nal or sententiously didactic, the former belonging to
the active or stirring, and the latter to the reflective or quiet,
periods of Hebrew history, and whether expressed in lyric or gnome rises
in the conscience and terminates in action; for Hebrew thought needs to
go no higher, since therein it finds and affirms God; and it seeks to go
no farther, for therein it compasses all being, and requires no epic and
no drama to work out its destiny. However individualistic in feature, as
working through the conscience, it yet relates itself to the whole moral
world, and however it may express itself, it beats in accord with the
pulse of eternity. The lyric expression of the Hebrew temper we find in
the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the gnomic in the books
of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, while the book of Job, which is only
dramatic in form, is partly lyric and partly dramatic.

HEBREW PROPHECY had throughout regard for the Jews as a nation and
to see that it fulfilled its destiny as such in the world. This purpose
we see carried out by five steps or stages. It taught, first, by the
NEBIIM (q. v.), that the nation must regard itself as one nation;
secondly, by Elijah, that it must have Jehovah alone for its God;
thirdly, by Amos, that as a nation it was not necessarily God's chosen;
fourthly, by Isaiah, that it existed for the preservation of a holy seed;
and finally, that it ceased to exist when it was felt that religion
primarily concerned the individual and was wholly an affair of the
conscience. Thus does Hebrew prophecy terminate when it leads up to
Christianity, the first requirement of which is a regeneration of the
heart (John iii. 3), and the great promise of which is the outpouring of
a spirit that "will guide into all truth" (John xvi. 13).

HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, an epistle of the New Testament of
uncertain authorship addressed to Christians of Jewish descent, who were
strongly tempted, by the persecution they were subjected to at the hands
of their Jewish brethren, to renounce the cross of Christ, which it was
feared they would too readily do, and so to their own ruin crucify the
Son of God afresh, there being only this alternative for them, either
crucifixion _with_ Christ or crucifixion _of_ Christ, and death of all
their hopes founded on Him.

HEBRIDES, or WESTERN ISLANDS, a general name for the islands on
the west coast of Scotland (save the islands of the Firth of Clyde),
about 500 in nu