(d) The latest * accounts of visions proper lie before us in the eight night-visions of Zechariah (18-68). We have already (p. 673°) pointed out that, apart from 41, there are no indications point- ing to a cataleptic condition of the prophet when he had these visions. Hence it appeared to us quite improbable that ‘the angel wee talked with me’ (1% 18 93 ete.) is to be referred, with Duhm, to the seemingly double consciousness of a cataleptic. Rather might we perhaps say, with Baudissin (Einleitung in die Bucher des AT, Leipzig, 1901, p. 565): ‘The introduction of this medium (the so-called angelus interpres) between God and the prophet changes the character of OT prophecy, which was based upon the notion that the prophet was directly filled with the Divine spirit.’ This already implies that in these night-visions the great bulk of the matter is to be attributed to the prophet’s own imagination and literary activity. On several occasions (so, quite especially, in 14% 2108.) the description of the vision passes over into the usual tone of prophetic address.
iv. THE FORMS OF THE PROPHETIC MESSAGE. —l. Amongst the various ways in which the pro- phets communicated the revelations they received, by far the most important place, at least in the early period, is taken once more by the word or
* The visions of Daniel, which really belong to a different pe a) of apocalyptic—will be dealt with later on (see p. H
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the prophetic address, whether in the form of a brief oracle or of a somewhat longer, clearly con- nected discourse. But it is only with reservations that the view can be maintained that the extant oracles and discourses of the earlier prophets are practically, without exception, to be regarded as the (subsequent) written record of what were ori- ginally actual spoken addresses. To be sure, in every instance where the prophet himself gives place and time, and names ear-witnesses of his dis- course (as, for instance, in Is 7), we must find the record of an actual address. But even such a case as this does not exclude the use of much freedom in regard to the form and the dimensions of what is committed to writing.
Here, once more, we have to keep in mind what holds good of the whole of the literature of the OT, namely, that it aims not at a diplomatically exact record of words and actions, but at exer- cising a religious influence, and hence that the prophet, when he became an author, must have reserved to himself full liberty as to the method by which he was to achieve this result. But, above all, must this liberty be postulated where it was not till years had elapsed that a prophet reproduced from memory a long series of addresses and dictated these to an amanuensis, aS we are told Jeremiah did after twenty-three years of prophetic activity (Jer 36"). In such a procedure it would be impossible for the earlier addresses to escape being influenced in a variety of ways by the later experiences and views of their author. And, when the roll written by Baruch was burned by king Jehoiakim, the greatest freedom was used once more in reproducing it: ‘ Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah ; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire ; and there were added besides unto them many like words’ (Jer 362). But there are also other Prophetical books, like that of Amos, whose very dating (1! ‘two years before the earthquake’) shows it to have been composed later than the events, and no less those of Hosea and Isaiah, which bear such evident traces of the subsequent reduc- tion to writing and of the polishing and expansion of the supposed spoken address, that it is scarcely possible anywhere to maintain the absolute identity of the address and its report. In saying this we are leaving entirely out of account the fact that in the end the Prophetical writings were subjected almost, without exception, to editing by other hands—a process which introduced changes not only in their dimensions, but in many instances even in their language. It is useless to seek to deny this. On the other hand, however, it is per- verse to see in this a destroying of the character of revelation and of the high value in general which belongs to the word of the prophets. Whatever may have suffered from all those influences which are unavoidable in the course of human tradition, the genuine Divine word retains amidst it all a power and a majesty which even at the present day do not miss their effect. - :
2. The prophetic address occasionally avails itself, with a view to heightening the effect, of the forms of poetical art, such as the parable (Is 5'#- 293; even the ‘riddle’ [ayn, hidah] of Ezk 17/*- is there designated at the same time ‘com- parison,’ ‘parable’ [dy mdshdl]), or plays upon words (e.g. Mic 1!*-) ; nay, in the pre-exilic period, and repeatedly even in later times, it passes to poetic rhythms.* We must be content, however,
* Thus, for instance, the so-called kinah or ‘mourning measure é (discovered by Ley and Budde), #.e. the bringing together of a longer and a shorter verse-member (generally 3 and 2 ‘ rises’), plays a much larger réle in the prophetical writings than used