¦ II -1 1 9 p ill 1 s ^i' t l^p ^^ !i,;5 Wm ^H -e— :- -rt-iT.— ^'^'^'i^f: YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY Gift of Estate of Professor George Dahl A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE LAURA H. WILD, B.D. A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE A Study of the Types of Literature Present in The Old and New Testaments BY LAURA H. VILD, B.D. PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL HISTORY AND LITERATURE MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE NEW XSjr YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE. U PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA L o •a J* TO MY STUDENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS WHO HAVE BEEN AN INSPIRATION TO MY OWN STUDY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Acknowledgment is made for permission from the pub lishers to use extracts from the following books : 'American S. S. Union Barton, G. A. — Archaeology and the Bible — 1916 The Page Company Count Tolstoi — Fables for Children ; Stories for Chil dren; and Moral Tales— 1904 Dodd, Mead and Company Bay Psalm Book— 1903 Cheyne, T. K. — Translation of Isaiah (polychrome Bible)— 1898 George H. Doran Company Smith, George Adam — ^Jerusalem — 1907 —The Book of Isaiah— 1896 Gordon, Alexander R. — The Poets of the Old Testa ment— 1912 McLaren, Alexander, D.D. — Psalms — 1901 Moffatt, Rev. Prof. James — A New Translation of the New Testament — 1913 Ginn and Company Genung, J. F. — ^A Guidebook to the Biblical Literature —1919 Houghton, Mifflin Company Gilder, R. W.— Complete Poems— 1908 Little Brown and Company Curtin, Jeremiah — Creation Myths of Primitive America — 1911 -rii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Macmillan Com,pany Brown, T. E.— Poems— 1920 Colum, p.— The Children of Odin— 1920 Duhm, Bernhard — The Twelve Prophets — 1912 Fowler, H. T. — A History of the Literature of Ancient Israel— 1912 Frazer, J. G. — Folk-lore in the Old Testament — 1918 Johnson, Clifton — Old Time Schools and School Books— 1904 King, H. C— Ethics of Jesus— 1910 Masefield, John — Collected Poems — 1918 Wilkinson, Margaret — New Voices — 1919 Marshall Jones Company Mythology of All Races Dixon, R. B. — Oceanic Mythology — 1916 Muller, W. M. — Egyptian Mythology — 1918 Thomas Nelson and Sons American Revised Version of the Holy Bible — 1901 Oxford University Press Oxford Book of Latin Verse — 1912 Smith, G. A. — Early Poetry of Israel in Its Physical and Social Origins — 1912 Pilgrim Press McFadyen, j. E. — Isaiah in Modem Speech — 1918 G. P. Putnam's Sons CoBB, W. F.— The Book of Psalms— 1905 Davis, C. H. S.— Egyptian Book of the Dead— 1894 Kalila and Dimna : or The Fables of Bidpai — translated from Arabic by Wyndham KnatchbuU — 1905 King, E. G. — Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews — 1911 Smith, G. A. — Deuteronomy (Cambridge Bible) — 1918 Rivington Burney, C. F.— The Book of Judges— 1918 Scott Foresman and Company Anderson, R. B. — Norse Mythology — 1901 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Charles Scribner's Sons Briggs, C. a. & E. G. — ^Psalms (Inter. Crit. Com.) — 1906 Charles, R. H.— Revelation (Inter. Crit. Com.)— 1920 Driver, S. R. — Deuteronomy (Inter. Crit. Com.) — 1895 Gray, G. B.— Isaiah (Inter. Crit. Com.)— 1912 Kent, C. F.— Students' Old Testament— 1914 Skinner, J. — Genesis (Inter. Crit. Com.) — 1910 Toy, C. H.— Proverbs (Inter. Crit. Com.)— 1904 Steckert and Company Teubner, B. G. — Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, University of Chicago Press Houghton, L. S. — Hebrew Life and Thought — 1906 CONTENTS CHATCES PAGB I INTRODUCTION. THE BIBLE AS LIT ERATURE 15 II FOLK-LORE 19 section i: introductory, folk-lore in THE bible 19 section ii: characteristics of folk lore . 20 section iii: folk-songs, examples . 34 section iv : biblical riddles ... 56 section v: myth and legend . . 62 SECTION VI : myth AND LEGEND. EXAM PLES 65 III STORY TELLING 88 SECTION I : THE ART OF STORY TELLING . 88 SECTION II : SHORT STORIES. EXAMPLES . 94 SECTION hi: longer STORIES ... 97 SECTION IV : FABLES, PARABLES, ALLEGO RIES, AND PROVERBS 99 SECTION V : FABLES, PARABLES, ALLEGORIES, AND PROVERBS. EXAMPLES . . . 103 IV HISTORY 109 SECTION I : THE CHARACTER OF HISTORICAL WRITING 109 SECTION II : EXAMPLES . . • .116 (1) Descriptive History . . . .116 (2) Didactic History 117 (3) Genetic History 118 xi suCHAfTEK CONTENTS V HEBREW POETRY . . SECTION I : INTRODUCTORY PAGE 120 120 VI VII VIII SECTION II : THE STRUCTURE OF HEBREW POETRY 129 SECTION III : EXAMPLES .... 147 (1) Patriotic Poetry 147 Early Patriotic Songs; Later Patriotic Songs and Prkyers of the People; Songs of the Royalty; Dirges, Early and Late. (2) Nature Lyrics 175179183 192193 201212217218 228 234 241 247257 259 260 266 268 273 277 (3) Praise Lyrics (4) Other Choice Lyrics . DRAMATIC LITERATURE . (1) Dramatic Lyrics . (2) Dramatic Visions (3) Dramatic Prophecy WISDOM LITERATURE (1) The Book of Job (2) The Words of Koheleth (3) Groups of Proverbs ORATORY EXAMPLES OF BIBLICAL SPEECHES ESTIMATES OF BIBLICAL SPEECHES SPEECHES WITH WHICH TO COMPARE BIBLICAL MATERIAL . IX ESSAY . . EXAMPLES ESTIMATES BIBLICAL REFERENCES INDEX THIS A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Chapter I INTRODUCTION. THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE What excuse is there for another text-book upon the Bible and upon the Bible as literature? Have we not been studying the literature of the Bible during all these cen turies and, moreover, if we study it simply as literature are we not missing its greatest mission as a book of re ligion ? This book proposes definite answers to these questions and \ the reader and student is invited to consider these answers/ carefully, not superficially with the assumption that ofl course we appreciate the literature when we study it as/ ? history or when we study it for its religious lessons, nor om ^'S the Other hand with the assumption that when we consider! '' especially the beauty and art of expression we are leading the student away from the essential meaning intended to be/ conveyed. There are advocates of "devotional" Bible study who look askance at the literary study as if one were hindered from realizing the sweet fragrance of a rose by admiring the beauty of its structure and the exquisite tints of its petals ; likewise there are those who brush aside the importance of an appreciation of the unique art of a race for what they consider the more essential foundations of its history, as if in the total impress of personality upon personality, of race upon race, of God upon man, the skele ton were more important than the features, the history of the evolution of the eye than its engaging fascination in sparkle and humor, in tears and pathos. IS 16 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Now without any question spiritual realities count most, but it is also unquestionably true that the way human beings awake to spiritual realities, to the clarifying visions which may be seen by each one of us as well as by the first seers, is through the. fascination of something attractive, through the manner of expression of eye, of hand, of thought, which is the revelation of unsounded depths beneath. The great personalities of the world have something characteristic, fascinating, and alluring about their expression. It partakes of the mysterious because it is always leading us farther in and showing us deeper places and broader expanses without exhausting the full reservoir of life. This is equally true of the great races which have impressed the world with some thing unique and characteristic. Great world masterpieces are simply the expression of such individual or racial genius. The reservoir must be deep to attract and hold the world by the movement upon the waters ; but that movement, that ex pression, attracts attention and promises a great reward of investigation. If it cannot keep its hold after the first fascination is over, then it must be taken for what it is worth, a mere surface attraction, an expression that is merely temporary, not immortal ; for great thought demands great art. Moreover, the converse is likewise true; where great art is found, great revelations may be expected. It is a false conception that an appreciation of art and beauty detracts from the realization of the fundamental revelation ; on the contrary it is the open door to such revelation. Moreover, the revelation itself cannot be fully appreciated apart from its beautiful expression. Possibly this fact, that the expressions of the Bible are the avenues to great revela tions of truth, is more of a proof for the inspiration of Scripture than any dogmatic argument has ever been. Pos sibly here is to be found for our present day the more natural approach to a belief in the inspired word of God. We are not, therefore, missing the religious import of the Bible by studying its literary expression. On the contrary we are opening our eyes to perceive more truly its real significance. INTRODUCTION 17 Granting the value then of an appreciation of the literary art of the Bible, is there still an excuse for a text-book upon the Bible as literature? Do we not spoil its beauty and its effect by analysis? The truth is that as our Bible has come down to us through the medium of manuscripts ; and translations often poor and very much defaced and ob scured, the original freshness, vigor, and spontaneity has been so incrusted that modern scholarship has done a very great service in trying to get back to the first form of ex pression. Results are now available for scholars, and there are many books already at hand for the beginner in the study of the English Bible which help materially in getting hold of the history of the Hebrew race, and of their ideas. But there are very few books which treat primarily of the appreciation of the literature as literature. Even those which adopt the title of literature prove upon examination to be studies of the history of the literature rather than of the appreciation of literary types. There is a need just now for a text-book for the beginner in the study of the English Bible which will help him so to realize the art and beauty of Biblical literature that he can read it along with other world masterpieces and understand its excellencies clearly and intelligently. For with all our pride of culture and education it is a fact that the Bible is losing its place as a classic to be read and understood. It is being regarded by the ordinary young person as the fetich of certain sects, carried under the arm to Sunday School or Church as a religious protection from harm, but as nothing real in every day life. The present-day youth is so woefully ignorant of the names, phrases, and incidents in the Bible that the meaning of references to them in English literature is quite hidden. If the Bible is ever to take its place as one of the great masterpieces in the world of literature it must be studied in such a way that the high school or college teacher can use it side by side with other literatures, assuming a knowledge of its points of excellence, its art and beauty, compared with other masterpieces. As we have already seen, there are many kinds of Bible 18 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE study. It may be studied as history; as a religious guide pure and simple or theologically; it may be studied to dis cover the sociological truths which come to light in viewing the different stages of society through which the Hebrews passed ; and it may be studied as literature, to discover the art and beauty of expression which was the medium through which the great ideas, the spiritual revelations, of a very unique and gifted race found their way into the world. The last mentioned involves a certain historical background but it is different from a survey of the history of the literature. That traces the development of a literature, studies the in fluences which brought about such a development and the kind of men and women who produced it; the thorough study of the history of any literature would include a famili arity with what was written and an appreciation of it. But historical surveys very often stop short of that; a study of the preexilic, exilic, and post-exilic periods of Hebrew history often stops short of an appreciation of Isaiah's Vineyard Song or the Thunder-storm Psalm, and a knowl edge of the importance of the patriarchal period in Hebrew racial development sometimes leaves the student completely unaware of Hebrew folk-poetry, that there was indeed a "Song of the Sword" or a "Song of the Well." Now in order to begin to understand any literature from this last standpoint one must take a type such as folk-lore, story, or poetry and stay with it long enough to put one self as nearly as possible into the feelings and state of mind of that group of authors. One must single out certain illustrations and study them so carefully that their delicate shades of beauty and forceful devices for conveying mean ing shall not escape one. One should also compare these illustrations with masterpieces of the same type in other literatures in order to realize the peculiar power of a racial genius. To furnish a guide for such a study of the Bible in a brief and simple way is the attempt of this book. Chapter II FOLK-LORE section I : INTRODUCTORY FOLK-LORE IN THE BIBLE To those who have been accustomed to view the Bible simply as a book of religion it is sometimes a surprise to realize that we have imbedded in these records the remains of a very early literary expression which was no more re ligious than any songs sung by any primitive people ex pressing the mere joy of living or the thrill of discovering something new or exultation over a victory in battle. It was all religious in the sense that primitive people lived intimately with their gods and did not self-consciously analyze their thoughts and feelings and then wrap up a certain section of them and label them religious. So with the Hebrews, their God had something to do with all they did, with the sunshine and the crops, with the thunder storm and the earthquake, with a cloudburst when it helped them to gain a victory over their enemy, and with the gift of a well of water in a parched and weary land. To the student who is accustomed to view the Bible as a collection of documents recording the development of a race and their growth in religious consciousness and ideals from very primitive beginnings to a very lofty climax, it is a great joy to discover that the art and beauty, the spon taneity and playfulness found in the literatures of other peoples is not lacking here. The Bible is not a book of re ligious homilies and moral precepts only. It is alive and sparkling ; it is free and untrammeled ; one feels its vitality and spring so that even though born in this sophisticated, self-conscious age one can imagine himself back in that youthful time, dancing with the children, singing in the vineyard, or piping to the flocks. Let the reader compare, 19 20 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE for example, our Scriptures with the Mohammedan Bible, the Koran, and he soon exclaims that there is no compari son. The intellectually curious, the student of theology and ethics, may enjoy the Koran, but think of the way little children, and restless, adventurous boys, and courageous youths, as well as mature men and women have been held by the charm and spirit of the Bible stories and poetry. In the early literature of every nation are found harvest songs, hunting songs, and battle songs. The poetic instinct seems born in men, the love of music, the sense of rhythm. They could do everything better to the rhythm of song,. their daily work, and their fighting, as well as their play. To its accompaniment they marched in better step, swung their sickles with more spirit, and trod the grapes in the winepress more joyously. The Old Testament offers no exception to this universal tendency in literature. Here we find labor songs, dirges, wedding songs, and marching songs which make it clear that Hebrew literature, like every other great literature, was born from a feeling for the rhythms of life. Human beings are built upon the rhythmic plan and the moment a literature loses that hold and drops into a purely prosaic style, that moment its great ness is gone, for it has ceased to be true to life. Hebrew literature is great literature and one of its most marked characteristics is its rhythmical beauty. As our older ver sions of the Bible are printed, it is often difficult to per ceive the poetic form; but the more recent scholars are translating the text with greater accuracy and more sym pathetic understanding of the original meaning, and print ing as poetry the fragments of folk-songs as well as longer poems. SECTION II : CHARACTERISTrCS OF FOLK-LORE If we are to recognize true folk-lore in Biblical literature we must first understand the marks of folk-lore in any literature. These we can know, for through close attention to a comparative study of all races and languages available FOLK-LORE 21 scholars have recognized at least a dozen characteristics of this first kind of literary expression. Although folk-lore is primitive in the sense of being first in the development of any tribal or racial expressions, it is not all ancient, for there still exist primitive tribes hardly developed beyond the first stages among which folk-lore can be observed to-day in its active, living expression ; the songs can be heard, the accompanying dances can be watched, the stories can be traced back as far as possible to their origin. In our own country we have had two races that have yielded us very interesting material, the Negroes and the Indians. Much of the primitive expression of feeling brought over from Africa by the slaves was incorporated into the negro songs of slave days, and many fascinating, imaginative tales of the ancestors of our Indians have been preserved in such a collection as that of the California tribes by Jeremiah Curtin. Yet it must be noted that within the memory of people now living negroes have ceased to put into their folk-songs the same spirit, the same tragic pathos of tone, the same rhythms, even, which they gave voice to in slave days. The present generation, living under different conditions, is more sophisticated, has a different spirit ; imi tation ean never produce the identical expression of the original. And this is quite apparent also among the In dians. One must hark back to the impressions gained by our first settlers from tribes and chiefs unspoiled by contact with civilization to get the right idea of the inherent no bility, originality, and genius of the native Indian, which civilization has diluted and submerged. To get back to the original as far as possible, to seek out the remote corners of the coimtry, in the case of both Indians and Negroes, in order to find groups which still express the feelings of their ancestors, not from memory but as a part of their own life, this is the work of scholars through which they have discovered in the making the characteristics of the most primitive literature. Now if we see the difficulty in such a restoration of folk lore when we are so near to the living expression of it as 22 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE in the case of these two peoples mentioned, how much greater is the task when ancient history is involved, when the remnants of such traditions have come down to us only in ancient records which have suffered terribly at the hands of copyists and translators, when even the principles upon which a very ancient national poetry was built were dis covered comparatively recently, and when that poetry was for long translated as prose into the foreign English tongue. Some people look up with surprise when they are told that there is folk-lore in the Bible. If so, why have we not known it long ago, for has not the Bible been pored over more than any other printed book? The answer is quite evident; although we owe very much to scholarship past and present, the Bible is a mine with rich veins scarcely tapped even though it has been a sacred book for centuries. There is no better exercise for our imagination than to attempt to put ourselves back some thousands of years in time and feel primitive feelings with an ancient race, and we find as we do it aiid as we compare those expressions in folk-song and story with the folk-lore of more modern tribes that there is a common element running through it all, that human nature in its development and its essential expressions has not changed very much after all. Let us see, then, what these common characteristics are which unmistakably reveal a body of folk-poetry and legend, even though imbedded in a mass of more recent literature. 1. Folk-lore is spontaneous. There is none of the con scious art of the schools about it. For this very reason it is a true revelation of the fundamental characteristics of human nature. In this connection we note with interest that there is "more of the spontaneity of childhood in our Bible stories than in the folk-lore of any other people." ^ This naivete involves sympathy and faith. More highly trained people stop to analyze a situation or to "size-up" a person before yielding to the impulse of sympathy or granting full faith. But primitive people do not know how to analyze. They simply observe and feel and then they 1 Houghton, Louise Seymour, Hebrew Life and Thought. FOLK-LORE 23 describe. Neither do they beat about the bush in their de scriptions in order to save the feelings of some one else. They are very direct and pointed in the words they use, quite savage at times. With a perfectly natural exuberance of feeling they express their delight at a new discovery, giv ing vent to their anger at some obstacle in their way with the same vehemence. They are untamed. 2. Not having learned restraint, early peoples could not therefore learn the art of teaching or restraining others. Consequently the second characteristic of folk-lore is its lack of the didactic or moralizing element. Folk-lore shows no desire to point out motives or to teach others how to appreciate the facts revealed. Although observations are made and discoveries recorded, although lessons may even be apparent under the guise of story, events, not the inter pretation of events, stand as the main thing. The one who listens to the song may take it or leave it, that matters not to the singer, for he treats the world as the world treats him : the world is here, that is all, and the singers are simply voicing their delight in being a part of it. Like the birds of the air, they must sing because it is their nature, not because they have a mission to help poor souls to regard the world in a different light. Neither are these singers as yet charmed with the art of charming. They probably do not know that they are charming. They are not trying to do anything, they are simply living. The consciousness of fascination about them and the attempt to imitate this fas cination and to teach others to do so comes much later when art for art's sake and poetry for poetry's sake emerge in order to reproduce a charm sophisticated nature is in danger of losing. These primitive singers are quite artless. 3. There is always rhythm in folk-lore. Primitive people are always singers. It is simply the expression of the rhythm in life. Singing may be an art when civilization overtakes us, but in the beginning it is the natural out burst of this fundamental fact of all nature, that it is rhythmical. Literary expression was first of all merely the attempt of the awakening soul to bear witness to this 24 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE fact. A feeling for the rhythms of life is an especial characteristic of Hebrew literature throughout all its periods even down to the more artificial stages. It is really a part of the Hebrew genius, for everywhere is found, in prose as well as in poetry, a certain balance of thought and very decided balances of feeling; pathos gives vividness to joy, heavy-heartedness to light-heartedness, struggle to peace. 4. A fourth characteristic of folk-lore is the fact that it is a communal affair, a group expression. The entire body of the people is swayed by common feelings and gives voice as a whole to those feelings. Folk-lore is "of the people" but not "for the people," because as has been said already, there is not the least attempt to teach or to convert. Be cause it is thus a communal thing no one knows or prob ably ever did know the authorship of any particular song. It belongs to the public and is truly a public production.^ In our day and generation we must remember if we are to appreciate that early time, that individualism did not then exist. The tribe was the unit of life, thought, action, and feeling; it moved as one; if there should be any one who was too individualistic to belong to that unit, swift death was meted out, as witness the punishment that befell Achan according to the account that comes down to us in the book of Joshua. The "Song of the Sword" illustrates well the communal origin of a folk-song. The tribe discovered the value of cutting instruments; the tribe broke out, there fore, with a jubilant exultation over the discovery. To-day the same wave of group discovery appears when different inventors stumble upon the same thing simultaneously. And the impulse to a common expression of delight appears in the common thread to be found in the poetry of any par ticular period. But in primitive times all the conditions were against even temporary individual claims to owner ship of ideas or expressions, even though an individual may have been responsible for the initial impulse. 2 This opinion is the one most students of folk-lore maintain. For the opposite view that folk-lore is the product of the imagination of certain indi viduals, see Louise Pound, Poetic Origins and the Ballad. FOLK-LORE 25 5. A fifth mark of this early type of literature is that it was doubtless orally transmitted. Long before literary men existed in the sense of adepts at writing, literature was in the making. We ought to have a word that would cover all verbal expressions, written or spoken, for the word lit erature connotes the knowledge of letters and reproduces at once in our minds the image of books. "Spoken English" is being revived in our schools simply for the reason that spontaneity and fire of expression is in danger of being al- togetheir lost in our bookishness. Yet "Spoken English" is only the art of reproducing effectively what has been written and does not cover at all what we mean by that original act of composition apart entirely from pen and paper, and the sight of the words. It was sound which was the guide in those early days, not sight ; hence the music and rhythm. The ear was the organ brought into requisition first as prime director of the art. However the eye, too, served well as a handmaid, as is evident in our next point. 6. The dance almost always accompanies folk-song. This brings out the rhythm, while the refrain, which we shall see was almost always present, lends itself to the dance. Here is where the eye comes in as a most useful comple ment to the ear. Yet the rhythm of the dance depends pri marily upon motion; blind people can dance because they feel the rhythm rather than see it and the era of folk- poetry has had many a blind bard. The sight of a folk- dance is a charming thing especially to the observer who is not in the motion but outside it looking on, yet the ob server is likewise having his own sense of rhythm stimu lated through his ear and his imagination. However, we must remember that in the days of real folk-song all the people took part, joining in together, except the old or the sick; it was a communal affair, a living thing indeed. As we look back upon it now from a distance we catch it in the making, not in a hermit's cell or a writer's retreat but with a crowd of singers and dancers. "Folk-song is gong alive." 7. Without doubt folk-lore was also a growth, that is. 26 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE when the first rendition of a song or stanza was heard, something was added. Soon another couplet or another stanza attached itself to the first We sometimes imitate this folk-song process when in our games a group is given the task of making up a poem in a few minutes. Some bright mind starts off and soon line after line is added. Probably it is not very good poetry and it is always done with a humorous sense of the impossibility of compressing into a brief moment a process that naturally takes time and thought. But after all it is a re-vival of an ancient, primi tive group instinct in the making of song. The complete folk-song is not to our mind always logically complete, that is, perfect as the schools would have made it. There are likely to be many omissions and there is often a sudden leap in thought and change in style as from narrative to dia logue, the same kind of a leap which one finds that intuitive rather than logical people always make. The process of development of folk-lore may even show, after a while, a point where individual expression comes in, where the form may well be attributed to a single author. Yet that author undoubtedly draws upon the common fund of material in much the same manner as the group did before him. He is still unconscious of his art. He may be a bard but he is of the people and not very different from all the rest. 8. Folk-poetry is objective, not subjective. It is not re flective, neither is it sentimental although full of sentiment. This is quite in accord with what has been said before, that primitive people simply observe and do not teach, that they do not analyze, and that their feelings are perfectly natural and wholesome with no morbid distortions and suppressions, which turn true sentiment into a sickly sentimentality. They express their feelings freely and frankly, but they do not discuss them ; the feelings themselves never become a matter of interest and speculation. Thus their language remains concrete while they leave to later times the invention of those abstract terms that separate the heart from the ob jects of its affection and turn them into objects of mental apprehension only. FOLK-LORE 27 9. The faculties brought especially into play in folk-lore are memory and imagination. The use of memory is shown in the fact that recitative is one of the forms of early folk lore. Unquestionably this tends to keep past events in mind ; that is, it is an aid to memory, doubtless unconsciously adopted. We have an example of this in the snatch of a folk-song given in Numbers 21 : 14, 15, regarding which Mrs. Houghton makes the following comment. "It would seem probable that the entire story of the wilderness jour ney and the conquest of the district east of the Jordan was preserved in a series of ballads of this sort, perhaps for the same reason that the list of the kings of England has been cast into doggerel verse in 'Columbus was a sailor brave'." Let us compare this device for remembering the tribal history of the Hebrews with our own device in English and we shall see the common element. Waheb in Suphah [we passed] And the valleys of Amon And the cliffs of the valleys That descend to the d-wellings of Ar, And lean on the shoulder of Moab.' - Compare The Story of America in Verse By Peter Parley Columbus was a sailor brave, The first that crossed th' Atlantic wave, In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, He came far o'er the ocean blue. Where ne'er a ship had sailed before. And found a wild and savage shore Where naked men in forests prowled And bears and panthers roamed and howled.-* The great difference in these recitatives which strikes us first is that the English verse seems more rhythmical. This is the result of two facts which we shall understand better 3 See translation in Houghton, Louise S., Hebrew Life and Thought 4 For tw^ more verses of this quaint poem see Clifton Johnson, Old T,me Schools and School-books, p. 252. 28 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE when we come to study Hebrew poetry more in detail. The first is that there is in Hebrew poetry hardly any dependence upon rhyme to produce musical effects and that the meter is the meter of accent rather than of number of syllables. The second reason is the very imperfect rendering of the music of the individual Hebrew words in a translation. Now not only was recitative a means that early people used for remembering past events, but there was often a device within the song itself to help the memory. This was repetition and repetition in two forms. The first of these is the refrain, in which Biblical poetry abounds, one of the chief devices discovered by primitive people to help the memory as well as to aid in the rhythmical effect. Deb orah's Song in Judges 5 : 2, 9, a very ancient war ballad, gives us a good example of this. Psalm 8: 1,9 shows ex cellently how a later poet built his exquisite nature poem upon this early form. The second way in which repetition very frequently occurs is in the use over and over again of the same word, but so skillfully and rhythmically as to avoid monotony. Here is found one of the differences be tween early and late Hebrew poetry. In some of the late liturgical psalms, constructed quite artificially, the repetition of lines and words becomes exceedingly monotonous, as in Psalm 136, for example. Compare with this the effective repetition of words in Judges 5: 12 and I Samuel 2:1, or in the mourning song of David over Absalom in II Sam uel 18:33 O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom 1 Would I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son 1 or in that imitation of a dirge found in the prophecy of Amos, where the word in the Hebrew, ho, ho, is translated Alas! Alas! in English. The Hebrew, as is readily seen, lends itself to a wail made much more effective by repe tition. Now with due apology to the dignity of style and sacred- ness of association of the Bible text, let us compare this FOLK-LORE 29 Hebrew device of repetition with the English as shown in many of the Mother Goose rhymes. Take for example "Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse." Here is brought out pre cisely what occurred in the Hebrew folk-poetry, a repetition of the same words at regular intervals, sometimes every two lines, sometimes three, and sometimes seven. The charm for children of the nursery tale of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" depends upon this very repetition. The same is true of Negro "Spirituals" such as the "Chariot Song" or "Where, Now Where, Are the Hebrew Children?" Another very apparent delight of the Hebrew was in a play on words by repetition. Samson's rhyming riddle illus trates well this point. With the jawbone of an ass Have I massed a mass ; With the jawbone of an ass Have I slain a thousand.^ If we compare with this our foolish yet amusing Mother Goose story of "Chicken-licken," the reason for the amuse ment of the Hebrews at many of their verses will be readily seen. One lurther remark should be made in this connection. As has already been said in dealing with the growth of a folk-song, in the improvisation of a song perhaps one mem ber of a crowd suggested one line and another the next. Often the recurrent phrases were well-known lines which had already become common property. This introduction of familiar material is found in later writings in the quo tation of proverbs or bits of wisdom in verse form. The prophet Isaiah seems fond of this way of approaching his audiences at the point of contact. For example, remini scences, perhaps even refrains, of ancient folk-song are present in Isaiah 28 : 20 For the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself on it : And the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. 5 This will be studied more in detail later under Riddles. 30 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and in Isaiah 2 : 4 They shall beat their swords into plowshares. And their spears into pruning-hooks ; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more. id. Not only is memory, working through recitative and repetition, an important faculty in folk-lore, imagination also plays a very essential part. Imagination is, in fact, so requisite to an appreciation of this early literature that the' person without it will find in folk-lore but scant pleas ure. For folk-lore is made up very largely of figures of speech. This is always true of the rumor that floats about among unlettered people. It is particularly true when the tale or the song is the outburst of the fresh, poetic instinct of primitive peoples, unspoiled by self-consciousness, analy sis, or even the echoes of the discipline of an artificial life. In the early poetry of the Hebrews the figures are very expressive and forceful; they are few in number but they recur again and again. Such figures have the power to draw pictures vividly and suggestively but with very few strokes. For example, the ignominious flight of Sisera in Deborah's Song is represented in a few lines in which the cloudburst, the rapid rising of the river, the way the chariots were stuck in the mud, the terrific stamping of the horses' hoofs in the attempt to extricate the chariots, the flight of the captain on foot are all portrayed to eye and ear as well, for one can fairly hear the noise of the horses' hoofs. Again, the entire march of a triumphant army down the coast and its ig nominious flight is represented in the verses in Isaiah 17: 12-14, where its rushing, thundering tread is represented like the swishing and booming of the waves on the harbor- less coast. It is as vivid an example of onomatopoeia as Lowell's picture of Appledore in a storm with its "grinding, blinding, deafening ire," and much more brief. And no where in literature is there so short and vivid an account of the siege and destruction of a city as that of Nineveh in Nahum 2 : 3-7. Much of the description in each of these FOLK-LORE 31 illustrations is literal, but the brevity and effectiveness are due to the figures of speech, for a whole line of suggestion can be aroused by one word of figurative language and a picture painted in a moment, which it would take many words to explain in detail and literally. It is true, of course, that poetry must always be suggestive and symbolic and always presuppose the imaginative element. The point for us to bear in mind is that the Hebrew genius, as represented in the literature preserved in the Old Testament especially, was unusually imaginative and poetical and hence uses most abundantly very telling figures of speech. 11. Irony is another element often found in folk-lore; not the satire of a more conscious literary period, but the delicious hits at human nature and even the sarcastic taunts of bitterness. Nothing is concealed, no feelings are re pressed; restraint is not a virtue of primitive life. The essential element in irony and sarcasm is the ability to see contrasts, contrasts into which there sometimes enters the bitterness of disappointment, of anger, of revenge. Sarcasm is the primitive weapon of defense which the soul has who does not find what he expects. It is a cutting weapon, often a coarse one, but always a very effective one; in a more sophisticated age it may tum into satire, as it did in the prophetical literature. Simple yet pointed irony is present \ in Jotham's Fable, in Elijah's Challenge to the Baalim on I Mount Carmel, and in a mild form in the story Nathan told I David about the ewe lamb. 12. Humor is another characteristic prevalent in folk lore, because humor is an essential quality of unspoiled human nature. Did the Hebrews have a sense of humor? It has been questioned by some because the Hebrews took such a serious view of life and of man as a sinner before the holy God. But one reason why this puritanical version of Biblical literature has been accepted is because it was the puritan temperament which made it. A sense of the solemnity of life the Hebrews did have, but this is not at all incompatible with a sense of humor. It has often been re marked that we never should have had the story of Jonah 82 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and the whale without it and certainly the allegory of "The Woman and the Barrel" in Zechariah 5:5-11, the early, rough folk-tale of the priest Micah in Judges 17 and 18, and the story of "Samson the Sunny" in Judges 14-16 depend upon a sense of humor. In Judges 18 : 16, Gideon's humor must have pleased himself at any rate, when he taught the men of Succoth with thorns and briars. The puns and plays on words of which the Hebrew writers were very fond are a sign of the appreciation of humor. This comes out beauti fully in prophetic literature in a correct translation of Micah 1 : 10 when the prophet charges the people — Tell it not in Tell-town, In Exult-town exult not. In Weep-town weep. In House of Dust roll in Dust. Pass away, O inhabitants of Fair-town, naked. The inhabitants of March-town shall not march forth.* Humor like irony and sarcasm is shown by analysis to be based on contrast. The quick juxtaposition of the small and the great, the short and the tall, the boastful and the modest make us smile, especially when consequences are involved. But humor is mild and innocent and makes us laugh; irony has a little sting to it, while sarcasm is bitter and revengeful and makes us angry. The Hebrews were adepts at contrast and consequently they had a lively sense of humor. They even said God laughed in heaven at the petty performances of men. These are the main characteristics of folk-lore every where. Since Biblical literature holds them all embodied in the simple, naive fashion of untutored folk in such frag ments as have been discovered, we are sure that the Hebrews began their literary expression just as other races did. We have found enough to make us believe that they had much more that has been lost, for the Bible contains by no means all of the literature of this- interesting people; only frag ments preserved through persecutions and many distresses « See translation in Kent, C. F., Student's Old Testament. FOLK-LORE 33 have come down to us because imbedded in religious his tory. We have been discussing folk-lore in general. For con venience we may classify it in two divisions, that of poetry and that of prose. Not all folk-lore is in the form of song ; some heroic legends and fairy tales would be classified under this type of literature, as for example, the Arabian Nights and Grimm's and Andersen's Fairy Tales and the Indian myths mentioned above. Myths, properly defined, Hkewise belong here. They are often transmitted in song but very often also in prose. Many fables, riddles, and proverbs be long here also but not all, for writers of a much later age have often imitated these early forms of expression, usually introducing the didactic element which is a sure sign of a later period. In folk-song, of course, we are dealing with poetry, and among folk-songs we find three sorts. First there is the ballad. This is a short, narrative poem, heroic and popular, which may be sung. This was perhaps the first and best exponent of the feelings of the people. Then there is the epic poem. This is a longer narrative, carrying events through a series of scenes. Early history was thus pre served, often quite accurately, always very vividly. Deb orah's Song is sometimes called a ballad and sometimes an epic ballad, for while it is short and was very likely sung about the camp fires, it is a long enough narrative to carry us through a cycle of events. It is also sometimes called an ode, for it celebrates a heroine and if that heroine is taken as the center of attraction it is an outburst of praise in her honor, or if it was composed by her rather than in her honor it is her exultant expression of gratitude to her God for victory obtained. This term, however, is Greek rather than Hebrew and implies a conscious authorship hardly compatible with the early origin of this poem and its epic as well as lyric character. This definition of an ode leads us to the third kind of folk-song, namely, song, pure and simple. The poetry of the Hebrews is usually lyrical ; that is, their poems were the short, spontaneous outbursts 34 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE of very personal feeling, the feeling of the crowd or often even of the individual. "The Song of the Well" was the joy ous expression of the tribe at finding water. The original version of "Miriam's Song" was the victorious war chant composed very likely by one individual to be sung by all. The chief characteristic of folk-song as distinct from prose folk-lore is its rhythmical arrangement for singing and dancing. SECTION III : FOLK-SONGS EXAMPLES [The text to be used in connection with the examples given under each type of literature should be the Revised Version, for an attempt has been made in that translation to print in poetical form much of the material which was undoubtedly intended as poetry in the original. Much more, however, than the revisers saw as poetry has been shown to be so by more recent scholars. They have also succeeded often in rendering certain phrases more in accord with the original rhythm. Hence translations are here in serted which will make apparent the peculiar rhythmical structure of the Hebrew. The King James Version should also be at hand, because our earliest English translators suc ceeded so superbly in putting into beautiful English the charm and imagery, the deep feeling and the sublimity of expression of the original. This version is not, however, so true to the exact Hebrew form, nor the precise meaning of the words. A word of explanation is necessary also concerning the use of the name for the deity. The Hebrew is literally Yahweh (sometimes spelled Jahveh), but owing to the fact that the rabbis considered the name too sacred to pro nounce they inserted in their manuscripts in the word Yah weh the vowels for Lord, Athonai, to remind themselves to pronounce that word instead of Yahweh as they read the text. The Authorized or King James version retains Lord, as does also the English Revised version. The Ameri can revisers thought best to print the word Jehovah which FOLK-LORE 35 is not a real Hebrew word, being made up of the consonants in Yahweh and the vowels in Athonai. The translations of more recent scholars usually employ Yahweh. When not otherwise indicated the text used here is that of the Ameri can Standard Revised Version.] The Song of the Sword, Genesis 4: 23-24. In order to get the setting for this very primitive song one should read the prose description beginning with verse 19. There it is stated that Jabal and Jubal, the sons of Adah, were respectively the ancestors of the nomads and the musicians, while Tubal-cain, the son of Zillah, was the "instructor of every artificer" ' in making cutting instru ments of brass and iron. In other words here is an attempt to trace back to the beginning the discovery of certain arts, and a tribe or the father of a tribe is made responsible. Then the verse of six lines is introduced which is probably very much older than the prose account, and was a folk song of Bedouin revenge. "It literally reeks of blood and vengeance." It may have been composed even before the law of blood-revenge was known, a law recognized in early Hebrew history and common among Bedouin to-day. Arab chiefs have a custom even now of coming home from some adventure and with brandishing sword boasting of their bloody encounters before their assembled wives. The "wives of Lamech" in this song probably meant all the ¦women of the tribe. If the art of making swords of brass which would cut had just been discovered, the triumph of the experiment would naturally be celebrated with great joy. However, it may have been composed later than that event. Its introduction in this setting would then be a fancy of the prose writer. The musical quality of this song and its adaptability to singing and dancing can be better realized when we understand that in the Hebrew the first four lines end uniformly in the vowel i (=e), that the first three lines and the fifth are lines of four accents or beats while the fourth and sixth are shortened to three. 7 See marginal translation. 36 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE The following translation is an attempt to bring out this effect in English. Adah and Zillah, hear my saying, Wives of Lamech, listen my speaking: For a man have I slain for my wounding, And a youth for my striking. If sevenfold Cain shall sure be avenged. Then Lamech seventy and seven." Another translation which helps us to get close to the original is the following — Adah and Zillah, hear my voice ! Wives of Lamech, attend to my word! For I kill a man for a wound to me, And a boy for a scar. For Cain takes vengeance seven times. But Lamech seventy times seven.^ The Song of the Well, Numbers 21 : 17, 18. This is a song of the desert celebrating the finding of a well or spring as the Israelites crossed the desert. The Arabs even to-day have the same custom. It is a most welcome thing when they come across such a well. They dance around it and sing songs of it as if it were a living object. The desire of the Israelites to find springs of water is shown in Judges 1 : 15 and Joshua 15: 19, and the value they set upon it in Genesis 21 : 22-34. The Hebrew word for well, Be'er, is found in many place-names such as Beer- oth, Beersheba, Beerelim, and the expression "living water" is often used in the Bible both literally and figuratively.^" It is small wonder that in such a dry country life-giving water should mean so much. It was a very early belief throughout that entire region that every spring had its Baal or spirit. It was a still earlier belief that the spring or well was itself a living thing. There was an old Bedouin ceremony of dedicating a well to a shiek with the use of his 8 This translation is that of Fowler, H. T., The History of the Literature of Ancient Israel. 9 Translation. of Skinner, John, in International Critical Commentary, Genesis. 10 See Genesis 26; 19, Song of Solomon 4: 15, Jeremiah 2: 13, Zechariah 14; 8, John 4: 10, 11. FOLK-LORE 37 staff and calling it afterwards by his name, as Jacob's well was named for the ancestor of the Israelites. The chief did not actually do the work of digging with his staff. When a spring was found the stones were taken out by hand by other men, the well covered over and later a symboHcal ceremony performed somewhat like the laying of a foun dation-stone to-day when the first trowel-full of mortar is applied by some dignitary after everything is made ready. Perhaps this "Song of the Well" was a song which the Israelites sang at such ceremonies of uncovering a well. The references to the princes and the staves would seem to harmonize with this idea. It was doubtless composed long before it was inserted in the prose setting in which we find it. Another ceremony was sometimes held over a well where the spring had ceased to flow, in order to persuade it to flow again. It has been suggested that the Hebrew women sang this well-song as they stood around a village fountain waiting for their turn to draw, thus trying to coax the water to flow faster.^^ But the first interpretation is prob ably the better one. This four-line verse is a very good example of the typical early folk-song. Some translators make it a six-line stanza by including the first prose line in the text following if, giving it a different translation from that in our Bibles, and dividing the first line in two. Thus— Spring up, well : Sing in response to it — Well that the princes digged. That the rulers of the people delved. With their sceptres and their staves, A gift from the desert.^^ The rhythm of accent is brought out a little better when some of the unnecessary words of our version are omitted. 11 W. R. Smith's interpretation. 12 See Gordon, A. R., The Poets of the Old Testament, for translation. 38 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Thus — Spring up, O well ! Sing to it I Well that the princes dug That the nobles of the people delved. With sceptre, with their staffs.^^ The last two lines give an example of rhyme, so rare in Hebrew poetry. Professor Fowler tries to reproduce it thus — Well that the nobles may now quaff, Opened with their sceptre and their staff. Following is a modern Arab well-song — Spring up, O well. Flow copiously. Drink and disdain not. With a staff have we dug it.^* Three Brief Songs of Victory, Exodus 15 : 1-3, / Samuel 18 : 7, and Joshua 10 : 12-13. Song of Moses and Miriam, Exodus IS : 1-3. In the book of Exodus after the description of the cross ing of the Red Sea by the Israelites in their flight from Egypt, the writer inserts a poem of eighteen verses, intro ducing it by the words, "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto Jehovah." It is a very exultant triumph for a signal success in outwitting the Egyptian troops which were sent after them. At the close the prose account picks up the theme of the first verse and explains it and then says that Miriam with a timbrel in her hand led all the women in a dance while she sang this verse. For this reason, the emphasis upon the refrain and the accompanying dance, and also for two other very good ones, it is thought that the original song was only one verse in length or perhaps three and that Miriam improvised it for the occasion or that Moses and Miriam composed it 13 H. T. Fowler's translation. 14 T. H. Weir, Expositor. July, 1910, p. 81, quoted in Gordon, Poets of the Old Testament. FOLK-LORE 39 together and that Miriam led the women in singing as was the custom when warriors came home from battle victorious. The second reason for thinking the original song was much briefer than it is given in our accepted text is that the elaborate details and rather didactic tone of what follows seem more like the style and purpose of later writers. The third reason is the likeness of many of the phrases to those used centuries afterwards.^^ However, one might explain this coincidence by saying that the phrases of the song had entered so deeply into the minds and hearts of the people that they could not help but repeat them. All things con sidered it is the general opinion of scholars that the song which Moses or Miriam or both of them together composed on the spur of the moment to be sung then and there, was either just the first verse or the first three verses with the first lines brought in again as a refrain. Then some later writer took this as the nucleus of a longer poem. Possibly it was sung antiphonally with male and female choruses. The Hebrew has fewer words and fewer accents to a line than in our accepted English translation. The following rendering brings out the rhythm better. Sing ye to Yahweh, For in triumph he rose: Horse and chariot, He cast to the sea.^* The stirring qualities of the song are readily felt and even at this late day, so far removed from the occasion, we can almost join Miriam and her women in the joyous singing and dance. It would naturally be a song long to be remem bered and sung over and over again. The Song of the Women over David's Success, / Samuel 18:7. Here is another community song sung by the women when the young, attractive hero, David, came home from battle more successful even than the king. The prose con- is Compare verse 2 with Isaiah 12:2 and Psalm 118:14; verses 8 and 17 with Psalms 78; 13. 54; verse 5 with Nehemiah 9: 11. 16 See Fowler. 40 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE text tells us clearly that this was the custom of the women in all of the cities through which he passed and that they danced "with timbrels, with joy, and with instruments of music." This is plainly then a -enuine community folk song. Doubtless they sang it many times during the long lifetime of this beloved hero, and very likely the women taught it in the village streets to the young men and maidens and the boys and girls, for we know from the Bible that they were accustomed to join in the dances.^' Even King David himself enjoyed this sport with enthusiasm.^* The Great Day at Gibeon, Joshua 10 : 12-13. This is another good example of a four-line folk-song. It celebrates Joshua's striking victory over the Amorite kings of Southern Canaan. It must be borne in mind in connection with all of these songs and especially this one, that folk-poetry is almost always highly figurative and that the figures must be understood in order to catch the mean ing of the poetry. The Hebrew imagination was always very much alive and it was not strange that nomadic tribes, nursed and developed out in the open, traveling often by night to avoid the heat of the sun, and watching the moon and the stars, should picture many situations in metaphors borrowed from their intimacy with the heavens. In Deb orah's Song the author tells us that "from heaven fought the stars" when a cloudburst was meant, and here the Sun and the Moon are adjured to stand still in order that the day may be long enough to give the Israelites the victory. It seemed as if they obeyed, for such a victory was gained as was almost too much to hope for in one short day. The prose editor who wrote up the account long afterwards and who inserted this triumphant battle song which had been used to celebrate the occasion, was very literally-minded for he was at great pains to explain that that day was as long as two ordinary days. 17 Judges 21:21, Psalm 30:11, Job 21; 11, Jeremiah 31:13, Lamentations ;: 15, Matthew 11 : 17. 18 2 Samuel 6: 14. FOLK-LORE 41 The rhythm of the last line is more accurately brought out by the following translation — Till the folk had their lust on their foes.^^ The context tells us that this song was taken from the Book of Jashar. The word Jashar probably means upright or brave. Therefore this book was an old collection of Songs of the Brave. There is also another source book mentioned in the early history of the Israelites, "The Book of the Wars of Jehovah." Several folk-songs in the Bible are ac credited definitely to one or the other of these two collec tions.^" It is natural to suppose that others belonged there although such a statement failed to be made. Professor Genung made the following probable lists — From "The Book of the Wars of Jehovah" — Song at the Red Sea, Exodus 15 : 1-18. The Ark Song, Numbers 10 : 35, 36. Song of the Valley, Numbers 21 : 14, 15. Song of the Well, Numbers 21 : 17, 18. Satire on the Fall of Heshbon, Numbers 21 : 27-30. The Oracles of Balaam, Numbers 23 and 24. The Song of Deborah, Judges 5. From "The Book of Jasher"— The Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32: i-43. The Blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy 33 : 2-29. Apostrophe to Sun and Moon, Joshua 10: 12, 13 (frag ment) . David's Elegy on Saul and Jonathan, II Samuel 1 : 19-27. David's Lament over Abner, II Samuel 3 : 33, 34 (prob ably fragment). David's Last Words, II Samuel 23 : 1-17. Solomon's Words at Dedication of Temple, I Kings 8:12,13. Professor Geden added others from what he considered similar sources, making a list of twenty-five such songs. 1» See Gordon. _ , „ 20 See Numbers 2i:-4; Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18. 42 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE ( 1 ) Song of the Sword, Genesis 4 : 23, 24. (2) Noah's Curse and Blessing, Genesis 9:25-27. (3) Isaac's Blessing of Jacob, Genesis 27:27-29. (4) Isaac's Blessing of Esau, Genesis 27 : 39-40. (5) Jacob's Prophecy of the Future of his Sons, Gen esis 49 : 2-27. (6) Song of Moses and Miriam, Exodus 15: 1-18,21. (7) The Ten Words, Exodus 20:2-17. (8) Words for the Taking up and Setting down of the Ark, Numbers 10:35,36. (9) Song of the Valley, Numbers 21 : 14, 15. (10) Song of the Well, Numbers 21 : 17, 18. (11) Satire on the Fall of Heshbon, Numbers 21 : 27-30. (12) Oracles of Balaam, Numbers 23:7-10, 18-24; 24:3-9,15-24. (13) Curses of the Law, Deuteronomy 27: 15-26. (14) Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32: 1-43. (15) Blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy 33:2-29. (16) Song at Gibeon, Joshua 10: 12, 13. (17) Song of Deborah, Judges 5. (18) Jotham's Fable. Judges 9:8-15. (19) Samson's Riddle and Sayings, Judges 14:14,18; 15:16. (20) Hannah's Prayer, I Samuel 2 : i-lO. (21) Song of Women over David's Prowess, I Samuel 18:7;21:11. (22) David's Lament over Saul and Jonathan, II Samuel 1 : 19-27. (23) David's Elegy on the Death of Abner, II Samuel 3 : 33, 34. (24) David's Song of Deliverance, II Samuel 22. (25) Last Words of David, II Samuel 23 : l-?.^"- Others in these lists we shall remark upon later as illus trating certain types of rhythm or of thought. Attention is called to one more four-line verse quoted by one of the prophets, probably a very early popular farmer's proverb. 21 For these lists see Genung, Franklin, Guidebook to Biblical Literature, pp. 6i and £2. FOLK-LORE 43 A cornstalk all yellow Brings no meal to a fellow; But if grains should bend it, The wild ox would end it^^ This proverb comes as a surprise even to those very familiar with the Bible in our ordinary versions. The reader should compare it with the prose translation of either the King James or the Revised versions. It simply shows how much modern scholarship has done in discover ing and applying the principles underlying Hebrew poetry. The attempt here is made to restore the original rhythm and even to imitate the rhyme in English. This is another of the very few fragments of rhymed song in the Old Testament. The fact that the prophet Sfisea should quote this saying, probably quite familiar to those to whom he was preaching, shows how close he was to the life of the people, as were all the prophets. Deborah's Song, Judges 5. We turn now to the famous war ballad of Deborah. This is the earliest piece of literature of any length which we have in the Bible, and its stirring quaUties of vigor and rhythm, its vivid scenes and picturesqueness of detail, its enthusiastic loyalty of spirit, and "glowing hatred" of the foe make it rank with the very finest ballads we have in any literature. It is so spontaneous, fresh, and vital and its figures are so realistic in their picturesqueness that it must have been written soon after the event. The battle occurred in the tenth century B.C. when the Israelites were getting settled in the land of Canaan. . This poem, then, was as early as Homer's epics, if not earlier. It was a crude, barbaric age then in Palestine which can be compared well with the period of Boadicea in England or of the Scottish clans. In order to be appreciated it should be read in a modern translation and with dramatic arrangement and if possible aloud. The prose account in Judges 4 was written much later, but there are some explanations there which 22 See translation in Uuhm, Bernhard, The Twelve Prophets, p. 99. 44 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE help us to picture the setting. The main facts are the same in both accounts although there are some discrepancies and where this is true the older or poetic version is given the precedence.^' The Theme Announced That leaders took lead in Israel, That the people were willing. Bless ye Yahweh.^* Historical Prelude in Praise of 'Yahweh Hearken, ye kings ; rulers give ear : I, even I, will sing to Yahweh, Will sing praise to Yahweh, God of Israel. Yahweh, in thy start from Seir, On thy march from the field of Edom, The earth quaked, yea, heaven rocked. Yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains shook before Yahweh Before Yahweh, the God of Israel.^s Description of Israel's Sad Estate Be fore the Battle From the days of Shamgar ben-Anath, From the days of old, caravans ceased, And they that went along the ways Used to walk by crooked paths. Villages ceased in Israel, And hushed was the work of the country folk. No shield was seen, or spear, 'Mong the forty thousands in Israel — Till thou 26 didst srise, Deborah, Didst arise as a mother in Israel. 23 The rendering given here follows C. F. Burney's and G. A. Smith's trans lations for the most part but there are certain lines where a paraphrase is used for the sake of preserving the rhythm or making the meaning a little clearer. The rhythm comes out more clearly when most of the proper names are accented on the last syllable, Yahweh, Deborah, Barak, Canaan, Kishon, Shamgar ben-Anath, etc. See Burney, Judges; G. A. Smith, Early Hebrew Poetry. 24 "Bless ye Yahweh" means "blessing song" or "a song of thanksgiving," just as we have Hallelujah Psalms or "songs of praise." See Burney, The Book of Judges, p. io6. 25 This refers to some great earthquake and storm during the wanderings of tlie Israelites, revealing God's majesty and strength. The words "even yon Sinai (as in our ordinary version) are doubtless an explanatory addition by the editor for they destroy the rhythm of the line. 26 For discussion of the form of this verb, whether first or second person, sec Burney, p. ii6- FOLK-LORE 45 A Wild War Chant to Arouse the Leaders ^'^ Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, strike up a song! Up with thee, Barak! put on thy strength Capture thy captors, thou son of Abinoam. A Refrain of Gratitude My heart is to Israel's leaders. The people's willing ones Bless ye Yahweh — Tell of it, ye riders of white she-asses,^* And ye that walk by the way. Hark to the maidens laughing at the wells I ^9 There they recount the righteous acts of Yahweh, The righteous acts of his arm in Israel. The Muster of the Clans Then down to the gates gat the nobles ; Yahweh's folk gat them down mid the heroes. From Ephraim they spread out on the vale; "After thee, Benjamin!" mid thy clansmen. From Machir came down the commanders. And from Zebulun men wielding the truncheon. Men of Issachar marched with Deborah, And Naphtali was leal to Barak: To the vale he was loosed at his heel. Reproach of the Faithless and Praise of the Brave Utterly reft into factions was Reuben ; Great were his searchings of heart. Why sat'st thou still mid the sheep-folds. To list to the pipings for flocks? Gilead stayed at home beyond Jordan, And Dan sat still by the ships. Asher remained by the shore of the seas. Quietly dwelt by his creeks. But Zebulun — he flung his soul to the death. And Naphtali on the heights of the field. 27 These lines seem naturally to precede the following, contrary to our ordinary version. 28 Rulers rode on white asses_, or "tawny" or "roan," which were "white- flea speckled with red" or a "light-reddish-grey." They were very rare and therefore prized and only for princely people. The she-ass was preferred for riding because more tractable than the male. 29 For the difficulties in translating this line see Burney, pp. 123-129, 46 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE The Battle and Rout On came the kings, they fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan ; In Taanach, by the rills of Megiddo : s" No gain of money took they! From heaven fought the stars ; From their courses they fought with Sisera. The river Kishon swept them off; It faced them, the torrent Kishon. Bless thou, my soul, the might of Yahweh! Then thudded the hoofs of the horses : Off galloped, off galloped his chargers. Curse ye, curse ye Meroz ! ^i Curse ye, curse ye her townsfolk For they came not to the help of Yahweh, To the help of Yahweh mid the heroes. The Retribution Most blessed of v/omen be Jael Of tent-dwelling women most blessed ! Water he asked and milk she gave. Buttermilk brought in a lordly bowl. She put her hand to the tent-pin, And her right hand to the workman's hammer ; And she hammered Sisera, she shattered his head. She smashed, she hacked, through his temples. 'Twixt her feet he bowed, he fell down, he lay: 'Twixt her feet he bowed, he fell down. Where he bowed, there he fell down dead ! The Anxiety of Sisera's Mother Out through the window she leaned and exclaimed The mother of Sisera out through the lattice : 'Wherefore delayeth his car to come?' Her wisest princesses make answer. Yea, she returns her words to herself : 'Are they not finding, dividing the spoil? A damsel — two damsels for each man: A spoil of dyed stuffs for Sisera, A spoil of dyed stuffs embroidered: Dyes, double brocade, for the neck of the queen?' so The ancient battlefield. 31 Meroz was probably a village through which Sisera ran ou his road home. FOLK-LORE 47 Conclusion So perish all thy foes, Yahweh: But be thy friends like the sun going forth in his strength. A discussion of the technical points regarding the rhythm of this poem is reserved for the chapter on Hebrew Poetry. We will simply observe here that primitive folk were very fond of the four-beat measure, and call attention to the ef fective use of two poetical devices, onomatopoeia, or the imitation of sound by words, in the representation of the galloping of the horses in their flight; and prosopopoeia, representing an actual or ideal person as present or speak ing. This last figure is found in verse 5 where God himself is present at the earthquake and again when Sisera's mother is conversing with her ladies. In imitating the sound of the horses' hoofs in verse 22 the Hebrew succeeds beautifully by the repetition of the words daharii, daharii, accented on the last syllable. Dr. Burney compares with this Charles Kingsley's lines in My Hunting Song: Hark to them, ride to them, beauties ! as on they go. Leaping and sweeping away in the vale below. and also Browning's couplet in How they Brought the Good News from, Ghent to Aix: I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three. The German translation of this passage in Judges brings out the effect well — Da stampfen die Hufe der Rosse: Der Galopp, der Galopp der Renner ! It would be well to compare this rousing war ballad with two of the old Scottish ballads The Battle of Harlow and Flodden Field.^^ 32 To be found in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. Ill, pp. 316 and 3SI. 48 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE REMINDERS OF FOLK-SONG IN LATER POETRY, Two Vineyard Songs. We have evidences in the Bible that it was the custom in Palestine as in other lands for the country-folk to sing and dance in the vineyards. In Isaiah 16 : 10 we read "And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field ; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither joyful noise : no treader shall tread out wine in the presses ; I have made the vintage shout to cease." And again in Jeremiah 25 : 30, "He will give a shout, as they that tread the grapes." In Isaiah 65 : 8 a line of a vintage song is evidently quoted, "As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, 'Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it.' " But no complete vineyard song has come down to us; probably there was no collection made of such songs of peace and of industry as of the songs of war and of the brave. There are three Psalms whose musical instructions at the beginning tell us they were to be sung to the tune of some well-known vin tage song, "the Gittith." ^^ These are Psalms 8, 81, and 84 and their joyous character seems to suit such a tune although they themselves were strictly religious hymns. However in the fifth chapter of Isaiah we have an adapta tion or an imitation of such a song by this very versatile and poetic prophet who sought every means and occasion to catch the ear of the people. The first three stanzas are doubtless very much like the songs sung at the festivals held when the grape harvest was over. Often there were wed dings at such gala times. The Song of Solomon contains a wedding song which has especial reference to the vineyard (Song of Solomon 7: 11 ff). Here then in Isaiah 5 we have the prophet attracting the attention of the crowd by starting a song of an unfruitful vineyard. He makes a parable of it at the end and in the last stanza plainly discloses his meaning and purpose. This last stanza also changes in 33 See Briggs, C. A., International Critical Commentary, Psalms, Vol. I Introduction, par. 34. FOLK-LORE 49 metier. "The light, tripping effect of short lines gives place to longer and weightier lines in the grave and solemn appli cation of the parable at the close." Isaiah's Parable of the Vineyard, Isaiah 5. A song will I sing of my friend, A love-song touching his vineyard. A vineyard belongs to my friend. On a hill that is fruitful and sunny; He digged it and cleared it of stones. And planted there vines that are choice; A tower he built in the midst. And a winepress therein he had hewn; Then he looked to find grapes that are good, Alas ! it bore grapes that are wild. Ye, in Jerusalem dwelling. And ye, who are freeman of Judah, Judge ye, I pray, between me And the vineyard which I have cherished. What more could I do for my vineyard That I had neglected to do? When I looked to find grapes that, are good. Why bore it grapes that are wild? So now let me give you to know What I purpose to do to my vineyard: I will tear off its hedge, That the beasts may devour it;^* I will break through its walls. That they trample it down ; Yea, I will make it a waste, Unpruned and unweeded; , « . . With thorns and with briars overgrown shall it be. And the clouds will I enjoin that they rain not upon it For the vineyard of Yahweh of Hosts is the household of Israal, And the freemen of Judah his cherished plantation: But instead of the justice he looked for was bloodshed, Instead of the right was the cry of the wronged.^' The Lord's Delightful Vineyard, Isaiah 27 : 2-6. This, too, is a parable, the explanation being given in the last stanza. The vineyard is the house of Jacob which 34 "Much of the treeless character of Palestine is due to the grazing off of unprotected shoots by goats." . ¦«, e j _ 35 This translation is after Cheyne and McFadyen. 50 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE shall become so prosperous and fruitful that the whole world shall feel its influence. Of course the briars and thorns are the enemies to the life of this people. Yahweh himself is attending to its development, guarding it and nourishing it every moment. There is a decided contrast in thought between this poem and the last. In Isaiah 5 Yah weh is caring most assiduously for his vineyard, expecting good returns; yet he gets none and is so angry with the worthless vines that he tears them up. Here he cares con tinuously for the vineyard, cherishing each plant lest its leaves be missing, and is angry only when he thinks of the briars and thorns that might try to grow there. That is, God is here represented as angry with the outside enemies, whereas in the first song it is the wickedness of the Israehtes themselves which is the occasion of his wrath. This situa tion, as well as the style of the poem leads scholars to think that it was not written by Isaiah but by some one much later, perhaps in the Persian period when a few of the Israelites had returned from captivity and were trying now to hold their own in the face of great obstacles. The Hebrew text is very corrupt and it is therefore difficult to translate, but probably the version given below is close to the original thought and rhythm, for it evidently consists of short lines grouped in verses, the lines having two or three accents each. The first and second verses (or second and third of the chapter) show one of the rare examples of rhyme in the Old Testament, which is not represented in the English translation. A vineyard delightful — ¦ Sing ye to it. I, Yahweh, am its keeper: I water it moment by moment; Lest its leaves be missing. By day and by night I keep it. I cherish no anger against it; But had I the briars and thorns, I would trample them down in the fray. I would burn them up altogether. FOLK-LORE 51 Else, then, let them seek My protection. And let them make peace with Me; Yea, peace let them make with Me. That day shall Jacob take root, Israel shall blossom and bud. And with fruit fill the face of the world.^' Two Husbandry Songs. I. The Poem of the Farmer, Isaiah 28 : 23-29. Listen, and hear my voice; Attend and give ear to my speech. Doth the plowman keep plowing for ever, Keep opening and harrowing his ground ? Doth he not, after leveling its surface. Scatter broadcast fennel and cummin. And plant there wheat and barley. And spelt for its border? Yahweh it is that hath trained him aright, And his God it is that hath taught him. Men thresh not fennel with sledges, Nor are cart-wheels rolled over cummin; But fennel is threshed with a staff. And cummin with a flail. Do we ever crush bread-corn to pieces? Nay, we do not keep threshing for ever; But after the wheel has rolled over it. We spread it, but do not crush it. From Yahweh of Hosts doth this also proceed. Wonderful counsel, great wisdom hath He.^' This poem is inserted in Isaiah's severe prophecy against the scoffers of Judah. He has warned them that if they go on disregarding Yahweh's counsel they will surely come to grief. The poem would show that God has a method in his dealings with men just as the farmer has a method in the way he cultivates his ground. If he does not observe the laws God has taught him he surely meets disaster. Cummin and fennel are small seeds valuable as condiments ; they are so small and tender that they would be crushed beyond use if threshed like hard corn with a heavy roller. Cummin seed could easily be separated from its thin case 36 See McFadyen, Gray, and Cheyne for translations. 37 For translations see McFadyen and Kent. 52 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE by being beaten with a slender rod, while fennel seed is en closed in a harder pod, and must have a stouter staff to dis lodge it. Spelt is one of the ordinary cereals of the East, closely resembling wheat but with a coarser and rougher sheath and a longer beard; it does not need to be handled so carefully and can be sown on the border as a protection to the less hardy plants.^* This poem does not seem like the style of the rest of the chapter. Therefore it is thought that Isaiah quotes it as one familiar to the people of his time which would enforce what he has already said, or perhaps more probably the editor of the book inserted it later as appropriate to the theme of the prophecy. At any rate it gives us an interest ing glimpse into the life of the farmer and the attention he paid to details and the science of farming even in those ancient days. It also shows us that Biblical writers thought the agricultural life a fit theme for praise as they have in all literatures. The old Exmoor Harvest Song preserved for us in Lorna Doone^^ is a good example of an Eng lish farmer's folk-song and one may well compare with our Biblical poem Vergil's first Georgic and the lines — Many the wise old maxims I could tell, If patient thou woulds't hear, not wearying Of sage acquaintance with small tasks and cares. This notably, to smooth the threshing-floor. Break it by hand and roll with large round stone. Then face with close-packed clay, lest weeds push through Or the worn surface crack.*" or the lines in the second Georgic — Happy the man, who studying Nature's laws. Through known effects can trace the secret cause — His mind possessing in a quiet state. Fearless of Fortune, and resigned to Fate ! *! This last quotation from Vergil would have been especially applicable at this very time of Isaiah's prophecy when he 38 See Tristram, H. ±,., Natural History of the Bible. 39 For extracts see also Wild, Geographic Influences in Old Testament Mas terpieces, p. 143. 40 See translation by T. C. Williams. 41 See Dryden's famous translation which may be found in The Oxford Book of Latin Verse. FOLK-LORE 53 was trying his best to keep his people calm and trustful in the Lord and His laws instead of rushing hysterically to some other nation for help when the political situation be came ominous. Thus do the great seers and poets arrive at the same fundamental thoughts throughout the ages. 2. In Praise of the Pastoral Life, Proverbs 27 : 23-27. Look well to the appearance of thy flock. Give careful attention to thy herds. For riches last not forever. Nor wealth to all generations. When the hay is removed and the aftermath appears. And the grass of the mountains is gathered, ^^ Then the lambs will supply thee with clothing. And goats furnish the price of a field. And there will be goat's milk enough for thy food, And enough for the maintenance of thy maidens.*^ From earliest remembrance the Israelites had been a pastoral people. Much of the land was better adapted to the raising of animals, especially sheep, than to agriculture. The long months of the dry season when not a drop of rain fell were very trying to crops, whereas the sheep and cattle could wander from pasture to pasture and find grass in favored spots when it was parched in others. In this poem the au thor shows a minute knowledge of husbandry and also of the thrift that rural people know is necessary in order to prosper. It is worthy of a New England bard in the early days of economy. Here again Vergil is in accord with this Hebrew writer of wisdom when he sings of "the watchful care our cattle ask, the various art and skill good shepherds use, the sage experience which thrifty bees require." ** Bee-keeping, too, was not foreign to the Israelites and references to it occur in their poetry, even if there is no com- 42 Haying began in late March or early April, the low lands furnishing two crops, while the grass on the uplands was cut between times. These high lands also furnished admirable pasturage. 43 Toy's translation. 44 Georgic I. 54 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE plete song in its praise. The Song of Solomon refers to it several times, for much of the scenery of that dramatic collection of lyrics was laid in Solomon's Pleasure Gardens near Bethlehem where bee-keeping was a specialty. There were many wild bees also which furnished a hungry prophet with food and a wedding company with material for riddles. Twice does Isaiah use the figure of whistling for the bees to assemble." This poem in Proverbs in praise of the rural life is a late product. It bears the marks of the conscious teacher and belongs to a collection of gnomic or wise sayings which are known as "Wisdom Literature." It is not folk-poetry at all but both of these didactic poems on the farmer's life remind us of the customs of primitive folk in singing of their work as well as at it. BOOKS TO CONSULT On Folk-Lore in General Fowler, H. T., History of the Literature of Ancient Israel, Ch. II. Gordon, A. R., Poets of the Old Testament, Ch. II. GuMMERE, F. B., Old English Ballads, Introduction. Beginnings of Poetry. Hodges, George, How To Know the Bible, pp. 49-66. Houghton, Louise Seymour, Hebrew Life and Thought, Ch. II. Kittredge, G. L., Introduction to Child's Collection of Ballads. Phillips, Barry, Folk Music in America, Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. XXII, No. LXXXIII. The Origin of Folk-Melodies, same vol. Speers, Maey W. F., Negro Songs and Folk-Lore, same Journal, vol. XXIII. No. XC. The Bible as Literature Butcher, S. H., Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects. Greece and Israel, pp. 1-43. DobschOtz, Ernst von. The Influence of the Bible on Civilization, Ch. II, pp. 28-46. EcKMAN, G. P., Literary Primacy of the Bible, Chs. I and IV. Genung, Franklin, Guide-book to the Biblical Literature, pp. 29-45. McCuRDY, J. F., History, Prophecy and the Monuments, vol. I, pp. 5-8. MouLTON, Richard, Short Introduction to the Bible as Literature, Introduction, and The Bible as Literature, pp. 3-11. 4B Isaiah 5: 26; 7: 18. FOLK-LORE 55 Peake, a. S., The Bible: Its Origin, Significance and Worth, Ch. IV. The Bible in the Original Tongues and in English. Phelps, W. L., Reading the Bible, Ch. I, The Literary Genius of the Hebrew People. Zangwill, Israel, Chosen Peoples, pp. 33-46, 66-84. The Song of the Sword Driver, S. R., Westminster Commentary, Genesis. Fowler, H. T., History of the Literature of Ancient Israel. Gordon, A. R., Poets of the Old Testament. Kent, C. F., Student^ Old Testament. Marti, Karl, Religion of Israel. Skinner, John, International Critical Commentary, Genesis. The Song of the Well Books already mentioned, especially Fowler, Gordon, and Kent, and Gray, International Critical Commentary, Numbers. Song of Moses and Miriam Same and Driver, S. R., Cambridge Bible, Exodus. Song of Women over David Same. The Great Day at Gibeon Same and Genung, Franklin, Guidebook to Biblical Literature. A Farmer's Proverb Duhm, Bernhard, The Twelve Prophets, translated by Archibald Duff. Deborah's Song Fowler, Gordon, Kent, Genung, and especially Burney, C. F., The Book of Judges. King, E. C, Early Religious Poetry. MouLTON, R., Literary Study of the Bible. Penniman, j. H., a Book About the English Bible. Smith, G. S., The Early Poetry of Israel. "Wild, L. H., Geographic Influences in Old Testament Masterpieces. 56 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Isaiah's Parable of the Vineyard Gordon, Fowler, Kent, Gray, Wild. The Farmer's Song Kent, Wild and commentaries. In Praise of the Pastoral Life Toy, C. H., International Critical Commentary, Proverbs. SECTION IV : BIBLICAL RIDDLES Riddles are a favorite form of amusement even to-day and the childish delight of older people in solving them is a sign that they have not grown hopelessly mature and that the world is still young at heart. If youth enjoys riddles to-day it is quite certain that in the youth of primitive societies they were indulged in with great glee; sometimes as in the case of Samson's riddle days were spent in solv ing them. Riddles have been immortalized in Greek mythol ogy by the story of (Edipus and the Sphinx, and Plutarch has handed down the rumor that Homer died of chagrin because he could not solve a certain riddle. Riddles, enigmas, conundrums, and puns all belong to the same class. They are an expression of humor and of very primitive humor. To set people to guessing because of some obscure likeness of one thing to another or of one word to another is to tickle the fancy and stir up the imagina tion; the fun results in seeing the surprise when the like ness is discerned. The joke is more successful when the natural unlikeness of the objects or words is most ap parent. It is not strange that the Hebrews indulged in this game, for one of the striking characteristics of their litera ture, as has already been remarked, is their delight in seeing contrasts brought very close to each other, the more sud denly and vigorously the better; for example, the wisdom of an ant and the foolishness of man. In their early history we have the story of a popular hero, popular because he could perform wonderful athletic FOLK-LORE 57 feats, so strong were his arms and so vigorous his limbs. Tie him with cords and he could break them like string. Put out his eyes and while he was bidden to make fun for his captors he could feel for the pillars of the porch and surprise his audience by pulling the house down on their heads. The story of his raid upon the wheat fields of the Philistines makes us feel his glee in tying those jackals' tails together with a burning torch between. The joke that time was a double-headed one, on the jackals as well as on the Philistines, and the cruelty of it corresponded with the roughness of their wit as well as with the barbarity of life of those primitive days. And so, when for lack of a weapon he seized the jawbone of an ass that had rotted in the field and laid about him with vigor enough to slay a host, it pleased him and his tribe immensely to make a pun upon words as well as to bring out a contrast between the poor ass and his enemies, by singing. With the jawbone of an ass Have I massed a mass. With the jawbone of an ass Have I slain a thousand.*^ Dr. Burney translates this couplet thus to bring out the play on the color of the animal — With the red ass's jawbone I have reddened them right red. With the red ass's jawbone I have smitten a thousand men. or again to show the play on the contrast between ass and men — With the jawbone of an ass I have thoroughly assed them. The punning riddle is said to be a late invention in litera ture. That is, when a question is asked and the answer is given by an unexpected play on words, su'ch as — What wind does a hungry sailor like best? One that blows fowl and' chops, and then comes in little puffs. 4S See Gordon's translation. 58 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE But if this kind is too complex for primitive people we do have a great many instances in Hebrew literature of their delight in the pun pure and simple, such as the passage in Micah 1 : 10 already mentioned — Tell it not in Tell-town, In Exult-town exult not, In Weep-town weep, etc Samson's riddle about the ass also involves the art of punning. Enigmas or dark sayings we know were often used by the ancients to convey very serious portents of the times to kings and important people. Among the Babylonians and the Egyptians there was a whole class of men set apart as especially wise and honored because they were supposed to be able to solve such obscure sayings. Of this character were the dreams that came to Pharaoh which were put to Joseph to solve, and those which Nebuchadrezzar could find no one to interpret but Daniel the despised Hebrew.*^ These stories indicate that the Hebrews prided themselves upon being especially brilliant in such feats of guessing. But let us return to the riddles of Samson, which are perhaps the most famous in the Bible. He has been called by some recent students of his stories "Samson the Sunny" because the name Samson was probably derived from the word Shamash, a name for the Sun, or as one scholar renders it, "Samson the Sun-man." Unfortunately the bril liancy of his wit outran his wisdom and his joking propen sities got him into trouble, yet his jokes kept things lively and he must have been great company at a wedding feast. This joyous character of riddles is expressed in the title of the first known collection. Demands Joyous, published in 1511. Samson seems to have responded well, if not always wisely, to such demands. He was traveling to his wedding on foot and being a naturally curious young man, he turned aside at a certain point in his path over the hills to see what had become of the carcass of a lion he had slain on 47 See Genesis 40:9-12, 1619, Daniel x. FOLK-LORE 59 one of his courting trips. He found that honeybees had taken possession and left enough honey for him to break off the honeycomb and carry some to his father and mother who were at the feast. As he walked along he thought how he could make use of this incident to enliven the company. First he aroused their curiosity by putting up a bet of "thirty fine linen wrappers and thirty festal garments" that they could not guess his riddle, which was promptly ac cepted. "And they said to him. Propose your riddle that we may hear it. And he said to them — Out of the eater came something to eat. And out of the strong came something sweet." ** It has been said that this was not a fair riddle because a conundrum presupposes that the guessers have a chance to know the answer and in this case Samson alone could know the secret. Compare with this the famous one of the Sphinx — What goes on four feet, on two feet, and three, But the more feet it goes on the weaker it be ? or as it is often given — What animal is it that in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three? Every one of course has all the information about this phenomenon that any one else has. All it takes is wit to put it together. But in the case of Samson's riddle the people would never have guessed it if his wife had not wormed it out of him. Then he made up another couplet — If with my heifer you did not plow You had not solved my riddle now.*' When we come to the book of Proverbs we find that the riddle, enigma, or conundrum has been adapted to a more 48 See Moore, G. F., Judges, p. 335 and Students' Old Testament, Begin nings, p. 342. 49 See Kent and Fowler. 60 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE artificial use than it served in the early days of spontaneous entertainment. Now it has taken its place in "Wisdom Literature" as a method of instruction, and youth is sup posed to gain much wisdom from learning these proverbs which are easily committed to memory. To make the simi larity to our own conundrums plainer let us state the first lines in the form of a question to introduce the proverb of this variety. For example — Proverbs 30: 15, 16 Question — v. IS "What four things are never satisfied?" Answer — v. 16 "Sheol; and the barren womb; The earth that is not satisfied with water; And the fire that saith not. Enough." Proverbs 30:24, 25 Question — v. 24 What four things are little but exceeding wise? Answer — v. 25 f . The ants are a people not strong. Yet they provide their food in the summer; The conies are but a feeble foil.. Yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king. Yet go they forth all of them by bands. The lizard taketh hold with her hands. Yet is she in king'- palaces. Proverbs 30:29, 30, 31 Question — ^v. 29 What four things are stately in their march? Answer — vv. 30, 31 The lion, which is mightiest among beasts. And turneth not away from any; The greyhound ; the he-goat also ; And the king against whom there is no rising up. Now compare with these nuggets of wisdom some of our own nursery rhymes — Black we are but much admired; Men seek for us till they are tired. We tire the horse, but comfort man ; Tell me this riddle if you can. Answer — Coals. FOLK-LORE fill In Spring I look gay. Decked in comely array. In Summer more clothing I wear; When colder it grows I fling off my clothes And in winter quite naked appear. Answer — A Tree. I had a little sister, Her name was Pretty Peep; She wades in the waters Deep, deep, deep ! She climbs up the mountains High, high, high I My poor little sister. She has but one eye. Answer — A S.tar. I went to the wood and got it, I sat me down and looked at it ; The more I looked at it the less I liked it, And brought it home because I couldn't help it. Answer— A Thorn. Riddle — me, riddle — me, riddle-me-ree. Perhaps you can tell what this riddle may be! As deep as a house, as round as a cup, And all the King's horses can't draw it up. Answer— A Well. These conundrums appeal to us English-speaking people because they are in the form with which we are familiar, rhymed verse and a light jingle that seems to suit the gay mood of an entertainment. But when the Hebrew riddle is translated in metrical form with the play on words brought out as nearly as possible and, if necessary, the question that is supposed to be answered put as an inter rogation, the similarity with riddles and conundrums in all literature is very clear and the fun which breaks out even in a collection of sacred literature becomes a revelation of the real character of the people. Here undoubtedly we come nearest to seeing the people play at their games, a side of the life of a race which is a most important one. 62 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE BOOKS TO CONSULT on Riddles Fowler, Kent, Moulton, Burney, International Critical Commentary, Judges and Proverbs. SECTION V : MYTH AND LEGEND In this chapter we are still dealing with the very earliest forms of literature. Not all of folk-lore was poetry or song, although there were certain characteristics common both to early poetry and to early story. Both were highly imaginative ; there were more or less of the rhythmical ele ments in both. This is so true that it is sometimes hard to distinguish between prose and poetry, as in the first chapter of Genesis, which has been called "an epic of creation." When we analyze that story we can perceive a very rhyth mical structure, a rhythm that we feel even without analyz ing when the story is read properly. Yet it is really a story told in prose form. Now the Bible gives us stories of various sorts from the very picturesque and altogether imaginative myth down to what is known among newspaper writers to-day as "a story." There is a vast difference between these two extremes, al though sometimes, alas, newspapers seem to produce "myth ical" stories of events that are supposed to be cold facts. The element in common is that they are all tales. But a clear distinction must be made between the tales that come down to us through mythology, through tradition, and through history. Each of these different sorts may be true in a certain sense and each may be quite untrue in another sense. Even history can give a wrong impression. How ever, there is one common characteristic of a good story; it must always delight the imagination. Primitive man, as his mind was awakening to all the brand new discoveries that were his to make, had a very vivid and rich imagination and he did not distinguish care- FOLK-LORE 63 fully, as do we with our trained minds, between fact and supposition, or between literal truth and symbolism. He had as yet no abstract vocabulary. Everything was con crete to him and the most profound subjects of philosophy could only be dealt with by him in concrete terms. It is in deed a question whether our ability to think in abstractions brings us any nearer the reality, whether, in other words, the real is not always concrete, and whether we do not eliminate a very essential element in all living truth when we squeeze out of it all the imaginative element that goes into the making of a picture. At any rate, primitive peo ples had to make pictures to convey their ideas. They were also very curious and constantly asking questions of the universe, just as a little child does of his parents in his endeavor to discover the meaning of things. As they saw all the wonders of creation spread about them they asked constantly how they could be and why they were there. These questions resulted in attempts at answers that were in the form of stories or myths. When they concern the making of the world and the universe they are called "cos- mological myths," because the cosmos is their theme. And they are myths in distinction from other kinds of stories because there is no actual fact recorded. There may be much truth, however, in any myth, truths of per sonality, of ethical relationships, of religious aspirations. Myths reveal the ideals of early peoples, and ideals involve the highest reaches of the soul. Not all myths reveal such ideals but they may do so and that is why in the creation stories of Genesis we find religious truth of a high order, although we no longer consider that it is a fact that the world was made in six days, as our literal understanding and prosaic imagination led us for a long time to suppose. Let us be careful then to distinguish between the value of fact and of truth, for facts may evade the truth as some stories of mere facts in history have done and on the other hand a purely imaginative story not based on actual events may convey very deep truths. A second type of myth or legend is known as "ethnologi- 64r A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE cal." These stories were invented as answers to the ques tions about tribal relations. For example, in the early chapters of Genesis the genealogies are an attempt to show the origin of tribes and nations in the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean regions, known to the writers of the stories as existing and doubtless beginning somehow and some where with one family. The prose setting of the "Song of the Sword" (in Genesis 4) is such a myth. Here, how ever, we must make clear the distinction between myth and legend. Myth deals with imagination entirely; there are no traces of facts in real myths. Legends have come down to us through tradition, that is, of course, originally by oral transmission, as stories of people and things about which there might have been facts to tell and doubtless once were. Now the stories about the gods are myths pure and simple, those that are about men and god-like heroes are legends. It has been put this way, "Myth is the creation of a fact out of an idea ; legend the seeing an idea in a fact." Unfortunately these terms are often used interchangeably, myth often meaning purely a fanciful or imaginary tale of any sort. The third kind of questions asked in early days was con cerning the origin of names and the answers to these ques tions are called "etymological" legends. The story of Ish- mael and his wanderings is an example and the story of Babel "" becomes an etymological legend because of the attempt to show the derivation of the word Babel. The Hebrew word Balal, to confound, sounded so much like babel that, confusing the two, the writer jumped at the con clusion that babel, which in the Babylonian tongue means "Gate of the Gods," meant to confound. Then there are "ceremonial" legends The story of the origin of the Passover Feast is a good example, for scholars now think that this was a very early festival for offering first fruits, a festival taken over from other tribes by the Israelites and having its significance attached after the Exodus, with imaginative elements added. 60 Genesis 21 and 11. FOLK-LORE 65 These four kinds of myths or legends are well illustrated in the Bible. They are imaginative stories in answer to the questions of primitive folk regarding the origin of the world or of people or of institutions. SECTION VI : MYTH AND LEGEND EXAMPLES The Creation Stories, Cosmological Myths, Genesis 1 : 1- 2:3.We have two accounts of the Creation, this one and the one in Gen. 2 : 4b-3 : 24, which is obviously an older form because of certain characteristics of style which scholars now know belong to the oldest literary source in the Bible. These two stories are very interesting examples of myths. In reading them we should remember constantly our defini tion of a myth and that there is often more truth in such a story than in the record of historical facts. Genesis 1 : 1- 2 : 3 has been called "neither myth nor science but poetry, an epic of Creation." As it stands it bears many of the char acteristics of poetry, in its imagery, its balance of thought and structure, and its repetition of phrases. However, it cannot be said to be absolutely poetry as it has come down to us, but seems rather to be an old mythical tale worked over by a later writer and put into the form in which we now read it. It is a prose poem. Of course we must dis abuse our minds entirely of the expectation of finding scientific fact here regarding the way in which the world was made. The poetical, intuitional mind may have stumbled upon scientific fact here and there, but it is indeed the tragedy of these wonderful imaginative stories that our occidental, matter-of-fact minds have demanded of them such a standard of truth. To require that the word trans lated "days" in this tale should be periods of exactly twenty-four hours each, rather than a poetical picture, is surely doing great injustice not only to the story itself, but to our own appreciation of imagery. The writer who put this story in its final form is called the "priestly" writer because throughout the Old Testa- 66 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE ment there seems to have been a group of literary people telling over the old stories and the history of the people according to a certain set style. There are certain words which are characteristic of this group, a certain manner of expression, and a certain point of view. The point of view is the theological one; God is presented in a less anthropomorphic picture than in the second story. God does not talk and walk with man in quite such a familiar manner, as if man were one with Him ; He is farther removed as Creator, standing apart, and giving his commands in a universal way rather than with specific personal interests. As for manner of expression, this writer is more formal, systematic, and precise. The entire period of creation num bers six days and these days are divided into two sections of three days each; and on the third and sixth days the Lord accomplishes two achievements each. There is also an orderly progression from "the beginning" when "the earth was waste and void" through the separation of day and night, of earth from heaven, of the waters from the dry land, and the beginning of vegetation on the land, to the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, the fishes and birds, and all kinds of land animals, and finally to the climax of creation — man. Thus there is a scheme of arrangement in the Creation itself and these divisions are introduced and concluded by certain set phrases, "And God said," "And it was so," "And God saw that it was gbod," "And evening came and morning came, a day." As to words peculiar to this writer, the one which strikes one at once in the original Hebrew as different from that used in the second story is the word for God. In this story it is Elohim, in the second story it is Yahweh. Yahweh was a more personal, tribal appellation which distinguished the god of the Israelites from every other god which the tribes round about might worship. El is the general name for god and may be found in a great many proper names, place names, and personal names, such as Beth-el, house of God, and El-kanah, a man's name. Elohim is the plural form of the word and there fore some scholars have thought that in the original ren- FOLK-LORE 67 dering of the tale the story-tellers had not yet gone beyond the plural conception of the deity. Others think it is like our "editorial we," an honorific plural expressive of dig nity ; an analogy is found in later Hebrew where the word for "Lord" is often in the plural."^ Other words and phrases peculiar to this priestly writer are "kind," "to swarm," "swarming things," "for food." When this story is read aloud its beauty of symmetry and rhythm is easily felt. It is indeed more like poetry than prose and almost falls into the form of parallelism, the chief characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Many of the phrases and ideas reappear in later poems.^^ It must have impressed those early Israelites very deeply and no wonder, for, aside from its poetry, its lofty conception of the creative process is so much more dignified and devout than we find in the creation stories of other literatures that the religious in spiration of this writer is felt at once. The Creation and Temptation, Earliest Story, Genesis 2:4b-3:24. If the first story presents to us "the world of antique imagination," the second deserves indeed to be called "one of the most charming idylls in literature" and "the pearl of Genesis." It can be plainly seen that this writer compared with the one of the first story is by no means so formal and systematic in his arrangement of material and use of phrases. He is more naive, not so conscious of his art, but has more natural ease and grace of style ; in other words, is more truly artistic and poetic. He possesses very strik ingly the ability to make a picture vivid, to delineate life and character graphically, to put us into sympathy at once with human feeling, with the pathos or delicacy of a situa tion. For this purpose he uses dialogue, thus making his 51 See Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. 52 See Psalms 8:13; 91: f 65:6-7, Amos n: 13; 5:8; 9:6, Psalm 104, "Poem of Creation," cf. v. 9 with Psalm 104: 6-8, Job 38: 8-11; and v. 16 witli Psalm 136: 5-9. Here arises the question as to the date of its final com position and which writer was the borrower, but the original myth was itself doubtless very early. 68 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE story very dramatic. But with all his particular and per sonal interests he shows also a breadth and depth of con ception which is quite uplifting, while with the picturesque ness of detail goes a flowing style which is truly charming. This is an example of the most spontaneous, original writ ing we have in the Bible. The simplicity is childlike, but the reach in profundity of religious and moral feeling is won derful. It is plain that this is a myth. The story tries to trace back to the beginning the ordinary phenomena of life so common and yet so puzzling, to explain the why of things, the distinction of sex, the institution of marriage, the presence of sin in the world, the custom of wearing clothes, the gait and habits of the serpent, the subject con dition of woman to man, the pain of child-bearing, the tire someness of agriculture. The writer handles the sex ques tion very delicately, at least as compared with other oriental writers. He shows a profound psychology in the treatment of temptation, the rise of conscience, and the serious view he takes of sin. He represents God in a very anthropo morphic fashion; Yahweh "moulds" and "breathes" and "plants" and "takes" and "brings" and "closes up" and "walks." He makes Paradise an ideal place somewhere east of Palestine and Babylonia.^^ But with all its pic turesqueness there is a striking lack of the superstitious ele ments found in other creation myths. The balance and poetic rhythm are brought out in the fol lowing translation of certain sections. Genesis 2 : 23. Then said the man. This, now, is bone of my bone And flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman For from man was she taken.^* 53 The derivation of the name Eden is probably not frotn the Hebrew since it is identical with Babylonian inscriptions, meaning field or plain. However, the word for fig-tree is not Babylonian; therefore, it seems that an early Babylonian _ story has been made over by the Hebrew writer. 54 Here is shown the Hebrew love for a play on words. The name for woman is ishsha and for man is ish. Therefore she is called ishsha because taken from ish. However, scholars now know that this is a false derivation. for the two words have different roots and are therefore not etymologicaliy related. For arrangement of the verse see Student's Old Testament. FOLK-LORE 69 Genesis 3 : 14 ff. Cursed shalt thou be above all animals. And above all the beasts of the field. On thy belly shalt thou go. And dust shalt thou eat. All the days of thy life. Enmity will I set between thee and the woman And between thy offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise thee on the head. And thou shalt wound him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will make thy pain great in thy pregnancy. With pain shalt thou bring forth children. Yet toward thy husband shall be thy desire. And he shall rule over thee. Cursed shall be the ground because of thee. By painful toil shalt thou eat from it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth for thee. And thou shalt eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread. Until thou return to the ground. Because from it thou wast taken; For dust thou art. And to dust shalt thou return.^^ To appreciate the excellencies of these Biblical myths they should be compared with those of other races and litera tures. CREATION STORIES FROM OTHER LITERATURES AND RACES There are many such stories belonging to different ages the world over, some showing traces of connection in one way or another with the Biblical stories, but others evi dently quite original. We give here a few of the briefer ones showing their wide range all over the world. A Babylonian Creation Story ^' A holy house, a house of the gods, in a holy place had not been made; B5 See arrangement in Student's Old Testament. 56 This is the shorter and the older of the Babylonian stories of creation; the translation is Dr. George Barton's. See Barton's Archeology and the Bible for' a translation of the great Babylonian Creation epic; also for both these poems see Student's Old Testament, Beginnings of Hebrew History; appendix 3. Extracts are given also in Skinner's Genesis. 70 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE No reed had sprung up, no tree had been created, No brick had been made, no foundation had been built. No house had been constructed, no city had been built ; No city had been built, thrones had not been established; Nippur ^^ had not been constructed, Ekur^^ had not been built; Erech"*' had not been constructed, Eanna" had not been built; The deep had not been formed, Eridu ='' had not been built ; The holy house, the house of the gods, the dwelling had not been made, — All lands were sea, — Then in the midst of the sea was a water-course; In those days Eridu was constructed, Esagila was built, Esagila where, in the midst of the deep, the god Lugal-dul-azaga abode, Babylon was made, Esagila was completed. The gods and the Anunaki "^ he made at one time. The holy city, the dwelling of their hearts' desire, they named as first. Marduk bound a structure of reeds upon the face of the waters. He formed dust, he poured it out beside the reed-structure ; To cause the gods to dwell in the habitation of their hearts' desire. He formed mankind. The goddess Aruru with him created mankind. Cattle of the field, in whom is breath of life, he created. He formed the Tigris and Euphrates and set them in their places. Their names he did well declare. The grass, marsh-grass, the reed and brush-wood he created, The green grass of the field he created, The land, the marshes, and the swamps ; The wild cow and her young, the wild calf ; the ewe and her young, the lamb of the fold ; Gardens and forests ; The wild goat, the mountain goat, who cares for himself. The lord Marduk =^ filled a terrace by the seaside. Reeds he created ; trees he created ; Bricks he laid, a foundation he constructed, Houses he made, a city he built ; A city he built, a throne he established; Nippur he constructed, Ekur he built; Erech he constructed, Eanna he built. Extract from An Egyptian Hymn of Creation '" The Master of Everything saith after his forming; "I am he who was formed as Khepri. 57 These are the names of Babylonian cities 58 The Anunaki were the strong gods. (See Jastrow, Morris, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.) 59 The great god of Babylon. 60 This was written on papyrus about 310 B. c. but seems to go back to originals which were much earlier. This translation and that of the next example is taken from Mythology of. all Races, Vol. 12, Egyptian, W. Max Miiller. FOLK-LORE 71 When I had formed, then only the forms were formed. All the forms were formed after my forming. Numerous are the forms from that which proceeded from my mouth. The heaven had not been formed. The earth had not been formed. The ground had not been created For the reptiles in that place. I raised myself among them in the abyss, out of its inertness. When I did not find a place where I could stand, I thought wisely in my heart, I founded in my soul, I made all forms, I alone." The Sun God and the Serpent Chapter of the divine god who arose by himself, Who made the heaven, the earth, the air of life, and the fire. The gods, the men, the wild animals, and the flocks. The reptiles, the birds, and the fish, The king of men and of gods together. Whose ages are more than human years. Rich in names which people here know not. Neither do those yonder know. At that time there was Isis, a woman Skillful in sorcery, whose heart was tired Of living forever among men; She preferred time forever among the gods; She esteemed more highly living forever among the illuminated spirits. Was she not able to be in heaven and on earth like Re, To become mistress of the land of gods? So she thought in her heart To learn the name of the holy god. Now Re came every day At the head of his followers, Established on the throne of both horizons. The god had grown old; his mouth dripped. His spittle flowed to the earth. His saliva fell on the ground. Isis kneaded this with her hand. Together with the earth on which it was. She formed it as a holy serpent; She made it in the form of a dart. It did not wander alive before her; She left it rolled together on the way On which the great god wandered 72 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE At his heart's desire over his two countries. The holy god — life, welfare, health to him— appeared from his palace, The gods behind following him. He walked as every day. Then the holy snake bit him. The holy god opened his mouth. The voice of his Majesty — life, welfare, health to him — reached heaven. His circle of gods said, "What is it?" His gods said, "What is the matter?" He found not a word to answer to this question. His jaws trembled. All his limbs shook. The poison took possession of his flesh As the Nile takes possession of the land, spreading over it. The great god concentrated all his will-power. He cried to his followers : "Come to me, ye who have arisen from my members. Ye gods who have come forth from me. That I may inform you what hath happened! Something painful hath pierced me Which my heart had not noticed. And mine eyes had not seen. Which my hand hath not made. I know not who hath done all this, I have not ever tasted such suffering; No pain is stronger than this. I am the prince, the son of a prince. The issue of a god which became a god; I am the great one, the son of a great one. My father hath thought out my name; I am one with many names, with many forms. My form is in every god, I am called Atumu and Har-hekunu. My father and my mother however told me my real name ; It hath been hidden within me since my birth In order that power and magic force May not arise for one who may desire to bewitch me. The great god, his name was betrayed to Isis, great in magic. Leave, O spell ; come forth from Re ! The Norse Creation Story *^ It was Time's morning, When Ymer lived; There was no sand, no sea. No cooling billows ; 81 Translation by R. B. Anderson. FOLK-LORE 73 Earth there was none. No lofty heaven. Only Ginungagap,82 But no grass. From Ymer's fleshes The earth was formed. And from his bones the hills. The heaven from the skull of that ice-cold giant. And from his blood the sea. The sun knew not His proper sphere; The stars knew not Their proper place ; The moon knew not Where her position was. There was nowhere grass Until Bor's sons «* The expanse did raise. By whom the great Midgard was made.^* From the south the sun Shone on the walls; Then did the earth Green herbs produce. The moon went ahead The sun followed, His right hand held The steeds of heaven. A Melanesian Legend^'' The hero Qat molded men of clay from the marshy riverside. At first he made men and pigs just alike, but his brothers remon strated with him, so he beat down the pigs to go on all fours and made man walk upright. Qat fashioned the first woman out of supple twigs, and when she smiled he knew she was a living woman. 62 The yawning abyss between the nebulous world (Niflheim) and the world of fire (Muspelheim). 63 Ymer was a giant. 64 They were Odin, Vile, and Ve, the rulers of heaven. 65 A bulwark raised against turbulent giants, Ymer's eyebrows were em ployed in its structure. This by some is supposed to correspond to the Tower of Babel. 66 The following stories are taken from Frazer's Folklore in the Old Testa ment, which is a mine of information concerning folk legends of all sorts in comparative literature. 74 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE A Story from the Dyaks of Borneo A certain god named Salampandai is the maker of men. He hammers them into shape out of clay, thus forming the bodies of children who are to be born into the world. There is an insect which makes a curious clinking noise at night, and when the Dyaks hear it they say that it is the clink of Salampandai's hammer at his work. He was commanded by the gods to make a man, and he made one of stone; but the figure could not speak and was there fore rejected. So he set to work again, and made a man of iron; but neither could he speak, so the gods would have none of him. The third time Salampandai made a man of clay, and he had the power of speech. Therefore the gods were pleased and said, "The man you have made will do well. Let him be the ancestor of the human race, and you must make others like him." So Salampandai set about fashioning human beings, and he is still fashioning them at his anvil, working away at his tools in unseen regions. There he hammers out the clay babies, and when one of them is finished he brings it to the gods, who ask the infant, "What would you like to handle and use?" If the child answers, "A sword," the gods pronounce it a male; but if the child replies, "Cotton and a spin ning wheel," they pronounce it a female. Thus they are born boys or girls according to their own wishes. Compare with this Bliss Carman's poem. Hack and Hew.^'' A Story of the Philippine Islands In the beginning four beings, two male and two female, lived on a small island no bigger than a hat. Neither trees nor grass grew on the island, but one bird lived on it. So the four beings sent the bird to fetch some earth, the fruit of the rattan, and the fruit of the trees. When it brought the articles, Melu, who was one of the two male beings, took the earth and molded it into land, just as a woman molds pots; and having fashioned it he planted the seeds in it, and they grew. But after a time he said, "Of what use is land without people?" The others said, "Let us make wax into people." They did so, but when the waxen figures were set near the fire they melted. So the Creators perceived that they could not make man out of wax. Not to be baffled, they resolved to make him out of dirt, and the two male beings accordingly addressed themselves to the task. All went well till it came to fashioning the noses. The Creator who was charged with this operation put the noses on upside down, and though his colleague Melu pointed out his mistake, and warned him that the people would be drowned if they went about with their noses in that posi tion, he refused to repair his blunder and turned his back in a huff. 67 To be found in A Victorian Anthology, Stedman. FOLK-LORE 75 His colleague seized the opportunity and the noses at the same instant and hastily adjusted these portions of the human frame in the position which they still occupy. But on the bridge of the nose you can see to this day the print left by the Creator's fingers in his hurry. A Story of the Kumis of Eastern India God made the world and the trees and the creeping things first, and after that he made one man and one woman, forming their bodies of clay; but every night, when he had done his work, there came a great snake, which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images. This happened twice or thrice, and God was at his wits' end, for he had to work all day and could not finish the pair in less than twelve hours; besides, if he did not sleep he would be no good. But at last he got up early one morning and first made a dog and put life into it; and that night when he had finished the images, he set the dog to watch them, and when the snake came, the dog barked and frightened it away. That is why to this day, when a man is dying, the dogs begin to howl ; but the Kumis think that God sleeps heavily nowadays, or that the snake is bolder, for men die in spite of the howling of the dogs. As one reads over these stories it must be apparent that those from the Bible are quite as poetic in style as any, if not more so, and that in moral and religious tone they far exceed those of any other peoples. The purely fanciful and superstitious character of many of them is comparable to the miraculous tales of the apocryphal books, such as Pseudo-Matthew, for example, when set side by side with the miracles of the New Testament. It is interesting also to notice how the problem of evil is treated and how the serpent figures in so many of the stories. Note the Tree of Life which was represented on the Babylonian tablets and the following extract from the Egyptians' sacred book. From the Book of the Dead Back, creeper that art obliged to recede, form of Apep. Thou art submerged in the basin of the Nu, at the place directed by thy father, in order to be hit there. Go away from Re's reviving place. Tremble. I am Re. Tremble. Back! Thy venom is destroyed. Re throws thee down, the gods throw thee down. Thy heart is torn out by the lynx, thou art chained by the scorpion; thy wound is prescribed by the Truth. 76 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE In the Greek story of Heracles and the Golden Apples the Hebrew idea is completely inverted, for Heracles comes off victorious over the serpent that guards the apples rather than the serpent causing his ruin. The Flood Story, Another Cosmological Myth, Genesis 6:9-9:17. Here again we have a story so closely allied to Babylonian literature that we cannot fail to remark upon its resemblance and to be quite sure that the writer knew of the earlier Babylonian flood story. It shows even a more striking resemblance in certain parts than is shown by the creation myths. Moreover, here again in all sections of the world, among very widely scattered peoples, we find the tradition of a flood. Geologists tell us that there were many floods over the earth at various periods of geologic history, that land would appear and then be submerged again as the planet was getting settled into its present arrangement of continents and water. As men experienced such a sub mergence of the entire territory known to them it seemed to them an affair that covered the whole earth. And so from Babylonia to North America we have such legends. The Hebrew version bears its own stamp. Some of the details are similar to other literatures but the objectionable, superstitious elements are omitted and a highly ethical and religious truth finds expression in their place. The entire story becomes symbolical of spiritual relationships with an ethical deity. After the flood the gods do not stand like flies around the incense man is offering up and quarrel among themselves, but a God worthy of our reverence sets a rainbow in the skies to remind men of his eternal cov enant with them as Creator and ruler of heaven and earth. Moreover, man must be in harmony with such a pure and holy God if he expects to stay alive. God is not leveled down to man's corrupt nature but man is summoned to leave his low thoughts and commune with a holy deity. The Hebrews were among the finest and most sensitive Nature lovers we find in history. It is well to compare this flood FOLK-LORE 77 story, partly poetry and partly prose and much mixed as to literary composition in its present form, with the later com plete poem on a thunder storm, and with the Arabic classic on the storm.®* It is an interesting study to pick out the two strands of composition in the story as we have it in the Bible. Evi dently the same two writers who produced the different versions of the creation myth tried their hands at this, while a later editor instead of leaving them separate thought best to weave them together. The inconsistencies are thus accounted for. The earlier writer says one pair of the unclean animals and seven pairs of the clean animals were taken into the ark, while the later one says there was one pair of each. The earlier writer makes the duration of the flood much shorter than the later one. Moreover, there are the same characteristic words in different verses and phrases, sometimes Elohim is used for God, sometimes Yahweh; when one writer speaks in a very dignified style of destroying mankind, the other uses the more picturesque verb "to wipe out." Yahweh also puts a cover on the ark and shuts Noah in and smells the roasting of the sacrifice in a very anthropomorphic manner, whereas the orderly, systematic priestly writer enters into very specific details about the measurements of the ark, the kind of animals, the members of Noah's family, and even dates, which it would be difficult for the wisest of historians to verify. Following is a rendering of one verse, a nature poem, which because of its poetical style is thought to be a rem nant of a very early tradition, quite accurately remembered by the writer on account of its rhythm. Genesis 8 : 22. While the earth remains. Seedtime and harvest. Cold and heat, Summer and winter. Shall not cease. 68 See Wild, L. H., Geographic Influences in Old Testament Masterpieces, p. 8o ff. and p. 177 of this book. 78 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE FLOOD STORIES FROM OTHER LITERATURES AND RACES The Gilgamesh Epic of Babylonia This interesting epic is rather long: for the full text the reader is referred to Barton's Archaeology and the Bible or Kent's Student's Old Testament. Extracts are given here which show striking similarity and contrast to the Bible story. I will reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, something hidden. And the secret of the gods I will tell thee. Shurippak, a city thou knowest. Lies on the banks of the Euphrates. That city was already old, when the gods thereof Resolved to bring a flood, even the great gods, Among them their father Anu, Their counsellor, the warrior Bel, Their herald Ninib, Their leader Ennugi. Ea, the lord of wisdom, was with them. And to the reed-hut proclaimed their resolve: Reed-hut, reed-hut I house-wall, house-wall ! ^s* Reed-hut, hear I house-wall, give heed I Man of Shurippak, son of Urabu-Tutu, Construct a house, build a ship. Leave goods, look after life. Forsake possessions, and save life ! Cause all kinds of living things to go up into the ship. The ship which thou shalt build, — Exact shall be its dimensions : Its breadth shall equal its length. On the great deep launch it." On the fifth day I traced out its form. According to the plan its sides were one hundred and twenty cubits; high. The border of its roof was one hundred and twenty cubits on every side. I traced out its form, I marked it off, I built it in six stories I divided it into seven parts ; Its interior I divided into nine parts, esa Representing the habitations of men. FOLK-LORE 79 Plugs to keep out the water I drove in from within, I provided a rudder-pole and supplied what was necessary ; Six sars of pitch I poured over the outside. Three sars of bitumen I poured over the inside. All which I possessed I loaded on it. All the silver I had I loaded on it, All the gold I had I loaded on it, All the living creatures of all kinds I loaded on it, I brought on board my family and household; Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, craftsmen all of them I brought on board. A time had Shamash appointed saying, "Whenthe lord of darkness at evening shall send down a destruc tive rain. Then enter within the ship and close the door." When that time came. The lord of darkness at evening sent down a destructive rain ; I saw the beginning of the storm, I was afraid to look upon the storm, I entered into the ship and closed the door. To the captain of the ship, to Puzur-Shadurabu, the sailor, I entrusted the great house, with its contents. When the first light of dawn shone forth. There rose from the horizon a dark cloud, within which Adad thundered, Nabu and Marduk marched at the front. The heralds passed over mountains and land; Negal tore out the ship's mast, Ninib advanced, following up the attack. The spirits of earth raised torches. With sheen they lighted up the world, Adad's tempest reached to heaven. And all light was changed to darkness. For six days and nights Wind, flood, and storm overwhelmed the land. But when the seventh day arrived there was an abatement of the storm, the flood, and the tempest. Which like a host had contended; The sea became calm, the tempestuous wind was still, the flood ceased. Then I looked for the race of mortals, but every voice was hushed. And all mankind had been turned to clay. As soon as the light of day appeared, I prayed, I opened a hole so as to let the light fall upon my cheeks, I bowed down and sat there weeping. Tears flowed down my cheeks. 80 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE I looked in all directions toward the border of the sea; After twenty-four hours an island rose up. The ship approached the mountain Nasir, The mountain Nasir caught the ship and held it fast, So also during the five succeeding days it held the ship fast. Then the seventh day arrived, I sent forth a dove and let it loose. The dove went forth but came back; Because it found no resting-place, it returned. Then I sent forth a swallow, but it came back; Because it found no resting-place, it returned. Then I sent forth a raven and let it loose. The raven went forth and saw that the waters had decreased; It fed, it waded, it croaked, but did not return. Then I sent forth everything in all directions, and offered a sacrifice ; I made an offering of incense on the highest peak of the mountain. Seven and seven bowls I placed there. And over them I poured out calamus, cedarwood and fragrant herbs. The gods inhaled the odor, The gods inhaled the sweet odor. The gods gathered like flies above the sacrifice. The Greek Story of Deucalion Deucalion was the son of Prometheus. He reigned as king in the country about Phthia and married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epime- theus and Pandora, the first woman fashioned by the gods. But when Zeus wished to destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion by the advice of Prometheus constructed a chest or ark, and having stored in it what was needful, he entered into it with his wife. But Zeus poured a great rain from the sky upon the earth and washed down the greater part of Greece, so that all men perished except a few, who flocked to the high mountains near. Then the mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world beyond the isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. But Deucalion in the ark, floating over the sea for nine days and as many nights, grounded on Par nassus, and there, when the rain ceased, he disembarked and sac rificed to Zeus, the God of Escape. And Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose men. And at the bidding of Zeus he picked up stones and threw them over his head; and the stones which Deucalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. That is why in Greek people are called laoi from laas "a stone." ®^ 69 Appollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 7. 2. FOLK-LORE 81 A Story from the Sanscrit Literature of India'"' In the morning they brought to Manu water for washing, just as now also they are wont to bring water for washing the hands. When he was washing himself, a fish came into his hands. It spake to him the word, "Rear me, I will save thee!" "Wherefrom wilt thou save me ?" "A flood will carry away all these creatures ; from that will I save thee!" "How am I to rear thee?" It said, "As long as we are small, there is great destruction for us ; fish devours fish. Thou wilt first keep me in a jar. When I outgrow that, thou wilt dig a pit and keep me in it When I outgrow that, thou wilt take me down to the sea, for then I shall be beyond destruction." It soon became a ghasha (a large fish) ; for that grows largest of all fish. Thereupon it said, "In such and such a year that flood will come. Thou shalt then attend to me by preparing a ship ; and when the flood has risen thou shalt enter into the ship, and I will save thee from it." After he had reared it in this way, he took it down to the sea. And in the same year which the fish had indicated to him, he at tended to the advice of the fish by preparing a ship; and when the flood had risen, he entered into the ship. The fish then swam up to him, and to its horn he tied the rope of the ship, and by that means he passed swiftly up to yonder northern mountains. It then said, "I have saved thee. Fasten the ship to a tree ; but let not the water cut thee off, whilst thou art on the mountain. As the water subsides, thou mayest gradually descend !" Accordingly he gradually descended, and hence that slope of the northern mountain is called "Manu's Descent." The flood then swept away all these creatures and Manu alone remained here. A Story of Burma The earth was of old deluged with water, and two brothers saved themselves from the flood on a raft. The waters rose till they reached to heaven, when the younger brother saw a mango-tree hanging down from the celestial vault. With great presence of mind he clambered up it and ate of the fruit, but the flood, sud denly subsiding, left him suspended in the tree. A Story of Cochin China Once on a time the kite quarreled with the crab, and pecked the crab's skull so hard that he made a hole in it, which may be seen 70 This is taken from the Sata patha Brahmcna supposed to have been writ ten not later than the sixth century B. C. See Frazer, Folklore in the Bible. 82 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE down to this very day. To avenge this injury to his skull, the crab caused the sea and the rivers to swell till the waters reached the sky, and all living things perished except two, a brother and a sister, who were saved in a huge chest They took with them into the chest a pair of every sort of animal, shut the lid tight, and floated on the waters for seven days and seven nights. "Then the brother heard a cock crowing outside, for the bird had been sent by the spirits to let our ancestors know that the flood had abated and that they could come forth from the chest. So the brother let all the birds fly away; then he let loose the animals, and last of all he and his sister walked out on the dry land. They did not know how they were to live, for they had eaten up all the rice that was stored in the chest. However a black cat brought them two grains of rice : the brother planted them, and next morning the plain was covered with a rich crop. So the brother and the sister were saved. A Polynesian Myth Tawhaki's mother is recorded to have wept at the actions of her son, her tears falling to earth and flooding it, thus overwhelming all men.'^i A Story from the Cook Islands'^ Originally the heavens were low, so low that they rested on the broad leaves of certain plants, and in this narrow space all the people of this world were shut up, but Ru sent for the gods of night and the gods of day to assist him in his work of raising the sky. He prayed to them, "Come, all of you, and help me to lift up the heavens." And when they came in answer to his call, he chanted the following song: "O Son ! O Son ! Raise my son 1 Raise my son! Lift the universe I Lift the Heavens I The Heavens are lifted. It is moving! It moves. It moves !" The heavens were raised accordingly, and Ru then chanted the fol lowing song to secure the heavens in their place : " Come, O Ru-taki-nuhu, Who has propped up the Heavens. The heavens were fast, but are lifted. The heavens were fast, but are lifted. Our work is completed." 71 The last four stories may be found in Frazer, Folklore in the Bible. 72 From the Mythology of All Races. Oceanic Mythology. FOLK-LORE 83 The conception of propping up the sky is found in many of the Pacific Islands as well as in the stories of primitive America.'^" A Story from the Indians of British Columbia The Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia tell a different tale. They say that the great Masmasalanich, who made men, fastened the earth to the sun by a long rope in order to keep the two at a proper distance from each other and to prevent the earth from falling into the sea. But one da - he began to stretch the rope, and the consequence naturally was that the earth sank deeper and deeper, and the water rose higher and higher, till it had covered the whole earth and even the tops of the mountains. A terrible storm broke out at the same time, and many men, who had sought safety in boats were drowned, while others were driven far away. At last Masmasalanich hauled in the rope, the earth rose from the waves, and mankind spread over it once more. It was then that the diversity of tongues arose, for before the flood all men had been of one speech.'^ The people of northern climes sometimes pictured a flood of snow rather than of rain. A Myth of Scandinavia ''* Before the Sun and the Moon were devoured and before the gods were destroyed, terrible things happened in the world. Snow fell on the four corners of the earth and kept on falling for three sea sons. Winds came and blew everything away. And the people of the world who had lived on in spite of the snow and the cold and the winds fought each other, brother killing brother, until all the people were destroyed. Then fire came and burnt the earth. Then a new Sun and a new Moon appeared and went travelling through the heavens, and the earth became green and beautiful again, and in a deep forest that the fire had not burnt, a woman and a man wakened up. They moved through the world, and their children and their children's children made people for the new earth. Ethnological Myths In the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis we have very excellent examples of ethnological rather than cosmological 72a Seejeremiah Curtin's Creation Myths of Primitive America, p. igflf. 73 See Frazer, Folklore in the Bible. 74 See Colnra, The Children of Odin. 84 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE myths. In the fourth chapter there is an attempt to ex plain by stories how different tribes of men came to special ize in different occupations. There were to be found, when this writer came upon the scene of action, men who fol lowed the pastoral life exclusively and also those who were given to agricultural pursuits. It was also known that following the flocks was the earliest way in which man gained his living. There was more or less enmity between these two groups, for the roving shepherd had not enough regard for the fields of the farmer to keep his sheep off the land which his brother had preempted for his special uses; he asked why his brother should have selected the best por tion of the country and claimed it as his own, fighting off intruders as if that piece of land belonged to him by divine right. Here is the old, old struggle, not settled yet, con cerning the divine right of the landholder. No "single- taxer" with a well-thought-out philosophy had arisen to ex plain it and to show up the injustices of the condition; but the respective neighbors, the shepherd and the tiller of the ground, quarreled incessantly and some gifted story-teller attempted to show why, and to show that, although the agriculturist was hated, yet after all he also was under divine protection, was indeed a part of the divine order of things. Thus we have the story of Cain and Abel. We have noted already that the last part of the chapter attempts to explain how artisans appeared, the forgers of brass and iron, and the origin of musicians. The fifth chapter traces back the beginning of tribes to some one family, one ancestor who stood for the whole tribe. The extreme age of Methuselah is thus explained as a long period of tribal history. Evidently that family was known to have been roaming about the region much longer than some of the others. The tenth chapter does the same thing with larger groups and the interesting point there is that those names can many of them be identi fied with the names of places around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian territory. Elam, for example, is called a son of Shem, and we know it stood for a definite territory FOLK-LORE 85 in Persia where a certain division of the human family became dominant. Asshur stood for the Assyrians, Lud for the district in northern Egypt known later as Lydia. Aram figured very largely in later Biblical history as Ara- mea, and we have all heard of the gold of Ophir which came from the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. Javan was a part of Greece, Tarshish was in Spain, Kittim was the island of Cyprus, and the Cushites were what we now know as the Ethiopians. Cain and Abel, Genesis A: 1-15. Most scholars think that the name Cain is to be identi fied with the Kenites, a very important tribe uniting with the Israelites when they came to take possession finally of the land of Palestine. Here again the writer's attempt at ethnology was quite faulty, for in the first verse the name Cain is assumed to be derived from the Hebrew word kanah/'' to get, but scholars know that the roots are not the same, any more than that Moses came from the Hebrew word fndshdh''^ — meaning to draw out. It sounded well and the writer liked the assonance in telling his story. The following poetical rendering of verses 6 and 7 will show more perfectly the character of the original com position. Why art thou angry? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well. Is there not acceptance? But if thou doest not well. Dost not sin crouch at the door? And to thee shall be its desire. But thou shouldst rule over it.'^ The Hebrew story compared with other stories of this sort points a decided moral lesson in bringing to light the 75 See marginal reading. 76 See Exodus z: lo, marginal reading. 77 See Student's Old Testament for this arrangement. See Frazer, Folk Lore in the Old Testament, for comparative literature. 86 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE fact that men do have responsibilities as keepers of their brethren notwithstanding tribal and racial antagonisms. Suggested Study Analyze carefully the Creation and Flood stories, writing out the exact ethical conceptions there presented of God as creator, as punisher of sin, of the character of sin, of the reason for suffering. Compare with Milton's idea of the Fall of Man in Paradise Lost. Did Milton get his ideas from the Bible? Are our ideas based upon those found in Milton or upon the Bible? Analyze the Cain and Abel story with the same questions in mind as to ethical teaching. BOOKS TO CONSULT Myths in General Genung, Guidebook to the Biblical Literature, pp. 114-119. GuNKLE, Hermann, The Legends of Genesis. Hartland, E. S., The Science of Fairy Tales, Ch. I. The Art of Story Telling. Skinner, Genesis, Introduction pp. iii-xiv. The Biblical Stories Brightman, Edgar S., The Sources of the Hexateuch. DfiryER, Genesis. Gunkel, Hermann, The Legends of Genesis. Kent, Student's Old Testament, Beginnings of Hebrew History, Introduction. Mitchell, H. G., The Bible for Home and School, Genesis. Intro duction anii Commentary. Penniman, J. H., A Book About the English Bible, pp. 84-85. Ryle, H. E., Cambridge Bible, Genesis, Introduction and Commen tary. Skinner G£ft€s\s Wild, L.'h., The Evolution of the Hebrew People, Ch. XVIII, The Record of Israel's Development. Comparative Mythology Anderson, R. B., Norse Mythology. CoLUM, P., The Children's Book of Northern Myths. FOLK-LORE 87 Curtin, Jeremiah, Creation Myths of Primitive America. Frazer, J. G., Folk Lore in the Old Testament. Guerbee, H. A., Myths of Northern Lands. Mabie, Hamilton, Norse Stories. Mortensen, Karl, Norse Mythology. Mythology of all races. Egyptian, Muller, W. Max. Greek and Roman, Fox, W. S. Oceanic, Dixon, R. B. Chapter III STORY TELLING SECTION I : THE ART OF STORY TELLING We pass now to the art of story telling. Some of the early stories might be classed as folk-lore, for they were so primitive as to be very spontaneous and naive and evi dently grew by being told about the camp-fires, that is, they were at first oral productions, or traditions, embodying evidently legendary material. Probably the imaginative ele ment entered in very largely ; fanciful additions were doubt less also made to the original version. In legends there may have been some basis of fact, and there may be very much truth, but there is also a good deal of the purely imaginative which has gone into the making of a good story. The best Hebrew stories belong probably to the legend ary period. There are others, however, well worth study ing from the standpoint of story telling and story-writing. The longer tales, when art had become a more conscious thing, and the shorter illustrative material which the great teachers used in the form of parables and allegories, are exquisite examples of a type of composition bearing a very original stamp and unsurpassed in excellence when com pared with stories in other literature. We will study to gether, therefore, all sorts of stories from the legendary tale to the parables used by Jesus, as one type of literature ex emplified admirably in the Bible. Let us view the story according to our modern standards, to see if ancient litera ture comes up to them. A story is a certain form of narrative writing, not history although it brings in a succession of events, and not biogra phy although it deals very largely with persons and what they do. Wherein then does a story pure and simple differ STORY TELLING 89 from these? It is largely in what the story tries to do. History and biography are primarily informational, they appeal to the intellect, they add to our store of knowledge concerning facts. A story may give us information but that is not the primary reason for our reading it. We pick up a good story when we are tired or when we wish to be amused. Its appeal is first of all to our emotions rather than to our reason. The well-educated person wishes, how ever, to have his intellect exercised to some extent also. He is not satisfied with mere play upon his feelings with out any thought. But when he picks up a story it is in this order that he wishes real thinking to come, behind, riding as a footman, not before, driving his horses. This is why in the strenuous life we live it is a rest to read a good story. I'o change the figure, our hard-working reasoning powers that have been driving our machine all day are ready to sit back on the cushion and let some other faculty do the steer ing for the time being. If our car is not directed right, our reason is there ready to criticize and even to jump to the wheel in case of impending disaster, but it is the sister faculty, emotion, that is now in the front seat. And so the events which might make a historical narrative are now to be carefully selected for their interest, and the persons who appear on the scene are chosen because they appeal to our feelings in some especial way. The main difference between a speech or an essay and a story, so far as its progress is concerned, is that the speech or essay must proceed logically, while the story must go rapidly from one action to another, always appealing to the imagination ; that is, picture after picture must occupy the stage of our minds, forming, indeed, a series of moving pictures. And the appeal of the picture is principally, in its initial appearance, to the feelings. The story is slow if our imagination is not thus kept busy. It is successful if it does not let our minds lapse into too much of the reasoning process between pictures. This is why story appealed espe cially to primitive peoples. Theirs were the childhood days of the race, when the imagination was being developed §0 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE first of all. Not argument and logical demonstration took hold of them, but people and situations which aroused im mediately love or hate, pleasure or anger, peace or excite ment, admiration or disgust. They did not stop to reason why but they knew they liked a thrilling story. If one examines the paragraphing of a story one sees that the principle involved is entirely different from that employed in a speech, essay, history, or biography; it' is not a matter of logical breaks in content of thought, but of indented spaces for the sake of making change, "change of speaker in dialogue or somebody's arrival on the scene or perhaps a pause in the action." ^ A good story is one of the most artistic of products. How is it done? How do you make your reader keep his imagination actively at work every minute without knowing he is working? How do you keep him from getting tired and throwing the story down? How do you succeed in producing a series of thrills without their becoming monoto nous and losing their force ? How do you make the series of little thrills all come out at the end in one big thrill, so that your reader finishes the tale with a gasp or a smile, feeling that he has been in another world for the time being, having forgotten all his present surroundings? A short story differs in its structure from a long story in many respects. There must be a judicious choice of only the chief persons and events to put upon the screen, and since they have only a short time in which to make their impressions only the essential characteristics of these events or persons can have place. However, since even for a short time the mind cannot concentrate on one thing alone to advantage, there must be relief through contrast, but the contrast must serve the main purpose, not distract from it; in other words, there must be unity in the whole plan. In a short story, then, there should be a hero and there should be some main event which brings out the heroic qualities of this person. There must be another character 1 Baldwin, C. S., Composition Oral and Written. STORY TELLING 91 in contrast to the hero who adds luster to the hero's crown just because he is so different. But the hero's greatness must not be revealed all at once although you suspect it is inherent. There must be development and there must be climax, and to make the climax more effective, there should be thrown in, just before the end, doubt as to how it is all going to turn out, in other words, suspense. Moreover, in the marshalling of the different parts of the story there must be rapidity. Long waits between scenes are to be avoided, for the amateur's hand is de tected quickly here, just as it is in amateur dramatics. In a long story the different stations are interesting in them selves, and we can afford to get off our express train now and then and rest our legs by wandering about, viewing the scenery and even picking a few flowers. But not so on this short trip. We are impatient of delays. We are eager to proceed and we have been promised an early arrival at our destination. Therefore, stopping for water or coal proves as much of a detriment to interest as it adds it on the transcontinental trip. If this eagerness to get along is satisfied, that fact may in itself make a short story successful without any definite plan. If each separate incident is made very vivid it may grip the imagination strongly enough to absorb attention and allow no lapses until the story is done. This is what the stories of the Arabian Nights do in large measure as compared with a modern short story. "They lack per spective and their quick succession of events shows no pro portion. They do not conceal the knowledge and skill which the modern artist conceals in his work." ^ This last state ment of Miss Dye reveals the fact that to-day the writing of the short story is a very conscious art and that it was not so in primitive times when stories were told about the camp fires. But here we may well ask this question: Did not some of the early story tellers use an art and con ceal it, too, without being conscious that they were con cealing anything; that is, in the highest type of primitive 2 Charity Dye— The Story-Teller's Art, p. 19- 92 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE story telling was there not quite as effective an art employed as to-day? It is interesting to compare the Joseph stories, for example, with the Arabian Nights from this point of view. We have said that the successful short story brings on the stage a quick succession of scenes. It is this dramatic element which is one of the most striking characteristics of the short story. Let me quote what Miss Albright has written in her book on the Short Story.^ She says— "In scope and style, if not in subject-matter, the short story of to-day is as nearly akin to the drama as to the novel. Indeed, it would seem that the growing emphasis on situa tion rather than a mere sequence of interesting events, the marked preference for presenting crises in the lives of char acters, and the 'deliberate and conscious use of impression istic methods' must have been derived in great measure from a study of the technique of the drama. . . . The artificial iso lation of a limited number of people and events, the artistic lengthening of dialogue, the concentration on a single issue, the vivid picturing of a scene that is significant, are essen tially dramatic. . . . The main difference between the story motive and that of drama is that the story may treat a more commonplace theme and a less striking situation, with a climax less significant and intense." The short story, then, while having some of the char acteristics of a long story and also of a drama, is unique and has an art of its own. Professor Baldwin sums this up well in his very graphic analysis of the excellence of Bible stories, when he points out that the first thing to do is to call the attention to one main person and one main event, and the second is to take hold of the attention with a firm grip, and the third is to go on or progress rapidly from one action to another, and that this progress must get faster as the story proceeds until near the end when it slows down to increase suspense and to make ready for the final stroke. But just how is all this accomplished? To begin with the last point first, the events must be explained in an ascending s E. M. Albright— T^e Short Story, p. 9. STORY TELLING 98 scale of interest. As for the first point, how to fix the attention, there must be definite, concrete detail, specific mention of colors, attitudes, smells, and other matters of sen sation; above all, of details of motion and sound. The gesture and speech of the persons must be represented to make the whole realistic. Thus the imagination of the reader or listener is stimulated until he feels himself actually present at the scene, even living in one of the characters, if the use of dialogue has been properly effective. As to the second point, how to go on or progress, one rule to be emphasized is not to stop to explain too much. Suggest rather than explain. This keeps the imagination busy and it also gives the reader the comfortable feeling that he is himself making discoveries. There must be much selection and omission; not too many scenes nor too many places nor too many people talking, for we are going rapidly and there must not be distraction. The high points must be touched ; the significant things only must be introduced, those incidents and characteristics which will interpret the phase of life to be impressed upon the mind. In the middle of the tale there may be puzzling complications so that we do not see just what the solution is and thus our interest is increased. But such complications should not be too elaborate or the feeling of lack of proportion will come in, of distraction and impatience that we are not arriving. Professor Baldwin tells us that coherence in story telling is secured when the reader is feeling for the time that he himself is the hero. And at the end there must be a sense of satisfaction, of completeness ; the story is really finished. Therefore the ending must be especially vivid and con crete. Now in all that has been said two elements are quite apparent, namely, simplicity, and earnestness of purpose which brings in the zest of enthusiasm. Add to this beauty and rhythm of style and an almost perfect story is accom plished. This rhythmical, poetical element is especially ap parent in Bible stories. It adds the charm we cannot re sist. To quote from Miss Albright again, "The Book of 94 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Ruth, written about 450 B.C. is essentially a short story. Some twenty-three hundred years have affected the tech nique of story writing, bringing about in some directions such a remarkable development as to make plausible the as sertion that the short story is a nineteenth century produc tion. But twenty-three hundred years have not sufficed to rob this simple narrative of story interest for readers of to-day. The facts of the case are that the short story ap peared in occasional excellence even before the time of the first novel worthy of the name." The Book of Ruth, simple as it is, is more elaborate than many of the stories of the Bible. We may adopt for Bible stories the tide "tale," defining the tale as "the story of a single incident or episode," such as that of David and Goliath ; yet here, too, the same char acteristics of a good short story are demanded, only it is more essential to have a single purpose and not to introduce unnecessary and extraneous features. Add to this the poeti cal elements of rhythm, and in its best form the short tale becomes the ballad. "Of all short stories in English none have been more widely popular than the ballads." This brings early stories back to folk-lore. For the present we will postpone the study of fable, para ble, and allegory, which are not short stories of the simplest type because they bring in another element, namely, that of instruction. We shall study first such early stories as that of Abraham and Isaac, the Joseph cycle, and David and Goliath, and then the longer short stories of Ruth and Esther. If we apply very strictly the modern standards of a good story we shall find that these Bible stories measure up to them par excellence. SECTION II : SHORT STORIES — EXAMPLES Abraham and Isaac, Genesis 22 : 1-19. The entire cycle of Abraham stories is very interesting and meets admirably the test of good short stories, although not quite so perfectly as do the Joseph tales. Abraham as STORY TELLING 95 the patriarch of a family, the sheik of a tribe, wandering about from place to place to find pasturage for his numerous flocks, has been called "the most august figure" of ancient times. There is much dignity about him, and the way in which the writer graphically pictures his mystical commun ings with the deity and his religious development reveals the characteristic prophetic sensitiveness to spiritual reali ties. Moreover, the atmosphere of his Bedouin surround ings is beautifully preserved in the incidents recorded. Just how much accurate history came down through the tradi tion is a question scholars can probably never determine. Theories range all the way from absolutely literal fact to the idea that Abraham stood simply as the personification of tribal history. Perhaps a middle ground is better, that here is the picture of an actual ancestor of the race, a first pioneer, with many stories about him handed down from generation to generation and told about the camp-fires and in the homes, until these hero tales were crystallized into written literature by that early prophetic school of the northern kingdom which did so much to preserve the tradi tions of the beginnings of the Hebrew people. Certain it is that there is imbedded in these very graphic stories a religious element of a high order, witnessing to the struggle of a people of remarkable spiritual insight and genius in their progress away from the cruder and more childish and earthly levels of the races around them to a truly worthy conception of an ethical God demanding ethical conduct of his children. In reading the Abraham stories we are, as it were, in a glass-bottom boat out at sea looking down into the depths and watching some of the primitive stages of development. Here we find mystical tendencies which hark back to a primitive animism, the belief in the nearness of the spirits and the gods and their easy com munication with men, combining with the moral demands of character and laying the foundation for the rare religious ideals of the later prophets, which like tall mountain peaks have pointed the way to heaven itself. In that prophetic period we find what in all the history of religions is a unique 96 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE combination, the union of high ethical ideas with the con scious realization of the presence of the deity. The super stitions of a crude faith were gradually left behind and the vision of a holy God, a God of righteousness and justice, was revealed. This revelation was to the prophet the very voice of God; His enveloping presence was as vivid and real as when He "appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee." Thus there is a common point of view, a vital connection between the early stories of Genesis and later Biblical writings. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have the climax of Abraham's development. We see in the very process the flying leap made from the concept of a God like the heathen gods of the nations around him, demanding human sacrifices and the devotion of the precious first-born upon a bloody altar, to the realization of an ethical God, asking rather the devotion of a life consecratea to obedience to God's holy will. This is the record of a great step in the history of the religious ideas of the world, when man broke loose from the chains of a superstitious belief in the neces sity of buying the favor of a capricious deity and rose to the moral plane of the sanctity of human life in accord with the life of God himself. Stories in other literatures have the similar theme of the demand of human sacrifice to appease or please the gods, but no other literature gives us such a condensed and vivid picture of the flight of man's soul from lower to higher standards of religious truth. Suggested Study Compare with this story the Greek myth of Iphigenia to be found in Galey's or Bullfinch's Mythology. Compare thf two stories from the standpoint of the art of story-telling as outlined in the previous section, and also from the stand point of religious ideas. The Joseph Stories, I. Genesis 37, //. Genesis 39, ///. Gen esis 40 and 41, IV. Genesis 42-47. STORY TELLING 97 Suggested Study Compare the Joseph Stories with The Story of the Slave Kafoor in the Arabian Nights * or Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves or Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. Compare it also with Washington Irving's story of Rip Van Winkle. Read George Hodge's paraphrases in his book of children's Bible stories. The Garden of Eden. Notice his choice of title. Make your own paraphrases. There is no better practice for realizing the fine points of a story than writing a paraphrase. Choose your own titles for each story in the Joseph cycle, having in mind the requisites of good titles. What ethical lessons are conveyed ? Gideon's Three Hundred, Judges 7; David and Goliath, / Samuel 17 : 1-54. Suggested Study Compare these stories with Henry Van Dyke's A Brave Heart or The Keeper of the Light.® Then read Dean Hodge's paraphrases.® Show how these stories succeed or fail in meeting the tests of a good story. Write your own paraphrase and choose your own title for both stories. Should these stories be used as teaching ethical lessons ? If so, where must the line be drawn between the background of a more or less barbarous age and the standards of con duct which would apply even to-day? SECTION III: LONGER STORIES Ruth. Suggested Study Read the book of Ruth, and after you have measured it by the standards of a good story read what others have said 4 See Lane's translation. Vol. I, p. 440. 6 To be found in The Ruling Passion. 6 In The Garden of Eden. 98 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE of it.'' Get clearly in mind the original story and the edi torial setting, the relation of the question of the divorce of foreign wives with this simple pastoral tale of early days. Note the likeness between the devotion of Ruth to Naomi and the devotion of her great-grandson David to Jonathan. Compare with this the classic example of Tenny son and his friend Hallam as recorded in In Memoriam. Note the remnant of a very early folk-song in Ruth's reply to her mother-in-law. Entreat me not to leave thee, And to return from following after thee; For whither thou goest I will go; And where thou lodgest I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people. And thy God my God; Where thou diest, will I die. And there will I be buried. Even the translation of our ordinary text cannot fail to make us feel the rhythm ; it falls naturally into verse. Com pare Kipling's story Without Benefit of Clergy as a modern tale of devotion. Esther. Suggested Study Read the book of Esther and make up your mind as to the character and excellence of the story. Is it a true romance, as it has sometimes been called ? Inform yourself from some of the books already referred to concerning the reason for its being written and the historical setting. Com pare it as a story with Thackeray's A Princess's Tragedy. BOOKS TO CONSULT In addition to those already referred to see Shedlock, Marie L., The Art of the Story-Teller. Wood, Irving F., Heroes of Early Israel, for the stories in Samuel. 7 Compare especially some good Introduction to Biblical Literature, such as Wood and Grant, The Bible as Literature. Read also Fowler, History of the Literature of Ancient Israel: Genung, A Guidebook to Biblical Literature; Moulton, A Literary Study of the Bible. STORY TELLING 99 Fowler, H. T., Great Leaders of Hebrew History, for Esther and later tales. Cadbury, H. j,. National Ideals in the Old Testament, Chapter XXIII, The Literature of Suppression. SECTION IV : FABLES, PARABLES, ALLEGORIES AND PROVERBS There is a type of story most excellently illustrated in the Bible which is different from pure myth and the simple tale because there is a lesson very pointedly conveyed. In struction is more readily received by primitive and unedu cated people in the form of a story than in the bare, didactic form of a sermon or essay. In fact, this method of pointing a lesson is often most effective in later civilizations and among the cultured. Witness the interest manifested by the older members of a congregation in a skillful children's ser mon, which is most often a parable or an allegory, and also the real delight fathers and mothers have in reading such stories to their children. It is not simply the delight in assisting the children to information but it is a pleasure on their own account. The chuckles with which a good story with a point to it is received by the group around the coun try store or in the club is evidence also to the fact that the normal human being likes to have his instruction come to him in the form of concrete pictures. Moreover, the plain, unvarnished truth will often be resented, but if the mind is first held and pleased by a good story, there is sufficient preparation made for the sinking in of the obvious truth at the end. People with strong prejudices (and most people have prejudices) are often best awakened to a truth in this way, for there is an attractiveness or gentle humor about the story which holds resentment in abeyance. It may come at the end, when the point is realized, but the instructor has had a chance to make his lesson clear before the explosion. This kind of instructional story has its different forms with marked characteristics of their own. Fable, parable, and allegory are all stories. Of course any one of them may either be used as an illustration or told for its own sake, but they differ from mere illustrations in not being 100 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE applicable to one single instance alone, but in having a certain story essence and completeness in themselves. Let us first distinguish between parable and fable. In both there is a resemblance between the actions of the natu ral objects described, such as animals or plants, and the human beings to whom they are likened, who are acting out their spiritual problems. We can compare such stories to similes ; they are in fact, lengthened similes. It is not right, however, to try to make the story fit in every particular, although the history of the progress of events in the one case is supposed to be parallel to the history of the process in the other. In the case of the fable the lesson to be drawn is on a lower level than in the parable. Worldly wisdom, shrewd conclusions as to the most expedient way to act for earthly success, and understanding of natural law for one's own good here and now — this is the plane of the moral in a fable. The parable is on a more spiritual plane. A second distinction is that for the benefit of the com parison elements are often put into the fable which one would never actually find in fact. Animals and trees are, for example, made to act in very human fashion. Human motives are attributed to them and the kinship is assumed to be as close as it used to be thought in the early animistic days, when no very definite distinctions were made between the spirits in nature and the spirit in man. But in a parable there is strict truthfulness; facts in nature are set over against facts in human life. If a man builds his house on the sand and the floods come, it is likely to be washed away or fall down, we all know. If a man builds his char acter on the shifting sands of this world's popularity, the same thing happens to him^ we observe. This is a fact in both cases and the laws of nature and the laws of spiritual life are in perfect harmony here. But the latter is a spir itual truth, for it is lifted above the common level of mere expediency. It means life or death so far as the man's character and his eternal welfare are concerned. It may be a matter of prudence for this Hfe also, but it is not merely STORY TELLING 101 a shrewd observation which will help him to get the best of his fellows. It is a matter of fundamental and eternal importance. The parable is on a spiritual level, the fable is on a worldly level; the parable is based on fact, the fable introduces mythical elements. Yet the fable is not a myth, for in a myth there is no attempt to make definite compari sons with human life. A myth is more of a purely imagi native tale, letting the story carry whatever truths it will. Another characteristic difference between fable and para ble is that while the fable is in a very light vein, the parable is always serious. The fable may be a jest, but there is no jest in the parable. The fable often ridicules men's foibles, and laughs at their sins, but not so the parable. There may be contrasts in a parable that reveal a humorous situation, but the story is not told for the sake of the humor; it is told with the most serious moral earnestness. There may be indignation present but it is different from ridicule; it is the indignation which reveals real respect for human beings. Now how does an allegory differ from a fable or a parable? We have said that a fable or a parable is a lengthened simile. The allegory is a lengthened metaphor. Instead of the resemblance between the natural objects and human nature being plainly marked by a "like" or an "as" the likeness is taken for granted. Jesus did not first tell a story of a good shepherd and then say that he was like him. He said, "I am the good shepherd" and then went on to tell what the good shepherd did, assuming that He did the same for his sheep, human beings. The Psalm ist sang, "The Lord is my shepherd," not, is like a shep herd because he does so and so. Jesus told a story once about a man who lost one sheep out of a flock of a hun dred and how he rejoiced when he found it ; when he closed he said, "Even so, there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth," pointing out the likeness very defi nitely. But Jeremiah says, "My people have been lost sheep ; their shepherds have caused them to go astray ; they have turned them away on the mountains ; they have gone 102 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting- place," and we do not need to have any explanation to tell us that he does not mean literal mountains and hills. In I Peter 2 : 25, however, the figure is a simile in the first phrase and a metaphor in the next : "Ye were going astray like sheep ; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." Biblical allegories are for the most part on the same high spiritual level as parables. It is to be noted that we find allegory in the gospel of John and parable in the synoptic gospels, showing the different literary form preferred by different authors. We have previously studied a few proverbs in connection with riddles and said that many of the later, more sophisti cated maxims were based on the early form of the conun drum. A proverb is often also like a parable or an allegory, because it is not mainly a humorous play on words but rests upon a comparison, a real resemblance between the laws governing natural objects and spiritual laws. This is why the book of Proverbs comes in the section of Biblical literature known as "Wisdom Literature," because now the instructional rather than the humorous element is the main thing. Thus a proverb is usually a short parable or allegory based upon the figure of simile or metaphor; it is a "way side saying." In both the Hebrew and Greek languages tl:_ same word is often used for both proverb and parable.® There is one caution which needs to be observed in the interpretation of all these forms of instructional story. They were not intended in the mind of the original writer to be pressed too far. The true interpretation is obvious and easy. They should not be forced to support doctrinal details of which the authors were never aware. 8 See Luke 4:23 and the word "mashal" in Hebrew. STORY TELLING 103 SECTION V: FABLES, PARABLES, ALLEGORIES, AND PROVERBS — EXAMPLES FABLES Jotham's Fable, Judges 9:8-15. Suggested Study Compare Jotham's fable with the following Fables from Msop. The Turtle and the Eagle A Turtle asked an Eagle to teach her how to fly. The Eagle advised her not to try, as she was not fit for it; but she insisted. The Eagle took her in his claws, raised her up, and dropped her; she fell on stones and broke to pieces. The Jay and the Peacock A Jay venturing into a yard where Peacocks used to walk, found there a number of feathers which had fallen from the Peacocks when they were moulting. He tied them all to his tail and strutted down toward the Peacocks. When he came near them they soon discovered the cheat, and striding up to him pecked at him and plucked away his borrowed plumes. So the Jay could do no better than go back to the other Jays, who had watched his behavior from a distance ; but they were equally annoyed with him, and told him, "It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds." Also compare with The Bat, The Birds and the Beasts, The Father and His Sons, The Raven and the Fox. Tolstoi's Adaptation of a Hindoo Fable The Snake's Head and Tail The Snake's Tail had a quarrel with the Snake's Head about who was to walk in front. The Head said : "You cannot walk in front, because you have no eyes and no ears.'' The Tail said : "Yes, but I have strength, I move you ; if you want to, I can wind myself around a tree, and you cannot get off the spot." The Head said: "Let us separate 1" 104 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE And the Tail tore himself loose from the Head and crept on ; but the moment he got away from the Head he fell into a hole and was lost. Compare with this Paul's parable where he uses a fable to illustrate his parable of The Members and the Body in I Corinthians 12 : 12-30. From the Arabic Fables of Bidpai The Lark and the Elephant A lark had made her nest in the road which an elephant was in the habit of passing when he went to drink. The elephant, going one day as usual to quench his thirst, trod upon the nest of the lark and broke the eggs, and destroyed the unhatched young ones which they contained; upon which the lark, who had no doubt by whom the injury had been done, mounted up into the air, and, hovering over the head of the elephant, cried out in a lamentable tone, "O King, is it out of contempt, and the little respect which you enter tain for your neighbor, that you have broken my eggs, and destroyed my unhatched brood?" Which the elephant acknowledging to be the case, she flew away, and went to the assembly of the birds, and complained to them of the injustice of which the elephant had been guilty ; but they excused their refusal to interfere in her favor, by alleging their inability to contend with the elephant. Upon this the lark addressed herself more particularly to the magpies and crows, and engaged them to peck out the eyes of the elephant, whilst she was preparing another snare for him ; and the magpies and the crows continued striking the elephant's eyes with their beaks, till they had entirely destroyed them, and he was left without the means of finding his way to the pastures, where he was in the habit of feed ing, and was forced to content himself with the scanty nourishment which he could pick up from the place where he was. When the lark was informed of this, she went to a pond, where there were a great many frogs, and made similar complaints of the conduct of the elephant; and they asked her, how it was possible for them to assist her against so powerful an enemy? She said to them, "I beg of you, to have the goodness to accompany me to a large pit, which is near the spot where the elephant is, and to go down into it and croak; and the elephant when he hears the noise, will fancy that there is water there, and, advancing toward the sound, will fall into the pit and perish." The frogs complied with the request of the lark, and everything happened to the elephant as she had fore told; then, fluttering over his head as he lay in agonies below her, she said, "O tyrant, thou art deceived in the opinion which thou hadst formed of thy power and strength ; and the inferiority of my size compared with thine has disappeared before the cunning con trivance which has defeated thy sagacity." STORY TELLING 105 PARABLES The Relentless Servant, Matthew 18:21-35. Suggested Study Compare this parable of the servant with the following Arabic Tale of the Merchant which is similar in its lesson but not strictly parabolic in form. A merchant who possessed an hundred pounds of iron, being obliged to be absent for a few days, entrusted his stock to the care of a friend, and having at his return demanded to have it returned to him, was answered, that the mice had eaten it ; to which he made no other reply than that he had heard of the sharpness of their teeth in biting iron, removing by this declaration all suspicion of incredulity; but as he was going away, he chanced to meet the son of his friend and seizing him, led him away to his own house. On the morrow the father came to him in great haste, to ask if he knew anything of his son: the merchant told him that as he was returning home the preceding day he saw a hawk carry off a young lad, who probably might be his son. "Is it credible," exclaimed the father, "or was it ever heard of, that a hawk carried away a child?" "Indeed," answered the merchant, "in a country where the mice can eat an hundred pounds of iron, it is not incredible that hawks should be able to carry off the elephants." Upon this the father con fessed his theft, paid the merchant the price of his iron, and de manded in return his son. The Wedding Garment, Matthew 22 : 2-14. Suggested Study Compare this parable of The Wedding Garment with Krummacher's parable of The Fidelity of Uri. A heathen king summoned a pious bishop to his presence, and demanded that he should renounce his faith, and sacrifice to idols. The bishop said, "My Lord and King, I will not do this." Then the king was very wroth, and said, "Knowest thou not that thy life is in my hand, and that I have power to kill thee? One word from me, and it will be done." "I know it," answered the bishop. "But suffer me to tell thee a simile, and to put a question for thee to decide upon." "If one of thy most faithful servants fall into the hands of thine enemies, who forthwith try to seduce him to become a traitor to thee, — but thy servant being immovable, thy enemies take all his garments from him, drive him naked away with scorn and derision. 106 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE — tell me, O King, when he comes to thee, wilt thou not give him of thy best robes, and pay with high honor the shame he hath en dured?" Then the king answered and said; "Yea; but to what purpose is this, and where has this been done?" The pious bishop answered, "Behold, thou also canst take this earthly garment from me. But I have a lord and master who will give me a new robe. Should I regard the garment and for its sake depart from the faith?" Then the heathen king said : "Go thy way ; I grant thee thy life." Read the two great parable chapters, Matthew 13 and Luke 15. Note that Matthew's are nature parables, and that Luke dwells upon those involving people and human interests. Each set of gems is strung upon the thread of a common theme, that in Matthew is the kingdom of heaven, in Luke, finding the lost. The three parables in Luke have been called the stories of The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, The Lost Boy. ALLEGORY The Good Shepherd, John 10: 1-18. The Vine, John 15 : 1-8. Suggested Study Note how often the shepherd and the vine are used figura tively in the Old Testament as well as in the New. Com pare the allegory of the vine with the parable of the vine yard in the Synoptic Gospels and also with Isaiah's Vine yard Song.« Read the story of The Water Turned into Wine in John 2. Some scholars have interpreted this story as an allegory. If it is an allegory, what would be its inter pretation? An interesting point to look up is why the writer of John seems to prefer the allegorical style and the synoptic writers the parabolic. Read the book of Jonah. Many scholars class this as an allegory, others as a parable. Which is right? What is the explanation of the story? Note the deep religious 9 See p. 49. STORY TELLING 107 lesson conveyed through such interpretation as compared with the grotesqueness and unnaturalness of a literal ex planation. Note also that the beautiful poem in the second chapter, rich in its knowledge of life and its religious aspira tion, is probably not a part of the original story but inserted later. Read Dr. Samuel Crothers' interpretation of Jonah in his essay. The Doctrinaire. This book of Jonah rises to the climax of spiritual vision in the Old Testament in its realization of the universal character of God's love. Its theme is the same as the famous phrase of Faber's hymn, "There is a wideness in God's mercy." Compare this pic ture of the yearning love of God for all peoples with the parables in the fifteenth chapter of Luke which represent His intense love for the individual, and also with the parable of The Good Samaritan which is more of a parallel, in that it pictures the breaking down of racial prejudice. Compare Jonah from the literary standpoint of allegorical writing with Olive Schreiner's dreams of The Lost Joy, The Hunter, In a Ruined Chapel, and with Oscar Wilde's The Teacher of Wisdom in Poems in Prose. A further interesting study is to compare Biblical alle gory with the later allegorical writing of the church and in medieval and English literature, also to note the tendency of the church to give an allegorical interpretation to writ ings not primarily of that type, such as The Song of Solo mon.^" Try your own hand at making a fable, then at making a parable, and finally at making an allegory. Make a parable from one of the following Old Testament proverbs : Pleasant words are as a honeycomb. Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. He whose spirit is without restraint. Is like a city that is broken down and without walls. He that passeth by and vexeth himself with strife belonging not to him, Is like one that taketh a dog by the ears. 10 See the discussion of the interpretation of The Song of Solomon on p. 195. 108 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble Is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint. BOOKS TO CONSULT DoDS, Marcus — Parables of Our Lord, pp. 7, 8. Kirk, E. N. — Lectures on Parables, Lee. 1. Penniman, J. H. — A Book About the English Bible, Ch. 12. Taylor, W. M. — Parables of Our Savior, pp. 1-16. Thomson, W. H. — Parables by the Lake, pp. 1-14. Trench, R. C— Notes on the Parables, Ch. I, Ch. Ill, pp. 32-39. The topics have something on them in Genung — Guidebook to Biblical Literature. Moulton — Literary Study of the Bible. Staffer — Jesus Christ During His Ministry — Ch. II, The Language of Jesus. For Illustrations of Fables, Parables, etc., see JEsop's Fables. Tolstoi, Count — Fables and Stories for Children. Kalila and Dimna or The Fables of Bidpai — Translated from the Arabic by W. KnatchbuU. Krummacher, F. A. — Parables. LaFontaine's Fables. Schreiner, Olive — Dreams. For Selections of Stories and Proverbs frovi the Bible see Keeler and Wild — Ethical Readings from the Bible. For the Later use of Allegorical Writing see Courthope — History of English Poetry, Vol. i, Ch. IX. Mackenzie — English Morality Plays. Chapter IV HISTORY SECTION I: THE CHARACTER OF HISTORICAL WRITING Two points should be noted at the outset in the discussion of history as a type of literature in the Bible. This is the day when the historical method of study of the Biblical text is recognized as fundamental by all real scholars. No longer is it considered reasonable to make up a system of theology by wrenching texts away from their historical set ting and putting them together like pieces in a puzzle; all texts to be understood rightly must be considered in their context against the background of the age in which they were written. This of course has resulted in some revisions of ideas concerning the meaning of certain passages. To the naturally conservative this change has sometimes seemed to indicate destruction, whereas really the historical method has meant a nearer approach to the original meaning, and advancement in our understanding of the messages of the Bible. To know, for example, that the second part of the book of Isaiah was written more than a hundred years later than the first part, by an entirely different man, under en tirely different circumstances, does not detract in the least from the divine inspiration which gripped and held both men and made them see visions and draw pictures of the future quite unparalleled ; and it does help us very materially in understanding, for instance, the references to Cyrus and the significance. of the wonderful imagery of "the Suffering Servant." But the point is that such historical study of the Bible which to-day is recognized as fundamental in all scholarly approach, does not mean that the books are books of history. As we shall see before we have finished this survey of the literature of the Bible, a great proportion of 109 no A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE them are poetry and must be judged as poetry; some of them are in story form, others are in the form of letters or essays on some ethical and religious theme; and some are a mixture of various types of writing. The second point which must be made clear if we are to understand the Bible as literature is this : while the history which we do get from a careful study of the text, in the light of all the information scholars can shed upon it, is good history, the Biblical writings themselves may be very poor examples of the historical type of writing. The style may be poor, the purpose of the writer may not have been a very high purpose of historical accuracy, the light shed by a particular document may be highly colored by the author's prejudices and the very next book we read may seem to contradict it because that author had other prejudices ; and yet while we would not take such productions as models of historical writing, they may contain very interesting histori cal material, may have very great human interest, may, in deed, show the guidance of God's hand throughout the his torical development of the Hebrew people. In other words, to study the Bible as revealing the history of God's dealings with a people and to study it as a book of good historical writing are two very different things. This is where the study of the Bible as history and the study of the Bible as literature must meet and join hands. There is no prog ress whatever unless the historical student recognizes that he is dealing with literature, a very varied literature both as to types represented and excellence, a literature coming down to us, good, bad, and indifferent, portions rising to great heights of excellence, and other portions quite inferior, limping in. both thought and expression; on the other hand no real progress is attained in literary appreciation until the historical background is quite fully understood. It is espe cially important to keep these two very closely related fields of study together if we are to get the full significance of the Biblical messages. This is the modern way of approaching the Bible, the only sound and sane way of approaching any literature. The method of study should in no way obscure HISTORY 111 the messages, it should rather clear the path so that they can be perceived the more vividly. Now when we examine the characteristics and the merits of good history we are confronted with the fact that there are different types and that our measure of excellence de pends upon what we are looking for in the history. A like ness between this type of literature and the story form is apparent on the one hand and between it and the essay on the other. First let us get clearly in mind how history is distinct from these other forms of literature and then con sider the main types within the realm of history itself. What are the essentials of good history as distinct from story? As we have seen, story may be mythical, that is, a purely imaginative picture trying to explain phenomena the causes of which are hidden far back, previous to man's appearance on earth, or at any rate previous to any possible record of such beginnings. Story may also be a vivid pic ture of events in which man certainly had some part, the data perhaps being handed down by tradition and enlarged upon by fancy. Or story may be purely fictitious so far as actual events and characters are concerned and yet true to life, so true that it carries with it the same lesson as if it really happened. These types of stories are illustrated by the Creation and Flood myths, by the Abraham, Joseph and David cycles of stories, and by the parable of the Good Samaritan and the allegory of Jonah. These are all narra tives but narratives where truth must be separated from fact.' The facts supposedly recorded are not always true, although the truth is often more profound than in a record of mere facts. In history on the other hand we are sup posed to be dealing with facts and with verifiable facts. The evidence for these events is so strong that we can reasonably believe they actually happened. History is also usually put in narrative form, the events marshaled in chronological order. In this it is like story, also in the vividness with which the details are presented in order to make us see the picture. In the motive behind the arrange ment of the events is found the key to the different types 112 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE of historical writing. Sometimes this motive is so closely allied to that of the essayist that the historical narrative becomes practically an essay in the sense of setting forth a certain philosophical truth or making apparent certain ideas hidden beneath the outer crust of events. There are three main types of history. The first is purely descriptive, in which the object is apparently simply to make people see very vividly just what did take place, as if we had been upon the spot ourselves at the time: an example of this type would be Paul Revere' s Ride, or the Battle of Salamis. The second type is didactic. Here the events are presented in such a way as to make us see some lesson which the writer thinks we ought to learn. This may be done by stress, emphasizing especially certain parts of the story, or certain characters, their motives and the conse quences ; or it may be done by the insertion here and there of homiletical suggestions, sometimes only sentences, some times whole paragraphs. An example of this kind would be Milton's use of historical material in the first part of his Tractate on Education. The third type is one in which the object of the author is to show causes for events or for con sequences of certain events, to show the scientific relations of events or the great underlying movements either social or spiritual which give these events their especial signifi cance. This is called scientific or genetic history, and the aim here is not to be entertaining in the sense of presenting picturesque details nor instructive in the sense of drawing moral lessons, although these elements may be present, but to deal with the material in hand according to philosophic principles which reveal relations. Examples of this kind of history may be found among the many articles and books which have tried to account for the Great War or its re sults. In the Bible we have examples of all three types of history and such excellent short examples that they lend themselves most admirably to the student's purposes. These short examples will be studied in detail, but first we should look at the comparative merits of four series of documents or whole books which appear on the face of them HISTORY 113 to be of the historical type, namely, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II Chronicles in the Old Testament, and the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. I and II Samuel evidently incorporate in one narrative stories of Samuel, Saul, and David, which were composed very close to the time when those great characters lived. They have all the vividness and naivete of early folk tales, but folk tales written down so near the time when the events hap pened that they justify being called history. There were evidently different avenues through which the historical tales of the Bible came down to posterity for they do not always agree in all their parts. For instance the way in which David is first introduced to Saul is given in one chapter as at Saul's home when the young lad was sum moned to play before him, and in anotlier chapter as out on the battlefield whither he was sent by his father to carry provisions to the brothers. Because the Samuel stories are so true to life with so little apparent purpose in telling them except to make the facts known, they are very good history from the standpoint of trustworthiness. From the stand point of literary style, also, they are excellent, fresh, naive, vigorous, and picturesque. They are thought to have been drawn from collections of stories about Samuel, Saul, and David. The books of Kings are somewhat different. There is more of a plan in the arrangement ; the author is attempt ing to give an account of all the kings; there is a certain set form which he uses, naming a king, giving a short ac count of what he did, naming the kings of the other king dom who reigned at the same time, closing with commenda tion or censure. At certain points longer stories are intro duced as, for example, of the interesting and important activities of Elijah and Elisha, but in the main it seems to be an attempt at royal annals, without any design to use the material because of its interest from a literary point of view. It is a record for the preservation of facts which in the mind of the author have something to teach. At the same time it is excellent history, evidently based upon facts 114 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE that are well-known, and giving a very desirable survey of the period of four hundred years from Solomon to the Captivity. The author has gained his information from earlier records, for he mentions some of his sources, "The Acts of Solomon," "the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah," and "the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel." These are not our books of Chronicles, which came from a much later hand ; they are books lost to us except as they have been in corporated in our books of Kings and Chronicles. They were records very likely based upon the official court annals. The characteristic which stands out most prominently in reading over I and II Kings is the evident bias of the editor; he comments approvingly upon all the kings of Judah, and disapprovingly upon the kings of the Northern Kingdom; he upholds the national religion as observed at Jerusalem, he condemns the religious customs and spirit of the north ; he regards Israel as apostate, and Judah as the guardian of the true national religious ideal. This was doubtless true to a large extent, for the great prophetic ideals and literature came mostly from the south, not the north. But systematically to condemn all the kings of the north and praise all the Icings of the south and to consider that all the enlightenment and regard for righteousness came from the south, seems rather extreme. We have therefore in these books a type of historical writing which comes under the second class, namely, didactic writing, the author having the purpose in assembling all these facts to teach the people to admire the career of the south and to repudiate the actions of the north. In the books of I and II Chronicles this type of historical writing is carried still further. The writer is covering the same period as I and II Kings; he uses the same sources plus others at his hand, our books of Samuel and Kings, a book of the Kings of Judah and Israel not preserved to us, the records of certain prophets, such as Nathan, Gad, Iddo and Isaiah. His writing is a compilation but with a very decided theological purpose. He emphasizes emphatically all that has to do with religious organization, the priests. HISTORY 115 the Levites, the service of the temple. Moreover he moral izes a great deal; he has a lesson to teach, that blessings come to those who keep strictly Yahweh's law and punish ment befalls transgressors' To make his homilies more ef fective he sometimes exaggerates those blessings and calami ties, if we may judge from his use of numbers compared with other accounts of the same events, and he sometimes introduces reasons for events falling out as they do which are not altogether harmonious with the statements in the other books. This author bears all the marks of a priestly rather than a prophetic writer, for the priests were con cerned with an ecclesiastical type of religion and many de tails, whereas the prophets were burning with an ethical and spiritual message, even condemning much of the conven tional religious observance as unspiritual and unethical. These books, then, are not so good history as the others from the standpoint of accuracy, but they are an interesting contribution to the literature of the Bible in showing us a certain point of view which a prominent class of writers held, and the great earnestness with which they maintained their loyalty to Yahweh. The Book of Acts is the chief book of the New Testa ment which pretends to be a historical narrative, for the Gospels are more after the type of memoirs, semi-biogra phies, their purpose being to show forth the character and work of one personality, Jesus. The Book of Acts is an attempt to put together in chronological order the course of events in the starting of the church. Upon examination it is quite obvious that it is a compilation of documents; the first part deals with the beginnings of apostolic work before Paul came upon the scene as the most prominent personage, and it is written in the third person. The second part, beginning with chapter thirteen, has to do very ap parently with Paul's career, and contains four sections written in the first person plural, the writer evidently being a companion of Paul. It may be that these four "we" sections were incorporated by another author into his ac count of Paul, or it may be that this companion of Paul 116 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE wrote the whole of the last section, drawing on his diary at the places where he introduces the "we" sections. Thus it is seen that we have here a composite work, made up of two or three documents, the style of each left largely as it was originally written, not smoothed over particularly by the editor's pen. It is not, therefore, the very best type of historical writing so far as literary merit is concerned, for such a book would present a unity which this does not. It is, however, of very great value from the standpoint of fact, and the portion which is evidently the record of an eye-witness at or near the time of the events is especially valuable. Those sections also afford specimens of the best sort of descriptive history. We can, therefore, select from this composite book certain passages which stand out as superior examples of this type of literature. SECTION II : examples DESCRIPTIVE HISTORY Paxil's Shipwreck, Acts 27. This is one of the eye-witness passages, so accurate as to places and nautical terms that it has been remarked upon by geographers and seamen. Its style is very straightfor ward, for there are no wasted words and yet many details are given, just those which add to the understanding of the scenes and their vividness; the words used are often very graphic; direct discourse helps this vividness. Notice the details given in verse 44, the words used in verses 14 and 20, the interesting and enlightening reasons thrown in in verses 9 and 11, the direct discourse introduced in verse 21, the picturesqueness of the connection made in verses 35 and 38 between Paul's blessing the bread and throwing the wheat into the sea. Altogether this is an exceptionally fine bit of writing, giving the reader a very clear and realistic picture of the journey. HISTORY 117 Suggested Study Compare with this Thucydides' Night Attack on Platcea.^ For the third century B.C. Thucydides was the ideal, truth ful historian. He himself said, "I will be satisfied if my work shall prove useful to those who wish to see the truth, both of what has happened and will happen again, according to the order of human things." Compare Herodotus' de scription of the Battle of Salamis " or the Battle of Ther- mopylce.^ Compare also with such straightforward records of the Great War as Philip Gibb's Now It Can Be Told or Brand Whitlock's Belgium. DIDACTIC HISTORY The Reign of Josiah, II Kings 22 : 1-23 : 30. Notice the directness of style in verse 1 and the writer's choice of the essential details. Notice that Josiah's descent is traced through the mother's line. For what purpose? What were his paternal ancestors like religiously? In verse 3 the writer begins his description of the most important event in Josiah's reign, his reform and the cleansing of the temple. It is this which he dwells on especially. Notice also that details are given to show the proper rank of the characters introduced. At the beginning of verse 5 curiosity is aroused to know what is to be done with the money gathered from the peo ple ; it is not revealed until the end of the verse. The extent of the repairs inaugurated is shown in verse 6 by enumerat ing the kinds of workmen; this also adds picturesqueness to the account. In verse 7 mention of the reliable character of the workmen throws light on the purpose of the writer. Read in this connection verses 14-19.* Verses 13-20 weave in the events with their import. iTranslation given in Warner's Library of^ the World's Best Literature. 2 Herodotus, Bo(* VIII. Ch. V. 74-88. Rawlinson's Translation. 3 Book VII, Chs. 207-213. 4 Verse 17 may have been added later. 118 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Read chapter 23 carefully and see if the purpose comes out more prominently. What is the especial import of verses 16-17? Does verse 17 add to the suggestiveness and picturesqueness of the account? Verse 22 is the climax. Why is the rest of the description added? State, finally, in a sentence, the didactic purpose of this selection. Suggested Study Compare with this The Education of Henry Adams, Ch. IV, Harvard College; or James H. Snowden, Is the World Growing Better?, Ch. IX. The Bible and Progress, Ch. XI. The World War and a Better World; or William Adams Brown, Is Christianity Practicable?, Ch. II. The Christian Interpretation of History. GENETIC HISTORY The Council at Jerusalem and Its Consequences, Acts 15; 1-35. Suggested Study Notice the direct quotations. Why are they good evidence that here is accurate history? Compare the style with that of the passage from Kings. From the standpoint of litera ture is it so good? From the standpoint of historical truth fulness? Is there apparently any purpose on the part of the writer to put into it his own interpretations and preju dices? If the author or editor were Luke, Paul's companion, what naturally would have been his point of view about the question discussed? State precisely what this chapter throws light upon, or what it traces back to its origin. If this was the pivotal point in the history of the Christian Church is that made clear in this chapter ? Would you read it as an example of historical writing because it is so well written that the style delights you, or only because you are interested in finding the facts which it states ? HISTORY 119 Compare with this Ellen Churchill Semple's American History and its Geographic Conditions, Chapter VI, The Louisiana Purchase in the Light of Geographic Conditions. These illustrations of historical writing should be meas ured for accuracy by six tests : 1. The age or nearness to the event of the writing. Is the document genuine? 2. The number of witnesses and variety of the evidence. Do these witnesses agree in the main and is there variety enough to believe they did not all copy one another ? 3. The truthfulness of the witnesses. Did they know the facts and tell them honestly? 4. The continuity of the records. Does their testimony come down in an unbroken line of transmission? 5. The relation of the passage under consideration to the rest of the document. Is the obvious interpretation of the single passage in harmony with the entire context? 6. The appeal to reason. Is the impression of the testi mony as a whole reasonable? In applying these tests one must remember that an ac count may give an accurate general impression and yet not be absolutely true in all details, that not all phases of an event or a truth can be presented at once and therefore that the record may seem one-sided, or certain facts may be omitted without intention to deceive or to twist the argu ment.^ BOOKS TO CONSULT Wood and Grant — The Bible as Literature. Skinner, John — Century Bible, I & II Kings, Introduction, pp. S-10. Commentaries on Acts. Ramsay, William yi.—St. Paul, the Traveller. B What Dr. Ramsay says in the Introduction to Saint Paul the Traveller, concerning the historical character of the book of Acts, is worth noting. Chapter V HEBREW POETRY SECTION i: INTRODUCTORY Hebrew literature is very largely poetical, even much of its prose is prose poetry, and sometimes it is hard to dis tinguish between the prose and the poetical form. More and more translators are writing very much of the Old Testament as poetry. But the student must be cautioned that there are some enthusiasts who would press everything into poetical rhythm, into a certain scheme they can see or imagine they see, and would then conclude that all of a prophetic book, for example, that does not fall into that poetical scheme is a gloss. This is obviously artificial. In order for us really to understand Hebrew poetry we need to understand first the fundamental qualities of the poetic fire which burned in the breasts of those old prophets and psalmists and then to see how this found characteristic expression in certain forms peculiar to their genius, or in the structure of their poetry. One must ask first the questions. What is poetry? and Who is a poet? before we can really classify the Hebrew poet. To-day we are having a whole school of poets break ing loose from the conventional forms, writing what is called "free verse" and "impressionist" poetry, to the confusion of many of the uninitiated who have associated a certain out ward structure with poetry and when that is taken away are unable to distinguish it from prose. In the early transla tions of the Hebrew text scholars were evidently unable to see poetry where it existed, for in the King James Version very much of what we now recognize as such was printed as prose. This is one of the advantages of the newer yersions, that they try to make the poetry obvious to the 120 HEBREW POETRY 121 eye as well as to the ear, however much they may lack in the dignity of English compared with the version of 1611. The fundamental poetic quality of the text they were trans lating did indeed impress those early scholars for even their prose became poetic in its rhythmic cadences and elevated diction. But to-day, while the attempt is made at better and more literal translations in the sense of catching the exact meaning of the Hebrew words, there is an equal effort to show the verse forms which Hebrew poetry chose as most expressive of its thought and feeling. Poetry, any poetry, carries with it a large measure oi feeling as well as intellectual perception. The poet is in deed the seer, he catches visions. But a vision, a perception of truth, is not merely a question of idea, it is more funda mental than that, for feeling came before ideas and awak ened them. Poetry has been called "the emotion of life made audible." There seem to be two faculties of percep tion within the highly developed, civilized man, the intuition and the reason. Intuition is the more primitive, certainly, many scholars think it is more fundamental and far-reach ing; it necessarily carries with it more emotion, since it is the response of the whole being to the stimulus received. It therefore lends itself more absolutely to the aesthetic or artistic development of the being. It is the power which belongs preeminently to the seer, the crophet, the mystic and the poet. Granted that this is a true assumption one would natu rally expect to find a close relationship between poetical and prophetical literature, and it does not surprise one to find the prophetical books printed as poetry as scholars come to appreciate more truly their real significance. It is but natu ral that religious revelation should come most distinctly and emphatically to the poet, or to turn it about, that the re ligious seer should express his visions in poetical form. America's most eminent exponent of religious mysticism has recently made this statement, "To some the truth of God never comes closer than a logical conclusion. He is held to be as a living item in a creed. To the mystic he becomes 122 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE real in the same sense that experienced beauty is real, or the feel of spring is real, or summer sunlight is real : He has been found, He has been met. He is present." ^ That sounds like poetry as well as religion. A recent English book on A New Study of English Poetry ^ contrasts the business of science and poetry thus: "To attempt to see things as they are in themselves is the splendid forlorn hope allotted to Science; it is no work of Poetry. The business of Poetry is to see spirits as they are, and all things as they are in the life of the spirit. . . . And it may be that that is not all : it may be that there is in poetry the power to reach a still deeper truth, a still profounder being, to draw at times directly from that unseen, unsounded, underlying Pool of Personality, of which our own lives are but momentary jets flung into sunlight." The first function of poetry mentioned here might well be illustrated by John Drinkwater's Crocuses, the second by his To One I Love. The first poem has all the charm of an animistic faith, the second is truly religious in the highest sense of the consciousness of a personal and ethical God. The Hebrews had both, for they were near enough to the naive, primitive imagination of animism to feel very closely bound to Nature, to the winds which were God's messengers, and the flames of fire which were his ministers, the clouds which were his chariot, and the morning stars which sang together ; and in the golden age of their poetry the prophetic conception of a God of character was realized through the intuitive, mystical sense. Seek ye Jehovah while He may be found ; Call ye upon Him while He is near : Let the wicked forsake his way. And the unrighteous man his thoughts. For ye shall go out with joy. And be led forth with peace : The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing: And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. I Rufus Jones. 2 William Newbolt. HEBREW POETRY 123 In this kind of poetry we find the power to reach the deeper truth, the profounder being. The Hebrews were master of this intuitional, spiritual perception. But Hebrew literature is also a national literature. One of the great delights in studying the Old Testament is found in the fact that the life of the people there portrayed was one. They had not yet advanced sufficiently in civilization to pick life all to pieces and pigeon-hole it into proper com partments. They all lived together with their God, work ing out the destiny of their race and tribe. To live was to live tribally, nationally, religiously, in other words to live as a community in conjunction with the divine powers around them. Their literature is therefore national rather than indi vidual. And putting these three facts together, that their literature is poetical, that it is national, and also reUgious, it is not strange that we find much of their poetry national poetry, — public songs, hymns, and prayers, expressing their " national life, a patriotism shot through with religion. This is why scholars have remarked upon the wide dif ference between English religious poetry, much of which is considered "rubbish" poetically, and the really great re ligious poetry of the Bible. Mr. Newbolt says,^ "This union of the fervor of patriotism with the fervor of moral aspira tion produced a poetry which is to all our English liturgical poetry as a great and sonorous bell is to the vague whistle of the wind. It rings to the height of heaven, but it was cast in the bowels of earth. Therefore it has in all genera tions moved men as no other poetry has ever moved them. Before our society can hope to produce such poetry as this, we must learn to clear our vision and see, as we hardly see at present, what is the true nature of the religious ideal and how it is related to our common life." It is this very rare threefold combination of patriotic and social values with high ethical ideals and both of these with the consciousness of God which has given Hebrew poetry its satisfying and enduring qualities. Compare, for 3 A New Study of E-nglish Poetry. 124 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE example, Hosea, who was the Old Testament poet-prophet of Love, with the classic hymn of Saint Bernard, "Jesus, the very thought of Thee, with sweetness fills my breast," and immediately the contrast is very vivid between the limited, individualistic application of the latter and the broad, na tion-wide significance of the former. Beautiful as Saint Bernard's hymn is as an expression of personal gratitude and aspiration, it cannot begin to express the religious view of our age as does Hosea. And this is true of the majority of our own English hymns as well as of the Latin, although the best of them have caught the broader note of the ancient psalmist. To keep religious poetry from the dryness of didacticism on the one hand and from an unhealthy selfish sentimentalism on the other, it is quite necessary that these three factors should be present. In no poetry do we find such a natural welding of these three as in the Old Testa ment. Another observation should be made. The poetical genius of the Hebrews was a lyrical genius, and we do therefore have the personal element present very decidedly. It is this that makes the lyric so gripping, but in Biblical lyrics it is the individual's aspirations and desires expressed in com munal terms. The individual and his soul's interest were knit into his national and religious interests. And so even the Twenty-third Psalm, and the Fifty-first Psalm, while purely lyrical and very definitely personal are scarcely to be distinguished in sentiment from the national appeal in Isaiah 1 : 16-18. Even personal grief over the dead had so much in it of communal significance that the prophet could slip most naturally into the metrical form of the dirge when he lamented over Israel's national decay. He mourned the death of the nation as vividly and expressively as he would mourn a death in his own family. While we recognize a royal marriage to be a national event, it was also a religious event with the Hebrews and the "Royal Marriage Song" is found in the Hebrew hymn book. So also is what is called the "Ruler's Oath of Office." Dedicating oneself to public service is not a prosaic nor a secular event, it is fraught HEBREW POETRY 125 with all that is highly imaginative, poetic, and religious, and should be expressed in poetry. Lyric poetry most often celebrates the great passion of love, for there is nothing that so takes hold of the very roots of our being as our power to love. Personality itself seems to emerge from a great ocean of attraction and repulsion, of Love and of Hate. The joys and the pains which make us conscious of ourselves are but the effects of these power ful currents within us. Our outbursts of such joy or sorrow make the lyric. Why then is a religious lyric at its best the very acme of lyrical expression and yet in constant danger of falling to a mediocre sentimentalism? Sentimentalism follows unreality, imitation, and unwholesome partiality; true religion mounts up with wings like eagles and enters in very truth the gates of heaven. Doctor Van Dyke has thus expressed the reason for the enduring power of Biblical lyrics. He says, "The true mission of poetry is to increase joy. There is no perfect joy without love. Therefore love- poetry is the best. But the highest of all love-poetry is that which celebrates with the Psalms, 'That love which is and was My Father and my Brother and my God.' " Moreover, the dramas of life are not all centered in per sonal tragedy. There is national tragedy as well, and a people whose personal experience is so interwoven with their national experience as that of the Hebrews, can pro duce without any artificial strain a prophetic and poetical book like that of Hosea, whose personal tragedy is only one little point in the whole cycle of national tragedies. In the second and third chapters the very expressions of the two kinds of feeling are so closely interwoven that they can scarcely be separated. Again the supreme national trial of the Israelites, their captivity, and one of the tich truths gleaned from it, is depicted in the book of Jonah in the guise of a bitter personal experience, as tragic as oriental imagery could express. 126 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Thus the dramatic element is a constant factor in Hebrew national literature. And when a prophet looks forth from his watch-tower to declare what he sees, and he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of asses, a troop of camels, marching at first faintly in the distance and then more dis tinctly, steadily and swiftly approaching, his heart trembles within him and he cries like a lion — "Fallen, fallen is Baby lon." * The prophet's sense of the dramatic gives him the vision and forces him to express a national message most poetically, as if it were his own personal experience. Is there anywhere outside the Old Testament such a blending of all these qualities, in the most natural manner without the least appearance of effort or artifice? There is one further outstanding characteristic of Hebrew poetry, and that is the poet's love of Nature. We have already noted the identification of early peoples with Nature so long as they are in the animistic stage. The folk-lore period is full of it. A well is addressed as if it had a living spirit, the stars in their courses fight for men, the Sun and the Moon are adjured to stand still; and even in a later period a vineyard is sung about as if it were a real per sonality and the clouds are addressed as if they had it in their power to punish the wicked vineyard. This intimacy with Nature was preserved long after the folk-lore period passed. The Hebrews of the Old Testament were most at home out-of-doors. They could sing with a modern poet, O Mother Earth, by the bright sky above thee, I love thee, O, I love thee 1 So let me leave thee never. But cling to thee forever. And hover round thy mountains. And flutter round thy fountains, And pry into thy roses fresh and red; And blush in all thy blushes. And flush in all thy flushes. And watch when thou art sleeping, And weep when thou art weeping. And be carried with thy motion. As the rivers and the ocean, 4 Isaiah 21. HEBREW POETRY 127 As the great rocks and the trees are. And all the things one sees are — O mother, this were glorious life. This were not to be dead.^ This is a modern occidental poem, characteristically English in its meter and rhyme, very different from the Hebrew in structure, but quite akin in feeling. Browning certainly caught the spirit of David, although David never wrote Browning's kind of poetry, when he puts the following lines in his mouth — Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock. The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool's Hving water, the hunt of the bear. And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine. And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine. And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy 1 That sounds like a modern nature lover out in camp, or on a long tramp over the mountains. Was Browning singing really of a youth of our own century and race and experi ence, to which he attached the name of David ? We do not think so when we study carefully the Old Testament litera ture. What could such phrases as the following signify except the most intimate appreciation of all out-of-doors : As the hart panteth after the water-brooks. So panteth my soul after thee, O God. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: As showers that water the earth. O Jehovah, my God, Thou art very great ; Thou art clothed with honor and majesty: Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment ; Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth me beside still waters. » T. E. Brown, Poems, Alma Mater. 128 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Truly the Old Testament poets were steeped in a love of Nature. It was the breath of life to them, and most natu rally, for they lived out-of-doors during generations of no madic tent-life, and, when they settled down to stationary agricultural habits they still lived out-of-doors. They re joiced in a Feast of Tabernacles or Booths when once a year they made themselves shelters of branches from the trees and bushes and sang and danced with joy at their freedom, remembering subconsciously, at least, their early out-of-doors life. During the grape-gathering they made themselves such open-air huts or booths in the vineyards and removed their entire families thither. During their pil grimages to Jerusalem they camped out on the hillsides un der the stars. The interesting thing for us to observe is that this was a continuous passion with them throughout their genera tions, whereas it is a recovered love with us, having been nearly smothered in the centuries of European formalism and scholasticism, and only once again set free in compara tively modern times. Of course literature and life are abso lutely tied up together and when we camp and tramp and ride and know our fields and foxes and woods and hills we can have a poet who can write Reynard the Fox and verses like these. Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme. Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of His mirth, The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the Earth. So we piust laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky, Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by. Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord. and still another who says quite simply and naturally I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. And yet none of these poems begin to equal in grandeur that wonderful description of the war-horse in Job, HEBREW POETRY 129 Past thou given the horse his might? Hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane? or that pilgrim song of the hills I win lift up mine eyes unto the hills. or the Thunderstorm Psalm. The Hebrew poet, then, was mystically, prophetically re ligious, and religiously patriotic; he was dramatic in his feeling and lyrical in his expression; and he loved Nature with an intimate understanding and a passionate joy. SECTION II : THE STRUCTURE OF HEBREW POETRY When the King James Version of the Bible was translated the principles upon which Hebrew poetry was constructed were undiscovered. It was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that Bishop Lowth hit upon its most fundamental characteristic, parallelism. This means that the rhythm which we feel as we read lines of poetry is due to a certain balance, and in the case of Hebrew poetry it is the balance of thought contained in the words rather than the balance of the number of syllables. This rhythm is shown in three main ways, (1) Synonymous parallelism, where the second line re peats the thought of the first line only in slightly different words. What is man, that thou are mindful of him? And the son of man,, that thou visitest him ? (Psalm 8:4.) The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul : The testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise the simple. (Psalm 19:7.) (2) Synthetic parallelism, where the second line builds up the thought of the first, giving an additional thought on the same note. 130 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE As the hart panteth after the water brooks. So panteth my soul after Thee, O God. (Psalm 42:1.) (3) Antithetic parallelism, where the second line gives the direct opposite of the first. A wise son heareth his father's instruction; But a scoffer heareth not rebuke. (Proverbs 13 : 1.) This form is found very frequently in the book of Proverbs where the second line is introduced most often by but or than. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is Than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. (Proverbs 15 : 17.) There are variations of these three types. One is common enough to be called a fourth type, namely, (4) Stair-like parallelism, where the second line repeats a few words of the first and then adds others, and thus the third and fourth lines may proceed to a climax. Till the people pass over, O Jehovah, Till the people pass over, that thou hast purchased. (Exodus IS : 16.) Jehovah, how are mine adversaries increased 1 Many are they that rise up against me. Many there are that say of my soul, 'There is no help for him in God.' (Psalm 3:1, 2.) In Hebrew poetry, then, there is a certain balance in the words and the length of sentences, but the real secret of the rhythmic effect is in the rhythm of thought. Moreover, a line is not measured by the number of syllables but by the number of stresses or accents. If a line scans it is an accident. Three accents to a line is the commonest form and the two-line parallel or couplet is the norm. The most frequent meter is 3 -|- 3, but 2 -f- 2 is often found and there are various combinations, such as 3 -|- 2 and 4-1-4. There HEBREW POETRY 131 is sometimes a three-line group or tristich instead of a couplet or distich. When four, five, six and larger groups of lines are found they are combinations of distichs and tristichs. Rhyme is hardly ever present, although there are a few exceptions in the Old Testament. This balance of structure is not confined to single lines but enters into the effect of the entire poem in the division of its parts. These parts are called strophes, but the word differs slightly from the meaning it has in English poetry, where it stands for a verse unit or a stanza of a certain number of lines of definite length. A strophe in Hebrew poetry means a division of thought, and the different strophes in a single poem may vary greatly in length. The four-line strophe is the commonest, but there may be a six- line or a seven-line stanza or even a ten-line one. If the stanzas are long there is often a refrain at the end of each or at both the beginning and the end. These are the com monest forms : 3-1-3 or 2-1-2 or 4-|-4 3-f3 2-1-2 4-H4 Following is an example of 2 -|- 2 in Amos 3 : 12 as ar ranged by Bernhard Duhm which he calls "a mocking or light dance meter." As a shepherd saves Out of a lion's jaws Two bits of bones Or a rag of an ear. So shall be saved The Israelites, Those who are sitting there In Samaria In the corner of the cou'dh,^ On the cushion of the divan.^ The kinah or dirge rhythm is 3 -f- 2. The lines are alter- 3-f 2 nately longer and shorter, divided by a stop; the first line is given with a rising, the second with a falling cadence. 6 See Duhm, B., The Twelve Prophets. 132 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE The book of Lamentations offers excellent examples. For instance — From heaven to earth hath he hurled The pomp of Israel. They sit on the ground and are dumb The elders of Zion. They who were nourished in scarlet Huddle on ashheaps. Their skin drawn tight on their bones. Dry as a stick.f (2:1) (2:10) (4:5)(4:8) Sometimes the following combinations of accents are found 3-1-3 or 3-1-2 or 3-|-2 3-}-3 3-(-2 3-1-2 3-1-3 + 3 3-1-2 + 3 3+3 + 3 Following is an example of 3 + 2 + 2 in Solomon's Song, From Lebanon came my bride. With me from Lebanon, From the dens of lions. The freedom which the Hebrew poet took with the length of his stanza is in favor of rather than contrary to essential poetic feeling. "It is not absurd to speak of the natural 'size' of poetic thoughts. Pope, for instance, often works with ideas of couplet size, just as Martial sometimes amused himself with ideas of a still smaller epigram size, or Omar Khayyam with thoughts and fancies that come in quatrain sizes. Many sonnets fail of effectiveness because the con tained thought is too scanty or too full to receive adequate expression in the fourteen lines demanded by the traditional sonnet form. They are sometimes only quatrain ideas, blown up big with words to fill out the fourteen lines, or, on the contrary, as often with the Elizabethans, they are whole odes or elegies, remorselessly packed into the fashion able fourteen-line limit. No one who has given attention to the normal length of phrases and sentences doubts that there 7 See G. A. Smith's translation — Jerusalem, Vol. II. HEBREW POETRY 133 are natural 'breathfuls' of words corresponding to the units of ideas; and when ideas are organized by emotion, there are waves, gusts, or ripples of words, matching the waves of feeling. In the ideal poetic 'pattern' these waves of idea, feeling and rhythmic speech would coincide more or less completely." * Psalm 29 is a good example for analysis. The first four lines are the prelude to the entire poem, each line having four accents. It is synonymous and stairlike. The last four lines form the postlude and this stanza is of similar struc ture. The body of the poem is made up of the description of the storm (vv. 3-9) and includes three stanzas of four lines each. There is apparently an extra line in verse 9 and since this line introduces the temple, which seems in congruous with a storm and the natural scenery of the rest of the poem, it is thought to have been added later when the temple service had become very important and when this may have been sung in the temple as a hymn. The bal ance of thought is apparent in all these divisions. Psalm 23 is a poem about which there is some discussion as to its strophic form, whether there are two stanzas or three. If two, then verses 1-4 are the first, describing the shepherd scene; verses 5-6 are the second with the picture of the banquet. If there are three, then the first is l-3a describing a shepherd, the second is 3b-4 describing a guide, and the third 5-6 describing a host. Psalm 13 is one in which the division of thought is quite plain. There are three stanzas (1) verses 1-2 expressing sorrow, (2) verses 3-4, a prayer, (3), verses 5-6 expressing joyful triumph. There have evidently been some additions which have destroyed the symmetry within the strophes and an omission of one line at the end, which is found in the Septuagint translation of this Psalm, the last couplet reading thus : I sing unto Yahweh for his bounty towards me, I give praise to the name of Yahweh most high.* a Bliss Perry, A Study of Poetry. 9 See E. G. King, Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews. 134. A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Psalm 42 shows a refrain at the end of each strophe, in verse 5 and verse 11. Isaiah 9:8-10:4 has a refrain at the close of each paragraph, the last sentence in verses 12, 17, 21, and 10:4. Since this is precisely the same refrain as is found at the end of 5 : 24-25 it is thought that these two passages belong together and originally made one dra matic, oratorical poem. In post-exilic days the hymns for temple worship were arranged for antiphonal singing. Psalm 136 is a very for mal hymn of this sort. The balance of thought is exceed ingly simple but the repetitions are very numerous and to us become monotonous. In earlier days also there was doubtless something of the antiphonal character in the sing ing, but in a much more natural and spontaneous manner. Very likely Psalm 24 in the last section, beginning with verse 7, illustrates this. This is supposed to be one of the earliest psalms we have, possibly used when David took the ancient city of Jerusalem for the capital of his kingdom. The taking of it in the name of Yahweh, the King of Glory, was most dramatically represented by a procession of peo ple marching up the hill, headed by a choir which chal lenges the ancient gates to open. A choir within or a solo ist on the wall questions the right of this King to enter, until satisfied by the proper answers from the choir without. The following arrangement brings out the balance of parts and shows also the dramatic effect. Choir without Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; And be ye lifted up, ye ancient doors : And the King of glory shall come in. Soloist or choir within Who is this King of glory? Response from whole congregation The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. Choir without once more Lift up your heads, O ye gates ; Yea, lift them up, ye ancient doors : And the King of glory will come in. HEBREW POETRY 135 Soloist or choir within Who is this King of glory? Congregation without The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory.i" All of this shows how early poetry as well as the elaborate and even artificial structure of late liturgical hymns was based upon the primitive feeling for rhythm, especially rhythm of thought. Parallelism while the most characteristic mark of Hebrew poetry, was not peculiar to the Hebrews. It is found in old Babylonian literature and other Semitic languages. There is not much of it in classic Arabic but a little among the Egyptians. All primitive poetry shows this tendency. Among the early Arabians it was the motion of the horse or camel on which they made their long desert journeys which was the origin of the rhythm of their songs. To-day around their campfires after a day's ride the Bedouin im provise verses describing their experiences, accompanying their voices with bodily motions. This, of course, goes back to folk-song where the measure is supposed to be caused by the beat of the dancer's feet. Any one who has watched a group of our negroes marching along the road to a baptism remembers well the weird chant accompanied by the swaying back and forth of the entire mass of people. The old kinah or dirge measure originated probably in some such manner. Thoreau said, "The poet writes the history of his own body," and Professor Bliss Perry adds, "The same truth is apparent as we pass from the individual poet to the poetic literature of his race. Here too is the stamp of bodily history. Hebrew poetry, as is well known, is always expressing emotion in terms of bodily sensation." ^'• The likeness to Hebrew parallelism in some of our own English couplets is pointed out by Doctor George Adam Smith,^^ such as, 10 This is from the Authorized Version with the exception of "ancient" for "everlasting," which is a more accurate translation, the city being so old that no one knew its antiquity. The second line of the gth verse is also more rhythmically translated than in the authorized version. 11 A Study of Poetry. 12 Early Hebrew Poetry. 136 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Old King Cole was a merry old soul And a merry old soul was he. This is synonymous. The following is synthetic: I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart. And he says, "The fact is, poetry was primitively the art of saying the same beautiful things over and over again in similarly charming ways, which rhymed and sang back to each other not in sound only but in sense as well. 'Deep calleth unto deep,' tree to tree, bird to bird all over the world. . . . The poet is more careful at first that they are balanced in meaning than in rhythm, though as his art develops he controls this also." If parallelism is a universal instinct, born of a feeling for the rhythm of life, the interesting fact for us is that the Hebrews perfected it beyond any other people. To-day the "i'',?&«X.?I§s!'.JVlriters are claiming kinship with these Bibli cal poets. A little later we will see wherein such likeness may lie. Just now we should bear in mind that the key to Biblical poetry is rhythm of thought. Where then does prose stop and poetry begin ? It seems hard to tell some times. More and more scholars have been arriving at the conclusion that much of the prophetic material which used to be considered^£roseJs_really poetry. They have always considered it very lofty prose, prose-poetry it has often been called. Mr. Newbolt in commenting on John Ruskin com pares his style with that of Amos and Isaiah and says, "The elevation of mood beyond a certain point tends to force the utterance into a marked rhythm." Great thoughts certainly need adequate expression, beautiful thoughts beau tiful expression. Flaubert and his school of thinkers say "there is no such thing as beautiful thought without beau tiful form." However, there may be quite perfect and beautiful form with no great thought beneath, whereas a great thought may be able to be perceived underneath a very limping expression. Perhaps this is the fundamental HEBREW POETRY 137 difference between modem "free verse" and Biblical poetry ,J not that the way of expressing rhythm is different but that| the thought of the one is profound and spiritually deepi' while the other deals more with the surface images of this material world. Another way of distinguishing between prose and poetry is as to the kind of thought expressed. Mr. Newbolt as serts that "poetry is the expression in human language of our intuitions : prose is the expression of our judgments." He would have judgments to do with scientific reasoning upon material facts. Intuition goes deeper than that, he thinks. "Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge — it is as immortal as the heart of man. ... I am convinced that the supreme artistic power is that of drawing upon a spirit which lies below the separate personality, a fellowship which is not limited by the material form of life. . . . The magical phrases or rhythms of a poem, which alone stir the human spirit deeply, are those which so remind us of life, and so revive life in us, that whether for pleasure or for ¦pain we may have life more abundantly." It is, then, a profound thought seeking to express itself in the natural rh3rthms of life which makes great poetry, and Hebrew poetry has proved itself great, for even when largely hidden under a prose form and not understood in the technical sense as poetry, it was really recognized as such in its effect upon the mind and spirit of man, even in a translation. How then did scholars discover the marks of a poetic form when the Hebrew text was not written so that the eye could readily detect the verse structure? One of the first things observed was that there is a ^ifferentorder of words in certain sections from the normal prose; then that there are numerous ellipses and compressions, that words are used which are archaic for the particular period in which the section is found, that more musical forms are used than the ordinary diction, that musical words are put in promi nent positions. With all these irregularities of arrange ment there results such a distribution of accents or stresses that a rhythmical effect is produced when the line is read. 138 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Add to this the discovery of the thought scheme, jar parallel- ism, in the sequence of lines, and the key to Hebrew poetry is found. There is one other prominent characteristic which should be observed and that is the poet's love for vgrbal images. This indeed is natural to all Hebrew writers, and yetlEere is a difference between the more prosaic and literally minded writers and the more poetic image makers. Professor Bliss Perry thinks that the power to make verbal images is th£ characteristic of the poet, that the intuitional faculty which produces the seer — the sense of relations, the power to feel acutely — is found in all people with the artistic tempera ment, however they may express themselves, but that the poet possesses exclusively as his own the power of imagina tion which can turn words into pictures. "The real dif ference between the poet and other men is rather to be traced in his capacity for making and employing verbal images of a certain kind, and combining these images into rhythmical and metrical designs. . . . The plasticity of the world as it appears to the mind of the poet is clearly evi denced by the swarm of images which present themselves to the poet's consciousness." Although verbal imagery seems, therefore, to be char acteristic of all poets, to-day the poets of the new school are called "imagists," as if they especially appropriated this faculty. It is true that their concentration of attention upon producing realistic pictures has resulted in very vivid images but the subject matter for such pictures is for the most part "the report of retinal, auditory or tactile images and nothing more. . . . The radical defect of imagist verse, as such, is in its lack of general ideas." ^^ The Hebrew poets were not behind in this power to report in words the pictures made upon the senses by experiences in life. A student of the Hebrew language recognizes at once the highly metaphorical character of the most ordinary 13 Bliss Perry, A Study of Poetry. HEBREW POETRY 139 utterance.^* Following are some of the verbs which are lised to express spiritual states or activities by physical acts : to cut meaning to decide to mould meaning to create to stroke one's face meaning to entreat to stretch out the hands meaning to pray to walk in the way meaning to follow to hear meaning to obey to see meaning to understand to be fat meaning to be stupid to be hard of heart meaning to be obtuse to be stiff-necked meaning to be proud to breathe hard. through the nostrils meaning to be angry or to break in pieces (The noun corresponding to this latter verb means splinters.) SmelUng is used to describe pleasure. It is indeed true, however, that some of their poetry seems purely sensuous like the following example in the Song of Songs: I rose up to open to my beloved; And my hands dropped with myrrh. And my fingers with liquid myrrh. Upon the handles of the bolt. or this: Who is she that looketk forth as the morning. Fair as the moon. Clear as the sun, "Terrible as an army with banners? But the Song of Songs is a great exception to Biblical poetry so far as its thought is concerned. It is the lightest and most materialistic of all the poetry to be found in the 14 In the middle of the nineteenth century the brilliant French scholar, Renan, called attention to this characteristic of the Hebrew language, thus helping on the work begun by Bishop Lowth in bringing to light the essen tially poetic qualities of Hebrew style. 140 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Bible. It offers indeed such a contrast to the rest that many people from rabbinical times down to the present have questioned its place in Scripture. It reveals the fact that the Hebrews were capable of all sorts of poetry but that the choice collection of their literature which has been preserved to us in the Bible was for the most part of a lofty tone, — that its uplifting and enduring character was due to its depth of thought, its profound religious intuition, rather than to the mere power of making pictures. Mrs. Wilkinson in her chapter upon "Images and Sym bols" ^^ gives a unique reason for the religious thought of the Bible thus being so graphically presented. We quote at length for it is very interesting : "As we all know, the ancient Hebrews were forbidden by their religion to make graven images of persons or animals. This may have been the first Puritanical prohibition against the arts of painting and sculpture. But unlike many of our Puritanical pro hibitions against the arts, it may have served a good pur pose. The Hebrews were a small people, numerically, liv ing in a small country, surrounded by other peoples whose worship was sensual and crude. Perhaps they worshipped Jahveh more spiritually and cleanly because they were not permitted to make an image of Him, or of the creatures made in His image. Perhaps that is one reason why the Hebrews gave the world a monotheistic religion, a religion spiritually perceived. . . . "Now in all strong races the desire to give form and substance to ideas and emotions is strong and keenly felt. The Hebrews were no exception to this rule, and the images which they were not allowed to make with their fingers they made -with their minds ^* and gave to the world in a literature strong and clear and beautiful. The reader can not find, I suppose, in all the literature written or rewritten in our language, a more excellent description of old age than that in Ecclesiastes. It is a superb description because it is a universal truth stated in symbols that are absolutely 15 New Voices. 16 Italics are not in the original. HEBREW POETRY 141 true and appropriate. The majesty of these metaphors has given this passage everlasting life. {Ecclesiastes 12 : 1-7) Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain; in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; yea, they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond-tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets : before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it. "Let US take a single verse of this chapter and translate it into plain prose statement. Instead of saying 'In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble,' let us say, 'In the days when a man's arms have grown weak'; instead of 'and the strong men shall bow themselves,' let us say, 'When the legs are bent'; instead of 'and the grinders shall cease because they are few,' 'when a man is losing his teeth and his ability to masticate'; and instead of 'and those that look out of the windows be darkened,' 'when a man grows blind.' Having done this we find that we have stated a scientific fact. But we have stated it quite un feelingly. And therefore, when we say it in this fashion, we awaken no sense of wistf ulness, fear, tenderness, regret or compassion in the reader. Whereas the great original, by its transcendent beauty and truth imaginatively expressed, reaches our minds and hearts and abides with us." Thus does a critic,- who appreciates the New Voices in a dis criminating way, point out the high value of Hebrew imagery. And one thing more the Hebrew poet did, he drew his pictures with a few bold strokes and left them to work in 142 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE the mind. In other words he was wonderfully concise and suggestive in his best moods, not verbose and didactic. For example, there could be no more graphic picture of the progress of a battle than that in Nahum 3, and notice it is conciseness itself, only three verses long: Woe to the City of Blood I Full of lies and plunder! There is no limit to the spoil. The noise of the whip. The noise of the rattling of wheels. And prancing horses. And bounding chariots. The horsemen mounting. And the flashing sword. And the glitt'ring spear. And a multitude of slain. And a great heap of corpses. And there is no end of bodies; They stumble upon their bodies. Another brief but most vivid description of the defeat of an army is drawn in the wonderful little poem at the close of the seventeenth chapter of Isaiah, where the noisy terror of the approaching army is likened to the booming of the waves on the harborless coast, and their swift flight to the blowing of the chaff from an out-of-doors threshing-floor. when a whirlwind strikes it. Ah ! the booming of the peoples, the multitudes ! Like the booming of the seas they boom. And the rushing of the nations. Like the rushing of mighty waters they rush : But Yahweh rebuketh him And he fleeth afar off, and is chased Like the chaff on the mountains, before the wind. And like whirling dust before the whirlwind.^''' This is the text of Byron's famous Destruction of Senna- charib. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. 17 See translations by G. A. Smith and G. B. Gray. HEBREW POETRY 143 But he takes twenty-four lines to tell what the Old Testa ment writer pictured in eight lines. This last example shows how the Old Testament loved contrast: the dark and the light, sorrow and joy, wicked ness and uprightness, punishment and salvation, were placed sharply against one another to make each the more vivid. Thus we have the third psalm which is "a drama in two scenes," a night scene of discouragement, a morning picture of triumphant courage. The prophet Isaiah is continually balancing despair with hope, and Hosea closes his sad por trayal of a profligate people with the beautiful and tender promise of a forgiven and regenerated Israel. This is only the principle of the characteristic antithetic parallel carried out to a more elaborate degree. Musical devices were sometimes employed. Rhyme was not very frequent, as we have said, but alliteration and onomatopoeia were favorites. Compare for example the imitation of the sound of the booming waves in the more correct translations of the seventeenth of Isaiah ^^ with Lowell's Pictures from Appledore: Ribs of rock that seaward jut. Granite shoulders and boulders and snags. Round which, though the winds in heaven be shut. The nightmared ocean murmurs and yearns. Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and turns. Compare this also with the pounding of the horses' hoofs as they tried to escape in Deborah's Song: Then pounded the hoofs of the horses. With the galloping, galloping of their powerful steeds. Compare the assonance of Samson's rhyme : With the jawbone of an ass They massed a mass. and the alliteration of Micah's prophecy: Tell it not in Tell-town, In Weep-town weep. 18 As given above. 144 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE with Drinkwater's description of falling leaves: Spinning, spinning, spun and sped. or Masefield's Song o' Shipwreck: He lolled on a bollard, a sun-burned son of the sea. or Milton's lines : Behemoth, biggest-born of earth. Upheaved his vastness. Of course the imitation of a translator is only a feeble attempt to convey the rhythm of sounds in the original language. And we may well question whether the frequent forms of alliteration and assonance are not quite adequate substitutes for our more favorite form of end-rhyme. "Rhyme is a gratification of expectation, like a repetition of a chord in music or of colors in a rug. As long as the ear receives the pleasure afforded by accordant sound, any of the various historical forms of rhyme may serve." ^' It may be alliteration, assonance, or "end-rhyme." There are then six main characteristics of the structure of Hebrew poetry, rhythm of thought which is brought out through parallelism and through the strophic form ; a meter of accent rather than of the number of syllables ; a verbal imagery which is very vivid ; a love of conciseness ; a love of contrast; a frequent use of alliteration and assonance and rarely of end-rhyme. Note on Musical Terms Used in the Psalms It must be remembered that the title inserted at the be ginning of the psalm does not belong to the original poem but was added later, in many cases after the song had begun to be used in the service of worship. In those titles and at certain points within the psalm are terms which were in serted for a variety of reasons. Some of them denote the 19 Bliss Perry, A Study of Poetry. HEBREW POETRY 145 original collection of hymns from which a particular psalm was taken, for the five hymn books in the Psalter were made up, as our hymn books of to-day, by drawing from older collections. The word "song" (as in the title of Psalm 45, Numbers 21 : 17, Isaiah 5:1) is very early and means an ode; "miktam" (as in the title of Psalm 16) means literally a "golden" piece, a choice hymn. There are seven of these which are very artistic in form and choice in content; probably there were others of this collection which have been lost. Our word "psalm" comes from the Greek psalmos, which was the translation of the Septuagint for the Hebrew mizmor and which meant a song to be used in public worship. "Maskil" (as in the title of Psalm 32) means a meditative poem, and the psalms which bear this title came from an early source. The words "psalm of David" are found in the title of seventy-four and they are most of them prayers. This collection, then, was an early prayer book. Modern scholars think they could not all have been written by David but that the book was given his name because he wrote some of the very earliest and best ones. There are thirteen titles which make reference to some incidents in his life and therefore those psalms are thought by some to have been written by him, but this is not an accurate test since the titles are additions. The oldest psalms according to the three tests, historical refer ences, literary style, and content of thought, are found to be Psalms 7, 13, 18, 23, 24:7-10, 60: 1-4, 110, which were written doubtless in the time of the beginning of the mon archy. Then there are names which evidently refer to singers or choir leaders. Perhaps these hymns were dedicated to them or the collection was made by them. Such are "sons of Korah" and "Asaph" and "for the chief musician." Again there are terms denoting musical instruction as to tunes, time to be sung, musical accompaniments, kind of voices, and place for the doxology. (a) Tunes — Psalms 56 and 60 illustrate this; the title of Psalm 56 says "set to Jonath elem rehokim or as the margin translates it — 146 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE 'The dove of the distant terebinths" ; the title of Psalm 60 says "set to Shushan Eduth" or "The lily of testimony." This is like our hymn books saying "sing to the tune of 'Rock of Ages.' " (b) Occasions — Psalm 8 illustrates this, "Gittith" mean ing a harvest song. "Hallel" in Psalm 111 and others means a song of praise. "For the thank-offering" is in the title of Psalm 100, denoting a particular service. (c) Doxologies or benedictions close each hymn book Psalms 41 : 13 ; 72 : 18, 19 ; 89 :-52 ; 106 : 48. Psalm 150 is a doxology of six verses closing the Psalter. (d) Musical accompaniments — "Nehiloth" in the title of Psalm 5 means probably the flute. In the title of Psalm 4 the words translated "on stringed instruments" mean probably the lyre or harp. (e) Kind of voices — The word "Sheminith" in the title of Psalm 6 means "the eighth" or "on the octave." This psalm is therefore supposed to be intended for bass voices on the lower octave. "Alamoth" in the title of Psalm 46 is considered to mean for sopranos, but women were not allowed to take part in the service, therefore this perhaps was meant for boys' voices. (f) Pause for doxology. The word selah often inserted in the body of the psalm is thought to mark a break when a doxology would be appropriate, since the word "selah" means "lift up," that is probably "lift up the voice in praise." This is like our singing the "Gloria" or the "Amen" at the proper place. BOOKS TO CONSULT Briggs, Psalms, International Critical Commentary. Introduction. Gordon, A. R., The Poets of the Old Testament, Ch. VI, The Psalter. Hastings' Dictionary of Bible — article; Poetry. Encyclopedia Biblica — article : Poetry. HEBREW POETRY 147 SECTION III : EXAMPLES PATRIOTIC POETRY EARLY PATRIOTIC SONGS National consciousness does not appear full-fledged at first in the history of any people. A nation's life passes through many stages just as the life of the individual does. A child does not come to full consciousness of what he is and the part he has to play for many years ; indeed after the first realization of himself as an individual member of the family group there are many subsequent realizations which dawn upon him by degrees. So it is with a nation. Consequently, in reading the ancient records of the Old Testament we must remember two things: first, that they were written after the tribes had become a nation and the consciousness of their destiny had arrived, and that there is always a tendency to assume that what later generations take for granted was taken for granted by their forbears; and second, that there are many evidences even in the records themselves that the national ideal was at first only a tiny germ, small as a mustard seed, although destined to grow to be great and far-reaching. We here present some of those germs of the national consciousness which were later to develop into real national ideals of a lofty character. They were naturally cast in poetic form, first because they were primitive and second because the Hebrew genius was a poetic genius. The Nation's Birth Song, Genesis 25 : 23. And Yahweh said unto her. Two nations are in thy womb Two peoples part from thy bowels; People shall crush down people; The elder shall serve the younger. It is quite obvious here that the birth of two infants from the same womb refers to the birth of two nations or tribes 148 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE who became hostile to one another, the one attempting to subdue the other. It was not the first one to appear who became the strongest in the end but on the contrary it was the younger. This verse occurs imbedded in the story of Rebekah, Isaac's wife, at the birth of the twin sons, Jacob and Esau. It is quite evident that the verse itself refers to the two nations, that of the Israelites and that of the Edomites, tribes living adjacent to one another, known to be of the same stock, but always jealous and hateful in their attitude to each other. The Israelites finally became the more important and handed down to future generations whatever was worthy of immortality. The poetic form of the lines in the midst of this tale indicates that they were much earlier than the prose story built around them. In deed this verse belongs to the period of folk-poetry, later than the "Song of the Sword" and the "Song of the Well" but representing the dawning of national feeling amidst the birth-struggles of tribal rivalry. Earlier even than this was the so-called Blessing of Noah, Genesis 9 : 25-27. Cursed be Canaan ! Slave of slaves let him be to his brethren! Yahweh bless Shem's tents ; And let Canaan be his slave! God enlarge Japheth! His dweUing be Shem's tents ; And let Canaan be his slave ! 2" This also is printed as poetry in our Revised Version but the meter is not brought out so well as in later translations. To the same period as the first, that of the early mon archy, belongs Isaac's Blessing, Genesis 27 : 27-29. See, the scent of my son. As the scent of a plentiful field, 20 See A. R. Gordon, The Poets of the Old Testament, for translations of this and previous poem. HEBREW POETRY 149 Which Yahweh hath blessed. Give thee God from heaven's dew. And from fats of the earth. Wealth of corn and wine! Serve thee the tribes. Bow to thee peoples! Be lord to thy brothers. Thy mother's sons bow to thee ! Who curse thee be cursed. And who bless thee be blessed I ^^ The meter of this poem is mixed, some lines having two and some three stresses. It is quite apparent that it has a national meaning in verse 29. The Blessing of Joseph In Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 we have what are called "Jacob's Blessing" and "Moses' Blessing." The various tribes are mentioned and Jacob, the patriarch, and Moses, the deliverer, are represented as pronouncing these oracles. It was a custom for fathers to gather their sons about them at their death beds and pronounce blessings on their future. But that these particular oracles were pro nounced by Jacob and Moses seems scarcely possible. The setting of the poems and the words employed indicate a date of composition after the tribes were well settled in Canaan. Perhaps different parts were composed at dif ferent times. The blessing upon Joseph evidently stands for a blessing upon the Northern Kingdom or Ephraim, as that kingdom was often called, the two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, representing the two sons of Joseph. The similarities of this section of the two poems cause scholars to feel that this part at least was drawn from a common source, probably one of the earliest national poems Israel composed. It may have existed even earlier than the date of the Ephraimite kingdom, in the time of the Judges when two kingdoms were unthought of, or of David when the tribes had not yet settled down to be a nation. The poet may have taken a tradition of the blessing of the patriarch and cast it in this form. 21 G. A. Smith's translation. 150 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Genesis 49 : 22 ff. A fruitful bough is Joseph, A fruitful bough by a spring; With off-shoots o'ermounting the wall. And they bitterly vexed him and shot, And the archers pursued him with hate: But his bow abode in strength, And his arms and hands were made strong. By the hands of the Mighty of Jacob. Blessings of heaven above. Blessings of the deep that croucheth under, Blessings of breasts and womb, Blessings of the everlasting mountains. The desire of the eternal hills. May they be upon Joseph's head. On the head of him crowned among brothers.^^ The lines omitted have evidently seen corruption and inter polation. Deuteronomy 33 : Off. Blessed of Yahweh be his land. From the choice fruits of heaven, from the dew. And from the deep that coucheth beneath: And from the choice fruits of the crops of the sun. And from the choice fruits of the yield of the months; And from the top of the ancient mountains, And from the choice fruits of the everlasting hills; And from the choice fruits of the earth and its fullness. And the favor of him that dwelt in the bush — Let them come upon the head of Joseph, And upon the crown of the head of him that is prince among his brethren ! His firstling bullock, — it hath majesty, And its horns are horns of a wild-ox; With them he pusheth peoples. All together the ends of the earth : Those are the myriads of Ephraim, And those are the thousands of Manasseh.^s The Oracles of Balaam The Oracles of Balaam preserve for us certain delightftil characteristics of the earliest Hebrew poetry and national 22 E. G. King's translation. 23 S. R. Driver's translation. HEBREW POETRY 151 enthusiasm. The poems are imbedded in a charmingly naive and symbolic tale of how the people of the adjacent territory of Moab became quite frightened at the rapidly increasing strength of this newly-come tribe of Israelites; and of how the Moabite king called to his aid a noted diviner or seer by the name of Balaam whose blessings or curses had heretofore been known to be effective. The chiefs of Moab and Midian joined in this precautionary measure of invoking an evil spell upon their much feared enemy. The story tells us that "the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand," and that Balaam was evidently considerably tempted by these offers, but his loyalty to the true spirit of prophecy would not allow him to give expression to anything false and so he was obliged to pronounce a blessing on Israel rather than curses as had been desired. The power given to the dumb ass to speak in protest against such an unholy mission adds an embellishment to the story, not unknown in other ancient literatures. The poems reveal a crude, childish conception of Yah weh's protection, also a survival of the heathen regard for the office of the diviner, but at the same time a transition period from superstitious reverence for the magic power of a seer, to regard for a prophet because he is inspired to speak the truth. They also picture a period when the Israelites were in the heyday of their enthusiasm over be coming a really powerful people, growing in numbers and prosperity so that their neighbors stood in fear of them, instead of standing in fear of their neighbors as had been the case for so long. The words and style of the lines suggest the very earliest literary epoch. For all these reasons the date of the oracles is placed in the first days of the monarchy before the division of the kingdom. It is quite apparent in Numbers 24 : 7 that there was a king and that his kingdom was a unit. The meter is for the most part trimeter but some lines have four accents and others two, such irregularities being more common in early poetry than in later periods. 152 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Notice the progress of thought in the oracles. In the first is stated the absolute refusal to damn a people whom God has not damned, in the second Moab's attention is called to the fact that God is evidently blessing Israel; in the third the details of Israel's prosperity are made vivid; and finally in the fourth Moab is warned to look out for her own future as the prophet pictures the supremacy of Israel. First Oracle (Numbers 23 : 7-10) From Aram Balak doth bring me, Moab's king from hills of the East: "Go curse me Yakob, And go damn Israel." How curse I, whom God curseth not. And how damn Yahweh hath not damned? For from the rock's-head I see him. And from the heights I behold him. Lo, a people dwelling alone. Nor reckons itself with the nations. Who hath measured the dust of Yakob, Or counted Israel's myriads? May I die the death of the upright. And like his be my end I ^^ Second Oracle {Numbers 23 : 18-24) Arise, Balak, and hearken. Give ear to me, son of Zippor! God is not man to belie, Nor man's son to repent. Hath He said, and doth not perform, Or spoken and will not fulfil it? Behold, to bless I have gotten, And, blessing, I .vill not reverse it. I mark nothing wrong with Yakob, Nor spy any stain on Israel; Yahweh, his God, is with him. And the noise of a King is upon him. 'Tis God out of Egypt tiiat brings him. And his is the strength of the wild-ox. For magic is not in Yakob, To Israel, what God hath wrought. Lo, the folk like a lioness riseth. And like to a lion uprears; Nor will couch till he eateth the prey. And drinketh the blood of the slain. 24 These are translations of G. A. Smith. HEBREW POETRY 153 Third Oracle (Numbers 24:3-9) Oracle of Balaam, Beor's son. And oracle of the eye-sealed man. Who heareth the speech of God, In vision seeth Shaddai,2*a Falling down, yet open of eye. How goodly thy tents, Yakob, Thy dwellings, Israel! Like valleys they spread. Like riverside gardens. Like cedars God planted. Like oaks upon water. Streams water from's buckets. His seed's on great waters. Higher is his king than Agog And lifted his kingdom. 'Tis God out of Egypt that brings him. And his is the strength of the wild-ox. He hath crouched, hath couched like a lion. Like a lioness who shall rouse him? Let him eat the nations his foes. And their bones let him crunch I Shatter his oppressors ! Who bless thee be blessed. And cursed who curse thee. Fourth Oracle (Numbers 24 : 15-19) Oracle of Balaam, Beor's son. And oracle of the eye-sealed man. Who heareth the speech of God, And knows what the Highest doth know; In vision he seeth Shaddai, Falling down, yet open of eye. I see him — but not now, I descry him — but not near. A star has gone up from Yakob, A sceptre from Israel rises. And shatters the brows of Moab, The skulls of all sons of Sheth. And Edom shall be dispossessed. And dispossessed be Seir ; ^^b While Israel gains in might. And Yakob doth rule them, his foes, And the rest of Seir doth perish. 24a A name for Yahweh. 24b A mountainous district of Edom. 154 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE LATER PATRIOTIC SONGS AND PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE The Prologue and Epilogue to the Blessing of Moses, Deuteronomy 33 : 2-5, 26-29. These lines belong together as the frame-work for the earlier material in the body of the poem. They were evi dently written in a more advanced period than any of the poems already considered, some scholars think even as late as exilic times, since they seem quite similar to some psalms of that date. However that may be, they show great national pride and trust in Yahweh as loving his people and protecting them as a father holds and protects his children in his arms. w. 2-5 w. 26-29 The Lord from Sinai is come And risen on us from Seir, Hath flashed from the hills of Paran, And sped from Meribath-Kadesh, From the South blazed fire on them. Lover indeed of His people. His hallowed are all in His hand. They, they fall at Thy feet. They take up thine orders. Moses commanded us law. His domain is the Assembly of Yakob, And King He became in Yeshurun, When the heads of the people were gathered. The tribes of Israel were one. None like the God of Yeshurun ! — Riding the heavens to thy help. And the skies in His loftiness. The eternal God is thy refuge. And beneath are the arms everlasting. He drove out before thee the foe. And He said Destroy! So Israel dwelt securely. Secluded the fount of Yakob. HEBREW POETRY 155 On a land of corn and wine. His heavens too dropped with dew. Happy thou Israel! Who is like thee? A people saved by the Lord. He is the shield of thy help. And the sword that exalts thee; Till thy foes come to thee fawning. But thou on their heights dost march.^^ The Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32. Another famous poem found in the book of Deuteronomy is called "The Song of Moses." It could not have been spoken by him as asserted by the editor of the book in the last verse of the previous chapter ; the historical background, although of uncertain date, shows itself plainly to be after the Israelites had been led out of the wilderness and had settled down as a nation in a fruitful land, becoming pros perous. In their prosperity they had forgotten their God, and had adopted the customs and beliefs of their neighbors ; these neighbors, turning foes, had punished them sadly. Some scholars place the poem as late as the exilic period. while others think the Syrian opposition would supply the setting. In any event the song is a very stirring national appeal, and there are two or three very frequently quoted couplets. Doctor George Adam Smith thus characterizes it: "Though not comparable to other masterpieces of He brew poetry either for beauty of metaphor, or musical dic tion, or fineness of spiritual insight, this strong poem is distinguished by the fire, force, and sweep of its superb rhetoric. Granted its limits — for it is neither an epic nor a lyric, but a didactic ode addressed with a practical pur pose to a sinful generation — it has no peer in the Old Testament." Following is a partial translation.^® Give ear, O Heavens, let me speak. And let Earth hear the words of my mouth. May my message drop as the rain. My speech distil as the dew, 25 G. A. Smith's translation. 26 See G. A. Smith, Deuteronomy, Cambridge Bible. 156 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Like mists on the grass. And like showers on the herb. For the name of the Lord I proclaim. To one God give the greatness! Remember the days of old. Scan the years, age upon age; Ask of thy sire that he shew thee. Thine elders, that they may tell thee. When the Highest gave nations their heritage. When He sundered the children of men. He set the bounds of the peoples By the tale of Israel's sons. For the Lord's own lot is Jacob, Israel the scale of His heritage. In a desert land He found him. In the void and howl of the waste. He swept around him. He scanned him. As the pupil of His eye He watched him. As an eagle stirreth his nest, Fluttereth over his young, Spreadeth his wings, doth catch them, Beareth them up on his pinions. The Lord alone was his leader. And never a strange god with Him. He made him to ride the highlands, And to eat of the fruit of the hills, Suckled him with honey from the crag And oil of the flinty rock. Curd of the kine, milk of the flock. With the fatness of lambs and of rams. Bulls of Bashan and he-goats. With the finest flour of the wheat — And the grape's blood thou drankest in foam! Jacob ate and was full, Fat waxed Jeshurun and kicked, — Thou wast fat, thou wast plump, thou wast sleek! — He forsook the God who had made him. And befooled the Rock of his succour. With strangers they moved Him by jealousy. With abominations provoked Him, They sacrificed to demons not God, Gods whom they never had known. New ones, lately come in. Your sires never trembled at them. Of the Rock that thee bare thou wast mindless. And forgattest the God that had travailed with thee. For not as our Rock is their rock. Our foes being judges; HEBREW POETRY 157 Their grapes are poisonous grapes. Bitterest clusters are theirs. Their wine is the venom of dragons. The pitiless poison of asps. Vengeance is mine and requital What time their foot shall slip. For the Lord shall judge for His people. And relent for His servants' sake. When He sees that their grip is gone. Nor fast nor free remaineth. See now that I, I am He, And never a god beside me. I do to death and revive, I shattered and I shall heal. Sing, O ye nations. His people. For His servants' blood He avengeth. And vengeance He wreaks on His foes. And assoils the land of His people. Several points should be noted in this poem. National history is personified in apt and vivid imagery, the pictures being drawn from all sorts of every-day observations; for example, Israel's rebelliousness in prosperity is compared to that of a fat, kicking steer, God's care to that of an eagle stirring up her nest and fluttering over her young, teach ing them how to fly, a most accurate and minute observation ; the fruits of evil are likened to bitter, poisonous grapes, and the slipping foot and loosening hold of the people is like that of a mountain climber who has lost his strength. But in the nation's distress the real God, Israel's God, comes to their help; because of this wonderful help of a wonder ful God the prelude calls upon the heavens and the earth to hear the refreshing, invigorating message of the poet, whose restoring.effects will be like the heavy dew or grateful showers on the parched, withered grass, a phenomenon most thankfully observed by them in the long rainless summer months. The last lines exhort every one who recognizes such a God to shout and sing for joy. The Hebrew word translated "sing" is the "most ringing" of the verbs with this meaning. But with all the homeliness and 158 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE every-dayness of phraseology and all the exuberance of exultation, the style maintains an impressive dignity. Thus its artistic secret as a great song is apparent. More over, being a very religious patriotic song, it appeals to other peoples and other ages besides that of the Israelitish kingdom; its significance is more than local, it is universal. Yet the conception of God as a God of vengeance and of blood reflects the crudeness of the age compared with the later prophetic picture of Him as a God who forgives even His enemies. Dr. Smith's metrical translation brings out the rhythm but "as Hebrew — especially by virtue of its verbal suffixes — can express by one word with one accent ideas or feelings which it takes two or three to express in English, the rhythmical translation offered is only a rough approximation to the meter of the original. As in many Hebrew poems, there is no division into strophes. The rush of the rhetoric does not allow of this." We only wish we might have been there and heard the people themselves sing it. The Grand Processional, Psalm 24: 7-10. The interpretation of this very early national song has already been given under The Structure of Hebrew Poetry.^'' This was very likely one of the few to have been composed by David. If so, it shows his genius most ad mirably; not only a fighter and an administrator was he, but a man of poetic fire and dramatic feeling, who could stage a musical pageant and write the choric parts. The Pilgrim Psalter, Psalms 120-134. There are fifteen of these psalms in one of the Hebrew hymn books, five hymn books comprising our book of Psalms. They are highly religious in tone, but, as we have already seen, religious songs among the Hebrews were more than likely to express patriotic sentiment. Pilgrim ages were made from all parts of the country up to Jeru- 2TP. 134. HEBREW POETRY 159 salem, the capital, to celebrate the great annual festivals. Caravans of people were formed to make the journey on foot; those from the more remote districts became long processions as they gathered up the folk from the various villages through which they passed. When companies to day are journeying together to the same place with a com mon purpose and spirit in their hearts they cannot refrain from bursting out in song. What is more modern than to hear such community singing as the train or the trolley pulls into a town for a football game, a religious convention, a Fourth of July celebration ? Yet the custom is by no means modern ; centuries ago, even two millenniums ago, it existed in the ancient world. Imagine the earnest, imaginative, dramatic Hebrew pilgrims traveling along the well-worn, ancient road from the north, over the hills and vales of Samaria, through the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerezim, stopping to drink at Jacob's Well with all its patri archal associations ; or crossing the Jordan and going down on the eastern side, then back again by "the Pilgrim Ford" near Jericho and finally up over the steep, rocky slopes of the Mount of Olives, there catching the first glimpse of Jerusalem, the Holy City, and of the glittering dome of the Temple, Yahweh's House. Think of the women marching together in one section of the caravan, the men in another ; families, kinsfolk, and neighbors, greeting additions to the procession as they join the caravan at various villages, tell ing each other the latest gossip, inquiring concerning the welfare of friends and acquaintances, exchanging opinions on the signs of the times, sympathizing with each other over bad or good fortune, their poverty or their prosperity, their hopes and their fears; and at night camping out under the stars, singing a psalm of gratitude for a safe day's journey and a prayer for Yahweh's protection during the darkness ; finally, on the last stretch of the road, breaking out in exultant pride and joy over their capital city, the strong hold of their nation. One can follow the men in their talk about wars and rumors of wars and then hear them singing loudly, very thankfully, 160 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE I am for peace or again If it had not been Jehovah who was on our side, When men rose up against us : Then they had swallowed us up alive. or thus Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; The snare is broken and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of Jehovah, Who made heaven and earth. In days of anxiety they would remind Jehovah of His promises, Jehovah, remember for David All his affliction. Jehovah hath sworn unto David in truth; He will not tum from it. When they contrasted a quarrelsome town with a har monious village they voiced their thoughts in such lines as these. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity I In prosperous days they would consult together about the best way to build a house and congratulate each other on their homes, singing. Except Jehovah build the house. They labor in vain that build it. Except Jehovah keep the city The watchman waketh but in vain. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine. In the innermost parts of thy house; Thy children like olive plants. Round about thy table. Perhaps it was the women who were talking over their oppressors whose wives lived at ease when they sang HEBREW POETRY l6l Exceedingly we are filled with contempt. Exceedingly our soul is filled With the scorn of those without care.^s or telling of their troubles when some one would start such a verse as My soul waiteth for the Lord More than watchmen wait for the morning. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother. When they were recalling the days of their release from captivity they expressed their strong emotions in words like these. When Jehovah brought back those that returned to Zion, We were like unto them that dream. They that sow in tears Shall reap in joy. Then these farmer folk, recalling their afflictions as they passed a man plowing his ground would think in metaphors and sing, The plowers plowed upon my back; They made long their furrows. As they passed a house with its thatched roof springing up in a thin growth of sickly-looking grass, they thought it would be a good curse upon their enemies to wish them such unproductiveness as compared with the rich harvest of the fields : Let them be as the grass upon the housetops. Which withereth before it groweth up. And as they came up to Mount Zion itself in deepest rever ence they would sing. Lift up your hands to the sanctuary. And bless ye Jehovah. 28 These three lines are Briggs' translation. 162 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE The two psalms of this interesting collection most fre quently quoted are Psalm 121 and Psalm 125. Psalm 121 was probably sung as they approached the high mountains on' the last lap of their journey and camped overnight al most in sight of the Holy City. This is stairlike parallelism and the beauty of the rhythm of thought comes out best when read antiphonally. Psalm 125 was also sung near the journey's end, perhaps when Jerusalem burst upon the vision on the shoulder of the Mount of Olives. The last part of the psalm as we have it in our text was probably of a different date than the first part, for it reflects strife rather than peace and pros perity. The Great Doxology, Psalm 150. At the close of each one of the five hymn books compos ing the Psalter there is a benediction or doxology. (Psalm 41 : 13 ; 72 : 18-20 ; 89 : 52 ; 106 : 48 ; and 150.) Psalm 150 is the closing doxology for the entire Psalter. This last hymn book is full of what are known as Halle lujah Psalms or Hallels, that is, Songs of Praise. The words Hallel Yah (or jah) meant Praise Yah or Yahweh, transliterated into the Greek as dWrjXovia and into English as Hallelujah. There are four groups of these Hallels, Psalms 104-107; Psalms 111-117; Psalms 135-136; Psalms 146-150. Psalms 113 and 114 were sung at the Passover Feast before the supper, and Psalms 115-118 after it. With some of the Psalms the Hallelujah was not a part of the hymn itself but preceded it and closed it as we close our hymns with an Amen. But in Psalm 150 it is a part of the poem, as it is in Psalm 147. The last line should repeat it three times to make the meter right. These songs were of course especially for liturgical pur poses and were composed when the liturgy of the Temple service was quite elaborate. Psalm 136 is called "The Great Hallel," where the refrain is repeated twenty-six times, as the arrangement now stands, although perhaps originally the hymn was much simpler. They were written HEBREW POETRY 16S in the Greek Period, some of them as late as the Macca- bean. Psalm 150 was one of the latest of the writings of the Old Testament, perhaps about 140 B.C., and it puts the seal of praise upon all the religious poetry of the Hebrews. For the Hebrews were a peculiarly praiseful people, not withstanding the dark pictures they drew and the com plaints they made. There was no ancient nation that had such a sense of sin, but there was no nation that expressed such gratitude to God for His greatness and power. His glory and beauty, and for His deliverance of His people from their sinful and hampered states. It is fitting that the entire group of hymn books, representing the collections of many centuries should be closed with such a triumphant Hallelujah Chorus as the Great Doxology. The First of the Hallels, Psalm 104. It is to be noticed that this poem has seven strophes of eight lines each. Extra lines were evidently put in by later editors, which destroy the symmetry and are for the most part redundant in thought. These redundant lines are verses 8, 15a, 16b, 17a, 20, 24b and c, 26a, 27b, 29c, 32, 33, 35. The trustful adoration expressed for the God who not only is Creator of both Nature and man, but cares lovingly for all his creatures, is very Christlike in tone. The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6: 9-15, Luke 11 : 1-4. This classic prayer of the Christian faith is really a poem. It is a People's Prayer also, a community expression. It has been called The Disciples' Prayer rather than the Lord's Prayer, for it belongs peculiarly to groups of disciples who are following the Lord. It is built quite apparently upon the principles of poetic parallelism which underlie Old Testament poetry, although it is written in the Greek, a language foreign to the Hebrew genius. So strong, how ever, was the call of their own native originality that it must burst forth in characteristic form even in an adopted tongue. It quite fulfills the definition of a lyric. Certainly prayers may be lyrics. It has been said that Jesus made a 164 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE new departure by inaugurating freedom in prayer, trust fulness in spirit, and simplicity of manner. These three elements are very obviously in this prayer and unite to make it a masterpiece, as has been attested by its universal use for nineteen centuries. The rhythm and balance of its phrasing has been apparent, too, even in our imperfect translations. There are two strophes of five lines each. The first strophe has great public interests as its theme, the second voices personal needs. The last phrase in the prayer as we are accustomed to repeat it. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen. is like our "Gloria" and was probably added to the original. It does not detract from the greatness of the poem to know that when it was composed many of the phrases were al ready in use in the prayers of the synagogue. There is one, however, not found elsewhere, sounding a note so high that men who have tried to live by it have attested that it could have originated only in the divine mind. Forgive us our debts As we have forgiven our debtors. Some Christians have stumbled at the phrase "Lead us not into temptation" as a pagan expression denoting belief in a God who brought men deliberately into evil in order to test them. A phrase more consistent with our modern in terpretation would be "So lead us that we may be safe from evil," which is probably the significance early Christians gave it. This one petition seems to make the whole poem less heroic than that other classic New Testament lyric The Beatitudes, which is like a Hallelujah chorus of mar tyrs singing Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake : For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Perhaps "the Lord's Prayer" is all the greater as a com munity prayer for that very petition, for "the Lord's Prayer is not merely for heroes, but for the timid and inexperi enced." HEBREW POETRY 165 SONGS OF THE ROYALTY Following are a few songs which pertain to individuals as public servants, to the king especially. A King's Wedding Song, Psalm 45. This song fits in so well with the history of Jehu that it is thought to have been written originally in honor of his marriage. He was noted for .his fierce riding and the ter rible acts he performed as he struck the vigorous blows which freed Israel from the dominance of Jezebel and her house, events which seem to be referred to in verses 3-5. The ivory palaces referred to in verse 8 were first known in Israel in the time of Ahab's reign and are mentioned in the book of Amos as a sign of luxury. This also fits in with the choice of Jehu as the "hero" of verse 3.^" While the historical account of his deeds in the book of Kings does not mention his marriage, that might well be imagined. His pride in humbling the house of Tyre is well brought out in verse 12 where the former Tyrian aristocracy, Jezebel's kin, "do homage" at the feet of his bride. If this was the original occasion for the song, it was very probably sung again and again as a general wedding hymn for royalty, an editor adding certain messianic verses to make it accord with popular expectations. The first verse and the last two seem editorial; verse 7 appears to add a later messianic touch. Following is Doctor Briggs' translation and arrangement of the original poem showing the refrain in italics: Thou art very fair, above the children of men ; Grace has been poured on thy lips ; Therefore 'Yahweh hath blessed thee forever. Gird thy sword on thy thigh, O hero, thy splendor and thy majesty; Tread the bow, have success, ride on; And thy right hand will show thee terrible deeds. O hero, thine arrows are sharp, In the heart of the king's enemies. Therefore Yahweh thy God hath anointed thee. 29 See I Kings 22: 39 and Amos 3: 15. 166 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE O oil of joy above thy fellows. Myrrh and aloes, cassia thou. All thy garments are from ivory palaces. Whence kings' daughters gladden thee. In thy costly things the queen doth stand at thy right hand. In golden attire, her clothing of embroidery. Hear, see, and incline thine ear. And forget thy people and thy father's house; For the king desires thy beauty. Worship him for he is thy sovereign lord. The daughter of Tyre will do homage with a gift for thee; The richest people will court thy face. In all glorious things the king's daughter is within; Inwrought with gold is her clothing. In embroidery are conducted to the king her attendants; Virgins, her companions, arc brought to her; With gladness and exulting they are conducted to her; Into the king's palace they are brought to her. Therefore the peoples will praise thee forever. It is to be noted that in verse 6 of our ordinary version, where reference is made apparently to the throne of God, a new thought, out of harmony with the rest of the poem, is brought in. Two explanations have been proposed, one that it was added by the editor, another that the Hebrew word for "will be," which looks very much like "Yahweh," was mistaken for the name of the deity by a copyist, who, instead of using the term "Yahweh," used "Elohim," the name of the deity which is always translated "God." Thus this verse was made to refer to God's throne instead of that of the Hebrew king. Doctor Briggs omits it as not a part of the original poem. A Prayer for the King, Psalm 72. "Here the ideals of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah are woven into a majestic royal ode." ^° Notice the theme of the prayer that the king's rule may be full of justice and benefi cence, and because of this his name shall gain an enduring fame. Josiah is the only king whose social ideals seem to harmonize with these lines, especially verses 12-15. There fore this song is supposed to have been written to him. 30 Professor Kent in Student's Old Testament, The Songs, Hymns and Prayers of the Old Testament. HEBREW POETRY 167 Grant the king thy justice, O Yahweh, And thy righteousness to the king's son. May he judge thy people in righteousness, And thine afflicted ones with justice. May the mountains bear peace to the people. And the hills bring forth righteousness. May he vindicate the afflicted among the people. May he help the sons of the needy. May he fear Thee while the sun endureth. As long as the moon shineth, even forever. May he descend like rain upon the mown grass. Like rain-drops that water the earth. May righteousness flourish in his days, And abundant peace until the moon be no more. For he delivereth the needy who cry. And the afflicted who have no helper. He hath pity on the poor and needy, And saveth the life of the poor. He saveth them from extortion and violence. And their life-blood is precious in his sight; So may they live and give him of Sheba's gold. And pray for him continually, And bless him all the day long. May there be abundance of grain in the land. On the hill top may his fruit rustle like Lebanon; And may they blossom forth from the city like the wild herbs. May his name endure forever. May his name be established as long as the sun shineth. May all nations ask a blessing like his and call him happy.'"* Verses 8-11 are in an entirely different tone and are thought by some scholars to have been added later. They are omitted here. Verses 18 and 19 are the benediction which ends this entire collection of psalms, as has already been observed. Verse 20 in our ordinary versions gives an edi torial addition which has nothing to do with either the original hymn or the benediction. A King's Rule of Life, Psalm 101. or The Portrait of a Righteous King " Following is Professor Kent's arrangement. 30a This is Professor Kent's arrangement. 31 These are the titles given it by S. R. Driver. Prof. Kent calls it "A Ruler's Oath of Office." 168 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE This psalm very appropriately applies to King Simon, the Maccabean ruler who for a short time regained the complete independence of the Jewish state. He was justly beloved by the people for his nobility, benevolence, and good judgment in a most difficult period of history. Some scholars, however, think the body of the poem was written much earlier, in preexilic times, or soon after the return from Babylonia. In the latter case it is a community hymn.^^ The five-beat measure brings out the stateliness of fhe poem much better than the line division of our ordinary versions. Of mercy and justice will I sing to Thee, O Yahweh. I will behave myself wisely and blamelessly, O when wilt thou come to me? I will walk in uprightness of mind in the midst of my house. I will set before mine eyes nothing that is base, I hate an act of apostasy; it shall not cleave to me. A perverse purpose I will banish from me; I will know no evil. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him will I cut off; Whoever has a high look and a proud heart, him will I not tolerate. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me; He who walks in an upright manner, that one shall serve me. He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house; He who speaks falsehood shall not be established before mine eyes. Zealously will I destroy all the wicked of the land. That I may cut off from the city of Yahweh all wicked doers.^' (Note — There are many other hymns with a national or royal import. For a classification of the Psalms, for the individual and for the community, the reader is referred to Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa- VAent, pp. 368, 369.) DIRGES— EARLY AND LATE The peculiar dirge measure has been explained. We have two dirges which have come down from the very earliest period of Hebrew literature. They are ascribed to David 32 See Driver's Introduction and Briggs, Psmlms. 33 Professor Kent's translation and arrangement. HEBREW POETRY 169 and may well have been composed by him. In both cases the simple kinah rhythm is not observed throughout; that is kept in the two-line folk-song of David's return from battle, although it is not a dirge.'* Dirge on Abner, II Samuel 3 : 33, 34. And the King sang a dirge for Abner and said : As dieth a fool Must Abner die? Thy hands unbound and thy feet. Nor thrust into gyves. As faileth a fool. To the lawless fallen art thou ! ^^ The editor of the books of Samuel says he takes the following poem from the very early collection of songs which has been lost. The Book of Jasher. David's Elegy over Saul and Jonathan, // Samuel 1 : 19-26. Thou roebuck of Israel I pierced on thine own mountain-heights I How are the mighty fallen I Tell it not in Gath ; Announce it not in the streets of Askelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice; Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph! Ye hills of Gilboa be dewless ! Ye fields of oblations be rainless ! For there was the shield of heroes polluted; The shield of Saul, without the anointing. From the blood of the slain — From the fat of the mighty — The bow of Jonathan turned not back — The sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan I — So dear, so delightful in life; — And in death undivided ! They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel — Weep over Saul Who clad you in scarlet with luxury. Who decked your apparel with jewelry. 34 I Samuel 18:7; 21:11; 29:5. 35 G. A. Smith's translation. 170 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE How are the mighty fallen! In the midst of the battle! Ah, Jonathan! pierced on thine own mountain-heights I Woe is me for thee, my brother! Jonathan to me so dear! Thy love to me more marvelous Than woman's love. How are the 'mighty fallen! The war-weapons perished ! ^^ This is one of the most famous and beautiful elegies in all literature. Taken against the historical background of I Samuel and the account of David's relation with Saul and Jonathan its noble spirit is most clearly apparent. Saul was the hero of the youth David, and David the king never lost his first love, although between the time when he was called to the court to play before King Saul and this death- scene very much had happened. Notwithstanding Saul's insane jealousy and attempts even to do away with David, trying to kill him more than once in the royal house and to hunt him down in his mountain retreats, yet David loved Saul to the end and would not kill him in return even when he had him quite in his power. When the messenger ran to bring the news of Saul's death to David, thinking to please him and therefore declaring that he himself had slain the king, that messenger's doom \.jas sealed with David's anger. The entire poem rings with sincerity ; prim itive people were outspoken in their feelings and court diplomacy had as yet little place in Israel's life. Saul was still a hero in David's eyes and he did not wish his death gloated over by the Philistine enemies nor rejoiced over secretly at home. The friendship of David and Jonathan is classic. This "In Memoriam" is much more widely known than that of Tennyson. David's Woe is me for thee, my brother! Jonathan, to me so dear! Thy love to me more marvelous Than woman's love. 36 E. G. King's translation. HEBREW POETRY il71' is as heartfelt and appealing as Tennyson's My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, . More than my brothers are to me! The regular kinah measure is to be observed in the refrain as repeated the last two times, and occasionally in the body of the poem. The Hebrew word translated in this version "roebuck" and in the margin of the Revised Version "ga zelle" may also mean "beauty" or "glory" as our revisers have it, the roebuck or gazelle perhaps being so called because of its beauty. While we have very few dirges on the death of an individual and those, as we have seen, appearing quite early in Hebrew literature, we have in several instances the adoption of this kinah form by the prophets in their visions of national disaster and destruction. Some of those poems are indeed national elegies. What could be more expressive or dramatic than to hear a prophet standing out in the market place, wailing over the doom of his city which he saw approaching? We have already noted the expressive style of Lamentations, a series of dirges on the fall of Jerusalem qiiite evidently by an eye-witness. In that connection it is well to remember the historic "Jews' Wailing Place" in that city. One of the short prophetic wails is that in Amos 5:2: Israel the Virgin has fallen. She ariseth no more. Prostrate she lies on the ground. With none to upraise her.^f Jeremiah calls for a dirge in chapter 7 and adopts the style in chapter 9, although the meter is not the perfect kinah measure throughout. Shear off thy locks — away with them — Lift up a dirge on the heights : For Yahweh hath spurned and forsaken The race that hath roused Him to anger. ST See translations of Duhm and McFadyen. 172 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE On the mountains I take up a wailing; On the wilderness pastures a Kinah. They are burned that none can pass through them ! Nor lowing of cattle be heard I From bird of heaven to beast They are fled and gone ! And I make of Jerusalem heaps, A dwelling of dragons I And the cities of Judah I make desolation That none can inhabit! "Consider ye, and call for the kinah-women that they may come. Let them take up a wailing for us. That our eyes may run over with weeping. Our eyelids gush water. Teach ye your daughters the dirge ; Each one her neighbor the kinah "Death hath climbed up to our windows. And into our palaces entered I Cutting off child from the street. Youths from the market! The corpses of men are fallen Like dung on the face of the field ! Or like sheaves behind the reaper. With none to gather them up." ^^ Perhaps the masterpiece of this sort among the prophets is that on The Doom of Babylon, Isaiah 14. How hath the Tyrant ceased I How still is the Terror I Yahweh hath broken the staff of the wicked. The rod of the rulers That smote the Peoples in wrath With ceaseless smiting. That trod down the nations in anger With tread unrelenting. All earth is at rest and is quiet; They burst into song! Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thy fate. And the cedars of Lebanon, saying, "Since thou hast lain down, there cometh not up The feller against us." Sheol beneath is a-quiver. To welcome thy coming ; 38 See McFadyen's and King's translations. HEBREW POETRY 173 For thee it arouseth the shades ; All the he-goats of earth. It maketh to rise from their throi All the kings of the Nations. All of them lift up their voices And say to thee, "Thou, too, art weakened as we. Made like unto us?" Thy pride is brought down unto Sheol; The thrum of thy viols. Beneath thee maggots are spread. And the worm is thy cover. How art thou fallen from Heaven, Thou Star of the Dawn ! How art thou hewn to the ground. That didst weaken the Nations ! Thou that didst say in thine heart, "I will mount unto Heaven. Above the stars of God Will I set up my throne ; And will sit on the sacred Mount The Recess of the North. I will mount on the heights of the clouds; Will be like the Most High." Yet to Sheol it is thou art brought The Recess of the Pit They that see thee look narrowly on thee; Upon thee they ponder. "Is this the man that troubled the earth. That shook the kingdoms? That made the earth like a desert. Its cities wasted? That left not his prisoners free To go homeward?" And thou art cast forth from thy grave. As a shoot that's rejected! Clotted with the mangled slain. That go down to the stones of the Pit, As a carcass that's trampled. Not with them art thou joined in thy burial; For thy land didst thou ruin. Thy people didst slay. Unhonored forever remaineth The seed of ill-doers.^^ Such a paean of relief at the fall of a tyrant is scarcely to be found elsewhere in all literature. 39 This is a combination of the translation of King, Gray and McFadyen, the selection of renderings being made to bring out the meaning and the rhythm most vividly. 174 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Psalm 137 is a lamentation over the Captivity and is writ ten mostly in the dirge measure. It was composed evidently when the experiences of the first months of captivity were very fresh in mind, when such ridicule and ignominy as the Hebrews were subjected to in a foreign land rankled terribly in the breasts of those proud people, when the unbrotherly betrayal of their cousins, the Edomites, tore at their hearts and gave expression to a very vindictive stanza of hate. To understand the last verse the outburst of the prophet Obadiah should be read, especially verses 10 to 14, where he pictures the Edomites helping the enemy in the sack of Jerusalem, looting the possessions of the inhabitants and cutting off their escape at the cross-roads. Our sympathies are drawn out by both pictures, when the Jews were perse cuted by the Babylonians, and by their neighbors. While the vindictive portion is far from Christian in spirit, we have scant ground even after all these centuries of Christian teaching, of which they were ignorant, to assume a role of superiority.The Lament of the Captives, Psalms 137. By Babylon's waters we sat, and we wept. As we thought upon Zion. There on the willows within her We hung our harps. For there our captors demanded The language of song! Our plunderers asked of us mirth! "Sing us one of the songs of Zion." How can we sing Yahweh's songs In land of strangers? Could I forget thee, O Jerusalem, My right hand should forget! My tongue should cleave to my palate If unmindful of thee ! If I set not Jerusalem higher Than best of my joy! Remember, Yahweh, to the sons of Edom The day of Jerusalem, Who said, "Lay bare! lay bare! HEBREW POETRY 175 To the foundation with it!" Happy be he who repayeth it. What thou didst deal us. Happy be he who seizeth and dasheth thy little ones Against the rock ! *" Some psalms which express the soul's longing cry for God seem to fall into this kinah measure, such as Psalm 42. My soul is athirst for Yahweh — For the God of my life! When shall I come and behold The Presence of Yahweh? Tears have been mine for food. By day and by night. While they say to me all day long, Where is thy God?*i . NATURE LYRICS The keen observation and intimate love of Nature of the Biblicaf writers is apparent throughout the Old Testament and in the Gospels, too. It was a feeling that God worked in and through Nature to show man His will and to lead him to Himself, which they expressed in their Nature poetry, as well as a feeling that Nature was always respon sive to God. As Hosea stated it, there was a mutual call and answer between God and Nature, and strange it seemed to him that God's people did not hear the call likewise.*^ "Nature 'red in tooth and claw,' 'shrieking against faith in a living God' — ^these aspects never occurred to the Jews."*' Reverent affection for Nature, the recognition of it as an avenue of approach to God, is manifest in the whole texture and fiber of their literature, in single words and phrases, in metaphors and similes, in the flashes of inspiration which sparkle in the midst of other themes. This intimacy per- 40 See King, Briggs, and McLaren in Expositor's Bible, tor rendering. 41 E. G. King's translation. 42 Hosea 2: 21-23. 43 See quotation from Montefiore in Cohu, The Bible and Modern Thought, note p. 270. See also Gordon, The Poets of the Old Testament, p. 147, for comparison with the English poet, Blake, 176 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE meates their whole literature and their religion just as their patriotism does. It is difficult to separate a section and say here is their Nature poetry. Yet to make us see more perfectly how rich and vivid was their imagination in this respect it is well to group together some of their more complete Nature pictures and compare them with those in other literatures. Psalm 23. Nowhere has the care of the shepherd for his sheep been so sympathetically portrayed as in the Bible. These people were originally, and throughout their history to a large extent, tenders of sheep. They could think of no figure of speech so true to their conception of God's care for his people as that of the shepherd. The Shepherd Psalm would probably live among English speaking people if all the rest of the Bible should be lost, so firmly has it taken hold of our imagination in its endeavor to reveal God. The King James version has so impressed our minds and become so truly an English classic that no more recent translation can take its place. The strophic divisions have already been mentioned." Here it should be said that the last two verses (containing six poetical lines) seem to give such a completely differ ent picture from that of the shepherd, namely, of a banquet in a house, that many scholars think it was intended to refer to the king's deliverance from his enemies and to have nothing to do with a shepherd's life. This was doubtless one of the very earliest psalms reflecting the background of the early monarchy. If it was one of the few written by David, as some scholars think, or if it was written by some one who came soon after and knew the very life that David knew, the first part could well have been composed out of a shepherd boy's experiences and the last strophe be the expression of a king's gratitude for deliverance from his 44 See Section on Structure of Hebrew Poetry, HEBREW POETRY 177 foes, for David knew both extremes in his eventful career.*" Note the marginal readings in the Revised Version, for they throw light upon the text. "Still waters" are "waters of rest," not a turbulent wady where no sheep could drink, but a quiet pool ; "He guideth me in right tracks" is Doctor Briggs' translation of verse 3, carrying out the figure of the Guide in the second strophe. "The shadow of death" means "the shadow of deep darkness" or "a gloomy ravine" where a sheep could easily lose its way and be devoured by the lurking wild beasts. The "rod" was a club of de fense against wild beasts. Those who make the fourth verse apply to the shepherd interpret the "staff" as a shep herd's crook to lift a poor lamb up out of a pit-fall, but if the second strophe begins with 3b including verse 4 and refers to a guide, then the "staff" is the guide's walking stick. Guests were honored by having their heads anointed with oil before a banquet and being sprinkled with per fumes. The last line seems to refer to the temple and this is an argument against its having been written by David himself, who never saw the temple. Storm Pieces, Psa.-ms 18 : 7-15 ; 77 : 16-19 ; 93. The Thunderstorm Psalm, Psalm 29. To understand this psalm one must imagine the poet standing somewhere on the heights of the Lebanon moun tains watching a terrific thunderstorm gather over the Medi terranean Sea, at first in beautiful fleecy cumulus clouds, arranging themselves perhaps in the forms of an angelic host, growing heavier and blacker as the storm approaches and the thunder grows louder. He imagines the thunder is the very voice of God speaking through Nature. Then the storm breaks with terrible force on the mountains, the wind tearing the limbs from those great cedars of Lebanon and scattering them about as if the woods were alive, the light- 45 There are other explanations such as that to be found in The Song of Our Syrian Guest, by William Allen Knight, and again that the shepherd played the host, as was the custom when men passed a shepherd's tent at nightfall. 178 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE ning striking and shivering the oaks. Finally it disappears down the mountain-side and he watches it as a wind-storm stirring up the dust of the plateau below. He turns about now to view the havoc and feels the unusual hush after such a crashing storm. In awe and reverence he sings of Yahweh as ruler of the storm as well as King of his people. Ascribe to Yahweh, ye Sons of God, Ascribe to Yahweh, glory and strength. Ascribe to Yahweh the glory due His name; Worship Yahweh in the beauty of holiness.** The voice of Yahweh is upon the waters; The God of glory thundereth. Yahweh's voice on the mighty waters! Yahweh's voice in strength, Yahweh's voice in majesty! Yahweh's voice shatters the cedars, Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon. He maketh Lebanon to skip like a calf And Sirion *«* as a young wild ox. Yahweh's voice cleaveth the rocks, Yahweh cleaves them with blade of fire. Yahweh's voice lasheth the desert, Yahweh lasheth the desert of Kadesh. Yahweh's voice shivers the oaks And strippeth the forests bare.*^ Yahweh sat enthroned over the Flood, Yahweh will sit enthroned forever. Yahweh giveth strength to His people; Yahweh blesseth His people with peace.** In reading aloud this stirring and dramatic storm piece it would be well to use "the Lord" in place of "Yahweh" for that fits into the meter and is more familiar to the ears of most people. Compare with this the Arabic poem beginning — Friend, thou seest the lightning. Mark where it wavereth, Gleaming like fingers twisted, clasped in the cloud-rivers. 46 We retain here the suggestive rendering of the Authorized Version, the more literal translation is "in holy attire." 46a Another name for Mount Hermon. 47 Another line has been added here by a later writer using the poem for a temple hymn. 48 Perhaps this postlude as well as the prelude were added for use in the temple service, but they form a fitting framework for the thought of the poet. For translations and arrangements see Gordon, Briggs, and Kent. HEBREW POETRY 179 Like a lamp new-lighted, so is the flash of it. Trimmed by a hermit nightly pouring oil-sesame.*^ And also Edwin Markham's The Place of Peace At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky And flinging the clouds and the towers by, Is a place of central calm ; So here in the roar of mortal things, I have a place where my spirit sings. In the hollow of God's Palm. God's Majesty in the Storm, Job 36 :24-37 : 22. It would be well to compare with this Dr. Jastrow's translation in his Book of Job. PRAISE LYRICS Many of the hymns of praise to the Creator and to the Father and Preserver of Mankind are full of references to the wonders of Nature ; praise and wonder blended in their thought and feeling. They did not worship Nature nor enjoy it simply for the sake of aesthetic gratification, but because through it they saw God. A Morning Hymn, Psalm 19 : 1-6. The heavens declare the glory of God : And the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day poureth forth speech unto day; And night to night showeth knowledge. In all the earth their voice is gone out. And their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tent for the sun. As a bridegroom he is going forth from his canopy.^o He rejoiceth as a hero to run his course. From one end of the heavens he setteth out. And to the other end is his circuit. And nothing can be hid from his heat.^i 49 For a complete translation of this poem see Library of the World's Best Literature, Article "Arabic Literature." GO Canopies are still used at Jewish marriages. SI See International Critical Commentary, Student's Old Testament, and Hr- positor's Bible, for rendering. ISO A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Psalm 19 is composed of two originally separate poems, this Morning Hymn to the Sun, which may have been built upon a Babylonian hymn to the sun-god, and the last half which exalts the Law, and is really a didactic poem rather than a hymn. If the first half was not an old sun-god hymn taken over and adapted to the worship of Yahweh, it may have been the original hymn of a monotheist in pro test against the sun-worship which was known in Israel from time to time. At any rate it is a noble song of praise to the God of the heavens as well as of the earth. That the second half is quite another poem seems apparent from the meter as well as the thought, our morning hymn being in trimeter measure, the one in praise of the Law in penta meter. However, the two parts do balance each other, the editor who put them together doubtless feeling that God's greatness is shown in the Moral Law quite as truly as in the Laws of Nature. Both are fine examples of the Hebrew poetic genius, expressing itself at different periods in dif ferent ways. An Evening Hymn, Psalm 8. This is one of the classics in our English Bibles and the poetic rhythm is preserved very well in our ordinary ver sions. The measure is trimeter. The refrain which forms the prelude and the postlude is very artistically placed and composed; the last accent of the first line is omitted for the purpose of obtaining a pause before declaring the tri umphant theme of the poem, given in the second line. The glorious greatness of God is the main thought, but the con trast of the glory of man as one of His creations. His crowning creation only a little lower than Himself, enhances the thought, also inspiring man's endeavor because he is the son of such a God. This also illustrates capitally the love of contrast, another characteristic of Hebrew art, in the juxtaposition of the wonders of the heavens and the little ness of man — "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" And yet the greatness of man is manifest, having dominion over the works of God's hands. HEBREW POETRY 181 The Song of Creation, Job 38 : 4-18. It would be well to note the special renderings in Jas trow's The Book of Job. Verses 15, 21 and 36 are omitted as belonging to a later commentator. A Song of Assurance in the Omnipotent God, Isaiah 40: 12ff. Many will prefer to read this in the King James Version, for while not printed there as poetry its singing rhythm is very apparent. The following rendering aids as a commen tary on meaning and form. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand. And ruled off the heavens with a span, Or enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, And weighed the mountains in scales. And the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the spirit of Yahweh? And where is the counsellor that taught Him? Whom did He ask for enlightenment? Who taught Him the pathway of right. Or showed Him the way of understanding? Lo the nations I as a drop from a bucket. They count but as dust on a balance ; Lo the isles ! as a straw he uplifteth. And Lebanon is not enough for fuel. Too few are its beasts for an offering. All the nations are as nothing before Him, He counts them but empty nothing. To whom then will ye liken God, Or what likeness set over against Him? An image I a craftsman cast it, A goldsmith o'erlaid it with gold. Do ye not know ? Do ye not hear ? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Of this have ye not been aware. Since the day that the world was foundedi' It is He that sits throned on the vault of the earth. So high that the inhabitants are as locusts ; Who stretcheth out the heavens like a thin veil. And spreadeth them out like a habitable tent. It is He that reduceth proud princes to nothing. That turneth the rulers of earth into waste. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown. Scarcely hath the stock taken root in the earth. 182 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE But He bloweth upon them and they wither. And a whirlwind carries them away like chaff. To whom then will ye liken me. That I should equal him? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see; Who hath created these ? ^^ He who bringeth forth their host by number. And calleth each by his name; So great His resource and so mighty His power. Not one is missing. Why sayest thou, then, O Jacob, And speakest, O Israel, "My way is hid from Yahweh, And my right is ignored by my God?" Has thou not known? Has thou not heard? An everlasting God is Yahweh, The creator of the ends of the earth. He fainteth not, neither is weary. His wisdom is unfathomable. He giveth power to the fainting, And increase of strength to the feeble. Youths may faint and grow weary. And young men may stumble and fall ; But they who trust in Yahweh renew their strength. They shall mount on wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint, ^a The Old Scottish Communion Psalm, Psalm 103. This Psalm has become a classic in our King James Version, and the newer translations do not change the mean ing of the phrases appreciably. Certain lines seem to have been added to the original Hebrew, since they destroy the symmetry of the poem. These are verses 4b, 5b, 8, 16, 18-22. With these omissions there are just seven strophes of four lines each. If read aloud in this form the rhythm and balance can be better appreciated. The last four verses are not in the same tone or style and appear to have been added at quite a late date to make it more suitable for public worship. This psalm represents the compassion and forgiving love of God in an even more Christlike way than Psalm 104. It should be learned by heart.^* 52 The stars. 53 See Cheyne's, McFadyen's and Kent's translations and arrangements. 64 Notice the marginal reading of verse 5 in the Revised Version. HEBREW POETRY 18S OTHER CHOICE LYRICS The Great Confession, Psalm 51. "That most searching of all Psalms of confession." While this Psalm has been associated with David on account of the title prefixed, which does not belong with the Psalm itself, modern scholars think it could not have been written by him, for the language bears the marks of a much later age. It is thought to have been exilic or post- exilic and to be the confession of community sin. The Israelites felt that the captivity was a great punishment for their national wrong-doing ; their sin was against their God, not against the nations who had punished them. The last clause of verse 4 would then mean that God's dealings with His people had been justified, that Israel ought not to retain any bitter feeling against Him. But even though it may have been used as a community confession, it rings so true to the sincerest and most pro found personal contrition that it seems as if it must origi nally have sprung from some individual's experience. The Hebrews of all ancient nations had the deepest sense of sin before a righteous God. They knew what it meant to be contrite and to be forgiven; and with the forgiveness came a joy quite surpassing the joys of nations living only for the surface pleasures of a materialistic life. This poeni consists of four strophes of ten lines each. By analyzing each strophe we can see more readily the depth of feeling and progress of thought in the whole. Strophe I expresses honesty and straightforwardness in facing sin, in calling it by its right name without excuses; it also expresses a deep desire of the soul to be made clean and right and a recognition of God's character as loving and tender but just, who cannot forgive without justification for it. Strophe II expresses the deepest kind of contrition; it is the same thought as above but more searching. There is an effort to find the origin and cause of the trouble, and to learn the ultimate demands of a holy God. There is a recog- 184 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE nition that a great cleansing is necessary, as of the leper, but also that j6y and gladness is possible with it. Strophe III picks up the thought of cleansing in the last stanza and shows that the trouble is within, not without, the man, and that he can never expect to be happy without the presence of God in his heart. He expresses the deepest desire to restore such a consciousness and calls on God him self to help him get it back. Out of his own need springs the missionary purpose to help others to find God too. The last strophe adds to this thought of a witness in Strophe III, and brings out the contrast between real devotion to God and dependence upon ritual for one's religious ex pression. This psalm has much the same idea as is found in the prophet Hosea in showing that one must be made right in the very place where he has been wrong, thus get ting at the cause of the disease and cleaning it out alto gether.A Meditation and Prayer, Psalm 90 : 1-12. This psalm has been called "the dirge of a world" ex pressed in "sad and stately music." Again, "the ninetieth psalm might be cited as perhaps the most sublime of human composition, the deepest in feeling, the loftiest in theologi cal conception, the most magnificent in its imagery." The title attached to it attributes it to Moses, but such author ship is highly improbable, even if it is in the spirit of the great pioneer leader. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place In all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth. Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world. Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man back to dust. And sayest. Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in Thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past. As a watch in the night thou dost flood them away.^' 66 i. c. The years. HEBREW POETRY 185 In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the evening it is cut down and withereth. For we are consumed in Thine anger, and in Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. Our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. For all our days do decline ; In Thy wrath we bring ou" years to an end; As a sigh are the days of our years. And their breadth is travail and trouble. For it is soon gone and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger. Or can number the awful deeds of thy wrath! So teach us to number our days. That we may get a mind of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? Be sorry for Thy servants. O satisfy us in the morning with Thy kindness, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days Thou hast afflicted us. And the years wherein we have seen evil. Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants. And Thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us ; And establish Thou the work of our hands upon us ; Yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.^* It will be noticed that this Psalm contains seven strophes of five lines each ; the last is considered by many scholars to be a liturgical addition added for use in the temple service. The first two seem to be of universal import; in the third the troubles of this particular nation apparently are in tended. Yet it has been remarked upon by many students of the Psalms that their local significance is buried in the deep meaning applicable to all humanity. Athanasius long ago said, "He who uses the Psalms is as one who speaks his own words, and each one sings them as if they had been written for his own case, and not as if they had been spoken by some one else, or were meant to apply to some one else." Gladstone said, "In the Psalms 5S This is the translation of the Authorized Version with a few changes sug gested in the International Critical Commentary. 186 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE is the whole music of the human heart, when touched by the hand of its maker, in all its tones that whisper or swell: for every hope or fear, for every sigh and for every pang, for every form of strength and languor, of dis quietude and rest." This is true even though certain verses contain some ideas of God which most people would modify to-day, such as a God of wrath bringing afflictions upon people as punishments, rather than the deeds of the people themselves bringing such results inevitably. Certainly man's faith in God was never more sublimely expressed than in the first stanza, nor the heartfelt prayer of a sincere soul more effectively uttered than in the twelfth verse, "So teach us to number our days, that we may get a mind of wis dom." The Psalm will reward close study, revealing, as it does, a progress of thought from stanza to stanza. From the eternal God, worthy of man's confidence, the poet passes to the contrast of man's littleness and frailty. In the third and fourth stanzas the reason for his transitoriness is sug gested in his sin and lack of harmony with God, and the fifth gives expression to the simple, earnest prayer of an honest soul. The sixth suggests that the answer to the prayer has already been anticipated and that there is ground for confidence and joy in the assurance that God can make right a twisted world. Even though this was undoubtedly used as a national hymn it must have grown out of a deep personal experience. A Song of Trust, Psalm 91. This psalm is a very jubilant song of trust. It is more than that, it is a deep revelation of the Hebrew religious genius. It represents man as entering into the secret place, the intimate place of God's abode, and abiding there him self. Such a relationship has been established between him self and God that his experience of God is not flitting and intermittent, but constant. This "secret place," this retreat of the soul, is not an inn at which he stops occasionally but his "dwelling-place," his "habitation," his home. It reminds HEBREW POETRY 187 one of Psalm 25, where the phrase "the secret of the Lord" in the King James Version is translated in the Re vised Version "the friendship of the Lord," and by Doctor Briggs thus: "the intimacy of the Lord have they." It reminds us of Thoreau's characterization of friendship: "Where my Friend lives there are all riches, and every at traction, and no slight obstacle can keep me from him. The language of Friendship is not words but meaning; it is an intelligence above language. What puny word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning?" Yet because of the deep significance of such a relationship with God, the words which are inspired by it are lifted up above the ordinary plane, so that such a psalm as this merits the dis tinction of being "simple," "beautiful," "serene," "stately." The same word "dwelling-place" is emphasized in this psalm as in the previous one, only here the awesomeness and gran deur of such a thought as dwelling in the abode of the Almighty is permeated with the trustful, comfortable feeling of being at home, of absolute assurance under the shadow of such protection, and this notwithstanding the fact that the favorite expression for God in this poem is "the Most High." The Hebrew love of contrast is again brought out : "The solemn sadness of Psalm ninety is set in strong relief by the sunny brightness of happy, perfect trust in the Divine protection." The change in tense from the first person to the third and back again has puzzled translators and seems to indi cate a more or less dramatic arrangement for antiphonal use in the temple service, or the way in which the poet speaks now for himself and then addresses the people and finally is spokesman for God. It is to be noted that Jesus was quite familiar with this psalm, for it was these words which came to Him in the scene of His temptation. That it was used as a public expression of worship is doubtless true, but here again the very personal character of the ex perience leads one to believe that it must have sprung origi nally from the poet's own profound realization of the inner life. His trust is not uttered in such broad, general terms as 188 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE in Psalm 90. He rejoices over personal preservation from evils, over the fact that God loves him especially and pro tects him from the hidden dangers of his daily path, from disease and accident; he seems jubilant because he has discovered the key to life that takes away all fear and makes him free and happy as an individual. If this is not quite so broad and altruistic as the message which con sciously includes the whole earth and all people, yet it is the first great cause for joy in the experience of those who know this inner way, and it bears with it the implication that such a discovery is meant for all who will learn the way. The familiar King James Version is given here except for one or two words and the omission of verse eight which seems out of place in thought and language and is regarded as a gloss. First Voice He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. My God; in Him will I trust. Second Voice Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler. And from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers. And under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; Nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness ; Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, And ten thousand at thy right hand; But it shall not come nigh thee. First Voice For thou. Lord, art my refuge. Second Voice Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation. There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. HEBREW POETRY 189 For He shall give His angels charge over thee. To keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands. Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the serpent and adder; The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. The Voice of God Because he hath set his love upon Me, Therefore will I deliver him ; I will set him on high because he hath known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him ; I will be with him in trouble ; I will deliver him, and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him. And show him my salvation. ^'' In Praise of Love, / Corinthians 13. This wonderful song of Saint Paul in praise of love is quite apparently a lyric poem, revealing at once the char acteristic Hebrew parallelism although written in Greek. Again, as in "The Lord's Prayer," we see the fact illustrated that when a Hebrew rose to his greatest heights of feeling and expression, he reverted to the rhythmical form native to his race, although he was speaking in another tongue. This is said to be "the greatest, strongest, deepest thing Paul ever wrote," "among the finest passages in the sacred, or, indeed, in any writings"; "everywhere we find not the meditated artificiality of the rhetorician, counting the rhythm of sen tences, but the natural radiation of hidden greatness." It is to be noticed that this lyric of Love is written by the great apostle of Faith; it is the poetry of faith. Dean Stanley imagined that the amanuensis stopped and looked up in surprise as Paul began to dictate this, with his face lit up, in the midst of his dissertation on Spiritual Gifts. While this chapter is a step in that dissertation it is in itself a complete and beautiful whole. Where did Paul get such a picture of love ? It has been suggested that in place of the word love we could well read the name, Jesus. It is Paul's picture of love incarnate. 57 For this arrangement and discussion of the same see Alexander MacLaren, Expositor's Bible, Psalms, and W. F. Cobb, The Book of Psalms^ 390 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. But have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy. And know all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains. But have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, And if I give my body to be burned. But have not love, It profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind; Love envieth not, Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, Seeketh not its own. Is not provoked, Taketh not account of evil, Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness. But rejoiceth with the truth, Beareth all things, Believeth all things, Hopeth all things, Endureth all things. Love never faileth. But whether there be prophecies. They shall be done away. Whether there be tongues. They shall cease; Whether there be knowledge. It shall be done away. For we know in part. And we prophesy in part; But when that which is perfect is come. That which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child : Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror darkly; But then face to face: Now I know in part; But then shall I know fully Even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; And the greatest of these is love. Compare verses 4-8a with Dr. Moffatt's translation. Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy; HEBREW POETRY 191 Love makes no parade, gives itself no airs. Is never rude, never selfish, Never irritated, never resentful; Love is never glad when others go wrong. Love is gladdened by goodness. Always slow to expose. Always eager to believe the best. Always hopeful, always patient. Love never disappears. If we study these stanzas carefully we see how Paul progressed from the statement that love is the essential factor at the heart of all true character, to the description of its wonderful characteristics, finally asserting his con viction of its eternal durability. Our own poet Richard Watson Gilder has expressed much the same thought but in a very different way in his beauti ful little lyric. After Song. Through love to light, O wonderful the way That leads from darkness to the perfect day! From darkness and from sorrow of the night To morning that comes singing o'er the sea. Through love to light ! Through light, O God, to Thee, Who art the love of love, the Eternal light of light! BOOKS TO CONSULT on Hebrew Poetry Cobb, W. ¥.—The Book of Psalms. CoHu, J. R. — The Bible and Modern Thought. Duhm, Bernhard — The Twelve Prophets. Encyclopcedia Biblica. Expositors' Bible — Psalms, I Corinthians. Gordon, A. 'R.-^Poets of the Old Testament. Hastings Bible Dictionary. International Critical Commentary — Deuteronomy, Psalms, I Cori-n- thians. Jastrow, Morris — The Book of Job. King, E. G.— Early Religious Poetry of the Hebre-ws. McFadyen, Edgar — Isaiah in Modern Speech. Moffatt, James — The New Testament, A New Translation. Peters, John P.— The Psalms as Liturgies. Rice J A — The Old Testament in the Life of To-day. Smith,' G. A— Early Hebrew Poetry Deuteronomy, Cambridge Bible. Studenfs Old Testament. . ^,. -^ . . ,r . • Wild L. H. — Geographic Influences m Old Testament Masterpieces. Chapter VI DRAMATIC LITERATURE The Israelites were a dramatic folk, much more so than are western peoples to-day. They thought in pictures even in their ordinary transactions and they accompanied their words with gesticulations and significant tones of the voice ; they even acted out the news of the day or prophecies of future events. They did not wait to have a stage erected and people called together; they "acted" as they walked along the road or visited their neighbors. In the book of Kings it is recorded that a son of the prophets wanted to warn the king of the foolishness of his dealings with the enemy ; he got a man to wound him and then "disguised him self with his headband over his eyes" and waited by the roadside until the king's chariot went by ; then he called out to him and told a story about letting his enemy escape; at the right moment he removed his headband and revealed himself as a prophet who was speaking in a parable to the king.^ In the twentieth chapter of Isaiah we are told how that prophetic statesman, who could not get the ear of the people any other way, for they had no newspapers in those days, dressed up in a captive's garb and went from house to house warning the people that they would soon be captives like that unless they could induce their rulers to change their policy. Isaiah gave his little boy what seems to us an im possible name, Maher-shalal-hashbaz, signifying "Spoil speedeth, prey hasteth," and then took him about with him in the market place where he had put up "a great tablet" with the same words printed on it in large letters, pointing to the child as a warning to all parents and saying, "Before the child shall have knowledge to cry. My father and My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria 1 I Kings 20 : 35-43- 192 DRAMATIC LITERATURE 193 shall be carried away." ^ In the book of Ezekiel we are told that the Lord commanded the prophet to take a tile and draw on it a picture of a besieged city, portraying the en gines of warfare.^ This is not so strange as some of the commands coming to Ezekiel, such as to lie upon his left side for three hundred and ninety days and again on his right side forty days, bearing the iniquity, first of the house of Israel and then of the house of Judah; or again in the fifth chapter, "And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp sword ; as a barber's razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it tp pass upon thy head and upon thy beard; then take thee balances to weigh and divide the hair." Some of it was to be burned, some of it was to be scattered to the wind, all of it was to be a symbol and a warning of future events. Many of Ezekiel's pictures are very oriental and strange to us, colored as they were by the environment and beliefs of those days. They were doubtless never intended to be acted out, being merely imaginary pictures, but the point here is that they were pictures of highly dramatic action. Very much of this dramatic literature was poetry. Even the lyrics were dramatically conceived, as we have seen, when they imagined different voices singing different parts, as in the twenty-fourth psalm and the ninety-first. When the poet was simply talking to himself he sometimes shifted the scene as his mood shifted. DRAMATIC LYRICS Psalm 3, At Night, verses 1-4; In the Morning, verses 5-8. This psalm shows how at night the psalmist is very despondent, utterly discouraged with the obstacles which overwhelm him. But he bethinks him of the way God has helped him in the past and so pours out his troubles to Him expecting that He will answer, and then falls asleep. In the morning when he awakes he is refreshed 2 Isaiah 8. s Ezekiel 4. 194 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and so confident of God's help that even a mighty host of enemies could not daunt him. The superscription assigns the psalm to the time in David's life when he was obliged to flee before the pursuit of his son, Absalom. It fits in very well with such a setting. Even if it was not written by David it is thought to belong to the earlier psalms. Following is the metrical translation of this psalm to be found in "The Bay Psalm Book." It is given here simply to show an interesting epoch in our own American literature, when the Bible was the chief concern and when "divines" knew their Hebrew and sought to remedy defects in transla tion which they instinctively felt, although their own at tempts seem to us to fall considerably short. This Psalm Book was the hymn book of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, printed in 1640, and was the first book to be printed in America in English, although two little pamphlets had ap peared before this. The Pilgrims had brought with them Ainsworth's "Book of Psalms ; Englished both in prose and metre," and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay "The Whole Booke of Psalmes: collected into English meeter by T. Sternhold, J. Hopkins, and others — with apt notes to sing them withall." But some of the extreme independents even in England had become much dissatisfied with the latter ver sion, calling it "Hopkins, his Jigges." Cotton Mather ex pressed the views of the Massachusetts Bay colonists thus: "Tho' they blessed God for the Religious Endeavours of them who translated the Psalms into the Meetre usually an- nex'd at the End of the Bible, yet they beheld in the Transla tion so many Detractions from. Additions to, and Variations of, not only the Text, but the very Sense of the Psalmist, that it was an Offence unto them." This led to the attempt at a more accurate translation, precisely what scholars have been trying to do ever since, and "the chief Divines in the Country, took each of them a Portion to be Translated." At the close of their Preface the following apology is made : "If therefore the verses are not alwayes so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect ; let them consider that DRAMATIC LITERATURE 195 God's Altar needs not our pollishings; (Ex. 20) for wee have respected rather a plaine translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the hebrew words into English language and David's poetry into english meetre; that soe we may sing in Sion the Lord's songs of prayse ac cording to his owne will ; until hee take us from hence, and wipe away all our teares, & bid us enter into our masters joye to sing eternall Halleluiahs." How well they succeeded may be judged by this sample. O Lord, how many are my foes ? how many up against me stand? Many say to my soule noe helpe in God for him at hand. But thou Lord art my shield, my glory and the up-lifter of my head. With voyce to God I cal'd, who from his holy hill he answered. I leyd me downe, I slept, I wakt, for Jehovah did me up beare: People that set against me round, ten thousand of them I'le not feare. Arise, O Lord, save me my God, for all mine enimies thou hast stroke upon the cheek-bone : & the teeth of the ungodly thou hast broke. This, and all such salvation, belongeth unto Jehovah ; thy blessing is, and let it be upon thine own people. The Song of Songs, A Series of Love Lyrics. The modern historical and literary study of the Bible has made a great change in the interpretation of Canticles, or the Song of Songs, sometimes called the Song of Solomon ; and yet, when one goes far enough with it, it is not, after all, so radically opposed to the older conception. The tradi tional view has been that the book was an allegory of divine love ; the modern view is that it is a series of lyrics celebrat ing the most ardent raptures and passionate devotion of human love. The history of its place in the canon is inter- 196 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE esting and enlightening as to its real interpretation. No one can read it without noting its very emotional pictures, its highly sensuous images, its exceedingly free and ardent expressions of love. Here is a man and a maid, a lover and the one beloved, singing love songs to one another with an abandon and an exuberance rather startling in a book of religion. Why are these songs here in the Bible ? This was a ques tion which puzzled the Jewish rabbis. Finding it in the collection with the rest of their religious literature, they took it as having religious significance, although the name of God is mentioned but once. Should it be left in the canon? They decided, at the Council of Jamnia in 90 A. D., that it should, for, living in the day of allegorical interpreta tions, they thought this must be an allegory, celebrating really the love of the human heart for God and God's yearn ing for man's love in return for His. God is the bride groom, then, and Israel his bride, as in the prophet Hosea. The Christian church adopted this idea as it took over the Hebrew scriptures for its own: Christ, God's son, was the bridegroom and the Church his bride. And what happened then ? Upon this little book was focused a great deal of the mystical interpretation of Christianity. At the very heart of the Christian faith lies the power of the human soul to love ; that is the meaning of the term Christian devotion. Men learn something of its compelling and wonderful power through human love, but its divineness appears only when recognized as coming from God. It then becomes that "love that will not let me go" of which our own blind poet, George Matheson, sang in his beautiful hymn, after the weakness of human love had thrown him back upon the divine. All mystics have felt the reality of such experiences ; they know God's love because they have felt it. Even the keen, cold intellectualist who arrives at his truth through reason, has times when he appreciates another avenue of approach to God, as did Thomas Aquinas. To such souls it is a relief to let loose in even extravagant expression and imagery. This is the danger of the mystical temperament, as it is also a DRAMATIC LITERATURE 197 sign of sensitiveness and capacity for a rich and real experi ence. To such disciples the Song of Songs has been a wel come addition to devotional Hterature, and they have felt shocked at a secular interpretation, as did Rabbi Akiba when he forbade its being sung at banquets and declared "all the Writings are holy, but the Song is the holiest of all." Even after the modern historical and literary scholar concludes that these songs were written to celebrate a marriage feast and were intended originally to refer to the passion of human love at its highest this love is recognized as the "very flame of Yahweh" and taken out of a merely sensuous realm. For love is strong as death; Jealousy is hard as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire. Its flames are flames of Yahweh. No waters can quench love. Nor can the deep floods drown it.* These lines have been called "that great paean of triumphant love, the blended purity, tenderness and strength of which can hardly be matched in the poetry of passion." This per haps explains in a measure the interesting career this little book has had in literary interpretation. However, when all due allowance is made for the sincerity of religious de votion, these lyrics on the face of them are merely frank, free, exuberant expressions of the emotion of human love in sensuous imagery. There are three interpretations which modem scholars have held regarding its composition. At first it was thought to be a connected dramatic poem relating the amours of King Solomon, who on one of his royal pilgrimages in the north country fell in love with a beautiful, naive, rustic maiden, whom he brought home with him to his harem. But she had a country lover to whom she had given her heart and no enticements of the king nor allurements of the court could wean her from her loyalty to him. Her home sickness in Jerusalem was irreparable save by returning her 4 Dr. Gordon's translation. Song of Sol. 8:6, 7- 198 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE to her rustic life and beautiful vineyards, to cling to the man of her own heart's choice. This is a very interesting conception and with some rear rangement and filling in of dramatic setting the Song can be made to fit such a theory and it thus accounts for the reference to Solomon. But there are grave difficu'ties in the way, in the lack of unity apparent and the necessity of imag ining the plot. A much more widely accepted view is that it is a cycle of love songs sung at the seven days' marriage feast which occurred after a wedding. This is the custom of Syrian villages even down to recent times, the young men and maidens arranging a kind of play, representing the groom as king and his bride as queen. They would then take Solomon's name as that of their brilliant, pleasure-lov ing sovereign, the young men acting as Solomon's body guard and the maidens as "the daughters of Jerusalem." This interpretation seems more natural and to have more real background for it. The cycle of songs then falls into seven cantos — I, 1:2-2:7; II, 2:8-17; IH, 3:1-11; IV, 4:1-5:1; V, 5:2- 6:9; VL 6:10-8:4; VH, 8:5-14. Another arrangement makes four cantos as follows : 1,1: 2-3 : 5 ; II, 3 : 6-6 : 9 ; m, 6: 10-8:4; IV, 8:5-14. There is also a third conception, that it is simply a group of love songs, not wedding songs necessarily. Some of the finest of them are given here merely as examples of the style. (1:7, 8)5 A Shepherdess — Tell me, thou loved of my soul. Where thou tendest thy sheep; For why should I wander in vain By the flocks of thy comrades? Answer — If thou know not thy loved one's pastures, Thou fairest of women. Go forth in the tracks of the sheep. By the tents of the herdsmen! 5 The translation and arrangement is for the most part that of A. R. Gordoti. DRAMATIC LITERATURE 199 (2:1-3) The Bride — I am a rose of Sharon, A lily of the valleys. The Bridegroom — As a lily among the thistles Is my love among the daughters. The Bride — As an apple tree in the forest Is my loved one among the sons. In his shadow I rest with delight. And his fruit is sweet to my taste. (2:8-13) A Maiden of her Lover — Hark, my beloved! See, he comes. Leaping over the mountains. Skipping over the hills! Lo! there he standeth Against our wall! I look through the lattice, I peer through the panes. Then answers my loved one. And speaks to ine thus : 'Arise, my love; My fair one, come! For, lo ! the winter is past. The rain is over and gone. The flowers appear in the land. And the voice of the ring-dove is heard. The fig-tree ripens its fruit. And the vines give forth their fragrance. Arise, then, my love; My fair one, comel' 200 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE (4:9, 10) The Lover — Thou hast captured my heart, O my sister, my bride. With one glance of thine eyes, with one turn of thy neck. How fair is thy love, O my sister, my bride ! How much better is thy love than wine.^ (5:2) The Bride — I was asleep, but my mind was awake : Hark ! My beloved is knocking ! [He said], 'Open to me, my sister. My friend, my dove, my undefiled. For my head is filled with dew. My locks with the drops of the night' [But I said] 'I have put off my garment; How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; How shall I soil them?' My beloved took his hand away from the latch. Then my heart was moved for him, I rose up to open to my beloved. (5:10ff.) The Maiden — My beloved is radiant and ruddy. The chief of ten thousand; His head is as gold most pure. His locks like the raven. His mouth is most sweet — He is all of him lovely. This is my loved one, my friend. Ye daughters of Jerusalem. (6:10) The Lover — She looks out like the dawn. Fair as the moon. Pure as the sun. Awful as an array with banners. « See Student's Old Testament for this stanza and the n€Kt two. DRAMATIC LITERATURE 261 (7 :10-13) The Bride — I am my loved one's. And to me is his longing. Come then, my love, let us go to the field, 'Mong the henna flowers let us lodge! Then at dawn let us out to the vineyards. To see if the vine be in bud, If the grape's tender blossom have opened. Or the pomegranates have flowered! For the mandrakes give forth their fragrance; At our door are all precious fruits. All of them new and old, I have kept for thee, my beloved. Suggested Study Dr. Gordon's chapter on The Song of Songs in Poets of the Old Testament is especially recommended. The three interpretations can be found in more extended form ( 1 ) in Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible and Literary Study of the Bible, (2) in Studenfs Old Testament ; Wood and Grant, The Bible as Literature; and Hastings, One Vol ume Dictionary of the Bible, (3) in Gordon's Poets of the Old Testament. A possible historical coincidence and an ar rangement in four canticles is suggested in Genung's Guide book to the Biblical Literature. It would be well to take the Revised Version and try to trace carefully each of these interpretations, to see which seems to you to fit the text best. The Revised Version is much better than the King James in the study of this book. DRAMATIC VISIONS Some of the Biblical writers seem to have been carried away from earth in a mystic flight and to have seen the truth behind events, human as well as divine, their only way of interpreting their visions to others being by means of 202 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE highly symbolical language. These writers are usually called apocalyptic writers, and their writings apocalypses. But it was not until near the close of the Old Testament period that the definite type of "apocalyptic literature" with very complicated symbolism appeared, such as the Book of Daniel. Then followed the Book of Enoch, of Baruch, and of many others, which form the Old Testament Apocrypha. Certain words and phrases were adopted, the formulae of that type of writings, with a certain characteristic system of angelic beings. It was a more or less stiff and formal con ception, portraying usually the coming of God's Kingdom suddenly and very dramatically from the heavens. The dramatic visions of the earlier prophets are not strictly of this school. They partake much more of the characteristics of genuine mystical and spiritual visions. There were, to be sure, spiritual and ethical conceptions in the more formal apocalyptic books, but in the earlier prophetic revelations the spirit of the seer seems free and untrammelled, although using symbolism to a high degree. In order to get the import of "a vision" it will be well to consider carefully Professor Genung's definition : "A vision, to be made intelligible to others, must be visualized, that is, put into terms of sense perception. . . . But beyond the sensible image there is an inner meaning which can be appre hended only as the vision awakens in the one to whom it is told a spiritual state similar to that of the teller. . . . The visual image is a symbol. ... A prophetic vision is thus like Jesus' parables on a larger scale." ' In connection with these visions it will be interesting to compare some of William Blake's Memorable Fancies, for his visions carry out Professor Genung's definition. In one of them he begins, "The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me." Then he questions the prophets: "I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and barefoot three years. He answered, 'The same that made our friend, Diogenes the Grecian.' I then asked Ezekiel why he ate dung, and lay so long on his right and left side. He answered, 'The de- 7 Genung, Franklin, Guidebook to the Biblical Literature, pp. 664 ff. DRAMATIC LITERATURE 203 sire of raising other men into a perception of the infinite.' " He begins another thus : "As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of genius, which to angels look like torment and insanity, I collected some of their proverbs, thinking that as the sayings used in a nation mark its character, so the proverbs of hell show the nature of infernal wisdom better than any description of buildings or garments." Isaiah's Vision, Isaiah 6. This is known as "Isaiah's Call" and is a very significant vision. We often lose its deep import by not apprehending its symbolism, also by not understanding the historical set ting, which is quite essential to its meaning. "In the year that King Uzziah died" gives the key to the whole situation. King Uzziah had been a most popular ruler for many years and during his long reign had kept off the enemies and en couraged industries until the nation was more prosperous than it had been since King David's time. But towards the end he grew very much enamored of his own importance and committed what to the Israelites was an act of great sacrilege in assuming the office of the priest, setting him aside and entering "the holy place" to offer the incense. It was an oriental custom for the king now and again to assume the priest's office as giving him more authority, even sometimes claiming divine origin as did the great queen Hatshepsut in Egypt ; but to the Hebrew who recognized only a theocracy and conceived of the king as simply the servant of Yahweh, such an act amounted to nothing short of blasphemy. The priests attempted to stop King Uzziah and there ensued a conflict which, according to the Chron icler, made him "very wroth" and "while he was wroth the leprosy brake forth on his forehead," the disease doubtless being already in his blood. Of course, according to the law, he had now to be ostracized from all society and for thirteen years he dragged out a living death. This appeared to the people of Jerusalem as a direct punishment from God for sacrilege. 204 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Isaiah, a little boy when it happened, had probably looked up to the great king as his hero, and when this tragic event occurred was deeply impressed. He was a young man when the news of Uzziah's death was spread through the city, perhaps even in the streets as his funeral train went by. It was at this time or soon after that he found himself in the temple and had this vision. It was a vision of the holiness of the Lord, of the people's sin, super ficially regarding worship as a rite and not an act of rever ence. The vision of the enormity of such sin doubtless came over Isaiah as he pondered upon the sad ending of Uzziah's life. He felt that the king was only an exponent of the atti tude of the entire nation of which Isaiah himself was a citi zen; he, too, was a sinner in countenancing it. And as he pondered he was sure that there was a crying need for this message to be brought home to the people. But how could that be done unless there was some one ready to go and speak it? Thus the challenge came to Isaiah. Four leading characteristics of this truly great statesman come out here in his response to the vision when it came to him thus in his youth; a fine sensitiveness to moral and spiritual truth ; humility in classing himself with all the rest of the people and accepting responsibility for their national sin; a quick response to need without stopping to dwell on the cost ; a perseverance to the end, even in the face of great discouragement and a stupid lack of response on the part of the people. In the year that King Uzziah died, I had a vision of the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple. Before Him were standing seraphs, each with six wings — two for covering the face, two the loins, and two to fly with ; and thus they kept calling one another: "Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of Hosts, The whole earth is full of his glory." And the foundations of the threshold trembled at the voice of them that called, and the House began to fill with smoke. Then I said "Woe is me, for I am undone; For a man of unclean Hps am I, DRAMATIC LITERATURE 205 And I dwell in a nation of unclean lips ; And yet mine eyes have seen The King, Yahweh of Hosts." Then one of the seraphs flew t^ me with a live coal in his hand, which with tongs he had taken from off the altar. With this he touched my mouth and said, "See, this hath touched thy lips : Thy guilt is past and thy sin forgiven.'' Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us ? " And I said, "Here am I : send me." Then He said, "Go and say to this people, 'Hear ever, but understand never; See ever, but comprehend never.' Make thou the heart of this people callous. Dull thou their ears and besmear their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. And their heart understand, and their health come again." Then I said, "O Lord, how long?" And he said, "Until they lie waste — Cities without inhabitant And houses without human beings — And the ground be left a desolation; And Yahweh remove men far away. And the forsaken places in the land be many : And should there be in it a tenth still left. That too, in its turn, must be given to the fire, Like the stump of an oak or a terebinth felled." s The Valley of Dry Bones, Ezekiel 37:1-14. However strange and complicated some of Ezekiel's visions may seem to us, this one is very simple, its meaning 8 See McFadyen and International Critical Commentary for the renderings and arrangement. This last section is supposed to have been written after the prophet had experienced discouragement and opposition. 206 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE standing out quite obviously. There is a subtle strain of humor here also which brings a smile ; for if the essence of humor consists in vivid contrasts, what can be more point edly contrasted than deadness and aliveness, than a valley of rattling dry bones and those same bones walking about hand in hand with the spirit of life in them? This is a com munity vision, as were almost all of the prophetic visions of the Old Testament. Those of us who have ever seen a "dead" community begin to stir with a breath of life and by and by become a "live" place where the Spirit of the Lord is surely manifest, know that it is done in just this way. First, some individual dry bone begins to move closer to another and after a social earthquake or something of the sort a real community nearness is established; then at the psychological moment a great spiritual enthusiasm for some high cause sweeps across the city or the village, and lo ! the dry bones stand up on their feet, an exceeding great army. Even a very dead church or discouraged community can get a ray of hope from such a vision as this. The New Jerusalem, Revelation 21 : 1-22 : 5. The great writer of visions in the New Testament was "John the Seer," as he has been called, and his book of Revelation is cast in the apocalyptic style. Ezekiel has a symbolic vision of the Restored Jerusalem to encourage the Jews of the Captivity ; John pictures the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city; it is a part of his prophecy of the final tri umph of Christianity, an anticipation of the time when God and men shall dwell together, when there shall be no sin and no sorrow, no black night of fear, distress and death. ;(21:3, 4; 24:3,4). Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men. And He shall dwell with them. And they shall be His people. And He shall be their God. And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, And death shall be no more; Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. Neither shall there be any more curse. DRAMATIC LITERATURE 207 And the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it : And His servants shall serve Him, And they shall see His face. And His name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be no more night. And they have no need of light of lamp or light of sun. For the Lord God shall cause His face to shine upon them: And they shall reign forever and ever.° Just before this, in the eighteenth chapter, the Seer has given a picture of the Fall of Rome under the guise of Babylon, reminding us very much of the wonderful Old Testament dirge on the Doom of Babylon.^" To New Testa ment writers Rome was the Babylon of the Old Testament, a city of utter worldliness and materialistic ideas, a city of greed and oppression, the capital of the empire that kept the whole world under its heel, and grievously persecuted the Christians. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. And has become a habitation for demons. And a hold of every unclean and hateful spirit. And a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. For of the wine of her fornication hath she caused all the nations to drink; For the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, And the merchants of the earth waxed rich through the wealth of her wantonness. Come forth from her, my people. That ye have no fellowship with her sins. And that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven. And God hath remembered her iniquities. Because she saith in her heart, I sit as queen. And am no widow. And I shall not see mourning. Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, Pestilence and mourning and famine. And she shall be burnt with fire ; For strong is the God who hath judged her. 9 The translations are those of Dr. Charles in his very scholarly commentary recently published. 10 See p. 1^2. 208 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE And the kings of the earth who committed fornification and lived wantonly with her shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe to the great city, Babylon, the strong city, For in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her. For no man buyeth their merchandise any more. Merchandise of gold and silver, and precious stone and pearls. And fine linen and purple, and silk and scarlet. And all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel of most precious wood. And brass and iron and marble. And cinnamon, and spice, and incense. And ointment, and frankincense, and wine. And oil, and fine flour, and wheat. And beasts, and sheep, and souls of men. The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, saying. Woe, woe to the great city, That was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, And adorned with gold, and precious stone, and pearl; For in one hour are so great riches laid waste. The vision of the City of God is in direct contrast with this : "There shall not enter into it anything unclean or one that maketh an abomination or a lie" ; but the glory and splendor of it is to be quite as dazzling, walls of precious stones and gates of pearl, streets of gold, and the glory of the Lord to lighten it. The City of God, Revelation 21 : 9-27. And then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, which were full of the seven last plagues ; and he spake with me, saying. Come hither, I will show thee the bride of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God : her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal. She had a wall great and high ; she had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve DRAMATIC LITERATURE 209 angels ; and the names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east were three gates ; and on the north three gates ; and on the south three gates ; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length thereof is as great also as the breadth; and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs: the length and the breath and the height thereof are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hun dred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. And the building of the wall thereof was jaspar: And the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass : And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jaspar; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony ; The fourth emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; The seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; The tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls ; Each one of the gates was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass. And I saw no temple therein; For the Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof. And the Lamb is the arm of the covenant therof. And the city hath no need of the sun, nor yet of the moon, to shine upon it: For the glory of the Lord doth lighten it. And the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk by the light thereof : And the Kings of the earth do bring their glory with it. And the gates thereof shall not be shut day or night. And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it : And there shall not enter into it anything unclean or one that maketh an abomination or a lie ; But only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life. In order to understand the symbolism of this vision one should study the picture in Ezekiel of his Restored Jerusa lem; he saw the city measured off very exactly, with walls 210 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and gates, lodges and courts, and the temple. In John's picture the Lord God is to be the temple. In Ezekiel's pic ture the glory of the Lord filled the house, in John's vision His glory fills the city; in Ezekiel's healing waters were to flow from beneath the threshold of the temple and refresh the barren ground so that "upon the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other" ; in John's vision there is also a river making the banks so fruitful that they bear "the tree of life" : And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal. Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, In the midst of the street thereof : And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life. Ezekiel's city was to be for the twelve tribes and for the strangers that came to live with them, but in John's Revela tion the invitation is as universal as humanity's need. And the Spirit and the bride say. Come. And let him that heareth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come : Whosoever willeth let him take the water of life freely. Doctor Charles has called attention to the fact that the twelve precious stones were connected in the current belief of the time with the twelve signs of the Zodiac thus : 1. The Ram — ^the amethyst. 2. The Bull — the hyacinth. 3. The Twins — the chrysoprase. 4. The Crab— the topaz. 5. The Lion — ^the beryl. 6. The Virgin — ^the chrysolite. 7. The Balance — ^the sardius. 8. The Scorpion — the sardonyx. 9. The Archer — the smaragdus. 10. The Goat — the chalcedon. 11. The Water-carrier — the sapphire. 12. The Fishes — ^the jasper. DRAMATIC LITERATURE ' 211 But John mentions the stones in exactly the reverse order of the way the astronomy of that day caused the sun to travel thrdugh the constellations, connecting the stones also with the names of the Twelve Tribes and the Twelve Apostles rather than the signs of the Zodiac, and using them in an ornamental sense. "Thus he deliberately disconnects the Holy City with the city of the gods." We should notice also what Doctor Charles says in his preface. "Nearly always when dealing with his greatest themes, the Seer's words assume — perhaps unconsciously at times — ^the form of parallelism familiar in Hebrew poetry. Even the strophe and antistrophe are found. To print such passages as prose is to rob them of half their force. It is not only the form that is thereby lost, but also much of the thought that in a variety of ways is reenforced by this paral lelism. Though our author has for his theme the inevitable conflicts and antagonisms of good and evil, of God and the powers of darkness, yet his book is emphatically a Book of Songs. Dirges there are, indeed, and threnodies — they spring from the lips of the kings of the earth, its merchant princes, its seafolk, overwhelmed by the fall of the empire of this world and the destruction of its mighty ones — but a faith immeasurable, an optimism inexpugnable, a joy in extinguishable press for utterance and take form in anthems of praise and gladness and thanksgiving, as the Seer follows in vision the varying fortunes of the world struggle, till at last he sees evil fully and finally destroyed, righteousness established for evermore, and all the faithful — even the weakest of God's servants amongst them — enjoying ever lasting blessedness in the eternal City of God, bearing His name on their foreheads, and growing more and more into His likeness." Professor Genung has called this picture "the summary of an epic portrayal which, with all its wealth of symbolic imagery, is beyond expression sublime." With this should be pondered also the following remarks by another student of "the City of God." "Since long be fore Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, mankind has been seeking 'the City which hath the foundations, whose builder 212 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and maker is God.' In times of depression, they have looked for it in heaven, as Augustine did; in times of hope, they have spoken of realizing it here in this world, as William Blake did. But throughout his history man seems to have been drawn by this lure of a common life of peace and harmony and freedom, the city in which life will be made perfect, because God dwells with man. ... In Protes tantism we have been somewhat vainly trying to reach a 'social' interpretation of Christianity which will lie easily upon our f imdamental individualism ; and the best we have done is to add a Christian social theory as a sort of post script or footnote to our essential orthodoxy. But there is coming a new quality of religious experience which will be intrinsically social, so that men will not be able to dis entangle their relation to God from fheir relation to their brethren. And that experience when it comes will be a vision of life as a whole under some image of a City of God, of men and women living together and doing together the great works of the Spirit, a community in which all work will be art and all art will be worship." ^^ DRAMATIC PROPHECY In Biblical literature dramatic visions contain prophecy as a rule, but prophetic utterances may be dramatic with out being uttered in the form of visions. Examples of very vivid dramatic imagination are Micah's Address before the Mountains in Behalf of the Lord, The Oracle of The Fall of Babylon in Isaiah 21, and the two brief sketches already mentioned of the Fall of Nineveh in the book of Nahum. Micah's Address Before the Mountains in Behalf of the Lord, Micah 6:1-8. Oh, hear what 'Yahweh is speaking: Arise contend thou before the mountains. And let the hills hear thy voice. 11 Dr. Richard Roberts, On, to the City of God, a pamphlet published by The Woman's Press. DRAMATIC LITERATURE 213 Hear, O mountains, Yahweh's contention. Give ear, ye foundations of the earth ! For Yahweh hath a complaint against His people, And He will contend with Israel : What have I done to thee, O my people. Wherein have I vexed thee ? Accuse Me ! (The people) Wherewith shall I come before Yahweh, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings. With calves a year old ? Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams. With ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give to Him my firstborn. My body's fruit for my sin? (Answer) He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; And what doth Yahweh require of thee. But to do justly and to love kindness. And to walk humbly with thy God ? ^^ The last verse is considered the best definition of religion ever made. It should be learned by heart. Another Picture of The Fall of Babylon, Isaiah 21 : 1-9. Some scholars class this dramatic fragment with ecstasy or vision. Oracle on the Wilderness [The poet hears a terrible war from the southeast, the noise of the approaching army which is to destroy the oppressor who goes on robbing and spoiling others to the last moment.] Like the roar of the whirlwind That sweeps through the southland, It comes from the desert. That land of dread. A vision full stern Hath been told unto me : The robber still robbeth, 12 See Duhm, The Twelve Prophets, and Kent, Student's Old Testament, for rendering and arrangement. Verses 4 and 5 are considered a later addition. 214 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE The spoiler still spoileth. "Go up, O Elam; O Media, lay siege: All the sighs of the crushed Have I brought to an end." [The poet is perfectly amazed at the picture he sees, the utter self- complacency and stupidity of the Babylonian royalty, sitting at their banquet tables carousing, while the enemy is swiftly marching to their very doors.] For this cause my loins Are filled with anguish; With pangs am I seized Like a woman in travail. I writhe with the message. The vision confounds me. My mind goes a-wandering. Horror appals me; The twilight I love Hath been turned into trembling. The tables are ready, The carpets are spread. They are eating and drinking. Arise, ye princes. Spread oil on the shields. For on this wise the Lord Hath spoken to me : "Go, station a watchman To tell what he sees. If he seeth a troop. Horsemen in pairs, A train of asses, A train of camels. Then let him give heed With most diligent heed." And the watchman cried, "On the watch-tower, O Lord, Do I stand all the day; At my post am I stationed The live-long night. Lo ! ! a troop I see coming, Of horsemen in pairs." And he uttered these words, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon: Down to the ground Fall her images shattered." [The poet turns to the people whom the Tyrant had so grievously- oppressed.] DRAMATIC LITERATURE 215 Ye my folk that were threshed Like the corn on the floor, I have told you my message From Israel's God, From Yahweh of Hosts.i^ With this should also be read the picture of the downfall of Babylon in Isaiah 47. Come down, and sit in the dust, O Virgin daughter of Babylon ; Hear this now. Lady of pleasure. Who sittest so securely. And sayest in thy heart, "It is I, there is none beside me; I shall never sit as a widow. Nor know the loss of children." These two things shall come upon thee. Full swift in a single day — The loss of thy husband and children Shall suddenly come upon thee. Despite thy many spells. Despite thine enchantments many, Despite thy trust in thy wickedness. And thy fancy that no one can see thee. Read also that vivid heralding of one who shall deliver Zion from her enemies, in Isaiah 63. The figure used is drawn from the custom of treading out the grapes. (Cry) Who is this that cometh all red. With garments more brilliant than those of a vintager? So glorious in his apparel, Marching in fulness of strength? (Answer) It is I, that have promised deliverance, I that am mighty to save. (Cry) Why is thy raiment so red. And thy garments like his that doth tread in the wine-press ? 13 McFadyen's translation. For date of writing and authorship see the commentaries or Creelman's Introduction to the Old Testament. 216 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE (Answer) I have trodden the wine-trough alone. Of the nations was no man with Me; So I trod them in Mine anger. And trampled them down in My fury; Their life-blood besprinkled My garments. And all Mine apparel I stained. In contrast with these spirited appeals for vengeance should be read such passages of mercy as Isaiah 55 where the call of a water carrier through the streets is imitated. Ho I all that are thirsty, come ye to the waters. And ye that have no money, come ; Buy ye and eat without money. Buy wine and milk without price.** And the call of Jesus in Matthew 11. Come unto Me, All ye that labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, And learn of me ; For I am meek and lowly in heart: And ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy. And my burden is light. BOOKS TO CONSULT on Dramatic Literature in the Bible Duhm, Bernhard — The Twelve Prophets. Gordon, A. R. — Poets of the Old Testament. International Critical Commentary — Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation. McFadyen, Edgar — Isaiah in Modern Speech. Moulton, Richard — Literary Study of the Bible. Student's Old Testament. 14 These renderings of Isaiah are McFadyen's. So dramatic are all the prophetic books that several of them have been arranged as plays, which can be given on the stage very effectively. See Eleanor Wood Whitman's, Dramas of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos, Chapter VII WISDOM LITERATURE There is a whole group of Biblical writings classed under the head of "Wisdom Literature" because they came from the hands of "the wise men," a school of teachers the near est to philosophers which we have in the Old Testament. These "wise men" were a comparatively late product after the Hebrews had come into contact with the thought of other races in a very intimate way, during the Captivity and through the Dispersion which scattered them about in all the neighboring countries. The effect of their experiences at home and abroad was threefold; it made many of them anxious to imitate the customs and enjoy the luxuries of foreign lands; it made the reactionaries all the more in sistent that a Jew should be a Jew, loyal to his own tradi tions and beliefs ; and it made the deeply thoughtful ponder upon the reasons for their troubles and their fate, and even question whether the traditional answers to some of life's problems were the true answers. With the deeply religious such questioning resulted in very profound searchings for God and final faith in Him. With the more superficial time- servers it produced a doctrine of "the happy mean," an avoidance of extremes as unwise if one wished to get along well in this world ; or even a cynical view, "vanity of vani ties, saith the preacher, all is vanity !" There are two entire books, Job and Ecclesiastes, which belong to "Wisdom Literature," besides many of the Prov erbs, maxims of worldly wisdom by shrewd observers of human nature. There are two books in the Apocrypha which also come under this class, Ecclesiasticus and The Wisdom of Solomon. 217 218 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE THE BOOK OF JOB The book of Job is without any question the greatest production of this period. Some would call it the great est piece of literature in the Bible, and rank it with the best of the world classics. The reason for this is twofold; its profound thought and its elevated style. Some of the pas sages rise to the heights of the very finest poetry, and its dramatic setting is skillfully arranged. It is, indeed, the writing nearest to a drama which the Bible contains; not a real drama according to our occidental standards pat terned very largely on the Greek definition of a drama ; not a play, but a series of expressive monologues against a dramatic background. The note it strikes is that of the universal, age-long problem, the meaning of suifering. It is introduced in the prose prologue by the subordinate theme. Is there such a thing as disinterested love ? "Doth Job fear God for naught?" asks the Adversary as he appears in the court of heaven before Yahweh. He said No: God said Yes: the interest to the reader is to see who comes out ahead in the answer. In the tragic trials Job is made to pass through, his answer of loyalty to the highest revelation God can make to him proves that God is right; men do love Him for His own sake and not simply for the things He gives them. Job himself has grown marvelously in his own soul in his attempts to be loyal to his highest thought, his best self ; not all the arguments of his four so-called friends, representing the orthodox and the dogmatic, the old and the young, the fossilized and the callow, can swerve him from sucli integrity. The final passages of the poem are especially lofty where God speaks to him out of the storm and he humbly says, "I had heard of Thee by hear say, but now mine eye seeth Thee." While the main prob lem of the book, why must there be suffering, remains un answered, the shallow reasons offered by the traditionally orthodox, who think all suffering is sent as punishment for some evil deed, are vigorously refuted, and the sympathizer WISDOM LITERATURE 219 with Job is left with him on a mountain top, the air cleared after the storm and with an unshakeable faith in a God who understands even if we do not. In estimating the value of this wonderful book it must be remembered that the questions of the meaning of suffer ing and of disinterested love are ever-recurring; they are the vital problems which afford the interest in every home that is started, in every friendship pledged, in every public position accepted, in every national relationship; in literature they lie at the heart of every good novel or play, and furnish the fascination for every good history or biog raphy. They are even the persistent problems in the study of nature and man's environment, whether it is the freezing cold, or the withering heat, or "the survival of the fittest" in the economic world, which absorbs him. "Woe is me, that I was born in such a day!" is the constant complaint. It is because the author of this book struck such a note of universal, perpetual, and vital interest, and represented the struggle of the human soul coming out of the testing with integrity saved, a whole soul, not a compromised one, that this is a world classic and will ever be so regarded. From the standpoint of literary form there has been much discussion, especially of late. Among the Jews the book of Job seems originally to have been considered historical, and also by Christian writers up to the time of the Reforma tion. Luther broke loose from that idea. He thought it started with a germ of history which was worked over and enlarged upon by some "ingenious, pious and learned man." No scholar now takes it literally. The scenes in the heav enly court could only be imaginary and symbolical. The ex tremity of the calamities, the numbers three and seven used in a formal fashion, the carefully thought-out debate, all in dicate a literary design which is not based on strict history. Some scholars think that the prose prelude and postlude, or framework for the poetical speeches, was written after the exile about the time of Malachi, when people were very much depressed and saw little use in serving Yahweh, when what worship they gave was more or less perfunctory. The 220 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE question whether man served God for naught would be especially pertinent then. The body of the book, or the poetical portion, was, according to these scholars, introduced later. Job is no longer patient under suffering; he ex presses himself most vigorously against its injustice; the pious orthodox point of view of his so-called friends irri tates him greatly; he must think down deeper than that to find a reason for faith in Yahweh, a faith that in his earnest ness he finds, meeting God himself in such a way that he cannot doubt Him. Many scholars think this illustrates the progress of thought of the nation in pondering upon their bitter experience of Captivity; others believe it to have sprung originally from some individual's personal ex perience, although it may have been used afterwards to apply to the whole nation. Again, some feel that the whole book is a unit and say that without an introduction and conclusion such as the prologue and epilogue supply, the book would be quite incomplete, whereas as it now stands it is an artistic whole. A very few have attempted to show that it is an imita tion of a Greek tragedy. It was doubtless written in the Persian or the Greek period and is the nearest to a Greek drama which the Hebrew literature contains. It is known that in Hellenistic circles such as the city of Alexandria con tained, with the plays of Euripides were presented also others written after the Greek manner to represent epochs in Hebrew history. Theodore of Mopsuestia who lived in Cilicia in the early part of the fifth century A.D. thought the book was fiction and written by some one familiar with Greek literature. A student of the present day thinks he finds in the book the characteristic marks of a Greek play, namely, prologue, epilogue, and dialogue in the body of the argument, and even an epiphany to end the argument; he points out that the verses in different meter, which mark the divisions of the dialogue and are usually thought to be interpolations, are to his mind the places where the choruses appear as in the Greek form.^ But while one scholar says, 1 See Horace Kallen, The Book of Job as a Greek Tragedy. WISDOM LITERATURE 221 "There is only one great work in the world's literature that really resembles Job and that is Prometheus Bound by yEschylus; these two works are so much alike that the thought of dependence suggests itself," and another that this Greek idea "is a hypothesis which invites serious con sideration from Biblical scholars and students of literature," it is not a theory which is generally accepted. The book has no plot with entanglement, development, and final solu tion, and the happy outcome is not proper to a real tragedy. Doctor Davidson thinks that "any idea of representing his work on a stage never crossed the author's mind" and Doctor Cheyne that "a. Hebrew drama is inconceivable." The attempts to dramatize it in English, such as Stuart Walker's recent presentation, have caused dramatic critics to pronounce it "a dramatic rendering" rather than a play. We may, then, consider the book of Job a series of three cycles of dramatic poetic speeches in a prose framework. Almost all scholars think there are interpolations in these speeches and that they are not arranged entirely in the proper order of verses. These interpolations occur espe cially in the last cycle, which does not proceed smoothly and seems in some places even unnatural. This is particu larly true of Elihu's remarks, which are also inferior in style to the rest. The late Doctor Jastrow in his recent treatise. The Book of Job, considered it to be very far from a unity. He considered the framework based upon an early Babylonian folk-tale, the poetical section made up of three distinct strata, the later ones added to tone down Job's protests against the orthodox point of view, and the nature poems independent compositions, the final editor having welded all these elements together to make an apparent unity. There has been much discussion as to the literary term that should be applied to this book. If it is not a drama is it an epic ? So Professor Genung would call it, only not an epic of the usual sort, but an "Epic of the Inner Life." He called it the story of "the heroic spiritual achievements of Job ... as if the patriarch's words were veritable deeds 222 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE of valor and victory." He acknowledged that it has traits of both literary types, and that the term applied depends upon whether one looks at the outer form or the inner substance of thought. Perhaps the best conclusion we can reach is that "we cannot force this splendid fruit of Hebrew wisdom into a Greek scheme, and it is really futile to discuss whether it is a drama or an epic. It is itself." ^ "It stands absolutely alone not only in the literature of Israel but in the literature of the world." ^ Notwithstanding all these elaborate discussions of the true literary make-up of this wonderful book and also the fact that we have it in translation and "none of the English ver sions is even remotely adequate," yet the ordinary English reader can, with a little help, get the drift of its meaning and catch the thrill of the deep dramatic note that is struck and the lofty conclusion that is reached; he can respond to the grandeur of the style, the exquisite descriptions of na ture and the realistic expressions of human feeling, even in our imperfect English translations. If certain passages are marked in the Bible the whole story can be read in an hour, and the drift of the argument perceived. An analysis for use in marking follows : * Analysis of Job Prose Prologue — Chs. 1 & 2. Scenes — at the court of heaven and on earth. Chief actor, Satan, or The Adversary, or The Inspector, "a mocking, detracting, reckless, impudent being, observing and criticizing all things, yet sympathizing with none. ... his only oc cupation being apparently to appease the restlessness of an active mind, as well as he can, by incessantly roaming over the earth and observing its affairs." The Poem Dramatis Personce Job — the Sufferer. Eliphaz— the elderly man, very devout, representative of "the wise." Bildad — middle-aged, strictly orthodox. Zophar — a narrow-minded, hot-headed, insistent dogmatist. 2 New Century Bible. 3 Hastings Bible Dictionary. 4 In marking these passages it is suggested that the little volume in Moul ton's Modern Reader's Bible vpill be found convenient and useful. The stu dent is advised to consult the authors referred to in the list of "Books to Consult." WISDOM LITERATURE 223 Elihu — ^the young man who proposes the solution that the punishment is because Job is not submissive, rather than actually wicked; he thinks he has something new to say but really adds nothing to the argumer'- Scene — The Ash-heap outside the city wall. Cycles of Argument by the Three Friends and Job (1) Chs. 4-14 . (2) Chs. 15-21 (3) Chs. 22-27 The Remainder of the Poem (4) Ch. 28. A poem exalting Wisdom. (S) Chs. 29-31. A soliloquy of Job. (6) Chs. 32-37. Elihu's Speeches. (7) Chs. 38-41. God's speaks in the Whirlwind. The Nature Poems. Prose Epilogue— Ch. 42:7-17. Job's final blessing and prosperity on earth. Passages to mark for an hour's dramatic reading. Prologue. 1:1-2:13 Poem Job, (an honest and sincere man, having lived conscientiously, the best he knew how, but now under affliction working out a larger philosophy and a deeper life with God.) 3 : 3, 20-22 The great question-mark concerning human misery. The "Friends" Argument with him begins. (The "Friends" have their philosophy of life all settled and are shocked at Job's unorthodox attitude.) First Cycle Eliphaz — (the gray-bearded ancient, beginning very blandly in a tone of fatherly solicitude.) 4:1-5, 7-9, 12; 5:8, 17, 18. Job— 6: 1-4, 8-14, 25, 27, 29; 7: 11, 13. (The last verses show that Job is not yet willing to accept injus tice and thinks the lack of sympathy in his friends is one more affliction.)Bildad — (the orthodox; he suggests that the reason for Job's sad plight must be because he has sinned.) 8:6, 20. Job — (accepting in a measure the orthodox position but very much puzzled about it.) 9:2-4, 21, 24, 30, 33. (Seems conscious that man's most perfect attempts can never be absolutely holy before God. He feels caught in a mesh.) 10: 1 ("Job's everlasting No." He finds relief in speaking.) 10:5-15 (He feels almost hard towards God. God, he thinks, cannot understand the injustice of man's situation. He shows up the fallacy of the orthodox doctrine.) 10:20-22 (After all there is no satisfaction.) 224 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Zophar— {The narrow, intense dogmatist, with self-righteous su periority, and no courtesy. This whole chapter is a pious lecture.)11:2-4, 6, 12 Job (sarcastically replies) 12 : 2, 7-10 (Their wisdom is not so great as they think.) 13 : 2-5, 7, 10, 12-15, 18, 25 14: 1 (He again returns to the unanswerable question.) 14: 14 (A more profound question.) 14:21 (Life is a strange puzzle.) Second Cycle (The "friends" are shocked at the way Job receives their gentle remonstrances; so they bear down harder. Truth must be spoken at any cost to sympathy ; Job is not only a heretic but a blaspheming one.)Eliphaz — 15:2-4, 11 (This reproach is one which Job resents.) 15 : 17, 24-28 (Notice the insinuations as to the kind of sin of which Job may have been guilty.) IS : 34 (He bears on worse and worse.) Job — (very much irritated.) 16:2-6 16: 12 (a pathetic cry) 16 : 17, 19 (But he rises to ultimate confidence in God, although his friends have failed him. He seems to be working out a clearer idea of God.) 17:6-10, 13-16 (The questioning again.) Bildad— 18 : 5-14 Job — (exasperated, tells them they are going too far.) 19:2-419 : 9, 13, 18-22 (A bitter cry.) 19:23-27 (His conviction of God is getting more definite. Verse 25 has always been taken as the supreme utterance of Job.) Zophar— {He does not like Job's insinuation that the "friends'" may be sinners too.) 20:2, 5, 6, 7, 15, 18, 29 (More out-and-out 3.CCUS3,tl011S ) /o&— 21:3, 4, 7-9, 17, 23-26, 27, 28, 34 (The troublesome question again.) Third Cycle Eliphaz^{Yery unjustly severe in his accusations.) 22:3, 5-9, ?3, 29. Job— 23 : 2-10 24:1 (The old question again.) 24:2-4, 9, 13, 22 (He acknowledges that there are grafters and contemptible cheats and sinners such as the "friends" have accused him of being.) Bildad — ^25:4-6, 26:5-14 (The beginning of the argument from Nature.) WISDOM LITERATURE 225 Job — 26 : 2 (sarcastically) 27:2-6 (He will not consent to seem what he is not.) Zophar— 27:11, 14-23 (The same old philosophy.) 28 : 12-28 (Continued argument from Nature. This is deeper reasoning and in a more humble tone.) Job's Soliloquy Job— 29:2-30:1 30:9-11, 16, 29-31 (A very pathetic wail. He had been evi dently a very important man in the city. It seems to Job as if God must be cruel if He is the cause of such changes.) Job's last attempt at vindication. — 31 : 5-8, 16, 17, 19-22, 24, 25, 29, 31, 32, 35, 38-40 Elihu's Speeches Elihu — (the young man, with a more lenient solution to the prob lem.) [Some think this is an interpolation by a later editor who wanted to soften the speeches and offer a more satisfactory answer to the question. EHhu is very wordy but really adds little.] 32:6-21; 33:6, 7, 8, 12, 13 (Man must learn that there are mysteries.) 33 : 14-16 (First way of learning.) 33:19 (Second way of learning.) 33:29-33 34: 7-9, 18,^ 19, 36 (Job has sinned as much as any one.) 36:2, 3, 5-7a, 9-12, 17, 18 36:22, 23, 26-33 (A storm begins to appear.) 37:1-5, 14 (The storm comes nearer.) 37:22, 23 (A wonderful light appears with the storm.) God Speaks A Voice out of the Storm. (This is one of the iinest passages in all literature.) 38:2-11, 16-36; 39: 19, 26, 27; 40:2 Job — (who has begun to learn his lesson.) 40:4-5 The Votce^iO:?, 8, 10-14 (Most scholars think the animal descriptions are interpolations of a later date.) Job — (humbly) 42: 2 The Voice— ^2:33l Job-42 : 3b The Voice— ^2: A Job-^2:5 Prose Epilogue — 42 : 7-17 6 See margin of Revised Version. 226 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Suggested Study Note the skepticism of a certain type of man as to any ones serving God for naught. See how this is expressed by the "Adversary"; by the "Friends." Point out the many contrasts in both the prologue and the poem. E.g., heaven and earth; prosperity and utter ruin; happi ness and wretchedness; God's supremacy and man's weak ness ; the shallow orthodoxy of the friends and the profound religious earnestness of Job ; the rebellion and skepticism of the beginning of the book and the faith and rest in God (al though suffering is still a mystery) at the close; the God Job turns from as unjust and cruel and not to be under stood, and the God he turns to and believes in as just and good. Compare Job's rebellion with Carlyle's "Everlasting No," and his self-assertion with Henley's poem in which he as serts "I Am the Captain of my Soul." Look for — Metaphors. ("This poet is a master of metaphors, taken from many spheres of life.") Exquisite descriptions of nature, the storm, the animal pictures. ("They are like instantaneous photographs.") The poet's power of irony; of pathos. (It is "deeply moving.") The use of parallelism. Make a character study of Job. Contrast the character drawing of his picture with that of his friends, who "have no clearly marked individuality." Compare the Book of Job with ^schylus' Prometheus Bound, with Goethe's Faust, with Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger. ESTIMATES OF THIS BOOK "In the middle of our Bible, massive and majestic, stands a monumental work of the world's literature, before which the sincere scholar can only stand with the awe of one who takes his shoes from his feet." Genung. WISDOM LITERATURE 227 "Such living likenesses were never since drawn. There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit." Carlisle. "The book is studded with exquisite figures, and the speech of Jehovah is, for sustained dignity and beauty, un surpassed in the world's literature. It is the product of the highest genius. . . . The book of Job is one of the world's masterpieces. It stands beside the greatest of the works of uEschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides, or Dante's Divina Commedia, or Goethe's Faust as an immortal portrayal of the struggles of the soul." George Barton. "Here the poetical genius of Israel reaches its noblest height. In range of imagination, and sustained splendor of diction, the book not merely stands alone in the Old Testament but takes a foremost place also among the mas terpieces of the world's literature. Tennyson but expresses the common feeling of literary critics when he pronounces it 'the greatest poem whether of ancient or of modern times.' " A. R. Gordon. "The prof ound philosophy and noble poetry of the author, and his knowledge of the deep problems of human life, make the Book of Job, both in its conception as a work of literary art, and in its subject matter, the greatest and the most dar ing that has come to us from the remote past. No other portion of the Old Testament, except the latter part of Isaiah is comparable to Job as a lengthy treatment of a single subject." /. H. Penniman. "It is not surprising, that by the verdict of poets, thinkers and critics of all lands and of every age, the Book of Job has been accorded a place quite by itself. Even without penetrating to its deeper meaning, the mere beauty of its diction and the dignity of its stanzas suffice to make a universal appeal. Job belongs to those choice productions — few in number — that take their place outside of the environ ment in which they arise and become the possession of humanity at large. Like the dramas of Euripides and of ./^schylus and the poems of Horace, the immortal produc tions of Dante and Milton, like Shakespeare's Hamlet and 228 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Goethe's Faust, the Book of Job belongs to all ages. As one of the earliest of attempts to deal with the most per plexing of religious problems, it has exercised a profound influence on the literature of Western nations. One can trace that influence in all the great poems and dramas of the Western world that deal with the tragedy of human suffering and of human wrongs, whether we turn to Dante's Divina Commedia or to Milton's Paradise Lost and Re gained, to Shakespeare's Hamlet or to Goethe's Faust. The philosophy of Job has colored the thought of the greatest thinkers from Spinoza and the English Deists down to Schopenhauer and Nietzche. Optimists and pessimists alike have made their appeal to Job and have found in the book a confirmation of their views or a support for their outlook on life. Above all it has been a source of consolation to troubled souls, bowed down by grief and sorrow." Morris Jastrow. THE WORDS OF KOHELETH One of the most interesting products of the period of the worldly-wise man is the book called in our Bibles by the name of Ecclesiastes. That word is the attempt to translate into Greek the Hebrew word Koheleth. The de rivation of Koheleth is rather hard to discover; it appar ently comes from a stem meaning "to gather." This word would then mean "the one who gathers people together" or calls an assembly. In Greek an assembly was an ecclesia, but to us things ecclesiastic are very churchly and ortho dox, and this book is the farthest from being either. Our ordinary versions translate the word also as "the preacher." But Koheleth was no preacher in the usual acceptation of the term, a man using all his persuasive powers to win others to a good and great cause. This man, whoever he was, was a shrewd observer of human life and its ups and downs, its allurements and temporal rewards, its hollowness and un satisfactoriness, above all its apparent injustices and its ever repeated experiences. It seemed to him man gets nowhere WISDOM LITERATURE 229 in trying to solve the whys and wherefores of his puzzling existence, that the best thing for him to do is to try to avoid setting his heart upon anything too seriously, but to go through life getting as much pleasure as possible day by day in obeying "the golden mean." He has great insight into the sorrows and disappointments of this mortal span; he has no insight whatever into the "other world," the spiritual sphere beyond this material universe, nor can he penetrate into it even so far as to offer spiritual rewards and a divine cause to which to devote oneself. He is the direct contrast to a prophetic preacher who was a mystic seer and a persuasive orator winning men to a lofty end for which to work. Koheleth was a cynic; he has been called "a gentle cynic," for he did not damn all life with his bitter ness ; he was just wisely skeptical, shrewdly observant, self ishly prudent. He did not see the truth in the old orthodox faith nor the use in spending oneself for nothing, only to be doomed to disappointment. Some have even thought him the forerunner of the scientific man in his honesty in facing facts and his reluctance to believe where he could not see. Certainly his frankness appeals to us, since it is coupled with very keen portrayals of what actually happens. It is one of the universally interesting books, because it uncovers the deep universal experiences, and because it sanctions frank expression, not a suppression as if it were wrong to speak thus of life. If it does not go far enough to satisfy, it at least arouses our sympathetic assent so far as it goes. It has been compared to Omar Khayyam as a classic in worldly wisdom. The style of the book has puzzled scholars, for it seems to be uneven and inconsistent in its thought. For this reason some have concluded that later editors, shocked at the un orthodox theology of the writer, put in sentences here and there to tone down Koheleth's cynicism and make it more in accord with accepted beliefs, throwing in also unrelated proverbs and practical maxims which would make the book more useful. Others contend that there is a unity through out and that the deepest significance of the treatise is not 2S0 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE perceived without the passages that seem to express a dif ferent mood than the prevailing one of skepticism concern ing the values of life, because true psychology makes a place for different viewpoints in the same temperament. For the former idea the student is referred especially to Doctor Jastrow's Gentle Cyme; for the latter to Doctor Genung's Words of Koheleth. Each of these books presents with the interpretation a fresh translation and commentary. The association of Koheleth with Solomon is due to the representation of a king like Solomon as the writer, a per sonification quite in line with the customs of writers in the period of the Wisdom School. The style and the tone of the book show plainly that it must have been written late, when the experiences of the Jews in the world of men had brought their thinking to a depressing realism, a state of sophistication and pessimism unknown in earlier periods. The style is prose for the most part with short poetical sec tions here and there. Extracts from the Words of Koheleth." (1:3-9) What profit hath man of all his labor Wherein he laboreth under the sun? One generation goeth And another generation cometh; But the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth. And the sun goeth down, And hasteth to its place where it ariseth. The wind goeth toward the south. And turneth about unto the north ; It turneth about continually in its course. And the wind returneth again to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea. Yet the sea is not full; Unto the place whither the rivers go. Thither they go again. All things are full of weariness ; Man cannot utter it: The eye is not satisfied with seeing. Nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been is that which shall be; 6 This translation is that of the Revised Version arranged to show poetical and prose sections. It would be well to compare it with Dr. Jastrow s very suggestive translation in A Gentle Cynic. WISDOM LITERATURE 231 And that which hath been done is that which shall be done : And there is no new thing under the sun. (1 : 12-14; 2:1) I the Preacher was King over Israel in Jerusa lem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven: it is a sore travail that God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and a striving after wind. ... I said in my heart. Come now, I will prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also was vanity. (3:10-13) I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised therewith. He hath made everything beautiful in its time: also he hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them, than to rejoice, and to do good so long as they live. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all his labor, is the gift of God. (4: 1, 4-6) Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and, behold, the tears of such as were op pressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their op pressors there was power; but they had no comforter. . . . Then I saw all labor and every skillful work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. Better is a handful, with quietness, than two handfuls with labor and striving after wind. (5:10) He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; Nor he that loveth abundance, with increase : This also is vanity. (5: 18-20) Behold, that which I have seen to be good and to be comely is for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, wherein he laboreth under the sun, all the days of his life which God hath given him : for this is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor — this is the gift of God. For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. (7: 15-18) All this have I seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his evil-doing. Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself overwise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time? It is good that 232 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE thou shouldest take hold of this ; yea, also from that withdraw not thy hand : for he that feareth God shall come forth from them all. (8: 10, 14, 15) So I saw the wicked buried, and they came to the grave ; and they that had done right went away from the holy place, and were forgotten in the city : this also is vanity. There is a vanity which is done upon the earth, that there are righteous men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous : I said that this also is vanity. Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that shall abide with him in his labor all the days of his life which God hath given him under the sun, (9:11) I returned, and saw under the sun that The race is not to the swift. Nor the battle to the strong. Neither yet bread to the wise. Nor yet riches to men of understanding. Nor yet favor to men of skill; But time and chance happeneth to them all. (11:1,2,5,6,7,8) " Cast thy bread upon the waters ; For thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, yea, even to eight : For thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. As thou knowest not what is the way of the wind. Nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; Even so thou knowest not the work of God who doeth all. In the morning sow thy seed. And in the evening withhold not thy hand; For thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that. Or whether they both shall be alike good. Truly the light is sweet. And a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Yea, if a man live many years. Let him rejoice in them all. Suggested Study Read Omar Khayyam and compare with Genung's or Jastrow's translation of Ecclesiastes, having these three thoughts in mind, the worldly philosophy expressed, the truly ethical teachings, the manner and forcefulness of ex pression. WISDOM LITERATURE 233 ESTIMATES OF THE BOOK "The world ever since has been at loss whether with the theologians to call Koheleth's book the most pathetic in scripture, or with the hardy worldlings to call it the brav est and cheeriest." Franklin Genung. "Koheleth is not irreligious, not gloomy, not skeptical, not pessimistic, if by pessimism one means a point of view which sees no value in life. On the contrary, it may be called glori ously optimistic. Koheleth sees all the inequalities of life, all its mysteries and disillusions, the hollowness of the things which men seek most eagerly, the uselessness of any hope of life after death, and yet loses neither his confidence in God nor his sense of the real value of life. Modern life can add to it the hope of the future life, the value of social service and the warmth of trust in a loving Father, as well as in the Eternal Wisdom; but Koheleth's fundamental concep tion of the value of life as lying in the worth of the simple things of daily living still stands." Irving F. Wood. "The book is not only intensely human, it is also remark ably modern in its spirit. Koheleth belongs to the small coterie of books that do not grow old. . . . Koheleth may have been a man of many moods. In one of his moods he may have been a pessimist, perhaps under the influence of a spell of indigestion, in another he may have been optimistically inclined, perhaps because of some pleasant experience. "There are other instances of writers who now appear to be skeptics, while at another time what they write bears the earmarks of a reverent believer. Con sistency is a rare virtue — even among modern thinkers. It is not easy to say exactly what an elusive writer Uke Anatole France believes or does not believe. Renan is reported to have said of himself that he did not feel entirely happy unless he contradicted himself twice a day. Who is so chameleon-like in his thought as Bernard Shaw? Reading him is like playing a game of now you see it, now you don't. And Bernard Shaw is a jewel of consistency compared to 234, A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Gilbert Chesterton, whose metier is to be paradoxical, and of whom the only thing certain is that he is uncertain. May not Koheleth have been of this type? . . . Koheleth may talk about hating life. He may praise the dead as better off than those who are alive and add 'better than both is the one who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil happenings under the sun,' but he does not really think this. Pessimists talk that way, but there are few instances of pessimists deliberately shuffling off the mortal coil against which they rail. They get rid of any suicidal tendencies by writing long disquisitions on the uselessness of life. Schopenhauer, the most eminent of modern pessi mists, is a notable example of the care which pessimists take to preserve their health. In reality, the pessimist believes with Koheleth 'Light is sweet and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.' . . . Nature has only one film — a long and varied one, which it reels off and then reels off again without cessation. Enjoy the film, he says, but don't attempt to interfere with it — or you will spoil the show." Morris Jastrow. GROUPS OF PROVERBS The proverb, its relation to the riddle or conundrum and its poetical structure has already been mentioned. In the period of the "wise men" maxims and sententious sayings were a favorite mode of expression. The natural love of the Bedouin for proverbs and his brilliancy in constructing them showed itself in the more artificial stages of Hebrew Hterature in groups of short, pithy, balanced sayings col lected about a common theme such as Fools or Sluggards or Wisdom. The choice of the theme reveals the spirit of the age ; the same shrewd worldly wisdom is to be observed as in the book of Koheleth. Proverbs have been called the "crystallizations of the practical wisdom of peoples." A proverb is often a condensed parable and a group of prov erbs might easily be elaborated into an essay, but the proverb rather than the essay presents the manner of fixing great WISDOM LITERATURE 235 truths in the mind that is more characteristic of the true Hebrew. In the New Testament, after the Hebrew language had given way to the Greek and the Jewish mind was think ing as well as it could in Greek forms, we find essay develop ing. But even there the true Hebrew reverts again and again to his native style of expressing truths in terse, cogent sen tences and even grouping such sayings about one theme. It was much more natural to him to give short concrete illus trations and to press his point home simply by showing vivid contrasts than to talk at large upon general principles. The book of Proverbs like other worldly wisdom was too shrewd to be very warm with generous passionate feeling. We can not help noting at this point a difference between the Old Testament love of a proverb for its own sake and Jesus' use of this proverbial style in the New Testament; for Jesus was a prophet rather than a "wise man" and infused into his wisdom the prophetic fire. On Fools, Proverbs 26 : 3-12. On Sluggards, Proverbs 6:6-11; 24:30-34; 26:13-16. On Wisdom, Proverbs 8 and 9 : 1-12. On Happiness, Matthew 5 : 1-12. It is well to compare the Revised Version with Dr. Mof fatt's translation. Blessed are those who feel poor in spirit! the Realm of heaven is theirs. Blessed are the mourners ! they will be consoled. Blessed are the humble! they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for goodness I they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful! they will find mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart! they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers ! they will be ranked sons of God. 236 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of goodness I the Realm of heaven is theirs. Blessed are you when men denounce you and persecute you and utter all manner of evil against you for my sake ; rejoice and exult in it, for your reward is rich in heaven; that is how they perse cuted the prophets before you. These beatitudes ^ have been called "the Magna Charta of the Kingdom." It is to be noted that when Jesus gave his great mission into the hands of his disciples he began to explain it by striking at the very heart of human desire, namely, happiness. There have been many elaborate systems of philosophy built up to try to show men how to attain happiness. Epicureanism, Stoicism, Hedonism, and all the modern modifications of these Greek philosophies ; indeed all religions are an effort to show how to attain the summum bonum or real happiness ; yet nowhere do we find so frank, concise, and plain rules for attaining the goal as here in Jesus' beatitudes. They have rightfully become a classic. We repeat them so often and so easily that perhaps we do not stop to analyze their depth of meaning, and to see how broad was Jesus' reach, for he talks of happiness on earth as well as in heaven and makes the happiness of heaven begin on earth. He makes very practical rules for getting on with people and points out the very pathway to the presence of God, which is the search of the spiritually- minded. Great Teacher that He was, the Master of that superb art. He puts in the present tense the first one of these beatitudes as if it were the foundation stone for all the rest and quite possible to realize right now. It might be paraphrased Happy are the teachable. For theirs is the mastery over life. Quite in contrast with Koheleth, He holds out a great aim in life, happiness which can be attained, a Kingdom which is to be worked for with such exultant hope that not even persecution can dry up the springs of joy. He at once rec- 7 Notice that the Hebrew parallelism is beautifully illustrated. WISDOM LITERATURE 237 ognizes that the most insistent hunger of human life and the most unquenchable thirst is the hunger and thirst for the deep satisfactions of right-ness, a harmony with the laws of (jod. These are no superficial worldly-wise max ims ; they strike at the very heart of human need, of human desire, and of human hope. It has been said that man en joys depicting Infernos rather than Utopias, or at least that his Infernos are more effectively done ; that Mephistopheles is the center of interest in Faust; that Shylock, Macbeth, lago are the favorite characters in Shakespeare ; that Para dise Lost is far better known than Paradise Regained, and the Inferno better depicted than the Paradiso; that Dickens' ruffians, cheats, and misers are his most fascinating figures, his Pecksniffs, Quilps and Scrooges ; that Vergil's picture of the nether regions is far more of a classic than any de scription of the home of the gods; in fact, that man's Utopias are insipid in contrast to his vigorous and fascinat ing portrayals of the under side of things. If this is true of most literature it certainly is not so of Jesus' pictures. Possibly the key to the vividness and realism of the art is in the fact of where the artist is most at home. President King has thus contrasted "The World's Code" with this code of Jesus for finding happiness — Happy are the proud, for theirs is this world. Happy are the unscrupulous, for they shall need no comfort. Happy are those who claim everything, for they shall possess the earth. Happy are those who hold back from no si-, for they shall drain pleasure's cup. Happy are the tyrants, for they need no mercy. Happy are the impure, to whose lust no bound can be put, for they shall see many harlots. Happy are they who can stir anger unhindered, whose ambition is unchecked, for they shall be as gods. Happy are they who have never sacrificed, for theirs is all the world.* Suggested Study Compare the beatitudes in Matthew with those in Luke. 8 H. C. King, The Ethics of Jesus. 238 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Tell whether the following proverbs are in the Old Testa ment or the New. For lack of wood the fire goeth out; And where there is no whisperer, contention ceaseth. Hold fast that which is good; Abstain from every form of evil. He that giveth answer before he heareth. It is folly and shame unto him. Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue Keepeth his soul from troubles. Put away from thee a wayward mouth. And perverse lips put far from thee. Hatred stirreth up strifes ; But love covereth all transgressions. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Keep thy tongue from evil. And thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. Be not overcome of evil. But overcome evil with good. Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: And with what measure yo mete, it shall be measured unto you. He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker; But he that hath mercy on the needy honoreth Him. If thine enemy hunger, feed him: If he thirst, give him to drink: For in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing; There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great wealth. There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more; And there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want. WISDOM LITERATURE 289 To whomsoever much is given. Of him shall much be required. Give and it shall be given unto you; Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. Shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete It shall be measured to you again. Owe no man anything, save to love one another; For he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; Love therefore is the fulfilment of the law. Let us love one another. For love is of God. Greater love hath no maii than this. That a man lay down his life for his friends. Take such a proverb as one of the following and work it out into a parable: The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. Each tree is known by its own fruit, For of thorns men do not gather figs. Nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. Salt is good: But if the salt have lost its saltness. Wherewith will ye season it? Can the blind guide the blind? Shall they not both fall into the pit? Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein; And whoso roUeth a stone, it shall return upon him. Man is born unto trouble. As the sparks fly upward. As in water face answereth to face. So the heart of man to man. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing. But inwardly are ravening wolves. 24« A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE BOOKS TO CONSULT on Wisdom Literature Barton, George, The Bible for Home and School, Job. Fowler, H. T., A History of the Literature of Ancient Israel. Genung, Franklin, A Guide to the Biblical Literature. The Epic of the Inner Life. The Words of Koheleth. Hastings' Bible Dictionary. International Critical Commentary, Proverbs. Jastrow, Morris, The Book of Job. A Gentle Cynic. Kallen, Horace, The Book of Job as a Greek Tragedy. Moulton, Richard, Modern Reader's Bible. Penniman, J. H., A Book about the English Bible. Rice, J. A., The Old Testament in the Light of To-day. The New Century Bible. Chapter VIII ORATORY Literature has two main objects, self-expression and do ing something with other people. The pleasure which ac companies either process is an accompaniment, not an end in the truest sense; the moment that becomes the end the aims of literature are subverted and it gradually becomes a weakened product. The old question of art for art's sake really must come back to self-expression as its ultimate court of appeal. The two objectives are very different in their effect upon style. The poet may feel compelled to express himself on a desert island, may work over his lines with as great assiduity as if he had an audience of a thou sand; he may feel moved to recite them with no one to listen but the birds, just because there is within him an insistent urge to paint in word pictures the beauty he sees and to express the rhythms of life in vocal cadences. But the speech-maker has an audience, and while his speech if genuine must be his own self-expression to a degree, yet the reason why he stands before his listeners is to do something with them, to change them in. some way before they leave his presence. This change may be in their greater intelli gence because they have become better informed through his words ; it may be an emotional change from hate to sym pathy or vice versa, from indifference to interest, or from selfishness to altruism. But if the speaker has caused no realignment of ideas and f eehngs his speech has failed, how ever much he may have expressed himself. The means which one must use to work effectively upon other personalities are somewhat different from those which are sufficient in self-expression; the persuasive element is here dominant. How does one persuade another to let in 241 242 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE new ideas or to change or enlarge his feelings? Men are naturally conservative, entrenched already in a set of ideas, bound already by the feelings they carry with them; how can new light be let in? Usually but one thing can be done at a time and the instrument must be sharp to penetrate the defensive wall which each personality carries before him. Therefore there is need for a careful choice of material to use in a speech. Everything must be sacrificed for the sake of carrying the point, of accomplishing the end, of getting the idea across. Temptations right and left must be resisted, the temptation to wander in alluring by-paths, to elaborate a minor point which is not the real end, to amuse the audi ence merely — unless indeed the change the orator has in mind is to make a serious audience hilarious, a depressed one frivolous. Judicious selection of material is one of the most fundamental secrets of success in speech-making, for a man may make very wise remarks and show great learning, he may be very much in earnest and show that he has ar rived himself at a very high plane of conviction, and yet not move his audience in the least because of his injudicious use of good material. And he has to remember that it is through the ear and not the eye that he is hoping to gain entrance to both the brain and the emotions of the people before him. Thus the use of his voice — ^his emphasis, his modulations, the tones he adopts — has much to do with the effectiveness of his speech, for the voice is a wonderfully expressive medium of appeal. Intellectual as well as emo tional conviction can be conveyed by it ; honesty of thinking, straightforwardness of purpose, as well as pathos or exulta tion. The whip of sarcasm can be felt in the tone more impressively than on the written page. Elijah must have been a great speech-maker on Mount Carmel, for his cutting irony as he prodded those prophets of Baal has come down to us with vividness even on the printed page. Amos, standing up in the market-place of Bethel and roaring in the name of the Lord, made the people stop their hilarious festivities and listen. Hosea telling his people that when they were children God loved them, took ORATORY 243 them in his arms, healed them, and drew them with bands of love, must have conveyed his appeal to them in his tone, even as he did when he stood before his own children say ing, "Plead with your mother, plead!" Isaiah calling, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith Yahweh: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow," must have put honesty and pathos and love all into his voice. And when he turned to the frivolous women in his congregation and said, "Rise up, ye women that are at ease and hear my voice ; ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech I" we imagine they were so startled by his tone that they left off whispering and giggling and paid attention to what he had to say. To this day the charm and comfort of Jesus' words are felt: "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow : they toil not neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." The fact that the orator can use his voice to convey his meaning causes him to choose what is known as an ora torical style, which is quite different from the style chosen to appeal to the eye primarily; questions and exclamations, the emphasis which comes from repetition of words, the reiteration of points, the use of onomatopoeia, the contrast of pause and speech, the working up to a climax from quiet deliberation to a rush of feeling in rapidity of utterance, these are the legitimate ways an orator has of stirring his audience. Written speeches need to be read aloud to per ceive their true effect. This is why much of the Bible should be read aloud, because originally it was spoken ad dress. This is why Mr. Edmund Gosse told students who came to him for instruction in good style, to read the Bible aloud again and again ; the loftiness and grandeur, the son orous effect of the words and phrases can only thus be fully appreciated. And this is why the Bible is very often read so poorly, because the reader does not know how to speak, to use his voice, to make his voice the quick, responsive instrument of both intellectual and emotional values. An- 244 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE other reason is that a blanket of conventional religious rev erence has nearly smothered the original meaning of the author, who was nine times out of ten a speaker on fire with a message which broke through all convention. A sancti monious tone has nothing whatever to do with the real Isaiah or Amos or Micah or Jesus or Peter or Paul. Their tones were like sharp two-edged swords cutting away every unreality which enveloped their hearers; they brought the truth home to every soul within sound of their voice. Read that kind of literature aloud as it ought to be read and much of the original effect is restored. If we could have reading classes in the Bible we might have more truly re ligious people. We have readings in Shakespeare, in Dante, in Goethe, in the modern drama, in modern poetry ; why not in the Bible, where the voice was very significant and the speaker was usually a combination of orator, poet, and actor ? The first five minutes of a speech are the most precarious minutes in the whole address. Before the speaker opens his mouth attention is anywhere except upon what he has to say ; of course, because he has not said it. Eyes have been upon him, his dress, his features, his manner. As he stands up attention is still upon him, not upon his speech. What he must do in that first five minutes is to turn attention away from himself to his words, to the thought he is presenting. This is a very different problem from getting the attention on the printed page, for the bodily presence of the author does not there intrude, and the reader has settled himself directly before the words to sense their meaning. Some vigorous and forceful method must be employed by a speaker to shake the attention of his audience loose from eye perceptions, apply it to ear perceptions and hold it there. The Hebrew orators often began with a "Hear, O Israel 1" or a wider challenge than that, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth 1" They often quickly turned attention from speaker to audience ; it was the hearer then that was under scrutiny: "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not ORATORY 245 consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that deal corruptly I" That was enough to make the most hardened audience begin to listen. They often began by asking questions, "Why will ye be still stricken, that ye revolt more and more?" Sometimes they started out with a "Behold 1" picturing some ^reat thing the Lord was going to do. "Hear ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is : and let the Lord, Jehovah, be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold! Jehovah cometh forth out of his place." That was enough to make them anxious to learn what the Lord God was going to do. Sometimes they con tradicted immediately the accepted idea which was in the minds of the audience. Peter did this in that great speech of his at Pentecost: "Ye men of Judsea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and give ear unto my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose." Sometimes the orator pleased his audience for a moment by picking out an object of their interest or pride to commend, or an enemy to punish. Amos most adroitly did this when as if with reitered hammer-strokes he roared out his "Thus saith Jehovah" against every nation in the whole circle of their acquaintance until finally he narrowed his message down to the final blow, and piled up all his charges in one thundering indictment of Israel. Paul did it in his famous speech on Mars Hill when he began "Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are very religious." We have been considering the beginning of a speech, the critical first few moments when the orator must quickly accomplish the feat of getting his audience in his hand. If he does not get his hold quickly, his speech is almost sure to be a failure, for the longer attention is allowed to evade the point of the thought the harder it is to gain it. But having taken hold with a good firm grip, the next thing of course is to go on. Professor Baldwin has outlined the steps most clearly, "taking hold," "going on," "bringing home." For the whole object of a speech is to get some where. The orator feels freer when he sees he has gripped 246 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE his, audience, but he has no time to waste in self -congratu lation, for if he loses his hold he cannot well regain it; expectation once aroused must be satisfied. The orator's greater freedom of spirit means simply his greater oppor tunity. Some people wonder why the same speaker attempt ing to make the same address is at one time given an easy flow of words and a freedom of spirit which is exuberant, and at another seems hesitant and tongue-tied, without lib eration of soul in any sense, producing a labored address. This is the result of the subtle influence of the response of the audience to the spirit and attitude of the orator. To tum the trick and gain the spell every time or nearly every time is a mark of oratorical genius. Orators are born, not made, just as teachers are born. It is a matter largely of oratorical intuition; the man himself may never be able to explain how he does it. It is a matter of crowd psychol ogy, not altogether understood even yet, for the far-reach ing influence of personality upon personality is just begin ning to be really studied. But one thing both the audience and the speaker know, that he must use his release from restraint for the purpose of progress in thought or all his freedom will be taken away and awful strictures will close down upon him. His method of progress depends upon the kind of effect desired. Does he wish to inform? Then facts logically and attractively presented must follow, each one leading to the next. Does he wish to convert? Then those facts must be marshalled with their faces all pointing in one direction, the direction which will finally win the approval of the listener. Does he wish to move the emotions primarily, to arouse pathos or sympathy? Then illus trative material which can be easily perceived, pictures vividly drawn, are in place. But whatever he does he must have a plan and move on. Isaiah had a plan in his "Woes" and his "Therefores" in the fifth chapter, in his "Yet" and "Wherefore" in the ninth and tenth chapters. Amos had a plan as he swung around the whole geographic horizon of Palestine, distributing the punishments of the Lord. Elijah ORATORY 24,7 had a plan when he mocked the prophets of Baal and prayed to the Lord in the presence of the people. Peter had a plan when he quoted Scripture again and again. Paul had a plan when he talked about the manner of his life from his youth up, which the Jews all knew, "having knowledge of me from the first if tliey be willing to testify, that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." And their plans move on without undue delay. They ar rive, and then is the crucial moment of "bringing home" the point that has been made. Here wills are stirred, applause is gained, or opposition is most manifest; and an orator is successful whether he gains cheers or hisses, for he has made the people listen and convicted them, convinced them, or converted them. In any case he has conquered, for he has changed their attitude of mind, has made a realignment of their ideas and feelings, even if he has only increased a previous emotion or enlarged their own ideas. Most of the speakers in the Bible won disapproval and were hissed off the stage. Elijah had to run down to Horeb for refuge; Amos was told to go back home and not dare to return to Bethel again ; Isaiah was scarcely listened to by a minority ;- Jeremiah was put in the stocks and then in an old miry cistern, to protect the people from his words; Peter was charged not to speak at all and then put in prison; Paul was chained and packed off to Rome ; and Jesus was cruci fied. Yet they all seem to have been remarkably successful, judging by the results they produced in the people to whom they spoke. The outcome may have seemed doubtful on the day of the speech, but the subtle power of men who had something to say and knew how to say it was in their keeping. EXAMPLES OF BIBLICAL SPEECHES Elijah on Mount Carmel, / Kings 18:20-40. Elijah was one of "the speaking prophets"; that is, we have no discourses written out at length by which to judge of him and his message, only snatches of what he said, a 248 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE few words which were indelibly impressed upon the minds of his hearers and handed down by tradition to be woven into a narrative later. So forceful was his personality that the impression he made was an enduring one. He was the last representative of the independent nomadic era. Israel had been passing through a transition stage, adopting the manners and customs of an agricultural people, casting off many of the traditions of the purely pastoral life for the more comfortable fashion of families with settled homes, at the same time looking with envious eyes at the luxuries and glories of city life. She had decided to elect a king like other nations, had allowed the king to introduce such splen dor at the capital that the taxation necessary to keep up the court had become oppressive. Ten tribes had revolted, seceding en masse with their labor agitator as leader and finally as king. Thus the Northern Kingdom had begun in protest and kept up the protesting spirit throughout its history: when ever a king did not suit or a captain of the army had ambi tions, a revolution was inaugurated, the king disposed of and another set up. But now for a good many years one dynasty had held control. Omri, Ahab's father, had been strong enough to make all the petty countries near by speak of the land of Canaan as "Omri's land"; he had chosen a most desirable site for the capital on a hill looking down upon a fertile valley, often spoken of by the prophets as "the fat valley." His son had sought to strengthen the respect of the Israelite among nations by marrying the daughter of the king of Sidon, an imperious woman of the world, who brought down to her new home her own house hold customs and heathen gods and priests of the Baalim, and with it all her own despotic ideas of government. She dominated the situation, her husband and all. But she did not dominate Elijah; he was too much for her to manage. His rough independence and undaunted courage, his loyalty to his own ideals, the ideals of their great leader, Moses, asserted themselves when Hebrew law and justice, Hebrew religion and character were all brushed ORATORY 249 aside as of no moment. Was all his ancestors had fought for to be tamely surrendered to the autocratic arrogance of this foreign lady at the court? Not if Elijah could help it. It was time Yahweh was vindicated and the Yahweh re ligion and character, according to this vigorous prophet. He therefore called an assembly of the people on the most conspicuous spot he could choose. Mount Carmel, looking down upon their fertile plains and up the coast toward Tyre and Sidon and out to sea, a wide and wonderful sweep, even including the Galilsean hills and Mount Hermon in the distance. It was time to bring the people face to face with what they were doing, to show them plainly where they were drifting, to make the issue clear, and give them a chance to choose with their eyes open. This was a present issue but it reached out far into the future. Government, politics, and religion were all tied up together; social wel fare or social distintegration would be the result. Elijah's definite purpose was to do something with that assembly before he let them go down from the mountain side. To accomplish what he wished with his own people he must also do something with the foreign prophets of Baal; he must show them up as weak and inefficient, alto gether unworthy to follow, false in every sense of minister ing to the welfare of the nation. So there in the presence of that wonderful view he challenged them to show that their gods amounted to anything, could do anything, giving them the first chance. It was an all-day affair, for they began in the morning, and the crisis did not come until the evening. Undoubtedly not all that Elijah said has been preserved ; he evidently spoke at intervals as the drama proceeded, for this was a most dramatic occasion, the king and his courtiers perhaps occupying reserved seats on the rocks. He was stage director and star actor combined, but he had not set the drama to interest the royalty ; it was for the purpose of convincing the people of a great truth, the character and the power of their God, Yahweh. Now how did he use the power of persuasion which made the people different in their attitude of mind when they 25b A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE descended the mountain from when they went up? Analyze it and see how he "takes hold" at the start. Verse 21 gives the key to the situation. He sets before them at the very beginning their halting state of mind, "How long go ye limping between the two sides? If Jehovah be God follow him; but if Baal then follow him." Notice the silence of the people ; he has their attention. And then how does he "go on"? He makes such a fair proposition, openly and fearlessly, that "all the people an swered and said. It is well spoken." Then follows the chal lenge to the prophets of the Baalim which they could scarcely refuse. It is to be noted how the plan of the speech goes hand in hand with the plan of action. At the psychological moment Elijah breaks in with his ironical ridicule which calls attention more sharply to the way events are going. Toward evening comes his own special part, the repairing of the altar of Yahweh that has been dis carded, the preparation of the sacrifice and his impressive prayer in the presence of the people. One would think they would have been tired out by this time, but there is no indi cation of the flagging of interest. The deliberation and minute directions which he gives add to the suspense. Then comes the climax of his speeches, his prayer, with its sim plicity, humility, conviction and purpose, which carries the suspense almost over into conviction. The words, the tones of confidence, have almost done it; the miracle was hardly necessary to convince the people, for they were already con vinced of the almighty power of their God of all creation, up there on the mountain side, with that strong prophet standing as spokesman for such a God. Public prayer is one of the most difficult of arts even with the most sincere. These four elements found here, simplicity, humility, con viction, and purpose, are the essentials in any effective pub lic prayer, for this is speech with God as well as before people. It is the art of carrying the people with one into the very presence of God. If that is done, the great miracle is accomplished, God is made real and conviction is secured. This was really the climax elaborated in verses 38 and 39. ORATORY 261 Verse 40 to us in this day and generation seems an anti climax. Suggested Study Go over the text carefully in the light of the foregoing explanation.Amos' Maiden Speech, Amos 1, 2. This speech also is a gathering up of present conditions with an outlook toward the future. The purpose is quite evident, to set the Israelites straight as to their own place in the eyes of the Lord in connection with other nations. Amos believes the people have a blind, foolish, conceited notion of themselves as "the chosen people" to whom no harm can come, since Yahweh is under obligation to pro tect his own. It is his purpose to enlighten them, to open their eyes to see that, if God is the God of justice in bringing punishment upon others, his principles apply to them quite as much even though they are his chosen people, even more because they have been led and taught by him in an especial manner. How does Amos accomplish his purpose? We must remember that he was an untutored countryman from the little village of Tekoa, a shepherd and dresser of sycamore trees, "no prophet nor the son of a prophet," a layman who had learned his lessons commun ing with the God of Nature out under the stars, tending his flocks by night or seeking a stray sheep out in the wilder ness. Whatever art he has was due to native genius, nol: to the teaching of any school. But so perfectly does he use the principles of the best speech-making that we may well study this maiden effort to see how he did it. He succeeded so well that the people listened and the priests and courtiers were exceedingly offended and told him to go home and not appear again. Then "the gagged prophet began to write." Suggested Study Notice how he begins, the way he attracts the attention of the people. What does he mean by the Lord roaring from 252 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Zion? Why is it necessary for Yahweh to roar in order to be heard? In verse 3 he starts his plan not simply of catching their attention but of involving them in gradual assents to his proposition until they find at the end that they are compelled to condemn themselves. This is the same method which Nathan used with David in II Samuel 12; it is the method employed by Jesus with Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7 : 36-50. It is a very adroit method and in the hands of a skillful person can be very successful, although it is likely to make enemies rather than friends. In the hands of Stephen in Acts 7 we feel that it was not quite so well done ; the historical recapitulation seems there rather long-drawn out for a good speech. But it had an effect upon his audience, for "when they heard these things they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth." Compare the conciseness of this speech of Amos with Stephen's speech. Notice the charges which Amos makes against each nation and the punishment meted out in each case. Notice how when he comes to Israel he gathers them all up — oppression, cruelty, disregard of brotherhood, and irreverence — and hurls them all at Israel, and then heaps up the guilt because they have been especially taught by Yahweh.^ He gives additional proof of sin on Israel's part to make his reasoning doubly effective. Notice the art of the reiterated hammer strokes — "Thus saith Jehovah, for three transgressions, yea, for four, I will not tum away the punishment thereof." Make a paraphrase of this speech, substituting the names of modern nations, for those of the ancient world, ending up with America. Does the indictment fit ? Did Amos have an international vision? Does the universality of his per ception add at all to the effectiveness of his speech? The climax comes in verses 13-16. Notice the figures he uses and their forcefulness with an agricultural and a fighting people. Notice the brevity of each assertion but 1 Some commentators think the section on Judah has been added later and was not a part of the speech of Amos, because he would not be likely to condemn his own country. Is that argument a good one? ORATORY 253 the vivid picture that is left on the mind. Notice the rapid ity of his progress and the way each succeeding statement picks up the thought of the preceding and adds something as in synthetic parallelism. Notice the final, sudden stop when the limit has been reached of everything which can be said; this is the pronouncement of doom, introduced by the striking call to attention, "Behold !" We cannot imagine Amos' voice quavering for a moment because he felt he was pronouncing his own sentence in making those people angry with him. He was not thinking of himself ; with a loud voice full of emotion and conviction, steady but swift, he must have uttered this final prediction and then stopped. He was done ; his speech was made. Isaiah, Orator, Poet, Statesman, and Prophet, Isaiah 1 : 2-20. Suggested Study Analyze this passage. Show how he "takes hold," how he "goes on," how he "brings home." As you read it does it seem a consistent whole as to style? as to theme? What is the theme? What is he trying to do with the people? Notice the figures of speech ; do they divert or concentrate attention and why? Is his pleading too insistent? With what does he join it? How does he make it effective? No tice how he brings into close juxtaposition his indictment and his invitation, Yahweh's scorn of them and his yearning love for them. Where is the climax? Notice in verse 18 that he rests Yahweh's invitation upon reason; it is an un derstanding he is trying to get. Has Isaiah been using real argument or an emotional appeal to gain that? Is it their minds- or their hearts he is after? Notice the poetical form of very much of this chapter, its parallelism and imagery, especially verses 3 and 16-20. Arrange this as poetry. What kind of meter is used ? Does the poetical rhythm de tract from the oratorical power or aid it? Notice the very vivid contrasts which he delights in using. Contrast this with the speech of Amos as to method employed, purpose, 254 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE and success. Why is Isaiah the mountain-top prophet? Is the prophetic fire an aid to oratory? Should we put it the other way, that the place of oratory is as a mere handmaid to the prophetic genius? Peter's Speech at Pentecost, Acts 2 : 14-36. Suggested Study Analyze this as you did the preceding speech. Ask your self these questions: Is the style a characteristic Hebrew style? Is it as effective as the speeches in the Old Testa ment? What does Peter do that is different from Isaiah and Amos? Is the result just as marked? What was Peter trying to do? Can this be taken as a model speech, considering Peter's audience? To make a speech for to day, on this model, what purpose would you choose? From whom would you quote ? Could people be stirred up to day after this manner? Notice what happened in verses 37 and 38. Paul's Mars Hill Speech, Acts 17:22-31. Suggested Study Analyze this. Compare it with Peter's speech. Compare it with the Old Testament speeches. Remember that Paul was an educated man and Peter uneducated, that although Paul had lived in a Greek atmosphere amidst Greek culture he had been educated in the best Jewish schools. Does it take an educated person to make a good speech ? Compare with Amos, who was a plain countryman, and with Isaiah, who belonged to the court circles at Jerusalem. Peter's speech was before men of his own race and former faith, Paul was entering ground not native to him, attempting to meet the Greek point of view. Did he succeed as well as Peter, as shown in verses 32-34? What is his line of argument? Is he logical? Notice the lack of imagery as ORATORY 255 compared with the Old Testament orators. Is this better according to our point of view? Is this speech after the Greek or the Hebrew model? Compare with this Paul's speech in Acts 13 : 16-41. Notice that here he is talking to the "men of Israel." Is his method different? Paul's Defense Before Agrippa, Acts 26: 1-29. Suggested Study Analyze this speech carefully, and notice that he is en deavoring to explain his position as a Jew and a Christian before the Roman court. He is on the defensive, upholding his own position, quite a different situation from that at Mars Hill when he was the aggressive one entering an other's field. Does that aid in the effectiveness or other wise? Notice the result as given in verses 30-32. Is this kind of personal history justified very often in a speech? When should personal testimony be brought in and when left out? Where does good taste come in? Does Paul's frankness aid him? Does his statement in verses 6 and 7 that he has nothing against the Roman government assist him? Does it clear the atmosphere and point the issue? How does this compare in excellence with the two speeches of Paul already considered? Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, 7. Suggested Study What is known as the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is considered by modern scholars to be the collection of the fragments of many sermons. These words were prob ably not delivered at one time on the mountain side of Kum Hattin, although that may have been the place for his first real address to the disciples and the multitude. These say ings were grouped afterwards by some disciple who was 256 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE eager to preserve all that could be remembered of Jesus' teachings. But whether ,this fifth chapter was all said at one time or not, there is a stylistic form which runs through out, and it is noticeable that it is not like Peter's nor Paul's as revealed in those speeches we have had under considera tion ; it is distinctive, and more like the Old Testament pro phetic style. Analyze the whole chapter. Is there a common thread throughout? Is there an introduction and a climax? What is the theme? Or is it made up of disjointed maxims? Notice the formula for the beginning of the paragraphs. Notice the parallelism. Is this really poetry? The subject- matter is certainly plain ethics. Is there any oratory here? Was Jesus trying to persuade his hearers or simply to enun ciate truth? Notice his figures of speech. Are they effec tive, as effective as those of the prophets? Notice his con trasts. Wherein is their especial power? How did he use quotations from the Old Testament? Doctor Glover re marks, "In all his quotations of the Old Testament that have reached us, there is no trace of servitude to the letter and no hint of allegory. He does not quote Scripture as his followers did. Here, too, he spoke as having author ity. . . . Jesus was conscious of his own right to think and to see and to judge, and for him as for the modern temper, the final thing was not opinion, nor Scripture, nor authority, but reality and experience." Read again the Peter and Paul speeches and see if this is true. Was Jesus eloquent in the accepted sense? What effect did Jesus' sermons have on the people as recorded in Matthew 7 : 28 ? Notice the charm of his words and read Luke 4 : 22 where the evangelist speaks of "the words of grace which proceedeth out of his mouth," as if the charm of them had captured his audience. Was there more of this element in Jesus' discourses than in the speeches of Peter and Paul? Was Jesus more of a teacher than an orator or can we apply to him the term speech-maker? John tells us that even the officers who were sent to arrest him stood spell-bound by his words and gave this as an excuse for not taking him, "Never man spake like this man." ORATORY 257 ESTIMATES OF BIBLICAL SPEECHES "Even in their present artistic setting we can catch the fire that glowed beneath the prophet's words. Here we have no elegantly turned essays on conduct but the out-pourings of a heart aflame with indignation, full of hot passion for God and righteousness. In this lies the secret of Amos' wonderful literary style. The clear-cut sinewy diction, the dramatic cast of the whole, the vivid imagery, and the winged poetry in which his appeals are borne home to the conscience of every reader are the direct, hot-blooded ex pression of his intense feeling." "There is a unique majesty in Isaiah's tones — the majesty of one haunted by the vision of the Divine holiness. The sweep of his imagination is sublime; and the diction is as lordly as the thought. The phrasing is carefully finished, and the verse moves on with a stately rhythm, strong, full, yet always under command. With the same royal ease the young prophet can wield the weapors of satire." A. R. Gordon. "What stamps the language of Jesus invariably is its delicate ease, implying a sensibility to every real aspect of the matter in hand — a sense of mastery and peace. Men marveled at the charm of his words, Luke using the Greek Xapti to express it." T. R. Glover. "All His words together which have been preserved to us would not occupy more space in print than a half-a-dozen ordinary sermons ; yet it is not too much to say, that they are the most precious literary heritage of the human race. . . . The form of the preaching of Jesus was essen tially Jewish. The Oriental mind does not work in the same way as the mind of the West. Our thinking and speaking, when at their best, are fluent, expansive, closely reasoned. The Oriental mind, on the contrary, loves to 258 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE brood long on a single point, to turn it round and round, to gather up all the truth about it in a focus, and pour it forth in a few pointed and memorable words. It is concise, epi grammatic, oracular. A Western speaker's discourse is a systematic structure, or like a chain in which link is firmly knit to link; an Oriental's is like the sky at night, full of innumerable burning points shining forth from a dark back ground. Such was the form of the teaching of Jesus. It • consisted of numerous sayings, every one of which con tained the greatest possible amount of truth in the smallest compass, and was expressed in language so concise and pointed as to stick in the memory like an arrow. . . . There never was speaking so simple yet so profound, so pictorial yet so absolutely true. . . . "One more quality may be mentioned, which is perhaps the highest quality of public speech. He addressed men as men, not as members of any class or possessors of any peculiar culture. The differences which divide men, such as wealth, rank, and education, are on the surface. The elements in which they are alike are profound. This is why the words of Jesus are perennial in their freshness. They are for all generations, and equally for all. They appeal to the deepest elements in human nature to-day in England or China as much as they did in Palestine when they were spoken." James Stalker. "The man who wishes to perfect himself in the art of public speech, as respects both the matter and manner of effective discourse, must consult not merely those classic , examples of Greece and Rome which are so frequently held up for his emulation, but also those rugged orators whose sentences resound through the Scriptures, and especially the utterances of Him who spoke as 'never man spake.' " G. P Eckma-n. "A man who cannot read aloud and interpret an exalted passage of literature can hardly have the profoundest im pression of its nature. . . . The vocal interpretation of the ORATORY 259 Bible implies as a preparation not only the critical examina tion but the thorough study of it as literature." S. S. Cwry. SPEECHES WITH WHICH TO COMPARE THIS BIBLICAL MATERIAL Lincoln's Gettysburg Address ; Wendell Phillips' The War for the Union; Burke; Webster; Demosthenes; Cicero. Some volume of sermons like Robertson's or Spurgeon's or Phillips Brooks'; are these speeches or essays? BOOKS TO CONSULT Baldwin, C. S., Composition Writing and Speaking, p. 420 ff. The English Bible as a Guide to Writing. Curry, S. S., Vocal and Literary Interpretation of the Bible. (This is very helpful from the standpoint of appreciating Biblical literature as largely spoken address and of learning how to read it aloud.) Eckman, George P., The Literary Primacy of the Bible, Chapter II, The Poetry and Oratory of the Bible, Section II. Glover, T. R., The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Em pire, Ch. IV, Jesus of Nazareth. Gordon, A. R., Th.e Prophets of the Old Testament. Rice, J. A., The Old Testament in the Light of To-day. ScHENCK, F. S., The Poetry and Oratory of the Bible. Stalker, James, Life of Christ, pp. 67-80. On Amos see Commentaries. McFadyen, A Cry for Justice. Duhm, The Book of the Twelve. Isaiah " Commentaries. McFadyen, Isaiah in Modern Speech. Acts " Commentaries. Books mentioned under Essay. On Sermon on ihe Mount see Commentaries on Matthew (Interna tional Critical Commentary, Expositors' Bible, New Century, Westminster, etc.). Chapter IX ESSAY If we are looking for a modern essay in the Bible we shall not find it. An essay to us means not simply instruc tion but entertainment. A good essay writer is one who not only uses language aptly to convey a meaning, but whose knowledge of life, or history, or literature, or all three, is such that he suggests interesting relationships, that he arouses satisfaction in the reader because he, too, can ap preciate the suggestion. Especially is the successful modern essayist able by happy turns and brilliant allusions to please the fancy, to awaken the sense of humor, to make us feel that life is not all of a drab color however serious his theme may be. As we march along in our thought our eyes are on the drum-major with his gay colors, waving plumes, and fascinating sword-play. It entertains us, amuses and rests us, so that as we march we are not so conscious of the strenuousness of the task. Essays are read by "the intel lectuals"; a magazine known to be given over very largely to the essay type of writing does not have a popular sale. It takes too much education to appreciate the allusions, to understand the wit, to see the point, for the uncultivated man to enjoy such literature. It is for the literati, a more or less select circle, a high caste among readers. A good essayist does more than simply entertain, he is a boon to the thinker, for he relieves the strain of life and the tenseness under which he labors, he stirs up his lethargic moods, and often widens his horizons. A good letter writer does these things, so that a volume of the etters of a brilliant writer like William James is a source of delight; they become classic. But the people who read them are those who are well enough educated to appreciate them. Now neither Jesus nor Paul selected the literati nor the 260 ESSAY 261 broader circle of the cultivated of their day for their audi ence or their readers. They did not exclude them but they did not deliberately choose to appeal to their intelligences and to use those methods which are found to play best on such material. Jesus' sermons were so plain that anybody who had the spiritual perception could understand them, and spiritual perception is not always synonymous with what we are pleased to call intellectual perception. The learned of his day were often the most dull in responding to what he was trying to reveal to them. Paul's letters to the churches were letters to a very mixed class of people, many of them quite humble. Indeed his experience with the learned class had been so disheartening that in one of his letters he exclaims, "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the fool ishness of the preaching to save them that believe." We do not go to Paul's letters for entertainment and rest. They are so strenuous with moral purpose that if we are very weary we had better not undertake them. He does indeed strike fire, he even scintillates, but he does not go out of his way to show his familiarity with the learning of the day. He did once at Athens in his Mars Hill address, but it did not seem to bear much fruit and we judge he was rather disgusted with that attempt by the way he spoke later of his resolve when he was at Corinth . "And I, breth ren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power." It is true that he uses terms which make us quite certain that he was familiar with the philosophy of the mystery cults of his day and he is referring constantly to the ideas 262 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE in the Jewish religion, but his references are not used for mere literary purposes, his writing is entirely subordinate to his great anxiety to make a vital truth grip his readers in a reforming manner. We cannot conceive of his caring one whit whether his name should come down to posterity as a great essayist, a notable letter-writer. In fact he was so careless of his style that it conforms to no good standards of writing, his ellipses are most numerous, his sentences are often incomplete, he rushes on at such a headlong pace that it is difficult often to keep up with him. He packs his sentences so full of meat that one has to stop long to digest it. He is neither smooth in the style of his phrases nor graceful in the diction he uses. In traveling with Paul one is bumped over new-laid tracks; he has used his pick axe well to hew out the rock, he has put dynamite under the most resisting quarry of objections, he has spiked down firmly the rails over which his engine passes; but the pleasure of the ride comes not from ease of progress and release from tenseness so that the whole landscape can be enjoyed, but rather from the thrill of following a pioneer as he lays out a great highway with such energy of moral earnestness that one deems it worth while to be jolted and even bruised in order to follow his thought. The truth of it is that Paul was dead in earnest to get hold of people morally and spiritually, to do what the Old Testa ment prophets wanted to do in changing the whole attitude of mind and heart of his readers toward God and their part in life. He preached in this way to them but when he could not have them within reach of his voice he wrote letters to them, to straighten out their difficulties, to make them see more clearly the truth he was trying to present. Most of his letters were written with great heat; Paul was an intense man. Hearing of a situation that needed some authoritative voice to clear it up, he sat down straightway to dictate a fervent appeal to those people to behave as they ought, to think as they should, to listen to reason, to open their hearts to divine light. Probably he never for one moment thought he was writing literature. How is it ESSAY 263 then that we have such a favorable literary criticism as the following concerning that wonderful essay, the epistle to the Galatians? "There is nothing in ancient or modern literature to be compared with it. . . . It is indeed a mas terly sketch; the epistle to the Romans turns the sketch into a picture" ; ^ and this : "Paul was producing writings which have ever since been among the mightiest intellectual forces of the world. ... If his Epistles could perish, the loss to literature would be the greatest possible with only one exception — that of the Gospels." ^ Paul's writings are not especially in vogue to-day. We are more or less out of touch with his mode of expression. Moreover, there has been a notion that the church has been affected too much by Pauline theology, that the simplicity of the gospel as Jesus presented it is nearer the truth. It is a fact that it is much easier to understand the Sermon on the Mount than the doctrine of Justification by Faith as presented in the Epistle to the Romans. It is also true that , one has to think hard to understand Paul's lines of argument, especially since he uses the language of his day against a peculiar old-world setting which one must learn to appreciate in order to sense his meaning. It is a strenu ous mental exercise to read Paul with understanding, but he is very rewarding, for we soon discover that we are in the presence of "the greatest thinker of his age if not of any age." When a little treatise like the Epistle to the Romans can win such praise as the following from a thor ough scholar it should make us wish to read and under stand: "Its extraordinary vigor and freshness of thought and the perfectly sublime reach of its argument stamp this as an inspired work of the highest order" ; ^ or again from another : "It vindicates once for all the central facts, truths, and experiences, without which Christianity cannot exist." * Another says concerning his later letters, "In the epistles of 1 Sabatier, A., The Apostle Paul. 2 Stalker, James, Life of Paul. 3 Adeney in A Biblical Introduction. 4 James Denney in The Expositor's Greek Testament. 264. A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE the captivity Paul's indefatigable intellect attains its final goal." ^ It is not well, then, to attempt to read Paul unless one brings to the task a keen mind and an earnest desire to understand. Then, lo ! what happens ? He discovers that Paul was a modern psychologist in an ancient world, for much that the newest psychology is now declaring in mod ern terminology is Saint Paul over again; he discovers also that much of what the deepest and truest thinkers in the "New Thought" movements are attempting to say was made clear by Paul and has been lived out by earnest Christians throughout the centuries; he finds also that the renewed interest in mysticism can find the link between the mediaeval type and the present day demand for a practical application to modern needs in Paul, who was a practical Christian mystic with a social gospel. The type of literature which his epistles represent can be classed best as essay, but in approaching the study of such essays we must realize, as has already been pointed out, the difference in motive which governs essayists. It is a differ ence to be perceived even in the preachers of to-day, the Pauline type aglow with a message which must be made clear and gripping no matter what happens to the language, or the pleasing, polished type which appeals to a cultivated, educationally groomed audience or reader. What then are the principles of a good essay which we would expect to find illustrated here if we are to class Paul's epistles under this head? An essay is a logical composition in which the argument or progress of ideas is built up, one statement depending upon another for its value. Not every idea involved must be spread out in detail; it is usually a much more effective way to state just enough to suggest more. This adds in terest and stimulus, keeping the mind on the adventure for truth. The emotional delight or intellectual satisfaction in such discovery is the apparent, immediate result in reading such a composition. If pure pleasure is the aim, the thought 6 Sabatier, The Apostle Paul. ESSAY 265 need not be very profound, for it is the way the mind is led on which fascinates, sometimes through cool shady nooks and again out in the open sunshine with a hidden turn in the road just ahead. But for the truth to be con vincing the pathway to it must be plain, that is, logical. The more profound the truth and the more it differs from the ordinarily accepted notions the more insistent the mind is that the steps shall be clear. A part of the evidence may be the personal testimony of the author ; the strength of his conviction bears testimony according to the weight of his character and career. The artistic value of an essay comes from the arrangement of material and from the choice of words, their aptness, force, and suggestiveness. Imagery may play a considerable part or the delight may be simply in the direct appeal to reason. The author must travel from the known to the unknown, must speak in terms that are understood. Now in examining Paul's epistles according to these standards one discovers that here is a kind of writing nearer to the Greek style of logical composition than is elsewhere found in the Bible, for the Hebrew genius was not a philo sophical genius in the sense of our occidental conception of philosophy, in which truth is demonstrated step by step and the relationships are all laid bare by analysis. The Hebrew prophetic genius was rather one of an intuition which jumped over many steps in the joyous leap of vision, and affirmed conviction through imagery and symbol rather than by painstaking demonstration. Paul was born and reared in a Greek city, one of the three great university centers of his day, and while he was educated as a Jew his great mind was trying to make clear to a Greek and Roman world the profound truths he himself had realized through vision. It is because of this mixture in his background and train ing, this attempt to translate the experiences of one race to another, coupled with the great forcefulness of his char acter, that we have such a unique and original style. He is logical and yet impatiently leaves ellipses in his argument. 266 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE He is trying to substantiate his faith by his reason and yet all the while convinces his readers in large measure because he is so powerfully convinced himself. He is both argu mentative and expository in style. He is dealing with abstruse, philosophical questions, at the same time, how ever, making them so personal and vital that they are full of emotional appeal. He is so sincere that one has not a shadow of doubt that he would lay down his life for the truth he is trying to convey, yet he himself is to be seen constantly, that is, the truth has come through the man Paul with a Pauline coloring that is unmistakable. And while one is carried along irresistibly by the sweep and energy of his words one has to go back and ponder upon them again and again to realize the depth of their signifi cance and the heights to which he has climbed. To the modern mind his phrases have often to be interpreted, so different is the terminology of to-day, but in the cosmopoli tan world of the first century, familiar with the terms used by Greek philosophers, mystery cults, Jewish law, and the Roman government, he was clothing his arguments in lan guage readily understood although his thought was pro found and far-reaching. Thus again the Bible presents in this group of letters another type of literature which has taken its place very definitely in the great formative influ ences of Christendom, worth reading, studying, pondering, and appreciating, for its power is far from exhausted in this modern day and generation. EXAMPLES Philemon, the shortest of all and the most like a letter. Galatians. It is important because of biographical mate rial, style, doctrine, and revelation of the greatness of the author. Suggested Study Compare Galatians with Paul's speeches. Remember that an essay differs from a speech because it is to be read, not ESSAY 267 heard, because it is primarily to explain rather than to per suade, and because the topic is usually broader and cannot be easily condensed into a single sentence or discussed in a paragraph or two. Acts 26 is a good speech with which ta compare this letter because both are defenses. Paul was on the defensive before Festus and Agrippa to show why he was not worthy of imprisonment; Galatians is a polemic attempting to show that the gospel which he preached is the true gospel, the gospel of freedom, of justification by faith and not by keeping the Jewish law. To appreciate the book as literature one must understand what it is about and the trend of the argument. Read carefully Acts 15 : 1-30 and state the issue there. Read Galatians 1 : 6-10 and state the reason for Paul's writ ing the epistle. Read also 5:12, and 13-15; 3:1-3. Do they add light ? Who were the Galatians, Jews or Gentiles ? And why was Paul exercised over them? 4:8-11. What kind of a gospel had Paul preached to them ? 5 : 2-8 ; 3 : 1-3. Compare 2 : 16-21. How had they received Paul ? 4 : 12-15. How then had the dispute come about ? Compare 5 : 10. Why was Paul so disturbed about it? Why does Paul take pains in 1 : 1 and 1 : 11-12 to state where he received his gospel and in 1 : 13-2 : 14 to give the particular steps in his life? Why is the latter passage one of the most important parts historically of all the New Testament documents? How did Paul meet the opposi tion to him and his gospel? What was his underlying motive? 1: 1-12; 2: 16-3: 1. Analyze the whole epistle as to content of thought. Read the letter over again with reference to the style, and deter mine why it is considered a masterpiece. Compare it with the epistle to the Romans. Use Burton's Handbook of the Life of the Apostle Paul for an analysis of contents. Compare with other essays dealing with men, morals and religion, such as Macaulay's description of The Puritan in his Essay on Milton,' Carlyle's Essay on Biography, Emer son's Essay on Self-Reliance, or on Friendship, Thoreau's e This may be found in Little Masterpieces edited by Bliss Perry. 268 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Essay on Friendship, A. C. Benson, The Silent Isle, Ch. XX, The Sense of Sin, or The Upton Letters, and The Letters of William James. It would also be interesting to compare these Epistles of Paul with a group of very modern essays such as Christopher Morley's Collection of Modern Essays; Story, Essay, and Verse by C. S. Thomas and H. G. Paul ; ' or Dr. Richard Cabot's What Men Live By. ESTIMATES "Nowhere perhaps will there be found so exact a parallel to the style of Paul as in the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. In the Protector's brain there lay the best and' truest thoughts about England and her complicated affairs which existed at the time among Englishmen ; but when he tried to express them in speech or letter there issued from his mind the most extraordinary mixture of exclamations, questions, arguments soon losing themselves in the sand of words, unwieldy parentheses, and morsels of beautiful pathos or subduing eloquence. Yet, as you read these amazing utterances, you come by degrees to feel that you are getting to see the very heart and soul of the Puritan Era, and that you would rather be beside this man than any other representative of the period." — James Stalker. "Galatians is the Christian charter of freedom. It marks a new epoch in the history of religion." — B. W. Robinson. "All the powers of Paul's soul shine forth in these few pages, broad and luminous views, keen logic, biting irony. It is an inferior style ... the words and form of his dic tion bend and break under the weight of his thought. But from this contrast spring the most marvelous effects. . . . The style does not sustain the thought, it is that which sus tains the style, giving to it its force, its life and beauty. . . . Every phrase is obliged, so to speak, to bear a double and triple burden. In a single proposition, or in a couple of ^ Atlantic Monthly Press. ESSAY 269 words strung together, Paul has lodged a whole world of ideas." — Sabatier. "There is probably not a single Christian of any impor tance in later times from whom we have received such absolutely honest materials to enable us to realize what his inner life was like." — Gustav Deissmann. "From a doctrinal point of view the letter lacks the full ness and balance of the letter to the Romans, yet its very heat and impetuousness give it a value of its own. There are doctrinal passages in this letter which, on the points of which they treat, have no equal in any other letter of the New Testament." — E. D. Burton. "Antiquity has nothing to show more notable in its kind or more precious than this letter of Paul." — G. G. Findlay in Expositor's Bible. BOOKS TO CONSULT Baldwin, C. S., Composition. The English Bible as a Guide to Writing. Burton, Ernest "DiEWirs:, Handbook of the Life of the Apostle Paul. Deissmann, Gustav, Saint Paul. Ely, Mary, Paul, the Conqueror. The Expositors^ Greek Testament. McGiffert, a. C, The Apostolic Age, p. 221. Robinson, Benjamin W., The Life of Paul. Sabatier, A., The Apostle Paul. Stalker, James, The Life of Saint Paul. Vincent, Marvin R., Word Studies in the New Testament. Wood and Grant, The Bible as Literature. BIBLICAL REFERENCES AND INDEX BIBLICAL REFERENCES Genesis Chapter and Verse Page 1 62 1:1-2:3 65 2:23 68 2:46-3:24 67 4 64, 84 4:23-24 35 4 & 5 83, 84 4:1-15 85 6:9-9:17 76 8:22 77 9:25-27 148 10 84 21:22-34 36 25:23 147 27:27-29 148 49 149 49:22ff. 150 Exodus 15 : 1-3 38 15:16 130 Numbers 21:14, 15 27 21 : 17, 18 36 21:17 145 23:7-10, 18-24 ... 152 24:7 151 24:3-9, 15-19 .... 153 Deuteronomy 32 155 33 149, ISO, Joshua 10:12-13 38, 39 15 : 19 36 Judges 1:15 36 5 , 43 Chapter and Verse Page 5:2, 9 28 9:8-15 103 14:14 57 14-16 .: 32 15:16 59 17, 18 32 18:16 32 Ruth Ruth 94, 97, 98 Samuel I & II Samuel . . . 113, 114 I Samuel 2:1 28 18 : 7 38, 39 II Samuel 1:19-26 169 3:33, 34 169 12 252 18:33 28 Kings I & II Kings .... 113, 114 I Kings 18 242, 247 20:35-43 192 II Kings 22:1-23:30 .... 117 Chronicles I & II Chronicles. 113, 114 154 Esther Esther 94, 98 Job Job 128, 179, 217, 218 ff. 36:24-37:22 179 38:4-18 181 3 130, 193 273 274 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Psalm,s Proverbs Chapter Chapter and Verse Page and Verse Page 5 146 Proverbs 59,107,217, 7 145 234, 235, 238, 8:1, 9 28, 48 239 8:4 129 6:6-11 235 13 133, 145 8 235 16 145 9:1-12 235 18 145, 177 13 : 1 130 19:1-6 179 15:17 130 23 124,133,145, 24:30-34 235 176 26:3-12, 13-16 ... 235 24 134, 145, 158 27 : 2-6 49 25 187 27:23-27 52 29 133, 177 30 60 32 145 ^ , . 41 : 13 146, 162 Ecclesiastes 42 130, 134, 175 Ecclesiastes 140, 217, 228, 45 145, 165 230 51 124, 183 12 141 56 145 ^ ^ ^ , 60 : 1-4 145 Song of 5 olomon 72 162, 166 Song of Solomon. . 48, 54, 107, 73 : 18, 19 146 132, 139, 195 77:16-19 177 7:llff. 48 81 48 84 48 Isaiah 89 : 52 146, 162 Isaiah 106, 109, 203, 90 184, 188 243, 244, 246, 91 186 1 124,253 93 177 2:4 30 100 146 5 48, 134, 145 101 167 6 203 103 182 9:8-10:4 134 104-107 162 14 172 104 163 16:10 48 106:48 146,162 17:12-14 30 110 145 17 141 111 146 21 126, 213 111-117 162 28:20 29 113 162 28:23-29 51 114 162 40:12ff 181 120-134 158 47 215 121 162 55 216 125 162 63 215 135-136 162 65:8 48 136 28, 134 137 174 Jeremiah 146-150 162 Jeremiah 101 147 162 7 & 9 171 150 146,162 25:30 48 BIBLICAL REFERENCES 275 Lamentations Matthew, Chapter and Verse Chapter Page and Verse Page Lamentations .... 171 5:1-12 . 235 2:1, 10 . 132 6:9-15 .. 163 4:5, 8 .. 132 7:28 ... 11 256 216, 243 Esekiel 13 105 Ezekiel . 193, 209 18:21-35 104 4 193 22:2-14 . 105 37:1-14 205 Luke Daniel . . 2 Daniel 202 58 Hosea 4:22 ..,. 7:36-50 . 11 : 1-4 . 15 256 252 163 105 John Hosea . . 43, 124, 125, 2 106 166, 175, 184, 10:1-18 . 105 242 IS : 1-8 . 105 2:21-23 . 175 Acts Amos Acts . . . 113, 115 Amos . . , 166, 242, 246 2:14-36 254 247 7 252 1 &2 ... 251 13 : 16-41 255 3 : 12 ... 131 15:1-35 118 3:15 ... 165 17:22-31 26:1-29 . 254 255 Obadiah 27 116 Obadiah 174 Romans Jonah Romans 263 Jonah . . 31, 106, 125 / Corinthians Micah 12:12-3013 103 189 Micah . . 143 1:10 ... 32, 58 Galatians 6-1-8 212 Galatians 263, 266 Philemon Nahum Nahum 3 142 Philemon 266 2:3-7 .. 30 '7 Peter Zechariah 2:25 ... 102 Zechariah 5:5-11.. 33 Revelation Malachi 21:1-22:5 206 Malachi 219 21:9-27 208 INDEX A Abel, 84, 85 Abner, 169 Abraham, 94, 95, 211 Absalom, 28, 194 Accent, 130, 137 Achan, 24 Adah, 35 Adams, Henry, Education of, 118 ^schylus, 221, 226, 227 ./Esop, 103 "After Song," 191 Agriculture, 50, 51, 68, 84 Agrippa, 2S5 Ahab, 165, 248 Albright, Miss, 92, 93 Allegory, 89, 99, 106 Alliteration, 143, 144 Amos, 165, 166, 242, 244, 246, 247, 251, 252 Animism, 95 Antiphonal, 39, 134 Apocalyptic, 202 Apocrypha, 202, 217 Apostles, 211 Appledore, Pictures from, 143 Aquinas, Thomas, 196 Arabian Nights, 33, 91, 92, 97; Peninsula, 85 Arabic fables, 104, 105 ; poem, 77, 178; well-song, 38 Arabs, 36-38 Aram, 85 Aramea, 85 Ark, 77 Art, 15, 16, 180, 220, 250; for art's sake, 23, 241; of story telling, 88 Artificer, 35 Artisan, 84 Arts, 35 Asaph, 145 Asshur, 85 Assonance, 85, 144 277 Assyrians, 83 Athanasius, 185 Athens, 245, 261 B Baal, 242, 248, 250 Babel, 64 Babylon, 172, 207, 213; Baby lonian, 57, 68, 75, 76, 135, 174, 180, 221 Balaam, ISO Balance of thought, 24 (see also parallelism) Baldwin, Prof., 92, 93, 245 Ballad, 33, 43, 94 Battle of Harlow, 47; Salamis, 112 Baruch, 202 Bay Psalm Book, 194 Beatitudes, 164, 236, 237 Bedouin, 35, 95, 234 Bee-keeping and Bees, S3, 59 Be'er, 36 Beerelim, 36 Beeroth, 36 Beersheba, 36 Benson, A. C, 268 Bernard, Saint, 124 Bethel, 247 Bethlehem, 54 Bible-book of religion, 16, 19; beauty of, 15; English Bible, 17; study of, 15-18 Bidpai-fables, 104 Biography, 89, IIS Blake, William, 202 Boadicea, 43 Book of Dead, 75 British Columbia, 83 Brooks, Phillips, 259 Brown, T. E., 126 Brown, W. A., 118 Browning, Robert, 47, 127 Burma, 8l Byron, 142 278 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE C Cabot, Richard, 268 Cain, 84, 85 Canaan, 43 Canon, 195 Captivity, 174, 206, 217, 220 Caravan, 159 Carman, Bliss, 74 Carmel, Mount, 242, 247 Carlyle, Thomas, 226, 267 Ceremonial, 64 Chesterton, Gilbert, 234 Christianity, 206, 212, 263, 266 Chorus, 39, 134, 164, 220 Chronicler, 114, 203 Church, 196 Cicero, 259 City of God, 208 Clans, 43 Cochin China, 81 Communal expression, 24, 39, 124, 168, 206, 220 Communion Psalm, 182 Confession, The Great, 183 Contrast, 24, 55, 56, 76, 143, 180, 187 Conundrum, 56-61 Cook Islands, 82 Corinth, 261 Cosmological, 62, 63, 76, 83 Creation, 65, 110, 181 ; in com parative literature, 69 ff. Crothers, Dr.,_ 106 Curtin, Jeremiah, 21 Cushites, 85 Cynic, Gentle, 229, 230 Cyprus, 85 D Dance, 20, 25, 35, 38, 40, 48 Daniel, 58, 202 Dante, 227, 244 David, 31, 39, 94, 98, 113, 127, 168, 169, 170, 176, 183, 194, 203 Debate, 219 Deborah's Song, 28, 30, 33, 40, 43, 143 Deity (name of), 34 "Demands Joyous," 58 Demosthenes, 259 Descriptive History, 112, 116 Deucalion, 80 Deuteronomy, 155 Devotional Bible Study, IS Dialogue, 67, 89 Dickens, Charles, 237 Didactic, 33, 39, 54, 112, 124, 155 Diogenes, 202 Dirge, 28, 168, 174, 183, 211 Dispersion, 217 Diviner, 151 Doom, 172, 207 Doxology, 146, 163 Drama, 125, 192 ff., 218, 221, 244 Dramatic, 43, 68, 126, 201 Drinkwater, John, 122, 144 Duhm, Bernhard, 131 Dyaks, 74 Dye, Charity, 91 Ebal, 159 Ecclesiastes, 140, 217, 228 Ecclesiasticus, 2l7 Edomites, 174 Egyptian, 38, 58, 69, 75, 85, 203 Elam, 84 Elijah, 31, 113, 242, 246-249 Elisha, 113 Elizabethans, 132 Elohim, 66, 77, 166 Emerson, 267 Enigma, 56-S9 Enoch, 202 Ephraim, 149 Epic, 33, 43, 62, 78, 221 Epicureanism, 236 Esau, 148 Essay, 89, 112, 259, 260 Esther, 94, 98 Ethics, 76, 86, 95 Ethiopia, 85 Ethnological, 63, 83; ethnology, 84, 85 Etymological, 64 Evening Hymn, 180 Evil, problem of, 75 Exmoor Harvest Song, 52 Exodus, 38 Ezekiel, 193, 202, 205, 206, 209 INDEX 279 Faber, F. W., 107 Fable, 31, 33, 99 Fact, 62-64 Fairy-tales, 33 Family, 84 Farmer's life, 53, 84, 161 ; poem, 51 ; proverb, 43 Feasts, 64, 128 Figures of speech, 30, 40, 43, 64, 65 Flodden Field, 47 Flood story, 76; from compara tive literature, 78, 111 Folk-lore, 19, 88, 113, 126, 221; poetry, 18 Fools, 234, 235 France, Anatole, 233 "Free Verse," 137 Friendship, 187 Galatians, 263, 266 Garden of Eden, 68, 97 Genealogies, 64 Genetic History, 112, 118 Geology, 76 Georgics, 52, 53 Gerezim, 159 Gibbs, Philip, 117 Gibeon, 40 Gideon, 32, 97 Gilder, R. W., 191 Gilgamesh epic, 78 Gittith, 48, 146 Gladstone, William E, 185 Glover, T. E., 256 Goethe, 226, 244 Goliath, 94, 97 Golden Apples, 76 Good Samaritan, 107 Gosse, Edmund, 243 Greece, 85 Greek, 33, 56, 76, 80, 189, 218, 221, 228, 235, 236, 254, 265, 266 H "Hack and Hew," 74 Hallel, 162, 163 Halleluiah, 162, 164 Happiness, 235 Hatshepsut, 203 Hebrew genius, 24, 33, 265; early expression, 32 Hebrew words, 139, 157, 171 Hedonism, 236 Henley, William E, 226 Heracles, 76 Hermes, 80 Hermon, Mount, 249 Herodotus, 117 Hindoo fable, 103 History, 61, 76, 219; Bible as, 17; early, 33, 53, 56, 89, 109; tests, 119 Homer, 43 Horeb, 247 Hosea, 124, 125, 166, 175, 184, 242 Houghton, Louise Seymour, 27 Horace, 227 Humor, 31, 32, 56 Husbandry, 50 (see agriculture and farmer) Hymns, 124, 158, 162, 165, 168, 179, 180 Idyll, 67 Imagery, 65, 125, 138 (see Figures) Imagination, 27, 30, 40, 62, 63, 65, 88, 93 India, 81 Indians, 21 ; myths, 32 Inferno, 237 Inspiration, 16, 67 Intuition, 65, 122, 137, 265 Iphigenia, 96 Irony, 31, 32, 250 Isaac 94 148 Isaiah, 29, 106, 109, 166, 192, 202, 203, 243, 244, 246, 247, 253 Ishmael, 63 Israel, 114, 248, 252 Israelites, 38, 40, 43, 49, 52, S3, 63, 66, 84, 125, 148, 152, 157, 192, 203 280 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE / Jabal, 35 Jackals, 57 Jacob, 49, 149; well, 159 James, William, 260 Jamnia, 196 Jasher, 41, 169 Jastrow, Morris, 179 Javan, 85 Jehovah, derivation, 34 Jehu, 165 Jeremiah, 101, 171, 247 Jerusalem, 134, 158, 171, 197, 203, 254; New, 206; Restored, 209 Jesus, 101, 189, 216, 235, 236, 243, 244, 255, 256, 260, 261 Jew, 217, 219, 255, 265 ; Wailing Place, 171 Job, 128, 179, 217, 218 ff. John, 206 Jonah, 31, 106, 125 Joseph, 58, 96, 148 Joshua, 24 Josiah, 117, 166 Jotham, 31, 42, 103 Jubal, 35 Judah, 114 K "Keeper of Light," 97 Kenites, 85 Kilmer, Joyce, 128 Kinah, 131, 169, 171, 175 King, H. C, 237 Kingsley, Charles, 47 Kipling, Rudyard, 98 Kittim, 85 Koheleth, 228, 230, 236 Korah, sons of, 145 Koran, 20 " Krummacher, 105 Kumis, 75 Kurn Hattin, 255 Lamech, 35 Lamentations, 132, 171 Laws of God, 51 ; moral law, 180 Lebanon, 177 Legend, 22, 62-65, 76, 88 Letters, 260, 262 Levites, 115 Literature, Bible as, 15-17, 110; English, 17; History of, 17, 18 Liturgical Psalms, 28, 135, 185 Lincoln, Abraham, 259 Lord's Prayer, 163, 189 Lorna Doone, 52 Love, 189, 195, 219 Lowell, J. R., 30, 143 Lowth, Bishop, 129 Lud, 85 Luther, 219 Lydia, 85 Lyric, 33, 124, 175, 179, 183, 193, 194, 195 M Macaulay, 267 Malachi, 219 Manasseh, 149 Manuscripts, 17 Markham, Edwin, 179 Marriage, 68 (see wedding) Martial, 132 Masefield, John, 128, 144 Maskil, 145 Masterpieces, 16-18 Matheson, George, 196 Meditation, 184 Mediterranean, 64, 84, 177 Melanesian, legend, 73 Memory, 27, 28 Mesopotamia, 64, 84 Metaphor, 40, 161 Meter, 28, 127, 130, 148, 151, 158, 168 Methuselah, 84 Micah (prophet), 143, 212, 244; (priest), 32 Midian, 151 Miktam, 145 Milton, John, 86, 112, 144, 227 Miracle, 75, 250 Miriam's Song, 34, 38 Mizmor, 145 Moab, 151, 152 Moffatt, Dr., 190 Moral, 75, 95, 180 INDEX 281 Morley, Christopher, 268 Morning, 179 Moses, 38, 85, 149, 155, 184, 248 Mother Goose, 29 Musical terms, 144; instruments, 146 Musicians, 35, 84 Mysticism, 95, 121, 264 Myths, 33, 62, 101, 111 N Nahum, 142 Naomi, 98 Nathan, 31 Nation, 123, 125, 147, 148, 157, 168, 171, 249 Nation's Birth Song, 147 Nature, 122, 126, 128, 129. 163, 175, 179, 180, 181, 251 Nebuchadrezzar, 58 Negro Folk Song, 21, 135 New England, 53 "New Thought," 264 "New Voices," 140 Newbolt, William, 123, 136 Nietzche, 228 Nineveh, 30 Noah, 77, 148 Nomads, 35-37, 40 Norse Creation Story, 72 North America, 76 Nursery rhymes, 60 (see rhymes and Mother Goose) O Obadiah, 174 Occasions for singing, 146 Ode, 33, 155 CEdipus, 56 Olives, Mount of, 159 Omar Khayyam, 132, 229 Omri, 248 Onomatopoeia, 30, 47, 143 Ophir, 85 Oral transmission, 25, 88 Oracles, 150, 151, 152, 213 Oratory, 241 Orthodox, 218, 221, 229 Pacific Islands, 83 Palestine, 48, 85 Parable, 49, 88, 99, 103, 104 Paradise, 68 Paradise Lost, 86 ParalleUsm, 67, 129, 135, 136, 253 Parley, Peter, 27 Parnassus, 80 Passover, 64 Pastoral life, 52, 84 (see shep herd) Patriarchs, 18, 95 Patriotism, 129, 147, 154, 158, 176 Paul, 103, 115, 189, 244, 245, 247, 254, 255, 256, 260, 261, 262, 264, 265, 266 Paul Revere's Ride, 112 Pentecost, 254 Perry, Bliss, 133, 135, 138 Persia, 50, 85 Pessimists, 234 Peter, 244, 245, 247, 254, 256 Pharaoh, 58 Philemon, 266 Philistines, 57, 170 Philippine Islands, Creation Story, 74 Phillips, Wendell, 259 Philosophers, 217 Philosophy, 63, 112, 265. 266 Phthia, 80 Pilgrim Ford, 159 Pilgrim Psalter, 158 "Place of Peace," 179 Plutarch, 56 Poetry, 33, 62, 75, 110, 120; form, 20, 22, 28, 33, 60; structure, 129; marks of, 137 Polynesia, 82 Pope, 132 Praise, 163, 179, 180, 189 Prayers, 154, 163, 184, 250 Priests, 203_ Priestly writer, 65, 115 Primitive man, 21, 23, 56, 62, 63, 65 Processiond, 158 Prometheus, 80, 221 Prophecy, 151, 206, 212 Prophets, 95, 96, 115, 121, 126, 129, 151, 171, 206. 247, 253 282 A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE Prose, 20, 34, 35, 38, 40. 62, 65, 77, 120, 137 Prosopopoeia, 47 Proverbs, 29, 33, 42, 43, 59, 60, 99, 107, 217, 234, 235, 238, 239 Psalm, derivation, 145 ; liturgi cal, 28, 162 Psalter, Pilgrim, 158 Pseudo-Matthew, 75 Psychology, 68 Puns, 32, 56, 57, 58 Puritan, 31, 268 Pyrrha, 80 R Rabbis, 196, 197 Races, 16; Hebrew, 17, 18 Racial genius, 16 Rebekah, 148 Recitative, 27 Red Sea, 38 Refrain, 28, 39, 180 Religion, 19, 63, 68, 75, 76, 95, 96, 122, 124, 129, 158, 163, 176, 249, 262 Renan, 139; note, 233 Repetition, 28 Revelation, 16; Book of, 206 ff. Revenge, 35 Revised Version (see versions) Rhyme, 28, 29, 38, 43, 50, 61, 127, 131 Rhythm, 21, 23, 25, 29, 34, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 47, SO, 61, 62, 67, 77, 120, 130, 136, 137, 144, 158, 164, 169 Riddles, 29, 33, 56-61 Rip Van Winkle, 97 Romans, Epistle, 263 Royalty, 165 Ruskin, John, 136 Ruth, Book of, 94, 97, 98 Sacrifice, 96 Samson, 29, 32, 56, 59, 143 Samuel, 113 Sanskrit, 81 Sarcasm, 31, 32 Satan, 218 Satire, 31 Saul, 113, 170 Scandinavia, 83 Schopenhauer, 228 Schreiner, Olive, 107 Scottish, 43, 182 Seer, 151 (see John) Semitic, 135 Semple, Ellen C, 119 Sennacherib, 142 Septuagint, 133 Sermon on Mount, 255 Serpent, 67, 68, 71, 75, 76 Sex, 68 Shakespeare, 227, 244 Shamash, 58 Shaw, Bernard, 233 Shem, 84 Sheep, shepherd, 84, 176 Sheik, 36 Sidon, 248 Simon, 168 Sin, 68, 86, 204, 218 ff. Singing, 19, 33-35 Sisera, 30 Sluggards, 234, 235 Social values, 123, 212 Song, 18, 24, 29, 33-43, SO, 51, 64, 145, 148, 154, 155, 181, 186, 211 Song of Solomon, 48, 54, 107, 132, 139, 195 Solomon's Pleasure Gardens, 54 Snowden, J. H, 118 Spain, 85 Speech, 89, 241 ff. Sphinx, 56, 59 Spinoza, 228 Spiritual realities, 16 "Spoken English," 25 Spring, 36 Stanley, Dean, 189 Stephen, 252 Stoicism, 236 Storms, 177 Story and story telling, 20, 62, 88 ff.. Ill Strophe, 131, 176 Style, 65-68, 7S-77, 117, 229, 235, 244 ff., 252, 253, 256, 262, 264, 265 Succoth, 32 INDEX 283 Suffering, 84, 218; Suffering Servant, 109 Sun and Sun-god, 58, 180 "Sun-god and the Serpent," 71 Superstitious, 68, 75, 76, 96 Symbolism, 63, 76, 140, 151, 202, 209 Synagogue, 164 Syria, 198 Tabernacles, Feast of, 128 Tablets, Babylonian, 74 Tarshish, 85 Tekoa, 251 Temptation, 67, 68 Tennyson, 98, 170 Thackeray, 98 Theocracy, 203 Theological, 66, 109, 229 Thomas, C. S. and Paul, H. G., 268 Thoreau, 187, 267 Thucydides, 117 Thunderstorm Psalm, 18, 77, 129, 177 Title of Psalms, 145 Tolstoi, 103 Tradition, 64, 76, 88 Translations, 17, 28, 34, 43, 50, 190 Tree of Life, 75 Tribe, 35 Truth, 62-64 Tubal-Cain, 35 Tunes, 145 Twain, Mark, 226 Tyre, 165, 249 U Ur, 211 Utopia, 237 Uzziah, 203 Valley of Dry Bones, 205 Van Dyke, Henry, 97, 125 Vergil, 52, 53, 237 Versions, 20, 34, 43, SO, 76, 222; King James, 34, 121, 129, 181, 182, 187, 188; Revised, 34, 148, 177, 187, 201 Vineyard Song, 18, 48, 49, 215 Visions, 201-212 Voices, for singing, 146 W Webster, Daniel, 259 Wedding (songs), S4, 58, 165 (see marriage and Song of Solomon) Well, Song of, 36, 37, 126; Arab Song of, 38 Whitlock, Brand, 117 Wilde, Oscar, 107 Wilkinson, Mrs. Marguerite, 140 Wisdom, 235 Wisdom Literature, 54-61, 102, 217, 230, 235 ff. Wisdom of Solomon, 217 "Woman and the Barrel," 32 Worid's Code, 237 Worship, 162-164, 187, 219 Yahweh, 66, 77; meaning of, 34 Zeus, 80 Zillah, 35 Zion, 161, 215, 252 Zodiac, 210 YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 05047 7430 ¦'-^¦•'¦'¦s:s2v:^';