PSALM 58: FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY

 

To better understand the overall flow of a psalm, it is often helpful to first consider the way translators have broken it up into separate paragraphs. For example, the NRSV groups the following verses together: 1-2; 3-5; 6-9; and 10-11. Some of the reasoning behind these divisions is rather obvious. Psalm 58:1-2 is addressed directly to a group of evil judges. (Whether these are gods, angels, or human judges is another subject altogether).

    Psalm 58:3-5 contains the Psalmist's description of evil people.

    Psalm 58:6-9 is addressed directly to God.

    Psalm 58:10-11 is a description of what will happen if God does put these judges in their place.

Keep in mind when reading the Psalms or any other poetic passage in the Bible, that such shifts back and forth between addresses to various audiences is quite common.

Next, if you wanted to go further in analyzing the overall structure of a given psalm, you might try to figure out how the various paragraphs, or sections, relate to one another – looking especially for any symmetrical pairings that might result. Here is one way, but probably not the only one, to order the material in Psalm 58:

    We are ruled by wicked judges (1-2)

        Description of evil people (3-5)

            God, Stop their evil ways (6-9)

        Response of the righteous (10)

    Then everyone will see that God judges rightly (11) 

Note that (a) for the most part, the divisions in the NRSV are preserved; (b) the end result is a perfectly symmetrical ordering; and (c) this arrangement locates the central point of the whole poem squarely in the plea to God (vv. 6-9).

Next, let's drill down into the structures behind the individual verses. For more on the basic principles behind Hebrew poetry, you might want to look at my post entitled “Understanding Biblical Poetry.” For now, it will suffice to say that although the two or three lines in a given verse will probably not rhyme or possess a regular rhythm, usually the thought of the first line will be echoed or expanded upon in the subsequent line or lines. And this can be done in a variety of ways, as the analysis below demonstrates. The parallel elements between the two lines are placed above one another so that you can get the general idea better.

Verse 1: Do you      indeed decree             is right, you judges?

             Do you       judge the sons of men rightly?

This form of poetry is called identical, or synonymous parallelism since the major elements of the two lines mirror each other. However, note that since “you judges” in the first line is left out of the second line, a somewhat longer parallel to the verbs is used in the second line to compensate. In that way, both lines are basically the same length.

Verse 2: No, in your hearts you think up wrong doing

                        your hands        deal out violence on earth.

Verse 3: The wicked go astray from their mother's womb

                they              err       from their birth, speaking lies

In both verses 2 and 3, we again have identical parallelism, but note how the second line gets a little more specific than the first in describing the sins of the evil people.

Verse 4: They have venom    like that of a serpent 

                    x

            like the deaf adder   that closes its ears.

In this case, you can see that the parallel elements of the two lines are not located in the same order, but in the opposite one. This is called introverted, or chiastic, parallelism. The second label comes from the Greek letter chi, which is written as an x.

Verse 5: so that it does not hear the voice of snake charmers

                                                              or of the cunning enchanter.

This is a classic example of what is called an incomplete parallelism, for obvious reasons.

Verse 6: O God,

                            break the teeth in their mouths;

                            tear out the fangs of the young lions,

            O LORD.

This is a slightly more complex version of an introverted parallelism. The first and last elements address the same God, and the two requests in the middle express the same thoughts in a parallel fashion.

Verse 7: Let them vanish    like water that runs away;

                                    x

             like grass               let them be trodden down and die.              Introverted Parallelism

Verse 8: Let them be like the snail which melts into slime,

                                  like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.    Incomplete Parallelism

Verse 9: Without warning, may they be rooted up like a thorny bush,

                                                                                like weeds which a man clears away angrily.

In this case, the ending of the first line is paralleled by the first element of the second line, which continues the thought quite a bit further. This form is sometimes called stair-step parallelism.

Verse 10: The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance;        Emblematic Parallelism

                he                   will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.

In this relatively rare form of Hebrew poetry, one line expresses the basic idea of the verse literally while the other one does it using symbolic, or figurative, language. In v. 10 above, it is the second line that is the figurative one.

Verse 11: People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;   Incomplete Parallelism

                                           surely there is a God who judges on earth.”

Once you become familiar with the various ways in which Hebrew poetry is composed, you can use this knowledge to better understand what each verse means. If the first line is confusing, just go to the second line for further clarification. Also an interesting technique to try out sometime is to rewrite each verse using a different poetic form than is in the original, but conveying the same meaning. Let me give you one example:

I haven't shown you any cases of an additional type of parallelism: antithetic. It is found more commonly in Proverbs than in the Psalms. In this form of Hebrew poetry, the second line expresses the reverse side of that which is in the first line. Thus, here is one way to turn Psalm 58:10 into antithetic parallelism:

         The righteous will live to see God's vengeance on evil doers

while the wicked    will die an early death                for their deeds.

In a way, this is like a sentence with a double negative which cancels out since righteous and wicked are opposites, as are live and die.

Try your hand at one of the other verses in Psalm 58 to see if you can transform it into a different type of parallelism.