7. Thou, thou art to be feared; And who can stand before thee when thou art angry? 8. Out of heaven thou makest thy sentence to be heard, The earth feareth and is still: 9. When Elohim ariseth to judgment, To save all the meek of the earth, &c. The reader will find much more to the same effect in the following psalms :-respecting Messiah's future kingdom, and the judgments that he will execute at the time of his appearing. The eighty-second is particularly to be observed, as contrasting with the righteous rule of the King Messiah, the perversion of judgment and justice by the rulers of those times. These are called gods, or Elohim, as typical of him that was to come. He, therefore, must be really Elohim; for as our Lord, in the days of his flesh, remarked concerning this passage, "The Scripture cannot be broken." But if these typical personages were not, as appeared by their "dying like men," and "falling like one of the princes," really gods or Elohim, then the assertion that they "were gods," can be only true in respect of their great antitype. He must be truly God. The psalm concludes Arise, O Elohim, judge the earth, But this Elohim, notwithstanding, was to be in respect of his human nature, as we have been taught before," of our flesh." He was to be exalted like another David, from a low situation; † this is plainly declared in the eightyninth psalm: The holy one of Israel is our king. 19. Once thou speakest in a vision concerning thy BELOVED: "I have appointed help in one that is mighty, I have exalted a chosen one from among the people. 20. I have found David my servant, With my holy oil have I anointed him; 21. My hand shall be firm with him, And mine arm shall strengthen him; 22. The enemy shall gain no advantage over him, And the son of wickedness shall not hurt him. * 25. And I will place his hand on the sea, And his right hand on the rivers. 26. And he shall call unto me, 'Thou art my Father, * My Elohim, and the Author of prosperity :' 27. And I appoint him the first-born, Most high, above the kings of the earth. 29. I will establish his seed for ever, And his throne like the days of heaven, &c. The ninety-third, and the following psalm, also celebrate our King and mighty Conqueror: and again, we observe with joy, in the ninety-seventh psalm, some nations in this part of the globe may rejoice in the promised kingdom: 1. Jehovah reigneth, let the world be glad; Let the extended shores rejoice: * Or Eloah. 2. Clouds and darkness are round about him, Justice and judgment are the basis of his throne. 3. A fire goeth before him, And consumeth his enemies on every side. 4. His lightnings illuminated the world, The earth saw, and was afraid. 5. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of Jehovah, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. 6. The heavens have manifested his righteousness, And all the nations have seen his glory, &c. This subject runs through many of the following psalms; and we remark that the King Messiah, though confessedly exalted from among men, in some way or other, is several times declared to be JEHOVAH. JEHOVAH is the highest, the incommunicable name of the supreme Being, denoting his eternal existence, his absolute Godhead, and immutable nature, without reference or relation. This is remarkably shown in the hundred-and-second psalm; the Redeemer is there introduced as the "poor exhausted" in the dust, the "one most wretched" on the "ashes" of his mourning. He "pours forth his strong cries and entreaties to him that is able to save him from death, and is heard in that he feared." He had just concluded his complaint, by saying in the language of a despairing man, verse the eleventh My days are like the lengthened shadow, But the divine oracle replies: 12. Nay, thou art Jehovah! thou abidest for ever, And thy name from generation to generation. 13. It is thou that arisest, and hast compassion on Zion, When it is time to favour her, then the appointed time is come; 14. When thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And regard her dust with favour: 15. And the nations shall fear the name of Jehovah, And all the kings of the earth thy glory; 16. When Jehovah shall have built Zion, And his glory shall be seen, &c. * But, again, the despairing sufferer, in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth verses, is made to pour out his complaint: He hath depressed my strength in my journey, He hath shortened my days. I said, O! my Elohim, take me not off In the midst of my days. The oracle replies, and the apostle Paul has expressly quoted the words as an address to the Son of God: 24. Thy years are for all generations. 25. Of old thou didst lay the foundations of the earth, And the heavens are the work of thine hands: 26. These perish, but thou remainest; Ay, all these become old like a garment, 27. They are changed, but thou art the same; And thy years never end. 28. The children of thy servants remain, And their seed is established in thy presence. The hundred-and-fourth psalm, though its general * Psalm cii. subject is creation and providence, ends not without anticipating a time when 35. The sinners are extirpated from the earth, And the wicked, till they are no more. But, before that shall come to pass, as we read in a verse above 32. He looked on the earth, and it trembled; He touched the mountains, and they smoked. I should refer, also, to the hundred-and-seventh psalm, as containing a very minute prophecy of the restoration of the Israelitish nation; "from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south." What befals four different parties of them on their journey, seems to be particularly detailed: and next their settlement in the land of Canaan. That land had undergone, indeed, a wonderful change; once it was a "good" land, "flowing with milk and honey;" but it had become a desolation:- 1 33. He turneth rivers into a desert, And springs of water into a dry soil; 34. A fruitful land into a salt waste, For the wickedness of them that inhabit it. The time, however, is now come, when he will begin to have mercy on his land, and on his people : 35. He turneth the desert into a lake of waters, 36. And he establisheth there the famished, |