together of successive psalms (111–118) is not a modern suggestion, but is the traditional 'Hallel,' used at the three great Feasts, the Feast of Dedication, and the New Moons. [The title Egyptian is founded on section III.] It falls into seven divisions. I is prefatory, in the quiet tone of meditation. [In the original these two psalms are alphabetical.] II is a general Doxology; IV is the Doxology of Israel; VI is the brief Doxology of the Nations. III is the foundation on which the whole rests: the Deliverance from Egypt. It is based on the primitive conception of Deity as a local power (compare in Jonah, page 259): the new thought is the marvel of the presence of a God moving with his people. This is developed by the art effect known as Introversion: A new conception of Deity! All nature convulsed! Why all nature convulsed? At this new conception of Deity! Such introversion, it is unnecessary to say, prevails through various branches of art. It has even come down to modern sport: What is the matter with Smith? He's all right! Who's all right? Smith! Sections V and VII contain the votive element. The matter of these sections is practically identical. But in V there is nothing to suggest more than one speaker, the worshipper performing his vow. VII involves (1) a Soloist, the worshipper; (2) a Chorus, his escort of friends (or the whole People); and (3) in the latter part a Chorus of Priests awaiting the Procession at the Temple.— Open to me the gates of righteousness . . . this is the gate, the righteous shall enter into it. This is the regular use of righteousness as vindication of the righteous (by deliverance). Compare page 519. Page 352. Hallelujah.-This is the simplest of the Festal Anthems. The First Chorus speaks expressions of praise; the Second Chorus furnishes matter for praise. As they alternate, at first it is the Second Chorus that is most prominent; gradually the First Chorus gains upon the Second; then they alternate in single lines to an overpowering climax of the Full Chorus: Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD. If readers will arrange to carry out the structure in practice, they will appreciate its simple effectiveness. Page 364. The midst thereof being inlaid with love, etc.-That is, love gifts or wedding presents. Notes to Zion Redeemed Page 375. Keep silence before me.-The natural formula [compare our modern Oyez, Oyez] for a proclamation before a potentate. Compare in Habakkuk (page 257): The LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. O islands: by a regular usage in prophecy the islands [of Greece] are the western boundary of the prophetic world. The sense is, that all the world to its furthest boundary is summoned to judgment. Compare a little later: The isles saw and feared; the ends of the earth trembled; and again (page 383), To the islands he will repay recompence; so shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. Page 376. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, etc.—With the contemptuous irony usual in prophecy the idolatrous nations as they assemble are panicstricken lest their manufactured gods may not stand the shock of being confronted with the true God. Page 377. Behold my servant.-At this point the Servant of Jehovah is the Nation of Israel. Thus (after the interrupting songs) the proclamation describes this servant as blind, deaf, hidden in prison houses of Babylon for its sin. Page 379. Behold I have given him for a witness to the peoples. In accordance with the Doom Form of this passage the prose portions are the word of God, proclaiming Israel a witness to the nations; the verse gives the words of Israel inviting the nations into the covenant with God. An interesting confirmation of this is seen in the use of the conjunction For. For my thoughts are not your thoughts: the for connects this, not with the (verse) passage which has immediately preceded, but with the preceding prose. And again, For ye shall go out with joy continues the last verse passage, and does not join on to the prose that immediately precedes. Page 380. Behold, my servant shall prosper.-Here the Servant of Jehovah has changed to a mystic Personality. The Chorus of Nations gradually catch the exaltation of what had appeared to be the humiliation of suffering. What might at first appear a difficulty in the arrangement of the text is really a striking confirmation. This is the change of pronouns: through the greater part of the chorus the pronouns are plural ("we," "us"), suitable to a Chorus of Nations; but at certain points we have the singular. [He grew up before "him" as a tender plant for the transgression of "my" people was he stricken-by his knowledge shall "my" righteous servant make many righteous.] The singular pronoun refers to God. The point is, that the Chorus of Nations do not merely catch the idea of vicarious suffering as an abstract idea, but they also read it into the thoughts of God in his providential disposal of events. Page 383. Who are these that fly . . . as doves to their windows?—A striking figure for the sails of ships, that are bringing the exiles to Zion. Notes to the Books of Wisdom When an editor, charged with the task of writing notes, has to deal with the Books of Wisdom, he feels much perplexity. Every line of wisdom writing seems to invite comment. But to copious notes there is not only the practical objection of swelling the size of this work; such notes seem somewhat incongruous with the idea of wisdom literature, which, avoiding direct speech, wraps itself up in thought-provoking expressions. Readers would not thank the editor of a comedy for explaining all the jokes. And the phraseology of wisdom is intended to 'amuse'—in the etymological sense of that word, which is to set a-musing. Thus here the notes on particular passages are reduced to a minimum. The interconnection of thought, which binds the separate writings into a philosophic whole, has been fully brought out in the text of Chapter VI. Page 401. A Proverb Cluster.-This makes a distinct stage in the evolution of the Essay out of floating proverbs. Collections of such floating proverbs are made without any interconnection. But sometimes they are grouped under a common topic, such as the Sluggard, or the Fool. Here we have the first germ of the Essay. Essays are found in the wisdom books in which the component proverbs of the cluster are entirely independent, as in the two examples on pages 401, 402. But gradually, as Stanley puts it, the closed hand of the Hebrew proverb changes into the open palm of Greek rhetoric. This makes the Essay as conceived in Ecclesiasticus and Bacon. Page 402. Number Sonnets.-This peculiar type of proverbial literature contains a numerical progression in its opening lines to which the rest of the poem corresponds. The numerical framework is a mode of emphasis. Thus (in the second of the two examples): to say that the mutual behavior of a pair of lovers was unintelligible to any but themselves would be frigid prose. It has a point when the behavior is made a climax to three other things untraceable—the way of the eagle, the serpent, the ship in water. Page 402. A Riddle Sonnet.-In modern poetry the 'Sonnet' is restricted to a single specialized form-14 lines disposed in logical order. In earlier literature there is no limitation to the 14 lines. In wisdom literature the idea of a sonnet is the adaptation of matter to form—not any one form, but to what is markedly form. In the present case the form is pronounced. A riddle in six brief lines, with the answer in a couplet; then there is both reversed order and duplication, the couplet becomes a quatrain, and for six single lines we have six couplets. Some element of form dominating matter will be found to underlie all the poems printed as 'sonnets.' Page 403. The Epigram.-In wisdom literature the epigram has a definite structure: a couplet text with a brief verse expansion. As printed in this work, the two lines (not necessarily consecutive) which make the text are indented to the left. Thus, of the specimens here given the texts of the second and third are Weary not thyself to be rich; Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? Eat thou not the bread of one that hath an evil eye, Each of these could stand by itself as an independent proverb. To make an epigram the independent proverb is supported by other lines. The grudging host seems to reckon up in his mind the cost of each morsel his guest eats. Page 404. A Maxim.-The maxim is the prose analogue of the epigram: a proverb text with a prose expansion. The two specimens illustrate. Page 405. Out of prison he came forth to be king.-Many interpreters, missing the maxim form, have sought (without success) to find a political allusion in these words. The maxim is of man in general: the prison is the womb: the thought is, We brought nothing into this world. This maxim makes a contrast between a king, enfeebled by age, and an ordinary subject with youth on his side. [Note the criterion of age: who knoweth not how to receive admonition any more: a man is old only when he ceases to be capable of improvement.] The king had to be born as a baby: than which nothing is poorer or more helpless. Compare (page 440) King Solomon on his birth.-I saw all the living... that they were with the youth, the second, etc. The maxim goes on to kingly succession: all the world attended the youthful successor of the old king, yet in time this successor will be forgotten in his turn. Page 408. The Sluggard. A Sonnet.-Wordsworth in one of his Prefaces, dealing with the topic of Poetic Diction, makes a fine contrast between this poem, of primitive simplicity, and a paraphrase of the same by Dr. Samuel Johnson, which reaches the very limit of the artificial. Turn on the prudent Ant thy heedless eyes, Till Want, now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, like on ambush'd foe. Page 415. Be stedfast in thy covenant.—That is, thy occupation, the way of life to which thou art committed. Page 415. He himself made man... and left him in the hand of his own counsel.-The phrase finely describes the operation of free will. Compare above (page 420): afflict not thyself in thine own counsel, in application to brooding, or worry. Page 417. What is brighter than the sun? etc.—The parallelism brings out the sense; the first and third lines are parallel, He looketh referring to the sun. Even the bright sun suffers eclipse; so man is overpowered by the fleshly element in him. Page 419. On the Tongue.-Compare this with the Essay of St. James on the Responsibility of Speech. [N. T. volume, page 363.] Page 423. In the handywork of their craft is their prayer. The familiar Latin saying, Laborare est orare. Page 424. In the words of the Lord are his works.—This is usually interpreted of creation by fiat. But the sense is rather that the works of nature are to be received as part of God's sayings to man. Compare The heavens declare the glory of God (page 287) and following lines. Page 426. Praise of Famous Men.—What is here given is only a fragment of a long Essay, enumerating the worthies of Israel. Its treatment of Elijah is a specimen. For we also shall surely live. This is recognized as one of the most difficult passages in Ecclesiasticus. It cannot be a recognition of immortality, for that doctrine is absent from the book. The explanation is probably this. The verse passages in Ecclesiasticus are not the words of the Son of Sirach, but quotations from prophetic hymns (which are lost). In such hymns the line would not be surprising; it would refer to the deliverance of the prophets by Elijah from the persecution of Jezebel. (Pages 79–87.) Page 429. All the rivers run into the sea .. unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again.-A reference to the circle of the waters as conceived by the ancients. Ocean is the real source of rivers: water from the surface of the ocean is drawn up in vapor, condensed into rain, thus makes rivers running to the ocean their ultimate source. This is a favorite idea in poetry, for spiritual application to man's inherent tendency to his Creator. A fine example is from Sir John Davies's poem Nosce Teipsum. And as the moisture, which the thirsty earth Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake: Yet nature so her streams doth lead and carry, Within whose watery bosom first she lay: E'en so the soul, which in this earthly mould At first her mother earth she holdeth dear, And doth embrace the world, and worldly things; She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught |