It remains that we notice in the last place what may be called the _theocratic imagery_ of the Hebrew poets; that is, imagery borrowed from the institutions of the Mosaic law. The intense loyalty of the Hebrew poets to the Mosaic law has already been noticed. They were its divinely-appointed expositors and defenders, and their whole religious life was moulded by it. No wonder, then, that their writings abound with allusions to its rites and usages. The sweet psalmist of Israel will abide in God's tabernacle for ever, and trust in the covert of his wings, the literal tabernacle on Zion representing God's spiritual presence here and his beatific presence hereafter (Psa. 61:4 and elsewhere); he will have his prayer set forth before God as incense, and the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice (Psa. 141:2); he will be purged with hyssop that he may be clean, and washed that he may be whiter than snow (Psa. 51: 7); he will offer to God the sacrifice of a broken spirit (Psa. 51:17); the people promise to render to God the calves of their lips (Hosea 14:2); the vengeance of God upon Edom is described as "a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea," in which the Lord's sword shall be filled with the blood of lambs and goats and the fat of the kidneys of rams (Isa. 34: 6); with allusions to the Levitical sprinklings God promises that he will sprinkle upon his penitent and restored people clean water that they may be clean (Ezek. 36: 25); and with allusion to the sacrificial flocks assembled at Jerusalem on the occasion of her great festivals, that he will increase them with men like a flock--"as the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men" (Ezek. 36:37, 38). How full the book of Psalms is of allusions to the solemn songs of the sanctuary with their accompaniment of psaltery and harp, trumpet and cornet, every reader understands. This subject might be expanded indefinitely, but the above hints must suffice. 3. We come now to the _form_ of Hebrew poetry. This is distinguished from the classic poetry of Greece and Rome, as well as from all modern poetry by the absence of metrical feet. Its rhythm is that of _clauses_ which correspond to each other in a sort of free parallelism, as was long ago shown by Bishop Lowth in his Prelections on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, the matter of which has been revised and expanded in later treatises. Herein, as elsewhere, Hebrew poetry asserts its originality and independence. Biblical scholars recognize three fundamental forms of parallelism in Hebrew poetry, which will be briefly considered, first separately, and then in their combinations. The _first_ is the _antithetic_ form, where two parallel members are contrasted in meaning, a form peculiarly adapted to didactic poetry, and therefore occurring most abundantly in the book of Proverbs. The following are examples of it: