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 embellishments which the Hebrew poets who knew Aramaic adopted into their language.

The prophets, at least the earlier, in language and rhythm are to be regarded almost entirely as poets, except that with them the sentences are often more extended, and the parallelism is less regular and balanced than is the case with the poets properly so called. The language of the later prophets, on the contrary, approaches nearer to prose.

On the rhythm of Hebrew poetry, see besides the Commentaries on the poetical books and Introductions to the O.T., J. Ley, ., Halle, 1875;, Halle, 1887; ‘Die metr. Beschaffenheit des B. Hiob,’ in ., 1895, iv, 1897, i; Grimme, ‘Abriss der bibl.-hebr. Metrik,’ 1896, p. 529 ff., 1897, p. 683 ff.; ., Freiburg (Switzerland), 1902 (on which see Beer in  1903, no. 11); ‘Gedanken über hebr. Metrik,’ in Altschüler’s, i (1903), 1 ff.; Döller, , Paderborn, 1899; Schloegl, , Vindobonae, 1899 (on the same lines as Grimme); but especially Ed. Sievers, : i, pt. 1 , pt. 2 , Lpz. 1901: ii, 1 , 2 , Lpz. 1904 f.: iii, Lpz. 1907; (with H. Guthe), Lpz. 1907; and his (1 Is 24–27, 2 Jena, 3 Deutero-Zechariah, 4 Malachi, 5 Hosea, 6 Joel, 7 Obadiah, 8 Zephaniah, 9 Haggai, 10 Micah), Lpz. 1904–7.—As a guide to Sievers’ system (with some criticism of his principles) see Baumann, ‘Die Metrik u. das A.T.;,’ in the, viii (1905), 41 ff.; W. H. Cobb, , Oxford, 1905; Cornill, .5, Tübingen, 1905, p. 11 ff.; Rothstein, , 1907, p. 188 ff. and his, Lpz. 1909 (also separately, Lpz. 1909); W. R. Arnold, ‘The rhythms of the ancient Heb.,’ in , i. 165 ff., Chicago, 1907, according to whom the number of syllables between the beats is only limited by the physiological possibilities of phonetics; C.v. Orelli, ‘Zur Metrik der alttest. Prophetenschriften,’ in his 3, p. 236 ff., Munich, 1908.—In full agreement with Sievers is Baethgen, 3, p. xxvi ff., Göttingen, 1904. [Cf. Budde in. iv. 3 ff.; Duhm in. iii. 3793 ff.]

Of all views of this matter, the only one generally accepted as sound was at first Ley’s and Budde’s discovery of the Qina- or Lamentation-Verse ( 1882, 5 ff.; 1891, 234 ff.; 1892, 31 ff.). On their predecessors, Lowth, de Wette, Ewald, see Löhr, 2, p. 9. This verse, called by Duhm ‘long verse’, by Sievers simply ‘five-syllabled’ (Fünfer), consists of two members, the second at least one beat shorter than the other. That a regular repetition of an equal number of syllables in arsis and thesis was observed by other poets, had been established by Ley, Duhm, Gunkel, Grimme, and others, especially Zimmern, who cites a Babylonian hymn in which the members are actually marked (. x. 1 ff., xii. 382 ff.; cf. also Delitzsch,, Lpz. 1896, pp. 60 ff.). Recently, however, E. Sievers, the recognized authority on metre in other branches of literature, has indicated, in the works mentioned above, a number of fresh facts and views, which have frequently been confirmed by the conclusions of Ley and others. The most important are as follows:—

Hebrew poetry, as distinguished from the quantitative Classical and Arabic