of the devices of prose: the rhetoric of all nations includes it. If then a particular language bases its verse upon something which is also a property of prose, it is an inevitable consequence that in that language prose and verse will overlap and such is the case with Biblical literature. I do not of course mean that the verse literature of the Bible taken as a whole could be confused with the Biblical literature of prose. What could be further from prose than the Book of Psalms? and what could be further from verse than the Book of Chronicles? But while in their extremes they are totally different, yet there is a middle region of Biblical style in which verse and prose meet: a high parallelism in which transition can rapidly be made from the one to the other, or even the effects of the two can be combined. It is this overlapping of verse and prose that I call the most important distinguishing feature of Hebrew literature.

I am the more particular upon this point, because it is one which I think has not received sufficient attention, either in theoretical discussions or in the editing that seeks to present Biblical literature to the eye in its true structure. The combination of verse and prose to which I am alluding is not the fact that, in such a book as Isaiah, some compositions are found to be verse and some prose. Nor am I referring merely to the literary effect of a transition in the same composition from a passage of prose to a passage of verse; such transitions belong to many literatures, and are markedly characteristic of Shakespeare in his later plays. The union of verse and prose can in Biblical literature be more intimate still what in another language we should have to call a system of verse - for example, the analysis of a single stanza will in the Hebrew be found to combine prose with verse into a common system.

This an addition

A clear grasp of this overlapping of verse and prose is necessary for the appreciation of Hebrew literature. To gain it may require some effort of mind on the part of those who have formed their ideas in literatures of a different kind. The English reader, for example, is

to the resources of style

accustomed to a verse founded on metrical considerations or rhyme things foreign to prose; when he hears of verse approaching prose the phrase is likely to suggest to him weakness and inefficiency. Any such suggestion becomes inapplicable in the case of a language where parallelism makes a common ground between the highest poetry and the highest rhetoric. It is clear, on the contrary, that the literary resources of Hebrew are increased by the feature we are discussing. Hebrew has the power possessed by other languages of producing literary effect with changes from the one form of expression to the other. But it has also a power all its own of maintaining (so to speak) a watershed of high parallelism, from which it can dip towards verse or prose with the utmost subtlety, or can combine in one the delight in freedom, which is the spirit of prose, with a sense of rhythm, which is the foundation of verse.

My first illustration is from the prophecy of Amos i. 3-ii Amos, a book which will impress the most casual reader with the prominence in it of structural beauty.

I

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Damascus,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron :

But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael,
And it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

And I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from
the valley of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house
of Eden and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith
the LORD.

:

2

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Gaza,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they carried away captive the whole people, to deliver them up to Edom:

But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza,
And it shall devour the palaces thereof :

and I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn mine hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.

3

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Tyre,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they delivered up the whole people to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant :

But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre,

And it shall devour the palaces thereof.

4

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Edom,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for

ever :

But I will send a fire upon Teman,

And it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.

5

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of the children of Ammon,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:

But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah,
And it shall devour the palaces thereof,

with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind and their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.

:

6

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Moab,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:

But I will send a fire upon Moab,

And it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth;

and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet; and I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.

7

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Judah,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have caused them to err, after the which their fathers did walk :

But I will send a fire upon Judah,

And it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

Thus saith the LORD:

For three transgressions of Israel,

Yea, for four,

I will not turn away the punishment thereof;

because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go unto the same maid, to profane my holy name: and they lay

themselves down beside every altar upon clothes taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD. But ye gave the Nazirites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

Behold I will press you in your place,

As a cart presseth that is full of sheaves.
And flight shall perish from the swift,

And the strong shall not strengthen his force,
Neither shall the mighty deliver himself:

Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow;

And he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself :
Neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself :
And he that is courageous among the mighty

Shall flee away naked in that day,

Saith the Lord.

If we examine this portion of Amos in the spirit of the lower parallelism, we must admit that the passages here printed as prose could be broken up into verses, most of them without straining. But the higher parallelism constructs the whole passage on an extremely simple plan: this prophecy against seven peoples is made up of common formulæ expressing ideal transgressions and ideal dooms, together with particular descriptions of actual sins and actual sufferings. It is surely in keeping with such a general plan that the formulæ and ideal portions should be found to be in verse, and the particular descriptions in prose. Moreover, when we examine the denunciation of Israel, the final climax up to which all the rest leads, we find that it is just here that the description is most difficult to compel into the form of verse: if this goes best as prose then the parts correlated with it should be prose also. Finally, if we look at the whole for a moment simply as a work of art, we must be struck with the superb elasticity of utterance which