Wednesday, March 12, 2008
IDEA: Observing Hebrew poetry means attending to details and structure.
PURPOSE: To help listeners learn how to observe Hebrew poetry.
Do you like poetry?
What kind of poems do you like?
How does reading a poem differ from reading a letter or a legal document?
A major part of the Bible is poetry.
How would you recognize that in the Bible (to know it's poetry)?
We're talking about observing the text.
Let's observe a familiar piece of poetry, Psalm 23.
1. What can we know about the name Lord?
It's the name of God that was most sacred to the Jews.
We're not really sure how it was pronounced because it was held in such awe. In public reading of Scripture it was left unpronounced.
"Lord" can be all caps = LORD (Jehovah) or lower case = Lord (Adonai). Psalm 8 uses both together in first and last verses.
This Lord is likened to a shepherd.
Note the possessive pronoun my. He is not a shepherd, nor even the shepherd, but my shepherd.
What does that imply about David?
Note the assurance of the statement: it's not that I hope it will happen. It's a present reality without doubt: The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. What is the relationship of this phrase to the first? Compare the tenses in the following two phrases:
Would it have made any difference if he had said "I do not want"? Is this cause and effect?
In the epistles, we'd probably have had a therefore.
Note that David states it negatively. Would it be different if it read, "I shall have everything"?
Want: is that the same as saying that I will not have any need?
Note the pronoun shift between verses 3 and 4, from third-person to second-person.
You're really talking about a shepherd in Palestine, not necessarily in a country with lush meadows and plentiful water.
Note that we're dealing with IMAGE.
It's important to see that verse one is the proposition dominating the psalm.
It could be the conclusion, based on the evidence David presents; or it can be that David presents particulars of God's shepherding action in his life.