The poets and poetry of the Bible

Front matter

\3

.40

'O.I* tf* -o

Preface

it was used. Even favorite passages, in this guise, seemed new and cold to him. This, of course, was in some measure, lie knew, the effect of associations ; but such associations, he- knew also, were not cofined to him. He may say this the more fearlessly, as translations of the great masterpieces of foreign literature into plain English prose are becoming the order of the ^ay. ^

He has also to explain, that two, or, at the most, three, passages are here repeated from his " Galleries," for the reason, simply, that they at first belonged to a rough draft of the present work, which he began to draw out before his " First Gallery " appeared. They are now restored to their original position.

Contents

Vaqz.

Introduction, ; . . . .

.

- .

CHAPTER I. Circumstances creating and modifying Old Testament Poetry

CHAPTER n.

General Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry,

.

•

". 55

CHAPTER HI.

•

.

CHAPTER IV.

Poetry of the Pentateuch, .

•

.

. 84

CHAPTER V.

•

.

CHAPTER M.

Poetry of the Historical Books, .

.

,^1^

CHAPTER VII.

*

•

CHAPTER Vni.

.

.

. 153

CHAPTER IX.

Introduction to the Prophetic Books

.

.

CHAPTER X.

Isaiah, .....

•

. 175

Jeremiah, ..... *

. 187

•

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MINOR PROPHETS.

Hosea, 218

CHAPTER Xn.

Circumstances modifying New Testament Poetry,

CHAPTER Xm.

Poetry of the Gospels,

CHAPTER XIV.

Paul,

CHAPTER XV.

Peter and James,

CHAPTER XVI.

John,

255 263 291 315 325

CHAPTER XVII.

Comparative estimate, influences, and effects of Scripture Poetry, 343

Conclusion

Future Destiny of the Bible, . . . . , 375

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

The Poetical characters in Scripture,

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Fagb.

Frontispiece, --------2

Blowing Silver Trumpets, ------ 19

Gideon's Fleece, -.-----30

A Garden in the Holy Land, - - - - • 31

Moses and Joshua coming down from the Mount, - - 37

Praise the Lord, all Cedars, ----- 47

Cedars of Labanon, ------ 57

Elijah raising the dead Child, ----- 65

Elijah Casting his Mantle on Elisha, - - - - 73

Finding of Moses, .----«-85

Moses before Pharaoh's Daughter, - - . - 91

Ruth Gleaning in the Field, ------ 113

Speak Lord, for thy Serv^ant Heareth, - - - - 121

Endor : Saul's Servants Seeking the Witch, - •. . - - 127

Dedication of the Temple, 133

David Playing before Saul, --,--- 143 I Gat me Men Singers, etc, ----- 153

She Made Haste to Flee, 167

The Paper Reeds by the Brooks, - - . - 173

Jeremiah before the King, - - - . . - 179

River Chebar, Scene of Ezekiel's Vision, - . - 185 lO

LIST OF ILLirSTEATIONS.

Daniel InterpretiBg the Writing, - - - -

Daniel and the Hebrew Youth, - - - -

Jonah Cast Forth, . - -

The Captive Maiden, . - . - -

Women of Israel Meeting Saul, - - - -

Hezekiah's Prayer, - - - - -

Desolation of Babylon, - - - . .

Aaron's Rod that Budded,

The Origin of Music, ----..

The Transfiguration, --•--.

Gethsemane, -------

The Tnst Miracle,

Christ Blessing Little Children, - - - -

The Ascension,

Paul before the Council, - - - - .

Peter Healing the T,anie Man, - - - * -

John Writing to the Churches, - - - -

Mary and Martha,,

The River of the Water of Life, - - - .

Joseph's Dream, ------

Moses on the Top of Pisgah, - - . -

Jesus Walking on the Sea, - - - -

Simeon and Anna in the Temple, - - - -

. 391

Gennesareth ------

Jacob's Dream, ------

Joash the ChUd King, - - - - .

Burial of John the Baptist, - -

Ecce Homo, - -

AMERICAN INTRODUCTION.

An old adage cautions us against all attempts to " paint the lily, or gild refined gold ; " and, mindful of its wisdom, we shall not devote either time or space to panegyrics on the glowing eloquence which irradiates every page of this remarkable volume. The author has established too high a reputation for brilliancy and elegance as a writer on sacred subjects to render any eulogies either appropriate or desirable.

But of the subject on which he has expended such an affluence of eloquence we have a few words to say.

The Bible occupies a higher plane than any merely human production, in three aspects: its object, its method of efPecting that object, and its inspired character. Its object is to exhibit to us man's lost condition ; the coming of that Eedeemer who was to restore him to more than his pristine estate (a coming watched for during the long ages of darkness) ; the advent of the Great sacrifice for sin ; the establishment of his spiritual kingdom on earth, and the progress of that kingdom amid all the opposition of principalities and powers. It has accomplished this

12 AMERICAN INTEODUCTION.

object in a way peculiarly its own ; more than forty writers, of every rank and position in life, from the long and the lawgiver to the lowly herdsman and the illiterate fisherman of Galilee, took part in its composition, and while a thread of narrative runs through the whole, giving the history a connection and symmetry, every form of composition has its place in this wonderful book; genealogical records, vivid descriptions, a history of f amihes and races, remarkable alike for its comprehensiveness and its terseness ; the rapt visions of the seer, lyrics of great sweetness, heroic poems which stir the blood like the sound of a trumpet ; epics which surpass in their simple grandeur Homer, Yirgil, Dante, or Milton ; dramas from which the world's greatest dramatists have been content to copy ; hymns whose lofty ascriptions of praise have lifted the soul to heaven ; satires of the most trenchant severity; madrigals even, celebrating, under the imagery of earthly affection, the love of the Eedeemer for His Church; and, mingled with these, prophecies, predictions, and descriptions of future events, of such eloquence and beauty as uninspired lips never uttered and uninspired pens never committed to writing. In the 'New Testament there is less variety, but equal, if not superior, interest. From four biographers, of differing nationalities and education, we have the record of the life on earth of the

AMEEICAN INTKODUCTION. 1 3

blessed Immanuel, each marked by its own peculiarities of style and method, yet all agreeing in their statements, and each unconsciously corroborating the others, while presenting different phases of the character of the DiviDe Redeemer.

We have a brief epitome of the history of the early Church, and an incomplete biography of its greatest apostle ; we have the letters of that apostle, full of logic, philosophy, pathos, and affection ; the eloquent defence of Christianity, by argument, example, and exhortation, found in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the general epistles of four other members of the Apostolic band ; and that grandest of inspired compositions, poem, drama, and prophecy in one, the Apocalypse of St. John.

All these books, which together constitute the Holy Scriptures, while marked by the peculiarities of their several writers, have yet this in common, that they are inspired by the Divine Spirit ; and this, while it insures their truth and their value to every member of the human family, gives them a dignity, a force, and a freshness which makes their study an ever new delight. If we desire to test this, we can easily do so by comparing any portion of the Scriptures with any uninspired work of a similar character, and written about the same time. The oldest of the sacred books of Oriental nations undertake to give a description

J. AMERICAN INTRODUCTION.

of the creation of all things; and though we find traces of the traditions of Eden and of the deluge, yet how utterly childish and silly do they seem if read in connection with the sublime and stately march of events recorded in the first chapter of Genesis; Homer, the greatest of all the poets of Greece, has passages of rare beauty in the Iliad and Odyssey, but nowhere does he attain to the grandeur of that, pastoral epic, written long before his time, the Book of Job ; and in his finest descriptions he falls infinitely short of the vividness of Isaiah, who was nearly his contemporary. "We might go on with these comparisons almost without end, contrasting Habakkuk with Euripides, Paul with Plato, the writings of John, or James, or Peter, with the Epistles of Clement, or Polycarp, or the Shepherd of Hermas; but the result will be the same, and in every instance it will surprise those who have never made the experiment. The comparison will show most conclusively how utterly impossible it is that any portion of the sacred book could have been written without direct inspiration.

Having premised this much concerning the general composition and structure of the Bible, we proceed to show why so large a portion of it is essentially poetical in its character. While poetry is the natural expression of intense emotion among all nations, it

AMERICAN INTRODUCTIOIT.

was one peculiarly delightful to the vivid imagination and the impressible nature of the Oriental. The shepherd who, while watching his flocks on the vast plains of Western Asia, had observed the mutations of the stars, had watched the transformations of the moon, or had seen the planets, some of them seemingly lesser moons in their beauty, wax and wane with the seasons ; the traveller who, wearied with the glare of the blinding sun upon the burning sands, saw, in the near distance, the friendly " shadow of a great rock in a weary land," or the verdure of the palm which indicated the welcome presence of a fountain, or at least a cooling spring ; the herdsman, proud of his cattle browsing on the hillsides; the agriculturist, glorying in his vast fields of golden grain ; and the warrior, returning in triumph from a successful foray on the domains of some neighboring sheikh, and welcomed with music and dance by the wives and daughters of his own tribe ; all these, in that land of poetry and song, were moved to the deepest emotion by the sublime strains of the Hebrew poets.

And even to us, in our colder clime, and with our more phlegmatic temperaments, there is much that is exciting in the songs of Miriam and Deborah, in those grand triumphal psalms of David, in that sublime prayer of Habakkiik, and in the lofty conceptions of Isaiah. We are impressed with the vivid word-

J 5 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION.

pictures of Job, and the subtle philosophy of Solo« mon.

We should remember, too, that these sacred poems and dramas which seem to us, through the imperfect medium of a translation, and at a time and in a country so remote from those in which they were first uttered, so grand and beautiful, were, to the people who first listened to them, and in a language replete with melody, far more attractive than they can possibly be to us.

All true poetry is, in some sense, inspired ; but this, whoever were the media through whom it was uttered, possessed a higher inspiration than any of the prophetic oracles of the Orient, or the mysterious sagas of the "West. It dealt with loftier themes than the poetry of the Asiatics, for the God of whom it spoke, and whose glories it described, was infinitely mightier in power, wiser in action, and purer in all His attributes than the gods of the heathen. What wonder, then, that the idolatrous dwellers on the banks of the Euphrates, entranced with the beauty of the Hebrew poetry, should have required of the captive Jews the melody of their national songs ? or that the impious monarch who sought to defile with unholy hands the sacred vessels of the temple, should have shrunk back terror-stricken when the Levite choir sang one of those terrible invocations of the Divine wrath upon

AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 1 7

the enemies of the chosen people of God found in the Psalms?

The Jewish nation were commanded to retain in their memory, and rehearse to their children, the history of God's dealings with them and all the way in which he had led them. We are all aware how much easier it is to remember a beautiful poem than a prose essay, even if it is equally eloquent in its diction. Among a people possessing very few books, this memorizing and repeating of poems even of considerable length, becomes not only a duty, but a pleasure. We all remember that in the Middle Ages the bands of troubadours, the minnesingers, and the Welsh and Gallic bards, were the depositaries, not only of the history and theology, but of the literatift'e, of Europe, and their recitations and repetitions of epic and lyric poetry were not only listened to with the deepest interest, but often awakened the patriotism and enthusiasm of their hearers, and prompted them to great and heroic deeds.

It is altogether probable that those psalms which epitomize (either with or without a refrain) the history of God's dealings with -the Jewish nation were composed for the express purpose of being committed to memory, that their repetition might incite the nation's gratitude to God, and keep in mind the iinportant events of its grand and fateful history. We know

AMERICAN INTRODUCTION.

that in our Saviour's time, and for many years before and after, the Jews from other lands, as they approached Jerusalem, at the time of the great feasts invariably recited the psalms, some twelve in number, descriptive of the glory of Zion. Beautiful as these are, and well calculated to stir from their depths the emotions of God's ancient people, they do not appeal to Gentile hearts so strongly as some of the more distinctly Messianic psalms ; the poetic prophecies of Christ so sweet and touching, as well as so abundant, in Isaiah ; the prayer of Habakkuk, and the hymns of praise in the Apocalypse.

We close this introduction, then, with this single thought, that in the book of God, whose every page bears the marks of a divine inspiration, and gives evidence that " holv men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," there are yet portions peculiarly adapted to move us to penitence, to faith, to holy living, and to rapturous joy; and that these portions are those in which the inspiration assumes the poetic form, and the sweet singer of Israel, the prophet on the holy mount, or the seer in clear-eyed vision of che glories of the Paradise of God, rehearses to us the songs, as well as the melodies, of heaven ; and these sweet and sublime utterances form the best part of

the PoE'ftlY OF THE BeBLE.

L. P. B.

That so much of Scripture should be written in the language of poetry, has excited some surprise, and created some inquiry ; and yet in nothing do we perceive more clearly than in this, the genuineness, power, and di\inity of the oracles of our faith. As the language of poetry is that into which all earnest natures are insensibly betrayed, so it is the only speech which has in it the power of permanent impression. As it gives two ideas in the, space of one, so it writes these before the view, as with the luminousness of fire. The language of the imagination is the native language of man. It is the language of his excited intellect — of his aroused passions — of his devotion — of all the higher moods and temperaments of his mind. It was meet, therefore, that it should be the language of his revelation from God. It was meet that, when man was called into the presence of his Maker, he should not be addressed with cold formality, nor in the words of lead, nor yet in the harsh thunder of peremptory command and warning, but that he should hear the same figured and glowing speech, to which he was accustomed flowing in mellower and more majestic accents from the lips of his God.

The language of poetry has, therefore, become the language of the inspired volume. The Bible is a mass of beautiful figures — ^ita words and its thoughts are alike poetical — it has gathered around its central truths all natural beauty and interest — it is the temple, with one altar and one God, but illuminated by a thousand varied lights, and studded with a thousand ornaments. It has substantially but one declaration to make, but it utters it in the voices of the creation. Shining forth from the excellent glory, its light has been reflected on a myriad intervening objects, till it has been at length attempered for our earthly vision. It now beams upon us

Introduction

at once from the heart of man and from the countenance of nature. It has arrayed itself in the charms of fiction. It has gathered new beauty from the works of creation, and new warmth and new power from the very passions of clay. It has pressed into its service the animals of the forest, the flowers of the field, the stars of heaven, all the elements of nature. The lion spuming the sands of the desert, the wild roe leaping over the mountains, the lamb led in silence to the slaughter, the goat speeding to the \valdemess, the rose blossoming in Sharon, the lily drooping in the valley, the apple-tree bovdng under its fruit, the great rock shadowing a weary land, the river gladdening the dry place, the moon and the morning star, Carmel by the sea, and Tabor among the mountains, the dew from the womb of the morning, the rain upon the mown grass, the rainbow encompassing the landscape, the light God's shadow, the thunder His voice, the wind and the earthquake his footsteps — all such varied objects are made as if naturally designed from their creation to represent Him to whom the Book and all its emblems point. Thus the quick spirit of the Book has ransacked creation to lay its treasures on Jehovah's altar — united the innumerable rays of a far-streaming glory on the little hill. Calvary — and woven a garland for the bleeding brow of Immanuel, the flowers of which have been culled from the gardens of a universe. This praise may seem lofty, but it is due to the Bible, and to it alone — because it only, of all poems, has uttered in broken fulness, in finished fragments, that shape of the universal truth which instantly incarnates itself in living nature — fills it as a hand a glove — impregnates it as a thought a word — peoples it as a form a mirror. The truth the Bible teaches is not indeed the absolute, abstract, entire truth ; but it is (in our judgment, and as it shall yet be more fully understood) the most clear, succinct, consistent, broad, and practical representation of the truth whiph has ever fallen, or which in this world ever shall fall, upon the fantastic mirror of the human heart, or of nature, and which from both has compelled the most faithful and enduring image. It does not occupy the whole compass of the sky of the infinite from which it proceeds ; it does not waylay all future, any more than all past, fcmanations from that region ; but it covers, and commands as a whole, that disk of the finite over which it bends. It is, as the amplest, clearest, and highest word ever spoken to man, entitled to command our belief, as well as, through the fire and the natural graces of the utterance, to excite our admiration, and comes over the world and man, not as a suppliant, but as a sovereign — not the timid, but (in the old sense) the tyrannous ruler of our earthly night, " until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts."

Without entering into the vexed -and vexatious question of verbal inspiration — without seeking minutely to analyze that abysmal word — inspiration — or to examine the details of a controversy which is little more than begun — we would, as a proper preliminary to our future remarks, thus express more explicitly, though shortly, our general belief as to what the Bible is, and what is its relative position to men and to other works.

The Bible is not then, to commence with negatives, a scientific book ; its intention is not to teach geology or astronomy, any more than meteorology or conchology; its allusions to the subjects of science are incidental, brief, glancing for a moment to a passing topic, and then rapidly returning to its main and master theme. Not only so, but its statements seem often to coincide with floating popular notions, as well as to clothe themselves in popular language, while they never fail, through their wonted divine alchymy, to deduce from them lessons of moral truth and wisdom. It is not a full but a fragmentary record even of that part of man's history to which it confines itself. It is not a moral or metaphysical treatise ; and, of logical analysis or deduction, it has (save in Paul's Epistles) little or none. The most religious, it is the least theological of books, so far as theology means a conscious, compact, distinctly enounced, and elaborately defended system. An artistic work it can scarcely be called, so slight is the artifice of its language and rh)rthmical construction. It is rude in speech, though not in knowledge. What then is the Bible 1 It is, as a history, the narrative of a multitude of miraculous facts, which skepticism has often challenged, but never disproved, and which, to say the least, must now remain unsolved pJienomena — the aerolites of history — speaking like those from the sky of an unearthly region— the narrative, too, of a life (that of

INTRODUCTION.

Jesus) at once ideally perfect, and trembling all over with humanity, really spent under this sun, and yet lit along its every step and sufFermg by a light above it — a life which has since become the measure of all other lives, the standard of human and of absolute perfection — the ideal at once of man and of God. As a poem— moral and didactic— it is a repertory of divine instincts— a collection of the deepest intuitions of truth, beauty, justice, holiness — the past, the present, the future — which, by their far vision, the power with which they have stamped themselves on the belief and heart, the hopes and fears, the days and nights of humanity, their superiority to aught else in the thoughts or words of man, their consistency with themselves, their adaptation to general needs, their cheering influence, their progressive development, and their close-drawn connection with those marvellous and unshaken facts — are proved divine in a sense altogether peculiar and alone.

In its relation to man, the Bible therefore stands thus : — It is the authority for the main principles of his belief; it is the manual of the leading rites and practices of his worship ; as the manifold echo of the voice of his conscience, it constitutes the grand standard of his morality ; it is his fullest and most authentic missive from his Maker ; it is his sole torch into the darkness of the unseen world ; all his science, his art, and his philosophy, it aims at, and, at last (in the course of its own development, for it is " a fire unfolding itself"), shall succeed in drawing into harmony with its prmciples; and of his poetry, it is the loftiest reach. Thus, it is designed at once to command and to charm, to subdue and to sublimate, the mind of man ; to command his belief into obedience — to charm his heart and his imagination — to subdue his moral nature — and to sublimate the springs of his hope and joy ; predestined, too, to move along with his progress, but to move as did the fiery pillar with the armies of Israel, above and before him— his guide as well as companion, directing his motions, while attending his march. Its power over man has, need we say ? been obstinately and long resisted— but resisted in vain. For ages, has this artless, loosely-piled, little book been exposed to the fire of the keenest investigation — a fire which meanwhile has consumed contemptuously the mythology of the Iliad, the husbandry of the

Georgics, the historical truth of Livy, the fables of the Shaster, the Talmud, and the Koran, the artistic merit of many a popular poem, the authority of many a work of philosophy and science. And yet, there the Bible lies, unhurt, untouched, with not one of its pages singed — with not even the smell of fire having passed upon it Many an attempt has been made to scare away this " Fiery Pillar " of our wanderings, or to prove it a mere natural product of the wilderness ; but still, night after night, rises — like one of the sureand ever-shining stars — in the vanguard of the great march of man, the old column, gliding slow, but ^ding certainly to future lands of promise, both in the life that is, and in that which Cometh hereafter.

In relation to other books, the Bible occupies a peculiar and solitary position. It is independent of all others; it imitates no other book ; it copies none ; it hardly alludes to any other, whether in praise or blame; and this is nearly as true of its later portions, when books were common, as of its earlier, when books were scarce. It proves thus its originality and power. Mont Blanc does not measure himself with Jura; does not name her, nor speak, save when in thunder he talks to her of God. Then only, too, does she

" Answer from her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps."

John never speaks of Plato, nor Paul of Demosthenes, nor Jesus of any writer, save Moses and the Prophets. In those great heights, you feel blowing round your temples, and stirring your hair, the free, original, ancient Breath of the upper world, unconventional, unmixed, and irresistible, as the mountain tempest. It is a book unlike all others — ^the points of diiference being these, among many more : — First, There is a certain grand unconsciousness, as in Niagara, speaking now in the same tone to the tourists of a world, as when she spoke to the empty wilderness and the Bilent sun ; as in the Himalayan Hills, which cast the same look of still sovereignty over an India unpeopled after the Deluge, as over an India the hive of sweltering nations. Thus burst forth cries of nature — the voices of the Prophets; and thus do their eyes, from the high places of the world, overlook all the earth.

You are aware, again, in singular union with this profound unconsciousness and simplicity, of a knowledge and insight equally profound. It is as though a child should pause amid her play, and tell you the secrets of your heart, and the particulars of your after history. The bush beside your path suddenly begins to sigh forth an oracle, in " words unutterable." That unconscious page seems, like the wheel in Ezekiel's vision, to be "full of eyes ;" and, open it wherever you may, you start back in surprise or terror, feeling "this book knows all about us; it eyes us meaningly; it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts." Those herdsmen, vinedressers, shepherds, fishermen, and homeless wanderers, are coeval with all time, and see the end from the beginning. You perceive, again, the presence of a high and holy purpose pen^ading the Book, which is to trace and promulgate the existence of certain spiritual laws, originally communicated by God, developed in the history of a peculiar people, illustrated by the ruin of nations, proclaimed in a system of national religion and national poetry, and at last sealed, cemented, and spread abroad through the blood and Gospel of One who had always been expected, and who at last arrived — the Christ promised to the Fathers. It is this which renders the Bible, in all its parts, religious and holy ; casts over its barest portions such an interest as the shadow of the Fiery Pillar gave to the sand and shrubs over which it passed — makes what other"\vise appear trifles, great as trappings of Godhead — and extracts from fiction and fable, from the crimes of the e\'il and the failings of the good, aid to its main object, and illustration of its main principles. You find yourself again in the presence of a " true thing." We hear of the spell of fiction, but a far stronger spell is that of truth ; indeed, fiction derives its magic from the quantity of truth it contrives to disguise. In this book, you find truth occasionally, indeed, concealed under the garb of allegory and fable, but frequently in a form as naked and majestic as Adam when he rose from the greensward of Eden. "This is true," we exclaim, "were all else a lie. Here, we have found men, earnest as the stars, speaking to us in language which, by its very heat, impetuosity, unworldliness, fearlessness, almost if not altogether imprudence, severity, and grandeur, proves itself sm-

INTRODUCTION.

CERE, if there be sincerity in earth or in heaven." Once more, the Bible, you feel, answers a question which other books cannot. This — the question of questions, the question of all ages — is, in our vernacular and expressive speech, " What shall I do to be saved V " How shall I be peaceful, resigned, holy, and hopeful here, and how happy hereafter, when this cold cloak — the body — has fallen off from the bounding soul within ?" To this, the " Iliad" of Homer, the Plays of Shakspeare, the " Celeste Mechanique " of La Place, and the Works of Plato, return no proper reply. To this immense query, the Book has given an answer, which may theoretically have been interpreted in various ways, but which, as a practical truth, he who runs may read ; which has satisfied the souls of millions; which none ever repented of obeying; and on which many of the wisest, the most learaed, the most slow of heart to believe, as well as the ignorant and simpleminded, have at last been content to lean their living confidence and their d}ing peace.