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presuppose the existence of the collection of psalms, nor in 1Ch 16:35 is there any indubitable reference to the exilic time. The words, “Say, 'Save us, Thou God of our salvation; gather us together, and deliver us from among the heathen,' “ do not presuppose that the people had been previously led away into the Chaldean exile, but only the dispersion of prisoners of war, led away captive into an enemy's land after a defeat. This usually occurred after each defeat of Israel by their enemies, and it was just such cases Solomon had in view in his prayer, 1Ki 8:46-50.
The decision as to the origin of this festal hymn, therefore, depends upon its internal characteristics, and the result of a comparison of the respective texts. The song in itself forms, as Hitz. l.c. S. 19 rightly judges, “a thoroughly coherent and organic whole. The worshippers of Jahve are to sing His praise in memory of His covenant which He made with their fathers, and because of which He protected them (1Ch 16:18-22). But all the world also are to praise Him, the only true God (1Ch 16:23-27); the peoples are to come before Him with gifts; yea, even inanimate nature is to pay the King and Judge its homage (1Ch 16:28-33). Israel - and with this the end returns to the beginning-is to thank Jahve, and invoke His help against the heathen (1Ch 16:34 and 1Ch 16:35).” This exposition of the symmetrical disposition of the psalm is not rendered questionable by the objections raised by Koehler,l.c.; nor can the recurrence of the individual parts of it in three different psalms of itself at all prove that in the Chronicle we have not the original form of the hymn. “There is nothing to hinder us from supposing that the author of Psa 96:1-13 may be the same as the author of Ps 105 and 106; but even another might be induced by example to appropriate the first half of 1Ch 16:8., as his predecessor had appropriated