have adopted; it is ibya, "A song For the goings up." At

all events, it confutes the idea of Gesenius that reference is made to the peculiar rhythm.

PSALM CXX.

We could have imagined Hannah, the mother of Samuel, taking up this song in her lips when going up to the Feast at Shiloh. She carried her private sorrows to the Great Congregation, that in the midst of the many worshippers she might find the special presence of Jehovah. The complaint, in her case, was her adversary's tongue; so, here it is the tongue—“the false tongue." At the same time, it is “ sore distress," for the form is emphatic (v. 1), just as in Ps. iii. 3, is the emphatic form to signify complete deliverance.

We see in it a worshipper, who enjoys little peace in his own country, coming up to the City of Peace, Salem, there to realise peace at one of those feasts which exhibited such a spectacle of united devotion. In the sanctuary, the pilgrim is enabled to see the end of those who hate the godly, and make war upon them. He sees

"The arrows of the Mighty One sharpened;"

as if anticipating the day of God, when He, the Mighty One, sung of in Ps. xlv. 3, shall send forth his arrows-arrows of fire-" glowing embers of genista-fuel"—in other words, The flaming fire that takes vengeance on his foes" (2 Thess. i. 8).

Meanwhile, it is a saddening thought that as yet the days of the Prince of peace have not come—

"Woe's me! for I tarry in Mesech!

I pitch my tent with the tents of Kedar!"

As Isaiah i. 10 brands the apostate people and rulers of Jerusalem as "people of Sodom and rulers of Gomorrha," and as Ezek. xvi. 4 calls them "Amorites" and "Hittites," so does the psalmist speak of his harassing foe, as like the barbarous men of Mesech in the obscure north (see Ezek. xxxviii. 2), and the ever-unsettled tribes of Kedar in the south. And so he sighs

"It is wearisome for my soul to dwell with the hater of peace!" (Hengst.) Literally, "Enough of this dwelling!" Is not this the very feeling of the Church at this hour, in these days of never-ending forms of lies and vanity that assail the truth? They cry, "O when shall the Prince of peace arrive!" And so felt the Lord himself, when on earth, as we see in his teaching his followers the blessedness of being peace-makers." Indeed, who would sing this pilgrim song so truly from the heart as "The Master?" It is a song for

The servant of the Lord, weary with the strife of tongues.

PSALM CXXI.

"A song for the goings up!" (ny). The pilgrim sings it as he leaves his home to meet the Lord in the Great Congregation at Jerusalem; and the believer (like the Master) sings it as he journeys through earth to the New Jerusalem. Abraham (Gen. xxii. 4) "lifted up his eyes" and saw the hills of Moriah on the third day; the worshipper sets forth with the desire to fix his eyes at last on the hills where his trials are, not, like Abraham's, to reach their crisis, but to end.

“I will lift up mine eyes to the hills” (ver. 1).

This is his resolution; his motive for leaving home and kindred is to reach the holy mountains, as they are called, Ps. lxxxvii. 1,—those hills that are the emblems of Jehovah's faithfulness, Ps. cxxv. 1, 2,— that spot where Jehovah is specially present because of the Propitiation being there, (1 Kings viii. 42; Dan. vi. 10).

This, then, is his resolution. so he asks

But there are perils by the way, and

"Whence shall my help come?" ("). (Philip and others remark, it is always interrogative).

What a full answer is at once returned to his soul: “My help is from (Dy from with, coming out from that depository of help) Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth.” And then he speaks to his soul, as the singer of Ps. ciii. does-"He will not suffer my feet to totter! Thy Keeper is not one that slumbers!" He is not like Baal, (1 Kings xviii. 27).

"Behold, he never slumbers!

He never falls asleep, the Keeper of Israel (Numb. vi. 24).
My keeper is Jehovah !"—

That Jehovah in whom Israel is blessed (Numb. vi. 24) by their High Priest-whose blessing awaits the pilgrim who reaches the city. He shall keep thee, making thy experience in thy journey to become ofttimes a type of the rest where "the sun* shall not smite them nor any heat" (Rom. vii. 16)—the rest in the Kingdom-the rest of which Israel shall partake in the latter day (Isa. xlix. 10). Thus shalt thou be kept till the glory comes,

"From henceforth and for ever!"

*The Psalmist speaks of "the moon" smiting. The force of this allusion may be understood by the following quotation from Wallstedt's City of the Caliphs :-" The glare of the moon in the Persian Gulf is so baneful, and creates feelings so disagreeable, that at night a person may be seen sheltering himself from those rays with the same care as he would in the day from the heat of the sun. The effect of lunar rays in producing decomposition of fish, and other animal substances, is known, though not yet explained; all in the East and West Indies are familiar with the fact." Moonlight specially injures the traveller's sight, while the coup-de-soleil endangers his very life.

With such a song of faith, keeping in sight the faithfulness and love of Him whose law he delights in, whose feasts he keeps, whose ways he walks in, the Master and his disciples no doubt often left the peaceful shores of the Lake of Galilee to go up to Jerusalem to worship; often realised, under some fig-tree's seasonable shade, or some convenient cloud bringing down the heat by its shadow, the deliverance from the sun's intolerable rays; and found in all an emblem of their journey through earth to the kingdom whose capital is New Jerusalem, and whose congregation is the assembly of the first-born. It is a song of

The Lord's servant committing himself to Jehovah alone as he

Hope was the prevailing feature of the first Song of Degrees; faith characterised the second; and surely love and joy abound in this one which we now take up. The first verse strikes the key-note

"O'twas a joyful sound to hear

Our friends devoutly say,

Up, Israel! To your Temple haste!

And keep your festal day."—(Tate and Brady.)

"I have rejoiced," says the worshipper, “ among those who say, Let us go to the house of the Lord!" David, who wrote this song, had felt that joy fill his whole soul, because of the love he bore to the Lord of the place. And lo! instantly the pilgrim-worshipper fancies himself arrived he is already standing at the gate in the early morning, waiting to enter, along with those who said—" Let us go."

"Our feet are standing at thy gates, O Jerusalem!”

The gates are thrown open, and they enter; the city on every side engaging their attention. They see in it a city, not ruined by war, but built in its place—not like the straggling dwellings of the villages, but stately edifices.

"Jerusalem is builded as a city!

(A city) which is bound together" (ver. 3.)

The compactness of its very streets suggesting the close union of its inhabitants in brotherly love.

"(A city) where are* the tribes who go up,

The tribes of Jehovah” (Jah).

How pleasant to meet, not the Canaanite-not the uncircumcised

ש

* The here, and in ver. 3, is, according to Hengstenberg, the old popular style, as found in Deborah's song. If it be the popular style, it is most suitably adopted in a song for the nation at large at its feasts.

but the tribes who, with one accord, worship the Lord; who go up to this city for that end.

"(A city where is) the testimony (given) to Israel,

That they might praise the name of the Lord." "The Testimony" is by some considered to mean "The Law; 99 by others, more probably, The Ark, so often called "The Ark of the Testimony;" and we also find "The Tabernacle of Testimony." We may perhaps best understand it as containing a reference to all these together they together setting forth Jehovah's character, and will, and ways, to men. And there sit those who explain and enforce these laws and testimonies, according to the ancient promise in Deut. xvii. 8, 9 ; and there, also, sit the king and his princes.

"For there (e) are set (Ezek. xlviii. 35.)
Thrones for judgment, (?)

Thrones for the house of David." (?)

In all this, we may easily trace a type of our Jerusalem and its privileges. With Christ our Head, as well as with David, we look for another city that "hath foundations"-surely built, and "that lieth foursquare," compactly built (Rev. xxi. 16)-a city where we shall meet none but friends, our own friends and friends of God,-a city where the Lord's testimony is fully opened out, and his name praised,a city at whose gates judgment is given, and where a King reigneth in righteousness, and princes decree judgment" (Isa. xxxii. 1).

And if Israel's devout people did so pray for their Jerusalem, ver. 6, 7, 8, 9, how much shall the pilgrims toward that New Jerusalem "seek the better, that is, the heavenly country." It is interesting to know that the expression, ver. 6, DN generally means, "Salute ye,"-q. d., Greet ye Jerusalem with your good wishes. It reminds us of some of the medieval hymns,* e. g.—

"Urbs in portu satis tuto,
De longinquo, te saluto,
Te saluto, te suspiro,

Te affecto, te requiro."

And these old hymns were borrowed from Augustine, who (in his De Spirit. et Anim.) exclaims, "O civitas sancta, civitas speciosa, de longinquo te saluto, ad te clamo, te requiro." All of us, who follow the Lord, surely join in this ardent panting for entrance into that city of which the other was but a type, and of which we can say

"They that love thee shall prosper;
There shall be peace in thy bulwarks,
Prosperity in thy palaces."

And of Tasso's famous passage (Gierus. lib. iii. 3)—

"Ecco apparir Gierusalem si vede,
Ecco additar Gierusalem si scorge!
Ecco da mille voci unctamente,
Gierusalemme salutare si sente!"

Love to our brethren, whom we hope to meet there (ver. 8), and love to God who has so loved us (ver. 9), must lead us to this earnest desire"because of my brethren, and because the house of my God is there." Thus, then, now concerning the Antitype, as hereafter of the type, through which he looked to the Antitype,

The servant of the Lord sings of the City of Habitation to which he journeys.

PSALM CXXIII.

If we have found hope, faith, joy, and love in these "Songs of Degrees " hitherto, we now find long-suffering patience. David is said to have been the writer. The worshipper, whether David, or David's greater Son, or any member of his body, "lifts his eyes" upward to the Lord in the heavens. The same Lord who, in Ps. cxxi. 1, is seen in Zionhills, is here seen "in the heavens," because contrast is intended to be made between the Earth that persecutes and the Majesty, overcanopying earth, which protects.

Scorn is felt, such as Nehemiah's case illustrates (Neh. ii. 19), or Hezekiah's case, in 2 Chron. xxx. 10, when that godly king incited the tribes of Israel to join him in the passover feast. It is the scorn of these "at ease," N, persons on whom the world smiles, and who "Where is the promise of his coming," like the Zech. i. 15, D'AND'. It is the contempt

say in their hearts, nations of earth, in of "the proud” N, that class of scorners who shall be found abounding on earth when "the day of the Lord comes on every one that is (N) proud," the "boasters, lovers of pleasure," of 2 Tim iii. 2. The prayer for help has reference to the high priest's blessing, Num. vi. 24. In Ps. cxxi. 3, 4, he lifted up his eyes to the Lord, and sought that part of the blessing which consists in safe keeping; here, he asks,, "Be gracious! Be gracious! Be gracious!" (Numb. vi. 24). The Lord makes his face shine upon the pilgrim ; and the grace that beams there is the antidote to the contempt of men. Yes, even now it is so; but if even now, what then when the lifted-up countenance is "the grace that shall be brought us at the appearing of Jesus Christ?" Such is the reward of

The upward look of the Lord's servant amid contempt.

PSALM CXXIV.

Ebenezer! Hitherto the Lord hath helped! This seems to be the tone of this song of David, sung at a stage of the way, or at a time, when the thought of past difficulties overcome, and dangers escaped, was active and lively. Thankfulness characterises it as much as hope, faith, joy, love, patience, characterised these previous psalms.