The following instances of interchange of pro- noun and substantive may also be traced to natural motives, and are thus readily intelligible: ‘God created man, etc., in the image of God created he him’ (Gn 17), The words ‘of God’ take the place of ‘his,’ because prominence is meant to be given to the concept ‘God.’ The same preferring of the name ‘God’ to the pronoun is to be noted in the following passages: ‘And the LorD said unto Abraham, etc., Is anything too hard for the LoRD’ (Gn 18**)= ‘for me’? ‘The LorD rained fire from the LorD,’ ete. (19%); ‘Thou (O Lorp) shalt destroy them that speak leasing, the Lorp will abhor,’ ete. (Ps 5), instead of ‘thou wilt abhor,’ ete.; ‘He (the LorD) answered, etc., and the Lord,’ ete. (Is 64"); ‘concerning his Son, ete., which was made, etc., and declared to be the Son of God’ (Ro 1%), In the same way ‘thou’ and ‘the king’ alternate in 2 S 14%>, and the title ‘king’ on many other occasions takes the place of the pronoun : e.g. ‘O king, the eyes of all Israel are upon thee, that thou shouldest tell them who shall sit on the throne of my lord the king,’ ete. (1 K 1? 814 9915» ete.) ; or ‘Thine arrows [O king] are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies’ (Ps 45° etc.; ef. Stilistik, 154).—It was no less natural that the bare pronoun should frequently be used to point to the personage who is the main subject of any particular discussion. For instance, the hero who was called from the rising of the sun to deliver the exiles (Is 412-7) is indicated by the simple pronoun in 41% 45! 464 484 and perhaps 551°, Who, now, was a more important subject than God Himself, in religious texts such as are contained in the Bible? Hence the reference of the pronoun ‘he’ is not doubtful in the words ‘ if he destroy him from his place’ (Job 81), or in 9%# ‘for he is not a man,’ etc. In both passages God is self-evidently the other party. The same func- tion is discharged by ‘he’ in 121% 1316> 198 and ‘God’ is quite justifiably substituted by AV for the Heb. ‘he’ in 20% and 21%», The same use of the pronoun ‘he’ to refer to God is found in the following passages: ‘In them (the heavens) he set a tabernacle for the sun’ (Ps 194); ‘Judah was his sanctuary’ (114°); ‘He will no more carry thee away into captivity’ (La 4” etc., cf. Stilistik, p. 115f.). Thus ‘God’ came to be the great logical subject or object of the Bible. Almost more natural still was it that ‘God’ should be the great logical vocative of Scripture. Examples of the latter are : ‘Salvation belongeth to the Lorp, thy blessing is upon thy people’ (Ps 38), or ‘ Put your trust in the LorpD,’ and ‘LorpD, lift thow up the light of thy countenance upon us’ (4°%), or ‘the LORD shall judge the people, judge me, O LorpD,’ etc. (7°). This involuntary turning of the religious man to his God is met with again in ‘I have set the Lorp always before me,’ and ‘for ¢how wilt not leave my soul in hell,’ etc. (Ps 16°), or in ‘He sent,’ ete., and ‘at thy rebuke,’ ete. (18'4* etc. 69°? 764 etc.). The same natural apostrophizing of God is found in the well-known words ‘therefore forgive them not’ (Is 2°), or in ‘and the LorD hath given me knowledge of it . . . then thou shewedest me their
EXTRA VOL.—II
STYLE OF SCRIPTURE 161
doings’ (Jer 1178), Many similar passages are col- lected in Stilistik, p. 243.
Besides these forms of transition from pronoun to substantive, there are other rapid transitions characteristic of the style of Scripture.—
(a) After Joseph has been extolled in the words ‘Joseph is a fruitful bough,’ ete., he is addressed directly : ‘even by the God of thy father,’ etc. (Gn 49?1-24, 25.) A similar transition shows itself in such instances as the following: ‘Let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom’ (1K 12); ‘who eat up my people,’ etc., and ‘you have shamed the counsel of the poor,’ ete. (Ps 144» 6a), The com- plaint ‘they are gone away backward’ is continued by the question ‘Why should ye be stricken any more?’ (Is 14); cf. Hab 27 ete. The opposite transition, from apostrophe to the objective and calmer treatment of a person, may be observed in the words ‘Reuben, thow art my firstborn... he went up to my couch’ (Gn 49%"), The same change occurs again in ‘O Jacob... he shall pour the water out of his buckets,’ ete. (Nu 24°-7) ; or in ‘ Worship ¢thow him’ and ‘her clothing is of wrought gold’ (Ps 451-8); or in ‘Thou shalt be called the city of righteousness’ and ‘ Zion shall be redeemed,’ etc. (Is 126); or in ‘ Thy men shall fall by the sword,’ ete., and ‘her gates shall lament,’ ete. (3° etc. 22! ete. ; cf. Stilistik, pp. 238-248), There are, further, many passages in which the employment of the third person passes over into a preference for the first. A large proportion of these cases is explained by the circumstance that the writer passes to the use of direct speech: e. g. ‘He feared to say, she is my wife’ (Gn 267); ‘The rulers take counsel together. . . . Let ws break,’ etc. (Ps 28); ‘He maketh . . . know that I am God’ (46°) ; ‘The Lorp of Hosts doth take . . and I will give children to be their princes’ (Is 3™ 48); ‘He fenced . . . and now judge between me,’ ete. (5°). Other instances are due to the author’s including himself in the same group as the persons spoken of: e.g. ‘They went through the flood on foot, there did we rejoice in him’ (Ps 66°); ‘The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage