many Psalms to David. It was long thought that David was not only the
author of the Psalms ascribed to him, but that he was also editor of
the entire Psalter. (When as early as Theodore of Mopsuestia it was
recognised that some of the Psalms were Maccabæan, it was supposed
that David wrote them in the spirit of prophecy.) Our enquiry may
be narrowed down to those Psalms that are ascribed to David in the
earliest collection, Book I. Do these reflect the conditions and
development of his times? It must be replied that there is nothing in
the Davidic Psalms as a whole to distinguish them from other Psalms,
and what historical connection they betray seems everywhere to belong
to an age later than David. The Temple is spoken of as already in
existence (Ps. v. 7; xi. 4) and the name for Jerusalem, "my holy
hill," seems to demand a time subsequent to the mission of Isaiah.
The general conditions of life reflected are clearly those in which a
godly minority is oppressed and wickedness is established in the land;
a condition which finds no parallel in the Books of Samuel. Moreover,
the religious ideas are far in advance of those that seem to have been
prevalent in the time of David or that can be traced to him. The
general tone of the Psalms is one of a chastened piety that hardly
existed in the time of the kingdom, and the religious ideas everywhere
show dependence upon the teaching of the Prophets. There is hardly a
verse of the fifty-first Psalm which cannot be paralleled in Jeremiah,
but there is almost nothing in the Psalm that makes it a fitting
confession for an adulterer and murderer. These considerations lead us
to enquire whether the Hebrew preposition translated "of" David denotes
authorship; its accurate signification is "belonging to," and from
the analogy of the other titles we infer this to mean that the editor
found these Psalms in a collection ascribed to David. What gave the
name of David to that collection? Some of the Psalms may be pre-exilic
and may even go down to the early monarchy; Ps. xx. may belong to the
Old Kingdom, but it can hardly have come from the lips of David; it is
Ps. xviii. that has perhaps the greatest claim to Davidic authorship.
This Psalm is also found in 2 Sam. xxii., but there it seems to be an
interpolation, for it breaks apart verses that apparently once stood
together (2 Sam. xxi. 22 and xxiii. 8). Yet we meet with a reference to
the Temple even in this Psalm (2 Sam. xxi. 7); at the same time several
of its passages would come very fittingly from the Warrior King, and
would be suitable to his barbarous times. In this Psalm, if anywhere,
we may possess some original Davidic fragments. We must conclude
therefore, that the Davidic Psalter was so called because its origin
was somehow due to David, or because it contained some Song of David
which must have been considerably altered to suit liturgical purposes.
The early tradition of David ascribes to him a poetic and musical
gift (1 Sam. xvi. 18; Amos. vi. 5), and of this the lament over Saul
and Jonathan (2 Sam. i.) is a sufficient confirmation, but it should
be noticed that it is remarkably free from any religious sentiment
whatsoever. It must be due to the later tradition of the Chronicler
that David has been credited as the saintly author of the whole Book of
Psalms. The conclusion is that the titles are not, strictly speaking,
a claim to authorship, but are names given, for various reasons, to
pre-existing collections; that the earliest of these collections may
contain pre-exilic Psalms, but that everything points to the collection
being made for use in the time of the Second Temple. The references
to a king do not necessitate any re-consideration of this verdict;
they may be personifications of the nation in the light of Messianic
conceptions.
This position has been steadily resisted by some in the interests of
tradition, but without any real religious reason being adduced; for
the idea that this decision denies the authority of Christ and His
Apostles is disposed of by the simple fact that in the New Testament,
David is simply a name for the Psalter (Ps. ii. is ascribed to David in
Acts ii. 34; it is anonymous in the Psalter. Heb. iv. 7 has "in" David;
this does not refer to authorship, for the author of this Epistle never
quotes the Scriptures save anonymously). To others it will perhaps
come as a great relief to feel that the writer of some of the most
spiritual utterances of personal religion need not be identified with
the historical David. There are awful possibilities of failure in
the most religious men, but the problem here is more difficult than
that: it would compel us to think of David as displaying in public no
hint of the secrets of his inner religious life, but very much that
contradicts them. The traditional idea of the authorship of the Psalms
has done grave injustice to the sincere if passionate character of
the historical David. The origin of such a tradition is due as much
to the spiritual blindness as to the careless historic judgment of
later Judaism, and its acceptance by generations of Christian students
speaks a greater reverence for tradition than for religious insight.
To be compelled to date the great majority of the Psalms within the
period 500-150 B.C., is indeed a comforting interpretation of Jewish
history; for it shows that the barren ground of post-exilic times was
not without its tender flowers of piety and an appreciation of the
prophetic religion far beyond that of the Prophets' contemporaries. The
gloss of legalism, which can be traced in the Psalter, and which was
inevitable when these private devotions were adapted to the Levitical
worship of the Temple, has not succeeded in obscuring, but rather
brings into greater clearness the spiritual elements in the Psalms.
It is welcome to turn from this task of literary criticism, which
finds in the Psalms its most difficult field, and which perhaps
yields here less help than in other branches of Bible literature,
to an endeavour to appreciate the religion of the Psalmists. There
is difficulty here also; but now it is in the splendour of the
composition, the magnificent breadth of experience they embrace,
the classic utterance of the eternal religion of the heart. We have
recognised the heterogeneous character of the collection, and it is
only to be expected that this should be reflected in the variety of
religious ideas. A theology of the Psalter is as impossible as it is
mistaken. The quality of poetic genius varies, the heights of religious
inspiration sometimes reached are not consistently maintained, and
there are many lower levels. And yet there remains a sufficient
unity to leave a very definite impression; that unity owes little to
similarity of circumstances, to contemporaneity, or to the influence
of a theological school; it is rather due to the unreflective
simplicity of the human mind in the realised presence of God. In that
position all unfettered religion speaks one tongue: the only mother
tongue of humanity. The inspiration of the Psalmist owes its beauty
to the absence of self-consciousness. There is nothing here of the
prophetic claim to speak in the name of God; in the Psalms God does
not speak to men, men speak to God, but it is just because of this
that the revelation in the Psalms reaches so far beyond the limits
of Old Testament religion and seems to grasp that religion which was
to be personified in the consciousness of Jesus. We are compelled to
recognise that men's prayers are themselves a revelation of God, and
that when men seek to voice their highest aspiration we catch the sound
of a deep undertone, the supplication of the Spirit that intercedes
within.
As an expression of eternal religion the Psalms have one serious
defect, which really unfits them, without careful selection, for use
in Christian worship--their awful imprecations upon enemies. There
are hardly to be found in the whole realm of literature more fearful
desires for vengeance than in the Psalms (cix. 6-15. cxxxvii. 9; cxl.
10). To date the Psalms from the comfortable times of the monarchy,
under the martial supremacy of David and Solomon, is to make them
cruel without meaning; but imagine the sufferings of the Israelites
in Exile, or in the still worse times when the pious remnant were
persecuted by their own irreligious and apostate countrymen, which
was so often their lot in post-exilic times, and these expressions
can be explained, even if they cannot be justified. The desire for
vengeance does not arise from personal motives, but is doubtless due
to the complete identification of the Psalmist with the cause of God
and righteousness, and to his burning indignation against the cruelty,
injustice, and craftiness of the impenitent wicked. Thus understood,
there is a moral element in this anger, which is not only to be
condoned but even admired. This deep moral revulsion has been one of
the greatest factors in moulding history along righteous lines. But
when all this has been said, it remains to be acknowledged frankly that
this is not the religion of the Sermon on the Mount. The anger at sin
is right, but the desire for vengeance is no real cure for sin. It is
far from the deep wisdom of the Son of Man; but we have to remember,
when we judge the Psalms from that standard, that His wisdom is still
unaccepted, not only by the world, but by many who profess His name.
It is in the Psalms that personal religion receives its clearest
exposition in the Old Testament, and this spirit owes much to the
personal experience of Jeremiah. There has been an endeavour to
find the speaking subject of the Psalms not in the individual but
in the nation. There are national Psalms, but many others cannot be
successfully interpreted save as the expressions of personal devotion.
National religion could never reach these heights; it is bound down to
the average level, it is always open to unethical movements and ideas.
The personal element is not to be confused with the individualistic;
the personal is wider than the individual; it realises the things that
lie at the base of all human life, and when it is most personal it
speaks the most universal language. It is in the deep sense of sin and
the assurance of forgiveness that the Psalms are the classics for all
who know the secrets they utter; and the sense of sin can never be felt
save under the searching light of God's very presence. To be deeply
conscious of sin is the first step towards any high revelation of God,
and of this the fifty-first Psalm is the most perfect expression;
there we see the sense of inward sin, opening up the possibility of
a separation between the self and that higher self, the holy spirit,
and bringing about the severest mental pain and anguish. Naturally,
the Psalms hardly rise to the Christian ground of forgiveness, but the
thirty-second Psalm vibrates with the joy that the Christian knows and,
when mere figures of speech are discounted, it springs from the same
reason: the acknowledgment of one's sin and the consciousness of its
forgiveness in the newly realised communion with God.
In dealing with the problem of the providential order of the world, the
Psalms hardly reflect any higher conceptions than those found elsewhere
in the Old Testament, if they even rise as high as the conception of
the Second Isaiah. The idea that goodness is rewarded by long life and
prosperity, and that wickedness is always marked by outward disaster is
the root idea; and the fact that this is not confirmed by observation
is the cause of the complaint of many a Psalm. This problem receives no
conscious solution throughout the book. The revelation given through
the worship of the sanctuary only shows that the prosperity of the
wicked is temporary (Ps. xxxvii., lxxiii.); but how often even this
must seem to be untrue, for in many cases there are no bands in their
death. Nothing higher is reached than pride in one's integrity and the
assurance that somehow and somewhere retribution is sure. There is no
conception of the principle of vicarious suffering, and the values set
upon righteousness and prosperity never attain to those words of Jesus:
"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness sake."
The pressure of this problem of Providence is supposed to have driven
the Psalmists to pierce the veil and to descry beyond the grave a
compensation for the inequalities of this life, and passages are
frequently adduced to prove this (Ps. xvi. 10, 11; xvii. 15; xlix.,
15; lxxiii. 23-26). The current belief of Israel embraced an existence
after death, but only in the form of unconscious and shadowy life in
the under world, _Sheol_, and this is most explicitly expressed in
many of the Psalms (vi. 5; xxx. 9; xlix. 14; lxxxviii. 10-12). What
then is the significance of the expressions which seem to point to
something more? An accurate translation and a correct exegesis dispose
of nearly all of these passages as in any sense explicit evidence for
a definite belief in immortality; but there remains a witness of much
greater value. It is through communion with God, and because of the
significance with which it invests conscious life that the Psalmists
are led to feel that their experience can never be interrupted by
death. To those who know the reality of personal communion with God,
this has more cogency than any other argument for immortality. The
experience of communion throws a new value on personality and gives
a deeper meaning to this life, and in face of this discovery death
becomes nothing more than a passing shadow. While therefore the
application of Ps. xvi. 10 to the resurrection of Christ is foreign to
the methods of modern interpretation, that passage does show the real
significance of the resurrection of Christ; for it is the person of
Christ in communion with God that has brought life and immortality to
light. The Psalmist shared this vital experience whether he was able
to infer immortality of the soul from it or not.
But the glory of the Psalms is found in their realisation of the
presence of God. This expresses itself in the vivid consciousness of a
present and helpful Personality rather than in intellectual concepts
or theological definitions. The transcendence of God receives full
appreciation, but it is never in terms of spatial distance, but in an
inward realisation of His moral excellence (Ps. xxxvi. 5-7). To the
discerning soul the presence of God is inescapable and is absolutely
omnipresent (Ps. cxxxix. 7-10). Right alongside of the recognition of
the might of God and His holiness, there is found the sense of His
fatherly pity, His gentleness, and His understanding of us (Ps. ciii.
13; xviii. 35).
It would be altogether mistaken to look in the Psalms for that
conception of Nature which has become one of the greatest gains of
modern culture. To the Psalmist Nature has no meaning apart from God,
and it is merely the sphere of His activity. But the beginnings of
a poetic delight in things is felt almost on every page (Ps. xxiii.
2; lv. 6; lxv. 8, 9; xciii. 3; cvii. 24; cx. 3b; cxxiv. 5; cxxx. 6;
cxxxix. 18b); while the so-called Nature Psalms (viii., xix., xxix.,
lxv., xciii., civ., cxlviii.) yield a conception of creation and of
the relation of God to the world that has not sufficiently shaped
theology, and as a consequence has made it possible for us to think of
a conflict between religion and science.
The consciousness of God as of a present living Personality is the
great contribution of Hebrew religion, and of this the Psalms are
the supreme expression. All conception of a merely unconscious,
all-pervading essence is transcended by the intense experience of
communion; He is "an ever present help in time of trouble."
The Hebrew Psalmist may be a child beside the Hindu sage or the Greek
philosopher, but no one has ever sounded the human heart as he. The
experience he has bequeathed to the world is that of a God who is
infinite, mighty and all-present, and yet One who can be known in
the experiences of temporal life and felt in the limitations of the
human mind; One who shepherds and guides men, and who can take the
place of human friend or nearest relative. This is in the direct line
with Christ's consciousness of the Father. Without this we may have a
mysticism that must perforce remain silent, or a philosophy that loses
itself in the endeavour to reconcile the antinomies of thought, but
without this we cannot have a religion that can satisfy the craving of
the human heart for an infinite, holy, and helping Companion.
THE RELIGION OF THE WISE
In determining from internal evidence whether Job is later or earlier
than Proverbs, the following comparisons should be examined:--
Job v. 17 and Prov. iii. 11.
" xi. 8 " " ix. 18.
" xv. 7 " " viii. 25.
" xviii. 5,6} " {" xiii. 9.
" xxi. 17 } " {" xxiv. 20.
" xxii. 28 " " iv. 18.
" xxviii. 18 " " iii. 15; viii. 11.
" xxviii. 28 " " i. 7.
In these examples, it might be noted, it is the friends of Job who
quote the Proverbs; except in Job xxi. 17, where Job questions
the Proverb already quoted by Bildad, rather than quotes it with
approval; and in the case of xxviii. 18, 28, the whole chapter is
regarded by critics as suspicious, on the ground that the sentiments
here expressed by Job are in contradiction to his general attitude.
These passages would seem somewhat to confirm the idea that the Book
of Job is intended to be a criticism of the theory of Providence
found in Proverbs.
* * * * *
On the suggestion that Ecclesiastes owes its disjointed character
to some disarrangement of the original sheets of the MS., Bickell
proposes to read the book in the following order:--
(1) i. 1-ii. 11. (2) v. 9-vi. 7. (3) iii. 9-iv. 8. (4) ii. 12-iii.
8. (5) viii. 6-ix. 3. (6) ix. 11-x. 1. (7) vi. 8-vii. 22. (8) iv.
9-v. 8. (9) x. 16-xi. 6 (10) vii. 23-viii. 5. (11) x. 2-x. 15. (12)
ix. 4-10. (13) xi. 7-xii. 8. Bickell would regard the Appendix, xii.
9-14, as a later addition.
Lecture X
THE RELIGION OF THE WISE
Certain books of the Old Testament have a marked resemblance both
in their subject-matter and in their religious and ethical outlook.
They stand out from the other classes of the literature, for they are
neither prophetical, like the writings of the Prophets or the histories
written under their influence, nor legalistic, like the great codes
of the Pentateuch, nor liturgical and devotional, like the Psalms;
and for convenience they are designated: "the Wisdom Literature."
These writings deal chiefly with "wisdom," or the practical ordering
of life, and we frequently find a reference to "the words of the
wise," as if there was a school of teachers who were devoted to the
discussion of these problems. The chief contributions of this school
are, in our Bible, the Book of Proverbs, and in the Apocrypha, Wisdom
and Ecclesiasticus. Job and Ecclesiastes are occupied with the same
problems, but their attitude is critical and their method of treatment
peculiar.
No one can fail to feel the almost perplexing difference of this
literature from the rest of the Old Testament; unlike the prophetic
it has less a message to the conscience than a problem for the mind;
unlike the historical books it is perfectly timeless, and utterly
detached from the national hopes; it is not occupied with ceremonies or
ritual, but with religion as a matter of conduct. The nearest approach
to this is to be found in some of the Psalms, which, passing from
the emotions of the devout spirit, become engaged with the problems
and injustices of life. Its religion is more universal than that of
the Prophets or even of the Psalmists, but it is less emotional; the
religion of the heart has given way to the wisdom of the mind. We have
here the beginnings of a philosophy, a mental activity strangely absent
from the Hebrew race; it is not however a speculative philosophy,
but one purely concerned with practical life; and yet there is a
direct progression traceable from the chapters in Proverbs (i.-ix.),
which are devoted to the praise of wisdom, through the work known
as the Wisdom of Solomon, to Philo, the great Jewish philosopher,
who endeavoured to interpret Moses by Plato and to reconcile Hebrew
religion with Greek speculation. Although in this literature we have
the beginnings of a philosophy it is rather that of the street than
of the academy; a cultivation of a philosophic attitude towards life,
its problems and duties, rather than any speculation on metaphysical
reality or the absolute origin of things. The wisdom we hear so much
of is an intellectual virtue, although it embraces neither speculation
nor learning, but is limited to mean sagacity, shrewdness, prudence
in the conduct of life. This is the main theme of the Proverbs, but
the problem of the correct ordering of life unearths a deeper and
darker one--the problem of the existence of evil, the injustice of
life as revealed in the blind indiscrimination of trouble, pain, and
death. With this problem some of the Psalms and the Books of Job and
Ecclesiastes especially deal.
In seeking to place this literature, we are met with an even worse
difficulty than in the case of the Psalms; for the entire absence of
historical allusion, and the spirit of detachment in which religious
questions are discussed, leave no trace of date or age. The three
books in our Bible belonging to this literature are ascribed to very
early authors; two to Solomon and one traditionally to Job or Moses,
although the Book of Job is really anonymous. Now it is exceedingly
difficult to gather from the prophetic or historical books any trace
of the opinions that are found in the Wisdom Literature. The problem
of evil certainly began to occupy the minds of men like Jeremiah even
before the Exile; but in the picture which the Prophets give us of the
Jewish state under the late monarchy, we get no glimpse of a people
who looked on life and religion as do the writers of these books. In
the Wisdom Literature we find references to "the wise" as to a special
class in the community (Prov. i. 6; xxii. 17; xxiv. 23; Job xv. 18);
in the historical literature we find the "wisdom" of certain men
extolled (Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 16-28; iv. 29-34; x. 3 ff.; Joseph,
Gen. xli. 39; the four wise men, 1 Kings iv. 31, the wisdom of Egypt,
the East, 1 Kings iv. 30, and of Edom, Ob. 8; Jer. xlix. 7), and in
the prophetic writings "the wise" are mentioned as a class distinct
from the prophet and the priest (Jer. xviii. 18) and often in a
depreciatory way (Isa. xxix. 14; Jer. viii. 8; ix. 12). It seems almost
impossible to identify the wise men of Proverbs with this class who
receive so little praise from the Prophets. The wise men of Proverbs
do not speak as if they needed to defend themselves against the claims
of the prophet (Prov. xxix. 18; the reference to "vision," which can
only mean a communication to the prophet, is not found elsewhere in
Proverbs and is doubted by many scholars), nor can we understand the
need for the message of the Prophets if this practical religion of "the
wise" was current in their times. This religion may lack passion and be
without national consciousness, but Isaiah and Micah would surely have
found something to their heart's desire in its pure ethical character.
Indeed, the religious thought seems to be dependent on the teaching of
the Prophets, but only at a distance, for it is ethically advanced and
has become somewhat rarefied and unemotional. The literary character
seems also to point to a later age; for it is academical, sophistical,
and polished. The polish of the Proverbs might be due to constant use
among the common people, but they are not like popular sayings (cp.
1 Sam, xxiv. 13; 1 Kings xx. 11; Jer. xxxi. 29; Ezek. xviii. 2), and
their evident kinship with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus indicates a late
post-exilic origin.
We shall first devote some time to an examination of the Book of
Proverbs. The Hebrew "proverb" (_mashal_) means "a representation," and
may be used of a fable or a taunt, but is more especially confined to
any generalisation from experience or observation on life and character
expressed in a rhythmic and polished form. The most usual form of the
proverb is a couplet in which a common fact of Nature is placed beside
a common fact of human life: "Where there is no wood the fire goes out,
and where there is no talebearer strife will cease."
The book as a whole would seem to be ascribed to Solomon (i. 1), but
this is only the tradition of the final editor; for, as in the case of
the Psalter, Proverbs shows every trace of gradual compilation, and the
names of other authors are given.
The main divisions of the book are as follows:--
A. (i. 1-6). The prologue, by the final editor, either ascribing the
work to Solomon or else praising his proverbs.