International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Psalms, Book of — Python
Psalms, Book of
Psalms, Book of - samz, (tehillim, "praises," cepher tehillim, "book of praises"; Psalmoi, Psalterion):
I. INTRODUCTORY TOPICS
1. Title
2. Place in the Canon
3. Number of Psalms
4. Titles in the Hebrew Text
II. AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF THE PSALMS
1. David as a Psalmist
2. Psalmody after David
III. GROWTH OF THE PSALTER
1. Division into Five Books
2. Smaller Groups of Psalms
IV. POETRY OF THE PSALTER
V. THE SPEAKER IN THE PSALMS
VI. THE GOSPEL IN THE PSALTER
1. The Soul's Converse with God
2. The Messiah
3. Problem of Sin
4. Wrestling with Doubts
5. Out of the Depths
6. Ethical Ideals
7. Praying against the Wicked
8. The Future Life
LITERATURE
I. Introductory Topics. 1. Title: The Hebrew title for the Psalter is cepher tehillim, "book of praises." When we consider the fact that more than 20 of these poems have praise for their keynote, and that there are outbursts of thanksgiving in many others, the fitness of the Hebrew title dawns upon us. As Ker well says, "The book begins with benediction, and ends with praise--first, blessing to man, and then glory to God." Hymns of praise, though found in all parts of the Psalter, become far more numerous in Books IV and V, as if the volume of praise would gather itself up into a Hallelujah Chorus at the end. In the Greek version the book is entitled in some manuscripts Psalmoi, in others Psalterion, whence come our English titles "Psalms," and "Psalter." The Greek word psalmos, as well as the Hebrew mizmor, both of which are used in the superscriptions prefixed to many of the separate psalms, indicates a poem sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments. The title mizmor is found before 57 psalms. The Psalter was the hymnal of the Jewish nation. To individual psalms other titles are sometimes prefixed, such as shir, "song"; tehillah, "praise"; tephillah, "prayer," etc. The Psalter was both prayerbook and hymnal to the Jewish people. It was also a manual for the nurture of the spiritual life in private as well as public worship.
2. Place in the Canon: The Psalms were placed in the kethubhim or "Writings," the third group of the Hebrew Scriptures. As the chief book of the kethubhim, the Psalter appears first in the great majority of German manuscripts, though the Spanish manuscripts place Psalms after Chronicles, and the Talmud puts Ruth before Psalms. There has never been any serious question as to the right of the Psalter to a place in the Canon of Scripture. The book is possibly more highly esteemed among Christians than by the Jews. If Christians were permitted to retain only one book in the Old Testament, they would almost certainly choose Psalms. By 100 BC, and probably at a much earlier date, the Book of Psalms was completed and recognized as part of the Hagiographa, the 3rd division of the Hebrew Bible.
3. Number of Psalms: According to the Hebrew text, followed by modern VSS, there are 150 separate poems in the Psalter. The Greek version has an additional psalm, in which David describes his victory over Goliath; but this is expressly said to be "outside the number." The Septuagint, followed by Vulgate, combined Psalms 9:1-20 and Psalms 10:1-18, and also Psalms 114:1-8 and Psalms 115:1-18, into a single psalm. On the other hand, they divide Psalms 116:1-19 and Psalms 147:1-20 each into two poems. Thus, for the greater part of the Psalter the Hebrew enumeration is one number in advance of that in the Greek and Latin Bibles.
The existing division in the Hebrew text has been called in question at various points. Psalms 42:1-11 and Psalms 43:1-5 are almost certainly one poem (see refrain in Psalms 42:5, 11; 43:5); and it is probable that Psalms 9:1-20 and Psalms 10:1-18 were originally one, as in Septuagint. On the other hand, it is thought by some that certain psalms were composed of two psalms which were originally separate. We may cite as examples Psalms 19:1-6, 7-14; Psalms 24:1-6, 7-10; Psalms 27:1-6, 7-14; Psalms 36:1-4, 5-12. It is evident that such combinations of two different poems into one may have taken place, for we have an example in Psalms 108:1-13, which is composed of portions of two other psalms (Psalms 57:7-11; Psalms 60:5-12).
4. Titles in the Hebrew Text: (1) Value of the Superscriptions. It is the fashion among advanced critics to waive the titles of the psalms out of court as wholly worthless and misleading. This method is as thoroughly unscientific as the older procedure of defending the superscriptions as part of an inspired text. These titles are clearly very old, for the Septuagint, in the 2nd century BC, did not understand many of them. The worst that can be said of the superscriptions is that they are guesses of Hebrew editors and scribes of a period long prior to the Greek version. As to many of the musical and liturgical titles, the best learning of Hebrew and Christian scholars is unable to recover the original meaning. The scribes who prefixed the titles had no conceivable reason for writing nonsense into their prayerbook and hymnal. These superscriptions and subscriptions all had a worthy meaning, when they were first placed beside individual psalms. This indisputable fact of the great antiquity of these titles ought forever to make it impossible for scientific research to ignore them. Grant for the sake of argument, that not one of them came from the pen of the writers of the Psalms, but only from editors and compilers of exilic or post-exilic days, it would still be reasonable to give attention to the views of ancient Hebrew scholars, before considering the conjectures of modern critics on questions of authorship and date. Sources of information, both oral and written, to which they had access, have long since perished. In estimating the value of their work, we have a right to use the best critical processes known to us; but it is unscientific to overlook the fact that their proximity to the time of the composition of the Psalms gave them an advantage over the modern scholar. If it be said by objectors that these ancient scribes formed their conclusions by the study of the life of David as portrayed in the historical books of Kings and Chronicles, the reply is ready that several historical notices in the titles cannot be thus explained. Who was Cush? Who was Abimelech? (Psalms 7:1-17 and Psalms 34:1-22). A careful weighing of the facts concerning the superscriptions will make it seem highly improbable that the earliest of these titles does not reach back into pre-exilic times. We almost certainly have in them the results of the labors of Hebrew scribes and compilers stretching over several centuries. Some of the titles may have been appended by the psalmists themselves.
We are far from claiming that the titles are always intelligible to us, or that, when understood, they are always correct. The process of constructing titles indicative of authorship had not ceased in the 2nd century BC, the Septuagint adding many to psalms that were anonymous in the Hebrew. The view expressed nearly 50 years ago by Perowne is eminently sane: "The inscriptions cannot always be relied on. They are sometimes genuine, and really represent the most ancient tradition. At other times, they are due to the caprice of later editors and collectors, the fruits of conjecture, or of dimmer and more uncertain traditions. In short, the inscriptions of the Psalms are like the subscriptions to the Epistles of the New Testament. They are not of any necessary authority, and their value must be weighed and tested by the usual critical processes."
(2) Thirtle's Theory. J. W. Thirtle (The Titles of the Psalms, 1904) advances the hypothesis that both superscriptions and subscriptions were incorporated in the Psalter, and that in the process of copying the Psalms by hand, the distinction between the superscription of a given psalm and the subscription of the one immediately preceding it was finally lost. When at length the different psalms were separated from one another, as in printed editions, the subscriptions and superscriptions were all set forth as superscriptions. Thus it came about that the musical subscription of a given psalm was prefixed to the literary superscription of the psalm immediately following it. The prayer of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3:1-19) was taken by Thirtle as a model or normal psalm; and in this instance the superscription was literary. "A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, upon Shigionoth," while the subscription is musical, "For the Chief Musician, on my stringed instruments." The poem of Hezekiah in celebration of his recovery (Isaiah 38:9-20) seems to support Thirtle's thesis, the superscription stating the authorship and the occasion that gave birth to the psalm, while Isaiah 38:20 hints at the musical instruments with which the psalm was to be accompanied in public worship. If now the musical notes be separated from the notes of authorship and date that follow them, the musical notes being appended as subscriptions, while the literary notes are kept as real superscriptions, the outcome of the separation is in many instances a more intelligible nexus between title and poem. Thus the subscript to Psalms 55:1-23, "The dove of the distant terebinths," becomes a pictorial title of Psalms 55:6-8 of the psalm. The application of the rule that the expression "for the Chief Musician" is always a subscript removes the difficulty in the title of Psalms 88:1-18. The superscription of Psalms 88:1-18, on Thirtle's hypothesis, becomes "Maschil of Heman the Ezrahite." Psalms 87:1-7 thus has a subscript that repeats the statement of its superscription, but with an addition which harmonizes with the content of the poem. "Mahalath Leannoth," with a slight correction in vocalization, probably means "Dancings with Shoutings," and Psalms 87:7 speaks of both singing and dancing. The tone of Psalms 87:1-7 is exceedingly cheerful; but Psalms 88:1-18 is the saddest in the entire Psalter. The application of Thirtle's hypothesis also leaves Psalms 88:1-18 with a consistent literary title, whereas the usual title ascribes the psalm first to the sons of Korah and then to Heman the Ezrahite.
(3) Meaning of the Hebrew Titles. Scholars have not been able to come to agreement as to the meaning and application of a goodly number of words and phrases found in the titles of the Psalms. We append an alphabetical list, together with hints as to the probable meaning:
(a) 'Ayeleth ha-Shachar (Psalms 22:1-31) means "the hind of the morning," or possibly "the help of the morning." Many think that the words were the opening line of some familiar song.
(b) `Alamoth (Psalms 46:1-11) means "maidens." The common view is that the psalm was to be sung by soprano voices. Some speak of a female choir and compare 1 Chronicles 15:20; Psalms 68:11, 24 f. According to Thirtle, the title is a subscript to Psalms 45:1-17, which describes the marriage of a princess, a function at which it would be quite appropriate to have a female choir.
(c) 'Al-tashcheth (Psalms 57:1-11 through Psalms 59:1-17; Psalms 75:1-10) means "destroy not;" and is quite suitable as a subscript to Psalms 56:1-13 through Psalms 58:1-11 and Psalms 74:1-23 (compare Deuteronomy 9:26). Many think this the first word of a vintage song (compare Isaiah 65:8).
(d) Ascents, Song of" (Psalms 120:1-7 through 184): the Revised Version (British and American) translates the title to 15 psalms "A Song of Ascents," where the King James Version has "A Song of Degrees." The most probable explanation of the meaning of the expression is that these 15 psalms were sung by bands of pilgrims on their way to the yearly feasts in Jerusalem (Psalms 122:4). Psalms 121:1-8 through Psalms 123:1-4; Psalms 125:1-5; Psalms 127:1-5; Psalms 128:1-6 and Psalms 132:1-18 through Psalms 134:1-3 are well suited for use on such occasions (see, however, Expository Times, XII, 62).
(e) "For the Chief Musician": 55 psalms are dedicated to the precentor or choir leader of the temple. "To the Chief Musician" might mean that the precentor was the author of certain psalms, or that there was a collection of hymns compiled by him for use in temple worship, or that certain psalms were placed in his hands, with suggestions as to the character of the poems and the music which was to accompany them. It is quite likely that there was an official collection of psalms for public worship in the custody of the choir master of the temple.
(f) "Dedication of the House" (Psalms 30:1-12): The title probably refers to the dedication of Yahweh's house; whether in the days of David, in connection with the removal of the ark to Jerusalem, or in the days of Zerubbabel, or in the time of Judas Maccabeus, it is impossible to say positively. If Psalms 39:1-13 was used on any one of these widely separated occasions, that fact might account for the insertion of the caption, "a Song at the Dedication of the House."
(g) "Degrees": see "Ascents" above. (h) Gittith (Psalms 8:1-9; Psalms 81:1-16; Psalms 84:1-12) is commonly supposed to refer to an instrument invented in Gath or to a tune that was used in the Philistine city. Thirtle emends slightly to gittoth, "wine presses," and connects Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 80:1-19 and Psalms 83:1-18 with the Feast of Tabernacles.
(i) Higgayon: This word is not strictly a title, but occurs in connection with Celah in Psalms 9:16. the Revised Version (British and American) translates the word in Psalms 92:3, "a solemn sound," and in Psalms 19:14, "meditation." It is probably a musical note equivalent to largo.
(j) Yedhuthun: In the title of Psalms 39:1-13, Jeduthun might well be identical with the Chief Musician. In Psalms 62:1-12 and Psalms 77:1-20 the Revised Version (British and American) renders "after the manner of Jeduthun." We know from 1 Chronicles 16:41; 25:3 that JEDUTHUN (which see) was a choir leader in the days of David. He perhaps introduced a method of conducting the service of song which ever afterward was associated with his name.
(k) Yonath 'elem rechoqim (Psalms 56:1-13): We have already called attention to the fact that as a subscript to Psalms 55:1-23 "the dove of the distant terebinths," or "the silent dove of them that are afar off," would have a point of contact with Psalms 55:6-8.
(l) Machalath (Psalms 53:1-6), Machalath le`annoth (Psalms 88:1-18): Perhaps Thirtle's vocalization of the Hebrew consonants as mecholoth, "dancings," is correct. As a subscript to Psalms 87:1-7; mecholoth may refer to David's joy at the bringing of the ark to Zion (2 Samuel 6:14-15).
(m) Maskil (Psalms 32:1-11; Psalms 42:1-11 through Psalms 45:1-17; Psalms 52:1-9 through Psalms 55:1-23; Psalms 74:1-23; Psalms 78:1-72; Psalms 88:1-18; Psalms 89:1-52; Psalms 142:1-7): The exact meaning of this common term is not clear. Briggs suggests "a meditation," Thirtle and others "a psalm of instruction," Kirkpatrick "a cunning psalm." Some of the 13 psalms bearing this title are plainly didactic, while others are scarcely to be classed as psalms of instruction.
(n) Mikhtam (Psalms 16:1-11; Psalms 56:1-13 through Psalms 60:1-12): Following the rabbinical guess, some translate "a golden poem." The exact meaning is unknown.
(o) Muth labben: The title is generally supposed to refer to a composition entitled "Death of the Son." Possibly the melody to which this composition was sung was the tune to which Psalms 9:1-20 (or 8) was to be sung. Thirtle translates "The Death of the Champion," and regards it as a subscription to Psalms 8:1-9, in celebration of the victory over Goliath.
(p) On "Neghinoth'' occurs 6 times (Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 54:1-7; Psalms 55:1-23; Psalms 67:1-7; Psalms 76:1-12), and means "with stringed instruments." Neghinath (Psalms 61:1-8) may be a slightly defective writing for Neghinoth. Perhaps stringed instruments alone were used with psalms having this title. According to Thirtle's hypothesis, the title was originally a subscript to Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 5:1-12; Psalms 53:1-6; Psalms 54:1-7; Psalms 60:1-12; Psalms 66:1-20; Psalms 75:1-10.
(q) Nechiloth (Psalms 5:1-12), possibly a subscript to Psalms 4:1-8, is supposed by some to refer to "wind instruments," possibly flutes.
(r) Celah, though not strictly a title, may well be discussed in connection with the superscriptions. It occurs 71 times in the Psalms and 3 times in Habakkuk. It is almost certainly technical term whose meaning was well known to the precentor and the choir in the temple. The Septuagint always, Symmachus and Theodotion generally, render diapsalma, which probably denotes an instrumental interlude. The Targum Aquila and some other ancient versions render "forever." Jerome, following Aquila, translates it "always." Many moderns derive Celah from a root meaning "to raise," and suppose it to be a sign to the musicians to strike up with a louder accompaniment. Possibly the singing ceased for a moment. A few think it is a liturgical direction to the congregation to "lift up" their voices in benediction. It is unwise to dogmatize as to the meaning of this very common word.
See SELAH.
(s) Sheminith (Psalms 6:1-10; Psalms 12:1-8), meaning "the eighth," probably denotes the male choir, as distinguished from `Alamoth, the maidens' choir. That both terms are musical notes is evident from 1 Chronicles 15:19-21.
(t) Shiggayon (Psalms 7:1-17) is probably a musical note. Some think it denotes "a dithyrambic poem in wild ecstatic wandering rhythms, with corresponding music."
(u) Shoshannim (Psalms 45:1-17; Psalms 69:1-36) means "lilies." Shoshannim `edhuth (Psalms 80:1-19) means "lilies, a testimony." Shushah `edhuth (Psalms 60:1-12) may be rendered "the lily of testimony." Thirtle represents these titles as subscripts to Psalms 44:1-26; Psalms 59:1-17; Psalms 68:1-35; Psalms 79:1-13, and associates them with the spring festival, Passover. Others regard them as indicating the melody to which the various psalms were to be sung.
(v) "Song of Loves" (Psalms 45:1-17) is appropriate as a literary title to a marriage song.
(4) Testimony of the Titles as to Authorship. (a) Psalms 90:1-17 is ascribed to Moses. (b) To David 73 psalms are ascribed, chiefly in Books I and II. (c) Two are assigned to Solomon (Psalms 72:1-20; Psalms 127:1-5). (d) 12 are ascribed to Asaph (Psalms 50:1-23; Psalms 73:1-28 through Psalms 83:1-18). (e) 11 are assigned to the sons of Korah (Psalms 42:1-11 through Psalms 49:1-20; Psalms 84:1-12; Psalms 85:1-13; Psalms 87:1-7). (f) Psalms 88:1-18 is attributed to Heman the Ezrahite. (g) Psalms 89:1-52 bears the name of Ethan the Ezrahire. In most cases it is plain that the editors meant to indicate the authors or writers of the psalms. It is possible that the phrase "to David" may sometimes have been prefixed to certain psalms, merely to indicate that they were found in a collection which contained Davidic psalms. It is also possible that the titles "to Asaph" and' "to the sons of Korah" may have originally meant that the psalms thus designated belonged to a collection in the custody of these temple singers. Psalms 72:1-20 may also be a prayer for Solomon rather than a psalm BY Solomon. At the same time, we must acknowledge, in the light of the titles describing the occasion of composition, that the most natural interpretation of the various superscriptions is that they indicate the supposed authors of the various poems to which they are prefixed. Internal evidence shows conclusively that some of these titles are incorrect. Each superscription should be tested by a careful study of the psalm to which it is appended.
(5) Titles Describing the Occasion of Writing. There are 13 of these, all bearing the name of David. (a) Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 59:1-17; Psalms 56:1-13; Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 52:1-9; Psalms 57:1-11; Psalms 142:1-7; Psalms 54:1-7 are assigned to the period of his persecution by Saul. (b) During the period of his reign over. all Israel, David is credited with Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 60:1-12; Psalms 51:1-19; Psalms 3:1-8; and Psalms 63:1-11.
II. Authorship and Age of the Psalms. Psalms 90:1-17 is ascribed to Moses. It is the fashion now to deny that Moses wrote anything. A careful study of Psalms 90:1-17 has brought to light nothing inconsistent with Mosaic authorship. The dignity, majesty and pathos of the poem are worthy of the great lawgiver and intercessor.
1. David as a Psalmist: (1) The Age of David Offered Fruitful Soil for the Growth of Religious Poetry.
(a) The political and religious reforms of Samuel created a new sense of national unity, and kindled the fires of religious patriotism. (b) Music had a large place in the life of the prophetic guilds or schools of the prophets, and was used in public religious exercises (1 Samuel 10:5 f). (c) The victories of David and the internal expansion of the life of Israel would inevitably stimulate the poetic instinct of men of genius; compare the Elizabethan age and the Victorian era in English literature. (d) The removal of the ark to the new capital and the organization of the Levitical choirs would stimulate poets to compose hymns of praise to Yahweh (2 Samuel 6:1-23; 1 Chronicles 15:1-29; 1 Chronicles 16:1-43; 1 Chronicles 25:1-31).
It is the fashion in certain critical circles to blot out the Mosaic era as unhistoric, all accounts of it being considered legendary or mythical. It is easy then to insist on the elimination of all the higher religious teaching attributed to Samuel. This leaves David "a rude king in a semi-barbaric age," or, as Cheyne puts it, "the versatile condottiere, chieftain, and king." It would seem more reasonable to accept as trustworthy the uniform tradition of Israel as to the great leaders, Moses, Samuel and David, than to rewrite Israel's history out of the tiny fragments of historical material that are accepted by skeptical critics as credible. It is often said that late writers read into their accounts of early heroes their own ideas of what would be fitting. James Robertson's remark in reply has great weight: "This habit of explaining the early as the backward projection of the late is always liable to the objection that it leaves the late itself without explanation" (Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, 332).
(2) David's Qualifications for Composing Psalms
(a) He was a skillful musician, with a sense of rhythm and an ear for pleasing sounds (1 Samuel 16:15-23). He seems to have invented new instruments of music (Amos 6:5). (b) He is recognized by critics of all schools as a poet of no mean ability. The genuineness of his elegy over Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:19-27) is commonly accepted; also his lament over Abner (2 Samuel 3:33 f). In the elegy over Saul and Jonathan, David displays a magnanimity and tenderness that accord with the representations of S as to his treatment of Saul and of Jonathan. No mere rough border chieftain could have composed a poem full of the tenderest sentiment and the most exemplary attitude toward a persecutor. The moral elevation of the elegy has to be accounted for. If the author was a deeply religious man, a man enjoying the friendship of God, it is easy to account for the moral dignity of the poem. Surely it is only a step from the patriotism and magnanimity and devoted friendship of the elegy to the religious fervor of the Psalms. Moreover, the poetic skill displayed in the elegy removes the possible objection that literary art in the days of David had not attained a development equal to the composition of poems such as the Psalms. There is nothing more beautiful and artistic in the entire Psalter.
Radical critics saw the David of the Bible asunder. They contrast the rough border chieftain with the pious Psalmist. Though willing to believe every statement that reflects upon the moral character of David, they consider the references to David as a writer of hymns and the organizer of the temple choirs as the pious imaginings of late chroniclers. Robertson well says: "This habit of refusing to admit complexity in the capacities of Biblical characters is exceedingly hazardous and unsafe, when history is so full of instances of the combination in one person of qualities the most diverse. We not only have poets who can harp upon more than one string, but we have religious leaders who have united the most fervent piety with the exercise of poorly developed virtue, or the practice of very questionable policy. A critic, if he has not a single measure of large enough capacity for a historical character, should not think himself at liberty to measure him out in two halfbushels, making one man of each" (Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, 332). Among kings, Charlemagne and Constantine the Great have been likened to David; and among poets, Robert Burns. There were contradictory elements in the moral characters of all these gifted men. Of Constantine it has been said that he "was by turns the docile believer and the cruel despot, devotee and murderer, patron saint and avenging demon." David was a many-sided man, with a character often at war with itself, a man with conflicting impulses, the flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Men of flesh and blood in the midst of life's temptations have no difficulty in understanding the David of the Bible.
(c) David was a man of deep feeling and of imperial imagination. Think of his love for Jonathan, his grateful appreciation of every exploit done in his behalf by his mighty men, his fondness for Absalom. His successful generalship would argue for imagination, as well as the vivid imagery of the elegy. (d) David was an enthusiastic worshipper of Yahweh. All the records of his life agree in representing him as devoted to Israel's God. In the midst of life's dangers and disappointments, "David strengthened himself in Yahweh his God" (1 Samuel 30:6). We should have been surprised had no trace of religious poetry come from his pen. It would be difficult to imagine Milton or Cowper or Tennyson as confining himself to secular poetry. "Comus," "John Gilpin," and the "Charge of the Light Brigade" did not exhaust their genius; nor did the elegy over Saul and Jonathan and the lament over Abner relieve David's soul of the poetry that clamored for expression. The known facts of his life and times prepare us for an outburst of psalmody under his leadership. (e) The varied experiences through which David passed were of a character to quicken any latent gifts for poetic expression.
James Robertson states this argument clearly, and yet with becoming caution: "The vicissitudes and situations in David's life presented in these narratives are of such a nature that, though we may not be able to say precisely that such and such a psalm was composed at such and such a time and place, yet we may confidently say, Here is a man who has passed through certain experiences and borne himself in such wise that we are not surprised to hear that, being a poet, he composed this and the other psalms. It is very doubtful whether we should tie down any lyric to a precise set of circumstances, the poet being like a painter who having found a fit landscape, sits down to transfer it to canvas. I do not think it likely that David, finding himself in some great perplexity or sorrow, called for writing materials in order to describe the situation or record his feelings. But I do think it probable that the vicissitudes through which he passed made such an impression on his sensitive heart, and became so inculcated withn an emotional nature, that when he soothed himself in his retirement with his lyre, they came forth spontaneously in the form of a psalm or song or prayer, according as the recollection was sad or joyful, and as his singing mood moved him" (Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, 343 f).
The Biblical writers, both early and late, agree in affirming that the Spirit of Yahweh rested upon David, empowering him for service of the highest order (1 Samuel 16:13; 2 Samuel 23:1-3; Matthew 22:43;. Acts 2:29-31). The gift of prophetic inspiration was bestowed upon Israel's chief musician and poet.
(3) External Evidence for Davidic Psalms
(a) In the New Testament David is named as the author of certain psalms. Thus Psalms 110:1-7 is ascribed to David by Jesus in His debate with the Pharisees in the Temple (Matthew 22:41-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44). Peter teaches that David prophesied concerning Judas (Acts 1:16), and he also refers Psalms 16:1-11 and Psalms 110:1-7 to David (Acts 2:25-34). The whole company of the disciples in prayer attribute Psalms 2:1-12 to David (Acts 4:25 f). Paul quotes Psalms 32:1-11 and Psalms 69:1-36 as Davidic (Romans 4:6-8; 11:9 f). The author of He even refers Psalms 95:1-11 to David, following the Septuagint (Hebrews 4:7). From the last-named passage many scholars infer that any quotation from the Psalms might be referred to David as the chief author of the Psalms. Possibly this free and easy method of citation, without any attempt at rigorous critical accuracy, was in vogue in the 1st century AD. At the same time, it is evident that the view that David was the chief author of the Psalms was accepted by the New Testament writers. (b) In 2 Maccabees 2:13 (the Revised Version),in a letter purporting to have been written by the Jews of Palestine to their brethren in Egypt, about 144 BC, occurs the following: "And the same things were related both in the public archives and in the records that concern Nehemiah; and how he, rounding a library, gathered together the books about the kings and prophets, and the books of David, and letters of kings about sacred gifts." We do not know the exact date of 2 Maccabees, but it was almost certainly in the 1st century BC. The author regards David as the author of books in the sacred library gathered together by Nehemiah. (c) Jesus the Son of Sirach, who wrote not later than 180 BC, and possibly a good deal earlier, thus describes David's contribution to public worship: "In every work of his he gave thanks to the Holy One Most High with words of glory; with his whole heart he sang praise, and loved him that made him" (Ecclesiasticus 47:8 f the Revised Version (British and American)). David's fame as a psalmist and the organizer of choirs for the sanctuary was well known to Ben Sira at the beginning of the 2nd century BC. (d) The author of Chronicles, writing not later than 300 BC, and probably much earlier, represents David as making provision for a service of song before the ark of God and in connection with its removal to the city of David (1 Chronicles 15:1-29; 1 Chronicles 16:1-43). It seems to be imagined by some scholars that the Chronicler, whose historical accuracy is severely attacked by certain critics, is responsible for the idea that David was a great writer of hymns. On the contrary, he has less to say about David as a poet and psalmist than the author of Samuel. Only in 2 Chronicles 29:30 is there explicit mention of David as the author of praises to Yahweh. The Chronicler speaks repeatedly of the instruments of David and of his organization of the choirs. And so in the kindred books of Ezra and Nehemiah there is mention of the style of worship introduced by David (Ezra 3:10; Nehemiah 12:24, 36). The author of the Book of Kings refers repeatedly to David as a model king (1 Kings 11:4; 2 Kings 14:3; 20:5 f, etc.). He becomes a witness for the high reputation of David for uprightness and religious zeal. (e) Amos refers incidentally to David's great skill as an inventor of musical instruments (Amos 6:5). The same prophet is a witness to the fact that songs were sung in worship at Bethel to the accompaniment of harps or viols (Amos 5:23). (f) The earliest witness, or witnesses, if the narrative be composite, we find in 1 and 2 Samuel. David is described as a wonderful musician and as one on whom the Spirit of Yahweh rested mightily (1 Samuel 16:13-23). He is credited with the beautiful elegy oyer Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27) and the brief lament over Abner (2 Samuel 3:33 f) . He is said to have danced with joy before the ark, and to have brought it up to Jerusalem with shouting and with sound of trumpet (2 Samuel 6:12 ff). He is credited with the pious wish that he might build a temple for Yahweh and the ark, and is said to have poured forth a prayer of thanksgiving to Yahweh for the promise of a perpetual throne (2 Samuel 7:1-29). David dedicated to Yahweh much wealth taken from his enemies. (2 Samuel 8:11). Both the good and the bad in David's life and character are faithfully set forth in the vivid narrative.
We come next to two statements that would settle the question of David's psalms, if critics would only accept them as the work of an author living within a generation or so of the time of David. Unfortunately 2 Samuel 21 through 24 is regarded by most critical scholars as an appendix to the early narrative of David's career. There is no agreement as to the exact date of the composition of these chapters. Naturally the burden of proof is on the critic who tries to disintegrate a document, and suspicion of bias is inevitable, if by the disintegration he is able to escape the force of a disagreeable argument. Happily, we live in a free country, every man having a right to hold and to express his own opinion, for whatever it may be worth. It seems to the present writer that 2 Samuel 21:1-22 through 2 Samuel 24:1-25 may well have come from the pen of the early narrator who told the story of David's reign in such a masterly fashion. Even if these chapters were added by a later editor as an appendix, there is no sufficient reason for putting this writer so late as the exile. His statements cannot be set aside as unreliable, simply because they run counter to the current theory as to the date of the Psalms 1:1; Psalms 2:1-12 Sam 22 purports to give the words of a song which David spake to Yahweh, when he had been delivered from Saul and from all his enemies. Psalms 18:1-50 is evidently a different recension of the same poem. The differences between 2 Samuel 22:1-51 and Psalms 18:1-50 are not much greater than the differences in the various odd of "Rock of Ages." Only the most advanced critics deny that David wrote this glorious song. 2 Samuel 23:1-7 must not be omitted, for here David claimed prophetic inspiration as the sweet Psalmist of Israel. This original and striking poem is worthy of the brilliant royal bard. (g) The titles of the Psalms are external evidence of real value for determining the date and authorship of the Psalms; and these ascribe 73 to David. A sweeping denial of all the forms of external evidence for Davidic psalms ought to be buttressed by convincing arguments from internal evidence. Unverified conjectures will not answer.
(4) Internal Evidence for Davidic Psalms
The fact that many of the psalms ascribed to David correspond in tone and temper and in historical allusions with incidents in his life, while not in itself convincing proof that David wrote them, certainly re-enforces the external evidence in favor of Davidic psalms. We must refer the reader to the commentaries of Delitzsch, Kirkpatrick, Perowne and others for the evidence discovered in individual psalms. In many psalms the evidence is strongly in favor of the superscriptions, in which David is named as the writer. See especially Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 23:1-6; Psalms 32:1-11; Psalms 3:1-8.
(5) Number of Davidic Psalms
Opinion varies among conservative scholars all the way from 3 or 4 to 44 or 45. It has come to pass that a critic who acknowledges even Psalms 18:1-50 to be David's is called conservative. In fact, the more radical critics regard a scholar as conservative if he assigns even a small group of psalms to the period before the exile. We must not allow ourselves to be deterred from ascribing to David any psalm that seems to us, on the basis of both external and internal evidence, to come from his pen. Delitzsch and Kirkpatrick are safer guides than Cheyne and Duhm. Maclaren also has made a close and sympathetic study of David's life and character, and accepts the results of sane criticism. W. T. Davison (HDB, IV) speaks out clearly and strongly for Davidic authorship of Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 11:1-7; Psalms 17:1-15; Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 19:1-14 (first half), 24 and a few other psalms or parts of psalms, though he makes large concessions to the present tendency to bring the psalms down to a later date. He stands firmly for a large body of pre-exilic psalms. Ewald assigned to David Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 7:1-17; Psalms 8:1-9; Psalms 11:1-7; Psalms 18:1-50; Psalms 19:1-14; Psalms 24:1-10; Psalms 29:1-11; Psalms 32:1-11; Psalms 101:1-8; also Psalms 60:8-11 and Psalms 68:14-19. Hitzig ascribed to David Psalms 3:1-8 through Psalms 19:1-14, with the exception of Psalms 5:1-12; 6:1; and Psalms 14:1-7. If one follows the titles in the Hebrew text, except where internal evidence clearly contradicts the superscriptions, it will be easy, to follow Delitzsch in attributing Psalms 44:1-26 or Psalms 45:1-17 psalms to David.
2. Psalmody after David: (1) Psalms of Asaph (Psalms 73:1-28 through Psalms 83:1-18, also Psalms 50:1-23).
The prophetic spirit throbs in most of the psalms ascribed to ASAPH (which see). God is pictured as a righteous Judge. He is also pictured as the Shepherd of Israel. Psalms 73:1-28 holds fast to God's righteous rule of mankind, in spite of the prosperity of the wicked. Psalms 50:1-23, which is assigned by many to the time of Hosea and Isaiah, because of its powerful prophetic message, may well have come from Asaph, the contemporary of David and of Nathan. Some of the Asaph group, notably 74 and 79, belong to the period of the exile or later. The family of Asaph continued for centuries to lead in the service of song (2 Chronicles 35:15; Nehemiah 7:44). Inspired poets were raised up from age to age in the Asaph guild.
(2) Psalms of the Sons of Korah (Psalms 42:1-11 through Psalms 49:1-20; Psalms 84:1-12; Psalms 85:1-13; Psalms 87:1-7).
This family of singers was prominent in the temple-worship in the days of David and afterward. Several of the most beautiful poems in the Psalter are ascribed to members of this guild (see Psalms 42:1-11; Psalms 43:1-5; Psalms 45:1-17; Psalms 46:1-11; Psalms 49:1-20; Psalms 84:1-12). We are not to think of these poems as having been composed by a committee of the sons of Korah; no doubt each poem had an individual author, who was willing to sink his personality in the psalm that he was composing. The privileges and blessings of social worship in the sanctuary are greatly magnified in this group of psalms
(3) Psalms of Solomon (Psalms 72; 127). Even conservative critics are in doubt as to the Solomonic authorship of the two psalms ascribed to him by the titles. Perhaps assurance is not attainable in the present state of inquiry. Delitzsch well says: "Under Solomon psalmody already began to decline; all the productions of the mind of that period bear the stamp of thoughtful contemplation rather than of direct feeling, for restless yearning for higher things had given place to sensuous enjoyment, national concentration to cosmopolitan expansion."
(4) The Era of Jehoshaphat. Delitzsch and others regard the period of Jehoshaphat as one of literary productivity. Possibly Psalms 75:1-10 and Psalms 76:1-12 celebrate the deliverance from the great eastern invasion toward the close of Jehoshaphat's reign.
(5) The Era of Hezekiah. The latter half of the 8th century BC was one of literary vigor and expansion, especially in Judah. Perhaps the great deliverance from Sennacherib's invasion is celebrated in Psalms 46:1-11 and Psalms 48:1-14.
(6) The Period of Jeremiah. Ehrt and some other scholars are inclined to attribute to Jeremiah a considerable number of psalms. Among those which have been assigned to this prophet may be named Psalms 31:1-24; Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 38:1-22; Psalms 40:1-17; Psalms 55:1-23; Psalms 69:1-36; Psalms 71:1-24. Those who deny the Davidic authorship of Psalms 22:1-31 also assign this great poem to Jeremiah. Whether we are able to name definitely any psalms of Jeremiah, it seems thoroughly reasonable that he should have been the author of certain of the plaintive poems in the Psalter.
(7) During the Exile. Psalms 102:1-28 seems to have been composed during the exile. The poet pours out his complaint over the present distress, and reminds Yahweh that it is time to have pity upon Zion. Psalms 137:1-9 pictures the distress of the captives by the rivers of Babylon. The fire and fervor of the poem bespeak an author personally involved in the distress. No doubt other psalms in our collection were composed during the captivity in Babylon.
(8) Post-exilic Psalms
As specimens of the joyous hymns composed after the return from exile, we may name Psalms 85:1-13 and Psalms 126:1-6. Many of the liturgical hymns in the Psalter were no doubt prepared for use in the worship of the second temple. Certain recent critics have extended this class of hymns so as to include the greater part of the Psalter, but that is surely an extreme view. No doubt, the stirring times of Ezra and Nehemiah stimulated poets in Jerusalem to pour forth thanksgiving and praise to Israel's God. Ewald taught, that the latest psalms in our collection were composed at this time.
(9) Are There Maccabean Psalms?
Calvin, assigned Psalms 44:1-26; Psalms 74:1-23 and Psalms 79:1-13 to the Maccabean period. If there are Maccabean psalms, Calvin has perhaps hit upon three of them. Hitzig assigns to the Maccabean period all the psalms from 73 to 150, together with a few psalms in the earlier half of the Psalter. Among moderns, Duhm puts practically the whole Psalter in the period from 170 to 70 BC. Gesenius, Ewald, Hupfeld and Dillmann, four of the greatest names in Old Testament criticism, oppose the view that the Psalter contains Maccabean psalms. Most recent students admit the possibility of Maccabean psalms. The question may well be left open for further investigation.
III. Growth of the Psalter. 1. Division into Five Books: In the Hebrew text as well as in the Revised Version (British and American), the Psalms are grouped into five books, as follows: Book I, Psalms 1:1-6 through Psalms 41:1-13; Book II, Psalms 42:1-11 through Psalms 72:1-20; Book III, Psalms 73:1-28 through Psalms 89:1-52; Book IV, Psalms 90:1-17 through Psalms 106:1-48; Book V, Psalms 107:1-43 through Psalms 150:1-6. It is possible that this division into five books may have been already made before the Chronicler composed his history of Judah (compare 1 Chronicles 16:36 with Psalms 106:48). At the end of Book II appears a subscript which is significant in the history of the Psalter. It is said in Psalms 72:20: "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." It would seem from this note that the editor who appended it meant to say that in his collection he had included all the psalms of David known to him. Singularly enough, the subscript is attached to a psalm ascribed to Solomon. Psalms 51:1-19 through Psalms 70:1-5, however, lie near at hand, all of which are attributed to David. Psalms 71:1-24 is anonymous, and Psalms 72:1-20 might possibly be considered a prayer for Solomon. There is a further difficulty in the fact that the Second Book of Psalms opens with nine poems ascribed to the sons of Korah and to Asaph. It is a very natural conjecture that these nine psalms were at one time united with Psalms 73:1-28 through Psalms 83:1-18. With these removed, it would be possible to unite Psalms 51:1-19 through Psalms 70:1-5 with Book I. Then the subscript to Psalms 72:1-20 would be a fitting close to a roll made up of psalms ascribed to David. It is impossible at this late date to trace fully and accurately the history of the formation of the Psalter.
2. Smaller Groups of Psalms: Within the Psalter there lie certain groups of psalms which have in a measure retained the form in which they probably once circulated separately. Among these groups may be named the Psalms of Ascents (Psalms 120:1-7 through Psalms 134:1-3), the Asaph group (Psalms 73:1-28 through Psalms 83:1-18), the sons of Korah groups (Psalms 42:1-11 through Psalms 49:1-20; Psalms 84:1-12 through Psalms 87:1-7, except Psalms 86:1-17), a Mikhtam group (Psalms 56:1-13 through Psalms 60:1-12), a group praising Yahweh for His character and deeds (Psalms 93:1-5 through Psalms 100:1-5), to which Psalms 90:1-17-Psalms 92:1-15 form a fitting introduction. Psalms 103:1-22 through Psalms 107:1-43 constitute another group of praise psalms, and Psalms 145:1-21 through Psalms 150:1-6 make a closing Hallelujah group.
The Psalter has had a long and varied history. No doubt the precentor of the temple choir had his own collection of hymns for public worship. Small groups of psalms may have been issued also for private use in the home. As time went on, collections were made on different organizing principles. Sometimes hymns attributed to a given author were perhaps brought into a single group. Possibly psalms of a certain type, such as Maskil and Mikhtam psalms, were gathered together in small collections. How these small groups were partly preserved and partly broken up, in the history of the formation of our present Psalter, will, perhaps, never be known.
IV. Poetry of the Psalter. For general discussion of the form of Hebrew poetry, see POETRY. In the Psalms almost all known varieties of poetic parallelism are exemplified. Among moderns, C.A. Briggs has made extensive research into the poetical structure of the Psalms. In summing up the result of his study of the various measures employed in the Psalms, he classes 89 psalms or parts of psalms as trimeters, that is, the lines have three main accents; 22 psalms or parts he regards as tetrameters, each of the lines having four accented syllables; 25 psalms or portions are classed as pentameters, and an equal number as hexameters. He recognizes some variety of measure in certain psalms. There is coming to be agreement among Hebrew scholars that the rhythm of Hebrew poetry is largely determined by the number of accented syllables to the line. Some critics insist rigorously on perfect regularity, and therefore are compelled to resort to conjectural emendation.
See POETRY, HEBREW.
Nine psalms are known as alphabetical poems, namely, Psalms 9:1-20; Psalms 10:1-18; Psalms 25:1-22; Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 111:1-10; Psalms 112:1-10; Psalms 119:1-176; Psalms 145:1-21. The most elaborate of these is Psalms 119:1-176, which is divided into Psalms 22:1-31 sections of 8 verses each. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet occurs 8 times in succession as the initial letter of the verses in its section.
As to strophical structure or stanza formation, there is evidence in certain psalms of such organization of the poems. The refrains with which strophes often close form an easy guide to the strophical divisions in certain psalms, such as Psalms 42:1-11; Psalms 43:1-5; Psalms 46:1-11; Psalms 107:1-43. Among English commentators, Briggs pays most attention to strophical structure. There is some evidence of antiphonal singing in connection with the Psalter. It is thought by some that Psalms 20:1-9 and Psalms 21:1-13 were sung by responsive choirs. Psalms 24:1-10 and Psalms 118:1-29 may each be antiphonal.
V. The Speaker in the Psalms. Smend, in ZATW, 1888, undertook to establish thesis that the speaker in the Psalms is not an individual, but a personification of the Jewish nation or church. At first he was inclined to recognize an individual speaker in Psalms 3:1-8; Psalms 4:1-8; Psalms 62:1-12 and Psalms 73:1-28, but one year later he interpreted these also as collective. Thus, at one stroke individual religious experience is wiped out of the Psalter, A few scholars have accepted Smend's thesis; but the great majority of critics of every school have withheld their assent, and some of the best commentators have shown that theory is wholly untenable.
Perhaps the best monograph on the subject, for the German student, is one by Emil Balla, Das Ich der Psalmen. Balla's thesis is that the "I" psalms, both in the Psalter and in the other books of the Old Testament, are always to be understood as individual, with the exception of those in which from plain data in the text another interpretation of the "I" is necessary. Of 100 psalms in which "I" occurs, Balla classes 80 as easy to interpret; in the remaining 20 there might be reasonable room for difference of opinion whether the psalm was individual or collective.
Personification is largely used in all parts of the Old Testament. There is no room for doubt that Psalms 129:1-8, though using "I," "my" and "me," is the language of Israel as a people. The same is true of Psalms 124:1-8. The author of Psalms 126:1-6 likewise associates himself with his brethren. The author of Psalms 122:1-9, however, is evidently speaking for himself individually, when he says in Psalms 122:8, "For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee." The intelligent reader usually has no difficulty in deciding, after a careful reading of a psalm, whether the "I" refers to an individual Israelite or to the congregation of Israel. Sane views on this subject are important, inasmuch as Smend's theory does violence to the strength and power of the individual religious experience of Old Testament believers. In many portions of the Old Testament, national duties are urged, and Israel is addressed as a whole. At the same time, it would be easy to exaggerate the relatively small place that individual religion occupies in the prophetic writings and in the Law. The Psalter absolutely refuses to be shut up in the molds of a rigid nationalism.
VI. The Gospel in the Psalms
Christians love the Psalter as much as the ancient Jew could possibly have done. On every page they discover elements of religious life and experience that are thoroughly Christian. In this respect the earlier dispensation came nearer to the perfection of Christian standards than in political and social organization. Along with the New Testament, the aged Christian saint desires a copy of the Psalms. He passes easily from the Gospels to the Psalter and back again without the sense of shifting from one spiritual level to another. Religious experience was enjoyed and was portrayed by the ancient psalmists so well that no Christian book in the apostolic period was composed to displace the Psalter.
1. The Soul's Converse with God: (1) The Psalmists Are Always Reverent in Their Approach to Deity.
Yahweh is infinitely holy (Psalms 99:3, 5, 9). Psalms 95:1-11 through Psalms 100:1-5 are models of adoration and worship.
(2) Thirsting for God. Psalms 42:1-11 and Psalms 43:1-5, which were originally one psalm, voice the longing of the individual soul for God as no other human composition has been able to express it. Psalms 63:1-11 is a worthy companion psalm of yearning after God.
(3) Praising God. More than 20 psalms have for their keynote praise to God. See especially Psalms 8:1, 9; Psalms 57:7-11; Psalms 71:22-24; Psalms 95:1-7. The first three verses of Psalms 33:1-22; Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 40:1-17; Psalms 92:1-15 and Psalms 105:1-45 reveal a rich vocabulary of praise for stammering human lips.
(4) Joy in God's house. Psalms 84:1-12 and Psalms 122:1-9 are classic hymns expressive of joy in public worship in the sanctuary. Religious patriotism has never received a more striking expression than is found in Psalms 137:5 f.
(5) Practicing the Presence of God. In Psalms 91:1-16 and Psalms 23:1-6 the worshipping saint delights his soul with the sense of God's protecting presence. The Shepherd, tender and true, is ever present to shield and to comfort. The shadow of the Almighty is over the saint who dwells in the secret place of the Most High.
(6) God in Nature. The Psalmist did not go "through Nature up to Nature's God"; for he found God immanent in all things. He heard God's voice in the thunder; felt His breath in the twilight breeze; saw the gleam of His sword in the lightning's flash, and recognized His hand in every provision for the wants of man and the lower animals. See Psalms 104:1-35, "Hymn of Creation"; Psalms 29:1-11, "Yahweh, the God of the storm"; and the first half of Psalms 19:1-14, "the heavens are telling."
(7) Love for God's word. Psalms 119:1-176 is the classic description of the beauty and power and helpfulness of the Word of God. The second half of Psalms 19:1-14 is also a gem. Psalms 119:1-176 was happily named by one of the older commentators "a holy alphabet for Zion's scholars." The Psalmist sings the glories of God's Word as a lamp to guide, as a spring of comfort, and as a fountain of hope.
(8) God's Care of All Things. Faith in Divine Providence--both general and special--was a cardinal doctrine with the psalmists; yea more, the very heart of their religion. Psalms 65:1-13 sings of God's goodness in sunshine and shower, which clothes the meadows with waving grain. The river of God is always full of water. Psalms 121:1-8, "Yahweh thy Keeper," was read by David Livingstone at family worship on the morning when he left home to go out to Africa as a missionary.
(9) God Our Refuge. The psalmists were fond of the figure of "taking refuge in God." Yahweh was to them a rock of refuge, a stronghold, a high tower, an impregnable fortress. Psalms 46:1-11; Psalms 61:1-8 and Psalms 62:1-12 exalt God as the refuge of His saints. His help is always easy to find. The might and wisdom of God do not overwhelm the inspired singers, but become a theme of devout and joyous contemplation.
Our Lord Jesus found in the Psalms prophecies concerning Himself (Luke 24:44-47).
2. The Messiah: (1) The Suffering Saviour. While hanging on the cross, the mind of our Lord turned to the Psalter. He voiced the terrible anguish of His soul in the opening words of Psalms 22:1-31, and breathed out His spirit at the end with the trustful words of Psalms 31:5. He also invited the fulfillment of a Messianic prediction in Psalms 69:21 by saying, "I thirst." Isa and the Psalms did not fail Him in the hour of His shame, when reproach broke His heart, and there was none to comfort Him. Only Isaiah 52:13 through Isaiah 53:12 surpasses Psalms 22:1-31 as a picture of Calvary and an interpretation of the significance of the cross. Whether Psalms 22:1-31 is a direct prophecy of Christ, or only a typically Messianic psalm, is in dispute. Every sentence can be applied to Jesus without straining its meaning. If David or some other sufferer took up his harp to sing of his own sorrows, the Spirit of God guided him to describe those of a greater.
Rationalistic critics insist that to apply part of a psalm to David and part to Christ introduces confusion. They ridicule theory of a "double sense," and contend that the language refers to the Psalmist and to him alone, and that the application of certain verses to our Lord Jesus is only by way of accommodation. This theory ignores the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit altogether; and when men talk of "psychological impossibilities," they may be talking nonsense; for who of us can us can understand fully the psychological experience of men while receiving revelations from God? The real author of inspired prophecies is the Holy Spirit. His meaning is that which the reverent interpreter most delights to find; and we have evidence that the Old Testament writers did not fully comprehend their own predictions concerning Christ (1 Peter 1:10-12). We ought not to be surprised that we should be unable to explain fully the method of the Holy Spirit's activity in guiding the thought of prophets and psalmists in their predictions of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them.
(2) The Conquering King. Psalms 2:1-12 and Psalms 110:1-7 (with which Psalms 72:1-20 may be compared) describe the Messiah as Yahweh's Son, a mighty. Conqueror, who shall overwhelm all foes and reign supported by Yahweh. Some will oppose the Messiah, and so perish; others will enter His army as volunteers, and in the end will enjoy the fruits of victory. "It is better to sit on His throne than to be His footstool."
(3) The Growing Kingdom. There is room in the earth for no god other than Yahweh, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind. Psalms 47:1-9; Psalms 67:1-7; Psalms 96:1-13 through Psalms 100:1-5 and Psalms 117:1-2 are proofs of the glorious missionary outlook of the Psalter. All nations are exhorted to forsake idols and worship Yahweh. Psalms 47:1-9 closes with a picture of the whole world united in the worship of the God of Israel. Psalms 67:1-7 is a bugle call to all nations to unite in the worship of the true God. Psalms 96:1-13 through Psalms 100:1-5 paint the character of Yahweh as a basis of appeal to all nations to turn from idols and worship the God of Abraham. Psalms 96:1-13 and Psalms 98:1-9 exalt His righteousness; Psalms 97:1-12 His power and dominion; Psalms 99:1-9 His holiness and His fidelity to Israel, while Psalms 100:1-5 tells of His goodness. Idols will finally go down before a God worthy of men's reverence and love.
3. Problem of Sin: The Psalter deals with man as a sinner. Seven of the best known poems in the collection are so charged with a sense of sin and of its deadly fruits that they have been known for centuries as the Penitential Psalms (6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143). Besides these poems of penitence and confession, there are many passages elsewhere in the Psalter which depict the sinfulness of men. And yet there are assertions of personal innocence and righteousness in the Psalter that sound like the claims of self-righteous persons (7:3-9; 17:1-5; 18:20-24; 35:11-17; 44:17-22). The psalmists do not mean to affirm that they are sinless before God, but rather that they are righteous in comparison with their foes who are seeking to destroy them. Sometimes they plead for mercy in the same context. The honest exegete does not find the Pharisaic temper in these noble hymns, though he is quite willing to admit that the Christian cannot well employ some of the expressions concerning his own experiences. Jesus requires a humility deeper than that which was attained in Old Testament times.
(1) Confessing Sin. (a) Individual confession: Psalms 32:1-11 and Psalms 51:1-19 are notable examples of individual confession. The cries of the penitent in Psalms 51:1-19 have been repeated by thousands on bended knee as the best expression of their own sense of sin and yearning for forgiveness. (b) National confession (see especially 78; 95 and 106). Psalms 105:1-45 celebrates the praises of Yahweh for His unfailing kindness to Israel; Psalms 106:1-48 tells the tale of Israel's repeated rebellion.
(2) Seeking Forgiveness. Psalms 51:1-19 is the penitent's cry for mercy. Never did the soul of man plead more powerfully for forgiveness. God cannot despise a heart broken and crushed with the sense of sin and pleading like a lost child for home and mother.
(3) Conquering Sin. Psalms 130:1-8 begins with a cry out of the depths and ends with a note of joy over redemption from sin. The plenteous redemption of which the poet speaks includes triumph over sin in one's heart and life. The cries of the Old Testament saints for victory over sin were not unheeded (Psalms 139:23 f; Psalms 19:13; 119:133). The author of Psalms 84:1-12 truthfully depicts the life of Yahweh's worshippers, "They go from strength to strength." Victory over sin is sure in the end.
4. Wrestling with Doubts: The ancient Hebrew seems to have had no temptation to atheism or pantheism. The author of Ecclesiastes felt the pull of agnosticism and materialism (Ecclesiastes 3:19-21; Ecclesiastes 9:2-10), but in the end he rejected both (Ecclesiastes 12:7, 13 f). The ancient Hebrew found in the world about him one difficulty which seemed almost insuperable. He believed in the wisdom and power and justice of God. How then could it be possible, in a world over which a wise and just God presides, that the wicked should prosper and the righteous suffer? This is the question which is hotly debated by Job and his three friends. A partial solution of the difficulty may be seen in Psalms 37:1-40, theme of which is `the brevity of godless prosperity, and the certainty that well-doing will lead to well-being.' A better solution is attained in Psalms 73:1-28, which depicts God's attitude toward the wicked and toward the righteous. The wicked will be suddenly overthrown, while the righteous will live forever in the enjoyment of communion with God. Not even death can sever him from God. The fleeting pleasures of proud scoffers pale into insignificance before the glories of everlasting fellowship with God.
5. Out of the Depths: (1) Out of the depths of persecution and slander the author of Psalms 31:1-24 climbed into his refuge, as he exclaimed, "In the covert of thy presence wilt thou hide them from the plottings of man: Thou wilt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." (2) Psalms 77:1-20 is a stairway out of depths of suspense and the anxiety. The experience of the author well illustrates Maclaren's epigram, "If out of the depths we cry, we shall cry ourselves out of the depths." (3) The author of Psalms 116:1-19 looked into the jaws of death. Perhaps no other psalm has so much to say of physical death. The singer is filled with gratitude as he reviews the deadly peril from which Yahweh has saved him. (4) Psalms 88:1-18 is unique, because it is sad and plaintive from beginning to end. The singer has long cried for deliverance from bodily weakness and from loneliness. (5) Out of the depths of disaster and defeat the authors of Psalms 60:1-12; Psalms 74:1-23; Psalms 79:1-13 and Psalms 89:1-52 cry to God. The Babylonian exile was a sore trial to patriotic Jews. They mourned over the destruction of their beautiful temple and the holy city in which their fathers had worshipped. The author of Psalms 60:1-12 closes with hope and confidence (Psalms 60:12).
6. Ethical Ideals: "Unquestionably in the Psalms we reach the high-water mark of Old Testament practical piety, the best that, the Old Testament can exhibit of heart-religion."
(1) What Sort of Man, Then, Would the Psalms Acclaim as Good?
Psalms 1:1-6 opens with a vivid contrast between the righteous and the wicked. Psalms 15:1-5 is the most complete description of a good man to be found in the Psalter. The picture is drawn in answer to the question, What sort of man will Yahweh receive as an acceptable worshipper? The morality of the Bible is rooted in religion, and the religion of the Bible blossoms and bears fruit in the highest ethics known to man. Psalms 131:1-3 makes humility a prime quality in real goodness. Psalms 133:1-3 magnifies the spirit of brotherly love. The social virtues had a large place in the psalmists' ideals of goodness. Humility and brotherly love are a guaranty of peace in the home, the church and the nation. Psalms 24:4 is a compend of ethics in a single sentence.
(2) The Ethics of Speech. Even a casual reading of the Psalms must impress one with the fact that the psalmists felt very keenly the lies and slanders and boastings of the wicked. Stirred with righteous indignation, they call upon God to awake and confront the blatant foes of truth and righteousness (see especially Psalms 12:1-8; Psalms 52:1-9 and Psalms 120:1-7).
(3) Ministering to the Needy. Bible readers are familiar with the ideal of the good man in Job 29:12-16; Job 31:13-22. Psalms 82:1-8 is a plea for justice. Venal judges are one day to confront the great Judge. Men need fair play first. Perhaps there will then be no occasion for the exercise of almsgiving. Psalms 41:1-13 is a plea for kindness. The Christian reader is reminded of the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." The Ideal Ruler is both just and beneficent (Psalms 72:2, 12-14).
7. Praying against the Wicked: To be a good lover one must know how to hate. The excitement of battle throbs in many of the Psalms. The enemies of righteousness are victorious and defiant. Their taunts drive the psalmists to importunate prayer. Yahweh's honor is at stake and His cause in peril. More than 20 psalms contain prayer for the defeat and overthrow of the wicked. Warlike imagery of the boldest kind is found in many of the imprecatory psalms. To the Christian reader some of the curses pronounced against the wicked are startling and painful. Many are led to wonder how such imprecations ever found a place in the Bible. The most severe curses are found in Psalms 35:1-28; Psalms 69:1-36 and Psalms 109:1-31. Maclaren's words are well worth reading as an introduction to Psalms 109:1-31: "For no private injuries, or for those only in so far as the suffering singer is a member of the community which represents God's cause, does he ask the descent of God's vengeance, but for the insults and hurts inflicted on righteousness. The form of these maledictions belongs to a lower stage of revelation; the substance of them, considered as passionate desires for the destruction of evil, burning zeal for the triumph of truth, which is God's cause, and unquenchable faith that He is just, is a part of Christian perfection." Two remarks may be made, as suggestions to the student of the Psalter: (1) We ought to study the psalms of imprecation in the light of their origin. They are poetry and not prose; and De Witt reminds us that the language of oriental poetry is that of exaggerated passion. Some of these imprecations pulse with the throb of actual battle. Swords are drawn, and blood is flowing. The champion of Yahweh's people prays for the overthrow of His foes. The enemies cursed are men who break every moral law and defy God. The Psalmist identifies himself with Yahweh's cause. "Do not I hate them, O Yahweh, that hate thee? And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: They are become mine enemies" (Psalms 139:21 f). Thus the psalmists pray with God's glory in view. (2) We ought to use the imprecatory psalms in the light of our Lord's teaching. We cannot pronounce curses on our personal enemies. This heavenly artillery may be turned upon the saloon, the brothel and the gambling hell, though we must not forget to pray for the conversion of the persons who are engaged in these lines of business.
8. The Future Life: "If a man die, shall he live again?" What answer do the Psalms give to Job's cry for light? There are expressions in the Psalter which seem to forbid hope of a blessed immortality (Psalms 6:5; 30:9; 39:13; 115:17). The psalmists are tempted to fear that fellowship with God would cease at death. Let this fact, however, be borne in mind, that not one of the poets or prophets of Israel settled down to a final denial of immortality. Some of them had moments of joyous assurance of a blessed life of fellowship with God in the world to come. Life everlasting in the presence of Yahweh is the prospect with which the author of Psalms 16:1-11 refreshes himself (Psalms 16:8-11). The vision of God's face after the sleep of death is better than worldly prosperity (Psalms 17:13-15). The author of Psalms 73:1-28 wins rest for his distressed mind in the assurance of a fellowship with God that cannot be broken (Psalms 73:23-26). God will finally take the singer to Himself. It has been well said that Psalms 49:1-20 registers the high-water mark of Old Testament faith in a future life. Death becomes the shepherd of the wicked who trusted in riches, while God redeems the righteous from the power of Sheol and takes the believing soul to Himself.
LITERATURE.
One of the most elaborate and informing articles on the history of the exposition of the Psalms is found in the Introduction to Delitzsch's Commentary (pp. 64-87, English translation). Among the Fathers, Jerome, Chrysostom and Augustine are most helpful. Among the Reformers, Calvin, the prince of expositors, is most valuable. Among modern commentators, Ewald and Delitzsch are scholarly and sane. Their commentaries are accessible in English translation Hupfeld is strong in grammatical exegesis. Baethgen (1904) is very thorough. Among recent English and American commentators, the most helpful are Perowne (6th edition, 1866), Maclaren in Expositor's Bible (1890-92), and Kirkpatrick in Cambridge Bible (1893-95). Briggs in ICC (1906) is learned; Davison, New Century Bible, is bright and attractive. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, is a valuable compilation, chiefly from the Puritan divines. Cheyne, The Book of Psalms (1888) and The Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter (1891), is quite radical in his critical views. Binnie, The Psalms: Their Origin, Teachings and Use (1886), is a fine introduction to the Psalter. Robertson, The Poetry and Religion of the Psalms (1898), constructs an able argument against recent radical views.
John Richard Sampey
Psalms, Imprecatory
Psalms, Imprecatory - im'-pre-ka-to-ri, im-pre-ka'-ter-i.
See PSALMS,VI , 7.
Psalter, (Psalms), of Solomon
Psalter, (Psalms), of Solomon - sol'-ter.
See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE, sec. III, 1; BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS, sec. IV, 1, (1), (b).
Psaltery
Psaltery - sol'-ter-i.
See MUSIC.
Psaltiel
Psaltiel - sol'-ti-el: Syriac and the Revised Version margin = "Phaltiel" of 2 Esdras 5:16.
Pseudo-matthew, Gospel of
Pseudo-matthew, Gospel of - su'-do-math'-u.
See APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS,III , 1, (b).
Psychology
Psychology - si-kol'-o-ji:
1. Introduction: Scope of Biblical Psychology
2. Nature and Origin of the Soul
3. False Theories
4. Creationism and Traducianism
5. Trichotomy
6. Scriptural Terms
7. Pauline Expressions
8. Monism and Other Theories
9. The Fall of Man
10. Effects of the Fall
11. Death as a Problem
12. Immortality of the Soul
LITERATURE
1. Introduction: Scope of Biblical Psychology: The extravagant claims made by some writers for a fully developed system of Biblical psychology has brought the whole subject into disrepute. So much so, that Hofmann (Schriftbeweis) has boldly asserted that "a system of Biblical psychology has been got together without any justification for it in Scripture." At the outset, therefore, it must be borne in mind that the Bible does not present us with a systematized philosophy of man, but gives in popular form an account of human nature in all its various relationships. A reverent study of Scripture will undoubtedly lead to the recognition of a well-defined system of psychology, on which the whole scheme of redemption is based. Great truths regarding human nature are presupposed in and accepted by the Old Testament and the New Testament; stress is there laid on other aspects of truth, unknown to writers outside of revelation, and presented to us, not in the language of the schools, but in that of practical life. Man is there described as fallen and degraded, but intended by God to be raised, redeemed, renewed. From this point of view Biblical psychology must be studied, and our aim should be "to bring out the views of Scripture regarding the nature, the life and life-destinies of the soul, as they are determined in the history of salvation" (Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, 15).
2. Nature and Origin of the Soul: As to the origin of the soul, Scripture is silent. It states very clearly that life was inbreathed into man by God (wayyippah; Septuagint enephusesen; Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) inspiravit). The human being thus inspired by God was thereby constituted a nephesh chayyah ("living soul"), because the nishmath chayyim ("breath of lives") had been imparted to him (Genesis 2:7). Beyond this the first book of the Bible does not go. In later books the doctrine is taught with equal clearness. Thus, in the Book of Job: "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty giveth me life" (Job 33:4). The difference in expression should be carefully noted. The "living soul" Septuagint psuche zosa) is made to depend upon, as it has its origin in, the "breath of lives" the Septuagint pnoe zoes). The neshamah ("breath") is characteristic of man--though it is very rarely, if ever, attributed to animals; man is described as a being `in whose nostrils is but a breath' (neshamah) (Isaiah 2:22). That "breath" is `God's breath in man' (Job 32:8; 34:14), or, as it is represented in Proverbs 20:27, "The spirit of man (nishmath) is the lamp of Yahweh." In the New Testament Paul evidently refers to this view of man's origin in the statement that "the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam .... a life-giving (quickening) spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). This too agrees with what Christ has said: "It is the spirit, that giveth life (quickeneth)" (John 6:63), and with what Paul himself has stated elsewhere in the Epistle to the Romans (John 8:2): "The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death."
3. False Theories: Scripture therefore repudiates all doctrines of emanation, by which is meant a natural, forth-flowing life from God into the human sphere; it teaches a doctrine of creation, whereby it declares that the Almighty acts with deliberation and design, in free choice, and not of necessity. "Let us make man" is the sublime utterance of divine wisdom and power. Nor does Scripture teach the pre-existence of the soul--a doctrine found in the extra-canonical, platonically-inspired Book of Wisdom (Wisd 8:19,20), For I was a child of parts, and a good soul fell to my lot; nay rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled." This doctrine was well known to Jewish writers, and was taught in Talmud and Kabbalah.
"All souls were, according to the Talmud, created and kept in secret from the first moment of creation. As creatures of the highest sphere they are omniscient; but at the moment of birth in a human body an angel touches the lips of the child, so that he forgets whatever has been" (Emanuel Deutsch, The Talmud). The doctrine, however, must be a later importation into Jewish theology through Plato and Philo. It reminds us of Vergil (AEneid vi.713), who makes the souls--destined by the Fates to inhabit new bodies on earth--drink of the waters of Lethe (forgetfulness), so as to remove all remembrance of the joys of Elysium:
"The souls that throng the flood,
Are those to whom by Fate are other bodies owed;
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past."
According to the Kabbalah, souls are supposed to have an ideal as well as a real pre-existence: "ideal as emanations from the cephiroth, which are themselves emanations from the infinite real, as having been `created' at a definite time" (compare Eric Bischoff, De Kabbala).
The doctrine with some modifications passed into the Christian church, was accepted by Justin Martyr, Theodoretus, Origen and others of the church Fathers, but became obsolete by the latter part of the 4th century (compare Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine,II , 9). It was formally condemned by a synod held at Constantinople in the 6th century. In later times it was accepted in modified form by Kant, Schelling and others, and was specially defended by Julius Muller, who held that the soul had a timeless preexistence and underwent a fall before the final act, whereby it was united in time to the body as its temporary home (Ein ausserzeitlicher Urzustand und Urfall). Reference is sometimes made to Jeremiah 1:5, where Yahweh addresses His servant: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations." But this text gives no warrant to the doctrine as taught by the writers mentioned. All that may be conceded is, what Delitzsch has termed "an ideal pre-existence," i.e. "a pre-existence, not only of man as such, but also of the individual and of all: a preexistence in the divine knowledge, which precedes the existence in the individual consciousness" (Biblical Psychology, 46).
4. Creationism and Traducianism: A new question arises at this point, namely, Is the soul a special creation? Is it derived from the parents? Opinions are and have been divided on this point. Many have supported theory of Creationism, by which is meant that in every instance where a new individual comes into being a soul is specially created by God, de nihilo, to inhabit the new-formed body. This view of the soul's birth found great favor in the early church. It was dominant in the East and was advocated in the West. "Jerome asserts that God quotidie fabricatur animas, and cites Scripture in proof" (Shedd, op. cit., II, 11). Scholastic theologians in the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic divines, Reformed orthodoxy upheld theory. Though finding little support in Scripture, they appealed to such texts as the following: "He fashioneth their hearts alike" (Psalms 33:15 the King James Version); Yahweh "formeth the spirit of man within him" (Zechariah 12:1); "The spirit returneth unto God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7; compare Numbers 16:22; Hebrews 12:9); "God, the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numbers 27:16)--of which Delitzsch declared: "There can hardly be a more classical proof-text for creationism" (Bibl. Psych., 137).
Traducianism again has found equal support in the Christian church. It declared that the parents were responsible, not merely for the bodies, but also for the souls of their offspring--per traducem vel per propaginem (i.e. by direct derivation, in the ordinary way of propagation). Tertullian was a strong supporter of this view: "The soul of man, like the shoot of a tree, is drawn out (deducta) into a physical progeny from Adam, the parent stock" (Shedd, History of Doctrine, II, 14). Jerome remarked that in his day it was adopted by maxima pars occidentalium ("the large majority of western theologians"). Leo the Great (died 461) asserted that "the Catholic faith teaches that every man with reference to the substance of his soul as well as of his body is formed in the womb" (Shedd). Augustine, however, though doctrinally inclined to support the claims of Traducianists, kept an open mind on the subject: "You may blame, if you will, my hesitation," he wrote, "because I do not venture to affirm or deny that of which I am ignorant." And, perhaps, this is the safest attitude to assume; for there is little Scriptural warrant for either theory. Birth is a mystery which baffles investigation, and Scripture throws no light upon that mystery. Yet some who have discussed this subject have tried actually to calculate the very day on which the soul is created or infused into the body, as it is being formed in the mother's womb--in boys on the 40th day after pregnancy and in girls on the 80th day. This indeed is the reductio ad absurdum of Creationism.
Whichever theory we accept, the difficulties are great either way. For if God creates a soul, that soul must be pure and sinless and stainless at birth. How then can it be said that man is "conceived" as well as "born in sin"? If the impure, sin-stained body contaminates the pure, unstained soul by contact, why cannot the stainless soul disinfect the contaminated body? And again, if every individual soul is a special creation by direct interposition of the Almighty, what becomes of the unity and solidarity of the race? Is its connection with Adam then purely one of physical or corporeal generation? Creationism cannot account for the birth of the soul. Nor can Traducianism. For it can account neither for the origin, nor for the hereditary taint of the soul. It lands us in a hopeless dilemma. In the one case we fall back upon Creationism with its difficulties; in the other, we plunge into a materialism which is equally fatal to theory (compare Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek,II , 626). Perhaps the words of Petrus Lombardus, though frequently misunderstood and misapplied, throw most light on the subject--a light, however, which is little more than "darkness visible"--creando infundit eas Deus, et infundendo creat ("in creating God infused (the soul); and in infusing He creates"). The problem is and remains insoluble.
Passing allusion may be made to another very curious theory, to which reference is made by Martensen (Christliche Ethik, I, 107). It bears upon human individuality, as impressed not only upon the soul, but also upon the body. The soul and the body are represented as arising at the same moment, but the latter (not in regard to its physico-chemical composition, but in other respects) is the resultant of soul-influences, whatever these may be. The soul therefore exercises a formative influence upon the body, with which it is united. This theory is attributed by Martensen to G.E. Stahl, who died in Berlin in 1734, as physician to the royal family. We are here in a region where the way is barred--"a palpable obscure" without the light of day.
5. Trichotomy: The next important question which has occupied many minds is equally difficult of solution--theory of Tripartition. Is man composed of "body" and "soul" (dichotomy) only, or is a third to be added to the two, so that "spirit" is another element in the constitution of human nature (trichotomy)? Either theory is supposed to be supported by Scripture, and both have had their defenders in all ages of the church. Where the tripartite division has found favor, soul and spirit have been distinguished from each other, as man's lower is distinguished from his higher nature; where dichotomy prevailed, soul and spirit were represented as manifestations of the same spiritual essence. Under the influence of Platonic philosophy, trichotomy found favor in the early church, but was discredited on account of the Apollinarian heresy. The threefold division of human nature into soma ("body"), psuche ("soul"), pneuma ("spirit") had been accepted by many when Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea (died 382), attempted to explain the mystery of Christ's person by teaching that the Logos (or second person of the Trinity) had taken the place of the rational soul in Christ, so that the person of Christ on earth consisted of the Divine Logos, a human body, and a soul (psuche) as the link between the two.
For the tripartite division of human nature two texts are specially brought into the discussion: namely, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, "May your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame"--a text which is popularly interpreted as conveying that "soul" stands for "our powers natural--those we have by nature," and that by "spirit" is meant "that life in man which in his natural state can scarcely be said to exist at all, but which is to be called out into power and vitality by regeneration" (F.W. Robertson, Sermons). There is very little warrant in Scripture for such interpretation. "The language does not require a distinction of organs or substances, but may be accounted for by a vivid conception of one substance in different relations and under different aspects. The two terms are used to give exhaustive expression to the whole being and nature of man" (Davidson, Old Testament Theology, 135). There is evidently no distinction of essence here--namely, of a soul distinct from the spirit, and a body distinct from either. In his "fervid desire for the complete and perfect sanctification of his disciples, the apostle accumulates these terms" in order to emphasize the doctrine of an entire renewal of the whole man by the working of the Holy Spirit. It has been pointed out (A. Kuyper, Het werk v. d. Heiligen Geest, III, 101)--and this must be carefully borne in mind--that "the apostle does not use the word holomereis, `in all your parts,' and then summarize these parts in body, soul and spirit, but holoteleis, a word that has no reference to the parts, but to the telos, the end or aim. Calvin interprets `soul' and `spirit' here as referring to our rational and moral existence, as thinking, willing beings, both modes of operation of the one, undivided soul."
The next text to which an appeal is made is Hebrews 4:12: "The word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart." Here spirit, soul and heart are brought into close correspondence, with heart evidently as the center of personality, manifesting itself in soul and spirit. The only question is, whether the dividing which takes place by the piercing word of God is one within the soul and spirit, causing a complete exposure of the inner man, a cutting asunder of all that composes his nature, or one between the soul and spirit, causing a division between them as separate parts of human nature. The probability lies with the first of these two contradictory views. The writer evidently meant that, as a sharp two-edged sword pierces to the very marrow in its sundering process, so the sword of the spirit cuts through all obstacles, pierces the very heart, lays bare what hitherto was hidden to all observers, even to the man himself, and "discerns" the "thoughts and intents," which in the unity of soul and spirit have hitherto been kept in the background. "The meaning is rather, that the word of God pierces and dissects both the soul and spirit, separates each into its parts, subtle though they may be, and analyzes their thoughts and intents" (Davidson, op, cit., 187). At any rate, to found a doctrine of Trichotomy on an isolated, variously interpreted text is dangerous in the extreme. The language of metaphor is not the language of literal speech; and here evidently we are in the region of metaphor.
The ground is now cleared for a fuller investigation of the meaning of these terms:
6. Scriptural Terms: (1) The terms are used inter changeably, though they are not synonymous. Lebhabh ("heart"), nephesh ("soul"), ruach ("spirit") are very closely connected in the Old Testament. The heart is there represented as "the organ, the spirit as the principle, the soul as the subject of life" (Cremer, Lexicon). Hence, we read that "out of it (the heart) are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). Dying is represented as the surrender of soul (Genesis 35:18; Job 11:20), but also of spirit (Psalms 31:5; 146:4). The dead are called souls (Revelation 6:9; 20:4), and also spirits (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Peter 3:19). In the last mentioned text the "spirits in prison" are also called "souls." The living are described as "disturbed" or "grieved" in soul (Judges 10:16), "vexed" (Judges 16:16), "discouraged" (Numbers 21:4), "weary" (Zechariah 11:8); but also as in "anguish of spirit" (Exodus 6:9), "impatient in spirit" (Job 21:4, in the Hebrew), `straitened in spirit' (Micah 2:7). At death the "spirit" departs (Psalms 146:4, in the Hebrew), but also the "soul" (Genesis 35:18). As in the Old Testament so in the New Testament, our Lord "sighed" or "was troubled in the spirit" (John 13:21)?, but we also read that His soul was "exceeding sorrowful," or troubled (Matthew 26:38; John 12:27).
(2) And yet there is a distinction, whatever the real nature of it may be. In Mary's Magnificat, e.g., we find the two combined in an interesting manner: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:46-47), the one clause "referring to the personal emotions of Mary, to her feelings as a woman and a mother, all of which find an outlet in adoration," the second clause "appearing to indicate the moment when, in the profoundest depths of her being, by the touch of the divine spirit, the promise of the angel was accomplished in her" (Godet, in the place cited.). A like contrast meets us in the story of Gethsemane. The Master was `exceeding sorrowful in soul' (i.e. the emotional, sensitive center of His being was in deep sorrow), the disciples were `willing in spirit,' but `weak in the flesh' (Matthew 26:38, 41). In the Old Testament we find that when a man dies his "soul" departs, and when he is restored to life his "soul" returns (1 Kings 17:22); but when consciousness or lifepower returns to one not dead, "spirit" is used (Genesis 45:27; Judges 15:19; 1 Samuel 30:12; 1 Kings 10:5). Even in popular language the distinction is recognized: we speak of so many "souls," not "spirits," as having perished.
(3) From all this it would appear that philosophic distinction or scientific accuracy of expression is not met with in Scripture. Man is there represented as a unity, and the various terms employed to indicate that unity in its diversity of activities or passivities do not necessarily imply the existence of different essences, or of separate organs, through which these are realized. Psychical action is sometimes ascribed to the body, as well as to the soul, for soul and body are inseparably united to each other. It is the possession of a soul which makes the body what it is; and on the other hand, a soul without a body is unthinkable. The resurrection of the body therefore is no mere figment of the creeds. The body is God's work (Job 10:8), inseparable from the life of the soul. In the New Testament it is spoken of as "the house on earth" (epigeios oikia), the "tabernacle" or tent prepared for the occupant (skenos) (1 Corinthians 12:18; 2 Corinthians 4:7; 5:1). In the Old Testament "we have such metaphorical expressions as `houses of clay'; or, as in post-Biblical writings, `earthly tabernacle.' In the latest, we have words which suggest a hollow, a framework, or a sheath, favoring the Greek idea of the body as the husk or clothing of the soul" (Laidlaw). Hence, in Scripture, spirit and soul are interchangeably used with body for human nature in general, not as though indicating three separate entities, but as denoting a parallelism which brings out the full personality of man. Soul and body are threatened with destruction (Matthew 10:28); body without spirit is a corpse (James 2:26); soul and spirit are interchangeably united: "Stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving," etc. (Philippians 1:27).
(4) Gathering all together, the Scriptural position seems to be as follows: The Divine Spirit is the source of all life, and its power is communicated in the physical, intellectual and moral sphere. That Spirit, as the spiritus spirans, the inspiring spirit, by its very breath makes man a living soul: "The spirit (or breath) of God is in my nostrils" (Job 27:3); "Thou takest away their breath (ruach, "spirit"], they die, and return to their dust" (Psalms 104:29). Hence, God is called "God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numbers 16:22; 27:16).
Soul, though identical with spirit, has shades of meaning which spirit has not; it stands for the individual. "Man is spirit, because he is dependent upon God. Man is soul, because, unlike the angels, he has a body, which links him to earth. He is animal as possessing anima, but he is a reasoning animal, which distinguishes him from the brute" (Bavinck, German Dogm., II, 628).
(5) In this connection stress may be laid upon some of Paul's expressions. He exhorts the Philippians to "stand fast in one spirit (pneuma), with one soul (psuche) striving for the faith" (Philippians 1:27).
7. Pauline Expressions: He exhorts them to be "of the same mind" (sumpsuchoi, Philippians 2:2); he hopes to be "of good comfort" (eupsucho, Philippians 2:19); he knows of `no man likeminded, (isopsuchon), who (would) care truly for (their) state (Philippians 2:20). Everywhere therefore we have "soul" in various combinations to indicate the mental attitude, which in the "fellowship of the Spirit" he would assume toward his readers, and his readers would adopt toward himself. There cannot be therefore that subtle distinction which men have found in the terms "spirit" and "soul," as though two separate essences were housed in one body. The text in Job (33:4), "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty giveth me life," is the key to the whole problem. The spiritus spirans becomes the spiritus spiratus--the inspiring spirit becomes in man the life which is expired, outbreathed by man, in both soul and spirit. "Soul," therefore, may well stand for the personal, living, animated being--the suffering, acting, thinking, reasoning, dying creature, "whose breath is in his nostrils." Christ gave His `soul' (psuche) for His sheep (John 10:11). On the cross He Himself exclaimed: "Into thy hands I commend my spirit" (pneuma) (Luke 23:46). Spirit may therefore indicate the all-embracing power, guiding the inward and the outward life--principium illud internum ex quo fluunt actiones, is Bengel's comment on Ephesians 2:2 (compare Luke 9:55 the King James Version; Luke 4:36). Hence, by an easy gradation it may stand for the abysmal depths of personality; while "soul" would express man's individuality in general.
Pauline phraseology has somewhat confused the issue; at any rate, new meanings, not obvious to the reader, have been assigned to various terms. Paul contrasts the psychical and the pneumatic, the man under the influence of the divine pneuma, and the man as influenced by his own psuche. The psychical man is man in his natural, unregenerate state, psychical in this connection being almost equivalent to carnal; while the pneumatic man would be the man guided and directed by the Spirit from on high. Nature and grace are contrasted in the two terms as the first and second Adam are contrasted in 1 Corinthians 15:45--the first Adam being described as a living psuche ("soul"), the second as a life-giving pneuma ("spirit"). Even so the psychical body is the body intended, fitted to bear the psuche, while the pneumatic body is evidently the body capable of bearing the pneuma. Hence, the one is corruptible and weak, the other incorruptible and full of power. The soul confined to the carnal body uses it as an organ, till it falls into decay and no longer lends itself to such use. The spirit, in constant fellowship with the Divine Spirit, communicates its energy to a body fitted to be the bearer of this renewed life, spiritualizes that organ, makes that body its docile instrument, enables the body to fulfill its wishes and thoughts, with inexhaustible power of action, "as we even now see the artist using his voice or his hand with marvelous freedom and thus foreshadowing the perfect spiritualizing of the body."
8. Monism and Other Theories: Other questions call for discussion here: they may be briefly touched upon. Scripture acknowledges a dualism, which recognizes the separate existence of Soul and body. It rejects a monism, which makes man but "a doublefaced unity" (Bain); or considers mind and body as equally unreal, and as "aspects," "appearances," "sides" of one and the same reality (scientific monism). It knows nothing of mere idealism, which makes mind the only reality, of which matter is but a manifestation, nor of materialism, which considers matter as that which alone is substantial, while mind is a mere product of the brain (Haeckel). It does not support theory of harmonia praestabilita--pre-established harmony, whereby
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,"
because soul and body were united in harmonious action before the individual was called into active being, body and soul acting in harmony after creation like two clocks accurately regulated, pointing to the same hour on the dial plate, though driven by different springs (Leibnitz). Scripture has no theory. It deals with facts and facts only in so far as they bear upon the history of man's sin and man's redemption. It throws no light on many problems raised by science or philosophy. It does not discuss origins--the origin of evil, of matter, of mind. "All is of God" is the Scriptural answer to many questions. Thus, the relation of mind to body is and remains a mystery--as great as the relation between the forces in Nature, to which the names of light and electricity have been given. Science has attempted to explain that mystery and has failed. The words of Shenstone (Cornhill Magazine, 1907) may be applied to all psychical problems, outside of Holy Writ, which by him were applied to those scientific questions which remain unanswered in spite of all our efforts at solution: "We are still very far from knowing definitely that atoms are composed entirely of electrons or that electrons are nothing else than electric charges; and though electrons have been shown to exhibit electric inertia, it has not been proved that the inertia of atoms also is electrical." The mystery of matter is great; that of soul is greater still.
9. The Fall of Man: The next question which falls to be discussed is the influence of the fall of man upon his soul. Scripture is clear upon the point. Man's fall from a primeval state of innocence is there told in unambiguous terms, though the word itself is not found in the narrative, except perhaps in Romans 11:11-12, where allusion is made to the fall (paraptoma) of Israel. With the origin of evil Scripture apparently does not concern itself, though it clearly states that man's sinful condition stands in direct connection with the transgression of Adam, as in Romans 5:12, where the introduction of sin (hamartia) into the world (kosmos) is spoken of as the act of one man (s.c. Adam), hamartia being evidently taken as a power of evil working in the world of men. The Old Testament allusion in Hosea 6:7 can hardly be referred to Adam's transgression; at any rate the reference is doubtful. the King James Version renders the passage: "They like men have transgressed the covenant," though the revisers have translated: "But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant." The German and Dutch versions give the same interpretation to the verse: "like Adam." The Septuagint takes the term as an appellative (hos anthropos, "as man"), but the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) refers the transgression to Adam (sicut Adam transgressi sunt). The other allusions in the Old Testament to this event are slight, as in Job 31:33; Ezekiel 28:13, 15. In the New Testament, however, the references are much more frequent, especially in the writings of John and of Paul (compare John 8:44; 1 John 3:8; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14). The strong parallelism between Adam and Christ in Romans 5:12-21, the obedience of the one bringing freedom, while that of the other brought woe, and the contrast in 1 Corinthians 15:22 between Adam and Christ throw sufficient light on the question at issue.
Modern science, under the influence of the evolutionary hypothesis, has eliminated or at least has attempted to eliminate the factor of the Fall. That "fall" has been interpreted as a "rise," the "descent" is supposed to have been a real "ascent." Far down the ages, millenniums ago, "a miserable, half-starved, naked wretch, just emerged from the bestial condition, torn with fierce passions, and fighting his way among his compeers with low-browed cunning" (Orr, Christian View of God, 180) must have emerged somehow out of darkness into light. "We are no longer," says Professor J. A. Thomson, "as those who look back to a paradise in which man fell; we are as those `who, rowing hard against the stream, see distant gates of Eden gleam, and do not dream it is a dream' " (Bible of Nature, 226). If science definitely teaches that man has arisen by slow, insensible gradations from the brute, and no further word may be said on the subject, then indeed the problem of human sin is utterly inexplicable. There can then be no agreement between the Biblical conception and the evolutionary theory as so presented. For primitive man's transgression would under such circumstances be but the natural expression of brute passion, to which the name of sin in the Christian sense can hardly be applied. But if for "minute" and "insensible" gradations in the evolutionary process be substituted the "mutations," "leaps" or "lifts," to which an increasing number of evolutionists are appealing; if primitive man be not pictured as a semi-animal, subject to brutish impulse and passion; if with man a new start was made, a "lift" occurred in the process of development under the guiding and directing influence of Almighty power, the problem assumes a different shape. A sinless creature, transgressing the moral law, is then not an unscientific assumption; conscience asserting itself as the voice divine within the human soul is then not only possible, but actual and real, in the history of man's earliest progenitors. The Biblical narrative will after all remain as the most reasonable explanation of man's original condition and his terrible fall. In that narrative will be found enshrined the "shadowing tradition" of a real, historic event, which has influenced the human race through all the ages. Professor Driver, writing under the strong influence of the evolutionary theory, and accepting as "the law stamped upon the entire range of organic nature, progress, gradual advance from lower to higher, from the less perfect to the more perfect," has wisely remarked that "man failed in the trial to which he was exposed, that sin has entered into the world .... and that through the whole course of the race it has been attended by an element of moral disorder, and thus it has been marred, perverted, impeded or drawn back" (Driver, Genesis, 57).
See FALL, THE.
10. Effects of the Fall: An equally serious question arises as to the effects of the fall of man. Shame, corruption, death is the answer given by the Old Testament and New Testament. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17) was the judgment pronounced upon man. By this was evidently meant "death" as a physical and as a spiritual fact. Man was doomed. The posse non mori, which according to older theologians was man's privilege, was lost and was succeeded by a punishment of which the non posse non mori was the doom, i.e. the possibility of immortal life was followed by the impossibility of not suffering death. Not as though immortality was absolutely lost; for with sin came decay, degeneration, death, not of the inbreathed spirit, but of the body into which the soul was breathed by God. But even the body is imperishable. It undergoes change, but not extinction. The resurrection-body has become a possibility through the atonement and resurrection of Christ. The tabernacle is removed, but renewed. The body is not a prison house, but a temple; not an adjunct but an integral part of the human being. The Bible teaches not only a resurrection-body, but a transformed body (Romans 12:1). It speaks not only of a soul to be saved, but of a body to be redeemed. Scripture alone accounts for death and explains it.
11. Death as a Problem: With modern evolutionists death is an unsolved problem. Weissmann (Essays on Heredity) maintains on the one hand that "death is not an essential attitude of matter" (p. 159), and on the other, "it is only from the point of view of utility that we can understand the necessity of death" (p. 23), and again "death is to be looked upon as an occurrence which is advantageous to the species as a concession to the outer conditions of life, and not as an absolute necessity, essentially inherent in life." He even speaks of "the immortality of the protozoa," because "an immense number of the lower organisms" are not subject to death (ibid., 26). Death therefore according to him has been "acquired secondarily as an adaptation," and must in a certain sense be unnatural. It is indeed "one of the most difficult problems in the whole range of physiology." If this be so, we may safely turn to Scripture for an explanation of the problem, which has a value peculiarly its own. "By man came death" is the authoritative declaration, because by man came sin. "In Adam all die," because through Adam came sin. Here we may safely leave the problem, because "by man" will come "resurrection from the dead."
See DEATH.
12. Immortality of the Soul: But if the body is mortal, is the soul immortal? On this point the New Testament gives no uncertain sound, and though the doctrine be not as clearly expressed in the Old Testament, yet even there kinship with God is man's guaranty for everlasting communion with Him (compare Psalms 73:1-28). Job longed for such fellowship, which to him and to the Old Testament saints before and after him was life. In memorable words he gave utterance to the hope which was in him: `I know that my Redeemer liveth .... and after my skin (read "body") .... has been destroyed, yet from my flesh shall I see God; whomI shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another' (Job 19:25). Hosea, the mourner, is responsible for that sublime utterance, which in its New Testament form is recited at the graveside of those who die in the Lord: "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, where are thy plagues? O Sheol, where is thy destruction?" (Hosea 13:14). Reference may also be made to the words of Isaiah (26:19): "Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." Still clearer is the note sounded by Daniel (Hosea 12:2-3): "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." In one word, the Old Testament saint based all his hope and fellowship on God. That hope strengthened his soul when he shuddered at the darkness of Sheol. "It overleaps Sheol in the vigor of his faith." In the Psalms we find the same hope expressed on almost every page: "As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with beholding thy form" (the King James Version "with thy likeness," Psalms 17:15); and again: "Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. .... In thy presence is fullness of joy; in thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Psalms 16:10-11). Whatever the ultimate verdict of science may be regarding the "utility" of death in regard to the human race, Scripture considers it abnormal, unnatural, a punishment, an infliction, the result of man's wrongdoing and his transgression of the law of God. But death in Holy Writ is not a hopeless separation of body and soul. The New Testament sounds a note even clearer than the Old Testament; for Christ has brought "life and immortality to light." "We know," says Paul, "that we have a building from God," after the dissolution of our tabernacle (2 Corinthians 5:1); and that is but the necessary corollary to Christ's great utterance: "I AM THE RESURRECTION, AND THE LIFE" (John 11:25).
LITERATURE.
Beck, Umriss der biblischen Seelenlehre, English translation; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis; Delitzsch, System of Biblical Psychology; Oehler, Old Testament Theology; Wendt, Die Begriffe Fleisch u. Geist, etc.; Dickson, Paul's Use of the Flesh and Spirit; Cremer, Bibl.-theol. Worterbuch, etc.; Herzog, RE, articles "Geist" and "Seele"; Laid-law, Bible Doctrine of Man; Orr, God's Image in Man; Davidson, Old Testament Theology.
J. I. Marais
Ptolemais
Ptolemais - tol-e-ma'-is (Ptolemais): Same as "Acco" in Judges 1:31. Ptolemais was the most prominent town on the Phoenician seacoast in Maccabean times (1 Maccabees 5:15, 55; 1, 58, 60; 12:48), and is once mentioned in the New Testament in Acts 21:7 as a seaport at which Paul landed for one day, visiting the "brethren" in the place.
See ACCO; PHOENICIA.
Ptolemy
Ptolemy - tol'-e-mi (Ptolemaios, but usually called Ptolemy--"the Warlike"): The name Ptolemy is rather common from the days of Alexander the Great, but is best known as the dynastic name of the 13 (14) Macedonian kings of Egypt (323-43 BC) (as Pharaoh in the Old Testament). Those of interest to the Biblical student are:
(1) Ptolemy I, surnamed Soter, (Soter, "Savior"), called also Ptolemy Lagi, was born circa 366 BC, the son of Lagus and Arsinoe, a concubine of Philip of Macedon. He was prominent among the officers of Alexander the Great, whom he accompanied in his eastern campaigns. On the death of Alexander, Ptolemy seized the satrapy of Egypt as his share (1 Maccabees 1:6 ff). Now commenced the long hostilities between Egypt and Syria, Ptolemy on more than one occasion invading Syria. In 316 he joined in a war against Antigonus during which Coele-Syria and Phoenicia were lost, but in 312 regained from Demetrius the son of Antigonus. It was most probably in this year (312) that Ptolemy captured Jerusalem on a Sabbath day (Josephus, Ant, XII, i, 1), and by force or persuasion induced many Jews to accompany him to Egypt as colonists or mercenaries. His kind treatment of them induced others to leave Syria for Egypt. In 306 Ptolemy was defeated in the great naval fight off Salamis in Cyprus by which Cyprus was lost to Egypt. About this date Ptolemy assumed the title of "king," following the example of the Syrian ruler. In 305-304 he defended the Rhodians against Demetrius Poliorcetes, forcing the latter to raise the siege--hence, the title "Savior." In 285 BC Ptolemy abdicated in favor of his youngest son Philadelphus--the son of his favorite wife Berenice--and died in 283 BC. According to the usual interpretation this Philadelphus is "the king of the south" in Daniel 11:5. This Ptolemy shares with his son and successor the honor of rounding the famous Alexandrian Museum and Library.
(2) Ptolemy II, surnamed Philadelphus (Philadelphos, "Brother(sister?)-loving"), the youngest son of Ptolemy I; born 309 BC in Cos; succeeded his father in 285 BC and died 247. Like his father, he was actively engaged in two Syrian wars until peace was made about 250 BC, Berenice, the daughter of Philadelphus, being given in marriage to Antiochus II. This Ptolemy planted numerous colonies in Egypt, Syria and Palestine, among which were several of the name of Arsinoe (his sister-wife), Philadelphia on the ruins of old Rabbah, Philotera south of the Sea of Galilee, and Ptolemais on the site of Acco. He devoted great attention to the internal administration of his kingdom, endowed the Museum and Alexandrian Library in which his father had taken much interest; in general he followed his father's example as a liberal patron of art, science and literature. According to one tradition it was Philadelphus who was instrumental in starting the Septuagint translation (see SEPTUAGINT). At any rate, he was favorably disposed toward his Jewish subjects, and in his reign Jewish wisdom and Greek philosophy began to blend. Philadelphus is supposed to be "the king of the south" of Daniel 11:6, whose daughter "shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement."
(3) Ptolemy III, surnamed Euergetes (Euergetes, "Benefactor"), son of Philadelphus, whom he succeeded in 247 BC. In 246 he was provoked to a Syrian war to avenge the murder of his sister Berenice at Antioch; in the course of this campaign he met with remarkable success, overran Syria, plundered Susa and Babylonia, penetrated to the shores of India and captured the important stronghold of Seleucia (1 Maccabees 11:8). Euergetes was, however, prevented from reaping the fruits of his victories by being recalled by internal troubles in Egypt. He brought back with him from the East the Egyptian gods that Cambyses had carried away 300 years before, thus earning from the Egyptians the title of "Benefactor." Two traditions obtain as to his death: the more probable is that of Polybius (ii.71), according to which he died a natural death (222 BC), or, according to another (Justin xxix.1), he was murdered by his son. Some regard this king as the Euergetes mentioned in the Prologue to Sir, but the reference must rather be to Euergetes II (Ptolemy VII). The "shoot" who "shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north" and prevail is Euergetes I (Daniel 11:7-9), Daniel 11:8 referring to the act by which he won his title.
(4) Ptolemy IV, surnamed Philopator (Philopator, "Lover of his father"), or Tryphon (Truphon), the eldest son of Euergetes whom he succeeded in 222 BC. Antiochus the Great of Syria declared war against Egypt about 219 BC, but, after conquering Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, he was defeated by Philopator at the battle of Raphia near Gaza (217 BC). On his victorious return to Alexandria, Philopator assumed a very anti-Jewish attitude, and indeed caused discontent generally among his subjects. In spite of the victory of Raphia, Egypt began to decline under his weakness. He was as dissolute as Nero, while his domestic tragedies are as dark as those of Herod the Great. He died in 205 BC. Daniel 11:10-12 refers to the reign of Philopator. He was most probably the oppressor of 3 Macc.
(5) Ptolemy V, surnamed Epiphanes (Epiphanes, "Illustrious"). He was only 5 years old when his father Philopator died. Taking advantage of the king's minority, Antiochus the Great leagued with Philip of Macedon against Egypt. Philip took the Cyclades and some cities in Thrace, while Antiochus defeated the Egyptian general Scopas at Paneas on the Jordan in 198 BC, and thus Palestine passed to the Seleucid dynasty. The Romans now interfered to make Antiochus surrender his conquests. Not daring to disobey Rome, Antiochus compromised by making peace with Ptolemy and betrothing to him his daughter Cleopatra, who was to receive as her dower the revenues of the conquered provinces Coele-Syria, Palestine and Phoenicia (Josephus, Ant, XII, iv, 1; Polyb. xxviii.17), but the control of these provinces seems to have been retained by Antiochus. The marriage took place in 193 BC. After the dismissal of his faithful minister, Aristomenes, Epiphanes' character and reign deteriorated. At last he bestirred himself to recover the lost provinces from Seleucus, the successor of Antiochus, but was poisoned before his plans materialized, in 182 (181) BC (Josephus, Ant, XII, iv, 11). Daniel 11:14-17 is to be interpreted as referring to the relations between Ptolemy V and Antiochus III, "the Great."
(6) Ptolemy VI, surnamed Philometor (Philometor, "Fond of his mother"), eider son of Ptolemy V whom he succeeded in 182 (181) BC. For the first 7 years of his reign his mother Cleopatra acted as queen-regent, and peace was maintained with Syria till 173 BC. Antiochus IV Epiphanes then invaded Egypt, defeated the Egyptians at Pelusium and secured the person of Philometor, whom he spared, hoping to employ him as a tool to gain the ascendancy over Egypt. Philometor's brother was now proclaimed king by the Alexandrians, with the title of Euergetes (II). When Antiochus retired, Philometor made peace with his brother, conceding him a share in the government (170 BC). This displeased Antiochus, who marched against Alexandria, but was stopped beneath the walls by a Roman embassy (168 BC), in obedience to which he withdrew. The brothers quarreled again, and Philometor, expelled by Euergetes, went to Rome to seek assistance (164 BC). The Romans seated him again on his throne, assigning Cyrenaica to Euergetes. The next, quarrel was about Cyprus. Philometor this time secured his brother as a prisoner, but sent him back to his province. Philometor was later drawn into Syrian politics in the conflict between Alexander Balas and Demetrius. The Egyptian king espoused the cause of the former, to whom he also betrothed his daughter Cleopatra. But on discovering Balas' treachery, he took away his daughter from him and gave her to his opponent, Demetrius Nikator, whom he now supported against Balas. Balas was defeated in a decisive battle on the Oenoparas and killed, but Ptolemy himself died in 146 BC from the effects of a fall from his horse in the battle (1 Maccabees 1:18; 10:51 ff; 2 Maccabees 1:10; 4:21). Daniel 11:25-30 refers to the events of this reign. Philometor seems to have taken a friendly attitude toward the Jews. In his reign the Jewish temple of Leontopolis near Hellopolis was founded in 154 BC (Josephus, Ant, XIII, iii, 1 f), and two Jewish generals, Onias and Dositheus, were at the head of his armies and had a large share in the government (Josephus, Apion II, 5). The Jewish-Alexandrine philosopher Aristobulus probably lived in this reign.
(7) (On the death of Philometor his young son was proclaimed king as Ptolemy Eupator ("of a noble father"), but after reigning but a few months was put to death by his uncle Euergetes II (Just. xxxviii.8). His reign being so brief he need hardly be numbered among the Ptolemies.)
(8) Ptolemy VII (VIII), surnamed Euergetes (II) and called also Physcon (Phuskon, "Big-paunch"), became sole ruler in succession to his brother Philometor (or to his murdered nephew) in 146 BC, and reigned till 117 BC. His reign was characterized by cruelty, tyranny and vice, so that he was hated by his subjects, especially by the people of Alexandria, who on one occasion expelled him during an insurrection. It is uncertain whether Physcon was an enemy and persecutor of the Jews or their patron. Some authorities refer the persecutions mentioned in 3 Maccabees to this reign, but most modern authorities are disposed to date them in the reign of the anti-Jewish Ptolemy IV Philopator. The statement, "in the 38th year of King Euergetes," in the Prologue to Sirach refers to Physcon Euergetes II and = 132 BC, since he dated his reign from the year of joint kingship with his brother (170 BC).
The other Ptolemies of Egypt require no mention here.
The following are the apocryphal Ptolemies:
(1) Ptolemy Macron.
See MACRON.
(2) Ptolemy, son of Abubus, son-in-law of Simon the Maccabee. He treacherously assassinated Simon and two of his sons in the stronghold of Dok near Jericho, 135 BC (1 Maccabees 16:15).
(3) Ptolemy, the father of Lysimachus (Apocrypha) (Additions to Esther 11:1).
(4) Ptolemy, son of a Dositheus; he and his father were bearers of the "epistle of Phrurai" (Additions to Esther 11:1).
LITERATURE.
J. P. Mahaffy, Empire of the Ptolemies, is the best account for English readers. A long list of Ptolemies will be found, e.g. in Smith's Classical Dictionary. The ancient authorities are Josephus, Polybius, Justin, Pausanias, Plutarch (Cleom.), Livy, Diodorus, Jerome (Commentary to Daniel 11:1-45).
S. Angus
Puah; Puvah
Puah; Puvah - pu'-a, pu'-va:
(1) pu'ah: One of the Hebrew midwives whom the king of Egypt commanded to kill all male children of the Hebrews at birth. The midwives, fearing God, refused to obey, pretending that the children of the Hebrew women were usually born before they arrived. Their act is spoken of as being meritorious in the eyes of the Lord, who is said to have rewarded them by making "houses" for them (Exodus 1:15-20). In the Midrash, Ex Rabba', Puah is identified with Miriam, and Shiphrah, the other midwife, with her mother Jochebed. According to another tradition Puah was a proselyte.
(2) pu'ah, in 1 Chronicles 7:1; puwwah, in Genesis 46:13; Numbers 26:23; written also "Pua" the King James Version, and "Puvah" Revised Version: Second son of Issachar, ancestor of the Punites, enumerated in the desert census taken by Moses and Eleazar.
(3) pu'ah: Member of the tribe of Issachar, mentioned (Judges 10:1) as the son of Dodo and the father of Tola, the judge.
Ella Davis Isaacs
Publican
Publican - pub'-li-kan.
See TAX,TAXING .
Publius
Publius - pub'-li-us (Poplios, from the Latin praenomen Publius, derived from populus, "popular"; according to Ramsay it is the Greek form of the Latin nomen Popilius; the Greek title meaning "first," applied to Publius in Acts 28:7, was an official one, and has been found on an inscription from the island of Gaulus near Malta (compare Bockh, Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, number 5, 754)): Publius held office under the governor of Sicily. As the leading official in Malta, he was responsible for any Roman soldiers and their prisoners who might land there, but the account in Acts 28:7 implies that he displayed more than ordinary solicitude for Paul and his shipwrecked company, for, according to the writer, he "received us, and lodged us three days courteously" (the King James Version). The Apocryphal "Acts of Paul" (see APOCRYPHAL ACTS, sec. B, I) states also that "he did for them many acts of great kindness and charity" (compare Budge, Centendings of the Apostles,II , 605). On this occasion Paul miraculously healed the father of Publius, who "lay sick of fever and dysentery" (Acts 28:8). The exactitude of the medical terms here employed forms part of the evidence that the writer of Acts was a physician. Tradition relates that Publius was the first bishop of Malta and that he afterward became bishop of Athens.
C. M. Kerr
Pudens
Pudens - pu'-denz, pu'-dens (Poudes, literally, "bashful" (2 Timothy 4:21)):
1. Faithful to Paul: One of the Christians in Rome who remained loyal to Paul during his second and last imprisonment there, when most of the members of the church "forsook him." The pressure under which they acted must have been very great, as the apostle's final trial before the supreme court of the empire followed quickly after the Neronic persecution. Their defection from their loyalty to Paul must not be taken as implying that they had also proved untrue to Christ. At this time, however, there were some of the Christians who risked their earthly all, and their lives too, in order to prove their adherence to Paul, and Pudens was one of these.
2. Pudens and Claudia: Writing the last of all his letters, the Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul sends greeting from "all the brethren" who were then with him. Among these he names Pudens. There are three other names associated by the apostle with that of Pudens: Eubulus, Linus and Claudia. There is an interesting conjecture regarding Pudens and Claudia, that their were husband and wife, and that Claudia was of British birth, a daughter of a British king, called Cogidunus. King Cogidunus was an ally of the Romans, and assumed the name of the emperor Tiberius Claudius, who was his patron. In this way his daughter would be named Claudia. But this identification of the British princess with the Claudia who sends salutation to Timothy is only a supposition; it lacks both evidence and proof.
See CLAUDIA and Code of Hammurabi (St. P), chapter xxvii.
In modern Rome, however, the tourist is still shown a building which is called the house of Pudens, in the same way as "Paul's hired house" is also shown. The authenticity in both cases is lacking.
Pudens is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament.
John Rutherfurd
Puhites
Puhites - pu'-hits (puthi).
See PUTHITES.
Pul
Pul - pul:
(1) An Assyrian king (2 Kings 15:19).
See TIGLATH-PILESER.
(2) An African country and people (Isaiah 66:19).
See PUT.
Pulpit
Pulpit - pool'-pit: Nehemiah 8:4, "Ezra the scribe stood upon a mighdol of wood." Mighdol is one of the commonest words in the Old Testament and means simply a high object--here a scaffolding or platform (bema, 1 Esdras 9:42). "Tower" (so the Revised Version margin) gives an entirely wrong picture.
Pulse
Pulse - puls (zero'-im (Daniel 1:12 margin, "herbs"), zere'onim (Daniel 1:16); compare zerua`, "sowing seed" (Leviticus 11:37), and zeru'im, "things sown" (Isaiah 61:11)): (1) In Daniel 1:12, 16, it must mean herbs or vegetables grown from seeds; a vegetable diet is what is implied. (2) In 2 Samuel 17:28, "pulse" after "parched" is not in the original, but is probably more correct than the translation in (1), as "pulse" usually implies leguminous plants, peas, beans, etc.
Punishment, Everlasting
Punishment, Everlasting - pun'-ish-ment:
I. PRELIMINARY ASSUMPTIONS
1. Survival after Death
2. Retribution for Sin
3. Conscious Suffering in Future
II. SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT
1. Old Testament and Jewish Conceptions
2. New Testament Teaching
(1) "Eternal"
(2) Equivalent Expressions
(3) The Last Judgment
3. Teaching of Analogy
III. DIFFICULTIES AND OBJECTIONS--RIVAL HYPOTHESES
1. Universal Salvation
2. Annihilation
3. Second Probation
IV. NATURE, CONDITIONS AND ISSUES
1. Mystery of the Future
2. Nature of Punishment
3. Range of Divine Mercy
4. Gradation of Punishment
5. God "All in All"
LITERATURE
I. Preliminary Assumptions. (For "everlasting," where used in the King James Version as the rendering of aionios, the Revised Version (British and American) substitutes "eternal.") It is assumed in this article that Scripture teaches the survival of the soul after death, the reality of retribution and of judgment to come, and a shorter or longer period of suffering for sin in the case of the unredeemed in the world beyond. Only a few words need be said, therefore, in preliminary remark on these assumptions.
1. Survival after Death: Whatever view may be taken of the development of the doctrine of immortality in the Old Testament (see ESCHATOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT), it will scarcely be doubted that it is throughout assumed in the New Testament that the souls of men, good and bad, survive death (seeIMMORTALITY ). Two passages only need be referred to in proof: one, Christ's saying in Matthew 10:28: "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Gehenna); the other, the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31: Lazarus is carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom; the rich man lifts up his eyes in Hades, being in torments. The whole doctrine of the future judgment in the New Testament presupposes survival after death.
2. Retribution for Sin: Retribution for sin is a cardinal point in the teaching of both the Old Testament and New Testament. The doctrine of judgment, again, in the New Testament, with Christ as judge, turns on this point. The following passages are decisive: Isaiah 3:10-11; Matthew 11:22, 24; Matthew 12:41-42; Romans 2:5, 12; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Galatians 6:7-8, etc.
See RETRIBUTION.
3. Conscious Suffering in Future: The conscious endurance of punishment for sin in the future state is already implied in the preceding. The parable of the Rich Man speaks of it as following immediately on death in Hades; all the descriptions of the judgment imply pain and anguish as the result of condemnation (compare Romans 2:5, 12). This does not settle the nature or duration of the punishment; but it excludes the idea that physical death is the extinction of being, or that annihilation follows immediately upon death or judgment.
These things being assumed, the questions that remain are: Is the period of suffering for sin eternal, or is it terminable? May it be cut short by repentance or by annihilation? Is there any final solution of the discord it implies in the universe? It is maintained here that the punishment of sin, in the case of the finally impenitent, is everlasting.
II. Scriptural Support. The doctrine that the punishment of sin is everlasting is sustained by many plain testimonies of Scripture.
1. Old Testament and Jewish Conceptions: The doctrine of future punishment is not prominent in the Old Testament, where rewards and punishments are chiefly connected with the present life. In a few passages (Psalms 49:14-15; Psalms 73:18-19; compare Isaiah 24:21-22; 66:24), Dr. Charles thinks that "Sheol appears as the place of punishment of the wicked" (Eschatology, 73-76, 156). If so, there is no suggestion of escape from it. In Daniel 12:2, some that sleep in the dust are represented as awaking to "shame and everlasting contempt" (the word for "everlasting" is the usual one, `olam). In the Jewish literature of the century before Christ, "Sheol is regarded," says Dr. Charles, "as the place of final eternal punishment, that is, it has become hell" (op. cit., 236).
See ESCHATOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
2. New Testament Teaching: In the New Testament, the strongest language is used by Jesus and the apostolic writers on the certainty and severity of the punishment of sin in the future state, and always in a manner which suggests that the doom is final.
(1) "Eternal."
The word "eternal" (aionios) is repeatedly applied to the punishment of sin, or to the fire which is its symbol. A principal example is Matthew 25:41, 46, "eternal fire," "eternal punishment" (kolasis aionios). Here precisely the same word is applied to the punishment of the wicked as to the blessedness of the righteous. Other instances are Matthew 18:8; Jude 1:7; compare Revelation 14:11; 19:3; 20:10. In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, we have, "eternal destruction." The kindred word aidios, "everlasting," is in Jude 1:6 applied to the punishment of the fallen angels.
The reply made by Maurice (Theological Essays, 442 ff) that aionios in such passages denotes quality, not duration, cannot be sustained. Whatever else the term includes, it connotes duration. More pertinent is the criticism of other writers (e.g. Cox, Salvator Mundi, 96 ff; Farrar, Eternal Hope, Pref., xxxiv, pp. 78 ff, 197 ff; compare his Mercy and Judgment, passim) that aionios does not necessarily mean "eternal" (according to Cox it does not mean this at all), but is strictly "age-long," is therefore compatible with, if it does not directly suggest, a terminable period. Cox allows that the term is "saturated through and through with the element of time" (p. 100,), but he denies its equivalence with "everlasting." The sense, no doubt, is to be determined by the context, but it can hardly be questioned that "the eons of the eons" and similar phrases are the practical New Testament equivalents for eternity, and that aionios in its application to God and to life ("eternal life") includes the idea of unending duration (compare John 10:28-29 for express assertion of this). When, therefore, the term is applied in the same context to punishment and to life (Matthew 25:46), and no hint is given anywhere of limitation, the only reasonable exegesis is to take the word in its full sense of "eternal."
(2) Equivalent Expressions. The meaning "eternal" is confirmed by the use of equivalent expressions and of forms of speech which convey in the strongest manner the idea of finality. Such are the expressions, "the unquenchable fire," the "worm" that "dieth not" (Matthew 3:12; Mark 9:43-48; compare Matthew 13:42, 50), with those numerous references to "death," "destruction," "second death," on which the advocates of conditional immortality build their arguments for final extinction. Such is the dictum of Jesus: "He that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth (remains) on him" (John 3:36; the opposite of "life" is "perishing," John 3:16); or that in Revelation 22:11, "He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still." Finality is the note in all Christ's warnings--"the outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12; 22:13); "The door was shut .... I know you not" (Matthew 25:10, 12; compare Matthew 7:23), as in those of the Epistles (e.g. Hebrews 2:3; 6, 8; 27, 31; 25, 29). Jesus speaks of the blasphemy against the Spirit as a sin which shall not be forgiven, "neither in this world, nor in that which is to come" (Matthew 12:32; not as implying that other sins, unforgiven in this life, may be forgiven in the next), a passage which Mark gives in the remarkable form, "hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" (Mark 3:29). The Rich Man in Hades found an impassable gulf fixed between himself and Lazarus (Luke 16:26). See GULF. It adds to the terribleness of these sayings that, as before remarked, there is nothing to put against them; no hint or indication of a termination of the doom. Why did Jesus not safeguard His words from misapprehension, if behind them there lay an assurance of restoration and mercy? One may ask with Oxenham, in a reply to Jukes, "whether if Christ had intended to teach the doctrine of eternal punishment, He could possibly have taught it in plainer terms."
(3) The Last Judgment. The New Testament doctrine of the last judgment leads to the same conclusion. Two things seem plainly taught about this judgment: the first, that it proceeds on the matter of the present life--"the things done in the body" (Matthew 25:31-46; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 20:12); and the second, that it is decisive in its issues. Not a single suggestion is given of a reversal of its decisions in any future age. Such silence is inexplicable if the Scriptures meant to teach what the opponents of this doctrine so confidently maintain.
3. Teaching of Analogy: In corroboration of this Scriptural view analogy might be pleaded. How constantly even in this life is the law illustrated of the tendency of character to fixity! The present is the season of grace (2 Corinthians 6:2), yet what powers of resistance to God and goodness are seen to lie in human nature, and how effectually, often, does it harden itself under the influences that seem most fitted to break down its rebellion! What likelihood is there that eternity will alter this tendency, or make conversion more easy? Eternity can hardly be thought of as more really a scene of grace than time is for those to whom the gospel has already come. Its characteristic mark is said to be "judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Like the photographer's bath, may its effect not be to develop and fix existing character, rather than to change it? If so, the state in which judgment finds the soul may be presumed to be one that will remain.
III. Difficulties and Objections--Rival Hypotheses.
What, it will now be asked, of the tremendous difficulties which inhere in this doctrine, with their undeniable effect in alienating many generous minds from it and from Christianity? The lurid rhetorical picturings of the sufferings of the lost, too frequent in the teaching of the past, may be discounted; it is not necessary to go beyond the inexpressibly solemn words of Christ Himself and His apostles. But even with this limitation, does it not seem as if, by this doctrine, a reflection was cast on the righteousness and mercy of God in creating such multitudes of the human race, as, on any showing, are outside the pale of Christ's salvation--the countless generations of the heathen, with the masses even in Christian lands who have not received or do not obey the light--only to doom them to endless misery? Before attempting a positive answer, it is proper that a glance be taken at the rival theories put forth in alleviation of the difficulty.
1. Universal Salvation: The most comprehensive solution propounded is that of universal salvation--of a final restitution of all souls to God's favor and to blessedness. This tempting speculation--for it is no more--advocated by Origen in the early church, by Schleiermacher in the last century, has been urged by many writers in modern times. One of its best known advocates was Samuel Cox, in his book Salvator Mundi. It is noticeable that not a few who favor this theory (e.g. Maurice, Farrar) decline to commit themselves to it as more than a "hope," and admit the possibility of human souls continuing to resist God endlessly (Maurice, Theological Essays, 476; Farrar, Eternal Hope, Pref., xv, xvi; Mercy and Judgment, I, 485, "In this sense there may be for some souls an endless hell"). It must, however, be evident that, be the number greater or smaller--and who shall give assurance of its smallness?--if there are any such souls, the difficulty in principle remains, and the passages alleged as teaching universal restoration are equally contradicted. The deeper objection to this theory is that, springing, not from real knowledge, but from men's hopes and wishes, it has, as already shown, the tremendous stress of Scripture testimony against it; nor do the passages commonly adduced as favoring it really bear the weight put upon them. We read, e.g., of a restoration of all things"--the same that Christ calls the palingenesia--but, in the same breath, we are told of those who will not hearken, and will be destroyed (Matthew 19:28; Acts 3:21, 23). We read of Christ drawing all men unto Him (John 12:32); but we are not less clearly told that at His coming Christ will pronounce on some a tremendous condemnation (Matthew 7:23; 25:41); we read of all things being gathered, or summed up, in Christ, of Christ subduing all things to Himself, etc.; but representative exegetes like Meyer and Weiss show that it is far from Paul's view to teach an ultimate conversion or annihilation of the kingdom of evil (compare Meyer on 1 Corinthians 15:21, 28 and Ephesians 1:10; Weiss, Biblical Theology, II, 723, 107, 109, English translation). We confess, however, that the strain of these last passages does seem to point in the direction of some ultimate unity, be it through subjugation, or in some other way, in which active opposition to God's kingdom is no longer to be reckoned with.
2. Annihilation: The view favored by another class is that of the annihilation of the finally impenitent. The type of doctrine called "conditional immortality" includes other elements which need not here be discussed (see IMMORTALITY ). The annihilation theory takes different forms. So far as the annihilation is supposed to take place at death, it is contradicted by the Scriptures which support the soul's survival after death; so far as it is believed to take place after a longer or shorter period of conscious suffering (which is White's theory), it involves its advocates in difficulties with their own interpretations of "death," "destruction," "perishing," seeing that in Scripture this doom is uniformly represented as overtaking the ungodly at the day of judgment, and not at some indefinite period thereafter. The theory conflicts also with the idea of gradation of punishment, for which room has to be sought in the period of conscious suffering, and rests really on an unduly narrowed conception of the meaning of the Scriptural terms "life" and "death." Life is not bare existence, nor is "death" necessarily extinction of being. Assaid earlier, the language of many parts of Scripture implies the continued existence of the subjects of the divine wrath.
3. Second Probation: It is significant that on the side alike of the advocates of restoration and of those of annihilation (e.g. E. White), refuge from the difficulties is frequently sought in the hypothesis of an extended probation and work of evangelization beyond death. This theory labors under the drawback that, in marked contrast with Scripture, it throws immensely the larger part of the work of salvation into the future state of being. It is, besides, apart from the dubious and limited support given to it by the passage on Christ's preaching to "the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19-20); destitute of Scriptural support. It has already been pointed out that the final judgment is uniformly represented as proceeding on the matter of this life. The theory is considered elsewhere.
See ESCHATOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, sec. X.
IV. Nature, Conditions and Issues. 1. Mystery of the Future: While dogmatisms like the above, which seem opposed to Scripture, are to be avoided, it is equally necessary to guard against dogmatisms of an opposite kind, as if eternity must not, in the nature of the case, have its undisclosed mysteries of which we here in time can frame no conception. The difficulties connected with the ultimate destinies of mankind are truly enormous, and no serious thinker will minimize them. Scripture does not warrant it in negative, any more than in positive, dogmatisms; with its uniformly practical aim, it does not seek to satisfy an idle curiosity (compare Luke 13:23-24). Its language is bold, popular, figurative, intense; the essential idea is to be held fast, but what is said cannot be taken as a directory to all that is to transpire in the ages upon ages of an unending duration. God's methods of dealing with sin in the eternities may prove to be as much above our present thoughts as His dealings now are with men in grace. In His hands we must be content to leave it, only using such light as His immediate revelation yields.
2. Nature of Punishment: As respects the nature of the punishment of sin, it cannot be doubted that in its essence it is spiritual. Everything can be adopted here which is said by Maurice and others--"The eternal punishment is the punishment of being without the knowledge of God, who is love, and of Jesus Christ who has manifested it; even as eternal life is declared to be the having the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ" (Theological Essays, 450). The supreme penalty of sin is unquestionably the loss of God's life and love--the being sinful. Environment, indeed, may be expected to correspond with character, but the hell is one the sinner essentially makes for himself, and, like the kingdom of God, is within. The fire, the worm, the stripes, that figure its severity, are not physical. Even should the poena sensus (were that conceivable) be utterly removed, the poena damni would eternally remain.
3. Range of Divine Mercy: It is a sound principle that, in His dealing with sin in the world to come, God's mercy will reach as far as ever it can reach. This follows from the whole Scriptural revelation of the character of God. What may be included in it, it is impossible for anyone to say. It should be noticed that those of whom it is said that they shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them, are those who "obey not" the truth (John 3:36)--who actively and consciously disregard and oppose it. But all do not belong to this class. It may be assumed that none will be lost who can in consistency with holiness and love be saved. The most germinal goodness, which is the implantation of His own Spirit, God will acknowledge and develop. The problem of undeveloped character may receive a solution we do not wot of with the entrance into the eternal light--not in change of character, but rather, as said before, in the revelation of character's inmost bent. In this sense, the entrance into eternity may be to many the revelation of a love and grace which had not been understood or appreciated as it should have been on earth, but with which it is in essential kinship. There are at least many shades and degrees of character, and God may be entrusted to take the most just, yet most merciful, account of all.
4. Gradation of Punishment: The fullest weight must further be given to what the Scripture so expressly says of gradation of punishment, even of the unsaved. It is not the case that the lot of all who fail of the eternal life in Christ is all of one grade. There are the "few stripes" and the "many stripes" (Luke 12:47-48); those for whom it will be "more tolerable" than for others in the day of judgment (Matthew 11:20, 24). Even "Sodom and her daughters" will be mercifully dealt with in comparison with others (Ezekiel 16:48-49, 53, 55, 61). There will be for everyone the most exact weighing of privilege, knowledge and opportunity. There is a vast area here for the divine administration on which no light at all is afforded us.
5. God "All in All": There remain those passages already alluded to which do seem to speak, not, indeed, of conversion or admission into the light and fellowship of Christ's kingdom, but still of a final subjugation of the powers of evil, to the extent, at least, of a cessation of active opposition to God's will, of some form of ultimate unification and acknowledgment of Christ as Lord. Such passages are Ephesians 1:10; Philippians 2:9-11; above all, 1 Corinthians 15:24-28. God, in this final vision, has become "all in all." Here, again, dogmatism is entirely out of place, but it is permissible to believe that these texts foreshadow such a final persuasion of God's righteousness in His judgment and of the futility of further rebellion as shall bring about an outward pacification and restoration of order in the universe disturbed by sin, though it can never repair that eternal loss accruing from exclusion from Christ's kingdom and glory.
LITERATURE.
Against: Maurice, Theological Essays, "Eternal Life and Eternal Death"; S. Cox, Salvator Mundi; F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope; Mercy and Judgment; A. Jukes, The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things; E. White, Life in Christ; H. Constable, Duration and Nature of Future Punishment. For: Pusey, What Is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment, H. N. Oxenham, Catholic Eschatology; C. Clemance, Future Punishment; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah, Appendix, xix, "On Eternal Punishment, according to the Rabbis and the New Testament "; The Future Life, A Defence of the Orthodox View, by the Most Eminent American Scholars; S. D. F. Salmond, The Christian Doctrine of Immortality, Book VI; Orr, Christian View of God, lecture ix; Luthardt, Saving Truths (English translations), lecture x. See also the various works on Dogmatic and Biblical Theology.
James Orr
Punishments
Punishments - pun'-ish-ments ('awon, "fault," "iniquity," "punishment for iniquity," "sin" (Genesis 4:13; Leviticus 26:41; Job 19:29; Psalms 149:7; Lamentations 4:22; Ezekiel 14:10 margin; Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 1, 4, 6), `onesh, "tribute," "fine," "punishment" (Lamentations 3:39), chaTa'ah, or chaTTa'th, "sin" and its retribution, "penalty," "expiation" (Zechariah 14:19); kolasis, "punishment," "torment" (Matthew 25:46), epitimia, "poll tax," hence, "penalty" (2 Corinthians 2:6), timoria, "vindication," hence, "penalty" (Hebrews 10:29), ekdikesis, "vindication," "retribution" (1 Peter 2:14 the King James Version)): A court could inflict for a crime against the person, a sentence of (1) death in the form of stoning, burning, beheading, or strangling, etc.; (2) exile to one of the cities of refuge in case of manslaughter (Numbers 35:1-34); or (3) stripes, not to exceed 40, in practice 39 or less (Deuteronomy 25:3; 2 Corinthians 11:24). Offences against property (theft, fraudulent conversion of deposit, embezzlement, robbery) were punished by exacting more than the value of the things taken (Luke 19:8), the excess going to the injured party, thus differing from a fine, which goes into the treasury of the community. The housebreaker was liable to be slain with impunity (Exodus 22:2). A fine in the modern sense is unknown in the Scriptures, unless Leviticus 5:6-19 be interpreted as referring to such.
1. History of the Hebrew Law concerning Punishment:
The earliest theory of punishment seems to have been that of retaliation--"blood for blood"--and to some extent this principle appears even in the Law of Moses (Leviticus 21:19-20; Matthew 5:38). Early in the history of the race, punishment was administered for sin and crime. Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, and Cain, the first murderer, though not executed in retaliation for his deed, had a mark set on him. The words of Lamech (Genesis 4:24) indicate that death was regarded as the fitting punishment for murder, and the same thought apparently was in the minds of the brethren of Joseph (Genesis 42:21). Judah, as head of his family, seems to have had power of life and death (Genesis 38:24), and Abimelech threatens his people with the extreme punishment in case they injure or insult Isaac or his wife (Genesis 26:11). Similar power is ascribed to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:13).
2. The Mosaic Law concerning Punishment: Under the Law of Moses, the murderer was to be put to death without mercy. Even if he took refuge at the altar in a sanctuary or in an asylum city, he would not be immune from arrest and execution, and the same principle was applied in the case of an animal (Exodus 21:12, 14, 23, 28, 36 parallel). But punishment under the Mosaic Law was not to be entailed or transmitted (Deuteronomy 24:16), as was the case among the Chaldeans (Daniel 6:24) and the kings of Israel (1 Kings 21:1-29; 2 Kings 9:26).
It has been noted that capital punishment is extensively prescribed by the Mosaic Law, and undoubtedly the Law was carried out. This circumstance has been explained by reference to the fact that the nation consisted of newly emancipated slaves, and therefore required harsh measures to keep them in check.
Under the Mosaic Law, the offenses that made one liable to the punishment of death were: (1) striking or reviling a parent (Exodus 21:15, 17); (2) blasphemy (Leviticus 24:14, 16, 23; 1 Kings 21:10; Matthew 26:65-66); (3) Sabbath-breaking (Exodus 31:14; 35:2; Numbers 15:32-36); (4) witchcraft and false pretension to prophecy (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 13:5; 18:20; 1 Samuel 28:9); (5) adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22); (6) unchastity: (a) before marriage, but detected afterward (Deuteronomy 22:21), (b) in case of a woman with someone other than her betrothed (Deuteronomy 22:23), (c) in a priest's daughter (Leviticus 21:9); (7) rape (Deuteronomy 22:25); (8) incestuous and unnatural connections (Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 20:11, 14, 16); (9) man-stealing (Exodus 21:16); (10) idolatry, actual or virtual, in any form (Leviticus 20:2; Deuteronomy 13:6; Deuteronomy 17:2-7); (11) false witness in capital cases (Deuteronomy 19:16, 19).
A large number of offenses come under the law of punishment by cutting off from the people, the meaning of which expression has led to some controversy. It may signify excommunication or death, and occurs in connection with the following offenses: (1) breach of morals, such as willful sin in general (Numbers 15:30-31); incestuous or unclean connections (Leviticus 18:29; Leviticus 29:9-21); (2) breach of covenant, brought about through uncircumcision (Genesis 17:14; Exodus 4:24), neglect of Passover (Numbers 9:13), Sabbath-breaking (Exodus 31:14), neglect of Atonement Day (Leviticus 23:29), work done on the Atonement Day (Leviticus 23:30), children offered to Molech (Leviticus 20:3), witchcraft (Leviticus 20:6), anointing an alien with holy oil (Exodus 30:33); (3) breach of ritual, committed by eating leavened bread during Passover (Exodus 12:15, 19), eating fat of sacrifices (Leviticus 7:25), eating blood (Leviticus 7:27; 17:14), eating sacrifices while unclean (Leviticus 7:20-21; Leviticus 22:3-4, 9), offering too late (Leviticus 19:8), making holy ointment for private use (Exodus 30:32-33), making perfume for private use (Exodus 30:38), general neglect of purification (Numbers 19:13, 20), not bringing offering after slaying a beast for food (Leviticus 17:9), slaying the animal at a place other than the tabernacle door (Leviticus 17:4), touching holy things illegally (Numbers 4:15, 18, 20).
Of capital punishments that are properly regarded as of Hebrew origin, we note:
(1) Stoning
Stoning, which was the ordinary mode of execution (Exodus 19:13; Leviticus 20:27; Joshua 7:25; Luke 20:6; Acts 7:58; 14:5). The witnesses, of whom there were at least two, were required to cast the first stone (Deuteronomy 13:9 f; John 8:7). If these failed to cause death, the bystanders proceeded to complete the sentence, whereupon the body was to be suspended until sunset (Deuteronomy 21:23).
(2) Hanging
Hanging is mentioned (Numbers 25:4; Deuteronomy 21:22), probably not as a mode of execution, but rather of exposure after death. It may have been a Canaanitish punishment, since it was practiced by the Gibeonites on the sons of Saul (2 Samuel 21:6, 9).
(3) Burning
Burning, before the age of Moses, was the punishment of unchastity (Genesis 38:24). The Law prescribes it as a punishment in the case of a priest's daughter (Leviticus 21:9), and in case of incest (Leviticus 20:14), but it is also mentioned as following death by other means (Joshua 7:25), and some believe it was never used except after death. That it was sometimes used as a punishment on living persons among the heathen is shown by Daniel 3:1-30.
(4) The Sword or Spear
The sword or spear as an instrument of punishment is named in the Law (Exodus 19:13; 32:27; Numbers 25:7 ff). It occurs frequently in monarchic and post-Bab times (Judges 9:5; 1 Samuel 15:33; 2 Samuel 20:22; 1 Kings 19:1; Jeremiah 26:23; Matthew 14:8, 10), but among these cases, there are some of assassination rather than of punishment.
(5) Strangling
Strangling as a form of punishment has no Scripture authority, but according to tradition was frequently employed, and is said to have been performed by immersing the convict in clay or mud, and then strangling him by a cloth tied around the neck.
3. Punishments of Foreign Origin: Besides these, which are to be regarded as the ordinary capital punishments, we read of some that were either of foreign introduction or of an irregular kind, such as: (1) crucifixion (which see); (2) drowning (Matthew 18:6 parallel); (3) sawing asunder or crushing (2 Samuel 12:31; Hebrews 11:37); (4) torturing (1 Chronicles 20:3; Hebrews 11:35); (5) precipitation (2 Chronicles 25:12; Luke 4:29); (6) suffocation (2 Maccabees 13:4-8). The Persians are said to have filled a high tower a great way up with ashes, and then to have thrown the criminal into it, and continually stirred up the ashes by means of a wheel till he was suffocated (Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchy, III, 246).
See also HEROD,II , 100.
Secondary forms of punishment not heretofore mentioned are to be noted as follows:
(1) Blinding or Putting Out of Eyes
Blinding or putting out of eyes in the case of captives (Judges 16:21; 1 Samuel 11:2; 2 Kings 25:7).
(2) Chaining
Chaining by means of manacles or fetters of copper or iron, similar to our handcuffs fastened on the wrists and ankles and attached to each other by a chain (Judges 16:21; 2 Samuel 3:34; 2 Kings 25:7); also alluded to in the life of Paul (Acts 28:20; Ephesians 6:20; 2 Timothy 1:16); and in the case of Peter (Acts 12:6).
(3) Confiscation of Property
Confiscation of property that had fallen under the ban, i.e. had been singled out for destruction by the special decree of Yahweh, as in Numbers 21:2; Joshua 6:17; or had been reserved for the use of the army (Deuteronomy 2:35; 20:14; Joshua 22:8); or given over to the priesthood (Joshua 6:19). The term may be extended to include all things vowed or sanctified and those irrevocably devoted or consecrated to God (Leviticus 27:21, 28). The idea is applied with special emphasis to those things which, because of their uncleanness, must not be used by the Israelites, though, through their warfare with the heathen, they might have come into possession of them (Deuteronomy 7:26; 1 Samuel 15:16-23).
(4) Dashing in Pieces (Psalms 2:9; Isaiah 13:18). (5) Divine Visitation. See VISITATION.
(6) Exposure to Wild Beasts (Leviticus 26:22; 1 Samuel 17:46; Daniel 6:1-28).
(7) Flaying
(Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchy, I, 478; Nineveh and Babylon; mentioned figuratively in Micah 3:3).
(8) Forfeiture (Ezra 10:8). (9) Gallows
Gallows in the modern sense probably were unknown to the ancients. Where the word occurs in Esther 5:14; 6:4; Esther 7:9-10; 13, 15, it probably refers to a beam or pole on which the body was impaled and then elevated to a height of 50 cubits as an object of warning to the people (see "Hanging").
(10) Imprisonment
Imprisonment is frequently referred to in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, indicating that this was a common mode of punishment among both the Israelites and other nations (Genesis 40:3; 42:17; Leviticus 24:12; Numbers 15:34; 1 Kings 22:27; Jeremiah 37:15, 21; Luke 3:20; Acts 4:3, 10; 23:10; and the Epistles of Paul).
See PRISON.
(11) Indignities. In this term may be included all those outbursts of vengeance or other evil dispositions that were practiced in times or under circumstances when liberties with the prisoner were permitted on the part of bystanders or those who had charge beyond the execution of the judicial decree. Instances are found in the life of Christ (Matthew 26:59, 67; Luke 22:63 ff; John 18:22); also in the life of Paul (Acts 23:2).
(12) Mutilation (Judges 1:6-7; Ezekiel 23:25; 2 Maccabees 7).
The Law was opposed to thus treating any Israelite, and Samuel, when referring to the arbitrary power of the future king (1 Samuel 8:10 ff), does not say that he would thus treat "their sons." It was a barbarous custom of the East (see EUNUCH; POLYGAMY), evidently regarded, among the Hebrews, as a heinous practice (Deuteronomy 23:1). The only act authorizing mutilation (except in retaliation) is mentioned in Deuteronomy 25:11.
(13) Plucking Off the Hair
Plucking off the hair is alluded to as a mode of punishment in Nehemiah 13:25; Isaiah 50:6.
(14) Prison Garments
Prison garments were in vogue to mark the convicts (Jeremiah 52:33).
(15) Restitution
Restitution has been alluded to in the general introduction to this topic.
(16) Retaliation
Retaliation was recognized by Moses as a principle, but the application of it was left to the judge (Leviticus 24:19-22). A fine example of it is found in the law of Deuteronomy 19:19.
(17) Scorpions, Chastising with. Probably the use of thongs armed with pointed pieces of lead or other metal (1 Kings 12:11; 2 Chronicles 10:14).
See SCORPIONS.
(18) Scourging. See separate article.
(19) Slavery. See separate article.
(20) Stocks. See PRISON.
Frank E. Hirsch
Punites
Punites - pu'-nits (puni, probably "dark"): Descendants of Puvah, of the tribe of Issachar (Numbers 26:23; compare Genesis 46:13; Judges 10:1; 1 Chronicles 7:1).
Punon
Punon - pu'-non (punon): A desert camp of the Israelites, the second after leaving Mt. Hor (Numbers 33:42-43). Eusebius (Onom 299 85; 123 9) mentions an Idumean village, North of Petra, in the desert, where convicts were mining copper, called Phinon or Phainon. These are doubtless identical.
See WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL.
Pur
Pur - pur (Esther 3:7; 9:26).
See PURIM.
Purah
Purah - pu'-ra (purah, "branch"): Gideon's "servant," literally, "young man," i.e. armor-bearer (Judges 7:10 f, the King James Version "Phurah").
Purchase
Purchase - pur'-chats: In modern English, "to acquire by payment," in Elizabethan English, "to acquire" by any means. In the Old Testament, the King James Version has used "purchase" to represent qanah, and its derivatives (verb and noun), except in Leviticus 25:33, where the word is ga'al (the Revised Version (British and American) "redeem"). In the New Testament the noun does not occur and the verb is used for ktaomai, in Acts 1:18; 8:20, and peripoieo, in Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 3:13. But none of these words connotes the payment of a price, so that the Revised Version (British and American) has kept the word only in Acts 20:28 (margin "acquired"), changing it into "obtain" in Acts 1:18; 8:20, and "gain" in 1 Timothy 3:13. In the Old Testament, the Revised Version margin has "gotten" in Exodus 15:16 and the American Standard Revised Version has (very properly) introduced the same word into the text of Psalms 74:2; 78:54.
Burton Scott Easton
Pure; Purely; Purity
Pure; Purely; Purity - pur, pur'-li, pu'-ri-ti: This group of words has in the Old Testament and the New Testament an almost exclusively ethical significance, though the word "pure" is of course used also in its literal sense of freedom from alloy or other alien matter (Exodus 25:11, etc.). "Pure" in the Old Testament represents many Hebrew words, most frequently Tahor; "purely," occurs once only in the King James Version, as the translation of bor, properly "that which cleanses" (compare Job 9:30, the Revised Version margin "Hebrew `cleanse my hands with lye,' " i.e. alkali for soap) in Isaiah 1:25, the Revised Version (British and American) "thoroughly (margin "as with lye," the King James Version "purely") purge away thy dross"; "pureness" is the King James Version translation of the same word in Job 22:30, the Revised Version (British and American) "cleanness." In the New Testament "pure" is the translation chiefly of katharos (Matthew 5:8, Blessed are the pure in heart," etc.), but also of hagnos (Philippians 4:8; 1 Timothy 5:22; James 3:17; 1 John 3:3--always in an ethical sense). A different word (eilikrines) is used in 2 Peter 3:1, the Revised Version (British and American) "sincere." "Purity" (hagneia) occurs only in the King James Version in 1 Timothy 4:12; 5:2; in the Revised Version (British and American) in 2 Corinthians 11:3 (as the translation of tes hagnotelos).
W. L. Walker
Purge
Purge - purj: A number of words in both the Old Testament and the New Testament are so rendered in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American), although frequently in the Revised Version (British and American) the older English word "purge" is displaced by the more applicable modern terms "cleanse" and "purify," since the emphatic and medical senses of the word, as we now use it, are not justified by some of the Hebrew and Greek originals. In older English the word was broader in meaning, today it is specific. Occurrences in the King James Version, with the changes made in the Revised Version (British and American), are as follows:
1. In the Old Testament: (1) Taber, literally, "to be clean," used of the putting-away of idolatry from Judah by Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:3, 8), is translated "purge" in all VSS, but, in Ezekiel 24:13, the American Standard Revised Version changes to "cleanse." (2) chaTa', literally, "to make a sin offering" (Psalms 51:7): is changed without improvement to "purify" in the American Standard Revised Version, while "purge" is retained in the English Revised Version. (3) kaphar, "to cover" or "to make atonement," occurs in Psalms 65:3; 79:9; Ezekiel 43:20, 26; in the two passages in Psalms, the Revised Version (British and American) has "forgive" (the "expiate" of the margin is still better), and in Ezekiel the even more accurate "make atonement." In both (4) tsaraph, "to refine" (Isaiah 1:25), and (5) duach, literally, "to rinse" (Isaiah 4:4), "purge" is well retained in the Revised Version (British and American). (6) barar, literally, "to be shining," the Revised Version (British and American) retains in Ezekiel 20:38, but in Daniel 11:35 changes to "purify." (7) zaqaq, "to pour down" as molten metal (Malachi 3:3), also becomes "purify" in the Revised Version (British and American).
These occurrences are all in the figurative sense, and apply to sin, uncleanness, idolatry, etc. Most noteworthy is the American Standard Revised Version change of the familiar Psalms 51:7.
2. In the New Testament: The Greek words rendered "purge" in the King James Version of the Apocrypha and New Testament are kathairo, and katharizo, and their compounds and derivatives. In all passages except four, the Revised Version (British and American) more properly translates "cleanse" (Matthew 3:12; Mark 7:19; Luke 3:17; John 15:2; Hebrews 9:14, 22; 10:2). In Hebrews 1:3 "when he had by himself purged our sins" is changed to "had made purification of." But in the case of the verb compounded with the preps. apo and ek, i.e. apokathairo and ekkathairo (Job 12:9; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Timothy 2:21), with strong signification to "cleanse out," the Revised Version (British and American) properly retains "purge." Most worthy of note is the change of the familiar verse in John, "Every branch, that beareth fruit, he purgeth" to "Every branch .... he cleanseth" (15:2).
Edward Mack
Purification
Purification - pu-ri-fi-ka'-shun.
See PURGE; PURITY; UNCLEANNESS.
Purim; Pur
Purim; Pur - pur'-rim, pur (purim, "lots"; Septuagint Phrourai): The name of a Jewish festival celebrated on the 14th and 15th days of the month Adar, the final month of the Biblical year, corresponding to February-March.
1. Scripture References: The origin of the festival is narrated in the Book of Esther, and indeed is the motive of the book, as the time, reason and manner of its celebration are given in detail (Esther 3:7; 9:24 ff). Reference also is made to it in apocryphal literature (Additions to Esther 10:3; 2 Maccabees 15:36) and in Josephus (Ant., XI, vi, 13). No reference is made to this feast in the New Testament, as it was celebrated locally, and is therefore not to be connected with any of the festal pilgrimages to Jerusalem. For this reason the supposition of some that the feast of John 5:1 was Purim is to be rejected, mention of it being immediately followed by the words, "And Jesus went up to Jerusalem."
2. History of Institution: For the complete account of the institution of Purim reference must be made to the Book of Esther. Only a brief statement is possible here. Haman, son of Hammedatha the AGAGITE (q.v.; compare 1 Samuel 15:8, 32), who had been made prime minister by King Ahasuerus (Xerxes), bitterly hated the Jews, some of whom, as Mordecai, were rising to prominence in the empire. After Queen Vashti had been put away from her royal position for cause (Esther 1:9-12), a Jewess named Esther, kinswoman and adopted daughter of Mordecai, was chosen to become the royal consort. This only increased the hatred of Haman, who in his jealous fury soon began to seek an opportune day to work his hate upon Mordecai and the whole Jewish people, and therefore resorted to the casting of the lots for the auspicious time: "They cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, which is the month Adar" (Esther 3:7). Beginning with the 1st month, all the days and months were tried with unfavorable result, until the last. At Haman's request Ahasuerus caused his scribes to send into all the realm on the 13th day of the 1st month a decree that all Jews should be put to death on the 13th day of the 12th month (3:12 ff). As the narrative shows, the wisdom of Mordecai, Esther's heroism, and fasting and prayer availed to foil the dastardly scheme of Haman, who had already built the gallows on which his hated rival should be hanged. Haman was himself hanged on this gallows, while Mordecai was honored yet more (7:10; 8:1,2). A second decree was issued on the 23rd day of the 3rd month that on the 13th day of the 12th month (8:9,12), the day appointed in the first decree for their extermination, the Jews should gather together and defend themselves against their foes. On that fateful day not only did the Jews successfully resist the malice of their enemies, but the public officials also, seeing that the royal favor was with the Jews, espoused their cause. In Shushan, the royal city, a second day, the 14th, was granted the Jews for vengeance on their foes (9:11-16). In view of so great a deliverance "Mordecai wrote these things .... unto all the Jews .... to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies (9:20-22).
3. Manner of Observance: Already as early as the times of the Maccabees (2 Maccabees 15:36), the festival was observed, the 14th day being called "Mordecai's day." Josephus refers to it as continuously and widely observed down to his time: "For this cause the Jews still keep the forementioned days, and call them days of Purim" (Ant., XI, vi, 13). In succeeding centuries as the Jews have passed from one civilization or empire to another, so many causes have arisen to remind them of the persecutions of Haman as to make the festival of a triumph over such persecutions both attractive and most significant to them. Experiences in Syria, Egypt, Rome, Russia and elsewhere have not been lacking in suggestion of the original occasion of Purim. The 13th day has been observed by fasting in commemoration of Esther's prayer and fasting before she approached the king; in the evening, at the beginning of the 14th day, the Jews repair to the synagogues where the Book of Esther, one of the meghilloth, is read with interpretations, execrations bursting out at the reading of Haman's name, accompanied by noise of rattles and stamping of feet, other persecutors and foes also sometimes coming in for a share of execration. The names of Mordecai and Esther receive blessings. On the following morning of the 14th synagogue services are again held, at which, in addition to the repetition of the Esther reading, Exodus 17:8-16, which records the destruction of the Amalekites (compare Esther 3:1), is also read as the lesson from the Law, presents are given to the poor and to friends, and the rest of the day, as also the 15th, observed with feasting and rejoicing, even excesses being condoned in the exuberance of national spirit.
4. Theories of Origin: Many attempts have been made to trace the origin of Purim in pagan or cosmic festivals, but to the present time without success, without approach even to probability. Supposed connections with nature myths, national festivals, polytheistic legends have all found advocates. The word itself has suggested the possibility of identification with words of similar form or sound in other languages. But the ease of finding such similarities for any word casts doubt upon the reliability of any identification. (1) It has been traced to the Assyrian puru, and identified with the Assyrian New Year when officials entered upon their term of service. (2) The Babylonian puhru, new year festival, has also been claimed as the origin of Purim; Mordecai becomes Marduk, Esther is Ishtar, while Haman, Vashti and Zeresh are Median gods. (3) The most popular attempts at identification are in the Persian field, where bahr, "lot," is claimed as the source of Pur, or purdighan, "new year," or farwardighan, the feast of departed souls. (4) Origin also in a Greek bacchanalian occasion has been sought. (5) Others suggest origin in other Jewish experiences than that claimed by the Book of Esther itself, such as a captivity in Edom, or a persecution under the Ptolemies in Egypt, or the victory of Judas Maccabeus over Nicanor in 161 BC (1 Maccabees 7:49). No one of all these theories has sufficient probability to secure for itself anything like general acceptance; the Book of Est remains as the most reasonable account; the difficulties met in it are not so great as those of the explanations sought in other languages and religions.
LITERATURE.
Bible dicts., especially HDB, Encyclopedia Biblica and Jewish Encyclopedia; Paton, commentary on "Est" in ICC, particularly pp. 77-94.
Edward Mack
Purity
Purity - pu'-ri-ti: The Bible bears witness to the long struggle over and in man to secure physical, mental, and moral cleanliness. The various forms of purity have relation to each other.
We have a common proverb that "cleanliness is akin to godliness." Cleanliness and aesthetics are certainly nigh neighbors. But cleanliness and ethics do not dwell farther apart. When one realizes that by uncleanness of person or property he may endanger the health or life of family, or even of society about him--as in keeping conditions that develop typhoid fever--he begins to realize that there is, a close tie between cleanliness and morals. "Ought" comes in on the sphere of cleanliness, and then the whole realm of ethics is open. So near are the departments of physical and ethical cleanliness that now if one hears the word "slum" without explanation, he cannot tell whether it relates to filth or sin.
The perception of this relationship is of very ancient date. Though it is Isaiah who says (52:11) "Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of Yahweh," and Mark 7:3-4, "All the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the marketplace, except they bathemselves, they eat not; and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings of cups, and pots, and brasen vessels," yet such statements are but summaries of directions distributed here and there throughout the whole Levitical Law. We can read therein what sounds like the hygienic orders of a general to his soldiers on the march, or like the rules of the board of health to preserve a city from pestilence. And these Levitical directions for cleanliness are connected inseparably with the worship of Yahweh, as though physical purity were to that an essential. The Psalmist blends these two elements, the physical and the ethical, in the familiar question and answer (Psalms 24:3-5), "Who shall ascend into the hill of Yahweh? And who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, and hath not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from Yahweh, and righteousness from the God of his salvation."
The ceremonial cleansings called for by the Law had meaning and influence. They were interpretative of something spiritual--were a parable way of illustrating the necessity of purity of heart in order to gain acceptance with God. If in after-days the thing symbolized was forgotten in the symbol, that was owing to "blindness of mind." The darkness was not necessary.
1. The Sex Relation: But the main subject in respect to which we shall in this article seek light on purity from the Bible will not be hygiene or aesthetics, but morals. When we turn to that department we shall at once realize the fact that the sex relation is the most primitive and comprehensive of all the human relations.
The Family.
The attitude of the Bible in respect to that relation is unmistakable. From the vision of the Garden of Eden to that of the New Jerusalem, the Bible rings true to the ideal of purity in family life and in the relations of the sexes to each other. This is remarkable, for it is a vast history over which its narrative sweeps, and in it every species of literature is represented. It sets forth the acts and views of a people in all the stages of civilization, from wandering nomads to dwellers in cities embellished by architecture and every device of man to set forth riches and splendor. It sets forth their crime, shame and sin, as well as their virtues, but its tone is approbative of the virtues and reprobative of the crime, shame and sin. In the Magna Charta of the Hebrew people--the Ten Commandments--there stands in equal rank with any other principle, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." The sanction of religion and law was thus given to the integrity and purity of family life. The minute regulations against marriage with relatives, and the severe punishments inflicted for disregard of the restrictions (Leviticus 18:1-30 and Leviticus 20:1-27), were a powerful force in the same direction. The adultery of married persons was to be punished by the death of both the parties (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22).
Such laws may sometimes seem severe. Doubtless they are primitive and date from the time of nomadism. In primitive conditions, penalties for infraction of law are to be severe and swift. Pioneers the world over and through time, for very self-preservation's sake, could show little favor or tolerance to lawlessness. Be these laws severe, they show the intense earnestness of a people to have a pure family life in which children born should be genuine to it. These Levitical restrictions upon intermarriage with relatives fit the sense of propriety and right of civilized people, even to this day.
2. The Prophets: There is no question about the attitude of the prophets on purity. They were in harmony with the Law. They had no tolerance for corrupt morals or manners leading to impurity or suggesting it. An illustration sometimes has the light of the sun in it. What it is that is illustrated is frequently best seen by looking at the illustration itself. The prophets were passionate monotheists. They wanted above all things that Israel should be true to Yahweh and to Him alone. To the prophets, worship of other gods was treason to Yahweh. One prophet after another, and over and over again, illustrates this highest of crimes by infidelity in the marriage relation. That shows in what estimate the family was held. To put any other in the place of Yahweh was "to go a-whoring after other gods," or "to play the harlot." That shows as nothing else could how deep in the heart was sunk regard for pure family life. Infidelity was high treason there, or it never would have furnished language to describe high treason to God.
3. The Proverbs: Proverbs 5:1-23 and 7 indicate the attitude of the book on purity. We may let the book make its own case. The wiles of "the strange woman" and the stupid folly and destruction of her victim are specially set forth in the chapters mentioned. In the last chapter of the book we have a portraiture of a "virtuous woman" in whom domesticity in purity has reached a high stage. "Let her own works praise her in the gates."
4. The Song of Songs: It is pleasant to turn from the tense severity of law, since it must deal largely with crime and sin, to the idealism of poetry. In the Psalms and the Prophets the relation of husband and wife, of bridegroom and bride, of lover and loved are always treated with tenderness and reverence. Here is familiar Scripture (Psalms 19:1-14): "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. .... In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course." That does not betray any lack of sympathy with the exuberant spirit of a lover. So Isaiah 62:4-5: "For Yahweh delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee." Language cannot more clearly disclose delight in the joy of those who are adjusting themselves under the "primal eldest" rule over sex: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).
It is sometimes thought strange that the Song of Songs should be in the Scripture Canon. But why should there be such doubt? It is but a more particular elaboration of what is boldly brought to notice in the quotations above. There is no more necessity of reading impurity into it than there is of reading it into the quotations above. The poem is illustrative of an experience as widely known as any in the life of the human race--an experience in which sin is no necessity. One must go out of his way who imputes sin to a single act or thought that comes to expression in the poem. The maiden is guileless and the lover is manly. The poem is said to be erotic. But the eros is idealized. It may be sensuous, but it is not sensual. It is not selfish. The passion of each finds expression in careful thoughtfulness for the other. It does not turn back to itself in coarse brute craving of lust for its own self-indulgence. The refrain of the poem is--
"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem
That ye stir not up, nor awake my love."--Song of Solomon 2:7; 3:5; 8:4.
The watchfulness is as tender as that for an infant. Where will the law lay its indictment of sin against such thoughts and feelings? The lovers are under the charm that has been and is to be from everlasting to everlasting with the human race upon the earth.
Christ at His strictest did not set Himself against the charm of love. He said it should be eternally single and true in spirit. The maiden in the song goes forth in the night, in the simplicity of her heart, to find her beloved (Song of Solomon 3:2 ff). In the same simplicity, Evangeline wandered all the night of her life to find the object of her affection. From the same charm in the beginning came the faithfulness of Enoch Arden. Out of the love that springs from purity has come the integrity that has endured to the end. The exuberance of the charm, like every other spring of life and action, needs regulation, but the charm itself is not to be treated as sin.
5. Christ and Purity: Paul has said, "Ye are not under law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14). But that depends upon the conditions to which it is applied. We may not be under the Levitical, ceremonial Law, but we are under the wide realm of ethical law always, even when we are under grace. What grace does is to idealize and spiritualize and make attractive and beautiful what before was perhaps hard, repellent statute and rule. Christ is sometimes thought to have relaxed the severity of "the reign of law." But six times even in the Sermon on the Mount He added to its strictness. Take the idea of the purity of the family as secured by its unity. Under the Mosaic legislation, certain not onerous forms of legal proceeding intervening, the termination of marriage might be said to be optional with the parties. All this liberty is swept away in one sentence: "I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery" (Matthew 19:9). That is a law sentence. It was uttered in the realm of law. It was intended to have effect in law. No wonder, considering the liberty that had been allowed in the Law up to that time, that the disciples as soon as they got breath said, "If the case of a man is so with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." They knew that a new law for Christ's disciples was put over marriage. Even the exception confirmed His rule. If the exception is not allowed, polyandry or polygamy is established. No other sentence of human speech has done more for the purity of family life (see DIVORCE). But Christ did not stop with the utterance of law protective of purity physically; He went behind all acts and laid down law for the thoughts and intents of the heart: "But I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
Sometimes it may be thought that there is a look of moral indifference about the way in which Jesus disposed of the woman's case who was taken in adultery (John 8:1-11): "Did no man condemn thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I condemn thee; go thy way; from henceforth sin no more." But it must first be remembered that it was not her case but that of her accusers that was immediately before the mind of Jesus. They brought her before Him to trap Him, but He turned and put them on trial. He made their moral condition the main issue. Hers was but an incident. But then, Jesus did not leave her without impressing on her mind that she was a sinner. The last words left ringing in her ears were, "Sin no more." And she was left, as all in sin are left, to wrestle out adjustment with the Holy Spirit who leaves no soul without conviction of "sin, righteousness and judgment." The words of Jesus no more than the words of anyone else can explain all things at once. They can cover a point in view, but much must always be left to the understanding that comes from known experience under the moral government of God.
The subsequent psychology of a sinner after the words of Scripture leave him is of deepest interest. Psychological action he must have had; what is it? The question arises, Had the prodigal son completed his repentance till he had asked the forgiveness of his mother and his elder brother? What is the subsequent psychology of a sinner as he disappears from our view? We can interpret here by what we know to be the operations of the Holy Spirit in the soul; just as we know a material object that diappears from view is still under the law of gravitation. Few who have thought on this subject have expressed the truth so well as Whittier in "Our Master," or in "John Underhill" in these words:
"And men took note of his gloomy air
The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer,
The signs of a battle lost within,
The pain of a soul in the coils of sin.
Into the desert alone rode he,
Alone with the Infinite Purity;
And bowing his soul to its tender rebuke,
As Peter did to the Master's look,
He measured his path with prayer of pain
For peace with God and nature again."
There is a recognition of the burning with fire that is infolded in the word "purity."
6. Paul: Paul is like his Master. He seeks for purity in this relation after marriage as well as before--purity of mind. In 1 Corinthians 7 we see how carefully and kindly Paul discoursed about all the complications in matters pertaining to sex. Then again, if Paul has exhorted wives to obedience to husbands, he has also called for equal self-surrender on the part of husbands (Ephesians 5:22-32): "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it." Can there be any self-surrender greater than that which Christ made? Here let attention rest on the fact that in his catalogue of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), if he has put "love" in the first place of emphasis among the nine, he has put "self-control" in the last.
We have only space for a glance at a few departments of action and thought to see what the world has gained in purity from the religion of the Bible. The age of chivalry ought to have a word put to its credit. The knights took the vow of chastity before the tribunals of the church. Take art--compare a Venus and a Madonna. Not only spirituality, but even intellectuality is wanting in a Venus. There is not a suggestion in a Venus that does not inhere in flesh and sense. Of what would she or could she speak if she were to open her mouth? To judge from her. appearance, the utterance would be so "flat, stale and unprofitable" that even the charm of her physical beauty would disappear. In the Madonna you scarce see the physical. If she were to speak, her words would picture the peace and calm joy of a heavenly realm. If her countenance is suggestive of something far away, it is of something far above.
But art is not dead, and spiritual art did not die with the creation of the Madonna. Take Gaudens' "Puritan." Compare that with an Apollo. Again we have the contrast there is between a Madonna and a Venus. We have the physical and the aesthetic in an Apollo, but there is not a gleam of the intellectual. That Apollo thinks is not indicated, much less what he might be thinking about. There is not the faintest suggestion of the ethical. There is no intent and purpose in him. But in the Puritan there is intent and purpose. He means much. He is ethical. That determined bearing can only come from a spirit alive with the sense of right. When it comes to that, you will warrant that the Puritan carries more physical guns than the Apollo, and that if they were to clinch in a tug of wrestling Apollo would fall underneath. That ethical intent and purpose is masterly. You may look through a whole pantheon of Greek gods and meet not a trace of the force concentrated in the Puritan. He is forceful because right makes might. He is in the majority because he knows Who is with him. He is conscious of power because he has subdued the kingdom within. He has won the greatest of all victories--self-control.
C. Caverno
Purloining
Purloining - pur-loin'-ing: Lit. "for far off," hence, to carry away or steal; the word is the translation of nosphizomai, "to take away for oneself," "to secrete," "to steal," a word appropriate to those in the position of slaves in a master's service (Titus 2:10, "not purloining").
Purple
Purple - pur'-p'-l ('argaman; Chaldaic 'argewan (2 Chronicles 2:7); compare Arabic 'urjuwan, and Persian 'arghawan; porphura, porphureos Septuagint and New Testament)):
Purple dye was manufactured by the Phoenicians from a marine mollusk, Murex trunculus. The shell was broken in order to give access to a small gland which was removed and crushed. The crushed gland gives a milky fluid that becomes red or purple on exposure to the air. Piles of these broken shells still remain on the coast at Sidon and Tyre. The purple gland is found in various species of Murex and also of Purpura.
Purple cloth was used in the furnishings of the tabernacle (Exodus 25:4, etc.) and of Solomon's temple (2 Chronicles 2:14; 3:14); in the palanquin of Solomon (Song of Solomon 3:10); and in the hangings of the palace of Ahasuerus (Esther 1:6). The kings of Midian had purple raiment (Judges 8:26); the worthy woman of Proverbs 31:22 has clothing of fine linen and purple. Mordecai was clothed with purple by Ahasuerus (Esther 8:15); Jesus by the Roman soldiers (Mark 15:17, 20; John 19:2, 5). The rich man of Luke 16:19 and the scarlet woman of Revelation 18:12, 16 were arrayed in purple. In Song of Solomon 7:5 the bride has hair like purple. Purple is in the merchandise of Babylon (Revelation 18:12). It is surprising that Ezekiel speaks of the Tyrians as obtaining purple from the isles of Elisha (Ezekiel 27:7) and from Syria (Ezekiel 27:16).
See COLORS ; DYE,DYEING .
Alfred Ely Day
Purpose, of God
Purpose, of God - pur'-pus (prothesis (Romans 9:11; Ephesians 1:11)): The word "purpose" seems to be an equivalent of the word "decree" as used in regard to man's relation to eternity. More correctly stated, it softens the word "decree" and refers back to the cause of the decree as lodged in an intelligent design and forward to an aim consistent with the character of God.
See FOREORDAIN; PREDESTINATION.
Purse
Purse - purs.
See BAG.
Purslain; Juice
Purslain; Juice - purs'-lan, joos, jus.
See JUICE.
Purtenance
Purtenance - pur'-te-nans: With the significance of "belongings," this word occurs in the King James Version of Exodus 12:9 as the translation of qerebh, "within" "inward," "roast .... with the purtenance thereof," the Revised Version (British and American) "inwards" (compare Leviticus 1:9; 3:3, etc.).
Put
Put - put (puT; Phoud, in Genesis and Chronicles, variant for Genesis Phout, for Chronicles, Phouth):
1. Renderings: In consequence of the identification at the time, the prophets have "Libya" (Libues), except Nab 3:9, where the Greek renders the word as phuge, "flight." The Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) has "Phut," "Phuth," and in the Prophets "Libyes" and "Libya"; the King James Version "Phut."
2. Son of Ham: In the "Table of Nations" Put is the third son of Ham (Genesis 10:6), the first and second being Cush and Misraim, and the fourth Canaan. Put is the only one of the sons of Ham who is not credited with descendants.
3. As Nationality: In the Prophets, warriors from Put are referred to, principally in connection with the forces of Egypt. They appear as shield-bearers (Jeremiah 46:9: "Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow"). See also Ezekiel 30:5, where the order in the Hebrew is Cush, Put and Lud. In Nahum 3:9 Put is the helper of No-amon (Thebes in Egypt), and in Ezekiel 27:10 Put appears with Persia and Lydia (Lud) as being in the army of Tyre.
4. Identified with Punt: The common identification of Put is the Egyptian Punt (or Pwent) proposed by Ebers. The assimilation of n to a following consonant is common in the Semitic languages, and would occasion no difficulty if the vocalization be found to agree. The final "t" of Punt, however, seems to be the Egyptian feminine ending, whereas the "T" of Put is radical.
5. Somaliland and Yemen: Nevertheless, the district would seem to be rightly identified with the tract to the East of Abyssinia (Somaliland), and as it is described as being on both sides of the sea (the Red Sea), Yemen would seem to be included. In connection with this, it is worthy of note that a fragment of a Babylonian tablet referring to Nebuchadrezzar's campaign in Egypt in his 37th year mentions, as though in the neighborhood, the city (here, apparently, standing for the district) of Putu-yaman--probably not "Ionian (Greek) Put" (Lesbos, according to Winckler), but "Put of Yemen." If this be in contra-distinction to the district of Put (Punt) on the African mainland, the latter would be the Putu referred to in the Persian inscription of Naqsh-i-Rustem, which mentions, among the tributary-countries, Kushiya, Putiya and Masiya, in Babylonian (mat) PuTa, ((mat) K)usu, (mat) Massu(?), "the land Put, the land Kush (Ethiopia), the land Massu(?)." The soldiers of Put in the army of Tyre may have been either from the African or the Yemenite Put, in which case there was no northern tract of that name, unless settlements had been made at any time from the original district. See W. Max Muller, Asien und Europa, Leipzig, 1893, 106 ff.
T. G. Pinches
Puteoli
Puteoli - pu-te'-o-li (Potioloi, "sulphur springs" (Acts 28:13, Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek), the modern Pozzuoli): A maritime city of Campania, which occupied a central position on the northern shore of a recess in the Gulf of Naples, protected on the West by the peninsula of Baiae and Cape Misenum. It was originally a colony of the neighboring Greek city Cumae.
The earliest event in the history of Puteoli which can be dated definitely was the repulse of Hannibal before its walls by a Roman garrison in 214 BC. The design of the Carthaginian to secure a seaport as base of supplies and communication was thus thwarted (Livy xxiv. 7, 12, 13). A Roman colony was established here in 194 BC, and Puteoli thus became the first Roman port on the Gulf of Naples (Livy xxxiv. 45; Strabo v.245; Velleius, i.15). Its subsequent remarkable prosperity and commercial activity are to be attributed to the safety of the harbor and the inhospitable character of the coast nearer Rome. For Puteoli became the chief seaport of the capital before the creation of an artificial harbor at Portus Augusti by Claudius, and before Trajan made the mouth of the Tiber the principal converging point for the over-sea carrying trade. The imports at Puteoli consisted mainly of Egyptian grain and oriental wares, dispatched from Alexandria and other cities of the Levant (Cicero Pro Rabirio 40; Suetonius, Augustus 98; Strabo xvii. 793; Cicero Pro Caelio 10). The eastern element in the population was very numerous (Petronius 81;
CIL, X, 1797). The harbor was rendered doubly safe by a mole, which is known to have been at least 418 yards in length, consisting of massive piers connected by means of arches constructed in solid masonry (Strabo v.245). Extensive remains of this mole still exist. The shore line devoted to purposes of commerce (emporium) extended for a distance of about 1 1/4 miles westward from the mole. At the height of its prosperity under Claudius and Nero, the town is thought to have contained a population of nearly 100,000.
The region in which the town was situated is of volcanic formation, the name Puteoli being due to the odor of the sulphureous springs or to the wells of a volcanic nature which abound in the vicinity. The volcanic dust, called pozzolana today, was mixed with lime to form a cement of the greatest durability, which was weatherproofing against the influence of seawater.
Extensive remains of an amphitheater, whose axes measure 160 and 126 yards across the space enclosed by the outer facade and 75 and 45 yards within the arena, bear testimony to the former affluence of Puteoli.
The region about Puteoli together with Baiae became the favorite resort of the Roman nobility, and the foundations of many ancient villas are still visible, although partly covered by the sea. Cicero's villa in the territory of Puteoli (Cicero Ad Fam. v.15, 2; Ad Att. xiv. 16, 1; 20, 1) was afterward selected as the place of burial of Hadrian (Spartianus Had. 25). The portion of the bay between Puteoli and Baiae was the scene of the attempt made at the instigation of Nero upon the life of his mother by means of a vessel so contrived that it was to break to pieces while conveying Agrippina toward her villa near the Lucrine Lake (Tacitus, Annals xiv.8).
See NERO.
The apostle Paul found a Christian community at Puteoli, when he arrived there on his way to Rome, and stopped 7 days with them (Acts 28:13-14). At that time the ordinary route to Rome, following the Via Appia from Capua, was 155 Roman, or about 142 1/3 English miles (Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, II, 739). Later, Domitian reduced the distance to 139 Roman miles (about 129 English miles) by laying out the Via Domitia along the coast, joining the Via Appia at Sinuessa (Geog. Raven., IV, 32; Itin. Ant., 122; Tab. Peut.).
George H. Allen
Puthites
Puthites - pu'-thits (puthi, "simple"; the King James Version Puhites): One of the families of Kiriath-jearim, grandchildren of Caleb (1 Chronicles 2:50, 53).
Putiel
Putiel - pu'-ti-el (puTi'el, "contemned by El"): Father of the wife of Eleazar, Aaron's son, and thus grandfather of Phinehas, Eleazar's son (Exodus 6:25).
See PHINEHAS, (3).
Puvah
Puvah - pu'-va.
See PUAH.
Pygarg
Pygarg - pi'-garg (dishon; Septuagint pugargos; compare proper nouns, "Dishon" and "Dishan" (Genesis 36:21-30; 1 Chronicles 1:38-42); according to BDB, Hommel, Saugethiere, derives ... from dush, Arabic das, "to tread," and compare Assyrian dashshu, "mountain-goat"): Dishon as the name of an animal occurs only in Deuteronomy 14:5 in the list of clean beasts. Both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have "pygarg," which is not the recognized name of any animal whatever. The Septuagint pugargos (from puge, "rump," and argos, "white") was used by Herodotus (iv.192) as the name of an antelope. A white rump is a very common feature of deer and antelopes, and is commonly explained as enabling the fleeing herd easily to keep in sight of its leaders. It has been used as a specific name of Cervus pygargus, the Tartarian roe, and Bubalis pygargus, a small South African antelope. The Arabic Bible has ri'm, "a white gazelle," a kindred word to re'em, the King James Version "unicorn," the Revised Version (British and American) "wild-ox." Tristram, Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, considers dishon to be the addax, Antilope addax or Addax nasomaculatus. There is excellent reason, however, for believing that the range of this African antelope does not extend into Palestine, Sinai or Arabia. For a discussion of the animal names in Deuteronomy 14:4-5, see ZOOLOGY.
Alfred Ely Day
Pyramid
Pyramid - pir'-a-mid puramis: Pyramids are mentioned in connection with the splendid monument reared by Simon Maccabeus in memory of his parents and brethren at Modin (1 Maccabees 13:28; compare Ant,XIII vi, 6). Josephus describes them as "very surprising, both for their largeness and beauty." There is nothing to show how the pyramid allotted to each was distinguished, whether by difference in size or by inscriptions. It is remarkable that in Scripture there is no allusion to the giant structures in Egypt; but these may have supplied the suggestion to Simon's mind.
W. Ewing
Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus - pir'-us (Purros, "fiery-red"): The name is inserted in the text of the Revised Version (British and American) in Acts 20:4 as that of the father of SOPATER (which see).
Python
Python - pi'-thon: Occurs only in Acts 16:16, where the Revised Version (British and American) reads, "a certain maid having a spirit of divination (margin "a spirit, a Python") met us." Puthon, or Putho, is the oldest name of Delphi (or the country about Delphi), in which was situated the famous Delphic Oracle. Consequently "Pythian spirit" came to be the generic title of the supposed source of inspiration of diviners, including the slave-girl of the account in Acts. Exactly what facts underlie the narrative it is rather hard to say, but it is evident that the girl was sincere in her conviction that she spoke with Pythian inspiration. Probably she represents some hysterical type, of none too strong mentality, whose confused utterances were taken as coming from some supernatural power. Impressed by Paul's personality, she followed him about, and, when his command came, was in a state of mind that had prepared her to obey it. The narrative, incidentally, gives an interesting sidelight on a society in which a girl with hysteria had a greater commercial value than she had after her cure.
See DIVINATION.
Burton Scott Easton