No More Learning

NARRATIVE PROSE
The Old Testament histories consist almost entirely of annals and
anecdotes,- extracts from yearly records of events, or biographical
material which is made up largely of special incidents. The style is
remarkable for its simplicity. The Semitic languages (to which class
the Hebrew belongs) have no involved syntactical constructions.
Their sentences consist almost entirely of clauses connected by the
simple conjunction "and. " This peculiarity gives picturesqueness and
a certain monumental character to the narratives; each clause stands
out by itself, presenting a single picture. There is no attempt (as in
Greek) to represent elaborate and fine logical connections of thought.
And further, this formal isolatedness, if we may so term it, is not
confined to the structure of the sentence and the paragraph, but also
controls the composition of the historical books. The incidents are
set down as independent occurrences, and there is no attempt to trace
the logical connection between them.
This characteristic is abundantly illustrated in the books of Judges,
Samuel, and Kings. In the first of these books we have a series of


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similar yet unconnected incidents: the land of Israel is conquered or
held in subjection by some neighboring people-a hero arises and
throws off the yoke - there is a period of quiet, followed by a new
epoch of subjection which calls forth another hero; and so on. So
the lives of Saul, David, and Samuel are simple biographies, in
which the incidents are, in like manner, for the most part detached;
and the same remark holds of the history of the reigns of the kings
who succeeded David. In the Pentateuch the lives of the Patriarchs
and of Moses, and the history of the march of the people from Egypt
to Canaan, are similarly composed of isolated paragraphs.
Yet on the other hand, it is to be observed that these books exhibit
a marked unity of plan. The Hexateuch (the Pentateuch and Joshua)
beginning with the creation of the world, and coming down to the
Flood, which separates human history into two great parts, passes to
the ancestor Abraham, follows his descendants to Egypt, describes
their advance to the promised land, and finally the conquest and
division of the territory. The aim of the work is to describe the set-
tlement of Israel in Canaan, and all the preceding history is made to
bear on that event. The Book of Judges, taking up the history at
the moment when the people enter Canaan, depicts the pre-regal
period as a unit; Samuel describes the establishment of the mon-
archy and the reigns of the first two kings; Kings gives the fortunes
of the people down to the suppression of the national political life;
and Chronicles, it may be added, with a still more noticeable unity,
confines itself to the history of Judah. Finally, in the short books
of Ezra and Nehemiah, we have the story of the introduction of
the Law, and the establishment of what may be called the Jewish
Church-Nation.
We have thus, in the historical books of the Old Testament, a
noteworthy unity of plan, combined with the isolation of independ-
ent parts. It is further to be noted that the object of each of these
histories is to express an idea. The Hexateuch is the prose epic
of the choice of Israel by Jehovah. The earlier historical books-
Judges, Samuel, and Kings-are historical sermons, illustrating the
text that national prosperity is dependent on obedience to the God
of Israel; in Chronicles the text is slightly varied,-here it is obedi-
ence to the Law of Moses which is the condition of national peace.
Examples of the finest qualities of narrative prose style are found
throughout the historical books. Abraham's plea for Sodom (Gen.
xviii. ) combines naïveté, dignity, and moral earnestness. Jehovah,
having had reports of the corruption of Sodom, comes down, accom-
panied by two angels, to inquire into the case, and first pays a visit
to Abraham. After a repast the two angels are sent to Sodom, with
instructions to destroy it; Jehovah remains with Abraham, whose


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heart is sore at the thought of the destruction of the city where
dwelt his kinsman Lot. The narrative proceeds:
·-
AND Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou consume the
righteous with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous
men within the city: wilt thou consume and not spare the place
for the fifty righteous who are therein? That be far from thee
to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked;
that so the righteous should be as the wicked: that be far from
thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And Jeho-
vah said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous, then I will spare
all the place for their sake. And Abraham answered and said,
My lord, I who am dust and ashes have taken upon me to
speak to thee: there may perhaps lack five of the fifty righteous:
wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, I
will not destroy it if I find there forty and five. And he spake
unto him yet again, and said, Perhaps there shall be forty found
there. And he said, I will not do it for the forty's sake. And
he said, Oh let not my lord be angry, and I will speak; perhaps
there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it
if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, my lord, I have
taken upon me to speak to thee: perhaps there shall be twenty
found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the twenty's
sake. And he said, Oh let not my lord be angry, and I will speak
yet but this once: perhaps ten shall be found there. And he
said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake. And Jehovah went
his way when he had finished speaking with Abraham, and Abra-
ham returned to his place.
The familiar appeal of Judah on behalf of Benjamin (Gen. xliv.
18-34) must be mentioned for its exquisite pathos. Joseph, known to
the brothers only as the all-powerful prime minister, pretends to sus-
pect that they are spies, and refuses to sell them food unless they
bring him their youngest brother, of whom they had spoken. Jacob,
informed of this demand, at first refuses to send Benjamin- the only
surviving son, as he supposes, of his beloved Rachel. Pressed by
famine, he at last consents, Judah pledging himself to bring the lad
back. When they reach Egypt, Joseph so arranges that Benjamin
shall seem to have been guilty of theft and worthy of imprisonment.
Judah, in despair, comes forward and pleads for the boy's liberty.
The plea is little more than a recital of the circumstances, in sim-
plest dramatic form; but the heart-rending situation stands out with


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lifelike clearness. The same element of pathos is found in the whole
story of Joseph's relations with his brothers.
For brilliant dramatic effect there is scarcely anything in literature
finer than the description of Elijah's challenge to the priests of Baal
(1 Kings xviii. ). The conditions are chosen with singular felicity. The
Sidonian Baal, the god of the Queen of Israel, is represented by four
hundred and fifty prophets, backed by all the power of the royal
court; for Jehovah, God of Israel, stands one proscribed fugitive, a
rude Bedawi from the east of the Jordan. The scene is the sacred
mountain Carmel, from whose slopes are visible the Great Sea, the
rich plains of the coast, and the rugged central plateau of Israel. Eli-
jah proposes to test the two deities, and take the more powerful; the
people, trembling and expectant, agree. The narrative goes on:-
AND Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Choose one bullock
for yourselves, and prepare it first, for ye are many; and call on
the name of your god, but put no fire under. And they took the
bullock and prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from
morning till noon, saying, O Baal, answer us. But there was no
voice, nor any that answered. And they danced about the altar
which they had made. And at noon Elijah mocked them, and
said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he
is gone aside, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep, and
must be awaked. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after
their manner with knives and lances, till the blood gushed out
upon them.
And when midday was past they prophesied until
the time of the evening cereal offering; but there was neither
voice, nor any answer, nor any that regarded. And Elijah said
to all the people, Come near to me; and all the people came
near to him. And he repaired the altar of Jehovah which was
broken down, and made a trench about the altar, as great as
would contain two measures of seed, put the wood in order, cut
the bullock in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And he said, Fill
four barrels with water, and pour it on the offering, and on the
wood. And he said, Do it the second time; and they did it the
second time. And he said, Do it the third time; and they did
it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and
he filled the trench also with water. And at the time of the
evening cereal offering Elijah came near and said, Jehovah, God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that thou
art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done
all these things at thy word. Answer me, O Jehovah, answer


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me, that this people may know that thou, Jehovah, art God, and
turn thou their heart back again. Then fire from heaven fell
and consumed the offering and the wood and the stones and the
dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when
all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said,
Jehovah, he is God; Jehovah, he is God.
After this it is somewhat surprising to find Elijah (1 Kings xix. )
fleeing for his life at a threat made by the Queen. The story of his
flight contains a majestic theophany:-
AND he went into a cave and passed the night there. And
behold, Jehovah passed by, and a great and strong wind rent
the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks; but Jehovah was
not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but Jehovah
was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but
Jehovah was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small
voice. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle
and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And there
came to him a voice: What doest thou here, Elijah? And he
said, I have been very jealous for Jehovah, the God of hosts; be-
cause the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown
down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I,
even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.
A characteristic picture is given in 1 Kings xxii. The allied Kings
of Israel and Judah are about to attack the transjordanic city of
Ramoth, and desire first a response from the oracle. The King of
Judah, for some reason dissatisfied with Ahab's prophets, insists that
Micaiah be called. The latter, after mocking answers, finally predicts
disaster, and then proceeds to account for the favorable predictions
of the court prophets:-
I SAW Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven
standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And Jehovah
said, Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at
Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said
on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before
Jehovah and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said to him,
Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying.
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt
entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth and do so. Now,
therefore, behold, Jehovah has put a lying spirit in the mouth of


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all these thy prophets, and Jehovah has spoken evil concerning
thee. Then Zedekiah the son of Kenaanah came near, and smote
Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the spirit of
Jehovah from me to speak to thee? And Micaiah said, Thou
shalt see on that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber
to hide thyself. And the king of Israel said, Take Micaiah, and
carry him back unto Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash
the king's son, and say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in
the prison, and feed him with bread and water of the worst sort,
until I come in peace. And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in
peace, Jehovah has not spoken by me.
A peculiar interest attaches to the three short books Ruth, Jonah,
and Esther. These differ from the works above named in the fact
that they describe each a single event. Each is a unity with defi-
nitely marked characters and incidents, leading to a culmination. In
a word, so far as the literary form is concerned, these are short
stories; and they seem to be the first productions of this sort in all
the ancient world. Their predecessors in Hebrew literature are the
incidents described in the Pentateuch and the historical books, in
the lives of the Patriarchs, Judges, and Kings, and Prophets; as for
example the story of Jephthah, the campaign of Gideon, the rebel-
lion of Absalom, and the challenge of Elijah to the priests of Baal.
These also are succinct and vivid narratives of particular incidents,
but the three books here referred to have the quality of finish and
plot,- elaborate arrangement of incident leading up to a dénoue-
ment,—in a still higher degree. The Moabitess Ruth, left a widow,
departs with her mother-in-law to a strange land; and here, by her
charm, conquers a place, and becomes the honored head of a great
household. Jonah, anxious to avoid a disagreeable mission, is never-
theless forced to go to Nineveh, and there becomes the occasion of
the announcement of a religious truth of primary significance,-
namely, that God cares no less for Nineveh than for Jerusalem. The
skill with which the narrative in Esther is constructed has always
excited admiration. The splendid royal banquet-the refusal of
Queen Vashti to make herself a spectacle to the drunken guests—
her deposition by the offended despot, and his determination to choose
another queen
- the appearance of the Jewess Esther, whose nation-
ality has been carefully concealed by her guardian Mordecai - the
successive trials of the inmates of the harem, and the selection of
Esther to be Queen-all this is an astounding whirligig of fortune.
But this is only preparatory to the main event. The sturdy Morde-
cai refuses to do reverence to the King's haughty favorite Haman,
who, exasperated by his persistent contempt, resolves to extirpate the


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Jewish population of Persia, and procures a royal decree to that
effect. The Jews are in despair. Mordecai sends word to Esther
that she must go to the King (which to do unbidden is a crime) and
intercede; he adds that otherwise she herself will not escape the
general fate. She finally plucks courage from despair, goes, is gra-
ciously received, and invites the King and Haman to a banquet that
day. At that banquet she invites them to another next day, when
she will make her request. Haman, elated, listens to the advice of
his wife and his friends, and prepares a lofty post on which Mordecai
is to be impaled. That night the King, unable to sleep, listens to an
account, in the court record, of a good deed of Mordecai, hitherto
unrewarded. Who is without? he asks. The answer is: Haman (who
had come to arrange the impalement of his enemy).
He is sum-
moned, enters, is asked what should be done to the man whom the
King delights to honor. Thinking it could be only himself, he sug-
gests that the man, clothed in royal apparel, ride through the streets
on the King's own horse. So be it: Haman is ordered to conduct
Mordecai. It is a terrible blow, and is taken by his wife and his
friends as an omen of disaster. Next day, however, he comes to the
Queen's banquet, and here the King asks her to state her request-he
would grant it if it cost half his kingdom. The narrative continues:
QUEEN ESTHER answered: If I have found favor in thy sight,
O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me
at my petition, and my people at my request; for we are sold, I
and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, to perish. If we
had been sold as slaves, I had held my peace.
And King
Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther: Who is he and where is he
who dares so to do? Esther answered: The adversary and enemy
is this wicked Haman. Haman was afraid before the king and
the queen. The king rose up in wrath from the banquet of wine,
and went into the palace garden, and Haman remained standing
to plead for his life with Queen Esther; for he saw that there
was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king
returned from the garden to the banqueting-hall, and Haman had
sunk down on the couch on which Esther was. And the king
said: Will he do violence to the queen here in my presence?
As the words went out of the king's mouth, they covered Ha-
man's face.
•
The clear portraiture of persons, the succession of interesting sit-
uations, the rapidity and inevitableness of the movement, the splen-
did reversal of fortunes, combine to make the book a work of art of
a high order.


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THE PROPHETS
The most distinctly characteristic part of Old Testament literature
is the prophetical. The position of the Israelitish prophet is unique.
No other people has produced a line of moral and religious patriots,
who followed the fortunes of the nation from generation to gen-
eration, and amid all changes of political situation remained true to
their cardinal principle,- that no conditions of power and wealth
would avail a nation which did not pay strict obedience to the moral
law and place its reliance in God. The prophetic writing belongs, in
general, to the class of oratory. The prophets are political-religious
watchmen, who appear at every crisis to announce the will of God.
They denounce current sins, religious and moral. They plead, exhort,
threaten, lament. They differ from other orators in that their audi-
ence is not a court of law, nor an assembly of the people, but the
whole nation; and the question which they discuss is not the inter-
pretation of a statute, or a particular point of political policy, but the
universal principle of obedience to God.
The language of the prophetical discourses is for the most part
rhythmical and measured, and the discourses themselves naturally
fall into strophes and paragraphs. There is no metre, no fixed suc-
cession or number of syllables in a line, and no regular strophic
arrangement; -on the contrary, the greatest freedom prevails in
respect to length of clauses and of strophes. The elaborate strophic
structure of the odes of the Greek drama does not exist in the pro-
phetic discourses; and as divisions into verses and strophes were
not given in the original Hebrew text, we are left to determine the
arrangement in every case from the contents. The writings of the
prophets vary greatly in style and in charm and power; but they
are almost without exception vigorous and striking. Whether they
denounce social evils, or inveigh against idolatry, whether they pro-
claim the wrath of God, or his mercy,- whether they threaten or
implore, they are almost always strong and picturesque.
The paragraphs, the logical divisions of simple prose discourse,
are generally marked in the English Revised Version. Strophic
divisions, marked by headings or refrains in rhythmical elevated
prose, are sometimes but not always indicated. Examples of stro-
phes are Amos i. , ii. ; Isa. v. 8–24 (woes); ix. 8-x. 4 (refrain), to which
should be attached v. 25; Ezek. xviii. , xx. , xxxii. 19-32 (not indicated
in R. V. ).
Among the prophets none is more eloquent than Amos in the
denunciation of social evils; take, for example, the passage on the
following page (Am. v. 11–24).


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FORASMUCH as ye trample on the poor,
And take from him exactions of wheat,
Though ye have built houses of hewn stone.
Ye shall not dwell in them,
Though ye have planted pleasant vineyards
Ye shall not drink the wine thereof.
For I know how manifold are your transgressions
And how mighty are your sins,
Ye who afflict the just, who take bribes,
Who deprive the poor of their rights in courts of justice.
Therefore he that is prudent keeps silence in such a time, for
it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live:
and then Jehovah, the God of hosts, may be with you, as ye say.
Hate the evil, and love the good, and maintain justice in the
courts: then it may be that Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be
gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
There shall be wailing in all the broad ways,
In all the streets they shall say, Alas!
They shall call the husbandman to mourning,
And such as are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
In all vineyards shall be wailing,
For I will pass through the midst of thee, saith Jehovah.
Woe unto you who desire the day of Jehovah: why would ye
have the day of Jehovah? it is darkness and not light—as if a
man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him, and when he got
into his house and leaned his hand on the wall, a serpent bit
him. Shall not the day of Jehovah be darkness and not light?
very dark, and no brightness in it?
I hate, I despise your feasts,
I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Though you offer me your burnt-offerings and cereal
I will not accept them;
[offerings,
The peace-offerings of your fat beasts I will not regard.
Take away from me the noise of thy songs;
The clang of thy viols I will not hear.
But let equity roll down as waters,
And justice as a perennial stream.


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Amos, Isaiah, and Ezekiel display no tenderness toward their peo-
ple; Hosea is an intensely loving nature; Jeremiah's prevailing atti-
tude is one of sorrow, as in these extracts from chapters viii. and
ix. of his book:-
ОH FOR Comfort in my sorrow! My heart is sick! Hark! the
cry of the Daughter of my People from a far-off land: Is not
Jehovah in Zion? is not her King in her? -[Jehovah speaks:]
Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images
and with foreign gods?
-[The people:] The harvest is past,
the autumn ingathering is ended, and we are not saved. — [The
prophet:] By the ruin of the Daughter of my People my spirit
is crushed; I mourn; dismay seizes me. Is there no balm in
Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is the wound of
the Daughter of my People not healed? -Oh that my head were.
water, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day
and night for the slain of the Daughter of my People! Oh that
I could find in the wilderness a lodging-place for travelers, that
I might leave my people, and from them go far away! .
For the mountains will I break forth into weeping and wailing,
and for the pastures of the wilderness utter a lament, because
they are burned, so that none passes through; voices of cattle
are not heard; birds of the heaven and beasts of the field are
all fled and gone.
. Call for the mourning women, that
they may come; send for women skilled in lament, that they may
come and utter wailing for us, that tears may stream from our
eyes and water from our eyelids.
•
Ezekiel's tremendous power of denunciation and of description
appears throughout his book; see for example Chapters vi. , xi. , xvi. ,
xx. , xxiii. , xxvi. -xxviii. , xxix. -xxxii. , xxxviii. , xxxix. He thus addresses
the land of Israel (vi. ):-
I WILL bring the sword on you, and destroy your high places;
Your altars shall be desolate, your sun-images shall be broken,
I will cast down your slain before your idols,
And scatter your bones about your altars.
And the remnant that escape the sword, scattered through the
lands,
Shall remember me among the nations whither they are car-
ried captive.


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I will crush their faithless hearts and their apostate eyes,
And they shall loathe themselves for their abominable
deeds.
Smite with the hand, stamp with the foot!
Say, alas! because of the sins of the House of Israel,
For they shall fall by sword, famine, and plague.
He who is far off shall die of the plague,
He who is near shall fall by the sword,
He who is besieged shall perish by famine:
Thus will I accomplish my fury on them.
And they shall know that I am Jehovah
When their slain lie by their idols about their altars,
On every high hill, on the mountain-tops,
Under every green tree and leafy terebinth,
Where they offered sweet savor to all their idols.
The section devoted to Tyre (xxvi. -xxviii. ) is of special interest
for the picture it gives of the magnificence of that city. The King
of Tyre is thus described (xxviii. 12-17):—
THOU wert full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
In Eden, the garden of God, thou wast,
All precious stones were thine adornment,
Ruby, topaz, diamond, beryl, and onyx,
Jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, emerald.
In the day when thou wast created
I placed thee with the Cherub in the sacred Mount of
God,
Amid the stones of fire thou didst walk.
Perfect thou wast in thy life
From the day of thy creation till sin appeared in thee.
The vastness of thy traffic filled thee with sin,
From the Mount of God I did expel thee as profane,
The Cherub cast thee forth from amid the stones of
fire.
Thou didst swell with pride in thy beauty,
Thy splendor vitiated thy wisdom.
Down to the ground I cast thee,
To kings I made thee a spectacle,
That they might feast their eyes on thee.
XVIII-675


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Alongside of this (the resemblance between which and the pict
ure in Gen. ii. -iii. is obvious) we may put the address to Pharaoh
(xxxi. ), who is portrayed as a mighty tree (the cedar of Lebanon is
chosen as the noblest of trees), watered by a great river (the Nile)
and its canals:-
WHOм art thou like in thy greatness?
Lo, there stood in Lebanon a mighty cedar,
With stately boughs, lofty of stature,
Its top reached the clouds.
Water had made it great, the Deep had made it high,
Streams ran through its soil, rivers over its field.
All trees of the forest it excelled in height,
Abundant water gave it many boughs.
In its branches all birds had their nests,
Under its boughs were the lairs of all beasts,
In its shadow dwelt many nations.
It was stately in height, in the mass of its branches,
For its roots were richly watered.
Cedars in the garden of God were not its equals,
Cypresses were not like its boughs, nor plane-trees like
its branches;
No tree in the garden of God was like it
In beauty and in mass of branches,
And the trees of Eden, in the garden of God, did envy it.
The prophet's imagination, reveling in its picture, does not always
keep figure and original sharply apart; as in the description of Pha-
raoh's fall (xxxi. 15-17), in which the tree and the king are skillfully
blended without loss of unity:—
Thus says the Lord Jehovah: On the day when it was hurled
down to Sheol, I made the River mourn for it, the streams were
held back and ceased to flow; for it I caused Lebanon to lament,
for it all the trees of the field fainted with sorrow. At its re-
sounding fall I made the nations tremble, when I hurled it down
to Sheol, with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees
of Eden, the choicest of Lebanon, all trees nourished by water,
were consoled [that is, by the ruin of their rival]. They too had
to go down with it to Sheol, to those who were slain with the
sword [who had an inferior position in Sheol]; so perished its
allies and they who dwelt in its shadow.


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The powerful effect which Ezekiel produces by cumulation and
iteration may be seen in his review (Chapter xx. ) of the history of
Israel, which is noteworthy also for treating the national career as
one long catalogue of acts of disobedience and apostasy.
Among the Prophetical works the Book of Isaiah presents the
greatest variety in literary form. The pictures of the physical and
moral ruin of Judah (i. , iii. , v. ) and of Israel (xxviii. ), the descriptions.
of the haughty bearing and the overthrow of the King of Assyria
(x. , xxxvii. ), the lament over Moab (xv. , xvi. ), the siege of Jerusalem
(xxix. ), the prediction of the return of the exiles (xxxv. ),—these and
other pieces are classic. As an example of its descriptive power we
may take the picture of Jehovah's coming vengeance on Edom
(xxxiv. ):-
APPROACH, O nations, and hear,
And hearken, O ye peoples.
Let the earth hear, and all that it contains,
The world, and all that it produces.
Jehovah is wrathful against all the nations,
Furious against the whole host of them,
He has laid them under a ban,
Given them over to slaughter.
Their slain shall be cast forth,
The stench of their corpses shall ascend,
The mountains shall melt with their blood;
All the host of heaven shall decay,
The heavens shall be rolled up as a scroll,
All their host shall wither,
As withers foliage from vine, leaf from fig-tree.
My sword has drunk its fill in heaven,
Now it descends for vengeance on Edom, the banned
people.
Jehovah has a sword, reeking with blood, anointed
with fat,
Blood of lambs and goats, fat of kidneys of rams,
For Jehovah holds a sacrifice in Bozrah,
A mighty slaughter in the land of Edom:
With these beasts wild oxen shall fall,
And bullocks along with bulls.
I
E


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10788
OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
Jehovah's day of vengeance comes,
The year of requital in Zion's quarrel.
Edom's stream shall turn to pitch,
And its soil to brimstone-
-
Burning pitch its land shall become.
It shall not be quenched night nor day,
Its smoke shall ascend for ever,
From generation to generation it shall lie waste,
None shall pass through it for ever and ever.
Pelican and bittern shall possess it,
Owl and raven shall dwell therein,
Jehovah shall stretch over it the measuring-line of des-
olation,
And the plummet of emptiness.
Its nobles shall vanish,
All its princes shall perish,
Thorns shall spring up in its palaces,
Nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the habitation of jackals,
The dwelling-place of ostriches.
There beasts of the desert shall meet,
The wilderness-demon shall cry to its fellow,
The demoness of night there shall repose,
And find in it her lair;
The arrow-snake shall make its nest,
In its shadow lay and hatch and brood,
And hawks shall be gathered together.
Search Jehovah's scroll and read;
Not one of these shall be missing,
Not one shall want its mate.
For his mouth it is has commanded,
His spirit it is that has gathered them.
For them he has cast the lot,
And his hand has measured the land.
For ever and ever they shall possess it,
Dwell therein from generation to generation.
The most splendid of Prophetic rhapsodies are found in Isaiah,
xl. -lxvi. We may cite from these, as an example of vivid imagination


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OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
10789
and gorgeous coloring, the famous description of Israel's coming glory,
in Chapter 1x. :-
ARISE, shine; for thy light is come,
And the glory of Jehovah shines upon thee.
Darkness shall cover the earth,
And gross darkness the peoples,
But Jehovah shall shine upon thee,
And his glory shall appear upon thee.
Nations shall come to thy light,
And kings to the brightness of thy radiance.
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see:
They gather themselves together, they come to thee;
Thy sons shall come from far,
And thy daughters shall be carried in the arms.
Then shalt thou clearly see,
Thy heart shall expand with joy.
For the abundance of the sea shall be given thee,
The wealth of the nations shall come unto thee.
A multitude of camels shall cover thee,
The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
Men shall come from Sheba, bringing gold and frank-
incense,
They shall proclaim the praises of Jehovah.
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to thee,
The rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee:
They shall be offered as acceptable sacrifices on mine
altar,
And I will glorify the house of my glory.
Who are these that fly as a cloud,
As the doves to their windows?
Surely the isles shall wait for me,
And the ships of Tarshish first,
To bring thy sons from far,
Their silver and their gold with them,
For the name of Jehovah thy God,
For the Holy One of Israel,
Because he hath glorified thee.
Strangers shall build thy walls,
Their kings shall minister unto thee,
For in my wrath I smote thee,


## p. 10790 (#670) ##########################################

10790
OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
But in my love I have mercy on thee.
Thy gates shall be open continually,
Shall not be shut by day or night;
That men may bring thee the wealth of the nations,
And their kings be led with them.
Nation and kingdom shall perish that serves thee
not:
Yea, blasted shall those nations be.
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee,
The cypress, the elm, and the cedar.
I will beautify the place of my sanctuary,
And make the place of my feet glorious.
The sons of thine oppressors shall bend before
thee;
They that despised thee shall bow down at thy
feet;
Thou shalt be called the City of Jehovah,
Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
I will make thee an eternal excellency,
A joy of endless generations.
For bronze I will bring gold, and for iron silver,
For wood bronze, and for stones iron.
I will make thine officers peace,
And thy taskmasters justice.
Violence shall no more be heard in thy land,
Desolation nor destruction within thy borders,
But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation,
And thy gates Praise.
The sun shall no more be thy light by day,
Nor the brightness of the moon give thee light
by night,
But Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light,
And thy God thy glory.
Thy sun shall no more go down,
Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself:
For Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light,
And the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
Thy people shall be all righteous,
They shall possess the land forever.
The little one shall become a thousand,
And the small one a strong nation.


## p. 10791 (#671) ##########################################

OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
10791
Similarly:-
Hebrew poetry, it is generally admitted, is characterized as to its
form by rhythm and parallelism. Rhythm is the melodious flow of
syllables. Parallelism-a form characteristic of, and almost peculiar
to, old Semitic poetry-is the balancing of phrases; the second line
in a couplet being a repetition of the first in varied phrase, or pre-
senting some sort of expansion of or contrast to the first. These two
general classes of parallelism may be called the identical and the
antithetical. An example of the first sort is:-
or, with one slight variation:
Rebuke me not in thy wrath,
Chasten me not in thine anger (Ps. xxxviii. 1);
POETRY
-
The heavens declare the glory of God,
The firmament showeth his handiwork (Ps. xix. 1).
Question and answer:-
Jehovah reigns-let the nations tremble;
He is enthroned on the cherubs - let the earth be moved (Ps. xcix. 1).
Examples of the second are:-
The arms of the wicked shall be broken,
But Jehovah upholds the righteous (Ps. xxxvii. 17).
The plans of the mind belong to man,
The answer of the tongue is from Jehovah (Prov. xvi. 1).
I lift up mine eyes to the mountains!
Whence comes my help?
or, with fuller expansion:-
My help comes from Jehovah,
Who made heaven and earth (Ps. cxxi. 1, 2);
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
Whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend to Heaven, thou art there;
If I couch me in Sheol, lo, thou art there;
If I take the wings of the Dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest West,
There shall thy hand lead me,
And thy right hand shall hold me (Ps. cxxxix. 7-10).
Between the extremes of complete identity and complete antithe-
sis there are many sub-varieties, the combinations and interchanges
of which, in the hands of a gifted poet, give exquisite delicacy and
charm to the form of the verse.


## p. 10792 (#672) ##########################################

10792
OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
Various efforts have been made to discover metre in Hebrew poetry,
-a regular succession of feet after the manner of the Greek; but
without success, and such attempts are now discountenanced by the
majority of critics. Elaborate schemes of dimeter, trimeter, tetram-
eter, and pentameter, which one still finds defended in certain mod-
ern books, may be rejected as having no basis in fact. There might
be more to say in favor of a system of ictus or beats of the voice.
It is true that all poetry is marked by a certain succession of rhyth-
mic beats. But the succession does not occur in Hebrew according
to any fixed rule. It appears to be determined by the feeling of the
poet, and its appreciation may safely be left to the feeling of the
reader. This much is true, that, in a series of couplets, the same
number of accented syllables may be employed in each couplet, and
we may thus have a guide in fixing the limits of the stanzas; but
even these limits we must leave to the free choice of the poet,
without attempting to impose our rules on him. To such norms,
characterized by the number of beats, we may give the names binary
(when the line has two beats), ternary (of three beats), quaternary,
and so on. In the Book of Proverbs many of the lines or verses are
ternary; elsewhere we find other forms. These can rarely be repro-
duced exactly in English.
Naturally also, these groups of couplets arrange themselves in
strophes or stanzas; but here again, no fixed rule prevails. A stanza
may consist of two, three, four, or more couplets; and adjoining
stanzas may differ in their number of couplets. As the original text
does not indicate any such division, we are left to the rhythm of the
couplets and to the connection of the sense to determine the order of
the strophes. An example of a symmetrical division in the stanzas
is found in the second Psalm, which consists of four stanzas of three
couplets each. In the first, the hostile nations are introduced as
speaking; in the second the speaker is Jehovah; in the third the
speaker is the royal Son, whose coronation has just been announced;
and in the fourth, the poet exhorts the nation to obedience.
Hebrew poetry is either emotional or gnomic. It either enounces
rules of life, in the form of apophthegms or proverbs, or it describes
the poet's own feeling in the presence of any phenomenon of joy or
suffering. It thus, in general, belongs to the class which we call
lyric. It does not present any example of what we call epic and
dramatic. There has been a natural desire to discover, in the Old
Testament poetry, examples of the poetic forms familiar to us in
Greek literature; and so it has been said that the Book of Job is a
drama or an epic, and that the Song of Songs is a lyric drama. But
a little reflection suffices to show that the Book of Job lacks the
essential element of epic and drama; that is to, say, action. It is, in


## p. 10793 (#673) ##########################################

OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
10793
fact, nothing but an argument consisting of elaborate speeches, with
a conclusion attached. There is no catastrophe toward which all the
acts of the personages tend. The interest lies in the discussion of a
religious theme; Jehovah permits the debate to go on to a certain
point, and then intervenes, the human actors having nothing to do
with bringing about the result. The Song of Songs is a series of love
songs, so delicately conceived, so undefined in shape, so lacking in
indications of place and time, that no two critics have as yet agreed
in their conclusions as to who are the actors in the supposed drama,
or where the action takes place, or what is its culmination. It is
obviously necessary to take it, not as a drama, but as a group of
songs. And in general, we do nothing but harm to the old Hebrew
literature in trying to force it into the forms of a foreign people.
The mistake is similar to that which has been made by Hebrew
grammarians, who have tried to construct Hebrew grammar in the
forms of Greek or Latin grammar; a procedure which, as scholars
are now coming to recognize, can result only in misapprehension and
misrepresentation. It is no less fatal to the poetic form of a people
to force it into the categories of another people. Justice will be
done to the Old Testament on its literary side only when we take it
for what it is, and try to apprehend its form and enjoy its beauties
according to its own rules.
So far as regards the higher characteristics of poetry, these are
the same in the Old Testament as elsewhere. There is eloquence,
pathos, charm, sublimity,-qualities which are confined to no one
race or people. And that the poetry is subjective-that it contains.
only the expression of the poet's feeling or reflection-will be evi-
dent from a brief review of the books themselves.
Let us begin with the Book of Psalms, the longest and most varied
of the poetic books of the Old Testament. It contains simple lucid
bits of description, agonizing cries to God for help, exultation for vic-
tory, rejoicing in time of peace, expression of consciousness of sin,
and odes of praise to the God of Israel. As an example of a gentle,
calm confidence and joy, we may take the 23d Psalm:—
THE Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want;-
He makes me recline in green pastures,
He leads me to still waters.
-
He restores my soul,
He guides me in safe paths for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of gloom,
I fear no evil,
For thou art with me,
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.


## p. 10794 (#674) ##########################################

10794
OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH APOCRYPHA
Thou preparest me a table in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runs over.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Here the imagery, derived from the shepherd's life, is of the most
restful sort; and the whole picture is one of perfect repose under
the protection of God. In contrast with this, the 24th Psalm is an
exulting ode of praise; and the first part, verses 1-6, which states
the moral qualities demanded of those who are to serve Jehovah in
his temple, begins with a declaration of the Divine might:-
The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof,
The world, and they that dwell therein;
For he has founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.
The second part is the hymn of a solemn procession, in which
Jehovah is spoken of as entering the temple, and it is conceived in
the finest vein of stirring song:-
-
Lift up your heads, O ye gates!
Be ye lift up, ye ancient doors!