Ver. 7. All sheep and oxen," &c. See Bp. Horne's excel

lent paraphrase of this verse.

PSALM IX.

[A] Houbigant reads the title of the Psalm thus:

למנצח : עלמות לבן : מזמור לדוד :

To the precentor. The mysteries of the Son. A Psalm of David. And so the LXX. 'Yìę tãv xgupiwv rõ viš. The reading of by in one word is confirmed by many MSS.

[B] Ver. 4. Thou hast past sentence for me and done me right." I cannot render the original verbatim, because I cannot find one verb in the English language to govern both the nouns," sentence," and "right."

[C] Ver. 6. Desolations have consumed," &c. The verb

its object. See האויב and חרבות,is active; its subject תמו

Abp. Secker and Bishop Lowth, upon this passage, in Merrick's Annotations.

[D] Ver. 12. When he maketh inquisition for blood," &c. i. e. When God requireth the innocent blood of Jesus at the hand of the Jews, his murderers, he will not forget the peoples,

but will manifest himself to them, mindful of the original promises. When the Jews are cast off, the Gentiles shall be grafted in. Observe the difference between Dy and ".

[E] Ver. 13. Take pity upon me," &c. The transitions from triumph, as a person delivered, to prayer and complaint, as a person in distress, and the contrary, are very remarkable here, and throughout the sequel of the Psalm; and may seem, to an inattentive reader, to give an air of inconsistency to the whole composition. But in truth, they are natural and necessary to the Psalmist's situation, whose actual condition was that of the deepest distress, while he looked forward with the utmost confidence of hope to a distant period of ease, enjoyment, and glory. A person so situated, could not but talk this mixed language of dejection and triumph, as his mind transferred its thoughts from the sense of present distress to the contemplation of future happiness.

In the 12th verse, the Psalmist, having mentioned it as a part of the divine character, that God forgetteth not the cry of the helpless, naturally thinks upon his own helpless state, and in the 13th and 14th verses, cries for deliverance. The promise of the overthrow of the faction, which were the principal instruments of his affliction, recurring to his thoughts, he breaks out again in the 15th verse in strains of exultation.

[F] Ver. 14. —in the gates of the daughter of Zion." This mention of Jerusalem shews, that this Psalm was com

posed after that Jerusalem was become the metropolis of Ju dea and the seat of her kings; which entirely refutes the opinion, that it was written upon occasion of David's victory over Goliah; an opinion which, perhaps, needs no other confutation, than the evident want of any clear allusion to that transaction in the whole Psalm.

[G] Ver. 18. ——not perish for ever." The negative 5, which occurs in the first branch of the distich, influences the verb in this.

This whole Psalm seems naturally to divide into three parts. The first ten verses make the first part; the six following, the second; and the remaining four, the third.

The first part is prophetic of the utter extermination of the irreligious persecuting faction. The prophecy is delivered in the form of an io, or song of victory, occasioned by the promise given in the 15th verse of the 10th Psalm ; and, through the whole of this song, the Psalmist, in the height of a prophetic enthusiasm, speaks of the threatened vengeance as accomplished.

The second part opens with an exhortation to the people of God to praise him, as the avenger of their wrongs, and the

watchful guardian of the helpless; and as if the flame of pro

phetic joy, which the oracular voice had lighted in the Psalmist's mind, was beginning to die away, the strain is gradually lowered, and the notes of triumph are mixed with supplication and complaint; as if the mind of the Psalmist were fluttering, as it were, between things present and to come, and made itself alternately present to his actual condition and his future hope.

In the third part, the Psalmist seems quite returned, from the prophetic enthusiasm, to his natural state; and closes the whole song with explicit but cool assertions of the future destruction of the wicked, and deliverance of the persecuted saints, and prays for the event.

under its own צרה is the substantive בצרה בצרה trouble

preposition, and is not well rendered as a genitive following my. 'Yagogãs év eixaigiats, iv drufu. LXX.

I choose this ambiguous

[B] Ver. 2. -subtleties." word; being in doubt whether the petition against the wicked be, that they may be ruined by their own stratagems against the righteous, or that they may be the dupes of their own atheistical speculations upon moral and religious subjects.

It seems to me that the word

may signify either "crafty

tricks" or

"refined theories ;" and in this latter sense it is

used in the fourth verse.

[C] Ver. 3. Truly the impious is mad," &c. Archbishop Secker places a full stop at 772. He takes

for a verb (not

a participle), making y, in the next line, its nominative.

He renders this and the following verse to this effect:

The wicked is mad upon his own heart's desire,

Blessing his gains.

The wicked in the pride of his countenance despiseth Je

hovah.

No inquiry will be made; there is no God, is all his thoughts.

[D] Ver. 5. His ways;" for 177 read with Houbigant

.דרכיו

[E] Ver. 8. The Psalmist passes to another part of the atheistical oppressor's character, viz. that he will descend to the meanest arts and stratagems against the most helpless objects.

.עשירים LXX. read

the

-in the villages." It should seem, that for "He sitteth in the ambush of the rich" i. e. He always takes part with the great in the oppression of the helpless. But Houbigant would read Yma in foreis. But what authority he has for this sense of the word y