Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature Part 22

Break forth into joy, sing together, Ye waste places of Jerusalem: For the LORD hath comforted his people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem.

The LORD hath made bare his holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth Shall see the salvation of our G.o.d.

Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, Touch no unclean thing; Go ye out of the midst of her; Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the LORD.

For ye shall not go out in haste, Neither shall ye go by flight; For the LORD will go before you, And the G.o.d of Israel will be your rearward.

NOTES

The Metrical System of Biblical Verse

In the strictest sense the term 'metrical' is not applicable to Biblical verse, since this is const.i.tuted, not by any numbering of syllables, but by the parallelism of whole clauses.

The LORD of Hosts is with us, The G.o.d of Jacob is our refuge.

This is verse, not in virtue of any particular number of syllables in the lines, but because the second line is felt to run parallel with the first. This principle of parallelism of clauses underlies the whole of versification in Scriptural literature. As however the different modes of combination and variation of these parallel lines in Biblical poetry correspond, to a large extent, with those of metrical lines in other languages, it is convenient to speak of the principles governing them as a 'metrical system.'

One consequence however of the difference between Biblical and other verse should always be borne in mind. The parallelism of clauses, which makes the foundation of Hebrew verse, is also a thing proper to oratorical prose in all languages. Accordingly in Hebrew prose and verse overlap: the extremes of either (e.g. Psalms and Chronicles) are strongly contrasted, but there is a middle style which can be presented in either form. Hence there is nothing strange in the fact that the same pa.s.sage of Scripture may be presented by one editor as prose and by another as verse, according to the purpose of each arrangement. [For example: the Oration on Immortality (page 75), which for a specimen of oratory is here arranged as prose, is printed as verse in the Revised Version of the Apocrypha.]

1. The simplest type of parallelism in Biblical literature may be called 'Antique Rhythm.' It is the metre of most of the traditional poetry preserved in the historic books of Scripture. Its unit consists in a couplet, of which either member may be strengthened by a parallel line, but not both.

Let me die the death of the righteous.

And let my last end be like his!

He saith, which heareth the words of G.o.d, Which seeth the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open.

He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, And shall break their bones in pieces, And smite them through with his arrows.

Such a unit may be called a 'strain.' It will be seen in the examples that the first strain is a simple couplet, the second has its first line strengthened, the last has its second line strengthened. This power of occasionally strengthening either line of a couplet by an additional line gives the Antique Rhythm a flexibility suited to spontaneous composition. A similar device is found in connection with the traditional ballad poetry of England, of which such collections as The Percy Reliques are accidentally preserved specimens. While the regular metre of such ballads is a four-line stanza, yet a few poems, such as the Ballad of Sir Cauline, show some stanzas with individual lines strengthened:

Fair Christabel, that lady mild, Was had forth of her tower; But ever she droopeth in her mind, As nipt by an ungentle wind Doth some pale lily flower.

The poetry of the historic books mostly takes the form of aggregations of such 'strains' of Antique Rhythm, with no further structure.

Occasionally such a poem will fall into verse paragraphs or 'strophes'

[to be distinguished from the antistrophic system presently to be described]: an example is David's Song of Victory (see note on page 266). [For a combination of Antique Rhythm and the Antistrophic system, see note to vii on page 267.]

2. The metre of Wisdom verse is highly elaborate: we find here, not only the parallelism of successive clauses, but the 'high parallelism' which correlates all parts of a whole poem with one another. Two types may be distinguished: the Stanza structure and the Antistrophic structure.

Stanzas are familiar to the English reader: in Biblical poetry groups of three lines, or four lines, etc., recur in succession: a simple example is the Chorus of Watchmen (on page 236).

The Antistrophic system is familiar to students of Greek, as the metrical form of tragic choral odes. In this case the stanzas run in pairs, strophe and antistrophe, the theory being that the antistrophe exactly repeats the metrical form of its strophe; if another strophe follows the form may altogether change, but the changed form will be repeated in the corresponding antistrophe. [This may be expressed by the formula a a', b b', c c', etc.] Besides the pair of strophes there may be an introduction, or conclusion, or both. No. i of the Sonnets (on page 125) is an example of a poem consisting simply of strophe and antistrophe; No. iii (page 126) has also a conclusion.[7]

[Footnote 7: The term strophe is the Greek for 'turning': the system is derived from the dance performance of Greek odes, according to which the chorus danced from the altar to the end of the orchestra in one stanza, then 'turned,' and _retraced their steps_ for the antistrophe or 'answering' stanza. The term strophe has come to be used also for verse paragraphs where there is no antistrophic arrangement. (See page 266, note on vi.)]

Both in the case of the Stanza structure and the Antistrophic structure there are various modifications and elaborations--duplication, inversion, interruption, etc.: these it will be sufficient to explain in connection with the examples in which they are found.

3. The metre of Lyrics is in the main the same as that of Wisdom poetry.

But in the strictest kinds of lyrics the structure is further determined by the musical performance. A lyric may be a solo, or the matter may be arranged for 'antiphonal' performance between different performers, e.g.

choruses of Men and of Women. Antiphonal and antistrophic structure go easily together: see Deborah's Song, page 152. The musical performance also introduces the 'refrain,' a pa.s.sage recurring (with or without changes for musical effect): for example see The Song of Moses and Miriam (page 149).

4. A characteristic metrical system in Biblical verse is the 'Doom form.' Here the thread of the poem is in what, for form and spirit, may be called prose; but this prose is interrupted at intervals by lyric verse, celebrating or realising what the prose brings forward. This is chiefly found in prophecies of 'doom,' or denunciation of the foes of Israel (hence the name): the prose is a Divine word of denunciation, the lyrics are mostly impersonal celebrations of what the Divine speaker says. The form is easily collected from examples; see pages 175-181.

STORY

Story as a form of literature differs from History by its appeal to the imagination and emotions, whereas History addresses itself to our sense of record and scientific explanation. It is of no consequence whether the matter of the story be historic fact or invention; in the one case the writer selects, in the other case he frames, such details as will have the desired effect in presenting the story to the mind of the reader. The stories of the Bible are scattered through the history, of which they form a part; thus a reader of the Bible in its ordinary versions may be required at any moment to alter the character of his attention without anything to warn him of the change. In the Modern Reader's Bible (volumes Genesis, The Exodus, The Judges, The Kings) the stories are separated from the surrounding matter by t.i.tles. Selections of these stories enter into the present volume.

/i. Joseph and his Brethren./ This is one of the most elaborate and artistically beautiful stories in all literature. It emphasises an important place in the Biblical history, Joseph being a link between the Children of Israel and the world empire of Egypt. Among elements of story beauty note the personality of Joseph, its attractiveness wherever he goes and its gradual maturing. Note also the sketches of varied life which make a background to the story as it moves along--glimpses of shepherd life, of caravan trading, of palace life in Egypt. But the main interest will be the 'plot'--the technical term for the harmony that binds the different parts of a story into one whole. In the present case there are three 'motives' underlying the plot. (1) What has been called the 'oracular action': the interest of mystic dream oracles gradually becoming clear as the oracles are fulfilled. (2) The development of an ironic situation--Joseph recognising his brethren but not recognised by them: once developed this situation is prolonged to the utmost by the hero's conflict of feelings, between resentment and family affection.

(3) Beneath all other motives is the providential overruling of human events for high purposes (compare page 27).

/ii. The Witness of Balaam./ The place of this story in the main history is indicated by its t.i.tle: the 'Exodus' is the period of development for Israel from a family to a nation, and towards the close of the period Balaam, an outsider, bears witness in spite of himself to the growing numbers of the nation and to its glorious future.--In literary form it is a 'mixed epic' or 'canti-fable': a story in prose that breaks into verse at appropriate places. (Compare the expression _took up his parable_: the parable is an undefined term for a more specialised literary form occurring in the course of more general literature, such as a fable in the midst of a discourse, or a poem in the midst of prose.)--Its interest rests partly upon the conception of the 'Blessing and the Curse': there is the superst.i.tious idea of the efficacy of these in the minds of Balak and his people, while the true Blessing comes from the prophetic vision accorded to Balaam by G.o.d. [Compare 'The Stolen Blessing' in the Genesis volume.] In character Balaam is a sincere worshipper of Jehovah outside the ranks of Jehovah's people, who however from interested motives conforms to the heathen world around him as far as he can. [Outside this story the general history shows him as yielding at last to material interest and acting as tempter to Israel: compare Revelation, chapter ii. 14.]--The third paragraph (page 34) is the famous story of Balaam's a.s.s. It is the opinion of some that this is a fable interwoven with the main story: it is in favour of this view that the following paragraph, _So Balaam went with the princes of Balak_, etc., seems the natural continuation of the second paragraph; while the _princes of Balak_ are ignored in the story of the a.s.s.

/iii. The Crowning of Abimelech./ This occupies an important place in the general history. Originally Israel is ruled only by the invisible Jehovah; gradually the secularising forces around lead to the inst.i.tution of visible kings. This story is the first attempt at crowning a king, the work of a faction, with civil war and ruin as a result.--It is a story of war and adventure. [Compare the Raid on Michmash, or The Feud of Saul and David in the Judges volume.]--Its interest also rests upon the bitter fable of Jotham in scorn of kingship: the fable has the effect of a curse since it is literally fulfilled.

/iv. Samson's Wedding Feast./ This ill.u.s.trates a variety of story called 'Idyl': the word is almost equivalent to 'trifle,' and the term is applied to incidents of love or domestic life in contradistinction to graver matters of history. [Three Idyl Stories (Ruth, Esther, Tobit) are contained in the Biblical Idyls volume of this series.]--Characteristic of such a story is the game of riddles; the original riddle, answer, and rejoinder are all in single couplets.--It is not a pure idyl; feats of hero strength form another interest, as with other stories of Samson.

/v-vii./ These are Prophetic Stories. As the secularising tendency in Israel towards visible kings prevails against the original conception of a spiritual rule by an invisible G.o.d there arises an order of 'prophets,' who stand forth as representatives of the invisible Jehovah, and are thus often in opposition to the external government. So in the history of The Kings stories of these prophets, with their miraculous powers, take the place of the stories of heroes and their feats in earlier parts of the history. During the captivity in Babylon, Daniel in a similar way represents the Hebrew G.o.d against the king and hierarchy of Babylon.

/vii. Page 63./ I have followed a tradition that the mystic writing on the wall was interpreted by Daniel reading downward instead of across [or rather, down, up, down: the form of writing known as boustrophedon, that is, the way an ox turns in a furrow]. If the handwriting was in an unknown alphabet Daniel must have said so, or why should his interpretation be accepted at once? But if the characters were those to which the beholders were accustomed, but arranged in an unthought-of direction, it is easy to realise the puzzle of the audience and the instantaneous acceptance of the solution.

ORATORY

/i. The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the Curse./ The Book of Deuteronomy, from which this is taken, is a collection of the Orations and Songs of Moses, const.i.tuting his Farewell to the People of Israel. The general subject both of the oratory and song is the Covenant between Jehovah and his people, now for the first time committed to writing, and entrusted by the retiring leader of Israel to the Levites and Elders. The third of these orations is connected with a ceremonial occasion. An ordinance has been made for the ceremony of 'The Blessing and the Curse' to be an inst.i.tution of the promised land: representatives of the Blessing are to stand on one mountain and representatives of the Curse on the opposite slope, the whole ritual solemnly enforcing the sanct.i.ty of the Covenant. At present however the people are on the wilderness side of Jordan; accordingly Moses arranges a _Rehearsal_ of this ceremony, on ground resembling the valley between Ebal and Gerizim. This rehearsal is allowed to proceed to a certain point when Moses stops it, and takes the subject of the blessings and curses into his own hands. Hence the abrupt commencement of this oration.--As elements of oratorical beauty note (1) the interweaving and parallelism of sentences, (2) the terrific crescendo and climax of denunciation. The oration must be spoken to get the full effect.

/ii. Immortality and the Covenant with Death./ This is an example of the Written Address, Oratory that is not intended to be spoken. It is one of a series of imaginary addresses by King Solomon to the other rulers of the nations, const.i.tuting a work ent.i.tled 'The Wisdom of Solomon' (in volume 3 of the present series).--The author's style is distinguished by a peculiar order of thought, according to which some of the leading points of his argument take the form of digressions. The thought of this discourse is that death is no part of the natural order of the universe, but is introduced into the world by the wickedness of men. The author imagines a monologue of the wicked, led by despair of aught beyond the grave to a life of luxury and oppression. Another imaginary monologue expresses the feelings of the same wicked men as they awaken from death to the life beyond. But as a digression between these two monologues the author places his reflections on the 'hopes of the unG.o.dly,' that is, the subst.i.tutes in earlier thought for the grand conception of a life beyond death. These subst.i.tutes are (1) the living over again in posterity, (2) long life in this world. With regard to the first he argues that the brood of the unG.o.dly is unstable and accursed: better is childlessness with virtue. As to the hopes of long life, he argues that the old age of the wicked is without honour; whereas a life cut short may be a life perfected.

/iii-vii./ These are Prophetic Discourses. Considered as part of the literature of Oratory these Prophetic Discourses hold an intermediate position between the spoken and the written address. What appears as a discourse in the books of the prophets is probably not the exact report of a speech, but the substance of a speech, or of several similar speeches, worked up again into the style of a written address.

/iii. The Great Arraignment./ This discourse of Isaiah takes the form of a theme (G.o.d's arraignment of his people as rebels) treated in four paragraphs: the prophet's remonstrance--repentance by oblations--repentance of life--corruption redeemed with judgment.

/iv. The Covenant with Death./ The phrase Covenant with Death in the t.i.tle of this discourse of Isaiah has a different meaning from the same phrase in the t.i.tle of another discourse (ii). In the latter it meant a supposed invitation to Death to come as a friend, by those who were 'of his portion'; in the present case it means an agreement with Death to pa.s.s by the supposed speaker while he visits others.--This discourse ill.u.s.trates what is a characteristic feature of Hebrew literature--the 'pendulum structure,' by which the thought alternates in successive paragraphs between one and the other of two contrasting themes, in this case between Judgment and Salvation. The prophet is writing for the southern kingdom of Judah. Commencing with the rival kingdom of northern Israel he denounces drunken Ephraim, and how its crown of pride shall be trodden down (Judgment). But (Salvation) there shall be a crown of glory for the residue. Now he proceeds to Judgment upon Judah: the drunken rulers who trust to a refuge of lies, which the overflowing scourge shall sweep away. But there is Salvation for the patient. This comfort is imparted in agricultural images: the cruel plowing does not go on for ever, the gentle sowing comes; there are sharp threshing instruments [for the guilty], the gentle threshing with the rod for the precious c.u.mmin; and even the threshing is not to crush, but to make corn fit for bread.

/v. The Utter Destruction and the Great Restoration./ A discourse made by companion pictures linked together by two parallel pa.s.sages, each a parenthetic quintet, interrupting the pictorial description, which is afterwards resumed, with words emphasising the prophecy as a whole: _Seek ye out of the book of the LORD and read_ [how all these woes shall come to pa.s.s] ... _Strengthen ye the weak hands_ [with these glorious promises].--Note that Edom is only mentioned as typical of the foes of Israel in general, the pictures being of universal destruction and restoration. There is a similar use of Egypt and Edom as types of all the foes of Israel in another discourse (page 220).

/vi. The Sword of the LORD./ This is an ill.u.s.tration of a very peculiar form of discourse, which is without parallel in modern literature.

Ezekiel is the great representative of 'Emblem Prophecy,' that is, discourses which have for texts some symbolic action or piece of dumb show. But in extreme examples of Emblem Prophecy, like the present, symbolism pervades the whole of the discourse: att.i.tude, gesture, visible emblem, sustained dumb show, song, are all mingled together and combined with oratory.--The discourse falls into four parts. (1) At the opening, the prophet sets his face toward Jerusalem: there is no symbolic action beyond this. (2) But as the address progresses, he suddenly draws forth a sword: this is the sword of the Lord which is to go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, and it will not return any more. Suddenly, the dramatic speaker has identified himself with the victims of this Divine sword: _Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins_, etc. Now the theme of the sword is resumed, and with it mingles what is evidently some military strain or folk-lore song, of which the augmenting lines suggest the gathering spirit of combat: _A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished_, etc.

For a single moment the other side is presented--a people careless and secure: _the Rod of my son_ [they say] _it contemneth every tree_. But the impending destruction continues to gather force: _And it is given to be furbished that it may be handled_, etc. There is a sudden change, and cries and howls proclaim how the sword has fallen upon the people, and the _Rod that contemneth_ is no more. The emblematic movement seems to become more and more rapid [through three verses of the song: _And let the sword be doubled the third time_, etc.].--(3) A total change here ensues. The sword now becomes emblematic of the sword of Babylon; and the imaginary picture is that of the conqueror arriving at the junction of the ways and deciding by his omens to proceed against Jerusalem.--(4) Once more there is a total change: the sword now stands for Israel's enemies, the children of Ammon, and the verse conveys their boasting.

But suddenly the prophetic speaker plunges the sword into its sheath: so is symbolically introduced the fate of Ammon to return to the land of his birth and perish there.

/vii. Wreck of the Goodly Ship Tyre./ This ill.u.s.trates a characteristic of Ezekiel's style by which, in place of visible symbolism, ill.u.s.trated by the last example, a single image is sustained through the whole of a discourse. In the present case it is the image of a ship. Tyre was the great maritime city of antiquity: its grandeur is conveyed under the image of a ship which all the nations of the known world combine to build and load; the judgment is the wrecking of this goodly ship.

/viii./ Amongst other things the prophetic books contain 'Sentences,'

that is, brief sayings of prophets, each like an epigram, complete in itself. These no doubt pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth like proverbs, and were collected by the prophets. The examples in this section are from the Book of Jeremiah.