INTRODUCTORY 7
analysed and expounded the parallelistic struc-
ture of Hebrew poetry, and he drew attention to
the fact that the extent of poetry in the Old
Testament was much larger than had generally
been recognised, that in particular it included
the greater part of the prophetic writings.
The existence and general characteristics of
parallelism as claimed by Lowth have never been
questioned since, nor the importance for interpre-
tation of recognising these; nor can it be ques-
tioned, once the nature of parallelism is admitted,
that parallelism occurs in the Prophets as well
as in the Psalms, and in many passages of the
Prophets no less regularly than in many Psalms.
If, then, on the ground of parallelism, the Psalms
are judged to be poetry, the prophetic writings
(in the main) must also be regarded as poetry ;
and, if, on the ground of parallelism, a translation
of the Psalms is marked, as is the Revised Version,
by line divisions corresponding to the parallel
members of the original, a translation of the
Prophets should also be so marked; and by
failing so to mark the prophetic poetry, and
thereby introducing an unreal distinction between
the form of the Psalms and the form of the pro-
phetic writings, the Revised Version conceals
from those who use it one of the most important
and one of the surest of the conclusions which
were reached by Lowth in his discussion of
Hebrew poetry.