"eliled and produces
the fury against the enemies of God, already men- tioned, together with some other remarkable con- ditions of mind. It is to this — the apjjarent triumph of the enemy — that we must assign the sense of being forsaken by God Himself which appears in Ps 22 ; to this also is to be traced the perplexity of mind as regards the providence of God which appears in Ps 73. The moods in which this i)roblem is approached vary greatly. At times it produces deep depression, almost desjiair ; at times it is treated (as in Ps 37) with calm and quiet triumph. But it is important, for it is to the Jewish mind the fundamental problem of ethics, to account for the lack of apparent balan.'e between a man's lot and the life he leads. The idea of the probationary value of suffering appears in some iilaces ; but the full dLscussiun of the problem belongs rather to the Sapiential Books than to the Psalms.
It would not, however, be true to suppose that all the evil in the world is due to the action of the enemies of God. There are in many places signs that sinfulness is regarded as a trouble that touches even the good. It erects a barrier between the soul and God which sacrifices and burnt-ofl'er- ings are powerless to break down. In one place
prosperity, and the holy things of God de insulted. This condition of the world
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ETHICS
ETHICS
(Ps 51') it seems to be regarded as affecting the actual birth of men. The man stands in solitary responsibility before God (49' 51*) j and the essence of sin consists in not having the heart right (78*). Together with this sense of incapacity and weakness may be classed the yearning after God which marks Pa 42, and the passionate enthusiasm for the service of God whicli appears in Pss 119 and 84.
There would be no difficulty in extending largely this account of the ethical features of the I'salms ; but the space at our disposal does not permit it. We therefore can only point out here the general character of the whole oook. It is essentially a book of reflective devotion. The whole of life is viewed from the point of view of the worship of and intercourse with J". It never reaches the point of ethical theory, even in regard to the ethical problem noticed above. The solution, so far as any is oflered, is always spiritual and religious, and not philosophical.
{!)) The Sapiential Books. — It is in these only that we find any definite ethical philosophy among the Jews ; and even in these, speculation moves over i a restricted area. As in otlier nations, speculation begins in the proverbial form ; the farst moral philosophers were men who spoke proverbs. These trace their intellectual lineage to the wise king Solomon, who was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol . . . and who spake three thousand i)ro- verbs (1 K 4'"-). These /)rowri*, if we may judge from the Bk. of Pr as we have it, were of a some- what utilitarian tone. They started with the assumption that virtue leads to worldly success and happiness ; and they dwelt on this relation with various degrees of insistence. They were maxims of ordinary prudence, rather than speculations as to ultimate moral problems, and the religious view of all these questions was somewhat left on one side. Moral practice is still closely allied with the fear of the Lord, but its natural outcome is expected to appear in the form of worldly pros- perity. Thus 3*- "> ' Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the first-fmits of all thine increase : so shall thy barns be tilled with plenty, and thy fats shall overflow with new wine. The reflections upon life which till up the larger portion of the book are also somewhat subdued in enthusiasm, and seera to lack in some degree high moral inspiration. But it must not be supposed that commonplace utilitarian reflections are the sum of the contents of the Sapiental Books. It is to these that we must trace the development of two of the most striking of all the ethical figures of the OT— the Wise Man and the Fool. The wise man is he whose life is orderly and well arranged — the man who follows the law of the Lord. The fool is he who is self-willed and sinful, and whose life therefore lacks principle, and fails to attain success. A large portion of the antitheses in the Bks. of Pr and Sir present the contrasted pictures of these two characters. They are seen in various relations of life ; but the essence of the two char- acters lies in their different relation to the law of the Lord ; for the fear of the LORD is the be- ginning of knowledge (Pr 1', Sir l'*"*). 'All wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and in all wisdom is the doing of tlie law' (Sir 19'*). The grossest forms of transgression, as well as the less im- pressive, are regarded as acts of folly (see esp. Pr 7«-", and comp. Pr 10«- » 13" H*- " etc.). It is noticeable that the nature of wisdom and of folly consists, not in an accurate intellectual knowledge of things, but in a prudent or imprudent ordering of life. The wise man shows his wisdom by his right choice, his far-seeing plans, his control of passion, and avoidance of all self-assertion. The