The Book of Joshua, classed with the Pentateuch (the Torah, or Law) under the name of Hexateuch, covers a period of twenty-five years (about 1425 B.C.); it relates to the conquest of Canaan and the partition of that promised land among the twelve tribes, closing with the farewell exhortation and death of the great leader. Judges, ascribed to the Prophet Samuel, continues the history of the nation to about 1100 B.C.; it tells how the Jews, as a punishment for their apostasy, were at different times reduced to servitude by their heathen enemies, and on their repentance delivered by heroes who became their Judges. Ruth, regarded by the ancient Jews as belonging to the Book of Judges, is of unknown date and authorship, though attributed by some to Samuel. It is an exquisite idyl of domestic life, designed to show the origin of King David. (See Chapman’s “Hebrew Idyls.”)
The Books of Samuel, the first portion of which Samuel probably composed himself, give an account of the magistracy of that prophet and the reigns of Saul and David. The Books of the Kings dwell upon the glorious reign of Solomon, and then take us through the divided lines of Israel and Judah, till both were finally overthrown and carried into captivity; Jewish tradition points to Jeremiah as the author of these books. Ezra seems to have written most of the Chronicles, which is supplementary to the Kings; he was also the author of the book that bears his name. This and Nehemiah describe the return of the Jews from their captivity in Babylon, and the restoration of the temple worship at Jerusalem. The Book of Esther is devoted to a touching episode of the reign of Ahasuerus, king of Persia, supposed to be identical with Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystaspis.
The Book of Job is worthy of special mention, as the most artistic specimen of Hebrew genius. Whether this unique poem was the work of Job himself in his later days, or of some other whose name is lost, its author was evidently proficient in all the scientific knowledge of his time. The hero, a native of northern Arabia, whose name has become a synonym for patient suffering, is reduced to the very depths by family bereavements, bodily anguish, and the well-meant reproaches of his friends; yet his faith in God is unshaken, and in the end that faith is amply vindicated and rewarded. (See Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond’s “The Book of Job.”)
Bold imagery, vividness of description, life-like delineations of lofty passion as well as the gentler emotions, combined with master-touches of dramatic art, stamp this poem as the greatest in Oriental literature. Its passages relating to the war-horse, behemoth, and leviathan (chapters xxxix., xl., xli.), are cited by writers on the sublime as among the grandest illustrations of their subject; and its descriptions of the Deity, as manifested in his works, exhibit the noblest conceptions of the Infinite that man’s finite intellect is capable of forming.
GOLDEN AGE OF HEBREW POETRY.
The Psalms.—The flourishing period of David (1085-1015 B.C.) ushers in the Augustan age of Hebrew poetry. The Lyric was then carried to perfection by the poet-king himself and his contemporaries in their Psalms,—“those delicate, fragrant, and lovely flowers,” as Luther calls them, “springing up out of all manner of beautiful joyous thoughts toward God and his goodness.” The strains of “Israel’s sweet psalmist,” who began as a shepherd-lad to cultivate the arts of music and poetry, breathe a spirit of plaintive tenderness that distinguishes them from the statelier productions of other contributors to Hebrew psalmody.
A utopian theory of the great Plato, but one that he declared could be carried out only by “a god or some divine one,” was the training of the Grecian youth in odes like the Psalms: and this—the religious instruction of the people—was the very object of the Hebrew lyrics. The plan of the Greek philosopher had been put in practice centuries before his day in Palestine, and on a far grander scale than ever he imagined. In the royal city of Jerusalem, four thousand musicians appointed by David chanted hymns of triumph and praise, to the accompaniment of harp and flute; while in the gorgeous temple of David’s son, the sublime worship of Jehovah challenges description.
For three thousand years, these Hebrew anthems, unapproached by the religious songs of any other age or people, have been the glory of the Jewish and the Christian Church, eloquently testifying that “there has been one people among the nations—one among the millions of the worshippers of stocks—taught of God.”
Many of the Psalms date from David’s time; one (Psalm xc.) carries us as far back as Moses, and others were as late as the Captivity. They were probably arranged as we now have them in the fifth century B.C.; though certain critics refer some of them to the Maccabean period (second century B.C.).
Elegiac Poetry.—King David was also a writer of elegy, that kind of song in which the Hebrew poets and prophets poured out their grief in the unaffected language of nature. Some of his Psalms are beautiful specimens of this species of poetry, especially Psalm xlii., “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks,” composed during his exile among the mountains of Lebanon. Another exquisite and pathetic elegy of this poet, rendered below in English verse by Lowth, is the