Bible Commentaries

THE PRAISE BOOK OF THE JEWISH CHURCH

‘I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.’

Psalms 146:2

Consider the glory and the use of the Book of Psalms.

I. Think, first, of the rareness and preciousness of that unique gift to the Church.—The Hebrew’s characteristic was his religion, and not his literature. The Hebrew race left behind it a trophy corresponding to this characteristic. It was not a code of laws, embodying the great issues of justice, though Moses was of the seed of Abraham. It was not a volume of poetry, to whose immortal pages the centuries add imperishable beauty; at least, it was not a volume of poetry as such. It was something more unusual. If we measure the preciousness of products by their reality, then prayers are the most precious of all products. So rare and unique is the Book of Psalms.

II. Note some of the general uses of the Psalter.—(1) The Psalms bring out with unapproachable practical influence the idea of a living, personal God, the Creator, and Judge, and Friend of men; His moral character; the whole body of truths rightly or wrongly termed natural religion. (2) The Psalms bring out as nothing else can the ideal of spiritual religion. (a) They show us that religion’s exceeding great reward is in itself. (b) They tell us that man’s spiritual ideal is not in its essence formal or ceremonial. (c) They show, as a feature of the spiritual character unknown to all other religions, a deep, abiding sense of sinfulness; a holiness arising not from effort, but from conscience feeling a burden and faith laying it upon a Saviour.

III. The Psalms are a proof of the existence of the Divine world, just as music is the proof of the existence of a world of harmony.—We possess aspirations beyond our present needs. They will never read man truly who forget that he bears within a spiritual prophecy, as truly as he bears without a natural history. Of this prophecy the Psalms are the accumulated utterances. They tell us that even if the tree of humanity, embedded in the soil of myriad ages, has roots that go down lower than the ‘cabin of the savage,’ to ‘the lair of the brute,’ yet aloft it has tendrils that stretch themselves upwards towards the light of immortality. ‘I am continually with Thee; Thou hast holden me by Thy right hand.’ ‘This God is our God for ever and ever; He shall be our Guide unto death.’

—Archbishop Alexander.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Christian, fix your eye upon Christ and you will soon praise Him. Dwell upon that Lamb of God till you forget yourself and become lost in the marvellous love to you, a guilty sinner. Read the meaning of those drops of blood, of that anguished look and that bitter cry. It was all for thee. It was because He was suffering for thy sin, and that thou mightest go up to the throne of God a blood-bought, pardoned sinner! Dwell on this love till self is forgotten and praises fill thy soul.’

(2) ‘A Psalm like the 146th hardly needs the Gloria at the close to bring it fully into unison with our Christian worship. It contains a threefold three in one. It has a heart of adoration which beats in threes. Of the strange threefold vibration in the blessings and descriptions of the Old Testament the Psalter abundantly partakes.’