Review I, II, and parts 1 and 2 of III.
3. Far more of the Old Testament belongs to the department of _Poetry_
than appears in the Authorized Version, the Bible in common use. The
He'brew mind was poetic rather than prosaic, and the thought of this
people naturally fell into the form of poetry. But there is a great
difference between our poetry or verse and that of the He'brews. With us
there is apt to be rhyme, never sought by the Bible poet; or else a
certain measure in length of line or emphasis on certain vowel sounds,
the "feet" or "meter," in the verse, equally unknown in the Bible.
He'brew verse consists in a peculiar symmetry and balance of clauses,
which is called "parallelism," for instance:
"He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Is'ra-el
Shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psa. 121. 3, 4).
Poetry is to be found in nearly all parts of the Old Testament. There
are:
1.) _Odes_, as the song of Mir'i-am (Exod. 15), of Deb'o-rah (Judg. 5),
and the book of Lam-en-ta'tions. In the latter book there is an
acrostical arrangement, each stanza beginning in the original text with
a letter of the He'brew alphabet, and arranged in their order.
2.) _Lyric poems_, songs of emotion or feeling, as most of the Psalms.
3.) _Dramatic poems_, illustrative of action, as Job and the Song of
Sol'o-mon.
4. _Oratory_ figures extensively in the Old Testament, as we should
expect to find in the literature of any Oriental people, among whom the
public speaker exercises a mighty influence. The orations or discourses
of the Bible are sometimes in prose, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in
both forms of expression. The speeches in the book of Job, Sol'o-mon's
dedicatory prayer (2 Chron. 6), almost the entire book of
Deu-ter-on'o-my, the opening chapters of Prov'erbs, and many of the
discourses of the prophets belong to this department. Note how readily
the passage in Deut. 8. 7-9 falls into verse:
"For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land,
A land of brooks of water,
Of fountains and depths,
Springing forth in valleys and hills;
A land of wheat and barley,
And vines and fig trees and pomegranates;
A land of oil olives and honey," etc. (Rev. Ver.)
5. _Philosophy_, or "wisdom-literature," is also found in the Old
Testament. The book of Prov'erbs is a collection of the "sayings of the
sages" among the Is'ra-el-ites; while Ec-cle-si-as'tes is a series of
connected essays on human life.
6. _Prophecy_ is a distinct form of literature in the Bible. The word
"prophecy" in the Scriptures means not "foretelling," or "prediction,"
but "_forth_telling," speaking under a divine power, whether of past,
present, or future. It is not to be forgotten that the books of
Josh'u-a, Judg'es, Sam'u-el, and Kings were called by the Jews "the
former prophets," and were all regarded as prophetic, although they
contained history. The prophets used freely either the prose form or
verse form in their messages. Their writings may be classified under:
1.) _Prophetic Discourse_, the message of the Lord concerning nations,
often called "the burden," the counterpart of the modern sermon, as in
Isa. 1. 1-31; Ezek. 34.
2.) _Lyric prophecy_, in the form of song, as in Zeph-a-ni'ah, Isa. 9. 8
to 10. 4, and many other instances.
3.) _Symbolic prophecy_, or the use of emblems, as Jer-e-mi'ah's girdle
(Jer. 13), the potter's wheel (Jer. 18), or E-ze'ki-el's tile (Ezek. 4).
4.) _The prophecy of Vision_, of which instances are: I-sa'iah's call
(Isa. 6); Jer-e-mi'ah's vision (Jer. 1. 11-16); E-ze'ki-el's vision of
the cherubim (Ezek. 1); "the valley of dry bones" (Ezek. 37); and
Zech-a-ri'ah's vision of the candlestick (Zech. 4).
5.) _The prophecy of Parable_, as "the vineyard" (Isa. 5), also in Ezek.
15; "the eagle" (Ezek. 17). There are many parables in the Old
Testament, but the master in this form of teaching was the Prophet of
Gal'i-lee in the gospels.
6.) _The prophecy of Dialogue_, either between the prophet and Je-ho'vah
or more frequently between the prophet and the people, as in the book of
Mal'a-chi.
7.) _Dramatic prophecy_, in which Je-ho'vah himself is represented as
speaking, generally introduced by the words "Thus saith Je-ho'vah."
A close analysis will perhaps show other forms of prophetic teaching, as
"The Doom Song" and "The Prophetic Rhapsody"; but in our judgment these
also may be included in the classification given above. (See footnote
with the opening of this lesson.)