Latest / Reformed Thinking / General Rules of Hermeneutics: Biblical Poetry

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General Rules of Hermeneutics: Biblical Poetry · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to the deep dive brought to you by Reform Thinking.
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  It's good to be here. Today we're doing a systematic
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  examination of well of communication of architecture
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  and the intentional design we see behind Scripture.
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  Our mission is pretty direct. Today we want to give you a
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  genuine shortcut to understanding one of the Bible's
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  most common, and I think maybe most misunderstood literary
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  forms. And that is biblical poetry.
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  Biblical. Poetry.
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  When we approach Scripture, our conviction is that God's
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  communication is ordered. It's precise, right?
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  And so today we're focused on decoding the systematic
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  architecture that underpins this poetry.
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  I know we really need to get a handle on the scale of this.
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  We're not talking about some small, obscure genre.
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  No, not at all. This form makes up about 1/3 of
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  the entire Bible. It's huge A. 3rd that's that's
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  massive. You find it everywhere.
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  I mean you have the entire books of Psalms, Job and Proverbs of
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  course. The obvious.
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  Ones the obvious ones, but it's also tucked into the historical
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  narratives and it really forms the backbone of the prophetic
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  oracles. So if you try to read that third
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  of the Bible from Isaiah to the Psalms, as if it were all just
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  straightforward story or instructional prose.
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  You're going to miss a huge amount of the message.
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  And critically, you're going to miss the feeling the text is
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  meant to produce in you. That is the real danger.
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  Failure to recognize these literary conventions.
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  It risks, as our sources put it, de poeticizing its form.
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  De poeticizing. I like that you flatten it out.
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  You do. The Bible is an effective book.
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  It communicates meaning not just to our intellect, but it
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  actively moves the feelings and the will of its readers.
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  OK, so our goal here is to pull back the curtain a bit and
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  uncover the precise mechanics, the structure, the sound, the
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  figurative language that let the biblical poets achieve this
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  emotional and spiritual emotion in you, the reader.
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  So to do that, our source stack gives us a systematic analysis
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  of pretty much everything, from the tiniest poetic units all the
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  way up to these huge structural patterns.
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  Right, and then it gives us a disciplined 4 step method for
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  accurate interpretation at the end.
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  So we're kind of moving from the microscopic to the macroscopic.
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  We are. We're starting with the
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  foundational line units, then moving to the complex rules of
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  parallelism, then through the larger architecture like
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  chiasms, and finally we'll get to the figures of speech that
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  give poetry its stunning sensory impact.
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  We want you to walk away from this able to see what the poet
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  is doing on the page, line by line, structure by structure.
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  That's the goal. OK, so let's unpack that
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  foundational point, the structural difference.
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  When we hear poetry, a lot of us immediately think of rhyme or
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  maybe a really consistent rhythm.
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  But in the Hebrew Bible, how does it actually fundamentally
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  differ from prose? It's a great question because
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  structurally they really are on opposite ends of a literary
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  continuum. OK.
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  And that difference begins with the most basic unit of
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  composition, which is in biblical prose.
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  The text is organized mainly by the sentence and the paragraph.
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  Standard stuff. Right, the syntax can be very
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  complicated. Lots of clauses, but in biblical
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  poetry, the dominant unit of organization is the single line.
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  Just the line itself. Yes, scholars have a technical
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  name for it. They call it a stitch.
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  A stitch. So that single self-contained
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  line is the core building block. That's a huge shift from prose,
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  where one idea might sprawl across several lines, connected
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  by all sorts of conjunctions. It is a massive shift.
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  The whole structure of poetry is made-up of these tightly
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  arranged lines, and it shows a much higher degree of
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  organization and internal symmetry than you'd ever find in
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  prose. And that architectural choice
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  that must have consequences for the language itself it.
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  Forces the poet toward the second major distinction, which
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  is just the sheer economy of language.
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  Linguistic economy and compression.
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  This is where you get that intensity, that density that
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  forces you to read more slowly. Poetry is by its nature on the
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  intense, dense and compact side of things.
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  It's defined by terseness. Terseness.
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  And a real verbal inventiveness, the rhythmic structure of a
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  coetic line basically mandates an economy of language.
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  Which means no wasted words. There are absolutely no wasted
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  words. Every single word has to be
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  meticulously chosen, it has to be precise and it has to fit the
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  organizational scheme. So if a word is on the page, it
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  is doing some heavy lifting. It has to.
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  Be and that that terseness that must create some real
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  grammatical consequences. It forces shortcuts that prose
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  just doesn't need to use. It does.
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  The grammar in poetry, for instance, typically uses very
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  concise, simple sentences. Compare that to the complex
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  sentences with all the subordinate clauses you see in,
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  say, Paul's letters. And even more critically, poetry
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  often uses a technique called ellipsis.
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  Ellipsis. OK, so that's the omission of
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  words. Can we walk through an example
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  of that? Because this seems to define the
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  efficiency of the stitch you mentioned.
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  Sure. Ellipsis is just leading out an
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  element, like a verb or a subject that is assumed or
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  implied from the line right before it.
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  OK, so think of a simple poetic couplet, like the deer seeks the
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  swift stream, the doe the cool shade.
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  OK, the doe, the cool shade. In that second line, the poet
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  leaves out the verb seeks. It's omitted because you, the
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  reader, can easily understand it.
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  From the first line, you automatically fill in the blank.
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  The dough seeks the cool shade. So that omission lets the poet
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  keep the lines a similar length to maintain that rhythm while
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  still getting a complete thought across.
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  It makes the whole thing feel sparser, more forceful.
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  Precisely, It's a necessary tool for maintaining that terseness
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  we talked about. Whereas prose is full of those
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  little connecting words. Exactly.
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  Prose uses all those prose particles, the ands butts for
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  2nd that poetry often just cuts out entirely.
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  This structural scarcity, this tightness, is itself a defining
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  feature of the poetic form. Now, you mentioned rhythm
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  earlier. You said that unlike a lot of
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  English poetry, Hebrew poetry doesn't follow a strict sing
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  songy meter like, you know, iambic pentameter.
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  Correct. It sticks to what we call a free
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  variable rhythm. But it's not chaotic.
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  No, not at all. It's very systematic.
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  It's the product of 2 main structural elements.
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  First, there's the end of line pause.
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  That pause signals the completion of a thought unit,
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  and that dictates the flow of the reading.
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  And 2nd and way more significantly, the rhythm is
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  governed by the key structural element we're about to turn to,
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  which is parallelism. So the rhythm comes from the
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  line breaks and the relationship between the lines.
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  Yes, the line lengths do tend toward a certain symmetry, but
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  the exact number of syllables or accents can change, which gives
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  the poet a lot of flexibility. And that flexible rhythm is
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  central to the feel and the tempo of the text.
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  OK, so if the stitch is the basic building block, then
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  parallelism is the mortar holding the whole structure
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  together. It's what allows those terse
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  lines to interact with each other.
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  It is. And here's where it gets really
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  interesting, because we have to get past this common
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  misunderstanding that parallelism is just saying the
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  same thing twice. That is the single biggest
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  hurdle to reading biblical poetry correctly, the idea that
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  it's just repetition. It's so much more dynamic than
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  that. It is.
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  Parallelism is defined as the phenomenon where two or more
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  successive poetic lines dynamically strengthen,
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  reinforce, and crucially develop each other's thought.
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  It has this kind of double logic where it's using both similarity
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  and progression at the same time.
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  I really like the analogy the sources use of binocular vision.
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  It's a perfect analogy, isn't it?
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  Parallelism superimposes 2 slightly different views of the
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  same object, line A and line B, and when they converge it
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  produces a sense of depth and most of all progression in the
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  message. So the thought is always moving
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  forward. Always the movement from that
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  first line to the second is 1 of active heightening or
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  intensification or focusing or specification.
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  Or concretization, Dramatization.
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  All of those thought is constantly being advanced, kind
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  of like climbing a ladder, taking the reader toward a
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  deeper insight. So to properly interpret this
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  progression, we need a better system than the old labels.
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  We need a functional taxonomy. Absolutely.
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  We're going to use a systematic approach here to categorize the
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  relationship between that first ditch, which we'll call A, and
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  the next one, which we'll call B.
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  We're going to focus on exactly how B functions in relation to
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  A. OK, so let's start with the
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  first variation. The first category is where
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  lines A&B are in some way interchangeable.
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  They're semantically similar, but B either echoes or contrasts
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  A. And the echo part is what we
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  used to call synonymous parallelism.
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  That's right, echo or synonymous parallelism is when B restates
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  the point of A in different words.
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  Now it shows very little perceptible development, but it
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  adds a lot of rhetorical force. OK, so it might look like
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  repetition, but it's doing something.
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  It is take Matthew 11:30. My yoke is easy and my burden is
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  light. Right, those lines look very,
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  very similar. They do.
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  They look highly synonymous. But if you look a little closer,
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  the second line using the word light, it specifies why the yoke
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  is easy. It gives you the specific
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  quality that makes the demand gentle.
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  So light is a specification of easy.
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  It's not just a fancy way of saying the same thing.
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  Right, it specifies is the nature of that ease, and the
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  repetition itself acts as rhetorical emphasis.
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  It's a double affirmation. It makes the idea stick.
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  So it adds this rhetorical momentum, kind of cementing the
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  idea in your mind. OK.
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  And the other side of this first category is contrast.
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  Also called antithetical parallelism.
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  Here B signals a contrast to A often expressing total
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  opposites. And you see this all over the
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  wisdom. Literature all over.
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  Proverbs Yes, It's used to establish very clear moral and
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  spiritual boundaries. Proverbs 11.20 contrasts God's
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  reaction to two kinds of hearts. The first line says the Lord
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  hates those who are crooked in heart.
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  A very strong statement. A very strong negative, but the
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  second line says he is pleased with those whose way is
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  blameless. The lines are syntactically
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  parallel, but they communicate opposing ideas.
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  So it serves as both a warning to the wicked and an assurance
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  to the righteous. In one compact package, the
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  progression is from negative to positive.
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  It is the thought moves from consequence A to consequence B.
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  All right, let's move to the second major variation.
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  Here the relationship is A is greater than B.
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  So A states the main idea and B qualifies it.
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  Further, it kind of functions like a subordinate clause.
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  Yes, B specifies or gives details about the claim made in.
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  This is sometimes called parallelism of subordination,
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  because that second line is serving a subordinate role to
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  the first. And its function is often to
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  specify the means by which something happened, or the
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  reason why, or the time. Let's look at Exodus 15.21
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  again. Sing to the Lord, for he is
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  highly exalted. OK, the main statement, the
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  command is in line A sing to the Lord, right?
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  But line B qualifies that command by giving the reason for
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  it, for he is highly exalted. So to read that correctly, you
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  have to follow that logic. The command to worship is
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  grounded directly on that reason.
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  It is the second line grounds the first.
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  Or another example, Psalm 111.6 it says that God showed his
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  power. That's line A.
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  God showed his power. Then line B tells you how, by
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  giving his people the heritage of the nations, B explains the
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  means by which A was accomplished.
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  The progression is always moving toward greater detail or
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  justification. OK, so now we flip that dynamic
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  for the third variation. Now B is greater than A.
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  A prefaces the idea and B states the main idea by either
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  complementing or completing. This shows a really critical
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  progression of thought. This is where a lot of the
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  intensification and focusing happens.
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  The second line acts like an expansion or an elaboration of
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  the opening thought. It's where the poet often puts
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  the climax. Let's start with comparison
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  which use simile or metaphor. OK, in this subtype B explains
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  an abstract idea in A by comparing it to something
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  concrete. Like Psalm 103.13.
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  A perfect example, as a father has compassion on his children,
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  so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
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  So the first line is the well known accessible reality of a
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  father's compassion. The human reference point that
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  we can all grasp, and it's used to help us understand the
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  unknown reality of the Lord's compassion.
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  The progression is from the human example to the divine
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  truth. He gives form and feeling to an
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  otherwise abstract concept. OK.
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  And then there's specification, which is about changing the
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  reader's focus. With specification, the movement
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  is from the general to the specific.
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  The poet starts out broad and then dramatically narrows the
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  focus. Like in Isaiah 45.1.
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  Exactly. Line A states very generally.
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  I made the Earth A. Huge cosmic statement of
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  creation. A massive statement, but then
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  line B immediately specifies and created humankind upon it.
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  The general statement about the whole planet is instantly
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  narrowed to focus your attention on humanity within that
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  creation. So the overall statement is
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  about God's sovereignty, but the progression reveals his specific
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  interest in humanity. It does.
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  It directs your focus. And finally, under this category
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  we have intensification. This is where B restates A, but
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  in a much more pointed, extreme or forceful way.
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  It's like the poet is saying, and not only that, but even more
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  so. Proverbs 3.7 gives us a perfect
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  example of this. It does.
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  Line A says your granaries will be filled with abundance.
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  Which is a very positive outcome, a blessing.
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  A good thing, but then line B intensifies it with hyperbole
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  saying and with new wine, your vats will burst.
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  So it goes from the passive state of being filled to this
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  dramatic explosive action of VATS bursting.
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  It escalates it it It's an exaggeration that underscores
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  the overwhelming, over the top nature of God's provision.
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  The logic here is not repetition at all.
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  It's a rhetorical ladder that leads you to a climax, and it
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  makes sure you feel the magnitude of the blessing.
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  OK, so let's zoom out. We've gone from the line by line
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  flow. Now let's look at how biblical
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  poets organize whole passages, sometimes even entire books,
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  using these vast structural patterns.
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  These are the macro architecture devices.
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  And what are they? How do they define these larger
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  units of meaning? Well, these devices impose a
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  large scale architecture on the text, and if you can recognize
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  them, it allows you to identify the major subdivisions, the
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  sense units of an entire poem. Which in turn guides your
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  interpretation of the author's argument.
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  That's the key. Let's start with chiasm.
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  Chiasm is a rhetorical device that uses a reverse word order
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  in parallel lines. It creates a pattern of AB and
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  then B prime a prime like an X Exactly.
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  It gets his name from the Greek letter chi, which looks like an
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  X because of that crossing pattern.
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  Now, in short little couplets, it can under score a contrast or
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  show a reversal of fate. But what about the extended
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  chiasm? How does that work in large
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  passages? This is maybe the most useful
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  structural tool for finding the central message of a longer
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  passage in large chiasm. The main point, the climax of
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  the whole section, falls in the structural center.
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  The structural hinge. Yes, it's the one section that
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  doesn't have a parallel counterpart, and the secondary
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  points are in the frames, the corresponding sections at the
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  beginning and the end. If you can find that center, you
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  have found the poet's main theological focus.
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  OK. Let's really spend some time on
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  this case study from Jeremiah 2. It's a perfect demonstration of
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  how this structure reveals theological priority.
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  It really is. In this extended chiasm,
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  Jeremiah is condemning Israel's actions.
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  The structure is built very carefully.
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  The Ana prime sections, the outer frames condemn all of
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  Israel, the fathers and the grandchildren for following
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  worthless idols. OK, so the whole nation is
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  framed by this condemnation, right?
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  Then the B section accuses them of asking where's the Lord and
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  the B prime section accuses them of saying we will not come to
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  you again. Then the C-section condemns the
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  priests and C Prime condemns the prophets.
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  So all of these surrounding parts, the ABCD sections and
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  their counterparts, they are all focused on the people's failure.
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  The people's failure, the leader's complicity.
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  But the structural hinge, the central point, which is labeled
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  E in the analysis, it states this.
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  I brought you to an orchard land to eat its lovely fruit.
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  Wow. The power of the structure here
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  is that if you were just reading this as prose, you might see
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  that statement about God's provision as just one more
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  historical fact in the list. That's another detail.
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  But when the poet puts it in the dead center of the chiasm, it
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  elevates that single idea, God's initial faithful provision,
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  above all the condemnation surrounding it.
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  That is the interpretive payoff. The central message isn't just
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  that Israel sinned, it's that their sin was an egregious
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  response to God's prior and unmatched generosity.
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  So the whole indictment hinges on the fact that Yahweh was
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  faithful, He put them in paradise, and they were the ones
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  who failed. Right.
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  Analyzing the chiasm isolates the central argument of God's
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  provision and faithfulness, and that then serves as the standard
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  by which all the surrounding condemnations are to be judged.
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  It's a brilliant piece of literary architecture.
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  OK, Next up we have Merismus. Merismus.
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  Which uses the extremes of a category to define the whole
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  scope. Merismus is a rhetorical device
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  where the writer mentions the extremes of a category to
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  portray the totality, those two opposites and everything that
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  falls in between them. And it's used to achieve this
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  really comprehensive, all-encompassing effect.
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  It is. This is a very common device.
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  And this concept seems incredibly important because it
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  often speaks to the comprehensiveness of God's
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  domain. It does.
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  The classic example of totality is Genesis 1.1.
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  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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  The heavens and the earth. That merismus uses the extremes
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  of the created order, heavens and earth Earth to affirm that
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  God created the entirety of the universe and everything in it.
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  If it's not heaven, it's earth, and God made both.
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  It leaves nothing out. And we see this used with
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  categories of people as well. Very often Jeremiah 31.34,
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  Speaking of the New covenant, says that everyone will know the
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  Lord from the least of them to the greatest.
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  Right from the bottom to the top.
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  It uses the extremes of social status, least and greatest to
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  mean everyone, the whole category of people.
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  It's a totalizing statement about inclusion in the covenant.
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  And the sources also bring up a double merismus.
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  What's that? Psalm 95.4 to 5 uses 2 distinct
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  pairs of extremes to affirm God's absolute ownership over
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  the whole earth. OK, 2 pairs.
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  The first pair describes the vertical extremes, the depths of
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  the earth and the mountain peaks, and the second pair
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  describes the horizontal extremes, the sea and the dry
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  land. OK, wet and dry.
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  By combining those four elements, the poet creates this
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  inescapable affirmation that God owns every single dimension of
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  the planet. There's nowhere you can go that
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  isn't His. OK, finally, let's look at the
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  structural devices of inclusio and staircase parallelism.
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  Inclusio is basically a framing device.
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  It involves repeating words or phrases from the opening lines
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  at the very end of a poem or a section.
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  And its function is to signal the poem's main theme.
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  It provides unity. It's like drawing a conceptual
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  box around the main argument. That's a great way to put it.
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  For example, Psalm 8 opens and closes with the exact same line.
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  Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth?
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  That inclusio confirms that everything discussed in the
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  middle of the song, the majesty of the stars, humanity's
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  delegated rule over creation, is all just an elaboration of that
• 19:35
  one single theme, God's majesty, displayed on Earth.
• 19:39
  It forces you to return to the core ID at the end.
• 19:42
  And then we have staircase parallelism.
• 19:43
  This seems related to the idea of intensification we talked
• 19:46
  about earlier. It is staircase parallelism
• 19:48
  develops the lines and steps. It adds new elements or keywords
• 19:52
  that build on the previous line, creating this verbal chain that
• 19:55
  leads to a climax in the last line.
• 19:57
  So the thought progresses like like climbing stairs.
• 20:00
  Exactly. You see this in John 1.4 to 5.
• 20:02
  The thought begins with life, that's the first step, and the
• 20:05
  concept of life is connected to light in the next.
• 20:07
  Step life was the light of men. And then light is connected to
• 20:11
  the struggle with darkness in the final step.
• 20:14
  It creates a steady progression where the concluding element
• 20:17
  finishes the thought with maximum impact.
• 20:20
  OK, so if the structures we've just discussed are the skeleton,
• 20:23
  the architecture of the poem, then imagery is the flesh and
• 20:27
  blood. This is what makes it feel
• 20:29
  alive. It is Poetry uses a very high
• 20:32
  concentration of metaphors and images.
• 20:34
  It substitutes abstract ideas with concrete words.
• 20:37
  And why is that? Because poetry is designed to
• 20:40
  appeal more to the readers imagination and senses than to
• 20:43
  just cold reason, it allows you to experience the topic, to feel
• 20:46
  its weight, to see its reality, to smell its truth.
• 20:49
  All right, let's start with two of the most common devices,
• 20:52
  simile and metaphor. We need to be really precise
• 20:55
  about the functional difference between them because they are so
• 20:57
  often confused. The distinction is all about
• 20:59
  whether the comparison is explicit or implicit, and that
• 21:02
  choice changes their rhetorical function.
• 21:05
  OK, so simile is the explicit comparison.
• 21:07
  A simile compares 2 things using the signal words like or as.
• 21:12
  That explicit signal gently guides the reader from something
• 21:16
  they know well to something they don't know, making the abstract
• 21:19
  concept easier to digest. We saw this already in Psalm One
• 21:23
  O 3, comparing the Lord's compassion to a Father's.
• 21:26
  Using as the comparison is gentle, it's educational.
• 21:29
  And by contrast, metaphor is the implicit comparison.
• 21:32
  A metaphor compares 2 things bluntly.
• 21:35
  By just stating that A is B, it gets rid of the like or As for
• 21:39
  example, the Lord is a rock. It asserts an identity.
• 21:42
  It does. It makes this direct, striking
• 21:43
  connection between two things that are basically dissimilar,
• 21:46
  God and a geological formation that happened to share a crucial
• 21:50
  trait. And in that case, it's
• 21:52
  unchanging strength. Right.
• 21:54
  And the metaphor creates a much more striking effect because the
• 21:56
  reader has to immediately bridge that conceptual gap themselves
• 22:01
  without being handed a signal word.
• 22:02
  It forces you to participate in creating the image more
• 22:05
  forcefully, like that vivid image of Jerusalem's officials
• 22:08
  being called roaring lions. It's a striking equation of
• 22:11
  their greedy predatory behavior with the physical strength and
• 22:13
  hunger of a wild animal. A much more powerful image than
• 22:17
  saying they are like roaring lions.
• 22:19
  OK, next we have hyperbole, a really crucial device for
• 22:23
  conveying intense feeling. It is which is conscious
• 22:26
  exaggeration for the sake of effect.
• 22:28
  It's stretching literal truth to create an emotional impact.
• 22:32
  And its purpose is to state something the poet feels very
• 22:35
  strongly, whether that's joy or suffering or divine judgment.
• 22:39
  It forces the reader to share in that intense feeling.
• 22:42
  Let's use the example of distress from Psalm 22.14.
• 22:45
  It's incredibly powerful. The psalmist writes, I am poured
• 22:49
  out like water and all my bones are out of joint.
• 22:51
  Which? Literally is impossible.
• 22:53
  Of course, but the exaggeration conveys complete, devastating
• 22:57
  exhaustion. It's the feeling of I've got no
• 22:59
  fight left in me. It serves as a dramatic
• 23:02
  expression of deep distress, not a literal medical report.
• 23:05
  The device helps us access the depth of the poet's suffering.
• 23:08
  And we really have to consider the most striking example of
• 23:11
  hyperbolic frustration, and that's Paul's comment in
• 23:13
  Galatians 5.1. He's so frustrated with the
• 23:17
  legalistic agitators that he says I wish they would go the
• 23:20
  whole way and emasculate themselves.
• 23:22
  That is, without a doubt, an expression of maximum rhetorical
• 23:25
  frustration. It's shocking.
• 23:27
  It's meant to be. It's a classic use of conscious
• 23:29
  exaggeration to communicate the intensity of his feeling about
• 23:33
  the danger these agitators posed to the Gospel of Grace.
• 23:36
  It's a dramatic exclamation designed to shock his readers
• 23:39
  into seeing how serious the issue is.
• 23:41
  It should never, ever be read as a literal command.
• 23:44
  Its function is purely rhetorical emphasis of the
• 23:47
  highest order. Of the highest order, yes.
• 23:48
  OK, how do poets make abstract ideas relatable and generate a
• 23:52
  sense of excitement? Two devices are key here,
• 23:55
  personification and apostrophe. Let's start with
• 23:58
  personification. Personification is when a non
• 24:00
  human subject, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea is
• 24:04
  written about as if it were human.
• 24:06
  Giving it a sense of agency. Exactly.
• 24:08
  It makes the subject vivid and concrete for the reader.
• 24:11
  In Psalm 43.3, the poet asks God to send me your light and your
• 24:15
  faithful care. Let them guide me.
• 24:17
  So light and care become guides. The abstract concepts of light
• 24:21
  and care are portrayed as people, as guides leading him
• 24:25
  directly to the temple. This instantly makes these ideas
• 24:28
  relatable in personal, active terms.
• 24:30
  You see this all over, like in Proverbs 8 where Wisdom is
• 24:33
  pictured as a woman calling out in the streets.
• 24:35
  And then there's apostrophe, which can be really startling
• 24:38
  when it appears. Apostrophe is a direct address
• 24:41
  to someone or something that is absent as though it were
• 24:45
  present, and it usually appears very suddenly.
• 24:48
  It often signals that the poet has been overcome by emotion and
• 24:51
  is just venting. So its main function is to give
• 24:54
  vent to strong feelings and generate a sense of excitement
• 24:57
  and drama. Yes.
• 24:58
  Paul uses this with such power when he addresses death directly
• 25:02
  in First Corinthians 15, Where? O death is your victory.
• 25:05
  Where, O death is your sting? This sudden, direct challenge to
• 25:09
  death itself generates this intense excitement, and it
• 25:12
  affirms the profound hope of the resurrection.
• 25:15
  It's an address that turns as an abstract victory into a
• 25:17
  personal, dramatic confrontation.
• 25:19
  All right, the final pair of devices we need to distinguish
• 25:22
  are Metonymy and Symecticay. Both involve substitution, but
• 25:27
  they work a little differently. They do.
• 25:29
  Let's start with metonymy. This is the substitution of a
• 25:33
  word or idea for one that is closely associated with it.
• 25:37
  The substitute is a verbal stand in for the real concept.
• 25:40
  The example of the table is really clear here.
• 25:43
  In Psalm 23.5 it says you prepare a table before me in the
• 25:47
  presence of my enemies. The word table stands in for the
• 25:51
  bountiful meal that's prepared on it.
• 25:53
  Right, the point isn't the piece of furniture.
• 25:55
  The point is, the extravagant provision of food, the feasting
• 25:59
  that God gives the psalmist even while his enemies are watching,
• 26:02
  probably hoping he starves the table, is closely associated
• 26:05
  with the meal. OK.
• 26:06
  And Synecdecay. Synecdecay happens when a part
• 26:08
  of something is used to represent the whole idea or
• 26:11
  item, and this device is particularly good for focusing
• 26:14
  the reader's attention on one key detail that carries the
• 26:17
  thematic weight of the statement.
• 26:18
  So the goal here is focus, thematic contrast.
• 26:22
  Think about Amos 810, where God declares I will turn your
• 26:26
  religious festivals into mourning and all your singing
• 26:29
  into weeping. OK, singing.
• 26:31
  Singing is only one part of the religious festivals, which are
• 26:34
  the whole, but the poet chooses singing specifically because it
• 26:38
  symbolizes joy and celebration. By substituting the part for the
• 26:42
  whole, the poet focuses your attention on the specific joy
• 26:46
  that is about to be replaced by mourning and weeping when
• 26:49
  judgment falls. OK, let's move now to the
• 26:52
  auditory elements. Even when we're reading in
• 26:54
  translation, the sound and the rhythm are being used
• 26:57
  deliberately to signal the poet's intentions to cast a
• 27:00
  spotlight on keywords. The structure governs the
• 27:03
  thought, but the sound governs the focus in the tempo.
• 27:06
  So let's talk about rhythm and tempo.
• 27:08
  As we mentioned, Hebrew poetry has a variable rhythm, but a
• 27:11
  good literal English translation can often reveal the relative
• 27:14
  lengths of the poetic lines, and that length indicates the poem's
• 27:18
  intended tempo or its speed. So line length is a crucial
• 27:22
  tempo indicator. It really is Short, compact
• 27:25
  lines suggest a kind of staccato rapidity, quick action, a sense
• 27:29
  of urgency. In long lines.
• 27:30
  Long lines convey slowness. They often direct the reader to
• 27:34
  dwell on the solemnity or the gravity of a thought.
• 27:37
  And a sudden shift in that length that acts as a kind of
• 27:40
  poetic special effect. It does a sudden, surprising
• 27:44
  change in line length, alters the tempo, and it compels you to
• 27:48
  pay special attention to those lines.
• 27:50
  It's a signal that a crucial piece of information is being
• 27:53
  delivered. The case study from Nahum 3 is
• 27:55
  the quintessential demonstration of how this works, how tempo
• 27:59
  highlights the reason for judgement.
• 28:01
  It's a perfect example. Nahum's description of Nineveh's
• 28:04
  military downfall is delivered with a series of very short,
• 28:07
  compact rapid fire. Lines.
• 28:09
  Light panels. The crack of whips, the clatter
• 28:11
  of wheels charging calorie flashing swords and glittering
• 28:14
  Spears, it creates this vivid, chaotic sense of rapid,
• 28:18
  destructive action. The speed of the lines mirrors
• 28:20
  the violence of the scene. And then the studies shift, the
• 28:23
  sudden stop. That frantic, staccato action
• 28:26
  just halts, and it's followed by two much longer drawn out
• 28:29
  concluding lines that state the reason for all that chaos.
• 28:33
  All because of the want and lust of a prostitute who enslaved
• 28:36
  nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.
• 28:41
  The abrupt stop in tempo dramatically shifts your focus
• 28:44
  away from the action of the collapse and puts it entirely
• 28:47
  onto the moral cause of the collapse, Nineveh's profound
• 28:51
  corruption. The structural change is a
• 28:53
  powerful rhetorical punctuation mark.
• 28:56
  OK, so beyond tempo, poets use the actual sounds of the words,
• 29:00
  the vowels and consonants, to create cohesion and emphasis.
• 29:03
  Yes, assonance and alliteration. Let's define assonance first.
• 29:06
  Assonance is a repetition of similar vowel sounds.
• 29:09
  Its purpose is twofold, First, to give a feeling of unity to a
• 29:13
  poetic unit, and 2nd to provide special emphasis to certain
• 29:17
  words by linking sound with sense.
• 29:19
  And alliteration is the same idea, but with consonants.
• 29:22
  Right. Alliteration is the repetition
• 29:23
  of similar consonant sounds. It likewise provides a sense of
• 29:26
  wholeness and gives special emphasis to keywords.
• 29:29
  If a theme word is dominant in a poem, you'll often find
• 29:32
  alliteration surrounding that word to highlight it and make it
• 29:34
  acoustically memorable. It's got to be notoriously
• 29:37
  difficult to capture the full effect of these devices in
• 29:40
  translation. It is very much so.
• 29:43
  The Hebrew poets were master Craftsman.
• 29:45
  They were choosing words for their sound just as much As for
• 29:48
  their meaning. We rarely experience the full
• 29:51
  Sonic force in English. But it's good to know it's
• 29:54
  there. It is recognizing that assonance
• 29:57
  and alliteration exist helps us understand why certain phrases
• 30:00
  feel so cohesive or memorable even after translation.
• 30:04
  They signal the poet's deliberate intentions, and they
• 30:07
  enhance memorability. And finally, under sound, we
• 30:10
  have word play. Word play, also called
• 30:12
  paranomazia or just puns, is the clever use of similar sounding
• 30:17
  words to call special attention to them, even if they seem
• 30:19
  unrelated at first. This definitely requires some
• 30:22
  knowledge of the original language, but it's vital when
• 30:25
  you're studying the text closely.
• 30:26
  The function can be really significant.
• 30:28
  Word play can under score the poems central theme, or it can
• 30:31
  highlight a strategic contrast between two different concepts.
• 30:35
  Let's use that specific example from Jeremiah 1.
• 30:37
  OK, Jeremiah tells God, I see a branch of an almond tree.
• 30:41
  The Hebrew word for almond tree is shaked.
• 30:43
  Shaked. And you always reply immediately
• 30:46
  picks up on that root sound to create a verbal link, he says.
• 30:49
  I am watching and the Hebrew word there is choked to see that
• 30:54
  my word is fulfilled. Choked and choked.
• 30:56
  The word play links the image of the almond tree, which is the
• 30:59
  first tree to bud in the spring, with God's promise to actively
• 31:03
  fulfill His Word. The poet is using sound to
• 31:06
  reinforce the theme of God's vigilance and timeliness and
• 31:09
  carrying out His decree. O Given all these interlocking
• 31:13
  structures and devices, the parallelism, the imagery, the
• 31:16
  sound play, it becomes clear that a systematic aroach is
• 31:19
  necessary. We needed to ensure we're
• 31:21
  extracting the intended meaning and avoiding misreading or over
• 31:26
  interpretation, right? So this discipline method
• 31:29
  consists of four critical steps for handling the figurative
• 31:32
  language that is so common in biblical poetry.
• 31:34
  And this systematic approach is essential because we recognize
• 31:37
  that this poetry communicates by moving our feelings and our
• 31:39
  will. And so we need a kind of
• 31:41
  filtered properly discern the poet's intent from just our own
• 31:44
  imagination. That's a good way to put it.
• 31:46
  OK, step one. Step one.
• 31:47
  Identify the figure or figures of speech present.
• 31:50
  The first step is simple recognition.
• 31:53
  You have to identify the specific device being used.
• 31:57
  Is it a simile? A metaphor, Profoundification.
• 32:01
  Hyperbole. And you have to note that
• 32:03
  complex passages can often contain combinations of these.
• 32:06
  You might find hyperbole expressed through a metaphor all
• 32:09
  within a structure of intensification.
• 32:11
  OK, so first just name what you're seeing, then Step 2.
• 32:14
  Step 2. Identify its emotional
• 32:16
  connotations. We have to determine the
• 32:18
  emotional associations, both positive and negative, that the
• 32:21
  original reader would have connected with a literal object
• 32:24
  being used. So what did it mean to them?
• 32:26
  Right. For example, concepts like rock
• 32:28
  fortress, shield, stronghold, those generally connote positive
• 32:33
  established ideas of strength, protection, salvation.
• 32:36
  But some words are more ambiguous.
• 32:37
  They are words like shadow or water can carry both positive
• 32:41
  connotations like shade or life giving water and negative ones
• 32:45
  like gloom or judgement and we have to weigh that against the
• 32:47
  specific context. OK, that brings us to Step 3,
• 32:50
  which seems to be the most critical step.
• 32:52
  It is Step 3. Distill the figurative meaning
• 32:56
  from the literal one. This is the step that guards
• 32:59
  against misreading. You have to recognize the
• 33:01
  literal object. What does it do in the physical
• 33:03
  world and then determine the specific restricted aspect of
• 33:08
  that literal meaning that the poet wants to highlight in this
• 33:11
  immediate context? Let's spend some time on this
• 33:13
  case study. Slander as Spears and arrows.
• 33:16
  This seems like a perfect illustration of how to restrict
• 33:19
  the interpretation. OK, in Psalm 57.4 so psalmist
• 33:22
  says his enemies have teeth that are Spears and arrows whose
• 33:25
  tongues are sharp swords. A vivid image.
• 33:28
  Very we start with the literal meaning.
• 33:30
  What do Spears and arrows actually do?
• 33:33
  Well, they strike from a distance, they inflict painful,
• 33:36
  deep wounds, and they often catch the victim by surprise,
• 33:40
  defenseless. Right, those are the physical
• 33:43
  ideas these weapons conjure up. And we have to stick to just
• 33:45
  those points of comparison. The poet isn't interested in
• 33:48
  what kind of wood they were made from or who manufactured them.
• 33:52
  Exactly so. Therefore, the figurative
• 33:54
  meaning illuminates slander as harsh, pointed words that wound
• 33:58
  their victims suddenly and defenselessly.
• 34:01
  The words imply secrecy, pain, distance.
• 34:05
  The point is not that the enemies literally have teeth
• 34:08
  like weapons. The point is that their words
• 34:10
  function like those weapons. You have to restrict the
• 34:13
  comparison to only the traits they share.
• 34:15
  And this brings us right to the guard against over
• 34:18
  interpretation. This rule is paramount.
• 34:22
  We must adhere strictly to the rule of context, both the
• 34:25
  literary context and the historical cultural context.
• 34:28
  Images usually invoke only a few points of comparison, maybe just
• 34:31
  one or two, out of a huge range of possibilities.
• 34:33
  So our interpretation has to be limited strictly to that
• 34:36
  restricted range. Or else we risk istesis reading
• 34:39
  and meetings that were never intended.
• 34:41
  We had to ask what these terms connoted in biblical times.
• 34:44
  A horn, for instance, only connoted strength or dignity of
• 34:47
  the ancient Near East. It had nothing to do with the
• 34:49
  musical instrument. We have to limit our
• 34:50
  interpretation to what the original audience would have
• 34:52
  understood. OK.
• 34:53
  And that leads us to the final step, Step 4.
• 34:56
  Step 4. Determine the figures function.
• 35:00
  Why was it used here? You have to ascertain what the
• 35:02
  figure contributed to the overall meaning or theme of the
• 35:05
  passage. Why did the poet choose this
• 35:07
  specific image instead of just a plainer statement?
• 35:10
  The example from Psalm 18.2 illustrates how figurative
• 35:13
  language can establish the entire argument of a passage.
• 35:16
  It does. Psalm 18.2 uses metaphors like
• 35:19
  rock fortress and shield to describe God.
• 35:23
  Their function is not just decorative, they are carefully
• 35:26
  chosen to establish the Psalms main theme.
• 35:28
  God's absolute awesome strength and protection in the face of
• 35:31
  violent opposition. The consistent use of military
• 35:35
  and geological imagery contributes directly to the
• 35:37
  thematic statement the poet wanted to make about God's
• 35:40
  reliability as a savior. So after all of this, what does
• 35:43
  this systematic approach mean for you as you sit down to read
• 35:46
  your Bible? Well, it means reading 1/3 of
• 35:48
  the scripture with fresh eyes. The structure, especially
• 35:51
  dynamic parallelism, is what guides the progression of
• 35:53
  thought. It ensures the idea is always
• 35:56
  being intensified or specified, never just repeated.
• 35:58
  And the imagery, the metaphors and similes, that's what gives
• 36:01
  the idea flesh and blood. It allows you to experience the
• 36:04
  topic emotionally. And the sound play, though it
• 36:07
  can be subtle in translation, adds that layer of emphasis and
• 36:10
  memorability. Biblical poetry is designed by a
• 36:13
  precise communicator. It's meant to engage not just
• 36:16
  your understanding but your senses and your feelings, to
• 36:19
  move your will toward action or toward worship.
• 36:22
  By honoring its complex architecture and systematic
• 36:24
  language, we are just better equipped to understand the
• 36:27
  message God intends to communicate.
• 36:28
  It's a disciplined approach. It is, and it helps us avoid
• 36:32
  missing the subtlety, the depth, and the emotional resonance that
• 36:35
  is intentionally built into this unique literary form.
• 36:38
  And remember. The reading rate for poetry is
• 36:41
  inherently slow. It has to be because of its
• 36:43
  density. Its structural sparseness
• 36:46
  demands your full attention. So consider this.
• 36:50
  Maybe deliberately slowing your reading pace through the Psalms
• 36:53
  or the prophets isn't just a devotional practice.
• 36:56
  Maybe it's a prerequisite for grasping the poet's intended
• 36:59
  tempo and focus, revealing layer upon layer of truth that just
• 37:04
  fast reading is bound to obscure.
• 37:06
  Now there is something to chew on.