76 THE REV. J. J. LIAS, M.A., ON THE UNITY OP ISAIAH. 



Shorter passages of a similar kind occur in every page. No 

 other writer but Isaiah supplies us with such examples. 



(9) Closely connected with the above is the unique way in 

 which parallelism, a characteristic of Hebrew poetry in general, 

 is used by Isaiah. 



Usually poetic parallelism consists simply in the repetition 

 of the same idea in different words. But in Isaiah's hands 

 parallelism is a most powerful instrument of emphasis. Two 

 or three examples out of a thousand must content us here. 

 We will take from the undisputed Isaiah, chap, ii, 10-12 : — 



"Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, 

 For fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty. 

 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, 

 And the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, 

 And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. 

 For the day of the Lord of Hosts 

 Shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, 

 And upon every one that is lifted up • 

 And he shall be brought low." 



And from the " fragments," chap, xxiv, 3-5 : — 



" The land shall be utterly emptied, 

 And utterly spoiled : 

 For the Lord hath spoken this word. 

 The earth mourneth and fadeth away, 

 The world languisheth and fadeth away, 

 The haughty people of the earth do languish. 

 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof ; 

 Because they have transgressed the laws, 

 Changed the ordinance, 

 Broken the everlasting covenant." 



And from the " second " Isaiah, chap, liii, 3-5 : — 



" He is despised and rejected of men ; 

 A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : 

 And we hid as it were our faces from Him ; 

 He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. 

 Surely He hath borne our griefs, 

 And carried our sorrows : 

 Yet we did esteem Him stricken, 

 Smitten of God, and afflicted." 



It is absolutely impossible, in the space allotted to me, to 

 convey the cumulative force of this line of study to my hearers 

 and readers. A most convincing treatise might be written on 

 the subject of the use of parallelism in Isaiah as compared with 



