INTRODUCTION I THE GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HEBREW POETRY essen tial nature of po etry POETRY may be defined as the imaginative and rhythmic expression of The the insight, the feeling, and the creative thought of an inspired soul. In brief, it is thought and emotion set to the music of words. Its object is to awaken and direct the imagination and emotions of the hearer or reader so that he will also share the poet's own insight, feeling, and thought. As the fundamental meaning of the word implies, the poet is a maker, a creator, as well as an interpreter. There are four essential elements in all poetry: (1) inspiration, (2) imagination, (3) creative power, and (4) rhythm. Back of all poetry is some inspiring force that stirs the mind of the poet. It may be the beauty of nature, a striking national or personal experience, an illuminating idea, or a deep emotion. Underlying all these, faith recognizes the spirit of the Eternal who, in different ways, touches and imparts his truth to the responsive mind of the poet. The real poet must also possess the power of imagination, the ability to see clearly and concretely with his mental vision that which is not perceived by the ordinary man. Furthermore, he must be able, by the aid of his imagination, to describe his vision in appropriate words and figures and thus to present it clearly and concretely to the eyes of his fellow men. Finally, the prevailing conception of poetry demands that it shall be rhythmic in form. This essential characteristic may be expressed by the rhythm of regular metre, as in Greek poetry; by the rhythmic sound conveyed by the concluding words of each line, as in most English poetry; or by the rhythm of recurring thought. Above all, the rhythmic form must be in harmony with the thought or passion which inspires it. The earliest examples of Babylonian and Egyptian literature are dis- Its tinctly poetic in form. In ancient Greece the bards began to sing their early origin songs centuries before the appearance of the philosophers and historians. Among the early Germans and English the art of poetic composition developed long before that of prose writing. The Hebrews were no exception to this rule. Scattered through the earliest prose writings of the Old Testament are older fragments of popular poems that were current at the beginnings of Israel's history or inherited from its Semitic past. The reasons why men first expressed their thoughts in poetry are not difficult to discover. They are illustrated by the natural impulses of the child, which to-day faithfully reflect certain of the initial stages in the The reasons why early man used poetry General characteristics of Semitic poetry The rhythm of measured beat in Hebrew poetry development of the human race. With him imagination and rhythm, two of the chief characteristics of all poetry, are innate. To dance and skip is for him more natural than to walk. Poetry, with its rhythmic measure and strong appeal to the imagination, is remembered long after plain prose has been forgotten. Nature also tends to emphasize the rhythmic tendencies inherent in the human soul. The rise and fall of the waves, the rhythmic swaying of the trees, the changing phases of the sun and moon, the regularly recurring cycles of the seasons left their deep impression upon primitive man. In him that which was rhythmic found a quick response, even as does martial or rhythmic music in the modern child. The expression of thought or passion in literature was not easy for early peoples. It was only under the impelling influence of a strong, creative force that they overcame the inertia and clothed their ideas in words. It was natural and practically inevitable that the product of that creative force should be poetry. Thus the shepherd prophet Amos, under the influence of a clear vision of impending danger and of a powerful religious and patriotic emotion, voiced his warnings to the nobles of northern Israel in exalted poetic diction. The divine truth had taken possession of him and nothing less than poetry could express the conviction and message that burned within him. The monuments of Babylonia and Egypt have shown that the general characteristics of Hebrew poetry were not peculiar to the Israelites but were shared in common with the Semitic nations that preceded them. The old Sumerian and Babylonian accounts of creation and the ancient hymns sung to the gods by the early inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates valley were characterized (1) by a measured beat recurring in succeeding lines and (2) by the rhythm of thought; that is, the second or succeeding lines repeating or else developing the thought of the first line. This same rhythm of measured beat and recurring thought is found in the earliest Egyptian hymns. In many of these poems each succeeding line had three accented syllables. More rarely the four-beat measure prevailed. From the middle of the nineteenth century B.C. comes a noble Egyptian hymn, addressed to Sesostris III, which not only illustrates these fundamental characteristics of Hebrew poetry but is also in the form of six strophes of ten lines each. In Egyptian poetry, however, as well as in the Babylonian, the strophic rhythm appears to have been occasional and exceptional rather than the general rule. The thought always dominated the form, and bold departures from the prevailing measured beat are not uncommon. The same is true of early Arabic poetry. While there are many recurring refrains, a regular strophic or metrical structure is exceptional. It was not until Greek culture began to exert a powerful influence upon Arabic and Syriac poetry that the regular metre with measured syllables first appeared in Semitic literature. True to its Semitic inheritance, the fundamental characteristics of Hebrew poetry are the measured beat and the rhythm of thought or sentence. Under the influence of the Greek and Roman ideals of poetry, scholars have for centuries sought to find in the poetry of the Old Testament a metre dependent upon the quality and quantity of the syllables. A few of the GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HEBREW POETRY late psalms may conform to this standard, but otherwise the quest, as might be anticipated in the light of the Semitic inheritance, has been in vain. Apparently the Hebrew poet considered only the accented syllables. The genius of the Hebrew language gave him considerable liberty in this respect, for it enabled him to combine, as his needs required, certain short words so that they might be pronounced together with one accent. The music, which was a frequent, if not the constant accompaniment of early Hebrew poetry, likewise favored the measured accentuation of succeeding lines. It is probable that the poets in reciting their poems were allowed large freedom. Many of them, like the earlier Babylonian and Egyptian poets, frequently departed from their adopted measure, especially at the beginning and end of stanzas. In general the tendency was to begin with a longer and to close a stanza with a shorter line. Sometimes the Hebrew poets passed abruptly from one kind of measured beat to another. Thus a part of the charm of the peerless twenty-third Psalm is that it begins in the first stanza with the three-beat, passes in the second to the four-beat, and rises in the last stanza to the five-beat measure. Use and significance of the different The two-beat measure was used but rarely. Its staccato notes were well adapted to express the trumpet note of warning on the appearance of a foreign foe or for use in the popular songs that accompanied the rapid dance. By far the most common measure or metre (using the word in its measures broadest sense) adopted by the Hebrew poets was the three-beat. It was admirably adapted to the length of the ordinary brief, forceful sentence and enabled the poet to present his thoughts in rapid, effective sequence. The four-beat measure was used but rarely. It was employed by Amos in the vigorous argument which he introduced in the latter part of the third chapter of his prophecy and not infrequently by the psalmists with impressive force. Next to the three-beat the five-beat measure was used most frequently by Israel's poets. It was really a combination of the three-beat with the short two-beat measure. The latter, like a catch in the breath, suggested with rare effectiveness the deep emotion that filled the heart of the poet. In later days it was the characteristic measure employed in the lamentations uttered over the bier of the dead. Jeremiah's impassioned warnings and appeals to his erring countrymen are all expressed in this dramatic measure. It was also used, as by the second Isaiah and the authors of many of the psalms, to voice the profound emotions of praise and thanksgiving which breathe through these immortal poems. Very rarely, as in Psalm 127, the six-beat measure is found. Thus, not only by their words and thoughts and gestures, but by the poetic measures which they employed and by the cadence of succeeding sentences, Israel's poets were able to appeal to the trained instincts of their hearers and to convey their ideas with a remarkable completeness and emotional coloring. One of the chief charms of the Authorized Version is that its translators instinctively reproduced, to a great extent, the lilt of the Hebrew, although they printed all poetry as prose. In the present text an attempt has been made to reproduce, as far as is practicable in an exact translation, the measured cadence of the original Hebrew. The rhythm of thought Synonyparallel mous ism Antithetic parallel ism A characteristic of Hebrew poetry, even more fundamental than the cadence of measured beat, was the rhythm of thought in succeeding lines. By its modern discoverer, Bishop Lowth, it was called parallelism, although the term is not entirely exact. To the Western ear repetition of thought is . tautological, and tautology is displeasing; but to the Israelites the essence of poetry was the rhythm of idea. Unquestionably this fundamental characteristic of Hebrew added greatly to its clarity and effectiveness. If the thought was not fully expressed in the first line it could be brought out clearly in the second. This type of rhyme bound the different members of the verse close together and gave to Hebrew poetry its forceful, didactic quality. It was also far easier for the poet to conform to the canons imposed by the rhythm of thought than to the more mechanical demands of a formal metre or rhyme. Thus the Hebrew type of rhythm, instead of impeding, greatly facilitated the free and effective expression of the poet's thought. Three primal types of parallelism or rhythm of thought may be distinguished. The first is the synonymous or repeating parallelism in which the second line repeats the thought of the first in slightly variant form. Sometimes it amounts to practical reiteration, as in Isaiah 151: In a night Ar of Moab was devastated, ruined, More frequently the principal words in the second line are synonyms of the Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, This synonymous or repeating parallelism is by far the most common type The second type was the antithetic or contrasting parallelism in which A fool's anger is known at once, (Pr. 1216.) (Ps. 3716.) Synthetic parallel ism The third type was a synthetic or developing parallelism in which the thought of the first line is completed or expanded in the second or succeeding lines. This form was especially fitted to express developed thought and |