Poetry
Hermeneutics Pt.10
 8-6-2009

Importance of Poetry
I’m sure there are varying ideas about the importance of poetry. If you are mostly a logical thinker, you may want to stick with the prose, where principles are clearly stated in a direct way. If you are more of an emotional person, you may enjoy the Psalms, but you may not look to them for a lot of instruction. Either way, we face the danger of minimizing the importance of poetry. If we do that, we have just minimized one-third of the Bible! Of the sixty-six books of the Bible, only seven do not appear not to have any poetic lines. So unless you want to spend the rest of your life studying only Leviticus, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, and Malachi, you are going to have to learn how to interpret poetry.

Definition 
Poetry is language that is vivid, terse, and structured in lines, rather than paragraphs. That definition involves three parts.
Vivid language
Poets are artists who paint pictures with words. The goal of those words is to generate vivid mental pictures, and stir up powerful emotions. Concrete, pictorial language is used, rather than abstract, conceptual language. The idea is for you to picture it, feel it, and experience it.
In the epistles you find direct statements of abstractions like, 1 Peter 5:7 He cares for you. But the Hebrew poet says the same thing in a way you can picture – “The Lord is my shepherd.” There is a reason why the Twenty-third Psalm is read to the grieving more often than 1 Peter 5. Imagining the Lord leading you beside quiet waters has a different effect than just processing the information that He cares for you.

Hosea 13:7-8 So I will come upon them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. 8 Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open.

Like a lion I will devour them; a wild animal will tear them apart. Think of the increasing terror these images are combined to produce: 
•	A general reference to a lion that sparks instinctive human fear, but does not specify the animal’s actions. 
•	The image of the lurking leopard gives the sense that unexpected judgment could spring upon them at any moment from behind. 
•	The bear robbed of her cubs…ripping them open intensifies the image. Now it’s violent – totally overwhelming. 
•	Finally the lion comes and devours every last part and they are torn to pieces. 
That packs a little more of a wallop than just a statement: “The coming judgment will be both abrupt and comprehensive.” 
Terse – economy of language
In poetry there is a rich use of ellipsis (when words are left out). Example: Plato: “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” Some words are left out of that. What he meant was “Wise men speak… and fools speak…” but he left out the “and” and the second “speak” for rhetorical effect. That happens a lot in the poetic passages in Scripture. If you write a summary of what a section of poetry is teaching, your summary will probably be more words than the section you are summarizing. There is an economy of language in poetry in which a lot of truth is communicated in few words.

Structure characterized by lines, rather than paragraphs.
Like our poetry, Hebrew poetry had assonance, rhyme, tempo and meter. That makes it easier to memorize, and provides more of an emotional effect. Which statement do you think has a greater impact? 
“Being forced to live under a communistic form of government is to be preferred over dying in a nuclear war.”
“Better red than dead.”

Isaiah 5:7 He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Hebrew: he looked for MASHAPAT but MASEPAH for SDAKAH but SDA’AH. But, of course, it is completely lost in translation. If you translate that literally it comes out: “He looked for justice, but bloodshed; for righteousness, but distress.” That doesn’t give you the assonance and rhyming, but it shows the ellipsis. 

Literal
There are some people who try to dismiss various passages that they don’t like by writing them off as poetry. Some people have done that with Genesis 1. They say we should not take this as a model of how the creation actually took place, because it’s poetry. Hebrew scholars deny the possibility that this is poetry, because it doesn’t have the marks of poetry, such as parallelism. It has all the marks of historical prose. But even if it were poetry – it wouldn’t matter, because you don’t interpret Hebrew poetry any differently than prose. They are interpreted exactly the same: literal statements are taken literally and figurative statements are taken figuratively. 

Psalm 119:135-136 Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your decrees. 136 Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed. 

Make your face shine upon your servant  (figurative)
teach me your decrees (literal)
Streams of tears flow from my eyes (figurative)
your law is not obeyed (literal)
The question isn’t whether or not it’s poetry. The question is what parts are intended to be literal and what parts are intended as similes, metaphors, analogies, or other figures?

CHIASM
Also very common in poetry are chiastic structures.

Psalm 76:1 In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel.

a In Judah 
b God is known
b’ his name is great 
a’ in Israel 

Jeremiah 2:5-9
a 5 "What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me?
   b They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.
c 6 They did not ask, `Where is the LORD,
   d who brought us up out of Egypt 
   	      and led us through the barren wilderness,
 		   through a land of deserts and rifts,
 			   a land of drought and darkness, 
 			   a land where no one travels and no one lives?' 
        e 7 I BROUGHT YOU INTO A FERTILE LAND TO EAT ITS FRUIT AND RICH  
              PRODUCE.
   d’ But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.
c’ 8 The priests did not ask, `Where is the LORD?'   Those who deal with the law did not  
       know me; the leaders rebelled against me.
    b’ The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.
a’ 9 "Therefore I bring charges against you again,"  declares the LORD.
       "And I will bring charges against your children's children.

Parallelism (rhyming ideas)
The most important aspect of Hebrew poetry is not the meter or rhyme or rhythm, but the rhyming of ideas in parallelism. Parallelism is when there is one line followed by another related line.

Psalm 139 
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; 
you are familiar with all my ways.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, 
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? 
Where can I flee from your presence? 

Sometimes the second line repeats the first, and other times it contrasts (says the opposite), and other times it builds upon the first. The examples above are called synonymous parallelism because the second line repeats the thought of the first line. But to say it that way is actually an oversimplification. A better way to think about it is that parallelism gives us binocular vision (not in the sense of magnification, but in the sense of two eyes instead of one). When you look at a pencil from one angle with one eye, it looks like a little round dot. For all you know, it’s a ball. If you move to the side, it looks like a long rectangle. Only if you see both can you get an idea of the dimensions.
God gave you two eyes and put a little distance between them, to give you depth perspective. If you hold your finger in front of your eye with one eye closed, then switch eyes, it will look like your finger is in a different place (and you see more of one side). When both eyes are open, instead of seeing a finger in both places – your brain combines those two and comes up with an accurate image of a single finger with depth. Another illustration is stereo sound. It gives more depth. That’s the way ideas are presented in parallelism.
An idea is stated once, then repeated in different words. The second line is not exactly like the first – the writer does not use precise synonyms. In the second line he says something slightly different. That gives a depth to the idea.

Isaiah 1:10  Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom;

     listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! 

Law is not exactly the same thing as word, nor does people equal rulers. We see that Isaiah’s message is for everyone, both the rulers and the people, and the implication is that they all are sinful. It is the word of YHWH in the sense that it is the authoritative decree of God, and it is the law in the sense that it has ethical implications that are to be obeyed. If God calls you Sodom, you are bad. If He calls you Sodom and then calls you Gomorrah, you are really bad.
There are many, many different kinds of parallelism, and the study of them is extremely complex. Hebrew poetry is like a flower. A little child can appreciate that a flower is beautiful, but only at a superficial level. Botanists can appreciate the beauty of a flower in a far greater way, and a molecular biologist in a still greater way. Biblical poetry is like that. The genius behind some of the poetry in the Bible is such that it is hard to imagine a human being able to produce it outside of the miraculous.
Song of Songs
Robert Alden suggests that the entire book is a grand chiasmus, which focuses attention on the middle point of the book (between the last verse in ch.4 and the first verse of ch.5).

Song of Solomon 4:16-5:1
4:16 Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.

5:1 I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.
I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk.

In 4:16 she invites her lover into her garden, and in 5:1 he has come in to her garden. In between those two verses the union is consummated, which is the high point of the chiasmus.
Job
We don’t know for sure who wrote Job, or when. There is only one thing we know for sure about the author, and it’s not disputed by anyone – not liberals, conservatives, unbelievers…everyone agrees whoever wrote this book was exceedingly brilliant. The poetry is so complex; some scholars have spend their entire lives fascinated with studying it. The book has almost every kind of poetic genre, and chiasms and grand chiasms are littered all through the book. Liberals have used this as an argument against the historicity of Job. They say it would be impossible for people to have a debate like that – where every word is perfect poetry. My view is that the events actually did take place, and the writer probably accurately reported what was said, but took their normal language and converted it to poetry.
Lamentations
Lamentations is another book that is so well structured that it’s hard to imagine writing such a book. The entire book is poetry. There are five laments:1) 22 verses, 2) 22 verses, 3) 66 verses, 4) 22 verses, and 5) 22 verses. There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each verse begins with the next letter. The third lament has three verses with each letter. Lamentations is a lament written after the devastation of 586 BC. It is a book that teaches the appropriate way to respond to God after receiving His discipline.
Psalms
How many of you, if someone asked what your favorite book of the Bible is, would have Psalms in the running? To read and pray the Psalms is to join the countless godly people over the last 3000 years who have read and prayed them, and who have felt their praise, anguish, hope, indignation and joy. The Psalms are the most concentrated section of theology proper in the Bible by far. I am currently going through the psalms verse by verse and making a list of all the attributes of God that I find. Many of the attributes I have combined into categories, so a bunch of similar attributes are all grouped together and counted as one single item in my list. But even after doing that I still have about 400 attributes, and I’ve only made it to Psalm 119 so far. There is no place in God’s Word where information about what God is like is more densely packed than in Psalms. The Psalms give us the most comprehensive revelation of the nature of God in Scripture.
The Psalms are also packed with information on the nature of man. We see how weak and frail man is – his heart so easily turned toward sin, his desperate neediness before God, and yet highly exalted and tenderly cared for by God.
So the Psalms teach us about the nature of God and the nature of man, and they use poetry to do it. So instead of just listing out the facts about those two doctrines, they are taken like two primary colors on the palate of a master artist and combined in a portrait of life with realism and idealism coexisting. The Psalms paint an exquisite portrait of God and teach us how to relate to God personally and emotionally. And they do so in a way the touches our emotions in a deep way.
I love Hassell Bullock’s comment in his Introduction to Old Testament Poetic Books: “Wherever the individual finds himself on the journey of faith, the Psalms provide a place of rest and a time of repose and reflection, as well as a stimulus to send him on his way. As the occasions of life diversify and emotions intensify, the value of the Psalms increases proportionately.” Try to follow the flow of the Psalm. And always check the Treasury of David – it has wonderful insights; especially in the “explanatory notes and quaint sayings” sections.

Lament Psalms
A lament is a cry from the agonized soul pouring out your heart to God. I heard recently that there are forty-eight lament psalms. That’s one-third of the psalms! Most of the time when you read those psalms they are a big downer. We generally don’t want to read them – except when you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In those times those psalms are an incredible balm for the soul. They teach you how to pour out your heart to God. It’s not more spiritual to read the praise psalms when you are suffering than to read the lament psalms.

Challenges in Interpreting Psalms
Imprecations (prayers for the doom of the wicked)
The imprecatory Psalms seem to be in conflict with the New Testament command to love and pray for our enemies. Here’s David’s heart for the lost:

Psalm 3:7 Arise, O LORD!  Deliver me, O my God!  Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked.

Psalm 137:8-9 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-- 9 he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

Isn’t that beautiful? That’s how the Psalm ends.
How does that fit with…

Luke 6:27-29 “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.

Some say it’s just that the New Testament teaches a higher ethic than the Old Testament. But that can’t be. Why would God teach the people a substandard ethic in the Old Testament? The Old Testament ethic is; love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. What ethic is higher than that? Two things to keep in mind when interpreting the imprecatory psalms: The animosity was not a selfish reaction to personal attack. It was a reaction to attacks upon the kingdom of God.
It’s not a reaction to being personally offended. It’s a desire that the name of God not be defamed.

Psalm 58:6-11 Break the teeth in their mouths, O God

9…the wicked will be swept away. 10 The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. 11 Then men will say, "Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth." 

Psalm 35:26-27 May all who gloat over my distress be put to shame and confusion; may all who exalt themselves over me be clothed with shame and disgrace. 27 May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, "The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant."

It’s not that David wants people to say, “Wow, David was in the right after all.” That’s not the issue. The issue is that people realize how just and loving God is. The imprecatory psalms are directed not so much toward certain individuals as much as a category of people. It’s appropriate to cry out to God to bring judgment on the wicked and to vindicate His name and His people. To the degree someone sets himself up as being opposed to God and his people, I am opposed to that person and desire that God bring judgment on him.
The imprecatory Psalms leave justice in God’s hands. Most people, when wronged or attacked, take revenge. But the Psalmists didn’t. Instead of striking back, they cried out to God for justice. That’s not just an Old Testament ethic. We see it in the New Testament as well.

Romans 12:17,19 Do not repay anyone evil for evil…19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

Isn’t that what the Psalmists were doing? They asked God for justice, and then just trusted Him to do what is best. That’s the great thing about prayer. You don’t ever have to worry about sending God off in a wrong direction. He is always faithful to say no to a prayer that isn’t what is best. So if I pray for judgment on the wicked, and say, “Nevertheless thy will be done,” then I can take comfort in whatever God does. But if I have a zeal for God’s name, and I have a love for justice, there is a sense in which I’m going to desire that the Lord’s name be vindicated and that wicked men be punished. And if it’s appropriate to desire that, it’s appropriate to pray for it. We see the same thing in the New Testament.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled

2 Timothy 4:14 Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm.

The Lord will repay him for what he has done. In Revelation 6:10 the martyrs call out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" God is praised in heaven by the angels because of the justice He metes out on the wicked.

Revelation 16:5-7 Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say: "You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were, the Holy One, because you have so judged; 6 for they have shed the blood of your saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve." 7 And I heard the altar respond: "Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments." 

Revelation 18:19-20 "'Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin! 20 Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets!  God has judged her for the way she treated you.'" 

Messianic Psalms
Psalms that speak of the great King, who is the Lord of David and the Son of God (such as Ps.2 and Ps.110) are, I believe, direct announcements of what the Messiah would be. The other category of psalms often thought of as messianic are the psalms with the righteous sufferer motif. There is debate over whether these psalms are messianic. On the one hand, some of them sure do sound like they are describing Jesus. The most well known is Psalm 22, which Jesus quoted on the cross.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

6 I am…scorned by men and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: 8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him." 

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 …they have pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. 18 They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

When you read those parts it sure does seem like this must have been an announcement of the coming Messiah, since we know that the Messiah came and these exact things happened to Him. On the other hand, however, there is a problem with interpreting this as an announcement of the Messiah. How would the original readers have known that’s what it was about? There is no indication of that in the context.
Remember, a text can never mean what it never meant, and it’s hard to imagine how the original readers could have read this and came to the conclusion it was talking about the Messiah. To understand the relationship between the righteous sufferer psalms and the Lord Jesus we need to back up a few steps and think in some broader theological categories. The purpose of those psalms is to describe the reaction of a righteous man or woman in the midst of suffering, and to depict the fact that in this world we do indeed have great suffering. They show how we are to turn to God in the midst of our suffering. So those psalms are not speaking specifically about the Messiah. They apply to all saints who suffer. Later on Isaiah comes along and reveals something the people didn’t know – that the great Davidic king would also be a suffering servant. Once Isaiah revealed that, it makes sense to take what the Bible says about righteous people suffering and apply it in an ultimate way to the Messiah. So to apply Psalm 22 to Jesus is appropriate, because it’s about the suffering of the righteous, and Jesus was the ultimate righteous sufferer.
One other very important doctrine in the psalms as well as the rest of the Bible is the Creation. Other religions had their creation stories, but in none of them is the creation a central doctrine in their religion as it is in ours. All the things we know about God, about this world, about ourselves and about redemption are built on the foundation of the Creation. It establishes God as the center of all things, and the Author of history.

Homework: write a Psalm.