"(2) Who believed our message,

And the arm of Jehovah, unto whom was it revealed?
When he grew up as a suckling plant before us,

And as a root out of a dry ground;

He had no form and no majesty that we should see him,
And no appearance that we should take pleasure in him;
Despised and forsaken of men!

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief!

And as one before whom there is a hiding of the face!
Despised, and we regarded him not!

(3) Verily our griefs he bore

And our sorrows-he carried them.
But we regarded him as stricken,
Smitten of God, and humbled.

But he was one pierced because of our transgressions,
Crushed because of our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon him;

And by his stripes there is healing for us.

We all like sheep strayed away ;

Each one turned to his own way.

While Jehovah caused to light on him the iniquity of us all.

(4) He was harassed while he was humbling himself

And he opens not his mouth;

Like a sheep that is being led to the slaughter

And as an ewe that before her shearers is dumb :--

And he opens not his mouth.

From oppression and from judgment he was taken away,

And among his cotemporaries who was considering.

That he was cut off from the land of the living.

Because of the transgression of my people, one smitten for them?

With the wicked his grave was assigned,

But he was with the rich in his martyr death;

Because that he had done no violence,

And there was no deceit in his mouth.

"(5) But Jehovah was pleased to crush him with grief! When he himself offers a trespass offering,

He shall see a seed, he shall prolong days;

And the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper in his hands:

On account of his own travail he shall see;
He shall be satisfied with his knowledge;
My righteous servant shall justify many,
And their iniquities he shall carry.

Therefore will I give him a portion consisting of the many;

And with the strong shall he divide spoil,
Because that he exposed himself to death,
And he was numbered with transgressors,
And he did bear the sin of many;

And for transgressors was suffering infliction."

In such pieces as these we find the climax of He. brew poetic art, where the dramatic and heroic elements combine to produce in a larger whole ethical and religious results with wonderful power. While these do not present us epic or dramatic or pastoral poems in the classic sense, they yet use the epic, dramatic, and pastoral elements in perfect freedom, combining them in a simple and comprehensive manner for the highest and grandest purposes of the prophet and sage inspired of God, giving us productions of poetic art that are unique in the world's literature. The dramatic, epic, and pastoral elements are means used freely and fully, but not ends. These forms of beauty and grace are simply forms which do not retard the imagination in admiration of themselves, but direct it to the grandest themes and images of piety and devotion. The wise men of Israel present us in the ideals of the Shulamite, Job, and Koheleth, types of noble character, moral heroism, and purity, that transcend the heroic types of the Iliad or Æneid, wrestling as they do with foes to their souls far more terrible than the spears and javelins and warring gods of Greek or Trojan, advanc ing step by step, through scene after scene and act after

act to holy victory in the fear of God; victories that will serve for the support and comfort of the human race in all time, which has ever to meet the same inconsistencies of evil, the same assaults on virtue, the same struggle with doubt and error, therein so vividly and faithfully portrayed to us. The prophets of Israel play upon the great heart of the Hebrew people as upon a thousand-stringed lyre, striking the tones with divinelyguided touch, so that from the dirge of rapidly succeeding disaster and ruin, they rise through penitence and petition to faith, assurance, exultation, and hallelujah, laying hold of the deep thoughts and everlasting faithfulness of God, binding the past and present as by a chain of light to the impending Messianic future; seeing and rejoicing in the glory of God, which, though now for a season shrouded behind the clouds of disaster, is soon to burst forth in a unique day.*

* Zech. xiv. 6 seq.

CHAPTER X.

THE INTERPRETATION CF SCRIPTURE.

THE word of God came to man at first orally, in connection with theophanies. These theophanies are divine manifestations in forms of time and space. From them, as centres, went forth the supernatural influences in word of revelation and deed of miracle. These theophanies attained their culmination in Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, the risen, ascended, and glorified Saviour; and the divine word reached its completion in His Gos. pel. The word of God, issuing from these theophanic centres, was appropriated more and more by holy men, upon whom the divine Spirit came, taking possession of them, influencing and directing them in the exercise of prophetic ministry. An important part of this ministry was the oral delivery of the divine word to the people of God in ascending stages of revelation. This word was gradually committed to writing, and assumed the literary forms that are presented to us in the canon of Scripture.

"It pleased the Lord, at sundry times and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church, and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world; to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy

Scripture to be most necessary; these former ways of God's revealing His will unto His people being now ceased." (Westminster Confession, I. 1).

The word of God, as written, is to be appropriated by man through reading it, meditating upon it, and putting it in practice.

Reading is an appropriation through the eye and ear and sense perception, of letters, words, and sentences as signs of thought. Meditation is the use of the faculties of the mind in the apprehension of the substance of thought and emotion contained in these signs, the association of it with other things, and the application of it to other conditions and circumstances. This appropriation must be in accordance with the laws of the apprehending human soul, with the principles of the composition of written documents, and also with the nature of the things contained in and expressed by the sensible signs. Biblical interpretation is a section of general interpretation, and it differs from other special branches in accordance with the internal character of the contents of the Bible. Interpretation is usually regarded as a sec tion of applied logic.* Schleiermacher defines it as the art of correctly understanding an author.† Klausen,‡ as "the scientific establishment and development of the fundamental principles and rules for the understanding of a given discourse." We are constrained to think that this is too narrow a definition. We agree with most interpreters in the opinion that it embraces not only the art of understanding an author, but also the art of ex

* See Carpzov, Primae Lineae Herm., Helmstadii, 1790, p. 5; Sir Wm. Hamilton, Logic, p. 474; Klausen, Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments, Leipzig, 1841, p. 7.

↑ Hermeneutik und Kritik, Berlin, 1838, p. 3.

† In /. c., p. I.