Hebrew poetry and of those writers who speak in a lofty style bordering on that of poetry, and are called Prophets, preserves many of the modes of expression derived from the ancient mythological ideas of the world. Mythical material may consequently be found now and then here also.
When e.g. Isaiah says (XIV. 28), 'I will sweep it with the besom of destruction,' this is what we call a poetic figure—destruction being pictured as a broom that sweeps away from the surface of the earth those who are to be destroyed. But from another side it is seen to be some thing more and different from a mere poetical figure, since its origin is due, not to an artistic idea of the speaker, but to an old-world mythical conception here employed figuratively, a conception which occurs in many cycles of mythology. For instance, the Maidens of the Plague are represented with brooms in their hands, with which they sweep before house-doors and bring death into the village.[1] But Isaiah says again (XXVII. 1) that 'Jahveh with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon (tannîn) that is in the sea;' and Job (XXVI. 13), in his grand picture of the contest which Jahveh wages against the tempest, and the defeat of the latter by the omnipotence of Jahveh, says 'By his breath the heavens are brightened; his hand has pierced the flying serpent (nâchâsh bârîach)'; and the prophet living in the Babylonian captivity addresses Jahveh in the following words (Is. LI. 9): 'Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Jahveh! awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old! Art thou not it that didst kill the monster (rahabh), and wound the dragon (tannîn?)' &c.[2] In these expressions we observe that
- ↑ On the German legends in which this idea occurs see Henne-Am-Rhyn, Die deutsche Volkssage, Leipzig 1874, p. 268 et seq.
- ↑ See Ps. LXXIV. 13–14; LXXXIV. 11. There is nothing to justify those interpreters who, caring nothing for the remains of ancient myths, always wish to understand by Rahabh and Tannîn the kingdom of Egypt.
