XXXII.
No other Old Testament saint that we know of could have written this psalm except David. And yet at the outset we are met by the fact that the history makes David’s repentance after each of his great sins turn on the reproof of a prophet. Before this voice from without reached him he appears, as far as the historical narrative can tell us, to have been quite unconscious of having done wrong. Moreover, the last half of the psalm (Psalms 32:7-11) represents quite a different situation from the first, not that of a penitent mourning his sin, but of a just and godly man rejoicing in the guidance of a good Providence, and contrasting the state of peace and security enjoyed under that guidance with the condition of the ungodly. But even a prophetic glance from the outside cannot read the whole history of a soul, while one who can feel profoundly is not unlikely, when reviewing the past, to dwell exclusively on the intense sense of guiltiness before God, without referring to the outward circumstance which may have suddenly brought it home to him. “The song is plainly ancient, original throughout, the token of a powerful mind.” This is Ewald’e judgment, not lightly to be set aside. And if we are not led away by the interest of a particular situation, but consider how David, wishing to express in song the happiness of penitence, might colour his half-didactic purpose with the recollection of his own personal experience of sin and forgiveness, a recollection still vivid with him, we shall not wonder at the apparent contradiction between the beginning and end of the psalm, and may readily allow the correctness of the inscription. The versification is fine.
“Augustine used often to read this psalm with weeping heart and eyes, and had it before his death written on the wall over his sick-bed, that he might exercise himself therein, and find comfort therein in his sickness.” (Quoted by Perowne from Selnecker.)
Title. — Maschil (maskhîl), a title prefixed to thirteen psalms, and in several cases joined to musical directions. By derivation it might indicate a didactic poem. So the LXX., “a psalm of understanding” or “for understanding;” the Vulg., intellectus; and Jerome, intellectus or eruditio. (Comp. the margin.) Against this, “however, must be set the fact that only two out of the thirteen hymns with this title can possibly be considered didactic. But in Psalms 47:7, the word is joined to a term meaning to play or sing (Authorised Version, “sing ye praises with understanding”) in such a way as to indicate a musical reference, a reference fully borne out by some of the titles, and also by the description of the Levitical musicians, 2 Chronicles 30:22, by the participle of this verb, as “those who play skilfully with good taste.” Hence render “a skilful song.”