80 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
the natural suggestion is that Jacob and Israel
are different entities, which they are not; Jacob
and Israel are here, as elsewhere in these poems
(Num. xxiii. 7, 10, 21, 23 ; xxiv. 5, 17., 18 f.),
synonymous terms belonging to different members
of the parallelism. The proper articulation of
the passage is,
Now shall it be said of Jacob,
And of Israel, What hath God wrought!
and it is interesting to observe that this not very
common type of parallelism occurs twice (see
also xxiv. 9) in the oracles of Balaam.
The strongly marked pause in the middle, and
the marked independence of the last part, of the
second line are characteristic of all the distichs
just cited. If from these observations we turn
immediately to Hosea iv. 13 c, d, we shall prob-
ably conclude that the difficulties which have
been felt with regard to these lines are unreal,
that the emendations which have been proposed^1
wholly unnecessary, and that, in respect of
parallelism and structure, the lines closely re-
semble Numbers xxiii. 23, xxiv. 9, and Deutero-
nomy xxxiii. 11; in this case the correct articula-
tion is,
hnblv Nvlx tHt
hlc bvF-yk hlxv
Under oak and poplar,
And terebinth: for good is the shade thereof.
1 See e.g. W. R. Harper, Commentary on Amos and Hosea (" Inter-
national Critical Commentary"), pp. 260, 261.