XI THE POETS I OME of the poetry which appears in the pages of SOM the historians and of the prophets is so vaguely related to the circumstances in the midst of which it stands as to suggest that it was originally composed for some other occasion. Thus the Song of Hannah (I Sam. 2), the Old Testament Magnificat, reads like the celebration of a victory in battle. My heart rejoiceth in the Lord, My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; There is none holy as the Lord; Neither is there any rock like our God. Let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: And by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty men are broken, And they that stumbled are girded with strength. bread; And they that were hungry ceased: Yea, the barren hath born seven; And she that hath many children is waxed feeble. The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And inherit the throne of glory: For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, But the wicked shall be silent in darkness; The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; Out of the heaven shall he thunder upon them: And exalt the horn of his anointed. The Prayer of Jonah, with its references to the holy temple (Jonah 2:2-9), seems to belong rather to the thought of the southern kingdom than the northern, where Jonah lived. I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, Out of the belly of hell cried I, And thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; And the floods compassed me about: All thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; The earth with her bars was about me for ever: When my soul fainted within me I remembered And my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities Forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. The Ode of Habakkuk is appended to the book of that prophet rather than vitally connected with it. O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: God came from Teman, And the Holy One from mount Paran. And burning coals went forth at his feet. He beheld, and drove asunder the nations; His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, That thou didst ride upon thine horses, Thy bow was made quite naked, The oaths to the tribes were a sure word. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. And lifted up its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: At the light of thine arrows they went, And at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, For the salvation of thine anointed; Thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, By discovering the foundation unto the neck. Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his warriors; They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: When I heard, my belly trembled; Rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself; That I might rest in the day of trouble, When he that shall invade them in troops cometh up against the people. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. And he will make my feet like hinds' feet, The absence of rhyme and meter from Hebrew poetry, and the occasional indistinctness of the parallelism which is its characteristic form, blur the distinction between verse and eloquent and imaginative prose. This appears often in the prophets, especially in II Isaiah, part of which is plainly poetry in form as well as in thought, and most of which is poetical in thought even when the form looks like prose. Of the five Old Testament books which are written in poetry, two-Proverbs and Job-belong also to the literature of Wisdom. The other three,—Lamentations, the Song of Solomon and the Psalms,-are collections of lyrics. II The statement of the Chronicler (II Chron. 35:25) that "Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations; and behold they are written in the Lamentations," led Jewish critics to ascribe to Jeremiah the book which bears that name, and to apply these poems to the tragedy of the defeat and death of Josiah at the battle of Megiddo. But the poems are anonymous, and they seem to have been occasioned by the supreme tragedy of the destruction of Jerusalem. Four |