BY A. MACLAREN, D.D.
_VOLUME 1._ PSALMS I.--XXXVIII.
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
A volume which appears in "The Expositor's Bible" should obviously, first of all, be expository. I have tried to conform to that requirement, and have therefore found it necessary to leave questions of date and authorship all but untouched. They could not be adequately discussed in conjunction with Exposition. I venture to think that the deepest and most precious elements in the Psalms are very slightly affected by the answers to these questions, and that expository treatment of the bulk of the Psalter may be separated from critical, without condemning the former to incompleteness. If I have erred in thus restricting the scope of this volume, I have done so after due consideration; and am not without hope that the restriction may commend itself to some readers.
A. McL.
MANCHESTER, _Dec._ 1892.
1 Happy the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, And has not stood in the way of sinners, And in the session of scorners has not sat. 2 But in the law of Jehovah [is] his delight, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3 And he is like a tree planted by the runnels of water, Which yields its fruit in its season, And whose leafage does not fade, And all which he does he prosperously accomplishes.
4 Not so are the wicked, But like chaff which the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For Jehovah knows the righteous, And the way of the wicked shall perish.
The Psalter may be regarded as the heart's echo to the speech of God, the manifold music of its wind-swept strings as God's breath sweeps across them. Law and Prophecy are the two main elements of that speech, and the first two psalms, as a double prelude to the book, answer to these, the former setting forth the blessedness of loving and keeping the law, and the latter celebrating the enthronement of Messiah. Jewish tradition says that they were originally one, and a well-attested reading of Acts xiii. 33 quotes "Thou art my Son" as part of "the first Psalm." The diversity of subject makes original unity improbable, but possibly our present first Psalm was prefixed, unnumbered.
Its theme, the blessedness of keeping the law, is enforced by the juxtaposition of two sharply contrasted pictures, one in bright light, another in deep shadow, and each heightening the other. Ebal and Gerizim face one another.
The character and fate of the lover of the law are sketched in vv. 1-3, and that of the "wicked" in vv. 4-6.
"How abundantly is that word Blessed multiplied in the Book of Psalms! The book seems to be made out of that word, and the foundation raised upon that word, for it is the first word of the book. But in all the book there is not one Woe" (Donne).
It is usually taken as an exclamation, but may equally well be a simple affirmation, and declares a universal truth even more strongly, if so regarded. The characteristics which thus bring blessedness are first described negatively, and that order is significant. As long as there is so much evil in the world, and society is what it is, godliness must be largely negative, and its possessors "a people whose laws are different from all people that be on earth." Live fish swim against the stream; dead ones go with it.
The tender graces of the devout soul will not flourish unless there be a wall of close-knit and unparticipating opposition round them, to keep off nipping blasts. The negative clauses present a climax, notwithstanding the unquestionable correctness of one of the grounds on which that has been denied--namely, the practical equivalence of "wicked" and "sinner."