epeated and amplified.

18. This song is not a dramatic representation, in which the action
steadily advances to the end, but a series of descriptive pictures, the
great theme of which is the separation of the bride from her
beloved--the heavenly Bridegroom--for her sins, and her reunion with him
by repentance. In the spiritual application of its rich and gorgeous
imagery we should confine ourselves to the main scope, rather than dwell
on particulars. Thus the fruitfulness of the church is set forth under
the image of a garden filled with spices and precious fruits. But we are
not to seek for a hidden meaning in each particular spice or fruit--the
saffron, the spikenard, the myrrh, the pomegranate, the apple, the nut;
and the same is true with respect to the descriptions of the bride and
bridegroom with which the book abounds.

The book has always constituted a part of the Hebrew canon.

The language of this book is pure and elegant, with all the
freshness and energy of the best age of Hebrew poetry. Its most
striking peculiarity is the uniform use (except once in the
_title_) of the abbreviated form of the relative pronoun as a
prefix--_shekkullam_ for _asher kullam_; _shehammelek_ for
_asher hammelek_, etc.--which is manifestly a _dialectic_
peculiarity of the living Hebrew adopted by Solomon for the
purpose of giving to his song a unique costume.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE GREATER PROPHETS.

1. We have already seen (Chap. 15, Nos. 11 and 12) that from Moses to
Samuel the appearances of prophets were infrequent; that with Samuel and
the prophetical school established by him there began a new era, in
which the prophets were recognized as a distinct order of men in the
Theocracy; and that the age of _written_ prophecy did not begin till
about the reign of Uzziah, some three centuries after Samuel. The Jewish
division of the _latter_ prophets--prophets in the more restricted sense
of the word--into the _greater_, including Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel, chronologically arranged; and the _less_, or twelve _Minor_
Prophets, arranged also, in all probability, according to their view of
their order in time, has also been explained. Chap. 13, No. 4.
Respecting the nature of prophecy and the principles upon which it is to
be interpreted, much remains to be said in another place. In the present
connection, a brief account will be given of _the place which the
prophets held in the Theocrac