208 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
or four stresses : e.g. Genesis ix. 1-4 (P), xxvi.
1-13; (4) sixes alternating with a short verse
of three or four stresses: e.g. Genesis xxvi. 14, 15.
Of these rhythms the simple sevens is by far
the most frequent: long passages in which
Sievers discovers it are, for example, Genesis i.,
i.e. P's account of creation; xi. 1-9, J's account
of the building of the tower of Babel; xxiv.,
J's account of Eliezer's mission to find Isaac a
wife.
The same rhythm, it will be seen, occurs in
more than one of the main sources discovered
by literary criticism. This is not regarded by
Sievers as an argument against the general
validity of that criticism ; quite the reverse:
he finds his metrical analysis constantly confirm-.
ing it, and also furnishing a clue through a
labyrinth with which criticism was already
familiar, but through which it had hitherto
failed to find a way. The compositeness of
J, E, and P has been very commonly admitted,
but the attempt to analyse these sources into yet
earlier sources has hitherto led to but relatively
meagre or insecure results. Sievers claims
through metre to lead us to a detailed and secure
analysis of these sources of J, E, and P. As this
promise of valuable assistance in the analysis of
sources is made not by some amateur in the
study of metre, but by a great and recognised
master of the subject, Sievers' Genesis, if for no