tions the pain felt by the pious on account of the merited divine judgment (2).

(1) According to 1 Kings v. 12, Solomon spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five; of which, however, only the smallest part has been preserved by being taken into the Canon; not so much because the rest were not decidedly valuable, or were of a worldly nature, and so were esteemed unsuitable for preservation by the sound taste of the people (Hengstb.), as because they had so much individual character, that they did not profess to edify the Church, or to be of service for divine worship. Compare Keil in Häv. Einl. iii. p. 12 f. For the wisdom of Solomon, see 1 Kings v. 9-14, x. 1-9; and for its influence on science, poetry, and the habits of composition, see Ewald's Gesch. iii. p. 354 ff., where, however, his imaginary "Buch der Ursprünge" is worthless as a proof of the high cultivation of authorship in the age of Solomon.

(2) Compare Häv. Einl. iii. p. 14 ff. Ewald's opinion (Gesch. iii. p. 479 ff., 653 ff.) deviates from this: it is that the stream of song in the times of the two kingdoms continued as mighty, and its force and freshness as inexhaustible, as under David and Solomon. But he rests it wholly on subjective conjectures, which contradict the true course of history, confirmed as this history is by the titles of the Psalms.

There is an allusion in Amos vi. 5 to a popular profane poetry which imitated the songs of David; and the song of the harlot, Isa. xxiii. 16, presents an interesting fragment of this literature.

As affairs became disordered towards the end of Solomon's reign, and as the true religious life went more and more to decay, prophecy rose continually in importance: the prophets are themselves more numerous, and they also appear to have their minds furnished with a larger portion of divine power, so as to lead back the apostate people to their God and salvation. For this purpose they make their announcements no longer in brief utterances, but in extended prophecies, impressive in their subject-matter, and in their form rhetorically finished. In these they apply law and promise to the past, the present, and the future of the theocracy; and they refer to the commandments and judgments, the testimonies and decrees of the Lord, with two objects in view. On the one hand, they throw the light of the law upon the defects, and sins, and sufferings which prevail at every time; and they foretell the judgments which are to

burst, at present and in the future, upon the people and the kingdom, upon the city and the country; so as to lead the godless to repentance, and to preserve the upright from falling away. On the other hand, they unveil the ultimate design of the theocracy, when, after purification by these judgments, days of glory should dawn by the mission of Messiah to redeem Israel from their sins, to be Mediator of a new and everlasting covenant of grace, and to bring the knowledge of the Lord to all nations; so as to open up to the believing people an inexhaustible spring of divine consolation in reference to the severe oppressions which should continue until the dissolution of the old theocracy, and to prepare them through faith and hope for the appearance of Jesus Christ.

The literature of these prophecies, in which the spiritual life of the theocracy during this period discloses its divine origin and its ripest fruits, begins with the ninth century; and in respect of copiousness and sublimity of ideas, not less than of rhetorical perfection, it attains its climax in Isaiah, during the Assyrian period. Afterwards it loses nothing in respect of importance, although it certainly does lose in oratorical skill. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, just before the exile and in the course of it, exhibit undiminished force of mind and fulness of matter; nay, the visions of Daniel unveil and exhibit the course of the development of the kingdom of God, and its victory over all the kingdoms of the world, with a clearness and expression that are previously unknown (3).

(3) The proof of these general statements will appear in Section ii., Division ii. The false prophets, who were ever opposing the true prophets whom God had sent and enlightened with His Spirit, did not commit to writing any of the prophecies which they invented, and with which they ensnared and seduced the people.

Along with their prophecies, designed not only for the time in which they lived, but also and chiefly for the future, of which the quintessence is comprised and preserved in the prophetical books of the Old Testament, the prophets during this period took unceasing charge of writing history in a theocratic spirit, considering this to be an important task assigned to them by their calling. Prophetic writings appeared in reference to the reigns of most of the kings;

in which (after the way and manner of the historical sections in Isaiah, ch. xxxvi.-xxxix., and in Jeremiah, ch. xl.-xlv.) the narratives of the weightiest occurrences were united with the prophetic utterances which they called forth, in such a way that sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominated (4). Individual prophets also composed separate historical works upon individual reigns, in which the history was undoubtedly represented from a prophetic point of view (5). Besides, the kings had chancellors (2, 2 Sam. viii. 16, 1 Kings iv. 3, 2 Kings xviii. 18, 37, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 8, Isa. xxxvi. 3, 22) ["recorder," English Version], who recorded their principal undertakings, the most memorable events of their reign for the archives of the state; and who are often considered state-historians, though this is hardly correct. Out of these contemporary records, historical and prophetic, the general "Chronicles of the kingdoms" (6) were subsequently elaborated, probably also by prophets; and the canonical books of Kings and Chronicles are merely brief extracts from these works, confined to matters essential or of chief importance for later ages.

(4) As such there are quoted in Chronicles, 7, "the words of Samuel the seer," "of Gad the seer" (1 Chron. xxix. 29), " of Nathan the prophet" (1. Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29), "of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer" (2 Chron. xii. 15), "of Jehu the son of Hanani" (2 Chron. xx. 34), "of Hosai" (2 Chron. xxxiii. 19 [margin]); 3, "the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite;" ni," the vision of Jehdi [Iddo, Eng. ver.] the seer" (2 Chron. ix. 29); i, "the vision of Isaiah the prophet" (2 Chron. xxxii. 32). Compare Kleinert, Echth. des Jesaj. p. 80 ff.

(5) The prophet Iddo wrote a Midrash ["commentary," margin Eng. ver.] upon the reign of Abijam (2 Chron. xiii. 22); Isaiah wrote in full the history of Uzziah (2 Chron. xxvi. 22).

(6) The "annuals" [chronicles, Eng. ver.] of king David (1 Chron. xxvii. 24), the "book of the acts" of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41), the book of "the chronicles" of the kings of Judah (1 Kings xiv. 29, xv. 7, 23, xxii. 46; 2 Kings viii. 23, xii. 20, etc.) and of the kings of Israel (1 Kings xiv. 19, xv. 31, xvi. 5, 14, 20, 27, xxii. 39; 2 Kings i. 18, x. 34, etc.), or "book of the kings" of Judah and Israel (2 Chron. xvi. 11, xx. 34, xxv. 26, xxvii. 7, xxviii. 26, xxxii. 32, xxxiii. 18, xxxv. 27, xxxvi. 8). Compare Keil on Kings, p. xx., xxiv. f.

§ 8. Decay and Termination of the Hebrew Literature after the Exile. After the return from exile, the spiritual activity of the people was concentrated on the restoration of the temple-worship, and the collection of the more ancient productions of the national mind. Prophecy, indeed, raised its voice anew, but only with the following objects in view: 1st, and most directly, to rebuke the people on account of their ingratitude for the Lord's grace, and to spur them on to zeal in rebuilding the temple. 2d, To give them a pledge of the certain fulfilment of the divine promises, by more thoroughly unveiling Messiah's salvation; and to discover to those who murmured on account of the delay in its dawning, that the hidden cause of this was the unbelief of their sinful hearts, and their estrangement from God. 3d, To foretell the severe purifying judgments which still awaited the old theocracy, and to bring to a close the mission of the prophets to Israel, by the announcement of Messiah's forerunner, and of His own appearing for the judgment of all the ungodly.

Poetry also endeavoured to give utterance to the praise of God in numerous temple-songs, which, however, confined themselves to forms which had long been familiar; and it became extinct in a short time, when the last great occasion for singing a new song to the Lord was past and gone, after Nehemiah had fully rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Aphoristic poetry made an effort to tread a new path in the philosophizing book of Ecclesiastes [see in Section ii., Division iii., the author's views on this book, and remarks in opposition to them]; but it exhausted all its thoughts in reflections upon the vanity of all earthly possessions and exertions, and it almost sinks to feeble prose in the laborious effort to produce new forms of speech.

Finally, the prophetic spirit entirely disappeared from history. In addition to the records in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah of the weightiest events connected with the new colonization of Jerusalem, and the picture in the book of Esther of the deliverance from Haman's murderous assault to which the Jews who remained behind in the interior of the Persian empire were exposed, we have only extracts (important for the priesthood and for matters of worship) from the old state annals, and from various older prophetico

historical writings, delivered to us in the books of Chronicles by Ezra the scribe.

About B.C. 400 the Hebrew canonical literature came to an end. Anything written later in Hebrew, like Sirach's collection of Proverbs and the history of the Maccabees, is only a feeble imitation of these more ancient canonical models, and remains far inferior to them. With Malachi the spirit of the ancient prophets passed away from Israel (1 Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41). Consequently, not even the political exaltation of the better part of the nation under the Maccabees could restore life to their literature, and enable it to throw out new shoots: the utmost which the spiritual life of this time could do, was to extract nourishment and edification from the ancient writings which had been penetrated by the breath of the Spirit of God (1).

(1) Hitzig, C. v. Lengerke, and others, maintain very confidently that psalmody soared aloft once more in the Maccabean age. There is no historical foundation whatever for this assertion, either in the spiritual character of that period or in our Psalter. Compare Keil in Häv. Einl. iii. p. 17 ff.

CHAPTER II.

THE LANGUAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

§ 9. Name and Origin.

Ernest Renan, histoire générale et système comparé des langues Sémitiques. Première partie, Paris 1855 [3d ed. 1863].

All the books of the Old Testament are written in Hebrew, except some portions of Daniel and Ezra in Chaldee (1). The Hebrew language takes its name from Abraham's descendants, the Israelites, who are ethnographically called Hebrews (2), and who spoke this language while they were an independent people. In the Old Testament it is poetically called the language of Canaan, and also the Jews' language, from the kingdom of Judah (3). It was very nearly akin to that of the Canaanites, the more ancient inhabitants of Palestine; yet it was not borrowed from the Canaanites,