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gance; they prevail chiefly in shorter poems; in many of the Psalms; in Balaam's prophecies; frequently in those of Isaiah, which are most of them distinct poems of no great length. The antithetic parallelism gives an acuteness and force to adages and moral sentences; and therefore, as I observed before, abounds in Solomon's Proverbs, and elsewhere is not often to be met with. The poem of Job, being on a large plan, and in a high tragic style, though very exact in the division of the lines, and in the parallelism, and affording many fine examples of the synonymous kind, yet consists chiefly of the constructive. A happy mixture of the several sorts gives an agreeable variety; and they serve mutually to recommend and set off one another.

I mentioned above, that there appeared to be two sorts of Hebrew verses, differing from one another in regard to their length; the examples hitherto given are all, except one, of the shorter kind of verse. The longer, though they admit of every sort of parallelism, yet belonging for the most part to the last class, that of constructive parallels, I shall treat of them in this place, and endeavour to explain the nature, and to point out the marks of them, as fully and exactly as I can.

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This distinction of Hebrew verses into longer and shorter, is founded on the authority of the alphabetical poems; one-third of the whole number of which are manifestly of the longer sort of verse; the rest of the shorter. I do not presume exactly to define by the number of syllables, supposing we could with some probability determine it, the limit that separates one sort of verse from the other; so that every verse exceeding or falling short of that number, should be always accounted a long or a short verse: all that I affirm is this; that one of the three poems perfectly alphabetical, and therefore infallibly divided into its verses; and three of the nine other alphabetical poems, divided into their verses, after the manner of the perfectly alphabetical, with the greatest

degree of probability; that these four poems, being the four first Lamentations of Jeremiah, fall into verses about one-third longer, taking them one with another, than those of the other eight alphabetical poems. I shall first give an example of these long verses from a poem perfectly alphabetical, in which therefore the limits of the verses are unerringly defined:

"I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his anger: He hath led me, and made me walk, in darkness, not in light: Even again turneth he his hand against me, all the day long.

He hath made old my flesh and my skin, he hath broken by bones: He hath built against me, and hath compassed me, with gall and travail :

He hath made me dwell in dark places, as the dead of old."

Lam. iii. 1-6.

The following is from the first Lamentation; in which the stanzas are defined by initial letters, and are, like the former, of three lines:

"How doth the city solitary sit, she that was full of people!

How is she become a widow, that was great among the nations!
Princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
She weepeth sore in the night, and her tear is upon her cheek:
She hath none to comfort her, among all her lovers:

All her friends have betrayed her, they became her enemies."

Lam. i. 1, 2.

I shall now give examples of the same sort of verse, where the limits of the verses are to be collected only from the poetical construction of the sentences: and first from the books acknowledged on all hands to be poetical; and of these we must have recourse to the Psalms only; for I believe there is not a single instance of this sort of verse to be found in the poem of Job; and scarce any in the Proverbs of Solomon.

"The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul:

The testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise the simple:

The precepts of Jehovah are right, rejoicing the heart;

The commandment of Jehovah is clear, enlightening the eyes:

The fear of Jehovah is pure, enduring for ever:

The judgments of Jehovah are truth; they are altogether righteous: More desirable than gold, and than much fine gold;

And sweeter than honey, and the dropping of honey-combs."

Psal. xix. 7—10.

"That our sons may be like plants, growing up in their youth:

Our daughters like the corner-pillars, carved for the structure of a palace:

Our store-houses full, producing all kinds of provision:

Our flocks bringing forth thousands, ten thousands in our fields:
Our oxen strong to labour; no irruption, no captivity;

And no outcry in our streets."

Psal. cxliv. 12-14.

"O! how great is thy goodness which thou hast treasured up, for them that fear thee;

Which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee, before the sons of men!

Thou wilt bide them in the secret place of thy presence, from the vexations of man;

Thou wilt keep them safe in the tabernacle, from the strife of tongues."
Psal. xxxi. 19, 20.

"A sound of a multitude in the mountains, as of many people;
A sound of the tumult of kingdoms, of nations gathered together:
Jehovah God of hosts mustereth the host for the battle.
They come from a distant land, from the end of heaven;

Jehovah and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land."

Isa. xiii. 4, 5.

"They are turned backward, they are utterly confounded, who trust in the graven image;

Who say unto the molten image, ye are our gods!"

Isa. xlii. 17.

They are ashamed, they are even confounded, his adversaries,* all of

them;

Together they retire in confusion, the fabricators of images:
But Israel shall be saved in Jehovah, with eternal salvation;

Ye shall not be ashamed, neither shall ye be confounded, to the ages
of eternity."
Isa. xlv. 16, 17.

These examples, all except the two first, are of long verses thrown in, irregularly, but with design, between verses of another sort; among which they stand out, as it were, somewhat distinguished in regard to their matter as well as their form.

I think I perceive some peculiarities in the cast and structure of these verses, which mark them, and distinguish them from those of the other sort. The closing pause of each line is generally very full and strong: and in each line commonly, towards the end, at least beyond the middle of it, there is a small rest, or interval, depending on the sense and grammatical construction, which I would call a half-pause.

See the note on the place.

The conjunction, the common particle of connexion, which abounds in the Hebrew language, and is very often used without any necessity at all, seems to be frequently and studiously omitted at the half-pause: the remaining clause being added, to use a grammatical term by apposition to some word preceding; or coming in as an adjunct, or circumstance depending on the former part, and completing the sentence. This gives a certain air to these verses, which may be esteemed in some sort as characteristic of the kind.

The first four Lamentations are four distinct poems, consisting uniformly and entirely of the long verse, which may therefore be properly called the elegiac verse; from those elegies, which give the plainest and the most undoubted examples of it. There may perhaps be found many other very probable examples in the same kind : but this is what I cannot pretend to determine with any certainty. Such, I think, are the 42d and 43d Psalms; which I imagine make one entire poem,† and ought not to have been divided into two Psalms: the lines are all of the longer kind, except the third line of the intercalary stanza three times inserted; which third line, like that at the close of an example given above from the 144th Psalm, is of the shorter kind of verse, somewhat like the parœmiac verse of the Greeks, which commonly makes Such likewise the close of a set of anapæstic verses.

In the second Lamentation, the second line of the 4th period is deficient in length; and so likewise is the 31st verse of the third Lamentation. In the former, two words are lost out of the text; in the latter, one. This will plainly appear by supplying those words from the Chaldee paraphrase, which has happily preserved them. They prove their own genuineness by making the lines of a just length, and by completely restoring the sense; which in the former is otherwise not unexceptionable in the latter, manifestly imperfect. I will add the lines; with the words supplied, included in crotchets:

ויהרג [כל נער] כל מחמדי עין

כי לא יזנח לעולם [עבדיו] אדני

"And he slew [every youth] all that were desirable to the eye."

"For the Lord will not cast off [his servants] for ever."

+ This conjecture, offered some years ago has since been confirmed by twenty-two MSS. which join them together.

may perhaps be the 101st Psalm; which seems to consist of fourteen long verses, or seven distichs, thus divided:

"Mercy and judgment will I celebrate; to thee, O Jehovah, will I sing. I will act circumspectly in the perfect way; when wilt thou come unto me?

I will walk with a perfect heart, in the midst of my house;

I will not set before mine eyes, a wicked thing:

Him, that dealeth unfaithfully, I hate; he shall not cleave unto me; A perverse heart shall remove from me; the wicked I will not know. Whoso slandereth in secret his friend, him will I destroy.

The lofty of eyes, and the proud of heart, him I will not endure.
Mine eyes shall be on the faithful of the land, that they may dwell
with me:

Whoso walketh in the perfect way, he shall minister unto me:
He shall not dwell within my house, who practiseth deceit.
He, that speaketh falsehood, shall not be established in my sight.
Every morning will I destroy all the wicked of the land;

To cut off, from the city of Jehovah, all the workers of iniquity."

The sublime ode of Isaiah in the 14th chapter, is all of this kind of verse, except, perhaps, a verse or two towards the end; and the prophecy against Senacherib, in the 37th chapter, as far as it is addressed to Senacherib himself.

I venture to submit to the judgment of the candid reader the preceding observations, upon a subject which hardly admits of proof and certainty; which is rather a matter of opinion and of taste, than of science: especially in the latter part; which endeavours to establish, and to point out, the difference of two sorts of verse, the longer and the shorter. For though the third Lamentation of Jeremiah gives a clear and indubitable example of the elegiac or long verse, and the two Psalms perfectly alphabetical of the shorter; yet the whole art of Hebrew versification, except only what appears in the construction of the sentences, being totally lost, it is not easy to try by them other passages of verse, so as to draw any certain conclusion in all cases, whether they are of the same kind or not. And that, for this among other reasons; because what I call the half-pause, which I think

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