March 12, 2011

Song Lyric 6

Poetical Insight:

For those of you that are taking part in the Psalm a Day, I thought I would share with you an aspect of Hebrew poetry.  One of the more common poetical uses is what is called Synonymous parallelism.  The Psalmist will say something in the first line, and then he will say the same thing in line two, just using different words.  This was very common in Hebrew poetry and is part of the poetry that translates through language barriers.  Psalm 6 uses this.  For example, starting in verse one,
"O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
           or discipline me in your wrather."

or again in verse 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10.  So basically the whole song.

No comments: