Barnes’ Notes

Notes

on the

Old Testament

Albert Barnes

PSALMS

Volume 1

Blackie & Son

London

Reprinted from the 1870–72 edition published by Blackie & Son,

London

Reprinted 1983 by Baker Book House Company

ISBN: 0-8010-0838-7

EDITOR’S PREFACE

The Psalms have ever been held in the highest appreciation by the Church. We are familiar with the testimonies of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin to the excellence of the Psalms. We know that the piety of the Church has been fed by the Psalms for thousands of years; that they have come singing down through the ages, sustaining the sufferers, and inspiring the heroes of every time. It is a good sign of our times that these precious songs of Zion are attracting more attention amongst us, and that not only on the part of men whose professional duties may be supposed to demand it, but also from men occupying the highest place in literature and politics. The Christian public, not long ago, were surprised and delighted when informed that our great Prime Minister had been whiling away some dreary hours in the House of Commons last session by translating into Greek Toplady’s beautiful hymn, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.” We think many will be equally delighted with the following beautiful testimony to the Psalms of David on the part of Mr. Gladstone. He says—“In that book, for well nigh three thousand years, the piety of saints has found its most refined and choicest food, to such a degree, indeed, that the rank and quality of the religious frame may in general be tested, at least negatively, by the height of its relish for them. There is the whole music of the human heart, when touched by the hand of the Maker, in all its tones that whisper or that swell, for every hope and fear, for every joy and pang, for every form of strength and languor, of disquietude and rest. There are developed all the innermost relations of the human soul to God, built upon the platform of a covenant of love and sonship, that had its foundations in the Messiah, while, in this particular and privileged book, it was permitted to anticipate his coming.” It is reassuring, in these rationalistic times, to meet in such quarters with so profound a reverence for the Divine Word, and so keen a relish for its beauty, and appreciation of its spiritual power. At the same time, Commentaries on the Psalms and Introductions have greatly multiplied among us of late. For a long time we had almost nothing in our language on this deeply interesting portion of Scripture but the work of Bishop Horne, of the excellence of which, in a purely practical and devotional point of view, it would be impossible to speak too highly; but something was needed that would go deeper down and bring up the precious gems that lay in the hidden depths of the Psalter. We do not forget Bishop Horsley, Professor Bush, and others, or the earlier writers from which Mr. Spurgeon has drawn so largely in his recent work. Yet of really good expositions of the Psalms the number was very small. ...