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For several centuries past, previous to the middle of the eighteenth century, a general notion used to prevail that the contents of the Hebrew Bible consisted entirely of purely theological matter. This idea originated from the circumstance that most of the commentators of the Bible living in those times had treated it as a book that was full of religious mysticism, which theory had commonly been accepted by their readers as the only correct and plausible one.

These commentators have gone so far as to declare most emphatically that even the “Song of Songs,” that masterpiece of Hebrew poetry, and one of the few ancient literary gems extant in the world of letters, was but a mystical allegory with much religious colouring about it. They thus altogether ignored its many poetical charms, just as they disregarded those to be met with here and there in other parts of the Bible. Fortunately, however, a book appeared about the middle of the eighteenth century, which brought about a great modification in these ideas. It contained a number of lectures which Bishop Lowth (1710–87) had delivered in Latin at the University of Oxford on “Ancient Hebrew Poetry^[13-1],” and in which he essayed to prove that the Old Testament contained, besides much theological matter, several other highly interesting things. In his opinion its contents were of a varied description, and of such a nature that they could not fail to attract the attention of religiously inclined people, as well as of all those readers who had a taste for poetry, history, philosophy, or oratory.

These lectures at once attained great popularity, and were eagerly read in England and on the Continent, so much so that the ideas expressed therein concerning the actual contents of the Bible were soon adopted and further enlarged upon by several English and foreign Biblical scholars. Some of them, and more especially Herder (1744–1803) and Sir William Jones (1746–94), devoted their earnest attention to the study of the sacred volume. Sir William, who was one of the most eminent Orientalists of the day, wrote about it as follows: “I have regularly and attentively perused the Old Testament, and am of opinion that this book, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all other books that may have been written^[14-1].” One of the most interesting parts of Bishop Lowth's book is that which deals with the metaphors and similes of the Hebrew Bible, and the object of the present essay is to attempt to show that there is a striking similarity between them and several of those employed by some of the classical writers. As the subject is too extensive to be fully discussed within the limits of a short essay, a radical and minute investigation cannot be expected. The result, however, may be sufficient to conduce to a wider and more careful study of the contents of the Bible in their relation to the ancient classics.

At the outset, it will be necessary to show that the ancient Greeks and Romans had come in contact with the Hebrews of old, and that they thus may have had an opportunity of getting to know something about the existence and the contents of the Bible. Now, in the latter volume, as well as in Josephus (comp. Gen. x. 2–5; Isa. lxvi. 19; Josephus, Apion, i. 22), this intercourse is fully recorded as an historical fact. Particularly interesting is the passage in the Book of Joel (iv. 6), in which it is stated that the Ionian Greeks living on the west coast of Asia Minor (Ἰωνία) were in the habit of buying Hebrew slaves. Thus it is a curious coincidence that the district is commonly known as the very place in which the two most famous epic songs of the ancient Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were written^[15-1].

As regards the Romans, there are likewise certain historical records which go to show that in the year 50 A. D. they had already swayed the sceptre over the Hebrews. There are, moreover, several allusions to them in the works of some of the best-known Roman writers, such as Tacitus^[15-2], Cicero^[15-3], Juvenal^[15-4], Horace^[15-5], and others. Now, if in addition to these facts, another important circumstance is taken into consideration, namely, that the famous Greek translation of the Bible, called the Septuagint, had in olden times circulated widely in various countries, what objection can be raised to the assumption that it attracted the attention of some Greek and Roman writers, and influenced them to a certain extent in the composition of several of their beautiful metaphors and similes? It is almost universally admitted that later and more modern versions of the Bible have exercised a perceptible influence upon modern writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, and others, and in the same way a connexion between the Bible and some of the ancient classics might reasonably be established.

Coming now to the main subject under discussion, we notice that metaphors are found everywhere in the Bible, but that they especially abound in its poetical parts. The way in which they are there employed varies greatly, and they derive their inspiration from both animate and inanimate life. Space, however, will not permit of more than a few illustrations, and these will, for convenience' sake, be specially selected from Hebrew nouns that occur here and there in the first few chapters of Genesis.

The third verse in the first chapter of Genesis, which, by the way, is one of the most effective sentences in the whole Bible, contains twice the term “light” (or, אור). Now, this word was frequently employed by some authors of the Bible as a metaphor. Thus, for example, using the term “light” in a spiritual sense, and making it signify favour and grace, they applied it, in the first instance, to God, as the Psalmist puts it, “For with thee (O Lord) is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light” (Ps. xxxvi. 10). The same term is frequently employed by the prophet Isaiah as the emblem of enlightenment as well as that of joy and exultation. In fact, some of Isaiah's most beautiful metaphors are taken from this very word, one of which runs thus:—“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death upon them has a light shined” (Isa. ix. 1). In another place (ibid. xlii. 6) he says: “I the Lord have called thee in righteousness ... and given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations.” It is interesting to note that some of the authors of the New Testament have often employed the term “light” in a number of striking metaphors, tacitly borrowed, it may be observed, from the Old Testament. Martin Luther, too, failed to acknowledge his obligation to his Hebrew tutor, Nicolaus de Lyra, who helped him greatly in the preparation of the famous German version of the Bible^[16-1].

Turning now to some parallels found in the Greek and Latin classics, we meet one in the fifth ode of the fourth book of Horace, in which the latter implores the absent Emperor Augustus to return speedily to the Roman capital, where his noble presence was anxiously looked for by his loving subjects. The stanza in question runs thus:—

Lucem redde tuae, dux bone, patriae;

Instar veris enim vultus ubi tuus

Affulsit populo, gratior it dies,

Et soles melius nitent.

Restore, Great Sir, your country's light;

For, as in spring the sun is softly bright,

So, when on us thy countenance's beams arise,

Fairer days appear, and smile o'er the skies^[17-1].

Homer, too, often uses light and fire as metaphors, which are in some instances quite of a Biblical type. Take, for instance, the following lines that occur in the eleventh book of the Iliad:—

As the red star shows his sanguine fires

Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires:

Thus through the ranks appear'd the godlike man,

Plunged in the rear, or blazing in the van;

While streamy sparkles, restless as he flies,

Flash from his arms, as lightning from the skies.

Again, in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey (35–41), Homer has a metaphor from fire, from which it may be seen that in his time a notion was prevalent among the Greeks that a miraculous light was a sure token of the presence of some divinity. The lines in question run as follows:—

What miracle thus dazzles with surprise;

Distinct in rows the radiant columns rise!

The walls, wherein my wondering sight I turn,

And roofs amidst a blaze of glory burn.

Some visitant of pure ethereal race

With his bright presence, deigns the dome of grace^[17-2].

Not less prolific in metaphors of the same description is Virgil.

But particularly interesting is one of his metaphors that occurs in the eighth book of the Aeneid (409–13), inasmuch as it seems to be a poetical imitation of another found in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs, in which the model housewife—the Esheth Chayil—is so beautifully described, who rises early in the morning, wakes her housemaids, and prolongs the day with the help of a lamp. It runs thus:—

Now, when the night her middle race has rode,

And his first slumbers had refreshed the god,

The time when early housewives leave the bed;

When living embers on the hearth they spread,

Supply the lamps, and call the maids to rise;

With yawning mouth, and with half-opened eyes

They ply the distaff by the winking light,

And to their labour add the night^[18-1].

We pass now to another fruitful subject, from which the writers of the Bible have often taken metaphors, viz. the sea, the torrent, and the waters, generally that mostly serve to typify calamity. So Job (vi. 15) has a long and quite Homeric metaphor, formed from a torrent, which begins with the words: “My brothers have dealt deceitfully as the torrent, nay, as a channel of torrents that pass away.”

Sometimes roaring waters are used in the Bible as symbols of a battle cry, or of the tumult of an invading army. Thus we find in the eighth chapter of Isaiah the following description of the invasion of Palestine by the king of Assyria: “Behold, the Lord bringeth up upon thee the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks ... he shall overflow and go over and shall reach even to the neck.” A similar metaphor is contained in the seventeenth book of the Iliad (263), which runs thus:—

Like a mountain billow that foams and raves,

Where some swoll'n river disembogues his waves;

Full in the mouth is stopp'd the rushing tide,

The boiling ocean works from side to side,

The river trembles to his utmost store,

And distant rocks re-bellow to the roar:

So fierce to the charge great Hector led the strong,

Whole Troy embodied rush'd with shouts along.

Metaphors of a similar kind are also now and again employed by Virgil, and once he uses both fire and the torrent at the same time as similes of uproar and destruction, which usually take place on the battlefield. The simile in question, which occurs in the Aeneid (xii. 760), reads thus:—

As flames among the lofty woods are thrown

On different sides, and both by winds are blown;

The laurels crackle in the sputtering fire;

The frighted sylvans from their shades retire:

Or as two neighbouring torrents fall from high,

Rapid they run; the foamy waters fry;

They roll to sea with unresisted force,

And down the rocks precipitate their course:

Not with less rage the rival heroes take

Their different ways; nor less destruction make.

An equally wide field for Biblical metaphors is supplied by the world of trees, flowers, and plants. Man is often compared with them, but, strange to say, in two opposite directions: sometimes, inasmuch as he is like them, liable to decay and death; sometimes because unlike them, he does not revive again after death. As instances, the beautiful metaphor in the 103rd Psalm may be quoted: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone: and the place thereof knoweth it no more.” To this may be added a similar, but shorter, metaphor, the author of which was the often-quoted Ben-Sira. Of this only a small part has been preserved in the Talmud (Erubin, p. 54), which runs as follows: “Rab said to Rab Hammuna: My son if thou hast (aught) enjoy it, for there is no enjoyment in the nether world (Shéol), and death does not tarry. And if thou sayest, I will leave (aught) to my children, who will declare to thee the law in the nether world? The sons of men are like the grass of the field; some of them blossom, and some wither away.”

Homer has a striking parallel to it in the sixth book of his Iliad (190), which runs thus:—

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now withering in the ground.

Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise:

So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these, when those are passed away.

Speaking about metaphors from vegetation mention should be made of an exceedingly pretty simile composed in German by the late Ludwig August Frankl, of Vienna, and probably borrowed from the beautiful lines occurring towards the end of the fifty-fifth chapter of the Book of Isaiah, viz. “As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not hither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,” &c. In his simile Frankl compares the heaven with a bridegroom who weds the earth in springtime as his bride, and she late in the summer season bears lovely fruit. The English version runs somewhat as follows:—

The Beautiful Month of May.

This charming month is like a kiss,

Given by heaven to his bride, the earth;

Telling her with a hidden blush

That a mother's joy will soon be hers.

Another word occurring at the beginning of the first chapter of Genesis that is now and again used in the Bible as a metaphor, is Ruach (רוח), meaning sometimes “wind,” and sometimes “spirit,” or divine inspiration. It is so commonly used in the latter sense that no comment is necessary here. What is, however, worth mentioning in connexion with it is that Homer also used it in the same sense, whenever he referred to the influence which his deities exercised on the human mind. There are likewise several fine Biblical metaphors modelled on Ruach (“the wind”), when it is employed either in its ordinary sense or as the emblem of punishment and calamity. So Jeremiah (iv. 11): “A dry wind blows from the high places in the wilderness toward the daughters of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse; a powerful wind it is that shall come from those places unto me, and now I will hold judgment upon them.”

Isaiah's simile, “As the trees of the wood are moved with the wind” (Isa. vii. 2), has found a pretty parallel in Virgil's Aeneid (iv. 638), which runs thus:—

As when the winds their airy quarrel try,

Justling from every quarter of the sky;

This way and that the mountain oak they bend;

His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend;

With leaves and fallings most they spread the ground;

The hollow valleys echo to the sound;

Unmoved, the royal plant their fury mocks,

Or shaken, clings more closely to the rocks.

The following is another metaphor of a somewhat similar kind, employed by Homer in the Iliad (xvii. 57), which bears a great resemblance to the lovely one found in the 103rd Psalm, to which reference has been made above. It runs as follows:—

As the young olive in some sylvan scene,

Crowned by fresh fountains with eternal green,

Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair,

And plays and dances to the gentle air;

When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades

The tender plant, and withers all its shades;

It lies uprooted from its genial bed:

A lovely ruin, now defaced and dead.

Passing now from inanimate nature to animate things, there are in the Bible a good many metaphors based thereon. Here, again, it is the prophet Isaiah who furnishes us with the largest number of instances. One of them is the bee that symbolizes an invading army, working all kinds of mischief. Thus we read in Isaiah (vii. 18):—“On that day will the Lord hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall all come and rest in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorn-bushes, and upon all the pastures.” A fine parallel occurs in Homer's Iliad (ii. 87), which runs as follows:—

As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees

Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees,

Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms

With deeper murmur and more hoarse alarms;

Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd,

And o'er the vale descends the living cloud:

So from the tents and ships, a lengthened train

Spreads all the beach, and wide o'ershades the plain:

Along the region runs a deafening sound;

Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground.

Towards the end of the Book of Ecclesiastes (xii. 5) a comparison is made between an old man who gradually loses his white locks and an almond-tree that sheds its white blossoms. Anacreon has in one of his Odes (the eleventh) a few exceedingly pretty lines, which recall the foregoing figure. They run as follows:—

Oft I am by women told,

Poor Anacreon! thou grow'st old;

Look how thy hairs are falling all:

Poor Anacreon! how they fall!

The Biblical story found in the fourth Book of Moses (xiv. 2–11) seems to have been known and partly reproduced by Virgil in the first book of the Aeneid, 148. There the following lines occur, which offer a most striking parallel:—

As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd,

Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;

And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,

And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:

If then some grave and pious men appear,

They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear:

He soothes with sober words their angry mood,

And quenches their innate desire for blood^[23-1].

The few observations offered here will no doubt give some idea of the importance attaching to a closer investigation of the whole subject^[23-2]. Many volumes are annually devoted to the study of the Old Testament, but these are almost exclusively written from a religious point of view. Surely, it could not but gain in popular estimation if its great literary worth attracted more general attention.