Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/710

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Is it not an admirably delicate tact with which the collector makes the מזמור שׁיר Psa 68:1 follow upon the מזמור שׁיר Psa 67:1? The latter began with the echo of the benediction which Moses puts into the mouth of Aaron and his sons, the former with a repetition of those memorable words in which, at the breaking up of the camp, he called upon Jahve to advance before Israel (Num 10:35). “It is in reality,” says Hitzig of Psalms 68, “no easy task to become master of this Titan.” And who would not agree with him in this remark? It is a Psalm in the style of Deborah, stalking along upon the highest pinnacle of hymnic feeling and recital; all that is most glorious in the literature of the earlier period is concentrated in it: Moses' memorable words, Moses' blessing, the prophecies of Balaam, the Deuteronomy, the Song of Hannah re-echo here. But over and above all this, the language is so bold and so