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EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
* Yet these frequent songs throughout the Law and Prophets, not in 
 their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, 
 may be easily made to appear over all other kinds of lyric poesy to be 
 incomparable^ 
 
 Milton. 
 
33y-^Pat6s of i3iblc ItnotMlelrge 
 
 XV. 
 
 EARLY BIBLE SONGS 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION ON THE NATURE AND 
 SPIRIT OF HEBREW, SONG 
 
 A. H. DRYSDALE, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' ST. PAUL's EPISTLE TO PHILEMON,' ETC. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul's Churchyard 
 AND 164 Piccadilly 
 
 1890 
 
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 A REVIVED interest in Old Testament subjects is a 
 pleasing feature of these times. One of the aims of this 
 little book is partly to meet and partly to stimulate this 
 growing taste. It does not look at the subjects with 
 which it deals simply from the point of view of the 
 specialist, but attempts rather to popularize the best 
 and latest results of scholarship, and convey intelligence 
 upon these Bible Songs. Higher criticism has started 
 grave and delicate questions respecting the structure, 
 history, and literary composition of Old Testament 
 Scripture. A yet higher scholarship will duly set all 
 these matters in their proper light, honestly dealing 
 with them in the spirit of fearless research. For here, 
 as elsewhere, 'the torch of truth, the more it's shook 
 it shines ' ; and nothing but good can ultimately come 
 of the most sifting processes, when these are conducted 
 with a reverent simplicity that aims at 'truth in love.' 
 The wheat is preserved, and only the chaff gets blown 
 away. 
 
 Meanwhile it is needful to keep the popular mind as 
 far as possible in touch with what is going forward, to 
 prepare it for welcoming all fresh light on Old Testa- 
 
 421885 
 
6 . . . . PpEfACE. 
 
 .•••■.::•■■•;■•:••:.;••::..:.•.•,...: 
 
 ment subjects, and, if need be, for revising and recon- 
 sidering any ill-founded preconceptions. In the following 
 pages the critical is necessarily subordinated to the 
 spiritual ; historical and other literary matter being 
 made subservient to the higher aim of vivifying the 
 ideas, and enforcing the principles of these ' Early Bible 
 Songs.' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ii 
 
 I. ShIr, or Song-poetry in Historical Scripture . ii 
 
 II. Native Source and Well-head of Hebrew Song . 15 
 
 HI. The Peculiar Structure of Hebrew Verse and Song 18 
 
 1. Synonymous, or simply reiterative parallelism . . 19 
 
 2. Antithetic parallelism 19 
 
 3. Synthetic parallelism 20 
 
 IV. Different Forms of the Songs 22 
 
 V. Accompaniments of Hebrew Song .... 26 
 
 Accompaniment of Musical Instruments ... 26 
 
 Bodily accompaniment in processional or dance gesture a8 
 
 VI. Spirit and Purpose of Hebrew Song ... 29 
 
 Secular Songs of the Hebrews 30 
 
 Spirit of Hebrew Sacred Song 31 
 
 The Song of Moses at the Red Sea 39 
 
 It is Israel's Emancipation Song . . . -41 
 
 It is Israel's first National Anthem and Te Deum in one 4 2 
 
 Part I. Introduction : or the Triple Aim of the Song 45 
 
 1 . There is here a Singing to the Lord .... 45 
 
 2. TheLord is the j«37Vf/ or /A^w^ of the Song . . 47 
 
 3. There is here a Singing^r the Lord .... 49 
 
 Part II. The Body, or Subject-matter of the Song . 51 
 
 Jehovah is in power resistless 53 
 
 Jehovah is in equity unchallengeable .... 54 
 
 Jehovah is in mercy plenteous 55 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Part III. The Threefold Issues 56 
 
 The immediate Influence of the Exodus . ... 57 
 
 The remoter Influence of the Exodus .... 57 
 
 The last great issue 58 
 
 The Deuteronomic Song : or Farewell Song of Moses 59 
 
 A Pictorial or Educative Song for Israel ... 64 
 
 I. God's Words like Dew and Rain .... 66 
 
 The Source of the Song 67 
 
 The Quality of the Song ... . . .67 
 
 The Design of the Song 68 
 
 II, God Himself the Rock 69 
 
 In His work ........ 73 
 
 In His ways ........ 72 
 
 In His character ........ 73 
 
 III. God's Training of Israel like the Eagle with 
 
 HER Fledgelings 77 
 
 IV. The People themselves like a stubborn Ox . 80 
 
 Israel's favoured position . . . . . . . 8l 
 
 Israel's unworthy conduct 83 
 
 V. Divine Love for Israel like the Fire of Spousal 
 
 Jealousy 86 
 
 The Natural Cause of the Divine Jealousy . . .87 
 How the Divine Love is like the Fire of Spousal 
 
 Jealousy 89 
 
 God's Jealousy for His Name and Honour, the ultimate 
 
 Salvation of His people 91 
 
 VI. The Awful Fruits of Apostasy like the Vine of 
 
 Sodom 92 
 
 VII. Divine Retribution like the Flash of a Whetted 
 
 Sword 96 
 
 VIII. The Final Issues of Judgment and Mercy . . 99 
 
 The Song of Deborah loi 
 
 The Song marks a Crisis in Israel's History . . 104 
 
 The Prelude 113 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Part I. A Rehearsal of Events 113 
 
 First Strophe— A Solemn Address to Jehovah . .114 
 Second Strophe — The country's miserable plight . .114 
 
 Third Strophe — Consciousness of victory . . -115 
 
 Part IL The Conflict 117 
 
 The muster-roll of the brave . . • . .118 
 The contempt of the cowards and laggards . . .119 
 The picture of the fight 1 20 
 
 Part III. The Issue 120 
 
 The Malediction on Meroz . . . . . .121 
 
 Scene in the Palace of Harosheth . . . .123 
 
 The ultimate triumph of God's kingdom . . .124 
 
 The Song of Hannah 125 
 
 Introduction 131 
 
 Part I. Hannah exults in God's character . .133 
 Part IL Hannah exults in God's way of working . 134 
 Part III. Hannah exults in God's designs . . -137 
 
 David's Even-song 139 
 
 Introduction 141 
 
 I. The Ideal King described 143 
 
 II. The Ideal Blessings of His rule .... 144 
 
 III. The Ideal Relation thereto of David and his 
 
 Dynasty 146 
 
 IV. The Ideal Results of this Sacred Sway . . 148 
 
 The Secular Songs of the Old Testament . . .151 
 I. Song of the Sword. Gen. iv. 23, 24 . . . .153 
 
 Lamech a type of the ungodly 1 54 
 
 Is the Song a lamentation, a defence, or a menace ? .156 
 The last the probable explanation . . . .157 
 
 II. Song of the Well. Numbers xxi. 17, 18 . . . 161 
 The personal lesson respecting the spirit in which 
 work should be done . . . . . .168 
 
 The social lesson of the blessing of united effort . . 1 70 
 The J2>zW/z/a/ lesson , 171 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 III. Song of the War-flame. Numbers xxi. 27-30 
 
 IV. Song of the Bow. 2 Samuel i. 17-27 . 
 
 1. The Spirit of ardent Patriotism . 
 
 2. The Spirit of Loyalty . . . . 
 
 3. The Passionate outburst of Friendship 
 
 PAQE 
 
 173 
 181 
 184 
 188 
 191 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scattered over the Old Testament Historical Books 
 are certain hymns, battle-songs, and other pieces of a 
 lyrical order. Some of these are merely fragmentary 
 relics snatched from oblivion or extracted from records 
 no longer in existence, such as The Book of JasJier^ 
 or the Book of the Wars of the Lord; while others of 
 them are contemporaneous with the narrative and have 
 been preserved complete. But whatever their origin, or 
 however they have been produced, their common name 
 is shir^^ a very ancient name for so7tg^ with kindred 
 forms in Sanscrit, Arabic, and other tongues. 
 
 1. Shir, or Song-poetry in Historical Scripture. — 
 Five poetic pieces in the historical books have this word 
 shir attached to them. First is the Song of Moses at 
 the Red Sea ^ — the great redemptive song, type of every 
 song of salvation : called by the Jews emphatically 
 ' The Song,' and linked by ourselves in association with 
 that other which is to mingle with it. The Song of 
 Moses and the Lamb. It is the song of Israel's nativity. 
 The night had found them a mass of affrighted African 
 slaves : the morning looked out on them a common- 
 wealth of the free, on their ancestral Asiatic soil. The 
 nation was born in a day. Henceforward they appear 
 above the horizon a distinct and historic people; and 
 what is more, they become the emblem of a ransomed 
 and triumphant Church, the Church of the redeemed. 
 
 ^ Pronounced sheerr. ^ Exodus xv. 
 
I a EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 What an epoch therefore this song describes and signal- 
 ises in Israel's Calendar ! No wonder it holds so chief a 
 place in Jewish ritual, and is recited to this hour with 
 such joy and fervour in their synagogues, on the seventh 
 Passover day, the traditional anniversary of their cross- 
 ing the Red Sea. What a billowy outburst of irrepres- 
 sible praise and triumph it is, with wave after wave 
 of exultant and prophetic delight and glorying in the 
 Lord ! In every sense it is the foremost song in the 
 great cycle of Hebrew anthology ; the fit prelude of all 
 succeeding Psalms and Hymns. 
 
 The second shir is the brief but bright-sparkling Song 
 of the Well — 'the well whereof the Lord said unto 
 Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them 
 water ^.' It was the first well dug on the border of their 
 inheritance ; and the little chant, doubtless a favourite 
 one with water-drawers afterwards, celebrates the unity 
 of spirit and the happy co-operation among the tribes. 
 ' Then sang Israel this song : — 
 
 ' Spring up, O well : sing ye unto it : 
 The well, the princes digged : 
 The nobles of the people delved it 
 With the sceptre, with their staves.' 
 
 The third piece to which shir is prefixed is that 
 mighty and majestic Deuteronomic strain, the farewell 
 song of Moses ^ — 
 
 'Full of hope and yet of heartbreak. 
 
 Full of all the tender pathos 
 Of the here and the hereafter,' 
 
 with its series of pictures for the popular imagination, 
 and its array of solemnizing figures to school and chasten 
 a stiff-necked people. It is the final legacy of Moses to 
 
 ^ Numbers xxi. 16. - Deuteronomy xxxii. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 3 
 
 Israel, ' his last and lasting'st piece — a song,' that they 
 might learn to con and hum it everywhere, 
 
 'Because he knew they would let fall 
 The Law, the Prophets and the History; 
 But keep the song, still, in their memory.' 
 
 The fourth and fifth examples of a shir are the martial 
 ode of Deborah ^ and the royal Davidic song ^, which re- 
 appears as a Psalm — the eighteenth — with variations ^. 
 
 But while these five are each called a shir, there are 
 several other pieces in the historical books to which the 
 term is not inapplicable, though it is not expressly 
 attached to them. Such are Lamech's remarkable effu- 
 sion, called by some the Song of the Sword *, and that 
 other outburst of bitterness and war-hate, the satirical 
 jiaine-song of Heshbon ^ ; as well as some of a very 
 different spirit and order, like the Old Testament 
 Magnificat^ the So7tg of Hannah ^ ; or the Last Words 
 of David^ \ and the grand elegy or funeral dirge over 
 Saul and Jonathan, commonly called the Song of the 
 Bow ^ ; with several other fragmentary relics. 
 
 Poetry which is meant to be sung or to have musical 
 accompaniment is the distinctive idea of the Hebrew 
 shtr^ as of the Greek ode or our own sofig ^. The word 
 most naturally applies to what is joyful or gladsome in 
 tone, yet not to the exclusion by any means of solemn or 
 melancholy strains. Music touches, and is the exponent 
 of both sides of human feeling, the glad and the sad ; 
 
 ^ Judges V. "2 Samuel xxii. 
 
 ^ In I Chron. xvi. 8-36 is a hymn of thanks by David, which is found 
 distributed among Psalms cv. 1-15, xcvi. and cvi. i and 47, 48. 
 
 * Genesis iv. 23, 24. ^ Numbers xxi. 27-30. 
 
 " 1 Sam. ii. i-io. "' 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7. ^ 2 Sam. i. 17-27. 
 
 ^ So close is the connection between song and musical accompaniment, 
 which shir expresses, that it is even used for the instrumental music itself. 
 Thus in 1 Chron. xvi. 42 musical instruments are literally ' instruments of 
 shir,' or in Nehemiah xii. 27, cymbal music is ' the shir of cymbals.' 
 
14 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and shir in like manner may embrace the opposite poles 
 of joy and sorrow, of hope and fear, of cheerful chant and 
 plaintive wail. This is lyric, as distinguished from epic, 
 dramatic, narrative or other poetry not meant to be 
 musically set, but merely to be read or recited. Numer- 
 ous classifications of Hebrew poetry have been suggested, 
 but all on the lines of this fundamental distinction. 
 Indeed there are only the two words which stand out 
 with great prominence, Mashal and Shir : the distinction 
 between them being very much that of poetry and song 
 with ourselves — Mashal being the name for poetic dic- 
 tion in general, including shir or song itself, while the 
 latter specifies what is distinctively designed for musical 
 rendering, vocal or instrumental, or both combined ^. Of 
 both kinds the historical books afford ample illustrations, 
 and the distinction is adequately marked. Thus the 
 prophecies of Jacob and of Moses, concerning the twelve 
 tribes^, are real poetry both in spirit and form — anyone 
 may see this by referring to them in the Revised Version 
 — but they are not lyrical in tone or purpose. A briefer 
 instance is afforded in the words of curse and blessing by 
 Noah ^ — pure poetry in rhythmical form, but in no sense 
 shir or song. It is the earliest example of that lofty, 
 measured utterance usual with the patriarchs in their in- 
 spired prophetic or benedictive moods. The effusions of 
 Balaam are of the same type, and are couched in the same 
 style, though they approach more nearly to the lyrical. 
 
 But the distinction between poetry and song may be 
 illustrated on a wider scale, by referring to the three 
 books of the Old Testament which are emphatically 
 called poetical, and to which alone a full poetic accentua- 
 
 * Mdshal means properly a similitude, and points to the idea of poetry 
 being rich in metaphor, an ebullition of strong figurative speech. 
 ^ Gen. xlix, and Deut, xxxiii. ^ Gen. ix. 25-27. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 5 
 
 tion belongs. These are — the Psalms (ThehilHm), Pro- 
 verbs (Mashelim), and Job (Eyob). According to the 
 Jewish arrangement of the books, they are the first 
 three of that series of twelve known as Kethubim or 
 Hagiographa. Their technical or mnemonic name is 
 Em'th — a word devised to aid the memory, and made up, 
 as the reader will observe, of the initial letters of the 
 Hebrew names of these three books in reverse order. 
 Now of these poetical books or Emth^ the Psalms alone 
 are lyrical — supremely and uniquely so — whereas the 
 other two, however poetical, are of a totally different 
 style, and not at all lyrical ^. 
 
 2. Native Source and Well-head, of Hebrew Song. — 
 Poetry of some sort or other is the most primitive, as 
 it is also the most advanced, style of literary expression. 
 National literature usually begins with song, while yet 
 the art of writing is unknown. Early laws, chronicles, 
 and proverbs have a tendency to assume an alliterative 
 or rhythmic form, which is so easily impressed and re- 
 membered. Traditions are handed down in simple 
 ballads. Long before a tribe has emerged from bar- 
 barism it will have its bards to chant its highest and 
 most sacred things. Lawgivers will give forth their 
 precepts, and priests their oracles, in similar forms. 
 
 This is what catches the ear and strikes deep into the 
 popular mind. The bard is naturally therefore the first 
 historian and annalist. For what an aid to memory is verse! 
 And what a spell it lays upon the fancy if wedded to some 
 artless strain of music ! This lends additional charm and 
 
 ^ It may be observed here that the earlier prophets, such as Joel, Isaiah 
 and Habaickuk, are thoroughly poetical, with occasional lyric outbursts, while 
 the others, like Ezekiel, Haggai and Zechariah, become more prosaic in style 
 as they grow later in date. The Song of Songs (Shir Hash-Shirim), which 
 immediately follows the EniHh or poetic books, is an idyllic lyric of a 
 peculiar type. 
 
1 6 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 throws an air of romantic dignity around events, stamp- 
 ing them with a Hving force. Poetry and music mingle 
 with the soul and stir it to its very depths. ' Blest pair 
 of Sirens, sphere-born harmonious sisters, voice and 
 verse, able to pierce dead things with inbreathed sense.' 
 
 Music and poetry, voice and verse — these two blended 
 together make song. And this is among the earliest 
 and most promising tokens of a people's life. Young 
 puissant nations are often born and cradled in song. 
 Like streaks and gleams that herald the dawn, this shows 
 that a dayspring is rising upon a people, and that they 
 are rising with it. They will make a poem of their 
 history ; and their heroic deeds, when rendered vocal in 
 song, will mould and nourish their growing destiny. 
 
 The Hebrews were intensely and by nature a lyrical 
 people, and their language a lyrical tongue. Not being 
 specially gifted as a race with the analytical faculties, 
 they were not of an argumentative or speculative turn of 
 mind. Their genius was for high sentiment and fervid 
 emotion. Their mental processes were quick and flash- 
 ing. What they saw clearly they felt intensely, and 
 could express glowingly. Their preference was for the 
 pictorial, and not the abstract style of utterance. Their 
 ordinary speech was a kind of poetry, full of imagery 
 and heart-passian. The Hebrew tongue lends itself 
 with peculiar readiness to lyrical expression. ' Since 
 action and re-action,' says Herder, ' are of the essence of 
 poetry, and since the verb is the part of speech that 
 depicts action, or rather that sets action directly before 
 us, the language that is rich in expressive pictorial verbs 
 is a poetic language, and is more poetic the more fully it 
 can turn nouns to verbs . . . Now in Hebrew, almost 
 everything is verb . . . the language is a very abyss 
 of verbs.' And he adds, ' Everything in it cries aloud 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 7 
 
 " I live, I move, I work, I am the creature of emotion and 
 conviction " ; not the language of abstract thinkers or 
 philosophers, but of the inspiration of the poet.' 
 
 Hebrew song flows, therefore, from a natural spring. 
 It has a source and well-head in the lyrical nature and 
 language of the people. Nor shall we rightly under- 
 stand or interpret some things in the Old Testament 
 Historical Books, without bearing in mind this lyrical 
 genius and aptitude of the Hebrew people? This gift 
 and the fruits of it were graciously utilised and directed, 
 not overborne nor cast aside, by the Spirit of God in 
 the construction of Sacred Scripture. For as revealed 
 religion is rooted in and draws up within itself the orig- 
 inal findings and primitive elements of natural religion, 
 or as Christian piety incorporates the principles and 
 instincts of the earliest child-piety, so the native charac- 
 teristics of the Israelitish race are embodied and worked 
 out in the divine literature of inspiration. It is the 
 glory of creative wisdom to have produced such astonish- 
 ing variety of vegetable and animal forms, all permeated 
 by a unifying principle of life ; so it is the glory of the 
 Spirit of revelation to have preserved a rich variety of 
 human characteristics and peculiarities, while breathing 
 His own inspiration as the assimilating influence through 
 them all. Room is found for, and ample expression 
 given to, the calm methodical majesty of Moses ; the 
 impassioned glow and energy of David ; the reflective 
 generalization of Solomon ; the subtlety of Paul ; the 
 lofty meditativeness of John; the practical habit of James; 
 and the vehement force of Peter. And so, instead of 
 tame monotony, we have rich variety on the page of 
 Scripture, like the pleasing diversity of countenance and 
 the changing play of feature over the human face divine. 
 These early historic books of Old Testament Scripture 
 ^ B 
 
l8 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 bear many distinctive traces of their Hebrew mould. 
 How different in tone and construction from what they 
 would have been among a differently constituted race ! 
 Not only are they imbued with varieties of poetic forms 
 and style congenial to the Hebrew people, but they are 
 inlaid with lyric gems, that are the piously preserved 
 relics and debris of what was most characteristic of their 
 national bent and genius. 
 
 3. The peculiar Structure of Hebrew Verse and. 
 Song. — Hebrew verse differs in no small degree from 
 what w^ould be called poetry either in classic or modern 
 tongues. It does not, for example, consist of feet or of 
 metre ; still less does it exhibit rhyme ; and least of all 
 does it assume the mechanism of equally-divided stanzas. 
 When printed as it ought to be, in proper lines, it has an 
 appearance of something like blank verse ; but it knows 
 nothing of quantity or the art of scansion. Some have 
 endeavoured to find in it something akin to hexameters, 
 pentameters, anapaests, iambics and the like ; but such 
 methods of classical and modern versification seem 
 wholly foreign to its nature. Hebrew poetry proceeds 
 on another system altogether. Its rhythmic flow con- 
 sists in an equilibrium, not of feet and syllables, but of 
 clauses and sentences. It has its own alliterations or 
 assonance, its repetitive sounds and catch-words, but 
 these are subordinate to the general sway or swing of 
 the main balance of harmony. Hebrew poetry depends 
 on what is usually called parallelism : that is to say, a 
 manifest correspondence both in sense and rhythmic 
 expression between two sentences or two sections of a 
 sentence, very much as if it were an utterance and some 
 intelligent echo of it ; thus — 
 
 'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, 
 Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.' 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 9 
 
 The parallelism or balance, it will be observed, is not in 
 the Sotmd but in the Sense of the words. The equili- 
 brium is not a correspondence of rhyme or metre, but of 
 the expression or sentiment harmoniously assorted — 
 the second line being made to fit into the first, and two 
 such members being required to make up one poetical 
 unit. This parallelism, or nice balancing of phrase, has 
 been well called ' sense-rhythm ' or ' thought-rhythm,' in 
 contradistinction from ' rhyme ' or ' metre ' ; the sense 
 being more prominent than the sound, and the thought 
 than the form of it. Such parallelism of course admits 
 of various modifications, according as these rhythmical 
 clauses stand related, in their meaning, to one another. 
 There are three such parallelisms in general use, and 
 commonly called Synonymous^ Antithetic, and Synthetic. 
 In the first, the parallelism is constituted by reiterating^ 
 in the second by contrasting, and in the third by de- 
 veloping the original sentiment. We may illustrate these 
 distinctions by examples taken from the Song of Moses 
 in Exodus xv. 
 
 1. Syno7iymotcs, or simply reiterative parallelism, where 
 the same idea is just repeated, or a similar one is echoed 
 in varied yet corresponding expressions. Thus in verse a 
 of that chapter we have : 
 
 ' My own God ! and I will praise Him ^ 
 My Fathers God! and I will exalt Him.' 
 
 2. Antithetic parallelism, where the ideas are set in 
 contrast or opposition to each other. This prevails 
 most in gnomic or proverbial contrasts, such as this : — 
 
 ' A wise son makes a glad father, 
 But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.' 
 
 ^ In the Authorised Version it reads — 
 
 * He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation ; 
 My Father's God, and I will exalt Him.' 
 The parallelism pointed to the need of looking more carefully at the mean- 
 ly % 
 
ao EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 In lyrical pieces it is seen rather in sudden changes and 
 transitions of thought, which bring the antagonism into 
 bold relief. Thus in Exod. xv. i6 we find a double anti- 
 thesis in its four parts : — 
 
 'Terror and dread falleth upon them: 
 By the greatness of Thine arm they are still as a stone — 
 Till Thy people pass over, O Lord, 
 Till the people pass over which Thou hast purchased \' 
 
 3. Synthetic parallelism^ where the second idea is a 
 development of the first, or is set in co-ordination with 
 it. This is the most lively form of parallelism. It abounds 
 therefore in choral lyrics, specially in the more striking 
 or vehement passages. Thus in Exod. xv. i : — 
 
 ' I-will-sing unto-the-LoRD, for-He-is-exalted on-high 
 The-horse and-his-rider hath-He-thrown into-the-sea.' 
 
 Here again the hyphened expressions represent single 
 words in the Hebrew, and show a fourfold combination 
 in each line. 
 
 These three kinds of parallelism, though the most 
 common and frequently recurring, do not exhaust all 
 the varied combinations of which parallelism is suscepti- 
 ble. Many changes may be introduced at the option 
 and taste of the writer, by making a difference in the 
 length of the line, by manipulating the pause, and various 
 other subordinate arrangements. Thus at verse 9 of the 
 same chapter, we have alternate parallels, the first and 
 third having only two and the second and fourth four 
 expressions : — 
 
 ing of the word rendered ' prepare an habitation,' and the Revised Version 
 has given the coixect idea, as above. 
 
 ^ It may seem that such lines are very iinequal ; but in the Hebrew there 
 are really just four words or phrases in each of the lines. The combination 
 may be represented to the eye by the use of hyphens, thus : — 
 'Terror and-dread falleth upon-them 
 
 By-the-greatness of-Thine-arm they-are-still as-a-stone 
 
 Till Thy-people pass-over O Lord 
 
 Till the-people pass-over which-Thou-hast-purchased.' 
 
INTRODUCTION. 31 
 
 ' The-enemy said 
 I-will-pursue, I-will-overtake, I-will-divide the-spoil 
 
 My-lust shall-be-glutted-on-them 
 I-will-draw my-sword : my-hand shall-destroy-them.' 
 
 It is this ' thought ' or ' sense ' rhythm, with its simplicity, 
 that makes Hebrew versification so congenial to other 
 languages. It is a universal poetry that admits of easy 
 translation into foreign tongues, and loses nothing by the 
 process. Nothing at least has to be sacrificed to the 
 importunities of rhyme or metre. However much one 
 language may differ from another, Hebrew poetry is at 
 home in them all — preserving in each the advantages 
 both of rhythmic harmony and of naturalness of flow. 
 For its structure depends more on sense than on sound. 
 The substance is more than the setting. What is arti- 
 ficial is at its lowest. It is the movement rather than 
 the form of the poetry that arrests us. Hence the sim- 
 plest parallelisms are the most frequently recurring ones. 
 The effect is as natural as the ebb and flow of the tide ; 
 as the voice and its echo ; as the movement of the arms, 
 or the beat of the wings, or as the rise and fall of the 
 lungs — to all of which the Hebrew couplet has fitly been 
 compared ^. 
 
 * Hebrew verse is too simple and natural not to have its affinities in other 
 languages far enough removed in time and place from one another. Egypto- 
 logists assure us that sense-rhythms and parallelism are key-notes in the 
 poetry of old Mizraim ; and the recently deciphered specimens from 
 ancient Assyrian bricks exhibit similar peculiarities. But it may bring the 
 matter home to ourselves with more interest, if we observe how our own 
 old Saxon verse proceeds upon a kindred system without rhyme or metre. 
 Our modern versification is not derived from the Saxon at all. For rhyme 
 was a Celtic habit, introduced through the Romance dialects into our 
 literature in the fourteenth century by Chaucer, Gower, and other followers 
 of the Italian and French poets ; metre being an adaptation from the 
 syllabic style of the Greek and Latin classics. What our Teutonic fore- 
 fathers had for met re was a rhythmic accentuated double-couplet or parallelism, 
 while for rhyme they used a recurring alliterative letter. Thus the ballad 
 
32 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 4. Different forms of the Songs. — We have seen 
 already that M^shal is the general Hebrew word for 
 poetic diction, including shir or that class of poetry 
 which is meant to be sung. Now Mashal means pro- 
 perly a similitude or figure. It points to the idea that 
 poetic diction was couched in metaphor. Poetry springs 
 from fervour of thought and feeling. And it is to be 
 noted that the most fervid words in Hebrew are just 
 those which are most metaphoric and convey the most 
 vivid and expressive images. With us, the poet, as an 
 artist, must ' lisp in numbers ' ; but with the Hebrew 
 people, 'Caring little as they did for the merely artistic, 
 he had to utter himself in pictures or figures. The 
 prime essential in Hebrew poetry was an ebullition of 
 strongly figurative or pictorial speech. Distinctions 
 between prose and poetry are by no means so marked 
 or rigorous in Hebrew as in a literature like our own. 
 Even when historical writers rise into a higher and more 
 excited mood than usual ; when, for example, they deal 
 with some animating subject or rehearse a dialogue in 
 the direct form of speech (the speakers, that is to say, 
 using the first person and not the third, as in indirect or 
 reported form), they easily glide into a rhythmical or can- 
 tillating style, as if to relieve the pent-up emotion. When 
 thought and feeling reach the excitation of musical 
 pitch or of eager vehement gesture, the lyrical mood is 
 
 on Athelstan's victory at Brunanburgh, A. D. 937, would mn in modernized 
 
 form : — 
 
 * Eye on this ^island No juch jore j^laiighter 
 
 By ^dge of jword n^er hath seen, 
 
 Writers of ^Id as the book jayeth 
 
 ^ngli-h or 6'axons since from ^ast hither 
 
 Oer the ^road /;rine jailed over sea. 
 
 Proud workers of 7yar. landed in Britain.' 
 
 The italics show the alliteration : and the reader will observe how a 
 
 sentence may begin in the middle of a line,' and how the right-hand half-line 
 
 may be parallel with the next half on the left. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 attained. Words come swiftly and intensely. Phrases 
 are abbreviated and condensed, or they get iterated and 
 reiterated as the soul of emphasis. The lyric, in its 
 simplest form, expressing as it does some warm thought 
 or strong impulse, is ' the daughter of the moment ' 
 (as Ewald says) ' the utterance of swift-rising powerful 
 feelings, and of deep-stirring sentiments or emotions.' For 
 when any lofty or vehement mental mood seizes some 
 capable poetic nature with a force that refuses to be re- 
 pressed or controlled, the whole being is caught up into 
 a quivering ecstasy. The thought is embodied in strong 
 metaphoric language and clothes itself in nervous repeti- 
 tive expression. Ordinary utterance no longer suffices. 
 It is too cold and slow. Speech rises into the acute shrill 
 accents of passion ; and then, breaking like a crested 
 wave, it rolls over into a rhythmical sweep. The result 
 leaves the impression of a supremely natural process, 
 free and unforced, without- servile study or mechanic art. 
 And it was this simple or natural inspiration that was 
 laid hold of and utilised in the higher Hebrew lyrics by 
 the interminglings of an inspiration born from above 
 and taught of God. Apart from this, however, it is the 
 lyrical mood with its figurative, repetitive, and rhythmic 
 expression, that forms the fittest vehicle for any pre- 
 occupied or all-absorbing state of mind. Hence, warm 
 or solemn utterance has a tendency to parallelism and 
 kindred methods. When Adam, for example, would 
 give vent to his emotion of surprised delight, he is 
 represented as doing it in a kind of couplet — 
 
 ' Bone of my bone, Flesh of my flesh, 
 
 She shall be woman. Because taken from man^.' 
 
 The same thing may be observed in the sevenfold lines 
 of God's address to Cain ^, and in many other instances 
 
 ^ Gen. ii. 23. * Gen. iv. 10, 11, 
 
34 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 of direct address, where the emotion is to be regarded as 
 strong. We do not associate the term poetess with the 
 name of Sarah, but if we wish an illustration of the 
 simplest lyrical mood, we find it in her brief effusion of 
 maternal joy and thankfulness on Isaac's birth. It is 
 rhythmical in tone, and is introduced by a specially 
 poetic expression : — Who would have said^ that is, have 
 said in song or chanted to Abraham ? 
 
 ' Who-would have-sung-it to-Abraham 
 
 That Sarah should-suckle children? 
 
 For-I-have-borne a-son in-his-old-age,' 
 
 Musical cadence or bodily gesture are, as we shall see, 
 the natural and almost inevitable accompaniments of 
 this high-strung mood, in order to emphasize and accen- 
 tuate the expression. 
 
 From the simple outburst of personal impulse to the 
 more studied and elaborate Choral lyric, the transition is 
 not difficult. To lengthen out the lyrical period, to 
 introduce and intermingle the several kinds of parallel- 
 ism, and to vary the tone of the parts, is a process easily 
 understood, and would be readily adopted. Then, by the 
 simple device of a chorus and refrain, by balancing one 
 set of parallelisms with another so as to make a strophe 
 and anti-strophe, and by varying the combinations, the 
 whole system of antiphonal, responsive, or part singing 
 under a leader like Miriam would be developed, for the 
 effective rendering of such majestic and elaborate chants 
 as the Song of Moses at the Red Sea — ' the untranslata- 
 ble oldest triumphant song in the world,' as Herder calls 
 it — or Deborah's warlike strains, or other kindred odes. 
 
 In these great songs there is a symmetrical arrange- 
 ment of parts, and there are divisions into longer or 
 shorter strophes and antistrophes by a refrain or other 
 catchwords; although, from our ignorance of Hebrew 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 Music, it is difficult, and often impossible to determine 
 with certainty how these divisions and arrangements were 
 sung. We can feel the power and pathos of the thrice- 
 recurring refrain, ' How are the mighty fallen !' even in 
 reading David's lament over Saul and Jonathan. But 
 who can say whether or not its three sections were ren- 
 dered, as some have thought, the first strophe by a 
 single voice, the second by a body of ' daughters of 
 Israel,' and the third by a company of youths, and the 
 refrain by the united chorus in a tone ' not loud but 
 deep ' ? Variety and effect were no doubt carefully 
 studied, so as to meet the rapid transitions and animated 
 turns of such a song as Deborah's, some parts of which 
 are put in the mouth of Deborah and Barak alternately, 
 and some are evidently meant for a chorus or choruses. 
 But who will say by whom, or how, its subtle movements 
 were to be rendered ? or such a refrain as this, for example, 
 was interpreted ? 
 
 "Uri 'Uri Deborah 
 'Uri 'Uri Dabbiri shir. 
 
 Up now up now Deborah 
 
 Up now up now utter a song^.' 
 
 ^ Poetry and Song are usually written in the Hebrew text just like prose — 
 the punctuation and accents sufficiently indicating the metrical beat and 
 divisions. There are, however, four songs which are by traditional usage 
 written very exceptionally: Moses' last song, Deut. xxxii., appearing in two 
 columns down the page, and that at the Red Sea, Deborah's, and David's in 
 2 Sam. xxii. in three several columns of peculiar form. This arrangement, 
 though entirely foreign to and meaningless in our tongue, may be illustrated 
 to the eye from Moses' song, thus : — 
 
 Jehovah is a man of war, Jehovah is His name 
 
 Pharaoh's chariots and his host 
 
 hath He cast into the sea. 
 
 His choicest warriors are drowned 
 in the Red Sea. The depths have 
 
 covered them : they sank into 
 
 the bottom as-a-stone. Thy right hand 
 
 0-LoRD, glorified in power. Thy 
 
 right hand, O-LORD. dashes the enemy. 
 
 The first line, it will be observed, is written as usual : the second is divided 
 
26 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 5. Accompaniments of Hebrew Song. The two ac- 
 companiments of Hebrew lyrics were, instrumental music 
 and processional or dance movement. In early times 
 and among a primitive people, it is easy to see how 
 closely allied were the sister arts of music, and dancing, 
 and lyrical expression. Playing on an instrument, sing- 
 ing an accompaniment and beating time with bodily 
 gestures, are all born of the same impulse. According 
 to a law of sympathetic unisons, every mood of mind 
 has a certain tone of voice corresponding to it. Joy has 
 one class of notes, sorrow another ; the expression of 
 hope can never be mistaken for that of fear, nor awe be 
 confounded with levity in its tone. The shriek of pain 
 is distinguished in a moment from the shout of laughter, 
 for each is sufficiently self-interpreting, like a minor or 
 major key in musical expression. In like manner also, 
 mental moods have their more or less distinctive bodily 
 gestures ; a gesture of threatening anger being very dif- 
 ferent from one of hearty welcome. Bodily motions 
 and mental emotions have all their special affinities. 
 And among a people little accustomed to repress or 
 conceal their inward mood, these affinities are the more 
 marked and noticeable. 
 
 Accompanime7tt of Musical Instruments. Of musical 
 expression among the Hebrews we have no detailed in- 
 formation. As to the nature of the music, it was doubt- 
 less, like all in early times, melody alone, with nothing 
 of what we now call harmony or the regulated chord- 
 ing of the four parts — treble, alto, tenor and bass. Of 
 these they had no knowledge ; but all, old and young, 
 
 into three sections, consisting of a single word, with blank space for nine 
 letters, then three or four Tseldom five) words with similar blank, and then 
 a single word as at the beginning. The third and all the rest of the odd 
 lines begin and end with three or four words and an equal blank between. 
 These two classes of lines go on alternately. 
 
INTRODUCTION. %1 
 
 male and female, boys and girls, men and women, sang 
 simply in unison, variety being secured by a repetition 
 of the melody in higher or lower tone, according to the 
 pitch of the different class of voice. Hence male and 
 female voices, deep bass and shrill soprano, often took 
 their turn alternately, 
 
 ' In notes with many a winding bout 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out.' 
 
 Monotony was further avoided and depth of expression 
 secured by the emphasis of instrumental playing, with 
 an adaptation of particular instruments to particular 
 purposes. This art of expression, poor at best though 
 it was, grew of course with the growth of taste and with 
 the increasing number and dexterous use of the instru- 
 ments. Forms of all the three classes of these, /^rr/zj-- 
 sion or clanging, stringed^ and wmd instruments, were 
 known from the earliest times, though no doubt at first 
 in very rude and primitive fashion. Jubal is ' the father 
 of all who handle the kinnor and ugab^ that is, hm^p 
 and pipe, the two most general names for stringed and 
 wind instruments respectively ; as if to indicate that 
 the third kind, clanging instruments, needed no inven- 
 tion whatever, the art of producing sounds by beating 
 or shaking resonant things coming naturally to even 
 a child. This for long was the first and favourite class 
 of instrument, an early form of it, the toph^ tabor, timbrel, 
 tabret or tambourine, being well known in Laban's house- 
 hold \ and notably used by Miriam^, and Jephthah's 
 daughter ". 
 
 There are ten instruments of song named in the His- 
 torical Books — two of the stringed order, the great and 
 little harp (the latter a hand-harp or lyre) ; four wind 
 
 ^ Gen. xxxi. 27. ^ Exod. xv. 20. " Judges xi. 34. 
 
a8 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 instruments, the pipe, horn, trumpet, and pan-pipes or 
 lip-organ ; and four for striking or shaking together, the 
 timbrel, cymbal, rattle and triangle — these, with their 
 modifications, being the chief musical instruments of the 
 Jewish people. 
 
 Bodily accompaniment in processional or dance gestnre. 
 If music appealed to the ear, dance movement made a 
 no less effective appeal to the eye. What is dance in its 
 original idea and intent but rhythmical gesture? It is 
 the poetry of motion : standing related to ordinary bodily 
 movement as musical utterance stands to ordinary speech. 
 Musical rhythm articulates, dance Yhrythm. gesticulates the 
 high-strung lyrical mood. The swaying motion of a 
 singer, the natural disposition to beat time with head, 
 hand, or foot, and the use of a conductor's baton in an 
 orchestra, are all modifications of the same rhythmic 
 movement as the primitive dance impulse ^ We find the 
 more of this, the further back we go ; and the more 
 demonstrative a people or the less habituated to control 
 their moods, the more readily they resort to dance- 
 accompaniments : — 
 
 'Till lively gesture each fond care reveals 
 That music can express or passion feels.' 
 
 ^ Our very word ballaa comes to ns from the Medieval Latinism hallai'e, 
 to dance, and the old French form bailer (signifying the same thing) is a 
 reminiscence of the native disposition to accompany a lyric or gleeful song 
 with rhythmic movement, and gives us our word ball for the name of a 
 dancing party. This was the usage in Spain and Southern Europe in the 
 thirteenth century, and is maintained to this day with primitive simplicity 
 in the Faroe Islands. Our own early chroniclers furnish abundant illustra- 
 tions of Ballads being dance or gesture songs. Thus, Bishop Gawin 
 Douglas says : 
 
 * Sic as we clepe wenches and damsels 
 In gersy greens, wandering by spring-wells 
 Of bloomed branches and flowers white and red, 
 Plettand their lusty chaplets for their head, 
 Some sang ring-sajtgs, dances ledes and rounds.'' 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 Ambulatory and processional movements are adapta- 
 tions of this habit — companies of singers and players 
 breaking into sets or bands, advancing to or receding 
 from each other, and then forming again into a united 
 body. The words on such occasions were for the most 
 part extempore outbursts, as when Jephthah's daughter 
 and her companions came forth to hail her father with 
 music and dance, or, as ' when David returned from the 
 slaughter of the Philistine, the women came out of all 
 the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King 
 Saul with timbrels, with joy, and with instruments of 
 music : and the women sang to one another in their 
 playing and said, 
 
 ' Saul hath slain his thousands 
 And David his ten thousands.' 
 
 A more sedate form of the processional and dance move- 
 ment could be easily adapted to sacred and religious 
 emotions, as when David danced before the ark in token 
 of devout joy and thankfulness. 
 
 6. Spirit and Purpose of Hebrew Song. With the 
 exception of some secular fragments still extant, the 
 Hebrew lyrics, both earlier and later, are of an intensely 
 religious character. They are emphatically ' spiritual 
 songs.' Even the battle lyrics are highly devotional, 
 glowing with all the ardour of pious thought and feeling. 
 To give expression to this state of mind and to foster 
 it, is the avowed object of many of these sacred odes. 
 Religious conviction is supreme. They are veritable 
 God-songs — of God, to God, for God. This is their 
 key-note and their substance. In other ancient litera- 
 tures, the hymns to the gods are rather ^^scriptive than 
 ^j-criptive : but the Hebrew lyrics are intended to thrill 
 the soul with sentiments of adoration. In other lan- 
 guages, the sacred lyrics are sparks from the anvil of 
 
3© EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 genius ; the Hebrew lyrics are live coals from the altar 
 of devotion. 
 
 Secular Songs of the Hebreivs. It would be a mistake, 
 however, to suppose that the Israelitish people were des- 
 titute of the ordinary or secular songs of everyday life. 
 There is abundant evidence to the contrary. Indeed, 
 it would be difficult for us to conceive of a people so 
 lyrical as Israel being without such lays of domestic or 
 common life ; ditties that women might sing when grind- 
 ing at the mill or drawing water at the well ; snatches 
 of verse of a stronger type for men to cheer their toil, 
 answering to the plash of the oars or the drawing of the 
 fishermen's nets, the tread of the sower or the march of 
 the soldier ; songs of harvest and vintage ; of the bridal 
 and banquet, and other social or festive seasons. So 
 early as the days of Laban we read of him remonstrating 
 thus with Jacob, ' Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and 
 didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away 
 with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp^?' 
 Allusions are not infrequent in the Prophets to harvest, 
 vintage, and other gleeful songs, as in Isaiah xvi. lo, 'In 
 the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither joyful 
 noise' ; or to hymeneal songs, as in Psalm Ixxviii. 6'^^ 
 ' Their maidens were not praised in marriage ' {Revised 
 Version, ' Their maidens had no marriage song '). We 
 have indications of melodies in which prosperous world- 
 liness sets forth even its profane mirth and jollity^, while 
 the reference in Psalm Ixix. 1 2, ' I was the song of the 
 drunkards,' seems not obscurely to hint at Bacchanalian 
 or other wild dithyrambic strains. According to the 
 general voice of critics, the titles or headings of some 
 of the Psalms preserve the memory of many secular 
 lyrics. The inscription, for example, of Psalm xxii. 
 
 ^ Gen. xxxi. 27. ^ See Job xxi. 11 and 12, and Isaiah xxiv. 8, 9 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 1 
 
 ' Hind of the dawn,' is understood to mean, according to 
 the song beginning ' Hind of the dawn ' ; or of Psalm Ivi. 
 ' The silent dove from afar,' which perhaps should rather 
 be rendered ' the dove of the far-off terebinth trees ' ; 
 or the mystic word ' Altaschith,' placed over Psalms Ivii. 
 Iviii. lix. and Ixxv., which means ' Destroy it not ' ; or 
 ' Shoshannim,^ lilies^ in Psalms xlv. Ixix. and Ixxx. and 
 the like. The idea is that as the Psalms of the syna- 
 gogue, the Peytitim^ are confessedly set to tunes of old 
 secular melodies, or as in Reformation times ' Godlie 
 ballads' for public worship were adapted to the airs of 
 popular or favourite songs (the origin also, it would 
 seem, of some early church music), these headings 
 may be directions to the particular song after whose 
 melody the Psalm is adapted to be sung. Be this, how- 
 ever, as it may, there are ample evidences otherwise of 
 a great body of Hebrew secular songs. How these have 
 not come down to us is nothing wonderful. They were 
 alien to the purpose of Holy Writ, and it would have 
 been remarkable had they survived the wreckage of the 
 Captivity, in which such masses of earlier literature got 
 scattered and destroyed^. 
 
 Spirit of Hebrew Sacred Song. With the exceptions 
 
 ^ Of Solomon we read in i Kings iv. 32 'his songs were a thousand and 
 five,' which he had either written or gathered, and these have disappeared 
 in the abyss of time. And not these alone by any means. At least fifteen 
 books which are referred to in early Canonical Scripture have been lost : 
 some of them lyrical, at least poetical, as for instance the collection of 
 elegiac or threnic dirges called in 2 Chron. xxxv. 25 the ' Kinoth ' or 
 Laments, quite a different book from the ' itcha ' or canonical ' Lamenta- 
 tions ' of Jeremiah. The much-debated Book of Jasher (i. e the Upright), 
 whatever else it was, had at least a body of lyrical contents, as the only two 
 extracts from it suffice to show — David's Lament for Jonathan, and the 
 words oi Joshua x. 12, 13, 
 
 ' Sun, stand-thou-still vipon-Gibeon 
 
 and-thou-moon, in-the- valley of-Aijalon 
 
 And-the-sun stood-still and-the-moon-did-stay 
 
 Till-the-nation was-avenged of-their-enemies.' 
 
32 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 just indicated, Hebrew historic song, as we know it, is 
 nothing if not sacred. And for devotional intensity the 
 earliest of these lyrics is on a level with the latest. 
 Religion is their chosen sphere, and in this high vocation 
 they have no competitors. In them 
 
 'Devotion borrows music's tone, 
 And music takes devotion's wing.' 
 
 Whatever contrasts they present — and they are many — 
 and whatever their varying depths of light and shade, 
 one all-pervading spirit animates them and fuses them 
 into a living unity. These songs, of Moses and Deborah, 
 of Hannah and David, however diverse their note and 
 tone, agree in flashing back upon us the sense of a per- 
 sonal, present and living God. And they express every 
 mood of pious emotion, and are set to every thrill of 
 the devout nature, whether it be reverence, thanks, hope, 
 penitence, faithfulness, submission, or obedience. Here 
 we have Moses subduing the people to awe ; there, we 
 have David raising them to ecstasy. Here, Deborah 
 spreads her wings on the blast and shrieks fierce defiance 
 to the godless foe ; there, Hannah rebukes the insolence 
 of impious pride and glorifies the honour of tender- 
 hearted humility. For was it not their function, as 
 Milton expresses it, ' to celebrate the throne and equip- 
 age of God's almightiness : to sing victorious agonies of. 
 martyrs, saints, and heroes, their deeds and triumphs, 
 doing valiantly; to deplore the general relapses of the 
 states and kingdoms from righteousness and God's true 
 worship ; to inbreed and cherish in a great people the 
 seeds of public virtue and civility ; and whatsoever in 
 religion is holy and sublime, in goodness amiable and 
 grave, all these things with a solid and tractable smooth- 
 ness to paint out and describe ? ' 
 
 These songs were potent factors and influences in 
 
INTRODUCTION. ^^ 
 
 training Israel to higher and nobler ideals, embodying 
 in popular and impressive form the purer and more en- 
 during phases of their revelation. They contain glimpses 
 of those far-reaching elements in the Hebrew faith which 
 gradually triumphed over what was inferior and tran- 
 sient, and enabled the people to slough off those ten- 
 dencies they had in common with the gross and idola- 
 trous peoples around them. They were preparatory to 
 the Psalms and Prophets^ whose function it was to un- 
 fold and display the more universal and abiding con- 
 ceptions, which moulded the Old Testament Church and 
 which were to attain their 'bright consummate flower' 
 in the Gospel of God's own Son. Why more of them 
 were not placed among the Psalms may be variously ac- 
 counted for. Being hymns for specific occasions, rather 
 than for indiscriminate use in worship, they are naturally 
 imbedded in the historic text, to illumine and enliven 
 the narrative in connection with the events which gave 
 them birth. Nor is it difficult for us now to believe that 
 Moses should be the father of Hebrew song, as well as 
 of Hebrew law and history ; the Homer no less than the 
 Herodotus and Solon of his people \ That some difficult 
 
 ^ The question of the age and authorship of some of the songs is not 
 without its difficulties. Thus in regard to the Song of Moses in Exodus' xv. 
 three views have been entertained — the common traditional view that it 
 really dates from the Exodus : the negative critical one that it is of much 
 later date : and the intermediate one that the refrain and some snatches 
 here and there are the original, but that it has been worked at, added to, 
 and edited in its present state at a subsequent period. Much of this dubiety- 
 arose from a mistaken notion that the art of authorship could not have 
 obtained so early among the Hebrews as the Pentateuchal writings seem 
 to represent. Now, however, such a surmise falls to the ground by the 
 discovery of records and papyri in Egypt revealing an advanced state of 
 literature far more ancient than was once supposed. The Papyrus D'Orbiney, 
 for example, which has been published in fac-simile by the British Museum 
 Trustees, is as old as the Exodus, and contains a story earlier than Abraham. 
 A famous ' Hymn to the Nile ' is twice the length of the Song of Moses, 
 and is known to be at least as ancient ; while another poem on a temple 
 
 C 
 
34 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and peculiar words in the songs of Moses should have 
 proved to be of Egyptian origin seems to strengthen the 
 otherwise natural conviction that the era and events of 
 the Exodus must have been propitious for music and 
 song. 
 
 And what thus originated with Moses culminated with 
 David. In him the development of sacred lyric attained 
 its height. ' With his whole heart he sung songs ; and 
 loved Him that made him \' says an Apocryphal writer. 
 He is ' the darling of the songs of his people.' He is 
 ' the sweet singer of Israel.' It is David to whom Dante 
 refers, when he speaks of 
 
 ' Him who sang 
 The Songs of the Supreme ; himself supreme 
 Among his tuneful brethren.' 
 
 In the martial ode of Deborah, the war-spirit is at its 
 height ; but the tendency to mere battle-songs and other 
 fierce strains during the Vv^ild times of the Judges was 
 happily checked by Samuel and his school of the 
 prophets '^. Sacred minstrelsy was in larger measure 
 resumed, and the national temper got chastened and 
 softened. Then David adopted the lyric strain, and 
 made of the devotional lyric a royal plant, with richest 
 blossoms and clustering fruits. 
 
 There are two great characteristics of these older 
 songs ; two features they have in common with the 
 Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs— the spirit of 
 piety and oi prophecy. They are outpourings oi personal 
 
 wall is two centuries earlier still. But yet more ancient— and perhaps the 
 most ancient sacred song in the world — a hymn to the Sun, prior to 
 Abraham's time, is to be found in ' The Hall of the Two Truths,' or the 
 125th chapter of the oldest of all Egyptian books. The Ritual of the Dead. 
 These hymns resemble Hebrew poetry in structure, though stiffer and more 
 artificial in their movement. 
 
 ^ Ecclesiasticus xlvii. 8. ^ i Sam. x. 5. 
 
INTRODUCTION. ^S 
 
 godliness on the one hand, and oS. prophetic aspiration on 
 the other. 
 
 They are first of all supremely GOD-SONGS, as we have 
 already called them. ' To the LoRD ' is the real inscrip- 
 tion on each. The Lord Jehovah is their burden and 
 theme ; and His exaltation is their highest aim. ' I will 
 sing unto the Lord/ is the key-note of Moses' first song ; 
 and ' I will proclaim the name of the LoRD,' is that of 
 his last. ' I, even I, will sing unto the Lord/ says 
 Deborah ; and ' My heart exulteth in the LORD ' is the 
 opening word with Hannah. So, too, ' David spake 
 unto the Lord' his song of deliverance. A present God ; 
 a felt presence ; above all, a joyous saving presence 
 whom I can approach with singing, and to whom I can 
 address my song direct, and make it as an offering to 
 Him — are not these the ruling and animating convictions 
 which attach to such a form of expression ? To realise 
 that God may be approached with singing ; that He is 
 not unwilling to receive such an oblation ; that He 
 rejoices in such expressions, and does not grudge the 
 ebullition of such moods of joy in His presence ; — is not 
 this one of the great purifying and elevating principles in 
 the Mosaic economy, and a seed of better things yet to 
 come ? Was it not prophetic of the time when the sacri- 
 fices of praise and thanksgiving should supplant all 
 bloody rites and flaming holocausts by virtue of one 
 sacrifice for sin offered once for all ? It was a spirit of 
 improvement lodged in the ceremonial system^ which 
 should burst at last its ancient cerements. 
 
 And this brooding sense of the joyfulness of the 
 Divine presence, with what an elevating glow it invests 
 these songs ! Hence ever and anon they rise into direct 
 impassioned address. They may start with didactic 
 statements, speaking of God in the third person, but soon 
 
 C % 
 
36 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 they burst away into devout ascription, as in the sixth 
 verse of Moses' first song, ' Thy right hand, O Lord, is 
 glorious in power : Thy right hand, O LORD, dasheth in 
 pieces the enemy ; ' while his last one is so full of such 
 forms of address, that it reads in great part like a dia- 
 logue between himself and God. How remarkable are 
 these old songs for the consciousness and revelation of 
 the ever-living and ever-present great ' I AM,' and for 
 the spirit of personal passionate attachment they breathe ! 
 How they tear aside the veil of mere phenomenalism, and 
 sing of Him who sits above and behind the machinery of 
 things, and whose hand they see put forth upon the 
 springs of Nature, originating, controlling, and giving 
 efficiency to all ! On what familiar yet majestic figures of 
 speech they venture ! A hurricane is ' the blast of the 
 breath of His nostrils ; ' the lightning-flashes are His 
 arrows ; the thunder is His voice in the heavens ; He 
 Himself is ' a man of war,' and He draws ' His glittering 
 sword.' How august the form enclosed within the folds 
 of such poetic drapery ^ ! God is conveyed in parables 
 that partly reveal and partly conceal Him, as men are 
 able to bear or interpret the revelation. They are like 
 some venerable words which have grown obsolete in one 
 sense, yet have acquired another meaning more suitable 
 and adequate. And so these glorious metaphors live on 
 
 ' Some profess to be offended with such ways of representing God, 
 forgetting that the only method of conveying new or impressive ideas is 
 just by this process of analogy, or the comparison of things in their inner 
 relations, not in mere outer resemblance. When we speak of the foot of a 
 hill, for example, who dreams of heel or toes? All instinctively feel that 
 what is meant is a resemblance not in the things but in their relations ; and 
 all expressive words are grounded on analogy. The foot of a hill is to the 
 hill what our foot is to our body. The resemblance stops there, and no one 
 is misled. Human representations of God have been thought to be deroga- 
 tory to Him. But after all, human personality is the highest ground of 
 analogical ideals ; so that the process, far from degrading God, has always 
 tended to lift up man. To escape from these analogies, based on per- 
 sonality, would be to escape into the region of nonentities and dreamland. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 37 
 
 and on, because they wear the ' colours dipped in heaven, 
 that never die.' 
 
 Another characteristic feature, common to all these 
 sacred songs, is their prophetic and therefore perennially 
 quickening power. The whole history and institutions 
 of Israel are of this prophetic cast. And such herald 
 songs are like the half- conscious stirrings within the 
 chrysalis —the avaiit cotirier of prophetic hope, in both of 
 its aspects, 2;2sight and /^r^sight. The prophetic spirit 
 acts as insight, intuitive insight in moral and spiritual 
 principles, as science is insight and inquiry into natural 
 law. A common incident, the fall of an apple, arrests 
 the attention of Newton, and leads him to the universal 
 force of gravitation. A common incident, the birth of a 
 child, leads Hannah in her song first to name the Lord 
 ' Messiah ^,' and to seize the universal power and preva- 
 lence of humbleness of mind throughout the kingdom 
 and economy of God's salvation. 
 
 Or, again, to Moses in his first song, the overthrow of 
 Pharaoh is like a stone cast into the water, which creates 
 an eddy of circles with ever-widening development, till at 
 last the announcement comes, ' The Lord shall reign for 
 ever and ever.' Yes, the Lord shall reign ; not Israel. 
 For there is nothing boastful or merely national in these 
 triumphant notes. They rise high above mere patriotic 
 vainglory. ' Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people/ is 
 the world-wide destiny desired at last, in the close of 
 Moses' final Deuteronomic song ^. 
 
 And David, in his ' last words ' of life's evensong, 
 takes occasion, from a review of his own government, to 
 yearn and cry out for an ideal king and kingdom, sure to 
 come eventually among man, and be — 
 
 ^ I Sam. ii. lo. ' His anointed ' is literally ' His Messiah.' 
 ^ Deut. xxxii. 43. 
 
38 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 'As the light of the morning, when the sun ariseth, 
 A morning without clouds; 
 As when the tender grass springeth out of the earth, 
 Through clear shining after rain^' 
 
 For all these songs, however intensely Hebrew, are 
 yet more intensely human. Hebrew in their form and 
 dress, yet in their body, soul, and spirit they belong to 
 humanity. ' Their line goes out through all the earth : 
 their words to the world's end.' It is this endless power 
 of stimulus these songs contain, that gives them their 
 undying and universal mission, Their horizon widens 
 as the ages roll ; and they become like a rainbow of 
 hope and mercy, with ever-opening archway across the 
 heaven of human outlook. 
 
 'They live again 
 In minds made better by their presence: live 
 In deeds of daring rectitude : in scorn 
 For miserable aims to end with self: 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night Hke stars, 
 And with their mild persistence, urge man's search 
 To vaster issues.' 
 
 ^ 2 Sam. xxiii. 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE 
 RED SEA. 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES. 
 
 Exodus XV. i-i8. 
 
 1 I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously : 
 The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. 
 
 2 The Lord is my strength and song, 
 And He is become my salvation : 
 
 This is my God, and I will praise Him ; 
 My father's God, and I will exalt Him. 
 
 3 The Lord is a man of war : 
 The Lord is His name. 
 
 4 Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea : 
 And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. 
 
 5 The deeps cover them: 
 
 They went down into the depths like a stone. 
 
 6 Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power. 
 
 Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy. 
 
 7 And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou over- 
 
 throwest them that rise up against Thee: 
 Thou sendeth forth Thy wrath, it consumeth them as stubble. 
 
 8 And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were piled up, 
 The floods stood upright as an heap; 
 
 The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. 
 
 9 The enemy said, 
 
 I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil : 
 
 My lust shall be satisfied upon them ; 
 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 
 
 10 Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them: 
 They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 
 
 11 Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? 
 Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, 
 
 Fearful in praises, doing wonders? 
 
 12 Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand. 
 The earth swallowed them. 
 
 13 Thou in Thy mercy hast led the people which Thou hast 
 
 redeemed : 
 Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy 
 habitation. 
 
 14 The peoples have heard, they tremble: 
 
 Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. 41 
 
 15 Then were the dukes of Edom amazed; 
 
 The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them : 
 All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. 
 
 16 Terror and dread falleth upon them ; 
 
 By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone ; 
 Till Thy people pass over, O Lord, 
 Till the people pass over which Thou hast purchased. 
 • 17 Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the moun- 
 tain of Thine inheritance, 
 The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to 
 
 dwell in. 
 The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. 
 18 The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. 
 
 Unwonted interest attaches to this song — the earliest 
 on record of all the sacred odes, and the very foremost 
 in the annals of Hebrew anthology. To the Jewish 
 people themselves, it is what they have long called 
 it, ' The Song ' ; a designation to which it is entitled, 
 alike from its inherent pre-eminence and its unrivalled 
 associations. 
 
 It is Israel's natal song. For in crossing the Red Sea, 
 they passed through the birth-throes of their national 
 existence, and from this epoch dates a new chronology 
 in Israel's calendar. The oppressed tribes have become 
 a commonwealth ; and a commonwealth of the free. 
 
 It is Israel's emancipation song, or song of liberty. It 
 signalises a triple deliverance ; marking the supreme 
 moment of rescue from the threefold evils of domestic 
 slavery, political bondage, and religious thraldom. What 
 a transition, even geographically ! A single night's march 
 had swept them from one continent into another, and 
 left a 'silver streak of sea' between. In the evening 
 they were an African population ; the morning found 
 them on their ancestral Asian soil. When the people 
 reached that further shore, they bounded into freedom ; 
 and this is the glad sound of their release, the antici- 
 
42 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 pation of all jubilee songs of liberty. It could not but 
 be the happy era of song ; and so we read of it in 
 Hosea^ ' She shall sing, as in the days of her youth; 
 even as in the day when she came up out of the land of 
 Egypt.' 
 
 It is l^xdi^ s first National Anthem and Te Deum in one. 
 The Exodus was not a mere effort on the part of the 
 Hebrew race to achieve their independence and realize 
 their aspirations after a separate nationality. The spirit 
 of even this idea had yet to be created within them ; 
 but everything depended on their being first delivered 
 from the corrupting influences of Egyptian fetichism and 
 idolatry, no less than from the yoke of Egyptian bond- 
 age. Not that the mass of them could at all appreciate 
 the full meaning of the grand event as a mighty religious 
 movement, repeating on a larger scale the migration of 
 Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and breaking away 
 from idolatrous and debasing superstitions, to find a 
 home for the free development of a higher creed and 
 worship. But the eye of their great leader descried this 
 divine purpose ; and he had gone with this first tentative 
 proposal' to Pharaoh from God, ' Let My people go, that 
 they may se7've Me in the wilderness.' For the grinding 
 tyranny under which the tribes were groaning extended 
 to their religion, which was likely to be crushed out 
 entirely, as the fatal fetters of heathen usage tightened 
 around them. One effective stroke could alone free 
 them for ever from the snares of polytheism — from the 
 unclean, yet fascinating worship of animals, the bull 
 Apis, the goat of Mendes, the calf of Memphis, the croco- 
 dile of Ombos, and whatever else of forms human, bestial, 
 or symbolic the great temples held in their dark recesses ^. 
 
 * Hosea ii. 15. 
 
 * Luciany the Greek satirist, says, ' If you go to Egypt, you will find 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. 43 
 
 It is Israel's Te Detim, or song of thanks and praise 
 to God. An overwhelming sense of the divine inter- 
 position is the predominant sentiment in the song from 
 first to last. It is no mere secular ode ; no mere war- 
 song or outburst of patriotic triumph ; no exultant shriek 
 of insult over a fallen foe ; but an anthem of blessing 
 and gratitude for a great deliverance, a devout and 
 solemn Psalm before God, to whom, of whom, and for 
 whom it is sung. This high and sacred intent keeps it 
 from degenerating into a wild strain of vindictiveness or 
 vainglory. The Lord alone is exalted, not a word being 
 uttered to the glory of the people or their great leader. 
 Hence the descriptive element is everywhere subordi- 
 nated to the devotional and adoring. It is a hymn for 
 spiritual worship. 
 
 It is Israel's Church-song \ the type of all songs of 
 redemption and salvation. The very words ' redemption ' 
 and ' salvation ' are first introduced in connection with 
 this great deliverance. ' I will redeem you with an out- 
 stretched arm ^ ; ' and again, ' Fear ye not ; stand still, 
 and see the salvation of the Lord ^.' The people had 
 become unified into a worshipping assembly. The nation 
 has become a Church ; the Theocracy has begun. 
 
 It is Israel's triumph-song of deliverance. The note is 
 that of joy and victory ; and is prophetic of the success 
 of every battle and struggle for the Lord's cause and 
 kingdom, fought in the Lord's name and in His strength. 
 This triumph is the precursor especially of that final and 
 glorious one at the end of the ages, when the spiritual 
 Israel, which no man can number, from every people. 
 
 Jupiter with the face of a ram, Mercury as a dog, Pan a goat. The ibis is 
 a god, so is the crocodile, so is the ape. Shaven priests tell us that the gods 
 in panic terror assumed these shapes, when the giants rebelled.' 
 ^ Exod. vi. 6. "^ Exod. xiv. 13. 
 
44 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and tribe and language, ' having gotten the victory over 
 the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and 
 over the number of his name,' shall take up a position 
 like their prototypes of old — not, however, by the shore 
 of the Red Sea, with the mere emblem of God's presence 
 before them — but as John saw them in apocalyptic 
 vision, standing by the sea of glass mingled with fire ; 
 no longer led merely by Miriam and her chorus^ but all 
 of them having the harp of God in their hand, singing, 
 not only 'the Song of Moses, the servant of God,' but 
 ' the Song of the Lamb,' saying, — 
 
 'Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord God, the 
 
 Almighty ; 
 Righteous and true are Thy ways, Thou King of the ages. 
 Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name .? 
 
 for Thou only art holy. 
 For all the nations shall come and worship before Thee; 
 
 for Thy righteous acts have been made manifest ^' 
 
 There are different methods of dividing the song, as 
 it is borne forward in wave after wave, until it breaks with 
 its mightiest billow at last, ' The LORD shall reign for 
 ever and ever.' For rhusical rendering, some parts would 
 require to be dealt with as recitative, and some as choral 
 or responsive ; some in a declarative or descriptive tone ; 
 and others in a tone devoutly ascriptive. For our pre- 
 sent purpose of edification we shall consider it in three 
 divisions : — 
 
 Part I. Introduction : or the triple aim of the song, ver. 
 
 I, 2. 
 
 Part IT. The body, or subject-matter of the song, ver. 
 3-13- 
 
 Part IIL Conclusion: with its threefold issues, ver. 14-18. 
 
 ^ Rev. XV. 2-4. 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. 45 
 
 PART I. 
 Introduction : or the Triple Aim of the Song. 
 
 1 * I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed glori- 
 
 ously : 
 The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. 
 
 2 The Lord is my strength and song, 
 And He is become my salvation : 
 
 This is my God, and I will praise Him; 
 My father's God, and I will exalt Him.' 
 
 Thus the song is, first of all, inscribed and offered to 
 the Lord. He also is its great theme or subject ; and 
 it is His exaltation that constitutes its one and expressly 
 avowed aim. To God, of God, for God — these are the 
 three pivot-thoughts regulating and determining the 
 movement of the opening strophe, and, indeed, of the 
 entire hymn. Here, as not infrequently with later psalms, 
 we have the whole song concentrated in the first verse. 
 The occasion of the song, its subject, its design, are all 
 indicated. 
 
 ' I will sing unto Jahve (Jehovah), for He is lifted on high, 
 on high, 
 The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.' 
 
 By this sudden dashing into the very heart of the 
 subject, and by the repetition of ' on high, on high,' we 
 are made to feel how deeply the singer has been stirred 
 by those august scenes of which he has been an eye- 
 witness, and how, in common with the seething, surging 
 mass of a redeemed people, he has been thrilled with 
 the intensely solemn event of the hour. 
 
 First, there is here a singing to the LORD. The sim- 
 plest idea we can attach to the opening words, ' I will 
 sing to the Lord,' is this— I will bring myself into the 
 immediate and felt presence of Jehovah, and will address 
 
46 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and offer my song to Him ! How near has He been to 
 us during the eventful and stupendous transactions of 
 the night ! Under a realising sense of that nearness I 
 will direct my song to Him. To what a pitch of solem- 
 nity this conception raises the singer ! God Himself is 
 his auditor : and this consciousness of being before God 
 broods over his thoughts, and invests the song with a 
 sacred glow. Hence, after a brief interval, it rises into 
 a strain of the most direct and impassioned personal 
 address : — 
 
 ' Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power ; 
 Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy.' 
 
 And this direct style of approach and address to God is 
 continually recurring throughout the hymn. 
 
 But while this idea of singing to the Lord is expressive 
 of the singer's attitude as immediately before the very 
 face of the Supreme, it no less indicates that the song is 
 an acceptable offering and oblation to the Lord. It is 
 no self-pleasing exercise of gift and faculty, but 'a 
 sacrifice to the Lord, the fruit of the lips.' That God 
 may be approached with singing ; that it pleases Him 
 ' to dwell amid the praises of Israel ' ; that He delights 
 in such expressions of creaturely delights in Himself; 
 that He does not grudge us these happy ebullitions of 
 grateful admiration and reverence, — what an ideal of pure 
 and spiritual worship this suggests ! This was one of 
 the felicities of the Israelitish creed and worship. 
 
 ' I will sing unto the Lord, 
 For He is gloriously glorified.' 
 
 ' Singing,' says one, ' is as much the language of holy 
 joy as prayer is the language of holy desire.' How 
 sublime a sight ! The whole of a people singing before 
 the one invisible God, and consciously realising more or 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. 47 
 
 less their direct relation to the Eternal, under no out- 
 ward form or image or material symbol! Heathenism 
 doubtless has its hymns to the gods ; but these are 
 descriptive presentations^ more of the nature of bribes 
 for favours to come than outbursts of grateful acknow- 
 ledgment for services already rendered ; more for the 
 purpose of deprecating their wrath than expressive of 
 their honour ; more with the view of making other gods 
 envious, and constraining their assistance thereby, than 
 free and joyous effusions of admiring, reverential, and 
 consecrative praise. But this great offering of song 
 unto the LORD is one of those elevating and purifying 
 principles of worship in the Mosaic economy ensuring 
 the removal of grosser elements ; prophetic and prepara- 
 tory of a purely spiritual system apart from bloody 
 rites and blazing holocausts ; and laden with the gracious 
 summons and directory, ' Make a joyful noise unto the 
 Lord, all ye lands : serve the LORD with gladness ; 
 come before His presence with singing.' For, secondly, 
 we have here a singing of the LORD. The song is 
 both about the LORD and from Him. 
 
 ' My strength and song is Jab, 
 And He has become to me for salvation.' 
 
 The word for song here is a peculiar one. It is a poetic 
 and primitive word, different from the one already used 
 for singing. It means the subject or theme of my 
 song. What is the force of the stanza but this? — the 
 Lord is both the inspiration and the matter of my 
 song : He it is that gives vigour and meaning and ani- 
 mation to it, as being both the source and the theme of 
 it, especially considering how He has Himself become 
 our very salvation. 
 
 Secondly, the LORD is the subject or theme of the song. 
 Underlying all is the sense of the divine personality. 
 
48 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Nothing but this could have kindled the soul to song. 
 If God is to be the subject of hymning praise, it must 
 needs be the thought of a living, personal one, to evoke 
 the spirit of glorying in and praising His name. That 
 God is to be the theme is made singularly evident, 
 inasmuch as no fewer than four names of God, embracing 
 two classes, with a long and short form of each ^, are 
 pressed into use in the opening lines — a very suggestive 
 and significant indication of the importance of the 
 theme. The LORD is the sotLrce and inspiration of my 
 song. The first clause, ' Jah is my strength^ some would 
 prefer to render ' Jah is my praise', and others prefer an 
 intermediate sense, ' Jah is my glory ^ All these three 
 senses are intimately related. For whatever we regard 
 as our strength or might, we readily make a matter of 
 boast or glory ^ and the transition is easy from glory to 
 praise. For glorifying is the inward mental process of 
 which praising is simply the outward or verbal expres- 
 sion. Thus, ' Jah is my strength,' is meant to set Him 
 
 ^ The following will present these names and their order to the reader: — 
 * I will sing unto Jehovah ( Jahveh), for He is lifted on high, on high ; 
 The horse and his rider hatla He thrown into the sea, 
 Jah is my strength and song. 
 And He is become my salvation. 
 This is my El, and I will praise Him ; 
 The Elohim of my father, and I will exalt Him.' 
 Names, especially divine names, were inconceivably more important to the 
 Jewish mind than to us. They were more immediate realities with them. 
 
 Jehovah (now more commonly and correctly written Jahveh, of which 
 Jah is the contraction) was the proper name : ' the sacred and covenant 
 name, the tetra-grammaton or shem-hamphorash, too sacred to be pro- 
 nounced, and the grand bulwark against idolatry and the idea of local 
 deities or of dynasties of gods. It means the self-existent, the Eternal I AM : 
 the incommunicable perfection of the divine essence. This name was the 
 abbreviated creed or symbol of all revealed religion ; and round it the 
 warmest thoughts and the tenderest feelings of devotion gathered. El or 
 Elohim, on the other hand, is the generic or common name for God or 
 gods — pointing to a certain internal variety or manifoldness. It means the 
 strong one, the supreme ; either the supreme object of worship or the 
 supreme ruler, or both.' 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. 49 
 
 forth as the spring and source of my song as well as its 
 theme, the ground of my glorying and the uplifter and 
 sustainer of my praise. And truly, unless He be the 
 strength of our heart, how can we make our glory and 
 boast of Him ? and if He be not our glory and boast, how 
 can we make Him sincerely our praise ? Finally, the 
 Lord is the strength of my song, because He is become 
 my salvation. For it is salvation that kindles song, and 
 not merely the salvation which the Lord has wrought 
 and brought, but the salvation which He in Himself is. 
 What importance belongs to this sentiment may be 
 judged from the quoting of this line twice over in 
 Psalm and Prophecy ^, and the application of it in both 
 cases to the spiritual salvation which finds in God both 
 its source and its ultimate issue. A man saved from 
 perdition, a man rescued from the pursuing foe, a man 
 with his feet safe again on the solid shore, with a new- 
 born sense of release and the air of a freshly acquired 
 freedom breathing around him — that is the man to sing 
 a song, to lift up to God the voice of praise, with the 
 Lord and His doings, for the alone subject of his strains. 
 Thirdly, there is here a singing, not only to the LORD 
 and ofXhQ Lord, hut for the Lord. 
 
 ' This is my God, and I will praise Him ; 
 My father's God, and I will exalt Him.' 
 
 To extol and exalt the Lord is thus declared to be 
 the ultimate end and aim of this song. And indeed this 
 is the highest reach and the final purpose of all praise — 
 to manifest and express the divine character, the divine 
 working and ways, the divine glory and honour. We 
 are taught to pray for God as well as to Him ; and to 
 put this ever in the foreground of our prayers, as of all 
 
 ' Psalm cxviii. 14, and Isaiah xii. 2. 
 D 
 
50 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 things the first, the best, the supremely desirable. ' Hal- 
 lowed by Thy name : Thy kingdom come : Thy will be 
 done' — these petitions have the precedence over any for 
 either ourselves or others. But not only to do this, but 
 also to express it and set forth our purpose to do it — 
 this is the special aim and function of praise, of which 
 ' Doxology,' or the ascription of power, blessing, do- 
 minion, and every excellency, is the highest climax. In 
 every other exercise of worship we have some regard to 
 our own edification, our own wants, our own necessities. 
 But ' whoso offereth praise,' it is said, ' glorifieth Me/ 
 for then God alone fills the whole horizon of vision : 
 nothing else and no one else comes into the field of 
 view : the whole being is caught up into a rapture of 
 delight, and filled and absorbed with a self-forgetting 
 spirit. The singer is borne away out of any self-seeking, 
 or any desire to glorify his people. He is lost in wonder, 
 love, and praise of God alone. To exalt the Lord ; to 
 set His doings in their true light ; to vindicate the honour 
 of His name ; to seize the opportunity of paying due 
 homage to God Himself and to make Him better known 
 and understood, more fully trusted, obeyed, and gloried in 
 — this is the sublime motif of the song. All else is for- 
 gotten or pushed aside. No mention here of the dignity 
 and calm grandeur of the great leader of Israel in this 
 emergency, and no reference to popular enthusiasm or 
 heroic action of any of their chiefs ! There is no apo- 
 strophe to winds and waves, and no heathenish address 
 to them. The singer gets behind all forces and instru- 
 mentalities ; and if he sing of mercies and triumph, it is 
 in no base, sordid, or self-seeking spirit. For, 
 
 ' This is my God, and I will praise Him : 
 My father's God, and I will exalt Him' 
 
 There is no higher attitude than this for the human 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. ^l 
 
 Spirit : where God alone is the all-sufficing object of 
 delight. It is the very anticipation of heaven itself and 
 of all its worship. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Body, or Subject-matter of the Song. 
 
 g I 3 The Lord is a man of war: 
 ^ I The Lord is His name. 
 
 / 4 Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into 
 .| I the sea : 
 
 .| "^1 And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. 
 
 j^ 5 The deeps cover them : 
 
 V They went down into the depths like a stone. 
 / 6 Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power: 
 
 Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the 
 
 enemy. 
 And in the greatness of Thine excellency Thou over- 
 throwest them that rise up against Thee: 
 •■|i -( Thou sendest forth Thy wrath, it consumeth them 
 
 as stubble. 
 
 8 And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were 
 piled up, 
 
 The floods stood upright as an heap; 
 
 The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. 
 
 9 The enemy said, 
 I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil : 
 My lust shall be satisfied upon them; 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 
 
 10 Thou didst blow wdth Thy wind, the sea covered 
 them : 
 
 They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 
 
 1 1 Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods ? 
 Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, 
 Fearful in praises, doing wonders ? 
 
 12 Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand, 
 The earth swallowed them. 
 
 13 Thou in Thy mercy hast led the people which Thou 
 hast redeemed: 
 
 Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy 
 habitation. 
 
 D a 
 
 H 
 
5^ . EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 The third verse seems to be designed for a great 
 chorus — probably meant to be re-echoed by a body of 
 deep-voiced warriors. It marks a transition from the 
 declarative style of the introduction, to the alternation 
 of recitative and ascriptive portions in the main body of 
 the song. It forms also a suitable link between the two, 
 being a fit climax to what precedes, because it sets forth 
 why and in what character the Lord is to be exalted — 
 ' the Lord is a man of war ' — and a fit index to what 
 follows, because it suggests, so strikingly, the nature of 
 His triumph which is now about to be celebrated ; a 
 triumph involving struggle and conflict. The phrase ' a 
 man of war ^,' is both a striking Hebrew idiom and a 
 bold and picturesque figure, enclosing in the mystic folds 
 of its poetic drapery a living breathing reality. Such a 
 metaphor acts like a parable in both training and testing 
 the religious susceptibilities of men ; partly revealing 
 and partly concealing what it contains ; vitalising the 
 truth it is meant to convey, and bringing the divine 
 action within the scope of human modes of procedure. It 
 is a revelation not so much of what God is, as of the way 
 He stands to us and the way we ought to be affected 
 towards Him. We all speak in figures when we 
 speak dramatically, impressively, and with warmth of 
 feeling meant to move the feeling of others. And to 
 say, ' The LORD is a man of war,' not only never dimi- 
 nishes real reverence, but greatly enhances it. Without 
 
 ^ We ourselves say 'a man of note,' or 'a man of weight'; but the 
 Hebrews were peculiarly fond of this mode of expressing some eminent 
 . quality, as ' a man of words ' for an eloquent man ; ' a man of arm ' for 
 a strong man ; ' a man of form ' for a handsome man. It is often used 
 figuratively, as here, 'a man of war,' just as when we speak of 'a heart of 
 stone.' But what should we think, were we to say warmly, ' that man has a 
 heart of stone,' if a mineralogically disposed being were to insist on know- 
 ing to which class of stones it belonged ? Such prosaism would be resented as 
 intolerable. 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. ^^ 
 
 impairing the divine majesty, it brings God within the 
 range of our interest and sympathy, and makes the 
 knowledge of Him alive and operative ; while the solemn 
 addition 'Jehovah is His name' warns us not to carry 
 the figure too far, and acts as a safeguard against attribut- 
 ing to God the acts and spirit of mere ordinary human 
 warfare. He is ' a man of war ' in accordance always 
 with His sublime and sacred name Jehovah. The song 
 proceeds to develop the three great qualities of the 
 Jehovah- warrior, the Warrior who is divine. He is (i) In 
 Power resistless ; (3) In Equity unchallengeable ; and 
 (3) In Mercy plenteous. 
 
 He is in Power resistless. This power is seen first in 
 the magnitude of the scale on which it operates — the 
 sense of this being enhanced by the detail of particulars 
 in verse 4. Pharaoh's chariots ^, and his host, and his 
 chosen captains. Then, again, in the ease with which 
 it effects its object as He ' casts ' them into the sea — it 
 is as if He had caught up the whole host in His hand, 
 and slung it like a stone into the deep ; and finally, in 
 the completeness of the overthrow and the irreversible and 
 irretrievable nature of the result. 
 
 ' The deeps cover them : 
 They went down into the depths like a stone.' 
 
 Chariot and horse and rider, in ' one dread burial blent.' 
 It is the final and staggering stroke. 
 
 ^ There is a special religious significance here. Pharaoh is specified by 
 name, as if a blow were now struck at Pharaoh-worship, of which, accord- 
 ing to recent Egyptologists, Raamses was the seat, religious homage being 
 enforced toward the reigning monarch under the title of ' The God-King.' 
 As the first great plagues were directed against serpent-worship, Nile- 
 worship, and other forms of idolatry, this closing catastrophe was a blow at 
 Pharaoh-worship, the last affront to the sole worship and sovereignty 
 of God ; and so it fulfilled the outstanding threat, ' On all the gods of Egypt 
 will I execute judgment ; I am Jehovah.' Exod. xii. 12. 
 
54 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 ' And none shall return to tell Egypt the story, 
 Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride.' 
 
 Having thus signalised the catastrophe, the poet's 
 inspiration seems to catch a new afflatus. The style 
 suddenly changes in verses 6, 7, and 8 ; it ceases to be 
 merely descriptive, and becomes directly ascriptive. The 
 tone is now lofty and devout, God being addressed 
 immediately in the second person, and the whole event 
 being attributed to the interposition and miraculous 
 operation of His power alone. 
 
 ' Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power : 
 Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy.' 
 
 He is in eqtiity and righteottsness unchallengeable. The 
 ' equity and righteousness ' is as manifest as the power. 
 We are taught in verse 7 to regard the whole situation 
 as intended for a display of 'the divine excellency': so 
 true, so timely, and so exemplary it is in its manifesta- 
 tion. 
 
 With consummate ease, but with no less consummate 
 justice, the dread penalty is enacted ; to show how ' He 
 is glorious in holiness and fearful in praises' while 'doing 
 wonders.' For it is intimated that Egypt, in what it 
 was doing, was not only ' the enemy ' of Israel, but it 
 was ' of them that rose up against Thee' ; fighting against 
 the Almighty and violating the first principles of divine 
 justice, truth, and mercy. The victims of the catastrophe 
 were the fit subjects of a retributive and self- vindicating 
 economy. Moreover, it was so well-timed. They were 
 taken, as it were, red-handed, in the very act ; at the 
 very moment they were anticipating their revenge 
 and gloating in its gratification. The enemy was 
 saying : — 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. ^5 
 
 ' I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; 
 My lust shall be glutted on them, 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.' 
 
 When — (and how sublimely the contrast is conveyed 
 from the noise, bustle, and loud threatenings of verse 9, 
 to the quiet but august style of verse 10) 
 
 ' Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them, 
 They sank as lead in the mighty waters.' 
 
 A new and impressive revelation of the divine character 
 and method of procedure was thus afforded, and an 
 exemplary lesson read for all time coming, as to the 
 over-ruling and holy providence of the Most High. 
 
 ' Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness ? ' 
 
 While they were intoxicated with insolence and pride ; 
 while they were breathing out threatening and cruelty, 
 the Lord speaks to them in wrath ; the Lord holds 
 them in derision. 
 
 ' Sing ! for the pride of the tyrant is broken. 
 His chariots and horsemen, all splendid and brave, 
 How vain was their boasting ! the Lord hath but spoken, 
 And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.' 
 
 Yet finally. He is in mercy plenteotcs. We have to note 
 the goodness, no less than the severity, of God here. 
 The reiteration inverse 12 of what has been said before, 
 seems designedly made to enhance the sublime and 
 suggestive contrast. ' Thou stretchedst out Thy right 
 hand. The earth swallowed them. Thou in Thy mercy 
 hast led the people which Thou hast redeemed! It is 
 the mercy of redemption that is celebrated, and for which 
 the Lord is praised as a man of war. No doubt the 
 salvation comes through destruction, and deliverance 
 
5^ EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 through overthrow. But there is here no cruel gloating 
 over the destruction, no shriek of barbarous delight and 
 insult over the bodies of the foe. This is no end in itself, 
 but only a means to the end. Mercy triumphs over 
 wrath. Israel would have been dragged back to bond- 
 age had not the waters overwhelmed the Egyptians ; 
 but it is the merciful escape that is ultimately gloried 
 in and celebrated; 
 
 * Yes ! 'mid yon angry and destroying signs, 
 For us the rainbow of Thy mercy shines : 
 We hail, we bless, the covenant's bright beam, 
 Almighty to avenge, Almighties t to redeem! 
 
 PART III. 
 
 The Threefold Issues. 
 
 14 The peoples have heard, they tremble: 
 Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. 
 
 1 5 Then were the dukes of Edom amazed ; 
 The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold 
 
 upon them : 
 All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. 
 
 1 6 Terror and dread falleth upon them ; 
 By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as 
 
 a stone ; 
 Till Thy people pass over, O Lord, 
 Till the people pass over which Thou hast purchased. 
 
 17 Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the 
 mountain of Thine inheritance, 
 
 The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee 
 
 to dwell in. 
 The sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have 
 
 established. 
 
 cTorus }^^ '^^^ Lord shall reign for ever and ever. 
 
 In this third and last wave of the anthem, the divine 
 mercy in the redemption of Israel is illustrated. The 
 song becomes prophetic ; and three grand issues are 
 
 
 
THE SONG OF MOSES AT THE RED SEA. ^"J 
 
 described and anticipated, an immediate, an intermediate, 
 and a final one. Like a stone cast into water, as we 
 have already said, which creates concentric circles widen- 
 ing as they multiply, so this casting of Pharaoh's host 
 into the Red Sea is destined to stir movements in the 
 tide of things that eddy further and further as they roll. 
 The three selected cycles of events are : — 
 
 1 . The immediate influence of the Exodus and passage 
 of the Red Sea, on the tribes and peoples around, verses 
 14-16. A striking gradation is observed in describing 
 the various effects : there is first a widespread panic 
 and commotion in general, then the chiefs or phylarchs 
 of Edom are paralyzed with terror ; the mighty men 
 of Moab tremble with uncontrollable fear ; and finally 
 the Canaanites melt away in despair. 
 
 2. There is an intermediate or remoter influence on 
 the ultimate settlement and final destiny of Israel. So 
 great an initial triumph was a happy augury and a sure 
 prognostication of coming success. It was to be accepted 
 as a divine pledge of all needful aid and succour, until 
 at length they should be firmly established in the pro- 
 mised land, as a nation, a race or family, and a Church. 
 For in verse 17 we have a climax with three particulars, 
 in which Israel is presented in three aspects, and their 
 land is set forth in the triple character of an inheritance^ 
 a home^ and a sanctuary, awakening the chords of 
 patriotism, ancestry, and worship. A line is devoted 
 to each of these, full of condensed and concentrated 
 energy of feeling. ' Thou shalt bring them in, and plant 
 them in the mountain of Thine inheritance.' Here the 
 nation is represented under the well-known figure of 
 a vine, and of its being transplanted into a more con- 
 genial climate and soil. Then next, the heads of the 
 tribes are represented as being united into one in a 
 
58 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 theocracy, ' a place, O Lord, Thou hast made for Thyself 
 to dwell in.' And finally the nation is a Church, with 
 its one fixed seat of sacrifice and worship, 'the sanc- 
 tuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.' 
 
 3. There is the last great issue of all, ' The Lord 
 shall reign for ever and ever.' The prophecy of this 
 song reaches thus onward to the end of all things ; for 
 the deliverance of Israel was not merely typical of, but 
 actually a part and instalment of, the final redemption. 
 And therefore, this song of Moses is not only the key- 
 note and inspiration of the songs of the Old Testament 
 Church, but a song of the Church in every age, cele- 
 brating as it does an event and deliverance not only 
 pledging but vitally contributing to the last great acts 
 in the onward triumph of Christ's complete redemption. 
 And therefore it will ever be associated, and even mingle 
 at length, with the ' Song of the Lamb,' because they 
 both alike sing of the great redemption which from the 
 beginning has been, and ever will be, the one real subject 
 of the Church's praise. And even in heaven itself the 
 ransomed find their highest employ in singing ' the Song 
 of Moses the servant of God, and the Song of the Lamb,' 
 whose final note is here given for the first time, ' the 
 Lord shall reign for ever and ever,' and it is repeated 
 in apocalyptic vision, when ' there followed great voices 
 in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is 
 become the kingdom of our Lord, and His Christ ; and 
 He shall reign for ever and ever ^.' 
 
 1 Rev. xi. J (^. 
 
THE DEUTERONOMIC SONG, 
 
 OR 
 
 FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 
 
Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make 
 
 A last and lasting'st piece— A Song. He spake 
 
 To Moses to deliver unto all 
 
 That Song : because He knew they would let fall 
 
 The Law, the Prophets, and the History, 
 
 But keep the Song still in their memory/ 
 
 Donne, Anatomy of the World. 
 
 ' A harmony that finding vent 
 Upward in grand ascension went, 
 Winged to a heavenly argument. 
 A harmony sublime and plain, 
 Which cleft, as dying swan the rain, 
 Throwing the drops off with a strain 
 Of her white wings.' 
 
 Browning. 
 
 'A terrible sagacity informs 
 The prophet's heart ; he looks to distant storms ; 
 He hears the thunder, ere the tempest lowers, 
 And armed with strength surpassing human powers, 
 Seizes events as yet unknown to man, 
 And darts his soul into the dawning plan.' 
 
 CowPER, Tad/e Talk. 
 
THE DEUTERONOMIC SONG, 
 
 OR 
 
 FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 1-43. 
 
 Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; 
 
 And let the earth hear the words of my mouth : 
 
 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
 
 My speech shall distil as the dew ; 
 
 As the small rain upon the tender grass. 
 
 And as the showers upon the herb : 
 
 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord: 
 
 Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. 
 
 The Rock, His work is perfect; 
 
 For all His ways are judgement : 
 
 A God of faithfulness and without iniquity. 
 
 Just and right is He. 
 
 They have dealt corruptly with Him, they are not His 
 children, it is their blemish; 
 
 They are a perverse and crooked generation. 
 
 Do ye thus requite the Lord, 
 
 O foolish people and unwise ? 
 
 Is not He Thy Father that hath bought thee ? 
 
 He hath made thee, and established thee. 
 
 Remember the days of old, 
 
 Consider the years of many generations: 
 
 Ask thy father, and he will shew thee ; 
 
 Thine elders, and they will tell thee. 
 
 When the Most High gave to the nations their inherit- 
 ance. 
 
 When He separated the children of men. 
 
 He set the bounds of the peoples 
 
 According to the number of the children of Israel. 
 
 For the Lord's portion is His people; 
 
 Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. 
 
62 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 I He found him in a desert land, 
 
 And in the waste howling wilderness ; 
 
 He compassed him about, He cared for him, 
 
 He kept him as the apple of His eye: 
 
 II As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, 
 That fluttereth over her young, 
 
 He spread abroad His wings, He took them, 
 He bare them on His pinions : 
 
 12 The Lord alone did lead him, 
 
 And there was no strange god with him. 
 
 13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, 
 And he did eat the increase of the field ; 
 
 And He made him to suck honey out of the rock, 
 And oil out of the flinty rock; 
 
 14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, 
 With fat of lambs, 
 
 And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats. 
 
 With the fat of kidneys of wheat; 
 
 And of the blood of the grape thou drankest wine. 
 
 15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: 
 
 Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art be- 
 come sleek : 
 Then he forsook God which made him, 
 And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 
 
 16 They moved Him to jealousy with strange gods, 
 With abominations provoked they Him to anger. 
 
 17 They sacrificed unto demons, which were no God, 
 To gods whom they knew not. 
 
 To new gods that came up of late. 
 Whom your fathers dreaded not. 
 
 18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful. 
 And hast forgotten God that gave thee birth. 
 
 19 And the Lord saw it, and abhorred them. 
 
 Because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. 
 
 20 And He said, I will hide My face from them, 
 I will see what their end shall be : 
 
 For they are a very froward generation. 
 Children in whom is no faith. 
 
 2 1 They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not 
 
 God; 
 They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 6^ 
 
 And I will move them to jealousy with those which are 
 
 not a people; 
 I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 
 2 2 For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, 
 And burneth unto the lowest pit, 
 And devoureth the earth with her increase, 
 And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains. 
 
 23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; 
 
 I will spend Mine arrows upon them : 
 
 24 They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with 
 
 burning heat 
 And bitter destruction; 
 
 And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, 
 With the poison of crawling things of the dust. 
 
 25 Without shall the sword bereave, 
 And in the chambers terror; 
 
 It shall destroy both young man and virgin. 
 The suckling with the man of gray hairs. 
 
 26 I said, I would scatter them afar, 
 
 I would make the remembrance of them to cease from 
 among men : 
 
 27 Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, 
 Lest their adversaries should misdeem, 
 
 Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted. 
 And the Lord hath not done all this. 
 
 28 For they are a nation void of counsel, 
 And there is no understanding in them. 
 
 29 Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, 
 That they would consider their latter end ! 
 
 30 How should one chase a thousand. 
 And two put ten thousand to flight, 
 Except their Rock had sold them, 
 And the Lord had delivered them up .? 
 
 31 For their rock is not as our Rock, 
 
 Even our enemies themselves being judges. 
 
 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, 
 And of the fields of Gomorrah : 
 Their grapes are grapes of gall, 
 Their clusters are bitter : 
 
 33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, 
 And the cruel venom of asps. 
 
64 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 34 Is not this laid up in store with Me, 
 Sealed up among My treasures ? 
 
 35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompence, 
 At the time when their foot shall slide : 
 For the day of their calamity is at hand, 
 
 And the things that are to come upon them shall make 
 haste. 
 
 36 For the Lord shall judge His people, 
 And repent Himself for His servants; 
 When He seeth that their power is gone. 
 
 And there is none remaining, shut up or left at large. 
 
 37 And He shall say, Where are their gods, 
 The rock in which they trusted ; 
 
 38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, 
 And drank the wine of their drink offering? 
 Let them rise up and help you. 
 
 Let them be your protection. 
 
 39 See now that I, even I, am He, 
 And there is no god with Me : 
 
 I kill, and I make alive; 
 
 I have wounded, and I heal: 
 
 And there is none that can deliver out of My hand. 
 
 40 For I lift up My hand to heaven, 
 And say. As I live for ever, 
 
 41 If I whet My glittering sword. 
 
 And Mine hand take hold on judgement ; 
 I will render vengeance to Mine adversaries. 
 And will recompense them that hate Me. 
 
 42 I will make Mine arrows drunk w^ith blood. 
 And My sword shall devour flesh; 
 
 With the blood of the slain and the captives, 
 From the head of the leaders of the enemy. 
 
 43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people : 
 
 For He will avenge the blood of His servants. 
 And will render vengeance to His adversaries, 
 And will make expiation for His land, for His people. 
 
 A MOST noticeable and outstanding feature of this 
 great song is its series of pictures for the popular imagina- 
 tion, and its long array of vivid figures, to school and 
 chasten a stiff-necked people. There is nothing here 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 65 
 
 of abstract reasoning or cold analysis. Everything is 
 presented in concrete form as to a nation still in its 
 spiritual childhood. This is the educative song of Israel. 
 In tone it is both tender and terrifying. Its imagery, 
 sometimes winning, sometimes startling, lends itself to 
 warmest expostulations and appeals. How graphic and 
 memorable are its emblems ! The divine words are at 
 the outset likened to the gentle rain and dew ; God 
 Himself is the Rock, for stability and faithfulness ; His 
 training of Israel like the eagle with its fledgelings ; the 
 people, an intractable and stubborn ox resentful of the 
 yoke ; their apostate conduct, that of a faithless wife ; 
 the divine love glowing and gleaming about them like 
 the fire of spousal jealousy ; and His indignation like 
 an armed host — these and other figures follow in quick 
 succession, many of them derived from Israel's wilder- 
 ness experiences. For it is the poetry of the desert that 
 dominates the song. Both language and imagery are 
 earnest, simple, and direct, rising ever in sterner rugged- 
 ness as the song moves forward, and as the references 
 thicken to the flaming mountain, the pillar of cloud and 
 fire, the noxious serpents and wine like the poison of 
 asps, the anguish of hunger and thirst, the scattered and 
 bleaching bones, the terrible fights they had encountered, 
 and all the other fierce struggles of their journey. 
 
 But while the imagery is derived from the past, the 
 song itself reaches out to the future. It is in fact a 
 prophetic outline of Jewish history, designed to lodge 
 in the nation's heart the solemn truth that 
 
 ' Sorrow tracketh wrong, 
 As echo follows song.' 
 
 This is the primitive or moral prophecy, the type and 
 canon of all future prophetic work, as Moses' first song 
 was the type of all that was to be spiritually poetic. 
 
 E 
 
66 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Here, in this first germ of prophetism, we find Moses 
 planting himself at the centre of an ever-recurring and 
 ever-widening cycle or process of events — presenting to 
 the people a picture of their high calling and privilege, 
 their marvellous treatment under the divine hand, their 
 frequent apostasy and the execution of the divine sen- 
 tence in judgment and mercy; until at last he is permitted 
 to descry the final issue and outcome of it all, both in 
 respect to the people of Israel themselves, and the wider 
 effects on the destiny of the world at large, in the closing 
 strain, ' Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people.' 
 
 I. God's Words like the Dew and the Rain. 
 
 1 Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; 
 
 And let the earth hear the words of my mouth : 
 
 2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, 
 My speech shall distil as the dew; 
 
 As the small rain upon the tender grass, 
 And as the showers upon the herb : 
 
 3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord : 
 Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. 
 
 The opening is solemn and full of grandeur — ' Give 
 ear, ye heavens, and let the earth hear.' Isaiah makes a 
 similar sublime commencement to his prophecies, apo- 
 strophising heaven and earth in nearly identical language. 
 Moses had already used the same sentiment in simple 
 didactic form when he said, ' I call heaven and earth to 
 witness this day, that I have set before thee life and 
 death, the blessing and the curse ',' and thereby he 
 explains the meaning of this more highly poetic style of 
 adjuration. Such an adjuration indicates great intensity, 
 elevation, and sincerity of feeling, while calling attention 
 to the solemn importance of what is about to be said. 
 It is like a herald's cry, the sound of the tocsin, or the 
 
 ^ Deut. XXX. 19. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 67 
 
 summoning of an assize. For heaven and earth had 
 both of them been witnesses of the covenant and giving 
 of the law. By a sudden but suggestive transition we 
 are introduced to the style and theme of the song. The 
 change is from the awe-inspiring to the tenderest of 
 moods ; but it is made without derogating from the lofti- 
 ness of the thought. The imagery of the gentle rain 
 and the softly distilling dew is a fit sequel to the open- 
 ing appeal to heaven and earth ; and bespeaks attention 
 to the source, the quality, and the design of the song. 
 'My doctrine shall drop as the rain ; my speech distil as 
 the dew.' None can fail to feel the charm of such a 
 metaphor, and its winning power. 
 
 Its source. The reference to dew and rain implies first 
 of all that the whole subject, suggestion, and origin of 
 the song \s from above. Its theme and inspiration alike 
 are heavenly and divine — ' As the rain and snow come 
 down from heaven to water the earth.' We need not 
 discuss the question, Does the dew fall ? Sufificient for 
 the present purpose that it does not originate in the 
 plant, but distils from the quiet, calm, clear, warm heaven. 
 ' For I am about to proclaim the name of the Lord ' — 
 it is from Him, and about Him, and on behalf of Him, I 
 have commission to address you. Hence Jehovah is so 
 often introduced directly speaking in the first person, as 
 if Moses meant to say, ' See that ye refuse not Him that 
 speaketh from heaven.' Nothing but a voice divine will 
 ever avail to subdue or soften human nature, come home 
 to the conscience, subjugate the will and reign in the 
 affections. ' Ascribe ye greatness,"* therefore, that is 
 authoritativeness, ' unto our God.' 
 
 Its quality. ' My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my 
 speech shall distil as the dew.' The song is just the 
 pith and substance of the Book of Deuteronomy ; the 
 
 E 1 
 
68 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 distilled quintessence of the Deuteronomic law emd 
 covenant. As Luther says, ' My best song and my best 
 doctrine shall be the first commandment.' It is a pro- 
 testation that no people or community can ever thrive, 
 surmount their dangers and slough off their corruptions, 
 by simply confining their attention to earthly relations 
 and requisitions. They need a higher motive and spirit 
 of life, as a sustaining and self-cleansing principle — in 
 one word, a gospel of God. ' Now therefore write ye 
 this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel : 
 put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness 
 for Me against the children of Israel . . . And it shall 
 come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come 
 upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a 
 witness ^.' 
 
 Its design. ' As the small rain upon the tender grass, 
 and as the showers upon the herb ; * gentle, yet copious 
 and penetrative ; soft, seasonable and saturating ; not 
 like a sudden but soon spent thunderstorm, nor the beat- 
 ing of hail that dashes where it alights ; rather like small 
 rain, the softer it falls the deeper it sinks ; or like dew, the 
 more insinuating it is, the more fertilising and lastingly 
 effective. 
 
 ' As dew upon the tender herb 
 
 Diffusing fragrance round; 
 
 As showers that usher in the spring 
 
 And cheer the thirsty ground.' 
 
 How fine the suggestion — to connect the might and 
 majesty of God's word with the peaceful and quietly 
 operative, yet fertilising and fructifying, dew and rain ! 
 
 The announcement of the divine name, however 
 awe-inspiring, is alone fitted to penetrate, soften, and 
 fertilise the heart, and make the penitent sin-sorrowing 
 ' Deut. xxxi. 19-21. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 69 
 
 soul receptive of the fruitful seed ! Perhaps the whole is 
 meant, however, rather as a prayer, or ardent yearning — 
 Oh! that my doctrine might drop as the rain and distil 
 as the dew ; — to fertilise the hardened soil, change the 
 bronzed face of Nature, revive the parched verdure, and 
 fill with sap the growing shooting herbage ! 
 
 II. God Himself the Rock. 
 
 4 The Rock, His work is perfect; 
 For all His ways are judgement : 
 
 A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, 
 Just and right is He. 
 
 5 They have dealt corruptly with Him (they are) not His 
 
 children, (it is) their blemish ; 
 (They are) a perverse and crooked generation. 
 
 6 Do ye thus requite the Lord, 
 O foolish people and unwise.? 
 
 Is not He thy Father that hath bought thee ? 
 He hath made thee, and established thee. 
 
 7 Remember the days of old, 
 
 Consider the years of many generations: 
 Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; 
 Thine elders, and they will tell thee. 
 
 8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance. 
 When He separated the children of men. 
 
 He set the bounds of the peoples 
 
 According to the number of the children of Israel. 
 
 9 For the Lord's portion is His people ; 
 Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. 
 
 Seven times does this strong figure the RoCK occur in 
 the song. The metaphor is self-explanatory ; the firmness 
 and stability of rock being a fit emblem of the divine 
 immutability of purpose, and of God being faithful to 
 His covenant and promises. This is the fundamental 
 and ruling and recurring idea of the song, coming in like 
 a refrain, and giving unity to the whole. And how 
 deeply did this image of GOD, the RoCK, take hold 
 
70 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 upon the mind of Israel ! It passed as a familiar com- 
 monplace into their religious speech, and entered widely 
 into the composition of their family and personal names ^. 
 Above all, it found its highest lodgment and its most 
 varied application in the Psalms ; in some of them, like 
 the 1 8th, occurring very frequently, as if the writer loved 
 to roll the word like a sweet morsel under his tongue. 
 
 Here, it stands in the very forefront ; the first word 
 in the construction, to mark the prominence and im- 
 portance we must assign to it. For, besides its native 
 significance of impregnable strength and security, an 
 additional depth and fulness of meaning was imparted 
 to the emblem from Moses' own history and experience. 
 We cannot but think back upon the associations of the 
 word — ' Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the 
 Rock in Horeb ; and thou shalt smite the rock, and 
 there shall come water out of it, that the people may 
 drink ^ ;' or again in a later experience, ' And the Lord 
 said, Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand 
 upon the RoCK ; and it shall come to pass, while My 
 glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the 
 rock, and will cover thee with My hand ^.' So the 
 emblem of the rock acquired new and historical sig- 
 nificance. It gradually passed upwards from an objective 
 to a subjective or experimental application, when not 
 only the nature of the rock but its varied uses afforded 
 fresh and serviceable emblems. The gospel to the Old 
 Testament Church was not merely God is a rock, firm 
 and faithful ; but He is the RoCK, with all the precious 
 associations and all the realised practical value added 
 to the term, whether it were employed for a hiding-place 
 
 ^ The Hebrew word is Zur : hence Eli-zur, my God a rock, Zur-iel, 
 Pedah-zur, and many more. 
 
 ^ Exod. xvii. 6. ^ Exod. xxxiii. 21, 22. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 71 
 
 and protection, or for shade, 'the shadow of a great rock 
 in a weary land,' or, most significantly of all, suggested 
 by the smitten rock in Horeb, a source and guarantee of 
 suitable and sufficient supply in case of dire necessity to 
 the perishing. 'He opened the rock, and waters gushed 
 out: they ran in the dry places like a river ^.' Hence 
 arose the numerous and varied ideas connected with it 
 in the different psalms and other passages in which the 
 word rock is introduced, and hence, too, the personal and 
 experimental avowals of which it is made the subject. 
 ' The Lord is my rock and my deliverer.' ' Unto Thee 
 will I cry, O LORD, my rock.' ' God is the rock of my 
 heart.' ' My God, and the rock of my salvation.' ' O 
 Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.' It is emphatically 
 a covenant word, and speaks the language of redemption. 
 It is not simply God is a rock, immovable and strong, 
 but He is the Rock ; the covenant-making and covenant- 
 keeping rock, the rock made known in historic revelation 
 
 ^ Psalm cv. 41. When the apostle in i Cor. x. 4 calls it ' the spiritual 
 rock which followed them, of which they drank, and that rock was Christ,' 
 he sufficiently cautions us against the rabbinic fancy that the rock, detached 
 from its native precipice, went rolling after Israel in the wilderness, or the 
 hardly less jejune misconception that the water from the smitten rock 
 continued to flow after them in all their subsequent wanderings. What 
 followed them he makes abundantly clear was Christ, of whom the smitten 
 rock was a spiritual emblem ; the great event of that rock and its water-flow 
 abiding with them and everywhere accompanying them, as the outstanding 
 sacramental pledge and memorial that ' when the poor and needy seek 
 water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, and they cry to 
 Me, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.' 
 For what may not He be trusted in matters of deliverance, salvation, and 
 supply of necessities, at Whose command the heavens had rained bread and 
 the very rock yielded plenty of water ? It was in this way, ' the rock in 
 Horeb ' was to the faithful among the people a ' spiritual rock,' a ground of 
 saving faith, and the water that flowed from it was a ' spiritual drink,' 
 a refreshing draught to their faith in God, and not a mere supply of natural 
 wants. The rock so timeously opened was ' the rock of their salvation,' 
 and whether they fully realised or not, to them as to us, ' that Rock was 
 Christ ' ; though now the emblem is made clearer and so much more full 
 of meaning to us, 
 
72 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 with all the wealth of its sacred memories clustering 
 round it. The song proceeds to develop the applicability 
 of the word in a threefold direction, attaching it at once 
 to God's work^ His ways, and His character. ' The RoCK, 
 His WORK is perfect.' The reference is not so much to 
 the fabric of His creation as to His grand providential 
 design or plan. It is not His handiwork, but His inner 
 ideal, His final end and aim, that is here called up to 
 view. No doubt His work as an artificer is perfect ; 
 each production incomparable in finish and flawless in 
 arrangement. The tiniest atom or the slenderest leaf 
 is a world of perfection within itself. Can any machine 
 ever compete in perfectness with that divinely-contrived 
 implement, the human hand ? What jostling, what noise, 
 what toilsomeness in even our best inventions and in our 
 most successful attempts at travel compared, for example, 
 with the silence, steadiness, and smoothness of the earth's 
 movement in her course ! And the highest speed we can 
 produce is slowness itself in comparison ! ' The Rock, 
 His work, is perfect,' considered even as handicraft ; 
 fuller knowledge and closer examination with micro- 
 scopic aids only enabling us the better to descry and 
 appreciate the fact. 
 
 It is not, however, as artificer, but as architect we are 
 here to regard His work as perfect. He has a plan, a 
 providential and redemptive plan, complete in all its 
 details ; leaving no room nor need for after-thoughts, and 
 not requiring re-consideration or amendment. In this 
 respect 'His work is perfect'; and when fully accom- 
 plished will justify and vindicate itself. To understand 
 the divine plan or speak of it aright we must wait till 
 then. * For all His WAYS are judgement ' ; nothing being 
 subject to caprice or arbitrariness. Whatever outward 
 appearances of change or adaptation to altered condi- 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 73 
 
 tions His policy may seem to assume, this is merely 
 phenomenal or superficial in its look ; the faithfulness 
 and unity of His course abide the same. ' He knoweth 
 the way He takes.' His is an immutability of counsel, 
 carried into execution by the good will and purpose He 
 hath purposed in Himself. What a contrast to the feeble, 
 vacillating, arbitrary ways of man ! But above all, He 
 Himself, in His own CHARACTER, is the Rock : and the 
 importance and primary significance of this is delicately 
 conveyed and emphasized in that, while the other 
 previous particulars have had one line assigned to them, 
 this chief particular has tzvo lines : — 
 
 ' A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, 
 Just and right is He.' 
 
 This confidence in the divine nature itself ; in Jehovah's 
 absolute truth and equity; in His unerring rectitude 
 and all-wise faithfulness — this is the supreme resting- 
 place. It is also set forth here as the high well-spring of 
 all dutiful submission, of all loyal-hearted allegiance, and 
 of all uncorruptness in religion and piety. In it the singer 
 finds the strongest ground for rebuke, remonstrance, and 
 reproach to the people. For what a contrast it suggests 
 as to their work, way and character ! 
 
 ' They have dealt corruptly with Him, 
 They are not His children, it is their blemish; 
 They are a perverse and crooked generation.' 
 
 Their work is a reeking heap of self-corruption, their 
 way a blot, and their very nature crooked and perverse. 
 How dismal and pitiable a description ! The one re- 
 deeming feature is that they are not beyond the reach 
 of expostulation and remonstrance. Before considering, 
 however, the way this is administered in the next lines 
 of the song, we must note the difficult expression — ' They 
 
74 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 m'e not His children, it is their blemish/ or in the 
 margin, 'it is a blot upon them/ or in the Common 
 Version, 'Their spot is not the spot of His children/ 
 Some see here an allusion to the incised or painted 
 marks made by idolaters in their foreheads or other 
 parts of their persons, in token of their devotion to some 
 special deity ; the form and colour of the emblem be- 
 tokening their favourite idol. Be this, however, as it 
 may, the general sense will not be seriously affected. 
 Such cuttings in the flesh and daubings with colour were 
 stringently forbidden to Israel in worship ; but these 
 customs of their heathen neighbours were a temptation, 
 too often successful with them. There were badges, 
 however, visible and distinctive badges of their reli- 
 gious profession, which were allowed them and enjoined, 
 and these were emblematic of purity and consecration. 
 Alas ! their badge was often but a blot — (the word is 
 one of evil significance, and carries a reproach in it) 
 their character and conduct belied alike their profession 
 and their privileged position. The name ^ God's children' 
 was dishonoured among them, and that they were not 
 worthily bearing it was a blot on their escutcheon and a 
 stain on their good faith. It justly exposed them to the 
 cutting rebuke, ' Do ye thus requite the LoRD, O foolish 
 people and unwise?' No arrow is so sharp and barbed 
 as a well-timed and well-directed question, winged with 
 such precision as this. It goes straight to the conscience ; 
 and whatever else religion deals with, it must deal 
 primarily with the conscience. The song proceeds to 
 make appeal to the imagination, the memory, the judg- 
 ment, the heart, but all with the view of getting, through 
 them, at the conscience. Its grand purpose is to bring 
 the Lord into contact with the people^s conscience ; 
 and as there are no more effective grappling-hooks with 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. yS 
 
 which to seize the conscience and moor it closely along- 
 side of Him than a series of questions, we have them 
 here in triple array — ' Do ye thus requite the LORD, 
 O foolish people and unwise ? Is not He thy Father that 
 hath bought thee?' that is, hath paid for thine eman- 
 cipation out of Egypt, so that you might get away 
 scatheless and free ? ' Hath not He made and established 
 thee ? ' made a people and nation of thee, given thee a 
 name and place of unprecedented distinction among 
 surrounding tribes, established law and settled institu- 
 tions in your midst, advanced you to peculiar privileges, 
 and put you into the condition of an orderly and well- 
 regulated Church and State ? It was a fit time to recall 
 the past, to remember their original nothingness, to take 
 a review of what they once were, and what they had even 
 already become. And with the promised land, the goal 
 of all their wanderings, now almost in view, and with 
 the bright prospects before them that were more than to 
 realise their cherished dreams, they are asked to 
 
 ' Remember the days of old, 
 Consider the years of many generations;' 
 
 that their gratitude might be aroused and a sense of 
 their privileges be awakened, with fresh ideas of their 
 true calling and destiny. 
 
 ' Ask now of history's authentic page. 
 And call up evidence from every age. 
 What nation will you find, whose annals prove 
 So rich an interest in almighty love? 
 Where will you find a race like theirs, endowed 
 With all that man e'er wished or heaven bestowed?' 
 
 Our attention is specially directed to the migration, 
 settlements, and critical junctures of other neighbouring 
 people being largely determined, in the secret over- 
 
76 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 rulings of divine providence, by a regard for Israel's 
 training, and its destined work. 
 
 * When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, 
 When He separated the children of men, 
 He set the bounds of the peoples 
 According to the number of the children of Israel.' 
 
 The locality in which they were to be planted was a 
 spot suited to Israel's destiny, and fitted to be, however 
 small, yet a central pivot on which the world's history 
 might revolve. And if the Lord chose Israel for His 
 portion and Jacob for the line of His heritage, it was not 
 because either of their number or their pre-eminence. 
 His arrangements contemplated the small number of 
 the people ; and He provided a land suited to their 
 population ; and according, not to their merits, but to 
 His own designs. 
 
 This is the idea imbedded in the next couplet, 
 assigning a reason as it does for the divine procedure, — 
 
 ' For the Lord's portion is His people ; 
 Jacob is the cord or lot of His inheritance.' 
 
 How frequently and solemnly is the thought inculcated, 
 that neither the cause nor the ultimate end of the divine 
 plan of action is in the people ; it all springs from and 
 finds its resting-place in Himself! This is the one sole 
 adequate explanation, satisfactory alike to reason and to 
 conscience. God has ends and designs beyond Israel. 
 He utilises Israel for these ends, not because they were 
 deserving, for they were an ungrateful, provoking, and 
 stupid people ; but He could make them suit His large 
 and world-wide objects ; and so could win historical 
 heritage through them, and along the lines they repre- 
 sented. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. "Jl 
 
 IIL God's training of Israel like the Eagle with 
 HER Fledgelings. 
 
 lo He found him in a desert land, 
 
 And in the waste howling wilderness; 
 
 He compassed him about, He cared for him, 
 
 He kept him as the apple of His eye : 
 . II As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, 
 
 That fluttereth over her young. 
 
 He spread abroad His wings. He took them, 
 
 He bare them on His pinions : 
 12 The Lord alone did lead him, 
 
 And there was no strange god with him. 
 
 Two thoughts, in the two successive couplets of the 
 tenth verse, lead up to the main figure in this passage. 
 The first thought points to the helpless and bewildered 
 condition of Israel, ' in a desert land, and in the waste 
 howling wilderness,' when their training process began ; 
 and the second to the preciousness of Israel, not in 
 themselves, indeed, but in view of the divine purpose 
 which had to be accomplished through their means. 
 How exquisite the image, ' He kept him as the apple of 
 His eye ' ! or, as it may be rendered more exactly, ' the 
 little man ' or ' the pet,' ' the daughter ' of the eye, 
 alluding to the miniature portrait seen in the pupil, as 
 well as to the tender delicacy with which the organ is 
 protected. Possibly there may be an allusion to the 
 special function of Israel, with ' a vision and faculty 
 divine,' qualifying them for being in the world of re- 
 ligion, what Athens, the ' eye of Greece,' became, as 
 ' mother of arts and eloquence.' 
 
 Now follows the beautiful and striking comparison — 
 an eagle teaching her young to fly, a figure of God's 
 nurture of a better life in His people ! In her watchful 
 care over her helpless and still tender brood, the parent 
 bird, the mother eagle, noblest of feathered tribe, waits 
 
78 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 with maternal solicitude for the critical time when her 
 fledgelings may be safely roused to exert their energies in 
 flight. By fitting signals and fluttering movements she 
 summons them at last to the supreme attempt. When 
 led by her instincts to conclude that their powers are 
 sufficiently matured, she tenderly but vigorously obliges 
 them to leave the parent nest ; and if they seem inclined 
 to linger softly in its warm bed, she breaks it about 
 them, and urges them to make for some adjacent rocky 
 shelf. Then she teaches them by her own fluttering 
 how to extend and flap their wings. She watches and 
 directs their first juvenile attempts at flight ; coming to 
 their relief when they are tired or in danger, spreading 
 abroad her own pinions to support or guide them in 
 these early exercises. And when at last they soar into 
 the open reaches of heaven, she is said to sweep under 
 them with marvellous dexterity, and sustain them in 
 their unwonted gyrations ^. Such is the fine comparison 
 to illustrate the divine care and tuition of Israel and the 
 measures God took for lifting them into a higher state. 
 
 ^ A well-known naturalist, Mr. Philip Henry Gosse, in his work on the 
 birds of Jamaica, tells of a friend of his witnessing such a scene as Moses 
 may have seen among the granite peaks of Horeb. * He distinctly saw the 
 mother bird, after the first young one had flown a little way and was 
 beginning to flutter downward, fly beneath it and present the back and wings 
 for its support. He could not indeed say that the young one actually 
 rested on or even touched the parent ; perhaps its confidence returned on 
 seeing support so near, so that it managed to reach a high tree, when the 
 other little one, invited by its parent, tried its infant wings in like manner.' 
 And Sir Humphrey Davy, in his Salnionia, p. 99, thus describes what he 
 witnessed at the Crags of Ben Wyvis, of the efforts of two eagles to teach 
 their offspring the manoeuvres of flight. ' They began by rising from the 
 peak of the mountain in the very eye of the sun. They at first made small 
 circles, and the young birds imitated them ; they paused on their wings, 
 waiting till they had made their first flight, and then took a second and 
 larger whirl, always rising towards the sun and enlarging the circle of 
 flight, so as to make a gradually extending spiral. The young ones slowly 
 followed, apparently flying better as they mounted ; and they continued 
 this sublime kind of exercise till they were lost to our aching sight.' 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 79 
 
 ' As an eagle stirreth up her nest.' The nest of Israel 
 was Egypt, where they had been cradled into being and 
 well-being. There they grew and multiplied. There 
 they had found a Goshen, a rich and goodly pasture-land, 
 where for ages they had thriven with their flocks and 
 herds, and where like fledgelings in a kindly nest they 
 seemed disposed to settle down, oblivious of their calling 
 and destiny. God then began to break down their nest 
 around them. He raised up a tyrannical dynasty, and 
 a king that ' knew not Joseph,' who made the people's 
 life bitter with hard and cruel bondage ; and their warm, 
 comfortable, nesting-time was over and gone. Stirred 
 from their lethargy by the crumbling and dismantling 
 of their Goshen home, they were prepared and then 
 summoned by the divine flutterings over them ; making 
 them yearn after a higher vocation, and willing to be 
 drawn away from their unsuitable abode. ' So the LORD 
 alone did lead him. and there was no strange god 
 with him.' They heard and answered the divine sum- 
 mons, though only flutteringly and unsteadily. Here 
 we see the explanation of that strange and roundabout 
 chapter of Israel's history ; the dislodging and disquiet- 
 ing touches in Egypt are followed by the leading of 
 them round and round in their desert wanderings forty 
 years. They were a carnal, earthly, and self-pleasing 
 people among the flesh-pots of Egypt, and under op- 
 pression were sinking into all the vices, weaknesses, and 
 superstitions of their slavish condition. God will not 
 settle His land with such ; and no mere sudden stroke 
 will drive the evils out of them. It must be done by a 
 lengthened educative process of mingled tenderness and 
 severity : — 
 
 ' Even as a bird each fond endearment tries, 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies.' 
 
8o EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 By rudimentary instructions, by type and symbol, by 
 the elements of law and prophecy, by passing them 
 through sifting ordeals, by marching them about and 
 about, so as to ventilate their low proclivities, and get 
 rid of their baser qualities. He sought to winnow them of 
 their chaff, letting multitudes of them die, and others be 
 born into a new state of things, until at last they became 
 quite a different people, with other aims and capacities. 
 The eaglets' wings are grown. Their first feeble flight 
 and unearthly flutterings have changed into a bolder and 
 higher swoop. The Lord had stirred them and weaned 
 them from their nest ; often, too, He left them to them- 
 selves, then came timcously to their rescue, bare them 
 on His pinions, and carried them all the days of old — a 
 process still familiar in the experiences of His graciously 
 taught people, weak and slow in their heavenward flight. 
 
 IV. The People themselves like a Stubborn Ox. 
 
 13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, 
 And he did eat the increase of the field ; 
 
 And He made him to suck honey out of the rock, 
 And oil out of the flinty rock; 
 
 14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep. 
 With fat of lambs, 
 
 And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, 
 
 With the fat of kidneys of wheat; 
 
 And of the blood of the grape thou drankest wine. 
 
 15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: 
 
 Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art be- 
 come sleek : 
 Then he forsook God which made him, 
 And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 
 
 16 They moved Him to jealousy with strange gods, 
 With abominations provoked they Him to anger. 
 
 17 They sacrificed unto demons, (which were) no God, 
 To gods whom they knew not, 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 8 1 
 
 To new gods that came up of late, 
 Whom your fathers dreaded not, 
 
 1 8 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, 
 And hast forgotten God that gave thee birth. 
 
 19 And the Lord saw it, and abhorred them, 
 
 Because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. 
 
 20 And He said, I will hide My face from them, 
 I will see what their end shall be : 
 
 For they are a very froward generation, 
 Children in whom is no faith. 
 
 Here are two contrasted pictures : (i) Israel's highly- 
 favoured position, outwardly, in a well-protected and 
 richly-productive land ; and (2) their unworthy conduct, 
 as of a pampered and over-fed ox, that resents being 
 put under the yoke. 
 
 I. Their favoured position. The picture of the eagle 
 and her fledgelings had reference to Israel's inivard or 
 religious training under God's providence : now, we have 
 a picture of their outward or temporal advantages, in 
 having for their home and abode such a country as the 
 Land of Promise. The natural strength of its position, 
 and the rich variety of its products, are the two things 
 specially emphasized. To ' ride on the high places of 
 the earth,' is to feel triumphantly strong and firmly 
 planted on its lofty heights,' as on a natural and easily 
 defensible fortress ; while ' to eat the increase of the 
 fields,' is to enjoy the plentiful and varied supplies of a 
 goodly land. 
 
 Israel was at this time on the rich uplands of Gilead, 
 and had, in these first trans-Jordanic settlements, a fair 
 idea of the nature of the country they were to inhabit, 
 long before they crossed over into their main possessions 
 on the west. Relatively to Egypt and the wilderness, 
 through which they had come, their promised inherit- 
 ance was one of the high places of earth : a hill-country 
 
 F 
 
82 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 strongly fortified by its natural position, and protected 
 from foes on every side— by the Great Sea 'to the west, 
 the enormously deep and rugged gorge of Jordan on the 
 east, the snow-clad ranges of Lebanon on the north, and 
 the trackless desert to the south —altogether a choice 
 and unique spot, with nothing quite like it on the face 
 of the globe, with every variety of climate in the compass 
 of a few miles, from the tropical heat and vegetation 
 down at the Jordan's mouth, to the perpetual snow of 
 the lofty Mount Hermon : the bottom of the Dead Sea 
 being 2600 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean, 
 and the summit of Hermon well-nigh 10,000 feet above it. 
 
 What a contrast between the alluvial plains of Egypt, 
 with its periodically overflowing river, and its system of 
 artificially managed irrigation, and this land of hills and 
 dales, with their gushing springs and flowing streams 
 and perennial wells at every point of elevation — a con- 
 trast of which the people were continually being re- 
 minded ^ ! 
 
 The passage in verse 14, which describes the rich 
 variety of the earth's produce, so different from the 
 monotonous fare they had hitherto experienced, consists 
 of a strophe of five lines, and is couched in language of 
 high poetic fervour. ' He made him suck honey out of 
 the rock,' refers either to the large deposits of honey- 
 comb found in stony and rocky crevices, or more prob- 
 ably to the fact that the bees could gather in their 
 fragrant juice from the abundance of aromatic herbs and 
 flowers clothing the rocky hill-sides, so that wealth was 
 obtained where land could neither be dug nor ploughed ; 
 while 'oil out of the flinty rock' was a similar testimony 
 to the relative wealth of the land, the thrice valuable 
 olive-tree loving to thrust its gnarled roots in rocky 
 
 ' See Deut. viii. 7-9 and xi. 10-12. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 83 
 
 places and amid stony parterres, so that places other- 
 wise barren and unprofitable were clothed with olive- 
 yards, and their immense and profitable fruitage. With 
 these are associated in this land of milk and honey, 
 some products not usually elsewhere joined together — 
 ' Butter of kine,' or rather thick curdled milk with its 
 thirst-allaying sourness, that might be kept and mixed 
 for use as a refreshing drink in hot weather, and ' milk 
 of sheep,' or new warm milk ; and ' fat of lambs,' not for 
 food \ but for purposes of light or sacrifice, yet not with- 
 out flesh-meat if requisite, in the strong flocks of Bashan ; 
 and 'the fat of kidneys of wheat,' with its white and 
 wholesome farina, and ' of the blood of the grape thou 
 drankest wine.' 
 
 ' It was a land divine, 
 A blending of all beauties ; streams and dells, 
 Fruit, foliage, flocks ; wood, mountain, cornfield, vine.' 
 
 What might not have been expected of a people so 
 favourably circumstanced ? How faithful and zealous, 
 how uncorrupt and exemplary, might we not unreason- 
 ably hope they should prove themselves ! But far other- 
 wise was the reality. 
 
 We feel something sad and painful is coming, with the 
 'But ' of the fifteenth verse : — 
 
 ' I do not like this " But!' It doth allay 
 The good precedent. Fie upon this — but. 
 'Tis as a jailer to bring forth 
 Some monstrous malefactor.' 
 
 2. Their mizvorthy conduct^ as of a pampered or over- 
 fed ox, that resents being put under the yoke. 
 
 ' But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.' Jeshurun is 
 either a diminutive of affection and endearment, or, 
 being derived from a word signifying 'just or righteous,' 
 
 ^ The fat itself was prohibited as food, Lev. iii. 17. 
 F 2 
 
84 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 points to the ideal state at which they should have 
 aimed. Alas ! as not unfrcquently happens, their 
 practice was not according to their privileges, nor their 
 conduct equal to their condition. The image is that of 
 a pampered and over-fed ox which, instead of being tame 
 and tractable from its kind treatment and abundant 
 fodder, proves vicious and stubborn, refusing to bend its 
 neck to the yoke, and resenting all attempts to harness 
 it to the plough. Agricultural labour of every kind was 
 with the Israelites the work not of horses, but of oxen ; 
 hence the graphic force of the picture for them. Observe 
 the sudden change in verse 15, where Israel is addressed 
 in the second person, ' Thou art waxen fat, thou art 
 grown thick, thou art become sleek.' This direct mode 
 of address, together with the repetition of the cutting 
 sarcasms, lending greater energy to the words. Such an 
 image for the conduct of Israel, in their stubborn intract- 
 ableness and stiff-necked resistance, like ' a bullock un- 
 accustomed to the yoke,' was often used in after-times 
 by the prophets, as in Hosea xiii. 6, ' According to their 
 pasture, so were they filled ; they were filled, and their 
 heart was exalted : therefore have they forgotten Me.' 
 Prosperity breeds pride ; success begets waywardness ; 
 and fulness corruption. Wisdom does not always grow 
 with wealth ; and it might moderate our desires for great 
 things to remember that mercies need managing, if they 
 are not to become snares and mischiefs. Israel proved 
 wayward and proudly intractable, by very reason of their 
 abounding comforts and advantages. ' Then he forsook 
 God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock 
 of his salvation.' They chafed and fretted under the 
 operation of the divine law and its discipline, as though it 
 were a hard and bitter yoke. They failed to rise to the 
 spiritual and sublime conceptions and requirements which 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 85 
 
 it embodied, and by their perpetual lapses into idolatry 
 they showed how much they struggled against its lofty 
 and refining institutes of worship, entangling themselves 
 with strange gods, round whose altars were celebrated 
 pollutions and vices unmentionable, as if they were 
 sacrificing to devils, in ways that were not merely a 
 disgrace to humanity, but a menace to its very existence. 
 Every ' new ' god had its attractions for them, however 
 vile. They could only imagine relationship to local, 
 tribal or dynastic deities, whom they clothed with material 
 qualities and forms 1. Hence their sympathy with the 
 ways of their heathen neighbours, and their affinity for 
 their worship. This was the root of the evil ; and ' The 
 Lord saw and abhorred, because of such provocation by 
 His sons and daughters.' And so He said, ' I will hide 
 My face from them, I will see what their end shall be,' 
 and will let things take their natural course. Hence the 
 ever-recurring experience : — 
 
 ' Our fathers would not know Thy ways, 
 And Thou hast left them to their own.' 
 
 For Israel was not a favoured people in the sense of 
 being exempt from the operation of those divine laws 
 which they were raised up to execute and vindicate. 
 Equally with the heathen people around them, were they 
 held amenable to the same principles and their solemn 
 sanctions. Equally were they to feel that, 
 
 ' Blood for blood, and blow for blow, 
 Thou shalt reap as thou dost sow.' 
 
 And if they would not be deterred from evil courses, it 
 was because ' there was no truth in them.' 
 
 The secret cause of all their lapses and backsliding, 
 and the severest possible charge against any of them, is 
 
 1 Deut. iv. 15-19. 
 
86 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 this — ' A froward generation : children in whom is no 
 faith.' Here lay the open sore. Children with no faith 
 become faithless children. Name any evil, be it a vice 
 like self-indulgence or intemperance, or an idolatry like 
 covetousness, or a misery like hopelessness — all is summed 
 up finally here — ' No faith! The most evil of all evils 
 and the fount of every kind of evil is, ' The evil Jieart 
 of unbelief in departing from the living God.' 
 
 V. Divine Love for Israel like the Fire of 
 Spousal Jealousy. 
 
 21 They have mov^d Me to jealousy Vv'ith that which is not 
 God; 
 They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities : 
 And I will move them to jealousy with those which are 
 
 not a people; 
 I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 
 
 2 2 For a fire is kindled in Mine anger, 
 And burneth unto the lowest pit. 
 And devoureth the earth with her increase, 
 And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains. 
 
 23 I will heap mischiefs upon them ; 
 
 I will spend Mine arrows upon them : 
 
 24 (They shall be) wasted with hunger and devoured with 
 
 burning heat 
 And bitter destruction ; 
 
 And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, 
 With the poison of crawling things of the dust. 
 
 25 Without shall the sword bereave, 
 And in the chambers terror; 
 
 (It shall destroy) both young man and virgin, 
 The suckling with the man of gray hairs. 
 
 26 I said, I would scatter them afar, 
 
 I would make the remembrance of them to cease from 
 among men : 
 
 27 Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, 
 Lest their adversaries should misdeem. 
 
 Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted, 
 .And the Lord hath not done all this. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 87 
 
 28 For they are a nation void of counsel, 
 And there is no understanding in them. 
 
 Unfaithfulness was a peculiarly grave and culpable 
 offence on the part of Israel. For they were a covenant 
 people, who had been often warned and had as often 
 pledged their troth to guard against such miserable 
 relapses and idolatrous tendencies. If there be anything 
 more aggravating than another, it is to deal with people 
 who are ever vowing and pledging their honour to forsake 
 an evil course, and yet are ever found returning to it. 
 Hence the arousing and solemnising presentment, ' They 
 have moved Me to jealousy with their no gods,' or as 
 the next line interprets it, ' They have provoked Me to 
 anger with their vanities.' 
 
 Note the nature and cause of the divine jealousy. 
 
 The whole conduct of Israel had been like that of 
 some false and faithless betrothed one. They are pic- 
 tured as fickle and untrue in their attachment to Him 
 whom they had come under solemn engagement to serve. 
 This idea of a covenant-betrothal was no mere question 
 of words. The life and power of their theocratic consti- 
 tution depended on their realising its force and meaning. 
 Here we have the foundation of all those allusions and 
 images so frequent afterwards, in Psalms and Prophets, 
 based on the marriage relation between Jehovah and 
 Israel ; and on the flagrant spiritual apostasy therefore 
 of ' going a whoring after other gods.' The phrase first 
 occurs in Exodus xxxiv. .15 ; and describes a literal fact, 
 inasmuch as idolatrous worship was always accompanied 
 with positive licentiousness and kindred orgies. Time 
 after time in weary iteration, it seemed to be a settled 
 purpose and policy with them to dishonour and discredit 
 God before their neighbours, whose ways they learned, 
 and at whose altars they were so easily led to worship. 
 
88 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 When Israel got settled in ease and comfort in their 
 promised land, how recreant they showed themselves to 
 their high commission ! Were they not to be the early 
 police, the moral scavengers to execute the indignation 
 of outraged humanity and offended Deity on tribes and 
 peoples guilty beyond expression, whose diabolical and 
 unmentionable vices and pollutions were connected with 
 their altars and inextricably bound up with their religion ? 
 Yet, with them they entered into treaties ; made conces- 
 sions and compromises, and at last became co-partners 
 in their criminal corruptions. It was a scandal on them- 
 selves ; it was a flagrant breach of faith and promise ; it 
 was above all a violation of sacred relationship with 
 God, to Whom they were betrothed in righteousness. 
 
 How startling and pathetic the attributing of jealousy 
 to the divine nature ! It means that burning holy zeal 
 for the sacred betrothment by which He claims an exclu- 
 sive right to the affection of His people, brooking no rival 
 and admitting of no competitor in His presence. With 
 poor, ignorant, envious humanity, jealousy involves sus- 
 picion, and is the mark often of a weak, warped and 
 narrow nature. But, on the other hand, there is a noble 
 jealousy which, eliminating these evil elements, shows 
 itself in an earnest concern for others' fidelity, joined 
 with some degree of fear for them, or of indignation at 
 their giving to any a just ground for suspecting their 
 faithfulness in the least degree. Such was the noble 
 jealousy of the Apostle Paul about his converts, ' I am 
 jealous over you with a godly jealousy : for I espoused 
 you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste 
 virgin to Christ^.' This godly jealousy, or inviolable 
 regard for His own name and honour, is put by Jehovah 
 Himself into the very heart of His law, as the strongest 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. xi. 2. - 
 
FARKWELL SONG OF MOSES. 89 
 
 deterrent from idolatry and the strongest incentive to 
 fidelity in worship. ' Thou shalt have no other God 
 before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
 image to bow down to and worship. For I the Lord thy 
 God am a jealous God' Truly, ' Jehovah whose name is 
 Jealous is a jealous God.' 
 
 Note how the divine love in its dealing with Israel is 
 like the fire of sponsal jealousy. 
 
 With their ' no gods ' — their worship of material images 
 and their profaning the divine name by associating it 
 with horrible rites and unnatural orgies — they have pro- 
 voked Me to jealousy, that is, to the exercise and mani- 
 festation of a holy indignation and zeal for Mine own 
 honour and the vindication of Mine own name ^ ; so will 
 I rouse them to a jealousy about themselves by favour- 
 ing others that they deem a ' no-nation,' and by bestow- 
 ing My regards on what they contemptuously look down 
 on and despise as no people at all. Is not this one of 
 the great wheels by which God moves forward the affairs 
 of His providential government ; rousing one nation to 
 vie with another which it has hitherto despised, but 
 which is now seen to be outstripping it ; or one com- 
 munity to become emulous of another, or one Church 
 to bestir itself, so as not to be outdone by a little- 
 esteemed rival ? Thus, forces and energies are brought 
 into play which had otherwise lain dormant ; and weapons 
 of the spiritual warfare are burnished, and sharpened 
 and utilised, that had previously been lying rusty and 
 unused. 
 
 This principle the Apostle Paul illustrates by the case 
 of the calling in of the Gentiles through their having 
 the Gospel preached unto them ; and he shows how this 
 is meant to operate as a divinely-devised provocative 
 
 ^ Deut. xxviii. 58-68 and xxix. 10-20. 
 
90 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and stimulus for the bringing in of the Jews themselves 
 in their fuhiess at length ^. But there were many pre- 
 vious applications of the principle. Again and again 
 did God move Israel out of its folly and infatuation, as 
 the whole Book of Judges makes evident, not only by 
 bringing in upon them their formidable neighbours, who 
 were allowed to prevail against them and hold them in 
 subjection, but even more strikingly by the very weakest 
 and most despicable of their surrounding foes winning 
 a mastery over them, when the twelve tribes were cut 
 up and divided in their interests by quarrels and dis- 
 integration. At such times the fire of the divine spousal 
 jealousy gleamed out upon them ; and Heaven's indig- 
 nation came forth against them like an armed host. 
 For the figure changes at verse 22, and warlike imagery 
 is adopted. The reason is because, while idolatry 
 violated the bond of betrothal, it was no less treason 
 and disloyalty to God as the King and Head of their 
 theocratic government. Hence the penal consequences 
 are represented, in verses 22-25, under the figure 
 of a royal warrior carrying his arms against rebels or 
 traitors, and executing judgment on them to the utter- 
 most, by war, famine and pestilence. The first image 
 is the blazing flame or torch of war, kindled in the heat 
 of divine resentment and burning ' to the lowest hell ' 
 (that is, to the last extremity), and licking up ' the earth 
 with her increase ' (that is, the harvest and fruitage), and 
 playing round the roots of the mountains, consuming 
 orchard and olive-yard ; and thereby accumulating mis- 
 chiefs and miseries incalculable, like sheaves and showers 
 of fiery arrows. The next image is famine, here called 
 
 1 Romans x. 19, and xi. 11, 'through their fall (i.e. the lapse or trespass 
 of Israel) salvation is come to the Gentiles to provoke them (i.e. Israel) to 
 jealousy.' 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 91 
 
 ' burning heat,' because of the scorched and blackened 
 ground yielding nothing ; and in the train of war and 
 famine comes the pestilence, likened to the ' teeth of 
 beasts ' and the ' poison fangs ' of serpents ; all of them 
 involving bitter and cruel destruction, and decimating 
 the population without regard to age or sex, ' the young 
 man and maiden, the suckling and those of grey hairs.' 
 Happily, however, the indignation fire of the divine 
 jealousy is the protecting and guarding fire also of the 
 divine and spousal love. 
 
 Note, therefore, that God' s jealousy for His name and 
 honour is the nltimate salvation of His people. 
 
 This is the real secret of Israel not being utterly and 
 entirely swept away and destroyed. Their final extinc- 
 tion as a people would have been their fit and proper 
 fate, had they been left to reap of their own way and 
 been filled with the fruit of their own devices. That 
 the Lord did not make a complete end of them, as He 
 did of other tribes and peoples, was owing entirely to 
 the regard He had for His own gracious purposes which 
 they had been raised up and qualified to subserve. 
 What else could account for His forbearance, and long- 
 suffering, patient striving with them ? ' I said, I would 
 scatter them afar, I would make the remembrance of 
 them to cease from among men ; were it not that I feared 
 the provocation of the enemy' (that is, anticipated the bad 
 results of their sarcasms and reproaches) : lest their 
 adversaries should mistakenly explain the terrible dis- 
 persion, and allege it was all owing to their own prowess, 
 and there was no divine meaning or judgment in it at 
 all. He was resolved so to manage the final catastrophe 
 of Israel, that the world at large would be constrained 
 to say. The finger of God is there ; the whole matter is 
 a just retribution, bearing the seal and stamp of a divine 
 
92 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 ordering. ' For they are a nation void of counsel, and 
 there is no understanding in them.' The lesson would 
 therefore be forced on them from without ; and so they 
 would at last acquiesce in what the whole world would 
 be found saying about them. For by terrible things in 
 righteousness would this experience be conveyed. 
 
 VL The Awful Fruits of Apostasy like the Vine 
 OF Sodom. 
 
 29 Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, 
 That they would consider their latter end ! 
 
 30 How should one chase a thousand, 
 And two put ten thousand to flight, 
 Except their Rock had sold them, 
 And the Lord had delivered them up.? 
 
 31 For their rock is not as our Rock, 
 
 Even our enemies themselves being judges. 
 
 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, 
 And of the fields of Gomorrah : 
 Their grapes are grapes of gall, 
 Their clusters are bitter : 
 
 33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, 
 And the cruel venom of asps. 
 
 34 Is not this laid up in store with Me, 
 Sealed up among My treasures? 
 
 35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompence, 
 At the time when their foot shall slide : 
 For the day of their calamity is at hand, 
 
 And the things that are to come upon them shall make 
 haste. 
 
 As the song begins to rush to its close, it assumes the 
 form of vivid dialogue between God and Moses. This 
 gives dramatic force and intensity to the sentiments of 
 the speakers, and lends additional interest to their words. 
 The transitions are often quick and sudden, but always 
 unmistakably clear and noticeable. We readily dis- 
 tinguish the difference between the direct voice divine, 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 93 
 
 and the echo of it as spoken by Moses. In the one class 
 of passages, God speaks in His own first person, using 
 / and Me : in the other class of passages God is spoken 
 about in the third person, and Moses is the interlocutor 
 who reiterates and enforces, or explains and applies the 
 words that have just been proceeding direct from the 
 divine lips. Thus in the last passage, verses 21-28, 
 God is introduced as the immediate speaker, using the 
 first personal pronoun, 'They have moved Me to jealousy 
 . . . / said, / would scatter them.' 
 
 But in the present passage, beginning at verse 29 
 and closing with verse 0^% it is Moses who is the speaker, 
 responding to God as it were, and re-echoing and 
 rehearsing to the people the force and interpretation 
 of what God has been saying. It is Moses, who, as it 
 were, meditatively steps aside and cries aloud, ' Oh that 
 they were wise, that they understood this : that they 
 would consider their latter end.' In verses 34, '^^, a 
 sudden change occurs in the speaker, God being there 
 introduced again in the first person. Moses resumes 
 in verses 36-38 ; then God in verses 39-42 ; while in 
 the closing 43rd verse, Moses sums up the final result 
 in one strong, prophetic and authoritative arraignment. 
 
 Returning now to verse 29, we find Moses seeking, 
 in words of plaintive appeal, to apply to the nation's 
 conscience the solemn warning that had just fallen from 
 God's own lips. Oh ! that they were wise enough to 
 understand how God would be necessitated to withdraw 
 His protection from a faithless and covenant-breaking 
 people, and show mercy to others, so as to provoke 
 Israel to a holy jealousy over themselves. For while 
 the Lord had bound Himself to them by a solemn 
 covenant, their wilful and persistent violation of it set 
 Him free also from its terms. Oh ! that they were wise 
 
94 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 enough to understand this in time : that tlicy might 
 realise the inevitable issue of their trampling upon their 
 theocratic constitution, and apprehend the awful judg- 
 ments that must ensue from their repeated apostasies ! 
 Oh ! that they would consider their latter end ! that they 
 would consider the fatal result of incorrigible and perverse 
 idolatry, and on the other hand the glorious result of 
 true and faithful allegiance ! How should one chase 
 a thousand in such a case, and two put ten thousand 
 to flight ? God is not always on the side of great bat- 
 talions. Let some of the decisive battles of the world 
 give the lie to such a notion. A people, though few, 
 if they be but true, prevail against overwhelming .odds, 
 and have often hurled back their vastly preponderating 
 foes. It is faith that atones for lack of numbers. Dis- 
 order and disgrace come from wanton and wilful faith- 
 lessness. No fatal disaster can long abide, ' except 
 their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had delivered 
 them up,' as a reward of their shame. True fealty, 
 rightly rooted, can never be finally overpowered. ' For 
 there is no rock like unto our Rock, our enemies them- 
 selves being judges.' Here we have on one side ' their 
 rock,' which means the idolaters' false gods, to which 
 apostatising Lsrael had fallen away ; and on the other 
 side 'our Rock,' where Moses identifies himself with 
 believing and faithful Israel in cleaving to the one living 
 and true God as the alone Rock (hence it is spelt with 
 a capital letter) — and he is content to leave the deci- 
 sion as to which rock is the better to the judgment of 
 idolaters themselves, speaking out of their secret con- 
 victions and heart-felt experience ^. 
 
 1 For the testimony and verdict of the Egyptians, see Exod. xiv. 25 ; of 
 Balaam, Numbers xxiii. and xxiv. ; and of the Philistines, Joshua ii. 9 or 
 I Sam. iv. 8. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 95 
 
 ' For,' as the vivid and forcible image is conveyed in 
 verse 32, ' their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the 
 fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, 
 their clusters are bitter.' That is to say, the type or 
 emblem of apostate Israel, like that of heathenism itself, 
 is not the real, the true, the cultivated vine, but their 
 type or emblem is the wild, the false, the deleterious 
 plant, producing fruit obnoxious in its nature, distressing 
 in its taste, and poisonous in its effects ^. Was there 
 such a Sodom-vine, or were there such Gomorrah-grapes? 
 Does this refer to some natural production ? to some 
 actual dead-sea fruit ? If so, what was the particular 
 plant in question, 
 
 ' Which grew 
 Near that bituminous lake where Sodom stood " ? 
 
 Or is it simply a metaphor? meaning that as Israel, the 
 true Israel, found a fitting representation in the natural 
 vine, the false and apostatising Israel should become 
 so depraved and corrupted that only Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, conceived of as a metaphoric vine, could fitly 
 describe them ? The awful evils of Sodom and Go- 
 morrah were like grape-clusters of the degenerate vine of 
 idolatrous worship, and the awful destruction of these 
 cities of the plain was the bitter result of feeding on 
 such dead-sea fruit. This is reiterated and emphasized 
 in the 33rd verse — ' their wine is the poison of dragons,' 
 eating into and ulcerating the very bowels and vitals ; 
 it is ' the cruel venom of asps,' inevitably working the 
 deadliest of deaths. Ah, ' is not this laid up in store 
 with Me ' (it is the voice of God Himself that now speaks), 
 ' sealed up among My treasures ? ' The great principle 
 of retribution is one of the things stored up in the 
 
 ^ See 2 Kings iv. 38-41 for reference to ' the wild vine ' and its deleterious 
 ' gourds.' 
 
g6 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 economy of the divine government ; and the case of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah is a treasured and telling illustra- 
 tion of its reality and of the way it is found to work. 
 ' Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about 
 them, having ' (says Jude, ver. 7) ' given themselves over 
 to fornication, and gone after strange flesh, are set forth 
 as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.' 
 Often it may seem to sleep ; but it is like the sleeping 
 electricity that is slowly accumulating to a lightning 
 flash. Suddenly the bolt falls from the very blue of 
 heaven. When the crisis comes, all things rush to the 
 inevitable stroke. ' Vengeance is Mine, and recompence : 
 I will repay,' saith the Lord. Then whenever the foot 
 slips, the calamity is at hand ; and the long-gathering 
 cloud ' makes haste ' to discharge its pent-up fury. 
 
 ' Crimes may long be like shadows, seen not in the dark, 
 The day at last appears, and justice notes them.' 
 
 VIL Divine Retribution like the Flash of a 
 Whetted Sword. 
 
 36 For the Lord shall judge His people, 
 And repent Himself for His servants; 
 When He seeth that their power is gone, 
 
 And there is none remaining, shut up or left at large. 
 
 37 And He shall say. Where are their gods, 
 The rock in which they trusted; 
 
 38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, 
 And drank the wine of their drink offering ? 
 Let them rise up and help you, 
 
 Let them be your protection. 
 
 39 See now that I, even I, am He, 
 And there is no god with Me: 
 
 I kill, and I make alive ; 
 
 I have wounded, and I heal : 
 
 And there is none that can deliver out of My hand. 
 
 40 For I lift up My hand to heaven, 
 And say, As I live for ever. 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 97 
 
 41 If I whet My glittering sword, 
 
 And Mine hand take hold on judgement ; 
 1 will render vengeance to Mine adversaries, 
 And will recompense them that hate Me. 
 
 42 I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood, 
 And My sword shall devour flesh ; 
 
 With the blood of the slain and the captives. 
 From the head of the leaders of the enemy. 
 
 For the Lord shall judge, or rather, shall sift His people; 
 and this is the aim of all His varied retributive dealings 
 w^ith them ; and when His judgments have taken effect, His 
 repentings and relentings will be kindled together, and will 
 operate alongside of, and in conjunction with, His more 
 awful visitations. When He sees their land desolate, the 
 people scattered, and hardly a remnant left, He will say, 
 as if representing and interpreting the nation's reflec- 
 tions on the cause of all their woes, — Where are our 
 gods, the rock in whom we trusted, which did eat the 
 fat of our sacrifices, and drank the wine of our drink 
 ofl"erings ? Should they not be convinced of the infinite 
 disparity between the absolute sovereign Lord of all, 
 their own God, and the miserable crowd of petty deities 
 to whom they had so long and so often paid unlawful 
 and disastrous homage ? 
 
 And was it not the case that during the seventy years 
 of the dispersion and captivity, the Jewish people learned, 
 as they had never learned before, to hate idolatry and 
 all polytheism ? When scattered among the heathen they 
 had been driven in upon themselves, and were forced, so 
 to speak, to become missionaries of their monotheistic 
 faith, and testifiers against the flagrant enormities of 
 impure or idolatrous worship. Zeal for the exclu- 
 sive honour of Jehovah, the one living and true God, 
 became at last with them a fixed and irrevocable prin- 
 ciple, and aversion to all idolatrous and pagan practices 
 
 G 
 
98 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 became one of the strongest features in their national 
 character. The suffering, degraded, and abject state to 
 which their tendency to idolatry reduced them, was one 
 of the means of convincing them of the vanity and folly 
 of all idols, and of the futility of thinking that stocks 
 and stones could rise up to help and protect them. 
 
 Thus the conclusion was driven home to their con- 
 science. ' See now that I, even I, am He^ and there is 
 no god with Me : I wound and I heal : and none can 
 deliver out of My hand.' Other evils they were to 
 adopt and follow ; but they could never be ensnared 
 any more by the fascinations of dark idolatry. The 
 long black night of the captivity and dispersion had 
 seemed to give forth to them the divine mocking voice 
 of challenge, ' Where are the gods in which you trusted? 
 let them now rise and help you.' Of every tendency to 
 polytheism they were finally cured, though their stiff- 
 necked and untractable stubbornness was to manifest 
 itself in other false and fatal directions, which rendered it 
 necessary for them to have the divine oath of judgment 
 and mercy ever standing forth in unmistakable em- 
 phasis before their eyes. The form of that inviolable 
 oath is given in the 40th verse : ' / lift up My hand to 
 heaven, and say, As I live for ever' : while the solemn 
 matter of the oath follows in verses 41 and 42. ' If I 
 whet My glittering sword,' or, as the Hebrew phrase is, 
 ' the lightning of My sword.' The chief thing here to 
 be noticed, after the startling and terrifying power of 
 the imagery employed, is the introverted parallelism in 
 verse 42, where the first and third, and the second and 
 fourth lines, are to be conjoined ; thus : — 
 
 ' I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood, 
 With the blood of the slain and the captives : 
 And My sword shall devour flesh 
 From the head (i.e. the chief) of the leaders of the enemy.' 
 
FAREWELL SONG OF MOSES. 99 
 
 With this awe-inspiring threatening and oath, the 
 song suddenly stops short, in order to introduce a 
 closing climax more effectively. 
 
 VIIL The Final Issues of Judgment and Mercy. 
 
 43 Rejoice, O ye nations, (with) His people : 
 For He will avenge the Wood of His servants. 
 And will render vengeance to His adversaries, 
 And will make expiation for His land, for His people. 
 
 There is something significant in this abrupt introduc- 
 ing of the nations or Gentile peoples. It is fitted to startle 
 and arouse attention. The very enigmatic style of the 
 announcement seems to hint at something that is meant 
 to be profoundly suggestive, as if the passage contained 
 more, much more than meets the eye. We have here 
 the fundamental prophecy of a golden age which lay at 
 the heart of the Jewish theocracy ; the vision and dawn 
 of some great future change that should result from the 
 divine dealings with Israel, and in which both they and 
 the world at large should together happily share. No 
 doubt the announcement is as yet dim and hazy, but it 
 is a prophetic gleam radiant with hope and fraught with 
 practical power. However we may render the first line 
 — whether, adhering to the ordinary Hebrew text, which 
 has no preposition corresponding to the 'with,' we 
 translate it, ' Rejoice, O ye nations, His people,' or 'Praise 
 His people, O ye nations ' ; or whether we adopt the 
 Septuagint, which is also the interpretation of the 
 apostle in Romans xv. 10, and read it, ' Rejoice, O ye 
 nations, with His people' — the sense is still the same. 
 The destiny of the nations is seen to be wrapped up 
 with that of Israel itself. Amid all the hopes and fears 
 of mingled judgment and mercy, there will be triumph 
 at last in expiation,- and favour, and propitiousness for the 
 
 G 2 
 
100 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 wide earth and its ransomed people. The scattering of 
 Israel in wrath and judgment would be a mercy to the 
 world at large. Or, as it is expressed in what is the 
 true commentary on this great prophetic word, Paul's 
 Epistle to the Romans, ch. xi. ' If the fall of the Jew 
 be the riches of the world, and their loss be the Gentiles' 
 gain : how much more their fulness ? ' — or, ' If the cast- 
 ing away of them be the reconciling of the world, what 
 shall their restoration or reinstatement be, but life from 
 the dead ? ' And who will say that this very song is not 
 even yet destined to exert a potent influence on the 
 hearts and hopes of the scattered and feeble remnant of 
 God's ancient people? or that it may not be sung by 
 Jew and Gentile locked finally in the bonds of a sacred 
 brotherhood, no more as prophecy, but as history or 
 prophecy fulfilled ? ' Rejoice, ye nations, with His 
 people : for He has avenged the blood of His servants, 
 and made expiation, and been propitious for His land 
 and people.' 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 
 
 Judges V, 
 
 1 Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on 
 
 that day, saying, 
 
 2 For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, 
 For that the people offered themselves willingly, 
 Bless ye the Lord. 
 
 3 Hear, O ye kings ; give ear, O ye princes ; 
 I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; 
 
 I will sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel. 
 
 4 Lord, when Thou wentest forth out of Seir, 
 When Thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, 
 The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped. 
 Yea, the clouds dropped water. 
 
 5 The mountains flowed down at the presence of the Lord, 
 Even yon Sinai at the presence of the Lord, the God 
 
 of Israel. 
 
 6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, 
 
 In the days of Jael, the high ways were unoccupied, 
 And the travellers walked through byways. 
 
 7 The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased. 
 Until that I Deborah arose. 
 
 That I arose a mother in Israel. 
 
 8 They chose new gods ; 
 Then was war in the gates : 
 Was there a shield or spear seen 
 Among forty thousand in Israel ? 
 
 9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, 
 
 That offered themselves willingly among the people: 
 Bless ye the Lord. 
 
 10 Tell of it, ye that ride on w^hite asses. 
 Ye that sit on rich carpets. 
 
 And ye that walk by the way. 
 
 1 1 Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water. 
 There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, 
 Even the righteous acts of His rule in Israel. 
 
 Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates. 
 
 12 Awake, awake, Deborah; 
 Awake, awake, utter a song: 
 
 Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of 
 Abinoam. 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. T03 
 
 13 Then came down a remnant of the nobles and the people ; 
 The Lord came down for me against the mighty. 
 
 14 Out of Ephraim came down they whose root is in Amalek; 
 After thee, Benjamin, among thy peoples ; 
 
 Out of Machir came down governors, 
 
 And out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff. 
 
 15 And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; 
 As was Issachar, so was Barak; 
 
 Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet. 
 By the watercourses of Reuben 
 There were great resolves of heart. 
 
 16 Why satest thou among the sheepfolds, 
 To hear the pipings for the flocks ? 
 At the watercourses of Reuben 
 There were great searchings of heart. 
 
 1 7 Gilead abode beyond Jordan : 
 
 And Dan, why did he remain in ships.? 
 Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, 
 And abode by his creeks. 
 
 18 Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives unto the 
 
 death. 
 And Naphtali, Upon the high places of the field. 
 
 19 The kings came and fought; 
 Then fought the kings of Canaan, 
 
 In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo : 
 They took no gain of money. 
 
 20 They fought from heaven, 
 
 The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. 
 
 21 The river Kishon swept them away, 
 That ancient river, the river Kishon. 
 O my soul, march on with strength. 
 
 22 Then did the horsehoofs stamp 
 
 By reason of the pransings, the pransings of their strong 
 ones. 
 
 23 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, 
 Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; 
 Because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
 To the help of the Lord against the mighty. 
 
 24 Blessed above women shall Jael be. 
 The wife of Heber the Kenite, 
 
 Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. 
 
104 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 25 He asked water, and she gave him milk; 
 She brought him butter in a lordly dish. 
 
 26 She put her hand to the nail, 
 
 And her right hand to the workmen's hammer; 
 
 And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote 
 
 through his head, 
 Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples. 
 
 27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay: 
 At her feet he bowed, he fell : 
 
 Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. 
 
 28 Through the window she looked forth, and cried, 
 The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice. 
 Why is his chariot so long in coming.? 
 
 Why tarry the wheels of his chariots ? 
 
 29 Her wise ladies answered her, 
 
 Yea, she returned answer to herself, 
 
 30 Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? 
 A damsel, two damsels to every man; 
 
 To Sisera a spoil of divers colours, 
 A spoil of divers colours of embroidery, 
 Of divers colours of embroidery on both sides, on the 
 necks of the spoil ? 
 
 31 So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord : 
 
 But let them that love Him be as the sun when he 
 goeth forth in his might. 
 
 This song marks a great crisis in Israel's history. It 
 celebrates their crowning triumph over the Canaanites, 
 in the last stand and rally made by these old inhabitants 
 to repossess their country. More than a century has 
 elapsed since Joshua signally defeated them in the great 
 battle by the Waters of Merom, and drove the remains 
 of their broken tribes into the far north, about the roots 
 of Lebanon. Quietly, however, they had been gathering 
 strength and unity : and were now sufficiently recovered 
 and consolidated, that when Israel lapsed into idolatrous 
 abominations, the Lord could make use of them as a 
 scourge and punishment to His backsliding people. 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 105 
 
 ' Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the 
 Lord : and the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, 
 king of Canaan.' jABiN (meaning the wise or discerning) 
 was the common name for the leading chief who ruled in 
 Hazor ^, just as the hereditary title of the King of Egypt 
 was Pharaoh, or, in earlier times, Abimelech. It was 
 a Jabin who appeared at the head of the confederate 
 Canaanites in the days of Joshua ; and now another 
 Jabin, inhabiting the same capital, rebuilt out of its 
 former ashes, had organised another confederacy of these 
 northern peoples, and had made such headway as to 
 have reduced apostatising Israel to the most humiliating 
 servitude. So oppressive was his iron grasp and so 
 formidable his military array, that Israel lay helplessly 
 submissive and dispirited under him for twenty long 
 years. Never had the national spirit seemed to have 
 sunk so low, and never had it been so difficult to rouse 
 the people to a great effort for their emancipation. 
 
 At this desperate crisis in their fortunes it is a woman 
 who appears upon the scene, Deborah, ' wife of Lapidoth,' 
 which is by some rendered rather ' a woman of fiery 
 spirit,' and whose name, signifying ' a Bee,' has led an 
 old Puritan to remark, that she had honey for the friends 
 and a sting for the foes of her country. 
 
 ^ Hazor means ' camp,' ' court,' or ' enclosure.' There are many towns 
 and places called Hazor or Hazar in Scripture, now difficult to identify, 
 like Hazar-addar, Hazar-cnan, Hazar-shual, Hazor in Benjamin, and, 
 still more important, the far-off Hazor of Kedar, respecting which 
 Jeremiah (xlix. 28-33) "tters a great prophecy ' Concerning the kingdoms 
 of Hazor. ^ The Hazor of Jabin was within the territory of the northern 
 tribe of Naphtali, and was one of the two Hazors given to that tribe, 
 as mentioned in Joshua xix. 36, 37. It apparently lay to the south 
 of Kedesh in Naphtali, and was certainly near the Waters of Merom, now- 
 called Huleh, and by Josephus the Lake of Senechonitis. Dr. W. M. 
 Thomson believes {The Land and the Book, i. 435) that he has found the 
 vast remains of the old city at Hazere, covering a large natural basin and 
 stretching far up the hillside to the south : and in 'A in- Hazier 'hQ recognises 
 the En-Hazor, the well of Hazor in Naphtali, also. 
 
I06 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 There is a beautiful and dignified simplicity in her mode 
 of life, suited to her circumstances and calling. In her tent, 
 spread under a well-known palm-tree, away up among 
 the heights of Ephraim, she judged the people and 
 acted as their prophetess in hazardous times. The 
 position was a convenient and central one, beside the 
 main thoroughfare running north and south, and not far 
 from where had stood the famous oak or terebinth tree 
 of another Deborah, Jacob's nurse, who had been buried 
 under it four centuries before. Thither the children of 
 her people could resort, with more or less secrecy, to 
 their judge and oracle, as to a ' Mother in Israel,' who had 
 won their hearts and risen to deserved influence and 
 renown among them. She strove to inspire them with 
 her own ardent patriotism ; but this was no easy task when 
 their leaders were dispersed, or cowered with terror before 
 Jabin and his formidable array of 900 iron chariots. 
 
 At last, as if to reward her efforts, there appeared a 
 dawn of reviving national spirit ; a fresh hope sprang up 
 in the breast of this more than Joan of Arc or Boadicea 
 of her times. Prompt to seize the opportunity, and 
 initiate a bold and warlike policy, she directs the eyes of 
 the people to a military leader, belonging as usual to 
 the tribe which had suffered most severely from the 
 oppressor. In the northern tribe of Naphtali was the 
 famous little sanctuary, Kedesh- Naphtali ^ the holy 
 place of Naphtali. It was there that Joshua overthrew 
 the combined hosts under the first Jabin ; and there 
 another captain had been growing up, who was destined 
 to overwhelm the hosts of the second Jabin with an 
 equally signal defeat. Here dwelt Barak, whose name 
 
 ^ Identified as still bearing its ancient name, and situated on a high 
 ridge in a splendid region north-west of Lake Huleh (Waters of Merom). 
 Robinson, iii. 366, 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 107 
 
 (which occurred long afterwards under the Phoenician or 
 Carthaginian form of Barca, another military genius) 
 means lightnmg, and fitly symbolises the vivid and swift 
 flashing outburst of his electric charge. 
 
 To him Deborah is instructed by a divine commission 
 to despatch an urgent summons, requiring him to under- 
 take the dangerous enterprise. But such was even his dis- 
 heartened state of feeling that he shrinks from the task, 
 unless Deborah consents to appear in person, to support 
 and direct the movement with her character and authority. 
 Deborah's ascendency at this supreme moment was 
 complete. With a gentle rebuke at his faint-hearted 
 faith, and with a prediction that a woman at last should 
 snatch from him most of the final glory, Deborah repairs 
 to Kedesh-Naphtali ; and with equal courage and wisdom 
 raises there the standard of revolt for Zebulon and 
 Naphtali, almost within sight of Jabin's capital, while 
 appointing the muster to be at Mount Tabor ^, where the 
 tribes could gather without fear of those terrible war- 
 chariots of Jabin, and their great hooks and scythes 
 attached to the wheels, which were the peculiar dread and 
 horror of the men of Israel. And so formidable and well 
 appointed v/as the miHtary power of Jabin, that he did 
 not need to take the field himself, but could commit the 
 campaign in modern fashion to his commander-in-chief, 
 SiSERA, who dwelt at Harosheth ^ of the Gentiles, where 
 Jabin had his great iron-foundries, about a day s march 
 distant. Sisera deployed with his chariots into the plain 
 of Esdraelon, and pushed across the Kishon to the south 
 
 ^ Now Jcbel Tor, about 1755 feet above the level of the sea. 
 
 - ' It comes from the Hebrew word signifying a stniih, and indicates the 
 smitheries where the iron was forged. Probably now El Harethiyeh, a hill 
 or mound at the south-eastern corner of Acca — on the north side of the 
 Kibhon, yet so near the foot of Carmel as only to leave a passage for the 
 river.' Thomson, The Land and the Book, ch. xxix. 
 
108 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 of Jezreel, to prevent, if possible, the men of Ephraim 
 and Manasseh from joining Issachar, Zebulon, and 
 Naphtali. The broad valley of Jezreel \ the only one 
 in Palestine large enough to admit of chariots and 
 cavalry freely manoeuvring, has been the great battle- 
 field of the country from earliest to latest times. In 
 form it is an isosceles triangle, with its western apex 
 
 ^ The central portion of the great slope, stretching down from Tabor, 
 Little Hermon and Gilboa, was properly the Valley of Jezreel (now JVd(fy 
 Jdliid), from the remarkable old town at its opening. Jezreel became in 
 Greek Esdraelon, and this name was ultimately extended to the entire 
 stretch of plain as well as the central valley. The most southej'u section of 
 Esdraelon was the Valley of Megiddo ; and it was at this point the battle 
 of Barak against Sisera was first joined, though the pursuit extended away 
 westward along the Kishon, and northward up the valley toward Harosheth 
 beyond the river. Most of this lovely region belonged to Issachar, to whose 
 lot it fell — ' He saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant ' — 
 though Megiddo and the south portion belonged to warlike Manasseh. 
 This glorious plain, whether we call it Esdraelon, Jezreel, or Megiddo, has 
 been the great battle-ground of Palestine, and with its surrounding heights, 
 the noble Carmel to the west, and the wooded Tabor and the bare hills of 
 Gilboa and Samaria along its eastern side, has resounded more with the 
 shout of contending foes than any other spot. It resembles nothing so much 
 as the plain of Stirling, the battle-ground of Scotland, situated in like 
 manner at the opening of the Highlands. Here and on the neighbouring 
 heights, Israel and its early foes, Canaanites, Midianites, and Amalekites, 
 with the Philistines ; and in later days Jews and Gentiles, Saracens and 
 Crusaders, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Arabs, French, and 
 British, have all been engaged in deadly conflict. Joshua at ' the Waters of 
 Megiddo'; Deborah and Barak at the same spot, encountering Sisera; 
 Gideon and his three hundred in the Valley of Jezreel, in 'the day of 
 Midian'; Saul at Gilboa; the good King Josiah defeated and slain by 
 Egyptian invaders in ' the Valley of Megiddo ' ; and, coming to far later 
 days, Guy de Lusignan, the last Latin King of Jerusalem, made prisoner, 
 and the flower of Christian chivalry destroyed on the upland plain of 
 Hattin, when the Crusaders made their last stand against the Saracens ; 
 and in yet more recent times the famous battle of Tabor, in which the 
 French general Kleber overthrew the Turks ; and the siege of Acre, with the 
 echo of the British guns from the bay resounding from the hills - these are 
 among the memorable warlike events for ever associated with this famous 
 spot. It may well be, therefore, that this great battle-ground, the plain of 
 Megiddo, was before the mind of the Apostle John when, describing in 
 apocalyptic vision the theatre of final conflict between the powers of good 
 and evil, he calls the scene by a play on the very word itself, Ar-Maggcdon, 
 'the city or hill of Megiddo' — the fit title for that great mystic battle 
 in which the confederate hosts of Antichrist and Apostasy are to be 
 effectually and for ever overthrown. 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 109 
 
 at Carmel, where the Kishon rushes past the hill, and its 
 two other angles at Mount Tabor to the north, and 
 Mount Gilboa to the souths, of its eastern base. The 
 Kishon, fed by numberless rivulets from the acclivities 
 both north and south, flows through its centre, and 
 rising rapidly after any rain, becomes in its flooded state 
 exceedingly dangerous all along its banks. 
 
 On the top of Tabor, with its level and oval-shaped 
 area of about a mile in circuit, Barak took up his 
 position with his 10,000 men, poorly armed, and a mere 
 handful compared with the hosts under Sisera. With 
 keenest interest, and not without alarm and trepidation, 
 must they have watched the movements of the enemy 
 crossing the plain to the southward in endless array. 
 It must have looked like madness to venture down upon 
 that host where the chariots had such free room to 
 play; and that he consented on Deborah's orders to 
 descend to the attack is the chief evidence that it was 
 ' by faith ' Barak ' waxed valiant in fight, and put to 
 flight the armies of the aliens.' With eagle eye Deborah 
 watched the gradual drawing of the enemy toward 
 Taanach; about thirteen miles south-east from Tabor, 
 and encamping where the 'Waters of Megiddo ' join 
 the Kishon as it flows in broader stream from the 
 accumulated rivulets through the meadows below. No 
 sooner are the Canaanites in their quarters for the 
 night, than Deborah issues her orders to Barak and his 
 followers to leave their advantageous but unavailing 
 post on the hill-top. They cross over by Nain and 
 Endor to the southern Gilboa slopes, and still inclining 
 to the left, so as to avoid the low and marshy ground, 
 they seem to have corne upon the sleeping hosts of the 
 Canaanites by the first faint light of the morning. 
 
 The narrative gives no particulars of the onset ; but it 
 
IIO - EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 records its success : ' the LORI) discomfited Sisera and 
 all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the 
 sword before Barak ; ' a form of expression which seems 
 to point to a providential coincidence which amazingly 
 contributed to the result. For apparently, just when 
 Barak came down like a thunderbolt on the unprepared 
 Canaanites, a fearful storm of sleet and rain gathered 
 from the east, and burst in terrific fury full in their face ; 
 the Israelites, on the other hand, having it only in their 
 rear, were not only greatly aided by it, but were inspired 
 by a sense of the very elements themselves being super- 
 naturally in their favour : — 
 
 ' Fierce rain with lif^htning mixed, and armed with ice, 
 And snow and hail, and stormy gust and flaw.' 
 
 Panic and confusion took the place of pomp in the 
 hosts of Jabin. The battle became a rout. The 
 treacherous Kishon meantime rose in flood ; the plain 
 became a quagmire ; and the chariots only make confu- 
 sion worse confounded, plunging miserably through the 
 swamp. To the entangled and panic-stricken forces 
 there is no alternative but to allow themselves to be 
 driven north-westward for the pass that led up to 
 Harosheth ^. There, horses, chariots, and men become 
 mixed in irretrievable confusion, jostling and treading 
 on each other just where they must cross the Kishon as 
 it flows swiftest and deepest, dashing up against the 
 steep base of Carmel. Rank by rank the flying host 
 plunges madly in, those behind crushing those before 
 into the mud, while hundreds are being swept away 
 in the swollen and foaming torrent. The discomfiture 
 
 ' Thus the scene of this battle was almosf identical with the famous battle 
 of Tabor, in which Kleber repulsed the Turks, driving them, as has been said, 
 ' into the treacherous quagmires which now, as in 1799, or as in the time of 
 Sisera, nearly twenty-four centuries earlier, fringe the course of the apparently 
 insignificant stream of Kishon.' 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. Ill 
 
 is not less sudden than complete, the dismal end of 
 Sisera himself sealing- the doom of the confederacy. 
 Having early lost all control over his battalions^ and 
 seeing the inevitable result, the dismayed and baffled 
 general, unable to force his chariot through the adhesive 
 clay, and in imminent danger of being swept along with 
 the maddened crowd, steals away on foot, a helpless fugi- 
 tive, up one of the ravines running north-eastward among 
 the hills, to meet his doom at the hands of Jael. 
 
 Such were the circumstances originating and engaging 
 this remarkable song of Deborah, one of the most 
 splendid and yet most difficult effusions in the foremost 
 rank of Hebrew poetry ; recognised by critics of every 
 school, from its antique phraseology and from its whole 
 archaic cast and structure, to be a genuine production 
 of the age in which it purports to have been written. 
 Everything confirms the impression derived from the 
 song itself that it was Deborah, and none but she, who 
 was inspired to pen it : she and Barak leading the first 
 grand rehearsal of it in presence of the victorious tribes 
 on the occasion of the great gathering for solemn public 
 thanksgiving and praise. Borne away by the ecstasy 
 and afflatus of the religious impulse, how loftily the rapt 
 prophetess sweeps along her majestic theme, pouring 
 out her whole soul in this patriotic and pious outburst 
 of devout joy and gratitude! Its strains are lofty and 
 impassioned ; its images vivid and arresting ; its tran- 
 sitions abrupt and varied ; and its whole style compressed 
 and elevated, rising in energy to the very close, when it 
 reaches the sublime. After brief prelude in three verses, 
 the song divides into three main parts of narrative ; and 
 each part of itself again into three divisions, with an 
 occasional interlude, as if for a chorus ; and then the 
 final seal and climax in the closing refrain, ' So let all 
 
112 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Thine enemies perish, O LORD ; but let them that love 
 Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.' 
 
 The Prelude. 
 
 1 Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on 
 
 that day, saying, 
 
 2 For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, 
 For that the people offered themselves willingly, 
 Bless ye the Lord. 
 
 3 Hear, O ye kings ; give ear, O ye princes ; 
 I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; 
 
 I will sing praise to the Lord, the God of Israel. 
 
 This, like its predecessors, is emphatically a God-so7ig. 
 Warlike and defiant in tone and temper, it is essentially 
 a song OF God, TO God, FOR God : and although the 
 devotional or religious spirit pervades it less than, those 
 already noticed, it has the same key-note as theirs. 
 ' Bless ye the LORD,' and ' I will sing praise to the 
 Lord,' indicate a real and true kinship of desire and 
 aim with theirs, even if it be not so persistent or pro- 
 nounced. The one thought uppermost in the soul of 
 the warrior-poetess is still the idea of supreme indebted- 
 ness to the covenant-keeping God of Israel for this great 
 triumph. Her first duty and privilege is therefore to 
 sound a note of praise to the LoRD, and to open her 
 song with an outburst of grateful joy and thanksgiving 
 to His name. So far as human effort had had any share 
 in contributing to the result— and she allows that it was 
 the spirit of patriotic unity among leaders and people 
 that had availed to carry the day —yet even this has 
 been achieved by the divine blessing and favour. And 
 therefore it is that for this very outburst of united 
 activity, ' for that the leaders led ^ and the people volun- 
 
 1 The word here is a very difficult one, occurring only twice in the 
 singular, and once again in the plural, Deut. xxxii. 42. It is the same root 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. II3 
 
 teered,' she summons all to praise Jehovah, and she 
 herself will be their leader here again. Then turning 
 to the captive chiefs and princes, she bids them listen 
 while she tells to whom alone the victory is due : or the 
 call to the kings and princes may be taken as a lofty 
 sarcasm and defiance addressed to the as yet unsubdued 
 surrounding heathen and Canaanitish chieftains: that 
 they may be warned and taught their danger and their 
 surely coming doom, if they persist in their confederacy 
 against Israel. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 A Rehearsal of Events : in Three Sections. 
 
 4 Lord, when Thou wentest forth out of Seir, 
 When Thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, 
 The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped, 
 Yea, the clouds dropped water. 
 
 5 The mountains flowed down at the presence of the Lord, 
 Even yon Sinai at the presence of the Lord, the God of Israel. 
 
 6 In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, 
 
 In the days of Jael, the high ways were unoccupied. 
 And the travellers walked through byways. 
 
 7 The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased. 
 Until that I Deborah arose. 
 
 That I arose a mother in Israel. 
 
 8 They chose new gods; 
 Then was war in the gates : 
 Was there a shield or spear seen 
 Among forty thousand in Israel.? 
 
 9 My heart is toward the governors of Israel, 
 
 That offered themselves willingly among the people : 
 Bless ye the Lord. 
 lo Tell of it, ye that ride on white asses, 
 Ye that sit on rich carpets, 
 And ye that walk by the way. 
 
 as Pharaoh or king, but refers to the flying locks of hair of one in rapid 
 motion : and is a very cnix for interpreters. The translation ' For the 
 avenging of Israel ' is from the Syriac ; but the one now adopted is from the 
 Alexandrine Codex of the Septuagint. 
 
 li 
 
114 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 1 1 Far from the noise of archers, in the places of drawing water, 
 There shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, 
 Even the righteous acts of His rule in Israel. 
 
 Then the people of the Lord went down to the gates. 
 
 1 2 Awake, awake, Deborah ; 
 Awake, awake, utter a song: 
 
 Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of 
 Abinoam. 
 
 The first of these three strophes opens with a solemn 
 ascription and direct address to Jehovah, as if uttered 
 in His ow^n immediate felt presence, and as avov^ing that 
 the battle was the Lord's — a customary beginning of 
 songs of triumph, after the manner used by Moses. For 
 the recent victory recalls to the prophetess the glories 
 of the Exodus, with its wonderful and gracious inter- 
 positions of the divine hand for Israel's deliverance ; and 
 so, in the fourth and fifth verses, she is describing the 
 Theophany or appearance of God on behalf of His 
 people in the great tempest so favourable for them, and 
 so discomfiting to the enemy. By powerful yet poetic 
 and picturesque phrases she describes the thunderstorm 
 gathering away in the south-east among the mountains 
 of Seir or highlands of Edom ; and by a deft and 
 cunning touch she associates this so suggestively with 
 ' yonder Sinai,' in the same region, with the same or 
 kindred effects as of old, in the dark lowering heavens full 
 of thunder, and the earth full of trembling, and the clouds 
 full of hail and rain, and men's hearts full of awe and 
 panic-terror, as though the mountains were flowing down 
 on them at the presence of Jehovah, the God of Israel ^. 
 
 In the second strophe, verses 6-9, Deborah rapidly 
 but graphically recalls the country's fallen and miserable 
 
 ^ For the tempest and storm from Idumea, see Josephus' Antiquities ^ 
 V. 5.4: and for parallel passage see Psalm Ixviii. 8, 9. 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. II5 
 
 plight in the immediately preceding years, when under 
 the iron heel of Jabin the people were utterly sunk in 
 despondency ; the land was depopulated and desolate ; 
 traffic and intercourse almost ceased or were kept up 
 by stealthy means, for the highways were deserted, and 
 men had to betake themselves to secret by-paths or 
 lonely mountain-passes, so universal was the sense of 
 the danger and degradation of being openly seen on 
 any journey. Had they not been stripped of their arms, 
 whether for defence or offence, and where was there 
 'shield or spear to be seen among forty thousand of 
 Israel ' ? And all this was owing to their faithlessness 
 and idolatry ; for from the time of their having ' new 
 gods ' there had been nothing but internecine strife and 
 rapine, ' there was war in their very gates.' Peaceful 
 pursuits were interrupted ; the body politic was dis- 
 organised ; bands of marauders were free to plunder 
 or murder the peaceful citizens, without being called 
 to account ; and few had spirit enough, and fewer still 
 had weapons, to defend themselves against the cruel 
 wrong. What a sombre and woeful picture this, of 
 universal helplessness, dejection, and degradation ! 
 
 But it is now all past and over. Deborah is suddenly 
 conscious of her great victory and of the mighty change 
 it will entail. And she remembers how much was due 
 to the chiefs and people who had responded to her 
 patriotic call at a critical moment, and had risen at last 
 in the new and irresistible might of their ancient faith, 
 to crush the oppressor and cast off his yoke. ' My 
 heart,' she says, ' is drawn out in sentiments of grateful 
 respect and regard for the governors of Israel that 
 volunteered to go about the enterprise among the people ; ' 
 and she calls on them to join with her in blessing and 
 praising God, who had inspired them with the vigorous 
 
 H 2 
 
Il6 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 resolution, and who had endowed them with the ardour 
 and strength necessary to carry it through so success- 
 fully and triumphantly. ' Bless ye the LORD,' — and 
 not ye only, but let all who are yet to profit by such 
 a deliverance, let all the people, high and low, rich and 
 poor, men and maidens, elders and commonalty, join 
 in the song, with the returning warriors amid their spoils 
 and glory. There is a threefold division of the people 
 here, into what we would now call the upper, middle, 
 and lower classes. Tell of it, ye who ride on white asses : 
 that is, ye nobles and grandees. Asses of a pure white, 
 or of a richly dappled or mottled colour, were animals 
 of great scarcity and costliness, and could only be ridden 
 by people of the highest rank and consideration. Ye 
 that sit on rich carpets, or recline on divans, are the 
 elders, officials, judges, or those in easy and comfortable 
 circumstances who held a middle rank ; while ' ye who 
 walk by the way ' are the great mass of the toiling 
 community who have to travel on foot. ^ Far from the 
 noise of archers,' or ' louder than the noise of archers,' 
 or perhaps more simply ' instead of the noise of archers,' 
 hateful and hostile around the gates and wells and 
 watering troughs, another and a peaceful vision rises 
 to our view^, of people quietly gathering again to the 
 wells and the town gates in comfort and security to do 
 their business. And the summons is to all classes to 
 join in rehearsing the great mercies of the Lord in 
 ridding the land of marauders and oppressors who in- 
 vested alike the wells or fountains, and the city gates, 
 where business was wont to be transacted or justice was 
 done. 
 
 * The beginning of verse 1 1 is difficult. Many render ' archers ' as 
 * dividers ' of the spoil, or as ' flock-dividers.' The word ' noise ' is referred 
 by some to the clattering cogs of the water-wheels, or similar sounds at the 
 wells. 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. II7 
 
 Sing ye that ride as rulers ride ; ye that on carpets sit, 
 Praise God ye poorer wayfarers, because it is most fit. 
 When our daughters to the fountains in the cool of evening hie, 
 No archers with their cruel arrows now are lurking by. 
 Where noise of war was loudest, and where fields were 
 
 lost and won, 
 Let thankful hymns ascend to God at setting of the sun. 
 Ail o'er the peaceful country, and all through the busy town, 
 When flocks are in the fold, and tools of labour are laid down. 
 From lips of young and old let rise the solemn sound of praise 
 To the Holy One who has given us peace and freedom in 
 
 our days. 
 Awake, awake, O Deborah, awake and raise the song. 
 Rise Barak, lead in triumph your captive ones along. 
 For the poorest now have justice, and the weakest have their 
 
 right, 
 And the humble rule the princes who oppressed them in 
 
 their might. 
 So praise the God of Israel, who is faithful to His word, 
 Yea, praise the Lord Jehovah, Hallelujah, praise the Lord/ 
 
 PART IL 
 
 The Conflict: in Three Sections. 
 
 13 Then came down a remnant of the nobles and the people ; 
 The Lord came down for me against the mighty. 
 
 14 Out of Ephraim came down they whose root is in Amalek; 
 After thee, Benjamin, among thy peoples; 
 
 Out of Machir came down governors. 
 
 And out of Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff. 
 
 1 5 And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah ; 
 As was Issachar, so was Barak; 
 
 Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet. 
 By the watercourses of Reuben 
 There were great resolves of heart. 
 
 16 Why satest thou among the sheepfolds. 
 To hear the pipings for the flocks ? 
 
 At the watercourses of Reuben 
 There were great searchings of heart. 
 
 1 7 Gilead abode beyond Jordan : 
 
 And Dan, why did he remain in ships ? 
 
Il8 EARLY BIBLE SONGS, 
 
 Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, 
 And above by his creeks. 
 
 1 8 Zebulun was a people that jeoparded their lives unto 
 
 the death, 
 And Naphtali, upon the high places of the field. 
 
 19 The kings came and fought ; 
 Then fought the kings of Canaan, 
 
 In Taanach by the waters of Megiddo : 
 They took no gain of money. 
 
 20 They fought from heaven, 
 
 The stars in their courses fought against Sisera. 
 
 21 The river Kishon swept them away. 
 That ancient river, the river Kishon. 
 O my soul, march on with strength. 
 
 22 Then did the horsehoofs stamp 
 
 By reason of the pransings, the pransings of their strong ones. 
 
 Deborah, in going over the muster-roll, pays a warm 
 and touching tribute to the gallantry of the tribes who 
 had at once obeyed her summons and gathered to her 
 call. The thirteenth verse is a difficult one, and the 
 precise meaning has been much controverted. It may 
 most probably be best taken in the way of simple nar- 
 ration, as in both the text and margin of our common 
 versions ; but not impossibly as a dramatic record of her 
 military order ' Then (said I), Descend, ye remnant of 
 the nobles of the people ! Jehovah, descend for me 
 among (or against) the mighty.' In any case, the 
 eulogium is clear and unmistakable of those who joined 
 the standard on Mount Tabor, and rushed down upon the 
 foe. These were the hillsmen of Ephraim, whose strong- 
 holds were among the old Amalekite uplands ^ ; a band 
 of Benjaminites, with their war-cry, 'After thee, Ben- 
 jamin : ' ' Governors ' or valiant leaders ' out of Machir,' 
 that is. Western Manasseh (Machir having been the 
 
 ^ For the meaning of the words ' Ephraim, whose root is in Amalek,' see 
 Judges xii. 15, where the land of Ephraim is said to be *in the hill country 
 of the Amalekites.' 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. II9 
 
 eldest son of Manasseh and chief of the tribe ^) ; choice 
 warriors out of Zebukm, whose peculiar description, ' they 
 that handle the marshal's staff/ seems to refer to their 
 high place on the staff or muster-roll of their people : 
 while those from Issachar were very * princes ' in the 
 fight, heart and soul with Deborah, yea, ' Issachar was 
 the reliance of Barak,' foremost in their eagerness to 
 rush down themselves with him into the valley — a mark 
 of extraordinary valour and daring, to encounter on foot 
 the dreaded iron chariots in the plain below. 
 
 But if Deborah has praise for the brave, what scornful 
 taunts she has for those who had played the coward and 
 kept aloof or were laggards in the fight ! Among the 
 recreant defaulters were — the pastoral tribe of Reuben, 
 which had betrayed on this occasion, as on others, the 
 weak and negative character of Reuben himself, of whom 
 Jacob said, ' Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel ' 
 (out of this tribe had never come any great judge, 
 prophet, or other capable man), and which again had 
 debated and deliberated till the time for action was 
 allowed to pass ; and so it brought down on itself the 
 reproachful but well-deserved rebuke, twice repeated, 
 for preferring the music of the sheepfolds by its peace- 
 ful watercourses, to the shrill clarion of the soldier at 
 the seat of war — the nomadic tribes in Gilead beyond 
 Jordan, the men of Gad and the eastern half-tribe of 
 Manasseh, who lingered ignominiously in their Havoth- 
 jair or villages of tents on their hazy uplands — while 
 the maritime interests were 'conspicuous by their ab- 
 sence,' Dan and Asher preferring their commerce and 
 their fisheries by the sea-coast. The contrast is height- 
 ened by a further reference to the magnanimous conduct 
 of the two most northerly tribes which had most felt 
 
 ^ See Gen. 1. 23; Numb, xxvii. i. 
 
120 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. , 
 
 and suffered under the great oppression, and upon whom 
 the honour as well as the burden mostly fell of achieving 
 the deliverance ; Zebulun, with all the generous enter- 
 prise of a seafaring community (' Rejoice, Zebulun, in 
 \\\y going otitl was its motto), 'a people that jeoparded 
 their lives unto the death ' ; and Naphtali, though its 
 cognisance were a timid ' hind,' was equally forward ' on 
 the high places of the field.' Most strangely of all, 
 the premier tribe of Judah and its southern neighbour 
 Simeon are never once mentioned as taking any part 
 whatever in the great deliverance. 
 
 And is it not ever thus, in any arduous and difficult 
 undertaking? Some, like Reuben, promise fair and 
 make large noise in wordy debate, but it comes to 
 nothing ; others, like the men of Gilead, consult their 
 own ease ; others, like Dan and Asher, are too engrossed 
 in their own private concerns ; and others still, like 
 Judah and Simeon, remain silent and aloof. But the 
 work, nevertheless, gets done ; the high and hard places 
 of the field are eagerly occupied by the noble and self- 
 sacrificing Zebuluns and Naphtalis, and the Lord comes 
 down with power among those few but faithful ones to 
 nerve them for the fight, and make them mighty to 
 conquer and prevail. 
 
 The third section of this part of the song presents us 
 with a picture of the fight and the flight in the terse 
 and glowing terms of verses 1 9 to 23 ; but we have 
 considered this already in the introduction, to which 
 we would therefore refer the reader. 
 
 PART in. 
 
 The Issue : in Three Sections. 
 
 23 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, 
 Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. 121 
 
 Because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
 To the help of the Lord against the mighty. 
 
 24 Blessed above women shall Jael be, 
 The wife of Heber the Kenite, 
 
 Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. 
 
 25 He asked water, and she gave him milk; 
 She brought him butter in a lordly dish. 
 
 26 She put her hand to the nail, 
 
 And her right hand to the workmen's hammer ; 
 
 And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote 
 
 through his head, 
 Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples. 
 
 27 At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay: 
 At her feet he bowed, he fell : 
 
 Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. 
 
 28 Through the window she looked forth, and cried, 
 The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice. 
 Why is his chariot so long in coming ? 
 
 Why tarry the wheels of his chariots? 
 
 29 Her wise ladies answered her. 
 
 Yea, she returned answer to herself, 
 
 30 Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil ? . 
 A damsel, two damsels to every man ; 
 
 To Sisera a spoil of divers colours, 
 A spoil of divers colours of embroidery, 
 Of divers colours of embroidery on both sides, on the 
 necks of the spoil ^ .? 
 
 3 1 So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord : 
 
 But let them that love Him be as the sun when he 
 goeth forth in his might. 
 
 In this last strophe we have again three sections : — the 
 burst of malediction on Meroz ; the episode of Jael ; and 
 the grandest master-stroke of all, the dialogue and scene 
 in the palace of Sisera at Harosheth of the Gentiles. 
 
 The final chorus, in verse 31, is the solemn seal and 
 crown of the whole song. 
 
 Malediction on Mei^oz. The site of Meroz has not 
 
 ^ By the change of a letter, one scholar has conjectured the reading to be 
 ' for the neck of the Queen.' 
 
122 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 been determined. It seems to have lain on the route 
 cither of the fleeing squadrons of Canaan or of the 
 fugitive Sisera, somewhere on the borders of Issachar 
 and Zebulun. Its crime was, it had done nothing when 
 it had both the call and the opportunity of doing some 
 signal service at a critical moment. And although the 
 place seems blotted out of existence, its dishonoured 
 name has been thus gibbeted for all time as a warning 
 against neglected duty and despised opportunity. 
 
 Episode of Jael. Sisera, hastening up one of the ravines 
 towards Bit-Zanaaim, reached, after long and weary 
 toil, the secluded tents of Heber the Kenite, sheikh of 
 a Bedouin tribe friendly to Jabin, ten or twelve miles 
 off, pitched for their winter-quarters further south than 
 usual. In the absence of the chief, his wife Jael receives 
 the fugitive, extends to him her hospitality, and affords 
 him the pledge of friendship and security by opening 
 the large skin bottle of curded, and perhaps somewhat 
 intoxicating, milk. She threw around him the rough 
 covering of her own tent ; and encouraged by all these 
 circumstances of fancied safety, Sisera is soon fast asleep 
 after his exhausting defeat and fatigue. When Jael re- 
 ceived him it was doubtless in good faith ; but seeing 
 in her guest no longer a great general, but a baffled and 
 helpless fugitive^, and dreading the vengeance of the 
 pursuing Barak, she is seized by a mighty and over- 
 mastering impulse to despatch the refugee. Seizing 
 with her left hand one of the large pegs or nails which 
 fastened down the tent ropes, and with her right the 
 ponderous mallet, she strikes a blow of frenzied excite- 
 ment, transfixing his temples, and driving the pin even 
 into the earth. What are we to make of this dread act 
 of fatal violence? and what especially of Deborah's 
 words of eulogy and exultation ? 
 
THE SONG OF DEBORAH. IfZ3 
 
 ' For blessed above women shall the wife of Heber be : 
 Of all the Kenite families the noblest matron she. 
 For vain had Barak's valour been his people to deliver, 
 And Kishon redly flowing, that ancient angry river, 
 Had womanly relentings made weak the hand of Jael, 
 Who wielded well the hammer, who drove the deadly nail.' 
 
 One has said, ' If in the great Indian mutiny we had 
 heard of Nana Sahib being entrapped and killed, faith- 
 lessly no doubt, but on principles of self-preservation, by 
 some wild woman of a wandering tribe, we can well 
 understand how newspaper correspondents would refer 
 to her name, and public opinion at home would have 
 re-echoed the sentiments of satisfaction with the result, 
 and the woman would have become a heroine in the 
 annals of the famous campaign.' The deed of Jael was 
 treacherous and cruel ; nevertheless, we do not know all 
 the motives and circumstances of the case ; and there 
 were evidently circumstances and motives of a nobler 
 and heroic cast mingling with the worse ones, so that 
 Deborah could say she was glorified by her tribe and 
 her name was dear to Israel. Meanwhile, Barak in hot 
 pursuit appears before the tent, and the fierce and crafty 
 chieftainess brings to him the evidence, full and conclu- 
 sive, that Israels triumph is now complete. 
 
 Scene ill the Palace of Harosheth. By a sudden and 
 striking prosopopoeia, while we are yet looking at the 
 dead body in the tent of Jael, we are introduced to the 
 distant palace of Harosheth, and hear the mother of 
 Sisera discuss with her attendants the anticipated and 
 anxiously awaited spoil. None but a woman could 
 devise such a master-stroke. It shows the deep insight 
 of Deborah into the frivolity and even baser traits of 
 Oriental female character, with no views at such a time 
 beyond dress and ornament and personal advantage ; 
 
124 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 and no joys beyond the glutting of the warrior with lust 
 and slaves and kindred spoil. How the whole passage 
 is edged with keenest irony at the delusive hopes of 
 an enemy, intent only on the spoils, and never once 
 themselves dreaming of their own defeat ! 
 
 The song closes with an apostrophe or prediction of a 
 similar and sure disappointment and fatal issue for every 
 evil cause ; while brighter and brighter must wax the 
 course of God's kingdom on the earth, like the sun 
 shining forth in its strength towards the effulgence of 
 perfect day. It is at once a principle, a prediction, and 
 a prayer. A principle : for there is a divine cause and 
 interest of God in the world, often obscured by human 
 passion, often clouded with sad disaster, like the sun 
 wading through mist and storm, but destined ever to 
 re-assert itself and establish its bright ascendency. A 
 prediction. Every inimical interest must and shall give 
 way and succumb to His undying kingdom, with the 
 seed divine of immortal youth within its bosom, 
 
 ' And the power of each foe, as if smote with the sword, 
 Shall melt like the snow in the glance of the Lord.' 
 
 A prayer. So is it, so it shall be ; and so says the singer, 
 let it be. Only, he makes it clear that it is not Israel's 
 cause or Israel's enemies as such, but simply as these 
 and other interests affect the highest and divinest in- 
 terests among men — 
 
 ' So let all Thine enemies perish, O Lord : 
 But let them that love Hi7)i be as the sun when he goeth 
 forth in his might.' 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH 
 
The Song of Hannah. 
 
 1 And Hannah prayed, and said : 
 My heart exulteth in the Lord, 
 Mine horn is exalted in the Lord : 
 
 My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; 
 Because I rejoice in Thy salvation. 
 
 2 There is none holy as the Lord ; 
 For there is none beside Thee: 
 Neither is there any rock like our God. 
 
 3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; 
 
 Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth : 
 For the Lord is a God of knowledge, 
 And by Him actiftns are weighed. 
 
 4 The bows of the mighty men are broken, 
 
 And they that stumbled are girded with strength. 
 
 5 They that were full have hired out themselves for bread 
 And they that were hungry have ceased : 
 
 Yea, the barren hath borne seven; 
 
 And she that hath many children languisheth. 
 
 6 The Lord killeth, and maketh alive : 
 
 He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 
 
 7 The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich : 
 He bringeth low. He also lifteth up. 
 
 8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 
 He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill, 
 To make them sit with princes, 
 
 And inherit the throne of glory : 
 
 For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, 
 
 And He hath set the world upon them. 
 
 9 He will keep the feet of His holy ones, 
 
 But the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness ; 
 For by strength shall no man prevail, 
 lo They that strive with the Lord shall be broken to pieces' 
 Against them shall He thunder in heaven : 
 The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth ; 
 And He shall give strength unto His king. 
 And exalt the horn of His anointed. 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. 
 
 I Sam. ii. i-io. 
 
 This Song of Hannah is the Old Testament Mag- 
 nificat, or high song of sacred praise. No doubt it is 
 called a prayer, for it begins 'And Hannah prayed and 
 said.' Singularly enough, however, there is not a single 
 prayer, in the sense of petition, in the whole course of 
 the song. The word here used for prayer^ need not 
 necessarily involve direct supplication. It would apply 
 to any devout utterance or meditation in the spirit of 
 worship before the Lord. It may be ascription, thanks- 
 giving, joy in God, or other ebullition of holy thought 
 and feeling. Here we have just such an outburst of 
 exultant delight in God, with every suitable expression 
 of hope, and confidence, and triumph in Him. 
 
 But besides this graciously spiritual temper, there is 
 in this Magnificat a true prophetic element as well, con- 
 necting itself with Hannah's own experience. Prophecy, 
 in its most general idea, is a divinely vouchsafed insight 
 into the meaning and aims of God's moral administra- 
 tion, as science is, by means of investigation, an insight 
 into the processes and ramifications of natural law. The 
 
 ' Tephillah. It occurs five times in the superscriptions of the Psalms — 
 in the title of the very oldest, the ninetieth, and of one of the latest, the 
 hundred and second, as well as at the close of the seventy-second. ' The 
 prayers (the devotions) of David, the Son of Jesse, are ended.' 
 
128 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 fall of an apple led Newton to apprehend the great 
 principles of gravitation, and their universal sway. 
 
 * The very law which moulds a tear, 
 And bids it trickle from its source — 
 That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
 And guides the planets in their course.' 
 
 In the birth of a child and the circumstances accom- 
 panying it, Hannah descries the main idea of salvation, 
 and exultantly seizes on its hope. From a personal and 
 seemingly insignificant incident in her own life, she rises 
 to one of the universal principles in the divine govern- 
 ment, and shows its working within the economy of 
 divine redemption. It is she who, in the very last word 
 of her song, is the first to name the coming deliverer by 
 His title ' Messiah,' or Jehovah's anointed ; it is she who 
 first hails Him as the ' King'; and out of the environments 
 of her own particular case, it is she who rises up to and 
 enunciates the far-reaching assurance : — 
 
 ' Jehovah shall give strength unto His King 
 And exalt the horn of His Messiah.' 
 
 The song begins with a temporal mercy vouchsafed to 
 herself in answer to earnest, humble, and importunate 
 prayer. A devout and pious woman of sorrowful spirit, 
 she had been still further depressed by the sneers and 
 taunts of a proud unfeeling rival, continually reminding 
 her of her childless condition, and of being therefore no 
 ' mother in Israel.' This was to Hannah's mind a cause 
 of no small anxiety and alarm. For her childlessness 
 was not merely a trial to her maternal instincts, and did 
 not merely subject her to the adversary's reproach, but, 
 what was harder to bear, it seemed to cast doubt on her 
 enjoying the divine favour at all, or at least in any 
 marked degree. This was what filled her with fear and 
 grief. The maternal instinct among the women of Israel 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. I'Zg 
 
 was' elevated and sublimated by the idea that any mother 
 might furnish a contributing link in the chain that was 
 to reach to the nation's goal. 
 
 Debarred from such a succession, how could one like 
 Hannah be assured of her divine acceptance ? Deprived 
 of such a blessing, was she not deprived of one chief 
 07iHt>ard evidence of God's gracious favour and regard ? 
 It was this that filled her with doubt and despondency 
 from time to time ; and it was despair of human help 
 and resource that drove her back upon her God, who had 
 ever been the help and hope of His people ; and this it 
 was that sent her to Shiloh as a humble and meek but 
 earnest suppliant before God. And now that her prayer 
 had been heard, and her son been born and weaned, we 
 find her back again at Shiloh with him. ' And she 
 brought the child to Eli. And she said, Oh my lord, as thy 
 soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee 
 here, praying unto the LORD. For this child I prayed ; 
 and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked 
 of Him : therefore I also have returned him to the 
 Lord ; as long as he liveth he is granted to the 
 Lord.' Out of no self-gratifying spirit, nor desire for 
 personal profit and distinction, had she sought a child at 
 the hand of the Lord. This she made abundantly plain 
 by her willingness to forego a mother's pride in having 
 her boy about her, and by surrendering her claim to keep 
 him as an object of doting fondness and maternal satis- 
 faction. Her great concern was to have some tangible 
 evidence, patent and unmistakable to herself and others, 
 that the Lord had regarded the low estate of His hand- 
 maid and visited her with a token of mercy. 
 
 And it is her ' salvation ' or deliverance from what 
 seemed a state of disfavour with God and man that now 
 prompts this outburst of grateful and believing song. Of 
 
 I 
 
130 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 believing as well as of grateful song, because she is 
 enabled at once to rise from this single case of what she 
 terms her * salvation,' to the principles which regulate 
 the highest salvation of all. The humble episode in her 
 own lowly lot she links to the grandest redemptive issues, 
 just as the history of a single pebble by the sea-shore 
 may be associated with the laws that affect the mightiest 
 orbs which roll in space. She sees in the exaltation of 
 her own lowliness the process of all saving grace ; and in 
 her own deliverance she can see a picture and pledge of 
 its fullest realisation and perfect consummation at last. 
 
 In this point of view it may be well to connect it 
 with the song of Mary, the New Testament Magnificat 
 (Luke i. 46-55), which repeats its strain and re-echoes its 
 sentiments in almost its very words, on a kindred though 
 a much more memorable and exalted occasion. For 
 besides opening with a similar tone of holy exultation — 
 
 * My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,' 
 
 it also sings the praises of Him whose delight it is to 
 abase the proud and exalt the humble : — 
 
 ' He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart. 
 He hath put princes down from their thrones, 
 And hath exalted them of low degree.' 
 
 while the hope and yearning prophecy of the earlier 
 Magnificat becomes the happy fulfilment and triumphant 
 realisation of the later one — 
 
 ' That He might remember mercy 
 Toward Abraham and his seed for ever. 
 As He spake unto our fathers.' 
 
 The whole structure, spirit and object of both the Magni- 
 ficats are strictly parallel. They have the same theme 
 and key-note ; the same threefold division ; the same 
 
 . 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. 131 
 
 great end and aim. Hannah's song, after an introduc- 
 tion referring to its reason and occasion (verse i), divides 
 itself into the three parts, glorifying — 
 
 (i) God's revealed character^ verses 1 and 3. (2) God's 
 revealed zvay, verses 4-8. (3) God's now revealed ends 
 and aims, verses 9 and 10. 
 
 As to God's character, no one is comparable to Him 
 for holy and faithful integrity : proud boasters, therefore, 
 had need to be very humble and silent before one who 
 knows how to estimate vaunting arrogance, and how to 
 weigh real worth. As to God's procedure, it is His way 
 to humble the haughty and exalt the lowly, as all life's 
 experience and Hannah's own case could amply attest. 
 As to His purpose, He will bring this law into fuller and 
 fuller operation, and by it at last He shall hasten the 
 coming of the Anointed. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 I My heart exulteth in the Lord, 
 Mine horn is exalted in the Lord : 
 My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; 
 Because I rejoice in Thy salvation. 
 
 The spirit here is that of rejoicing in God. It is a 
 purely religious or spiritual joy, as distinct from mere 
 ebullition of animal spirits or delight in objects of 
 outward sense. No doubt the joy sprang up out of 
 happy circumstances which were the occasion of it, 
 but which were neither its cause nor its object. The 
 alone adequate cause and support of Hannah's joy 
 was God Himself, in His own nature and character, as 
 these had revealed themselves in her own personal ex- 
 perience of His ways. She had long been silently and 
 in secret nourishing a lofty faith and hope 'in Him ' as 
 the all-sufficient helper and deliverer of those that truly 
 
 I Q, 
 
132 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 trust Him. And now that her faith and hope had 
 been verified, her grateful and admiring love breaks 
 forth in holy joy. Now that she had experienced de- 
 liverance from painful depression and indignity, her full 
 heart overflows in sanctified delight. God Himself was 
 a bright thought to her ; the very name of God was a 
 source of indescribable gladness. * When I think of 
 God,' said Haydn, the composer, on being asked why 
 the style of his music was so bright and cheerful, ' my 
 soul is so full of joy that the notes come leaping and 
 dancing from my pen.' And if Hannah's heart were 
 lifted up in kindred exultation, it was not the exul- 
 tation of haughty disdain, but the meek and tender 
 spirit of exultancy ' in the Lord.' 
 
 The metaphor she uses is a simple but expressive 
 one. ' Mine horn is exalted in the Lord.' Various 
 purposes were served by the ' horn.' It was used as a 
 trumpet or wind-instrument, as a vessel for holding 
 liquids or unguents, like the horn of ointment or the 
 paint-horn, or as a nail or peg on which clothes might 
 be hung. There may be a possible reference to what 
 was at least its later use, as a portion of ornamental 
 head-dress, which was significantly worn low and de- 
 pressed in token of grief, and then erect again in token 
 of joy. But used as a metaphor, the horn, however it 
 may have its origin, was the recognised emblem of 
 strength, authority, dignity or honour. To exalt the 
 horn was to secure or accord a position of respect ; and 
 to this Hannah had now attained by the help of the 
 Lord, in the very presence of her foes. She could lift 
 up her head without fear or discredit, just as ' her mouth 
 was enlarged,' or she was permitted to open it, without 
 the former affronting taunts of her enemies whenever 
 she spoke. Now she can speak freely, without dread of 
 
 I 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. I33 
 
 being struck dumb or having her lips closed with the 
 sneering reproaches of an adversary. 
 
 The contrast that is implied in every one of the four 
 lines is noticeable : — 
 
 ' My heart exulteth in the Lord : ' formerly it was burdened 
 with grief. 
 
 ' My horn is exalted in the Lord : ' formerly it was depressed 
 and downcast. 
 
 ' My mouth is opened before mine enemies : ' formerly it was 
 barred and closed through their ever ready sneers. 
 
 ' I rejoice in Thy salvation : ' formerly it was a sorrowing prayer, 
 whereas now it is a joyful song. 
 
 Such a comforting change in her lowly lot ; such a 
 salvation and deliverance from a despised and painful 
 state ; such a peculiar token of the divine condescension 
 and regard, awakens in her not only grateful thoughts, 
 but very lofty conceptions of the divine character, 
 ways, and purposes, and affords her new assurance of 
 God's ultimate gracious design on a yet larger scale of 
 salvation. 
 
 PART L 
 Hannah exults in God's 'character,' as now revealed to her. 
 
 2 There is none holy as the Lord; 
 P"or there is none beside Thee : 
 Neither is there any rock like our God. 
 
 3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; 
 
 Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth : 
 For the Lord is a God of knowledge, 
 And by Him actions are weighed. 
 
 Wonderful as are God's purposes, wonderful as 
 are His works and ways, most wonderful of all by far 
 is He Himself in His own nature and perfections. This 
 therefore is put here in the foreground, there being 
 a suitable and orderly progression of thought through- 
 out the song. God Himself in His very existence and 
 
134 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 character is the primary foundation of unbounded 
 deh'ght and exultation, the true bulwark against the 
 inroads of despondency and gloomy despair. He, 
 the alone self-existent, the holy or all-perfect in Him- 
 self, is the one grand guarantee of final order, beauty, 
 and right ; the one incomparable object therefore of 
 confidence, because He is the Rock, the emblem of un- 
 failing strength and unchanging fidelity. 'Neither is 
 there any rock like our God ' — this is an old quotation 
 from Moses' Deuteronomic song. As a traditional 
 doctrine or saying, often repeated, Hannah had heard of 
 it with the hearing of the ear ; but now she herself knew 
 it in her own happy personal intuition and experience — 
 and there lay the comfort. Pride, arrogance, and as- 
 sumption were put to rout now ; their cruel spell over, 
 her spirit was thoroughly broken ; they had no place of 
 favour and honour, but indeed the very contrary, in the 
 presence of the all-seeing and true-judging Governor of 
 men ; a God of knowledge (or rather of knowledges, for 
 the word is an intensive plural, to indicate complete and 
 perfect accuracy of knowledge), who cannot be deceived 
 by appearances, nor silenced by insolence, but who 
 weighs actions in a balance and determines their proper 
 nature and quality. 
 
 PART II. ' 
 
 Hannah exults in God's ' way of working,' as now 
 manifested to her. 
 
 4 The bows of the mighty men are broken, 
 
 And they that stumbled are girded with strength. 
 
 5 They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; 
 And they that were hungry have ceased : 
 
 Yea, the barren hath borne seven; 
 
 And she that hath many children ianguisheth. 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. I35 
 
 6 The Lord killeth, and maketh alive : 
 
 He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 
 
 7 The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich : 
 He bringeth low, He also lifteth up. 
 
 8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 
 He lifteth up the needy from the dunghill, 
 To make them sit with princes. 
 
 And inherit the throne of glory : 
 
 For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, 
 
 And He hath set the world upon them. 
 
 Thus Hannah exults in God's way of lifting up the 
 lowly and giving grace to the humble. For this is the 
 principle which she had seen exemplified in her own 
 case ; and notwithstanding the disorder and irregularity 
 that may seem to obtain to such a confusing and 
 baffling extent, it yet holds good, as an ultimate law of 
 the divine administration, that ' God resisteth the proud, 
 but sheweth grace and favour to the humble.' 
 
 ' The lowly spirit God hath consecrated 
 
 As His abiding rest: 
 And angels by some patriarch's humble tent have waited, 
 When kings had no such guest.' 
 
 In seven different ways, and in the vicissitudes of 
 seven different walks of life — in the chances and 
 vicissitudes of war, travel, business, home, health, 
 wealth, and social position — does Hannah proceed to 
 exemplify and illustrate this fundamental law with in- 
 creasing emphasis. She sees it in the vicissitudes of 
 war^ when ' the bows of the mighty are broken,' or, in 
 other words, the battle is not always to the strong, and 
 God does not always grant success to the great battalions, 
 but, in spite of overwhelming odds in force and numbers, 
 the superior power sustains discomfiture and defeat. 
 So in travel^ the race is not always to the swift ; the 
 hare is sometimes beaten in the end by the tortoise, and 
 
136 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 * they that stumbled are girded with new strength.' In 
 matters of business^ ' they that were full have had to hire 
 themselves out for bread, while those who were hungry 
 now take their ease.' In home and family life we see 
 the same fluctuations : ' the barren hath borne seven ' 
 (a full and complete household, Ruth iv. 15), while ' she 
 that had many children languisheth/ as one by one 
 they have pined away and died, and the domestic hearth 
 becomes desolate. Then follow the ups and downs in 
 three of the main departments of our human lot : 
 sickness and health, verse 6, with the strange casualties 
 whereby the strongest are smitten down in the full flush 
 of health, and others, who have been given over to 
 death as beyond the skill of man to help, have been 
 brought again from the jaws of the grave : riches and 
 poverty, verse 7, with all their strange and unaccount- 
 able vicissitudes ; and the kindred fluctuations in rank 
 and social status^ verse 8, where the poor out of the dust 
 and the needy from the dunghill have been raised to 
 seats of honour and ofiice and knowledge. ' For the 
 pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the 
 world upon them.' The word for ' pillars ' is an obscure 
 and difficult one, occurring only elsewhere in chap. xiv. 4 ; 
 but the idea seems to be that, as an Oriental house is 
 supported by its great pillars or corner-posts, the whole 
 fabric of human affairs is upheld by divinely planted 
 and ordained fixtures, which God alone has instituted ; 
 and that these constituted arrangements in the great 
 social structure of human life are not merely natural 
 laws, but 'ordinances of heaven,' from which there is 
 no escape. 
 
THE SONG OF HANNAH. I37 
 
 PART III. 
 Hannah exults in God's 'purposed ends and designs/ 
 
 9 He will keep the feet of His holy ones, 
 
 But the wicked shall be put to silence in darkness ; 
 For by strength shall no man prevail. 
 1 o They that strive with the Lord shall be broken to pieces ; 
 Against them shall He thunder in heaven: 
 The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth ; 
 And He shall give strength unto His king, 
 And exalt the horn of His anointed. 
 
 The song now becomes prophetic. Hannah antici- 
 pates the realisation of her own experience over the wider 
 field of the world's history. The same principle she 
 had herself seen and felt in her own life will operate 
 more and more unto the perfect day of fullest triumph 
 and victory. By it the Lord will guard the interests 
 of His holy ones ; the wicked will be hushed by it into 
 darkness and obscurity ; for by mere strength or violence 
 shall no man finally prevail. ' Jehovah ! they shall be 
 broken pieces, whosoever they be, who contend with 
 Him.' He shall put down all rule and authority and 
 power that may be adverse to this grand principle of 
 His own kingdom. By it the Lord shall try and test 
 the ends of the earth ; and the benediction that descends 
 on the lowly will descend with divinest fulness on the 
 head of the great King and Messiah, the meek and 
 humble Servant of the Most High, whose horn shall be 
 exalted through it, as Hannah's own had been already 
 on a smaller scale.. In Him and His kingdom shall be 
 seen the perfect exemplar and supreme instance of the 
 exaltation of the lowly ; and thus at length would be 
 secured the triumphant establishment and the happy 
 prevalence of this. great and benign idea, with all its 
 
138 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 saving and salutary fruits : ' He that exalteth himself 
 shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be 
 exalted.' 
 
 'And truth and justice then 
 
 Will down return to men : 
 
 Mercy will sit between, 
 
 Throned in celestial sheen: 
 And Heaven as at some festival 
 Will open wide the gates of her high Palace Hall/ 
 
DAVID'S EVEN-SONG. 
 
David's Even-song. 
 
 Now these be the last words of David. 
 
 David the son of Jesse saith, 
 
 And the man who was raised on high saith, 
 
 The anointed of the God of Jacob, 
 
 And the sweet psalmist of Israel : 
 
 The spirit of the Lord spake by me, 
 
 And His word was upon my tongue. 
 
 The God of Israel said, 
 
 The Rock of Israel spake to me : 
 
 (There shall be) One that ruleth over men righteously, 
 
 That ruleth in the fear of God, 
 
 (He shall be) as the light of the morning, when the 
 
 sun riseth, 
 A morning without clouds; 
 
 (When) the tender grass (springeth) out of the earth, 
 Through clear shining after rain. 
 Verily my house is not so with God ; 
 Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant. 
 Ordered in all things, and sure : 
 For it is all my salvation, and all (my) desire. 
 Although He maketh it not to grow. 
 But the ungodly shall be all of them as thorns to be 
 
 thrust away, 
 For they cannot be taken with the hand: 
 But the man that toucheth them 
 Must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear; 
 And they shall be utterly burned with fire in (their) 
 
 place. 
 
DAVIDS EVEN-SONG. 
 
 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 1 Now these be the last words of David. 
 David the son of Jesse saith, 
 
 And the man who was raised up on high saith, 
 The anointed of the God of Jacob, 
 And the sweet psalmist of Israel : 
 
 2 The spirit of the Lord spake by me, 
 And His word was upon my tongue. 
 
 3 The God of Israel said, 
 
 The Rock of Israel spake to me. 
 
 These be the last words of David — not indeed his 
 last words uttered in dying, but his last oracular utter- 
 ance in the spirit and power of prophecy ; his last solemn 
 and sacred composition ; the closing legacy of his lyrical 
 efforts. It is his Even-song ; his farewell creed and 
 confession ; his dying testimony respecting his Messianic 
 hopes, and the coming and kingdom of his own great 
 Son and Lord. 
 
 David is now drawing nigh the close of his own grand 
 yet chequered career as King of Israel. He is conscious 
 enough of his defects and shortcomings, when compared 
 with what he thought a king and kingly rule should be. 
 He is painfully aware of having failed to come up to his 
 own ideal of a theocratic sovereign ; but he has cherished 
 in his soul's high communings the perfect image he has 
 
142 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 failed to reach : and he is assured of a Coming King and 
 Kingdom connected with his own house and line, when 
 that grand ideal should at last be completely realised. 
 With all his sins and crimes — and they were many — he 
 is conscious of never having like Saul swerved fatally 
 from the theocratic principle, at least on its theocratic 
 side, however much and often he had violated many of 
 its practical requirements, and failed to preserve always 
 its noble standard. Yet he is not insensible that the 
 monarchy in his hands and keeping should be the mould 
 according to which a higher and purer form should be 
 developed ; and that his own kingly rule might not 
 unaptly shadow forth and ' give assurance of ' a perfect 
 realisation of his own divinely-taught and deeply- 
 cherished ideal. Very interesting it is to find that these 
 great thoughts were filling the horizon of David's mind 
 in his closing days. They were fit for a king to live on 
 and for a king to die on. What first strikes us in the 
 introduction of this song, is the high and solemn air it 
 wears ; having a double form, as is not unusual with the 
 more sacred and important of the divine oracles. The 
 first four lines exhibit David's peculiar qualifications for 
 being the vehicle of such an announcement, and the 
 second four emphasize the value of the song and ' the 
 reasons for it.' But whether we look to the human 
 channel or to the divine source of it, we are made to 
 feel the supreme excellence and transcendent value of 
 the communication now to be made. ' David the son of 
 Jesse saith : even the man who was raised on high : the 
 anointed of the God of Jacob and the sweet Psalmist of 
 Israel ' — such an accumulation of titles, together with 
 the use of the peculiar word 'saith,' which is the one 
 reserved as a solemn formula for high occasions like a 
 ' Thus saith the LORD,' should convey the assurance 
 
DAVID'S EVEN-SONG. 143 
 
 that what we are to hear will be of no ordinary im- 
 portance, and will be clothed in striking and memorable 
 words by 
 
 ' Him who sang 
 The Songs of the Supreme : himself supreme 
 Among his tuneful brethren.' 
 
 We are made to feel this the more strongly, by the 
 second half of the strophe which speaks to us of the real 
 source and origin of the oracle, bearing on its front, as it 
 does, a fourfold mark or stamp of its divine authority. 
 ' The Spirit of the Lord spake by me ' ; it is therefore 
 a pure and direct inspiration from above : * And his ivord 
 was upon my tongue ' ; it is a true and accurate record 
 of the oracle : ' The God of Israel said ' ; so high is its 
 anthority and import: ' The Rock of Israel spake to me '; 
 so sure aiid immovable is its realisation and fulfilment. 
 
 As to the subject and meaning of the oracle itself, 
 there are four main parts : — 
 
 I. The ideal King is described, verse 3. 
 
 XL The ideal blessings of his rule, verse 4. 
 
 III. The ideal relation thereto of David and his dynasty, 
 verse 5. 
 
 IV. The ideal restdts or issues of that sway, verses 6 and 7. 
 
 I. The Ideal King. 
 
 * One that ruleth over men righteously, 
 That ruleth in the fear of God.' 
 
 There is both a principle and a prophecy involved in 
 these words. 
 
 A principle: for they indicate that he who would 
 really rtde over men, and not merely trample upon them, 
 mttst rule righteously so as to command their allegiance ; 
 and he must do obeisance himself to a higher Power, 
 ruling in the fear of God, so as to inspire his subjects 
 
144 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 with a similar reverence. This is the only guarantee of 
 stability to a throne, and the only way of access to the 
 conscientious and intelligent loyalty of a people. 
 
 But the words embody no less a prophecy : intimating 
 in no obscure way that, whatever failures or successes 
 there be among rulers, there will yet arise a true and 
 perfect exemplar who shall bear sway not over one single 
 tribe or nation, but over men at large; fulfilling all 
 righteousness for men, in men and by men, inspiring 
 them everywhere with the true fear of the Lord. This 
 idea, this proper meaning of the couplet, is conveyed to 
 us in the marginal rendering : — 
 
 * There shall be One that ruleth over men, a righteous One, 
 That ruleth in the fear of God.' 
 
 Every true shepherd of the people and king among men 
 is a type and herald of this coming One, and a preparer 
 of the way for Him ' whose right it is thus to rule,' the 
 best, and highest, and the alone antitype of them all. 
 
 II. The ideal blessings of His sway. 
 
 * As the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, 
 A morning without clouds: 
 
 (When) the tender grass (springeth) out of the earth 
 Through the clear shining after rain.' 
 
 What an exquisite and suggestive picture, in miniature 
 form, of the Messiah's reign wherever it is owned and 
 obeyed ! For that it is the Messianic hope which here 
 gleams forth might be easily evinced from various con- 
 siderations ; among them the fact that a good manuscript 
 authority inserts 'Jehovah' in the first line; thus — 'As 
 the morning light shall Jehovah the Sun arise.' And 
 indeed both the emblems, sunshine and rain, are constant 
 and characteristic symbols of Messiah's sway in the word 
 of prophecy. In the image of the morning light or rising 
 
DAVID'S EVEN-SONG. 145 
 
 sun, we have a vivid presentation of the illumining and 
 gladdening power of Christ's kingdom, opening the 
 portals of a new day, and darting forth gladsome and 
 surprising beams from heaven, scattering the darkness 
 of sin and superstition, irradiating the gloom of night 
 with joy unspeakable and full of glory, making fresh 
 disclosures to man of beauty and truth, arousing the 
 slumbering powers of human intelligence, imparting 
 new life and activity to our spiritual nature, and stirring 
 into zeal and energy the dormant but now quickened 
 activities of our higher being. 
 
 The other image — the tender grass sprouting forth and 
 glistening with young freshness after rain — speaks of the 
 happy growth and rich profusion of spiritual graces 
 wherever the Lord, the Spirit, descends in fructifying 
 showers on our barren nature. Like the mantle of living 
 green that clothes as with a magic dress, the barest and 
 most withered spots, and throws over them the beauty of 
 an oasis after rain in the desert, the loveliness of the new 
 life and character springs forth before the astonished 
 gaze. All heaven descends on the renewed soul — the 
 understanding reflects heaven's clearness ; the heart 
 reflects heaven's purity, the will its loftiness, the con- 
 science its tenderness, and the whole being its bright yet 
 calm serenity. Over the wider face of communities and 
 nations, there comes stealing gently but not less impres- 
 sively a similar change from barrenness to living beauty. 
 Ignorance yields to intelligence, apathy to noble concern, 
 and all the baser propensities give way to the higher 
 and richer instincts. Benevolence triumphs over the 
 malignant passions of our nature : a new spirit of love, 
 life and liberty, supplants and exorcises the demons of 
 hate, bloodshed and violence ; slowly yet steadily the 
 better being bears sway and triumphs over the old and 
 
 K 
 
146 EARLV BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 worse nature ; ' the wilderness and solitary place shall 
 be glad for them, and the desert rejoices and blossoms 
 like the rose.' 
 
 III. The ideal relation thereto of David and 
 
 HIS DYNASTY. 
 
 ' Verily my house is not so with God : 
 Yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, 
 Ordered in all things, and sure : 
 For it is all my salvation, and all (my) desire, 
 Although He maketh it not to grow.' 
 
 This is the section which more immediately describes 
 David's personal professions and dying experiences. 
 The first part of it has usually been understood to 
 convey a painful and sorrowful reflection — that his 
 household and family had been very far from realising 
 in their history the beautiful emblems of the morning 
 sun and tender green grass — but that he consoles him- 
 self with the thought of God's everlasting covenant, 
 which he takes as the ground of his own personal safety 
 and support, all his salvation and all his desire, amid 
 the sad disappointment of his hopes and wishes respect- 
 ing his children. 
 
 Such a rendering, however, besides making David 
 express what seems a cold-hearted and selfish style 
 of sentiment, as if he were idly bewailing the misconduct 
 of his family, yet congratulating himself on being hap- 
 pily indifferent to it, has other serious objections, even 
 though it is retained by the revised version, and the 
 better rendering is placed only in the margin. It makes 
 the first word in each of the four clauses mean a different 
 thing, although it is the very same word in the original, 
 translating it by verily, yet, for, and althotigh, with 
 arbitrary and improbable diversity; making also the word 
 ' house ' mean ' household,' instead of a house in the 
 
DAVID S EVEN-SONG. I47 
 
 sense of a dynasty or royal line. We prefer therefore 
 the margin, with its uniformly rendered ' for ' in each 
 place. 
 
 ' For is not my house so with God ? 
 For He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, 
 Ordered in all things, and sure, 
 For this is all my salvation and all my desire. 
 For will not He make it to grow ? ' 
 
 In any case, David is sustained and cheered by a 
 happy faith as to the part, — ' He hath made with me 
 a covenant, ordered in all things and sure : ' by a joyous 
 experience as to the present — 'this is all my salvation and 
 all my desire : ' and by an assured hope as to the fiUure 
 — ' for will He not make it to grow ? ' He rests on and 
 cleaves to the covenant which had been again and again 
 renewed and certified to him with growing clearness. 
 The terms and contents of this covenant are set forth 
 in various Psalms of his, such as Psalm cxxxii. 11, 12, 
 ' The Lord hath sworn in truth to David ; He will not 
 turn from it : Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon 
 thy throne ' ; or Psalm Ixxxix. 28, ' My mercy will I 
 keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand 
 fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for 
 ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.' 
 
 This is the grand covenant of redemption, respecting 
 a kingdom, only revealed partially at first, but growing 
 in fulness and distinctness as the ages continued to roll. 
 They were not different covenants, by which Abel, Noah, 
 Abraham, Moses, or David were made strong unto sal- 
 vation ; only different aspects or stages of the same 
 covenant, just as they are not different suns at dawn, 
 or at midway up the slope of heaven, or at noon. It 
 is the same sun, only at different stages in its progress. 
 
 What gave stability, repose, and steady comfort to 
 K 2 
 
14^ EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 David, was his sense of the changeless unity of that 
 covenant which is said to be ' everlasting,' as having 
 in it no variable quality: 'ordered in all things,' with 
 nothing left to haphazard and admitting of no after- 
 thought ; and ' sure,' because unfailing, and without possi- 
 bility of any wreckage or collapse. Hence, his ever hopeful 
 return to it, and his quiet assurance from it. ' For will 
 He not make it grow ? ' There may seem to be appear- 
 ances to the contrary from time to time, but these 
 are only appearances and they only seem so, even at 
 the worst. No wonder then he adds ' This is all my 
 salvation and all my desire.' 
 
 ' My God, the covenant of Thy love 
 Abides for ever sure : 
 And in its matchless grace I find 
 My happiness secure.' 
 
 IV. The ideal results and issues of this covenant 
 
 SWAY. 
 
 This is set forth more especially on its destructive side, 
 in the last strophe. For the beneficial administration of 
 any well-ordered government must have its awe-inspiring 
 and punitive aspects. In proportion as good is loved, 
 must evil be hated ; or as right and order are upheld, 
 must wrong and anarchy be repressed. Hence the 
 terrible ' But ' of verse 6, introducing the obverse and 
 threatening aspect of Messiah's rule. 
 
 6 But the ungodly (lawless men or children of Belial) 
 
 shall be all of them as thorns to be thrust away, 
 For they cannot be taken with the hand. 
 
 7 But the man that toucheth them 
 
 Must be armed with iron and the staff of a spear. 
 And they shall be utterly burned with fire in their place. 
 
DAVID'S EVEN-SONG. I49 
 
 Burned oji the spot with fire must be the doom of mere 
 thorns and thistles, which only cumber the ground and 
 resist all powers of cultivation. The law and aim of 
 righteous rule is ever this : — ' The Lord approveth the 
 way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall 
 perish.' The wicked are here likened to impenetrable 
 thickets of intertangled thorns, that give way only to the 
 long-shafted bill-hook, or the application of fire on the 
 spot. For ' the earth which drinketh in the rain that 
 Cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for 
 them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God : 
 but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected and 
 nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned.' 
 
 But returning to David personally again, ere we close, 
 we see in this sacred even-song which had been his stay 
 in trouble and now is his hope in death, ' the everlasting 
 covenant ordered in all things and sure.' This had been 
 his one alone and adequate support, 'all his salvation 
 and all his desire.' 
 
 ' The covenant in the darkest gloom 
 Still heavenly rays impart : 
 And when the eyelids close in death, 
 Will cheer the fainting heart.' 
 
 And so it shall come to pass, that at evening time it 
 shall be light. David stands by the covenant and builds 
 on it what he feels to be the surest of his hopes. And 
 now, with this golden glory opening before him, it is 
 already all morning with him, ' a morning without clouds.' 
 
 ' He sets, as sets the morning star, 
 Which goes not down behind the darkened west; 
 Nor hides obscured amid the tempests of the sky. 
 But melts away into the light of heaven.' 
 
THE SECULAR SONGS OF THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I. Song of the Sword. III. Song of the War-Flame. 
 
 II. Song of the Well. IV. Song of the Bow. 
 
And Lamech said unto his wives : 
 
 Adah and Zillah, hear my voice ; 
 
 Wives of Lamech listen to my utterance : 
 
 I slay a man for wounding me, 
 
 A young man for bruising me : 
 
 If Cain's vengeance is sevenfold, 
 
 Truly Lamech's seventy and seven. 
 
SONG OF THE SWORD. 
 
 Gen. iv, 23, 24. 
 
 This address of Lamech to his wives is the oldest 
 snatch of Hebrew verse. Indeed it is Hebrew only in 
 the sense of being reproduced in this language from an 
 original antediluvian tongue, and stamped with the 
 rhythm, assonance, and parallelism of Hebrew poetic 
 diction ^. As may be supposed, the interpretation of so 
 brief and obscure a fragment opens the door to much 
 varied conjecture ; although it is generally, and no doubt 
 rightly, considered to shed a lurid light on the narrative 
 in which it occurs, and to condense for us in briefest 
 form the spirit of Lamech and his time. That time was 
 a lawless and godless age, the forerunner of the latest 
 age of all before the flood. It was the epoch alike of 
 Lamech and of Enoch, each the ' seventh from Adam ' 
 by the [two" different but now commingling lines of Cain 
 and Seth. And it has been suggested, not without 
 plausibility, that this effusion of Lamech's may have 
 some relation to Enoch's solemn and warning prophecy, 
 as given in the Epistle of Jude (vv. 14, 15), with its high 
 poetic and parallelistic style, and with its echoing catch- 
 word ' the ungodly ' rung in upon our ears with all the 
 force of poetic iteration. 
 
 ^ In the original, the first four lines close with the same marked letter, 
 a form of alliteration or assonance that is manifestly an element of beauty. 
 
154 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 'Behold, the Lord cometh with His holy myriads, 
 To execute judgment upon all, 
 And to convict all the ungodly 
 Of all their works of ungodliness 
 Which they have ungodly wrought : 
 And of all the hard speeches 
 Which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.' 
 
 What if this song of Lamech be one of those speeches 
 — those 'hard speeches' of ungodly sinners — which Enoch 
 mentions ^? Enoch and Lamech seem at least to be the 
 antitheses of each other at the close of the first septen- 
 niad in human history, representing the two streams of 
 patriarchal life, which begin to mingle in their time like 
 the blue Rhone and the muddy Arve, and exemplifying 
 in their own persons the two conflicting tendencies which 
 may be regarded as the key of human history, and of 
 which this world has ever been the scene. In Enoch 
 we have the culmination of that simple, orderly, God- 
 fearing life which obtained among the descendants of 
 Seth, and of which we have a record in the expressive 
 words, 'then men began to call upon the name of the 
 Lord.' In Lamech, on the other hand, we have the 
 culmination of those other and opposite tendencies which 
 prevailed among the descendants of Cain, and of which 
 we have these results recorded : ' the earth was corrupt 
 before God, and the earth was filled with violence.' 
 
 ^ Regarding the question, where Jude got this prophecy of Enoch, two 
 answers are eligible : either he may have quoted some current traditional 
 form, or extracted it from the ' Book of Enoch,' which then existed, and from 
 which a few expressions have been elsewhere preserved, but which, having 
 disappeared for centuries, was rediscovered in ALthiopic^xaong the Abyssinians 
 in 1821. This so-called ' Book of Enoch ' was never accepted nor attempted 
 to be passed as any part of Canonical Scripture. Evidently composed at 
 different dates, most of it written a century or more before Christ, and in- 
 corporating a variety of traditional matter of more or less interest but of 
 little authority, the book consists of five parts, closing with Enoch's 
 admonitions to his own family and to men at large. Then follow several 
 appendices, the last of them being Enoch's views of judgment and future 
 retribution. Not impossibly a copy of this or some similar Book of Enoch 
 may yet be found in an earlier form^and language. 
 
SONG OF THE SWORD. 1 55 
 
 In Lamech's own person and household we seem to 
 have a perfect representation in miniature of these two 
 classes of evil — corruption and violence. His home is the 
 seat of the one : his song is the evidence of the other. 
 
 Lamech, the first polygamist on record, the first 
 notorious violator of primitive marriage law and family 
 constitution, goes early in the ' way of Cain,' and be- 
 comes, by his own confession, in intent, if not also in 
 fact, a homicide. Polygamy seems never far from blood- 
 shed. Sin cannot live single. It mates with misery, 
 and both breed their like again, in aggravated form. A 
 breach of the Seventh Commandment is twin-brother 
 with a breach of the Sixth. They are children that go 
 hand in hand. He who speaks to his 'wives' is he who 
 speaks, or rather sings, familiarly of ' slaying a man.' 
 
 It has been suggested also that there is something 
 painfully significant in the very names of his wives 
 and daughter — the only female names, besides that of 
 Eve, that have come to us from beyond the flood. 
 Adah means the beauty or ornament, and Zillah the 
 cool shade, while Naamah is a word suggestive of delight 
 and pleasure. We do not need to lay undue stress on 
 this, in order to understand from other things that 
 Lamech's was a gifted but wicked family, abounding in 
 worldly wealth and luxury ; a proud and lawless race, 
 full of inventive genius, and advanced in all the arts of 
 a civilised yet boastful and self-corrupting life. Adah's 
 two sons, Jabal (increase) and Jubal (melody), are 
 represented, the one as a great and successful breeder of 
 stock, at the very head of his nomadic profession, and 
 the other the inventor of musical instruments. ' When 
 Jabal set them in a way to be rich, Jubal set them in a 
 way to be merry ^.' Not unlikely the work of Tubal- 
 
 ^ Matthew Henry. 
 
156 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Cain, Zillah's son, the prime and cunning * artificer of 
 every cutting instrument in brass and iron,' may have 
 suggested to Jubal's finer ear, 
 
 'To iterate the beating hammer's sound 
 In milder tones and with a sweeter note/ 
 
 And so, starting from 'sonorous metal breathing martial 
 sounds,' he may have been led from the clang of per- 
 cussion instruments to the softer melody of stringed and 
 wind instruments, like the harp and organ, as the poet's 
 fancy sings : — 
 
 'It chanced that passing by a pond he found 
 An open tortoise lying on the ground, 
 Within the which there nothing else remained 
 Save the dry sinews, on the shell, stiff-strained. 
 This empty house Jubal doth gladly bear, 
 Strikes on those strings and lends attentive ear: 
 And by this mould frames the melodious lute 
 That makes woods hearken and the winds be mute/ 
 
 If in Jubal we are to recognise the father of music, and 
 in Tubal-Cain the father of weapons of war, in Lamech 
 we have to recognise the father of poetry, and in his 
 daughter, Naamah, according to the Rabbins, the mis- 
 tress of woolspinning and the dance. Truly a gifted, 
 energetic and inventive, but withal a self-seeking and 
 self-indulgent family ! 
 
 As regards the snatch of Lamech's song itself, the 
 main difficulty is to determine whether it is to be inter- 
 preted as a lamentation, a defence, or a menace. Are we 
 to render it, ' I have slain a man to my wounding, a 
 young man to my hurt,' and so make Lamech express 
 himself as a homicide stung by remorse or fear, deplor- 
 ing his rash act and dreading its consequences ? This 
 would be to exhibit the song as a lament, and the last 
 two lines as a kind of refuge for Lamech, and a con- 
 
SONG OF THE SWORD. 157 
 
 solation to his wives. It is difficult, however, to see how 
 the words apply in such a sense : while the expressions. 
 ' my wounding ' and ' my hurt,' are to be properly taken 
 in their objective sense 'for wounding me' and 'for 
 hurting me.' Confessedly the song does not sound like 
 a penitent or remorseful lamentation, while the last 
 couplet seems to breathe nothing but vengeance, and 
 glories only in Lamech's own personal immunity : — 
 
 ' If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, 
 Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.' 
 
 It seems impossible to reconcile such a vaunt with 
 anything of the spirit of fear or tender regret. 
 
 Are we then to render it, ' Have I slain a man for 
 merely wounding me? a young man for only hurting 
 me ? ' and so make Lamech excuse himself for some 
 homicide he had committed in self-defence, or at least 
 without murderous purpose or revenge. This would be 
 to regard the song as a defence : Lamech justifying and 
 vindicating himself on the ground that it was an ac- 
 cident — at least, by no intentional, or wilful, or wanton 
 bloodshed that he had taken the life of another; it was 
 because of a dangerous and unprovoked assault upon 
 himself. And so he soothes the fears of his wives by 
 the consideration that if Cain, a deliberate murderer, 
 were protected by a sevenfold vengeance, Lamech, who 
 slew a fellow creature unwittingly, may look for a seventy 
 and sevenfold shield of defence. Against this view, 
 however, it is sufficient to urge that Cain's protected 
 and charmed life was to be no blessing but only a more 
 protracted curse ; which could hardly be a satisfactory 
 consideration to either Lamech or his wives. 
 
 No ; the whole tone and temper of the song is that 
 of menace : the chant of a fierce, defiant, and lawless 
 spirit, boasting of security, and exciting itself thereby in 
 
15^ EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 recklessness and violence. It matters little what par- 
 ticular turn we may give to the principal sentence in 
 the song. We may construe it as a past tense, a future, 
 or (perhaps best of all, because most inclusive in its 
 significance) an emphatic and energetic present. But 
 whichever course we adopt — whether we treat it as a 
 statement of fact which some prefer, ' I have slain a man 
 for wounding me,' or as a threat like others, ' I will slay 
 a man if he wound me,' or as a fixed and threatening 
 resolve according to others, *I slay a man for wounding me,"* 
 that is if he wound me — all these possible and admissible 
 renderings suit equally well the idea of a menace being 
 conveyed in the words, and reiterated in the proud boast 
 of the final couplet, 'if Cain be avenged sevenfold, Lamech 
 will assuredly be seventy and sevenfold.' The song is 
 evidently meant to be an eclio of the strife and violence 
 accompanying the overthrow of primitive marriage law, 
 and the consequent corruption of family and social life. 
 A daring and defiant air breathes through it from first 
 to last. Not terror, but vengeance ; not apology, but 
 threatening ; not defence, but defiance, is its spirit. In 
 Cain's immunity from vengeance at the hand of his 
 fellows, Lamech finds encouragement for his own 
 perverse and violent courses. The song is that of one 
 who seems conscious of wrong-doing, but none the less 
 resolute and persistent in its continued perpetration. 
 It breathes forth threatening and slaughter against 
 all assailants : rejoicing in summary vengeance already 
 done, and boasting of immunity from murderous 
 retaliation, as if Lamech felt safer against attack than 
 Cain himself, and possessed far greater securities and 
 advantages than ever he with all his charmed and curse- 
 protected life. But while this is the spirit of the song, 
 it seems impossible to get beyond the region of bare 
 
SONG OF THE SWORD. 159 
 
 conjecture as to what might have been the immediate 
 occasion or prompting inspiration of it. A recent writer 
 has called it ' The Song of the Sword/ and has suggested 
 that it was an exultant boast and menace called forth 
 by Lamech's savage delight at finding himself and his 
 family possessed of the new and effective weapons de- 
 vised by his son Tubal-Cain, ' the forger of every cutting 
 instrument of brass and iron.' The name Lamech has 
 been derived from a primitive or Arabic root, signifying 
 ' to snatch or seize.' And, as Lamech seized the new- 
 made weapon and swung it about his head, realising 
 the advantages of the hard metal and its sharp edge- 
 tools, he felt the impulse of a savage joy, and poured 
 his soul into this fierce lay, expressive of both the 
 license and the immunity that should arise from such 
 awful weapons alike of ofifence and defence. In that 
 case the point of contrast would lie between Cain, the 
 mere club-bearing man, and himself, the wielder of 
 mightier implements. If Cain went forth under the 
 security of a sevenfold avengement, what less than a 
 seventy and sevenfold avengement must wait on him, 
 who should go forth secure with shield and spear, to 
 face all comers ? 
 
 Dire and dreadful as had been the blow of the first 
 fratricide, it should be as nothing compared with the 
 havoc to be wrought by iron weapons, all through the 
 coming ages. Oh ! melancholy : to think that men could 
 not invent ploughshares without also inventing swords ! 
 nor learn the value of pruning-hooks without indulging 
 in the use of spears ! In this ' Song of the Sword,' or 
 whatever else it may be called^ with its fierce and cruel 
 vengeance, its defiant tone, and its proud malicious 
 temper, have v/e not the key-note of all the 'Titanic 
 arrogance' of rapacious tyranny, and all the revengeful 
 
l6o EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 destructive passions that have ever since desolated the 
 earth and carried fire, rapine, and bloodshed in the train 
 of the implements of war ? Here we have first expressed 
 in words, — 
 
 ' The good old rule, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power: 
 And they should keep who can 1 ' 
 
 And this is the first recorded and earliest of human 
 songs ! Happily it has had others very different in its 
 wake. For if this first song of the Old Testament be 
 one of violence and menace, of selfish boastfulness and 
 pride, it is cheering to reflect that the first song of the 
 New Testament, on the other hand, is the Angel-song 
 of peace and goodwill. 
 
 ' Nor war nor battle's sound 
 
 Was heard the world around : 
 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung ; 
 
 The hookbd chariot stood 
 
 Unstained with hostile blood; 
 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng. 
 And kings sat still with awe-ful eye, 
 As if they surely knew their Sovereign Lord was by.' 
 
 'And the government shall be upon His shoulder: and 
 His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty 
 God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the in- 
 crease of His government and of peace there shall be no 
 end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, 
 to establish it, and to uphold it with judgement and with 
 righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of 
 the Lord of hosts shall perform this.' 
 
 ' And lo ! the days are hastening on by prophet bards foretold : 
 When with the ever-circling year comes round the age of gold : 
 When peace shall over all the earth her ancient splendours fling, 
 And the whole world send back the song which now the Angels 
 sing.' 
 
II. SONG OF THE WELL. 
 
Then sang Israel this song : 
 
 Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it, 
 The well, which the princes digged, 
 Which the nobles of the people delved 
 With the sceptre, (and) with their staves. 
 
SONG OF THE WELL. 
 
 Numbers xxi, 17, 18. 
 
 Wells of water play an important part in Bible story. 
 Some of the most touching and most tender scenes are 
 associated with them. Many an incident of joy and grief 
 occurred around the well-mouth, and many an exquisite 
 idyl of patriarchal life from Abraham's days and onward 
 has been enacted there. 
 
 The earliest mentioned is Beer-lahai-roi, the ' well of 
 Him that liveth, and seeth me,' as Hagar reverently called 
 it. And we read of her again when, being a fugitive for 
 the second time in the wilderness, with her almost dying 
 boy, ' God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water.' 
 The principal well, however, connected with Abraham, 
 and one of the most famous, is Beer-sheba, ' the well of 
 the oath,' or, as it may also be rendered, ' the well of 
 seven,' because seven animals, or at least seven pieces, 
 were needed to constitute a perfectly binding covenant. 
 And so said Abraham to Abimelech, 'These seven 
 ewe-lambs thou shalt take of my hand, that they may be 
 witness for me that I have digged this well. Wherefore 
 he called that place Beer-sheba, because there they 
 sware, both of them. Thus made they a covenant at 
 Beer-sheba ^.' 
 
 An additional well of Beer-sheba is connected with 
 Isaac's sojourn there ; and both these larger wells, with 
 
 ^ Gen. xxi. 30-32. 
 L 2 
 
164 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 five smaller ones, remain to this day. Then the singular 
 names of Esek, contention^ and Sitnah, hatred or spite^ 
 remind us of incidents connected with other wells of 
 Isaac, which the gentle patriarch, in the spirit of for- 
 bearance that was natural to him^ surrendered under 
 the simple protest embodied in their names rather than 
 quarrel over his rights in them ; and he found his re- 
 ward in the other spot, Rehoboth, room, where 'he 
 digged a well, and for that they strove not, and he 
 called it Rehoboth : for now, he said, the Lord hath 
 made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.' 
 
 Then there is ' Jacob's Well,' which has such tender and 
 sacred associations in our Lord's own life of so instruc- 
 tive a kind ; and there is the suggestive image of Joseph 
 likened to a 'fruitful bough by a well, whose branches 
 and clusters hang over the wall.' 
 
 We need not linger over those tender interviews so 
 touchingly recorded between Eliezer of Damascus and 
 Rebecca at the well, or of Jacob and Rachel, or of 
 Moses and the daughters of Jethro in Midian. Nor 
 need we do more than simply mention later instances, 
 like Samson's well of En-hakkore, ' the well of him that 
 prayed,' which, it is said, ' is in Lehi till this day' ; or the 
 two connected with David^s career, that at Bahurim, in 
 which his two messengers were concealed by a cunning 
 stratagem of the woman, whose more than adroit 
 remark, 'They be gone over the water,' turned aside 
 their pursuers. And then when David at Adullam 
 longed and cried, ' Oh, that one would give me to drink 
 of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the 
 gate ' ; and when his three mighty champions broke 
 through the enemies' ranks and fetched it, he would 
 not drink it, but, with the piety of a saint and the 
 magnanimity of a patriot-hero, poured it out unto the 
 
SONG OF THE WELL. J 6^ 
 
 Lord, saying, ' Be it far from me ; is not this the blood 
 of men who went in jeopardy of their Hves ?' 
 
 Thus do associations, striking and memorable, gather 
 round these Bible wells. They are among the most 
 historic of spots. Nor do we wonder at their import- 
 ance, when we remember their value in hot and thirsty 
 lands, where water supplies are scanty and uncertain. 
 In the economy of Eastern peoples they were like the 
 medieval monastery or Norman keep among our own 
 forefathers. They became clustering-places for scattered 
 and wandering families, to settle down beside, — centres 
 of interest and scenes of conflict, with their stirring 
 incidents and their eventful memories. 
 
 But it is perhaps more to our present purpose to note 
 the variety of words possessed by the Hebrews to in- 
 dicate the different kinds of their water-supply. They 
 had no fewer than seven names for rivers, brooks, or 
 nmning water, besides a number more for canals, reser- 
 voirs, and other forms of standing water. The word for 
 a stagnant pool, like a marsh or surface pond, was very 
 different from a cistern of pure water cut out of the 
 solid rock, or carefully constructed of skilful masonry. 
 There are especially three words frequently recurring 
 which it may be useful to distinguish, and they are 
 found together, as it happens, in one passage (Proverbs 
 V. 15, 16):— 
 
 ' Drink waters out of thine own cistern, 
 And running waters out of thine own welt. 
 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad/ 
 
 The well (Beer) is different from both the cistern (Bor) 
 and the fountain (Ayin). This last is properly the 
 bubbling spring piercing the surface of the ground, the 
 eye, as it means, of gushing and sparkling water amid 
 the desert sand. The cistern (Bor) is the mere recep- 
 
l66 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 tacle for a small and limited supply ; and hence the 
 folly of forsaking a living fountain, with its perennial 
 flow, for the scanty store of the cistern, especially a 
 cracked or broken one, which can retain none of the 
 water. The distinctive peculiarity, on the other hand, 
 of the Beer, or well, is that it has been dttg — the word, 
 indeed, being derived from one which signifies ' to dig' — 
 so as to reach down to a hidden spring under groujid. 
 The digging of the present well marks a change in the 
 situation of the Israelitish camp. It indicated that the 
 people were returning to cultivated territory, and getting 
 out of the sands of the desert. In the wilderness they 
 had depended at first on the natural ayin or surface- 
 spring ; arid then as they rose up into the higher craggy 
 region of Mount Sinai, they had ample supplies out of 
 the smitten rocks at Horeb or at Kadesh - barnea ; 
 whereas now in getting into more habitable parts they 
 had to sink wells, properly so called, by skill and labour, 
 ' according to the instruction of the lawgiver, with their 
 staves,' or the little paddles they had used in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the camp for sanitary purposes. 'And 
 from thence (the border of Moab) they journeyed to 
 Beer : that is the well whereof the LORD said unto Moses, 
 Gather the people together, and I will give them water. 
 Then sang Israel this song : 
 
 ' Spring up, O Well ; sing ye unto it : 
 The Well, which the princes digged, 
 Which the nobles of the people delved, 
 With the sceptre, (and) with their staves.' 
 
 This Beer was apparently what bore the more specific 
 names afterwards of Beer-eliin, the well of heroes, and 
 should be distinguished from the earlier Elim^ or 
 rather yElim, of Exodus xv. 27, where they had met 
 
SONG OF THE WELL. 167 
 
 with ' twelve foimtams (not wells in the proper sense 
 of dug cavities) of water, and threescore and ten palm 
 trees.' They had now crossed the Arnon, the dividing 
 frontier between the Amorites and Moab — a wild deep 
 gorge, with great precipices and dangerous landslips, 
 well suited for a strong natural line of defence. And 
 Beer was their second encampment on old Moabitish 
 territory, which had, however, passed back again into 
 the enterprising hands of Sihon, King of the Amorites. 
 Here the people of Israel dug their first well on the 
 very borders of the promised land, as if to take in- 
 feffment of their new inheritance. It was a bright 
 and memorable public occasion ; and fitly does this 
 brief but sparkling snatch of lyric minstrelsy celebrate 
 the digging of the well — 'the well whereof the LORD 
 said unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will 
 give them water.' Doubtless the little carol, especially its 
 refrain, ' Spring up, O well,' would be a favourite one with 
 water-drawers afterwards — with maidens toiling at the 
 rope and wheel to bring the bucket up, or with women 
 lingering at the fountain when the spring was feebly 
 running, and the refrain might seem to coax the water 
 to gush more freely : ' Spring up, O well ; sing ye 
 unto it.' 
 
 But the peculiar charm of the song lies, as has been 
 said, ' not only in its antiquity, but in the characteristic 
 touch which so manifestly connects it with the life and 
 times to which the narrative assigns it. The one point 
 which is delightedly dwelt upon is that the leaders took 
 their part in the work.' What is celebrated with such 
 sparkling joy in this little burst of melody is the happy 
 union among all ranks, and the spirit of universal good- 
 will and co-operation in the work — giving cheerful augury 
 for the future of the tribes in entering on the promised 
 
l68 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 land, and a lively demonstration of popular confidence 
 in their leaders. 
 
 'At God's command, 
 Duo: in the sand, 
 By princely hand, 
 
 Spring up, O well. 
 
 The chiefs attend, 
 Their efforts lend, . 
 Their staves befriend. 
 
 Spring up, O well. 
 
 Thrice happy sign 
 When all combine 
 ^ With power divine. 
 
 Spring up, O well. 
 
 The weak and strong, 
 Around it throng 
 To cheer with song. 
 
 Spring up, O well. 
 
 A sudden hush ; 
 The waters gush. 
 You hear the rush. 
 
 Spring up, O well. 
 
 And this is why 
 We all may try 
 To join the cry, 
 
 Spring up, O well.' 
 
 Some practical lessons are pleasingly suggested by 
 the scene and the song. 
 
 I. There is a pei^sonal lesson, respecting the spirit in 
 which we ought to do our work. When the people were 
 called to bore for water in a novel and unaccustomed 
 fashion, how interesting and inspiriting it is to read, 
 ' Then Israel sang this song ' ! This lightened their toil 
 and helped to prosper the issue. It is good to note 
 
SONG OF THE WELL. 1 69 
 
 the connection between cheerfulness and successfulness 
 in effort. We are made for work. ' Labour for one or 
 other end, is Lord and Master of us all.' The very 
 command which enjoins rest, and says, ' Remember the 
 Sabbath day,' says no less of the other six, ' Thou shalt 
 labour.' And how true it is, that 
 
 ' Life without work is unenjoyed, 
 
 The happiest are the best employed ' ! 
 
 Singing promotes work, and work promotes singing. 
 The least happy and the most to be pitied are those 
 who have nothing to do. and yet know not how to do it. 
 We may well sing both /or our work and al it. 
 
 ' For they are bravest, brightest, best, 
 Who from the task within their span 
 Earn for themselves the right to rest 
 With an increase of good to man.' 
 
 If ' Eden ' means ' delight,' the garden of paradise had 
 not been an ' Eden ' apart from the work ' to dress and 
 keep it.' And under no circumstances of loss or pain, of 
 disappointment or blunder, can it improve matters to be 
 doing nothing, but only in bitterness to be 
 
 ' Sitting by the poisoned springs of hfe, 
 Waiting for the morrow which shall free us from the strife.' 
 
 There is a promise and a potency of good in all true 
 serviceable work. When ' Israel sang this song,' it was 
 in answer to the promise, ' I will give thee water.' And 
 there is no spot in earth's pilgrimage where work has to 
 be done, which has not lying near it some such word of 
 cheer. 
 
 ' Springs of life in desert places 
 Shall thy God unseal for thee : 
 Springs of sweet refreshment flowing 
 When thy work is hard and long, 
 Courage, hope and power bestowing, 
 Lighten labour with thy song.' 
 
170 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Thank God. ' He gives us songs in the very night.' 
 Let us remember how our Lord Himself, on the eve of 
 His betrayal;, and in full view of the agony and bitter 
 cross, alleviated His sorrows and braced His spirit for 
 the task — ' He sang a hymn.' What a lesson for this 
 work-a-day world, when nothing worth doing can be 
 undertaken or overtaken without something being en- 
 dured or undergone ! But ' a cheerful heart doeth good 
 like a medicine ; ' and 
 
 ' The merry heart goes all the day, 
 The sad tires in a mile-a.' 
 
 And singing is infectious. They sang the song, and 
 they digged the well. So work, and so sing. 
 
 '■ Sing as when " the Well of heroes " 
 Gushed with clear and full supply, 
 And the sound of rising water 
 Mingled with the shoutings nigh.' 
 
 2. A social lesson — the blessings of union and united 
 effort. We are to mark how zealously all ranks joined 
 in the work, and how ' the leaders led in Israel.' ' Behold, 
 how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell 
 together in unity, for there the Lord commanded the 
 blessing, even life for evermore.' Unity is quick with 
 life, and therefore with energy. Union is strength. The 
 harmony now manifested among the tribes, formed a 
 beautiful contrast with the previous distractions ; and 
 this is the song of a happy because a united Church and 
 nation. When Israel thus laboured, we hear of no dis- 
 order. Murmurings were stilled. High and low were 
 full of heart and full of hope, because full of love. Well 
 might they make the fields of Moab vocal with their 
 song, while far beneath, the secret springs of earth were 
 made to yield their treasured waters to supply a nation's 
 need and quench a nation's thirst. 
 
SONG OF THE WELL. 171 
 
 3. A philanthropic lesson — Dig a well. This well 
 became a lasting and monumental blessing, celebrated in 
 immortal song. A disciple of Mohammed, it is said, 
 came to the prophet one day and asked, ' What shall I 
 best do as a memorial to my mother who is dead ? ' to 
 which he replied, ^ Dig a well, and call it by her name, 
 and put upon it, This well is for my mother' Beautiful 
 idea ! a monument truly serviceable, and therefore sure 
 to last. Some memories are ' writ in water,' but here a 
 mother's name is blissfully perpetuated in supplying 
 the pure refreshing draught to weary wayfarers. This 
 form of good endures like ' a joy for ever,' trickling down 
 from age to age. ' Dig a well.' Whoso giveth a cup of 
 cold water shall in no wise lose his reward. 
 
 4. A spiritual lesson. ' Gather the people to me ; I 
 will give them water.' 
 
 'True well of life! of Thee I drink and live, 
 Who drinketh of Thee ne'er of thirst can die, 
 'Tis Thine alone the immortal thirst to slake, 
 Thou spring and flow of immortality.' 
 
 The point here emphasized is the connection between 
 promise, preparation and prayer, if we would win the 
 privilege of drawing water with joy from the wells of 
 salvation. First comes the PROMISE, ' I will give them 
 water,' but it is accompanied with the command, * Gather 
 the people together.' The Lord Himself is the well- 
 spring, but the gathering together at His command is 
 the region where the well-spring flows. The people 
 honoured the divine requirement, and God honoured in 
 their experience His own gracious promise. But we 
 mark the PREPARATION made for its fulfilment, and for 
 the people securing the supply. The well had to be 
 digged. Let us note the connection between the fulfil- 
 ment of God's promise, and Israel's efforts to secure the 
 
17a EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 blessing. Divine promises, far from precluding human 
 efforts, are the very ground of encouragement on which 
 these may be hopefully put forth. They are the stimulus 
 to its exercise. Promise and requirement ; requirement 
 and obedience ; dutiful obedience and final fulfilment — 
 such is the chain, and all the links must hold, or they 
 break together and fall asunder. Yet there is one link 
 more. Even promised and prepared-for blessings must 
 be fetched in at last by PRAYER. Earnest, cheerful, 
 believing desire ^nd yearning. ' Spring up, O well.' Is 
 not this the Lord's own suggestion to the woman of 
 Samaria ? ' Thou shouldest have asked of Me, and I 
 would give thee the living water.' This is the genius of 
 Charles Wesley's hymn : — 
 
 * Thou of life the fountain art, 
 
 Freely let me take of Thee: ' 
 
 Spring Thou up within my heart, 
 Rise to all eternity.' 
 
.11. SONG OF THE WAR-FLAME. 
 
Song of the War-Flame. 
 
 27 Come ye to Heshbon, 
 
 Let the city of Sihon be built and established : 
 
 28 For a fire is gone out of Heshbon, 
 A flame from the city of Sihon: 
 
 It hath devoured Ar of Moab, 
 
 The lords of the high places of Arnon. 
 
 29 Woe to thee, Moab ! 
 
 Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh : 
 He hath given his sons as fugitives, 
 And his daughters into captivity. 
 Unto Sihon king of the Amorites. 
 
 30 We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto 
 
 Dibon, 
 And we have laid waste even unto Nophah, 
 Which reacheth unto Medeba. 
 
SONG OF THE WAR-FLAME. 
 
 Numbers xxi, 27-30. 
 
 While the whole Pentateuch is inlaid with poetry 
 and song ^, the Book of Numbers is particularly rich in 
 ancient fragments. Some of these are of much interest 
 and beauty, like the 'Song of the Well' just noticed, 
 and all of them help to shed light on the character of 
 the time and the people to which they belong. The 
 genius of poetry was from the first sanctified in Israel 
 to the service of religion, and early took a place in the 
 offices of public worship. This is seen in the form and 
 style of the blessing pronounced over the congregation 
 by the High Priest, Numbers vi. 24^26 : — 
 
 ' The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : 
 The Lord make His countenance shine upon thee, 
 
 And be gracious unto thee : 
 The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, 
 And give thee peace.' • 
 
 So too in the chants (Num. x. ^^^, ^6) which were the 
 
 ^ Thus the Book of Exodus has what seems a fragment of war-song 
 against Amalek (ch. xvii. 16); and again in ch. xxxii. 18, where it is 
 said to Moses — 
 
 ' The sound 01 war is in the camp ; ' 
 his reply is couched in a style of lyrical effusion — 
 
 ' Not the sound of a shout for victory. 
 Not the sound of a shout for disaster, 
 But the sound of a shout for rejoicing 
 Do I hear.' 
 
176 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 signal for the Ark to move, when the people journeyed 
 (embodied afterwards in one of the Psalms) : — 
 
 * Arise, O Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered : 
 And let them that hate Thee flee before Thee;' 
 
 or for it to rest, when they were about to encamp— 
 
 ' Return, O Lord, 
 To the ten thousands of Israel.' 
 
 Very remarkable specimens of semi-lyrical poetry are 
 the prophetic effusions of Balaam, in chapters xxiii. and 
 xxiv. of this same book — all the more remarkable that 
 their diction is so refined and finished without detracting 
 from the vividness and vigour of the imagery in which 
 they are clothed. They present a most noticeable 
 contrast to the equally vigorous, but certainly more 
 rugged, language of the poetic snatches which are set 
 alongside the ' Song of the Welf in chapter xxi. The 
 first of these, in verses 14 and 15, seems a rough and 
 hurried ballad-narrative of the fierce struggles of the 
 Arnon. The passage of this river had been stoutly 
 contested, rushing, as it did, through the deep defile 
 or gorge of sandstone rocks which divided the fertile 
 uplands of Sihon, King of the Amorites, from the wilder 
 and barer mountains of Moab and Edom, and affording 
 a splendid line of defence against the invaders. Its 
 name Arnon means swift or noisy, and fitly describes 
 the headlong rapid rush of the main stream and its 
 tumultuous hill-tributaries; and the extract from the 
 ballad is like the sound of these very torrents borne 
 impetuously down the rugged gorge, and dashing from 
 pool to pool in cascades of turbid foam. The whole 
 country lying east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan is a 
 vast ridge, more or less sudden and precipitous in its rise 
 to the high table-land of 3000 feet above the sea, or 4000 
 
SONG OF THE WAR-FLAME. 1 77 
 
 feet at least above the Dead Sea, and is deeply furrowed 
 by stupendous ravines like Callirrhoe and the Arnon, as 
 well as those further north through Gilead, that send their 
 streams like Jabbok into the Jordan^. 
 
 We can follow the host of Israel step by step as they 
 leave for ever the great eastern and southern desert. 
 They had compassed the land of Edom, which they had 
 not been at liberty to invade or infest (Edom and they 
 being near kindred by descent), and they had also kept 
 east and north of Moab, another kindred race, against 
 whom for the same reason they were not to provoke any 
 hostility either. They were now therefore breaking in 
 from the east upon the first real Canaanitish people, the 
 old Amorites, who had managed to repossess themselves 
 from Moab of the northern tributaries of the Arnon and 
 all the northern side of the gorge, as well as the low-lying 
 meadow-lands along its northern banks ; and so ' Arnon 
 is the border of Moab between Moab and the Amorites.' 
 Israel was now bursting in on the Amorites from the 
 north-east, by seizing the tributaries of the Arnon, and 
 pressing down through them to the main gorge of that 
 stream on whose banks stood Aroer and the mysterious 
 city we read of ' in the midst of the river ^.' Hence the 
 snatch from a ballad at verse 14, from the Book of the 
 Wars of the Lord — a book for which there was no dearth 
 of materials now, the course of the Israelites being 
 contested henceforward at every step, and their journey 
 being the constant march of an army in battle array. 
 ' Wherefore (viz. because Israel had carried the passes of 
 the Arnon by the special help of the Lord) it is said in 
 the Book of the Wars of the Lord, 
 
 ^ Few of the streams seem perennial that flow from the Western slopes to 
 the Jordan ; whereas all on the East, draining from Moab to Gilead, are so, 
 and are filled with fishes and fresh-water shells. 
 
 ■^ Josh. xiii. 9. 
 
 M 
 
lyS EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 * Vaheb in Suphah \ 
 And the valleys of Arnon, 
 And the slope of the valleys 
 That inclineth to the dwelling of Ar, 
 And leaneth upon the border of Moab.' 
 
 This is, as it w^ere, the voice or song of the congregation, 
 rehearsing the stages of their progress, acknowledging 
 and expressing the grateful feeling of the tribes on 
 gaining the northern or Gilead side of the great gorge of 
 the Arnon. 
 
 Now we pass to the final song of victory over the 
 Amorites, when Israel encountered King Sihon himself 
 in person at Jahaz, and, having thoroughly routed him, 
 got possession of his capital Heshbon, and swept their 
 conquests northward to the strong boundary of the 
 Ammonites at the brook Jabbok. ' Wherefore (after so 
 great a success over Sihon) they that speak in proverbs 
 (they who recite in MasJilim or ballads the feelings of 
 the host) say (Numbers xxi. 27-30) : — 
 
 Come ye to Heshbon, 
 
 Let the city of Sihon be built and established: 
 
 28 For a fire is gone out of Heshbon, 
 A flame from the city of Sihon : 
 
 It hath devoured Ar of Moab, 
 
 The lords of the high places of Arnon. 
 
 29 Woe to thee, Moab! 
 
 Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh : 
 He hath given his sons as fugitives, 
 And his daughters into captivity, 
 Unto Sihon king of the Amorites. 
 
 ^ This is a very difficult form of phrase. ' Suphah ' is no doubt applied 
 to the Red Sea elsewhere : but it does not in itself mean the Red Sea, and 
 any such reference as the old version ' What He did at the Red Sea ' is 
 entirely out of place here. It might possibly mean 'What He did at 
 Suphah,' the reference being to one of the Arnon tributaries. Others 
 would render ' Vaheb (He took) in storm.' 
 
SONG OF THE WAR-FLAME. 1 79 
 
 30 We have shot at them; Heshbon is perished even unto 
 Dibon, 
 And we have laid waste even unto Nophah, 
 Which reacheth unto Medeba. 
 
 This is meant to be a bitter, sarcastic, and contemptuous 
 song ; scorching and stinging as the war-flame or tongue 
 of fire it celebrates. It begins with what seem words 
 of mocking satire on the part of victorious Israel, as 
 if shouting to the retreating and defeated Amorites, 
 ' Come back again to your capital ! Let Sihon give 
 orders to have his own Heshbon restored and rebuilt ! We 
 have not overthrown it ; no^, we have not reduced it to a 
 cinder heap ! ' Such seems the taunting spirit and the 
 contemptuous tone of Israel shouting after the Amorites, 
 inviting them to repair their demolished city— the far- 
 famed Heshbon. And to edge the taunt with a yet 
 keener blade, the singer seems to refer in the "zSth verse 
 to a former war-song of the Amorites themselves, ex- 
 ulting over Moab, into whose territories they had carried 
 fire and sword : — 
 
 'Truly a fire did go out from Heshbon, 
 A flame from Sihon s city, 
 Which scoured Ar of Moab, 
 And consumed the lords of the heights of Arnon.' 
 
 Truly a successful and right glorious campaign, bring- 
 ing woe and ruin upon Moab, the people of Chemosh. 
 The Moabites are the sons and daughters of. their god 
 Chemosh, who could not, however, protect his children 
 against their Canaanitish foe, Sihon, King of the Amorites, 
 at Heshbon. ' He (Chemosh) gave his sons as fugitives 
 and his daughters as captive slaves into the hands of 
 Sihon and his people.' Verse 29 is thus a mocking 
 glorification of the prowess of Sihon against Moab, so as 
 
 M 2, 
 
l8o EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 the more to enhance the valour of Israel, in conquering 
 these high and mighty invincible Amorites in their turn. 
 For (as the 30th verse seems to mean) : 
 
 ' We burned them out,' the proud boast of Israel over 
 the Amorites: ' Heshbon is perished even to Dibon ' (the 
 place where the famous Moabite stone was so recently 
 found), ' and our wasting of them was to Nophah, with 
 fire as far as Medeba.' 
 
 We see how entirely secular is this fragment ; how it 
 is couched in the true spirit and temper of warfare : fit 
 enough for the Collection of National War-songs, but not 
 for fuller preservation in the sacred record which is 
 suffused by another spirit. 
 
 Designed, no doubt, like other war-songs to fire the 
 enthusiasm and kindle the ardour of Israel, when pre- 
 paring for their great struggle, its value lies in the light 
 it throws on the martial prowess and daring of the people, 
 so different now from the old slavish feeling and cowardly 
 temper of the tribes on their coming forth out of Egypt. 
 
IV. SONG OF THE BOW. 
 
Song of the Bow. 
 
 17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul 
 
 1 8 and over Jonathan his son : and he bade them teach the 
 children of Judah the song of the bow : behold, it is written 
 in the book of Jashar. 
 
 19 Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! 
 How are the mighty fallen ! 
 
 20 Tell it not in Gath, 
 
 Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; 
 Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, 
 Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 
 
 21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, 
 
 Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields of 
 
 offerings : 
 For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, 
 The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. 
 
 22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty. 
 The bow of Jonathan turned not back. 
 
 And the sword of Saul returned not empty. 
 
 23 Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, 
 And in their death they were not divided ; 
 
 They were swifter than eagles. 
 They were stronger than lions. 
 
 24 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, 
 Who clothed you in scarlet deUcately, 
 
 Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. 
 
 25 How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the batde! 
 Jonathan is slain upon thy high places. 
 
 26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: 
 Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: 
 
 Thy love to me was wonderful, 
 Passing the love of women. 
 
 27 How are the mighty fallen, 
 
 And the weapons of war perished ! 
 
SONG OF THE BOW. 
 
 2 Samuel i. 17-27. 
 
 This great lament or funeral dirge is the last of the 
 Secular Songs, and forms a fitting close to them^. Such 
 an outburst of strong emotion as we have here, although 
 not based on distinctively religious or godly sentiment, 
 is inexpressibly touching and tender ; and it comes down 
 to us laden with three of the noblest elements of natural 
 piety: — PATRIOTISM, LOYALTY, and FRIENDSHIP. These 
 constitute the three divisions of the song, each one 
 having a section to itself. It is extracted from the Book 
 of Jashar, and is fitly called the Song of the Bow ; 
 celebrating as it does the famous bow of Jonathan, by 
 which he did his great exploits and won his reputation 
 with the people, and being probably intended to be sung 
 at the practice of the bow, or to encourage the youth 
 of Israel to emulate Jonathan's skill in its use. 
 
 Not only did Jonathan belong to the tribe of Benjamin, 
 which was famous above all others for its archers, but it 
 was by his dextrous skill with this weapon he gained his 
 first victory at Michmash. David's own associations 
 with Jonathan and the bow were memorable and tender. 
 One of his cherished possessions was the bow which 
 Jonathan had given him as a keepsake and token of 
 friendship, after the overthrow of Goliath. And when 
 
 1 There is also David's brief but touching threnody for Abner, two 
 chapters later, 2 Sam. iii. 33, 34, when treacherously slain by Joab, and 
 when ' the king lamented for Abner, and said, 
 ' Should Abner die as a fool dieth ? 
 Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters : 
 As a man falleth before the children of iniquity, so didst thou fall.' 
 
184 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 they had at last to separate because of the jealousy of 
 Saul, was it not by the skilful flight of arrows by the 
 stone Ezel that Jonathan conveyed a timely warning ? 
 
 From the structure of the song, especially from the 
 unequal length of the strophes, it does not seem to have 
 come to us in its original entirety, but only so much as 
 may afford a true idea of its scope and spirit as a mighty 
 and majestic dirge. Its lyric grandeur is patent to all, 
 and like every true work of genius it has inspired other 
 genius of various orders, as, for example, those solemn 
 strains of threnody, ' the dead march ' in Saul, under 
 whose sounds so many of the famous ones of earth have 
 been borne to their burial. After the opening wail of its 
 pealing refrain over fallen greatness, 
 
 ' Thy glory, O Israel (or as some render it, The gazelle, the 
 wild roe, of Israel), is slain upon thy high places ! 
 How are the mighty fallen ! ' 
 
 The NATIONAL DISASTER is the foremost and the 
 supreme burden of the singer's lament. What the song 
 breathes first of all, and sets in the forefront, is 
 
 I. 
 
 The Spirit of ardent Patriotism. This is what 
 glows and kindles in the first strophe with its mighty 
 wail : — 
 
 20 Tell it not in Gath, 
 
 Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; 
 Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, 
 Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 
 
 21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, 
 
 Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields of 
 
 offerings : 
 For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, 
 The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil. 
 
 22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, 
 
SONG OF THE BOW. 1 85 
 
 The bow of Jonathan turned not back, 
 And the sword of Saul returned not empty. 
 23 Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, 
 And in their death they were not divided ; 
 They were swifter than eagles. 
 They were stronger than lions. 
 
 Here, it is the sentiment of the country's honour ; it is 
 a sense of the country's loss ; it is the need of guarding 
 the nation's name and fame at such a crisis, that is the 
 singer's prime concern. The first and most urgent 
 necessity, he feels, is to evoke the thrill of common 
 sympathy and national unity. Everything depended on 
 the tribes rising in an outburst of patriotic enthusiasm, 
 and uniting as one man against the common foe. The 
 chief thing to be dreaded was apathy on the one hand, or 
 panic on the other. Were they to succumb to terror and 
 pay inglorious tribute to the enemy ? or were they to 
 rally at once and organise victory out of defeat, and 
 thereby 'turn the battle to the gate'? David feels 
 it needful to touch the tenderest chords in the nation's 
 memory and rouse them to an agony of resistance 
 against the Philistines. This was no time for petty tribal 
 jealousies or for idle personal recriminations — the sure 
 forerunner of even worse or more fatal disasters. David 
 seeks, therefore, in this strain to kindle anew the fires of 
 martial prowess, and counteract the despondency and 
 despair that might settle down on the people after so 
 terrible a blow. He will wake up old memories and 
 associations, so as to cast a potent spell over the deepest 
 and strongest susceptibilities of the nation. 
 
 Hence, the exquisite pathos and the melting power of 
 the opening lines, ' Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in 
 the streets of Ashkelon.' Hence, too, the animating force 
 of the adjuration^ which succeeds the words of wailing — 
 ' Hills of Gilboa ! no dew rest on you, nor rain on you, 
 
1 86 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 ye fields rich in oblations ! ' We must understand that 
 the verse is unfinished. The adjuring of hill and dale is 
 left to supply its own supplement — something like this : 
 ' Let no dews rest on Gilboa, nor rain descend on the 
 valley of the plain, till we have retrieved the national 
 disaster and redeemed the country's credit and honour ; 
 for there — there on that terrible field, the shield of the 
 mighty lies rusting, the shield of Saul no longer 
 anointed with oil.' The meaning of this might naturally 
 enough have been supposed to be : ' The shield of Saul 
 was thrown away, as though he had never been an 
 anointed king ; ' but the phrase ' anointed with oil ' 
 cannot grammatically apply to Saul, but to the shield. 
 Light is cast on the sense by a reference to Isaiah xxi. 
 5 : 'Arise, ye princes, anoint the shield;' where we gather 
 that the worst disgrace of a warrior-chief was to have 
 a rusty shield, not burnished and glittering with the 
 polish of oil. Thus the poet touches to the very quick 
 the martial susceptibilities of the people, by reminding 
 them that their national, their representative, their own 
 royal shield lies rusty on that fatal hill-side, just as he 
 touches their best religious feelings by recalling that 
 the richest offerings and first-fruits for the use of the 
 sanctuary and the nation's altar, were most plentifully 
 supplied from the neighbourhood of Gilboa, above other 
 corners of the land. 
 
 The associations thus conjured up were fitted to work 
 as a potent spell. The scene of the battle overlooks 
 one of the most blood-stained spots of earth ; and the 
 heights on which Saul and his sons were slain, have 
 re-echoed with the war-shouts of greater varieties of 
 combatants, perhaps, than any other equally limited 
 area ^. 
 
 * See page io8. 
 
SONG OF THE BOW. 1 87 
 
 Saul had felt his own battle here must be one of life 
 and death. Clinging to the hills with that instinctive 
 sense of advantage they might afford, he and his little 
 army had become the more conspicuous mark for the 
 terrible arrows of the Philistine archers on the slopes. 
 The danger and disaster alike were fearful. The rout 
 had been complete and dreadful. 'The men of Israel 
 fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on 
 Mount Gilboa.' 
 
 'Hills of Gilboa, never may 
 You offerings pay, 
 
 No morning dew nor fruitful showers 
 Clothe you with flowers : 
 Saul and his sons there made a spoil : 
 The shield untouched with sacred oil.' 
 But one grand redeeming feature was this — that neither 
 Saul, nor his sons, nor the people at large, had shown any 
 lack of prowess or courage ; the leaders had exposed 
 themselves in the thickest of the fight, and Israel had 
 been overthrown by sheer force of numbers and by 
 ovei*whelming odds. Saul and Jonathan had especially 
 signalised their daring and prowess, though without 
 avail ; rushing to the forefront with a kind of frenzy 
 of despair, only to fall together on the same fatal field. 
 ' From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, 
 the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of 
 Saul returned not empty.' But it was a fruitless struggle. 
 Though swifter than eagles and stronger than lions, they 
 were fated to ill-success, and they went down together. 
 ' Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their death they 
 were not divided.' Defeated, awfully and disastrously 
 defeated though they were, one consolation remained — 
 they were not disgraced. They died in harness, leaving 
 in their last sad battle-field, ' no blot on their fame,' as 
 true patriot-warriors and brave and gallant soldiers. 
 
1 88 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Spirit of Loyalty, which breathes in the second 
 strophe, is the next most striking thing after patriotism 
 in this grand lament. David's deep and leal-hearted 
 attachment to Saul, as the first anointed and first chosen 
 king of Israel, mingles with and grows out of his senti- 
 ments of patriotism. Saul is here remembered and 
 honoured with the distinction due both to his official and 
 personal pre-eminence. There is something sublimely- 
 magnanimous in the tone of David's references to his 
 now extinguished persecutor, laid low in death. 
 
 24 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, 
 Who clothed you in scarlet delicately. 
 
 Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel. 
 
 25 How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle ! 
 
 Can anything be more noble than this anxiety of 
 David to pay respect to the name and memory of the 
 great departed ? What more beautiful and touching as 
 an illustration of the sentiment, ' Say nothing but good 
 of the dead ' ? Oh, beautiful ! that in the holy presence 
 of death David has learned to forget and forgive his 
 wrongs ; dwelling on the better side and grander 
 qualities of Saul's character, oblivious, for the time, to 
 his miserable faults and failures. His courage and 
 energy in war, his happy co-operation with Jonathan, 
 and the beautiful union between father and son, in even 
 the last extremities of their going down together to the 
 grave of heroes, with all their daring and grand courage : 
 these, with his gigantic stature, his kingly bearing and 
 martial prowess, stand forth upon the canvas with 
 striking vividness. And what a touch of tender yet 
 wild and passionate wailing lurks in the appeal to the 
 daughters of Israel, whom Saul had clothed in the rich 
 
SONG OF THE BOW. - 1 89 
 
 spoil of war and advanced in all the elegancies and 
 ornaments of feminine life. And ' the mighty had fallen 
 in the midst of the battle!' another touch this of tender- 
 ness in David's noble sorrow. Death, no doubt, makes 
 the hardest heart tenderer, and blots out the memories of 
 injuries and wrongs. But there is something unusually- 
 magnanimous in David's manifestation of the God-like 
 forgiving spirit, wiping out as it does, in one great act of 
 oblivion, the memory of whole years of persecution and 
 injustice, and rising in this great ode of sorrow to the 
 highest reach of generosity. 
 
 For to David, with his heart true to the theocratic 
 constitution of the kingdom, Saul was in very deed ' the 
 Lord's anointed.' Loyalty to Saul was therefore part 
 of David's faith ; the fruit of his reverence for the 
 appointments of the divine will. Hence, his noble for- 
 bearance once and again toward Saul when he had him 
 in his power, while being hunted by the infatuated and 
 guilty king like a partridge on the mountains. Hence, 
 his putting away from him the opportunity and temptation 
 of revenge against his mortal foe — ' The Lord forbid that 
 I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord's 
 anointed.' So David ever deadened and checked the 
 spirit of disloyalty or of personal vengeance. And by 
 what fatal and astonishing experience the miserable 
 young Amalekite felt the power of this loyal principle in 
 David ! Seeking spoil on the battle-field, the wandering 
 Amalekite had found the dead body of Saul ; and 
 plucking off the crown and bracelet by which it was 
 distinguished, and hurrying away to Ziklag to tell 
 David, he crouched before him, as if the first to do 
 lowly obeisance to him and hail him first as king ; then 
 lyingly averred he had himself slain Saul, thinking 
 thereby to gain the higher reward. But he might have 
 
I90 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 read his fate in that glare of ineffable disdain and indig- 
 nation from David's flashing eye. He ! the base caitiff, 
 an accursed son of Amalek besides, to tell David he had 
 put forth his villain hand against the Lord's anointed ! 
 His shrift was short and his doom speedy. Ah, what 
 passionate and real affection lodged in David's heart for 
 Saul, if Saul had only thought so ! How the woe-begone 
 expression of the distracted monarch, and the clouded 
 look on that royal brow, had moved the young minstrel's 
 heart to anxious sympathy, while the occasional gleams 
 of generous feeling from the recovering king had kindled 
 the responsive thrillings of delight ! 
 
 And now the old attachment, which Saul had done so 
 much to kill, has revived again in all its pristine ardour ; 
 and seeks vent in a gush of unaffected regard and ad- 
 miration, all the more strong and irrepressible that it 
 has been so long restrained, and is now set free in this 
 noblest and most pathetic of all refrains, ' How are the 
 mighty fallen in the midst of the battle ! ' 
 
 HI. 
 
 The last strophe — briefest but strongest — is a passion- 
 ate outburst of Friendship for Jonathan. 
 
 25 O Jonathan, slain upon thy high places! 
 
 26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: 
 Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: 
 
 Thy love to me was wonderful, 
 Passing the love of women. 
 How are the mighty fallen, 
 And the weapons of war perished! 
 
 For purity, fidelity, and romantic associations, the 
 attachment of David and Jonathan is unrivalled in 
 story, and has become proverbial through all the ages. 
 'The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, 
 
SONG OF THE BOW. 19I 
 
 and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.' Jonathan 
 saw in David a piety, a patriotism, and a prowess, which 
 made him yield his heart to the finest impulses of a true 
 affection, without a shade of rivalry, jealousy, or envy; 
 Jonathan's attachment was disinterested, generous and 
 unselfish. The friendship had evidently originated with 
 Jonathan, the elder of the two, and far above David in 
 rank and consideration. And if the king's son had 
 apparently nothing to gain from the son of Jesse, he saw 
 in David a true hero and the coming man, and he felt 
 the charm of David's noble character and aims. It was 
 a friendship which David knew how to appreciate and 
 reciprocate. 
 
 * He was rich, and I was poor, 
 And he supplied my wants the more, 
 That his unlikeness fitted mine.' 
 
 When Saul's heart was kindled in mad fury against 
 David, in what a perplexing and delicate position was 
 Jonathan placed ! Yet how constant and faithful he 
 remained to his friend, without, however, acting in any 
 way the unfilial part ! Few more touching incidents can 
 anywhere be found than when, being forced to separate 
 at the stone Ezel, it might be for brief space, it might be 
 for ever, 'They kissed one another, and wept one with the 
 other till David exceeded ' ; or when, in their final inter- 
 view, as it proved, in the forest of Ziph, Jonathan 
 ministered to David's religious comfort and necessity, 
 and ' strengthened his hand in God.' 
 
 ' Much beautiful and excellent and fair 
 Was seen beneath the sun : but nought was seen 
 More beautiful or excellent or fair 
 Than face of faithful friend : fairest when seen 
 In darkest day: and many sounds were sweet, 
 
192 EARLY BIBLE SONGS. 
 
 Most ravishing and pleasant to the ear; 
 
 But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend; 
 
 Sweet always, and sweetest heard in loudest storm.' 
 
 Of such a friendship David had felt the sweet experi- 
 ence. With full and overflowing heart he cherishes its 
 sunny memories. And now, reflecting on all the past; 
 he says, tenderly and with a softened meltingness, * Very 
 pleasant wast thou to me. Thy love to me was wonderful! 
 It had been often a solace to him when a fugitive ; a 
 light and joy to him in many a dark and cloudy day, 
 sustaining and cheering him when heart and flesh fainted 
 and failed. It inspired him to show kindness to the 
 children and the children's children of his early friend, 
 and now it inspires him to pour forth his soul in this 
 lament for the departed, in strains of passionate and 
 absorbing grief — the very ' pathos and sublime ' of all 
 undying friendships which have in them the seeds of 
 immortality. 
 
 ' Nor sink such stars in empty night ; 
 They lose themselves in heaven's own light.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
 A 
 

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