PARABLE (IN OT;
looked at as the two sides of a unity, and the ex- pressions which properly belong to the description of the concrete sphere are applied to the ideal sphere, we have the Metaphor. One sees it in such instances as the following: ‘the light of thy counvenance’ (Ps 47 (Eng. ; ‘they that be wise shall shine,’ ete., i.e. be held in honour (Dn 12°), cf. ἀναλάμψουσιν (Wis 37), ‘super stellas fulgebunt facies eorum qui abstinentiam habuerunt’ (4 Ezr 155), ‘ye shall shine’ (Enoch 1043), of δίκαιοι ἐκλάμ- yourw (Mt 13%). When the metaphor expres- sions extend through a number of sentences, the description is called Allegorical; cf. Cicero, de Oratore, 27: ‘cum confluxerunt plures continus translationes, alia plane fit oratio: itaque genus hoc Greeci appellant ἀλληγορίαν.᾽ Certain instances of allegorical language are found in Gn 49°, Nu 248>-% ete., Is 1° etc. Further, Ezk 17% is not a ‘Fable’ [against Bertholet, Kurzer Handcomm., 1897, ad loc.), for the very expression ‘the great eagle,’ with which the passage commences, is to be understood not as if the author had in view a real eagle, but as referring to the subject Nebuchad- nezzar which was well known to his contem-
oraries (cf. Kénig, Syntax, ὃ 297a-c, 298a, 6). Caieed(nieutl the phrase ‘the great eagle’ is a mark of the Allegory, which could not be better characterized than in the following terms: ‘When an author does not describe that phenomenon of which he really means to speak, but another which has more or fewer points of resemblance to it, and yet carries out the description in such a way that one easily perceives that it is not the latter but the former phenomenon that he has in view, this constitutes an Allegory’ (Heinrich Kurz, Handbuch der poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen, 1840). Good instances of Allegories are Hans Sachs’ Die Wittenbergisch Nachtigall, or Schiller’s ‘Das Miidchen aus der Fremde,’ not to speak of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
3. THE PARABLES OF THE OT AND THEIR CLOSEST ANALOGUES. —(a@) Parables in the ordi- nary sense of this term (see above, 2 a) are found ἐπ ΟΝ PSS 7146 CIS NE ta Ba Nn interesting essay by P. Cersoy (of Lyons) on Is 5° appeared in the Revue Biblique (Jan. 1899; summary in Expos. Times, Apel 1899, p. 325) under the title ‘l’Apologue de la Vigne.’ He proposes to render v.’* ‘I will sing to my beloved my love- song touching his vineyard’ (je vais chanter ἃ mon ami mon chant amical ἃ ΤΌΡΩΣ de sa vigne). But if the prophet had ΤῊ 13 imself as the primary author of this poem, it would have been unnatural to introduce God as the speaker in vv.*®. On the other hand, the circumstance that at the beginnin of the parable (vv.!»-?) the owner of the vineyar is treated as a third person, is quite explicable. By the selection of this third person a twofold object is gained. In the first place the commence- ment of the parable connects itself directly with the exordium, and in the second place the appear- ance is avoided of Isaiah himself being the owner of the vineyard. Cersoy suggests, further, that in νον Isaiah ‘ probably utilized a short popular song.’ But this view finds no support either in the differ- ence of structure between the clauses of vv.!:? and vy.*°, or in the transition to the first person (vv. ‘I pray you,’ ete.), for it is perfectly natural that the outburst of the Divine anger should find its expression in a direct address by God Himself.
Although none of the above-cited five passages of the OT is actually called a >y¥p (mashal), it is not therefore to be inferred that this term could not be appropriately applied to them. Its absence may be sufliciently explained as simply due to the fact that the particular writers did not take occa- sion to add the terminus technicus. Jerome was quite right in his remark on Is 5’ ‘Que prius
PARABLE (IN OT)
PARABLE (IN OT) 661
eee
per metaphoram dicta sunt vel per parabolam |
pa exponuntur manifestius.’ So Kimchi began
is exposition of 2S 12'4 with min $vpz, introduced | the passage 14% with the words Svon mpn xm, |
began his exposition of Is 5 with amy x22 “27 vo, and finally explained ‘n wixn of 284% by Sep 371 ond xox ‘He spoke to them in the way of a mashdl.’ The correctness of this last interpreta- tion results from two considerations, namely the original sense of mdshdl, and the later usage of this word and its linguistic congeners.
This leads to the remark that the original sense of mashdl is very open to dispute. The now pre- vailing theory was argued for by Fleischer in an Excursus to Delitzsch’s Commentar iiber die Proverbien, p. 13f., and it is maintained also in Gesenius- Buhl, HWB*® (‘eigentlich wohl : als etwas stehen, repriisentiren etwas,’ i.e. ‘lit. perhaps : stand for something, represent some- thing’). Essentially the same view is shared by E. Meier, Wurzelworterbuch, p. 503f. It may be stated thus: In Arabic matala=‘stetit erectus,’ ete. Hence matalun (=mashdal) was papmally a ‘positio’ κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν. This might be looked at from the point of view of security and then became =‘affirmatio’ (cf. 3 συ ‘impose on one,’ i.e. rule over one), or from the point of view of the formu- lating of a thought, and then the ‘ positio’ became the investiture or representation of an idea. But this derivation of mdshdl requires some very bold leaps in order to reach its goal, and hence we venture to ang est another derivation. Our start- ing-point shall be the fact that the sense of ‘re- semble,’ ‘be like,’ is the predominatin one with the verb $v and its Semitic cognates. This is the only sense of the Assyr. masdlu, the Eth. masdla (Dillmann: ‘ similis, consentaneus fuit’), the Aram. métal, and it is the prevailing one also of the Arab. matala. On this we would rest the thesis that mdashal originally had the sense of ‘likeness’ or ‘complex,’ a view which is supported by the cir- cumstance that the Assyr. mb te means ‘ totality.’ Now, what is the commonest form of an identifica- tion orcombination? It is the judgment, and the embodiment of this is the simple sentence. Accord- ingly mashdal might be the designation of asentence, but also of other kinds of combination of individual conceptions and of whole sets of conceptions, From mashal (‘judgment’) may come a denominative verb $vp (‘rule’) which meets us in Pheenician (ef. Bloch, Phen. Glossar, p. 43) and in Hebrew. For the activity of a ruler exhibited itself originally in the pronouncing of judgments (ef. Solomon’s words, ‘to judge thy people,’ 1 Καὶ 3%). From the stability which is a natural quality of such judgments may be derived, further, the Arab. mata(u)la, ‘stand fast.’* With this agrees the circumstance that