THE GRADUAL PSALMS. CHAPTER I. THE GRADUAL PSALMS. THE Gradual Psalms are those which form the group beginning with Psalm cxx. (When I was in trouble), and ending with Psalm cxxxiv. (Behold now, praise the Lord), according to the arrangement in the Hebrew and English Psalters. They are so called from the heading prefixed to each Psalm of the group,-in the Authorised English Version "A song of degrees" (more accurately, perhaps, "A song of the degrees"), and in the Latin Psalter, "Canticum graduum." It is of course the Latin form of the heading that has given us the phrase "Gradual Psalms." Before proceeding to discuss the meaning of the phrase it may be well to say at once, by way of caution to the unwary, that the term Gradual, as applied to this group of Psalms, must be distinguished from the same term as applied also to a Psalm in the Eucha B dual of the ristic Office of the Christian Church. The Psalm (or portion of a Psalm) that was, and is still in the The Gra Western Church outside the English ComEucharist. munion, sung immediately before the recitation of the Gospel, is called the Gradual, because it is sung on the steps (gradus) to the pulpit or ambon,* from which the recitation of the Gospel takes place. The term Gradual, however, in this sense belongs not to any particular group of Psalms, but is applied promiscuously to any Psalm which the Office Book might have appointed for the service in question. I say the term Gradual Psalms, as applied to the group of Psalms before us, must be carefully distinguished from the same term in this liturgical application. Yet there is some analogy between the two, if the name Gradual Psalms, as given to the group of Psalms on which I have undertaken to treat, has anything to do with their having been sung (like the Christian Gradual) upon certain steps of the Temple at Jerusalem. * So Cardinal Bona (Rerum Liturg. Lib. II. c. 6, § 4) is careful to observe, and not from the steps of the Altar, as some of the more recent writers had affirmed. The exact meaning that we are to affix to the term "Degrees," or its several equivalents, is a subject of debate, and has given occasion to much which one can hardly call otherwise than the wildest conjecture. Almost every conceivable shade of meaning that the etymology of the Hebrew word will bear seems to have been put forward by one or other of the later Christian inquirers. The word in question is formed from a root which means to go up, ascend. About that there is no doubt whatever. But the precise meaning Sense of of the derived substantive is not so plain. word. In the Scripture itself it has more than one meaning. the Hebrew 1. Ascent. It has, first of all, the plain sense of ascent. This it has, for example, in Josh. x. 10: "And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up (lit. the way of the Ascent) to Beth-horon." So again in 1 Sam. ix. 11: "And as they went up the hill to the city (Marg. In the Ascent of the city), they found young maidens going out to draw water." It has also the sense of exaltation, dignity; as in 1 Chron. xvii. 17. "And hast regarded 2. Dignity. ... |