THE SHEEP AND THE STAG

The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down;

The Lord loveth the righteous.

The Lord preserveth the strangers;

He sustaineth the fatherless and widow;
But the way of the wicked he turneth aside.
The Lord shall reign for ever,

Even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations.
Praise ye the Lord.

649

'The Lord loveth the righteous.' The Midrash remarks: 'A man may wish to become a priest or a Levite, but he cannot, because his father was not one; but if he wishes to become righteous he can do so, even if he be a heathen, for righteousness is not a matter of descent. Thus it is written, "House of Aaron and House of Levi," but of them that fear God it says, "ye who fear the Lord, bless ye the Lord," and it does not say, "House of those who fear the Lord." For the Fear of the Lord is not a matter of inheritance, but of themselves men may come and love God, and God loves them in return. Therefore it says: "The Lord loveth the righteous."

The Lord preserveth the strangers.' The Psalmist gives in a few broad simple touches the main attributes of the God of goodness. It is interesting to find that the Greek translators render the Hebrew by prosêlutoi, proselytes. And in fact the Hebrew word Gêrim acquired in post-biblical Hebrew the meaning of proselytes. It is in that sense that the Midrash explains it. The Holy One loves the Gêrim exceedingly. To what is the matter like? To a king who had a flock of sheep and goats which went forth every morning to the pasture and returned in the evening to the stable. One day a stag joined the flock and grazed with the sheep, and returned with them. Then the shepherd said to the king: There is a stag which goes out with the sheep and grazes with them, and comes home with them. And the king loved the stag exceedingly. And he commanded the shepherd, saying: Give heed unto this stag, that no man beat it; and when the sheep returned in the evening, he would order that the stag should have food and drink. Then the shepherds said to him, My lord, thou hast many goats and sheep and kids, and thou givest us no directions about these, but about this stag thou givest us orders day by day. Then the king replied: It is the custom of the sheep to graze in the pasture, but the stags dwell in the wilderness, and it is not their custom to come among men in the cultivated land. But to this stag who has come to us and lives with us, should we not be grateful that he has left the

great wilderness, where many stags and gazelles feed, and has come to live among us? It behoves us to be grateful. So too spake the Holy One: I owe great thanks to the stranger, in that he has left his family and his father's house, and has come to dwell amongst us; therefore I order in the Law: Love ye the stranger (Gêr).'

§ 12. The one hundred and forty-seventh Psalm: 'Laudate Dominum.'-The second Psalm (cxlvii) of our five is little less general than the first, and yet it is perhaps equally prompted and conditioned by special events and even by a special season; a hard winter seems passing into a gentle spring.

Praise ye the Lord, for he is good;

Make melody unto our God, for it is pleasant;
Praise is seemly unto him.

The Lord buildeth up Jerusalem:

He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart,

And bindeth up their wounds.

He counteth the number of the stars;
He calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and of great power:
His understanding is infinite.

The Lord sustaineth the humble;

He casteth the wicked down to the ground.

Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving;
Sing praise upon the lyre unto our God:
Who covereth the heaven with clouds,

Who prepareth rain for the earth,

Who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. Who giveth to the beast its food,

And to the young ravens which cry.

He delighteth not in the strength of the horse:
He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.
The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him,
In those that hope for his goodness.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem;

Praise thy God, O Zion:

For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates,
He hath blessed thy children within thee.

UNIVERSAL PRAISE

He maketh peace in thy borders,

And satisfieth thee with the fat of wheat.

He sendeth forth his commandment unto the earth,
His word runneth very swiftly.

He giveth snow like wool,

He scattereth hoar frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like crumbs;

Who can stand before his cold?

He sendeth out his word, and melteth them;

He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.

He declared his word unto Jacob,

His statutes and his ordinances unto Israel.

He hath not dealt so with any nation,

And as for his ordinances, they do not know them.
Praise ye the Lord.

651

The 'humble' are the Israelites; the 'wicked' are their heathen enemies. In the heat of fight and in the glory of triumph religion became fiercely national. But the one Lord of nature is the one Lord of man. And not merely the one Lord but the All-Father. A coalescence of religion and nation has often prevented the message of God in nature from reaching men's ears and minds. In the Maccabean age the enemies of Israel and Israel's religion were almost inevitably identified with the enemies of God. It was both patriotic and religious to fight for country and for God; could it be expected that the warriors who bled for their religion should bless those who sought to trample it under foot? If the oppressors sought to destroy the rites and the knowledge of the true God, his defenders gloried in the exclusive possession of both.

§ 13. The one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm: 'Laudate Dominum de caelis, laudate eum in excelsis.'-Now follows the famous psalm, widely known as the Laudate Dominum in excelsis, the grandest perhaps of all the Hymns of Praise (cxlviii). The general summons to all nature to the praise of God as the Lord of the Universe scarcely leaves the Psalmist room to celebrate the particular occasion which moved him to his appeal.

Praise ye the Lord.

Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,

Praise him in the heights.

Praise ye him, all his angels;

Praise ye him, all his hosts.

Praise ye him, sun and moon;

Praise him, all ye stars of light.

Praise him, ye heavens of heavens,

And ye waters that are above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For he commanded and they were created; He maintaineth them for ever and ever,

He gave them a law which they cannot transgress.

Praise the Lord from the earth,

Ye monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and smoke;
Stormy wind, fulfilling his word;
Mountains and all hills,

Fruit-trees and all cedars;
Wild beasts and all cattle,

Creeping things and winged birds;
Kings of the earth, and all peoples,
Princes and all judges of the earth;
Both young men and maidens,
Old men and children;

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

For his name alone is exalted,

His majesty is above the earth and the heaven.

And he hath lifted up a horn to his people,

A theme of praise for all his loving ones,

Even for the children of Israel, the people near unto him: Praise ye the Lord.

§ 14. The

one hundred and forty-ninth Psalm: Cantate Domino.'-Of the next Psalm (cxlix) the Maccabean origin and nature are clearly apparent. It shows us the religious strength and the religious weakness of the entire movement.

Praise ye the Lord.

Sing unto the Lord a new song,

And his praise in the congregation of his loving ones. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker,

Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.

Let them praise his name with the dance,

Let them make melody unto him with the timbrel

and lyre.

PSALM AND SWORD

For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people,
He adorneth the humble with victory.
Let the loving ones exult and give glory,
Let them sing aloud upon their beds.
Let the high praises of God be in their throat,
And a two-edged sword in their hand;
To execute vengeance upon the nations,
And punishments upon the peoples;
To bind their kings with chains,

And their nobles with fetters of iron;
To execute upon them the judgement written :
An honour this to all his loving ones:

Praise ye the Lord.

653

'Loving ones' or 'the pious' is an inadequate translation of the Hebrew Chasidim: 'saints' or 'holy ones' would be no better. The word chesed means kindness or lovingkindness, and this virtue is the special characteristic of God in his covenant relation to Israel, and of Israelites in their relation to each other and to God. In the Maccabean period, however, the Chasidim became the name of a party, as we shall hear in the next section. Professor Cheyne's note to the use of Chasidim in this Psalm runs thus: The word means, of course, those who display "lovingkindness" to their fellows as well as to Jehovah; but "who is my neighbour?" At the period of the Psalmist, love to God was more than ever preponderant over love to man.' It would perhaps be more just to say that war and persecution had inevitably dimmed the mind to the recognition of the bond which links man to man. Within the ranks of the Chasidim themselves there was no lack of brotherly affection.

The humble' or the afflicted' (cognate and interchangeable adjectives) has become a fixed term for Israel.

'The judgement written.' This probably refers to certain passages in the prophetical literature regarding the doom of the nations at the Messianic age. The danger of these lower and merely national vaticinations was now revealed. And this very Psalm was used to stimulate and justify appalling cruelties and massacres in the religious wars of the Reformation. Rightly do the Four Friends say that the 'use which has been made in later times of this and similar Psalms shows how easily devotion to the most sacred associations and zeal for the most spiritual religion may become the ministers of human prejudice and passion.'

§15. The final Hallelujah: Psalm one hundred and fifty.And now we have arrived at the last Psalm of our group and