Those who are at all familiar with the Bible may rightfully come to the point where they ask: "Why is there so much repetition in the Bible?" It is an excellent question and actually can be answered in a number of ways depending on what kind of duplication one is talking about. On occasion, my tendency to organize and categorize comes to the forefront, and this is one of them. Here is my own attempt to classify some of the more common types of repetition found in the Bible with examples and comments as to the possible function such duplications perform in the service of the text.
A. Contiguous Repetition
1. Of words
2. Within the same verse
3. Between adjacent paragraphs
4. Between adjacent chapters
5. Between adjacent books
B. More Remote Repetition
1. In service of all the above types of duplication
2. Inclusios
3. Significant numbers
4. Mark's Gospel
Type A1: This first type is probably the only one that the biblical authors share in common with us. It merely consists of those occasions where the same word is stated twice in a row. One example would be Jesus' prefacing some of his statements with “verily, verily I say to you.” It would be the same as our asserting “in all truth” or “really truly.”
But a slight variation on this method of expression in the Bible is likely to be misunderstood today. It occurs with biblical phrases such as “Lord of lords,” “king of kings,” or “Song of Songs.” We would probable understand these as saying “Lord over other lords,” “king to whom other kings report,” or “a song consisting of other songs.” Some of these interpretations are not that far off from the truth, but we must understand that these are all Hebraic idioms used to express superlatives. Thus, it is better to read them as “the highest Lord,” “the most powerful king,” and “the most excellent song, etc.”
Type A2: Moving on to a slightly larger literary segment, the individual verse, we quite often encounter adjacent statements which appear to say the very same thing. This appears especially in the poetic passages and even has the technical name of poetic parallelism. Here are a couple of examples:
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.” (Psalm 100:4a)
Note how two sets of synonyms tie together these adjacent stanzas occurring within the same verse.
Even more common are those occasions when the second line repeats the elements of the first line, but in reverse order. This is called a chiasm.
“For I know my transgressions,
X
and my sin is ever before me.” (Psalm 51:3)
But this sort of duplication is not a simple case of overkill. Instead, the use of synonyms helps the reader clarify the meaning of a word which, by itself, might be incomprehensible or capable of many different nuances. Secondly, there is often a heightening of the idea which occurs in the second line. Thus, in Psalm 51:3 we see in the second stanza that the author is not only aware of his faults, but he actually is constantly reminded of them.
Type A3: Here we see some of the same sort of repetition on a larger scale. And it is actually encountered quite early in the Bible, as you can see below:
Table 1: The Parallel Structure of Genesis 1:2-31
Light created; light and darkness separated (1:3-5)
Dome of the sky created; waters above and below separated (1:6-8)
Land and seas created when they are separated from one another (1:9-10)
Plants are brought forth from the land (1:11-13)
Lights in the sky separate night and day (1:14-19)
Birds inhabit the sky, and the water brings forth living creatures (1:20-23)
Land brings forth living creatures, including man (1:24-28)
Plants are designated as food for creatures and man (1:29-31)
In this case, the intensification of ideas appears between the first and second parallel cycles so that the regions that are created in the first cycle are now populated in the same order in the second one. And to confirm that the two sets are to be considered as literary parallels, both conclude with the mention of the all-important role plants play in the overall food cycle.
Another probable example is found in the last book of the Bible where Revelation 6:4-8 describes the 144,000 sealed out of the tribes of Israel. This is immediately followed by a vision in verses 9-10 of a great multitude no one could count. There are a number of scholars who feel that both paragraphs describe the exact same group of people, just described in alternative ways.
Type A4: We see the same sort of phenomenon on an even larger scale when considering adjacent chapters. The prime example of this type is Judges 4-5 in which a battle between Israel and Canaan is described in chapter 4 in literal terms, followed by a poetic account of the same action in chapter 5. Both accounts complement one another.
And in the NT, both John's Gospel and Revelation close with two adjacent chapters which in many ways repeat the same material. It is instructive to compare each pair in order to see which details are duplicated (perhaps using different imagery) and which ones are new in the second chapter of the pair.
Type A5: In one respect this type of duplication is somewhat an artifact of the way our Christian Bible has been organized over the years, and we have to realize that the groupings of OT books in the Hebrew Scripture are quite different from the order of books in our Bible. But even with this caveat, certain examples of duplication are quite obvious, even to those who are not very acquainted with the Bible.
The prime example in the OT occurs in what we would call the Historical Books. Thus, the adjacent books of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles contain much of the same material. However, through this duplication we are allowed to see how different authors view the exact same historical annals through different lenses instead of just having one perspective. So much of the value in these books can only be gained by comparing the two parallel accounts side-by-side to see where they are in total agreement and where they differ, especially in regard to their choice of which details and events to emphasize and which ones to omit entirely.
The very same sort of duplication is seen with the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament. Note that those who put together the Christian canon purposely separated Luke and Acts, even though they are really parts 1 and 2 of the same composition. But the intent was to position all four of the Gospels next to one another to indicate that they all belonged together. Much has been written concerning the particular theological slants, intended audiences, and historical settings of these four compositions in order to account for the differences we often detect in parallel narratives of the same events. But it is only by comparing all four with one another that we can pick up on these nuances.
For both the OT and NT examples above, one very helpful aid to studying the parallel accounts is by the use of “harmonies” which place the parallel accounts side-by-side for easy comparison. For study purposes, this is far more useful than merely reading a book like The Chronological Bible which takes all the different accounts of each event and attempts to blend them together as if it is a single story by a single author. That approach may make for fast and easy reading, but in the process the individuality present in each parallel account is totally lost.
All of the above types of repetition are relatively easy to detect since the repeated units are placed right next to one another. But in other cases, such duplicates may be widely separated and are not so readily seen on first reading.
Type B1: First, there are repetitions that may not be located right next to one another, but they are actually used to help the reader detect some of the Type A examples above. As a simple example, look at Figure 1 again and note that both parallel cycles end with a mention of plant life (Genesis 1:11-12; 29-30) even though a cursory reading through chapter 1 might not pick up on that fact. Even more obvious division markers, however, are provided by the fact that each of the units in Figure 1 begins with “and God said” and ends with “there was evening and morning, the nth day.”
A similar literary technique can be seen many times in the Bible such as the use of “these are the generations of” to indicate the beginnings of the units throughout Genesis or “and the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” at the beginning of some of the stories in Judges.
Type B2: A variation on the above purpose of duplicates to act as demarcation points is called inclusio, or an inclusion. This is the phenomenon in which the limits of a given literary unit, whether it be an individual paragraph or a whole book, are clearly indicated by the repetition of a key word, phrase, or event. And there may be additional reasons behind the usage of inclusios in the biblical text. Let me illustrate with two concrete examples.
King Saul begins his long quest to find the fleeing David and kill him in I Samuel 22:6. There we are given the strangely specific detail that Saul was sitting underneath a tamarisk tree with his spear in his hand. That chapter continues with Saul taking out his vengeance on the priest Ahimelech who had provided help to David. In this most horrific deed of Saul's career, he commands his guard to kill 85 priests of the LORD along will all their family. His Israelite guard refuses to carry out his command and so Saul has an Edomite do the deed instead.
I relate this story in so much detail because we see some very strong echoes of these events at the very end of Saul's life. Fast forward to I Samuel 31 in which the following events occur: Saul is mortally wounded by the Philistines and so he commands his armor-bearer to finish him off with a sword. The armor-bearer refuses to do it and so Saul takes his own life. The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead hear of this and set off to recover his body, which they bury beneath a tamarisk tree. Look at how this whole large literary unit is neatly capped off at either end:
Saul is under a tamarisk tree
His guard refuses to kill the priests and so he gets someone else to do it
-------------------------
Saul's armor-bearer refuses to kill him and so Saul does it himself
Saul is buried under a tamarisk tree
This duplication is surely no mere accident, especially since these are the only occurrences of a “tamarisk tree” in the whole Bible. And the meaning being pointed out here is rather obvious. The circumstances of Saul's death are no mere quirks of history. Instead they highlight the fact that it is a case of natural consequence directed by God as appropriate judgment on Saul for the slaughter of His priests.
For a NT example of type B2, we need only consider the epistles of Paul and the way they open and close. The most common pattern is shown below:
Grace and
Peace
------------
Peace
and Grace
In this case, I would interpret the reason for the repetition in reverse order to convey the subtle message that “grace” is the beginning and end of our faith, the alpha and omega. Notice the mirror-image arrangement here and with the story of Saul above. Both tend to give closure to the section of text in between.
Type B3: We now progress to an even more subtle example of repetition in which it is neither the meaning of the repeated word or phrase is important nor its exact location in the text. Instead the importance lies merely in the number of times that the word or phrase is repeated.
It is a well-established understanding among Bible scholars that the actual presence of the numbers 7, 10, 12, and their multiples takes on special symbolic or figurative significance when it appears in the biblical writings with, for example, “7” indicating or completion and “12” standing for the chosen people of God. For example, the number “7” appears appropriately numerous times in the final book of the Bible. And of course we have the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles.
Not as widely recognized, however, is the fact that sometimes a particular word or phrase will appear one of those same number of times in a certain portion of the Bible. And often when it occurs, this technique functions to mark off the limits of that literary unit. Again, this could be looked on as a mere accident, but there are some instances where it is clearly intended since the author will even purposely substitute a synonym for a particular Greek or Hebrew word in a passage so as not to exceed the requisite symbolic number of repetitions.
Just to indicate how pervasive this phenomenon can be, consider the following words and phrases which occur exactly seven times or multiples of seven in the Book of Revelation:
“who was, who is, and who is to come,” “hear what the Spirit says,” “spirits,” “prophecy,” “candlestick,” “cloud,” “trumpet(er),” “worthy,” “bottomless pit,” seven lists with four related elements such as “kindred, tongue, people, tribe, etc.,” “the prophets,” “kingdom,” “wonder/miracle,” “earthquake,” “reign,” slave,” “seal (noun and verb),” “(God's) wrath,” “Almighty God,” “Jesus Christ,” seven blessings, seven doxologies coupling “glory” and “honor” (if one includes the textual variant at 19:1), sarx applied to the human body, hymns directed to God, antiphonal hymnic units, seven references to Jesus coming “quickly.” In addition, “servant,” “woe,” “for ever and ever,” “them that dwell on earth” and “patience” appear 14 times in the Revelation as well as references to the four living creatures. “Lord,” “power,” “king (or King of kings),” “book” and “day” occur 21 times each. “Lamb” is applied to Christ 28 times, and God's “throne” appears 42 times. “Angel” appears 77 times in Revelation.
Type 4: This final example of remote duplication is the most subtle of all, and so hard to detect that I have yet heard of any scholar even noting its existence. Thus, I admit that it may all be due to my overactive imagination, but I don't think so.
This type of repetition appears, as far as I am aware, only in the Gospel of Mark, where it serves at least two functions. The first is to give the lie to those many commentators who are dismissive of Mark's literary abilities and feel that he dashed off his book without thinking much about what he was writing. I will only buy that explanation if it includes the fact that the Holy Spirit was guiding him carefully throughout his task. And actually, the end result that we see in Mark's Gospel actually prompts us to proclaim that it is by far the most highly organized book in the whole Bible.
This all must sound like a lot of hype for a literary technique I haven't even described yet. So here it is in a nutshell. If you plot all the appearances in Mark of certain given words in order, they will form a symmetrical pattern if you take into account the context in which each word appears. Here are two simple examples:
“generation” no sign given from heaven (8:12 – 2x)
adulterous and sinful generation (8:38)
faithless generation (9:19)
signs in heaven given (13:30)
“daughter” healing due to woman's faith (5:34)
daughter lying as if dead (5:35)
daughter's request on behalf of her mother (6:22)
mother's request on behalf of her daughter (7:26)
healing due to woman's saying (7:29)
daughter lying on bed (7:30)
And so far I have discovered numerous examples of such symmetries hidden within Mark's Gospel including one in which all 23 occurrences of a particular Greek word for “come” forms one giant symmetrical organization.
But the utility of this form of repetition does not stop with a mere demonstration of the unbelievable order found within Mark's Gospel. In addition, there are a number of such word patterns which stop short of complete symmetry and need one or two more occurrences of the same word at the end to achieve it. And it turns out that in each case, such occurrences do appear at the end of the Gospel of Luke and/or the Gospel of John. The theory most likely to account for this phenomenon is that the original ending of Mark's Gospel was accidentally lost sometime very early in the process of it being copied and distributed to various parts of the Christian world at the time. But before that happened, Matthew and John had the complete form of the document and utilized it closely in formulating their own versions of Christ's life.
If you are really serious about knowing more concerning these “hidden” correspondences within the Gospel of Mark, you may want to read my post titled “The Ending of the Gospel of Mark” or contact me and I will forward my complete 33-page essay on the subject, assuming you have a lot of time on your hands.
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