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24 credo illis qui eam linguam probe callent, and it is not a mere fancy when Philo, Josephus, Eusebius, Jerome and others have detected in the Old Testament songs, and especially in the Psalms, something resembling the Greek and Latin metres. For the Hebrew poetry indeed had a certain syllabic measure, since, - apart from the audible Shebâ and the Chateph, both of which represent the primitive shortenings, - all syllables with a full vowel are intermediate, and in ascending become long, in descending short, or in other words, in one position are strongly accented, in another more or less slurred over. Hence the most manifold rhythms arise, e.g., the anapaestic wenashlı̂cha mimrénnu  abothémo (Psa 2:3) or the dactylic áz jedabbér elêmo beappó (Psa 2:5). The poetic discourse is freer in its movement than the Syriac poetry with its constant ascending (    ́ ) or descending spondees ( ́    ); it represents all kinds of syllabic movements and thus obtains the appearance of a lively mixture of the Greek and Latin metres. But it is only an appearance - for the forms of verse, which conform to the laws of quantity, are altogether foreign to early Hebrew poetry, as also to the oldest poetry; and these rhythms which vary according to the emotions are not metres, for, as Augustine says in his work De Musica, “Omne metrum rhythmus, non omnis rhythmus etiam metrum est.” Yet there is not a single instance of a definite rhythm running through the whole in a shorter or longer poem, but the rhythms always vary according to the thoughts and feelings; as e.g., the evening song Psa 4:1-8 towards the end rises to the anapaestic measure: ki - attá Jahawé lebadád, in order then quietly to subside in the iambic: labétach tôshibéni. With this alternation of rise and