1

PSALM CL.

PRAISE ye the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary!

Praise him in the firmament of his power! 2 Praise him for his mighty acts!

Praise him according to his excellent greatness! 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet! Praise him with the psaltery and harp!

4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance!

Praise him with stringed instruments and

5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals !

organs

Praise him upon the high-sounding cymbals ! 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise ye the Lord!

!

PSALM CXIV.

THE PASSOVER.

A MONTH after the Feast of Dedication, the Passover was celebrated. That festival was designed to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt; and this psalm, which is supposed to have been intended for use on such occasions, is full of allusions to the great events which accompanied their

Ver. 1. "In his sanctuary," i. e. in the temple.-"In the firmament of his power," i. e. in heaven, referring to the angels. N.

departure, the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan, the scene at Sinai, and the supply of water from the rock. "It is," says Herder, 66 one of the finest odes in any language. The abrupt brevity with which each particular is expressed; the astonished admiration ascribed to the sea, to the Jordan, to the mountains and hills, and repeated in the interrogative form; the sublime explanation that it all proceeded from a single glance of Jehovah, all these give us, in the compass of this little ode, the substance of a long description."

Dante, in his great poem, represents the angels in heaven as singing this psalm.

1

PSALM CXIV.

WHEN Israel went out of Egypt,

The house of Jacob from a people of strange lan

guage,

2 Judah was his sanctuary,

And Israel his dominion.

3 The sea saw it, and fled; Jordan was driven back.

4 The mountains skipped like rams,

5

And the little hills like lambs.

What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?

6 Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams,

Ver. 2. "Judah was his sanctuary," &c.; i. e. the people set apart, and, as it were, consecrated, to be God's peculiar people. N.

And ye little hills like lambs ?

7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord; At the presence of the God of Jacob;

8 Which turned the rock into a standing water, The flint into a fountain of waters!

EZRA.

FIFTY-EIGHT years after the completion of the temple, Ezra led a body of his fellow-captives from Babylon to reinforce the feeble colony. Ezra is regarded by his countrymen as a second Moses. He was of a distinguished family of the priesthood, born in Babylon, during the exile, where he was educated in all the learning of his Hebrew progenitors, together with whatever the place of his exile could supply. On his arrival he devoted himself to the task of restoring the Mosaic institutions, which had fallen into disuse during the captivity, owing to the scattered state of the exiles. For this purpose (Neh. viii.) "he brought the Law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding; and he read therein, from the morning until mid-day; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the Law." The result was a deep impression on the minds of the people, and a firm resolution to conform, in all things, to the Mosaic institutions, which are what is meant by "the Law." It is thought that Ezra caused to be collected the five books of Moses, called the Pentateuch,

and the writings of David and Solomon, and such other of the books of the Old Testament as existed in his day, and himself compiled the books of Chronicles and Ezra. On the whole, we must admit that, for the services which he rendered to his country, and the influence which he exerted, at a critical time of Jewish history, he deserves to be compared to Moses, to whose character and labors his own exhibit many traits of resemblance.

PSALM CVII.

RETURN UNDER EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.

THIS psalm is remarkable for the regularity of its structure, being composed of distinct portions or strophes, of equal length, each ending with the chorus or refrain, "O that men," &c. These strophes celebrate the goodness of God, in delivering his people, and bringing them back from their dispersions, under the various figures of safe-conduct through a desert, release from imprisonment, recovery from sickness, and deliverance from the dangers of the sea; then describing, in more direct terms, the fall of the oppressor, and the restoration of Israel, the psalm ends as it began, with an exhortation to remember and commemorate Jehovah's goodness.

Dr. Lowth says of this psalm: "The composition is admirable throughout, and the descriptive part of it adds at least its share of beauty to the rest. But what

is most to be admired is its conciseness, and, withal, the expressiveness of the diction, which strikes the imagination with inimitable elegance. The weary and bewildered traveller; the miserable captive in the hideous dungeon; the sick and dying man; the seaman, foundering in a storm, are described in so affecting a manner, that they far exceed any thing of the kind elsewhere to be found, though never so much labored."

PSALM CVII.

1 O, GIVE thanks unto the Lord! for he is good; For his mercy endureth for ever.

2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

Whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the en

emy,

3 And gathered them out of the lands,

From the east and from the west,

From the north and from the south.

4 They wandered in the wilderness, in a solitary way; They found no city to dwell in.

5 Hungry and thirsty, their souls fainted in them. 6 Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, And he delivered them out of their distress.

7 And he led them forth by the right way,

That they might go to a city of habitation.

8 O that men would praise the Lord, for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 9 For he satisfieth the thirsty,

And filleth the hungry with good.