(Deut. xxviii, 5). "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons" (1 Cor. x, 21). Here table, basket, kneading-trough, and cup are used for that which they contained, or for which they were used. The following examples illustrate how the abstract is used for the concrete: "He shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith" (Rom. iii, 30). Here the word circumcision designates the Jews, and uncircumcision the Gentiles. In Rom. xi, 7, the word election is used for the aggregate of those who composed the "remnant according to the election of grace" (verse 5), the elect portion of Israel. And Paul tells the Ephesians (v, 8) with great force of language: "Ye were once darkness, but now light in the Lord." Metonymy of signifled. There is another use of this figure which may be called metonymy of the sign and the thing signified. Thus Isa. xxii, 22: sign and thing "I will put the key of the house of David upon his shoulder, and he shall open, and no one shutting, and he shall shut, and no one opening." Here key is used as the sign of control over the house, of power to open or close the doors whenever one pleases; and the putting the key upon the shoulder denotes that the power, symbolized by the key, will be a heavy burden on him who exercises it. Compare Matt. xvi, 19. So again diadem and crown are used in Ezek. xxi, 26, for regal dignity and power, and sceptre in Gen. xlix, 10, and Zech, x, 11, for kingly dominion. In Isaiah's glowing picture of the Messianic era (ii, 4) he describes the utter cessation of national strife and warfare by the significant words, "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks." In Ezek. vii, 27, we have an example of the use of the thing signified for the sign: "The prince shall be clothed with desolation; " that is, arrayed in the garments or signs of desolation. Another kind of trope, quite similar in character to metonymy, is that by which the whole is put for a part, or a part for Synecdoche. the whole; a genus for a species, or a species for a genus; the singular for the plural, and the plural for the singular. This is called Synecdoche, from the Greek ovv, with, and έkdéxoμai, to receive from, which conveys the general idea of receiving and associating one thing along with another. Thus "all the world" is used in Luke ii, 1, for the Roman Empire; and in Matt. xii, 40, three days and three nights are used for only part of that time. The soul is often named when the whole man or person is intended; as, "We were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls (Acts xxvii, 37). The singular of day is used by synecdoche for days or period in such passages as Eccles. xii, 3: "In the day when the keepers of the house tremble." The singular of stork, turtle, crane, and swallow is used in Jer. viii, 7, as the representative of the whole class to which each belongs. Jephthah is said to have been "buried in the cities of Gilead" (Judg. xii, 7), where, of course, only one of those cities is intended. In Psa. xlvi, 9, the Lord is represented as "causing wars to cease unto the extremity of the land; bow he will shiver, and cut in pieces spear; war chariots he will burn in the fire." Here, by specifying bow, spear, and chariots, the Psalmist doubtless designed to represent Jehovah's triumph as an utter destruction of all implements of war. In Deut. xxxii, 41, the flashing gleam of the sword is put for its edge: "If I sharpen the lightning of my sword, and my hand lay hold on judgment.” Personification. It was characteristic of the Hebrew mind to form and express vivid conceptions of the external world. All objects of nature, inanimate things, and even abstract ideas were viewed as if instinct with life, and spoken of as masculine or feminine. And this tendency is noticeable in all languages, and occasions the figure of speech called Personification.' It is so common a feature of language that it often occurs in the most ordinary conversation; but it is more especially suited to the language of imagination and passion, and appears most frequently in the poetical parts of Scripture. The statement in Num. xvi, 32, that "the earth opened her mouth and swallowed" Korah and his associates, is an instance of personification, the like of which often occurs in prose narration. More striking is the language of Matt. vi, 34: "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself." Here the morrow itself is pictured before us as a living person, pressed by care and anxiety. But the more forcible instances of personification are found in such passages as Psa. cxiv, 3, 4: The sea saw and fled; the Jordan was turned backward. The mountains leaped like rams; hills like the sons of the flock." Or, again, in Hab. iii, 10: "Mountains saw thee, they writhe; a flood of waters passed over; the deep gave his voice; on high his hands he lifted." Here mountains, hills, rivers, and sea, are introduced as things of life. They are assumed to be self-conscious, having powers of thought, feeling, and locomotion, and yet it is all the emotional language of imagination and poetic fervour, and has its origin in an intense, lively intuition of nature. 66 'The more technical name is Prosopopæia, from the Greek πрóσwπоν, face, or person, and woɩéw, to make; and, accordingly, means to give personal form or character to an object. Prosopopeia is held by some to be a term of more extensive application than personification. Apostrophe is a figure closely allied to personification. The name is derived from the Greek anб, from, and orρέow, Apostrophe. to turn, and denotes especially the turning of a speaker away from his immediate hearers, and addressing an absent and imaginary person or thing. When the address is to an inanimate object, the figures of personification and apostrophe combine in one and the same passage. So, in connexion with the passage above cited from Psa. cxiv. After personifying the sea, the Jordan, and the mountains, the psalmist suddenly turns in direct address to them, and says: "What is the matter with thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest? Thou Jordan, that thou art turning backward? Ye mountains, that ye leap like rams; ye hills, like the sons of the flock?" The following apostrophe is peculiarly impressive by the force of its imagery. "O, Sword of Jehovah! How long wilt thou not be quiet? Gather thyself to thy sheath; be at rest and be dumb" (Jer. xlvii, 6). But apostrophe proper is an address to some absent person either living or dead; as when David laments for the dead Absalom (2 Sam. xviii, 33), and, as if the departed soul were present to hear, exclaims: "My son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died in thy stead, O Absalom, my son, my son!" The apostrophe to the fallen king of Babylon, in Isa. xiv, 9-20, is one of the boldest and sublimest examples of the kind in any language. Similar instances of bold and impassioned address abound in the Hebrew prophets, and, as we have seen, the oriental mind was notably given to express thoughts and feelings in this emotional style. Interrogation. Interrogatory forms of expression are often the strongest possible way of enunciating important truths. As when it is written in Heb. i, 14, concerning the angels: "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth into service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" Here the doctrine of the ministry of angels in such a noble service is by implication assumed as an undisputed belief. The interrogatories in Rom. viii, 33-35, afford a most impressive style of setting forth the triumph of believers in the blessed provisions of redemption: "Who shall bring charge against God's elect ones? Shall God who justifies? Who is he that is condemning? Is it Christ Jesus that died, but, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day; we were accounted as sheep of slaughter. But in all these things we more than conquer through him that loved us." Very frequent and conspicuous also are the interrogatory forms of speech in the Book of Job. "Knowest thou this of old, from the placing of Adam on the earth, that the triumph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the profane for a moment?" (xx, 4). "The secret of Eloah canst thou find? Or canst thou find out Shaddai to perfection?" (xi, 7). Jehovah's answer out of the whirlwind (chaps. xxxviii-xli) is very largely in this form. Hyperbole. Hyperbole is a rhetorical figure which consists in exaggeration, or magnifying an object beyond reality. It has its natural origin in the tendency of youthful and imaginative minds to portray facts in the liveliest colours. An ardent imagination would very naturally describe the appearance of the many camps of the Midianites and Amalekites as in Judg. vii, 12: "Lying in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and as to their camels, no number, like the sand which is upon the shore of the sea for multitude." So the emotion of David prompts him to speak of Saul and Jonathan as swifter than eagles and stronger than lions (2 Sam. i, 23). Other scriptural examples of this figure are the following: "All night I make my bed to swim; with my tears I dissolve my couch" (Psa. vi, 6). "Would that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears; and I would weep day and night the slain of the daughter of my people" (Jer. ix, 1). "There are also many other things which Jesus did, which things, if written every one, I suppose that the world itself would not contain the books that should be written" (John xxi, 25). Such exaggerated expressions, when not overdone, or occurring too frequently, strike the attention and make an agreeable impression on the mind. Another peculiar form of speech, deserving a passing notice here, is irony, by which a speaker or writer says the very opposite of what he intends. Elijah's language to the Baal worshippers (1 Kings xviii, 27) is an example of most effective irony. Another example is Job xii, 1: "True it is that ye are the people, and with you wisdom will die!" In 1 Cor. iv, 8, Paul indulges in the following ironical vein: "Already ye are filled; already ye are become rich; without us ye have reigned; and I would indeed that ye did reign, that we also might reign with you." On this passage Meyer remarks: "The discourse, already in Irony. 1 The interrogative construction of this passage given above is maintained by many of the best interpreters and critics, ancient and modern (as Augustine, Ambrosiaster, Koppe, Reiche, Köllner, Olshausen, De Wette, Griesbach, Lachmann, Alford, Webster, and Jowett), and seems to us, on the whole, the most simple and satisfactory. But see other constructions advocated in Meyer and Lange. verse 7, roused to a lively pitch, becomes now bitterly ironical, heaping stroke on stroke, even as the proud Corinthians, with their partisan conduct, needed an admonition (vovėɛoía, ver. 14) to teach them humility." The designation of the thirty pieces of silver, in Zech. xi, 13, as "a glorious price," is an example of sarcasm. Words of derision and scorn, like those of the soldiers in Matt. xxvii, 30: "Hail, King of the Jews!" and those of the chief priests and scribes in Mark xv, 32: "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe," are not proper examples of irony, but of malignant mockery. CHAPTER IV. SIMILE AND METAPHOR. SIMILE. WHEN a formal comparison is made between two different objects, Simile defined So as to impress the mind with some resemblance or and illustrated. likeness, the figure is called a simile. A beautiful example is found in Isa. lv, 10, 11: "For as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens, and thither do not return, but water the land, and cause it to bear and to sprout, and it gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater: so shall my word be which goes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but do that which I desired, and be successful in what I sent it." The apt and varied allusions of this passage set forth the beneficial efficacy of God's word in a most impressive style. "The images chosen," observes Delitzsch, are rich with allusions. As snow and rain are the mediate cause of growth, and thus also of the enjoyment of what is harvested, so also by the word of God the ground and soil of the human heart is softened, refreshed, and made fertile and vegetative, and this word gives the prophet, who is like the sower, the seed which he scatters, and it brings with it bread that nourishes the soul; for every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is bread" (Deut. viii, 3).1 Another illustration of the word of God appears in Jer. xxiii, 29: "Is not my word even as the fire, saith Jehovah, and as a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?" Here are portrayed the fury and force of the divine word against false 66 1 Biblical Commentury on Isaiah, in loco, |