ter
but imperfectly into the spirit and force of oriental imagery. What
costs him days of laborious investigation would open itself like a flash
of lightning to his apprehension--all except that which remains dark
from the nature of the prophetic themes--could he but have that perfect
apprehension of the language, the historic allusions, the imagery
employed, and the modes of thought, which was possessed by the
contemporaries of the Hebrew poet.

It remains that we notice in the last place what may be called the
_theocratic imagery_ of the Hebrew poets; that is, imagery borrowed from
the institutions of the Mosaic law. The intense loyalty of the Hebrew
poets to the Mosaic law has already been noticed. They were its
divinely-appointed expositors and defenders, and their whole religious
life was moulded by it. No wonder, then, that their writings abound with
allusions to its rites and usages. The sweet psalmist of Israel will
abide in God's tabernacle for ever, and trust in the covert of his
wings, the literal tabernacle on Zion representing God's spiritual
presence here and his beatific presence hereafter (Psa. 61:4 and
elsewhere); he will have his prayer set forth before God as incense, and
the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice (Psa. 141:2); he
will be purged with hyssop that he may be clean, and washed that he may
be whiter than snow (Psa. 51: 7); he will offer to God the sacrifice of
a broken spirit (Psa. 51:17); the people promise to render to God the
calves of their lips (Hosea 14:2); the vengeance of God upon Edom is
described as "a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land
of Idumea," in which the Lord's sword shall be filled with the blood of
lambs and goats and the fat of the kidneys of rams (Isa. 34: 6); with
allusions to the Levitical sprinklings God promises that he will
sprinkle upon his penitent and restored people clean water that they may
be clean (Ezek. 36: 25); and with allusion to the sacrificial flocks
assembled at Jerusalem on the occasion of her great festivals, that he
will increase them with men like a flock--"as the holy flock, as the
flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be
filled with flocks of men" (Ezek. 36:37, 38). How full the book of
Psalms is of allusions to the solemn songs of the sanctuary with their
accompaniment of psaltery and harp, trumpet and cornet, every reader
understands. This subject might be expanded indefinitely, but t