How are we to understand and appreciate biblical poetry? So much of the Bible is composed in poetry or expressed in poetic language. In the Old Testament, we find poetry in the Pentateuchal hymns, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and sections of the prophets. In the New Testament, we have the nativity hymns in Luke’s gospel and the prologue to John’s gospel, the kenosis hymn in Phil 2:6-11, the Christological hymn of Col 1:15-20, and the doxologies and other poetic sections in Revelation. Add to these the poetic renderings in the Beatitudes and Christ’s “I AM’s,” along with the figurative language of many of the parables, and we begin to see that the writers of Scripture thought that poetry was an important way of communicating their message. Poetry appeals to the senses and emotions, as well as the intellect, of the readers and involves them actively in the reading process. Poetry is not a decoration added to the theological kernel in the text; rather, the form of the poem, along with its poetic devices, gives shape to the theology. Indeed, it could be argued that poetry appeals to the deepest need of every human heart—the longing for fulfillment that only Jesus Christ can satisfy. There are good reasons why the Holy Spirit inspired so much of the Bible in poetic form.
Consider an example of a Hebrew hymn, Psalm 96, which is a “royal psalm” of praise to God, or a hymn. As with most psalms of praise, this psalm is structured in three parts: verses 1-3 constitute an invitation to praise God, verses 4-9 provide the reasons why we should praise God, and verses 10-13 affirm the righteous reign of God. This structure first invites the reader to praise the Lord, then provides concrete reasons why he should do so, and concludes with the encouragement of all of creation praising God, along with an evangelistic invitation to the nations to join the chorus. There are smaller patterns of repetition in the poem which further encourage the reader to praise God. The psalm opens with a three-fold invitation to “sing to the Lord,” and balances the invitations with three commands—to “bless” God, “tell of his salvation,” and “declare his glory among all the peoples.” Invitation is buttressed by imperative. In the triple repetition of “Ascribe to the Lord” (vv. 7-8), the psalmist uses climactic parallelism to exhort the reader to praise God. “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist begins. “Who?” we ask. “The families of the peoples,” we are told. “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist says again. “What?” we ask. “Glory and strength.” “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist says yet again. “What?” we ask again. “The glory due his name,” we are told. The intensifying effect of the psalmist’s words here builds to a crescendo of praise that is due to Yahweh alone. The reader not only learns a theology of praise in the psalm, but the repetitions help him to experience that praise for himself.
Psalm 96 contains many figures of speech, and they too are part of the psalm’s poetry and theology. While figures of speech are not limited to poetry in the Bible, biblical poems tend to use figurative language as their normal means of expression. In v. 6, the psalmist pictures God’s attributes as if they were attendants before his throne—splendor and majesty, strength and beauty—so that the reader “sees” God’s attributes in concrete form. The effect is to intensify the experience and make it immediate for the reader. In vv. 11-12, all of creation praises God. In a series of personifications, the heavens are “glad,” the earth “rejoices,” the sea “roars,” the fields “exult,” and finally the trees “sing for joy.” The concrete pictures of the natural creation praising God further encourage the readers to praise him for who he is and what he has done for them. Rather than simply learning theology in this poem, readers encounter God for themselves. The poem personalizes the theology. In fact, the theology is framed, limited, and contextualized by the poetry.
Consider a very different kind of Hebrew poem, Psalm 51—a lament psalm. In this psalm, David confesses his sin and asks God for forgiveness. We have 1 John 1:9, so why do we need a poetic version like the psalm? Again, there are good reasons for the poem. In Psalm 51 the reader encounters God personally in one of the realities of life in our fallen condition, namely our sin and sinfulness. Psalm 51 reminds us of the twin truths that only the undeserving need to repent and God is willing to forgive the repentant sinner. We need Psalm 51 because it provides a pattern of repentance and forgiveness in words that God has sanctioned. David begins the psalm with an appeal to God’s mercy and hesed love. It is in the light of God’s character, not primarily his own repentance, that David confesses his sin. In a series of tight poetic parallelisms, the psalm alternates between God and man, emphasizing the tension of God’s righteousness and our sinfulness. David is sinful, and God is just (v. 4); the balanced “beholds” of vv. 5 and 6 bring man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness into sharp juxtaposition, underscoring the fact that man cannot solve the problem for himself. The dilemma is heightened for the reader by the parallel structure of the poem. “What then? How shall we be forgiven?” we are encouraged to ask. God will forgive and cleanse us, David goes on to write, as the imagery of hyssop (v. 7) indicates. And what will be the results of forgiveness? They are joy (v. 8), the comfort of sins not only forgiven but removed from the record (v. 9), a clean heart (v. 10), a heart for the lost (v. 13), and an attitude of praise toward the Lord (v. 15). These benefits, listed in the poem in such an intense rapid-fire pattern, encourage the reader, save him from falling into an unhealthy introspection, and focus his attention healthily on the Lord. Psalm 51 walks us through the experience of repentance, confession, and forgiveness, all the while keeping the Lord and his righteousness and mercy (both of which are essential for forgiveness) before our eyes. What better words could there be for the repentant sinner?
It is easy to grant that the Psalms are poetry, but are there poetic sections in the New Testament as well? There are indeed poems and poetic sections in the New Testament. To choose one example, we could avoid some strange interpretations of the book of Revelation if we focused our reading of it on what is intended to be its focus—Jesus Christ—rather than on the events of the eschaton. John wants us to see the glorified Christ for who he is and what he has done for us, and he often shows him in poetic language. Examine for instance the first picture of Christ in the book where he is presented as a “loud voice like a trumpet” (1:10) and “one like the son of man” (v. 13). This picture of Christ is literally awe-inspiring: “clothed with a long robe” with a “golden sash,” whose hairs are “white like wool” and whose eyes are “like a flame of fire”; feet of “burnished bronze” and a voice “like the roar of many waters”; out of whose mouth is a “sharp two-edged sword” and whose face shines “like the sun shining in full strength” (vv. 13-16). In the similes and images of this picture at the beginning of the book, John presents what he wants the reader to understand as the focus of the apocalypse—the “unveiling” of the glorified Jesus Christ. Throughout the book John encourages the reader to keep his thoughts on Christ. The effect of the poetic image of Christ in chapter one is to overwhelm the reader with awe and worship, and the frequent doxologies throughout the book (e.g. 4:8, 11; 5:9-10, 12, 13; 15:3-6) provide constant reminders of where the reader’s attention is to be. Think too of the image of “the Lamb, standing as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes” (5:6) on the throne of the universe, and then reflect on the symbol of the Old Testament sacrificial lambs and the New Testament Lamb of God. It is this one—the crucified and now-risen Son of God—who rules. The poetic symbol is full of theology. Sacrifice, substitution, holiness, and royal power are all rolled into the one symbol of the Lamb on the throne. Symbols and other figures of speech intensify the language of poetry in that they communicate a great deal of theology in a few words. They serve to synthesize the theology throughout the whole canon of Scripture.
Apart from poems like these which form a significant portion of the Bible, certain significant images and symbols recur multiple times throughout the Bible. These “strong” figures of speech, as they are called, frame our understanding of the theology they teach. The symbol of the lamb, for instance, originates in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, appears again in the suffering servant songs (e.g. Isa 53:7), is voiced by God the Father at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry when he is baptized in the Jordan River (John 1:29), and finally climaxes in the presence of the Lamb on the throne of the universe in the book of Revelation. Marriage is another symbol that recurs throughout the Old and New Testaments, providing an immediately-accessible understanding to the theology of the covenant relationship that the Lord has initiated with his people. Faithful Israel is often described as a wife to Yahweh, and faithless Israel as a harlot (Hos 1:2, etc.). In a word picture, God commands Hosea to marry the harlot, Gomer, and to pursue her again even when she betrays him—what grace! In the New Testament, the church is presented as the bride of Christ, for whom he died (Eph 5:22-32), and believers will celebrate their glorification in heaven in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-19). The marriage symbol resonates throughout the Bible, and our understanding of it in any one instance is nuanced by its other uses in the canon of Scripture. Other images, like the church compared to a building (1 Pet 2:5) and to the body of Christ with its multiple parts / people / gifts (1 Cor 12:12-31), also enrich our understanding of theology. While these symbols and others like them appear in narrative and other prose sections of the Bible, they bring an element of poetry with them wherever they appear. There is no avoiding poetry and the poetic in the Bible; our only choice is whether we will read it well or poorly. And surely we want to read biblical poetry well.
What do we learn from these few examples of poetry and the poetic in the Bible? Let me suggest five lessons or ideas from this brief study of biblical poetry. First, poetry is concrete; that is, it presents tangible objects which we can apprehend by our senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) and utilizes them to make abstract theology accessible. Christ’s “I AM’s” are a case in point—bread, living water, good shepherd—each suggesting a certain theological idea. Think also of the concrete symbolism of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the church. Second, poetry is intense, packing a great deal of theology into a few words. David’s statement in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” introduces a complex theology of God’s care for his people which is developed by the images of trees, water, rest, and a feast in the rest of the psalm. Third, poetry represents an aesthetically-pleasing and orderly use of language that reflects the same qualities in the Lord. The patterns of the two psalms we looked at earlier, both the macrocosmic structures and microcosmic repetitions, reflect a God of beauty and order. God formed us to appreciate such beauty and order—and in turn to create it in poetry and the other arts—because he created us in his own image as a Creator-God. Fourth, poetry evokes the reader’s emotions and even his imagination (understood as the image-making faculty) and brings them alongside the intellect to enhance the theology and render it significant for the reader. The well-known image from Psalm 23 of walking through the valley of the shadow of death has sustained many believers emotionally and spiritually, not simply theologically. This is not to suggest a dichotomy between theology and emotion in biblical poetry; far from it. In fact, in biblical poetry, emotion and theology complement one another. Finally, biblical poetry reifies theology, making it a part of the reader’s experience. For example, we “taste and see” that the Lord is good, not just understand it (Ps 34:8); our love for the Lord is intense, as when “a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants [our] soul for you, God” (Ps 42:1); and we trust his protection in difficulties when we “run” to the Lord as a “strong tower” (Prov 18:10). These are all immediate and obvious lessons we learn when we read biblical poetry properly. There is, however, a deeper underlying lesson to be learned from biblical poetry as well.
In its use of figures of speech like similes, metaphors, personifications, anthropomorphisms, and other such poetic devices, biblical poetry points to a deep theological truth that all of Scripture teaches. Apart from God’s self-revelation to us, we could not know him at all. From general revelation we can know that there is a creator-God (Rom 1:19-20) and that we have failed morally (Rom 2:15), but we could not know God’s love, grace, or mercy, had he not revealed himself to us in Christ, the written Word of God, and the Holy Spirit. To use Calvin’s word, God “condescends” to us so that we can apprehend him. Since this is so, it could be argued that all language about God is necessarily figurative. That is, all the language we use to describe God is ultimately figurative or metaphorical in that it can only approximate him, not express completely and exactly who he is. Even the words of Scripture in which God reveals himself to us are often figurative—husband, lamb, lion, warrior, thick darkness. The many examples of anthropomorphism by which God reveals himself to us function figuratively as well. He “hears” our prayers, he “watches” over us, he holds us in his “hand,” and we are close to his “heart.” All such language is figurative and metaphorical—in short, poetic—and it is central to our understanding of the most profound points in our theology. Is it possible to think of redemption, for instance, in purely propositional terms, or is there a lingering substratum of figurative understanding all the time? By its very nature, metaphor unites what is disparate, just as God unites us to himself in Christ Jesus. It is no wonder that Jesus Christ is presented as the Logos; it is his nature to reconcile sinners to the Father. On the level of language, figures of speech provide the parallel to the theology, for they unite what is separated. Figurative language, then, parallels the deep desire of every human heart—the longing to be reunited with God.
This brief survey of some features of biblical poetry should alert us to two final truths. The style of a biblical text is inspired, just as is its theology. Literary form is important, for the Bible is written in multiple literary genres—such as poetry, narrative, prophetic oracles, gospel, and epistle—not in one flat manner. Poetry serves to create an intense experience in the reader, appealing to the senses and intensifying an appreciation of the theology in the poem. Finally, biblical poetry informs and frames the theology it expresses. We might say there is a “poetical theology” in certain parts of the Bible. If we sever the theology from its poetic form, we risk asking the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers. Why is there so much poetry in the Bible? Because it is the way the Holy Spirit chose to frame and inform the theology in these parts of the Bible. “Words of delight…words of truth,” the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it (12:10); form and content complement one another in biblical poetry, and we must understand both if we are to understand these texts.
Consider an example of a Hebrew hymn, Psalm 96, which is a “royal psalm” of praise to God, or a hymn. As with most psalms of praise, this psalm is structured in three parts: verses 1-3 constitute an invitation to praise God, verses 4-9 provide the reasons why we should praise God, and verses 10-13 affirm the righteous reign of God. This structure first invites the reader to praise the Lord, then provides concrete reasons why he should do so, and concludes with the encouragement of all of creation praising God, along with an evangelistic invitation to the nations to join the chorus. There are smaller patterns of repetition in the poem which further encourage the reader to praise God. The psalm opens with a three-fold invitation to “sing to the Lord,” and balances the invitations with three commands—to “bless” God, “tell of his salvation,” and “declare his glory among all the peoples.” Invitation is buttressed by imperative. In the triple repetition of “Ascribe to the Lord” (vv. 7-8), the psalmist uses climactic parallelism to exhort the reader to praise God. “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist begins. “Who?” we ask. “The families of the peoples,” we are told. “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist says again. “What?” we ask. “Glory and strength.” “Ascribe to the Lord,” the psalmist says yet again. “What?” we ask again. “The glory due his name,” we are told. The intensifying effect of the psalmist’s words here builds to a crescendo of praise that is due to Yahweh alone. The reader not only learns a theology of praise in the psalm, but the repetitions help him to experience that praise for himself.
Psalm 96 contains many figures of speech, and they too are part of the psalm’s poetry and theology. While figures of speech are not limited to poetry in the Bible, biblical poems tend to use figurative language as their normal means of expression. In v. 6, the psalmist pictures God’s attributes as if they were attendants before his throne—splendor and majesty, strength and beauty—so that the reader “sees” God’s attributes in concrete form. The effect is to intensify the experience and make it immediate for the reader. In vv. 11-12, all of creation praises God. In a series of personifications, the heavens are “glad,” the earth “rejoices,” the sea “roars,” the fields “exult,” and finally the trees “sing for joy.” The concrete pictures of the natural creation praising God further encourage the readers to praise him for who he is and what he has done for them. Rather than simply learning theology in this poem, readers encounter God for themselves. The poem personalizes the theology. In fact, the theology is framed, limited, and contextualized by the poetry.
Consider a very different kind of Hebrew poem, Psalm 51—a lament psalm. In this psalm, David confesses his sin and asks God for forgiveness. We have 1 John 1:9, so why do we need a poetic version like the psalm? Again, there are good reasons for the poem. In Psalm 51 the reader encounters God personally in one of the realities of life in our fallen condition, namely our sin and sinfulness. Psalm 51 reminds us of the twin truths that only the undeserving need to repent and God is willing to forgive the repentant sinner. We need Psalm 51 because it provides a pattern of repentance and forgiveness in words that God has sanctioned. David begins the psalm with an appeal to God’s mercy and hesed love. It is in the light of God’s character, not primarily his own repentance, that David confesses his sin. In a series of tight poetic parallelisms, the psalm alternates between God and man, emphasizing the tension of God’s righteousness and our sinfulness. David is sinful, and God is just (v. 4); the balanced “beholds” of vv. 5 and 6 bring man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness into sharp juxtaposition, underscoring the fact that man cannot solve the problem for himself. The dilemma is heightened for the reader by the parallel structure of the poem. “What then? How shall we be forgiven?” we are encouraged to ask. God will forgive and cleanse us, David goes on to write, as the imagery of hyssop (v. 7) indicates. And what will be the results of forgiveness? They are joy (v. 8), the comfort of sins not only forgiven but removed from the record (v. 9), a clean heart (v. 10), a heart for the lost (v. 13), and an attitude of praise toward the Lord (v. 15). These benefits, listed in the poem in such an intense rapid-fire pattern, encourage the reader, save him from falling into an unhealthy introspection, and focus his attention healthily on the Lord. Psalm 51 walks us through the experience of repentance, confession, and forgiveness, all the while keeping the Lord and his righteousness and mercy (both of which are essential for forgiveness) before our eyes. What better words could there be for the repentant sinner?
It is easy to grant that the Psalms are poetry, but are there poetic sections in the New Testament as well? There are indeed poems and poetic sections in the New Testament. To choose one example, we could avoid some strange interpretations of the book of Revelation if we focused our reading of it on what is intended to be its focus—Jesus Christ—rather than on the events of the eschaton. John wants us to see the glorified Christ for who he is and what he has done for us, and he often shows him in poetic language. Examine for instance the first picture of Christ in the book where he is presented as a “loud voice like a trumpet” (1:10) and “one like the son of man” (v. 13). This picture of Christ is literally awe-inspiring: “clothed with a long robe” with a “golden sash,” whose hairs are “white like wool” and whose eyes are “like a flame of fire”; feet of “burnished bronze” and a voice “like the roar of many waters”; out of whose mouth is a “sharp two-edged sword” and whose face shines “like the sun shining in full strength” (vv. 13-16). In the similes and images of this picture at the beginning of the book, John presents what he wants the reader to understand as the focus of the apocalypse—the “unveiling” of the glorified Jesus Christ. Throughout the book John encourages the reader to keep his thoughts on Christ. The effect of the poetic image of Christ in chapter one is to overwhelm the reader with awe and worship, and the frequent doxologies throughout the book (e.g. 4:8, 11; 5:9-10, 12, 13; 15:3-6) provide constant reminders of where the reader’s attention is to be. Think too of the image of “the Lamb, standing as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes” (5:6) on the throne of the universe, and then reflect on the symbol of the Old Testament sacrificial lambs and the New Testament Lamb of God. It is this one—the crucified and now-risen Son of God—who rules. The poetic symbol is full of theology. Sacrifice, substitution, holiness, and royal power are all rolled into the one symbol of the Lamb on the throne. Symbols and other figures of speech intensify the language of poetry in that they communicate a great deal of theology in a few words. They serve to synthesize the theology throughout the whole canon of Scripture.
Apart from poems like these which form a significant portion of the Bible, certain significant images and symbols recur multiple times throughout the Bible. These “strong” figures of speech, as they are called, frame our understanding of the theology they teach. The symbol of the lamb, for instance, originates in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, appears again in the suffering servant songs (e.g. Isa 53:7), is voiced by God the Father at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry when he is baptized in the Jordan River (John 1:29), and finally climaxes in the presence of the Lamb on the throne of the universe in the book of Revelation. Marriage is another symbol that recurs throughout the Old and New Testaments, providing an immediately-accessible understanding to the theology of the covenant relationship that the Lord has initiated with his people. Faithful Israel is often described as a wife to Yahweh, and faithless Israel as a harlot (Hos 1:2, etc.). In a word picture, God commands Hosea to marry the harlot, Gomer, and to pursue her again even when she betrays him—what grace! In the New Testament, the church is presented as the bride of Christ, for whom he died (Eph 5:22-32), and believers will celebrate their glorification in heaven in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-19). The marriage symbol resonates throughout the Bible, and our understanding of it in any one instance is nuanced by its other uses in the canon of Scripture. Other images, like the church compared to a building (1 Pet 2:5) and to the body of Christ with its multiple parts / people / gifts (1 Cor 12:12-31), also enrich our understanding of theology. While these symbols and others like them appear in narrative and other prose sections of the Bible, they bring an element of poetry with them wherever they appear. There is no avoiding poetry and the poetic in the Bible; our only choice is whether we will read it well or poorly. And surely we want to read biblical poetry well.
What do we learn from these few examples of poetry and the poetic in the Bible? Let me suggest five lessons or ideas from this brief study of biblical poetry. First, poetry is concrete; that is, it presents tangible objects which we can apprehend by our senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) and utilizes them to make abstract theology accessible. Christ’s “I AM’s” are a case in point—bread, living water, good shepherd—each suggesting a certain theological idea. Think also of the concrete symbolism of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the church. Second, poetry is intense, packing a great deal of theology into a few words. David’s statement in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd,” introduces a complex theology of God’s care for his people which is developed by the images of trees, water, rest, and a feast in the rest of the psalm. Third, poetry represents an aesthetically-pleasing and orderly use of language that reflects the same qualities in the Lord. The patterns of the two psalms we looked at earlier, both the macrocosmic structures and microcosmic repetitions, reflect a God of beauty and order. God formed us to appreciate such beauty and order—and in turn to create it in poetry and the other arts—because he created us in his own image as a Creator-God. Fourth, poetry evokes the reader’s emotions and even his imagination (understood as the image-making faculty) and brings them alongside the intellect to enhance the theology and render it significant for the reader. The well-known image from Psalm 23 of walking through the valley of the shadow of death has sustained many believers emotionally and spiritually, not simply theologically. This is not to suggest a dichotomy between theology and emotion in biblical poetry; far from it. In fact, in biblical poetry, emotion and theology complement one another. Finally, biblical poetry reifies theology, making it a part of the reader’s experience. For example, we “taste and see” that the Lord is good, not just understand it (Ps 34:8); our love for the Lord is intense, as when “a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants [our] soul for you, God” (Ps 42:1); and we trust his protection in difficulties when we “run” to the Lord as a “strong tower” (Prov 18:10). These are all immediate and obvious lessons we learn when we read biblical poetry properly. There is, however, a deeper underlying lesson to be learned from biblical poetry as well.
In its use of figures of speech like similes, metaphors, personifications, anthropomorphisms, and other such poetic devices, biblical poetry points to a deep theological truth that all of Scripture teaches. Apart from God’s self-revelation to us, we could not know him at all. From general revelation we can know that there is a creator-God (Rom 1:19-20) and that we have failed morally (Rom 2:15), but we could not know God’s love, grace, or mercy, had he not revealed himself to us in Christ, the written Word of God, and the Holy Spirit. To use Calvin’s word, God “condescends” to us so that we can apprehend him. Since this is so, it could be argued that all language about God is necessarily figurative. That is, all the language we use to describe God is ultimately figurative or metaphorical in that it can only approximate him, not express completely and exactly who he is. Even the words of Scripture in which God reveals himself to us are often figurative—husband, lamb, lion, warrior, thick darkness. The many examples of anthropomorphism by which God reveals himself to us function figuratively as well. He “hears” our prayers, he “watches” over us, he holds us in his “hand,” and we are close to his “heart.” All such language is figurative and metaphorical—in short, poetic—and it is central to our understanding of the most profound points in our theology. Is it possible to think of redemption, for instance, in purely propositional terms, or is there a lingering substratum of figurative understanding all the time? By its very nature, metaphor unites what is disparate, just as God unites us to himself in Christ Jesus. It is no wonder that Jesus Christ is presented as the Logos; it is his nature to reconcile sinners to the Father. On the level of language, figures of speech provide the parallel to the theology, for they unite what is separated. Figurative language, then, parallels the deep desire of every human heart—the longing to be reunited with God.
This brief survey of some features of biblical poetry should alert us to two final truths. The style of a biblical text is inspired, just as is its theology. Literary form is important, for the Bible is written in multiple literary genres—such as poetry, narrative, prophetic oracles, gospel, and epistle—not in one flat manner. Poetry serves to create an intense experience in the reader, appealing to the senses and intensifying an appreciation of the theology in the poem. Finally, biblical poetry informs and frames the theology it expresses. We might say there is a “poetical theology” in certain parts of the Bible. If we sever the theology from its poetic form, we risk asking the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers. Why is there so much poetry in the Bible? Because it is the way the Holy Spirit chose to frame and inform the theology in these parts of the Bible. “Words of delight…words of truth,” the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it (12:10); form and content complement one another in biblical poetry, and we must understand both if we are to understand these texts.
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