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Hebrew Poetry and Prose


A) Types of Hebrew poetry

1. Psalms: hymns; thanksgiving; royal psalms; wisdom psalms; laments; liturgies.

2. Wisdom writings: proverbs; legends; riddles; sayings.

3. Prophecy: threats; judgment; salvation;visions; disputations; judicial speeches; laments.

4. Others: funerary dirges; songs of war; curses; drinking songs; love poems.

Note the following points about poetry:
C.C. Broyles, Faith and Experience, p. 30
"While in discourse words embrace meaning, in poetry they explode meaning (as in metaphor)."
E.S. Gerstenberger, "The Lyric Literature," The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (pp. 416-7) says:
"The true poet of old was a powerful person, one who knew well how to synthesize reality in such a way as to give access to transcendental being.... Poetic language breaks through the confines of rationalistic world views, intuitively approaching the essence of things."


B) Types of Hebrew prose

"Narrative style"
saga; tale; novella; legend; myth.


"Reportorial style"

historiography; biography; genealogy; lists.


C) Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry

1. Rhythm or meter
We have no broadly accepted understanding of this. Various scholars have tried to assess meter by counting stresses or syllables used in parallel bicola or tricola. These systems are not always satisfactory.

2. Parallelism
This is the major feature of Hebrew (and indeed most ancient Near Eastern poetry). Until about 15 years ago scholars thought that parallel lines essentially expressed the same idea in two (or more) ways. The most common form of parallelism was called “synonymous parallelism”. E.g.

Amos 5:24
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Ps 24:1-2
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
for he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.
Isa 1:3
The ox knows its owner,
and the donkey its master's crib;
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.
But not all examples fitted this structure. Two other types of parallelism were noted:
(a)  Antithetical parallelism:

Prov 10:1 (cf. also Ps 1:6; Matt 7:18; 10:39)

A wise child makes a glad father,
but a foolish child is a mother's grief.
(c) Synthetic parallelism (where the thought of the first line is developed in the next):

Ps 29:1,2 (cf. Matt 6:6b)

Ascribe to the Lord, O gods,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength;
ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;
worship the Lord in holy array.
 In the last 15 years scholars such as James Kugal (The Idea of Biblical Poetry) have argued that parallelism is essentially a single phenomenon expressed in various ways. Parallel lines are 2 (or more) parts that can relate to each other in many ways. The second line (B) is connected to the first (A). They have something in common. B serves a seconding function particularising, defining or expanding A. This is not always the case. Some parallel pairs can be synonymous, but in others line (B) develops the idea in line (A). For example, in Isa 3 above, the “my people” defines the idea of Israel more carefully in the second line of the parallel pair. In the second line there is a closer sense of relationship between Israel and God; Israel “belong” to God.
 

3. Various forms of "sound effects" (which are usually lost in translation.)
Repeated sounds, predominant sounds, alliteration (e.g. Pss 1:1; 93:4; 122:6-7), assonance (e.g. Ps 90:17; Isa 53:4-5).

4. Structural features.
Chiasmus (Ps 1:6) where there is some form of cross-over structure around words or ideas (e.g. ABBA), acrostic structuring (e.g. Ps 119; Lamentations) where each line or group of lines begins with the next letter of the alphabet, and inclusio where the end is the same or corresponds to the beginning (Ps 8).

5. Other features.
Repetition of words or phrases, metaphor, simile, imagery, symbolism, onomatopoeia, paranomasia, i.e. word plays e.g. Amos 8:2 (qes/qayis); Isa 5:7b; Jer 31:16-19 etc.
 

H. Wallace
Aug. 2002