In reply to Sommer, who in his excellent biblische Abhandlungen, 1846, considers the octastich as the extreme limit of the compass of the strophe, it is sufficient to refer to the Syriac strophe-system. It is, however, certainly an impossibility that, as Ewald (Jahrb. ix. 37) remarks with reference to the first speech of Jehovah, Job 38-39, the strophes can sometimes extend to a length of 12 lines = Masoretic verses, consequently consist of 24 στίχοι and more. Then Eliphaz the Temanite began, and said: