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lexicographers give any satisfactory account of the word in this sense; which however they are forced to admit from the necessity of the case. "Rectè verto vocem, perinde ac Пn, v. 18. transactionem, licet neutra hac significatione alibi occurrat: circumstantia enim orationis eam necessariò exigit;" says the learned Vitringa upon the place. It could not otherwise have been known that the word had this meaning: it is the parallelism alone that determines it to this meaning; and that so clearly, that no doubt at all remains concerning the sense of the passage. Again:

But

"And your covenant with death shall be broken."

means to cover, to cover sin, and so to expiate, &c. and is never used in the sense of breaking or dissolving a covenant, though that notion so often occurs in the Scriptures; nor can it be forced into this sense, but by a great deal of far-fetched reasoning. Besides, it ought to be 5, or 5, in the feminine form, to agree with . So that the word, as it stands, makes neither grammar nor sense. There is great reason therefore to suspect some mistake in our present copy. The true reading is probably, differing by one letter. So conjectured Houbigant; and so Archbishop Secker: and I find their conjecture confirmed by the Chaldee paraphrast, who renders it by, the word which he generally uses in rendering this common phrase ' . And this reading is still further confirmed by the parallelism;, shall be broken, in the first line, is parallel and synonymous to p♫ x, shall not stand, in the second.

10.

The very same phrases are parallel and synonymous, Isa. viii.

"Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought, ;
Speak the word, and it shall not stand,"

I shall add one example more; and that of a reading suggested by the parallelism, and destitute of all authority of MSS or ancient versions.

"But mine enemies living are numerous;

And they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied."

Psal. xxxviii. 19.

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The word ", living, seems not to belong to this place; besides that the construction of it in the Hebrew is very unusual and inelegant. The true reading in all probability is, without cause; parallel and synonymous to p, wrongfully, in the next line, (as in Psal. xxxv. 19.); which completes the parallelism through both lines. Let the reader compare Psal. lxix. 5. where the very same three terms in each line are set

parallel to one another, just in the same manner as I suppos they must have been originally here. Which place likewise furnishes another example in the same kind: for a fourth term being there introduced in each line, the fourth term in the last line has been corrupted by the small mistake of inserting a in the middle of it. It has been well restored by a conjecture of the learned and ingenious Bishop Hare.

"They that hate me without cause are multiplied beyond the hairs of my head;

They that are mine enemies wrongfully are more numerous than the hairs of my locks."

For, who destroy me, read 'npy, more than my locks, parallel to more than the hairs of my head, in the The Bishop's conjecture is since confirmed by seven

first line. MSS.

Thus two inveterate mistakes, which have disgraced the text above two thousand years, (for they are prior to the version of the Seventy), are happily corrected, and that, I think, beyond a doubt, by the parallelism supported by the example of similar passages.

RABBI AZARIAS,* a learned Jew of the 16th century, has treated of the ancient Hebrew versification upon principles similar to those above proposed, and partly coincident with them: he makes the form of the verse to depend on the structure of the sentence, and the measures in every verse to be determined by the several parts of the proposition. As he is the only one of the Jewish writers, who appears to have had any just idea at all of this matter; as his system seems to be well founded; and as his observations may be of use on the present occasion, both by giving some degree of authority to the hypothesis above explained, and by setting the subject in a light somewhat different, I shall here give the reader at large his opinion upon

it.

This author, in a large work entitled Meor Enajim, (that is, The light of the Eyes), containing a great variety of matter, historical, critical, and philosophical, takes occasion to treat of the Hebrew poetry in a separate chapter; of which the younger Buxtorf has given a Latin translation.†

* R. Azarias Min Haadumim, i. e. de Rubeis, or Rossi, of Ferrara, finished his treatise entitled Meor Enajim. A. D. 1573, and published it at Mantua, the place of his birth, 1574. Wolfii Biblioth. Hebræa, vol. i. p. 944.

Mantissa Dissertationum, p. 415, at the end his edition of Cosri. Suspecting, from some obscurities, that Buxtorf's translation was not very accurate, I procured the original edition; and, having carefully examined it, I have corrected from it this account of the author's sentiments.

"Azarias finding little satisfaction in what former writers had said upon the subject; whether those who make the Hebrew verse consist of a certain number of syllables and certain feet, like that of the Greeks and Latins; or those who exclude all metre, and make the harmony of their verse to arise from accents, tones, and musical modulations; which latter opinion he thinks agreeable to truth;-and having consulted the most learned of his nation without being able to obtain any solution of his difficulties; for they allowed that there was a sensible difference between the songs and the other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures when they were read; a kind of metrical sweetness in the former, which the latter had not; but whence that difference arose no one could explain ;—in this state of uncertainty, he long considered the matter, endeavouring to obtain some satisfaction in his inquiries. He at last came to the following determination upon it:-That the sacred songs have undoubtedly certain measures and proportions; which, however, do not consist in the number of syllables, perfect or imperfect, according to the form of the modern verse which the Jews make use of, and which is borrowed from the Arabians; (though the Arabic prosody, he observes, is too complicated to be applied to the Hebrew language); but in the number of things and of the parts of things-that is, the subject, and the predicate, and their adjuncts, in every sentence and proposition. Thus a phrase, containing two parts of a proposition, consists of two measures; add another containing two more, and they become four measures: another again, containing three parts of a proposition, consists of three measures; add to it another of the like, and you have six measures.

"For example; in the song of Moses, "Thy-right-hand, OJehovah," is a phrase consisting of two terms, or parts of a proposition; to which is connected, "is-glorious in-power," consisting likewise of two terms: these joined together make four measures, or a tetrameter: Thy-right-hand, O-Jehovah," repeated, makes two more; "hath-crushed the-enemy," two more; which together make four measures, or a second tetrameter. So likewise,

66

"The-enemy said; I-will-pursue, I-will-overtake;

I-will-divide the-spoil; my-lust shall-be-satisfied-upon-them;
I-will-draw my-sword; my-hand shall-destroy-them;

Thou-didst-blow with-thy-wind; the-sea covered-them."

"The Song of Deuteronomy consists of propositions of three parts, or three measures; which, doubled in the same manner, make six, or hexameters: thus,

"Hearken, O-heavens, and-I-will-speak; and-let-the-earth hear the-words-of

my-mouth:*

My-doctrine shall-drop, as-the-rain; my-word shall-distil, as-the-dew."

"Sometimes in the same period, much more in the same song, these two kinds meet together, according to the divine impulse moving the prophet, and as the variety suited his design, and the nature of the subject. For example,—

"And-by-the-blast of-thy-nostrils, the-waters were-compressed:"

These are each two measures, which together make a tetrameter: it follows,

"The-floods stood-upright, as-in-a-heap:

The-deeps were-congealed in-the-heart-of-the-sea:"+

These are two trimeters, which make an hexameter. So the Song of the Well begins with trimeters; to which are afterwards subjoined dimeters. So in the prayer of Habakkuk the verses are trimeters :

"God came from-Teman;

And-the-Holy-One from-the-mount-of-Paran & Selah.
His-glory covered the-heavens;
And-his-splendour filled the-earth."

"The author proceeds to observe, that in some verses certain words occur which make no part of the measures, or are not taken into the account of the verse; as in the Song of Deuteronomy:

"And-he-said,

I-will-hide my-face from-them:"

*Two words joined together by maccaph are considered as a single word, according to the laws of punctuation; so one word.

.one word בלב-ים +

The Song of the Well, Numb. xxi. 17, 18. according to our way of fixing the conclusion of it, and if we measure it by Azarias's rules, consists of three trimeters and one dimeter only. But the Targum of Onkelos continues the song to the end of the 20th verse, taking in the catalogue of stations, (as we understand it), which immediately follows, as part of the song; and interpreting it as such. Azarias follows his authority: so Aben Tybbon, (see Cosri, p. 431.), and Iarchi upon the place. At this rate we shall have half a dozen dime

ters more.

(from-the-mount-of-Paran), being joined by maccaph, and so making but one word, the author is obliged to take in Selah as part of the verse, to make out his third term or measure. The authority of the Masoretic maccaph has led him into an error. The verse without Selah is a trimeter; as it ought to be in conformity with the rest.

The word, "And-he-said," stands by itself,*—and the remaining words make a trimeter :

"I-will-see, what-is their-latter-end."

is the trimeter answering to it. So in the prayer of Habakkuk:

"O-Jehovah,

1-have-heard thy-speech; 1-was-afraid;

O-Jehovah,

Revive thy-work in-the-midst-of-the years:"+

The word, "O-Jehovah," is twice to be read separate; and the words added to it make a trimeter. But this verse,

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"Though the-fig-tree shall-not blossom,"

is of a different sort, consisting of the subject and predicate: Though the fig-tree," being the subject; "shall not blossom," the predicate. So in a verse containing twelve terms, those terms may be reduced to six measures. For you are not to reckon either the syllables or the words, but only the things. And for this reason a particle is often joined to the word next to it. The verses of the Psalms observe the same order :

"Have-mercy-upon-me, O-God, according-to-thy-goodness;

According-to-the-multitude-of-thy-mercies, blot-out my-transgressions."

So far the observation seems to be just; and perhaps there may be two more examples of it in the same poem, ver. 26. and 37.; where, according to Azarias's doctrine, the words, I said, And he shall say, may conveniently enough be considered as making no part of the verse. So in Isaiah, the common forms, Thus saith Jehovah, And it shall come to pass in that day, and the like, probably are not always to be reckoned as making part of the measure. The period in the 4th Lamentation cannot well be divided into two lines, as it ought to be; but if the words, they cried unto them, and they said among the heathen, are excluded from the measure, the remainder will make two lines of just length:

"Depart, ye are polluted, depart; depart ye, forbear to touch:

Yea, they are fled, they are removed; they shall dwell here no more."

Or perhaps they may be two marginal interpretations, which by mistake have got into the text; which, I think, is better without them. So likewise, Lam. ii. 15. the word, of-which-they-said, either does not reckon in the verse, which with it is too long; or, as I rather think, should be omitted as an interpolation.

In order to make out the trimeter, it is necessary to suppose that Azarias

.as one word בקרב שנים reads

Azarias takes the liberty of joining the two words

together

by a maccaph, which is not to be found in our editions, in order to bring the verse within his rules. The reader will observe, that this distich, which in the Hebrew contains but seven words, cannot be rendered in English in less than one-and-twenty words. By this he will judge under what great advantage

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