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HEBREW POETRY

HEBREW POETRY. The Scope of Hebrew Poetry. The poetical books are one-fourth of the Old Testament. Hebrew poetry, however, makes up one-third of the Old Testament. Every book of the Old Testament contains poetry except Leviticus and Esther.

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HEBREW POETRY

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  1. HEBREWPOETRY

  2. The Scope of Hebrew Poetry • The poetical books are one-fourth of the Old Testament. • Hebrew poetry, however, makes up one-third of the Old Testament. • Every book of the Old Testament contains poetry except Leviticus and Esther. • Some Old Testament books, although not classified as such, are entirely poetical: Lamentations, Obadiah, Habakkuk. • Some poetical books contain a great deal of prose: Job, Ecclesiastes.

  3. The Sections of Hebrew Poetry • Wisdom literature makes up most of O.T. poetry and is divided into two sections: • Higher Wisdom & Lower Wisdom • There are Three Fundamental Features of Hebrew Wisdom. • First, Hebrew wisdom is God centered. • Second, Hebrew wisdom is life centered. • Third Hebrew wisdom is not a matter of capacity, but a matter of choice.

  4. The Sections of Hebrew Poetry • There are Levels of Folly in Hebrew Wisdom. • "Simple" is the elementary school fool. • "Fool" is the high school fool. • "Scoffer," "Mocker," or "Scorner" is the graduate school fool.

  5. The Specifics of Hebrew Poetry • The differences between Hebrew poetry and prose are not easy to specify. • Bishop Robert Lowth laid the foundation for the systematic study of Hebrew poetry in 1753. • Lowth discovered that the central feature of Hebrew poetry is parallelism. • Parallelism is the balancing of the thoughts in successive lines of poetry. • In Hebrew poetry the words do not rhyme. Instead the thoughts rhyme.

  6. Types of Parallelisms: • Synonymous - each line repeats its own thought in different words. • JOB 8:11 “Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh? • Can reeds thrive without water?” • Antithetic - the thought of line two contrasts that of line one. PSALM 1:6 “For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

  7. Types of Parallelisms: • Emblematic - line one contains a simile or metaphor in reference to line two. • PSALM 42:1 • “As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”

  8. Types of Parallelisms: • External - two parallelisms are taken together to make a unit. PSALM 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?" ISAIAH 1:3 “The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

  9. SYNTHETIC REASON Proverbs 26:4 RSV Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,

  10. Types of Parallelisms: • Chiastic - in this parallelism there is an inverted arrangement in which the parallelism runs in reverse order. PSALM 51:1 Have mercy on me, according to your O God unfailing love; according to your blot our my great compassion transgressions.

  11. Other Literary Devices • Onomatopoeia in Judges 5:22 • Hyperbole in Jonah 2:5ff • Acrostic in Psalm 119 • Puns in Isaiah 5:7

  12. PUN ISAIAH 5:7 The Lord looked for: The Lord saw: mishpat mishpach “justice” “bloodshed” ze dakah tze‘akah “righteousness” “distress”

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