INTRODUCTION. THE greater number of the Songs of the Hebrews, which have been preserved, are collected in the Psalter, or Book of Psalms, which forms a large portion of the services of the Christian Church, as it once did of those of the Jewish Temple. They have evidently been arranged in Holy Scripture with a view rather to spiritual edification than to enlightenment in matters of history; but the events to which they refer, and the circumstances under which their authors poured forth their joys and sorrows before God, must be a very interesting and profitable subject of study. It has occurred to me that an attempt to arrange these and other Songs contained in the Old Testament in something like historical order may not be an unacceptable work; for it may be beyond the power of the general reader to peruse the writings of the many learned Commentators, from whose various conjectures as to the dates at which these Songs were |