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Thy salvation say alway, The LORD be praised.

20 As for me, I am poor and needy: but the LORD careth for me.

21 Thou art my helper and redeemer : make no long tarrying, O my God.

Evening Prayer.

PSALM 41. Beatus qui intelligit.

[A Psalm of David, complaining of unkindly treatment from false friends.]

BLESSED is he that considereth the poor and needy the LORD shall deliver him in the time of trouble.

2 The LORD preserve him, and keep him alive, that he may be blessed upon earth: and deliver not Thou him into the will of his enemies.

3 The LORD comfort him, when he lieth sick upon his bed make Thou all his bed in his sickness.

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4 I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.

5 Mine enemies speak evil of me : When shall he die, and his name perish?

6 And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity and his heart conceiveth falsehood within himself, and when he cometh forth

he telleth it.

7 All mine enemies whisper together against me even against me do they imagine this evil.

8 Let the sentence of guiltiness proceed against him and now that he lieth, let him rise up no more.

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1. This beatitude

forms the last sentence in the offertory. Observe the thrice

repeated JEHOVAH, verses 1, 2, 3, in the blessing.

3. Make Thou; Heb. turn. The text perhaps best represents the meaning.

6. The Psalmist

complains of the hyfalse friends in time pocritical visits of

of sickness.

8 Let the sentence, &c.; rather, "a shocking thing [they say] is poured out upon him."

Cf. Job's friends.

9 Yea, even mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted who did also eat of my bread, hath laid great wait for me.

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10 But be Thou merciful unto me, O LORD: raise Thou me up again, and I shall reward them.

11 By this I know Thou favourest me : that mine enemy doth not triumph against

me.

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12. In my health;

12 And when I am in my health, Thou upholdest me and shalt set me before Thy Heb. in my integrity. face for ever.

13 BLESSED BE THE LORD GOD OF IsRAEL WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.

PSALM 42. Quemadmodum.

[The date and authorship of this Psalm are uncertain. It is attributed to the sons of Korah ; but the place is beyond doubt the trans-Jordanic hills, which always behold, as they are always beheld from, western Palestine. Like the gazelle of the forests of Gilead panting after the fresh streams of Jordan, so the exiled poet panted after God. As he looked from the hills towards Jerusalem, he poured forth this lament, which, with the following Psalm, forms one poem.]

LIKE as the hart desireth the water-brooks: so longeth my soul after thee, O God.

2 My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

3 My tears have been my meat day and night while they daily say unto Where

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is now thy God?

me,

4 Now when I think thereupon, I pour out my heart by myself: for I went with the multitude, and brought them forth into the house of God;

5 In the voice of praise and thanksgiving among such as keep holy-day.

13. This Gloria concludes the Psalm sung when the ark was placed in Zion.1 Chron. xvi. 36. END OF BOOK I.

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6 Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me?

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7 Put thy trust in God: for I will yet give Him thanks for the help of His countenance.

8 My God, my soul is vexed within me : therefore will I remember Thee concerning the land of Jordan, and the little hill of Hermon.

9 One deep calleth another, because of the noise of the water-pipes: all Thy waves and storms are gone over me.

10 The LORD hath granted His lovingkindness in the day-time : and in the nightseason did I sing of Him, and made my prayer unto the God of my life.

11 I will say unto the God of my strength, Why hast Thou forgotten me why go I thus heavily, while the enemy oppresseth

me?

12 My bones are smitten asunder as with a sword while mine enemies that trouble me cast me in the teeth;

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13 Namely, while they say unto me : Where is now thy God?

14 Why art thou so vexed, O my soul : and why art thou so disquieted within me?

15 O put thy trust in God: for I will yet thank Him, which is the help of my countenance, and my God.

PSALM 43. Judica me, Deus.

[A continuation of the last Psalm.]

GIVE sentence with me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people : O deliver me from the deceitful and wicked man.

2 For Thou art the God of my strength,

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and

why hast Thou put me from Thee
why go I so heavily, while the enemy op-
presseth me?

3 O send out Thy light and Thy truth, that they may lead me and bring me unto Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling.

4 And that I may go unto the altar of God, even unto the God of my joy and gladness and upon the harp will I give thanks unto Thee, O God, my God.

5 Why art thou so heavy, O my soul: and why art thou so disquieted within me? 60 put thy trust in God: for I will yet give Him thanks, which is the help of my countenance, and my God.

3. Light and truth. A possible allusion to Urim and Thummim, the two mysterious means of revelation

borne by the high priest: "Thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the LORD," Ex. xxviii.

30.

Morning Prayer.

PSALM 44. Deus, auribus.

[This is a Psalm composed in some period of national distress, but there is no satisfactory evidence to determine the date.]

WE have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us : what Thou hast done in their time of old;

2 How Thou hast driven out the heathen with Thy hand, and planted them in: how Thou hast destroyed the nations, and cast them out.

3 For they gat not the land in possession through their own sword: neither was it their own arm that helped them;

4 But Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance: because Thou hadst a favour unto them.

5 Thou art my King, O God: send help

unto Jacob.

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DAY 9.

This Psalm is called a Maschil," a term meaning either a didactic or a skilfullyconstructed poem.

1. This verse is inserted in the Litany as the ground on which to trust God in the future.

2. Planted themi.e., our fathers-in, as a vine... and having destroyed the nations, made them-i.e., our

fathers spread out

like a tree [not cast them out]. The same Heb. verb is used in Ps. lxxx. 11, "She

the vine - stretched

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6 Through Thee will we overthrow our enemies and in Thy Name will we tread them under, that rise up against us.

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7 For I will not trust in my bow : it is not my sword that shall help me ;

8 But it is Thou that savest us from our enemies and puttest them to confusion that hate us.

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9 We make our boast of God all day long and will praise Thy Name for ever.

10 But now Thou art far off, and puttest us to confusion: and goest not forth with our armies.

11 Thou makest us to turn our backs upon our enemies so that they which hate us spoil our goods.

9. [SELAH.]

10. The tone of re

joicing is changed after the Selah to one of mourning, as in Ps. lxxxix. 37.

12. Eaten up, &c. ; Heb. Thou givest us up as sheep food—

12 Thou lettest us be eaten up like sheep : and hast scattered us among the heathen. 13 Thou sellest Thy people for nought.e., appointed to be

and takest no money for them.

14 Thou makest us to be rebuked of our neighbours to be laughed to scorn, and had in derision of them that are round about us.

15 Thou makest us to be a by- word among the heathen and that the people shake their heads at us.

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16 My confusion is daily before me : and the shame of my face hath covered me;

17 For the voice of the slanderer and blasphemer for the enemy and avenger.

18 And though all this be come upon us, yet do we not forget Thee nor behave ourselves frowardly in Thy covenant.

19 Our heart is not turned back: neither

our steps gone out of Thy way;

20 No, not when Thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons: and covered us with the shadow of death.

21 If we have forgotten the Name of

slain, as in ver. 22. 13. Nought or naught, no whit, no worth, and so expresses the Hebrew no-wealth: hence the adjective naughty-i.e., profit

less.

18. Frowardly i.e., morosely; Heb. We have not perfidiously broken Thy covenant.

20. Dragons; Heb. beasts dwelling in deserts or waste places, jackals or wild dogs.

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