Armenia in comments -- Book: 1 Chronicles (t1Chron) Ա Մնացորդաց
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t1Chron 16::8 This hymn forms a connected and uniform whole. Beginning with a summons to praise the Lord, and to seek His face (Ch1 16:8-11), the singer exhorts his people to remember the wondrous works of the Lord (Ch1 16:12-14), and the covenant which He made with the patriarchs to give them the land of Canaan (Ch1 16:15-18), and confirms his exhortation by pointing out how the Lord, in fulfilment of His promise, had mightily and gloriously defended the patriarchs (Ch1 16:19-22). But all the world also are to praise Him as the only true and almighty God (Ch1 16:23-27), and all peoples do homage to Him with sacrificial gifts (Ch1 16:28-30); and that His kingdom may be acknowledged among the heathen, even inanimate nature will rejoice at His coming to judgment (Ch1 16:31-33). In conclusion, we have again the summons to thankfulness,combined with a prayer that God would further vouchsafe salvation; and a doxology rounds off the whole (Ch1 16:34-36). When we consider the contents of the whole hymn, it is manifest that it contains nothing which would be at all inconsistent with the belief that it was composed by David for the above-mentioned religious service. There is nowhere any reference to the condition of the people in exile, nor yet to the circumstances after the exile. The subject of the praise to which Israel is summoned is the covenant which God made with Abraham, and the wonderful way in which the patriarchs were led. The summons to the heathen to acknowledge Jahve as alone God and King of the world, and to come before His presence with sacrificial offerings, together with the thought that Jahve will come to judge the earth, belong to the Messianic hopes. These had formed themselves upon the foundation of the promises given to the patriarchs, and the view they had of Jahve as Judge of the heathen, when He led His people out of Egypt,so early, that even in the song of Moses at the Red Sea (Ex. 15), and the song of the pious Hannah (Sa1 2:1-10), we meet with the first germs of them; and what we find in David and the prophets after him are only further development of these.
Yet all the later commentators, with the exception of Hitzig, die Psalmen, ii. S. ix.f., judge otherwise as to the origin of this festal hymn. Because the first half of it (Ch1 16:8-22) recurs in Psa 105:1-15, the second (Ch1 16:23-33) in Psa 96:1-13, and the conclusion (Ch1 16:34-36) in Ps.Psa 106:1, Psa 106:47-48, it is concluded that the author of the Chronicle compounded the hymn from these three psalms, in order to reproduce the festive songs which were heard after the ark had been brought in, in the same free way in which the speeches in Thucydides and Livy reproduce what was spoken at various times. Besides the later commentators, Aug. Koehler (in the Luth. Ztschr. 1867, S. 289ff.) and C. Ehrt (Abfassungszeit und Abschluss des Psalters, Leipz. 1869, S. 41ff.) are of the same opinion. The possibility that our hymn may have arisen in this way cannot be denied; for such a supposition would be in so far consistent with the character of the Chronicle, as we find in it speeches which have not been reported verbatim by the hearers, but are given in substance or in freer outline by the author of our Chronicle, or, as is more probable, by the author of the original documents made use of by the chronicler. But this view can only be shown to be correct if it corresponds to the relation in which our hymn may be ascertained to stand to the three psalms just mentioned. Besides the face that its different sections are again met with scattered about in different psalms, the grounds for supposing that our hymn is not an original poem are mainly the want of connection in the transition from Ch1 16:22 to v.23, and from Ch1 16:33 to v.34; the fact that in v.35 we have a verse referring to the Babylonian exile borrowed from Ps 106; and that Ch1 16:36 is even the doxology of the fourth book of Psalms, taken to be a component part of the psalm. These two latter grounds would be decisive, if the facts on which they rest were well authenticated. If. Ch1 16:36 really contained only the doxology of the fourth book of Psalms-which, like the doxologies of the first, second, and third books (Ps. 41:14; Psa 72:18-19, and 89:53), was merely formally connected with the psalm, without being a component part of it-there could be no doubt that the author of the Chronicle had taken the conclusion of his hymn from our collection of psalms, as these doxologies only date from the originators of our collection. But this is not the state of the case. Psa 106:48 does, it is true, occupy in our Psalter the place of the doxology to the fourth book, but belonged, as Bertheau also acknowledges, originally to the psalm itself. For not only is it different in form from the doxologies of the first three books, not having the double ואמן אמן with which these books close, but it concludes with the simple הללוּ־יהּ אמן. If the ואמן אמן connected by ו is, in the Old Testament language, exclusively confined to these doxologies, which thus approach the language of the liturgical Beracha of the second temple, as Del. Ps. p. 15 rightly remarks, while in Num 5:22 and Neh 8:6 only אמן אמן without copulative w occurs, it is just this peculiarity of the liturgical Beracha which is wanting, both in the concluding verse of the 106th Psalm and in Ch1 16:36 of our festal hymn. Moreover, the remainder of the verse in question - the last clause of it, "And let all the people say Amen, Halleluiah," - does not suit the hypothesis that the verse is the doxology appended to the conclusion of the fourth book by the collector of the Psalms, since, as Hengstenberg in his commentary on the psalm rightly remarks, "it is inconceivable that the people should join in that which, as mere closing doxology of a book, would have no religious character;" and "the praise in the conclusion of the psalm beautifully coincides with its commencement, and the Halleluiah of the end is shown to be an original part of the psalm by its correspondence with the beginning."
(Note: Bertheau also rightly says: "If in Ps 72 (as also in Ps 89 and 91) the author of the doxology himself says Amen, while in Psa 106:48 the saying of the Amen is committed to the people, this difference can only arise from the face that Ps 106 originally concluded with the exhortation to say Amen." Hitzig speaks with still more decision, die Pss. (1865), ii. S. x.: "If (in Ps 106) Psa 106:47 is the conclusion, a proper ending is wanting; while Psa 106:48, on the contrary, places the psalm on a level with Ps 103-105; 107. Who can believe that the author himself, for the purpose of ending the fourth book with Psa 106:48, caused the psalm to extend to the Psa 106:48? In the Chronicle, the people whom the verse mentions are present from 1 Chron 15:3-16:2, while in the psalm no one can see how they should come in there. Whether the verse belong to the psalm or not, the turning to all the people, and the causing the people to say Amen, Amen, instead of the writer, has no parallel in the Psalms, and is explicable only on the supposition that it comes from the Chronicle. Afterwards a Diaskeuast might be satisfied to take the verse as the boundary-stone of a book.")
The last verse of our hymn does not therefore presuppose the existence of the collection of psalms, nor in Ch1 16:35 is there any indubitable reference to the exilic time. The words, "Say, 'Save us, Thou God of our salvation; gather us together, and deliver us from among the heathen,' " do not presuppose that the people had been previously led away into the Chald:ean exile, but only the dispersion of prisoners of war, led away captive into an enemy's land after a defeat. This usually occurred after each defeat of Israel by their enemies, and it was just such cases Solomon had in view in his prayer, Kg1 8:46-50.
The decision as to the origin of this festal hymn, therefore, depends upon its internal characteristics, and the result of a comparison of the respective texts. The song in itself forms, as Hitz. l.c. S. 19 rightly judges, "a thoroughly coherent and organic whole. The worshippers of Jahve are to sing His praise in memory of His covenant which He made with their fathers, and because of which He protected them (Ch1 16:18-22). But all the world also are to praise Him, the only true God (Ch1 16:23-27); the peoples are to come before Him with gifts; yea, even inanimate nature is to pay the King and Judge its homage (Ch1 16:28-33). Israel - and with this the end returns to the beginning-is to thank Jahve, and invoke His help against the heathen (Ch1 16:34 and Ch1 16:35)." This exposition of the symmetrical disposition of the psalm is not rendered questionable by the objections raised by Koehler, l.c.; nor can the recurrence of the individual parts of it in three different psalms of itself at all prove that in the Chronicle we have not the original form of the hymn. "There is nothing to hinder us from supposing that the author of Psa 96:1-13 may be the same as the author of Ps 105 and 106; but even another might be induced by example to appropriate the first half of Ch1 16:8., as his predecessor had appropriated the second, and it would naturally occur to him to supply from his own resources the continuation which had been already taken away and made use of" (Hitz. l.c.). A similar phenomenon is the recurrence of the second half of Psa 40:17. as an independent psalm, Psa 70:1-5. "But it is also readily seen,"continues Hitzig, "how easily the psalmist might separate the last three verses from each other (Ch1 16:34-36 of the Chronicle), and set them as a frame round Ps 106. Ch1 16:34 is not less suitable in the Chronicle for the commencement of a paragraph than in Ps 107, which Psa 107:6 would admit of no continuation, but was the proper end. On the other hand, we can scarcely believe that the chronicler compiled his song first from Ps 105, then from Psa 96:1-13, and lastly from Ps 106, striking off from this latter only the beginning and the end."
Finally, if we compare the text of our hymn with the text of these psalms, the divergences are of such a sort that we cannot decide with certainty which of the two texts is the original. To pass over such critically indifferent variations as פּיהוּ, Ch1 16:12, for פּיו, Psa 105:5; the omission of the nota acc. את, Ch1 16:18, compared with Psa 105:10, and vice versa in Psa 96:3 and Ch1 16:24; היּער עצי, Ch1 16:33, instead of היּער כּל־עצי, Psa 96:12, - the chronicler has in יצחק, Ch1 16:16, instead of ישׂחק, Psa 105:9, and יעלץ, Ch1 16:32, instead of יעלז, Psa 96:12, the earlier and more primitive form; in תּרעוּ אל בּנביאי, Ch1 16:22, instead of תּרעוּ אל לנביאי, Psa 105:15, a quite unusual construction; and in יום אל מיּום, Ch1 16:23, the older form (cf. Num 30:15), instead of ליום מיּום, Psa 96:2, as in Est 3:7; while, on the other hand, instead of the unexampled phrase לעשׁקם אדם הנּיח, Psa 105:14, there stands in the Chronicle the usual phrase לאישׁ הנּיח, and שׂדי dna , in Psa 96:12 is the poetical form for the השּׂדה of Ch1 16:32. More important are the wider divergences: not so much ישׂראל זרע, Ch1 16:13, for אברהם זרע, Psa 105:6, in which latter case it is doubtful whether the עבדּו refers to the patriarchs or to the people, and consequently, as the parallelismus membrorum demands the latter references, ישׂראל is clearly the more correct and intelligible; but rather than the others, viz., זכרוּ, Ch1 16:15, for זכר, Psa 105:8; since זכרוּ not only corresponds to the זכרוּ of Ch1 16:11, but alto to the use made of the song for the purposes stated in the Chronicle; while, on the contrary, זכר of the psalm corresponds to the object of the psalm, viz., to exalt the covenant grace shown to the patriarchs. Connected with this also is the reading בּהיותכם, "when ye (sons of Jacob) were" (Ch1 16:19), instead of בּהיותם, Psa 105:12, "when they (the patriarchs) were," since the narrative of what the Lord had done demanded בהיותם. Now the more likely the reference of the words to the patriarchs was to suggest itself, the more unlikely is the hypothesis of an alteration into בהיותכם; and the text of the Chronicle being the more difficult, is consequently to be regarded as the earlier. Moreover, the divergences of Ch1 16:23 to 33 of our hymn from Psa 96:1-13 are such as would result from its having been prepared for the above-mentioned solemn festival. The omission of the two strophes, "Sing unto Jahve a new song, sing unto Jahve, bless His name" (Psa 96:1 and Psa 96:2), in Ch1 16:23 of the Chronicle might be accounted for by regarding that part of our hymn as an abridgment by the chronicler of the original song, when connecting it with the preceding praise of God, were it certain on other grounds that Psa 96:1-13 was the original; but if the chronicler's hymn be the original, we may just as well believe that this section was amplified when it was made into an independent psalm. A comparison of Ch1 16:33 (Chron.) with the end of the 96th Psalm favours this last hypothesis, for in the Chronicle the repetition of בּא כּי is wanting, as well as the second hemistich of Psa 96:13. The whole of the 13th verse recurs, with a single בּא כּי, at the end of the 98th Psalm (Psa 98:9), and the thought is borrowed from the Davidic Psa 9:9. The strophes in the beginning of Psa 96:1-13, which are omitted from Ch1 16:16, often recur. The phrase, "Sing unto Jahve a new song," is met within Psa 33:3; Psa 98:1, and Psa 149:1, and חדשׁ שׁיר in Psa 40:4, a Davidic psalm. את־שׁמו בּרכוּ is also met with in Psa 100:4; and still more frequently את־יהוה בּרכוּ, in Psa 103:2, Psa 103:22; Psa 134:1, and elsewhere, even as early as Deborah's song, Jdg 5:2, Jdg 5:9; while ליהוה שׁירוּ occurs in the song of Moses, Exo 15:1. Since, then, the strophes of the 96th Psalm are only reminiscences of, and phrases which we find in, the oldest religious songs of the Israelites, it is clear that Psa 96:1-13 is not an original poem. It is rather the re-grouping of the well-known and current thoughts; and the fact that it is so, favours the belief that all which this psalm contains at the beginning and end, which the Chronicle does not contain, is merely an addition made by the poet who transformed this part of the chronicler's hymn into an independent psalm for liturgical purposes. This purpose clearly appears in such variations as בּמקדּשׁו ותפארת, Psa 96:6, instead of בּמקמו וחדוה, Ch1 16:27, and לחצרותיו וּבאוּ, Psa 96:8, instead of לפניו וּבאוּ, Ch1 16:29. Neither the word מקדּשׁ nor the mention of "courts" is suitable in a hymn sung at the consecration of the holy tent in Zion, for at that time the old national sanctuary with the altar in the court (the tabernacle) still stood in Gibeon.
Here, therefore, the text of the Chronicle corresponds to the circumstances of David's time, while the mention of מקדּשׁ and of courts in the psalm presupposes the existence of the temple with its courts as the sanctuary of the people of Israel. Now a post-exilic poet would scarcely have paid so much attention to this delicate distinction between times and circumstances as to alter, in the already existing psalms, out of which he compounded this festal hymn, the expressions which were not suitable to the Davidic time. Against this, the use of the unusual word חדוה drow lau, joy, which occurs elsewhere only in Neh 10:8, Neh 10:10, and in Chald:ee in Ezr 6:18, is no valid objection, for the use of the verb חדה as early as Exo 18:9 and Job 3:6 shows that the word does not belong to the later Hebrew. The discrepancy also between Ch1 16:30 and Ch1 16:31 and Psa 96:9-11, namely, the omission in the Chronicle of the strophe בּמישׁרים עמּים ידין (Psa 96:10), and the placing of the clause מלך יהוה בגּוים _ ויאמרוּ after הארץ ותגל (Ch1 16:31, cf. Psa 96:10), does not really prove anything as to the priority of Psa 96:1-13. Hitzig, indeed, thinks that since by the omission of the one member the parallelism of the verses is disturbed, and a triple verse appears where all the others are double merely, and because by this alteration the clause,"Say among the people, Jahve is King," has come into an apparently unsuitable position, between an exhortation to the heaven and earth to rejoice, and the roaring of the sea and its fulness, this clause must have been unsuitably placed by a copyist's error. But the transposition cannot be so explained; for not only is that one member of the verse misplaced, but also the אמרוּ of the psalm is altered into ויאמרוּ, and moreover, we get no explanation of the omission of the strophe וגו ידין. If we consider ויאמרוּ (with ו consecutive), "then will they say," we see clearly that it corresponds to וגו ירנּנוּ אז in Ch1 16:33; and in Ch1 16:30 the recognition of Jahve's kingship over the peoples is represented as the issue and effect of the joyful exultation of the heaven and earth, just as in Ch1 16:32 and Ch1 16:33 the joyful shouting of the trees of the field before Jahve as He comes to judge the earth, is regarded as the result of the roaring of the sea and the gladness of the fields. The אמרוּ of the psalm, on the other hand, the summons to the Israelites to proclaim that Jahve is King among the peoples, is, after the call, "Let the whole earth tremble before Him," a somewhat tame expression; and after it, again, we should not expect the much stronger וגו תּכּון אף. When we further consider that the clause which follows in the Chronicle, "He will judge the people in uprightness," is a reminiscence of Psa 9:9, we must hold the text of the Chronicle to be here also the original, and the divergences in Psa 96:1-13 for alterations, which were occasioned by the changing of a part of our hymn into an independent psalm. Finally, there can be no doubt as to the priority of the chronicler's hymn in Ch1 16:34-36. The author of the Chronicle did not require to borrow the liturgical formula וגו טוב כּי ליהוה הודוּ from Psa 106:1, for it occurs in as complete a form in Psa 97:1; Psa 118:1, Psa 118:29; Psa 136:1, and, not to mention Ch2 5:13; Ch2 7:3; Ch2 20:21, is a current phrase with Jeremiah (Jer 33:11), and is without doubt an ancient liturgical form. Ch1 16:35 and Ch1 16:36, too, contain such divergences from Psa 106:47 and Psa 106:48, that it is in the highest degree improbable that they were borrowed from that psalm. Not only is the prayer וגו הושׁיענוּ introduced by אמרוּ, but also, instead of אלהינוּ יהוה of the psalm, we have ישׁענוּ אלהי; and to וקבּצנוּ, והצּילנוּ is added, - a change which causes the words to lose the reference to the Chald:ean exile contained in the text of the Psalms. The post-exilic author of the Chronicle would scarcely have obliterated this reference, and certainly would not have done so in such a delicate fashion, had he taken the verse from Ps 106. A much more probable supposition is, that the post-exilic author of the 106th Psalm appropriated the concluding verse of David's to him well-known hymn, and modified it to make it fit into his poem. Indubitable instances of such alterations are to be found in the conclusion, where the statement of the chronicler, that all the people said Amen and praised Jahve, is made to conform to the psalm, beginning as it does with Halleluiah, by altering ויּאמרוּ into ואמר, "and let them say," and of ליהוה והלּל into הללוּ־יהּ.
On the whole, therefore, we must regard the opinion that David composed our psalm for the above-mentioned festival as by far the most probable. The psalm itself needs no further commentary; but compare Delitzsch on the parallel psalms and parts of psalms. 1 Chronicles 16:37