VI. The Relation of the Old Arabian Poetry to the Hebrew Literature of the Old Testament

Extract

Three years ago, in his Schweich Lectures on “The Early Poetry of Israel in its Physical and Social Origins”, Dr. George Adam Smith gave us a detailed examination of all the remains of ancient Hebrew poetry contained in the Old Testament which he thought might reasonably be assigned to the period before the eighth century b.c., that notable century which saw the rise of the great Prophets—Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah—who brought to the religion of Israel a new spirit, and set it upon the road of development which has been fraught with incalculable consequences to the history of mankind. Those who heard his lectures, or have read them in their since published form, will remember that in dealing with these ancient relics of literature Dr. Smith throughout examined them with an eye to the compositions of those cousins of Israel, the nomad tribes of Arabia. Comparing the two, at every step he found that the latter threw light on the former, and brought into strong relief the close kinship of these two great historic branches of the Semitic race. “Ancient Israel illustrated by Ancient Arabia” might, in fact, be taken as the alternative description of his lectures, the beauty and eloquence of which those who heard them are not likely soon to forget.