The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 1 — Section 335

which the answers thereto will set before us. In order to ascertain the period of Israel's history to which the psalm refer8, we must note the data presented to us therein. According to the psalmist's statements; (1) Israel had been scattered (vcr. 11). (2) The people had been defeated in arms (ver. 10). (3) 'rhey were a reproach and a byword among the nations (vers. 13, 14). (4) 'l'hey were sold into slavery (ver. 12). (5) They were "counted as sheep for the slaughter" (vers. 11, 22). (6) All this had happened to them, although they had not departed from their God; and although this had happened, still they were not departing from him (vers. 17, 18). (7) So far from this, they were even slain for their fidelity to truth and to God. "For thy sake we are killed all the day long" (ver. 22). It is not easy to find a period in the national life when the whole of these seven data can be verified. By one consideration or other, we are almost driven forward to the time of the Maccabees, between n.o. 200 and n.o. 160 (2 Mace. v. 11-23). Mr. Walford says, "That fierce and idolatrous prince Antiochus Epiphanes, the King of Syria, was actuated by an inveterate hatred to the laws and religion of the Jews; and he employed the utmost efforts of his policy and power to induce them to apostatize. Under the severest penalties, he prohibited the worship of Jehovah, the celebration of the sabbath, and other religious festivals, the practice of circnmcision, and the whole of the precepts of the Mosaic Law, Notwithstanding this dreadful persecution, the greater part of the people steadily adhered to the Divine institutions, and refused to comply with the idolatrous acts to whlch their tormentors would have compelled them, though they suffered the most dreadful tortures for their noncompliance with the injunctions of their formidable adversaries." 1 To this period alone do we feel warranted in referring this psalm. There are two objections which have been made thereto. One, that the canon of Old Testament Scripture was finally closed long before. But such does not appear to have been the case.3 Another, that at the time of the Maccabees the hope of a resurrection buoyed up the sufferers to an extent of which this psalm gives no trace whatever (2 Mace. vii. 6-17). But though this may have some weight, yet we must be careful not to lay too much stress on what the psalm does not contaiu. In all probability the survivors were more broken in spirit than such as were appointed unto death. Anyway, it is fairly clear that in the period to which we now refer, each one of the seven data above named can be verified with tolerable ease. But this cannot be said of either of the other periods to which the plaint of this psalm has been assigned. These are: 1. The time of David. (So Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Moll, Fausset, et al.) But in David's time we cannot verify either the first, second, third, or seventh of the above data. As Calvin remarks, the Church and nation, as a whole, were prosperous and victorious in D,wid's time. 3 2. Other periods assigned have been-the time of the Exile (Geikie); the times of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah (Baur, De Wette, and Tholuck); the times of Josiah and Jehoiakim (Barnes); the last days of the Persian dynasty (Ewald); but of one and all of these it may be said that they fail to meet the conditions of data 6 and 7. For the Chronicler expressly declares that the troubles of those periods came upon Israel in consequence of the peoples' unfaithfulness to their covenant and their God.•. 1 Walford's translation of the Psalms. Notes to Ps. xliv. • "The persecntion of Antiochus (n.o. 168) was for the Old Testament what the perse• cntion of Diocletian was for the New, the final crisis which stamped the imored writings with their peculiar character" (Westcott, art. "Canon," in Smith's 'Dictiono.ry of the Bible'). See also Perowne's introdnction to this psalm. Per?wne, Calvin, Ven.~ma, Dathe, Rosenmiiller, and Cheyne, favour the Maccabean authorship thereof. So Schurer, in' The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ,' div. ii. vol. iii. § 32, ii. I. • Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, and others deem this psalm a product of David's time; their remarks are worth reading, but their arguments fail to convince us. In the De.vidio period of the Syro-Ammonite We.r, in which the Edomites took part, there was a vast amount of cruelty practised on David's side; the whole tone of the psalm seems alien from the state of things then. As Calvin remarks, the Church and nation as a whole were prosperous in David's time, and David himself was for the most part victorious. Tho only i.rgument in Hengstenberg and Delitzsch that seems of weight is this, "The conseious- ness of fidelity towards the Lord, uttered in vers. 17-22, was scaroely possible at any other period" (Hengatenberg, p. 108; Delitzsch, p. 66). • But if that assertion of national integrity be understood as named above, this argument ceas01 to have any force whntevor, • 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14-21. I'S. lllV, 1-26.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. &47