=Hebrew Poetry and Its Relation to Their Music=.—The key to the music of the Hebrews is their poetry. They grew to numbers under the most adverse circumstances, and developed a temperament indifferent to environment and elevated to high spiritual aspiration, making them an intensely religious people, whose life was little softened by artistic practice. The effect of the injunction against the making of “graven images,” as given them in the code of Moses, was to cut them off from the exercise of the esthetic faculty in sculpture or painting; their unsettled mode of life prevented outlet in architecture. So they poured out the whole strength of their passionate, powerful natures in poetry and song. The most striking characteristic of the Hebrew poetry is the parallelism of the phrases, each sentence or complete thought being made up of two similar or contrasted thoughts, and the accompanying music must have had the same character. The following from the Psalms shows this feature: “Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.” “I will not give sleep to my eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids.” When the great choirs of men singers were organized for the Temple services, this parallelism brought about the division into two bodies, who sang alternately, a practice in use today in certain churches with ritualistic services, and known as antiphonal singing. =Hebrew Music=.—It is unfortunate that we have no reason to believe that the hymns in use in the Jewish synagogues today are sung to the tunes of thousands of years ago, even if modified. In the various countries of Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, the airs are quite different, suggesting that tradition has failed to deliver anything that can traced to the days of the poet-king of Israel. Some authorities find in the Gregorian chants traces of Hebrew melodies which came down from the early Christians of Jewish birth and training. Clement of Alexandria says that their songs were earnest and dignified; there must have been some special character in them as shown by the command of the Babylonians, “Sing us the songs of Zion.” The principal relation that the Hebrews have to the history of music arises from the enduring impress the works of the Psalmist and other portions of the Scriptures have made upon the music of the Christian Church. =Hebrew Instruments=.—The Hebrews borrowed their instruments from other nations, principally from the Egyptians, the one most favored being a form of the =harp=, small enough to be portable, used to give effect to the chanting of the prophets. “To prophesy meant to sing,” and it is quite likely that Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other inspired poets uttered their thoughts in verse and song, both being extemporized.