Biblical Hebrew poetry

The Song of Hannah in 1 Sam. 2:1-10 is a fine example of biblical Hebrew poetry. The poem is composed of two regular 8-line cantos, vv. 1-5 and 6-10. From various rhetorical perspectives, we may conclude that v. 6a phrases the deliberately designed focal message of the poem.

Over fifty years ago Mitchell Dahood first noticed “a new metrical pattern in biblical poetry.” An outgrowth of his work on the Psalms, Dahood coined the term “double-duty modifier” to describe a pattern where one Hebrew term simultaneously modifies two (or more) others (see, e.g., Psalm 6:11 MT). In subsequent years, several other scholars not only confirmed the phenomenon for Hebrew and Northwest Semitic poetry more generally, but also added substantially to its description and codification. In more recent years, however, interest in double-duty modifiers seems to have diminished. The burden of this paper is threefold. First, I wish simply to bring greater attention to double-duty modifiers, which are both ubiquitous and interesting. Second, working with the Psalms as a corpus, I wish to contribute to the methodological basis for describing or acknowledging double-duty modifiers by appealing to Relevance Theory and Bayes’ Theorem. Third, I will add some new examples of double-duty modifiers from the Psalms, including a new type that has not (so far as I am aware) been observed before. Throughout, I will suggest both that the phenomenon is more common than has been thought, and also that it can enhance—sometimes significantly—our exegetical and aesthetic understanding of texts.

When teaching a course on the psalms in the college classroom or in graduate school, one is faced with the challenge of choosing an introductory text that is aligned with the course outcomes, readable for nonspecialists, and engaging to students. As one might expect from Keith Bodner, a prolific scholar holding PhD degrees in English Literature and Biblical Studies, his publication is readable and engaging, offering contemporary analogies (Broadway's Hamilton, for instance) to help students enter the world of a particular psalm or a suggested structure of the Psalter. In the introduction to the publication series, Essentials of Biblical Studies, Patricia Tull articulates the aim of the collection as providing "freestanding, relatively brief, accessibly written books," (xii). Bodner's contribution is exemplary in each case.

D. T. TSUMURA, "The Hebrew Idiom *nśˀ + pānîm and Its Use in Psalm 82:2." One of the most productive areas in the study of Hebrew idioms is that of ones involving body terms such as "face" and "head." This paper looks at the Hebrew phrase *nśˀ ("to raise, carry") + pānîm ("face"), i.e., "to raise the face." When someone raises their own face, it has the literal meaning, "to raise their face" or "to lift up their head," in order to see, or to do something of the kind (case A). But when someone raises someone else's face, the phrase becomes an idiom with the meaning "to accept someone" or "to show someone favor" (case B).

In several papers, Alviero Niccacci lays out his understanding of the Hebrew verb system with poetry, replacing the position he took in his 1990 monograph, The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose, JSOTSup 86. This chart is a one-page overview/summary of his solutions to difficult areas. For his larger theory on verbs in poetry, see:
"Analysing Biblical Hebrew Poetry," JSOT 74 (1997): 77-93.
"The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Poetry," pgs 247-68 in Fassberg and Hurvitz, eds., Biblical hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typology and Historical Perspectives (Eisenbrauns, 2006)
"Problematic Points That Seem to Contradict a Coherent System of Biblical Hebrew Syntax in Poetry," KUSATU 15 (2013), 77-94.

For an overview of the verbal system, see:
"An Integrated Verb System for Biblical Hebrew Prose and Poetry," pgs 99-127 in Lemaire (2010).

All of these essays can be found on his academia page.

The Hebrew Bible is the monument of God’s “alphabetization”, that is, of the casting of Israel’s deity into an alphabetic tag within a surrounding (alphabetical) text. If the process has implied the technology of the scribes, it is also a demonstration of their epistemology. What has emerged is a God à la lettre, thoroughly configured by the selection and the combination of the alphabetic signs and words. In such a context, God’s difference, for instance, is checked in the minimal graphic difference of two letters, dālet and rêsh. He gains  scribal features, not only because he is staged as a scribe, but also because, just as the scribes, he stands out as the ’āleph figure. He is the one who works wonders (פלא) and who signs his name with a triple אלף in a demonstration of scribal wit. But he is also the one whose breath is perceptible in the אלף in question, and in other (mostly guttural) consonants, when prosody infiltrates and livens up the written sequence.
Anytime a scribe is writing (in composing or copying), he actually revisits the sequence of the alphabet he has learned as an apprentice. He can write from ’āleph to bêt or from bêt to ’āleph, from ’āleph to tāv, or from ’āleph to kaf and, then, from lāmed to tāv, and make the most of all the intermediate combinations in the sequence. The present pages have endeavored to show that the biblical scribes surpassed themselves when writing about God. For all his transcendent qualities, the biblical God will always be a scribal achievement, one which never departs from its alphabetical fabric. In that sense, Victor Hugo was right: the alphabet contains everything, God included. The biblical God, however—the God of the scribes—has a way of his own to engage the alphabet.

Employing the methodology of Editorial Criticism, this article seeks to demonstrate that Book II of the Psalter (i.e., Psalms 42-72) consists of three parallel, compositional arcs that take the form of a journey. Based on keyword links, as well as clear organizational clues found in the superscriptions, the psalms of Book II are deliberately arranged to portray three parallel depictions of the same progression of events. Mirroring the general sequence of eschatological events portrayed in the prophets, Book II presents a threefold analogous deliverance out of exile into a global kingdom ruled by the Davidic king. While each journey highlights one compelling facet of that future kingdom, together they provide a multiperspectival and even complementary vision of the future which signals a renewed hope in the Davidic promises. Thus, this article will argue that the design of Book II of the Psalter does not extol the glorious days of a bygone era, but rather orients the reader to anticipate the ultimate eschatological fulfillment of what God had guaranteed in the future. The net effect of these compositional arcs (or journeys) for the readers would inevitably be to sustain them through the disorienting experiences of captivity and provide invincible hope for the age to come.

The structure of the poem is a fine example of classical Hebrew poetry. After an introductory strophe 52:13-15* (three poetic lines), the poem has four almost regular canticles, 53:1-3*, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12 (6.6.6.7 poetic lines, bicola). The poem as a whole displays a linearly alternating design: vv. 13-15.1--3.4--6.7-9.10-12 > A.B.A´.B´.A''. The canticles are composed of three 2-line strophes (vv. 10-11b is a 3-line strophe). Vv. 6 is the pivotal strophe and phrases the focal message of the poem. The identification of the suffering servant of this poem is an enigma.

(From the Editors' Introduction)
Michael Segal, in his contribution "From the Desk of the Hebrew University Bible Project: Divergent Versions of Habakkuk 3," explores the textual variations of Habakkuk 3. His study is based on the research and formulation of Apparatus I to Habakkuk 3 in the HUBP edition, with a particular focus on the Greek evidence for this poetic section. While the apparatus system allows for detailed analysis, Segal’s current study aims to synthesize this complex data to shed light on the broader implications for understanding textual dynamics, which are crucial for grasping the development of biblical literature. Segal examines the versions of Habakkuk from the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, and the so-called Barberini version, seeking to delineate the different literary editions of Habakkuk 3. Although his study does not yet provide a definitive answer, Segal demonstrates that “the dynamic aspects of growth” (32) in texts like Habakkuk 3 must be considered both in this specific instance and more broadly in discussions about the contribution of textual versions to the literary evolution of biblical books.

This contribution focuses on the figure of the deer or hind used in Ps. 42:2 to express the experience of the worshiper and his relationship with the divinity. The literary features of the Psalm will be analyzed and some possible relations with texts of the Ancient Middle East and with images documented in the iconography of the Southern Levant will be highlighted. Examination of these intertextualities will contribute to a better understanding of the meaning of such images in biblical literature and the purpose for which they are used; it may also provide some clues to the history of the literature and religion of Israel. Since the image in discussion is found in several pieces of glyptics conspicuously circumscribed in a short period and in rather limited zone, the article postulates that both the Psalm and the seals mentioned would have been produced in monarchic times and during the Assyrian period, in social milieus linked to the court of Judah.

Not only Jotham’s fable (Judg 9:8-15), but his entire speech (9:7g-20) has poetic features. The main aim of the article is to establish the structural and rhetorical poetry characteristics in this text. The structural characteristics include the following: chiasmus (antithetic, structural, split-member), gender pattern, metrical pattern, refrain-like structure, and threeand-four pattern. The following poetic constructions and rhetorical figures give Jotham’s oration a poetic character: anaphora, assonance, hendiadys, homophone, merismus, metonymy, oxymoron, parallelisms (syntactic and antithetical) play on words, and polar word pairs.

Doing research on the Biblical Hebrew verb system: Some problems of method 1 by Bo Isaksson The Biblical Hebrew verb system is an ever ongoing discussion. I refer for this discussion to McFall, Cook, Joosten, Notarius. 2 I will not review the research in this seminar. My aim is instead to 1. point out some remaining issues in the research on the Biblical Hebrew verb system, 2. suggest some methodological approaches that have been successful in the research, 3. and formulate some still open questions that remain to be clarified. Before I begin to enumerate remaining problems in Biblical Hebrew research on the verbal system it is appropriate to state some relatively recent advances in the understanding of the verbal system. One of these obvious advances is the recognition of the Canaanite genetic origin of Biblical Hebrew. This is explicitly pointed out by the recent A handbook of Biblical Hebrew edited by Randall Garr and Steven Fassberg (2016). As Lam and Pardee maintain the Hebrew verbal system must be regarded as the result of a diachronic development from a stage with two prefix conjugations, from an indicative and a jussive *yaqtul and an imperfective yaqtulu which both merged in a Biblical Hebrew yiqtol. So in the light of Amarna Canaanite and other Northwest Semitic evidence there are two prefixed verbal forms in Biblical Hebrew, not just one. This was proposed more than a century ago by scholars such as Hans Bauer, who called them "Kurz-Aorist" and "Voll-Aorist". But it is thanks to the achievements of Moran, Rainey and recently Baranowski that Amarna Canaanite has been shown to have its own peripheral Canaanite scribal tradition based on education in scribal families, 1 Paper read at the Semitic Seminar in Uppsala, April 4, 2017. 2 McFall 1982 The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System. Solutions from Ewald to the Present Day; Cook 2012 Time and the biblical Hebrew verb: The expression of tense, aspect, and modality in biblical Hebrew; Joosten 2012 The verbal system of Biblical Hebrew. A new synthesis elaborated on the basis of classical; Notarius 2007 The system of verbal tenses in archaic and classical biblical Hebrew poetry (in Hebrew). and it is more than probable that this family based scribal culture continued in Israel in the first temple period. Another advancement in recent research is recognition of poetry as part of the corpus of SBH. Since Archaic Biblical Hebrew is attested only in a limited number of poetic texts, "the remaining non-archaic poems (including the prophetic texts) of the Hebrew Bible need to be assigned some place in the diachronic continuum". It is unavoidable to include in the SBH poetry "biblical poems that are not overtly archaic or demonstrably late." (Lam and Pardee 2016: 2). Another achievement in Hebrew research is the common recognition of historical stages in Biblical Hebrew. Scholars of Biblical Hebrew today speak of four stages, Archaic Biblical Hebrew, Standard Biblical Hebrew, Transitional Biblical Hebrew, and Late Biblical Hebrew. It is also generally agreed among scholars that Epigraphic Hebrew, the Hebrew language that is archaeologically attested, is essentially identical to SBH prose (Lam and Pardee 2016: 1-2). Recently the verbal system of Late Biblical Hebrew has been devoted a monograph study by Ohad Cohen, The verbal tense system in late Biblical Hebrew prose (2013), 3 and a solid foundation of the study of archaic poetic texts is laid by a monograph of Tania Notarius, The verb in archaic Biblical poetry (2013). 4 In spite of the objections from Young and others, the linguistic data indicate that there are diachronic layers in the Hebrew text and these layers conform to the picture of Biblical Hebrew as a language in a Canaanite historical setting, with diachronic stages that can be traced in the received texts. But now to some of the remaining problems in the research on the Biblical Hebrew verb system. I will discuss: 1. The problem of the origin of the 'consecutive tenses', 2. The problem of the verbal system in poetry and a discussion of the concept of 'modes of discourse', 3. The problem of a 'Northern', Israelian, dialect. 1. The problem of the origin of the 'consecutive tenses' 'Consecutive tenses' is the term commonly used for the quite unique interaction between the imperfective yiqtol and we-qatal on the one hand and qatal and wayyiqtol on the other hand.

Late scholarship on Lamentations has focused on comparative analysis between Lamentations and Mesopotamian city-lament poems. These comparisons have helped to distinguish Lamentations from the rest of Biblical Hebrew poetry, in particular Psalmic laments. This paper draws on the growing body of compositional analysis of Hebrew poetics to highlight semantically related poems throughout the book of the Twelve which have strong correspondence with Lamentations 4. First, I demonstrate that the Oracles against  and Day of the Lord oracles of the pre-exilic prophets create a micro-corpus of not only lexical collocations, but of shared metaphors and symbols, deep poetic structures, and analogical correspondences. Second, I affirm that the book of Lamentations is analogically related to Mesopotamian city-laments under the same methods developed above. Since divine incursion and human response, a core structuring logic of Mesopotamian city-laments, are thus present within the book of the Twelve and Lamentations, the two texts demonstrate further cohesion. Under this same consideration, Lady Zion is read analogically to the tutelary deity of the Mesopotamian city-laments, begging the chief god of the pantheon to reinstate the city.
This paper concludes by suggesting a reformatting of associations between city-lament texts and what are traditionally considered prophetic. It is plausible, then, to establish the force and purpose behind Lamentations as a prophetic message, not merely as a salient lament poem.

The intent of this book is to initiate conversations between two seemingly similar corpora of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament the scholarship of which has developed independently in the last few decades and remained separate. To our knowledge, there is currently very little scholarship that sustains conversations between the Psalms and the Twelve (XII). We believe this volume will fill a gap in the scholarship of the Psalms and the XII.

Our modest aim is to demonstrate that insights gained from reading the two corpora, even if done separately, can productively inform the reading of both when brought together in conversation. The value of allowing one mature research field to affect the other to spark new growth is too great to ignore. As such, we have gathered several specialists who have worked extensively with either one of these corpora, or both, to initiate and engender conversations.

These contributors hail from five countries (USA, Italy, UK, South Africa, and Singapore) and their essays adopt a particular approach, which can be methodological, scribal, thematic, theological, or literary.

Psalm 8 serves as the first creation hymn of the Psalter, and as such is worthy of an exegetical and theological analysis. This analysis will begin with an exegesis of the text, since exegesis rightfully precedes theologizing.[1] The exegesis will include a translation, examination of the historical and literary contexts, the genre classification, structure, and discussion of the literary features with special attention given to parallelism and conclude with a brief exposition. After the requisite exegetical analysis has been completed, a theological synthesis will be commenced progressing from the psalms location in its microstructural setting to its use in the New Testament before giving some concluding remarks about systematic usefulness. It is the goal of this examination to invoke praise from the reader so that they too might join in worship of the Creator ‫יהוה‬ for His special relationship with His vice-regent-mankind. [1] Ken Gardoski. "Steps to Doing Theology." Clarks Summit, PA: Unpublished Class Notes from Doctoral Seminar TH1: Seminar in Theological Methods at Baptist Bible Seminary, Fall, 2020.

The following is a compilation of publications in the fields of psalms, psalters and poetry (and related subjects). The list of publications is organised according to chronological order. Notes are added in square brackets, in particular on revised new publications [→]. The abbreviations ABIG (Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte, Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt) and ÖBS (Österreichische Biblische Studien, Berlin: Peter Lang) refer to the anthologies with contributions on Psalms and Psalter listed under numbers 65, 93 and 96.

It is contended that 'Torah' in Psalm 1:2 refers to the Mosaic Torah rather than to the Psalter itself. The Torah of Moses is depicted in Psalm 1 as a guide on the road of life to the presence of Yahweh, symbolised by a paradise-like temple garden. The mutual connections of Psalm 1 and 1 Chronicles 22 with Joshua 1 might suggest that Psalm 1 was intended as an introduction to the first three books of the Psalter in the first place. 1 I would like to acknowledge the informal input of dr. Beat Weber, our Swiss Research Associate, who spent part of his Sabbatical in our department during 2005. I have benefited immensely from the regular discussions we had during this time. 2 McCann (2005:341) calls it one of the few things that Psalms scholars of all backgrounds and methodological persuasions seem to agree upon. The idea itself can be traced all the way back to Jerome, possibly even earlier (cf

Africa has some of the world’s fastest-growing cities. While urbanisation could be a sign of economic growth, the expansion of these cities is often done at the expense of social and environmental concerns. This article uses the Sacred Texts Approach of African Biblical Hermeneutics in studying Psalm 46. It argues that the two-fold threats to the City of God, namely the cosmic and the human, are the same threats to the cities in Ghana.

The present work is an investigation into both the semantics and functions of the particle אִם , and the conditional and non-conditional constructions in which it is found in Biblical Hebrew. A fresh examination of the particle and conditionality in Biblical Hebrew is warranted for two reasons. First, recent studies of conditionality based on a cognitive-functional based classification of conditionals have yielded fruitful results, indicating that the function of conditionals contributes to their interpretation. This study seeks to determine if this schema yields a more satisfying account of conditionality in Biblical Hebrew, as well as a better understanding of verb use in these constructions, than the results proffered heretofore. Secondly, advances in the cognitive linguistic sub-theories of Mental Space Theory and Construction Grammar have been utilized in the abovementioned cognitive-functional studies of conditionality. This study applies these to the Biblical Hebrew data in order to provide a more comprehensive explanation of the semantics of אִם and meaning construction in the constructions in which it is used.

This study will, therefore, offer an analysis of the different classes of אִם -conditional and non-conditional constructions (such as הֲ...אִם questions, עַד אִם and so forth). The semantics of the particle and the role it has in each construction is considered. Furthermore, this study investigates whether the aforementioned cognitive-functional schema yields generalizations regarding verb use that were not obtainable under the traditional framework.

The study confirms that אִם is the prototypical hypothetical marker in Biblical Hebrew and that it functions to build different types of mental spaces. Contextual factors can conspire to promote non-hypothetical construals. Schematic semantic components of the particle, grounded in its role in conditionals, are employed in non-conditional constructions in order to build alternative and background-scenario spaces utilized in contextual meaning-construction.
Included in the study is an examination of the patterns of verb use in אִם -conditionals. A complex of factors including discourse type and context, viewpoint of the speaker responsible for the conditional (narrator or character), epistemic stance, and the location of the eventuality vis-à-vis the speech event crucially influences verb choice. Predictable patterns emerge and are discussed.

This book offers a detailed analysis of birth metaphors in Job 1, 3, 10, 38, and 39 by using blending theory, supplemented by conceptual metaphor theory. It explores both metaphors that describe birth and those that use birth as a metaphor for other concepts, such as creation and death. It also concerns related concepts such as fetal formation, womb, and stillbirth. The metaphors are studied in their cultural and literary contexts, as well as how they are grounded in embodied experiences of birth. Blending theory explains various cognitive processes and can analyze both conventional metaphors and new, complex ones. It explains the debated expression of death as a return to the womb in Job 1:21, based on a cognitive process where something is understood through negated features of its antonym. A detailed mapping of the metaphors in Job 3 reveals, contrary to the dominant interpretation, that Job does not wish to curse all of creation but only the day he was born. Furthermore, it shows that the womb is blended with the grave and Sheol, but without projecting any positive associations of the womb to the realm of death. This study examines how conventional metaphors are replaced by new ones and demonstrates how the birth metaphors in Job 38–39 challenge the traditional combat motif, where God is seen as combating the sea and wild chaotic forces. The portrayal of God as a midwife includes an act of breaking the limit to the sea, which contradicts the combat motif. Rather than dominating creation, God is depicted as a midwife and a parent who is close to it, providing all wild creatures with food and freedom. Overall, the study underscores the central position of birth metaphors in these key chapters of Job. A close analysis of the metaphors contributes to the interpretation of the biblical text, from the understanding of specific Hebrew words to how innovative metaphors challenge both the beliefs of their time and current interpretations.

God’s anger is demonstrated in the book of Obadiah by the use of two metaphors: drink and fire. In this paper, I will analyze the אש ‘fire’ metaphor and argue that the אש ‘fire’ metaphor representing God’s anger in the book of Obadiah is semantically related to the use of אף (to be hot-tempered) and חמה (to inflame) in the prophecies against Esau/Edom. The reason for limiting this study to the prophecies against Edom is because the Prophecy in the Obadiah is specifically directed towards Edom. The pronouncement of this prophecy is in the context of judgment. For that reason, this metaphor fits well among the Kamba community who use a similar metaphor in the contexts of judgment. Article visualizations:

In this psychoanalytic-literary paper I aim to explore the “dark matter” of Job, investigating anality in its connection to creation and procreation mythology in Job 38-41. I suggest that the Book of Job contains a ubiquity of imagery concerning the alimentary processes, the buttock and the faecal matters, and that Job can be interpreted as troubled by an anal fixation.  Psychoanalytically read, the angry and upset character Job has usually been seen as undergoing a psychic transformation after the encounter with the theophany. I will problematise this view and suggest that Job still might remain stuck in an immature and unresolved, sterile autoerotic fixation; he still indulges in his inner toddler‘s anal pleasures and desire for the products of his own body. How is God’s response to Job’s anal conflict metaphorized and symbolized in Job 38-41? To answer this, I will use theories developed by Freud and his followers and investigate the biblical concept of “soil, clay” with its various qualities – dryness, wetness, fertility, sterility, assigned worthlessness, and ability to bring forth gold. The idea of humans formed out of clay is prevalent in Ancient Near Eastern and biblical creation myths. I will read these creation myths through a psychoanalytical lens with a focus on psychic conflicts in a child. I aim to highlight how the creation myth of humans made of clay, interpreted as excrement, mirrors the Freudian theory of a child’s psychosexual stages and the child’s confusion about how babies are made.  The immature child has a confused understanding of how babies are made; it understands the process as an act of the mother eating something, processing it in the belly, and excreting the baby through the bowels and anus as faeces. I will conclude with suggesting that the divine speeches show proof of a healthy anality, creativity and successful sublimation of repressed taboo material. In the end, the result is a golden work of art.

The book of Lamentations is virtually synonymous with the acrostic form. It is nearly impossible to describe the book without mentioning the importance of this structuring device found in the first four poems explicitly and latent in the twenty-two non-alphabetized verses of chapter 5. Readers have proposed a host of explanations for the acrostic’s significance in the book: a mnemonic aid for vocal performance, a means of expressing grief’s totality (A to Z), a literary confinement for suffering’s chaos, a linguistic vessel for holding together suffering’s complexity, an imitation of suffering’s maddening repetition, and so forth. Building upon these (and other) interpretations, this paper (re-)considers the acrostic’s visual appeal specifically and proffers a reading of Lamentations as a kind of concrete poetry. Although the acrostic may indeed have played a role in guiding ancient listeners or jogging the mind of its performers, its subtlety in chapters 1, 2, and 4 especially would likely have escaped the notice of all but the most perspicacious of listeners. The acrostic thus functioned, even if only subtly, as a means of engaging the eye, as well as the ear. As recent research has argued, Lamentations (or parts of it) may therefore represent a true Judahite literature, written for readers or private audiences first, as opposed to the public stage. With these considerations in mind, this paper will (1) consider the acrostic’s rendering in select Hebrew and Greek manuscripts as a means of elucidating its visuality, (2) propose a reading of the book as a literary “memorial,” whereby the poetry becomes a collection of word objects to be “seen” and “remembered” (cf. 1:9, 11, 12, 18; 2:20; 3:36, 63; 5:1), and (3) explores the theological significance of “viewing” these texts with God, Zion’s listener and reader.

As many have noted, the absence of any divine speech in Lamentations constitutes one of the fundamental theological problems of the book. Though Daughter Zion (1:9–11, 20–22; 2:20–22), the geber (3:55–66), and the community (3:42–48; 5:1–22) address God directly, no explicit divine reply ever surfaces (cf. 3:57). One must look elsewhere to hear God’s comforting speech—namely, 2Isa, which, as many have argued, appears to know and respond specifically to the prayers of Lamentations. Though descriptions of God’s actions and character abound in the book, their conflicting (and often disturbing) portraits resist integration. What then are the implications of piecing together the theology of a book that solicits a God who remains conspicuously silent in the face of horrendous evil? Where is God to be found in a poetic sequence that seeks God out to no avail? In this paper, I address the problem of divine silence in Lamentations with special consideration of the use of apostrophe in the book’s lyric poetry. I draw upon the discussion of apostrophe’s significance in lyric theory to consider how the poet fosters intimacy with God via the immediacy of the lyric, despite the (felt) absence of God. As Helen Vendler notes, the lyric has the constitutive ability to create intimacy within and despite loneliness not simply for the sake of expressing relation to an unseen other but also to redefine the terms of that relation altogether. This paper will consider how the lyricism of Lamentations—in the voices of Daughter Zion and the community specifically—manufacture divine proximity within divine silence. In this reading, Lamentations thus represents a drawing near to and of God by the power of the lyric.

The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1–18) features episodic narrative (re-)tellings of the exodus (and eisodus) events (e. g., 15:4–5, 8–10, 12–17) as a means of praising Yhwh for Israel's deliverance at the Reed Sea. Over against the preceding prose account (Exodus 14), the Song's narrativity is unique and recounts Yhwh's salvific deeds through its own lyrical means. Many have acknowledged these narrative features and accounted for their details in terms of the Song's poetic genre: they explain (away) the poem's distinct »telling« of the exodus/eisodus events, especially as it contrasts with the prose account, with recourse to lyric's typical features, particularly exaggeration, allusion, or brevity. The present essay critically examines the Song's use of narrativity as a constitutive device of its meaning with recourse to ancient Near Eastern iconography – specifically, the throneroom reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The essay begins with an analysis of historical narrativity within the Song before addressing the use of the same in the artistic program of Ashurnasirpal's throneroom. The throneroom's combination of historical and »iconic« scenes, its symmetrical arrangements, and its ingenious staging of the king's image vis-à-vis the enthroned king himself (among other features) provide an informative lens by which to evaluate the poetic and theological significance of narrativity in the Song.

The publication of Keel’s Symbolism of the Biblical World (German 1972, English 1978) demonstrated the val-ue of ancient Near Eastern iconography for interpreting biblical texts. In the intervening decades since (and of) Keel’s work, iconographic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible has witnessed significant methodological and theoretical developments, many of which can be broadly characterized by an increasing concern with issues of histor(icit)y and contiguity in the image-text comparison. The present work represents a (re)turn to a phenomenological approach to iconographic exegesis that is especially concerned with how images and texts might mutually inform one another at the level of their respective poetics. As a test case for such a comparison, this volume examines how the phenomenon of violence figures in Lamentations 2 and in Ashurbanipal’s palace reliefs - specifically, one of the Battle of Til-Tuba programs (Southwest Palace, Room 33) and the lion hunt reliefs (North Palace, Room C).

The project begins with a discussion of the neurological and cognitive relationship between seeing images with the eye and imagining them with the “mind’s eye” as a means of justifying such a phenomenological approach that compares how ancient artists and the biblical author construct the violent images that are seen and imagined in their works, respectively (ch. 1). It then conducts detailed analyses of the poetics of violent imagery in Lamentations 2 (chs. 2-3), the Battle of Til-Tuba reliefs (ch. 4), and Ashurbanipal’s lion hunt reliefs (ch. 5) before providing an extended comparison of the similar and divergent ways that violence figures in the literary and textual images of each piece (ch. 6). Overall, the volume profers new interpretive insights concerning the phenomenon of violence in the ancient Near Eastern artwork and Lamentations 2 specifically - particularly as it pertains to the poem’s construction of Yahweh’s and Zion’s bodies, its perspectival play, its manipulation of time, and the “power” of its imagery in eliciting the divine gaze. The project also demonstrates the utility of ancient Near Eastern art for illuminating not only what but also how a given phenomenon figures in biblical poetry and vice versa.

This is a full version of a paper given at SBL San Antonio in 2023:

“Recovering a Curse in Psalm 119:21: The Place of Curses in Psalms of Lament.” Biblical Hebrew Poetry Section. Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 20, 2023. San Antonio, TX. .

This article is a response to Ernst Wendland's article-also in this issue of Journal of Translation-which interacts with my cognitive approach to biblical Hebrew poetry, especially my recent monograph, Unparalleled Poetry (2023). In this article, I set my work within the broader context of biblical poetry studies and explain how it draws from literary and cognitive research to provide a robust framework for the concept of the poetic line-a contribution to not only biblical studies, but also broader poetry studies. The poetic line gets to the heart of the nature of poetry: the line is central to not just poetic structure (up to the level of the whole poem), but also poetry's potential for rhythm and effects and construction of meaning. My view of the centrality of the line affects how I address various issues related to parallelism. I close by discussing the role and limits of method in regard to both poetic lineation and reading of poems.

The classic modern framework for biblical Hebrew poetry is based upon intertwined conceptions of parallelism and meter. This framework provides certain assumptions for how biblical lines work, as well as (often implicit) strategies for how biblical poems should be read as poems. These assumptions and strategies are apparent in modern analyses of Psalm 29, especially in the kinds of proposals consistently made for altering the Masoretic Text to make it more “regular”, even in the absence of textual evidence. My recent book on biblical poetry (Unparalleled Poetry: A Cognitive Approach to the Free-Rhythm Verse of the Hebrew Bible, 2023) has challenged these assumptions and strategies, proposing a new framework for biblical poetry that is theoretically grounded in cognitive research and based upon the textual data of the biblical poems. Preferring the term “conformation” to parallelism, I propose that the versification system of biblical poetry is constrained by Gestalt perceptual processing and that the listening or reading strategies demanded by this versification system require part–whole processing of lines into line groupings, line groupings into figures, and figures into the whole poem, as the poem aurally unfolds. In this article, I demonstrate that these part–whole strategies of reading biblical poems make sense of the textual shapes of Psalm 29 and lead to an artful experience of the poem.

within the Song, 6 and the similar ease with which these were seen to be analogous to aspects of the relationship of creatures to their Creator. 7 However, this study-in line with much writing on the Song over the last century or so-is sceptical regarding any directly theological motivation for its poetic vision. 8 To borrow from the terminology of pragmatics, a case will be made that the topic of the Song is not God but man, 9 indeed not merely man but woman. This is the "gynocentric hypothesis." 10 It is not a new proposal; 11 nor yet is it out of fashion. For example, in an essay contributed for Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics (1994), John Callow asserts: "The Prologue makes it clear from the start that this Song is written from the perspective of the woman, not that of the man." 12 In addition to being written from the womanʼs perspective, this study will argue that it is precisely her perspective that is the deliberate focus of the Song. 13 This too is not a new proposal, though what is concluded from it, say by Ginsburg (1857) or by Clines (1994), differs markedly. The methodology of this study, like Callowʼs, employs standard discourse linguistic techniques in analysing the text of the Song of Songs. In particular, it follows more recent work, like Nicholas Lunnʼs (2006) application of information theory to biblical Hebrew poetry. In the fifth of Lunnʼs 6 E.g. Origenʼs "perfecta sponsa" (in Rufinusʼ Latin translation). 7 E.g. "… her humility and loveliness, and his majesty and beauty. The believer is as …;-Jesus is as …" George Burrowes, A commentary on the Song of Solomon, (Martien, 1853), p. 110. 8 "Literal modes of interpretation … have … gained wide acceptance in the last century." Pope, op. cit., p. 90. 9 The traditional English-language man-God opposition is used here to anticipate the quote from Alexander Pope. 10 Cf. Marvin Popeʼs terminology in summarising views attributed to the "Womenʼs Liberation Movement": "the modern Movement has had little use for the Bible except as a provocation for protest, to be indicted as the primary document of patriarchalism. The androcentric Creation myth of Genesis 2-3 has been understood…" [emphasis added]. 11 "Let it not be said, then, that a Book which celebrates the ascendency of a virtuous woman in humble life over all the blandishments of wealth and royalty, is unworthy of a place in Holy Writ."

Does biblical criticism have anything to contribute to a theologically engaged study of Scripture? The answer implicitly provided by many scholars, both within the guild of modern biblical scholarship and outside it, is clear: The biblical critic's findings are irrelevant to constructive projects. These findings may be the product of intensive philological, comparative, and historical work, but they are no more connected to the tasks of the modern thinker than artifacts dug up by an archaeologist. Indeed (some theologically and literarily minded readers assume), biblical critics often produce work that impedes an interpreter who is oriented towards larger ideas. Those ideas, after all, emerge from textual wholes that are subtle, creative, and innovative, while biblical critics (these readers believe) have a penchant for dismembering texts or reducing them to hackneyed representatives of types of thinking or textual genres found elsewhere in the ancient Near East. As a result, not a few theologians and philosophers who attend to the Bible shun the work of biblical critics. 1

It is easy to underestimate Ruth. The story is short and sweet, in elementary Hebrew, about a loyal and obedient daughter-in-law, or so we have been led to believe. The book and its eponymous character are surprisingly complex. Although Ruth is an exemplar of Hebrew narrative, it contains two poetic insertions in the first chapter. Literal translations lose the poetry, and poetic translations are less faithful to the original language. Ruth has been chosen for road-testing a range of hermeneutical approaches, and here is one more. This paper approaches these poetic insertions and, indeed, the book of Ruth, as poetry and explores a new method for examining and interpreting Hebrew poetic texts, namely, exegetical poetry. I pay particular attention to poetic devices—parsing for parallelism, alliteration, and other poetic elements—and explore their significance. As I translate and exegete, I compose poetry reflecting the form, content, and theological themes of the Hebrew poetry through the use of similar English devices, imagery, and mood. The result is an amalgam of showing through exegetical poetry and telling through prose commentary, enriching our understanding of the characterization of Ruth and Naomi, and the relationship between these poetic insertions and the broader narrative.