y the so-called _Messianic psalms_, a part of which
describe the victories and universal dominion of a mighty King whom
Jehovah himself establishes on Zion to reign there for ever (Psalms 2,
45, 72, 110, etc.); another part, the deep afflictions of a mighty
Sufferer and his subsequent deliverance, which has for its result the
conversion of all nations to the service of Jehovah. Psalms 22, 40, 69,
109, etc. That such psalms as the second and seventy-second, the
twenty-second, fortieth, and sixty-ninth (not to mention others), have a
true reference to Christ's person and work, cannot be denied without
imputing either error or fraud to the writers of the New Testament. Nay
more, our Lord himself said, after his resurrection: "These are the
words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things
must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the
prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44); whence we
learn that it was our Lord's custom to refer to the psalms as containing
prophecies of himself. If the psalms, when legitimately interpreted,
contain no such prophecies, then, when the writers of the New Testament
quoted them as referring to Christ, they either believed that they were
making a true application of them according to the mind of the Holy
Spirit, or they simply accommodated themselves to what they knew to be
the groundless prejudices of the age. Upon the former supposition they
were in error; upon the latter, they were guilty of fraud. Such is the
dishonor which the modern principles of rationalism put upon the word of
God. In the interpretation of these psalms, then, we must assume as a
fundamental truth that they contain a true reference to Christ. The only
question is, whether they contain a lower reference also.

(1.) One class of interpreters understand these psalms simply of Christ;
that is, they assume that the writer speaks wholly in the name of
Christ, without reference to himself or any merely human personage.
There are psalms--the hundred and tenth, for example--that may be very
well explained in this way. The opening words of that psalm--"The Lord
said unto my lord"--seem to exclude David as the subject, and it is
difficult to see in what sense David could speak of himself as made by a
divine oath "a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (ver. 4).
But in the attempt to carry this principle consistently through all the
Messianic psalms, one meets wit