quent custom of the Hebrew poets and prophets to personify lands, people, and cities as young women or matrons. See Isa. iv. 4, “Daughters of Zion." for the cities of Judah, and xxiii. 12, "Daughters of Zion,” for Zion. But we need seek no farther for examples, since even in v. 13, the " Daughters of Tyre" stands for Tyre. So here the Psalmist personifies the covenant people, and represents them as a bride, who shall be brought in costly array to the illustrious king, who will take her as his beloved, on condition that she renounces for him all that she had loved before. This figurative representation need the less surprise us, since the same image is so often employed, in both the Old and New Testaments, to represent the revelation of God, or of Christ, to his people. Thus throughout the whole of the Song of Solomon, God appears as the lover, and the people of Israel as the beloved, or bride. See Rosenmüller, "über des hohen Liedes Sinn und Auslegung," in den Analekten von Keil and Tschirner 1, 3, und den Aufsatz: "über das hohe Lied," Evangel. K. Z.-I. S. 177, seq. Isaiah predicted, liv. 5, "Thy maker shall then be thy husband. His name is Jehovah of hosts. And thy Redeemer the Holy one of Israel: the God of the whole earth shall he be called." In Isa. lxii. 5, he says, For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee, and as a bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.' In chap. L. 1, the decree of rejection, which God pronounced against the people of Israel, is styled a bill of divorcement. Comp. farther Jer. iii. 1. Hos. i-iii. Ez. xvi. 23. In the New Testament, also, Christ calls himself a bridegroom, Matt. ix. 15. John regards himself as only the friend of the bridegroom, and points out Christ as the bridegroom who should possess the bride, John iii. 29. See also Rom. vii. 4. Eph. v. 27. 1 Cor. xi. The necessity of the metaphorical interpretation may also be shown by v. 15. There it is said, "she shall be brought into the king in raiment of needle work, the virgins her compan

ions that follow her shall be brought unto thee." These virgins are the same who, in v. 10, are called kings' daughters. We must not even on this account suppose with some interpreters that they are merely conductors and attendants of the bride. The words, moreover, her companions,' and they shall be brought unto thee,' shew that these virgins also, no less than the bride, are to be united with the king in love. Here then an insuperable difficulty arises in the way of those, who regard this Psalm as a nuptial ode: since it was not the custom to take more than one wife at the same time.1 But the Messianic interpretation entirely removes this difficulty. The companions of the Queen, who, though inferior in rank, are still to be united with the king, are then the heathen nations over whom, indeed, the people of Israel, as the ancient covenant people of God, enjoy a certain outward pre-eminence, but who, according to the standing prediction of the prophets, and the authors of the Psalms, were to have an equal share in the blessing of the Messiah's kingdom. Thus of Old the Chaldee paraphrase and Kimchi, "filiae regum sunt gentes, quae omnes ad obsequium regis Messiae redigentur." A metaphorical representation, altogether similar, is found in Cant. vi. 7, 8, "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number, but my dove is but one." Here therefore we are taught in the usual figurative language, what in other Messianic Psalms is simply expressed; as in Psalm ii. 8,⚫ That the Messias shall take for his possession all the people of the earth;' Ps. lxxii. 8,That he shall reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth,' etc.-V. 17, it is said that the king will

That the Psalm, unless it be referred to the Messiah, can be taken for nothing else than a song of praise to a king on occasion of his marriage, appears from the exhortation v. 11, which can properly relate only to a bride, and not to a wife of the king. The same is true also of the promise, v. 17.

make his sons princes in all the earth. That the can have only the meaning we

בְכָל־הָאָרֶץ words

have given, and cannot be translated in all the land,' De Wette himself confesses. He says, also, that it is only by the extravagance of flattery that such language could be addressed to a Persian king. But besides the arguments already adduced against the supposition, that the subject is a Persian king, we may add the close resemblance between this and Psalm LXXII., which De Wette himself explains of a king of Israel. The Messianic interpretation gives a sense as natural as it is suitable. The poet derives his figurative representation from the circumstances of the time in which he lived. Solomon had divided Palestine into twelve departments, see 1 Kings iv. 7, and 2 Sam viii. 18, it would seem that David had already established his sons as agents under himself. The same thing was done by Rehoboam, 2 Chron. xi. 23. And as the earthly heads of the Theocracy divided their kingdom, which was confined to the bounds of Palestine, among their sons, so shall the Messiah divide among his offspring his far wider dominion, which extends over the whole earth. It follows, however, from the character of the union from which they spring, that these are not natural, but spiritual children. This metaphorical representation, can, moreover, be sustained by analogous examples. See Is. liii. 10. Finally, the prediction in v. 18, that many nations shall praise him, is, to say the least, more applicable to the Messiah than to any earthly king.

Having thus brought forward the positive proofs for the Messianic character of the Psalm, it now remains to remove the objections which have been urged against it, at least, so far as they have not been refuted by what has already been advanced. Of this character is the general charge, so often repeated by several non-Messianic interpreters, o capricious allegorizing. But this objection is valid

only when the interpreter fails to show, either from internal or external evidence, that the literal meaning cannot be the true one, and that the author designed to represent spiritual objects by sensible images. See Anton, 1. c. p. 27. We take the objections principally from Paulus-Clavis S. 119, who has made a tolerably complete collection of what others, as Teller, zu Turretin de interpret. S. Script. p. 165, seq., Schulz, Critik der Messianisch Psalmen ; Jacobi, Psalmen übers, and lastly, Kaiser, have brought forward repeatedly.

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1. True there are frequently metaphorical representations in the Hebrew writers; but it is not the practice of a good writer to carry out the allegory so far." Thus Teller, 1. c. p. 185. But, in answer to this, we have a sufficient number of examples, even though we should not choose to appeal to the splendid example of the Song of Songs.' We need only compare the allegorical representations of the fall of Babylon, Is. xlvii. where Babylon is personified and described as a rich delicate lady, who is now bereaved of her husband, and overwhelmed in the deepest misery; the similar representations, extended to the minutest particulars, in Ez. xvi. and xxiii. and the figurative description continued throughout the first three chapters of Hosea, and we shall be obliged to confess that the author of this Psalm has confined himself within very narrow limits.

2. "The Psalmist, who could borrow his colouring from all the royal splendour of a Jewish monarch, in order to describe his Messiah, has, nevertheless, chosen very unskilfully, and given him a costume which does not belong to him. The kingdom of the Jewish Messiah can indeed be presented to him as a bride clothed in all the splendour of the East, and attended by maidens and companions; but then he has but one bride, one spouse, the people of Israel." One can scarcely conceive what is meant by this objection. Do they intend to assert that the sacred poets and prophets of the Old Testament, regarded

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their Messiah as destined for the Jews alone? This has already been sufficiently refuted by the passages quoted from the Psalm. But if it was expected that the kingdom of the Messiah should embrace the heathen as well as the Jews, since it is conceded that the Jewish people can be personified as his bride, what reason can be given why the heathen nations should not be represented in the same manner; especially as the circumstances of an Oriental court, where many wives of inferior rank stand by the side of one peculiarly distinguished, gives so much occasion to carry out the allegory to such an extent? Finally, the author, in ascribing to the people of Israel such an outward distinction, wisely followed the mode of representing the Messiah's kingdom, which prevails throughout the Old Testament; where the Jewish people are always regarded as the original stock, and the heathen nations, who were only to be engrafted upon it, sustain a relation somewhat subordinate; a view of the subject afterwards confirmed by Christ and his apostles, Rom.

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3. Figures like v. 12, so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty' are improper, and not usual with the sacred writers." But then we must allow it to be equally objectionable, when Isaiah compares the delight of God in his people, with that of the bridegroom in his bride; or when Paul styles the church a bride, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; and, therefore, enjoying the perfect love of her exalted bridegroom. To say nothing of other passages, is not spiritul beauty here also represented by the figure of personal beauty?

4. "How shall this bride of the Messiah forget her own people? She is herself this people personified." But precisely because the representation is figurative, and the covenant people appear personified as a bride, must the thought, that after their union with this exalted king, they should render to him their exclusive love, and renounce every previous