* The Psalms in Worship. United Presbyterian Board of Publication, Pittsburgh, 1907. See 1st Article, p. 249; 2nd, p. 337.
ACCORDING to promise we return to the discussion of the Psalms in Worship, to which the attention of our readers has already been directed in these pages. One of the most decidedly able papers in the volume is that by the editor, Rev. John M’Naugher, D.D., LL.D., Professor of New Testament Literature and Criticism in the Allegheny Theological Seminary. The paper is entitled “A Special Exegesis of Col. iii. 16, and Eph. v. 19. For the benefit of the reader the passages may be quoted in full. In the Colossian passage the Apostle says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” In writing to the Ephesians the Apostle counsels them: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Dr. M’Naugher begins his discussion of these passages by pointing out that present usage as regards the debated terms—”psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”—does nothing to fix their sense. We are dealing with terms penned long centuries before any of the uninspired productions in the hymnals of to-day were extant.
In seeking to have a definite idea of the above terms it is necessary to deal with the word “spiritual” (pneumatikos) as a distinguishing feature of the songs to which the Apostle refers. Dr. M’Naugher cites quite a list of authorities in order to arrive at a definite meaning of this word. Dr. Warfield, writing in the Presbyterian Review, says—”Of the twenty-five instances in which the word occurs in the New Testament, in no single case does it sink even as low in its reference as the human spirit; and in twenty-four of them is derived from Pneuma, the Holy Ghost. In this sense of belonging to, or determined by, the Holy Spirit, the New Testament usage is uniform with the one single exception of Eph. vi. 12, where it seems to refer to the higher, though fallen, super-human intelligences. The appropriate translation for it in each case is Spirit-given, or Spirit-led, or Spirit-determined.” In a paper of Dr. Warfield’s in the Expositor he adds that the above interpretation “is gradually becoming recognised by the best expositors.” Dr. Charles Hodge, in his Commentary on First Corinthians, says—”One of the most common meanings of the word spiritual in Scripture is derived from the Spirit. Spiritual gifts and spiritual blessings are gifts and blessings of which the Spirit is the author.” The same position, as Dr. M’Naugher points out, is maintained by the New Testament lexicographers Gremer, Parkhurst, Robinson, and Thayer; it is also advocated in M’Clintock and Strang’s Encyclopædia. Dr. M’Naugher then proceeds to give a long list of Biblical scholars—very mixed it is true—differing widely from each other on many points of vital interest, but all agreed in assigning to “spiritual” the meaning given above.
The conclusion which we have reached therefore is that there is very strong presumptive evidence that the “songs” to which the Apostle refers were inspired, and if the adjective be applied to the psalms and hymns as well as to the songs-a usage quite in keeping with Greek syntax then-there is strong evidence that the psalms, hymns, and songs referred to by the Apostle were inspired by the Holy Ghost. That they were not mere human compositions we now proceed to show more conclusively by an appeal to the Septuagint. This version came into existence in the interest of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Dispersion. It was called the Septuagint, or the Seventy, from the legend that it was translated by seventy translators. It was the version in common use in the times of the Apostles, occupying practically the same place to them as our Authorised Version does to us, in fact, it was what Edersheim calls it, “the people’s Bible.” Now, on turning to the Book of Psalms as translated in the Septuagint, we find these very expressions, psalms, hymns, and songs used to designate the Psalms, and not only so, but the terms hymns and songs with their related verbs occur quite frequently in the text of the Psalms, and they are also often employed in the historical books of the Bible to designate the Psalms. In the headlines to the different Psalms * sixty-seven have the word psalm (psalmos), † six the word hymn (hymnos), and * thirty-five the word song (ōdē). In the further discussion of the subject we cannot do better than quote from Dr. M’Naugher’s able presentation of the subject. “Still further,” he says, “psalm and song are conjoined twelve times, † and psalm and hymn twice (Psalms vi. and lxvii.). In the heading of the seventy-sixth Psalm all three terms stand side by side, just as here, and the heading of the sixty-fifth Psalm contains psalm and song, while in the first verse the composition is spoken of as a hymn. It is noteworthy also in these compound inscriptions that our terms interchange easily, and that hymn is written repeatedly in the plural, suggesting that in the estimation of the Seventy it was applicable to all the poems of the Psalter. There are such various phrasings as ‘a psalm of a song,’ ‘a song of a psalm,’ ‘a psalm, a song,’ ‘in psalms, a song,’ ‘in hymns a psalm,’ ‘in hymns, a psalm, a song.’ Turning from the titles of the Greek Psalter, the terms Hymn and Song with their cognate verbs and substantives are interspersed freely through the text as well as of its odes, being descriptive of these compositions. Three citations out of sixteen will suffice. The fortieth Psalm, third verse runs—’He put into my mouth a new lay, a hymn (hymnon) to our God.’ At the close of the seventy-second Psalm there is the line—’The hymns (hoi hymnoi) of David, the son of Jesse, are ended.’ This colophon may apply to the entire preceding collection, Psalms i. and lxxii. inclusive, as Perowne contends, or it may have been attached to some group of Davidic Psalms incorporated in the Psalter. In either case it shows that the seventy translators comprehended Psalms indiscriminately and collectively under the name hymns (hymnoi). Again in Psalm cxxxvii. 3, we read—’There they who took us captive demanded of us words of songs (ōdōn), and they who led us away said, Chant us a hymn (hymnon) out of the songs (ek tōn ōdōn) of Zion.’ Here the word songs (ōdai) covers all the Psalms and a ‘Hymn’ may be selected at random from these songs.
When we pass from the Psalms themselves to the historical books of the Septuagint, the terminology is identical. In 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, and Nehemiah, there are sixteen instances of this, and in them the Psalms as a plurality are called hymns (hymnoi) or songs (ōdai) indifferently, and the singular of them is called hymning (hymneō, hymnōdeō, hymnēsis)—See 2 Samuel vi. 5, xxii. 1, 2; 1 Chron. xv. 22, xvi. 42, xxv. 6; 2 Chron. v. 13, vii. 6, xxiii. 13, 18, xxix. 30, xxxiv. 12; Neh. xii. 24, 27, 36, 46.” ‡
* Psalms i., iv., v., vi., vii., viii., ix., xi., xii., xiii., xiv., xv., xix., xx., xxi., xxii., xxiii., xxiv., xxv., xxxv., xxxx., xxxi., xxxviii., xl., xlii., xliii., xliv., xlvi., xlvii., xlviii., xlii., lxiii., lxiii., lxiv., lxv., lxvii., lxviii., lxxiii., lxxxvi., lxxxvi., lxxxvi., lxxxvi., lxxxvi., lxxxvi., lxxxvii., lxxxvii., lxxxviv., lxxxvii., lxxxvii., xciv., xcviii., xciv., cx., cx., cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., cxli., cxlii., cxliii.
† Psalms vi., liv., lv., lxi., lxvii., lxxvi.
* Psalms iv., xviii., xxx., xxxix., xl., xlviii., lxv., lxvi., lxviii., lxxv., lxxvi., lxxxiii., lxxxvii., lxxxviii., xci., xcii., xciii., xcv., xcvii., cviii., cxx., cxii., cxiii., cxiii., cxiv., cxv., cxvi., cxvii., cxviii., cxix., cxxx., cxxxii., cxxxiii., cxxxiv.
† Psalms iv., xxx., xlviik., lxv., lxvi., lxviii., lxxv., lxxxiii., lxxxviii., lxxxviii., xcii., cviii.
‡ Psalms in Worship, pp. 139-140.
It is almost universally admitted by commentators and biblical scholars that the first of the three words—psalms—used by the Apostle refers to the Book of Psalms, and it is quite a legitimate inference that the other two words also refer to the Psalter, seeing that these terms are so often used in connection with the Psalms in the Septuagint translation. This position is still further strengthened by an appeal to the writings of Philo, who died A.D. 40. In speaking of the Psalms, and in quoting from them, he never uses the word “psalm,” but always “hymn,” or one of its compounds. Josephus also “tells us how David composed songs and hymns, and alludes repeatedly to the Psalms as ‘hymns.'”
Dr. M’Naugher, in summing up the evidence, says:—”And now, massing what has been gleaned from the Septuagint, from the eminent Hellenistic authors named, and from the New Testament itself, it is indisputable that during Apostolic days, in both Jewish and Christian circles, it was the custom to refer to the lyrics of the Psalter as ‘psalms,’ ‘hymns,’ or ‘songs’ indifferently. So fixed, indeed, was this that it persisted in the early Greek fathers, and in the second century Greek versions of the Old Testament, that of Aquila, that of Theodotion, and that of Symmachus” (The Psalms in Worship, p. 143). In a footnote, Dr. M’Naugher points out that “the only other real titles in the Greek Psalter are Alleluia (Hallelujah), and Proseuchē (Prayer).” The first is an interjection or exclamation, and is found eighteen times—Psalms cv., cvi., cvii., cxi., cxii., cxiii., cxiv., cxvi., cxvii., cxviii., cxix., cxxxv., cxxxvi., cxlv., cxlvii., cxlviii., cxlix., cl. The second is attached to five Psalms—xvii., lxxxvi., xc., cii., cxlii.
When we look to the context in which the Apostle’s words to the Colossians appears they are asked to “teach and admonish one another.” Now it is the invariable rule of the Apostle to point his hearers to Scripture for instruction, and it is a notable feature in his writings that he draws very largely upon the Book of Psalms. The discussion of these passages has led us to the following conclusion, to which we give expression in Dr. M’Naugher’s own words:—1. “That the ‘psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’ of these passages included nothing that was uninspired, nor any compositions newly inspired in the Apostolic Age. 2. That they are all embraced in the Book of Psalms, this finding being based upon the impregnable testimony of the Greek Bible and the Psalter used by Paul and the Pauline Churches, upon the usage of contemporary Hellenistic writers, upon the witness of the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark, upon the conformity of the Psalter to this threefold characterization and upon the fact that an exclusive reference to the Psalms satisfies every postulate of the context” (Psalms in Worship, pp. 149, 150).