of triple corners, a triangle,) the other. And on the analogy of these latter terms we interpret b'shẩlish here," by three times," i.e. "threefold."

8, etc. The fate of the sacred nation is treated of in a parable.