- fession of honest scepticism is found in the Rig Veda (x. 129),
though I would not of course identify the opinions of the Sanskrit and the Hebrew poet,
Who knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung—whence,
this creation?. . . From what this creation arose; and whether
[any one] made it, or not,—he who in the highest heaven is its ruler,
he verily knows, or [even] he does not know.[1]
The poet who 'takes up his parable' after Laithi-el calmly
and uncontroversially indicates his own very different religious
position. He earnestly prays that he may not 'become a
liar and ask, Who is Jehovah?' (xxx. 9); for him the divine
revelations (the outward form of which is already sacred) are
amply sufficient. 'Every utterance of God [Eloah, the sing.
form, as in Job] is free from alloy (xxx. 5; see the commentators
on Ps. xviii. 31); the divine 'name' declared in Ex.
xxxiv. 6, should satisfy the wisest of men. Thus, like the
editors of Ecclesiastes, this later writer neutralises the doubtful
expressions of the poem which he has saved from perishing.
Can we avoid the impression that both these poets lived in an age of advanced religious reflection and of Scripture-study? The one is more of a philosopher, the other of a Biblical theologian; both would be at home only in the Exile or in the post-Exile period, when doubt and even scepticism lifted their heads side by side with Biblical study. Our second more believing poet seems to be thinking of Ps. xviii. 30; but the portion of that verse which he adopts assumes another colour through the warning which follows, derived from Deut. iv. 1, xiii. 1. It is no longer the 'promise of God' which is 'tried' or 'pure,' but the revelation of which the Jewish Church is gradually finding itself the possessor.
The poet's prayer for himself (vv. 7-9) is followed by eight groups of proverbs, each of which describes some quality or character which is either commended or warned against, and (with the exception of the first) contains a similitude. In most of these the number four is conspicuous generally as the climax after 'three' (vv. 15, 18, 21, 29).
- ↑ Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 356; comp. Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, p. 316.
