Article
Origins
January 18, 2006
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
You wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say:
I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.
(Genesis 4:23-24)
Hebrew poetry has come a long way since then, built block by block, the two verses above joined by the poetry of Moses; and of Deborah; David’s lament for Jonathan; and the psalms, hymns and chapters of the Prophets, sounding a call for social justice. After biblical poetry came the writings of the rabbinical sages; the poetry of the Middle Ages; of the Enlightenment; the beginning of modern Hebrew poetry; and the work of contemporary Israeli writers.
The beginning of Hebrew poetry is recorded in the Bible, whose very first book refers to the primordial Garden of Eden. This is the place where humankind was born: the cradle of human culture.
The first verses treated as poetry by the biblical writer are these:Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
You wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say:
I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.
(Genesis 4:23-24)
Hebrew poetry has come a long way since then, built block by block, the two verses above joined by the poetry of Moses; and of Deborah; David’s lament for Jonathan; and the psalms, hymns and chapters of the Prophets, sounding a call for social justice. After biblical poetry came the writings of the rabbinical sages; the poetry of the Middle Ages; of the Enlightenment; the beginning of modern Hebrew poetry; and the work of contemporary Israeli writers.
© Rami Saari
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