HEBREW POETRY

The Bible opens and closes with poetry. Poetic refrains are embedded in the creation narrative in Genesis 1 while hymns interrupt Revelation’s bewildering sequences of catastrophes. Poetry dominates the OT. It seamlessly inserts itself into narrative prose. It comforts, cautions and pronounces judgement in the prophetic books. It is the vehicle of expression in books like Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

The poetry of Psalms provides a hymn book, and the Song of Songs provides a collection of verse. Throughout the OT both human and divine voices speak in verse that plumbs the depths of emotion and probes the far frontiers of reasoning.

South Asia too is steeped in poetry. Both Pakistan and India have made movies immortalizing the ghazals of the Sufi mystic Mirza Ghalib. Rabindranath Tagore’s poems are sung on either side of the Indo-Bangladesh border – indeed, he wrote the national anthems of both countries. From the Aryan Upanishads to the Dravidian Thirukkural, from bhakti hymns to Bollywood sing-alongs, poetry has long been our medium of expression in South Asia. South Asian readers can thus readily appreciate biblical poetry.

Our appreciation will grow still more if we gain understanding of some of the forms used in Hebrew poetry. For example, it is important to recognise that Hebrew verse makes much use of parallelism. We see this clearly in Psalm 19:1

Line 1: The heavens declare the glory of God;

Line 2: the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Recognising this parallelism helps us to avoid the trap of putting too much weight on the difference between words that are actually meant to be read as synonyms. On other occasions, the two parallel lines present a contrast: “Gossips betray a confidence / but the trustworthy keep a secret” (Prov 11:13).

Like all poetry, Hebrew poetry is a form of condensed expression. Thus it makes much use of allusions. When it says, “The sea looked and fled / the Jordan turned back” (Ps 114:3), we are expected to remember the events of the exodus and the entry into the promised land. It also makes extensive use of imagery or word pictures embedded in similes such as “A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof” (Prov 27:15) and metaphors such as “The name of the LORD is a fortified tower” (Prov 18:10). Sometimes the metaphors are developed at some length, as in the shepherd-sheep imagery of Psalm 23. Because of the allusive nature of such imagery, it has an impact that a straightforward assertion would not have. “The LORD is my shepherd” expresses far more than “The LORD looks after me”.

The ancient reader would have associated God’s shepherding with the care of a king, for at that time kings were often described as shepherds of their people.

Rhyme is rare in Hebrew poetry, but Hebrew poetry makes much use of alliteration (the repetition of consonants) and assonance (the repetition of vowels). These literary devices catch the ear, lodge in the memory, provide an aesthetic element and, sometimes, amplify the meaning. Unfortunately, these elements seldom survive translation into another language.

Some Hebrew poetry is written in the form of an alphabetic acrostic in which the first letters of each unit are in the same order as the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119, for example, owes its unusual length to the fact that each verse in each eight-verse stanza begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first stanza begins with aleph, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, the next with beth, and so on until all 22 letters of the alphabet are represented.

The use of this acrostic structure displays the skill of the poet and also suggests that the subject has received comprehensive treatment.

Thus the acrostic in Proverbs 31 represents the fullest, most complete compliment to a wife. It says everything there is to be said, from “A to Z”, as we would say. Since the alphabet is at the heart of a people’s language, alphabetic acrostics are also well suited to expressions of group identity, whether in the corporate celebration of Israel’s sacred texts (Ps 119) or in the outpouring of communal grief at the fall of the national capital (Lamentations).

When it comes to the book of Psalms, nearly a third of the psalms can be classified as individual laments, calling on God to address an unjust accusation (Ps 140) or grant healing from an illness (Ps 38).

Others are communal laments, referring to national crises and calling on God for deliverance (Ps 74). These laments are counterbalanced by psalms that give thanks for God’s blessings of health and victory over enemies (Ps 30 and 52).

Other psalms take the form of hymns of praise, such as the songs of Zion that celebrate Jerusalem (Ps 87), the enthronement songs that exalt the Lord as king (Ps 97) and poems to the Creator (Ps 10). Royal psalms were composed for the king (Pss 2, 45) and Torah psalms commemorate the value of the word of God (Pss 1, 119).

Hebrew poetry was used on many occasions. The poems of the Song of Songs were used the way songs from movies are today.

Lamentations was recited in national mourning on the anniversary of the day Jerusalem fell. The Songs of Ascent (Pss 120–134) may have been sung by pilgrims making their way up Mount Zion to the temple.

The psalms also formed part of the worship liturgy. For example, Psalm 92 is labelled as being for singing on “the Sabbath day”. Poetry was sometimes recited responsively by the worship leader and the congregation (Ps 136) and was also sung, as indicated by the many directives for musical accompaniment in the psalms. The instruments and melodies have long fallen silent, but OT poetry remains a lively part of our personal and corporate conversations with God.

Havilah Dharamraj