Poems Embedded in the Non-Poetical Books
In the preceding chapter it was mentioned that, besides the books which are wholly poetical, there are poems scattered through the other books of Scripture. In the Revised Version these are easily identified through their being printed in an unusual form; and they number over thirty in the Old Testament, besides a few in the New. Some of them are very short, not exceeding a few lines; but others are of considerable length, and in poetical quality they certainly do not fall below the standard of the poetical books. Indeed, some of them were, through their originality and sublimity, among the first to draw the attention of scholars to the aspect of Scripture to which the present volume is dedicated.*
The earliest of all the poems in the Bible is the song of Lamech, Genesis iv. 23, 24:
* Herder, in whom the spirit of Romanticism was strong, moved with special predilection among the fragments of early lyric poetry; and his Spirit of Hebrew Poetry first broke ground in a decisive way in the direction indicated.
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech;
For I have slain a man for wounding me,
And a young man for bruising me:
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Truly Lamech seven ty-and-seven fold.
Lamech was one of the gifted but wild and reckless descendants of Cain, and this poem celebrates an incident in his violent life. The opening address to his wives has been supposed to stamp him as the founder of polygamy. Under the boasting about his prowess there may be concealed a reference to a weapon furnished to him by his son Tubalcain, the first forger of iron. Cain had, through the intervention of God, been protected from the consequences of his deed of blood; but Lamech had found, in his own good sword, a means of self-defence, which appeared to him to be infinitely more trustworthy than the divine protection. His words are the glorying of an armed man in his weapon — undoubtedly one of the commonest and most heartfelt sentiments of antiquity.
Although, as in the case of Lamech, the feeling associated with bloodshed in the early world was often of a barbarous and godless description, this was not always the case. War might be waged in a good cause, and the patriotic sentiments, aroused in connection with it, might embody themselves in song. Of this we have a remarkable nstance in the song of Deborah, in Judges v.
Deborah was a woman of prophetic gifts, who, in union with Barak, another patriotic spirit of the time, whom she stirred into activity by her exhortations, delivered her country from the yoke of an oppressor. She was a kind of Joan of Arc of the early world. She possessed, besides, the gift of song, and, when the daring adventure by which her country was liberated was over, she celebrated the incidents of it in a poem which still thrills with the glow of her enthusiasm. It is chiefly occupied with praise for those tribes and cities of her country that came out and risked everything to aid the enterprise, while it pours scorn on the shirkers and cowards who drew back and saved their skins in the evil day. In the very first verse the keynote is splendidly struck:
For that the leaders took the lead in Israel,
For that the people offered themselves willingly,
Bless ye the Lord.*
How perfectly these lines hit the mark! What better could be wished for any country, or for the Church of God, or for any good enterprise, than that the leaders should take the lead and that the rank and file should offer themselves willingly? Alas, too often the leaders do not lead: those who ought from their influence or knowledge to take
* This translation is one of the gems of the Revised Version. The old translation, in the Authorised Version, was: “Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves.”
this position hang back, either from indifference or
from fear of responsibility. Sometimes, too, the
people do not follow, even when the leaders are in
their places: they wish to be themselves leaders,
or they are too occupied with their private affairs,
or they are too timid to be of use in a public cause.
This keynote of Deborah’s song is the keynote for
the good cause in every age. But many have been the
leaders, in patriotic ventures or social experiments,
who have had to hiss out against the coldblooded or
fainthearted the words of v. 23:
Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; Because they came not to the help of the Lord, To the help of the Lord against the mighty.
The song ends with a picture the poetical beauty of which cannot be surpassed. One incident of the war was the death of Sisera, the captain of the heathen host; and Deborah pictures his mother at home, watching and longing for the return of her son, whom she was never to see more:
Through the window she looked forth, and cried. The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming 1 Why tarry the wheels of his chariot: Her wise ladies answered her, Yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not found, have they not divided the spoil? A damsel, two damsels to every man; To Sisera a spoil of divers colours, A spoil of divers colours of embroidery, Of divers colours of embroideiy on both sides, on the necks of the spoil.
Thus did she try to still the forebodings of her heart, while her son was lying far away with the nail of Jael through his temples.
There is another song of war, which celebrates a far greater deliverance — that sung by the Hebrews on the shore of the Red Sea, when the waters had swallowed up Pharaoh and his host. It is found in Exodus xv., and it describes the scene with many graphic touches. There is in it the sense of greatness belonging to an event in which a nation had its birth; and the sentiment culminates in ascribing all the victory to the quarter to which it belongs:
Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?
It is a poem pulsing with the joy of deliverance; and even yet it is fit to serve as a vehicle of thanksgiving for any great deliverance — even for salvation itself.
The author was Moses; and this was the first revelation of his poetic gift.* Moses was one of
* It hardly needs to be mentioned that by the more radical school of criticism this poem and, indeed, nearly every other mentioned in this chapter would be denied to the authors to whom they are attributed in Scripture, being given to authors unknown and assigned to the different epochs of a dogmatically constructed history. The reason for doubt in the present case is that Moses betrays too much acquaintance with subsequent events. But one in his position may be credited with having already ascertained something beforehand about the route of his expedition, and even a “sanctuary” as a religious centre may have presented itself before his prophetic soul.
the greatest of the sons of men. Few are the names in history that figure in such a variety of roles; and in all he displayed a unique greatness. Perhaps, however, the role in which we should least have expected him to play a part is that of poet. It might have been thought that, with the care of so many thousands of slaves on his shoulders and with the perils of the wilderness in front of him, the poetry would have been all crushed out of his soul. Yet this was by no means the case; for, besides this imperishable ode, we have, in the non-poetical books, two other poems of his hardly less remarkable. These are to be found in Deuteronomy xxxii. and xxxiii. The first of them is a contrast between the love and faithfulness of God to Israel and the unfaithfulness of Israel to Him. It is full of vigour throughout; but it is especially remarkable for the tenderness with which the love of God for His people is delineated, as in vv. 9-1 1:
For the Lord’s portion is His people;
Jacob is the lot of His inheritance;
He found him in a desert land,
And in the waste howling wilderness;
He compassed him about, He cared for him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye:
As an eagle that stirreth up her nest,
That fluttereth over her young,
He spread abroad His wings, He took them,
He bare them on His pinions:
The Lord alone did lead him,
And there was no strange god with him.
The other poem belongs to a species of which there are several examples: it is a dying man’s blessing. To the last words of the dying peculiar importance and sacredness have been attached in all ages. As Shakspeare says, “the words of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony.” In ancient times a kind of prophetic dignity was supposed to attach to such utterances, and in the Bible some of the foremost of God’s saints are so filled, near their end, with the Spirit of the Lord that the veil of the future is rent to their eyes, and they describe in the lofty language of poetry the things that are to be.
This utterance of Moses belongs to this class. An example even more remarkable is the swansong of Jacob, to be found in Genesis xlix. The dying patriarch, with his sons about him, begins:
Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; And hearken unto Israel, your father.
Then he is borne away on the wings of inspiration and, as if from a station in mid-heaven, he looks down upon the fortunes of his children and their descendants in the future. It is an instance of how the secrets of literary science may be coiled up in a single fragment from antiquity that the complete unravelling of the allusions in this song would demand minute acquaintance with the entire history of Israel, while the promise contained in v. 10:
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
Until Shiloh come;
And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be
could not be finally judged without a comprehension of the entire subject of Messianic prophecy. Accessible to all readers, however, is the richness of the imagery, nearly every verse being a picture of Oriental scenery or life, full of poetic beauty. As an example v. 22 may be cited:
Joseph is a fruitful bough,
A fruitful bough by a fountain;
His branches run over the wall:
where the reader almost hears the tinkle of the plashing fountain and sees the ruddy-cheeked fruit, hanging in profusion over the wall of the orchard.
Another Old Testament worthy whose last words have come down to us in the poetical form is King David. These are to be found in 2 Samuel xxiii., and their poetical and regal qualities well become the situation:
David, the son of Jesse,’saith,
And the man who was raised on high saith,
The anointed of the God of Jacob,
And the sweet psalmist of Israel;
The spirit of the Lord spake by me,
And His word was upon my tongue.
The God of Israel said,
The Rock of Israel spake to me:
One that ruleth over men righteously,
That ruleth in the fear of God,
I le ihaD be U the light of the morning, when the sun riseth A morning without clouds;
When the tciuk-r grass springeth out of the earth, Through clear shining after rain.
In the immediately preceding chapter there is a song of this hero, composed “in the day that God had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies “; but it is only a duplicate of Psalm xviii. There occur in the historical books other compositions of David which are also duplicated in the Book of Psalms; but there is one for the preservation of which we are indebted to one of these books alone, as it is found in 2 Samuel i. This is the incomparable lament over the death of Saul and Jonathan:
How are the mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon;
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised. triumph.
Ye mountains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew nor rain upon you,
Neither fields of offerings:
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away,
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,
The bow of Jonathan turned not back,
And the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided;
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.
Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet delicately,
Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan is slain upon thy high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
Thy love to me was wonderful,
Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen,
And the weapons of war perished!
This splendid composition seems to have borne the title of the Song of the Bow, in obvious allusion to the skill of Jonathan as an archer; and the words by which it is introduced ought not to be read, as in the Authorised Version, “Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow,” but, “And he bade them teach the children of Judah the song of the bow.”
One of the most enigmatical figures in the whole Bible is Balaam, who was brought from his place in the far East, by Balak, king of Moab, for the purpose of cursing the Israelites, as they were passing through the borders of Moab. Balaam is associated in the minds of most people with the story of his ass speaking; but there are other things about him no less worthy of attention. He was obviously a man of supreme genius; and of this we possess remarkable relics in the poetical form. He was quite willing to curse, having the prospect of being well paid for it; but, as often as he was brought in sight of the people of God, a sense of the contrast between their character and that of the peoples whose territories they were invading swept through his soul; and out of this contrast there rose before his mind’s eye a vision of the dazzling success awaiting them in the future. The afflatus completely carried him away; and he poured forth his feelings and ideas in the four poems which have been preserved in Numbers xxiii., xxiv. These are full of memorable sayings, of which perhaps the most remarkable is:
Let mc die the death of the righteous,
And let my last end be like his!
It is an easy transition from Balaam, who was a prophet half- true and half- false, to the prophetical books. In these the Revised Version prints very few passages as if they were poetry. Perhaps there are only three. Two of these are prayers — the prayer of Hezekiah, begging lor recovery from his mortal illness, Isaiah xxxix., and the prayer of Jonah, which occupies the second chapter of his prophecy. It has already been mentioned that in one place the Psalms of David are called the “prayers” of David; and it might have been noticed when the historical books were under consideration, that the prayer of Hannah, in I Samuel ii., is also in the poetical form. All three prayers are poetical in their substance as well as in their form; but this is far truer of the third piece printed as poetry in the prophetical books; for this is one of the most glowing poems contained in the Bible. It is found in Habakkuk; and the first verse says that it is “set to Shigionoth,” which is probably a musical term, denoting that it was made for singing. Likewise at the close the direction occurs, “For the chief musician on my stringed instruments.” The theme is a theophany — that is, an ideal representation of the intervention of God in history. In the earlier verses it is somewhat obscure; but, at the close, it swells out into the well-known expression of faith, as musical in its wording as it is exalted in idea:
For though the figtree shall not blossom,
Neither shall fruit be in the vines;
The labour of the olive shall fail,
And the fields shall yield no meat;
The flocks shall be cut off from the fold,
And there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
Although, however, the Revised Version only prints these three pieces in the Prophetical books as poetry, there are many others which merit the honour. In truth, throughout the prophetical books as a whole both the thought and the language may be said to be always on the very verge of passing into poetry; and not infrequently this point is passed. This is especially true of Isaiah. In his fifth chapter he himself calls his comparison of Israel with a vineyard a song; and he gives a similar name to the wonderful description in chapter xiv. of the fall of the king of Babylon, in which he pictures the entry of that great monarch into Hades, when all
Poems in the Non-Poetical Rooks
the dead kings of the nations rise up from their shadowy thrones, to ask in astonished exultation: “Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to hell, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations!”
But, indeed, in Isaiah everywhere there is the breath of poetry; and especially when he launches forth on one of his favourite themes — when, for example, he is describing the greatness and magnificence of Jehovah, or when the glory of the latter days rises on his vision, or when he catches a glimpse of the coming Messiah — his thought spontaneously assumes the intensity, and his expression arrays itself in the imagery, and his language follows the measured regularity characteristic of poetry.
II
In the New Testament, also, there are poems embedded, of which the most obvious proceeded from the prophetic voices by which the birth of the Saviour was greeted, according to the testimony of St. Luke. These are all like one another, and they supply an uncommonly realistic impression of the circle of the Prosdechomenoi — that is, the waiters or expecters — out of which both the Baptist
49 d and Jesus came forth. In a period when public religion was in the last stages of decay these were the inheritors of a better age; they understood the Scriptures of the Old Testament in their true spirit; and, though they sighed over the evils of the present, they were confident that Jehovah would yet visit His people and fulfil all the promises. It was to them that Jesus was primarily addressing Himself when He uttered the Beatitudes to “the poor in spirit “; and it was for them also that the great message of His ministry was primarily intended, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Their hymns, whether proceeding from the Virgin Mary or Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, or from the aged Simeon or the prophetess Anna, are all of a piece, and they perfectly reflect the views of those who were “looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” The words of the angel who announced the birth of the holy Child are derived from the same quarter; but they carry us forward by a natural transition to the numerous voices from heaven which sound in the Book of Revelation. It is unfortunate that, in the Revised Version, these snatches of heavenly music are not distinguished by any alteration in the printing from the surrounding prose; but this oversight has been remedied in the American Revision, though even it fails thus to draw attention to the poetical nature of the great dirge on the fall
5° of Babylon contained in chapter xviii. This has, indeed, turned out, on close investigation, to be little more than a cento of lines borrowed from similar dirges on the fall of empires or cities in the Old Testament prophets; yet with so much freedom are both ideas and language employed as to produce all the effect of an original contribution; and its poetical character would have been well worthy of emphasis.*
There are multitudes of quotations from the Old Testament in the New, abounding especially in Matthew, Romans and Hebrews; and, when these are from poetical books, they are quoted as poetry. Indeed, to its credit the Revised Version commits many inconsistencies by printing as poetry passages from the prophets which are not so printed in the Old Testament itself.
From poetry outside the Bible St. Paul made a celebrated quotation in his speech on Mars Hill; but this is not dignified with special print in our Revised Version, though it is in the American. The same remarks apply to the quotation from a heathen poet in Titus i. 12. In 1 Timothy iii. 16 occur words which have the appearance of being extracted from a primitive Christian hymn; and again the American Revision takes note of this, in the mode of printing, though our Revised Version
* This is printed as a poem in Weymouth’s New Testament in Modern Speech.
does not. Here and there in St. Paul’s writings there occur prayers which have made on scholars the impression that they may have been extracted from primitive liturgies; but it is quite possible that one who, in his evangelistic tours, had to pray so often for the same things in similar circumstances may have allowed certain of his own favourite petitions or doxologies to assume stereotyped forms, which slipped, as he wrote, almost unawares into his composition. A similar origin may perhaps be assumed, likewise, for some of the passages in his Epistles the literary form of which is most perfect. These may have been delivered so often to different audiences that they came away from his lips in almost identical terms, and these approach most closely to the poetic form. The thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians may have been delivered hundreds of times as part of a discourse; and it would be easy to print it in a shape differing very little from poetry.*
The most interesting question of all is, how far the words of Jesus may be looked upon as poetical. The late Professor Briggs, in a series of articles in The Expository Times, in 1897 and 1898,! made the
“The title Hymn is naturally applied by every sympathetic reader to this chapter; das hohe Lied von der Liebe is the name that Dr. Harnack uses. The chapter is not written in plain prose: it has the measured stately movement and rhythm of a hymn.” Sir William Ramsay: The Teaching of Paul, p. 330. 1913.
t Vol. viii., pp. 393 ff., 452 ft., 492 ff.; vol. ix., 6-9.
proposal to print a great many portions of what he termed the Wisdom of Jesus as if they were poetry. At the first suggestion this will probably to most minds appear an extravagance; for, however poetical a speaker may be and however steeped in imagery his language, no speaker would think of uttering himself in actual verse; and, if he did, he would be proved thereby to be the reverse of a good speaker. While, however, this is true of the English language, it has to be remembered that the Hebrew prophets, no less than the Hebrew poets, made use of parallelism, and, as Jesus was in the line of the prophets, He may have done the same. Besides, the parables of Jesus contain unquestionably a great deal of the essence of poetry, and their form is more elaborate than most readers may have observed. In not a few scarcely a word could be altered without doing injury; while in some, as, for example, the Parable of the Last Judgment, it is the easiest thing in the world to sing the words, even in English. Professor Briggs was able to point out certain distichs and tristichs which seemed to be more full of meaning when read as verses of poetry, such as:
and
Whosoever exalteth himself shall be humbled, But whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted,
Ask, and it shall be given you;
Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you but, when he proceeded to give heptastichs, decastichs, and even dodecastichs, he did not succeed in keeping up the impression of reality; and, when he ventured to alter the text wholesale, in order to bring it into conformity with the supposed parallelism, it was felt that he was going outside science. Still, the suggestion of this scholar was not without value, and the student of the words of Jesus will not infrequently recall it with advantage, when the language appears on the point of bursting, as it not seldom does, beyond the limits of prose. A saying like, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” manifestly proceeded from a mind so steeped in poetic feeling that it can only have been an accident whether it made use of the poetic form or not.