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Biblical Poetry A lthough prose dominates, poetry permeates every part of the Bible. Indeed, about one third of the Bible is poetry. It can be found in almost every book—sometimes just a single line, but there are large blocks of poetry as well: all 150 psalms, the Song of Songs, the oracles of the prophets, and much of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations. Explaining the nature of biblical poetry is not easy because there are no clearcut distinguishing features to it and the differences between poetry and prose in the Bible are often quite subtle. Look, for example, at these two versions of the first plague on the Egyptians. The account in Exodus is commonly classified as prose, while the retellings in Psalms are categorized as poetry (and are set in line–verse format in the English translation of the Hebrew): Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded: he lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile; and there was blood throughout the land of Egypt (Exod. 7:20–21). He turned their rivers into blood; He made their waters undrinkable (Ps. 78:44). He turned their waters into blood and killed their fish (Ps. 105:29). What qualifies the Exodus passages as “prose” and the Psalms passages as “poetry”? Ask Bible scholars this question and you will get different and sometimes conflicting answers. Nevertheless, in spite of uncertainties in our understanding of this ancient, sacred literature, it is possible to delineate those sections of the Bible widely considered poetry and to outline their key stylistic features. Searching for Signs That It Is Poetry In the classical period, thinkers like Aristotle and Horace penned theories about the nature, mechanics, and effects of poetry. However, in the Bible we do not find definitions of poetry or discussions of how biblical poetry operates. In fact, biblical Hebrew does not have a general term for “poetry,” though various terms 77 The Jewish Bible do seem to signal the presence of a poetic passage. For instance, the passage known as the “Song of Moses” is introduced with the statement: “Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song [shirah]” (Exod. 15:1). David’s eulogy for Saul and Jonathan is labeled as a “dirge” (kinah) (2 Sam. 1:17). Many compositions in Psalms begin with the word mizmor, which is translated as “psalm” and likely indicates a song accompanied by a stringed instrument. Such terms suggest that a number of labels were used to classify certain types of compositions; yet these titles are not used consistently throughout the Bible, nor are they affixed to every text that we would consider a poetic passage. Since these internal indicators do not point conclusively or consistently to the presence of poetry, we might look to visual means to identify it. When opening selected Hebrew editions or translations of the Bible, one can determine the poetic sections by the distinctive layout of the verses. For example, in the JPS TANAKH, in Genesis 4:23–24, the prose format gives way to poetic verse, signaling a shift in language. Yet, in other editions of the Bible, no graphic distinction is made between poetry and prose. The convention of visually distinguishing poetic passages, called “stichography,’ evolved over time. Bible fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls show that the formatting of texts into verses was sporadic. In talmudic times, spacing was used widely in certain books, but it was not required. The Talmud established special writing for only five sections: Exodus 15:1–18, Deuteronomy 32, and Judges 5, which are poetic texts, as well as Joshua 12:9–24 and Esther 9:7–9, which are lists found in prose passages. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish scribes commonly incorporated some type of special spacing not only for the sections mentioned in talmudic sources but also for other parts of the Bible, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, the Song of Asaph (1 Chron. 16:8–35), and selected lists. After the advent of the printing press, most printed masoretic Bibles abandoned stichographic arrangement of all but those passages mandated by the Talmud. Most modern scholarly editions reverse this trend, employing stichography for everything considered poetry, including many of the prophetic books. Poetry in the TANAKH...

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