230 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
where 1 with what violence, and even with what
ridiculous results at times, as in his strophic
division of Isaiah xi. 1-8, Duhm tears asunder
the things that parallelism most evidently in-
tended to be kept together. I must here confine
myself to two examples of Duhm's treatment
of the text of Jeremiah. The first example is
Jeremiah iv. 3, 4: the present Hebrew text reads,
and may be divided, as follows:
Mywvrylv hdvhy wyxl | hvhy rmx hk-yk
Mycq-lx vfrzt lxv | ryn Mkl vryb
Mkbbl tlrf vryshv | hvhyl vlmh
Mlwvry ybwyv | hdvhy wyx
hbkm Nyxv hrfbv | ytmH wxk xct-Np
If we approach this passage without a theoretical
prejudice, is it not obvious that the marked
tendency of the clauses is to balance one
another, not to echo one another, as, accord-
ing to Duhm, if genuine, they should do? A
further feature of the passage is the prominence
of parallelism:--
For thus saith Yahweh
To the men of Judah and Jerusalem,
Break up your fallow ground,
And sow not among thorns ;
Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh,
And take away the foreskin of your heart,
1 Isaiah, pp. 211 if., and Zeitschrift fiir die AT. Wissenschaft, 1912,
pp. 193-198.