The Poetic and Wisdom Books

DUANE A. GARRETT

The Bible is not a manual of religious teachings like the Baptist Faith and Message or the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church. It is the Word of God as it has come to us through the experiences of the people of God. It expresses all the emotions of the life of faith, and it deals with many areas of experience that might seem mundane and unspiritual.

This is nowhere more true than in its poetic and wisdom literature. The Psalms express every emotion the believer encounters in life, be it praise and love for God, anger at those who practice violence and deceit, personal grief and confusion, or appreciation for God's truth. Proverbs not only examines moral issues, but it also helps us deal with the ordinary matters of life, such as indebtedness and work habits. Song of Songs celebrates the joy of love between man and woman. Job and Ecclesiastes make us face our most profound questions and thereby bring us to a more genuine faith in God. In sum, all these books deal with real life.

Traditionally, we speak of Psalms and Song of Songs as being the books of biblical poetry and Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes as biblical wisdom. These books will be the focus of this section. Other Old Testament books, however, share many of the features of poetic and wisdom books. Lamentations is essentially a collection of psalms of lament.

Psalms are also found in the prophets (for example, Jon. 2; Hab. 3). Ruth, Esther, and Daniel have much more in common with wisdom literature than the casual reader might realize. In the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon imitate the wisdom features of their biblical counterparts. Even the New Testament has a few psalms and proverbs (Luke 1:46-55,68-79; Acts 20:35; 1 Cor. 15:33).

The five books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs still give us the best examples of how biblical hymns, songs, proverbs, and reflections are to be read. This in turn allows us to see how wisdom and poetry have affected the rest of the Bible.

What gave rise to the wide variety of songs, proverbs, and theological reflection we see in this literature? The Old Testament was not written in a cultural or literary vacuum. Many of the motifs and features of Egyptian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian literature are also found in the Old Testament, especially in the poetic and wisdom passages. Some of the most common are the following:

Parallelism is a device in which one line of poetry is followed by a second that in some way reiterates or reinforces the first. Several types of parallelism are found. In synonymous parallelism the second line says the same thing in the same word order as the first line. Only the vocabulary differs. For example: "A false witness will not go unpunished / and he who pours out lies will not go free" (Prov. 19:5). See also Psalm 114:8: "Who turned the rock into a pool, / the hard rock into springs of water." In antithetic parallelism the second line often reinforces the first by stating the same thought from a negative perspective. For example, "The Lord is king forever and ever; / the nations will perish from his land" (Ps. 10:16). Also: "A gentle answer turns away wrath, / but a harsh word stirs up anger" (Prov. 15:1). With synthetic parallelism the second line is not actually parallel to the first, but it reinforces the idea expressed by adding a reason or explanation. For example: "Train a child in the way he should go, / and when he is old he will not turn from it" (Prov. 22:6); "Stay away from the foolish man, / for you will not find knowledge on his lips" (Prov. 14:7).

In Chiasm the second line reinforces the first by reversing the sequence of words or phrases. For example, Proverbs 2:4 in the Hebrew order reads:

"If you look for it [A] as for silver [B] and as for hidden treasure [B'] search for it [A']" (author's translation). The word order of the second line [B'-A'] is the reverse of the first [A-B]. Parallelism and chiasm also occur on a much larger scale. Entire chapters or even entire books can be constructed in parallel or chiastic fashion, in which entire blocks of text parallel one another.

Other literary patterns are also found. Numeric proverbs enumerate a number of items or occurrences that share a common characteristic. For example: "There are six things the Lord hates, / seven that are detestable to him: / haughty eyes, / a lying tongue" (Prov. 6:16-19).

In an acrostic poem each line or section begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first begins with aleph, the second with beth, the third with gimel, and so on. The twenty-two stanzas of Psalm 119, the Bible's largest acrostic, have eight verses for each consecutive Hebrew letter.

Rhetorical Devices are also found. The language of biblical poetry and wisdom is meant to make it entertaining and easy to remember. The Hebrew text contains rhyme, alliteration (repetition of initial sounds), and even puns. Simile, a comparison using like or as, also occurs frequently (Ps. 131:2; Prov. 25:25). One can also find sarcastic humor (Prov. 11:22; 19:24) as well as paradox, a statement contrary to common sense that is nevertheless true (Prov. 25:15).

Biblical poetry and wisdom are at the same time both great literature and the eternal Word of God. It intrigues and delights us even as it rebukes and instructs. For the reader who gives due attention to these songs and lessons, "They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck" (Prov. 1:9).