Driver, S. R., An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1909), 373.
Gordon, A. R., The Poets of the Old Testament (1912).
Gregory, B., The Sweet Singer of Israel (1895).
McFadyen, J. E., The Messages of the Psalmists (1904), 19.
Maclaren, A., The Life of David as Reflected in his Psalms (1880).
Mozley, F. W., David in the Psalms (1890).
Nairne, A., The Faith of the Old Testament (1914), 174.
Orr, J., The Problem of the Old Testament (1907), 431.
Pinfold, J. T., Songs of the Jewish Church (1913).
Stanley, A. P., Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, ii. (1889) 120.
Stanley, A. P., Scripture Portraits (1867), 417.
The “Psalms of David”
The sweet psalmist of Israel.- 2Sa_23:1.
1. Quite apart from its altogether unique religious value, Hebrew poetry can justly claim its place among the great literatures of the world. It combines a simplicity which they seldom equal with a brilliant but chastened imagination which is all its own. Its power is nowhere more vividly seen than in its descriptions of nature, which the rapt eyes of the Hebrew poet sometimes see touched into glad sympathy with redeemed humanity and lit with the glory of the latter days. In a word or two, he can produce the clearest pictures and the most startling contrasts. The sower with his tear stained face is transformed by a touch into the glad reaper who comes home with his arm full of sheaves (Psa_126:5-6). The only marriage-song in the Psalter (Psa_45:1-17) shines with all the brilliant splendour of the East. It opens the gates of an ivory palace and shows us trains of bejewelled ladies who enter to the ravishing sounds of music.
The Hebrew speech approves itself one of the fittest vehicles of poetical expression. Like other Semitic languages, it is marked by great simplicity of form. The rigidity of its three-lettered root scheme, its lack of precise distinction of time within the verb forms, its weakness in connective particles, and its general incapacity for abstractions, prevented its ever attaining the subtle logical effects of Greek or our complex modern languages. But this very failure in philosophical grasp enhances the pictorial power of the speech. In Hebrew all things appear in action. The verb is the predominant element in the sentence. And, though the shades of time-distinction are blurred, the richness of the language in intensive forms throws the precise complexion of the act into clear, strong light. But even the simplicity of the tenses heightens the pictorial effect; and the paratactic connexion of the clauses gives the Hebrew sentence the appearance of a series of artistic strokes, often of gemlike brilliance. Hebrew possesses likewise a great wealth of synonyms, especially in descriptions of the common scenes and interests of life, and in the region of feeling. The language is equally rich in imagery. The daring boldness and luxuriance of its figures are, indeed, almost oppressive to the modern mind. But the Hebrew poet himself was unconscious of any wanton riot of imagination. To him the bold, swift changes of metaphor were natural reflections of the play of passion in the soul. For Hebrew poetry is pre-eminently passionate. The “simple, sensuous” speech is but a veil, which thrills and quivers with the poet's every passing emotion.1 [Note: A. R. Gordon, The Poets of the Old Testament, 3.]
2. The main body of Old Testament poetry turns directly on the praise of God, and the varying emotions of the devout soul in its relation to Him. In this region the poetry of Israel is unique. There is religious poetry among other nations-often far surpassing that of Israel in sustained reflection on the mysteries of life, and dramatic representations of the conflict of the individual with the inexorable decrees of fate-but in no other religious literature do we find ourselves in such close and intimate touch with God. The poets of Greece and Babylonia “feel after God.” To the pure-eyed seers of Israel He was as luminously self-evident a Being as their own selves. In Him their poetry “lives and moves,” and thrills and glows with fervid emotion. And it is this vital contact with God that gives that literature its perennial freshness and inspiration. We may know more of the Eternal than even the loftiest souls in Israel. But such was the immediacy of their feeling of God, and their power to express that feeling, that their lyrical utterances remain the classics of devotion. The Christian world still gives voice to its faith and hope and joy in God through the rapturous strains of the “sweet singers of Israel.” And the best of our hymns have caught their glow at this altar.
Of this distinctively religious poetry of Israel the finest gems are found in the Psalter, which has been aptly described as “the heart of the Bible”; for what the heart is in man-the welling fountain of his feelings and imaginations, his joys and griefs and manifold cravings and aspirations-the Psalter is in the Bible. Thus the Psalter has touched and held the hearts of the devout in all the ages. Here heart speaks to heart, deep responds to deep, on the great realities of spiritual life.
The human heart is like a ship on a wild sea, driven by winds from all corners of the world. And what find we for the most part in the Psalter, but the earnest words of men tossed about by such winds? Where can one find nobler words of joy than those the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving contain? In these thou mayest gaze into the heart of all the saints, as into lovely pleasure gardens, or into heaven itself, and see how fine, pleasant, delightsome flowers spring up therein from all manner of beautiful, gladsome thoughts of God because of His goodness. And, again, where canst thou find deeper, more plaintive and heart-moving words of sorrow than in the Psalms of lamentation? There too thou mayest look into the heart of all the saints-but as into death, or hell itself. How dark and gloomy all things are when the heart is troubled by the sense of the wrath of God! And so also when they speak of fear or hope, they use words that no painter could approach in colouring, or even an orator like Cicero in vividness of description.1 [Note: A. R. Gordon, The Poets of the Old Testament, 98.]
