Another question, however, is this: how are these verses to be translated into languages which are not accustomed to conceive poetry without a definite metre, and one, therefore, which varies according to the different moods of the poet? One would imagine that, in such a language, nothing would sound perfectly like poetry but what was in the metres of that language: and thus, between the years 1834 and 1836, I made the attempt to combine the greatest possible fidelity of rendering with our metres. Nevertheless, such an attempt proves in the end a somewhat thankless toil, because then something must still be occasionally sacrificed to fidelity; and the position of the words easily assumes a greater constraint in the translation than it had in the Hebrew. This greater constraint, too, would be much more excusable in artificial poetry, such as the Proverbs and the book of Job, than in the oldest and freest songs. It does not, however, follow from this, that a translation should pay no regard to the compass and quality of the versemembers. For, as has been already shown at some length, the Hebrew verse is by no means deficient in precise laws as to form, nor in distinct application of an art; a verse-member may not have any arbitrary compass, and a verse may not be put together in any and every fashion; nay, there are distinctly different kinds of verses and verse-members. He who meditates a translation, should first of all know these laws thoroughly, in order to be then better able to discriminate what forms in our languages are most correspondent to the ancient Hebrew ones. Thus it appears to me that the equivalent, in our languages, to a member of the standard verse, is a series of syllables which may at the utmost amount to the iambic trimeter, and never fall short of the dimeter; and the estimate

appears to predominate; and if, forsooth, we were to give up measuring the versemembers by the sense, and merely to measure them by a similarity of sound in the rhyme, we might also find the following rhymes in the ancient well-song in Num. xxi. 17 sq.:

But this disruption of the members of the sense is manifestly wrong, because it would annihilate the essence of the Hebrew verse; and even with this licence it is impossible to find any constant rhyme in any of these three songs. It is also very questionable whether any mere suffix, like the -i of the first person singular, could form a rhyme at all; at any rate, this would undoubtedly offend against the laws of the Arabic rhyme. Thus far, therefore, we have every reason to believe that, in the few cases in which two or more members end in similar sounds, it is to be ascribed to pure accident, that the sense alone is the dominant principle, and that no true rhyme was designed.

of the other species of verse-members should be proportioned according to this ratio.

Moreover, the correctness of the Masoretic division of verses has all this time been taken for granted here throughout: and the entire foregoing treatise is, perhaps, its best defence. A different division of verses is indeed found in some ancient translators, as may, for instance, be seen in the Psalter in the Polyglots; this chiefly depends on the principle of counting every verse-member which can easily be separated as to the sense, as a separate verse. But there is nothing but a specious appearance of greater simplicity to recommend this plan; for it totally overlooks the true connections and intertwinings, the separations and articulations of the diction. If we ask from what source this discrepancy of the numeration has arisen, the simplest way is, to suppose that it arose from the formerly prevalent manner of writing the verse-members, by the mistaking verse-members for verses.

For it is discovered from certain remains of antiquity, that, in the earliest times, the verses were written so as to let each versemember form a line by itself-a plan which is undeniably most in accordance with the origin of verse. Here, then, the numeration became somewhat doubtful, when it was first attempted to carry it out the question arose, whether they should count by the members, or by the coherence of members-that is, by the verses. Several readers counted by members, but lost thereby the much more important, the indispensable division of the true verses, which the Masoretes have, on the whole, certainly determined correctly, although we might occasionally, in some single instances, perhaps, question the accuracy of the present text. It is to be regretted, however, that-notwithstanding this fixed division of verses, and the introduction of the accentuation-the distinct division according to members has, from a mere wish to save space, been given up in the usual Masoretic manuscripts and editions, and is only still retained in a few long pieces con

9 With regard to the other principles of a translation: we should first compre. hend what, according to the spirit of language generally, is essential or non-essential in any particular language, in order to prevent accuracy and fidelity from degenerating into slavery. If, for instance, we were to make the fidelity of a vernacular translation of the Old Test. to consist in this, that every stat. constr. should be preserved, and that the pronominal suffixes, which in Hebrew are so little and so easily appended, should be constantly expressed by my, thy, &c., the translation would sound strange in an unessential part, and, by that very fact, would become more odd and unpleasing than is necessary. It is only when we regard essentials-that is, the powers by which every language attains the end of perspicuous diction-that we are able to make a correspondent exhibition of the sense actually intended in any foreign language, without sacrificing in that end its true spiritual peculiarities.

tained in the prosaical books, as Exod. xv., Deut. xxxii., Judg. v., 2 Sam. 22.

In thus asserting the general correctness of the Masoretic division of verses, however, we only mean this to apply to the division which is found in the poetical books properly speaking, and not to that in the songs which are inserted in the historical books. In the latter, the Masoretes evidently did not proceed according to exactly the same laws as it is on the whole discoverable, by many indications, that the Masoretes who undertook the recension of the historical books, are entirely different from those which performed that service for the poetical ones. In the historical books, the verse of a song is sometimes too long and too disproportionate; an evident example of which occurred above (at p. 316, note). If we next turn our attention to the strophes, which, as the ensuing section of this work will show, do undeniably occur in most songs, we shall discover that the Masoretic division of verses is not in all cases quite exact; as I have elsewhere pointed out in the great example of the song in Isa. xiv. 4–23.3

If we accurately mark, in the translation, the divisions of a verse into its members, there is no reason why we should not go a little farther, and also express the relation of those members to each other as distinctly as is on the whole possible in writing. The mode in which this more delicate distinction of more than two verse-members may be most correctly carried out according to the intention of the structure of members itself-supposing any one to wish to go so far has been already exhibited in the particular examples cited above. The Masoretic accentuation of the poetic books has a similar object in view, only that it follows it out much farther into details; we may also admit that, on the whole and in general, it corresponds very well to the structure of members which has, in the foregoing pages, been demonstrated out of the verse itself: for it too assumes a whole which commonly parts into two halves, and which, on extraordinary occasions, may at the utmost be divided into three simple or compound parts. It, for the most part, thoroughly agrees with the truths which result from the foregoing inquiries: although, in particulars, it must be admitted that it occasionally does not, perhaps, express the genuine articulations of the verse with perfect accuracy.

See an essay by Hupfeld, in the Theologische Studien und Kritiken for the year 1837, which has since been printed in the first fascicle of his Hebrew Grammar. • See Propheten des Alten Bundes, ii. 400-403.

THE

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

By the Rev. BADEN POWELL, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.,
Savilian Professor of Geometry in the University of Oxford.

Ὁ γὰρ Χριστιανισμὸς οὐκ εἰς Ἰουδαϊσμὸν ἐπίστευσεν ἀλλὰ Ἰουδαϊσμὸς εἰς Χριστιανισμὸν, ὡς πᾶσα γλῶσσα πιστεύσασα εἰς Θεὸν συνήχθη.-Ignatius, ad Magnes. § x. For Christianity hath not believed in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity ;— that every tongue having believed in God might sound forth together.'

INTRODUCTION.

AMONG persons professing to receive the Bible as the authentic record of what in general they believe is divine Revelation, it is remarkable how little attention is commonly given to the obvious diversity of nature and purport in those very distinct portions of which the sacred volume consists. To any one who does but for a moment reflect on the widely remote dates, the extremely diversified character of the contents,-the totally dissimilar circumstances and occasions of the composition, of the several writings, it must be obvious how essentially they require to be viewed with careful discrimination as to the variety of conditions and objects which they evince, if they are to be in any degree rightly understood or applied as they were intended to be. But manifest as these considerations are, and readily admitted when simply put before any reader of the most ordinary attainments and discernment, it is singular to observe how commonly they are practically lost sight of in the too prevalent modes of reading and applying Scripture.

In this point of view it must be allowed a matter of the most primary importance, as bearing on the whole purport and design of the Bible, to apprehend rightly the general relation, but at the same time the characteristic differences of the Old and New Testament, the Law and the Gospel, the distinctive character to be traced, and the sort of connection actually subsisting between them. Nor does this turn on considerations of any nice or critical kind, demanding extensive learning to appreciate, or deep study to judge of; it implies a mere reference to matters of fact, which require but to be indicated to be understood, so that it is the more remarkable how commonly they are overlooked.

Yet on no subject, perhaps, are more confused and unsatisfactory ideas more commonly prevalent; not only among ordinary, careless or formal readers of Scripture, but even among many of better information

information and more serious religious views, a habit is too general of confounding together the contents of all parts of the sacred volume, whether of the old or new dispensations, of the Hebrew or of the Christian Scriptures, into one promiscuous mass, regarding them, as it were, all as one book, or code of religion, and of citing detached texts from both, and promiscuously taking precepts and institutions, promises and threatenings belonging to peculiar dispensations, and applying them universally, without regard to times, persons, or circumstances. And such a mode of appealing to Scripture is sometimes even defended, as evincing a meritorious reverence for its divine character, and upheld as a consequence from the belief in its inspiration. Yet in whatever sense that belief be entertained, adopting even the strictest meaning of the term, it surely by no means follows but that inspired authority may have a reference to one object and not to another, a precept or declaration may have been addressed to one party or in one age, and not designed for another, without any disparagement to its divine character.

From a thoughtless, desultory, or merely formal habit of reading the divine Word, it is not surprising that there should result an adoption of those low and unworthy notions which prevail so commonly as to the character and genius of the Christian religion; and which especially arise from the confused combination of its principles with those of older and less perfect dispensations. That such ideas should obtain ready acceptance with the many will not surprise those who consider the various causes in different ways operating to lower and degrade the exalted purity and simplicity of the Gospel to the level of the corrupt apprehensions of human nature, especially among the mass of the ignorant and unthinking nominal professors of a belief in its doctrine.

But it must be a matter of more astonishment that such notions should find encouragement with some who professedly look at Christianity in a more enlightened sense, and avowedly seek to receive it in no blind, formal manner, but in the spirit of its evangelical purity. Yet such unhappily is the case. And whether from mere want of thought on the one hand, or from preconceived theories on the other, or even in some cases (we must fear) from more mixed motives, so unprepared are men to entertain more distinct views, that the very announcement of them is commonly altogether startling and even painful to their prepossessions, and especially when these questions are found to be mixed up with certain points of supposed practical obligation and religious observance, it follows that when a more explanatory view of the subject is presented, the hearers too generally turn away with impatience, or even with disgust and offence.

Without