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Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

[All Rights reserved.]

THE BOOK OF

PSALMS

Edited by

A. F KIRKPATRICK, D.D.

Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge;
Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity.

CAMBRIDGE:

at the University Press

1906

In the Psalms the soul turns inward on itself, and their great feature is that they are the expression of a large spiritual experience. They come straight from "the heart within the heart," and the secret depths of the spirit. Where, in those rough cruel days, did they come from, those piercing, lightning-like gleams of strange spiritual truth, those magnificent outlooks over the kingdom of God, those raptures at His presence and His glory, those wonderful disclosures of self-knowledge, those pure outpourings of the love of God? Surely here is something more than the

mere working of the mind of man. Surely they tell of higher guiding, prepared for all time; surely, as we believe, they hear "the word behind them saying, This is the way, walk ye in it,” they repeat the whispers of the Spirit of God, they reflect the very light of the Eternal Wisdom. In that wild time there must have been men sheltered and hidden amid the tumult round them, humble and faithful and true, to whom the Holy Ghost could open by degrees the "wondrous things of His law," whom He taught, and whose mouths He opened, to teach their brethren by their own experience, and to do each their part in the great preparation. DEAN CHURCH.

First Edition January 1902. Reprinted May 1902, 1903, 1906,

I. INTRODUction.

CONTENTS.

1. The Book of Psalms..................

PAGES

ix-xiii

II. The Position, Names, Numbering, and

Divisions of the Psalter

III. The Titles of the Psalms.............................

IV. The Authorship and Age of the Psalms

V. The Object, Collection, and Growth of

the Psalter

VI. The Form of Hebrew Poetry.......

xiii-xviii

xviii-xxxv

XXXV-1

1-lix

lx-lxiv

VII. The Hebrew Text, the Ancient Versions,

and the English Versions

lxv-lxxv

..................

VIII. The Messianic Hope...................

lxxvi-lxxxv

IX. On some points in the Theology of the

Psalms

lxxxv-xcvii

The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener's

Cambridge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordi-

nary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the

use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by

Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his In-

troduction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge

University Press.

The choice and flower of all things profitable in other books the
Psalms do both more briefly contain, and more movingly also express,
by reason of that poetical form wherewith they are written... What
is there necessary for man to know which the Psalms are not able to
teach? They are to beginners an easy and familiar introduction, a
mighty augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as are
entered before, a strong confirmation to the most perfect among others.
Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom,
repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the
sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works
of Providence over this world, and the promised joys of that world
which is to come, all good necessarily to be either known or done or
had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or
disease incident into the soul of man, any wound or sickness named,
for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable
remedy at all times ready to be found.

R. HOOKER.