imply), and, at all events, had the special sanction and approval of Almighty God, as the Name by which He chose to be addressed, the proper Name of the God of Israel,—This is my Name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.' E.iii. 15. It seems absolutely impossible that either he, or any other good man of those days, should have done this, if the Name was so common in the mouths of all pious and devout men, even of heathen persons, in his own and all the postMosaic ages, as the history represents.

358. For the Psalms, above instanced, are by no means the only cases in which the same phenomenon occurs, among the Psalms ascribed to David. The above six are all those, (with, as I have said, two exceptions,) about whose early age we are able at once to speak with some degree of confidence, relying partly upon their titles, and partly upon internal evidence from the nature of their contents. But, if we examine carefully all the thirty-one Psalms of the Second Book, Ps.xlii to Ps.lxxii, of which eighteen, marked below with an asterisk, are ascribed to David, we shall have the following very noticeable result:

359. The eighteen Psalms, which are here ascribed to David, include the six which we have just been considering, and which were written, as we have seen, (supposing their titles to be correct), at an early period of his life, when, in fact, he was not yet thirty years old. They include, also, three from the middle part of his life,-Ps.lx (E.5,J.0), when Joab returned, and smote of Edom, in the valley of salt, twelve thousand men,' in the fortyfifth year of David's life, — Ps.li (E.6,J.0), after his adultery

with Bathsheba, in the fiftieth year, and Ps.lxxii. (E.3,J.1) -or, rather (E.1,J.O), since v. 18,19, are merely the doxology (228), added by the compiler in later days, to serve as a close to Book II of the Psalms, which is entitled 'A prayer for Solomon,' and, if written by David, may have been composed by him shortly after Solomon's birth, in the fifty-first or fiftysecond year of his life.

360. Looking now at the above table, is it conceivable that David should have written the above eighteen Psalms, or any number of them, in which the name Elohim occurs, on the average, seven times to Jehovah once, and in nine of which Jehovah does not occur at all, if the latter name was used so freely, so much more freely than Elohim, and under such high sanction, in the common language of the people when he wrote, as the historical books with one voice imply? Nay, every Psalm in this Book shows the same characteristic preference for the word Elohim. And, supposing as we naturally may before further inquiry, that all or most of them are Psalms of about the same age, as they are found in the same collection, and that age the age of David, as the titles of so many of them imply, it is obvious that the force of the above argument is just as strong, whether such Psalms were really written by David, or by any other pious writer of those days.

273

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PSALMS OF THE SECOND BOOK.

361. In order, however, to make sure of our ground, we must now examine carefully, one by one, the Psalms of the Second Book, and see if they contain sufficient internal evidence to enable us to fix them, either upon David himself as their author, or else upon the age of David. Only let it be distinctly observed that our argument does not in the least depend on the accuracy of the titles, which for our own purposes we should rather at once set aside altogether, and try to make out the age of any particular Psalm from its internal evidence. But as HENGSTENBERG, one of the chief defenders of the ordinary view, is so very decided in maintaining their correctness, it seems best, with DAVIDSON, ii.255, to assume the alleged Davidic authorship' as being possibly true, 'till internal evidence proves the contrary.'

362. The first eight Psalms, Ps.xlii-xlix, are inscribed, 'Of or for the sons of Korah,' except Ps.xliii, which has no inscription, but is plainly a continuation of Ps.xlii. It is disputed among critics what this expression means, whether that they were written by members of the 'Korah family,' or composed by David or others, perhaps, in different ages, for their use as a choir, or (which seems most probable) only collected and preserved by the sons of Korah.' On either of these suppositions, some of these 'Psalms of Korah' may have been written by David himself, or his contemporaries.

363. Ps.xlii (E.13,J.1), and Ps.xliii (E.8,J.0), which evidently are parts of one single Psalm seem, at first sight, to refer to the Tabernacle or Temple (318) on Mount Zion in xlii.4, xliii.3, and in that case they must have been written in or after the time of David. And the tone of these Psalms is considered by some to

T

indicate that point of time when David, by Absalom's rebellion, was driven beyond Jordan,' (Bishop HORNE,) in the sixty-fourth year of his life. If this were true, it would follow that, even at that age, he could still write a Psalm with Elohim occurring in it twenty-one times, and Jehovah only once.

364. It may be questioned, however, if the tone of these Psalms is exactly that which suits the circumstances of Absalom's rebellion. They seem, rather, to express the same state of feeling as Ps.lxiii, where also we find him uttering his ardent longings for the place where he might appear before God, just as he does here. The expressions in xliii.3, ‘Thy holy hill,' and 'Thy tabernacles,' find their parallel in lxiii.2, where he speaks of the 'holy place;' and that in xlii.4, the 'House of God,' may refer to the Sanctuary at Nob. I quote in support of this view the following extract from STANLEY'S Sinai and Palestine, p.187: ·

'The Mount of Olives was also, in the earlier times of Jewish history, when elevation and sanctity of position were almost identical, the sacred place of the vicinity of Jerusalem. Long before the conquest of Jebus by David, the northern summit of Olivet had, it would seem, under the name of Nob, been selected as the seat of the Tabernacle (?), after the destruction of Shiloh and the loss of the Ark. Close within sight of the unconquered fortress of the Jebusites, the worship of Israel was there conducted during all the earlier years of Saul; and, even after the destruction of the Sanctuary by his violence, the sanctity of the summit of Olivet was still respected. David, before the Temple was built, was wont to worship God at the top of the Mount, 2S.xv.32. Solomon, when, in his later years, he tolerated or adopted the idolatrous rites of his foreign wives, made 'high places' of the three summits ‘on the right hand of the Mount of Corruption,' 1K.xi.7, 2K.xxiii.13, apparently the same northern summit of Nob.'

365. There appears to be no real ground for the above supposition of Canon STANLEY that the Tabernacle of Moses was set up at Nob. At all events, the Chronicler says it was set up at Gibeon, 1Ch.xxi.29, 2Ch.i.3, though we shall see good reason for doubting this statement also, when we come to consider hereafter the question of the history and fate of the Tabernacle. But, that there was a 'holy hill' and 'Tabernacle'* for divine worship at Nob, on the summit of the Mount of Olives, is highly probable: and it has been ingeniously suggested that as Goliath's sword was deposited at this Sanctuary, so David may be represented to have carried thither his head also, when he went to return thanks to God after his victory, and that this is the meaning of the otherwise perplexing statement in 18.xvii. 54, that 'David took

* The Psalmist, indeed, speaks of nipp, tabernacles,' Ps.xliii.3, xlvi.4, lxxxiv.1, which conveys rather the idea of a group of tents, a kind of Priestly encampment, distinct from the solitary of Shiloh, Ps.lxxviii.60, and Gibeon, 1K.ii.28, with its central, and the vessels inside the ; and the same plural form is apparently used in Ps.cxxxii.5,7, of the Temple, with its chambers, 1K.vi.10.

the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem,' (which was then in the possession of the Jebusites,) the Mount of Olives being close to Jerusalem.

If, however, the view here taken of the composition of these Psalms be correct, they were probably written by David, as well as Ps.lxiii, 'when he was in the wilderness of Judah,' at a much earlier period of his life.

366. In Ps.xlii.6 we read, O God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember Thee from the land of Jordan and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.'

The expression 'land of Jordan' is generally understood to mean the country on the east of Jordan, the Psalm being referred to the time of David's flight from Absalom, when he was driven beyond the river to Mahanaim, 2S.xvii.27. Certainly the above phrase does not necessarily mean the land beyond Jordan. It might just as well be used for the land on the western side of the river: and the wanderings of David were, doubtless, not confined to the wilderness of Judah. In fact, we find, 18.xxv.43, that one of his wives was 'Ahinoam of Jezreel;' from which we should suppose that he was at one time in the neighbourhood of that place. Now close to Jezreel is the mountain which is called by travellers 'Little Hermon,' (though Canon STANLEY thinks erroneously,) to which reference is supposed to be made in Ps.lxxxix. 12, 'The North and the South Thou hast created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy Name.' It would seem that the Hermon here mentioned must have been to the south of Tabor, as the mountain in question is, whereas Great Hermon lies far away to the north-east. Hence this Psalm might have been written in the neighbourhood of Jezreel, not far from the Jordan.

367. But it seems more probable that the true explanation of the allusion may be this. In Jo.xi.3 we read of 'the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh: " so that the land of Mizpeh in Gilead was reckoned to be under a spur of Mount Hermon. Now, in the time of David's greatest despondency, we read that he took his father and mother, through fear of Saul, to 'Mizpeh of Moab,' 1S.xxii.3,4, and gave them in charge to the king of Moab, who seems at that time to have been in possession of this part of Gilead. It is very possible that he may have written this Psalm on that very occasion. And then the Hebrew parallelism in Ps.lxxxix. 12 will be maintained thus:

"The North and the South Thou hast created them;

"The West (Tabor) and the East (Hermon) shall rejoice in Thy Name.'

Nothing is known about the 'hill Mizar,' which may have been some eminence, of no great notoriety, in the land of Gilead.

If the above be true, it would fix the composition of the Psalm at that early part of David's life, when he was in dread of the consequences of having met Doeg at Nob, and had, probably, had some intimation already of his having reported him to Saul, to which reference may be made in Ps.xliii.1, 'O deliver me from the man of deceit and iniquity!'

368. On Ps.xliv (E.5,J.0), the comment in Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, is as follows: