Lo! thefe (faid I) are wicked men : yet they always profper and increase in wealth! fince all day long I am afflicted; and my chastisements begin with the dawn. Should I fay: "Let me reafon like them :" lo! then, I fhould deal perfidiously with the generation of thy children! 12 13 14 15 Yet, when I ftudy to comprehend the matter, it appeareth too laborious a task : 16 17 until I enter into the facred views of GOD, and attend to their latter end. Surely thou fetteft them on slippery ground, to precipitate them into ruin. How fuddenly they fall into defolation; 18 19 and by terrible judgments are confumed! Like to a dream, after one awaketh, fo thou, JEHOVAH! makeft contemptible. their foolish, imaginary greatness! When mine heart is foured, and my reins rankled, I too am stupid, and without understanding: am, before thee, like the brute beasts. Yet I am ever under thy care; by my right hand thou holdest me up : thou ftill confulteft my good, and wilt finally conduct me to honour. Whom then, in the heavens, or whom on the earth, can I delight in so much as in thee? Although my body and foul be wasted, yet my foul's fupport, and my portion, muft ever be thou, O GOD! 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 For, lo! they, who depart from thee, perish! thou cutteft off all those who eftrange themselves from thee. Well is it for me, then, to adhere to GoD: that I shall yet rehearse all thy doings, at the gates of the city of Zion]. NOTES. Ver. 6. Pride encollareth their necks; a metaphorical allufion to the rich collars or chains worn about the necks of great perfonages.-Ver. 7. From their midriff, more properly pericardium. But the antient Hebrews knew little of anatomy: and even the Greek and Latin authors fometimes confounded the pericardium with the diaphragma. The meaning is, that the iniquity of those haughty men could not be confined by the envelope of the heart, but burst forth into open violence, as the next line expresses it. Of other very different versions of this paffage, I shall only give here, that in our common translation, and that in our public liturgy. "Their eyes stand out with fatnefs: they have more "than heart could wish."—" Their eyes fwell with fatnefs; and they "do even what they luft."-Ver. 9. Against the heavens, &c. i. e. They blafpheme God, and speak ill of all mankind.—Ver. 10. I have, to make any thing like sense of my original, been obliged to make a small alteration in the text: for the juftification of which I must refer to my Critical Remarks.-Ver. 26. My body and foul, lit. my flesh and beart: but in Heb. these terms are often fynonymous.-Ver. 28. The laft line is only in Sep. Vulg. and Arab. but I am convinced that it made a part of the original text. The great hope of the author is, that he and his people fhall yet return to Zion, and there praise God, as formerly. The city gate was the common meeting-place of the people, where tidings were announced, contracts made, and justice diftributed. PSALM LXXIV.-al. LXXIII. This psalm is also ascribed to Asaph: but it could not be written before the Babylonish captivity: although some modern critics would refer it to the reigns of Abaz and Athalia. For my part, I think it must have been composed during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes; and the best commentary on it is the 1st cb. of the 1st book of Macchabees. The author may have been Mattathias. The title however is, A DIDACTIC PSALM OF ASAPH. WHY, O GOD! haft thou abandoned us? Shall thine anger smoke for ever, I 3. every thing in thy fanctuary the foe hath ruined! Thine enemies roar in the midft of thy folemnities! Their own symbols they have fet up for figns! 4 They have appeared like one who invadeth a thorny 5 thicket : For thus the whole carvings of thy temple with chifel and mallet, they have defaced! To thy fanctuary itself they have set fire! Thy tabernacle they have profaned to the ground! 6 7 In their hearts they faid: "Let us utterly destroy them: 8 "let us abolish all GOD's folemnities in the land !" Our own facred fymbols we no more fee: nor is there any prophet amongst us ; any one who knoweth how long this ball endure. 9 II 12 13 14 10 How long, O GOD! fhall the enemy revile? fhall the foe for ever blafpheme thy name? Why haft thou withdrawn thine hand? why refteth thy right hand in thy bofom? Yet GOD was formerly our king, working falvation in the land! By thy power thou dividedft the fea! The fea-monfters' heads thou crushedft in the waters; the heads of the crocodiles thou crushedft, and gaveft them for food to the favages! 15 Thou madeft fountains, and torrents burft forth! 16 17 18 19 Thine is the day-thine alfo is the night! The light and the fun thou preparedst ! all the boundaries of the earth thou haft fixed ! and how a foolish people have blafphemed thy name. prey: 20 21 22 23 Have regard to thine own covenant : for full of violence and rapine are the gloomy habitations of the land. Ah! let not the humbled go away abashed: may the poor and oppreffed have cause to praise thy name. Arife, O GOD! plead thine own cause : remember the daily reproaches of foolish men! NOTES. He faith not burn, to mol Ver. 1. Shall thine anger smoke for ever. lify the expreffion. One's anger may be faid to fmoke when it is not yet quite extinguished; and may again burft forth into fire. In a fimilar fenfe is to be taken Matt. 12. 20. quoted from Isaiah, “The yet smoking flax he will not extinguish."-Ver. 4. Thine enemies roar in the midft of thy folemnities. Instead of canticles of praife, or other acts of devotion, nothing is now heard but profane vociferation. The word, which, with almost all the antients, I render here, and again in ver. 8. folemnities, is by others rendered places of worship, fynagogues, congregations: meanings, which the Hebrew term can hardly bear. But fee C. R.-Ib. Their own fymbols they have fet for figns. Profane reprefentations, no doubt, agreeable to their own worship. See 1 Mac. 1.47. -Ver. 5. Although I have given a tranflation of this verse the best I could, I have fome doubt of its being the true one. The antients vary ftrangely, and the moderns differ not lefs. Our common verfion : lifted up axes upon the "A man was famous, according as he had "thick trees," is to me totally unintelligible. But fee C. R.-Ver. 8. Let us abolish, &c. I have followed the reading of Sep. Syr. Vulg. Arab. who make this a continuation of the enemy's fpeech. The prefent Heb. with Aq. Sym. Theod. and Jerom, put it in the mouth of the pfalmift: They have abolished, &c.-Ver. 11. Why refteth thy right band in thy bofom? This I take to be the undoubtful meaning of the original: nor is it necessary to make any alteration in the text, unless perhaps a fingle letter. See C. R.-Ver. 14. And gave them for food to the favages. Not to the Ifraelites, as commentators generally fuppofe; but either to the wild inhabitants of the defert, or the wild beasts that roamed in it. For the reft, the flesh of crocodiles was eaten by the Egyptians, and, according to the teftimony of modern travellers, is no bad food. The psalmist, however, is fuppofed here to speak mataphorically of Pharaoh and his hoft, drowned in the Red fea; whose carcases became a prey to the favages on its border.-Ver. 16. The light and the fun. Some of the antients have the moon and the fun; or, the fun and the moon.-Ver. 20. Have regard to thine own covenant. The words to thine own are not in the present text; but they were either found in it, or added to it, by the antient interpreters. Chald. has the covenant which thou |