All the older versions take "God," in ver. 6 _a_, as a vocative, while most moderns seek another construction or text. "The sum of the matter is that the only natural rendering of the received text is that of the Versions, 'Thy throne, O God'" (Cheyne, _in loc._). Three renderings have been proposed, all of which are harsh. "Thy throne is the throne of God," etc., is Ewald's suggestion, revived from a Jewish expositor, and adopted widely by many recent commentators, and in the margin of the R.V. It is clumsy, and leaves it doubtful whether the stress of the assertion lies on the Divine appointment or on the eternal duration of the throne. "Thy God's throne is," etc., is very questionable grammatically, and extremely harsh. The only other suggested rendering, "Thy throne is God," etc., may fairly be pronounced impossible. If the vocative construction is retained, are we shut up to Cheyne's further opinion, that "the only natural interpretation [is] that of the Targum, 'Thy throne, O Jehovah'"? If so, we shall be obliged to admit textual corruption; for a reference to the eternal duration of Jehovah's dominion is quite out of place here, where the parallelism of the next clause demands some characteristic of the king's throne corresponding to that of his sceptre, there stated. But in Exod. xxi. 6, xxii. 8, and Psalm lxxxii. 6, the name God (Elohim) is applied to rulers and judges, on the ground, as our Lord puts it, in John x. 35, that "unto them the word of God came"--_i.e._, that they were theocratic officers. The designation, therefore, of the king as Elohim is not contrary to the Hebrew line of thought. It does not predicate divinity, but Divine preparation for and appointment to office. The recurrence of Elohim (God) in its full Divine signification in the next verse is felt by many to be an insuperable objection to recognising the lower sense here. But the emphatic "thy God," which is appended to the name in ver. 7, seems expressly intended to distinguish between the uses of the word in the two verses. August, then, as the title is, it proves nothing as to the divinity of the person addressed. We recognise the prophetic character of the psalm, and strongly believe that it points onwards to Christ the King. But we cannot take the ascription of the title "O God" as having reference to His Divine nature. Such a thought lay far beyond the prophetic horizon. The Old Testament usage, which is appealed to in order to justify the translation of the word "God" as a vocative, must govern its meaning. The careful distinction drawn by the expressions of ver. 7, between the lower and higher senses of the name, forbid the attempt to find here a premature and anomalous statement of deep truth, for which the ages were not ripe. While we, who know the full truth, may permissibly apply the psalmist's words as its expression, we must not forget that in so doing we are going beyond their real meaning. The controversies waged