All ancient Hebrew poetry was in rhythmical prose; prophecies, elegies, songs, hymns, parables, and dialogues. The irregular rhythmical form was a natural outflow of the ecstatic element.
But what about the parallelism? Does this make the Bible verse? Bishop Lowth, in his Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, delivered at Oxford in the middle of the eighteenth century, no doubt performed great service in calling attention to the parallelisms of Hebrew poetry. The importance of these in ancient Hebrew poetry has, however, been overestimated. Parallelism did not create poetry, but was often its garment. There are passages employing parallelisms that are not
poetry, while many poems exist in which these are not used. Dr. Edward König, in his article on Hebrew Poetry in the Jewish Encyclopedia, concludes that the poets of the Bible were not bound by parallelism, often setting it aside and not using it.
In his account of The Literary Study of the Bible, Professor Richard G. Moulton has given an excellent study of the parallelism of the Bible, but he admits that parallelisms of clause are also prose devices. If parallelism, then, is also a property of prose, we cannot say that parallelism alone is sufficient to distinguish poetry from prose, or even Hebrew poetry from Hebrew prose. Moulton finds that prose and poetry overlap each other in the Bible. All this merely proves that parallelisms were no doubt anciently used to differentiate prose literature conveying emotions from prose literature barren of feeling. But parallelism was not indispensable to the literature of ecstasy.
Yet we cannot deny the fact that parallelisms occur in the Bible with such frequency as almost to have become a pattern of Hebrew poetry. Bishop Lowth thought the origin of the parallelism was due to the system of chanting hymns where there was a response by the congregation, and that the practice of the parallelism soon extended to all poetry. But, for example, proverbs from their very epigrammatic nature tend towards parallelism. The origin was most likely due to the variations of phrase introduced by individuals who tired of the incessant, silly repetition of similar words such as are indulged in by savages.
There is parallelism in all poetry, in Beowulf and the Kalevala, and even in prose. For it must be admitted that under emotion a man tends to repeat an idea, in the same or in a synonymous language.
There can be no doubt that parallelism was consciously and deliberately indulged in by the Hebrew poets, but it is as absurd to confuse it with Hebrew poetry as to confuse metre with English poetry. There are poetical passages in the Bible containing no parallelisms. It should also be borne in mind that parallelism developed as a perfect pattern when poetry was at a high stage. Like all patterns it was a product of a type of civilization. No rude state of society can develop a pattern, which is the result of evolution.
Parallelism is not used frequently to-day as a pattern of verse, though it can be found in all modern literature. Yet it is a more natural means of expressing one's emotions than rhyme or metre.
The only pattern of importance, then, that appears extensively in the Bible is that of parallelism. There is no pattern of rhythm at all, for this is free. The result is that the poetry of the Bible is in what may be called prose, for the repetition of the idea and language in the parallelism is natural even in prose. Parallelism in the Bible did not create a distinct branch of literature called verse, as metre did. Those Psalms that have parallelism are very little different from those Psalms where it is absent. They are both really prose.
It was unfortunate that Hebrew poetry later eschewed the rhythmic prose used in the Bible and adopted first rhymed prose and then rhymed metre. There were several circumstances that led to this.