Untitled article by Rev. G. B. Bacon

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · December 17, 1867

THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

By Rev. G. B. Bacon

The Bible, as a religious book, would be most incomplete without the book of Psalms; for, in a complete religious book, there must be not only revelation, but the response to revelation. And the response is no whit less inspired and sacred than the revelation is. We know from whom the inspiration of true worship comes. The prayer and praise which go up to God, from hearts that worship him in spirit and in truth, first came down from him; and the worship which “is written in the book of Psalms,” because it was real worship out of honest hearts, that meant it when they uttered it, and prayed because they needed to, and sung because, for their religious joy, they could not but sing, was doubtless prompted by the presence of the Holiest within them, kindled by the breath of God, illumined by his light, and quickened by his life. It is with this consideration that the argument for the inspiration of this book of Psalms should start. They are real prayers, and real praises,—most intensely real, and therefore verily inspired. The men who uttered them and wrote them felt what they said, and meant it heartily. They cried out for help, because they must have help; because, if help were not forthcoming, they must perish. They sang praises and gave thanks because their hearts were full, and they could not restrain expression.

This, then, is the substance of the book of Psalms. There is a marvelous variety in it. There are prayers of almost every sort, uttered in almost every mood, fitted for almost every circumstance. There are praises copious enough for all exuberance of worship, various enough for all the varying use of gratitude and joy. Every one of them is full of worship. Almost every one is, either wholly or in part, directly spoken to the Most High; and the others utter holy meditations, sacred memories, devout longings, which are no less worshipful for being indirect. They are by various authors. They are written at various times. Some of them bear marks of careful study, and of the most laborious and artificial arrangement. Others seem to have come glowing with the fervor of a mighty inspiration which refused constraint. But, however this may be, each one of them is the utterance of a man who had something to say to God, and said it therefore: something about God, or else something about himself; or yet, more probably, something about both himself and God. It was something that he wanted to say to God. It was not enough that he could tell it to his fellow-men; he needed also to utter it to God. If he kept silence, it was as if a fire were burning in him: he could not keep silence. He wanted to tell God how much, how lovingly, how gratefully, he bore in mind the memory of his goodness. He wanted to tell God how pleasant and how comforting a thing it was to trust in him, to be a lamb in his safe fold, to be a citizen in his strong city, to be a soldier in his unconquerable hosts. He wanted to express to God the wonder and delight with which the mighty works he witnessed in the world about him had impressed him. He wanted to declare how grand the course of Nature seemed to him, how magnificent the works of Providence. He wanted to rehearse to God the glorious history which his right hand and mighty arm had wrought out for the people. These things he wanted to express to God; these things he called upon all people to express and say, not to themselves, and not to one another, but to God. Not that God needed to be told of them, of course that was not it; but because it was “a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant, and praise is comely.” This was what each psalmist, as he wrote his psalm, believed.

And so, too, with the prayers. These psalmists needed to speak to God concerning themselves also. They wanted to ask him for his help and his continual blessing. They wanted to ask forgiveness for their sins, real sins, great sins, that needed real forgiveness, great forgiveness; as when David prayed his fifty-first psalm, for instance, which is so deeply burdened that the language fairly groans with the passionate repentance of a sinful soul. They wanted to ask for help against enemies who plagued and persecuted them in all sorts of ways. They wanted to commend to God the interests of their country, and to supplicate his favor for it, that he might give it victory in battle, and prosperity in peace, and always righteousness. They wanted to sustain their souls in doubt and darkness and despondency, that came to them as they come to us, by crying out to God in earnest supplication. Not that he needed to be told what they desired—for they knew that he would know, before they asked him, what they were in want of—but because their needs must speak; because their God was one who could hear prayer and answer it—a living God, a Spirit, to whom it was not a matter of mere unconcern, as it was to the stone gods or wooden gods of heathen people, whether they were prayerful or silent; because, as one of them expresses it, while he kept silence, his very bones grew old with the inarticulate pressure of his emotion; because, as another one has said,—

“As the heart panteth after the water-brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God?”

This was what each psalmist more or less distinctly and profoundly felt; and it was in this way that he spoke to God about himself and all that was his, fully, freely, earnestly; till, at last, the whole catalogue of human wants has found an utterance in this complete collection of the inspired prayers of Hebrew worshipers.—Rev. G. B. Bacon.