The Maccabaean

THE Hebrew language, mysteriously preserved like Israel, the people after whom it is called, amidst the tempest of many, many centuries, politically annihilated, but spiritually full of vigor, has never ceased to be a vehicle for the expression of soul-stirring thoughts and of holy sentiments. Not only in the brilliant epoch of Hebrew literature in Spain, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, but since then, Hebrew has been written in prose and in poetry with power and effect unattainable in any of the languages that have ceased to live. The Hebrew language appeals strongly to the English mind, because it is the holy language bringing the Divine Word and coming from the sanctuary of that ancient covenant, whose faithful guardians are the people of Israel. The Semitic word has, within historic times, exercised on the civilization of the whole human race an influence to which no parallel can be found, and which, if the future may be measured by the past, is destined triumphantly to extend, for the incalculable benefit of mankind, to the uttermost bounds of the earth. The poetry of the Bible has no rival. Some people consider the Hebrew to be a dead language, but this is entirely wrong. Hebrew has never been dead. At no time in its long history has it ceased to be employed by the Jewish people as a medium for the expression, whether in speech or in writing, of the living thoughts and the living feelings of the Jew.

Its use as a national medium of every-day speech came, indeed, to an end with the destruction of the political organization of the Jewish people. But that catastrophe did not destroy the life of the language any more than it destroyed the life of the nation. The marvelous revival of the Hebrew language in our times in Palestine, which is one of the greatest achievements of the Zionist movement, shows that this language was only neglected, and that it was essentially a living language. The Hebrew language in its naturalness and noble simplicity was not less powerful than the influence of Biblical ideas on the English mind. Knowing little of artificial forms, it has a natural sublimity of its own and a great logical clearness in discriminating between nice shades of meaning.

“The Hebrew,” says De Quincey, “by introducing himself to the secret places of the human heart, and sitting there as incubator over the awful germs of the spirituali- ties that connect man with unseen worlds has perpetuated himself as a power in the human system; he is co-enduring with man’s race, and careless of all revolutions in literature or in the composition of society.” Works, vol. x., p. 250, “On Language.’’)

The Hebrew language deals with things concrete and is essentially personal. In poetry it re-echoes the poet's

* This article constitutes one of the chapters in the forthcoming book, "History of Zionism," by Nahum Sokolow, published in England.

own thoughts, and sets forth the various phases of his own experience.

Now, this poetry derives its excellency from its great outward simplicity ; it acknowledges no rule of metrical art. Its poesy is esoteric, not exoteric. The outward characteristic of Hebrew poetic style is its parallelism, or the logical symmetry between two distiches of the same verse. The graceful execution of this difficult problem— unity of design under a diversity of forms—constitutes the incomparable charm of Hebrew poetic diction. “Parallelism is the law of perfection. Thought of speech, body and spirit, here an hereafter, are divinely conceived parallelisms.”

The Hebrew language is particularly intuitive. In teaching morality and in expressing with authority religious and ethical truths in brief, pregnant utterances.

A more general and intimate acquaintance with the Hebrew language has explained difficulties occasioned by some older incorrect translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, and has developed facts of the greatest importance. Hence we see how necessary an acquaintance with the Hebrew language is in order to acquire a full and correct knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.

It has to be borne in mind that the best of English literature has been inspired by the Hebrew language of the Bible. Throughout the entire works of Bacon the same peculiarity is sufficiently apparent, but in his essays —the special favorites of Bacon—which he so carefully revised and rewrote in the ripeness of his age and experience, and which, therefore may be considered the very cream and essence of his wonderful genius, this characteristic element obtains a prominence that cannot fail to strike every reader. Out of fifty-eight essays, fifty-four treat more exclu

sively of moral subjects, and more than seventy allude to the Holy Scripture. So natural was it—to borrow a figure of speech from Bacon himself—for his great mind “to turn upon the poles of truth,” and to revert to its great fountain-head, in support and confirmation of his own profound conclusions.

But by far the most prominent example of this deference and homage paid to the Bible will be found in the works of Shakespeare. As he excels in nearly all other points, so also is he greatest in this respect. His works are so perfectly impregnated with the Bible that we can scarcely open them without encountering one or other of the Bible’s great truths which Shakespeare has assimilated and reproduced in words that renew the Bible’s authority, and strengthen its claim upon men’s attention. One of the principal influences that moulded and guided Shakespeare’s whole intellect—one of his great teachers indeed—was the Bible. This influence is not only apparent in the tone of Shakespeare’s poetry, but also in the shape and character of it.