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What is poetry? The question seems a little silly one the one hand: it’s generally an easy genre to identify, and we tend to know it when we see it. But, on the other hand, poetry can be a really difficult genre to define. We can describe elements of poetry with relative ease: meter, metaphor, simile, senses, imagery and imagination. And yet the moment we attempt to move these comment elements from description towards definition, we realise that none of those are true for all poetry.
Hebrew poetry, likewise, can be difficult to define – and sometimes even to identify. If you’ve been attentive to your different Bible translations over the years you may have noticed that some passages are formatted as poetry in one translation and prose in another, as the translators themselves struggle to figure out if they are reading prose or poetry.
There are, however, some typical Hebrew poetry techniques that are easily identifiable and worth knowing. And if we know these then we’ll be all the better readers of God’s word, and all the better for it.
The first technique is called ‘parallelism’. It’s not a perfect description since parallel lines – while next to each other and paired together – never actually connect. The sense of Hebrew parallelism is more about the pairing across two (or more) lines, and they are designed to be read in light of each other rather than discreetly. If there had to be a basic summary of what biblical parallelism is, it’s that ‘Hebrew poetry repeats itself’.
Take our psalm for today (Psalm 2) as a classic example. Notice how every idea in Psalm 2 occurs in pairs. In verse 1:
Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
Or, in verse 3,
Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.
Two lines in parallel, synonymous repetition. And once we see its existence, it’s impossible to miss!
The goal of interpretation here isn’t so much a forensic analysis of each single word and phrase in isolation (‘the author speaks of “bonds” in v3a to signify … but in v3b he deliberately choses “cords” so as to …’) so much as to read the parallel lines in light of each other (‘the nations see God as oppressive to their freedom and they desire to break free of his “restraints”’).
Parallelism doesn’t just occur in pairs, but sometimes we encounter triplets and quadruplets. Psalm 1 opens with a triplet, for example. Essentially the same thing is said, but in three different ways:
Blessed is the man who:
walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
Once we embrace this poetic technique, several things follow that help us hear God more clearly:
First, we can sometimes lose the forest for the trees when we read Hebrew poetry. The forest (the big picture of what God is saying) can be swallowed up for all the trees (all this repetition). A useful way to regain the sense of a passage is to temporarily remove the repetition and build a picture of the overall meaning. This is perhaps the most useful thing to hold onto if Hebrew poetic repetition is new to us.
Second, as useful as that simplification is, we need to remember that the repetition technique is there for a reason. The repetition of ideas builds a picture which then evokes images, ideas, and affections. It’s not enough for us to simply identify the idea behind the repetition (e.g., Psalm 2:1: the nations are in rebellion against God). To leave it there is to reduce the poem to propositions, when poetry is about so much more. We must embrace the imagery (raging, plots, conspiracies, defiance … in contrast to God’s derision in response). The evocation and affections conjured by the imagery is as much part of God’s communication to us as the proposition lying underneath.
Third, when we encounter changes in the repetition, ideas are highlighted as pivotal. When the parallels go from couplets to triplets (or vice versa), the poet could be highlighting an idea, or concluding a stanza. When the parallel is not synonymous (saying the same thing differently), our attention is drawn to contrasting or ‘building’ parallels.
Take, for example, Psalm 2:2b:
Against the LORD
and against his Anointed (Messiah/Christ)
The parallel is there, but it’s a ‘building’ parallel, and, having thrown God and his Christ together, the next verses of the Psalm twin the two: to rebel against one is to rebel against the other. The two are distinguishable, but inseparable. How we treat the Son / Christ / King is the same question of how we treat God.
Or again, the Psalm concludes with no parallel at all: ‘Blessed are all who take refuge in him’. Its variation highlights its importance for us to embrace, and leaves us with a stark implication to enact from the Psalm.
