Smith's Bible Dictionary.pdf - Online Christian Library

Smith's Bible Dictionary
•More commonly the word is used of the divisions of the Chaldean kingdom. (Daniel 2:49; 3:1,30)
and the Persian kingdom. (Ezra 2:1; Nehemiah 7:6; Esther 1:1,22; 2:3) etc. In the New Testament
we are brought into contact with the administration of the provinces of the Roman empire. The
classification of provinces supposed to need military control and therefore placed under the
immediate government of the Caesar, and those still belonging theoretically to the republic and
administered by the senate, and of the latter again into proconsular and praetorian, is recognized,
more or less distinctly, in the Gospels and the Acts. [Proconsul; Procurator] The strategoi of (Acts
16:22) (“magistrates,” Authorized Version), on the other hand were the duumviri or praetors of a
Roman colony. The right of any Roman citizen to appeal from a provincial governor to the emperor
meets us as asserted by St. Paul. (Acts 25:11) In the council of (Acts 25:12) we recognize the
assessors who were appointed to take part in the judicial functions of the governor.
Psalms, Book Of
The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions
of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed
emphatically a praise-hymn. The LXX. entitled them psalmoi or “psalms,” i.e., lyrical pieces to be
sung to a musical instrument. The Christian Church obviously received the Psalter from the Jews
not only as a constituent portion of the sacred volume of Holy Scripture, but also as the liturgical
hymn-book which the Jewish Church had regularly used in the temple. Division of the Psalms
.—The book contains 150 psalms, and may be divided into five great divisions or books, which
must have been originally formed at different periods. Book I. is, by the superscriptions, entirely
Davidic nor do we find in it a trace of any but David’s authorship. We may well believe that the
compilation of the book was also David’s work. Book II. appears by the date of its latest psalm,
(Psalms 46:1) ... to have been compiled in the reign of King Hezekiah. It would naturally comprise,
1st, several or most of the Levitical psalms anterior to that date; and 2d, the remainder of the psalms
of David previously uncompiled. To these latter the collector after properly appending the single
psalm of Solomon has affixed the notice that “the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.”
(Psalms 72:20) Book III., the interest of which centers in the times of Hezekiah stretches out, by
its last two psalms, to the reign of Manasseh: it was probably compiled in the reign of Josiah. It
contains seventeen psalms, from Psal 73-89 eleven by Asaph, four by the sons of Horah, one (86)
by David, and one by Ethan. Book IV. contains the remainder of the psalms up to the date of the
captivity, There are seventeen, from Psal 90-106—one by Moses, two by David, and the rest
anonymous. Book V., the psalms of the return, contains forty-four, from Psal 107-180—fifteen by
David, one by Solomon and the rest anonymous. There is nothing to distinguish these two books
from each other in respect of outward decoration or arrangement and they may have been compiled
together in the days of Nehemiah. Connection of the Psalms with Israelitish history .—The psalm
of Moses Psal 90, which is in point of actual date the earliest, faithfully reflects the long, weary
wanderings, the multiplied provocations and the consequent punishments of the wilderness. It is,
however, with David that Israelitish psalmody may be said virtually to commence. Previous mastery
over his harp had probably already prepared the way for his future strains, when the anointing oil
of Samuel descended upon him, and he began to drink in special measure, from that day forward,
of the Spirit of the Lord. It was then that, victorious at home over the mysterious melancholy of
Saul and in the held over the vaunting champion of the Philistine hosts, he sang how from even
babes and sucklings God had ordained strength because of his enemies. Psal 8. His next psalms are
of a different character; his persecutions at the hands of Saul had commenced. When David’s reign
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William Smith