CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION 217
parallelism or some approximation, even in the
present stage of the text, to rhythms familiar
from their occurrence in what are generally
recognised to be poems. Such speeches are the
curses pronounced by Yahweh on Adam and
Eve and the serpent (Gen. iii. 14-19), the blessings
pronounced by Isaac on Jacob and Esau (xxvii.
27-29, 39, 40), and Jacob's speech to Laban
(xxxi. 36-42). To justify the statement that
these show some use of parallelism and some
approximation to metre, let it suffice to point out
that the closing words of the curse on the serpent
form, as a matter of fact, an unmistakable
distich 3 : 3, the lines of which are completely
parallel to one another (a. b. c ( a'. b'. c'); that
Isaac's blessing on Jacob closes with three
distichs in each of which the lines are completely
parallel to one another, the schemes being
a. b j a'. b', a2. b a'. b'2, and a. b I a'. b'; and
that xxxi. 38 b, c is a perfectly clear example of
a distich 3 : 3 with the lines completely parallel
to one another (a2. b a'2. b'). Yet in none of
the passages quoted is it possible to discern in the
present text metrical regularity. Such metrical
regularity can be obtained with least alteration
of the present text in the curse on the serpent.
If we omit in v. 14 the words v hmhbh lkm, of all
cattle and —an omission which was originally
suggested by Stade^1 quite irrespective of metrical
1 In the Zeitschr. fur die alttestantentliehe Wissenschaft, xvii. 200.