¹ A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis. By Skinner, John D.D., Hon. M.A. (Cantab.), Principal and Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature, Westminster College, Cambridge. New York, 1910Google Scholar.

² What follows was written before I had seen either Mr. Burney's, article “A Theory of the Development of Israelite Religion in Early Times,” in the Journal of Theological Studies, April, 1908Google Scholar, or Mr. Cook's, Stanley A. review of “The Present Stage of Old Testament Research,” in Cambridge Biblical Essays, 1909Google Scholar.

³ The Religion of the Old Testament, 1907.Google Scholar

⁴ “Die israelitisch-jüdische Religion,” in Die Kultur der Gegenwart, 1906 (2nd ed., 1909).Google ScholarPubMed

⁵ “Die israelitisch-jüdische Religion,” in Die Kultur der Gegenwart, p. 15.

⁶ Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, 2nd ed., 1906;Google ScholarEnglish translation, 1911Google Scholar.

⁷ In an exceedingly interesting essay in the Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1910, Gressmann maintains that “the time of Saul furnishes the terminus ad quem before which the legends of Genesis were in general complete, though individual traits were added later.… Prophetic influence nowhere makes itself felt” (p. 31).

⁸ Cf. especially Eerdmans, , Alttestamentliche Studien II. 1908.Google Scholar Gunkel goes so far as to cite a statement of B. Luther that “the logical application of the method used by Wellhausen would speedily lead to absurd results.”

⁹ Cf. especially the constructions of Cornill and Steuernagel.

¹⁰ Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 1906.Google Scholar This work has had a great influence upon recent criticism of Genesis.

¹¹ Alttestamentliche Studien II.

¹² Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1910.Google Scholar

¹³ Geschichte Israels, vol. ii, 1900, p. 23.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, p. 301, ff.

¹⁵ Altorientalischer und israelitischer Monotheismus, 1906.Google Scholar

¹⁶ “Die israelitisch-jüdische Religion,” in Die Kultur der Gegenwart, p. 4.

¹⁷ A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Chronicles. By Edward Lewis Curtis, Ph.D., D.D., Professor of the Hebrew Language and Literature in the Divinity School of Yale University, and Albert Alonzo Madsen, Ph.D., Pastor of the First Congregational Church at Newburgh, N.Y. New York, 1910.

[Professor Curtis's lamented death occurred after this review was in the editor'as hands.—Ed.]

¹⁸ 1 Chron. 15 28 = 2 Sam. 6 15; 1 Chron. 13 8 = 2 Sam. 6 5; 2 Chron. 23 13 = 2 Kings 11 14.

¹⁹ In the commentary at p. 7 the “singers or musicians” are mentioned but I have observed no discussion of the exact force of the Hebrew word (meshōrēr) regularly translated in the R. V. by “singer.” I am persuaded that a more accurate translation would be “musician.” The question has a bearing upon the history of temple psalmody. If we translate by “singer,” we naturally think of psalms; if by “musicians,” we think more of instrumental music, though psalmody is not necessarily excluded. But the emphasis of the Chronicler's evidence for psalmody would be quite different if “musician” were substituted in each case for “singer.” Especially at 2 Chron. 29 28 there is no discussion of the very doubtful translation of hashshīr meshōrēr by “the singers sang.”

²⁰ Curiously enough on p. 30 where the word “trumpets” is cited as a characteristic of the Chronicler, and all the cases of its occurrence are supposed to be given, 2 Chron. 15 14 is unfortunately omitted. In the same list the use of the word at 2 Kings 11 14 = 2 Chron. 23 13 is set off by itself as a “general use” (lay music?). This is true in the case of Kings but it is not true in the case of Chronicles. The relationship between the two passages in their use of the word “trumpets” is precisely the same as at 1 Chron. 15 28 = 2 Sam. 6 15, where the trumpets are properly classified in the list as priestly, in spite of the fact that in Samuel the reference is to lay music. The analysis of the usage at this point must be considered misleading.

²¹ According to the preface, Professor Curtis's co-worker, Dr. Madsen, has contributed especially to the genealogical sections of the commentary, the treatment of 1 Chron. 21–29, in particular, having formed the subject of his doctor's thesis.

²² Curtis argues that if vss. 50–53 were omitted, we should have a sort of chiastic arrangement, which he holds to be characteristic of the Chronicler elsewhere, e.g. genealogy of priests and genealogy of levites, duties of levites and duties of priests, cities of priests and cities of levites. This arrangement assumes that vss. 54–81 stand in the order originally intended by the Chronicler. This cannot for a moment be admitted. A glance at Josh. 21 shows how senseless is the present order of 1 Chron. 6 54–81. This chiastic arrangement of the material is also supposed to be followed in chaps. 23–27 (cf. p. 260). It is assumed at this point in order to avoid the admission of the composite character of these chapters, but the assumption is most artificial and unsatisfactory.

²³ The most important of these, which are generally accepted, are (a) the transposition of Jahath and Shimei in B, thus showing that there was a variation in the tradition as to which of the sons of Gershom (Libni or Shimei, cf. vs. 17) stood at the head of the pedigrees A and B; (b) the deletion of Assir and Elkanah in C; (c) the substitution of Izhar for Amminadab in C, the error being due to a reminiscence of Ex. 6 23 (cf. the context); (d) the emendation in vs. 26a to “Elkanah, his son,” i.e. son of Ahimoth, instead of the present text. The genealogy represented by C² (vss. 25–28) is really a second genealogy traced back to Elkanah and down to Joel, the son of Samuel the prophet, and not a continuation of C¹.

²⁴ That 7 3 is dealing with Issacharites, not Levites, is of no consequence when one remembers how these names are shuffled about in Chronicles. Cf. 7 7 with 25 4.

²⁵ Benzinger conjectures that an original Joel at the end of A has been omitted. This would be less probable.

²⁶ 2 Chron. 29 12 has the Azariah-Joel of D¹. But as Uriel is the rarer name, it is much more likely that i t was original and that the more usual Joel was substituted for it.

²⁷ By accepting with Curtis the first list of high priests, which brings the pedigree down to the exile, as the more original, the aim of the chapter would seem to be violated.

²⁸ It is true that Kohath, the priestly as well as levitical family from which Heman claims descent, sometimes precedes Gershom, the oldest-born, but this is not the regular order, notably not in vss. 16–30 (another evidence of their critical distinction from vss. 31–47), and, as stated above, only here and at chap. 15 does the Kohathite guild of Heman precede the Gershomite guild of Asaph.

²⁹ In the above the criticism of Benzinger and Kittel has been followed in the main, but the attempt has been made to formulate their positions somewhat more precisely and to strengthen them at certain points. The difference between the name Ethan for the third guild in chaps. 6 and 15, as contrasted with Jeduthun elsewhere, properly enters into the discussion, and furnishes another argument for the later date of 6 31–47. But the treatment of this point would lead us too far afield.

³⁰ A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms. By Briggs, Charles Augustus, D.D., D.Litt., Professor of Theological Encyclopaedia and Symbolics, Union Theological Seminary, New York, and Emily Grace Briggs, B.D. Two volumes. New York, 1906, 1907Google Scholar.

³¹ For instance, the view that we have whole series of violently polemical psalms, both Pharisaic and Sadducean, incorporated in our Psalter. How both these hostile groups of psalms could have been inserted into the Psalter in the short space of time which Duhm allows for its compilation after they were written, is not made clear.

³² Psalm 50 is an isolated Asaph psalm inserted between the Korah and Davidic psalms. The significance of its position is discussed below.

³³ The threefold division of course implies the artificiality of the doxology at the end of Book IV (Ps. 106 48). But in discussing the threefold division, nothing is said as to this implication. The artificiality of the doxology as the closing doxology of Book IV is, indeed, implied at § 35, where the attempt is made to show that there was a hallel psalter, and at § 40, where the connection of Ps. 106 48 with 1 Chron. 16 36 is discussed. But the bearing of Briggs's view of this doxology upon the book divisions is not brought out where we should expect it to be. Briggs further holds that this doxology was arbitrarily inserted by the final editor. This is by no means so probable as the view that the doxology originally belonged to the psalm, and that the unfortunate division into books was made at this point because the doxology already stood here.

³⁴ When it is said in the above citation that the meaning of the le adopted “explains all the facts of the case and the position of these Pss. in the Psalter,” we have an instance of one of those sovereign dicta which are altogether too frequent in this commentary, and whose effect is irritating rather than reassuring. In this connection it may be noted that from the theory that the le does not imply authorship the conclusion is reached that all the psalms arc anonymous except Psalms 72, 88, 89, 90, and (strangely enough) 102. These are all held to be pseudonymous. Even in the thirteen cases where historical notices are attached to the title le-david, it is denied that the editor understood the le of authorship, on the ground that “it is altogether improbable…that an editor of the middle Persian period could have thought that his references to experiences of David were historical.” Briggs's theory is that by means of these historical notices the editor simply wished to illustrate the psalms, and not to express an opinion as to their author, a theory already tentatively suggested by Beer (Individual- und Gemeinde-Psalmen, p. lxxxviii), but which is distinctly improbable in view of the strong Davidic tradition which is known to have existed at the time when most of the psalms were composed (cf. the Chronicler).

³⁵ We have seen that the greater probability is that the two groups of psalms had a different literary history, and that the Jahveh group was an appendix to the Elohim psalter, not an insertion by the final editor.

³⁶ The fact that Psalm 16 appears, as Psalm 53, in an elohistic redaction, and the bearing of this upon the right to assume an independent elohistic psalter, is not even referred to in the chapter on Higher Criticism, though it is noted in the chapter on the Text. This omission shows how oblivious our author is of the necessity of first proving the existence of independent minor psalters in the present compilation.

³⁷ Much labor is given to the establishment of the supposed original order of the Davidic Psalms (p. lxiv), but the results are far from convincing, and do not seem to throw any light either upon the critical analysis of the Psalter or upon the interpretation of the psalms. It may also be noted that Psalm 50 is supposed to have originally stood with the other Asaph psalms (Psalms 73–83). This is possible; its present position is at first sight anomalous. It is variously explained by our author as due to the desire of an editor “to make an appropriate concluding Ps. to the first division of 50” (p. lxvi), and as “giving an appropriate liturgical close [in what respect is Psalm 50 liturgical?] to this [Korah] group before the penitential Psalm 51” (p. lxxii). The propriety of the word “appropriate” in these citations may be questioned. The real reason for the present position of the psalm would seem to be its topical connection with the present form of Psalm 51. Both psalms are anti-sacrificial.

³⁸ It is not treated even in the section on Canonicity, where the omission of any reference to external evidence is even more striking. The whole section on Canonicity is, it may be remarked, rather elementary, and is mainly taken up with a defence of the imprecatory psalms. The discussion seems to move upon the old assumption that the canonicity of a Biblical book can be vindicated by means of its religious, doctrinal, and ethical contents.

³⁹ The reading of the LXX at vs. 6b is adopted, cf. R. V.

⁴⁰ Psalm 23 is very closely related to Psalm 27, so closely in fact that it is not impossible that they had a common author (cf. Duhm). But Briggs ascribes Psalm 27 to the middle monarchy.

⁴¹ So, in the case of Psalm 110 just cited, and most notably in the case of Psalm 18. The two other parts of psalms assigned to the early monarchy, Ps. 24 7 ff. and 60 6ff. have perhaps a more defensible claim to antiquity than those which have been noticed.

⁴² For instance, monosyllabic words are not usually to be accented. Words of four or more syllables have a secondary accent, which is counted in the measure. The insertion of the conjunction ve before a monosyllable will justify giving to the latter the force of a tone.

⁴³ As an example, note the carpentry-work that must be done on the miktam psalms. Psalm 59 has practically to be rewritten in order to bring it into a metrical scheme. Whether the result is poetry is another question.

⁴⁴ In the case of Psalm 18 we are happily in possession of four different recensions, Psalm 18, 2 Sam. 22, and the translation of both in the LXX.

⁴⁵ In the Hebrew there is metrical difficulty also at vss. 11, 12. But the text at this point is notoriously corrupt, as its inherent difficulties and a comparison with 2 Sam. 22 12, 13, testify.

⁴⁶ Whether the exact wording of the introduction can be recovered is another question. Emendations thus far proposed are not very convincing. Duhm's suggestion that there were originally eight lines (two quatrains) here would seem to be in the right direction.

⁴⁷ There have been many attempts to explain the critical difficulties of this psalm. I have used the scaffolding which others have reared, but I hope to have pointed out the real architectural outlines of Ps. 18 somewhat more clearly than has previously been done.

⁴⁸ Why Dr. Briggs should characterize one gloss as legal and Persian, and the other as ethical and Greek, when both begin with exactly the same sentence (vs. 20 = vs. 24), is hard to understand.

⁴⁹ The only portion of the psalm which might lay claim to Davidic authorship is Part II. Here there are a number of details which would seem to fit David, or an idealized David, better than any other character in Israel's history, but here language and literary connections (compare vss. 44, 45, with Micah 7 17, especially in the peculiarities of the Hebrew) make the Davidic authorship very dubious, even if the authenticity of this psalm were treated solely by itself and apart from considerations of the growth of the Psalter as a whole.

⁵⁰ Briggs's assumed glosses are not always so convincing. When he says, for example, of Ps. 59 14, “A prosaic editor made the couplet into a prose sentence,” one can but ask what the editor's object was in doing this. This sort of explanation that does not explain is found again and again.

⁵¹ Cited from Coblenz, Über das betende Ich in den Psalmen, p. 2. [Coblenz has not quoted the whole passage; it continues: “Those which are expressed in the singular number refer to himself, those in the plural to the community” (Pesahim 117 a).—Ed.]

⁵² A considerable portion of the exposition printed in large type is devoted to just such tautological paraphrases of the Biblical phraseology. For instance, in the present psalm, vs. 6, “I am bent // bowed down], by a weight of care, anxiety, and suffering, and this, exceedingly, to the utmost degree of intensity”; vs. 8, “I am benumbed and crushed]. Strength has so departed from him that he has become, as it were, paralysed and incapable of effort”; vs. 10, “The light of mine eyes], the light that illumines the eyes, enabling them to see what is to be done, giving confidence and courage.”

⁵³ The crucial objection to the collective interpretation of Psalm 41 is found in vss. 1–3, a didactic observation and strongly individualizing. Briggs notes that these verses are “in a strange sort of isolation”; he adopts a new translation in order to connect them with what follows, but the translation is more than doubtful. If the collective theory is adopted, it is probable that vss. 1–3 will have to be eliminated. It is difficult to connect them with the rest of the psalm, even on the individualistic interpretation.

⁵⁴ The only meaning it could possibly have on the individualistic interpretation would be that the speaker had been all his life a chronic invalid. Duhm seeks by emendation to avoid this objection to the individualistic interpretation.

⁵⁵ Even Calvin did not venture to identify the speaker in this psalm directly with Christ.

⁵⁶ The unity of Psalm 22 is a fairly debatable question. The transition from the first part to the second is certainly abrupt. Yet it has its analogy in Psalm 6, the integrity of which is universally admitted. Further, the relation of the last part to the first corresponds so strikingly with Isa. 53 (cf. Beer's illuminating exposition) that it seems hardly due to chance compilation. But even if the original unity of the psalm is denied, the present combination of the two parts can hardly have been made on any other than a collective theory of the “I” (unless we hold that it is due simply to accident), and hence it may be argued that at the time of the redaction of this psalm the collective theory of the “I” was prevalent (a point not noticed by Briggs).

⁵⁷ In the above discussion as to the nature of the speaker no notice has been taken of the light which the Babylonian penitential psalms may throw upon the problem. These psalms would seem to have been originally individualistic, though afterwards adapted to liturgical purposes. In many respects they are very similar to the Hebrew “invalid psalms” (compare the end of the truly remarkable psalm cited in Jeremias, , “Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients,” pp. 210 ff.,Google Scholar with Ps. 41), and might suggest that after all the “I” in the latter psalms was originally individualistic, though its exegetical argument is strongly in favor of a collective theory. Briggs does not refer to the Babylonian analogies in his comments on the psalms which have been examined above. In general, the analogies between the Hebrew Psalter and other ancient Oriental literature do not seem greatly to interest him. He does not once mention the great hymn of Chuenaten in his exposition of Ps. 104. He alludes to the Babylonian Tiamat-myth in connection with Ps. 89 10 ff., but unfortunately explains the very similar passage Ps. 74 12 ff. of the redemption from Egypt, whereas it almost certainly refers to the creation-myth. On the other hand, it is interesting to notice that Briggs inclines to an original mythological background for Ps. 19. In this view he agrees with Gunkel, though the two scholars arrived at it quite independently of one another.