Chapter 17—Poetry and Song
“Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.”
The earliest as well as the most sublime of poetic utterances known
to man are found in the Scriptures. Before the oldest of the world’s
poets had sung, the shepherd of Midian recorded those words of God
to Job—in their majesty unequaled, unapproached, by the loftiest
productions of human genius:
“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the
earth? ...
Or who shut up the sea with doors,
When it brake forth; ...
When I made the cloud the garment thereof,
And thick darkness a swaddling band for it,
And prescribed for it My decree,
And set bars and doors,
And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;
And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?
“Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days began,
And caused the dayspring to know its place? ...
“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Or hast thou walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed unto thee?
Or hast thou seen the gates of the shadow of death?
Hast thou comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Declare, if thou knowest it all.
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
And as for darkness, where is the place thereof? ...
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