THE FORMS
OF
HEBREW POETRY
CONSIDERED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO THE CRITICISM AND
INTERPRETATION
OF THE OLD
TESTAMENT
BY
GEORGE BUCHANAN
GRAY
D.LITT.,
D.D.
PROFESSOR OF
HEBREW AND OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN
AND SPEAKERS
LECTURER IN BIBLICAL STUDIES IN THE
HODDER AND
MCMXV
PREFACE
IT
is impossible to go far at the present day in
any
serious attempt to interpret the prophetical
books,
or the books commonly called poetical,
or
certain other parts of the Old Testament,
without
being faced by questions relating to the
forms
of Hebrew poetry. I was myself compelled
to
consider these questions more fully than before
when
I came to prepare my commentary on
Isaiah for the
"International Critical Comment-
ary,"
and in the introduction to that commentary
I
briefly indicated the manner in which, as it
seemed
to me, the more important of these ques-
tions
should be answered. But it was impossible
then,
and there to give as full an exposition of the
subject
as it requires. In the present volume I
have
ampler scope. Yet I must guard against a
misunderstanding.
Even here it is not my pur-
pose
to add to the already existing exhaustive,
or
at least voluminous, discussions of Hebrew
metre.
My aim is different: it is rather to
survey
the forms of Hebrew poetry, to consider
them
in relation to one another, and to illustrate
v
vi FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
their
bearing on the criticism and interpretation
of
the Old Testament.
I have no new theory of Hebrew metre
to set
forth
; and I cannot accept in all its details any
theory
that others have elaborated. In my
judgment
some understanding of the laws of
Hebrew
rhythm has been gained: but much
still
remains uncertain. And both of these facts
need
to be constantly borne in mind in determin-
ing
the text or interpreting the contents of
Hebrew
poetry. Perhaps, therefore, the chief
service
which I could expect of the discussion of
Hebrew
metre in this volume is that it may on
the
one hand open up to some the existence and
general
nature of certain metrical principles in
Hebrew
poetry, and that it may on the other
hand
warn others that, in view of our imperfect
knowledge
of the detailed working of these prin-
ciples,
considerable uncertainty really underlies
the
regular symmetrical forms in which certain
scholars
have presented the poetical parts of the
Old
Testament.
The first six chapters of the volume
are an
expansion
of a course of University lectures
delivered
in the spring of 1913. They were
published
in the Expositor of May, June, July,
August,
September, October and December of
the
same year, and are now republished with
some
modifications and very considerable addi-
tions.
The two last chapters, though written
PREFACE vii
earlier,
are' in the present volume rather of the
nature
of an Appendix, being special studies in
the
reconstruction of two mutilated acrostich
poems.
These also originally appeared in the
Expositor,
the former (Chapter VII.) in September
1898,
the latter (Chapter VIII.) in September 1906.
Except
for the omission of a paragraph which
would
have been a needless repetition now that
the
two discussions appear together, and for a
few
slight or verbal alterations, and for additions
which
are clearly indicated,. I have preferred to
republish
these chapters as they were originally
written.
They were both, and more especially
the
former, written before I saw as far, or as
clearly,
as ,I seem to myself at least now to do,
into
the principles of Hebrew metre: but addi-
tional
notes here and there suffice to point out
the
bearing of these more fully appreciated prin-
ciples
on the earlier discussions, which remain
for
the most part, unaffected, largely, I believe,
because
in the first instance I followed primarily
the
leading of parallelism, and parallelism is
likely
for long to remain a safer guide than metre,
though
metre may at times enforce the guidance
of
parallelism, or act as guide over places where
parallelism
will not carry us.
A word of explanation, if not of apology,
is
required
for the regularity with which I have
added
translations to the Hebrew quoted in the
text.
In many cases such translation was the
viii
FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
readiest
way of making clear my meaning; in
others
it is for the Hebrew student superfluous,
and
parts of the book can scarcely appeal to
others
than Hebrew students. But a large part
of
the discussions can be followed by those who
are
but little familiar or entirely unfamiliar with
Hebrew.
For the sake of any such who may
read
the book, and to secure the widest and
easiest
use possible for it, I have regularly added
translations,
except in the latter part of Chapter
IV.,
where they would have been not only super-
fluous,
but irritating to Hebrew students, and use-
less
to others.
My last and pleasant duty is to
thank the
Rev.
Allan Gaunt for his kindness in reading the
proofs,
and for offering various suggestions which
I
have been glad to accept.
G.
BUCHANAN GRAY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
Page
INTRODUCTORY 3
CHAPTER
II
PARALLELISM
: A RESTATEMENT 37
CHAPTER
III
PARALLELISM
AND RHYTHM IN THE BOOK
OF LAMENTATIONS 87
CHAPTER
IV
THE
ELEMENTS OF HEBREW RHYTHM 123
CHAPTER
V
VARIETIES
OF RHYTHM: THE STROPHE 157
CHAPTER
VI
THE
BEARING OF CERTAIN METRICAL THEORIES
ON CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION. 201
ix
x FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
CHAPTER VII Page
THE
ALPHABETIC POEM IN NAHUM 243
CHAPTER VIII
THE
ALPHABETIC STRUCTURE OF PSALMS IX.
AND X. 267
ADDITIONAL
NOTE ON THE REPETITION OF THE
SAME TERM IN PARALLEL LINES 295
INDEX I
OF
PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE 297
INDEX II
OF
MATTERS 301
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
FAILURE
to perceive what are the formal elements
in
Hebrew poetry has, in the past, frequently led
to
misinterpretation of Scripture. The existence
of
formal elements is now generally recognised;
but
there are still great differences of opinion as
to
the exact nature of some of these, and as to
their
relation to one another and large questions
or
numerous important details of both the lower
and
higher criticism and of the interpretation of
the
Old Testament are involved in these differ-
ences.
An examination of the forms of Hebrew
poetry
thus becomes a valuable, if not indeed a
necessary,
means to the correct appreciation of
its
substance, to an understanding of the thought
expressed
in it, in so far as that may still be
understood,
or, where that is at present no
longer
possible, to a perception of the cause and
extent
of the uncertainty and obscurity.
More especially do the questions
relating to
the
two most important forms of Hebrew poetry
3
4
FORMS OF HEBREW
POETRY
—parallelism
and metre—require to be studied in
close
connexion with one another, and indeed
in
closer connexion than has been customary of
late.
I deliberately speak at this point of the
question
of parallelism and metre; for, on the
one
hand, it has been and may be contended
that
parallelism, though it is a characteristic of
much,
is never a form of any, Hebrew poetry,
and,
on the other ,hand, it has been and still. .is
sometimes
contended that metre is not a form of
Hebrew
poetry, for the simple reason that in
Hebrew
poetry it did not exist. Over a question
of
nomenclature, whether parallelism should be
termed
a form or a characteristic, no words need
be
wasted; the really important question to be
considered
later on is how far the phenomena
covered
by the term parallelism can be classified,
and
how far they conform to laws that can be
defined.
A third form of some Hebrew poetry is
the
strophe. This is of less, but still of considerable
importance,
and will be briefly considered in its
place;
but rhyme, which is not a regular feature
of
Hebrew poetry, and poetical diction need not
for
the purposes of the present survey be more
than
quite briefly and incidentally referred to.
The first systematic treatment of
any of the
formal
elements of Hebrew poetry came from
occupants
of the chair of Poetry in that university
than
Robert Lowth, afterwards Bishop of London,
INTRODUCTORY 5
and
few lectures delivered from that chair have
been
more influential than his De Sacra Poesi
Hebraeorum Praelectiones
Academicae.
These lec-
tures
were published in the same year (1753) as
another
famous volume, to wit, Jean Astruc's
Conjectures sur les
memoires originaux dont it
paroit que Moyse s'est
servi pour composer le
livre de la Genese. It is as true of Astruc
as of
Lowth
that "in theology he clung to the tradi-
tional
orthodoxy";1 yet Astruc was the first
to
apply a stylistic argument in a systematic
attempt
to recover the original sources of a portion
of
the Pentateuch, and Lowth, by his entire
treatment
of his subject, marks the transition
from
the then prevailing dogmatic treatment of
the
Old Testament to that treatment of it which
rests
on the recognition that, whatever else it
may
be, and however sharply distinguished in
its
worth or by its peculiarities from other litera-
tures,
the Old Testament is primarily literature,
demanding
the same critical examination and
appreciation,
alike of form and substance, as
other
literature. Owing to certain actual char-
acteristics
of what survives of ancient Hebrew
literature,
documentary analysis has necessarily
played
an important part in modern criticism of
the
Old Testament; and if, narrowing unduly
the
conception of Old Testament criticism, we
think
in connexion with it mainly or exclusively
1 T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism, p.
3.
6
FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
of
documentary analysis and questions of origin,
Astruc
may seem a more important founder of
Modern
Criticism than Lowth. But in reality
the
general implications of Lowth's discussion of
Hebrew
poetry, apart from certain special con-
clusions
reached by him to which we shall pass
immediately,
make his lectures of wider signifi-
cance
than even Astruc's acute conjectures ; and
we
may fairly claim that, through Lowth and
his
two principal works, both of which were
translated
into German, the Lectures by Michaelis,
the
Isaiah by Koppe,
the
eighteenth century, contributed to the critical
study
of the Old Testament and the apprecia-
tion
of Hebrew literature in a degree that was
scarcely
equalled till the nineteenth century was
drawing
to its close.
It is a relatively small part of
Lowth's lectures
that
is devoted to those forms or formal char-
acteristics
of Hebrew poetry with which we are
here
concerned: of the thirty-four lectures one
only,
the nineteenth, is primarily devoted to that
form
with which Lowth's name will always be
associated,
though the subject of parallelism was
already
raised in the third lecture. The maturer
and
fuller discussion of this and kindred topics
was
first published in 1778 as a preliminary dis-
sertation
to the translation of Isaiah. Briefly
summed
up, Lowth's contribution to the subject
was
twofold: he for the first time clearly
INTRODUCTORY 7
analysed
and expounded the parallelistic struc-
ture
of Hebrew poetry, and he drew attention to
the
fact that the extent of poetry in the Old
Testament
was much larger than had generally
been
recognised, that in particular it included
the
greater part of the prophetic writings.
The existence and general
characteristics of
parallelism
as claimed by Lowth have never been
questioned
since, nor the importance for interpre-
tation
of recognising these; nor can it be ques-
tioned,
once the nature of parallelism is admitted,
that
parallelism occurs in the Prophets as well
as
in the Psalms, and in many passages of the
Prophets
no less regularly than in many Psalms.
If,
then, on the ground of parallelism, the Psalms
are
judged to be poetry, the prophetic writings
(in
the main) must also be regarded as poetry ;
and,
if, on the ground of parallelism, a translation
of
the Psalms is marked, as is the Revised Version,
by
line divisions corresponding to the parallel
members
of the original, a translation of the
Prophets
should also be so marked; and by
failing
so to mark the prophetic poetry, and
thereby
introducing an unreal distinction between
the
form of the Psalms and the form of the pro-
phetic
writings, the Revised Version conceals
from
those who use it one of the most important
and
one of the surest of the conclusions which
were
reached by Lowth in his discussion of
Hebrew
poetry.
8 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
Whether
after all parallelism is itself a true
differentia
between prose and poetry in Hebrew,
may
be and will be discussed; but it will be useful
before
proceeding to a closer examination either
of
parallelism or of other alleged differentiae
between
prose and poetry, to recall the earlier
scattered
and unsystematic attempts to describe
the
formal elements of Hebrew poetry.
It has always been recognised that
between
mediaeval
Jewish poetry and the poetry of the
Old
Testament there is, so far as form goes, no
connexion
; nor, indeed, any similarity beyond
the
use, especially by the earliest of these
mediaeval
poets such as Jose ibn Jose and
Kaliri,
of acrostic, or alphabetic schemes such as
occur
in Lamentations i.-iv. and some other
poems1
in the Old Testament. The beginnings
of
mediaeval Jewish poetry go back to the ninth
or
tenth century A.D. at least; it arose under the
influence
of Arabic culture, though it may also
have
owed something to Syriac poetry; it
flourished
for some centuries in the West, and
particularly
in
by
metre and rhyme;2 and the metre was quanti-
tative.
The same period was also, and again
owing
to the influence of Arabic culture, an age
1 Enumerated below, p.
244 f.
2 The introduction of
rhyme into Hebrew poetry is attributed to
Jannai;
rhyme was also employed by Kaliri. Both Jannai (probably)
and
Kaliri were Palestinians, and both lived in or before the ninth
century
A.D.: see Graetz, Gesch. des Judenthums,
v. 158, 159.
INTRODUCTORY 9
of
Jewish grammarians and philologists. These
recognised
the difference between the old poetry
and
the new, but contributed little to an under-
standing
of the forms of the older poetry beyond
a
tolerably general acquiescence in the negative
judgment
that that older poetry was not metrical.
In
any case, no living tradition of the laws of the
older
Hebrew poetry, the poetry of the Old Testa-
ment,
survived in the days of the poets Chasdai
(A.D.
915-970), Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1058,
or
1070),
grammarians
and philologists, of whom some
were
poets also, Dunash ibn Labrat (c. 920-990),
Menahem
ibn Saruk (c. 910-970), Abu'l-Walid
(eleventh
century), Ibn Ezra, and the Kimlhis
(twelfth
century). The older poetry had long
been
a lost art. Whatever these mediaeval
scholars
say of it has, therefore, merely the value
of
an antiquarian. theory; and however interest-
ing
their theories may be, they need not detain
us
longer now.
But there exist a few far earlier
Jewish state-
ments
on the formal elements of the poetry of
the
Old Testament which run back, not indeed
to
the time of even the latest poems within the
Old
Testament, but to a time when, as will be
pointed
out in detail later on, poetry of the
ancient
Hebrew type was still being written.
Statements
from such a period unquestionably
have
a higher degree of interest than those of the
10
FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
mediaeval
Jewish scholars. Whether as a matter
of
fact they point to any discernment of the :real
principles
of that poetry, and whether they do
not
betray at once misconceptions and lack of
perception,
is another question. At all events,
it
is important to observe that while the authors
of
these statements were Jews, the readers with
a
view to whom they wrote were Greeks. So far
as
I am aware, there is no discussion of metre,
or
parallelism, or in general of the formal elements
of
Hebrew poetry, in the Rabbinical writings, that
is
to say in Jewish literature written in Hebrew
or
Aramaic, until after the gradual permeation
of
Jewish by Arabic scholarship from the seventh
or
eighth century A.D. onwards. We owe the
earliest
statements on Hebrew poetical forms to
two
Jews who wrote in Greek—to Philo and to
Josephus.
Philo's evidence is slight and
indirect as to
the
poetry of the Old Testament. In the De
vita
Mosis i. 5 he asserts that Moses was taught
by
the Egyptians " the whole theory of rhythm,
harmony
and metre " (th<n te r[uqmikh>n kai>
a[rmonikh>n
kai> metrikh>n qewri<an); but he nowhere states
that
the
poems attributed to Moses in the Pentateuch
are
metrical. Of Jewish poetry of a later age he
speaks
more definitely, if the De vita contem-
plativa
is correctly attributed to him, and if the
sect
therein described was a Jewish sect. It is
asserted
in this tract (cc. x. xi.) that the thera-
INTRODUCTORY 11
peutae
sang hymns " in many metres and tunes,"
and
in particular in iambic trimeters.
The three statements of Josephus on
the
subject
are much more specific and definite. Of
Moses
he says, in reference to Exodus xv. 2 if.,
that
" he composed a song to God . . . in hexa-
meter
verse" (e]n e[came<tr& to<n&);1 and
again,
in
reference to Deut. xxxii., that Moses read to
the
Israelites "a hexametrical poem" (poi<hsin
e[ca<metron), and left it to them
in the holy book.2
Of
David he says that " he composed songs and
hymns
in various metres ..(me<trou poiki<lou), making
some
trimetrical, others pentametrical."3
These exhaust the direct testimony
of Jews,
who
lived while poetry similar to that in the Old
Testament
was still being written, to the metrical
character
of that poetry. It is possible that we
have
an indirect testimony to more specific
Jewish
statements or theories in certain of the
patristic
writers. It will be sufficient here to
refer
to what is said by Origen and Eusebius and
Jerome;4
all these scholars belong to a period
before
the new style of poetry adopted by the
mediaeval
Jews had begun to be written, though
perhaps
none of them belong quite to the age
when
the older poetry was still practised as a
living
art.
1
4
The
passages, from these and other patristic writers have been
brought
together and discussed by J. D611er (Rhythmics, Metrik and
Strophik
in der bibl.-hebr. Poesie,
12
FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
Origen's
reference to the subject of Hebrew
metre
is to be found in a scholion on Psalm
cxviii.
1 (LXX). He agrees with Josephus that
Deuteronomy
xxxii. is hexametrical, and that
some
of the Psalms are trimetrical; but as an
alternative
metre used in the Psalter, he gives
not
the pentameter, as Josephus had done, but
the
tetrameter. At the same time he clearly
recognises
that Hebrew verses are different in
character
(e!teroi) from Greek verses. Ley finds
two
further statements in Origen's somewhat
obscure
words: (1) that the metrical unit (den
vollen Vers) in Hebrew consists of
two stichoi, not
of
a single stichos; (2) that Hebrew metre was
measured
by the number of accented syllables.
Eusebius
refers to metre in Hebrew poems as
follows:
"There would also be found among
them
poems
in metre, like the great song of Moses and
David's
118th Psalm, composed in what the
1 The scholion in
question was published by Cardinal Pitra in Ana-
lecta Sacra, ii. 341, and reprinted
thence by Preuschen in the Zeitschrift
fur die AT.
Wissenschaft,
1891, pp. 316, 317; in the same Zeitschrift
for
1892 (pp. 212-217) Julius Ley translated and commented on the
scholion.
The text being still none too well known or accessible, it
may
be well to reproduce it here. The words commented on are
Maka<rioi oi[ a@mwmoi e]n o[d&,
oi[ poreuo<menoi e]n no<m& kuri<ou, and the scholion
runs
as follows:—ou!tw ge sti<xoj e]sti<n: oi[
ga>r par ] [Ebrai<oij sti<xoi,
w[j
e@lege< tij, e@mmetroi< ei]sin:
e]n e[came<tr& me>n h[ e]n t&? Deuteronomi<& &dh<:
e]n trime<tr&
de> kai> tetrame<tr& oi[
yalmoi<. oi[ sti<xoi ou#n, oi[ par ] [Ebrai<oij, e!teroi< ei]sin
para>
tou>j par ] h[mi?n. ]Ea>n qe<lwmen e]nqa<de thrh?sai,
tou>j sti<xouj poiou?men.
“Maka<rioi
oi[ a@mwmoi e]n o[d&?, oi[
poreuo<menoi e]n no<m& kuri<ou.”
Kai> ou@twj a]rxo<meqa deute<rou
[Ebrai<oij sti<xon e]n toiou<toij
du<o (w[j [o[ ] tou?to
a]nti<grafon gra<yaj oi[onei> pepoi<hke
th>n a]rxh>n tou? sti<xou met
] e]kqe<sewj): to>n de>
dokou?ntej deu<teron, mh> o@nta deu<teron,
a]lla> lei?mma tou? prote<rou met
] ai]sqh<sewj: kai> tou?to
pepoi<hken e]pi> o!lou tou?
r[htou?.
INTRODUCTORY 13
Greeks
call heroic metre. At least it is said
(Octal,
(pi-iv) that these are hexameters, consisting
of
sixteen syllables ; also their other composi-
tions
in verse are said to consist of trimeter and
tetrameter
lines according to the sound of their
own
language."1 The reference to Deuteronomy
xxxii.
and Psalm cxviii. (cxix.) and the specific
metres
mentioned are as in Origen; but whether
or
not Origen suspected or asserted measurement
by
accented syllables, Eusebius clearly refers to a
measurement
by syllables, and thereby produces
the
impression that the Hebrew hexameter was
of
the same nature as the Greek: whereas Origen
distinctly
asserts that Hebrew metres are as
compared
with the Greek e!teroi. At the same
time,
the final words in Eusebius have something
of
the character of a saving clause.
Scattered over Jerome's writings are
a larger
number
of specific statements, which may be
summarised
as follows :
1. Job iii. 2-xl. 6 consists of
hexameters ; but
the
verses are varied and irregular.2
2. Job, Proverbs, the songs in
Deuteronomy
(i.e.
Deut. xxxii.) and Isaiah, "Deuteronomy et
Isaiae
Cantica," are all written in hexameters or
1 Praep. Ev. xi. 5. 5 : the translation given above is Gifforci's.
2 "Hexametri versus
sunt, dactylo spondaeoque currentes ; et
propter
linguae idioma crebro recipientes et alios pedes non earumdem
syllabarum,
sed eorumdem temporum. Interdum quoque rhythmus
ipse
dulcis et tinnulus fertur numeris lege metri solutis," Praef. in
Job (Migne, Patr. Lat. xxviii. 1082).
14
FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
pentameters.1
Yet elsewhere2 "Deuteronomii
Canticum"
is said to be written in iambic tetra-
meters.
3. Psalms cx. and cxi. are iambic
trimeters.2
4. Psalms cxviii., cxliv. and
Proverbs xxxi.
10-31
are iambic tetrameters.2
5. Lamentations i. ii. are in "
quasi sapphico
metro";
but Lamentations iii. in trimeters.2
6. The prophets, though the text of
them
is
marked off by commas and colons, are not
metrical.3
But these statements, occur in such
connexions,
or
are accompanied by such qualifying phrases,
as
to indicate that Jerome did not intend them
to
be taken too strictly, or as exactly assimilating
Hebrew
poetry in respect of its measurements to
classical
poetry. Thus, the hexameters in Job
are
said to admit other feet in addition to dactyls
and
spondees; the "sapphic metre" of Lamenta-
tions
i. ii. iv. is qualified as "quasi"; and in
forestalling
incredulity, such as the Emperor
Julian
is said to have expressed, as to the existence
of
metre in Hebrew literature, Jerome speaks of
the
Hebrew poems as being "in morem,
nostri
Flacci"--after the manner of Horace.
There is one further important
observation
to
be made with regard to Jerome: the authori-
1 " Quae omnia
hexametris et pentametris versibus . . . apud suos
composita
decurrunt," Praef. in Chron. Eusebii
(Migne xxvii. 36).
2 Ep. xxx. (ad Paulam)
(Migne xxii. 442).
3 Praef. in Isaiam (Migne xxviii. 771).
INTRODUCTORY 15
ties
whom he cites for his statements are not his
own
Hebrew teacher, but Philo, Josephus, Origen,
and
Eusebius,1 to the first two of whom Origen
in
turn may refer indefinitely in his phrase
e@lege< tij.
From this we may with some
probability con-
clude
(1) that Jerome's views of the nature of
Hebrew
poetry do not represent those of Jewish
scholarship
of his day; but (2) that they are a
reproduction
of the statements of Josephus, or
deductions
made by Jerome himself from or in
the
spirit of Josephus' statements. On whom
Eusebius
relied for the statement (fasi> gou?n)
that
the Hebrew hexameter contained sixteen
syllables
we cannot say, but his informants were
scarcely
Jewish contemporaries of his.
If, then, any theory or tradition of
the metrical
character
of the old Hebrew poetry formulated
1 " If it seem
incredible to any one that the Hebrews really have
metres,
and that, whether we consider the Psalter, or the Lamentations
of
Jeremiah, or almost all the songs of Scripture, they bear a resemblance
to
our Flaccus, and the Greek Pindar, and Alcaeus, and Sappho, let
him
read Philo, Josephus, Origen, Eusebius of