2. The pronoun his comes in where we should have looked for the name of God; but the poet is so full of thought concerning the Lord that he forgets to mention his name. From the mention of Judah and Israel certain critics have inferred that this psalm must have been written after the division of the two kingdoms; but this is only another instance of the extremely slender basis upon which an hypothesis is often built up. Before the formation of the two kingdoms David had said, “Go number Israel and Judah,” and this was common parlance, for Uriah the Hittite said, “The ark, and Israel, and Judah abide in tents”; so nothing can be inferred from the use of the two names. The meaning of the passage is that the whole people at the coming out of Egypt were separated unto the Lord to be a peculiar people, a nation of priests whose motto should be “Holiness unto the Lord.” Judah was the Lord’s “holy thing,” set apart for his special use. The nation was especially Jehovah’s dominion, for it was governed by a theocracy in which God alone was King. It was his domain in a sense in which the rest of the world was outside his kingdom. These were the young days of Israel, the time of her espousals, when she went after the Lord into the wilderness, her God leading the way with signs and miracles. The whole people were the shrine of Deity, and their camp was one great temple. What a change there must have been for the godly amongst them from the idolatries and blasphemies of the Egyptians to the holy worship and righteous rule of the great King in Jeshurun. They lived in a world of wonders, where God was seen in the wondrous bread they ate and in the water they drank, as well as in the solemn worship of his holy place. When the Lord is manifestly present in a church, and his gracious rule obediently owned, what a golden age has come, and what honorable privileges his people enjoy! May it be so among us.
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