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NOTE ", p. 381.

Are Ps. xlix. and the kindred psalms which will presently be referred to, spoken in the name of the community, or in that of any and every pious Israelite? I have taken the latter view. Smend, however, while admitting that Ps. xlix. 4, 5 can be understood as spoken by the poet, claims the rest of the psalm for the churchnation. Similarly it is the community (Gemeinde) whose eternal duration and enjoyment of Messianic blessings is believingly anticipated in Pss. xvi. 10, 11, xvii. 15. On Ps. lxxiii. Smend's remarks are brief, and include no exegesis. Possibly, he thinks, in spite of appearances, it was composed for a liturgical purpose (see vv. 1, 28). Klostermann's early work, Untersuchungen zur alttest. Theologie (Gotha, 1868) discusses two of these psalms (xlix. and lxxiii.) and in addition Ps. cxxxix. It is, however, arbitrary and unsound alike in its criticism and its exegesis. More help will be got from chap. xlii. of Hermann Schultz's Alttest. Theologie (ed. 4), which ably represents a different theory of interpretation from my own.

NOTE, p. 382.

In Isa. xiv. two different Semitic beliefs are mentioned respecting. the fate of royal personages after death. The king of Babylon expects to join the gods (v. 13). But the poet has already expressed the ordinary Israelitish and Phoenician belief, viz. that kings and heroes have their couches of glory in the underworld, probably apart from the vulgar herd (cf. Isa. v. 14). Job, too, is made to express the belief that there are no moral distinctions in the underworld, tyrant-kings and their oppressed subjects being alike 'cut away from God's hand' among the shades. 'Oh that I had died as a newborn child,' he exclaims, and joined the great assembly of mankind. I should at least have been no worse off than those kings and counsellors of the earth, who built the ruined cities of the primeval world' (in Job iii. 14 read y for in, and cf. Job xxii. 15, Ezek. xxvi. 20). For the Phoenician belief, see Inscr. of Eshmunazar, king of the Sidonians, 1. 8, 'let him have no couch with the shades' (as in Isa. lvii. 2, they rest upon their couches'); also Inscr. of Tebnêth, Eshmunazar's son, 1. 8, 'nor (mayest thou have) a couch with the shades.' The latest monograph on these and other Phoenician inscriptions is G. Hoffmann's Ueber einige phönikische Inschriften (Göttingen, 1889); for the inscription of Tebnêth comp. Driver, Samuel, Introd., pp. xxvi.-xxix., who is well aware that it illustrates. not only the language but the ideas of the Old Testament. It is

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perhaps allowable to infer from Ezek. xxviii. 13, 14 that the Tyrians also were at one time attracted by the belief expressed in Isa. xiv. 13

NOTE C, p. 383.

The question is, whether 'Jehovah killeth and maketh alive (again)' in 1 Sam. ii. 6 (cf. Deut. xxxii. 39, 2 Kings v. 7) describes what is in the abstract possible, or what He has been known to do or is at least expected to do. I prefer the latter view. In Deut. l.c., ‘I kill and I make alive' is parallel to 'I wound and I heal.' Now the healing of disease was a real experience; surely the revival of the dead must have been regarded as such too. Job ix. 5 may of course be quoted in favour of the other view, but even here is it certain that 'which removeth the mountains' merely describes what is in the abstract possible? The phrase may allude to a tradition of what God had once done or to an expectation of what He would one day do (cf. Isa. ii. 19). To 'kill and make alive' is also an attribute of Marduk (see a well-known hymn in Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 99, but cf. p. 358).

The phrase is found Ps. xxxvi. 10. Comp. the

NOTE 4, p. 383.

both (see note nn) in Proverbs and in 'water of life' in Babylonian and Egyptian mythology (see next note, and cf. Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 141).

NOTE, p. 384.

The Babylonians, like the Iranians, certainly believed that the ambrosial fruit might, under certain circumstances, be partaken of by men. The name of the sacred plant in Assyrian shows this; it means 'in old age the man becomes young (again).' And when Șitnapistim (of whom more later) and his wife were placed in the happy garden and made equal to the gods, it followed that they had free access to the sacred plant and 'water of life' (see Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 227, 383; cf. Jeremias, Die bab.-ass. Vorstellungen, &c., pp. 89-95). The Hebrew narrative, if we had it in its full form, would probably have made the privilege of eating the sacred fruit conditional on obedience. How skilfully the narrator has given a moral turn to the details of the old story! Contrast the Gistubar story, where the hero first takes the sacred plant, and then loses it to a serpent. If 'serpent' is correct, here seems to be the original of the serpent-tempter in Gen. iii., as Jensen points out. Whether the Babylonians had begun to allegorize their myth, must be left undecided from want of evidence. Need I say

that the 'tree of life' in Gen. ii., iii., has a Babylonian rather than an Iranian connexion? The Gaokerena (see p. 439) of the Avesta may itself be ultimately of Babylonian origin.

NOTE f, p. 384.

Ps. xxii. 30 (note), which shows at any rate that the departed might be supposed to share in some way in the Messianic hope. This is one of the germs of the beautiful address of the Messiah to God in the Yalkut to Isaiah (359), 'Nor let the living only be saved in my days, but also those who are laid in the dust.'

NOTE 8, p. 384.

It is not unpermissible to compare Ps. xxiii. 4 in this connexion. At any rate, v. 4 must be interpreted not less widely than v. 6 (see my commentary).

NOTE 1, p. 385.

How forced are the uncritical patristic explanations of these passages! See e.g. St. Cyril (Catechesis, xviii. 7), who remarks on Ps. cxv. 17 that those who die in their sins will have, not to praise God for benefits, but to lament; also St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome on Ps. vi. 6.

NOTE i, p. 385.

Remember, however, there were both orthodox and heterodox Sufis. One of the former, Sha'rânî, in a work on the Mohammedan belief, shows that no one can be dispensed from his religious obligations, even if he have reached the high degree of detachment from the world called al-qurb ('nearness to God,' cf. Ps. lxxiii. 28).

NOTE, p. 386.

The apocalyptic element is weak in psalm-theology (Pss. Iviii. and lxxxii. are exceptional). The dangerousness of heathenism must be realized still more vividly and appallingly before the Jewish longing for a complete mundane revolution can become as intense as in the later apocalyptic literature (the germs of which, however, cannot be mistaken in Joel, the second Zechariah, and Isa. xxiv.-xxvii.). Upon the whole, this is the picture presented by the later psalmists -an earnest people devoted to the pursuit of righteousness, and not to be turned aside from it by great difficulties and discouragements. And, from a Christian point of view, the loveliest feature of it is the growth of a mystic and yet not separatistic spiritual religion.

NOTE k, p. 386.

Originally it was Israel which claimed Jehovah for its 'portion' (Deut. xxxii. 8, Jer. x. 16, li. 19), but in Pss. xvi. 5, lxxiii. 26 a faithful Israelite can make the same high boast (cf. the name Hilkiah). 1 Tim. vi. 19, 'that they may lay hold on the true life,' may be illustrated from an Egyptian hymn, 'Grant to thy son who loves thee, life in truth that he may live united with thee in eternity' (Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, p. 230, also from Korán, xxix. 64).

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NOTE m, p. 387.

Pss. xv., xxiv. 1–6, xxiii., xxvii. 1-6, which are illustrated by Ps. v. 5 (cf. 12), lxi. 5, xxxi. 20, 21, xxxvi. 8-10, lxv. 5. Within this group the words 'to sojourn as a guest,' 'a guest' (prop. 'a protected stranger') only occur thrice (Pss. v. 5, xv. 1, lxi. 5), but the idea of guestship' is equally expressed in the other passages. That idea has experienced a noteworthy development. It might be thought that the ger or 'guest' of Jehovah would be as fearful and anxious with regard to his future safety as one of those protected foreigners who are called technically gērim in the O. T. And certainly we do find in the passage (Isa. xxxiii. 14) which suggested Pss. xv. and xxiv. 1-6 a speech of certain nominal gērīm of Jehovah who apprehend that the 'hearth of Jehovah' may to them be no protection but the reverse. But in the Psalter, putting aside xxxix. 13, cxix. 19, where the state of 'guestship' is viewed upon its less favourable side, to be a ger is to have a joyous sense of absolute security based on the consciousness of a higher and divinely given life (see my note on Ps. xv. 1). Nor can we, I think, duly appreciate the use of for 'convert' in new Hebrew (the first beginnings of which are traceable in the Sept. of Ex. xii. 19, Isa. xiv. 1), if we suppose this word in the post-Exile period to have suggested the idea of timidity (see Isa. xiv. 1-3). I venture, therefore, to criticize Prof. Robertson Smith's reference to the phrase 'ger of Jehovah' as expressing a timid though earnest legalism (The Rel. of the Semites, p. 78). It does express this in the two psalm passages just referred to (with which comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 15), but not in the other passages, which agree in spirit with the finest utterances of mystic piety. The true ger of Jehovah knows, it is true, that he has no natural right to be on terms of intimacy with his God. He is not like those herdsmen of the desert so graphically described by Mr. Doughty, who explain their often surprising hospitality with the words, 'Be we not all guests of Ullah?' There is a world of difference between his and their religion. The one is supernatural, the

other is but natural. Israel was chosen of old by Jehovah with a moral object, and, having forfeited his standing, has been chosen anew (cf. Ps. lxv. 5). In his humility he may call himself a ger or 'protected stranger,' but can he be timid or anxious? Many a psalm returns the answer, No. He is sure that this guestship' will last perpetually (Ps. lxi. 5), and sings for joy. And not only faithful Israel has this confidence, but with increasing clearness each faithful Israelite of the mystic school.

NOTE ", p. 388.

in Ps. xvii. 14, see Linguistic Appendix. It corresponds exactly to the Arabic dunya. Cf. the saying quoted by Lane (Lexicon, s.v.), ba'a dunyahu bi-āḥiratihi, 'he has purchased his (enjoyments of) the present world at the expense of his (enjoyments of) the world to come.' Of course, this use of does not imply a recognized and habitual way of speaking. The phrases iv and nạn chivṛ belong to the Hebrew of the Mishna.

NOTE o, p. 389.

Wellhausen (followed by Nowack) reads in v. 246, In 2008 (Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, i. 94).

NOTE P, p. 389.

'At the awaking,' ', Ps. xvii. 15, may mean 'when life's short night is past;' cf. J. H. Newman's poem, 'Lead, kindly Light, through the encircling gloom.' This is not without plausible support in Ps. xc. 5 (R. V.), 'Thou carriest them away as with a flood, they are as a sleep,' on which Luther remarks, 'Truly our life is nothing else than a sleep and a dream: '-a primitive mystic idea, as we may see in Clem. Alex., Strom. v., pp. 599D, 600a (comp. also the Mohammedan saying, 'Man sleeps in life and awakes in death'). We may then interpret pa, Ps. xlix. 15, with Card. Cajetan, "Mortem justorum appellat mane, quoniam in morte incipit verus dies rectorum: sicut mortem impiorum appellavit casum in fovea' (Psalmi Davidici, ed. 2, 1532). If we hold Ps. xvii. to have been written before the idea of the resurrection became current, this is perhaps the best explanation (see my commentary). If, however, we place this group of psalms near the close of the Persian period, we shall naturally interpret the 'awaking' of a renewal of the bodily existence, as Dan. xii. 2, cf. 2 Kings iv. 31. For 'thy form,', we might, with Sept., substitute 'thy glory' (cf. Sept., Num. xii. 8).

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