Hebrew Poetry

HEBREW POETRY. - Among the protocanonical books of the Old Testament, the following are entirely composed in poetic form: Job (except 1-2 and 42:7-16), Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations; among the deuterocanonical books: Wisdom, Sirach. Many parts of the Prophets are also poetic; poetic compositions are likewise inserted in the historical books. Some rare fragments (Gen. 4:23-24; Num. 21:27-28; I Sam. 1:18-27) testify that poetry on profane subjects was not unknown to the Hebrews.

The fundamental character of Hebrew poetry (and of Semitic poetry in general) is the repetition of an idea in two or three clauses or stichs, which form a verse (though some hold that each stich already constitutes a verse in itself). This phenomenon, brought to light by A. S. Mazzocchi, was shortly afterward called "parallelism" by R. Lowth.

There are three kinds of it: a) synonymous: the same idea is repeated with equivalent terms, usually gaining from this greater clarity or fullness ("Blessed is the man who does not follow the counsel of the wicked / and does not stand in the way of sinners / and does not sit in the assembly of scoffers" [Ps. 1:1]; a notable [example of it is found in Ps. 113 [114]:1-8]); b) antithetic: the second member opposes the contrary idea to the first, thus giving it greater prominence; it is effective in the didactic genre ("A wise son gladdens his father / and a foolish son is the affliction of his mother. The treasures of wickedness shall come to nothing / but righteousness shall deliver from death" [Prov. 10:1-2]); c) synthetic: the second member completes and develops the first ("Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his children / and on the day of his prayer he will be heard. Whoever honors his father will live a longer life / whoever obeys his father will give consolation to his mother [Sir. 3:6-7]). Naturally, the three forms are often found united and fused, giving greater variety to the wording.

St. Jerome speaks of Hebrew metrics with terms proper to classical metrics: he names hexameters, pentameters, trimeters, iambs, spondees, Sapphic and Alcaic meters; and he cites in his support Philo, Flavius Josephus, Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea (Introd. in Iob). Some, with G. Bickell, compared Hebrew metrics with Syriac metrics (trochaic or iambic syllabic verses). Others reconstructed in various ways a metrics based on accents. Perhaps even the opinion of St. Jerome should be interpreted not in a strict sense, but by counting only the arses (or accents), without taking into account the varying length of the theses (one or more syllables). Thus, for example, in the Psalms the rhythms of 3+3, 3+4, 4+3, 4+4 arses seem to dominate. In the qināh (elegiac) genre the rhythm of 3+2 arses dominates. These rhythms are very constant, so that, where extraordinary anomalies of rhythm are encountered, it is legitimate to doubt the integrity of the text.

Those who consider the stichs as verses also consider distichs and tristichs as strophes. Apart from this, a strophic structure is often noted in Hebrew poetry, founded principally on the sense, but often indicated by certain signs: a refrain, as in Ps. 42-43 (Vulg. 41-42) and in Is. 9:7-10:4; selāh (a word of uncertain interpretation, intercalated between strophe and strophe); ideas or terms repeated in a different way, which D. H. Müller called responsio (if the repetition is found in the same place in several strophes, as in Ez. 14:13-20), concatenatio (if the ending of one strophe is taken up at the beginning of the next), inclusio (if the repetition concerns the beginning and the end of the same strophe). On the basis of the strophic structure there are certain choral compositions, such as Ps. 117 (118).

Besides assonances, which are quite frequent, an artifice dear to Hebrew poets is the alphabetic acrostic, which sometimes, as in Ps. 9-10 and 119, can help to determine the strophic structure. In Mesopotamian poetry there corresponds to it the acrostic verse, in which the initial syllable of each verse composes a title or a phrase of complete sense.

The Hebrews knew only two genres of poetry: the lyric and the didactic (to which the prophetic genre, added by some, is reduced). To the first belong various species, and some have wished to see an indication of them in the various names prefixed to the Psalms (šir, mizmār, mašklī, miḥštām, šiggājōn) of uncertain interpretation. Outside the Psalms the name qināh is found to indicate "lamentation" or elegy. The general name given to didactic compositions is māšāl, similitude, proverb. Sometimes the doctrine is proposed in an obscure and enigmatic form (ḥidhāh "enigma," or mēlīšāh "problem").

The language of the Hebrew poets is naturally more elevated and refined than that of the prose writers. Unusual forms and uncommon words are frequent; synonymies, assonances and above all figurative modes and locutions abound. The figures are drawn from nature: animals, plants, stones, metals, etc.; from daily life: agriculture, commerce, shepherding, navigation, military life, and above all from the political and religious history of Israel. This last characteristic is what most sets Hebrew poetry apart from that of neighboring peoples. If in the parallelism, in the use of certain common forms and patterns, it is legitimate to see the influence of other literatures (especially Babylonian, Phoenician of Rāa Śamrah, Egyptian, etc.), the very high religious and moral content, the beauty and variety of expression and of sentiments, and the truly exquisite craftsmanship confer on Hebrew poetry a primacy and an undeniable originality.

Giorgio Castellino