ORATORY

i. The Oration of Moses at the Rehearsal of the Blessing and the Curse. The Book of Deuteronomy, from which this is taken, is a collection of the Orations and Songs of Moses, constituting his Farewell to the People of Israel. The general subject both of the oratory and song is the Covenant between Jehovah and his people, now for the first time committed to writing, and entrusted by the retiring leader of Israel to the Levites and Elders. The third of these orations is connected with a ceremonial occasion. An ordinance has been made for the ceremony of 'The Blessing and the Curse' to be an institution of the promised land: representatives of the Blessing are to stand on one mountain and representatives of the Curse on the opposite slope, the whole ritual solemnly enforcing the sanctity of the Covenant. At present however the people are on the wilderness side of Jordan; accordingly Moses arranges a Rehearsal of this ceremony, on ground resembling the valley between Ebal and Gerizim. This rehearsal is allowed to proceed to a certain point when Moses stops it, and takes the subject of the blessings and curses into his own hands. Hence the abrupt commencement of this oration.—As elements of oratorical beauty note (1) the interweaving and parallelism of sentences, (2) the terrific crescendo and climax of denunciation. The oration must be spoken to get the full effect.

ii. Immortality and the Covenant with Death. This is an example of the Written Address, Oratory that is not intended to be spoken. It is one of a series of imaginary addresses by King Solomon to the other rulers of the nations, constituting a work entitled 'The Wisdom of Solomon' (in volume 3 of the present series).—The author's style is distinguished by a peculiar order of thought, according to which some of the leading points of his argument take the form of digressions. The thought of this discourse is that death is no part of the natural order of the universe, but is introduced into the world by the wickedness of men. The author imagines a monologue of the wicked, led by despair of aught beyond the grave to a life of luxury and oppression. Another imaginary monologue expresses the feelings of the same wicked men as they awaken from death to the life beyond. But as a digression between these two monologues the author places his reflections on the 'hopes of the ungodly,' that is, the substitutes in earlier thought for the grand conception of a life beyond death. These substitutes are (1) the living over again in posterity, (2) long life in this world. With regard to the first he argues that the brood of the ungodly is unstable and accursed: better is childlessness with virtue. As to the hopes of long life, he argues that the old age of the wicked is without honour; whereas a life cut short may be a life perfected.

iii-vii. These are Prophetic Discourses. Considered as part of the literature of Oratory these Prophetic Discourses hold an intermediate position between the spoken and the written address. What appears as a discourse in the books of the prophets is probably not the exact report of a speech, but the substance of a speech, or of several similar speeches, worked up again into the style of a written address.

iii. The Great Arraignment. This discourse of Isaiah takes the form of a theme (God's arraignment of his people as rebels) treated in four paragraphs: the prophet's remonstrance—repentance by oblations—repentance of life—corruption redeemed with judgment.

iv. The Covenant with Death. The phrase Covenant with Death in the title of this discourse of Isaiah has a different meaning from the same phrase in the title of another discourse (ii). In the latter it meant a supposed invitation to Death to come as a friend, by those who were 'of his portion'; in the present case it means an agreement with Death to pass by the supposed speaker while he visits others.—This discourse illustrates what is a characteristic feature of Hebrew literature—the 'pendulum structure,' by which the thought alternates in successive paragraphs between one and the other of two contrasting themes, in this case between Judgment and Salvation. The prophet is writing for the southern kingdom of Judah. Commencing with the rival kingdom of northern Israel he denounces drunken Ephraim, and how its crown of pride shall be trodden down (Judgment). But (Salvation) there shall be a crown of glory for the residue. Now he proceeds to Judgment upon Judah: the drunken rulers who trust to a refuge of lies, which the overflowing scourge shall sweep away. But there is Salvation for the patient. This comfort is imparted in agricultural images: the cruel plowing does not go on for ever, the gentle sowing comes; there are sharp threshing instruments [for the guilty], the gentle threshing with the rod for the precious cummin; and even the threshing is not to crush, but to make corn fit for bread.

v. The Utter Destruction and the Great Restoration. A discourse made by companion pictures linked together by two parallel passages, each a parenthetic quintet, interrupting the pictorial description, which is afterwards resumed, with words emphasising the prophecy as a whole: Seek ye out of the book of the Lord and read [how all these woes shall come to pass] ... Strengthen ye the weak hands [with these glorious promises].—Note that Edom is only mentioned as typical of the foes of Israel in general, the pictures being of universal destruction and restoration. There is a similar use of Egypt and Edom as types of all the foes of Israel in another discourse (page [220]).

vi. The Sword of the Lord. This is an illustration of a very peculiar form of discourse, which is without parallel in modern literature. Ezekiel is the great representative of 'Emblem Prophecy,' that is, discourses which have for texts some symbolic action or piece of dumb show. But in extreme examples of Emblem Prophecy, like the present, symbolism pervades the whole of the discourse: attitude, gesture, visible emblem, sustained dumb show, song, are all mingled together and combined with oratory.—The discourse falls into four parts. (1) At the opening, the prophet sets his face toward Jerusalem: there is no symbolic action beyond this. (2) But as the address progresses, he suddenly draws forth a sword: this is the sword of the Lord which is to go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, and it will not return any more. Suddenly, the dramatic speaker has identified himself with the victims of this Divine sword: Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins, etc. Now the theme of the sword is resumed, and with it mingles what is evidently some military strain or folk-lore song, of which the augmenting lines suggest the gathering spirit of combat: A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished, etc. For a single moment the other side is presented—a people careless and secure: the Rod of my son [they say] it contemneth every tree. But the impending destruction continues to gather force: And it is given to be furbished that it may be handled, etc. There is a sudden change, and cries and howls proclaim how the sword has fallen upon the people, and the Rod that contemneth is no more. The emblematic movement seems to become more and more rapid [through three verses of the song: And let the sword be doubled the third time, etc.].—(3) A total change here ensues. The sword now becomes emblematic of the sword of Babylon; and the imaginary picture is that of the conqueror arriving at the junction of the ways and deciding by his omens to proceed against Jerusalem.—(4) Once more there is a total change: the sword now stands for Israel's enemies, the children of Ammon, and the verse conveys their boasting. But suddenly the prophetic speaker plunges the sword into its sheath: so is symbolically introduced the fate of Ammon to return to the land of his birth and perish there.

vii. Wreck of the Goodly Ship Tyre. This illustrates a characteristic of Ezekiel's style by which, in place of visible symbolism, illustrated by the last example, a single image is sustained through the whole of a discourse. In the present case it is the image of a ship. Tyre was the great maritime city of antiquity: its grandeur is conveyed under the image of a ship which all the nations of the known world combine to build and load; the judgment is the wrecking of this goodly ship.

viii. Amongst other things the prophetic books contain 'Sentences,' that is, brief sayings of prophets, each like an epigram, complete in itself. These no doubt passed from mouth to mouth like proverbs, and were collected by the prophets. The examples in this section are from the Book of Jeremiah.