2S 223, Ps 127 etc., Pr 30°, Is 5% 28% 294 329, La 217, Consequently, the choice of these two words suflices to bring Gn 4% into connexion with other portions of the OT where the same compara- tively rare terms occur (cf. Stilistik, pp. 277-283). To take other two illustrations of a similar kind, the dative ‘to them’ is expressed by the usual lahém in Gn 3#! etc., but by /amé in the following passages: Gn 976.27), Dt 3252-85 332, Job 3™ etc. (10 times), Ps 2 ete. (21 times), Pr 2379, Is 164 231 2G14- 16 30° 358 438 447- 15 4821 538(2), La, 11% 2 420. 15, Hab. 27. Again, ‘man’ is expressed by *adam from Gn 1% onwards, but ’énésh is the term selected in the Song of Moses (Dt 32”) as well as in Job 4” etc. (18 times), Ps 8° etc. (12 times), Is 8! 137” 246 338 517 12562, Jer 20, 2 Ch 14”; cf. the Aram. *éndsh in Ezr 4" 64, Dn 2” ete.
2. The portions of the OT which are charac- terized by the ‘higher’ style embrace the two categories of addresses and poems. This may be noted clearly enough, we think, by comparing the Book of Isaiah and the Psalms with one another. For instance, Is 17! reads—
‘J have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.’
Here we find that peculiar construction of clauses to which, so far as the present writer is aware, the name ‘parallelismus membrorum’ was first given by Robert Lowth in the Fourteenth of his famous Prelectiones de poesi Hebreorum (Oxonii, 1753). But this ideal rhythm (explained psychologically and comparatively in Stilistik, pp. 307-311) is not met with everywhere in Isaiah. For instance, when we read ‘When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts?’ ete. (112-4), it would be precarious here to attribute to the author an aim at parallelismus membrorum. As little can any such intention be detected in sentences like ‘In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats’ (27°). Such instances occur frequently in the prophetical books; and if these contain also sentences which exhibit the parallelismus membrorum, it must be remembered that the higher form of prose, as employed especi- ally by good speakers,was not without a certain kind of rhythm. This is pointed out by no less an authority than Cicero in the words ‘Isocrates primus intellexit etiam in soluta oratione, dum versum effugeres, modum tamen et numerum quendam oportere servari’ (Brutus, viii. 32); and we find a confirmation of his statement when we examine the opening words of his own First Oration against Catiline: ‘Quousque, tandem, abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quamdiu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet ? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?’ The word ndb?, indeed, means liter- ally ‘speaker’ (cf. the present writer’s Offen= barungsbegriff des AT, i. 71-78), and prophecies as such could be co-ordinated with the productions of poets only if ald prophetical utterances bore upon them the characteristic marks of poetical compositions. But no one would venture to assert this, for instance, of Zec 1-8 or of the Books of Haggai and Malachi. The last-named portions of the OT Jack even those elements of the higher diction described above, (1). Further, the author of Ps 74° did not count himself a prophet, for he says expressly of the age in which he lived, ‘There is no more any prophet’ (see, further, Stilistik, p. 318 f.).
A characteristic feature of the OT prophecies is that they begin with a Divine utterance, which they
STYLE OF SCRIPTURE
then go on to develop. For instance, the Book of Isaiah contains at the outset God’s declaration ‘I have nourished and brought up children,’ ete. (vv.*»8), which the prophet as God’s interpreter (30*) then illustrates in detail. Note the words ‘They have forsaken the LORD,’ ete. (1%), and ‘Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us,’ etc. (v.°). Many similar instances will be found in Stilistik, p 255f. Another peculiarity of the style of the Prophets is that many of them commence with censure, then speak of the punishment of the im- penitent, and close with the announcement of deliverance for the godly. This order is found, for instance, in Am 7!-9" [on 9815 see Driver, Joel and Amos, pp. 119-123], Hos 12-23, Is 12-24 25-48, Mic 4° 11-13 51 ete,
The true relation of the Prophets of Israel to poetry consists, in the opinion of the present writer, in the circumstance that here and_there they intersperse their addresses with poetical com- positions. Thus in Is 5'% we have a ‘song’ about the vineyard of Jahweh, and specially frequent are passages which reproduce the rhythm of the lament for the dead (the kind). This rhythm, which re- sembles the elegiac measure of the Romans, is heard in such passages as Am 52—
‘The virgin of Israel is fallen, she shall no more rise, She is forsaken upon her land, there is none to raise her.’ The same rhythm is found also in the Prayer of Hezekiah in Is 381°°°, Another ‘elegy’ occurs in Jer 9Uu— * And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons,