of deceitful women and of philosophy. He proclaims that God's justice is sure if it is slow: that wisdom and moderation alone bring happiness. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, whither thou goest" (ix. 10). "Fear God," he concludes, "and keep His commandments; for such is the judgment on man" (xii. 13). The book which so sums up the "whole matter" is not the cynical utterance of a disgusted worldling; it is the wholesome warning against vanity, ambition, and selfishness of one who knew where true wisdom lies. But it belongs to the Wisdom literature, of which another fine example (Ecclesiasticus) is only known to us in Greek, and it seems to be the latest of the great poetic books received into the Hebrew canon.

Such, then, appears to be the history of Hebrew poetry. The early Psalms of David were supplemented with others in the Assyrian age, and others during and after the Captivity. The Book of Job and the Song of Songs preserve to us works not written in Jerusalem, but in Gilead and Edom, and little concerned with Hebrew laws or rites. In Proverbs we find the wisdom of the Hebrews under their kings, with maxims taken from ancient copies, and even from distant tribes. In the Preacher we find repeated the verdict of Job on human life in an age when tyranny and corruption, scepticism and worldliness, were common-perhaps in the last years of the decaying Persian.

rule.

THE PSALMS OF DAVID.

191

The testimony of monuments shows us, however, that psalms and songs had been written in Asia long before the time of David which approach in character those attributed to the "sweet singer of Israel." To suppose that most or all of these belong to the later Greek age of the Maccabees, is to ignore the language in which they are written as compared with that in use after Ezra's time.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI.

Akkadian Hymns.-The bilingual texts which Sir H. Rawlinson published in the 'Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia' have been collected and studied by F. Lenormant in his work called 'Études Accadiennes.' The translations given in the preceding chapter are due to study of the latter work, which gives throughout the cuneiform text in facsimile. They are, however, not always in accordance with Lenormant's results, and are the outcome of independent study by the author. The specimens selected represent the highest attainment of the Akkadian psalmists. They occur side by side with litanies to the "Spirit of Earth" and "Spirit of Heaven," who presided over the countless genii and demons in whom the Akkadians believed. Some of the documents describe charms for exorcising demons, or relate to the mischief done by them. One bilingual is an agreement for renting a house and garden and keeping it in repair. The short Akkadian texts of the earlier kings of Chaldea, such as Urbau, Gudea, &c., occur only in that language, as well as the long texts from Tell Loh. The Semitic language first appears in the great inscription of Hammurapaltu about

2100 B.C.

66

Language of Canticles.-The word Paradise used in this Song (iv. 13) is usually regarded as Aryan-Persian paradesa, a garden"; and several other strange words have been noted. As, however, the Persian is known to have borrowed from the older Assyrian, and Assyrian trade with India goes back to the ninth century B.C. (Obelisk of Shalmaneser II.), such conclusions are at present very doubtful. The use of shi for asher ("which") found in Canticles, and also in the song of Deborah (Judges v.), is dialectic, but not a mark of date: it is the Assyrian sa, used also in the Tell Amarna letters of the fifteenth century B.C.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PERSIAN AGE.

THREE books of the Bible relate the fortunes of the Jews under the Persians-Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

Esther relates the origin of the later festival of Purim, and speaks of the Hebrew wife of Xerxes by her Persian name, "the Star." It uses the Persian words for rulers and satraps; and Purim itself is an Aryan word, connected with the root whence the Latin fors is derived. The syntax, no less than the words, of its language, belongs to the later Hebrew, and Persian terms remained in use among the Jews as late as the second century A.d. The author seems to speak of Xerxes (i. 1) as living in a former age, and though he is well informed on Persian customssuch as the establishment of the famous postal serviceyet it is difficult to understand how a Jewish maiden could have become the queen of a Persian king, because the law of Persia limited his choice to certain noble Persian families. This discrepancy would be easily understood if the book was written somewhat later. Yet we have no reason to doubt that it contains the true tradition of an Esther whose influence saved her race

N

from persecution-a memory which, in the times of the Maccabees, seems to have still been preserved by the celebration of "the day of Esther," or feast of Purim. The artistic merit of the book, and the vividness of its descriptions, are generally allowed. Nor is it historically improbable that Xerxes should have had a Jewish wife. Cotton is first noticed in the Book of Esther (i. 6), and was, like silk, unknown in Palestine till the later ages of Persian rule.

The Book of Ezra is distinguished as consisting of an introduction, an original memoir, and a final addition, by the use of the third and first persons in its pages. The introduction connects it with Chronicles, repeating the last words of that later history of Israel. It records the return of the Jews in the time of Cyrus, and passes on by the reigns of Darius and of Xerxes down to the age of Artaxerxes. It then includes an Aramaic letter (iv. 8-23) of that reign, to which is apparently added a gloss referring to Darius II. in 425 B.C., which causes great confusion in the history (verse 24). The Aramaic letter of the time of Darius I., when apparently Haggai and Zechariah prophesied (v. 1-vi. 18), is thus out of place, and the later compiler seems to have been little acquainted with Persian history. Another Aramaic decree of Artaxerxes follows (vii. 12-26), and Ezra's own memoir begins at this point in 458 B.C. The sequel by the compiler (x. 1-44) is again in the third person.

This composite work is interesting as showing the official