Such a régime utterly failed to understand the teaching of Jesus and could only regard His religion as impious and lacking in all that was essential, reverential, or good, and it was "the Law" which put Jesus to death. It is much to be deplored that the Sacrifice of Christ has in turn been explained to the conscience touched to penitence and tenderness by the story of the Cross, rather by the analogy of the Old Testament sacrifices than by its complete superiority to them as based upon a different and ethical order; for the rags and tatters of the Levitical system still impede the religious life; allowing men to think that God is content with substitutes, can be placated with blood, and is more concerned with abstract regulations than with moral change. And so there still hang about religion the same inconsistencies, the same slaughter of the prophets, the same blindness to the eternal demands of personal and social righteousness. The motive of the work of the Priests may have been to enforce the prophetic repentance, but to gain this end they compromised with unspiritual ritual, and on that compromise Christ was, and is still crucified.
Titles of the Psalms, descriptive of their contents:--
(1) Song, Heb. _Shirah._ A lyrical poem for singing. Probably the earliest title, which in some instances may have belonged to the original composition.
(2) _Michtam_, perhaps, "a golden piece." The title indicates their artistic form and choice contents. They were probably all taken from a previous collection.
(3) _Maschil_, a meditative poem, from a collection made perhaps in the late Persian period.
(4) Psalm, Heb. _Mizmor_. The name given to a collection used for public worship, probably in the early Greek period.
(5) _Shiggaion_, (Ps. vii.; also in plural, Hab. iii. 1.) Some take this to mean a wild, passionate composition, but this Psalm hardly bears that character. Perhaps we may expect a textual corruption from _Neginah_: a song accompanied with musical instruments.
(6) A song of Ascents: used in the processions to the Temple.
On the question of the Davidic authorship of the Psalms, the following passages should be examined; they would appear to be in hopeless disagreement with the life of David as depicted in the historical books. Ps. v. 8-10; vi. 7, f.; xii. 1-4; xvii. 9-14; xxii.; xxvii. 10, 12; xxxv. 11-21; xli. 5-9; liv. 2-6; lxii. 3, f. The Psalms which are ascribed to some definite occasion in David's life are not on the whole any more suitable to the situation, although there is generally some single phrase which probably gave rise to this identification.