Psalms of Solomon

Historical printed page 629

ee Ὁ > “ THE PSALMS OF SOLOMON offerings (ii. 3 ὁ, viii. 12 ff). More than once they are said to have exceeded the nations in trans- gression (i. 8, ii. 11, viii. 14). Yet they are, or at least attempt to be, outwardly extremely respectable (iv. 2, 11, 25); they are hypocrites—imoxpwopevor (iv. 22), οἱ ἐν ὑποκρίσει ζῶντες (iv. 7). As a class they are, especially as contrasted with the righteous poor, wealthy (cf. xii. 4, xv. 7); as a set-off against this they will, in the judgement of their opponents, have no portion in the life of blessedness to come: all that awaits them after death is destruction in Sheol (xiv. 4 ff., xv. 11-14). The charges of profanation of the sacred offerings seem to imply that the wicked, or the nucleus of the party, were intimately connected with the Temple-service: another charge, viz. that they had set up a non-Davidic monarchy (xvii. 7, 8), points to their being the adherents of the later Hasmo- naeans who from Aristobulus I (104 B. 6.) and onwards claimed the title of king till the time (63 B.C.) when Pompey deposed Aristobulus II, and, while leaving Hyrcanus high-priest, deprived him of the title of king. Over against this wealthy governmental party of ‘sinners’ stand the ‘righteous’, who are also called ὅσιοι, a term which doubtless here, as in the LX X version of the canonical Psalms, represents the Hebrew hastdim, godly or pious. In x. 7 the poor stands in parallelism, and probably in synony- mous parallelism, with the pious: and there are other indications, besides the further occurrence of the term ‘poor’, that the party of the righteous consisted largely of persons of restricted means (cp. xv. 1, xvi. 12 ff.). The ‘righteous’, moreover, were political quietists (xii. 6), accepting the present distress as a discipline from God, which it was their duty to endure patiently (xiv. 1, xvi. 11), and assured that such patience would find its reward, if not in this age or life, yet in the life to come (xiii. gQ—11, xiv. 3, xv. 15, xvi. 1-3). They waited for the fulfilment of the promises (xii. 7), especially for the coming of the promised Messianic king (xvii. 23 ff., xviii. 6 ff.), who would fulfil the prophetic ideal of rule based, not on material resources, but on the power of God (xvii. 37). Conspicuous elements in the righteousness of the righteous were abstention (xvi. 7 f.) from the sexual sins which so offended them in their opponents, and scrupulous anxiety about sins done in ignorance (xiii. 4 ff.): their righteousness was pre-eminently ‘a righteousness according to the Law’ (xiv. 2). Here,again, we are face to face with a circle not remote, in character at least, and probably not very remote in time, from circles whence some of the canonical Psalms proceeded (e. g. xix, cxix). Thus apart from xvii. 7, 8, which if it is to be interpreted strictly must point to a date after 104 B.C., none of the passages so far cited are decisive as between the two periods ¢. 165 and ¢. 63 B. C., which have chiefly been claimed as the period of origin of these Psalms. More decisive, in the opinion of the majority of recent scholars, are the allusions to external events. These Psalms bring before us not only Jewish society divided into two parties, but also a foreign conqueror. The references to this conqueror are, again, in part general and applicable to almost any foreign foe: for example, we may compare ii. 25-28 with what is said in Isa. x. 5-15, and even the striking use of the term ‘ dragon’ in ii. 29 has its parallel in the comparison of Nebuchadnezzar to a δράκων Ξε 1) in Jer. li. (xxviii.) 44. But others are more specific ; this conqueror comes from the West, for thence he carries his captives (xvii. 14): though at first welcomed by (a party of) the nation, who left the way open for him to approach Jerusalem (viii. 18 f.), he later found resistance and was compelled to use battering-rams to destroy the fortifications of Zion (ii. 1 f.); having captured Zion he defiled the altar by letting his soldiers contemptuously trample it (ii. 2, cp, vii. 2): ultimately he is slain dishonourably in Egypt and his body lay exposed for lack of burial (ii. 30 f.). Now all these some- what particular characteristics of the conqueror agree pretty closely with what is known of Pompey, and in their entirety they do not agree with any other known historical character: as a Roman, Pompey came from the West, and thither he carried back captive Aristobulus and his children ; at first he was not merely not resisted by the princes Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, but on his way from Damascus southwards ambassadors met him bearing a rich present, and the fortresses on the way to Jerusalem were delivered up to Pompey ; later, however, the party of Aristobulus entrenched themselves in Zion, and then Pompey brought up battering-rams and therewith demolished the walls that protected the Temple area ; it is true the profanation of the altar to which allusion is made in ii. 2 is not directly mentioned in the accounts of Pompey’s capture of Jerusalem, while his intrusion into the Holy of Holies is not alluded to in the Psalms ; yet the altcrnative identification with Antiochus Epiphanes is in this respect not preferable, for the ‘abomination of desolation’ is just as little covered by the terms used in these Psalms. Finally, like the conqueror in the Psalms, Pompey is slain in Egypt, and his body, after being exposed on the beach, was hastily burned on an improvised pyre. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that these similarities between the conqueror of the Psalms and Pompey can only be due to the fact that the conqueror in the Psalms and Pompey are one and ᾿ For references to the sources for these or other details see notes on the passages cited above and others (ii. 1, 2, 30, 31, Vili. 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, xvii. 6, 14). 629