For I have kept the ways of the LORD,

And have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his judgments were before me ;

And as for his statutes, I did not depart from them.

I was also upright before him,

And have kept myself from mine iniquity.

Therefore the LORD hath recompensed me according to my

righteousness;

According to my cleanness in his eye sight.

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful,

And with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.

With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure;

And with the froward thou wilt shew thyself unsavoury.

And the afflicted people thou wilt save:

But thine eyes are upon the haughty, that thou mayest bring them down.

For thou art my lamp, O LORD:

And the LORD will lighten my darkness.

For by thee I have run through a troop:
By my God have I leaped over a wall.
As for God, his way is perfect;

The word of the LORD is tried:

He is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
For who is God, save the LORD ?
And who is a rock, save our God?
God is my strength and power:
And he maketh my way perfect.
He maketh my feet like hinds' feet:
And setteth me upon my high places.
He teacheth my hands to war;

So that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation :
And thy gentleness hath made me great.

Thou hast enlarged my steps under me;

So that my feet did not slip.

I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them;

And turned not again until I had consumed them.

And I have consumed them, and wounded them, that they could

not arise:

Yea, they are fallen under my feet.

For thou hast girded me with strength to battle:

Them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me.

Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies,

That I might destroy them that hate me.

They looked, but there was none to save;

Even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.

Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth,

I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them

abroad.

Thou also hast delivered me from the strivings of my people,

Thou hast kept me to be head of the heathen:

A people which I knew not shall serve me.

Strangers shall submit themselves unto me:

As soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.

Strangers shall fade away,

And they shall be afraid out of their close places.
The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock;
And exalted be the God of the rock of my
It is God that avengeth me,

salvation.

And that bringeth down the people under me,

And that bringeth me forth from mine enemies :

Thou also hast lifted me up on high above them that rose up

against me:

Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.

Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen,

And I will sing praises unto thy name.

He is the tower of salvation for his king:
And sheweth mercy to his anointed,

Unto David, and to his seed for evermore.

David's Last Words.-This is the outcome of Messianic thought (observe the sententious and enigmatic language), and cannot be older than the DeuteroIsaiah. Only at a late period would the reference in vv. 6 and 7 to the punishment of the wicked by hell-fire be found. Perhaps it was artificially impressed with an archaic character.

DAVID the son of Jesse said,

And the man who was raised up on high,

The anointed of the God of Jacob,

And the sweet psalmist of Israel, said,
The Spirit of the LORD spake by me,
And his word was in my tongue.

The God of Israel said,

The Rock of Israel spake to me,

He that ruleth over men must be just,

Ruling in the fear of God.

The Last Words of David

2 Samuel,

xxiii. 1-7

And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth

Even a morning without clouds;

As the tender grass springing out of the earth

By clear shining after rain.

Although my house be not so with God;

Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,
Ordered in all things, and sure:

For this is all my salvation, and all my desire,
Although he make it not to grow.

But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away,
Because they cannot be taken with hands:

But the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear;

And they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place.

Isaiah's Song.-The_narrative occurs in almost the same form in 2 Kings, xviii.-xx. and Isaiah xxxvi.-xxxix. The date is probably later than Ezekiel. Perhaps it is an elaborate composition, composed in dependence on Isaianic words and placed in the mouth of the great prophet, just as Hezekiah's Psalm (Is. xxxviii. 9-20) is attributed to the king.

THE virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn;

Isaiah's Song against

The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? Sennacherib And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, And lifted up thine eyes on high?

and the Assyrian Isaiah xxxvii. 22-35

Even against the Holy One of Israel.

By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said,

By the multitude of my chariots am I come up

To the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon ;

And I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir

trees thereof:

And I will enter into the height of his border, and the forest of his Carmel.

I have digged, and drunk water;

And with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it;

And of ancient times, that I have formed it?

Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay

waste

Defenced cities into ruinous heaps.

Therefore their inhabitants were of small power,

They were dismayed and confounded :

They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb,

As the grass on the housetops and as corn blasted before it be

grown up.

But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, And thy rage against me.

Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult, is come up into

mine ears,

Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy

lips,

And I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.
And this shall be a sign unto thee,

Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself;

And the second year that which springeth of the same:
And in the third year sow ye, and reap,

And plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.

And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah

Shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward :
For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant,

And they that escape out of Mount Zion:

The zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.

Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city,

Nor shoot an arrow there,

Nor come before it with shields,

Nor cast a bank against it.

By the way that he came, by the same shall he return,

And shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.

For I will defend this city to save it

For mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

I SAID in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of

the grave:

I am deprived of the residue of my years.

I said, I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD,

in the land of the living:

I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants

of the world.

Hezekiah's
Psalm

Is. xxxviii.

10-20

Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's

tent :

I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness:

From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones :

From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter:

I did mourn as a dove:

Mine eyes fail with looking upward:

O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.

What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath

done it :

I shall go softly all my years, in the bitterness of my soul.

O LORD, by these things men live,

And in all these things is the life of my spirit :

So wilt thou recover me and make me to live.
Behold, for peace I had great bitterness:

But thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption:

For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee:
They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
The father to the children shall make known thy truth.
The LORD was ready to save me :

Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments
All the days of our life in the house of the LORD.

O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid :
O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years,

In the midst of the years make known ;
The Prayer of In wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk1
God came from Teman,
Hab. iii.

And the Holy One from mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens,
And the earth was full of his praise.
And his brightness was as the light;
He had horns coming out of his hand :
And there was the hiding of his power.
Before him went the pestilence,
And burning coals went forth at his feet.
He stood, and measured the earth:

He beheld, and drove asunder the nations;

And the everlasting mountains were scattered,
The perpetual hills did bow:

His ways are everlasting.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction :

And the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Was the LORD displeased against the rivers?

Was thine anger against the rivers ?

Was thy wrath against the sea,

That thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of

salvation?

Thy bow was made quite naked,

According to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word.

Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.

The mountains saw thee, and they trembled:

The overflowing of the water passed by:

The deep uttered his voice,

1 The Prayer can not have been composed by the prophet Habakkuk (whose date is about 615 B.C.), for it is quite unlike the literature of that period. Probably post-exilic.