which they had fallen to the full splendour of their ancient
glory. Moreover there were two great and marvellous deliver-
ances which aroused the spirit of poesy during the reigns of
these kings: under Jehoshaphat, the overthrow of the neigh-
bouring nations when they had banded together for the ex-
stirpation of Judah, predicted by Jahaziel, the Asaphite; un-
der Hezekiah the overthrow of Sennacherib’s host foretold by
Isaiah. These kings also rendered great service to the cause
of social progress. Jehoshaphat by an institution designed
to raise the educational status of the people, which reminds
one of the Carlovingian missi (2 Chron. xvii. 7—9); Hezekiah,
whom one may regard as the Pisistratus of Israelitish litera-
ture, by the establishment of a commission charged with col-
lecting the relics of the early literature (Prov. xxv. 1); he
also revived the ancient sacred music and restored the Psalms
of David and Asaph to their liturgical use (2 Chron. xxix.
25 sqq). And he was himself a poet, as his (
Hebrew characters) ((Hebrew characters)?)
(Isa. xxxviii) shews, though certainly a reproductive rather
than a creative poet. Both from the time of Jehoshaphat
and from the time of Hezekiah we possess in the Psalter not
a few Psalms, chiefly Asaphic and Korahitic, which, although
bearing no historical heading, unmistakeably confront us with
the peculiar circumstances of those times.[1] With the excep-
tion of these two periods of revival the latter part of the re-
gal period produced scarcely any psalm writers, but is all the
more rich in prophets. When the lyric became mute, prophecy
raised its trumpet voice in order to revive the religious life of
the nation, which previously had expressed itself in psalms. In
the writings of the prophets, which represent the Actppa ydprtos
in Israel, we do indeed find even psalms, as Jon. ch. ii, Isa. xii,
Hab. iii, but these are more imitations of the ancient congre-
gational hymns than original compositions. It was not until
after the Exile that a time of new creations set in.
As the Reformation gave birth to the German church- hymn, and the Thirty years’ war, without which perhaps there might have been no Paul Gerhardt, called it into life afresh, so the Davidic age gave birth to psalm-poesy and the
- ↑ With regard to the time of Jehoshaphat even Nic. Nonne has ao knowledged this in his Diss. de Tzippor et Deror (Bremen 1741, 4to.) which has reference to Ps. Ixxxiy. 4.
