They shout for joy, and jointly sing, VAUGHAN PSALM LXV. LET praise to that Almighty Sov'reign rise, Whose kind protection all the nations share: : Then soon thy bounty swells the golden ear,, PSALM LXVIII. THIS very beautiful psalm has been the cross of Biblical critics, since the commencement of Biblical criticism unto the present day: nor must I presume to flatter myself that I have surmounted all the strange difficulties that here occur. I have, however, endeavoured to make my version at least intelligible, with as little vexation of the original text as possible. As to the time and occasion of the composition of this sublime piece of poetry, the bulk of interpreters refer it to the translation of the ark from the house of Obed-Edom to mount Zion": but, I confess, I cannot acquiesce in this opinion. I think it must have been composed after David's signal and repeated victories over the combined forces of the Edomites, Ammonites, and Syrians, when the ark was brought back in triumph to Jerusalem. That the ark accompanied the army in those wars we learn from the words of Uriah to David, 2 Sam. xi. 11.-Geddes. The attentive reader will frequently feel a want of information, concerning the author, the age, and the occasion of a poem ; still more frequently will he find occasion to lament his own ignorance with respect to many facts and circumstances closely connected with the principal subject, and on which, perhaps, its most striking ornaments depend. This we experience in some degree in the admirable poem of Deborah; and this I seem to experience in the sixty-eighth psalm, though it appears to have some affinity with the subject of that which we have just examined (the twenty-fourth), since it adopts, in the place of an exordium, that wellknown form of expression which was commonly made use of on the removal of the ark *: "Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered; "And let those that hate him flee from his presence." But almost every part of this most noble poem is involved in an impenetrable darkness. It would otherwise have afforded a singular example of the true sublime; the scattered rays of which, breaking * Compare Num. x. 35. forth with difficulty through the thick clouds that surround it, we yet behold with a mixture of admiration and pleasure.-LowтH, Lect. 27. Having professed above, that I admired not so much the sublimity as the sweetness of David's lyric poetry, I think it my duty to make an exception in favour of this psalm, than which I do not recollect any thing more sublime in the whole book of psalms.-MICHAELIS. Change of persons gives a lively turn, and forms a digressive elegance in a description. An object thus expressed is represented as if really present, and thereby strikes with redoubled efficacy. The royal psalmist, in his description of the effect which God's presence had upon the earth, changes the second person into the third. He first addresses our Almighty Creator; then he turns to the third person, ver. 7, 8. "O God, when thou wentest forth through the "wilderness, when thou wentest before the people; "the earth shook, and the heavens dropped, at "the presence of God: Sinai also was moved at "the presence of God, who is the God of Israel." This change greatly heightens the grandeur of the supreme Power.-GREEN's Observations on the Sublime of Longinus. Milton's beautiful instance of the striking effect of change of person will immediately suggest itself to the reader: "Thus at their shady lodge. arriv'd both stood, "Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd "The God that made both sky, air, earth and heav'n, "Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, "And starry pole: Thou also mad'st the night, Maker Omnipotent!" PAR. LOST, B. iv. PSALM LXVIII.* ARISE, O God, assume thy might! * This fine Ode will be found in a small volume of poems by the late William Julius Mickle, the well-known translator of the Lusiad of Camoens †, "a man of genius, and of great poetical powers." He was born 1734, died 1789. + Pursuits of Literature. |