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Parallelisms Hebrew
poetry did not have metre or rhyme, like the poetry of our language. It
consisted rather of parallelisms, or thought rhythm, in synonymous or
antithetical couplets, "The sentiment of one line echoed in the
next. Sometimes the
couplets being doubled, or trebled, or quadrupled, making 2-liners,
4-liners, 6-liners, or 8-liners." (From
Halley's Bible Handbook, 24th Ed., Zondervan Publishing, 1965, p.
240.) The biblical text contains many
Hebrew parallelisms. Parallelisms
are a principal characteristic of both Hebrew prose and poetry.
A parallelism generally refers to some similarity in the content
and/or form of two components of a construction.
The most simple and purest form of Hebrew parallelism is when the
terms or members of one statement correspond directly to those of the
other. This is called a complete or synonymous parallelism.
Psalm 15:1 is an example of a complete or synonymous parallelism. Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? The
first step in unlocking the meaning of a parallelism is to label the
components that make up the parallelism.
We use capital letters to label the parts of the first component
of the parallelism and the corresponding small letters for the second
component. The symbol
"/" separates the components.
The next step is to identify the
components that are parallel to each other by using the symbol
"//", which means "is parallel to."
A
// a B
// b
Therefore, "who shall
abide" is synonymous with "who shall dwell" and "in
thy tabernacle" is synonymous with "in thy holy hill." Notice that the tabernacle becomes the "holy hill;"
a reference to the Jerusalem Temple. Sometimes the units of the Hebrew
parallelism may also appear in an inverted relationship as
in Psalm 22:22 --
I
will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee.
The Bible also contains incomplete parallelisms, such as the one found in Psalm 114:7 -- Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.
The
author expands our understanding of the word "Lord" by telling
us that the Lord is "the God of Jacob."
We
also find antithetic parallelisms in which the components are set over
against each other; the second statement is contrasted with the first,
sometimes in specific words or expressions, sometimes only in sense. It
is widely used in the Book of Proverbs as a teaching device as in
Proverbs 15:20 -- A
wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish man despiseth his mother.
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