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Milton has already reminded us that the Psalms belong to the second of the three orders into which the Greeks, with clear discernment, divided all poetry: the epic, the lyric, and the dramatic. The Psalms are rightly called lyrics because they are chiefly concerned with the immediate and imaginative expression of real feeling. It is the personal and emotional note that predominates. They are inward, confessional, intense; outpourings of the quickened spirit; self-revelations of the heart. It is for this reason that we should never separate them in our thought from the actual human life out of which they sprung. We must feel the warm pulse of humanity in them in order to comprehend their meaning and immortal worth. So far as we can connect them with the actual experience of men, this will help us to appreciate their reality and power. The effort to do this will make plain to us some other things which it is important to remember.

We shall see at once that the book does not come from a single writer, but from many authors and ages. It represents the heart of man in communion with God through a thousand years of history, from Moses to Nehemiah, perhaps even to the time of the Maccabean revival. It is, therefore, something very much larger and better than an individual book.

It is the golden treasury of lyrics gathered from the life of the Hebrew people, the hymn-book of the Jews. And this gives to it a singular and precious quality of brotherhood. The fault, or at least the danger, of modern lyrical poetry is that it is too solitary and separate in its tone. It tends towards exclusiveness, over-refinement, morbid sentiment. Many Christian hymns suffer from this defect. But the Psalms breathe a spirit of human fellowship even when they are most intensely personal. The poet rejoices or mourns in solitude, it may be, but he is not alone in spirit. He is one of the people. He is conscious always of the ties that bind him to his brother men. Compare the intense selfishness of the modern hymn:

I can but perish if I go;

I am resolved to try;

For if I stay away, I know

I shall forever die;

with the generous penitence of the Fifty-first Psalm:

Then will I teach transgressors thy way;

And sinners shall be converted unto thee.

It is important to observe that there are several different kinds of lyrics among the Psalms. Some of them are simple and natural outpourings of a single feeling, like A Shepherd’s Song about His Shepherd, the incomparable Twenty-third Psalm.

This little poem is a perfect melody. It would be impossible to express a pure, unmixed emotion—the feeling of joy in the Divine Goodness—more simply, with a more penetrating lyrical charm. The “valley of the death-shadow,” the “enemies” in whose presence the table is spread, are but dimly suggested in the background. The atmosphere of the psalm is clear and bright. The singing shepherd walks in light. The whole world is the House of the Lord, and life is altogether gladness.

How different is the tone, the quality, of the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm! This is not a melody, but a harmony; not a song, but an ode. The ode has been defined as “a strain of exalted and enthusiastic lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose and dealing progressively with one dignified theme.”[7] This definition precisely fits the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm.

Its theme is The Eternal Word. Every verse in the poem, except one, contains some name or description of the law, commandments, testimonies, precepts, statutes, or judgments of Jehovah. Its enthusiasm for the Divine Righteousness never fails from beginning to end. Its fixed purpose is to kindle in other hearts the flame of devotion to the one Holy Law. It closes with a touch of magnificent pathos—a confession of personal failure and an assertion of spiritual loyalty:

I have gone astray like a lost sheep:

Seek thy servant:

For I do not forget thy commandments.

The Fifteenth Psalm I should call a short didactic lyric. Its title is The Good Citizen. It begins with a question:

Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?

Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

This question is answered by the description of a man whose character corresponds to the law of God. First there is a positive sketch in three broad lines:

He that walketh uprightly,

And worketh righteousness,

And speaketh truth in his heart.

Then comes a negative characterization in a finely touched triplet:

He that backbiteth not with his tongue,

Nor doeth evil to his neighbor,

Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.

This is followed by a couplet containing a strong contrast:

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned:

But he honoureth them that fear the Lord.

Then the description goes back to the negative style again and three more touches are added to the picture:

He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not,

He that putteth not out his money to usury,

Nor taketh reward against the innocent.

The poem closes with a single vigourous line, summing up the character of the good citizen and answering the question of the first verse with a new emphasis of security and permanence:

He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

The Seventy-eighth, One Hundred and Fifth, and One Hundred and Sixth Psalms are lyrical ballads. They tell the story of Israel in Egypt, and in the Wilderness, and in Canaan, with swift, stirring phrases, and with splendid flashes of imagery. Take this passage from the Seventy-eighth Psalm as an example:

He clave the rocks in the wilderness,

And gave them drink out of the great depths.

He brought streams also out of the rock,

And caused waters to run down like rivers.

And they sinned yet more against him,

Provoking the Most High in the wilderness.

They tempted God in their hearts,

Asking meat for their lust.

Yea, they spake against God:

They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

Behold, he smote the rock that the waters gushed out,

And the streams overflowed;

Can he give bread also?

Can he provide flesh for his people?

Therefore the Lord heard and was wroth:

So a fire was kindled against Jacob,

And anger also came up against Israel:

Because they believed not in God,

And trusted not in his salvation:

Though he had commanded the clouds from above,

And opened the doors of heaven,

And had rained down manna upon them to eat,

And had given them of the corn of heaven,

Man did eat angel’s food:

He sent them meat to the full.

He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven,

And by his power he brought in the south wind.

He rained flesh also upon them as dust,

And feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea.

And he let it fall in the midst of their camp,

Round about their habitations;

So they did eat and were filled,

For he gave them their own desire.

They were not estranged from their lust:

But while the meat was yet in their mouths,

The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them,

And smote down the chosen men of Israel.

The Forty-fifth Psalm is a Marriage Ode: the Hebrew title calls it a Love Song. It bears all the marks of having been composed for some royal wedding-feast in Jerusalem.

There are many nature lyrics among the Psalms. The Twenty-ninth is notable for its rugged realism. It is a Song of Thunder.

The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars:

Yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon:

He maketh them also to skip like a calf:

Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.

The One Hundred and Fourth, on the contrary, is full of calm sublimity and meditative grandeur.

O, Lord, my God, thou art very great:

Thou art clothed with honour and majesty:

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment;

Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain.

The Nineteenth is famous for its splendid comparison between “the starry heavens and the moral law.”

I think that we may find also some dramatic lyrics among the Psalms—poems composed to express the feelings of an historic person, like David or Solomon, in certain well-known and striking experiences of his life. That a later writer should thus embody and express the truth dramatically through the personality of some great hero of the past, involves no falsehood. It is a mode of utterance which has been common to the literature of all lands and of all ages. Such a method of composition would certainly be no hindrance to the spirit of inspiration. The Thirty-first Psalm, for instance, is ascribed by the title to David. But there is strong reason, in the phraseology and in the spirit of the poem, to believe that it was written by the Prophet Jeremiah.