by Leland Ryken
The Meditative Effect of Simile and Metaphor
Metaphor and simile have another built-in tendency that accords well with the purpose of the Bible: they force a reader to ponder or meditate on a statement. Simile and metaphor resist immediate assimilation. They contain a retarding element, stemming the current of ideas (and in this are very similar to Hebrew parallelism).
The prominence of simile and metaphor in biblical poetry makes the following rule the most crucial of all for reading the poetry of the Bible: whenever you find a statement that compares one thing to another, first meditate on the literal or physical half of the comparison and then analyze how many correspondences can appropriately be drawn between that situation and the subject of the poem.
Of course such a procedure takes time. Poetry is a meditative or reflective form. It deliberately compresses many meanings into a few words or a single picture. This is an advantage, not a liability, if only we will respect the reflective nature of poetry.
Simile and Metaphor Occur Throughout the Bible
I have taken my examples of metaphor and simile from the Psalms, but everything that I have said applies whenever we find a metaphor or simile. Even the most heavily theological parts of the Bible, such as the New Testament Epistles, make use of metaphor and simile, and for the same reasons that I have stated. When we read that believers are “fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19), we need to identify and interpret these two metaphors in exactly the manner I have outlined. The same rules apply when Jesus calls himself the Light of the world or the Bread of heaven.
Poetic Symbols
Image, metaphor, and simile are the backbone of poetry. Perhaps we can add symbol to the list, since it is often interchangeable with the others. A symbol is a concrete image that points to or embodies other meanings. Thus, light is a common biblical symbol for God, goodness, truth, blessing, etc. Milk and honey are Old Testament symbols for material prosperity, and the throne for political power. But in most of these instances it makes little difference whether we call them images, metaphors, or symbols. The important thing is that we first construct the literal picture and then attach the right corresponding meaning(s) to them.
Allusion as a Poetic Form
Image, metaphor, simile, and symbol are the “basics” of poetry, but there are other figures of speech that we also need to identify and interpret. One is allusion. An allusion is a reference to past literature or history. As with metaphor and simile, we first need to identify the source of the allusion and then interpret what aspects of that earlier situation are relevant to the context in which the allusion appears.
Identifying and Interpreting Allusions
Psalm 133:1–2 provides a good example:
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
The fellowship the pilgrims experience en route to Jerusalem to worship God in the temple is like oil (simile), but not just any oil. It is specifically like the oil of Aaron (allusion). The passage to which this alludes is Exodus 30:22–33, where we learn that this oil was a “sacred anointing oil” that was used only in connection with official worship at the tabernacle or temple. Having identified the source of the allusion, we can interpret it: the fellowship of the pilgrims is, like the anointing oil, a holy thing and a preparation for worship at the temple.
Apostrophe as a Figure of Speech
The figure of speech known as apostrophe is a direct address to someone or something absent as though the person or thing were present and capable of listening. The range of things that are apostrophized in biblical poetry is too great to be neatly categorized. From the Psalms come these specimens: “Therefore, you kings, be wise; / be warned, you rulers of the earth” (2:10); “Away from me, all you who do evil” (6:8); “Lift up your heads, O you gates” (24:7); “Love the LORD, all his saints” (31:23); “Glorious things are said of you, O city of God” (87:3); “Praise the LORD, O my soul” (103:1). The supreme example is Psalm 148, which from start to finish is a catalog of apostrophes.
Why Poets Use Apostrophe
Why do poets use so many apostrophes? Apostrophe is one of the best ways to express strong feeling in poetry. In fact, apostrophes tend to create a sense of excitement. More often than not, poets break into apostrophe suddenly and without warning, as though the statement were blurted out, breaking the bounds of decorum and interrupting the flow of thought.
Responding to Apostrophes
How should we as readers respond to poetic apostrophes? We need to be receptive to the emotional intensity they represent. It is also a commonplace that the poet’s function is to say, in effect, “Look at that,” and point. Poets rarely point so directly as when they apostrophize something. Since apostrophes are often sprung on us without forewarning or preparation, as readers we must be prepared to take them in stride when they break the flow of thought. And certainly we must accept them as yet another evidence of how filled with license poetry tends to be. After all, if we heard someone in real life talking to a tree or absent person in this way we would wonder what ailed the speaker.
Personification
Apostrophe is often combined with personification, which consists of treating something nonhuman (and frequently inanimate) as though it were a human capable of acting or responding. Almost anything can become personified in biblical poetry. One of the largest categories is abstractions: “Send forth your light and your truth, / . . . let them bring me to your holy mountain” (Ps. 43:3). Elsewhere nations or tribes are treated as though they were a single person acting with a unified purpose:
Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan;
and Dan, why did he linger by the ships?
Asher remained on the seacoast
and stayed in his coves (Judg. 5:17).
Parts of the body are sometimes personified: “their tongue struts through the earth” (Ps. 73:9 RSV). But the largest category of personifications in the Bible consists of aspects of nature treated as if they were people: “Let the rivers clap their hands, / let the mountains sing together for joy” (Ps. 98:8).
Why Poets Personify
Why do poets so readily personify inanimate things? The purposes are several. Personification makes something vivid and concrete. It is also a prime way of attributing human emotions to something nonhuman, in effect showing how the poet feels about it. Personification is a natural way of expressing excitement about something. It can also be used to show a close kinship between people and the subject of a poem, especially when that subject is nature. Finally, personification can suggest a group of people or the forces of nature acting with a unified purpose.
Personification and the Reader
What does personification demand of a reader? We first need to identify it when we encounter it. We should be responsive to the sheer vividness that personification confers on its object. We can also analyze the specific function of personification in a given passage. Mainly, though, we need to realize again that poetry is inherently fictional rather than factual. Poets are always playing the game of make-believe, imagining something that is literally nonexistent or untrue. Poetic license is the liberation of the imagination, for biblical readers as well as biblical poets.
Hyperbole as a Figure of Speech
Hyperbole, conscious exaggeration for the sake of effect, is another figure of speech that uses obvious poetic license. It does so as a way of expressing strong feeling. Hyperbole does not pretend to be factual. Indeed, it advertises its lack of literal truth: “My tears have been my food day and night” (Ps. 42:3); “Yea, by thee I can crush a troop; / and by my God I can leap over a wall” (Ps. 18:29 RSV); “I beat [my enemies] fine as dust borne on the wind” (Ps. 18:42).
Hyperbole as Emotional Truth
How should we
understand such exaggerations? We must avoid foolish attempts to press them into literal statements. Hyperbole does not express literal, factual truth. Instead it expresses emotional truth. Hyperbole is the voice of conviction. It captures the spirit of an event or inner experience. After all, when do people use hyperbole in ordinary discourse? They use it either when they feel strongly about something (“I wrote till my hand fell off”) or when they are trying to be persuasive (“Everybody agrees that the test was unfair”).
How Figures of Speech Are Alike
I have discussed the leading figures of speech individually, but we can learn a lot by also seeing what they have in common. Look closely at the following specimens of figurative language:
Metaphor: “The Lord God is a sun and shield” (Ps. 84:11).
Simile: “Your tongue ... is like a sharpened razor” (Ps. 52:2).
Symbol: “Light is shed upon the righteous” (Ps. 97:11).
Allusion: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made” (Ps. 33:6).
Apostrophe: “Lift up your heads, O you gates” (Ps. 24:7).
Personification: “Then all of the trees of the forest will sing for joy” (Ps. 96:12).
Hyperbole: “All night long I flood my bed with weeping” (Ps. 6:6).
Vividness and Concentration
These diverse figures of speech tend toward similar effects. They are governed by the impulse to be concrete and vivid. They are usually a way of achieving tremendous concentration, of saying much in little. They tend to be a shorthand way of suggesting a multiplicity of meanings, connotations, overtones, or associations, and as such they are a way of achieving wholeness of expression.
Comparison and Poetic License
Most of these figures of speech use the principle of comparison. They use one area of human experience to shed light on another area. In one way or another, they operate on the principle that A is like B. This is not limited to the obvious examples of metaphor and simile. With personification, for example, the object is treated as though it were a person. In using such comparisons, poets obviously resort to poetic license. They operate on the principle “it is as though . . instead of confining themselves to what literally exists.
What Figures of Speech Require of Readers
We should note, finally, that all of the figures of speech cited above place similar responsibilities on a reader. First a reader must recognize or identify the figure of speech. This usually involves sensing an element of strangeness in an utterance, since figures of speech differ from our ordinary, straightforward way of speaking. Then a reader must interpret the figure. This usually entails drawing a connection or correspondence between two things. It always involves determining how the figure of speech is apt or suitable for what is being discussed, and what meanings are communicated by the figure. “Why this figure of speech hereV’ is always a good interpretive question to ask.
Additional Figures
In addition to the figures of speech discussed thus far, several others appear often enough that we should note them. Metonymy is the substitution of one word for another word closely associated with it. When Nathan tells David that “the sword will never depart from your house” (2 Sam. 12:10), he uses two metonymies: he means that violence will persist within Daviďs family. Synecdoche occurs when a part is used to stand for the whole, as in the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11). Paradox is a leading feature of New Testament discourse. It consists of an apparent contradiction that, upon analysis, can be seen to express a truth. Paradox always imposes on the reader the obligation to resolve the apparent contradiction. For example, the proverb that states “the mercy of the wicked is cruel” (Prov. 12:10 RSV) means that even the best acts of wicked people harm other creatures.
Do Not Be Frightened by Technical Terminology
It would be a pity if anyone would be scared off by such technical terms as “metaphor” and “metonymy.” If such terms are too unwieldy, the catchall terms “image” and “symbol” will prove adequate. The important thing is to identify something as being figurative and then explore what meanings are conveyed by it. It is also important to realize that simply pigeonholing a figure of speech with the right label is relatively useless. What matters is that we interpret the figures of speech and explore what meanings they communicate.
How to Know When to Interpret Figuratively
How can we know when to interpret a statement figuratively? There is only one main common-sense rule of interpretation to apply: interpret as figurative any statement that does not make sense at a literal level in the context in which it appears. The chief exception is simile, which is literally true but announces that it is a figure of speech by using the comparative formula “like” or “as.”
Figurative Statements Do Not Make Sense at the Literal Level
We know that the statement that the wicked “clothe themselves with violence” (Ps. 73:6) is metaphoric because people do not literally wear violence. The statement that “my tears have been my food day and night” (Ps. 42:3) has to be hyperbole because it is a literal impossibility. Sometimes the context of a statement alerts us to its figurative nature. For example, the statement that “light is shed upon the righteous” (Ps. 97:11) could be literally, physically true, but the context makes it clear that this claim is made for the righteous only, not the wicked. We know that the light of the sun dawns for everyone, not just the righteous. By logical necessity, therefore, light in this context must mean Goďs blessing and favor, not literal, physical light.
The Portrayal of God in Human Terms
The poetic portrayal of God in the Bible represents a special category. I prefer to call it anthropomorphism (the portrayal of deity in human terms) and let it go at that. Such anthropomorphism sooner or later includes most of the standard figures of speech, but it is usually arbitrary to decide which term is most accurate.
Consider the statement “your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy” (Exod. 15:6). Exactly what should we call this? It could be considered metonymy, inasmuch as it was God’s power over nature, and not literally his hand, that conquered the Egyptians. It is synecdoche if we consider that the right hand stands for the whole being of God. The hand could be regarded as a metaphor for God’s power, or as a symbol of that power. The whole enterprise of labeling quickly collapses under the weight of its own complexity. The simplest solution is to be aware that the transcendent God of the Bible is repeatedly portrayed in earthly and human terms and that such descriptions are of course figurative rather than literal. The word “anthropomorphism” seems to cover the phenomenon as adequately as any other (provided we learn to spell it correctly!).
SUMMARY
More than anything else, poetry means a special idiom or language. Poetry is heightened speech used to express intensified feeling or insight. Its special language consists of concrete imagery and figures of speech. These figures of speech appear in concentrated form in the poetic parts of the Bible and in random form in the prose sections. Whenever they appear, they require the kind of analysis I have outlined.
Poetic Parallelism
What, then, about the parallelism we hear so much about? It is the verse form in which virtually all biblical poetry is written. Strictly defined, parallelism consists of two or more lines that use different words to express the same or similar ideas in similar grammatical form.
Types of Biblical Parallelism
The most frequently used kind of parrallelism is synonymous parallelism. It consists of expressing similar content more than once in consecutive lines in similar grammatical form or sentence structure:
He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the LORD has them in derision (Ps. 2:4).
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the
judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the
righteous (Ps. 1:5).
Antithetic parallelism occurs when the second line states the truth of the first in a negativ
e way or when it in some way introduces a contrast:
For the LORD watches over the way
of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish
(Ps. 1:6).
That night—let thick darkness seize it!
let it not rejoice among the days of the year (Job 3:6).
In climactic parallelism the second line completes the first by repeating part of the first line and then adding to it:
Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength (Ps. 29:1).
In climactic parallelism the meaning of the statement is incomplete until the second line completes it.
Most scholars list a fourth type of parallelism, which they call synthetic parallelism (“growing parallelism”). It consists of a pair of lines that together form a complete unit and in which the second line completes or expands the thought introduced in the first line (but without repeating part of it, as climactic parallelism does):