EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 11.—God preserves his own, and bringeth their foes to nought: after Passion week comes Easter.—J. P. Lange’s Commentary.

Verse 12.—“Integrity.” This same integrity is like Noah’s ark, wherein he was preserved, when others perished, being without it. It is like the red thread, which the spies of Joshua gave to Rahab, it was a charter whereby she claimed her life when the rest were destroyed, which had not the like. So is this integrity of small reckoning, I confess, with the men of this world, which think that there is no other heaven but earth; but as Rahab’s thread was better to her than all her goods and substance when the sword came, so this is better to God’s children than all the world when death comes. If they have this within they care not, nay, they need not care what can come without. If Satan’s buffeting come, this is a helmet of proof; if Satan’s darts fly out, this is a shield to quench them; if floods of crosses come to carry us away, this is a boat to bear us up; if all the world cast mire and filth in our faces, we are never a whit the more deformed, but still beautiful for all that, for “the king’s daughter,” (saith Solomon, Psalm xlv. 13), that is, the church of Christ, “is all glorious within.”—William Burton.

Verse 12.—“Settest me before thy face for ever;” or hast confirmed or established me in thy presence; i.e., either under thine eye and special care, or to minister unto thee, not only in thy temple, but as a king over thy people, or in that land where thou art peculiarly present.—Matthew Pool.

Verse 13.—“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.” We are here taught, 1. To give glory to God, as “the Lord God of Israel,” a God in covenant with his people; that has done great and kind things for them, and has more and better in reserve. 2. To give him glory as an eternal God, that has both his being and his blessedness “from everlasting and to everlasting.” 3. To do this with great affection and fervour of spirit, intimated in a double seal set to it, “Amen, and Amen.” We say Amen to it, and let all others say Amen too.—Matthew Henry.

Verse 13.—“Amen and Amen.” As the Psalms were not written by one man, so neither do they form one book. The Psalter is, in fact, a Pentateuch, and the lines of demarcation, which divide the five books one from another, are clear and distinct enough. At the end of the 41st Psalm, of the 72nd, of the 89th, and of the 106th, we meet with the solemn Amen, single or redoubled, following on a doxology, which indicates that one book ends and that another is about to begin. A closer study of the Psalms shows that each book possesses characteristics of its own. Jehovah, (“the Lord”) for example, is prominent as the divine name in the first book, Elohim (“God”) in the second.—E. H. Plumptre, M.A., in “Biblical Studies,” 1870.

There is also another observable difference between the two books. In the first, all those Psalms which have any inscription at all are expressly assigned to David as their author, whereas in the second we find a whole series attributed to some of the Levitical singers.—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

How ancient this division is cannot now be clearly ascertained. Jerome, in his epistle to Marcella, and Epiphanius speak of the Psalms as having been divided by the Hebrews into five books, but when this division was made they do not inform us. The forms of ascriptions of praise, added at the end of each of the five books, are in the Septuagint version, from which we may conclude that this distribution had been made before that version was executed. It was probably made by Ezra, after the return of the Jews from Babylon to their own country, and the establishment of the worship of God in the new temple, and it was perhaps made in imitation of a similar distribution of the books of Moses. In making this division of the Hebrew Psalter, regard appears to have been paid to the subject matter of the Psalms.—John Calvin.

These forty-one Psalms, it has been observed, forming the first book, relate chiefly to the ministry of Christ upon earth, preparing those who were looking for the consolation of Israel, for his appearing amongst them. Accordingly, the second book, commencing with Psalm xlii., may refer chiefly to the infant church of Christ.—W. Wilson, D.D.

May not the growth of the Book of Psalms be illustrated by the case of our Modern Hymn Books which in the course of years require first one appendix and then another, so as to incorporate the growing psalmody of the church? In this case the purely Davidic Psalms of the first division formed the nucleus to which other sacred songs were speedily added.—C. H. S.