Here again we have entirely separate sayings, but they are all sayings on the subject of the sluggard. The "men of Hezekiah" have not merely collected, they have in this instance arranged their matter. For completeness let the

Proverbs vi. 1-5

reader turn to an entirely different part of the book, and read (say) the first five verses of chapter six.

My son, if thou art become surety for thy neighbour,

If thou hast stricken thy hands for a stranger,

Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth,

Thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself,

Seeing thou art come into the hand of thy neighbour;

Go, humble thyself, and importune thy neighbour.

Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.
Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter,

And as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

Here it is clear that we have no collection of distinct sayings, but a single composition with an organic unity of its own. The sacred literature is thus found to include both what in modern phraseology are called original compositions, and also collections of separate brief compositions put together with or without arrangement. The shorter sayings are obvious in the Book of Proverbs. But at the proper place we shall see that they belong equally to other departments of Biblical literature: that Prophecy includes short

prophetic utterances collected together as well as longer discourses, and that even a lyric composition may be constructed of separate lyrics in combination. Many mistakes of interpretation may be avoided by recognising the Unity of Aggregation.

Circumstances

One more consideration will complete our classification of the different forms that may be assumed by the Higher Unity in the literary compositions of the Bible. It will someUnity of External times happen that the connection binding the different parts of a poem into a unity is to be looked for, not in the poem itself, but in the external use made of it. A notable example is the twenty-fourth psalm. Any one reading this psalm with a view to catching its general drift and connection will be struck with a break between its sixth and seventh verses, at which point there is a change both of form and matter so considerable as inevitably to raise the doubt whether the whole psalm can be a single composition. The difficulty is met by identifying the poem with a particular ceremonial, into the different parts of which the two halves of the psalm fit like a key into the wards of a lock.

Psalm xxiv

This ceremonial was the bringing of the Ark to Jerusalem. There is perhaps no single day in the far distance of antiquity which we are able to follow with such minuteness as this central day of King David's career; and in a later chapter we shall see that all the songs composed for the festival can be recovered. The twenty-fourth psalm represents the words of the processional march from the House of Obed-Edom to the Gates of Jerusalem. There seem to have been two points in this march at which the instruments of fir wood, harps, psalteries, timbrels, castanets and cymbals gave place to vocal celebration. The first was when the procession halted at the foot of the high hill on which the city stood; and here it is that the first six verses of the psalm have their fitness. After a burst of adoration to the Creator of the world one of the perfectly general ascriptions of praise with which psalms so often commence the special anthem proceeds as follows:

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart;
Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
And hath not sworn deceitfully,

He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek after him,
That seek thy face, O God of Jacob.

The identification of these words with the occasion to which I am referring becomes the stronger through something which illustrates what has been said above as to the nature of Hebrew poetry, and how its composition did not fix it in one form, as our writing does, but left it scope to adapt itself in the mouths of the singers who preserved it to changes of thought or circumstances. We have a variant to the anthem just cited: this is the fifteenth psalm, and a comparison of the two poems is highly instructive.

LORD, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle?
Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly,

And worketh righteousness,

And speaketh truth in his heart.

He that slandereth not with his tongue,

Nor doeth evil to his friend,

Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.

In whose eyes a reprobate is despised;

But he honoureth them that fear the LORD.

Psalm XV

He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

He that putteth not out his money to usury,

Nor taketh reward against the innocent.

He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

That these are varying forms of one poem is obvious; in both the same character for the worshipper of Jehovah is conveyed in the same form of lyric question and answer. The differences between

them are two. The fifteenth psalm is much fuller in its description, and yet this fulness is no more than the working out into detail of what the other psalm had suggested. Again, there is a striking variation in the wording of the opening verse. The twenty-fourth psalm asks, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD," the fifteenth psalm phrases the question, "Who shall sojourn." This exactly tallies with the view here presented of the two poems. The one is an anthem for a specific occasion, and to the circumstances of that occasion the procession halting at the foot of the hill- the phrase is exactly relevant, "Who shall ascend." But when this description of the worshipper of Jehovah is divorced from the proceedings of that particular day, and passes into general use, there is no longer any point in the word ascend, and a general term, sojourn, is substituted. And it is equally natural that the brief suggestive sketch should be found where the thought comes as a single detail in a long ceremonial, but that when the fragment passes into use as an independent hymn the thought should expand and gather fulness and devotional beauty.

The other emphatic point in the march was when the procession drew up opposite the gates of the city: this gives us the second part of the twenty-fourth psalm. Two considerations should be carefully remembered by the reader. One of these is the nature of the day's festival. It was not a dedication of a temple, but an inauguration of a city. The tent in which David placed the Ark was clearly regarded by him as a mere temporary convenience; the task on which his whole heart was bent was to bring the Ark to the city of David. This Jerusalem was an ancient stronghold of the Jebusites; to capture it had been David's greatest achievement; he wished to turn it into the metropolis of the military monarchy in which he, as the representative of Jehovah, was the principal figure: there could then be no fitter form of inauguration than to transfer to the newly captured city the sacred Symbol with the fullest military honours. The psalm realises all this by its formal call upon the city gates to

II Sam. vi

open. But a second point must be noted before the anthem becomes fully intelligible. The historical account of the ceremonial gives striking prominence to a particular title of the Divine Being the LORD OF HOSTS: the narrative opens by speaking of "the Ark of God which is called by the Name, even the name of the LORD of hosts"; it ends by saying that David, in dismissing the people to their homes, blessed them "in the name of the LORD of hosts." It is clear that this title made a sort of watchword to the day's proceedings. With the full circumstances before us let us follow this second section of the psalm. The procession has halted opposite the massive porch of the time-worn fortress, and in full military form summons it to open its gates.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

And be ye lift up, ye ancient doors:

And the King of glory shall come in.

Warders answer from within:

Who is the King of glory?

By the simplest of poetic devices the anthem keeps back for a time the great Name, and answers with other titles of Jehovah.

The LORD strong and mighty,

The LORD mighty in battle.

The watchword has not been spoken, and the gates refuse to open. The summons must be repeated.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates;

Yea, lift them up, ye ancient doors:

And the King of glory shall come in.

A second time is heard the challenge from within:

Who is this King of glory?

At last the great Name is spoken:

THE LORD OF HOSTS,

He is the King of glory!