God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. I think we should at least humor him by learning enough of the language to get by.
During the Season of Epiphany, we as a church journeyed with Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew. For the Season of Lent (which begins this Wednesday), we will be wading through the Psalms until Palm Sunday and Holy Week. This marks a rather stark change in genre, moving from Greek prose narrative (Gospels) to classical Hebrew poetry (Psalms). To prepare us for this change, I would like to review a few items mentioned in my Psalms Course from Spring 2021:
The Bible, I think we can all agree, is God’s attempt to communicate with human beings. And the Bible, I know we can all agree, is anything but straightforward. In an effort to communicate with us, then, why did God choose such a complicated medium? In other words: why did God choose literature?
Most people, in my experience, seem to separate the Bible from literature, in their minds. ‘The one (Bible) is religious while the other (literature) just isn’t.’ But the Bible is literature; it contains some of the most influential writing in human history. If the Bible is literature, then, in a way similar to Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Steinbeck, doesn’t it make sense to read it, in at least a slightly similar way?
Imagine what you would miss, for instance, if you read The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) or The Wasteland (T.S. Eliot) as you would a text from your cousin, or a flyer from the pizza place next door. Imagine what you would miss, then, when you read the Bible as ‘a religious document’ as opposed to ‘a brilliant work of literary art.’ My point is: God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. I think we should at least humor him by learning enough of the language to get by (or else, we’ll miss much of what he is trying to say).
All of this is especially crucial for poetry. Why? Well, poetry functions differently than narrative, proverb, law, or other forms of Biblical literature. Poetry, for one, needs to be experienced or felt rather than simply understood. With poetry the form of the language has meaning. The length, the choice, and the order of words is itself crucial to the reading experience.
What we need to ask then, is: How does the language behave? How does it express meaning? With poetry, the question isn’t “what does it mean?” but, rather: “how does it mean?”
Now this, I warn you involves a totally different mode of reading. And to develop and strengthen this mode, we need tools, and we need practice.
So first, tools. Here are some things to look for when reading the Biblical Psalms.
First, we have parallelism, the foundational structure of Hebrew poetry. Parallelism is a way in which poetry means by placing poetic items (words, clauses, sentences, verse-lines) in symmetry with one other (which produces unpredictable and diverse effects). Parallelism manifests in a variety of different types, including word, number, positive/negative, noun/pronoun, internal, and so forth.
Word parallelism, for instance, occurs when the same (or a similar) word or root is repeated in a slightly different aspect or context (example below):
The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever (Psalm 29:10).
The word “sits” occurs in both lines, but in slightly different contexts. “Sitting” enthroned as king is a rather straightforward, realistic image denoting God’s royal status. “Sitting” enthroned “over the flood,” is a bit more fantastical, and requires some imaginative work on our part. Such language suggests that God possesses a kind of royal authority over the elements of nature, i.e., the flood, which may stand for the raging river, lake, sea, etc. (cf., Matt. 8:23-27).
Another example is what’s called fill-in-the-blank parallelism. This is a form of parallelism in which the second line lacks an element to correspond with the first but adds a new element so the lines match in length (example below).
They shoot from ambush at the innocent;
they shoot suddenly, without fear (Psalm 64:4).
The second line repeats the phrase “they shoot” from line one, but adds the adverbial element, “suddenly, without fear,” which does not conceptually match “at the innocent” from line one. “At the innocent,” then (from line one) is enhanced after the fact by this new detail (“suddenly, without fear”). The length of line is parallel (i.e., parallelism) but the meaning is not parallel as in the example above (of word parallelism). As you can see, parallelism assumes a variety of forms.
The key, in all of this, is to look for correspondences between lines (and within lines) and to explore how they correspond and how this shapes the larger unit (line, stanza, poem, etc.).
The second thing to look for is figurative language or figures of speech. Common figures in Biblical poetry include apostrophe, ellipsis, hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, personification, synecdoche, etc. A few examples suffice to explain the importance of figurative language.
Apostrophe entails speech directed at someone who is not present as though they were present. A prime example comes in Psalm 137:8: “O daughter Babylon, you devastator!” Psalm 137 presents a bitter reflection upon Judah’s exile into the land of Babylon. However, “Babylon” as an actual entity (personified here as a human daughter; another figure of speech) was, of course, not present to hear this psalm! Addressing a poem to an absent figure produces the rich imaginative experience of picturing a kind of conversation between the psalmist (standing for Judah) and the Babylonian nation.
Hyperbole is another figure used in Biblical poetry. Hyperbole involves an overstatement which focuses attention on the phenomenon being expressed. One clear example comes in Prov. 23:1-2:
When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
observe carefully what is before you,
and put a knife to your throat
if you are given to appetite.
Gluttony is the vice being warned of here (“if you are given to appetite”), but the poet is certainly not suggesting literal suicide as a response to overeating. Such heightened figurative language does, however, express the danger of gluttony more vividly than would straightforward language (e.g., “Avoid overeating.”).
Finally, two of the most common figures of speech you will find in Biblical poetry are the figures of metonymy and synecdoche. Metonymy is present when a thing is denoted not by the thing itself but by something associated with it.
Psalm 73:9 is a great example: “They set their mouths against heaven.” There are two examples of metonymy in this short sentence: mouths and heaven. “Mouths,” of course, stands for spoken words, which (being “set against”) seem to be words of rebuke, rejection, and/or cursing. “Heaven” stands not for the atmosphere or sky but rather the dwelling place of God. It refers to God in his glory, in a way that wouldn’t be as acutely expressed through literal, straightforward language. The literal meaning, then, is “they were cursing, rejecting, or blaspheming God who possesses eternal glory.” However, “setting their mouths against heaven” produces a set of images which more visually communicates this theme.
Synecdoche occurs when a thing is denoted not by the thing itself but by a part of the thing, or a particular (thing) in place of a group. Psalm 93:2 reads: “Yahweh’s throne is established from of old.” The word “throne” here is not literal. The psalmist is not speaking of a physical chair that was stabilized in/on a floor “from of old.” The “throne,” rather, represents God’s royal dominion and rule. To say, then, that his throne “was established from of old,” is to say that God’s royal dominion and rule has been active “from of old,” which likely means “since eternity, forever.” To use the earthy image of a wooden (or iron) throne which is stabilized, however, more powerfully conveys the poet’s meaning.
God is trying to communicate with us, and he has chosen literature as his language. Poetry is a distinct form of literature, which conveys ‘experience’ rather than mere information. If we wish to receive the fullness of what God has given in such literature, we need to learn the language of poetry, at least enough of it to get by.
My hope is that this Lenten season, we would swim in the Psalms together, letting their parallelism, figurative language, and evocative imagery, pull us wherever God wants us. Let us wade in these waters together, letting them fill our pores, so we can emerge refreshed on Easter morning.
Jonah Bissell
Pastor