252 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
Hebrew poetry does not appear to me to be
made out.^1 But there is no question that in
many poems the lines consist of approximately
the same number of words. This is the case
with the present passage. The regular length
of the line is three or four^2 independent words.
In one case only (1. 14) the number of words is
only two.^3 In line 5, which, as we shall see
below, is probably part of a gloss, the number
is five. Unless the emendations adopted in
lines 122, 25 be accepted, two other lines also
extended to five words.^4 The effect of the
emendations is in each case to make out of a
single line of five words two lines of three words
(11. 21, 22 ; 24, 25). With the exceptions men-
tioned the emendations adopted do not effect
the length of the lines. Even in the Hebrew
text as it stands, out of twenty-seven lines all
but four consist either of three or four independent
1 [This statement is now, of course, to be modified in accordance
with Chapters I.-VI. of the present work.]
2 [The lines, except as indicated above, regularly consist of three
stressed words : the only examples, even in the present text, of lines
clearly containing four stresses are v. 2 a, b ; and these also, as pointed
out above (p. 249, n. 1), were both originally lines of three stresses.]
3 I.e. in the Hebrew text. In the translation I have adopted
Gunkel's suggestion. He inserts lk before tvfbgh (cf. Ps. cxlviii. 9; Jer.
iv. 24; Amos ix. 13). [Though line 23 contains three words, it is
most naturally read as a line of two stresses, vb ysh falling under a
single stress. Probably enough, therefore, a word has fallen out,
though whether that word was Yahweh and we ought, as many think,
to read Yahweh knoweth for He knoweth is uncertain. The repetition
of Yahweh so soon after line 21 is not required.]
4 The dissimilarity in length of these lines to the others appears in
Prof. Smith's translation, Book of the Twelve, ii. p. 93, 4th and 2nd
lines from bottom.