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The Dynamics of Parallel Verse A poetic analysis of Deut 32:6–12
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
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The major purpose of this article is to study the dynamics of biblical poetry, especially in terms of its dominant device, parallelism. The goal of poetic analysis is to understand the ways in which a poet strengthens his message through effects engendered by formal devices. The process of analysis needs a principled and reasoned method of study which can be applied to poetic materials. In poetry, as in music, a disciplined approach will deepen not only one's understanding but also one's appreciation of the poetic system as a whole and of individual poems.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982
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1 The term ‘parallelism’ is misleading because it registers only a superficial aspect of that phenomenon. In Euclidean geometry, from which the word is derived, parallel lines continue along the same plane, but never meet. In contrast, one of the essential characteristics of literary parallelism is the constant interpenetration of the A and B Lines in the nuclear couplet. If by ‘parallelism’ one means only some basic “similarity” between lines, the term remains objectionable. The most confusing and inconsistent aspect of the study of the device since Bishop Lowth is precisely the determination of the degree and type of “similarity” between parallel lines. Since parallel verse proceeds by the concatenation of binary statements, a term like ‘binarism’ would be more accurate than ‘parallelism’. However, the latter word is so entrenched in literary usage that it probably must be retained, if only as an element of scholarly tradition.
2 Geller, S. A., Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry (Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1979).Google Scholar
3 See Fodor, J. A., Bever, T. G., and Garrett, M. F., The Psychology of Language (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974) 329–72.Google Scholar
4 See S. A. Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry, 15–29. Sappan, R. (The Typical Features of the Syntax of Biblical Poetry in Its Classical Period [Hebrew with English summary; Jerusalem, 1974])Google Scholar also recognizes the basic principle of the reconstructed sentence.
5 On bĕnê'ĕlōhîm, or, possibly, 'ēl(îm), the reading of 4QDeut and LXX, see Skehan, P., “A Fragment of the ‘Song of Moses’ (Deut 32) from Qumran,” BASOR 136 (1954) 12–15.Google Scholar
6 Nešer probably also means a kind of vulture, an unfortunate fact which will be ignored in this essay.
7 See n. 32.
8 Wright, G. E., “The Lawsuit of God: a Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32,” Israel's Prophetic Heritage (ed. Anderson, B. and Harrelson, W.; New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1962) 26–67.Google Scholar
9 In the schema of the reconstructed sentence, the line is employed to connect terms in different “ranks” which share a metrical beat.
10 In fact, if the Masoretic vocalization is correct, the grammatical parallelism points to the following reconstructed sentence:
The parallel schema would be something like a b c//a c'd. However, this putative pattern is totally submerged by the three dominant ones. Especially significant in this regard is the phonetic correspondence of qānekā and wayĕkōnǎnekā. Of course, the fact that the three verbs are basically similar in meaning also adds to the shift in emphasis central to the transitional function of this couplet. The situation is made even more complex by the shift in the syntactic function of hû'. In the A Line it is the subject of a nominal sentence, in the B Line of the verb ‘āśĕkā. But the latter term is, as noted, grammatically parallel to qānekā. It ís possible that one is intended to perceive a minor dis-junction between hû’ and ‘āśĕkā as indicated in the reconstructed sentence above: “Is he not the father who created you; He (the father who) made you and brought you into being?” In this case, ‘āśĕkā is understood as a relative clause like qānekā, and hû’ is made even more emphatic by its disjunction and the hesitation in the listener's grammatical analysis of the structure of the couplet.
11 This structure is represented in Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry by the formula x x* (D). In Gen 4:23, for example:
kî îš hāragtî lĕpiṣ ‘î
wĕyeled lĕḥabbūrātî
The relationship between lepis'i and lĕḥabbūrātî matches that between qānekā and wayĕkōnǎnekā. Despite the differences between the two couplets, the poetic effect is similar.
12 The sign used for this pattern in Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry is x/ /x: a single term in the A Line parallels a double term in the B Line, and vice versa. Here, of course, we have only an imitation of the effect of this formula.
13 On this sense of lĕmispar, cf. Judg 21:23. Reference is to the belief that each people has its own god or, later, guardian angel; cf. Deut 4:19 and 29:25. The number of each is presumably seventy.
14 The only quatrain which required this analysis in the corpus of ancient poetry studied in Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry is Ps 29:1–2.
15 The syllabic asymmetry characteristic of ideal examples of this pattern is present only in the final members of the couplets: gōyîm bĕnê'ādām - ‘ammîm (2: 4:2), but the effect in any case depends more on the contrast between single and compound parallel terms. Striking in this case is the fact that in 8b–c two important syntactic boundaries are violated: that between regens and rectum of the construct relationship in gĕbūlōt ‘ammîm, and that between the subordinate clause, to which the infinitive bĕhaprîdô belongs, and the independent main clause, whose verb is yaṣṣēb. This is a good example of the possible contrast between semantic and syntactic structures in parallelism.
16 The expected forms hanḥîl and yaṣṣîb produce an even more striking sequence: ī–ō–ī.
17 A more strict example of alternating parallelism is vs 21, in which, as is usually the case, there is also a parallel relationship between the A and B Lines and C and D Lines of the quatrain.
18 Most commonly they occur at the beginning or end of the triplet or, as here, quatrain.
19 Casus pendens is perhaps to be understood as a type of nominal sentence in which the initial term is the subject and the remainder the predicate; see Ges. 143 and Meyer, Hebräische Grammatik, 92:4a. Its poetic function is probably to emphasize not merely the initial term, but the whole statement through the successive stressing of each of its parts.
20 Andersen, F. I. (The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch [Nashville/New York: Abingdon, 1970])Google Scholar rightly rejects appeals to ‘emphasis’ to explain all reversals in the supposedly rigid word order subject—predicate in all nominal sentences. However, in poetry emphasis must be allowed to play a role, and the application of Andersen's rules to vs 9a is unclear. When, as here, both subject and predicate of the nominal sentence are defined, it is notoriously difficult to distinguish them. However, it is likely that in 9a the order of constituents is predicate—subject. This is required by the parallelism with 9b. The latter's order is definitely subject—predicate, and it stands in a chiastic relationship to 9a. This analysis assumes that both are what Andersen terms ‘clauses of identification’. Note the similar statements in Deut 10:9; 18:2; Josh 13:14; 18:7; Jer 10:16, all subject—predicate; and, reversed for emphasis, Ezek 46:16–17. Also resembling vs 9 is Isa 5:7. Statements with resumptive suffixes are not uncommon in Proverbs: e.g., 1:32; 10:17; 13:3; 19:22. Often the nuance seems to be similar to that of our verse.
21 Close analysis of the parallel patterns of vss 6–9 shows that almost every couplet ends with a term that either is an expanded, compensatory unit or gives the clear impression of being one: 6d: wayĕkōnǎnekā; 7d: wĕyō'mĕrû lāk; 8b: bĕnê 'ādām; 8d: bĕnê 'ĕlōhîm (by imitation); 9b: ḥebel naḥǎlātô. It may also be true of 7b's dōr wādōr, technically a compound paralleling a single term, ‘ôlām. The exception, 6b: ‘am nābāl wĕlō’ ḥākām, is reinforced by inner parallelism and perhaps by dôr ‘iqqēš ûpĕtaltōl of vs 5.
This repeated expansion at the end of B Lines may have the function of aiding in the integration of the passage and also of building impetus. However, in vss 10–12 the poet has established an integrative pattern of a more compelling kind; this will be discussed below.
22 Most of these verbs represent the archaic use of the imperfect (or jussive) for punctual past. This radical departure from prose is itself poetically effective. In vss 6–9 the situation is quite different. There are only seven verbs, two of which are infinitives and therefore nominal in character. Moreover, some of the verbs are de-emphasized by the syntactic structures in which they appear; so the relative qānekā and perhaps even ‘āśekā. There is indeed a sense of movement in vss 6–9; however, it is produced not by the heaping-up of verbs but by other devices.
23 All of the parallel patterns in vss 10–12 are deletion-replacement formulae. In vss 6–9 only one couplet, 7c-d, exhibits that structure. However, in 6–9 the poet achieved the dominant effect of replacement formulae, compensatory lengthening of terms at the end of the B Line. In vss 10–12 there is genuine compensation, at the end of the B Line in every case, except 11b and perhaps 12b. Possibly this structure helps to reinforce the chain through integration. Other aspects of structure are relevant to the isolation of members of the chain. Thus, in vs 10b it is likely that there is a slight caesura after tōhû, and that yĕlēl yĕsīmōn is in apposition to it (note the Masoretic disjunctive accent). As a result, the latter phrase's association with the following lines is facilitated, and hence one's perception of the chain. Similarly, it is possible that there is a minor break after yiṣṣĕrenhû in lOd, isolating kĕ'îśôn ‘ênô. One's acceptance of such a pause is presumably based on the sequence of pronominal suffixes, most especially in yĕsōbǎbenhû, which precedes the strong hiatus of the A Line and which rhymes fully with yiṣṣĕrenhû.
24 This is the most common of all deletion-replacement formula; in the signs employed in Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry, x/x (D).
25 The effect is clear in examples like 2 Sam 22:22–23 (Ps 18:22–23). The use of antonymy is, of course, common in Proverbs. It accounts for the feeling of self-containment and aesthetic wholeness in the māšāl form. Antonymy appeals to one's sense of balance quite as much as synonymy. Similar in effect is the device of merismus; see Krašovec, J., Der Merismus im Biblisch-Hebräischen und Nordwestsemitischen (Rome: Biblical Institute, 1977).Google Scholar
26 The meaning ‘to acquire’ is inescapable in places like Job 3:22 and, especially, Gen 26:12. The relationship between language and image somewhat resembles that in Hos 9:10, where māṣā' properly refers to the simile of the unexpected finding of grapes (Israel) in the desert. It is the grapes to which māṣā' primarily belongs, not Israel. Yet the verb is not inappropriate also to the last in its sense of ‘to acquire’.
27 'ereṣ midbār is itself an unusual phrase, occurring elsewhere only in Prov 21:19.
28 See Ezekiel 16 and T. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 319.
29 See n. 23.
30 The fabulous power of vision of such birds is legendary; cf. Job 28:7; 39:29.
31 The apparently pausal form of yěraḥep is probably not relevant to this point.
32 The picture of vs 11 is still unclear in important respects, although it is clearly positive in tone; for the negative use of the image, see Jer 48:40 and 49:22 (note the parallelism of yid'eh // yiprōś kĕnāpāw). In 11a-b yĕraḥep seems to mean ‘to soar, glide’; Ugaritic rḣp (also used with nšr) is paralleled by diy = Hebrew d'h. However, ya‘îr still remains difficult. One would like some simple parallel to yĕraḥep: yā‘ûp (“al) or yid'eh (‘al); or perhaps qal yē'ōr (‘al). In all these cases the preposition must be supplied. Perhaps it fell out by vertical haplography; less likely is the possibility that ‘al of 11b is a “double-duty” preposition. As it stands yā‘îr is hiphil and transitive: ‘stirs up, excites’. However, yā‘îr of Job 8:6 is attractive in this context, although it still requires ‘al. It is apparently hiphil employed as qal (cf. hāqîṣ), equivalent to yē‘ōr; cf. Bergsträsser, Hebräische Grammatik, II, 19d and Gesenius 53e. The sense in 11a would be “like an eagle which is awake over its nest” or the like. Parallel to yĕraḥep, the picture is one of the bird circling high in the air above its nest guarding its young; cf. Isa 31:5: kěṣippōrîm ‘āpôt // yāgēn yahweh.
33 The best biblical example is Job 39:26–30. This passage's yagbiah nāšer // yārîm qinnô is tantalizingly reminiscent of kĕnešer yā‘îr qinnô.
34 That the poet has Yahweh and Israel in mind in 11c–d is indicated also by the grammatical structure: yiqqāḥēhû and yiśśā'ēhû point back to yimṣā'ēhû of 10a. The image of protection receives support from the motif of taking shelter under the divine wings; cf. Ps 17:8; 36:8; etc.
35 2 Sam 1:23; Jer 4:13; Lam 4:19; etc.
36 It is unlikely that one can combine the images of 11a–b and c–d into a metaphor derived from the practices of parent birds teaching their young to fly (cf. Skinner, ICC). Education, ornithological or human, is not germane here. The logic of the passage requires that the fledglings be quite unable to fend for themselves. The eagle must do more than give them a helping wing; he must rescue them from distress. In any case, the implied historical sequence of wandering in the desert and entrance to the promised land means that the primary meaning of 11c–d is swift, sure rescue. One cannot, however, exclude the possibility that the metaphor is based on the attested examples of birds bearing their young on their backs; see Lane, F. W., Animal Wonder World (New York: Sheridan House, 1951)Google Scholar chap. 10; and Driver, G. R., “Once Again: Birds in the Bible,” PEQ 89 (1958) 56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But this practice is surely much too rare to serve as the basis of an effective metaphor.
37 So in Deut 33:28; Jer 49:31; Ps 4:9; and, probably, Num 23:9. On the latter, see Gevirtz, S., Patterns in the Early Poetry of Israel (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963) 61.Google Scholar He reads: hen ‘am lěbādād yiškōn // ûbaggôyîm lābetaḥ yēšēb.