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176
" Thy tight hand, O Lord, glorious in power / thy right hand, O Lord,
shatters the enemy" (Exod. xv. 6): This verse is similar to " The floods
have lifted up, O Lord / thefloodshave lifted up their voice " (Ps. xc. 3),
" O Lord, how long shall the wicked/ how long shall the wicked exult ? "
(Ps. xciv. 3), "For lo, thy enemies, O Lord / for lo, thy enemies shall
perish" (Ps. xcii. 10). The first half is incomplete without the second
half, which repeats and completes the thought.
177
mus membrorum. According to the analysis of Lowth, a relationship of synonymous, antithetic, or synthetic parallelism exists
between the cola of a biblical verse. Lowth himself did not
hesitate to regard the passages under discussion as a special case
oiparallela synonyma, and in his discussion of this type of parallelism he remarked, "Fit nonnumquam parallelismus per iterationem partis alicuius prioris membri."1 He cites the following
verses in illustration of this statement: "Thou God of vengeance,
O Lord / thou God of vengeance, shine forth" (Ps. xciv. i);
" How long shall the wicked, O Lord / how long shall the wicked
exult?" (ibid. v. 3). But scholars have long felt that this definition
does not exhaust the subject, and have considered it necessary to
supplement Lowth's analysis by the use of the term "climactic
parallelism". The definition advanced by S. R. Driver2 is clearly
similar to that of Rashbam:" Here thefirstline is itself incomplete,
and the second line takes up words from it and completes them."
But even though his definition is similar, Driver actually meant a
more general type than Rashbam, as becomes apparent from one
of his examples: "The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness /
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh" (Ps. xxix. 8). True
enough, in this verse too words are repeated, t>ut in the repetitive
formula the order of words has been changed.
D. Yelling dealt with this problem in 1939,. in his study of
repetition in biblical poetry. He writes:
There is a unique type of poetic repetition which is used only in
elevated and solemn style, and appears in thefollowingmanner: part
of the phrase is begun and not ended; then comes the name of the
person spoken to, in theformof an address; afterwards, that part of the
phrase which has already been stated is repeated and completed.
The innovation in this definition is the stress laid upon the
existence of an intervening formula which is phrased as an
address. Therefore Yellin's definition excludes Gen. xlix. 22
(included by Rashbam) and Ps. xxix. 8 (included by Driver).
Yellin goes on to state:
But sometimes thefirstpart expresses a complete idea, and the second
part of the verse, which repeats the beginning of the first part, adds
something else to the preceding idea and strengthens its mining
As examples he cites, inter alia, Ps. lxvi. 4, 6; Canti iv. 9; v. 9.
different from that of Hab. iii. 2, as the colon abc in Ps. xcii. 10
cannot exist by itself.
In 1957 S. Mowinckel1 published a book on the problem of
the tricolon in the Bible. Although this book refrains from any
fundamental discussion of the characteristics of the abovementioned verses, it does touch on some of them from various
aspects, especially that of their textual criticism, which is based
on the determination of the rules of the structure of biblical
verse.
The problem of the above-mentioned literary type will here
be subjected to a new examination which will include comparison
of the scriptural material with its Ugaritic parallels. We shall first
present a survey of these latter.
dbu is apparently related to K37 (Deut. xxxiii. 25) and like it is unclear.
The LXX has lox>S "strength" and the Targum KDpW "strength", which
also suits the Ugaritic text.
180
ykrt / att tqh btk \ glmt ts'rb k$rk // tld Ib' bnm Ik \ wtmn tttmnm
(HI K II, lines 21-4): "The woman thou takest, 6 Krt / the
woman thou takest to thy house / the girl thou bringest to thy
court // will bear seven sons unto thee / yea, even eight."
The complementary formula btk is, in this case, the complement of the predicate tqh. Moreover, it should be noted that the
expanded colon together with its complement glmt tS'rb b%rk does
not make a complete sentence, but merely the subject of the
complete sentence. Even so, here too the expanded colon in
itself is constructed according to the pattern 2-1-2-1.
Special attention should be given to the verse, irl bym laqht
frr I irl bym watnk / blmt wallbk (IID VI, lines 26-9): "Request
life, O Aqht the hero / request life and I shall give (it) to you /
immortality, and I shall bestow it upon you."
The pattern 2-2-2-1 is but slightly different from the pattern
2-1-2-1 that we have observed up to now. Indeed, the first colon
irl bym laqbt gqr here constitutes a complete sentence, containing
subject, predicate and object. Even so, this clause is not independent, but is rather an unconnected protasis, whose apodosis
is watnk (that is to say: "If you request life, I shall give it to you"),
and therefore it cannot exist separately. Thus what we have here
is chiefly the phenomenon described above. Here too it is easy to
distinguish the interruption of the continuous flow of words
irl bym watnk, an interruption accompanied by a new beginning,
and here too the formulation of the idea ends in the complementary formula only. We might add that the reconstruction of
the basic unexpanded sentence is in this case not merely a matter
of conjecture, as the same text goes on to state: Im' m' [laqht
far I t]rl ksp watnk! / \lbrs wal]lhk (IID VI, lines 16-18): "But
listen, O Aqht the hero / request silver and I will give it to you /
gold, and I will bestow it upon you."
Thus we can observe the process of formation of the expanded
colon from this simple formulation. The address laqhtgy which
precedes the simple colon turns into the intervening formula of
the expanded colon, which separates the first two words from
their repetition.
The following verse deviates from those discussed up to now:
qrn dbatk btlt 'nt / qrn dbatk b'lymlh / b'lymlh hm b'p (TV AB E,
lines 21-3): "Thy horns of strength,1 O virgin Anat / thy homs
Prof. Z. Ben-Hayyim has called my attention to the possibility of understanding the construct state as one word. We would then have the pattern
1-1-1-2. But in all the Ugaritic verses the repetitive formula is composed of
two words. This leads us to conclude that even such a combination as qrn
dbatk was understood as two words.
* Cf. also V AB V, lines 27-9. The reading is very doubtful. A. Herdner,
Corpus its tabkttes en ctmiiformts alpbabitiquts (Paris, 1963), p. 19, .suggests
reading [but] bb\tk\yilm / but bb[tk) a\l tl\mp / al tlmb br\m b]kt[k], "In the
building of thy house, O El / in the building of thy house thou shalt not
rejoice / thou shalt not rejoice in the raising of thy palace." The pattern is
2-1-2-2. If this restoration is accurate, then here too the beginning of the
third colon repeats the ending of the second, which is a complementary
formula. But in spite of this concatenation there can be no doubt that the
third colon is in any case a kind of parallel colon, and the existence of a colon
which expands into three cola need not yet be assumed.
181
The usual wording for vision in the Ugaritic epic is bnH 'nb wypb{n) (I D,
lines 105, 120, 137; E D V , line 9): "Upon lifting up his eyes he saw."
Similarly, the feminine bnH 'nb wtpbn (IIABII, line 12; I D , lines 28-9, 76;
IID VI, line 10). These expressions are an additional indication that "lifting
13
183
8814U
up of the eyes " is merely the beginning of the action, and requires completion through the description of seeing.
There are biblical expressions which resemble the formula in IV AB, such
as "And he lifted up his eyes and he saw". See M. D. Cassuto (in Tarbis^ xrv
(573) 9- IG ) ( m Hebrew).
1
For the parallelism jtfir / tbr see M. D. Cassuto, Tarbi% xrv (5703), 9-10
(in Hebrew); M. Held, Studies and Essays in Honour of A. A. Neumann
(Leiden, 1962), pp. 281-90. Both authors explain this form of parallelism as
one existing between th&jaqtul and qatala forms in two cola of one verse.
True, this kind of parallelism is well attested in biblical poetry. Nevertheless
it remains a moot question whether tbr should be parsed as qatala or as qatalu.
Cf. the verse tt'r ksat I mbr / t'rtlfmt Isbim (V AB II, lines 20-2). If the poet
had intended to use the qatala form, he should have written t'rt and not/'r.
We must, therefore, necessarily define t'r as the absolute infinitive. Cf. also
M. Dahood, Psalms I (New York, 1966), p. 177.
In any case, the fact remains that both in Ugaritic and biblical poetry there
exists a type of parallelism between xh&yaqtul and another form of the same
verb in the two cola of a verse. Such repetition does not change the structure
of the verse, and is therefore fundamentally different from the repetition
present in the expanded colon.
184
185
13-3
nip it o nasr i s " Until thy people pass by, O Lord/ until the people
pass by whom thou hast purchased" (Exod. xv. 16). If the verse
had read: mp IT ay *iasr i s 'n ns lasr i s "Until the people pass
by, O Lord / until the people pass by whom thou hast purchased", we would have had an expanded colon in which the
complementary formula mp IT ns would have served as the
determination of the subject, as in Ps. kvii. 4. But here the subject of the repetitive formula is determined by the personal
pronoun (*]BSthy people!), thus turning the expanded colon
into a verse of two parallel cola, each of which is complete and
comprehensible in itself, even if the origin of this verse from the
expanded colon is quite obvious. Still further removed from the
pattern of the expanded colon is 1110 nsas m 'n O'VKa roas a
mpa "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the Gods ? Who is
like thee glorious in holiness?"1 (Exod.xv. 11); ?mai nap i s
Vmwa OK 'napw " Until you arose, O Deborah / until you arose, a
mother in Israel" (Judg. v. 7).
There are more patterns in the Bible than in Ugaritic. Both
have in common the pattern 1-2-1-2 (Ps. kvii. 4, 6; lxxvii. 17;
xciii. .3; Cant. iv. 8) and 2-2-2-2 (Exod. xv. 6), but in regard to the
latter pattern it must be added that the repetitive formula and the
intervening formula deviate from the normal. As a rule, it is the
address that intervenes between the repetitive formulas. Here,
however, the address proper ('n) is part of the repetitive formula
'n 1W, and the intervening formula roa TWO is in apposition
to the address.
Not certainly attested in Ugaritic (see above, p. 181 n. 2) is the
biblical pattern 2-1-2-2 (Ps. xxxi. 4; Judg. iv. 12; Cant. vii. 1).
The last two examples bear a striking resemblance to one another
in the structure of the repetitive formula. Both of these have a
1 Cf. also above, p. 184 n. 1. The verses cited there, whose cola are in
synonymous parallelism, tend to have a repetitive formula of the type
customary in the expanded colon. But during the repetition the poet varies
the formula which he is repeating.
188
189
formula (bt) serves as the beginning of the third colon. Cf. also V AB V,
lines 27-9, discussed on p. 181 n. 2, and IID I, lines 10-11.
For a different analysis of Ps. xxix. 1, see Mowinckel (ppf cit. pp. 22-3).
Compare the verse under discussion also with lafl ITOV niTIBVQ 'it? 1371
rmna 'it? Timron rnmn 1 ? wai nruo IKW tov TOD 'it? lan vn tias 'it?
pKn Va rD I'm mp "Ascribe to the Lord, Ofamiliesof the peoples /
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength / ascribe to the Lord the glory of his
name / bring an offering, and come into his courts / worship the Lord in holy
array / tremble before him, all the earth" (Ps. xcvL 7-9). This psalm is
composed of ancient hymnic material. But its author, whorightlyor wrongly
thought the heavenly beings of Ps. xxix to be the gods of the nations, did
not think it proper to address these insufficient gods, and therefore addressed
the nations themselves, and even explained to them the meaning of the
commandTOTDS 'it? ttil TJD TD3 'it? "On by explicidy saying nma WW
rnnsnV 1K3r Thus the colon BTTp Tmna 'Tt> Tinnwi was removed from its
original contest, and the isolation of the colon caused in turn the addition
of the parallel colon pJCl V3 TWO iV"H.
190
See Ginsberg, op. tit., p. 171; Albright, op. cit., p. 3; cf. also Gordon,
op. cit. 15. 107, note z, and 13. 109.
2
Mowinckel, op. cit., p. 97.
* Mowinckel, p. 100.
4
Mowinckel, p. 34.
See GK 53*7.
Cf. also Isa. y. 1; Ps. xiiL 6; xxvii. 6; lvii. 8; lxxxix. 2; d. 1; civ. 33;
cviii. 2; cxliv. 9; the wording TVK ""IK (Ps. lix. 17) is in contrast with nan
psir (v. 16). In Ugaritic too ah "I will sing" (NK, lines 38,40) appears without a personal pronoun.
* A. Weiser, Z.A.W. LXXI(1959), 73, has explained 'n1? "OIK as meaning
"I belong to the Lord", assuming that a new sentence begins afterwards.
The basis for this explanation is the clear difficulty in translating the expanded
verse in the Song of Deborah into a foreign language to whose spirit the
syntactical construction of this verse is foreign.
193
I,to the Lord I will sing / 1 will make melody to the Lord,
the God of Israel" (Judg. v. 3).
Some scholars have explained this combination as casuspendens,
meaning the isolation of the logical subject.1 The verse would
then mean: "As for me, I will sing." If, however, the first oat
were casus pendens, the second only would serve as grammatical
subject. But it seems rather unlikely to attribute to these two
OIK different functions. Moreover, the prominent emphasis on
the subject is out of place here, as it is not the habit of one who
sings in honour of his God to make himself stand out; cf. rrviwt
nra nw "D 'n1? " I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed
gloriously" (Exod. xv. i). 2 Therefore not only is the complete
expression jmtt -oat 'nV oat difficult, but even the simple
combination JTTW OJK is strange, as in biblical Hebrew 'SIK is
prefixed to a finite verb only when the subject is to be emphasized. If so, it would seem that the function of the personal
pronoun here is specifically to expand the expression 'nV n"WK.
However, the results of this expansion exceed what would
normally be expected. The intervening formula 'n1? is the indirect
object, and the repetitive formula is limited to one word3 as in
Cant. iv. 9.
The Bible also has ,a type of expanded verse in which the intervening formula is absent. An example which is close in form to
the Ugaritic epic is the verse bvrwr m n "pa11 "pa* mar 'n
" The Lord has been mindful of us, he will bless / he will bless the
house of Israel" (Ps. cxv. 12). This verse is reminiscent of those
Ugaritic verses in which one colon ends in a verb lacking a complement, while the next colon begins with the same verb and adds
the details of the action. Also similar to this is the passage
pKn DDWV K3 "O K3 "o 'n "fflV "Before the Lord, for he comes / for
he comes to judge the earth" (Ps. xcvi. 13), which repeats not
only the verb but also the conjunction "O. But this slight variation
in the repetitive formula is not sufficient to prevent its being in
1
S. R. Driver, Treatise on the Use of the Tenses (Oxford, 1892), p. 269.
harmony with the common style. Thus here also the received
text is to be maintained, being confirmed also by the Septuagint,
even though the repetition of the words a "O is lacking not only
in the parallel text of I Chron. xvi. 33, and in a similar version of
Ps. xcviii. 9, but also in some MSS of Ps. xcvii. Also to be
classified here is the verse ia VK*WV nVni nVro DS"IK ]nn "And
he gave their land as a heritage / a heritage to Israel his people"
(Ps. cxxxv. 12 and cf. also cxxxvi. 21,22), in which the first colon
ends with the second object nVro and the second colon begins
with the same noun nVni, the meaning of which is explained by
the addition of the indirect object VRnsrV.
- In contrast to this, much more removed from the ancient
patterns is the verse piaVn TIR 'n lasn nrw na 'n Vip "The
voice of the Lord breaks the cedars / and the Lord has broken the
cedars of Lebanon" (Ps. xxix. j). The clear mining of this verse
is that the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon, piaV
thus serves as a complementary formula coming at the end, and
in the repetitive formula that precedes the complementary
formula there occur changes, such as we have already observed
in other verses. The same type of expanded sentence recurs in the
same psalm, as follows: snp "mo 'n Vrr naio Vw 'n Vip "The
voice of the Lord .shakes the wilderness / the Lord shakes the
wilderness of Kadesh" (p. 8).
At the beginning of the article we mentioned that Rashbam
classifies with the type of verses discussed also the passages p
f 'Vs me p *]b"p mo "A fruitful bough is Joseph1 / a fruitful
bough by a spring" (Gen. xlix. 22), and Van nVnp iaff-VanVan
Van Van D^Van "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher / vanity of
vanities, all is vanity " (Eccles. i. 2). These verses differ from all the
verses discussed up to now in that they are noun clauses, whereas
up to now we have dealt only with verb clauses. Now this difference is of fundamental importance. We had established a rule
above that the expanded colon was created from a nucleus, which
is the formula following the intervening formula, and whose
verb includes the subject of the sentence. But the words mo p
f *V, which follow the intervening formula *\w, do not form
a complete sentence, as they lack a subject. We are thus compelled
to state that the basic formula is in this case ps "bv *pr rnD p .
This type of expanded sentence is not at all present in the
Ugaritic texts, and is quite rare in the Bible. Thus it seems likely
that it is a new pattern that has been formed under the influence
of the usual pattern. Perhaps we may even allow ourselves to
conjecture that the type providing the influence is that very colon
in which the intervening formula serves as the subject, and not
as the address. It is true that we have found no certain example of
a subject as the intervening formula in the Bible; but as this
phenomenon is quite common in the Ugaritic texts, it is likely
only by chance that no verses of this type were preserved in the
Bible.
The verse in Ecclesiastes is even further removed from the
classical scheme, as in this case the intervening formula is a complete sentencen"?np *IBRa case which is exceptional.
196
sroin niopi *?N (Ps. xciv. i), if we explain srein as past tense. In
this type the contents describe a deed in every case. The example
of such verb clauses is apparently followed in the noun clause
p> 'Vs me p lor mo p (Gen. xlix. zz); cf. also Eccles. i. z, in
which a complete sentence is used as an intervening formula. The
historical placement of those few expanded expressions which
lack an intervening formula is entirely unclear, and it cannot be
decided whether to consider them as an outgrowth of those
expanded cola in which the intervening formula serves as the
subject, or to regard the simplicity of form as evidence of
extreme antiquity.
The vast majority of the biblical verses discussed belong to the
type of address or, more exactly, to the two types of address,
which in biblical poetry rid themselves of the rigid formal rules
to which they were subjected in the Ugaritic epic. In the Bible
they develop into such a large amount of variations that almost
every verse is a unique form. But there is also a type of expanded
colon in which there is no intervening formula, and there is even
a verse which breaks all the accepted rules. This is the verse
avrnx 'nV "OIK (Judg. v. 3). Thus in the present subject also
the Bible constitutes a developed stage in the history of Canaanite
literature, a stage which is clearly distinguished from the
rigidity of the simple and archaic forms of the Ugaritic epic.
It would appear that the style of the expanded colon cannot be
ascribed fundamentally to one literary genre. In Ugaritic we have
observed it in the epic, in the Bible mostly in hymns in honour of
the Lord, but sometimes also in the love songs of the Song of
Solomon and once in a proverb from the Wisdom Literature
(Prov. xxxi. 4). This ancient pattern has left its impression also on
the noun clause in the Blessing of Joseph (Gen. xlix. 22), less so
in the later passage Eccles. i. 2.