Discover The Word

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

IDEA: Hebrew poetry communicates through parallelism.

PURPOSE: To help listeners to understand what parallelism is and how it works.

If we can understand how parallelism works, we have a better chance of understanding the psalms and other poetic literature.

I. There are three kinds of parallelism.

What are they? Similar, dissimilar, and constructive.

What we’re doing is looking at the thought and asking if it is similar, dissimilar, or constructive. Versions like the New King James Version and New International Version lay Hebrew poetry out on the page so that it is much easier to see the parallels.

II. Now let’s look at the parallelisms in Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatsoever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.