The Psalms, with Introductions and Critical Notes. By Rev. A.
C. Jennings and Rev. W. H. Lowe. (Macmillan and Co.)—This little volume completes a work on the Psalms which we recommend to all Biblical students. It embraces the last forty-three Psalms, that is, the last of the five divisions of the Psalter, which in this respect corre- sponds with the Pentateuch. Most of us are tolerably familiar with the Psalms, but still they abound in expressions of which we have but a very imperfect understanding. Our authors make it their business to elucidate such expressions, and this they do in a thoroughly scholarly manner, as we should expect from Hebrew University prizemen and lecturers at Cambridge. On the 119th Psalm they observe that its monotonous and mechanical style seems to imply that the writer's ideas were constrained by external circumstances, and that it is not unlikely, as Delitzsch conjectures, that it was actually written within the walls of a prison. They tell us all that can be said or imagined about the meaning of the title "a song of degrees," which is prefixed to fifteen Psalms, those fromPsalm 120 to 134. These Psalms probably belonged to one period, which possibly coincided with the building of a flight of steps connected with the Temple, which steps were what we should call the orchestra. Their form was semicircular, as we learn from the Talmud. Psalms were often sung on them, and the Psalms in ques• tion were called "Songs of the Steps," because they happened to have been composed when the steps were built. In Psalm 120, Coals of juniper" are to be explained by conceiving the Almighty as casting down actual coals of fire from heaven on the heads of the Psalmist's enemies. It has been supposed that from the context, •( sharp arrows of the mighty," they might possibly he what the Romans called mallet:Ali, or flaming arrows ; but this explanation our authors reject. Psalm 133, which is usually regarded as descriptive of the blessings of domestic unity and harmony, is really intended to extol the idea of a common fatherland. It was probably composed towards the close of the Captivity, and "the brethren" are the Jewish people. In Psalm 137 (" By the waters of Babylon "), it is suggested that the captive Jews sat by the river-bank, not merely for privacy and quiet, but with a view to their religious rites, in which frequent ablutions were an important element. This may be true, but it is certainly rather unpoetical, and for our own part, we prefer the old-fashioned way of taking this beautiful passage. Our authors look with favour on the mystical and spiritual interpretations of many of the Psalms. Their little book is one from which much may be learnt.
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