REMARK OF THE FIRST EDITOR. The continuation of this work, greatly as the author delighted in the employment, and often as he anticipated its prosecution, unhappily never appeared. He wished for a season of leisure to be devoted to it, but it never came. Only a few leaves of the commencement of the third part were found among his papers, which however I would not willingly suffer to be lost, especially as they contain a recapitulation of what has been said in the previous parts, and a brief sketch of the remainder, which was to be concluded in the third part. The following is the fragment referred to. We have now so far prepared the ground, that we may contemplate to advantage the growth and expansion of that tree of Israelitish hopes and prophetic anticipations, on which the poetry of the Prophets put forth its flowers. From their patriarch Abraham downward, the nation indulged the prospect, that through their race all the nations of the earth were to receive some great and signal blessing. The shepherd race went down to Egypt, the patriarch of the twelve tribes turned even his dying eyes to the land, where they were destined to dwell, and arranged as it were a prophetic chart of their dwelling places; but he died, and Joseph, the prince among his brethren, also died. The people sunk into a state of bondage, and almost abandoned the hope even of their own deliverance, much more of being instrumental in blessing all other nations. Moses at length delivered them from bondage, improved with great labour the rude character of the nation, received an earnest of their future conquest, saw the land of promise, and died. His painful labours had been limited within a narrow circle. He was obliged to destroy a few inconsiderable states, but the world at large could not feel his beneficial influence. Israel, after his death, but imperfectly conquered the promised land, and for a long period was oppressed and reduced to a condition of misery, now by this, and now by that neigboring people, until a lion of the tribe of Judah arose, and being satiated with the spoil of nations reposed himself upon mount Zion, one of the fruits of his triumphs. A star went forth from Jacob, a sceptre was raised up in Israel, which smote the heads of Moab, made conquest of Edom, dispersed and overran the Amalekites, the Kenites, and similar tribes. So long as he lived, no one dared fully to arouse the lion, though they ventured in some degree to excite him. But he died, and his royal mind in the anticipation of death was filled with care respecting the future interests of his kingdom. Hence God gave him the promise, not only that his son should sit upon his throne, and reign with undisturbed sway but that a successive series of his descendants should bear the sceptre. This declaration of God elevated his hopes, and animated his heart. It is not only celebrated in several Psalms, as a divine oracle respecting the future interests of the country and the royal family, but the dying king even in his last song encircles his temples with this unfading laurel.* With hostile feelings he there reflected upon the malcontents of his kingdom, on whom he had tried every kindness in vain, and whom he considered unfit and undeserving subjects of farther clemency. But with so much the greater joy did he reflect on the covenant in relation to his own family, which God had established with him, from which the figurative expressions in this last song are taken, and which is celebrated also in the 72d, 89th and 122d, Psalms. Such were the germs, from which the tree of prophetic poetry grew up; the benedictions bestowed upon Abraham, Judah, and David, and since the two former seemed also coin *2 Sam, xxiii. 1. See above in the XI section. cident to this most victorious, prosperous, and at the same time religious prince, since by his reign, his arrangement of divine worship, but especiaily by his Psalms, he formed a marked epoch, it was in the nature of things, that his age, especially as delineated in his Psalms, should both for the Prophets, who formed themselves according to the spirit of these songs, and for the people, who sung them, and recalled the events of that period with pride, become as it were the ideal and model of that, which with more splendour they pictured as still future. The blessing of Abraham was only in very general terms; too comprehensive, and too spiritual to admit of particular representation. Moses was too far removed from them, though they took from him for their use all the miracles of the divine interposition, both in Egypt and in the desert, together with the Shechinah. David presented to them a character more glorious, and better known; for the people were now accustomed to notions of royalty. The mutual jealousies of the tribes had ceased, when most of the Prophets wrote, the ten tribes were already in captivity, and a small branch of Judah with the royal stock of David was all that remained. To this therefore tended the current of prophecy, and here the streams flowed together. The views of Jacob and Balaam, the victories, the reign, the piety of David, expressed in his Psalms, the promise of an endless period of peace and happiness under his posterity, who should succeed him upon the throne-all these circumstances were connected with him, and associated him in their minds with their glowing conceptions of the future, He is often styled in the Psalms the son of Jehovah, the first born of God, and was enthroned near the dwelling place of God upon his holy mountain. He brought nations into subjection, had a cultivated taste for musick and poetry, and a regard for right, and spake of himself in his relation to God with humility and self-abasement. His posterity were to enjoy a peaceful kingdom, and his seed to reign so long as sun and moon should endure, throughout all generations. Judah, therefore, David, Solomon, and their perpetual successors, were represented in the times of the future anointed. Human imagination and poetry can operate in no other way. Even higher divine intuitions can be expressed by them only under known images and signs, and thus the poetry of the Jews naturally employed in its representations the treasures of imagery, which it had, and especially from the most splendid era of the national history. Let us look then at the course embraced in the third part, on which we are now to enter. After inquiries respecting the political productions ascribed to Solomon, comes the true and characteristick spirit of Hebrew poetry in the writings of the Prophets. We shall contemplate the individual characters of the Prophets, their favourite conceptions and views, together with the circumstances of the age, which served to produce them. The various and distinct colourings given to the imprecations and predictions relating to other nations will be carefully considered. We shall then examine the change produced in their conceptions by the captivity, the altered character of the imagery and figurative language, which now appeared-and so down to the apocryphal writings, in so far as these, as for example the fourth book of Ezra, have the characters of poetry. Finally in the last book of the New Testament as if by regeneration of all the conceptions and images of the ancient Prophets, a new poetical shoot springs up; and at once expands into a tree, blooming with fresh and unfading flowers. |