And rode upon the cherub and flew : Yea, flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness round about Him His pavilion, 12. Unequal Strophes The strophes are not always of an equal number of lines. Often there is an intentional variation of their number. One of the earliest odes is composed of three strophes, gradually diminishing, in accordance with its dirgelike character, in 6x5x4 lines. The ode is abrupt in style, rapid in transitions, full of rare forms and expressions, with frequent alliterations, and of real beauty: The refrain is frequently used in Hebrew poetry. We have had a number of examples where it begins or closes strophes of equal length. But the refrain does not always divide the poem into equal strophes. Thus the dirge of Saul is composed of three parts, which melt away according to the scheme of 18, 5, 1. The refrain itself does not always correspond throughout. Thus in Ps. 80 it increases itself for emphasis in the heaping up of the divine names in the successive strophes ; 10 of Hebrew text is an explanatory insertion. of Hebrew text is from dittography. 3 Nu. 2127-30 See pp. 403, 406, 410. 5 2 Sam. 119-27. the third and fourth strophes constitute a double strophe, giving the allegory of the vine with a double refrain at the close, massing together a series of imperatives. Psalm 45 gives a varying refrain and three gradually increasing parts. The refrain is also used for the division of larger pieces of poetry, as in the Song of Songs, where it divides the poem into five acts; and in the great Book of Comfort of the second Isaiah, where the two earlier editions, as well as the final division, are all marked by refrains.1 In all these cases the strophes and the divisions of the poems are of unequal lengths. The strophes of the book of Job and of the Prophets are also usually unequal.2 1 See Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, 7th ed., pp. 141 seq., 229 seq., 338 seq. 2 See pp. 422-425. CHAPTER XVII THE KINDS OF HEBREW POETRY HEBREW poetry may be divided into three general classes, - Lyric, Gnomic, and Composite. I. LYRIC POETRY We Lyric poetry is the earliest development of literature. find it scattered through the various historical and prophetical books, and also in the great collection of Hebrew lyric poetry, the Psalter. The three pieces ascribed by tradition to Moses1 subdivide lyric poetry into the hymn, the prayer, and the song. The hymn is found in rich variety, — the evening hymn, the morning hymn, the hymn in a storm, hymns of victory or odes, the thanksgiving hymn. The Korahite Psalter is composed chiefly of hymns; so also the most of the fourth and fifth books of the Psalter, including the greater and lesser hallels, the hallelujahs, and doxologies. The prayers are in great abundance, -evening and morning prayers, a litany before a battle, prayers for personal and national deliverance, psalms of lamentation, penitence, religious meditation, of faith and assurance, in all the rich variety of devotion. These are most numerous in the psalms ascribed to David, and may be regarded as especially the type of the Davidic Psalter, the earliest prayer-book of Israel. A special form of this class is the dirge, represented in the laments of David over Saul and Jonathan, and over Abner, and in the very elaborate and artistic book of Lamentations, and not infrequently in the Prophets. The songs are abundant, and in every variety of historical description, pictures of nature, didactic exhortation and advice, social and other poems. In the Psalter there are songs of exhortation, 1 Ex. 15; Ps. 90; Deut. 32. warning, encouragement, historical recollection, prophetic anticipation, and the love song. The psalms of Asaph are chiefly of this class of poems. II. GNOMIC POETRY Gnomic poetry has but few specimens in the historical books. There has been preserved a riddle of the ancient hero Samson: From the eater came forth food, And from the strong came forth sweetness. This is followed by a satire: If you had not ploughed with my heifer, You would not have found out my riddle.1 Another witty saying of this hero is preserved: With the jawbone of an ass a heap two heaps; With the jawbone of an ass have I smitten a thousand men.2 The fable of Jotham is the finest specimen of this gnomic poetry to be found in Hebrew apart from the Wisdom Litera But the bramble said unto the trees: 1 Come, seek refuge in my shadow: 1 And fire will come out of the bramble, To devour the cedars of Lebanon. The Hebrews were fond of this species of poetry, but we could hardly expect to find much of it in the Bible. Its religious and ethical forms are preserved in a rich collection in the Proverbs, consisting of fables, parables, proverbs, riddles, moral and political maxims, satires, philosophical and speculative sentences. There are several hundred distinct couplets, synonymous, antithetical, parabolical, comparative, emblematical, — besides fifty larger pieces of three, four, five, six, seven, and eight lines, with a few poems, such as the temperance poem, the pastoral, the pieces ascribed to the poets Aluqah, Agur, and Lemuel, the alphabetical praise of the talented wife, and the great admonition of Wisdom in fifteen advancing discourses.6 A few specimens of this kind of poetry will suffice to illustrate it. There are several riddles ascribed to Aluqah.7 (1) The riddle of the insatiable things:7 Two daughters (cry): give! give! Three are they which cannot be satisfied; 1 The Hebrew text inserts the conditional clause "if in truth ye anoint me king over you," which is a prose sentence, and "if not," as an explanation: but it destroys the measure. 2 See Wünsche, Die Räthselweisheit bei d. Hebräern, Leipzig, 1883. 3 Prov. 2329-35. 4 Prov. 2722-27. 5 Prov. 3110-31; see p. 383, where it is given. 6 Prov. 1-9. 7 Prov. 3015-16 8 Prov. 3024-28 |