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 a part of the Psalms and Proverbs; (c) the writings of the earlier prophets (apart from various later additions) in the following chronological order: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah I, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Obadiah (?), Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah II (ch. 40–55).

The beginning of this period, and consequently of Hebrew literature generally, is undoubtedly to be placed as early as the time of Moses, although the Pentateuch in its present form, in which very different strata may be still clearly recognized, is to be regarded as a gradual production of the centuries after Moses. Certain linguistic peculiarities of the Pentateuch, which it was once customary to regard as archaisms, such as the epicene use of, for , and for , are merely to be attributed to a later redactor; cf. .

The linguistic character of the various strata of the Pentateuch has been examined by Ryssel,, Lpz. 1878; König,, Lpz. 1879 (analysis of –); F. Giesebrecht, ‘Der Sprachgebr. des hexateuchischen Elohisten,’ in 1881, p. 177 ff., partly modified by Driver in the, vol. xi. p. 201 ff.; Kräutlein,, Lpz. 1908.—Abundant matter is afforded also by Holzinger,, Freib. 1893; Driver, 8, Edinburgh, 1908; Strack, 6, Munich, 1906; König,, Bonn, 1893.

6. Even in the writings of this first period, which embraces about 600 years, we meet, as might be expected, with considerable differences in linguistic form and style, which are due partly to differences in the time and place of composition, and partly to the individuality and talent of the authors. Thus Isaiah, for example, writes quite differently from the later Jeremiah, but also differently from his contemporary Micah. Amongst the historical books of this period, the texts borrowed from earlier sources have a linguistic colouring perceptibly different from those derived from later sources, or passages which belong to the latest redactor himself. Yet the structure of the language, and, apart from isolated cases, even the vocabulary and phraseology, are on the whole the same, especially in the prose books.

But the poetic language is in many ways distinguished from prose, not only by a rhythm due to more strictly balanced (parallel) members and definite metres (see ), but also by peculiar words and meanings, inflexions and syntactical constructions which it uses in addition to those usual in prose. This distinction, however, does not go far as, for example, in Greek. Many of these poetic peculiarities occur in the kindred languages, especially in Aramaic, as the ordinary modes of expression, and probably are to be regarded largely as archaisms which poetry retained. Some perhaps, also, are