And this thought of the Divine unity, thus intensely pervading the
national life, upfolds within capacity of indefinite development. No
long time in the life of a nation elapses ere "The Lord thy God is a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,"
became "As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear Him." "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not
have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, she _may_ forget; yet will
not _I_ forget thee."
In no sense of the word was the Jew a creature of imagination. The stern
and hard realities of his life would seem to have crushed out every trace
of the aesthetic element within him. Yet from among these people arose a
literature, especially a hymnology, which has never been approached
elsewhere; and it arose emphatically and distinctly out of the great
central and animating thought of the Divine unity. To the Psalms
so-called of David, the glorious outbursts of sacred song in their
mythico-historical books, as in Isaiah {103} and some of the minor
prophets, the finest of the Vedic or Orphic hymns or the Homeric ballads
are cold and spiritless.
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