THE following valuable paper was read by the Rev. Canon Fausset, D.D., at the Yorkshire Evangelical Union Conference, York, Friday, June 10, 1904:—
The peculiarity of the present attack on the Scripture is, that it is not by avowed infidels but by Christian professors. No longer do a Voltaire, a Paine, a Rousseau, a Gibbon, and a Hume assail God’s written Word, but those ordained to be defenders of the Word assail its historical veracity. They would bring back the formless void from which the Spirit of God and the Word of God evolved order, light, and life. Many of them make the Inspired Psalms the object of their rash and irreverent criticism. One dignitary declared that he would, if he could, suppress the daily recitation of the Psalter in our churches, because of the imprecations upon enemies which occur in the Psalms. His objections would be just if these curses were the expressions of personal revenge; but he forgets the real author of the Psalms is the Spirit of God. David truly says, as the sweet Psalmist of Israel, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.” St. Peter also reminds us that, so far from the meaning being restricted, as the critics suppose, to the sense of the writer, the writers themselves often searched what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow: “Unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you;” and the same apostle declares, “No prophesy of the Scriptures is of private interpretation, for the prophesy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Personal revenge is renounced by David, Ps. vii. 4, 5, 11, 12, and God is declared the Vindicator of His own cause. “If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me, yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy, let the enemy persecute my soul.” “God judgeth the righteous, God is angry with the wicked every day.” God’s people desire God’s honour to be vindicated, and whatever mars it to be brought to an end. So Psalm cxxxix. 21, 22, “Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee, am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies.”
So also, the prophet rebukes King Jehoshaphat, “Shouldst thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.”
These Psalms warn us of the danger of loose views as to God’s hatred of sin. We should enter into the mind of God in this condemnation of the serpent and the serpent’s ungodly seed.
“The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy” (Rev. xix. 10). Jerome describes the Psalms as “five books bound in one volume.” They form a poetical Pentateuch answering to the historical Pentateuch. Each of the five books is marked by a closing doxology. They are an oratorio in five parts, with Messiah for their subject. Herein Messiah poured forth his prayers and praises, and depicts His sufferings for us, and His consequent glory, in which we shall share. The Psalter is the heart of the Bible placed, as the Tree of Life, in the midst of Paradise; of it the Saviour says, “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning me.” It stands in the midst of the Scriptures as the hymn book of the universal Church.
The 22nd Psalm sets forth the Passion of Christ on Calvary, His unfailing trust, even when forsaken because of our sin laid on Him, though there was no sin in Him. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The piercing of His hands and feet, the parting of His garments, and the casting lots for His vesture, and the final triumph of His kingdom, are vividly depicted a thousand years before the event. The 23rd Psalm describes His walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death without fear, the Father being with Him; so the believer, by union with Him, appropriates the same words, and fears no evil in the dying hour. So from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, Messiah is represented in the 24th Psalm ascending into the Hill of the Lord, pure in hands and heart, and the heavenly gates and the everlasting doors lifting up their heads to let the King of Glory in.
The critics assert that Christ was mistaken in thinking that Psalm cx. was written by David, for He rests His argument on David’s authorship, which the critics deny. “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,” Matt. xxii. 41-45. “If David call him Lord, how is he his son?” They justify their argument by asserting from Phil. ii. 7, that Jesus “emptied Himself” of His omniscience. But thus they war, not only against the Lord Jesus, but also against the Holy Ghost speaking by St. Peter, Acts ii. 37, and also by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 25, and also by the inspired author of Heb. i. 13.
Some commentators limit Psalm xvi. 9, 10, to David as anticipating deliverance from bodily death; but here again the critic is answered by St. Peter and the Holy Ghost, Acts ii. 22-31. “David is both dead and buried; but he spake of the Resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption, this Jesus hath God raised up.” Again, the Holy Ghost, speaking by St. Paul, Acts xiii. 35, “Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Answering to the marriage feast of the Lamb (Rev. xix.), consummating the New Testament, stands the 45th Psalm, the “Song of Loves,” wherein the King appeared “in glory and in majesty,” enthroned as God for ever and ever, the Bride brought unto the King, and her virgins, with gladness and rejoicings.
The critics make the date of most of the Psalms to be as late as the age of the Maccabees. But the titles (of time) utterly disprove this, and vindicate the authorship as in canonical ages. That the titles are authentic is confirmed by appearing in the majority of MSS. Their antiquity is proved by their having been unintelligible to the Septuagint, centuries before Christ. A forger would have sought to connect them more plainly with their respective Psalms’ contents. The Orientals usually prefix titles to poems, as in David’s love song over Jonathan, 2 Sam. i-18, and in xxiii. 1. They are too enigmatical, poetical, spirited, and profound for a later collector. Selah indicates a pause, calling for calm reflection, therefore in Psalm ix. it follows Higgaion, meditation, Shiggaion, the aberrations of the wicked, Neginoth, all stringed instruments, Nehiloth, the inheritance: the Lord’s people. As Alamoth means the female voice, so Sheminith the octave below the treble, i.e., the bass. Gittith, the wine press song (Ps. viii.) of David over Goliath of Gath. Muth-labben anagram for Nabal, the dying of the fool. Michtam, the secret of the Divine life. Ayjeleth Shahar, the hind of the morn, the persecuted Messiah. Maschil, instruction. Mahalath, sickness (spiritual). Leannath, tribulation Jonath-elem-nechokim, the dumb, dove among strangers: “David among the Philistines.” Al-taschith, “Destroy not,” 1 Sam. xxvi. 9. Shusan-eduth, the lily of testimony. “Song of degrees,” a song for the ascendings, viz., of pilgrims to the great feasts. The whole book is crowned with the five concluding Psalms. each beginning and ending with Hallelujah—a prelude to the everlasting Hallelujahs of the saints made perfect in light.
Meanwhile, attune thy heart to each Psalm—if it pray, pray thou; if it mourn, mourn thou; if it hope, hope thou; the Psalter is the looking-glass of the soul; the heart, the lips, the life must accord with the Psalm. May our experience be that of the sainted W. Pennfather—”When wearied, the Psalms refresh me; in joy they express my thankfulness; in sorrow, they are the channel in which my grief flows, leading me away from myself to behold and see if there was ever ‘sorrow like His sorrow.'”