So last time we started briefly and talking about the benefits of poetry. And this is true in general, but obviously our focus here is on the scriptures. And it's often translated or defined as the artful use of words, the best words used in the best order, beautiful language, concise and rich language, and so forth. And God does this. In about one-third of the Old Testament, we find Hebrew poetry. So it's not just the Psalms, but many other places, especially in the Prophets. One of the biggest benefits of poetry is it explains to us a particular event, a particular aspect about God, a particular aspect of our relationship to God in a way that isn't just, if you will, the bare bones or the bare facts of the situation. It does it in this way, yes, to communicate truth, but also to engage the whole person. And for some of us who tend to be very focused on the mind, we may find this to be challenging or maybe not as helpful in some ways. For those of you who are more artistically oriented, you may find this to be a lot more interesting than some of the narrative or the letters of Paul or something to that effect. And so part of the reason why we have all these different genres in scripture is that God is speaking to all kinds of people. with different interests, different abilities, and so forth. That said, we all need to understand every aspect of scripture as best as we can. And so here for poetry is designed to creatively communicate, to engage the whole person. Now, some of the challenges of poetry are that sometimes the artful use of words are hard to understand, hard to follow, hard to interpret, In poetry, we tend, it depends on the kind of poetry, but we tend to be more concise, more terse in our use of words. And so often things are left out in poetry that we might find in a story, like we've seen in Acts here most recently. And so this can make it very challenging. And then, of course, we have the challenge of going from poetry in one language to a different language. How do you communicate those things? That is a significant challenge. Just to translate it and then to try to preach it or teach it or even then to take a particular psalm that probably was sung and now put it into a new language sung in a different way with different rules of poetry. And so there's just a lot of challenges here. And so due to the intentional creativity that can be hard to decipher, plus just the demands of poetry in general, it requires careful reading. And we do this in English. When we have a good poem, people will gather together for an evening of poetry. And you don't just read it. You think about it. You analyze it, and so on and so forth. And so we'll do that here with the Psalms, too. Another added challenge with Hebrew poetry is it can be very, can you say, different from one verse to the next. In English poetry, Say you have a ballad. Say you have iambic pentameter or something like that. It's pretty consistent all the way through the poem. But in the Psalms, verse one might have a certain poetic element. Verse two might have a totally different one. Verse three might have another one. And that just adds to the challenge. And so what I'm attempting to do here in our Sunday School class, and what I'm going to try to do beginning today as we start preaching on the Psalms, is to take this highly creative, can you say even emotive, part of Scripture and bring it to us. And not just so that we understand it, but that we will have the intended emotive response that God has for it from when David or whoever initially wrote it. And that's a significant challenge. And so that's the goal and so on. So another aspect here, well, let me pause here. Any comments or questions about some of these things? All right, now. Let me remind us that we believe that the Bible is perspicuous, a big fancy word that simply means the average person can read it and understand it. So even though there are challenges here, it's not impossible. And yet it might take more work, especially for some of us, to understand this than in other passages. But we do have the Holy Spirit, who has not only given us the word, but helps us even now to interpret it. Now, a couple more things here in regard to poetry in general. First of all, this. The poetic elements that I'm going to be talking about here as we go forward are found in other cultures, too, surrounding Israel. The things that we see in the Psalms are not unique to Israel. And so it's very much like the ideas of the covenant, or circumcision, or baptism. These are things that are found in other cultures outside of Israel. They're not unique to Israel. But God took these pagan, everyday, common things and gave them a spiritual meaning. And so other cultures circumcised their kids, their boys. But God gave it as a sign of the covenant. And so here, the same is said with the Psalms. You can find Psalms in other cultures. And you'll see some of the same kinds of things in it, in terms of elements. The difference, of course, are these. The Psalms are part praise and prayer, which you can see to the pagan gods. But this is also revelation from the true God. You'll see in the Psalms an emphasis on communion with God, whereas the pagan Psalms are begging a god to pay attention to them. Very different approach. In the scriptures, the psalmist is emphasizing honest expression with God, whereas the pagans are trying to manipulate the gods. In the scriptures, we learn about ourselves. We learn about who God is. And pagans, the pagan culture, it's primarily just mindless ritual. And so there's a huge difference between the two, even though we see some similar elements of poetic style and so on. So because of this, it does help us to interpret the scriptures in certain way. But as you might expect, some people take that point and run way too far with it. And so on. So let me read here now a little bit from this little book. This is from Tremper Longman III. And it's entitled, How to Read the Songs. Very helpful. Like anything, there are a few things in here I would disagree with or whatever. But overall, it's very helpful. And Tremper Longman, where right now we're reading through the scriptures chronologically, he's the one who came up with the order for the Old Testament. So here's a connection in that way. So let me read a little bit from this. Let me find my starting point here. OK. He entitles this section, Why Poetry? The fact that the Psalms and so much of the rest of the Old Testament are in poetic form leads us to a question. Why do we find so much poetry? If the Bible reveals the truth concerning God, people, and the world, why isn't that truth communicated to us in a straightforward prose style? Consider science with its concern to discover and communicate truths about the universe. Do scientists present their conclusions in poetic form? Of course not. They use the most precise and unambiguous language they can devise, reducing it to mathematical formulas, if possible. Why, then, is there poetry in the Bible? Furthermore, poetry can be hard to read. This is true not only for Hebrew poetry, but for English poetry as well. Sometimes it seems as if the poets are purposefully trying to elude our understanding. Poetry takes more effort to interpret than prose. And I'm sure every one of us can remember trying to decipher Shakespeare and sometimes thinking, what in the world is he saying? On one level, this question, why there is so much poetry in the Bible, cannot be answered. God stands behind the form and content of the Bible, and we cannot read God's mind on such matters. However, on the basis of our understanding of how poetry functions and of our own experience with reading poetry, we can offer an answer. Poems appeal to the whole person in a way that prose does not. Listen to a part of the prose account of the deliverance from the Red Sea recorded in Exodus 14, verses 26 to 31. Then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen. Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen. The entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea, not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him and in Moses, His servant." It's an exciting story. But now, from Exodus 15, verses 1 to 5. I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaoh's officers are drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them. They sank to the depths like a stone." Notice the difference. If we read the story with any feeling at all, we can't help but be caught up in the excitement of the Israelites themselves in a way that the prose account fails to accomplish. This is not to demean the prose account of the deliverance from the Red Sea, only to suggest that it serves a different function than the poetic version. For one thing, we gain more historical information from the prose account in Exodus 14 than we do from the poetic one in Exodus 15. The point is that poetry appeals more directly to the whole person than prose does. It stimulates our imaginations, arouses our emotions, feeds our intellects, and addresses our wills. Perhaps this is why poetry is the preferred mode of communication of the prophets, whose purpose, depending on capturing the attention of their listeners and persuading them, their message is urgent. More than this, poetry is pleasurable. It is attractive to read, and even more so to read aloud or sing. This is not to deny that some prose sections are also highly stylized, but poetry is more consistently literary. Nevertheless, poetry is difficult to interpret. This is particularly true when the poetry is thousands of years old and written in the context of a foreign culture, and I would add, in another language. Poetry is written in different ways, in different cultures, and at different times, although there are some common elements. We therefore need to learn how poetry works in the Old Testament. In this way, we can better understand the Psalms and the other poetic portions of the Old Testament. That was a nice summary of some of the things that we're faced here with in our understanding. And let me then also read. from, this is the word biblical commentary, the authors are Peter Craigie and Marvin Tate. I have more quibbles with this one in certain ways, but there are some very helpful things. And as I've said on many occasions before, I like to read from different perspectives, even those who aren't always conservative in their viewpoint. Because you learn more, and you can glean things and so forth from it. So anyway, here's one of those good nuggets. And he says this, the Psalms, which in many different ways reflect the relationship between Israel and God, utilize the medium of poetry to convey insight, experience, the perception of God, and the nature of the relationship with God. They are, on the one hand, profoundly theological writings. On the other hand, they defy any attempt to reduce them to theological dogma or creed. Poetry, like music, may be analyzed and dissected. Yet ultimately, it must be appreciated and experienced. And to divorce the element of subjectivity from the understanding of poetry is to divest it of its power. But though poetry is a form of art, and the interpretation of poetry may become a form of science, the two cannot be entirely separated, particularly for those in the modern world who are so far removed from the cultural milieu which gave birth to the Psalms. In knowledge of the fundamental forms and canons of Hebrew poetry, a knowledge of this provides the framework within which that poetry can be appreciated and its meaning grasped. Thus, the formal analysis of poetry is a useful and necessary task, though it cannot be an end in itself. and must be a means toward the end of appreciating, understanding, and ultimately utilizing the Psalms in our lives. Now, how do you do that in 40 or 45 minutes in a sermon? It's a daunting task. I have waited until now to try to do the Psalms just because I don't think I was ready until now. And I'm still not sure if I'm completely ready. There's a lot here. But the goal here is to try to understand not just what God says, but how he says it. Let's turn now to a new topic, moving away from this general idea of what poetry is to some of the elements of poetry. Now in English, we typically talk about rhyme and meter, but we also need to talk about structure and form. So with these three things in mind, in relation to Hebrew poetry, let's start with meter. The challenge with Hebrew in regard to meter is we really don't know what the meter was. Surely there must have been some meter because they sung these poems, these songs, and so that must have included some kind of rhythm. Even if they just chanted it, there would have been some kind of rhythm. The challenge here is that verses and clauses vary in length, sometimes short, sometimes long, and they change. It's not a consistent thing. even if we could learn the meter of what the Hebrew actually was, that meter's in Hebrew, and how do you bring that into another language? And so it's very difficult to translate something like this into English. So, I'm not going to say a whole lot about meter here. No one can agree on it. Hopefully, someday, we will find in the Dead Sea Scrolls area or something like that, a psalm put to music, the actual music for it. Then that might give us a lot of insight in regard to meter and music in that way. But at this point, we don't have it. So let me focus then on the rhyme aspect of Hebrew. Of course, in English, we focus on rhyming sounds. And so whether it's something complex or something simple, we tend to end each line or every other line or something like that with a sound that is then replicated in the next line or something to that effect. And so, right, even just happy birthday. Happy birthday to you, you're 102, you know, or whatever it is. Or Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. Everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. You'll note the rhythm there, but note also the rhyming. In Hebrew, there is rhyming, but it's done very differently. It's what we call parallelism. In the 19th century, this term was coined and it's a rhyming of ideas. You have one line and then parallel to that, the next line says something similar or the same kind of thing. Now there are different ways that this is done. And so first of all, we have what is called synonymous parallelism. Both lines here say the same thing, but in slightly different language. Now, I want to use an example from myself here in this regard, and that would be something like this. My family went to church. That would be line one. And then parallel to that, saying basically the same thing would be, my family went to God's house. So my family went to church, my family went to God's house. It's saying essentially the same thing. There's no real difference there. Let's turn now to an example in the scriptures here, Psalm 104. and the end of the psalm. Psalm 104, and if you look at verse 33, it says, I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. It's virtually the same thing. You have the difference of Yahweh versus God. but basically it's saying the same thing. And then in verse 35, may sinners be consumed from the earth and the wicked be no more. Again, it's virtually the same thing, but you see there are two lines in parallel, in this case synonymous, saying the same thing. Now, This is used for repetition and for restatement, part of the artistry of rhyming in Hebrew. Now, I would agree with those who argue that synonymous parallelism is not used very often. An actual synonym, an actual restatement with some different words, doesn't happen very often because most of the time that second line says something a little bit different, something new. something in addition to the first line, something to that effect. And so I would agree with those who would say that most of the parallelism we see in the scriptures is actually synthetic parallelism. So here's our second category. Now some people don't like the term synthetic, that's fine, we can debate over the term to use here. But in this kind of rhyming, the first line is given and then the second line has something new given in it. It's stated in a way that says the same thing, generally speaking, but it's a new idea. So, using my example again, my family went to church. There's your first line. The second line, the Flemings attended worship. Now, obviously, it's similar, isn't it? But note the difference. My family went to church, but not for work day or Bible school or a fellowship meal or something like that, but my family went to church specifically to attend worship. And so there is a new thought here, a clarifying thought in comparison to the first line. So it's in parallel, saying basically the same thing, but there's a progression of thought here. A new idea. So let's turn then to Psalm 35, and here's one example. Again, I agree with those who say that most parallelism is gonna be synthetic in some way. So then, Psalm 35, verse nine, and my soul shall be joyful in the Lord, it shall rejoice in his salvation. Now notice, my soul in the first line, it in the second, shall be joyful and then shall rejoice. So far, it's exactly the same, right? Just worded slightly differently. But then you have in the Lord, in Yahweh, the first line, in the second line, it's in his salvation. So that's a new idea. We're rejoicing in Yahweh, his being, his character, but especially what he has done to save us. So this, again, we can debate on which word to use here, but this would be a synthetic parallelism. It is synonymous to a point. It really is adding a new idea, a new thought. So, those are the two most common. And then there's a third one, what we call antithetic parallelism. Here now, the second line is expressing the opposite of the first line. So again, using example for my family, the first line, my family went to church. The second line, but Billy Bob's family went to the ball game. You see the contrast. This is antithetical. It's differing, a differentiation, we could say. Now we see these in the Psalms, but of course we see it especially in the Proverbs, don't we? Many Proverbs have this antithetical parallelism, the first line given and the second one opposite, right? So the righteous does this, the wicked does that, or something to that effect. So here in the Psalms, let's turn to Psalm 1, and in verse 6, it says, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. So note the contrast, antithetical. All right, now these are the three main ones. And in many ways, we could stop with this. And all other aspects of parallelism would fit under these in one way or another. But let me mention three other ones that are often singled out. And one is what some call staircase. Typically, the first line says something and then the second one begins the same but then adds to it. And also, it tends to have more than two lines, three or four or something like that. So again, using example from my family, I could say something like this. My family went to church. There's line one. Line two, my family went to church for the sunrise service. And then line three, my family went to church for the sunrise service to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. You see how it's beginning the same way, but then we're adding to it, adding an idea. You're building upon it, a staircase kind of idea, taking a step up, so to speak, each time. Let's turn to two examples. First here, Psalm 29. Psalm 29, now again, some might say, well, this is just synthetic parallelism, and okay, fair enough, but you can see how it builds. Psalm 29, verse one, give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name. So who's gonna give glory? What are we giving? And then to whom are we giving it? Well, we're giving it because of his name or he is do this and so on and so forth. You also see the voice language here repeated, the voice of the Lord over and over again in the rest of the psalm. Note especially verse 4, the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is full of majesty, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. All right, now again, some will say, well, it's just synthetic parallelism. Others will say, but, you know, each line is kind of building on the previous. Let's turn then also to Psalm 135, and At the beginning of the psalm we see this. Psalm 135 verse 1. Praise the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise him O you servants of the Lord. So notice how you have praise at the beginning of all three of those, the Lord at the end of all three of those, and then you have something new in the middle in the second and third line. So again, some will single this out as something different, a staircase. It is maybe a subcategory of synthetic, you might say. Now another one we could talk about is emblematic parallelism. Typically, one line is literal and the other line is figurative. So using my family here again, I could say something like, like a moth to a flame or a light, so my family goes to church. And so the image here, of course, we now need to understand, what is the figure being told here? Well, like a moth to a flame, right? The flame, the light attracts the moth, so we are attracted to church. That's the image that's being given here. An obvious example in the Psalms would be Psalm 42, very familiar to us. Psalm 42, verse one, as the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. The image, obviously, is the deer panting for water, and this is a reflection of the sons of Korah panting for God. And so, emblematic. Now, this could be synonymous, it could be synthetic, you know, it doesn't matter. But it's emphasizing the use of a figure in it. And then lastly, here in this way, we have chiasm. Chiasm. Now, the Greek letter chi looks like an X. We pronounce it like Bach, you know, a harder, not a C-H, but it's harder than that. It looks like an X, but we don't say X in our pronunciation. But anyway, think of an X here. Chiasm. The first part of the line corresponds to the last part of the next line. The last part of the first line corresponds to the first part of the next line. So it switches the order. So I could say something like this. My family went to church in the first line. The second line, worship my family attended. So I switched the order there. The object is placed first in the next line. Or I could say my family went to church. a ballgame Billy Bob's family attended. Again, you're switching the order. It's a chiasm. Now, as I just did, you can use this with any kind of parallelism, right? The first one was synthetic. The second one was antithetical. So you can do that in different ways. Now let's turn to Psalm 84. And Psalm 84, we see one example here, verse eight. Verse eight, O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. So note you have the name of God first, and then the command. Then in the second line, the command is first, give ear, and then the name, O God of Jacob. So you see how it switches around. It is chiastic, we say here. Okay, so briefly here, this is how Hebrew rhymes things. Not by sound, but by ideas. And these are the common ways. Synonymous, synthetic especially, and antithetical. And then you can have some subsets of that, where you talk about staircase, emblematic, and chiasm. Alright, well we're out of time here today, so next time we will begin talking about the structure of Hebrew, and then we'll move on to various literary devices that are used. So, let's then pray together. Our Lord and our God, we thank you again for your word. We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us, not just in one way, not just in propositions, not just in stories, but also in this more creative kind of way here with poetry. And so again, Lord, we ask for your help to understand how this is done so that we can then better read the Psalms and other parts of your word that has poetry so that we can better understand you and what you have revealed to us. We pray, Lord, that you would be merciful in this way. And now as we turn to worship, we pray again that you would strengthen us by your spirit, that you would Be honored and that you would grow us in grace as we begin here now a study of the Psalms. And so we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.