Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/175

Rh And say ye, Save us, O God of our salvation, And gather us together and deliver us from the nations, To give thanks unto thy holy name, And to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the, the God of Israel, From everlasting even to everlasting. And all the people said, Amen, and praised the. So he left there, before the ark of the covenant of the, Asaph and his brethren, to minister before the ark continually, as every day's work required: and Obed-edom with their brethren, threescore and eight; Obed-edom also the son of Jeduthun and Hosah to be doorkeepers: and Zadok the priest, and his brethren the priests, before the

35. gather us together] A phrase which shows very clearly that the standpoint of the Psalmist is post-exilic.

36. said, Amen, and praised the ] In the Ps. (cvi. 48) "say, Amen! Hallelujah! (i.e. Praise ye the Lord!)." This verse belongs not properly to the Psalm, but is the doxology marking the conclusion of the fourth "book" of the Psalms. Apparently then the Psalms had already been arranged in the five collections or "books," into which they were finally divided, by the time of the Chronicler; but the argument is not conclusive since (1) the doxology may be really part of the Psalm, and (2) there is the possibility that vv. 7—36 are a later insertion in Chron.

37—43.&emsp;

The description of the disposition of the Priests and Levites for the worship in Jerusalem and in Gibeon which was begun in vv. 4—6 is here resumed. vv. 37, 38 summarise vv. 4—6.

38. Obed-edom with their brethren] A name or names seems to be missing after Obed-edom. The LXX. cuts the knot by reading simply "and his brethren." Probably we should insert after Obed-edom the words "and Hosah" from the last part of the verse: see the following note.

Obed-edom also the son of Jeduthun] If the view of xv. 19—21 and xvi. 5 taken above be correct, these words also may be deleted as a harmonising gloss, added by someone who wished to insist on Obed-edom as a singer, and hence gave him a place in the line of Jeduthun, one of the three great choral guilds.

39. Zadok the priest] As Zadok alone is here mentioned as "before the tabernacle," the Chronicler perhaps implies that Abiathar (Ahimelech) the other high-priest was in charge of the Ark in Jerusalem. On Zadok and Abiathar, see xv. 11, note.