its balance, theoretical and practical are harmonised. The principle underlying the All-an All which takes in past, present, and future has again become Wisdom, and is again contemplated with rapture; detailed maxims of practical life have disappeared, except so far as they are items in a universal system. But this final achievement of philosophic reflection has been brought about by drawing within the field of thought something which has not been obtained from philosophy: it is the tacit assumption of a future world that has reversed the conclusions of Ecclesiastes. And when this final stage of Wisdom literature has been reached, the conception of Wisdom' itself has become so deep and so many-sided that it would be impossible to discuss it without trenching upon the deepest mysteries of Theology.

XV. FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE DOOM SONG 353

XVI. FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE: THE RHAPSODY. 364 XVII. THE RHAPSODY OF Zion Redeemed' [Isa. xl-lxvi] . 395

XVIII. THe Works of THE PROPHETS .

417

CHAPTER XIV

FORMS OF PROPHETIC LITERATURE

Prophecy as a department of

literature

WE commence in this chapter another of the grand departments of Biblical literature; and our first difficulty is its name Prophecy. By one of those silent changes in the signification of words, which are brought about by the wear and tear of ordinary speech, this word 'Prophecy' has, for about a century, narrowed itself, in common parlance, to the sense of 'prediction'; and there are many readers of the Bible to whom the term suggests nothing more than the foretelling of the future. It is, of course, true that the Hebrew prophets dealt with the future, as they dealt with the present and the past. But the reference to future time is not the sole, nor even the chief, function of the literature we are about to survey. The pro- in prophecy is not the pro- that means 'before' but the pro- that means 'forth': Prophecy is a forth-pouring or outpouring of discourse. That such out-pouring of discourse belongs, not only to the thing described, but also to the signification of the English word, is powerfully illustrated by the fact that a father of the Anglican Church and great master of English prose, writing in the seventeenth century a work in which he was to plead for the freedom of the English pulpit, gave to it the title: 'Liberty of Prophesying.' The true distinction of this department of Biblical literature lies in its presenting itself as the channel of an immediate Divine message: "Thus saith the Lord" is con- Forms of Protained explicitly or implicitly in every utterance of phetic Literature the prophets. The essence of Prophecy then belongs to its spirit

and matter what more of description is needed will be given by distinguishing the various forms in which the prophetic matter can be conveyed.

The Prophetic
Discourse

The simplest form of Prophecy, and the form of most frequent occurrence, is the Prophetic Discourse: counterpart to the modern Sermon. The Divine message essential to Prophecy is not to be understood as the Discourse itself, but rather, in theory at least, as the subject or text of the Discourse, which all the rest is to explain or enforce. In this connection it is important to note a word which even in the Bible itself seems to be used as a technical term : - the word translated Burden,' in the titles to chapters of Prophecy, and in the text itself.' It would appear that this was understood of the actual Divine message, though the term was abused by false prophets as a name under which to clothe their own imaginings.

(The word 'Burden ')

Jeremiah Behold, I am against them that prophesy lying dreams, saith the xxiii. 32 LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; neither shall they profit this people at all, saith the Lord. And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the LORD? then shalt thou say unto them, What burden! I will cast you off, saith the LORD. And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the LORD, I will even punish that man and his house. Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the LORD answered? and, What hath the LORD spoken? And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's own word is his burden, and ye pervert the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.

In the Prophetic Discourses as they have reached us, however, the text and recommendatory matter seem fused together without distinction. Such merging of a Divine message in the exhortations enforcing it may be illustrated from that which is the prototype

1 The word substituted by R. V. (in titles, but not in the text) is 'Oracles': this explains the usage by a parallel term in secular literatures.