Think a while, and ask yourself how would you understand
these verses?
Psalm 1:3 “That person is like a tree planted by streams of
water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.”
Wait… person is like a tree? How does a person yield fruit
and leaf?
Genesis 6:6, “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on
the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”
Wait… God grieved in his heart? Isn’t God All-knowing?
Mark 9:43, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life
maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall
never be quenched.”
Wait… what this verse is telling us?
Revelation 12:1, “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a
woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a
garland of twelve stars.”
Wait… the Sun and the Moon under her feet? Garland of twelve stars?
James 3:6, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.”
Wait… how is tongue a fire?
Matthew 16:25, “For whoever desires to save his life will
lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Wait… this is giving me confusion! They are so
contradictory!
Psalm 77:16, “The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You,
they were afraid; The depths also trembled.”
Wait… water isn’t a living thing to respond!
When a new believer read their Bible, they find so many
verses like these perplexing their mind. From a surface level, they make no
sense to our understanding. We are taught Bible is inspired, inerrant and
trustworthy scripture but how come these crazy verses fit in the Bible?
Now, hold your breath. We need to learn that the Bible is
rich in literature and doesn't have only one sort of language used to express its
theological message. Here, languages don’t mean Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. It
is a means of expressing our messages, ideas and communicating method. It has
diversity of figures of speech used.
Now, people might think why the Bible doesn't just use
simple and straightforward message to reach its audience? But this argument
doesn't even hold water since it is very true for every culture of the world.
There is great difference in the impact when we use a straightforward language
and when we use figures of speech for the same message. The use of figures of
speech adds more heavy weight, realistic expression, actualization of emotion
and demonstration of feelings.
E.g.
Simple and straightforward statement: I heard my friend died
of cancer this morning and felt sad.
Using figures of speech: When I heard about demise of my
friend due to cancer, thousands of volts of lightening hit me right through my
heart and tears flew with great turbulences.
The second expression makes the emotion more realistic than
the first.
The Bible also uses a lot of figures of speech to express
its theological message and interaction of humanity with God. We cannot just
take everything literally![i] However, figures of speech
stand for something very literal.[ii]
A general classification:[iii]
Figures of Comparison: Simile and Metaphor
Idioms of overstatement: Hyperbole, Hendiadys
Idioms of understatement: Irony, Meiosis, Antithesis,
Euphemism
Idioms involving omission: Ellipsis
Idioms of association: Metonymy, Synecdoche
Idioms stressing personal dimension: Personification,
Apostrophe
[i] InspiringPhilosophy,
The Ancient Cosmos: Cultural Context of the Biblical World, 2020,
accessed June 8, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EK8Ma83g5g.
[ii] C.S.
Lewis Institute, John Lennox How Does the Biblical Story of Creation and
Science Fit Together?, 2019, accessed July 5, 2022,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC5gEJ2l34Y.
[iii] Robert
I. Bradshaw, “Figures of Speech in the Bible” (1997), accessed July 5, 2022,
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_idioms.html.
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