of the Psalms, has been increased by the abolition of
the _antiphons_, which in the pre-Reformation offices certainly helped
at times to suggest a leading thought, or to guide the worshipper as to
the Church's intention in the recitation of this or that Psalm. (Note
C, p. 104.) Sometimes indeed, the connection between the verses of a
Psalm is really very slight, more a matter {28} of suggestion or
association than of logic. Such is the case in "proverbial" Psalms,
like the 33rd, 34th, and 37th, or the 119th. But in others it is well
worth the effort to gain a continuous view of the Psalm as a whole. A
simple commentary will give this, or even sometimes the R.V. alone, or
the headings in the A.V., such as the very suggestive one prefixed to
the 110th: "1 The kingdom, 4 the priesthood, 5 the conquest, 7 and the
passion of Christ." (Note D, p. 106.)

There are also difficulties caused by a real obscurity in the Hebrew,
or by mistranslations. Here, again, a comparison with the R.V. is of
great value. The meaning of the 87th springs to light at once when we
read "This one was born there," instead of the mysterious "Lo, there
was he born," etc. The Psalm refers not to the birth of the Messiah,
but to the new birth of individuals out of the heathen races who thus
become citizens of Sion. "So let indignation vex him, even as a thing
that is raw" (lviii. 8), becomes certainly more intelligible as "He
shall take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike"
(a metaphor from a traveller's fire of brushwood, blown away by a
sudden wind); and even if "the beasts of the people" remains still
obscure in Ps. lxviii. in the revised {29} translation, its "why hop ye
so, ye high hills?" is more significant when it is read--

Why look ye askance, ye high mountains:
At the mountain which God hath desired for His abode?

Sometimes the alteration of a single word makes the difference between
obscurity and sense, as in xlix. 5, where "the wickedness of my heels"
becomes intelligible as "iniquity at my heels"; or in Ps. xlii., where
"Therefore will I remember thee concerning the land of Judah and the
little hill of Hermon" is made clear at once by the substitution of
"from" for "concerning." The verse is the cry of the exile, who, far
away in northern Palestine, among the sources of the Jordan, yearns for
the Temple and its services, which he is no longer able to visit.

Doubtless the reasons which prevented t