Ps 10. The life of David (to whom even Hitzig and Ewald ascribe this Psalm) is threatened, the pillars of the state are shaken, they counsel the king to flee to the mountains. These are indications of the time when the rebellion of Absolom was secretly preparing, but still clearly discernible. Although hurrying on with a swift measure and clear in the principal thoughts, still this Psalm is not free from difficult points, just as it is with all the Psalms which contain similar dark passages from the internal condition of Israel. The gloomy condition of the nation seems to be reflected in the very language. The strophic plan is not easily discernible; nevertheless we cannot go far wrong in dividing the Psalm into two seven line strophes with a two line epiphonema.
The Fifteen Songs of Degrees, or Gradual Psalm - Ps. 120-134
These songs are all inscribed שׁיר המּעלות. The lxx, according
to the most natural signification of the word, renders: ᾠδὴ τῶν ἀναβαθμων; the Italic and Vulgate, canticum graduum (whence the liturgical term “gradual Psalms”). The meaning at the same time remains obscure. When, however, Theodotion renders ᾆσμα τῶν ἀναβάσεων, Aquila and Symmachus ᾠδὴ εἰς τάς ἀναβάσεις (as though it were absolutely למּעלות, as in Psa 121:1), it looks even like an explanation. The fathers, more particularly Theodoret, and in general the Syria church, associate with it the idea of ἡ ἀπὸ Βαβυλῶνος ἐπάνοδος. Ewald has long advocated this view. In his Introduction to Die poetischen Bücher des Alten Bundes (1839), and elsewhere, he translated it “Songs of the Pilgrim caravans” or “of the homeward marches,” and explained these fifteen Psalms as old and new travelling songs of those returning from the Exile. The verb עלה certainly is the usual word for journeying to Palestine out of the Babylonian low country, as out of the country of the Egyptian Nile Valley. And the fact that the Return from the Exile is called המּעלה מבּבל in Ezr 7:9 is enticing. Some of these Psalms, as Psa 121:1-8, Psa 123:1, Psa 129:1-8, Psa 130:1-8, Ps 132, Psa 133:1-3, are also suited to this situation, or can at least be adapted to it. But Psa 120:1-7, if it is to be referred to the Exile, is a song that comes out of the midst of it; Psa 126:1-6 might, so far as its first half is concerned, be a travelling song of those returning, but according to its second half it is a prayer of those who have returned for the restoration of the whole of Israel, based upon thanksgiving; and Psa 122:1-9 assumes the existence and frequenting of the Temple and of the holy city, and Psa 134:1-3 the full exercise of the Temple-service. It is also inconvenient that מעלה, which in itself only expresses a journey up, not a journey homewards, is without any closer definition; and more particularly since, in connection with this form of the word, the signification of a something (a step, a
