Old Testament Poetry: Terseness, Parallelism, and Imagery

“He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.”

Is David talking about taking a nap on a picnic blanket in a meadow on a sunny day? We know he isn’t. Nor is he referring to a slow Sunday afternoon ramble along a river trail. While these things may be good gifts from God, we know that David is articulating much bigger themes here: truths that touch every day and decade of our lives. Still, Psalm 23 is the most famous in the Bible because it doesn’t just tell us deep truths, it shows them to us. And it shows them to us in a way that is so vivid that those truths can sink down into our very souls.

Psalm 23 is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Old Testament poetry. There is so much more God has given us through this genre, and this article serves as an introduction to three literary features of Old Testament poetry. *

Terseness

Terseness, in this case,  is significant communication using few words. This is not in a gruff snapping, but in a poetical compression of thought. The brevity of the lines which hold striking imagery is intentional, thus poetry leaves words out that we have to assume. This maximizes the impact of the words, enhancing the power as Bible scholar Steve Mathewson says,, and we are quickly struck by their vibrancy and left to ponder.** 

If "The heavens declare the glory of God” is taken as something grammatical to examine, we’d miss a lot. The verb is “declare.” The subject is the heavens, it has the article ‘the’ so it's definite. But what’s more? In those few words, it’s expressing that the heavens, which is the same word for sky, speak, make known the glory, the weight and honor, of God. It’s not literal. It’s figurative. And it makes us ponder what the few words mean.

Next time you read a psalm or a passage from Isaiah, consider the terseness you find there. It’s one of those things that, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Consider the intentionality of the author: what were they trying to communicate when they selected and arranged the words in this way?

Parallelism

Parallel structure says “A (pause), what’s more, B.” It encompasses lines that run parallel to each other. They are often found in pairs, but also sometimes in groups of three or four. It’s a form of repetition at the line-by-line level. It’s a correspondence in meaning and/or in grammar.

Three different categories of parallelism have been previously taught to Bible students. First, synonymous parallelism was a style in which the lines were saying the same thing. Second, synthetic parallelism was where the second line was expounding further on the topic of the first line. And third, antithetical parallelism where the second line said the opposite of the first line. But those categories have been called overly simplistic, because none of the poetic lines are purely synonymous. 

Instead, each line is intentionally distinct, all of them adding layers of information. The second part, or B, is often emphasized as the continuation of the first, a heightening, a growing intensity, or an adding of additional details to the first, or A.

Next time you read Old Testament Poetry and notice parallelism, look at the progression of the imagery and meaning: How is it heightened? How is it intensified? How are the details given or the imagery explained? How is it made more concrete? What do you think the author was trying to accomplish in arranging the lines this way?

Remember, though the parallelism may seem redundant at first glance, this repetition and slow unveiling of more, as each line repeats, serves to slow us and helps us hear the author well.

Imagery

Images create associations in our minds. And Old Testament poetry is packed full of them! Sometimes the imagery can be used at length like we find in Song of Songs, which builds on the images used to describe the lover, for example. But usually it is used briefly in two lines, illustrative images that then change as the poetry continues. Let’s look at several different types of imagery.

Metaphor and Simile

The most common figurative language used in Old Testament poetry is metaphor and simile, which are overt comparisons. They show similar qualities of one thing onto another. When we come across one, we ask ourselves, what similarities is the author trying to emphasize with this comparison? How are these similarities significant to what the author is communicating? Sometimes this can be tricky. It’s crucial to remember that we don’t always know which of the qualities the author expected his contemporary audience to think of. We do not live in ancient Israel, thus, this is where studying culture, language, other ancient texts, and archeology is important.

We also need to bear in mind that different images can have various meanings depending on the context. For example, the “right hand” can mean a place of honor in one psalm (Ps 110:1) and it can mean the means of power in another psalm (Ps. 138:7).*** We’re not talking about relativism, where a meaning can be arbitrary, but instead this means that one image can be used in different ways by poets. And sometimes the poet is using an image in multiple ways in the same verse. 

Understanding metaphor can sound intimidating, but we are not alone. After we have pondered a scriptural metaphor, we can turn to good resources like a Bible dictionary* to help us understand the metaphor accurately.

Personification (anthropomorphism)

Personification is a poetic tool in which the author gives human characteristics to non-human things. Look for trees clapping their hands (Is. 55:12) or gates lifting up their heads (Ps. 24:7). When we come across personification, our attention is drawn to the emotion or action that these non-human things are displaying. We are invited to pause and consider what the author is trying to tell us about the significance of what is happening. 

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Both of these forms of imagery use one thing to represent another. Metonymy is an attribute for the thing. “The crown” for the king. Synecdoche is a part for the whole or the whole for a part. Like “a head count” meaning that your head represents all of you. We use these expressions in daily conversation without realizing it, and yet they can create confusion when we come across them in reading Old Testament poetry. Being aware of them can help us understand the text more clearly.

When we understand some foundational elements of the genre the authors of Old Testament poetry were working with in their writing, we can begin to grasp their emphases and understand their carefully crafted messages. Then we can see beauty and power of the truths they are showing us about God and his redemptive plan. 

*For a deeper dive and even more literary devices used by the writers of Old Testament poetry, see the list of resources below or take the BibleEquipping short course, Elements of Prophetic Literature.

**from The Art of Preaching Old Testament Poetry by Steve Matthewson, page 18.

***from Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook by Mark D. Futato, page 46.

For Further Study:

See two books cited above.

How to Read and Understand the Psalms by Bruce Waltke & Fred Zaspel

Dictionary of Biblical Imagery

Bible Project Video: The Art of Biblical Poetry