Prolegomena eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 855 pages of information about Prolegomena.

Prolegomena eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 855 pages of information about Prolegomena.

In the song the campaign is prepared with human means.  Negotiations are carried on among the tribes, and in the course of these differences crop up.  The lukewarmness or the swelling words of some tribes are reproved, the energetic public spirit and warlike courage of others praised.  In the narrative, on the contrary, the deliverance is the work of Jehovah alone; the men of Israel are mere dummies, who show no merit and deserve no praise.  To make up for this, interest is concentrated on the act of Jael, which instead of being an episode becomes the central point of the whole narrative.  Indeed it is announced as being so, for Deborah prophesies to Barak that the glory of the conflict will not be his but a woman’s, into whose hand the enemy is to be sold; it is not the hero, not human strength, that accomplishes what is done:  Jehovah shows His strength in man’s weakness.  And Barak’s part in the work is depreciated in yet another way.  Deborah summons him to go not to the battle, but to the holy hill of Tabor, where Jehovah will bring about what is further to happen; he, however, objects to this, and insists that the prophetess herself shall go with him.  This is regarded as a caprice of unbelief, because the prophetess is thought to have exhausted her mission when she transmitted the command of the Deity to His instrument:  she has appeared for no end but to make it known through her prophecy that Jehovah alone brings everything to pass.  In the song this is different.  There Barak is not summoned against his will; on the contrary, he has a personal motive for taking up arms:  “Arise, Barak; take captive thy captors, thou son of Ahinoam.”  And the prophetess has not only to prophesy; she works in a more psychological manner; she is part of the battle, and inflames with her song the courage of the fighting battalions:  “Awake, Deborah, awake, sing the song!” 1 Throughout these variations of

********************************************** 1.  Ver. 12 is a summons to begin the battle, and Deborah cannot here be singing the song of triumph which celebrates its happy issue.  For a similar reason the translation given above, “take captive thy captors,” is the more natural and correct. ************************************************

the prose reproduction we feel that the rich colour of the events as they occurred is bleached out of them by the one universal first cause, Jehovah.  The presence and energy of Jehovah are not wanting in the song; they are felt in the enthusiasm which fills the Hebrew warriors, and in the terror and panic which confound the prancing vigour of the foe.  But in the prose narrative, the Divine action is stripped of all mystery, and mechanic prophecy finds no difficulty in showing distinctly and with sober accuracy what the part of the Deity in the history has been.  But the more special the intervention of Deity, the further is it from us; the more precise the statements about it, the less do we feel it to be there.

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Prolegomena from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.