Encountering the Old Testament, 3rd Edition
A Christian Survey
series: Encountering Biblical Studies
Chapter
19. Introduction to the Poetical Books: The Literature of God's People
Chapter Intro Video
Chapter Objectives
- Name the poetical books of the Old Testament
- Describe the four common characteristics of Hebrew poetry
- Define the types of parallelism
- Define and give examples of chiasm
- Explain how an acrostic is used as a literary device in poetry
- Explain how the discovery of the Ugaritic language has enhanced our understanding of Hebrew poetry
Chapter Summary
- The poetical books are Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs.
- Meter, parallelism, chiasm, and acrostics all play a role in Hebrew poetry.
- Hebrew poetry has three basic types of parallelism—synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic.
- Chiasm is a literary device in which the content of parallel lines of poetry is reversed. Chiasm also sometimes applies to larger units of verse such as an entire psalm.
- Acrostic poetry is written with the first word of every line in alphabetic order.
- The cuneiform language spoken in ancient Ugarit is called Ugaritic. It has an alphabetic script made up of thirty signs.
- Ugaritic contributes to a better understanding of the Hebrew text in that it adds clarity to rare Hebrew words; it uses the same style of parallelism; and it provides background about the polytheism of ancient Israel’s time.
- Job is important because it looks at the question of why good people sometimes suffer.
- The book of Psalms has given us many songs from ancient Israel.
- Proverbs provides us with practical guidelines for living.
- Ecclesiastes explores the meaning of life.
- Song of Songs focuses on the joy of romantic love.
Study Questions
- What are some of the common characteristics of Hebrew poetry? How does biblical poetry differ from much of our modern poetry?
- How would you explain parallelism to someone who had never heard of it?
- Describe the significance of the Ugaritic tablets to the study of the Bible, particularly to Hebrew poetry.