Psalms, and those Psalms especially, in the first instance, which appear by their titles to have been written in the earlier part of David's life. And let us see if David makes use of the Name Jehovah, as freely as we should expect him to use it, from what we find in the Pentateuch, as freely as he must have used it, if the word was in common use in his days, and believed to have had set upon it the seal, as it were, of Jehovah Himself, as the Name by which He would be known as the Covenant God of Israel. It is true that the titles of the Psalms may be, in many cases, of much later date than the Psalms themselves, and are not to be depended on, when unsupported by internal evidence of their truthfulness. But the contents of a Psalm will sometimes confirm the statement in the title, as to the occasion on which it was composed, and be sufficient to satisfy us as to the part of David's life in which it was written.

355. Of the hundred and fifty Psalms contained in the Bible, nearly half, viz. seventy-three, are, by their titles attributed to David in the Hebrew text, while the LXX assign eleven others to him. Of the above seventy-three, fourteen have inscriptions which specify the event in David's life, with reference to which the Psalm was composed. Eight of these inscriptions refer to events in his earlier years, before he was king. Of these eight, six, when examined, give the following results:

(i) In Ps. lii, when 'Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, and said unto him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech,' we have Elohim five times, Jehovah not

once.

(ii) In Ps.liv, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, doth not David hide himself with us?' we have Elohim four times, Adonai (Lord) once, Jehovah (LORD)

once.

(iii) In Ps.lvi, when 'the Philistines took David in Gath,' at the court of Achish, we have Elohim nine times, Jehovah once.

(iv) In Ps.lvii, when 'David fled from Saul in the cave,' we have Elohim seven times, Lord once, Jehovah not once.

(v) In Ps.lix, when 'Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him,' we have Elohim nine times, Lord once, Jehovah three times.

But, in this last Psalm, the expression in v.11, 'Slay them not, lest my people

forget it,' would seem to imply that the writer was king at the time, and, therefore, that, if written by David, it was composed at a later date than that which the title ascribes to it.

(vi) In Ps.lxiii, when 'David was in the wilderness of Judah,' we have Elohim three times, Jehovah not once.

356. The above are all the Psalms ascribed to David (with two exceptions, Ps.xxxiv,Ps.cxlii, to be considered presently), whose early age is distinctly intimated in their titles; and in each instance we see a phenomenon the very opposite to that, which the Pentateuch and other historical books would lead us to

expect. And let it be observed that this is true, supposing that these Psalms were really written by David, whether he wrote them on the occasions mentioned in the titles, or not, and even if they were not written by David at all, but by some other person of that age. But, if the titles can be relied on, (as HENGSTENBERG so strenuously maintains,) we here perceive that in David's earlier days,- at a time when he was in close intimacy with the venerable Prophet Samuel, with whom, we are told, he stayed some time at Ramah, 1S.xix. 18, while a fugitive from Saul, and when he must, doubtless, have mingled with the Prophets of Samuel's School,' have heard their sacred hymns, and taken part in their religious services, — though he knew the Name, Jehovah, yet he was certainly not in the habit of using it freely; he either used it not at all in his compositions, or used it very sparingly, as if he was only now beginning to use it, as if it was somewhat new and strange to him as yet, not so frequent on his lips, not so familiar to his thoughts, as the old and well-known name, Elohim.

6

357. It is surely inconceivable that a man, so eminently pious as David, should, during a large portion of his life, have been writing not only these Psalms, but, as we shall see, very probably many others also, in which this Name Jehovah is hardly ever employed, if the story of the giving of the Name is really true, if it was known to David that this Name was first revealed to Moses by the Lord Himself, (as E.iii seems to

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.0), 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.

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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