HYPERBOLE. Any one who carefully exa mines the Bible must be surprised at the very few hyperbolic expressions which it contains, consider ing that it is an Oriental book. Some of these few have occasioned so much difficulty to sincere men, that we have reason to bless God that the scene of those great events which comprise the history of man's salvation was laid in Western, and not in Eastern Asia, where the genius of hyperbole reigns without limit or control. In Eastern Asia the tone of composition is pitched so high as to be scarcely intelligible to the sober intellect of Europe ; while in Western Asia a medium seems to have been struck between the ultra-extral,agance of the far east, and the frigid exactncss of thc far west. But even regarded as a book of Western Asia, the Bible is, as compared with almost any other Western Asiatic book, so singularly free from hyper bolic expressions as might well excite our surprise, did not our knowledge of its divine origin permit us to suppose that even the style and mode of ex pression of the writers were so far controlled as to exclude from their writings what, in other ages and countries, might excite pain and offence, and prove an obstacle to the reception of divine truth. Nor is it to be said that the usage of hyperbole is of modern growth. We find it in the oldest eastern writings which now exist ; and the earlier rabbini cal writings attest that, in times approaching near to those in which the writers of the N. T. flourished, the Jewish imagination had run riot in this direc tion, and has left hyperb-212s as frequent and out rageous as any which Persia or India can produce.
These things being considered, we shall certainly have more cause to admire the rarity of hyperbolic expressions in the Bible than to marvel at those which do occur.
The strongest hyperbole in all Scripture is that with which thc Gospel of St. John concludes There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that the world itself could not contain all the books that should be written.' This has so much pained many commentators, that they have been disposed to regard it as an unauthorized addi tion to the sacred text, and to reject it accordingly. Now this is always a dangerous process, and not to be adopted but on such overwhelming authority of collated manuscripts as does not exist in the present case. How much more natural and becoming is it to iegard the verse simply as a hyperbole, so perfectly conformable to Oriental modes of ex pression, and to some other hyperboles which may be found interspersed in the sacred books, that the sole wonder really is that this one should be rare enough to afford ground for objection and remark.
This view of the matter might be illustrated by many examples, in which we find sacred and pro ' fane authors using hyperboles of the like kind and signification. In Num. xiii. 33, the spies who had
returned from searching the land of Canaan, say that they saw giants there, of such a prodigious size, that they were in their own sight as grass hoppers.' In Dent. i. 2S, cities with high walls about them are said to be walled up to heaven.' In Dan. iv. 7, mention is made of a tree whereof the height reacbed unto heaven, and the sight theieof unto the end of all the earth ;' and the au I thor of Ecclesiasticus 15), speaking of Solo I Inon's wisdom, says, 'Thy soul covered the whole earth, and thou filledst it with parables.' As the 1 world is here said to be filled with Solomon's parables ; so in John xxi. 25, by one degree more of hyperbole, it is said that the world could not contain all the books that should be written con cerning Jesus's miracles, if a particular account of every one of them were given. In Josephus (An lig. xiv. 22) God is mentioned as promising to Jacob that he would give the land of Canaan to him and his seed ; and then it is added, they shall fill the whole sea and land which the sun shines upon.' Wetstein, in his note on the text in John, and Bas nage, in his ilistoire des yitiff (iii. 1-9 ; v. 7), have cited from the ancient rabbinical writers such pas sages as the follovving :—` If all the seas were ink, and every reed was a pen, and the whole heaven and earth were parchment, and all the sons of men were writers, they would not be sufficient to write all the lessons which Jochanan composed ;' and concerning one Eliezer it is said, that if the heavens were parchment, and all the sons of men writers, and all the trees of the forest pens, they would not be sufficient for writing all the wisdom which he was possessed of.' Hyperboles not less strong than that under re view find their way into our own poetry, without shocking our judgment or offending our taste, thus And I as rich in having such a jewel As fifty seas, if all their sands were pearl, Their rivers nectar, and their rocks pure gold.' Homer, who if not born in Asia Minor had un doubtedly lived there, has sometimes followed the hyberbolic manner of speaking which prevailed so much in the East : thus, in Iliad xx. 246, 247, he makes fEneas say to Achilles, Let us have done with reproaching one another ; for we may throw out so many reproachful words on one another, that a ship of a hundred oars would not be able to carry the load.' Few instances of this are to be found in Occidental writers ; yet it is observed that Cicero (Phil. ii. 44) has prxsertim quum eam gloriam consecuti sint, qtre vix crelo capi posse videatur,' and that Livy (vii. 25) says, vires populi Romani, quas vix terrarum capit orbis.' See Bishop Pearce's Commentary 071 thefour Evan gelists, 1777, etc.—J. K.