THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON

Chapter XI.

Jerusalem hears a trumpet and stands on tiptoe to see her children returning from the North, East and West.

Blow ye in Zion on the trumpet to summon the saints,
  Cause ye to be heard in Jerusalem the voice of him that bringeth good tidings; p. 114
  For God hath had pity on Israel in visiting them.
Stand on the height, O Jerusalem, and behold thy children,
  From the East and the West, gathered together by the Lord;
From the North they come in the gladness of their God,
  From the isles afar off God hath gathered them.
High mountains hath He abased into a plain for them;
  The hills fled at their entrance.
The woods gave them shelter as they passed by;
  Every sweet-smelling tree God caused to spring up for them,
  That Israel might pass by in the visitation of the glory of their God.
Put on, O Jerusalem, thy glorious garments;
  Make ready thy holy robe;
  For God hath spoken good concerning Israel, for ever and ever.
Let the Lord do what He hath spoken concerning Israel and Jerusalem;
  Let the Lord raise up Israel by His glorious name.

The mercy of the Lord be upon Israel for ever and ever.

Chapter XII.

An appeal for family tranquility and peace and quiet at home.

O Lord, deliver my soul from the lawless and wicked man,
  From the tongue that is lawless and slanderous, and speaketh lies and deceit.
Manifoldly twisted are the words of the tongue of the wicked man,
  Even as among a people a fire that burneth up their beauty.
So he delights to fill houses with a lying tongue,
  To cut down the trees of gladness which setteth on fire transgressors,
  To involve households in warfare by means of slanderous lips.

May God remove far from the innocent the lips of transgressors by bringing them to want
  And may the bones of slanderers be scattered far away from them that fear the Lord!
  In flaming fire perish the slanderous tongue far away from the pious!
May the Lord preserve the quiet soul that hateth the unrighteous;
  And may the Lord establish the man that followeth peace at home.
The salvation of the Lord be upon Israel His servant for ever;
  And let the sinners perish together at the presence of the Lord;
 

 But let the Lord's pious ones inherit the promises of the Lord.

Chapter XIII.

Of Solomon. A Psalm. Comfort for the righteous.

The right hand of the Lord hath covered me;
  The right hand of the Lord hath spared us.
The arm of the Lord hath saved us from the sword that passed through,
  From famine and the death of sinners.
Noisome beasts ran upon them:
  With their teeth they tore their flesh,
  And with their molars crushed their bones.
But from all these things the Lord delivered us. p. 115
The righteous was troubled on account of his errors,
  Lest he should be taken away along with the sinners;
 

For terrible is the overthrow of the sinner;
  But not one of all these things toucheth the righteous.
For not alike are the chastening of the righteous for sins done in ignorance,
  And the overthrow of the sinners.
Secretly is the righteous chastened,
  Lest the sinner rejoice over the righteous.
For He correcteth the righteous as a beloved son.
  And his chastisement is as that of a first-born.
For the Lord spareth His pious ones,
  And blotteth out their errors by His chastening.
For the life of the righteous shall be for ever;
  But sinners shall be taken away into destruction,,
  And their memorial shall be found no more.
But upon the pious is the mercy of the Lord,
  And upon them that fear Him His mercy.

Chapter XIV.

Sinners "love the brief day spent in companionship with their sin." Profound wisdom, beautifully expressed.

Faithful is the Lord to them that love Him in truth,
  To them that endure His chastening,
To them that walk in the righteousness of His commandments,
  In the law which He commanded us that we might live.
The pious of the Lord shall live by it for ever;
  The Paradise of the Lord, the trees of life, are His pious ones.
Their planting is rooted for ever;
  They shall not be plucked up all the days of heaven:
For the portion and the inheritance of God is Israel.
But not so are the sinners and transgressors,
  Who love the brief day spent in companionship with their sin;
Their delight is in fleeting corruption,
  And they remember not God.
For the ways of men are known before Him at all times,
  And He knoweth the secrets of the heart before they come to pass.
Therefore their inheritance is Sheol and darkness and destruction
  And they shall not be found in the day when the righteous obtain mercy;
But the pious of the Lord shall inherit life in gladness.

Chapter XV.

The psalmist restates the great philosophy of Right and Wrong.

When I was in distress I called upon the name of the Lord,
  I hoped for the help of the God of Jacob and was saved;
  For the hope and refuge of the poor art Thou, O God.
For who, O God, is strong except to give thanks unto Thee in truth?
  And wherein is a man powerful except in giving thanks to Thy name?
A new psalm with song in gladness of heart,
  The fruit of the lips with the well-tuned instrument of the tongue,
  The first fruits of the lips from a pious and righteous heart-- p. 116
He that offereth these things shall never be shaken by evil;
  The flame of fire and the wrath against the unrighteous shall not touch him,
When it goeth forth from the face of the Lord against sinners,
  To destroy all the substance of sinners,
For the mark of God is upon the righteous that they may be saved.

Famine and sword and pestilence shall be far from the righteous,
  For they shall flee away from the pious as men pursued in war;
But they shall pursue sinners and overtake them,
  And they that do lawlessness shall not escape the judgement of God;
As by enemies experienced in war shall they be overtaken,
  For the mark of destruction is upon their forehead.
And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness,
  And their iniquities shall pursue them unto Sheol beneath.
Their inheritance shall not be found of their children,
  For sins shall lay waste the houses of sinners.
And sinners shall perish for ever in the day of the Lord's judgement,
  When God visiteth the earth with His judgement.
But they that fear the Lord shall find mercy therein,
  And shall live by the compassion of their God;
But sinners shall perish for ever.

Chapter XVI.

The psalmist again expresses profound truth--"For if Thou givest not strength, who can endure chastisement?"

When my soul slumbered being afar from the Lord, I had all but slipped down to the pit,
  When I was far from God, my soul had been well-nigh poured out unto death,
I had been nigh unto the gates of Sheol with the sinner,
  When my soul departed from the Lord God of Israel--
Had not the Lord helped me with His everlasting mercy.

He pricked me, as a horse is pricked, that I might serve Him,
  My saviour and helper at all times saved me.
I will give thanks unto Thee, O God, for Thou hast helped me to my salvation;
  And hast not counted me with sinners to my destruction.
Remove not Thy mercy from me, O God,
  Nor Thy memorial from my heart until I die.
Rule me, O God, keeping me back from wicked sin,
  And from every wicked woman that causeth the simple to stumble.
And let not the beauty of a lawless woman beguile me,
  Nor any one that is subject to unprofitable sin.

Establish the works of my hands before Thee,
  And preserve my goings in the remembrance of Thee.
Protect my tongue and my lips with words of truth;
  Anger and unreasoning wrath put far from me.
Murmuring, and impatience in affliction, remove far from me
  When, if I sin, Thou chastenest me that I may return unto Thee.
But with goodwill and cheerfulness support my soul;
  When Thou strengthenest my soul, what is given to me will be sufficient for me.
For if Thou givest not strength,
Who can endure chastisement with poverty? p. 117
When a man is rebuked by means of his corruption,
  Thy testing of him is in his flesh and in the affliction of poverty.
If the righteous endureth in all these trials, he shall receive mercy from the Lord.

Chapter XVII.

"They set a worldly monarchy . . . . they lay waste the Throne of David!' A poetic narrative about the utter disintegration of a great nation.

O Lord, Thou art our King for ever and ever,
  For in Thee, O God, doth our soul glory.
How long are the days of man's life upon the earth?
  As are his days, so is the hope set upon him.
But we hope in God, our deliverer;
For the might of our God is for ever with mercy,
  And the kingdom of our God is for ever over the nations in judgement.

Thou, O Lord, didst choose David to be king over Israel,
  And swaredst to him touching his seed that never should his kingdom fail before Thee.
But, for our sins, sinners rose up against us;
  They assailed us and thrust us out;
  

What Thou hadst not promised to them, they took away from us with violence.
They in no wise glorified Thy honourable name;
  They set a worldly monarchy in place of that which was their excellency;
  They laid waste the throne of David in tumultuous arrogance.
But Thou, O God, didst cast them down, and remove their seed from the earth,
  In that there rose up against them a man that was alien to our race.
According to their sins didst Thou recompense them, O God;
  So that it befell them according to their deeds.
God showed them no pity;
  He sought out their seed and let not one of them go free.
Faithful is the Lord in all His judgements
  Which He doeth upon the earth.

The lawless one laid waste our land so that none inhabited it,
  They destroyed young and old and their children together.
In the heat of His anger He sent them away even unto the west,
  And He exposed the rulers of the land unsparingly to derision.
Being an alien the enemy acted proudly,
  And his heart was alien from Our God.
And all things whatsoever he did in Jerusalem,
  As also the nations in the cities to their gods.

And the children of the covenant in the midst of the mingled peoples surpassed them in evil.
  There was not among them one that wrought in the midst of Jerusalem mercy and truth.
They that loved the synagogues of the pious fled from them,
  As sparrows that fly from their nest.
They wandered in deserts that their lives might be saved from harm, p. 118
  And precious in the eyes of them that lived abroad was any that escaped alive from them.
  Over the whole earth were they scattered by lawless men.
For the heavens withheld the rain from dropping upon the earth,
  Springs were stopped that sprang perennially out of the deeps, that ran down from lofty mountains.
For there was none among them that wrought righteousness and justice;
  From the chief of them to the least of them all were sinful;
  The king was a transgressor, and the judge disobedient, and the people sinful.
Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them their king, the son of David,
  At the time in the which Thou seest, O God, that he may reign over Israel Thy servant.
And gird him with strength, that he may shatter unrighteous rulers,
  And that he may purge Jerusalem from nations that trample her down to destruction.
Wisely, righteously he shall thrust out sinners from the inheritance,
  He shall destroy the pride of the sinner as a potter's vessel.
With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance,
  He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth;
At his rebuke nations shall flee before him,
  And he shall reprove sinners for the thoughts of their heart.

And he shall gather together a holy people, whom he shall lead in righteousness,
  And he shall judge the tribes of the people that has been sanctified by the Lord his God.
And he shall not suffer unrighteousness to lodge any more in their midst,
  Nor shall there dwell with them any man that knoweth wickedness,
  For he shall know them, that they are all sons of their God.
And he shall divide them according to their tribes upon the land,
  And neither sojourner nor alien shall sojourn with them any more.
He shall judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness. Selah.

And he shall have the heathen nations to serve him under his yoke;
  And he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen of all the earth;
  And he shall purge Jerusalem, making it holy as of old:
So that nations shall come from the ends of the earth to see his glory,
  Bringing as gifts her sons who had fainted.
  And to see the glory of the Lord, wherewith God hath glorified her.
And he shall be a righteous king, taught of God, over them,
And there shall be no unrighteousness in his days in their midst,
  

For all shall be holy and their king the anointed of the Lord.
For he shall not put his trust in horse and rider and bow,
  

Nor shall he multiply for himself gold and silver for war,

Nor shall he gather confidence from a multitude for the day of battle. p. 119
The Lord Himself is his king, the hope of him that is mighty through his hope in God.

All nations shall be in fear before him,
  For he will smite the earth with the word of his mouth for ever.
He will bless the people of the Lord with wisdom and gladness,
  And he himself will be pure from sin, so that he may rule a great people.
He will rebuke rulers, and remove sinners by the might of his word;
  And relying upon his God, throughout his days he will not stumble;
For God will make him mighty by means of His holy spirit,
  And wise by means of the spirit of understanding, with strength and righteousness.
And the blessing of the Lord will be with him: he will be strong and stumble not;
  His hope will be in the Lord: who then can prevail against him?
He will, be mighty in his works, and strong in the fear of God,
  He will be shepherding the flock of the Lord faithfully and righteously,
  And will suffer none among them to stumble in their pasture.
He will lead them all aright,
  And there will be no pride among them that any among them should be oppressed.
This will be the majesty of the king of Israel whom God knoweth;
  He will raise him up over the house of Israel to correct him.
His words shall be more refined than costly gold, the choicest;
  In the assemblies he will judge the peoples, the tribes of the sanctified.
His words shall be like the words of the holy ones in the midst of sanctified peoples.
Blessed be they that shall be in those days,
  In that they shall see the good fortune of Israel which God shall bring to pass in the gathering together of the tribes.
May the Lord hasten His mercy upon Israel!
  May He deliver us from the uncleanness of unholy enemies!
The Lord Himself is our king for ever and ever.

Chapter XVIII.

With this psalm end the warlike Songs of Solomon.

Lord, Thy mercy is over the works of Thy hands for ever;
  Thy goodness is over Israel with a rich gift.
Thine eyes look upon them, so that none of them suffers want;
  Thine ears listen to the hopeful prayer of the poor.
Thy judgements are executed upon the whole earth in mercy;
  And Thy love is toward the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel.
Thy chastisement is upon us as upon a first-born, only-begotten son,
  To turn back the obedient soul from folly that is wrought in ignorance.
May God cleanse Israel against the day of mercy and blessing,
  Against the day of choice when
Blessed shall they be that shall be in those days,
  He bringeth back His anointed.
In that they shall see the goodness of the Lord which He shall perform for the generation that is to come,
Under the rod of chastening of the Lord's anointed in the fear of his God,
  In the spirit of wisdom and righteousness and strength;
That he may direct every man in the works of righteousness by the fear of God,
  That he may establish them all before the Lord,
  A good generation living in the fear of God in the days of mercy. Selah.

Great is our God and glorious, dwelling in the highest.
It is He who hath established in their courses the lights of heaven for determining seasons from year to year,
  And they have not turned aside from the way which He appointed them.
In the fear of God they pursue their path every day,
  From the day God created them and for evermore.
And they have erred not since the day He created them.
  Since the generations of old they have not withdrawn from their path,
  Unless God commanded them so to do by the command of His servants.