viii. The Battle of Carchemish. This is a War Ballad, in triplet stanzas with 'duplication.' The battle celebrated was a turning-point in history, settling for ever the supremacy of the Babylonian over the Egyptian empire: these were the two world empires between which parties in the nation of Israel fluctuated, the whole strength of Jeremiah and the prophetic party being thrown against Egypt.
ix. This Song of Zion Redeemed forms a section of the Isaiahan 'Rhapsody of Zion Redeemed' [chapters xl-lxvi]. It is in stanzas of 4, or occasionally 6 and 8 lines, the flow interrupted by couplets, especially at the beginning of the sections. Compare above, page 262, note to vii (Sonnets).
x, xi. These are illustrations of a characteristic feature of Biblical poetry—the 'Doom form.' See above, page 245.
x. Isaiah's Doom of Babylon. The structure is made up of the Divine word of the overthrow of Babylon [prose passages] interrupted at intervals by [impersonal] songs, realising or celebrating what the Divine word brings forward. The last of these verse interruptions is a fully developed Ode on Fallen Babylon. The structural form of this ode is antistrophic inversion (7, 6; 6, 7), like that of No. iv of the Sonnets (above, page 260). Another effect in this ode is the Taunt or Dirge Song.—My consecrated ones ... them that exult in my majesty. The Divine voice is heard calling to God's 'hosts,' the idea suggested by the title 'Jehovah Sabaoth.' Compare Joel, chapter iii. 11 and 13; Psalm ciii. 20, 21.—I will sit upon the mount of congregation in the uttermost parts of the north: the north is regularly in Scripture the quarter from which Divine judgment is looked for (e.g. Ezekiel, chapter i. 4; Jeremiah vi. i; Job xxxvii. 22).
xi. Nahum's Doom of Nineveh. This is a Doom Prophecy directed against Nineveh, partly in the structure called above 'doom form,' partly in other forms. It falls into seven sections. Sections 1 and 2 are meditations in pendulum form (above, page 251), the paragraphs alternating between judgment and salvation. Section 3 is in doom form: the Divine announcement of doom is interrupted by lyric realisation of the sudden attack upon Nineveh in the midst of its careless security. Section 4 is a brief lyric triumph over Nineveh overthrown. Section 5 resumes the doom form: the Divine denunciation interrupted by lyric realisation of Nineveh in its pride. With section 6 this passes into a Taunt Song (as in example x). The seventh section is a brief lyric meditation upon Nineveh overthrown and desolate.
RHAPSODY
This has been explained in the Introduction (pages xii-xiii) as a term applied to a highly characteristic form of prophetic literature, amounting to spiritual drama: actual dramatic dialogue and action being combined with other literary modes of expression to produce the general effect of dramatic realisation and movement. Some of the examples (I-III) are complete rhapsodies; IV is a discourse that becomes rhapsodic at its conclusion; V is a rhapsodic morceau, a single thought cast in this literary form; VI and VII are integral portions of one of the long rhapsodies.
I. Rhapsody of the Drought. This is a simple and clear example of rhapsodic writing. It opens with scenic description of the drought; the rest is dialogue between God, Repentant Israel, and the Prophet. The action of the rhapsody consists in the gradual effect of intercession: God at first refuses so much as to answer the sinful People, and speaks only through the Prophet; at last he answers the People directly, but only to threaten; finally he shows mercy to the repentant remnant.
II. Habakkuk's Rhapsody of the Chaldeans. This is a thoroughly typical and a splendid specimen of the rhapsody as a form of literature, (1) The historic situation is the appearance of the Chaldeans as a conquering power trampling down surrounding nations. This suggests the thought of judgment upon unpunished sin in Israel. But the Prophet feels a difficulty: how can a righteous God use a godless people as an instrument for the punishment of wickedness that is less than its own? The elaboration of this spiritual problem, in dramatic dialogue between God and the Prophet, makes the first section of the rhapsody.—(2) The Divine solution of this problem comes under the image of intoxication: the haughty career of the Chaldean is no more than the drunkard's reeling which precedes his fall. But as the idea of the fall of the Chaldean is reached there is a sudden change from dialogue to the doom form. This Doom of the Chaldeans has five stanzas of the usual combination between prose and verse: the prose is Divine denunciation, the verse passages are the imagined triumphing of the down-trodden nations over their fallen oppressor. Four of the stanzas express the fall of the Chaldean in four images: his uninterrupted career has been a heaping up of usury, but the exactor shall come; it has been building a house of refuge, but shame has been built into its walls; it has been building a huge city only to make a bigger bonfire to the glory of the avenging God; it has been giving drink to behold shame, but the drink of shame shall be given to the oppressor. The fifth stanza goes to the root of the matter: the Chaldean has trusted to senseless idols: Jehovah is the true teacher.—(3) So far the overthrow of the Chaldeans has been presented as a thing of the distant future; in the third section it is realised as visibly present: thus the movement of the rhapsody has been steadily advancing from the first forming of a problem to the climax of its solution. The literary form now changes to that of an Ode, realising the idea of Jehovah come to judgment. The prelude and postlude express the Prophet's feelings at the vision he hears and sees; the body of the ode realises the theophany itself. [Strophe, All nature convulsed as God comes; antistrophe, Is it against nature that the coming is directed? conclusion, Nay, but God comes to deliver his people. Compare Psalm cxiv.]