V. And he raiseth the poor from misery, GRAND CHORUS, Who is wise? And he will ponder these things, And they shall understand the mercies of Jehovah! CESERVATIONS ON THE 107th PSALM. This admirable composition is second perhaps to none of the sacred odes, in luminous arrangement, in justness of imagery, in suavity of style, and in all the graces which flow from a happy distribution of subject. It has been classed by Bishop Lowth among the Hebrew Idyls, as distinguished by intercalary verses. And, on a close comparison, it will be found also to resemble the Pindaric ode: some of its divisions bearing no slight analogy to the Strophe, Antistrophe, and Epode of the Greeks; whilst it exhibits a fertility of invention, a quickness of transition, a conciseness and sententiousness of style, similar but superior, to what have been accounted the characteristic excellencies of the Theban bard. We may particularly affirm of this poem, that it is eminently distinguished by that judicious selection, and happy combination, of the most appropriate and natural circumstances, which Longinus ranks among the great sources of the sublime. This ode naturally distributes itself into three unequal divisions. I. The Proem, or introduction; inviting the children of Israel to celebrate the manifold mercies of Jehovah. II. The Narration, or general statement of the subject; which, in four stanzas of similar construction, evinces the goodness of God by his affording present help to those who devoutly seek it: 1. To wanderers in a desert, oppressed with hunger and thirst; 2. to those bound in 85 prison; 3. to persons languishing in sickness; 4. to mariners in danger of shipwreck. III. A Choral Hymn of praise, giving a nearer view, and a more minute detail, of those providential mercies which peculiarly respected the children of Israel. The Proem speaks for itself. In the Narration, towards the middle of each stanza, there is an intercalary couplet, which most beautifully and emphatically marks. the transition from extreme distress, to deliverance, and joyful triumph; and which is uniformly followed by two or more lines stating the precise nature, and absolute fulness, of the relief afforded. To this most naturally succeeds another intercalary couplet expressing the great end and object of the poem, And his wonders wrought in favour of men." "Let them praise Jehovah for his mercy, Each stanza then closes with a varied couplet: in the two first recapitulating God's mercy; in the two last, exciting men, by amplified exhortation, to celebrate that mercy. The Choral Hymn is most judiciously distributed into smaller portions; and is thus at once adapted to a more minute and special detail of circumstances, as well as to the purposes of alternate recitation. That this branch of the poem is in reality a Choral Hymn, I conceive, may be pronounced from the strongest internal evidence. praise of Jehovah is the great object of the sacred poet; he never loses sight of it: the Proem is a most animated and heart-awakening invi The tation to this praise; each succeeding stanza not only renews the invitation, but so affectingly exhibits the divine goodness, that every hearer of common sensibility must feel an inward disposition for acts of praise; and the fourth stanza especially, concludes with this requisition of gratitude and joy: "Let them praise Jehovah for his goodness, And his wonders wrought in favour of men; And let them exalt him, in the assembly of the people, And in the council of the elders, let them extol him!" What then could be more natural, what more accordant with the great design of the Psalmist, than that the whole congregation should immediately break forth in singing:-that the elders, from their division of the temple, and the people in their places, should alternately chaunt the succeeding quatrains; and that both should unite, with pious exultation, in the concluding couplet, which most emphatically conveys the moral of this noble ode? It remains to be observed, that in the two first stanzas of the Narration, there are beautiful references to the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and to the Babylonish captivity. It is curious, that these great events are absolute. ly specified in the Chaklee paraphrase; which thus speaks: "Concerning the people of the house of Israel, he prophesied and said, They wandered in the desert, in the pathless waste," &c.: and again; Concerning Zedekiah, and the princes of Israel, who were captives in Babylon, and dwelt in darkness, and the shadow of death," &c. &c. " These two stanzas, then, confess edly relating to the history and circumstances of the Jewish nation alone; and the two last, no less evidently celebrating those providential mercies, which are common to men of all countries; with what happy fitness is it ordered, that the Choral Hymn should amplify the pics of the two former, as coming more directly home to the business and bosoms," to the feelings and the piety of a Jewish congregation? God's general mercies had been already most nobly celebrated; but the special favour of Jehovah, to his own peculiar nation, was surely the most appropriate topic for a Choral Hymn of praise," in the assembly of the people," and, " in the council of the elders." In the following Notes, it shall be my chief object to remark such beauties as flow from the arrangement and structure of this sacred poem; to point out the nice adaptation and congruity of its parts; to illustrate its exquisitely natural imagery by similar, though generally far inferior, passages from the ancients; in a word, to offer such observations as would probably be made by a commentator on his favourite classic. NOTES ON THE 107th PSALM. Line 6. "And from the Sea."] In the Old Testament, this generally signifies the Mediterranean, which lies west of Judea. Here, however, it must signify the Red Sea, which is situated south of Judea. See also Ps. Ixx. 8, and cxiv. 3. In the vast deserts which bordered Line 7. "They wandered, &c."] on Judea, to wander from the right path, was equivalent to certain of famine, but from the attacks of death; not only from the pressure ravenous wild beasts. In that sublime ode, Deuteronomy xxxii. the first instance of God's providential care, is his finding cut Israel in his wanderings: "He found him in a desert land, And in a waste howling wilderness." Lines 13, 14. "He led them forth, &c."] There is a beautiful antithetical parallelism between these, and lines 7, 8, which may be most clearly illustrated, by simply placing them together. This construction is peculiarly "He hath filled with goodness." "For he hath satisfied the craving soul, it is evident, that the impression of In like manner, had it been written, Lines 17, 18. “ For he hath satisfied, &c."] The wanderers had been represented (lines 11, 12) so exhausted by the extremity of hunger and thirst, that their very souls inwardly fainted. Thirst, implying the most violent torture, is put last. In this couplet, full relief is afforded to both wants: and, as that which was most grievous was naturally the most craving, the order iş reversed; first the thirsty soul, then the famished soul, is completely satisfied. In the structure of this couplet, the original exhibits a beauty, which commentators have not been aware of, and which I have endeavoured not wholly to lose in the present version;-a beauty the more worthy of observation, as it not only frequently recurs in this poem, but constitutes a remarkable feature in Hebrew poetry. Couplets, it is well known, are commonly so conit cannot surely be said, that a thostructed, that the lines may be alter- rough sense of enlargement would nately sung by the opposite divi- have been produced. sions of the choir, When therefore would still have been clanking in one line closes with an important evinced no less sound judgment, our ears. But the sacred poet has word, it is so managed, in numberless instances, that the antiphonal - not only caught the most characHe has than poetical invention. line of the couplet shall commence with a word or expression precisely parallel. Which is exactly accord ing to nature; for if you present an object to a mirror, that part of it which is farthest from you, will appear nearest in the reflected image. Here, for example, one side of the choir sings, "For he hath satisfied the craving son,” "For he hath destroyed the gates of brass, And hath smitten asunder the bars of iron," The bars teristic features of his subject, but Lines 21, 22. "Because they rebelled, &c."] Another example of the same construction which has been just dwelt upon. Though this Again, at the close of the next couplet be not the close of a stanza, stanza, one side sings, For he hath destroyed the gates of brass," The other answers, "And the bas of iron, hath smitten asunder." the arrangement is here peculiarly proper. The object is, pointedly to express the ingratitude and daring presumption of rebels against their most gracious benefactor; there fore the climax of their iniquity is tice not to refer to Job xxxiii. 24, reserved for the last, "And the counsel of the Highest they despised;" A distribution most naturally introductive of what follows, "Then He humbled with labour their heart." The punishment is made instantly to follow this aggravated baseness. Lines 27, 28, 31, 32]. Here there is the same happy correspondence between the exigence and the relief, as in the last stanza. Compare lines 19, 20, 23. The antithesis is perfect, but quite unforced and natural. Line 33. "Fools, for the way of their transgression."] Among the Jews, diseases were very commonly sent as a providential chastisement. See especially Deuteron. xxviii. 21, 22. When our Lord had miraculously cured the disabled man, at the pool of Bethesda, he dismissed him with these words Ιδε, υγιης γεγονας μηκετι αμαρίανε, ίνα μη χείρον τι σοι γενηται. Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest something worse come upon thee." And even under the Christian dispensation, the apostles had the power of miraculously inflicting diseases, and even death, upon offenders. To this St. Paul expressly refers, 1. Cor. xi. 30. 26. Lines 43, 44]. In this closing couplet the same structure is not observed, as at the termination of the two last stanzas. And the reason is obvious; this line, " Let them declare his works with rejoicing, Sends the auditory to immediate acts of praise, with joy in their hearts. How different would be the effect, if the couplet ran thus— "And let them sacrifice, the sacrifices of thanksgiving, And with rejoicing, let them declare his works." The same precept, indeed the same words, are here; but the life and spirit are fled! Line 45. " They who descend to the sea."]" Mare immensum potentiæ occultæ documentum; ut prorsus, nec aliud ultra, quæri debeat— nec par, aut simile possit inveniri.” PLIN. "The sea is an immeasurable document of unseen power; none beyond it should be sought-neither can any equal or similar be found." And doubtless this observation is true, if it be limited to the exercise of divine power in the material world-with which Pliny was best acquainted, and of which his subject naturally led him to treat. I cannot deny myself the gratification of here inserting Addison's just and beautiful panegyric on this passage of the Psalmist: Line 35. "All food their soul abhorreth."] This is exquisitely natural. Who that has been confined to a sick bed does not feel its force? The same thought is beautifully amplified, by one of the earliest sacred writers ;"He is chastened also with pain upon his the descriptions of them in ancient bed, "As I have made several voyages upon the sea, I have been often tossed in storms, and on that occasion have frequently reflected on poets. I remember, Longinus high And the multitude of his bones with strongly recommends one in Homer, be pain: cause the poet has not amused himself with little fancies upon the occasion, as authors of an inferior genius, whom he mentions, had done; but because he has gathered together those circumstances, which are the most apt to terrifythe imagination, and which really happen, in the Lines 37-40]. It would be injus- raging of a tempest. It is for the His life abhorreth bread, And his soul, delicate food: His flesh is consumed, which was seen, seen: His soul hath drawn near to the grave, JOB Xxxiii. 20-22. same reason, that I prefer the following description of a ship, in a storm, which the Psalmist has made, before any other I have ever met with." "How much more comfortable, as well as rational, is this system of the Psalmist, than the pagan scheme in Virgil, and other poets, where one deity is represented as raising a storm, and another as laying it? Were we only to consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being, thus raising a tumult among the elements, and recovering them out of their confusion-thus troubling, and becalming nature?" SPEC. No. 489. Line 51. " They climb the heavens, they sink to the abyss."], It would be easy to accumulate passages expressing the same idea, from Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, &c. It is sufficient however to select one, at least as poetical as any that are omitted. "Tollimur in cœlum curvato gurgite; et fidem Subductà, ad manes imos, descendimus unda." VIRGIL, En. III. 564. "To heaven aloft on ridgy waves we ride, Then down to hell descend, when they divide." DRYDEN. Too little is here left to the imagination of the reader; the poet has thought it necessary to explain the cause of the ascent and descent, and by so doing, has detracted from the terror of the description. How inferior to the conciseness, the vehemence, the dignified simplicity of the sacred poet! Line 53." They reel and stagger."] In the following lines there is a more amplified, but less picturesque use of the same image. "Because of the prophets, my heart is broken within me, Violently shaken are all my bones: Lines 57, 58. "He maketh the tempest a calm."] This at once re minds us of that manifestation of divine power, which clearly evinced our blessed Lord to be indeed the same God celebrated by the Psalmist. I quote St. Mark's description, because it is exactly in the form and spirit of Hebrew poetry; while the parallel passages (Matt. viii. 26, Luke viii. 24) are manifestly prosaic. Και διεγερθείς επετίμησε τω ανεμώ, Και εγενετο γαλήνη μεγάλη. And there was a great calm." This surely is matchless. Perhaps the following passage is the nearest approach to it, in any classical au thor. |
