is;;] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 447 



Israel, beneath which the invincible Amorite and his 

 stronghold had for ever fallen : 



Come into Heshbon, 



Let Sihon s city be built and made fast ! 



For fire went out from Heshbon, 



Flame from the fortress of Sihon. 



It licked up the city of Moab, 



The lords of the heights of the Arnon. 



Woe unto thee, Moab ! thou art fallen, people of Chernosh. 



He [Chemosh] gave up his sons to flight, his daughters into captivity 



To the king of the Amorites, Sihon. 



But we burned them out fallen is Heshbon to Dibon, 



We wasted them even to Nophah, 



With fire to Medeba. z 



Apart from the special developments of the parable 

 and the satiric Mashal, the proverbial wisdom of Israel 

 readily passed from individual aphorisms to larger didactic 

 compositions, like that which occupies the first nine 

 chapters of the Book of Proverbs. We have here a long 

 exhortation or exhortations in praise of wisdom and virtue, 

 with no very strict plan or closely reasoned course of 

 argument, and with characteristics both of thought and 

 form which mark just such a relation to the single proverb 

 as that which, in Hebrew architecture, subsists between 

 the temple of Solomon and the simple cell. In both cases 

 the larger whole is formed by agglomeration of smaller 

 parts rather than by internal development ; and the 

 great chambers of the sanctuary, surrounded by rows of 

 smaller cells, are an apt type of almost all the longer 

 literary compositions of the Hebrews. Even the late 

 Book of Ecclesiastes does not present an essentially 

 different construction. 



The fact that no trace of epic poetry appears in the 

 Hebrew literature has sometimes been explained simply 

 from the lack of objectivity and the deficiency in the gift 



1 In one or two obscure or corrupt words the translation offered 

 above follows the conjectures of Ewald. But the general sense is quite 

 clear. Sihon had defeated Moab, but Israel overthrew Sihon. The 

 Moabites are the sons and daughters of their god Chemosh. 



