very probably by David himself,-some of them, as the titles imply, in the earlier portion of his life, some in the middle, and some in the latter years of it,— and, at all events, by some one of that age.

With respect to the above three Psalms, however, li,lx,lxviii, it seems almost certain that they were written by David in the fifty-first, forty-fifth, and fortieth, year of his life, respectively. In the first two of these Psalms, he has not used Jehovah at all; in the third he has used Jehovah or Jah four times, but Elohim and Adonai thirty-eight times. The argument from this fact seems to be irresistible, unless it can be met by contrary evidence of a very decisive character, showing as certainly that David did write some Psalms in the early part of his life, which contain the name Jehovah at least as frequently as Elohim.

423. Here, then, we are met by the two excepted cases to which reference has been already made in (356), Ps.xxxiv and Ps.cxlii.

Ps.xxxiv is entitled 'A Psalm of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.' Abimelech here stands, no doubt, for Achish: and this Psalm, supposing the title to be correct, would have been written in the twenty-seventh year of David's life, and yet it contains Jehovah sixteen times, and Elohim not once,— contrary to all our other experience.

Upon this I remark as follows:

(i) As already observed, we cannot depend upon the title in any case, unless it be supported by the contents of the Psalm.

(ii) HENGSTENBERG, who insists very strongly upon the general 'correctness and originality of the titles,' (see his note on Ps. xxx.1,) comments in this case as follows, note on Ps.xxxiv.1 :

It is not, however, to be imagined that David composed the Psalm, when immediately threatened by danger. In opposition to any such idea, we have the quiet tone which pervades it; whereas all the Psalms, which were immediately called

forth by a particular occasion, are characterised by a great deal more of emotion. Besides which, we have the unquestionably predominant effort to draw consolation and instruction for the Church from his own personal experience. Finally, we have the alphabetical arrangement, which never occurs in those Psalms, which consist of an expression of feelings immediately called forth by a particular object, but always in those, in which the prevailing design is to edify others.

The fact is, that David, when on some occasion, in the subsequent part of his history, his mind became filled with lively emotions, arising from the recollections of his wonderful escape, in reference to which he even here says, 'I will praise Jehovah at all times, His praise shall be continually in my lips,' made it the groundwork of a treasure of edification for the use of the godly in all ages.

HENGSTENBERG has here admitted all that is necessary to confirm our view of the case, viz. that this Psalm, if written by David at all, must have been written at a later period-it may be a much later period of his life than the title would imply.

424. But there seems no reason to believe that this Psalm was written with any reference to David's escape from Abimelech or Achish. There is nothing whatever in its contents to bear out such a supposition. As HENGSTENBERG says, so calm and artificial a Psalm could not possibly have been written at a moment of extreme peril. And David passed through so many dangers in the course of his life, that it is very unlikely, to say the least of it, that he would be still referring back in later days to this particular occasion, as one of special peril and deliverance, even if the title would allow of such an explanation of its meaning, which, honestly interpreted, it certainly will not.

425. The title being thus shown to be inaccurate, we have, in fact, no reason for ascribing this Psalm to David at all. It may well be the thanksgiving of any pious writer of any age,―probably, however, of a man well advanced in years, since we read, v.11, 'Come ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of Jehovah,' which would have hardly suited David at the age of twenty-seven, or for many years after.

And we actually have a Psalm composed by David, according to its title, on this very occasion, Ps.lvi, and in a very different tone,-one of anguish and fear, quite suitable to it; and in this

we have, as we might expect, Elohim nine times, Jehovah

once.

426. Again Ps.cxlii is entitled 'Maschil of David, a prayer when he was in the cave;' and it contains Jehovah three times, Elohim not once.

(i) There is nothing whatever in the contents of this Psalm, which helps to fix it to this occasion.

(ii) We have here also a Psalm composed by David ‘while in the cave,' Ps.lvii, and this, as we might expect, contains Elohim seven times, Jehovah not once.

(iii) It is most unlikely that, on the very same occasion, David should have written two Psalms, in one of which he never uses the word Jehovah, while in the other he never uses Elohim.

(iv) As we are sure that in the earlier part of his reign he did write Psalms without Jehovah, we conclude, until other evidence is produced to the contrary, that the title of Ps.lvii is most likely to be genuine, and that of Ps.cxlii fictitious.

427. And so writes HENGSTENBERG, the great defender of the genuineness of the Titles, iii.p.517.

That the situation indicated in the superscription was not the proper occasion of the Psalm, but that David here only applies what he then experienced for the edification of others, appears not simply from the expression 'an instruction,' in the front of the superscription, out of which the following words, 'when he was in the cave,' derive their more definite import, but still more from the fact, that the Psalm stands in close contact with the rest of the cycle of which it forms a part.

David sees in his desperate condition, 'when he was in the cave,' a type of the future condition of his race and of the Church. His cave-reflections he sets before them as an instruction. When it might come with them to an extremity—this is the posture of affairs contemplated—(and such must come, for it cannot go otherwise with the son than with the father, they too must have their Saul to withstand,) they should still not despair, but pour out their

complaint before the Lord.

428. In short, the very circumstance, that these two Psalms contain the name Jehovah so often, to the absolute exclusion of Elohim, is to my own mind, after what we have already seen, a clear indication that they cannot be ranked with the Psalms which we have been hitherto considering, and which were written at an earlier period of David's life. If written by David at all, of which there is no sign whatever, they must have been written towards the close of his life.

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For it cannot be said that the peculiarity, which we have noticed in the earlier Psalms of David, arose from some idioof his own mind, so that, while his predecessors and syncrasy contemporaries and successors used freely the name Jehovah, David himself, for some reason, refrained from using it as frequently as the name Elohim all his life long. At all events, we shall find that certain Psalms, composed by him, according to their title and contents, towards the end of his life, exhibit a phenomenon the exact reverse of that which we have already observed, and are decidedly Jehovistic, so that sometimes the name Elohim does not even occur at all in them.

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CHAPTER XVII.

THE REMAINING ELOHISTIC PSALMS.

429. THAT the reader may have the whole case before him, we shall now give a table of the five books of Psalms, marking, as before, with an asterisk those Psalms which are ascribed by their titles to David. We use also, as before, the letters E. for Elohim, God, J. for Jehovah, LORD, and A. for Adonai, Lord: but we do not reckon any instances, where Elohim is evidently used for 'gods' or 'princes,' or where Adonai is used of a mere man.