04.19 - Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Job, and Psalms

(19) Ecclesiastes Proverbs, Job, and Psalms The author of Ecclesiastes may be said to take a somewhat gloomy and pessimistic view of things.

God is recognised as the Governor and Ruler of the world; nevertheless, much happens by chance and not by law and order. He is an austere Being Whose throne is on high, and He has but little regard for the things that are done on the earth. Though the tone of the book is sceptical and pessimistic, it cannot be said to teach scepticism or to encourage pessimism. Life ma} be largely made up of “dreams and vanities,” but to “ fear God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man.” It proclaims a deep sense of dissatisfaction with the world, and its insufficiency to meet the needs of humanity, but it supplies the starting-point of a true quest when it declares “ God has placed eternity in the heart of man,” that he may move upwards towards God, heaven, and life eternal. For the full realisation of this we must turn elsewhere, even to Christ and His Gospel, by whom “ life and immortality have been brought to light.” So the book of Proverbs may be earthly in its tone, utilitarian in principle, and sordid in some of its maxims; nevertheless, its prudential and ethical teachings are l Ecclesiastes 12:13. connected with the “ fear “ and the “ law of the Lord,” and with the highest and truest “ wisdom.” Its social, civil, and business teachings are of a high religious character, its counsels of virtue, purity, fidelity, and honesty accord with the requirements of the Law and the Prophets, for kings to commit wickedness is an abomination, while “ righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” * The ode on the virtuous woman with which the book closes is incomparable in literature and national ethics. On questions of religion and morality, of faith and goodness, of the knowledge and fear of God, of uprightness and true manliness, we have an echo of the truths enforced by the Prophets and exhibited in the teachings of our Lord and His Apostles. The highest, sublimest, and most spiritual teaching of the book is in its description and presentation of “ wisdom,” and its identification with the thought, word, and mind of God in Creation, Providence, and Redemption, which reads like a prophetic forecast of the Divine Logos, the Eternal Word, the First-born of all Creation, by Whom God made the world and all things therein. Whether the wise men who wrote the Proverbs were prophets or not, we recognise a fundamental unity in the teaching which accords with the highest revelation of God to man. For Jesus is not only the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God in a mystery, perfect, possible, and available for all but He is made unto them that believe “ wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” and “giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.” 2 In Job we have a genuine outcome of the religious 1 Proverbs 14:34 2 1 Corinthians 1:30; James 1:5. thought and life of Israel, a product of the religious life, knowledge, and experience of that people, and of that people in the later stages of its history. The doctrine of God is that of a righteous and moral Governor of the world, just and true in all His ways and dealings with the children of men; and this righteousness and justice must manifest itself in the face of all difficulties and objections. The problem of the book is the suffering and affliction of the righteous. Job as a righteous man was called upon to endure trial, chastisement, and severe discipline; to submit calmly, patiently, and without complaining to losses, calamities, and sufferings of various kinds, and amid the reproaches of friend and foe to maintain His faith and confidence in the justice, righteousness, and goodness of God. This he did, saying, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” 1 “ Jehovah gave, and Jehovah hath taken away, blessed be the name of Jehovah.” 2 Nature, philosophy, and science have in their turn supplied some contribution towards the better understanding and solution of this problem; but the problem is a moral and religious one, and is related to the fact of sin and the character of God as Saviour and Judge of men.

Man is a moral being, is the subject of a moral government, placed under moral law, the violation of which has entailed suffering and death which have come upon all men in that all arc part of the same race and all have sinned. Hence suffering and death are not only personal but racial, not only punitive but vicarious, and belong not only to the present but the future. And while the righteous may suffer here, 1 Job 13:15; Job 21:21. and suffer not only on account of their own sins, but the sins of others, Job was also assured that there would be an ultimate and future vindication. This assurance he has expressed in one of the grandest and sublimest passages in the realm of literature, and yet one very difficult to interpret: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand up at last on the earth; and after my skin hath been thus destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another, though my veins be consumed within me.” 1

It is in the Psalms, however, that theological, religious, ethical, and eschatological questions find their fullest expression in Old Testament revelation.

Modern Criticism regards the Psalms as the back ground of individual and national history, reflecting in their contents incidents in the lives of their authors, and the varying fortunes of Israel as a nation. There is that; but this personal and national element by no means exhausts their religious meaning and teaching. The personal element is soon lost in the impersonal, the national in the universal, the Jewish in the Christian. “ Universality and timelessness “ are distinguishing characteristics of the Psalms and a witness to their divine inspiration.

They view Israel’s history in the light of high, moral, and eternal principles, which are for all time and for all men. The most particular and immediate inci dents reach forth into the most universal and permanent issues. The “ I “ and the “ we “ Psalms often express more fully the personified genius and experiences of Israel and of the Church-nation than those 1 Chap. 19:25-27. of the individual author. We have, therefore, in the Psalms indications of the national and Church consciousness God ward, as well as the utterances of individual experiences of king, Psalmist, or one of the Prophets, who may have been the author and immediate subject of the Psalm. Hence the difficult} in fixing the date, occasion, and primary significance of the Psalms from their contents, and the necessity for a broad and liberal view in determining their origin and place in the progress of Divine revelation.

Without attempting to discuss the date, origin, and authorship of the Psalms we content ourselves by saying that we regard them as a growth, and covering a period of many centuries from the time of David to that of the Maccabees, and while the present arrangement is post-Exilian, and formed the hymn-book of the second temple, the religious teaching of the Psalter exhibits the religious development of Israel: and the spirit of psalmody is the spirit of prophecy. And so we have Jehovistic and Elohistlc Psalms, God transcendent and immanent in nature and religion, God in providence and grace, God as King, Redeemer, and Judge of the world. The attributes of God are of the most exalted character, and in His moral character is the Holy One, the ideal after which men arc called to take pattern. He hateth sin and delighteth in goodness, He abhorreth iniquity and findeth pleasure in righteousness, He is “ nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” 1 Sin is the abominable thing which God hates, and when the Psalmist realises its malignity and evil he abhors himself in dust and ashes, ips. 34:1 8, and with true penitence and contrition turns to God and seeks forgiveness. The Psalmist also speaks of “sacrifice and offering,” of “redemption and salvation,” of “pardon, forgiveness, and justification”: and though these terms may not have the same doctrinal significance and fulness of meaning they have in the New Testament Scriptures, they yet reveal a know ledge of the redemption and salvation God accomplished for the race. If they do not exhibit the genuine current coin of Christian revelation and experience they are the molten metal out of which genuine coin is made and stamped.

We may not be justified in saying with Bishops Wordsworth, Alexander, and others, that the Psalms contain the same principle of atonement and salvation, the same doctrine of sin, repentance, and forgiveness; the same “ sweet interworking of the grace of God and the will of man,” and that they are no less full of Christ and redemption than are the writings of John and Paul; nor do we say they reveal the religion of Israel in its divinest form, its highest spirituality, and most abiding manifestations. It may be equally true that the ii, xxii, xlv, Ixxii, ex, and other Psalms which seem most clearly to refer to the Person, mission, death, resurrection, kingdom, and reign of Christ were not so understood and intended by their authors.

Nevertheless, the Spirit of God that was in them and guided them in their utterances, and thus moved them to speak and write, was by them intentionally furthering the purpose of divine revelation and redemption for the race. And we know how our Lord and His Apostles in their day quoted the Psalms as testifying of the mission, kingdom, and reign of Christ. And this truth is not weakened by the statement that the Psalms are nut so much the revelation of God and of His relation to the Chinch and the world, as they are the pious thoughts, reflections, and meditations of men on God and religious truth.

They are both. And it is through men, through their conceptions, experiences, and knowledge, the revelation of God in the Scriptures has been given us. And so the utterances of the Psalms are echoes of God’s law in the hearts and through the lives and experiences of men who strive to be faithful to it, and on that account are not less the revelation of God through them to us to whom those experiences have been made known. What reached them in this way may also find us, and through the use of the Psalms as prayers, hymns, and songs of praise we may come to know God as much so as by To rah and prophecy.