Hebrew Poetry
by T. Witton Davies
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
I. Is there poetry in the Old Testament?
1. Poetry Defined: In matter concrete and and imaginative
2. In form emotional and rhythmical
II. Neglect of Hebrew Poetry: Causes
III. Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry, External and Internal
1. External or formal characteristics
1. Vocabulary
2. Grammar
3. Rhythm
4. Parallelism
5. Other literary devices
6. Units of Hebrew Poetry
7. Classification of Stichs or Verses
2. Internal or Material characteristics
1. Themes of Hebrew Poetry
2. Species of Hebrew Poetry
IV. Poetical writings of the Old Testament
1. The Poetical books in the narrow sense
2. Customary division of the poetical books
3. Poetry in non-poetical books
By Hebrew poetry in the present article is meant that of the Old Testament. There is practically
no poetry in the New Testament, but, in the Old Testament Apocrypha, Sirach is largely poetical
and Wisdom only less so. Post-Biblical Hebrew poetry could not be discussed here.
I. Is There Poetry in the Old Testament?
It is impossible to answer this question without first of all stating what poetry really is. The
present writer submits the following as a correct definition: “Poetry is verbal composition,
imaginative and concrete in matter, and emotional and rhythmic in form.” This definition
recognizes two aspects of poetry, the formal and the material. The substance of poetry must be
concrete—it is philosophy that deals with the abstract; and it has to be the product more or less
of the creative imagination. It is of the essence of poetry that, like music, it should be expressed
in rhythmical but not necessarily in metrical form. Moreover, the language has to be such as will
stir up the aesthetic emotions. Adopting this account of poetry as criticism, it may unhesitatingly
be affirmed that the Hebrew Scriptures contain a goodly amount of genuine poetry; see the
Psalms, Job, Canticles, etc. It is strange but true that poetical is older than prose written
composition. An examination of the literature of the ancient Indians, Babylonians, Hebrews,
Greeks and Arabs makes this quite certain.
II. The Neglect of Hebrew Poetry: Causes
Notwithstanding the undoubted fact that poetry is largely represented in the Bible, it is
noteworthy that this species of Bible literature was almost wholly ignored until the 18th century.
We may perhaps ascribe this fact mainly to two causes: (1) Since the Bible was regarded as
preeminently, if not exclusively, a revelation of the divine mind, attention was fixed upon what it
contained, to the neglect of the literary form in which it was expressed. Indeed it was regarded as
inconsistent with its lofty, divine function to look upon it as literature at all, since in this last the
appeal is made, at least to a large extent, to the aesthetic and therefore carnal man. The aim
contemplated by Bible writers was practical—the communication of religious knowledge—not
literary, and still less artistic. It was therefore regarded as inconsistent with such a high purpose
that these writers should trouble themselves about literary embellishment or beautiful language,
so long as the sense was clear and unambiguous. It was in this spirit and animated by this
conception that toward the middle of the 19th century Isaac Taylor of Ongar (The Spirit of the
Hebrew Poetry, 1861, p.56 and following) and Keil of Dorpat (Introduction to the Old
Testament, 1881, I, p. 437) 1 denied on a priori grounds the presence of epic and dramatic poetry
in the Bible. How, they exclaimed, could God countenance the writing of fiction which is untruth
—and the epic and the drama have both? Matthew Arnold rendered invaluable service to the
cause of Biblical science when he fulminated against theologians, Jewish and Christian, for
making the Bible a mere collection of proof texts, an arsenal whence religious warriors might get
weapons with which to belabor their opponents. “The language of the Bible is fluid … and
literary, not rigid, fixed, scientific” (Preface to the first edition of Literature and Dogma). The
Bible contains literature, poetical and prose, equal as literature to the best, as Matthew Arnold,
Carlyle, and Froude (on Job) held. The neglect of this aspect of the Scriptures made theologians
blind to the presence and therefore ignorant of the character of Bible poetry. (2) Another factor
which led to the neglect of the poetical element in the Old Testament is the undoubted fact that
Biblical Hebrew poets were less conscious as poets than western poets, and thought much less of
the external form in which they expressed themselves. Biblical poetry lacks therefore such close
adherence to formal rules as that which characterizes Greek, Arabic or English poetry. The
authors wrote as they felt and because they felt, and their strong emotions dictated the forms
their words took, and not any objective standards set up by the schools. Hebrew poetry is
destitute of meter in the strict sense, and also of rhyme, though this last occurs in some isolated
cases (see below, III, 1, [4], c and e). No wonder then that western scholars, missing these marks
of the poetry which they knew best, failed for so long to note the poetry which the Old
Testament contains.
III. Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry: External and
Internal.
The definition of poetry accepted in I, above, implies that there are marks by which poetry can
be distinguished from prose. This is equally true of Hebrew poetry, though this last lacks some of
the features of the poetry of western nations.
1. External or Formal Characteristics
(1) Vocabulary. There are several Hebrew words which occur most frequently and in some cases
exclusively in poetry. In the following list the corresponding prose word is put in parenthesis:
millah, “word” (= dabhar); enosh, “man” (= 'ish); orach, “way” (= derekh); chazah, “to see” (=
ra'ah); the prepositions ele, “to,” adhe, “unto,” ale, “upon,” and minni, “from,” instead of the
shorter forms el, adh, al, and min. The pronoun zu, rare in prose, has in poetry the double
function of a demonstrative and a relative pronoun in both genders. The negative bal, is used for
lo'. For the inseparable prepositions b, k, l (“in,” “as,” “to”) the separate forms bemo, kemo and
lemo are employed.
(2) Grammar. (a) Accidence: The pronominal suffixes have peculiar forms in poetry. For -m,
-am, -em (“their,” “them”) we find the longer forms -mo, -amo, -emo. For the plural ending of
nouns -n (-in) takes the place of -m (-im), as in Aramaic (see Job 4:2; 12:11), and frequently
obsolete case endings are preserved, but their functions are wholly lost. Thus, we have the old
nominative ending -o in Psalms 50:10, etc., the old genitive ending -i in Isaiah 1:21, and the
accusative -ah in Psalms 3:3. (b) Syntax: The article, relative pronoun, accusative singular 'eth
and also the “waw-consecutive” are frequently omitted for the sake of the rhythm. There are
several examples of the last in Psalms 112:10. The construct state which by rule immediately
precedes nouns has often a preposition after it. The jussive sometimes takes the place of the
indicative, and the plural of nouns occurs for the singular.
(3) Rhythm. Rhythm (from Greek rhuthmos) in literary composition denotes that recurrence of
accented and unaccented syllables in a regular order which we have in poetry and rhetorical
prose. Man is a rhythmic animal; he breathes rhythmically, and his blood circulates—outward
and inward—rhythmically. It may be due to these reflex rhythms that the more men are swayed
by feeling and the less by reflection and reasoning, the greater is the tendency to do things
rhythmically. Man walks and dances and sings and poetizes by the repetition of what
corresponds to metrical feet: action is followed by reaction. We meet with a kind of rhythm in
elevated and passionate prose, like that of John Ruskin and other writers. Preachers when
mastered by their theme unconsciously express themselves in what may be called rhythmic
sentences. Though, however, rhythm may be present in prose, it is only in poetry as in music that
it recurs at intervals more or less the same. In iambic poetry we get a repetition of a short and
long syllable, as in the following lines:
“With ravished ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the gods,
Affects the nods.”
—Dryden.
(4) Parallelism. What is so called is a case of logical rhythm as distinguished from rhythm that is
merely verbal. But as this forms so important a feature of Bible poetry, it must be somewhat
fully discussed. What since Bishop Lowth's day has been called parallelism may be described as
the recurring of symetrically constructed sentences, the several members of which usually
correspond to one another. Lowth (died 1787), in his epochmaking work on Hebrew poetry (De
Sacra poesi Hebraeorum prelectiones, English translation by G. Gregory), deals with what he
(following Jebb) calls Parallelismus membrorum (chapter X). And this was the first serious
attempt to expound the subject, though Rabbi Asariah (Middle Ages), Ibn Ezra (died 1167 AD),
D. Kimchi (died 1232) and A. de Rossi (1514-1578) called attention to it. Christian Schoettgen
(died 1751) (see Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae) anticipated much of what Lowth has written
as to the nature, function and value of parallelism. The first to use the word itself in the technical
sense was Jebb (Sacred Lit., 1820). For the same thing Ewald used the expression Sinnrhythmus,
i.e. sense rhythm, a not unsuitable designation.
(a) Kinds of Parallelism: Lowth distinguished three principal species of parallelism, which he
called synonymous, antithetic and synthetic.
(i) The Synonymous: In this the same thing is repeated in different words, e.g. Psalms 36:5:
“Yahweh, (i.) Thy lovingkindness (reaches) to the heavens,
(ii.) Thy faithfulness (reaches) to the clouds.'
Omitting “Yahweh,” which belongs alike to both members, it will be seen that the rest of the two
half-lines corresponds word for word: “thy lovingkindness” corresponding to “thy faithfulness,”
and “to the heavens” answering to “to the clouds” (compare Psalms 15:1; 24:1-3; 25:5; 1 Samuel
18:7; Isaiah 6:4; 13:7).
(ii) Antithetic Parallelism: In which the second member of a line (or verse) gives the obverse side
of the same thought, e.g. Proverbs 10:1:
“A wise son gladdens his father,
But a foolish son grieves his mother”
Compare Proverbs 11:3; Psalms 37:9; compare Proverbs 10:1; Psalms 20:8; 30:6; Isaiah 54:7).
Sometimes there are more than two corresponding elements in the two members of the verse, as
in Proverbs 29:27; compare 10:5; 16:9; 27:2.
(iii) Synthetic Parallelism: Called also constructive and epithetic. In this the second member adds
something fresh to the first, or else explains it, e.g. Psalms 19:8 f:
“The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart:
The commandments of Yahweh are pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever:
The judgments of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb”
(See Proverbs 1:7; compare 3:5,7; Psalms 1:3; 15:4). In addition to the three principal species of
parallelism noticed above, other forms have been traced and described.
(iv) Introverted Parallelism (Jebb, Sacred Lit., 53): in which the hemistichs of the parallel
members are chiastically arranged, as in the scheme ab ba. Thus, Proverbs 23:15 f:
(a) “My son, if thy heart be wise
(b) My heart shall be glad, even mine:
(b) Yea, my reins shall rejoice
(a) When thy lips speak right things”
(Compare Proverbs 10:4,12; 13:24; 21:17; Psalms 51:3).
(v) Palilogical Parallelism: In which one or more words of the first member are repeated as an
echo, or as the canon in music, in the second. Thus, Nahum 1:2:
“Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges:
Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath;
Yahweh takes vengeance upon His adversaries,
And He reserves wrath for his enemies”
(Compare Judges 5:3,6,11,15,23,27; Psalms 72:2,12,17; 121; 124; 126; Isa 2:7; 24:5; Hos 6:4).
(vi) Climactic or comprehensive parallelism: In this the second line completes the first. Thus
Psalm 29:1:
“Give unto Yahwe, O ye mighty ones,
Give unto Yahwe glory and strength”
(See Exodus 15:6, Psalm 29:8).
(vii) Rhythmical parallelism (De Wette, Franz Delitzsch): Thus Psalm 138:4:
“All the kings of the earth shall give thee thanks ...
For they have heard the words of thy mouth.”
(See Proverbs 15:3; 16:7,10; 17:13,15; 19:20; 21:23,25)
Perfect parallelism is that in which the number of words in each line is equal. When unequal, the
parallelism is called imperfect. Ewald (see Die poetischen Bücher des alten Bundes, I, 91ff, 2d
ed of the former) aimed at giving a complete list of the relations which can be expressed by
parallelism, and he thought he had succeeded. But in fact every kind of relation which can be
indicated in words may be expressed in two or more lines more or less parallel. On the alleged
parallelism of strophes see below.
(b) Parallelism as an aid to exegesis and textual criticism. If in Lowth's words parallelism implies
that “in two lines or members of the same period things for the most part shall answer to things,
and words to words,” we should expect obscure or unknown words to derive some light from
words corresponding to them in parallel members or clauses. In not a few cases we are enabled
by comparison of words to restore with considerable confidence an original reading now lost.
The formula is in a general way as follows: ab: cx. We know what a, b and c mean, but are
wholly in the dark as to the sense of x. The problem is to find out what x means. We have an
illustration in Judges 5:28, which may be thus literally translated:
“Through the window she looked,
And Sisera's mother x through the x.”
Here we have two unknown, each, however, corresponding to known terms. The Hebrew verb
accompanying “Sisera's mother” is watteyabbebh, English “and .... cried.” But no such verb
(yabhabh) is known, for the Talmud, as usually, follows the traditional interpretation. We want a
verb with a meaning similar to “looked.” If we read wattabbet, we have a form which could
easily be corrupted into the word in the Massoretic Text, which gives a suitable sense and
moreover has the support of the Targums of Onqelos and Jonathan, and even of the Septuagint
(Codex Alexandrinus and Lucian). What about the other Hebrew word untranslated above
('eshnabh)? This occurs in but one other passage (Proverbs 7:6), where it stands as in the present
passage in parallelism with challon, “window” (probably Proverbs 7:6 is dependent). We get no
help from etymology or in this case from the ancient versions, but parallelism had suggested to
our translators the meaning “lattice,” a kind of Eastern window, and something of the kind must
be meant. The verb shanabh, “to be cool,” may possibly suggest the rendering “window,” i.e. a
hole in the wall to secure coolness in the house. Glass windows did not exist in Palestine, and are
rare even now. There are innumerable other examples in the Old Testament of the use of
parallelism in elucidating words which occur but once, or which are otherwise difficult to
understand, and frequently a textual emendation is suggested which is otherwise supported.
(c) Prevalence and Value of Parallelism: Two statements anent parallelism in the Old Testament
may be safely made: (i) That it is not a characteristic of all Old Testament poetry. Lowth who
had so much to do with its discovery gave it naturally an exaggerated place in his scheme of
Hebrew poetry, but it is lacking in the largest part of the poetry of the Old Testament, and it is
frequently met with in elevated and rhetorical prose. (ii) That it pervades other poetry than that
of the Old Testament. It occurs in Assyria (see A. Jeremias, Die bab-assyr. Vorstellung vom
Leben nach dem Tode), in Egypt (Georg Ebers, Nord u. Süd, I), in Finnish, German and English.
Indeed, A. Wuttke (Der deutsche Volks-Aberglaube der Gegenwart, 1869, 157) and Eduard
Norden (Die antike Kunstprosa, 1898, II, 813) maintain that parallelism is the most primitive
form of the poetry of all nations. It must nevertheless be admitted that in the Old Testament
parallelism has in proportion a larger place than in any other literature and that the
correspondence of the parts of the stichs or verses is closer.
(5) Other Literary Devices. Old Testament poetry has additional features which it shares with
other oriental and with western poetry. Owing to a lack of space these can be hardly more than
enumerated.
(a) Alliteration: e.g. “Round and round the rugged rocks.” We have good examples in the
Hebrew of Psalms 6:8 and 27:17. (b) Assonance: e.g. “dreamy seamy” (see for Bible examples
the Hebrew of Genesis 49:17; Exodus 14:14; Deuteronomy 3:2). (c) Rhyme: There are so few
examples of this in the Hebrew Scriptures that no one can regard it as a feature in Hebrew
poetry, though in Arabic and even in post-Biblical Hebrew poetry it plays a great part. We have
Biblical instances in the Hebrew text of Genesis 4:23; Job 10:8-11; 16:12. (d) Acrostics: In some
poems of the Old Testament half-verses, verses, or groups of verses begin with the successive
letters of the Hebrew alphabet. We have such alphabetical acrostics in Psalms 9; 34; 37; Proverbs
31:10; Lamentations 1-4; compare Lamentations 5, where the number of verses agrees with that
of the Hebrew alphabet, though the letters of that alphabet do not introduce the verses.
(e) Meter: The view of the present writer may be stated as follows: That the poetry of the
Hebrew is not in the strict sense metrical, though the writers under the influence of strong
emotion express themselves rhythmically, producing often the phenomena which came later to
be codified under metrical rules. Thinking and reasoning and speaking preceded psychology,
logic, and grammar, and similarly poetry preceded prosody. In the Old Testament we are in the
region of the fact, not of the law. Poets wrote under strong impulse, usually religious, and
without recognizing any objective standard, though all the time they were supplying data for the
rules of prosody. Those who think that Old Testament poets had in their minds objective rules of
meter have to make innumerable changes in the text. Instead of basing their theory on the
original material, they bring their a priori theory and alter the text to suit it. It can be fearlessly
said that there is not a single poem in the Old Testament with the same number of syllables, or
feet, or accents in the several stichs or hemistichs, unless we introduce violent changes into the
Massoretic Text, such as would be resented in classical and other ancient literature. It is
important, before coming to any definite conclusion, to take into consideration the fact that the
poetry of the Old Testament belongs to periods separated by many centuries, from the Song of
Deborah (Judges 5), the earliest Hebrew poem, down to the last hymns in the Psalter. In the
oldest specimens of Hebrew poetry there is a naive simplicity which excludes the idea of
conscious art. In the latest the poet is much more conscious, and his poetry more artistic. It
would be manifestly unfair to propound a theory of poetry based on the poetry of Keats and
Tennyson and to apply it to the productions of Anglo-Saxon and Old English poetry. Bound up
in the one volume called the Bible there is a literature differing widely in age, aim and
authorship, and it needs care in educing a conception of Heb poetry that will apply to all the
examples in the Old Testament. The later psalm-acrostic, etc., many of them made up of bits of
other psalms, seem to have sprung from a more conscious effort at imitation. If, however, there
were among the ancient Hebrews, as there was among the ancient Greeks, a code of prosody, it is
strange that the Mishna and Gemara should be wholly silent about it. And if some one system
underlies our Hebrew Bible, it is strange that so many systems have been proposed. It should be
remembered too that the oldest poetry of every people is nonmetrical.
The following is a brief statement of the views advocated: (i) Philo and Josephus, under the
influence of Greek models and desiring to show that Hebrew was not inferior to pagan literature,
taught that Hebrew poetry had meter, but they make no attempt to show what kind of meter this
poetry possesses. (ii) Calmet, Lowth, and Carpzov held that though in the poetry of the Hebrew
Bible as originally written and read there must have been metrical rules which the authors were
conscious of following, yet, through the corruption of the text and our ignorance of the sounds
and accentuation of primitive Hebrew, it is now impossible to ascertain what these metrical rules
were. (iii) In their scheme of Hebrew meter Bickell and Merx reckon syllables as is done in
classical poetry, and they adopt the Syriac law of accentuation, placing the tone on the
penultimate. These writers make drastic changes in the text in order to bolster up their theories.
(iv) The dominant and by far the least objectionable theory is that advocated by Ley, Briggs,
Duhm, Buhl, Grimme, Sievers, Rothstein and most modern scholars, that in Hebrew prosody the
accented syllables were alone counted. If this principle is applied to Job, it will be found that
most of the Biblical verses are distichs having two stichs, each with three main accents. See, for
an illustration, Job 12:16: immo `oz wethushiyah : lo shoghegh umashgeh: “Strength and
effectual working belong to (literally, 'are with') him, he that errs and he that causes to err”.
Man's rhythmical instincts are quite sufficient to account for this phenomenon without assuming
that the poet had in mind an objective standard. Those who adopt this last view and apply it
rigidly make numerous textual changes. For an examination of the metrical systems of Hubert
Grimme, who takes account of quantity as well as accent, and of Eduard Sievers who, though no
Hebrew scholar, came to the conclusion after examining small parts of the Hebrew Bible that
Hebrew poetry is normally anapaestic, see W.H. Cobb, Criticism of Systems of Hebrew Metre,
152ff, 169ff. Herder, De Wette, Hupfeld, Keil, Nowack, Budde, Doller, and Toy reject all the
systems of Hebrew meter hitherto proposed, though Budde has a leaning toward Ley's system.
(f) Budde's Qinah Measure: Though Budde takes up in general a negative position in regard to
Hebrew meter, he pleads strenuously for the existence of one specific meter with which his name
is associated. This is what he calls the qinah measure (from qinah, “a lamentation”). In this each
stich is said to consist of one hemistich with three beats or stress syllables and another having
two such syllables, this being held to be the specific meter of the dirge (see Lamentations 1:1,
etc.). Ley and Briggs call it “pentameter” because it is made up of five (3 plus 2) feet (a foot in
Hebrew prosody being equal to an accented syllable and the unaccented syllables combined with
it). See Budde's full treatment of the subject in ZATW, 60, 152, “Das heb. Klagelied.” It must,
however, be borne in mind that even Herder (died 1803) describes the use in elegies of what he
calls, anticipating Ley and Briggs, the “pentameter” (see Geist der ebräischen Poesie, 1782, I,
32f, English translation, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1833, I, 40). But the present writer submits
the following criticisms: (i) Budde is inconsistent in rejecting all existing theories of meter and
yet in retaining one of his own, which is really but part of the system advocated by Bellermann,
Ley and Briggs. (ii) He says, following Herder, that it is the measure adopted by mourning
women (Jeremiah 9:16), but we have extremely few examples of the latter, and his statement
lacks proof. (iii) There are dirges in the Old Testament not expressed in the qinah measure.
David's lament over Saul and Jonathan is more hexametric and tetrametric than pentametric,
unless we proceed to make a new text (2 Samuel 1:19ff). (iv) The qinah measure is employed by
Hebrew poets where theme is joyous or indifferent; see Psalms 119, which is a didactic poem.
(6) Units of Hebrew Poetry. In western poetry the ultimate unit is usually the syllable, the foot
(consisting of at least two syllables) coming next. Then we have the verse-line crowned by the
stanza, and finally the poem. According to theory of Hebrew poetry adopted by the present
writer, the following are the units, beginning with the simplest:
(a) The Meter: This embraces the accented (tone) syllable together with the unaccented syllable
preceding or succeeding it. This may be called a “rhythmic foot.”
(b) The Stich or Verse: In Job and less regularly in Psalms and Canticles and in other parts of the
Old Testament (Numbers 23:19-24) the stich or verse consists commonly of three toned syllables
and therefore three meters (see above for sense of “meter”). It is important to distinguish
between this poetical sense of “verse” and the ordinary meaning—the subdivision of a Bible
chapter. The stich in this sense appears in a separate line in some old manuscripts.
(c) Combinations of Stichs (Verses): In Hebrew poetry a stich hardly ever stands alone. We have
practically always a distich (couplet, Job 18:5), a tristich (triplet, Numbers 6:24-26), a tetrastich
(Genesis 24:23), or the pentastich.
(d) Strophe: Kosters (Stud. Krit., 1831, 40-114, “Die Strophen,” etc.) maintained that all poems
in the Hebrew Scriptures are naturally divisible into strophes (stanzas) of similar, if not equal,
length. Thus Psalms 119 is arranged in strophes named after the letters of the Hebrew alphabet,
each one containing eight Scripture verses, or sixteen metrical verses or stichs, most of the stichs
having three meters or rhythmical feet. But though several Biblical poems are composed in
strophes, many are not.
(e) Song: This (shirah) is made up of a series of verses and in some cases of strophes.
(f) Poem: We have examples of this (shir) in the books of Job and Canticles which consist of a
combination of the song.
(7) Classification of Stichs or Verses. Stichs may be arranged as follows, according to the
number of meters (or feet) which they contain: (a) the trimeter or tripod with three meters or feet;
Bickell holds that in Job this measure is alone used; (b) the tetrameter or tetrapod, a stich with
four meters or feet; (c) the pentameter or pentapod, which has five meters or feet: this is Budde's
qinah measure (see III, 1, (4)); (d) the hexameter or hexapod: this consists of six meters or feet,
and is often hard to distinguish from two separate trimeters (or tripods).
2. Internal or Material Characteristics
Our first and most original authority on the internal characteristics of Hebrew poetry is that great
German theologian and man of letters, J.G. Herder, the pastor and friend of Goethe and Schiller
at Weimar. In his Vom Geist der ebräischen Poesie, 1782 (The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry,
translated by James Marsh, U.S.A., 1833), he discusses at length and with great freshness those
internal aspects of the poetry of the Old Testament (love of Nature, folklore, etc.) which
impressed him as a literary man. Reference may be made also to George Gilfillian's Bards of the
Bible, 1851 (popular), and Isaac Taylor's Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. It is a strange but striking and
significant coincidence that not one of these writers professed much if any knowledge of the
Hebrew language. They studied the poetry of the Old Testament mainly at least in translations,
and were not therefore diverted from the literary and logical aspects of what is written by the
minutiae of Hebrew grammar and textual criticism, though only a Hebrew scholar is able to enter
into full possession of the rich treasures of Hebrew poetry.
(1) Themes of Hebrew Poetry. It is commonly said that the poetry of the ancient Hebrews is
wholly religious. But this statement is not strictly correct. (a) The Old Testament does not
contain all the poetry composed or even written by the Hebrews in Bible times, but only such as
the priests at the various sanctuaries preserved. We do not know of a literary caste among the
Hebrews who concerned themselves with the preservation of the literature as such. (b) Within
the Bible Canon itself there are numerous poems or snatches of poems reflecting the everyday
life of the people. We have love songs (Canticles), a wedding song (Psalms 45), a harvest song
(Psalms 65), parts of ditties sung upon discovering a new well (Numbers 21:17), upon drinking
wine, and there are references to war songs (Numbers 21:14; Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18).
(2) Species of Hebrew Poetry. Biblical poetry may be subsumed under the following heads: (a)
folklore, (b) prophetical, (c) speculative, (d) lyrical.
(a) Folklore: “Poetry,” said J. G. Hamann (died 1788), “is the mother tongue of the human race.”
In both folk-music and folk-poetry, each the oldest of its class, the inspiration is immediate and
spontaneous. We have examples of folk-songs in Genesis 11:1-9; 19:24 f.
(b) Prophetic Poetry: This poetry is the expression of the inspiration under which the seer wrote.
One may compare the oracular utterances of diviners which are invariably poetical in form as
well as in matter. But one has to bear in mind that the heathen diviner claimed to have his
messages from jinns or other spirits, and the means he employed were as a rule omens of various
kinds. The Old Testament prophet professed to speak as he was immediately inspired by God
(see DIVINATION, VIII). Duhm thinks that the genuine prophecies of Jeremiah are wholly
poetical, the prose parts being interpolations. But the prophet is not merely or primarily a poet,
though it cannot be doubted that a very large proportion of the prophecies of the Old Testament
are poetical in form and substance.
(c) Philosophical Poetry: This expression is intended to include such poetry as is found in the
Wisdom literature of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha (see WISDOM LITERATURE). The so-
called didactic poetry, that of the proverbs or parables (mashal), also comes in here.
(d) Lyrical Poetry: This includes the hymns of the Psalter, the love songs of Canticles and the
many other lyrics found in the historical and prophetical writings. In these lyrics all the emotions
of the human soul are expressed.
Does the Old Testament contain specimens of epic and dramatic poetry? The answer must
depend on which definition of both is adopted.
(a) Epic Poetry: The present writer would define an epic poem as a novel with its plot and
development charged, however, with the passion and set out in the rhythmic form of poetry.
There is no part of the Old Testament which meets the requirements of this definition, certainly
not the Creation, Fall and Deluge stories, which De Wette (Beiträge, 228, Einleitung, 147) and
R.G. Moulton (Literary Study of the Bible, chapter ix) point to as true epics, and which Ewald
(Dichter des alten Bundes, I, 87) held rightly to have in them the stuff of epics, though not the
form.
(b) Dramatic Poetry: Defining dramatic poetry as that which can be acted on a stage, one may
with confidence say that there is no example of this in the Old Testament. Even the literary
drama must have the general characteristics of that which is actable. Franz Delitzsch and other
writers have pointed to Job and Canticles as dramatic poems, but the definition adopted above
excludes both.
IV. Poetical Writings of the Old Testament
1. The Poetical Books in the Narrow Sense. According to the Massoretes or editors of our
present Hebrew Bible, there are but three poetical books in the Old Testament, Job, Proverbs,
and Psalms, known in Jewish circles by the mnemonic abbreviation 'emeth, the three consonants
forming the initial letters of the Hebrew names of the above books. These three books have been
supplied by the Massoretes with a special system of accents known as the poetical accents, and
involving a method of intoning in the synagogue different from that followed when the prose
books are read. But these accentual marks cannot be traced farther back than the 7th or 8th
century of our era.
2. Customary Division of the Poetical Books: It is customary to divide the poetical books of the
Old Testament into two classes, each containing three books: (1) those containing lyrical poetry
(shir , or shirah), i.e. Psalms, Canticles, Lamentations; (2) those containing for the most part
didactic poetry (mashal), i.e. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.
3. Poetry in Non-poetical Books: There is a large amount of poetry in the Old Testament outside
the books usually classed as poetical: (a) poetry in the prophetical books (see above, III, 2); (b)
poetry in the historical books including the Pentateuch (see Michael Heilprin, The Historical
Poetry of the Hebrews, 2 volumes, 1879-80). We have examples in Genesis 4:23f; 49; Exodus
15; Numbers 21:14,27-30 (JE); Numbers 23 f (Balaam's songs); Deuteronomy 32 f (song and
blessing of Moses); Joshua 10:12-14 (JE); Judges 5 (Deborah's Song); 9:8-15; 1 Samuel 2:1-10;
2 Samuel 1; 3:33f; 2 Samuel 23 (= Psalm 18), etc.
LITERATURE. The most important books and articles on the subject have been mentioned
during the course of the foregoing article. There is a full list of works dealing with Hebrew meter
in W.H. Cobb, Criticism of Systems of Hebrew Metre, 19 ff. The first edition of Ewald's still
valuable “Essay on Hebrew Poetry” prefixed to his commentary on the Psalms was published in
English in the Journal of Sacred Literature (1848), 74 ff, 295 ff. In 1909 J.W. Rothstein issued a
suggestive treatise on Hebrew rhythm (Grundzüge des heb. Rhythmus ... nebst lyrischen Texten
mit kritischem Kommentar), reviewed by the present writer in Review of Theology and
Philosophy (Edinburgh), October, 1911. Early Religious Poetry of the Hebrews by E.G. King
(Cambridge University Press) contains a good, brief, popular statement of the subject, though it
makes no pretense to originality. In The Poets of the Old Testament, 1912, Professor A.R.
Gordon gives an excellent popular account of the poetry and poetical literature of the Old
Testament.
Notes
1. Davies is referring to the English edition of Carl Friedrich Keil’s Einleitung published as
Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, vol.
1, in which Keil writes: “The remaining species of poetry among other nations—namely, the epic
and the dramatic—remained foreign to the ancient Hebrews. For the cultivation of the epic there
was wanting not only, first, the material demanded by it, since divine revelation knows of no
mythology, no legends of gods and heroes: but also, secondly, an essential condition, an
absolutely free attitude towards religion, which would secure to the poet's fancy the wished-for
room to play, in order to treat in an epic of the great doings of God in the history of Israel; since
the holy and ethical earnestness of the divine law excluded beforehand every transformation of
the facts of revelation for the purposes of epic poetry.” —M.D.M.
[Link] Kamis, 22 Maret 2012; 13.35 WIT
