The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 1 — Section 156

~sk for th~ car_eful aod candid attention of the reader, as we move nlong a specific path ID the eluc1dat10n of this psalm. The title of the psalm is significant; literally, it reads ''To the chief musician [or, 'precentor'J upon Aijeletb Sbahar [or, 'the hind of th; morning,'margin]. A Psalm of David." Wu accept the beading, here and elsewhere," a Psalm of David," unless adequate reason to the contrary can be shown. But what can be the meaning of the expression, "the hind of the morning"? .A reference to Fiirst's Lexicon will be found helpful.1 The phrase is a figurative one, and signifies, "the first light of the morning.n In this psalm we see the light o[ early morn breaking forth after tho deepest darkness of the blackfst night. Hence the title given above to this homily. .15ut then the question comes-Whose is the darkness, and whose is the light? We reply-Primarily, the writer's, whoever he may have been, whether David or any other Old 'festament saint. For the psalm is not written in the third person, as is the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. There is no room here for the question, "Of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man?" In Isa. !iii. the reference is to another; in this psalm the wail is declared to be the writer's own. Yet we have to take note of the fact that in the New Testament there are some seven or eight references to this psalm in which its words and phrases are applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, There are other phrases in the p,alm which were literally true of our Lord, but yet are not quoted in the New Testament.I We do not wonder at Bishop I'erownc's remark,3 "Unnatural as I cannot help thinking that interpretation is which assumes that the psalmist himself never felt the sorrows which he describes ... I hold that to be a far worse error which sees here no foreshadowing o[ Christ at all. Indeed, the coincidence between the sufferings of the psalmist and the sufferings of Christ is so remarkable, that it is very surprising that any one should deny or question the relation between the type and the nntitype." To a like effect are the devout and thoughtful words of Orelli, 4 "What the psalmist complains of in mere figurative, though highly coloured terms, befell the Son of God in veritable fact. Herein we see the objective connection, established of set purpose by God's providence, which so framed even the phrasing of the pious prayer, that without knowledge of the suppliant it became prophecy, and again so controlled even what was outward and seemingly accidental in the history of Jesus, that the old prophetic oracles appear incorporated in it." There is no reason to think, oo the one hand, that the writer was a mere machine, nor yet, on the other, that he fully knew tho far-reaching signific,mce of the words he used. 1 .And this leads us to a remark which we make once for all, that there are two senses in -which psalms may be Messianic-direct and indirect. 1. Direct. In these the reference is exclusively to the Messiah; every phrase is true of him, and of him alone, and cannot be so translated as not to apply to him, nor so that it can, as a whole, apply to any one else. 'l'he fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and also the second and hundred and tenth psalms are illustrations of this. 2. Indirect. In these the first meaning is historical, and applies to the writer himself; but many phrases therein have a second and for-reaching intent; of these the fullest application is to him who was David'11 Son and yet David's Lord. The psalm before us is an illustration of this indirect Messianic structure; and this not only, perhaps not so much, because in the first writing of the words the Spirit of God pointed forward to Christ, as because our Lord himself, having taken a human nature, and shared human experianccs, found himself tho partaker of like sorrows with the Old Testament saints, plunged into like 1 Pages 74, a, and 1370, b. • Cf. ver. I with Matt. xxvii. 46; vers. 7, 8 with Luke i:xiii. 85 nud Matt. xxvii. 39, 43; vor. 15 with Johu xix. 18; ver. 18 with John xix. 23, 24 and Luko xxiii. 34; vcrs. 22, 25 with Heb. ii. 11, 12. See the admirable appendix to the • Variorum Dible' (I 880), pp. 20, 21, and (1893), pp. 26, 27. 1 Pcrowne on the Poalms, 6th edit., p. 254 • 'Olcl Testament Prophecy,' English edit. (T. o.nd T. Olark), p. 175. "Lnte in the Middle .Ages, Jewish Messore. scholnrs approved an unsuitable rending in the Psalter (Pd. :xxii. 17, Hebrew), in order thus to take nway from Christians the ground of a favourite Messianic interpretation" (Ewald, 'Revelation, its Nature audits Record,' p. 886, Clark). • See 1 Pet. i. 10-12; the introductory chapter to the present writer's work, 'To tb.e Light through the Cross' (Dickinson); also l\foclaren, Kirkpntrick, Fausset, and Forbc11 liercon. 158 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [rs. XXII, 1-31,