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The Fehovistic Psalms.

he hath heard the voice of my supplications.

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Jehovah is my

strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth, and with my song will I praise him " (verses 1-3, 6, 7).

The remaining Jehovistic psalms of the first book are the 32d and the 34th. The former is generally believed to have been written by David on receiving forgiveness of his great sin. He tells how he had sought to obtain peace by banishing all thought of his crime, and stifling his soul's cry. But the cry would not be stilled: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all day long; for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer" (verses 3, 4). And at last he took the path which God had from of old declared could alone lead to mercy and rest, and he found mercy and rest. The reference of Jehovah to God's faithfulness is touchingly indicated in verse 5: "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." In that one word Jehovah, there lay a world of promise and of hope for the broken heart. It whispered in the ear of repentant grief: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." The name drew him to the feet of God, and the psalm tells how the promise was kept, and is full of the praise of the Faithful One, who keepeth truth for ever: "And THOU forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found; surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding-place, thou shalt preserve me from trouble, thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance" (verses 5-7). But in connection with this psalm a special difficulty arises. The 51st is generally believed to be David's prayer for the mercy which is here celebrated; in that psalm, however, Jehovah does not once appear; Adonai occurs once, otherwise Psalm li. is purely Elohistic. Does not this militate against our theory? In his prayer for mercy, could the Psalmist shut. out from his mind God's faithfulness, or fail to use the name which put God in remembrance, so to speak, of His promises? Now, if we turn to the psalm itself, we shall see that to mark its Elohistic character is to find the key to its interpretation.

It is not a cry for mercy only, but for renewal. David, like many another, had fancied himself to be more righteous than he really was; sin was slumbering, and he supposed it did not exist. But the flood of light which burst upon the repentant heart had undeceived him. His need could not be met by blotting out the guilt of that one sin, nor of all that he had ever done. If God did no more than this, the future would merely repeat the past; for the pollution of sin befouled every fibre of his being. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." The cry for forgiveness became a cry for the new birth, for re-creation; and therefore from first to last the appeal is made to God in His might. It was a task which almighty power alone could accomplish. "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. . . . Create in me a clean heart, O Elohim, and renew a right spirit within me" (verses 7, 10). In Psalm xxxiv. Jehovah occurs no fewer than sixteen times. The reiteration of the name would lead us to expect that the psalm would keep the Divine faithfulness very prominently before us, and that it does so the slightest inspection will convince us. It opens, "I will bless Jehovah at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in Jehovah, the humble shall hear thereof and be glad. O magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together" (verses 1-3). Now, what has excited the Psalmist to this burst of praise? Why are we called upon to unite with him in exalting the name of Jehovah? The next words tell us: "I sought Jehovah and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears" (ver. 4); that is, Jehovah has fulfilled the promise of his name. And, as we proceed, the theme is still God's faithfulness: "This poor man cried, and Jehovah heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of Jehovah encampeth round about those that fear him, and delivereth them. O fear Jehovah, ye his saints: there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek Jehovah shall not want any good thing" (verses 6-10). In the second part of the psalm (verses 11-22), the same aspect of the Divine character is presented in another way. God's faithfulness implies conditions. If we fulfil our

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The value of the theory contended for.

part of the covenant, He will not fail to perform His.

235

"Come,

ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of Jehovah. . . . The eyes of Jehovah are upon the righteous.

The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil. . . . Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate Jehovah redeemeth the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."

No theory, we believe, could be put to a severer test than this, and, we venture to say, no issue could be more manifestly successful. We have not cited parts of Scripture which bore out our contention, and passed by those whose evidence might be against us. We have taken all the purely Elohistic psalms, and the whole of the purely Jehovistic contained in the first book; and, without exception, the Elohistic speak more or less. plainly of God's might and the Jehovistic of His faithfulness. We not only submit that, while no other theory accords with the facts, this does : we would also express our conviction that it presents us with a valuable exegetical help. The very name applied to God sets us at once at the writer's standpoint. In Exodus xiii. 17-19, there is a sudden break in the almost uniform use of Jehovah which characterises both the preceding and subsequent parts of the narrative. In these three verses Elohim alone is employed. Alford, in his posthumous commentary, says: "This seems to indicate distinctness of origin for this incorporated fragment. Even those who are fondest of finding subjective reasons for the change of the Divine. names have, as far as I have seen, abstained here. Seeing that Israel was especially the people of Jehovah, and is here spoken of as under His special guidance, we might expect to find that His special name here, if anywhere." Now give to Elohim its meaning as to every other word in the passage, and not only does the difficulty disappear, the words are even set in a new and welcome light. "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that Elohim led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for Elohim said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: but Elohim led the people about," etc. The change of the Divine name from Jehovah to Elohim quietly, but most effectively, emphasises the truth that this was done, not because God's

arm was not strong enough to smite their foes: the cause was Israel's faithlessness, not God's weakness. What a comment upon unbelief, that THE ALMIGHTY had to change Israel's path and lead them "about through the way of the wilderness": The change in the name indicates the lesson of the story.

There are minor points too which, in this light, acquire a new significance. It may appear, for example, that Gideon's battle-cry, "The sword of the LORD and of Gideon," savours somewhat of presumption. He seems to make himself God's ally. It is not God alone, but God and Gideon, by whom the victory is to be achieved. The difficulty disappears when it is observed that Gideon speaks of Jehovah. He is claiming the fulfilment of a promise. "The LORD (had) said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man" (Judg. vi. 16). Gideon's cry is simply the expression of his trust in the Divine faithfulness. There is another, though an unseen, sword by the side of his, the sword of Him who keepeth truth and executeth vengeancethe sword of Jehovah. Even in passages where it may seem. that our explanation fails, it will be found that there is a depth of meaning in the names, which has long lain concealed. For example, Balaam says to Balak, "God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" (Numb. xxiii. 19.) All this is simply a prolonged representation of God's unchangeableness: why then is not Jehovah used-the name of God in His faithfulness rather than the name of God in His might? The next words indicate the answer: 'Behold, I have received commandment to bless and He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it" (ver. 20). There was no more effective way of impressing upon Balak the vanity of contending with God than to name. Him here by His name of power. God's unchangeableness would have meant little had it not been for the Almighty strength behind it. But, in the face of the infinite might indicated solely by the name, and the unalterable purpose dwelt upon in the description, what availed all Balaam's arts and all Balak's sacrifices?

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We may add that to notice the significance of the names lends no mean aid in dealing with the books of the Old

Its bearing upon the books of Scripture.

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Testament. There are two which have presented the greatest difficulty to students of Scripture; and in each case the Divine name gives us the key to the interpretation. Widely different opinions have been expressed as to the purport of Ecclesiastes. To some it has seemed the outpouring of a repentant spirit, to others the bitterness and scepticism of a sated voluptuary. The true view of the book has been well expressed by Bleek: "The whole course of the argument is based everywhere upon the consciousness, expressed in the most distinct way, that God is the Almighty, from whom every thing proceeds, who gives life, wisdom, and all good things to men, whose working is for everlasting." But it needs no deep study to discover this. To notice the fact that the book is purely Elohistic, that, in other words, the only name of God used throughout is that which designates Him as the infinite in power, is to discover the purpose of the book at the very outset. Ecclesiastes is a call to submission and joyous trust. We cannot take our lives out of God's hands. We may dash ourselves against His arrangements to our own undoing, or fret under them and fill our lives with misery, but we cannot overthrow or change them. He with whom we have to do is the Almighty. "I know that whatsoever Elohim doeth shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and Elohim doeth it that men may fear before him" (iii. 14). "Behold what I have seen to be good: it is pleasant for one to eat and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life which Elohim. giveth him, for it is his portion" (v. 18).—In the two first and five last chapters of Job, both names appear. The rest of the book, with one solitary exception (xii. 9), is wholly Elohistic. Now this very fact sheds a flood of light upon its dark places. It is solely in this Elohistic portion, containing the speeches of Job and his friends, that the difficulty occurs; and the name they apply to God shows us where they alike erred. Both shut out of view God's faithfulness. Job's "miserable comforters" see nothing of the loving care and infinite purpose of good manifested in the troubles of the righteous: they do not know that God, just because He will give His people an everlasting inheritance, must lead them through the ocean depths and by the wilderness paths. Job, on the other hand,

VOL. XXXI.NO. CXX.

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