Introduction
It will, probably, never be known who wrote this psalm. There seems to be no historical basis for the supposition that Ezra was its author, though he may have edited it and given it to the world. He certainly, “a scribe learned in the law of the Lord,” devoted himself to copying, arranging, and explaining the word. He was the first true scribe; the founder of that order whom, in their decay, the Saviour denounced as taking away the key of knowledge, the exact reverse of the purpose of Ezra’s toilsome and faithful life. To edit this psalm would, to such a man, be a labour of love. Its true author must, like the authors of some other books of Scripture, have been a man whose name is nowhere discernible.
The structure of the psalm shows that when it was written the joyous freedom of natural poetry had been succeeded by careful attention to form. Here are as many divisions as there are letters in the Hebrew alphabet; and each of the eight verses in a division begins, in the Hebrew, with the letter naming the division. To true poetic taste there is no merit in this artifice of form, just as there is no merit in rhyme or metre. Yet these give a certain pleasure, and also aid our memory. So the form of this psalm pleased those for whom it was first written, and made its recollection easier. Through these divisions runs a faintly discernible logical connexion.
If other indications of date were wanting, its form would suggest that it was not written in the same times with the spontaneous, unlaboured poetry of David. It belongs to the days of more careful composition, such as marks the first psalm. In its days, the temple and its ordinances, the fasts and feasts, could not have existed, for it contains no allusion to them. It must have been written in a time of trouble of personal as well as national trouble for it contains many resolutions and exhortations to fortitude. It must have been the work of one who knew the condition of his countrymen, yet was himself in a degree of solitude, as we see here traces of long, unbroken meditation. All these demands are satisfied by dating the psalm somewhere in the times of the Babylonish captivity.
The first doctrinal teaching of this psalm is the superiority of the word to all ordinances. The great principles “settled in heaven,” called here by ten synonymes, are set forth as enduring for ever. The solemn judgments of God on human conduct, for all lands and ages, are here acknowledged and adored. This indicates a breadth of view such as was certainly one of the good fruits of the sore affliction of the captivity. It set thoughtful minds to discern what it was that could not be shaken, but was to remain. The second teaching of the psalm is the value of inward experience in support of outward sorrow and suffering. The triumph of solitary virtue, as in Daniel and Nehemiah, under sore trials, proved the strength of the heart in which the sayings of the Lord were hid. In dark times, they who had the word abiding in them had a light for their path. Only in affliction and trial can we take this psalm to ourselves. It is then not too long, and not at all monotonous. Each verse presents afresh the truths by which men live, and live when the sorrows of death take hold of them. There is a logical, a beautiful relation between this psalm and Ecclesiastes, which suggests that they may have been written near the same period. In Ecclesiastes a sad and thoughtful man seeks for solace and satisfaction in worldly good, and seeks in vain. From the highest plane that he reaches, “Fear God, and keep his commandments,” this psalm, like the patriarch’s ladder, rises heavenward, and reaches perfect rest and unfailing comfort. Thus the exercises of a single soul are recorded for the good of many souls. Here “they that wait and ponder” can renew their strength in the word that shows the way, the truth, and the life.
Israel was now entering upon the reign of law as distinct from the reign of ordinances. The sentiment of the nation was, for some centuries, in harmony with this psalm. Through wars, revolts, and oppressions, even when the daily sacrifice was taken away, and families scattered in many lands, it was the law, as here set forth, that upheld the Jewish character. It became the object of fond, earnest thought and study. Commentaries, lectures, and oral expositions were made upon it. After a long while such is human infirmity the law was confused and made void by the growth of interpretations. ONE then arose and restored its power by teaching it as one who had “authority, and not as the scribes.” But it may be said, that if the law had been steadily held in the simple reverence shown in this psalm, St. Paul, in Romans, would not have been compelled to show it as cramping his spirit and hindering his way to the higher forms of experience.
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