Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/69

 should better say—the Thought of the writer is subjected to rules of structure that are in the highest degree artificial. This fact—well understood as now it is—escapes the notice of the reader of modern versions; albeit, when once it has been explained to a reader of ordinary intelligence, he easily perceives it—wherever it is actually found.

We have here named what is about the proportion of prose to verse throughout the Old Testament; but, in truth, if those parts of the historical books are set off from the account which are genealogical merely, and those also which are repetitive or redundant, and those, moreover, which barely, if at all, convey any religious meaning, then it will appear that very much more than a half of the Canon of Scripture in the Hebrew takes this latter form; or, as we say, is conditioned in conformity with artificial rules of structure.

Of this structure, which of late has been carefully set forth, and illustrated, even in popular works, there can be no need in this place to give any account in detail. The fact of its existence is all we have to do with; and this, briefly stated, is this—that each separate utterance of religious thought—theological, ethical, or devotional—is thrown into an antithetical form, so making up a couplet, or a triplet; or an integral verse in four, five, or six measured lines. The second line of the two is often a repetition only of the first, in other terms:—often it is an antithetic utterance of the same