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An humble and broken heart,

Thou dost not despise.

And in another prayer, where he renders thanks for benefits.

Many things, O Jehovah, hast thou done for us,*
And thy wonderful thoughts are without number.
Yet will I declare, and speak of them,
Though they cannot be numbered,

Sacrifice, and offering thou didst not desire,
Thou saidst to me secretly in mine ear,t
Burnt-offering and sin-offering thou wouldst not.
Then Said I, lo! I come freely,t
Yea it is written for me in the law,
I delight to do thy will, O my God!
What thou requirest is within my heart.
I will proclaim what is thy will,
Before all the people,

I will not refrain my lips,

Jehovah, thou knowest.

A publick confession, publick songs of contrition and thanksgiving, David here puts in the place of sacrifices, and maintains, that in so doing, he fulfils the inward and true sense of the law. The Prophets are filled with corresponding expressions. We have no sacrificial songs in the Scriptures, such as the pagans used; those which treat of sacrifices are all moral and spiritual. So, also, was it with the most ancient, and

*Ps. xl. 5-10.

The expression, "thou openest mine ear," means obviously only what is clearly expressed afterwards. Thou lettest me silently apprehend thy will, thy proper aim, in all sacrifices. Thou sayest in mine ear, what the common people do not know, the sense of thy written law, and of the duties there prescribed.

That is," as a servant I am gladly obedient to the secret voice. "If this be the inward and proper sense of the law, it abides also in my own breast. It is that, which my own heart longs after, and gladly performs as duty. Compare Deut. xxx. 11. 12.

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most pleasing, unbloody thankofferings, and offerings of inWe have one song respecting them, of which the most enlightened age need not be ashamed. It is

THE FIFTIETH PSALM.-ASAPH's.

The God of Gods, Jehovah, spake,

And called upon the earth,

From the rising of the sun to its going down.

From Zion, the glory of the land, God shone forth*

Our God cometh, and shall not be silent,
Devouring fire goeth forth before him,
And a mighty tempest is round about him.
He calleth the heavens above, and the earth,t
To give judgment upon his people.

"Gather my saints together unto me,

Who have covenanted with me by sacrifice."
And all the heavens proclaimed him judge,
Jehovah, as a righteous judge.

Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
I will testify against thee, even I, thy God.
I reprove thee not for thy burnt offerings,t
For the incense, that ever ascends to me.
I desire no bullocks from thy house,
Nor he goats out of thy folds,
For every beast of the forest is mine,
The beasts upon a thousand hills.

I know all the fowls of the mountains,
And the wild beast of the field is mine.
If I were hungry, I need not tell thee,
For mine is the world and its fulness,

* As always from mountains; now however, no longer from Sinai and Seir, but from Zion, the glorious crown, the chief ornament of the whole land, because God dwelt upon it.

+ Before heaven and earth Israel had bound themselves to his covenant, Deut. xxxi. 28. and these must now, therefore, be witnesses, how Israel had understood and kept it. The Allwise, however, v. 7. speaks in their name, and the judge becomes himself the witness.

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That is, I do not put you upon trial with regard to external offerings; of these you bring me enough.

Thinkest thou I eat the flesh of bullocks?
Or drink the blood of goats?

Offer unto God thanksgiving,

Pay thy vows to the Most High,
Call upon me in the day of trouble,

And when I deliver thee, honour thou me.
Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me,

And to him, that taketh heed to his way,

Will I show the salvation of God.

It would carry me too far, to go through more particulars of the Mosaick code, and show, how, even in regard to indi- | vidual expressions, they have modified the language of poetry in the Prophets and Psalms. Let it suffice, to gather, yet, a few of the choicest specimens, since there is not room for a harvest of particular remarks.

1. In the political organization of Israel, every thing was originally connected with the sanctuary, and even bodily diseases, like moral delinquences, were regarded as rendering the subject of them impure. Hence, not only those were very naturally used as emblems of these, but also, the Prophets and poets spake of them in the language of the Sanctuary, that is, freely, openly, and without circumlocution. They regulated themselves, in this particular, not according to the laws of good society among us, of which they knew nothing. They spake as the law of Moses spake, as the father of his people thought. To the physician, expressions are allowed, which the refined villain, from no regard to morality, avoids; and a physician, who passes judgment as a priest, must not direct himself by the modes of a later and different age. It is mere folly, also, to judge of this whole class of words and images among the Hebrews by the caprices of our customs, and to affect to shudder at a Psalm, which paints base crimes in the form of loathsome eruptions, or at a chapter of the Prophets,

which describes with truth and energy, the corrupt manners of the age. In this, too, however, poetry is modified in accordance with the particular age and character of the poet. At the court of Solomon was not heard the language, which Ezechiel, the son of a priest, who had earnestly devoted himself to study the law of Moses, the temple, and the ancient customs, ventured to employ in his minute expositions. Such things were called by their true names in the East, too, for the very purpose of awakening detestation and loathing, by the shame of the exposure; for it is known, that those nations, in all these points, feel disgust more readily than we. By the Jewish law impurities were severely prohibited, which, among us are free from restraint, and an Arab would often blush at the questions of a European.

2. In the Sanctuary every small vessel, and every distinct part of the wall or tent had its name, and since all these things, as a Divine plan devised on Mount Sinai, and minutely described in the law, came down to a later age, it was a matter of course, that they should become the subjects of reflection, and poetical embellishment. Yet, it is not the less true, that the best periods of Hebrew poetry knew nothing of the fables, which were invented by the allegorizing spirit of a later age. What David sings of the hidden import of the law, is all of it really contained in Moses, and the developments of the Prophets, remain always true to the general character and frame of the institution. After the captivity, when the second temple was to be built, hidden meanings began to be devised, yet with some degree of wisdom, as is seen in Haggai and Zecharias. The spirit of mystical interpretation first spread itself from Egypt, at a still later period.

I do not mean by this to say, that the tabernacle of Moses, and his form of Divine worship, were not significant, even in their minute particulars. They were so, but only in regard to the general spirit of his law, and in the relation of individual parts to the whole. Moses was from Egypt and we know the

Egyptians were fond of hieroglyphics in their religious service, and even in their sacred edifices. Of some, he himself explains the import,* and thereby puts us upon the track; in following which, however, we must keep to the age of Moses, and the point of view, in which he stood; otherwise, we are in danger of seeing every thing in a wrong and inverted posi tion. The Prophets will furnish occasions for saying something on this point, and something will be indicated in the following poetical sketch, but this is not the place to go into the general character of the whole.

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3. The peculiar purpose of Moses, in giving the law, was not sacrifices, nor the forgivness of sins, but the prosperity of the State, the political welfare of the people of Jehovah. The most enlightened of the Prophets, especially Samuel and Isaiah, proceeded on the same plan, and there is no one of them, did not make this a leading object in his discourses and plans, If, therefore, in far later times, particular sayings and customs were separated from their true relations, and more importance attached to them, than Moses and his followers gave them, in the relations which they held with others, if in regard to the so called penitential Psalms, and the goat, that was sent into the wilderness, systems were invented, of which David and Moses never thought, this is yet but the common and necessary result, to which the revolutions of time subject them. It is to be considered, that those later ages had a number of different books, whose different sentiments they confounded together, and whose language, moreover, they employed for clothing their own thoughts. Here, too, it was a matter of importance what kind of men made use of them, what ideas they had in their own minds, and what would particularly find favour with them; finally, in what regard they were themselves,

* Thus Moses speaks of the circumcision of the heart, that the priest, when he goes into the sanctuary, bears the sins of the people, &c. The latter gave occasion, perhaps, to the beautiful 53d chapter of Isaiah, as the 11th verse shows.

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