"finished throughout all the parts thereof”—and the glory of the Lord shall fill it—and our King Solomon shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied, and shall rejoice for each "in the day of the gladness of his heart!"

"And he said unto me, It is done” (Rev. xxi. 6).

NOTES ON THE PSALMS.

PSALM LXXV.

THE same Asaph takes the harp again, at the bidding of the Holy Ghost, to write an ode that, like many of David's (see Psa. lvii.), may be marked, "Al-taschith," and be called, "A Song," lively in theme, and with life in every line.

"We have praised thee, O God! we have praised thee !
And (now at length) thy name is near.

Thy wondrous works are telling it."

This is the delighted cry of Messiah's people, who see Him near at hand, and could join with Isaiah xxv. 9, “Lo! this is our God!" Their hosannahs are becoming hallelujahs. And Messiah himself responds, as in Isaiah lxiii. 1, 2, explaining his ways. He refers to their words as to his name being now near, his long-hid discovery of his person and promised deeds

"(It is so) for I now get the appointed day! (See Acts i. 7.)

I (N), unlike earth's usurpers, judge uprightly.

Earth and its inhabitants have melted away.

I am he who (N) have poised its pillars (ver. 2, 3).

Selah."

After a pause, Messiah opens his lips to utter the sentences of doom. He addresses the apostate nations, with Antichrist at their head (ver. 4)—

"I say (, the word has passed my lips) to the boastful,

Boast no more," &c.

No help will come to you from east or west, from land or sea; nay, nor from the wilderness (77) shall any caravan bring you ought to lift up your head;

"For God is judging now!" (ver. 7). (As Psa. Ivii. 11,

And the processes of judgment are commenced, the reversal of un

righteous sentences, and the pouring out of that terrible "Cup." John, also, saw this cup, full of “wine without mixture,” i. e., without one drop of water to alleviate its fierce poison, as here it is full of “ mixture," i.e., of all strong ingredients, that make its taste more bitter, and its wrathful poison more sure. This blood-red wine of vengeance is the measured out portion of all earth's wicked, great or small.

At ver. 9, Messiah seems to wind up the proceedings by indicating the general result. As in Psa. ii. 7, a full announcement is made of these sentences in their hearing

" And I ("), who am entitled so to do, declare this a thing eternally fixed;

and then, turning towards his blessed ones, inviting them to join him in praise, he cries, so to speak, "Hallelujah!"

"Let me sing (PN) to the God of Jacob!

And I will cut off all the horns of the wicked" (while this song ascends).

As the final issue of the whole, lo!

"The horns of the Righteous One are exalted!"

prophecy is fulfilled; what Hannah sang of in 1 Sam. ii. 10, and so many others besides, is now come to pass; for his "name is near," his kingdom is come. And thus, referring all the while to the beseeching prayer of Psalm lxxiv., Asaph has sung

Messiah's response to his people's expectation of His Coming.

PSALM LXXVI.

66

Milton celebrates "the inviolable saints," the holy hosts that guard the throne of God. But the family of saints on earth may claim that title equally with them, being invincible and inviolable in their King. Asaph sings of these "on Neginoth" (see Psa. iv.), and sings again a song "in triumphant strains. He looks back upon the past, when God made himself renowned as Israel's God, dwelling on Zion, breaking there (, thitherward, like Ezekiel's "Jehovah-Shammah,” xlviii. 35, q. d., his eye and heart ever toward them) the "flashing arrows of his bow," giving fame to Zion beyond all other hills and kingdoms. All was done by the God of Jacob for his people. By Him "the stouthearted were made a prey; they slept deep their sleep ;" by Him who could give foes the same "rebuke" that He gave to the swelling waters, Psa. civ. 7, causing the warrior and his war-chariot to be alike motionless and dead in the silent camp. Ah, it is "Thou" (N) who art to be feared, Thou (AN) alone!

And ever shall it be thus. Ever shall it be an unanswerable question, "Who shall stand before thee when thou art angry?" (ver. 7), down to that great and terrible day when all earth, at the sight of thy throne, shall ask, "Who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. vi. 17). And then shall ver. 8, 9 be fulfilled most emphatically—

"Out of heaven thou hast proclaimed judgment (17, see Dan. vii 10,

Earth fears, and is at rest!, like Josh. xiv. 15, and Isa. xii. 17.)

When God arises to judgment,

Saving all the meek of earth.

Selah!"

Is not this the day when the Saviour comes to reign?—the day when the results of things shall best be seen-the day when every saint with anointed eye shall see that events all tended to the glory of their God-the day when they shall sing, better far than now,

"Surely the wrath of man praiseth thee.

Thou girdest thyself with the remnant of wrath ;"

turning it to use, even every particle of it?

Vow, then, and perform the vow, O Israel! a people near to Him (Num. ii. 2). Bring a gift to Him that is the true object of fear, to Him who has cut off, as in a time of vintage (?), the breath, the life, of princes; to Him who is terrible to earth's kings. If this Jehovah be for us, who can be against us? Are we not "inviolable saints"? Let us even now sing this

Song to the Mighty One, the fear of Isaac and of Earth.

PSALM LXXVII.

For Jeduthun, the choir over which Jeduthun and Heman presided (1 Chron. xvi. 42), they are to sing now a plaintive psalm. Asaph's harp's strings are moaning to the chill night-wind. Instead of triumphing in the Mighty One, whom all must fear, Asaph is full of unkindly fears, fears arising from clouds around his soul. Our Lord on earth had such changes in his soul as we find in this psalm-a contrast to the last. One day, under the opened heavens at Jordan; another, in the gloom of the howling wilderness: one evening, ascending the Transfiguration-hill; another, entering Gethsemane. And so with every member of his body. Not that the love of their God varies toward them, and not that they themselves feel that love exhausted; but providences and trials of strange sort, and temptations buffeting the soul, hide the sun by their dark mists.

We find, ver. 1-4, The time of darkness pictured to us most pen

sively and plaintively; and the "Selah" in the midst of it, ver. 3, seems to give us time to observe the dismal pauses of the soul.

In ver. 5-9 we have the remembrance of former days, leading to the profoundly melancholy question

"Hath He in anger shut the spring

Of his eternal love?"

At ver. 10, The cause of this darkness. "This is my sickness" (Jer. x. 19). My present circumstances of body, and the oppressive providences around, have averted mine eye from God's love.

At ver. 11, The light breaks-God is seen, still mighty to save, redeeming "the sons of Jacob" from their Egypt exile, and doing it so as to remind us of " Joseph," once separated from his brethren, but

afterwards the head of all.

There is a day coming when we shall, with Christ our Head, sing of the Church's safe guidance to her rest, in such strains as these, remembering how often by the way we were ready to ask, "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" We are taught by the harp of Asaph, in moments of despondency, to "remember the days of old," and assure ourselves that the God of Israel liveth—the God of the Passover-night, the God of the Red Sea, the God of the pillar-cloud, the God of Sinai, the God of the wilderness, the God of Jordan-the God, too, we may add, of Calvary, and the God of Bethany, who shall lead us as He led Israel, even when earth shakes again, till that day when He comes to cast some light on his way that was in the sea, and his paths that were in great waters, and his footsteps that were a mystery. Asaph has been the instrument of the Holy Ghost to cheer us here, by bidding us look on this picture of

The Righteous under the cloud calling to mind the Lord's way in former times.

PSALM LXXVIII.

See Jesus in the ship, teaching parables. Compare Him speaking that day by the sea-side with the Singer here, whose words, though neither new nor dark, are yet meant to convey hidden meanings. From ver. 2, compared with Matt. xiii. 34, 35, we are led to conclude that Asaph here was directed to foreshadow Messiah, the Prophet, disclosing the mind and ways of God, where these were hidden from the gaze of the common eye. There is throughout this Psalm a concealed background of instruction" (Hengst.), intimated at ver. 2, just as Jesus, in speaking very obvious and plain things about the seed and the sower, the leaven and the mustard-tree, meant all the while to lead disciples to a "concealed background of instruction "-God's ways toward man, and man's toward God.

We can easily believe that our Master, in using this Psalm, would

not hesitate to say, ver. 3, "We have heard," identifying himself with us; for he does so in Psalm xxii. 4, "Our fathers," yours and mine; and he does so in the Prayer he taught us, "Our Father in heaven," mine and yours. On the other hand, in saying, ver. 4, “ We will not hide them from their children," is he not assuming the tone of Godhead? for it is the very same voice we hear in Gen. xviii. 19, "Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?"

How he brings before us most affectingly God's ways in contrast to man's ! Thus, ver. 5, God's mercies to the infant nation. Prophets, priests, Levites, Moses, the tabernacle, all are implied in " He set up a testimony in Israel;" and all was meant to make permanent among them the knowledge and love of the glorious Jehovah. This was an act of grace; for ver. 8 recalls the perverseness of their fathers, "stubborn, rebellious, not right, not stedfast with God." Truly, His ways are not our ways; and soon that after generation shew their fathers' corruption, refusing to face Anak (ver. 9; see Num. xiii. 33, and xiv. 1–4), and to go whither he would.

But, again, His guiding mercies from Egypt onward (ver. 12). How numerous! every one how marvellous! all so undeserved, all so constant! The Red Sea divided, the cloud, the smitten rock! Yet they provoked the Most High!

Again, His un-upbraiding mercies (ver. 17-27). The history of the manna shews this-instinct with wonders of grace! for see how the, every-day shower comes to a people most ungrateful, and forgetful, and unbelieving!

Again, His chastising mercies (27-33). He tries them with fatherly chastenings, and for a time the wayward children feel. But these, too, avail not. Shall he leave them? No; he has more for them in

reserve.

Again, he sings of His long-suffering mercies (ver. 34-41). Amid frowardness, how very pitiful! how tender! how sympathising!

"For he remembered that they were but flesh,

A wind that passeth away, and cometh not again."

But, to deepen the contrast, he sings of His judgments on their foes (ver. 42-53); and then of Canaan-mercies to themselves; (ver. 54-56); and of Canaan-chastisements (ver. 57–64). What a God! What a people! How glorious in grace the One! How low sunk in sin the other! How low must mercy condescend in helping such a people! But he has still another note to the praise of grace. His mercies in the days of David (ver. 65 to the end), when the Lord arose, resolved to throw down every barrier to his love, smiting foes, erecting his tabernacle on its fixed seat at Jerusalem, and giving his people David, the type of a better David yet to come

"And he built his sanctuary, like lofty palaces;

Like the earth, he has established it for ever (ver. 69).

This is for ever to be a renowned spot, "morally gigantic" (Hengst.), and