{"id":4527,"date":"2013-09-26T00:05:11","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T07:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4527"},"modified":"2013-09-25T14:04:05","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T21:04:05","slug":"poetic-license","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/09\/26\/poetic-license\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetic License"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I teach biblical interpretation, one of the things I use to help explain the difference between biblical narrative and biblical poetry is to ask the students to compare Judges 4 and Judges 5. These two chapters make my job easy, because both chapters describe the same event: Barak and Deborah\u2019s victory over Sisera.<\/p>\n

I point out that the purpose of poetry is not to clearly describe events or to give us instructions. Instead, poetry is emotional; it gives us a feeling\u2014it is not propositional. For instance, the Afordible Healthcare Law, usually called Obomacare, is not written in poetry. Likewise, autorepair manuals are not written in poetry, nor are history books or newspapers. But music lyrics are poetry\u2014and what you expect from listening to the lyrics of songs is not what you expect when you\u2019re listening to a news report on the latest horrors in Egypt.<\/p>\n

So, consider the contrast between these two descriptions of the same event. First, Judges 4:17-21 which gives us the narrative form of the event:<\/p>\n

Sisera, meanwhile, fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, because there was an alliance between Jabin king of Hazor and the family of Heber the Kenite. <\/p>\n

Jael went out to meet Sisera and said to him, \u201cCome, my lord, come right in. Don\u2019t be afraid.\u201d So he entered her tent, and she covered him with a blanket. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thirsty,\u201d he said. \u201cPlease give me some water.\u201d She opened a skin of milk, gave him a drink, and covered him up. <\/p>\n

\u201cStand in the doorway of the tent,\u201d he told her. \u201cIf someone comes by and asks you, \u2018Is anyone in there?\u2019 say \u2018No.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n

But Jael, Heber\u2019s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judges 5:24-27 relates the same event, but as poetry:<\/p>\n

Most blessed of women be Jael,
\nthe wife of Heber the Kenite,
\nmost blessed of tent-dwelling women.
\nHe asked for water, and she gave him milk;
\nin a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.
\nHer hand reached for the tent peg,
\nher right hand for the workman\u2019s hammer.
\nShe struck Sisera, she crushed his head,
\nshe shattered and pierced his temple.
\nAt her feet he sank,
\nhe fell; there he lay.
\nAt her feet he sank, he fell;
\nwhere he sank, there he fell\u2014dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hebrew poetry is dependent on what is called parallelism\u2014the rhyming of ideas rather than the rhyming of sounds, and thus it seems repetitious to modern western readers. What we would express in a single concept, perhaps with some added adjectives or adverbs, gets stated twice in slightly different words. More obviously, the death of Sisera is described much more violently, with Jael as violent, and overpowering him in an epic battle. The point of the poetry is to suggest the emotions of the event, rather to to give a blow by blow description of how the event occurred. It gives us insight into how Jael felt about what she did, and how the Israelites felt about it: how they saw it as a triumph over their humiliated opponent. Poetry makes more use of metaphor and allegory, the painting of pictures with words. One can get into a lot of trouble trying to understand poetry literalistically. <\/p>\n

What is interesting to consider when you see the difference in poetry versus narrative is when it comes time to read the prophets of the Old Testament. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the 12 minor prophets\u2014most of what they write, most of the \u201cword of the Lord\u201d is presented as poetry. Don\u2019t read the prophets (or Psalms, or Proverbs) then the same way you\u2019d read the narratives of 1 and 2 Chronicles; don\u2019t expect them to give you the same sort of information.<\/p>\n

Thus, be very careful how you understand what is going on. The same with the Psalms, Song of Solomon and the wisdom literature, such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes: recognize that you\u2019re dealing with poetry. Be careful to allow for unusual idioms and twists. For instance, the prophets will occasionally talk about \u201cadultery\u201d and how Israel or Judah are \u201cadulterous.\u201d The prophets are not talking about the behavior of married adults in ancient Palestine. Rather, the terms are used metaphorically to describe how unfaithful to God the Israelites have become. Instead of worshiping Yahweh exclusively, they’ve run off and started worshiping other gods as well, while still coming back to the Temple and going through the rituals as if nothing is wrong. \u201cAdultery\u201d is a perfect picture of the religious situation in Israel and Judah.<\/p>\n

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When I teach biblical interpretation, one of the things I use to help explain the difference between biblical narrative and biblical poetry is to ask the students to compare Judges 4 and Judges 5. These two chapters make my job … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4527"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4529,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4527\/revisions\/4529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}