ful Israel during that great national crisis (e.g. Pss. xliv.,
lxxiv., lxxix., lxxx.). But it must have been substantially complete
by the time that the Septuagint translation was made (in the second
century {7} B.C.); and so ancient then were the titles of the Psalms in
the Hebrew that these Alexandrine scholars seem to have been frequently
puzzled by them.

This collection of 150 Psalms, whenever precisely it may have been
made, was divided into five books, each ending with an outburst of
praise to the God of Israel.[4] The key to this somewhat artificial
arrangement is no doubt to be found in the desire to make the Psalter
correspond with the Pentateuch. "Moses," says a Rabbinical commentator
(Midrash _Tillim_), "gave five-fifths of the Law, and correspondingly
David gave the book of _Tehillim_, in which are five books." Of this
Dr. Cheyne says, "The remark is a suggestive one: it seems to mean
this--that the praise-book is the answer of the worshipping community
to the demands made by its Lord in the Law, the reflexion of the
external standard of faith and obedience in the utterance of the
believing heart." This criticism is so illuminating that it may well
suggest the first great principle in our own Christian use of the
Psalter.

I. The Psalter is the inspired answer of praise which human faith is
privileged to make to {8} God's revelation. It is the "new song" put
in the mouth of humanity by its Creator. "Thou preparest their heart,
and Thine ear hearkeneth thereto" (Ps. x. 19).

This is surely a very great thought. The Old Testament is the record
of God's gradual unveiling of Himself to His elect, whom for the
world's sake He had chosen out of the world. The revelation was not
indeed to them alone. God had spoken in many ways, more than even the
Church yet recognises, to the heathen world. Yet to Israel God gave
that highest privilege of receiving and keeping the true knowledge of
Himself, of His unity, His universality, His moral being, His holiness,
His love, and of the demand which this knowledge makes on human
conscience. The unknown author of 2 Esdras, looking back on history
after the great blow had fallen on Jerusalem, has expressed this in
vivid and pathetic language: "Of all the flowers of the world Thou hast
chosen Thee one lily: and of all the depths of the sea Thou hast filled
Thee one river: and of all builded cities Thou hast hallowed Sion unto
Thyself: ... and among all the multi