2. Anthropology outside the sphere of Jahwism proper.—iIn the judgments passed in the Book of Psalms on the purely human, we find, side by side with panegyrics on the lofty pre-eminence of man in his lordship over creation (8%, see above, p. 724°), lamentations over the weakness and transi- tory nature of everything human (331% 621° 10314* ; 1444 ‘Man is like a breath, his days are as a shadow that passeth away’). This lament applies to even the strongest (146%). And when the life —all too short—comes to an end (39° 901- 1%), dark Sh2’6l (see above, p. 668f.) awaits the departed, and euts him off finally from all relation to the upper world, and above all from the blessings of the theocracy or the praise of God (6° 30? 88"# 115%). None can escape this fate (89%). It is true that at times the sense of close fellowship with God (see below) reaches a height and a strength which seem to leave only a short step to the conviction that érwe fellowship with God must of necessity be enduring and extend beyond the present life ;* but this step is never definitely taken. Only as a ‘ stranger and a sojourner’ does man continue with God during his earthly walk (39%), at death the bond of connexion is severed for ever. In this matter, if anywhere, it is clear what a power and stimulus must have belonged to faith in the God of Israel, seeing that, even without the hope of immortality, it could produce fruits of such intense religiousness as we find in the Psalms (and Job). The question whether there are not really to be found in the Psalms traces of the hope of a con- tinued existence, will have to be discussed when we come to speak of the eschatological expectations.
The physical weakness of man finds its analogue in his moral weakness. Whenin Ps 51’) the latter is traced back to his generation and birth by sinful parents, this is not intended, of course, to mean that generation and birth are of themselves sinful.
* Thus R. H. Charles (in the second chapter of his Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity, London and New York, 1899) discovers in Ps 49. 73, as well as in the Book of Job, approaches to an immortality doctrine—an individual eschatology which finally (according to ch. 3) combined with the popular eschatology to form the doctrine of the resurrection (cf. below, p. 728 note ; and the later article of Charles, ‘The Rise and Development in Israel of Belief in a Future Life,’ Hxpositor, Jan. 1903, p. 49 ff.).
The whole statement amounts to a plea that God would judge leniently one who, as sprung from sinners, necessarily carries within him from the womb a sinful habit and sinful inclinations. It is only in the latter sense that the statement can be called a contribution to the doctrine of original sin. There is not the faintest reference to an im- putation of Adam’s guilt—the very kernel of the dogmatic doctrine of original sin.
3. Nature and history of the Theocracy.—The idea of an election of Israel to be God’s own people is firmly held also by the Psalmists (33! 74? 135+), and it cannot be doubted that here again this conviction carried with it the serious danger of national conceit and a mischievous disposition to look down on all other peoples—a danger which threatened to stifle completely the existence of those great thoughts of Deutero-Isaiah regarding a missionary vocation of Israel to all the heathen. It is true that this conceit was materially dimin- ished by the honourable confession that Israel has almost always shown itself unworthy of the Divine choice and the great acts of Jahweh in connexion with the deliverance from Egyptian bondage (771* 7848 1067). It is the well- deserved anger of God that has given Israel over to the powerful oppression and the savage mockery of her enemies (La 21+ 21 411, Ps 227%, and numerous other passages). Israel heeded not the threaten- ings of Jahweh repeated from the days of old (La 21"), but allowed herself to be deceived by false prophets and priests (La 244%). But in spite of all this the Divine covenant is assured for ever (Ps 1058 1119) ; and thus to those who humbly submit themselves to Him the day must come when all the comforting promises of days gone by shall be fulfilled (La 37"). The principal expectations attached to the theocracy of the future will come out in the section devoted to the Messianic hopes.
4. The theocratic institutions. —'There are a great many passages in the Psalms, in which touching and powerful expression is given to high esteem for the temple as the place of Jahweh’s gracious presence, and to longing after the beauti- ful service conducted there (58 268 274 43°! 65° 8424. 1 11618- 1221), But it would certainly be an error to discover the principal motive of this longing in joy in the cultus in the narrower sense, z.e. in the sacrificial performances. Against such a supposi- tion there is not only the fact that mention of sacrifice is extremely rare (204 54° 66% ; in 141? it is only symbolical sacrifice that is in view), but it is well known that there are not wanting in the Psalms passages in which the necessity of sacrifice and its acceptableness to God are repudi- ated in the most unqualified terms, and not with- out a touch of sarcasm (407 505 5118 69° ; see more fully, above, p. 686). We must hold then that the piety of the psalmists occupies in general a higher level than that of the framers of the Priests’ Code. Their joy in the beautiful service of the temple was evidently derived primarily from what appealed to the heart and the feelings: the festal processions, the prayers and benedictions of the priests, and, not last, it may be presumed, the temple music and singing (to which last the greatest care seems from all accounts to have been given). All this is supported by the circumstance that the (not very frequent) praise of the Law (1? 198(*-) is probably everywhere intended for the specifically moral (so quite clearly in 19:) commands and not for the Ceremonial Law. Even the endless utterances— mostly of quite a general character—in Ps 119 as to the value and efficacy of the Divine commands show at times (so vv. *%- 18) that what they have in view is the moral content of the Law.