A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Introduction to the Old Testament

J >> John Edgar McFadyen >> Introduction to the Old Testament




Some scholars, struck by the resemblance between many of the
sorrowful psalms and the poetry of Jeremiah, have not hesitated to
ascribe some of them to him (cf. xl. 2). Such a judgment is
necessarily subjective, but there can be little doubt that Jeremiah
powerfully influenced Hebrew religious poetry. The Greek
superscriptions, again, which assign certain psalms to Haggai and
Zechariah, though doubtless unreliable, are of interest in
suggesting the liturgical importance of the period following the
return from the exile. This period seems to have produced several
psalms. Psalm cxxvi,, with its curiously complex feeling, apparently
reflects the situation of that period, and the group of psalms which
proclaim Jehovah as King, and ring with the notes of a "new song,"
were probably composed to celebrate the joy of the return and the
resumption of public worship in the temple (xciii., xcv.-c., cf.
xcvi. 1). The history of the next three centuries is very obscure,
and many a psalm which we cannot locate may belong to that period;
but the psalms which celebrate the law (i., xix. 7ff., cxix.) no
doubt follow the reformation of Ezra in the fifth century.

It is not probable that there are many, if any, psalms later than
170-165 B.C. in the Maccabean period; some deny even this
possibility, basing their denial on the history of the canon. But if
the book of Daniel, which belongs to this same period, was admitted
to the canon, there is no reason why the same honour should not have
been conferred upon some of the psalms. The Maccabean period was
fitted, almost more than any other in Israel's history, to rouse the
religious passion of the people to song; and, as the possibility
must be conceded, the question becomes one of exegesis. Exegetically
considered, the claims of at least Psalms xliv., lxxiv., lxxix.,
lxxxiii. are indubitable. They speak of a desolation of the temple
in spite of a punctilious fulfilment of the law, a religious
persecution, a slaughter of the saints, a blasphemy of the holy
name. No situation fits these circumstances so completely as the
persecution of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., and
these psalms betray many remarkable affinities with passages in the
first book of the Maccabees. As long ago as the fifth century A.D.
the sharp-sighted Theodore of Mopsuestia believed that there were
seventeen Maccabean psalms; Calvin admitted at least three. It may
be safely concluded, then, that the Psalter brings us within about a
century and a half of the Christian era.

The criteria for determining the date of a psalm are few and meagre.
The Psalter expresses the piety of more than half a millennium, and
even the century cannot always be fixed. The language is often
general, and the thoughts uttered would be as possible and
appropriate to one century as another. Nearly forty years ago
Nöldeke maintained that there were psalms of which we could not say
with any definiteness to what period they belonged between 900 and
160 B.C. He himself referred Psalm ii. to Solomon, which had been
referred by Hitzig to Alexander Jannaeus (105-78 B.C.). Even where
the historical implications may seem fairly certain, there may be
more than one legitimate interpretation. Psalm xlvi., e.g., which is
usually regarded as a song of triumph sung after the departure of
Sennacherib, is by some interpreted eschatologically; Zion is the
ideal Zion of the latter days, and the stream that makes her glad is
the stream of Paradise. Some psalms, of course, have their origin
stamped very legibly upon them. Psalm cxxxvii. e.g., clearly implies
that the exile is not long over. The presence of Aramaisms in a
psalm is a fairly sure indication of a relatively late date. Within
certain limits, also, its theological ideas may be a guide, though
we know too little of the history of these ideas to use this
criterion with much confidence. Still, so elaborate an emphasis on
the omnipresence of God as we find in Psalm cxxxix. is only possible
to a later age, and this inference is more than confirmed by its
highly Aramaic flavour. Both these considerations render its
ascription to David utterly untenable.

The question was raised long ago and has been much discussed in
recent times, whether the subject of the Psalter is the individual
or the church; and till very recently the opinion has been gaining
ground that the experience and aspiration of the Psalter are not
personal and individual, but that in it is heard the collective
voice of the church. Many difficulties undoubtedly disappear or are
lessened on this interpretation, e.g., the bitterness of the
imprecatory psalms, or the far-reaching consequences attached in
other psalms (cf. xxii., xl.) to the deliverance of the singer. Till
the exile, the religious unit was the nation, and the collective use
of the singular pronoun is one of the commonest phenomena in Hebrew
literature. The Decalogue is addressed to Israel in the 2nd pers.
sing., in Deuteronomy the 2nd pers. sing, alternates with the pl.,
in the priestly blessing (Num. vi. 24ff.) Israel is blessed in the
singular. In Deutero-Isaiah, the servant of Jehovah is undoubtedly
to be interpreted collectively, and in many of the psalms the
collective interpretation is put beyond all doubt by the very
explicit language of the context:

Much have they afflicted me from my youth up,
Let _Israel_ now say, cxxix. 11

All this is true, and there are probably more collective psalms in
the Psalter than we have been accustomed to believe. But it would be
ridiculous to suppose that every psalm has to be so interpreted. Some
of the psalms were originally written without any view to the temple
service, and they must have expressed the individual emotion of the
singer.[1] Besides, Jeremiah had shown or at least suggested that
the real unit was the individual; the teaching of Ezekiel and the
book of Job are proof that the lesson had been well learned; and,
although the post-exilic church may have felt its solidarity and
realized its corporate consciousness as acutely as the pre-exilic
nation, the individual, as a religious unit, could never again be
forgotten. He had come to stay; and if, in many psalms, the general
voice of the church is heard, it is equally certain that many others
utter the emotions and experiences of individual singers.
[Footnote 1: That Psalms, now collective, were originally
individual, and subsequently altered and adapted to the use of the
community is seen, e.g., in the occasional disturbance of the order
in alphabetical psalms (ix., x.). ]

The Psalter, or part of it, was used in the temple service[1]-witness
the numerous musical and liturgical superscriptions (cf. superscr. of
Ps. xcii.)--though the people probably did no more than sing or utter
the responses (cvi. 48). It would be difficult to estimate the
importance of the Psalter to the Old Testament Church. It was the
support of piety as well as the expression of it; and, to a worship
which laid so much stress upon punctilious ritual and animal sacrifice,
the Psalter, with its austere spiritual tone, its simple passion for
God, and its bracing sense of fellowship with the Eternal, would come
as a wholesome corrective. Almost in the spirit of the older prophets
(Hos. vi. 6) animal sacrifice is relegated to an altogether subordinate
place (xl., l., li.), if it is not indeed rebuked: the sacrifice dear
to God is a broken spirit. Thus the Psalter was a mighty contribution
in one direction, as the synagogue in another, to the development of
spiritual religion. It kept alive the prophetic element in Israel's
religion, and did much to counteract the more blighting influences of
Judaism. The place of the law is occasionally recognized (i., xix. 7ff.),
once very emphatically (cxix.), but it is honoured chiefly for its moral
stimulus. It is not, as in later times, an incubus; it is still an
inspiration.
[Footnote 1: The addition of the last verse to the alphabetic
psalms, xxv. and xxxiv., adapts these psalms, whether originally
individual or collective, to the temple service.]

There are tempers in the Psalter which are anything but lovely-hatred
of enemies, protestation of self-righteousness, and other utterances
which prevent it from being, in its entirety, the hymn-book of the
Christian Church. Historically these things are explicable and perhaps
inevitable, but the glory of the Psalter is its overwhelming sense of
the reality of God. The men who wrote it counted God their Friend; and
although they never forgot that He was the infinite One, whose home is
the universe and who fills the vast spaces of history with His
faithfulness and His justice, He was also to them the patient and
loving One, who preserves both man and beast, under the shadow of whose
wings the children of men may rest with quietness and confidence, and
before whom they could pour out the deepest thoughts and petitions of
their hearts, in the assurance that He was the hearer of prayer, and
that His tender mercies were over all His works. He was to them the
source of all strength and consolation and vision. In His light they
saw light; and in their noblest moments--whatever they might lose or
suffer--with Him they were content. In Luther's fine paraphrase of
Psalm lxxiii. 25, "If I have but Thee, I ask for nothing in heaven or
earth."




PROVERBS


Many specimens of the so-called _Wisdom Literature_ are
preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no
means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters
constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon;
and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of
enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife.

All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which
to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew wise man seldom
or never gave himself to abstract speculation; he dealt with issues
raised by practical life. Wise men are spoken of almost as an
organized guild, and coordinated with priests and prophets as early
as the time of Jeremiah (xviii. 18), but the general impression made
by the pre-exilic references to the wise men is that they exercised
certain quasi-political functions and hardly correspond to the wise
men of later times who discussed issues of the moral life and
devoted themselves to the instruction of young men (Prov. i. 4, 8).

Most of the important types of thought of the wise men are represented
in the book of Proverbs. There are proverbs proper, a few of the
popular kind, but most of them bearing the stamp of deliberate art,
and dealing with the prudent conduct of life (x.-xxix.); there are
speculations of a more general kind on the nature that wisdom which
is the guide of life (i.-ix.); and there is scepticism (cf. Eccles.)
represented by the words of Agur (xxx. 1-4). The book, as a whole, might
be described as a guide to the happy life, or, we might almost say, to
the successful life--for a certain not ignoble utilitarianism clings
to many of its precepts. The world is recognized as a moral and orderly
world, and wisdom is profitable unto all things. The wisdom which the
wise man manifests in contact with life and its exigencies is but a
counterpart of the divine wisdom which, in one noble passage, is the
fellow of God and more ancient than creation (viii.).

There is not a little literary power in the book. Very beautiful is
Wisdom's appeal to the sons of men, and her invitation to the
banquet (viii., ix.). The isolated proverbs in x.-xxix. are usually
more terse and powerful than they appear in the English translation.
There are flashes of humour too:

As a ring of gold in a swine's snout,
So is a fair woman without discretion, xi. 22.
Withhold not correction from thy son,
Though thou smite him with the rod, he will not die, xxiii. 13.

They deal with life upon its average levels: there is nothing of the
prophetic enthusiasm, but they are robust and kindly withal.

Not without reason has the book been called "a forest of proverbs,"
for at any rate in the body of it it is practically impossible to
detect any principle of order. Usually the sayings in x.-xxix. are
disconnected, but occasionally kindred sayings are gathered into
groups of two or more verses; and sometimes it would seem as if the
principle of arrangement was alphabetic, several consecutive verses
occasionally beginning with the same letter, e.g., xx. 7-9, xxii. 2-4.
There are eight divisions--

(_a_) i.-ix. (of which i. 1-6 is no doubt designed as an
introduction to the whole book, and vi. 1-19 is probably an
interpolation): an impressive appeal to secure wisdom and avoid
folly, especially when she appears in the guise of the strange
woman. Wisdom's own appeal and invitation.

(_b_) x.-xxii. 16. A series of very loosely connected proverbs
in couplets, x.-xv. being chiefly antithetic (cf. x. 1, xv. 1) and
xvi. 1-xxii. 16 chiefly synthetic (cf. xvi. 16).

(_c_) xxii. 17-xxiv. 22, designated as "the words of the wise,"
containing a few continuous pieces (cf. xxiii. 29-35 on drunkenness)
and addressed, like i.-ix., to "my son," cf. xxiii. 15, 26.

(_d_) xxiv. 23-34, probably little more than an appendix to
(_c_), and also containing a continuous piece (cf. _vv._
30-34 on sloth).

(_e_) xxv.-xxix. A series, in many respects resembling
(_6_), of loosely connected sayings. This section, especially
xxv.-xxvii., contains more proverbs in the strict sense, i.e.
sayings without any specific moral bearing, e.g. xxv. 25.

(_f_) xxx. The words of Agur, of a sceptical and enigmatical
kind, worked over by an orthodox reader (cf. _vv_. 5, 6, which
reprove _vv_. 2-4).

(_g_) xxxi. 1-9. Words addressed to king Lemuel (whom we cannot
identify) by his mother.

(_h_) xxxi. 10-31. An alphabetic poem in praise of the good
housewife.

Clearly the book makes no pretence to be, as a whole, from Solomon.
If we except i. 1-6, which is introductory to the whole book, only
(_b_) and (_e_) are assigned to Solomon: the other
sections--except the last, are deliberately assigned to others,
(_c_) and (_d_) expressly to "the wise." The ascription of
the whole book to Solomon, which seems to be implied by its opening
verse, and which, if genuine, would render the fresh ascription in
x. 1 unnecessary, is no doubt to be explained as the similar
ascription of the Psalms to David or the legislation to Moses. He
was the "wise man" of Hebrew antiquity, and he is expressly said in
1 Kings iv. 32 to have spoken 3,000 proverbs. The implication of
that passage (cf. _v_. 33) is that those proverbs consisted of
comparisons between men and trees or animals: that supposition is
met by some (cf. vi. 6) but not by many in the book. There are not
likely then to be many of his proverbs in our book; but not
impossibly there may be some. Ch. xxv. 1 is indeed very explicit,
but that notice is, on the face of it, late. The fact that Hezekiah
is called not simply king, but king of Judah, seems to point to a
time--at the earliest the exile--when the kingdom of Judah was no
more; so that this notice would be about a century and a half after
Hezekiah's time, and Hezekiah is more than two centuries after
Solomon. Obviously many of the proverbs in x.-xxix. could not have
been Solomon's. The advice as to the proper demeanour in the
presence of a king (xxv. 6, 7) would not come very naturally from
one who was himself a king (cf. xxiii.1ff.); nor, to say nothing of
the praises of monogamy, would he be likely so to satirize his own
government as he would do in xxix. 4: "He whose exactions are
excessive ruins the land."

The question may, however, be fairly raised whether the proverbs,
though as a whole not Solomonic, may yet be pre-exilic; and here two
questions must be kept apart--the date of the individual proverbs
and the date of the collections or of the book as a whole. Now it is
very probable that some of the proverbs are pre-exilic. The
references to the king, e.g.--kindly in x-xxii., and more severe in
xxv-xxix.--might indeed apply to the Greek period (fourth and third
centuries B.C.), but are equally applicable to the pre-exilic
period; and many of the shrewd observations on life might come
equally well from any period. But there can be little doubt that the
groups in their present form are post-exilic. The sages do their
work on the basis of the achievements of law and prophecy.[1] The
great prophetic ideas about God are not discussed, they are
presupposed; while the "law" of xxviii. 4, 7, 9, as in Psalm cxix.,
appears to be practically equivalent to Scripture, and would point
to the fifth century at the earliest. True, there are sayings quite
in the old prophetic spirit, to the effect that character is more
acceptable to God than ritual and sacrifice, xxi. 3, 27, xv. 8, xvi.
6; but this would be an equally appropriate and almost more
necessary warning in post-exilic times, especially upon the lips of
men whose profession was in part that of moral education.
[Footnote 1: The text of xxix. 18_a_ is too insecure (cf.
Septuagint) to justify us in saying that prophecy still exists. ]

There is no challenge of idolatry, such as we should expect if the
book were pre-exilic, and monogamy is everywhere presupposed. Indeed
it is very remarkable that no mention is made of Israel, or of any
institutions distinctly Israelitic. Its subject is not the nation,
but the individual, and its wisdom is cosmopolitan. Now though this
appeal to man rather than Israel, this emphasis on the universal
conscience, can be traced as far back as the eighth century[1] (Amos
iii. 9), the thoroughgoing application of it in Proverbs suggests a
larger experience of international relationships, which could hardly
be placed before the exile, and was not truly developed till long
after it, say, in the Persian or Greek period. This is peculiarly
true of chs. i-ix., which was probably an independent piece,
prefixed to x.-xxix., to gather up their sporadic elements of wisdom
in a comprehensive whole, and to secure an adequate religious basis
for their maxims which were, in the main, ethical. It is not
necessary to suppose that the personification of wisdom in ch. viii.
is directly influenced by Greek philosophy, but the whole
speculative manner of the passage points to a late, even if
independent, development of Jewish thought. The last two chapters
are probably the latest in the book, which, while it must be earlier
than Ben Sirach (180 B.C.), who distinctly adapts it, is probably
not earlier than 300 B.C.
[Footnote 1: Micah vi. 8, "He that showed thee, _O man_, what
is good," is also a saying of far-reaching significance in this
connection.]

The value of this much-neglected book is very great. It is easy of
course to point to its limitations--to show that it hardly, if ever
(ix. 18?) looks out upon another world, but confines its
compensations and its penalties to this, xi. 31, or to discover
utilitarian elements in its morality, in. 10, or mechanical features
in its conception of life, xvi. 31. But it would be easy to
exaggerate. The sages know very well that a good name is better than
wealth, xxii. 1, and that the deepest success of life is its
conformity to the divine wisdom (i.-ix.). While most of the maxims
are purely ethical, it has to be remembered that to the Hebrew
morality rests upon religion: the introductory section (i.-ix.)
throws its influence across the whole book, the motto of which is
that the fear of Jehovah is the basis of knowledge and its chief
constituent, i. 7. Besides, many of the maxims themselves are
specifically religious, e.g., "He that oppresseth the poor
reproacheth his Maker," xiv. 31, "He that hath pity on the poor
lendeth to Jehovah," xix. 17. On the more purely moral side, besides
giving a welcome glimpse into ancient Hebrew society, it is rich in
applications to modern life. Slander and revenge are severely
denounced; and earnest and repeated warnings are lifted up in
different parts of the book against wine and women (v., xxiii.,
xxxi.). Care for animals is inculcated, xii. 10, and love to
enemies, xxv. 21., in words borrowed by the New Testament--a notable
advance on Leviticus xix. 18.

In one or two respects the book is of peculiar interest and value to
the modern world. It is more interested, e.g., in practice than in
creed. Its creed is very simple, little more than a general fear of
Jehovah; but this receives endless application to practical life.
Again, the appeal of the book is, on the whole, not to revelation,
but to experience, and it meets the average man and woman upon their
ordinary level. Its appeal is therefore one which cannot be evaded,
as it commends itself, without the support of revelation, to the
universal moral instincts of mankind. Again, its emphasis upon the
moral, as opposed to the speculative, is striking. Immediately after
a passage which approaches as near to metaphysical speculation as
any Old Testament writer ever approaches, viii. 22-31, comes a
direct, tender and personal appeal. Lastly, there is an almost
modern sense of the inexorableness of law in the solemn reminder
that those who refuse and despise the call of wisdom will be left
alone and helpless when their day of trouble comes, i. 22ff. But the
sternness is mitigated by a gentler thought. Like a gracious lady,
wisdom, which is only one aspect of the divine Providence, pleads
with men, yearning to win them from their folly to the peace and
happiness which are alone with her; and even suffering is but one of
the ways of God, a confirmation of sonship, and even a manifestation
of His love.

Whom Jehovah loveth, He reproveth,
Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth, iii. 12.

This is perhaps the profoundest note in the book of Proverbs. A book
so rich in moral precept and religious thought may well claim to
have fulfilled its programme: "to give prudence to the simple, to
the young man knowledge and discretion," i. 4.




JOB


The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's
literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of
superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The
problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and
his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological
insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of
resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been
divided as to how the book should be classified, whether as epic,
dramatic or didactic poetry. It is didactic at any rate in the sense
that the poet, who wrote it with his heart's blood, intended to read
his generation a much-needed lesson on the mysterious discipline of
life; and it is dramatic, though not in the ordinary sense--for in
the poetry proper there is no development of action--yet in the
sense that it vividly pourtrays the conflict of minds, and the clash
of conventional with independent opinion.

The story of the book is easily told. The prologue (i., ii.)
introduces Job as a pattern of scrupulous piety, and therefore, in
accordance with the ancient view, a prosperous man. In the heavenly
council, the Satan insinuates that, if the prosperity be withdrawn,
the piety will also disappear. Jehovah, sure of His servant Job,
grants the Satan permission to deprive Job of all that he
_has_, in order that he may discover what he _is_. Job
sustains the four fierce blows, which stripped him of all, with
beautiful resignation. The Satan is foiled. He now insinuates that
the trial has not been severe enough: only his property has been
touched--not his person. With Jehovah's permission a second assault
is made, and Job is smitten with the incurable and loathsome disease
of leprosy, so that he is without hope in the world. He has nothing
but God--will God be enough? Again Job sustains his trial in noble
and ever-memorable words; and the Satan is foiled again. Then three
of Job's friends--great sheikhs--come to express their sorrow.

Then follow three cycles of speeches between Job and his friends
(iii.-xiv.; xv.-xxi.; xxii.-xxxi).

_First cycle_. Job begins by lamenting his birthday and longing
for death (iii.). Eliphaz, a man of age and wisdom, with much
courtesy and by an appeal to a revelation which had been given him
in the night, seeks to reconcile Job to his lot, reminding him that
no mortal man can be pure in the sight of God, and assuring him of
restoration, if he accepts his suffering as discipline (iv., v.).
Job rejects this easy optimism and expresses his longing for a
speedy death, as life on the earth is nothing but a miserable
warfare (vi., vii.). Bildad, annoyed at Job's challenge of God's
justice, asserts the sure destruction of evildoers, but implicitly
concedes, at the end, that Job is not an evil-doer, by promising him
a bright future (viii.). Job then grows ironical. Of course, he
says, God is always in the right. Might is right, and He is
almighty, destroying innocent and guilty alike. He longs to meet
God, and to know why He so marvellously treats the creature He so
marvellously made (ix., x.). Zophar bluntly condemns Job's bold
words and urges repentance, but, like his friends, foretells the
dawn of a better day for Job, though his very last words are ominous
and suggestive of another possibility (xi.). Job, with a sarcastic
compliment to the wisdom of his friends, claims the right to an
independent judgment and challenges the whole moral order of the
world. Better be honest--God needs no man to distort the facts for
Him. Job longs for a meeting, in which God will either speak to him
or listen to him. But, as no answer comes, he laments again the
pathos of life, which ends so utterly in death (xii.-xiv.).

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