Study Chapter · VII

Hebrew Poetry Parallelism

Why You're Reading Psalms Wrong

The single biggest thing English readers miss about the Psalms (and Proverbs, and most of the prophets, and large stretches of Job): Hebrew poetry doesn't rhyme. It parallels. The "rhyme" is in the thought, not the sound. Lines come in pairs (couplets) or threes (tricolons) where

The single biggest thing English readers miss about the Psalms (and Proverbs, and most of the prophets, and large stretches of Job): Hebrew poetry doesn't rhyme. It parallels. The "rhyme" is in the thought, not the sound. Lines come in pairs (couplets) or threes (tricolons) where the second line answers the first.

Until you see the parallelism, the poetry reads like repetition. Once you see it, the poetry opens.

When David says "the LORD is my shepherd / I shall not want," the second line is the consequence of the first (synthetic). Not "the Lord is my shepherd. Also, I shall not want." It's "because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

When Isaiah says "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow / though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isa 1:18), the second line intensifies the same picture; it isn't redundancy.