Duane L. Christensen, ?rose and ?

© et^ in the Bible 179

the‫؛‬se; B: Genetelle Spätdatierung der ?entateuc^uellen‫ ؛‬C: Annahme weitgehender Eigen-

stämdigkeit der Traditionsblöcke des Pentateuch; D: Annahme einer sukzessiven Erweiterung
»pFOtojahwistischer« Stoffe durch eine elohisrische, eine späte jahwistische und eine priesterli-
che Redaktion) anhand des Befundes der losefsgeschichte ergibt, daß ihr nichtpriesterlicher
Bestand am einfachsten durch eine »Redakrionshypothese« (Modell D) erklärt werden kann.
Nu¡r durch sie ist sowohl den in der neuesten Forschung herausgearbeiteten Argumenten für
ein،en in sich geschlossenen Aufbau von Gen 3 7 -5 0 * als auch den traditionellen Argumenten
für eine literarische Schichtung gerecht zu werden.

Prose and Poetry in the Bible

The N arrative ?Deties ٠‫ ؛‬Deuteronom y 1,9—18

By Duane L. Christensen
(Ameriean B aptist Seminary of the West and Graduate Theologieal Union, Berkeley, CA 94704)

The boundary b e ^ e e n prose and poetry is not so easy to dehne as is

sometimes assumed. 7 ‫ ﻋاﺂ‬term »poetry« in the eontext of biblical studies
alm ost inevitably suggests the ?salms whieh are clearly »poetry« and a dif-
ferent lite ra ^ genre from the narrative sections of the ?entateuch and the
Deuteronom ic History. But within this so-called »prose« m aterial scholars
have long been aware of archaic Hebrew poetry, such as the »Song of M iri-
am« (£x 15), the »Song of Moses« (Dtn 32) and the »Song of Deborah«
(Jdc 5) - to name only the more familiar of the poetic passages imbedded
in narrative prose sections of the Hebrew Bible.
The M asoretes clearly grouped the ?salms with the books of Job and
?roverbs when they presented a system of »accentus poetici« for reading
the text of the these three books which is distinct from the system of »ac-
centus communes« assigned to the so-called prose books. But if the book of
Job is to be taken as »poetry«, then w hat about other narrative stories in
the Bible? And in particular, w hat about the obviously rhythmic and emo-
tionally moving parenetic discourse in the book of Deuteronomy? Though
the »Song of Moses« (Dtn 32) and the »Blessing of Moses« (Dm 33) have
long been understood to be poetry, the remainder of the book is alm ost
always considered to be prose.
To some degree the recent publication of the New International Ver-
sion of the £nglish Bible raises an interesting question in this regard in the
occasional presentation of isolated verses in poetic form. Thus Dtn 7,10 is
rendered:
٨ ٠ »‫ ؛‬wh© hate him he will repay ro
their face by destructi©n;
he will n©t be sl©w t© repay ro their
face those who hate him
180 Duane ‫ ا‬- Christensen, ?ruse and Poetry in the Bible

And again Dtn 28, 16—19 a som ewhat similar example:

You will be cursed in the city and
cursed in the countty.
Your basket and your kneading
trough will be cursed.
The fruit o‫ ؛‬your womb will be
cursed, and the crops of your land,
and the cafres of your herds and the
lambs of your flocks.
You will be cursed when you
come in and cursed when you go out.

But one wonders if the editors of this new translation were in fact bold
enough. In his doctoral dissertation, Georg Braulik presented the whole of
Dtn 4 in verse form together with metrical notation in an impressive 4‫־‬page
fold-out at the conclusion of his stylistic analysis of the Hebrew text*.
In his recent bool،. The Idea ofBiblical Poetry (1981), James Kugel has
made a strong case for the absence of any clear boundary bettveen poetry
and prose in the Hebrew Bible. He also notes the curious phenom enon that,
though the classification of poetry as a com position in verse ٠٢ metrical
language is commonplace, such a description does not seem to apply to the
Bible. Efforts to delineate a metrical structure in the poetry of the Bible,
though persistent through the centuries in both Jewish and Christian cir-
cles, have proved futile; for no single metrical theory has emerged which
commands the acceptance of the field of biblical scholarship as a whole.
For Kugel the quest to find such a metrical structure is a bit l‫؛‬l،e the tradi-
tional »quest for the Holy Grail« — it will forever remain beyond our
grasp. Thus Kugel opts for a concept of »heightened language« conceived
in terms of some sort of continuum , with the categories »prose« and »poe-
try« as polar opposites, at either end of some sort of spectrum in which
much of the Hebrew Bible is in a sort of »no-m an’s land« — somewhere
bettvixt the two. But such a position throw s in question our very use of the
terms »poetry« and »prose« as presently conceived in biblical studies.
This particular paper is an attem pt to dem onstrate the rather fluid line
bettveen poetry and prose in the Hebrew Bible in terms of a specific
»prose« text which was chosen to illustrate a new m ethod o f prosodic anal-
ysis developed over the course of the past three years, prim arily in the study
of Deuteronomy and Jo n a h s A short passage from the first half of the so-
called »Guter Frame« of the book of D euteronom y (ch. 1—3) has been se-
lected from a larger study because of its brevity and the fact th at it i!lus-
trates the dom inant features of w hat some are calling narrative poetics in
the Hebrew Bible — namely inclusion, parallelism at various levels, and a

1 G. B!‫־‬aulik, Die Mittel Deuteronomischer Rhetorik, 1978.

2 See my artiele, »The Song of Jonah: A Metrical Analysis« JBL (June) 1985.
 Duane L. Christensen, ?rose and ?oetry ‫؛‬٨ the Bible 181

m etrical sttucture which peints te an underlying system of musical compo-

sirion which is part and parcel of the text itself.
It should be noted from the outset that this particular study is by no
m eans the first attem pt to apply a theory of metrical analysis to »prose«
sections of the Hebrew Bible. In his monum ental study. Metrische Studien
(1 9 0 1 —07), £d u ard Sievers included Jonah 1—2 along with various selec-
tions from the ?entateuch and the Deuteronomic History in developing his
theory of Hebrew meter. And more recently D. Arvid Bruno has included
Genesis, £xodus and the whole of the Deuteronomic History in his study of
the H ebrew Bible in terms of a theory of metrical and strophic analysis^.
M y particular approach to Hebrew meter combines the two dom inant
m ethods which, though often seen to be opposing points of view, are in fact
com plem entary in nature. The traditional approach to Hebrew meter re-
mains that of the Ley-Sievers method which focuses on patterns of word-
stress within given poetic lines*. Recently Jerzy Ku¡ylowicz has criticized
this approach suggesting an im portant modification which is used in this
study5. As Kurylowicz noted, Sievers was quite right in excluding such fac-
tors as »parallelism of members« and other stylistic factors from the do-
main of Hebrew metrics. As he put it, »?arallelism of members etc. are
adornm ents proper to poetic style, but m ust be left out of consideration in
the analysis of the metre.«6 This statem ent dese^es some qualification, as
it is only with meter in the sense of rhythm in terms of accentual »beats« in
a given line th at »parallelism of members« as such is not significant. Some
aspects of parallelism itself can be described quantitatively through a se-
cond metrical approach to be described below. Here it is im portant simply
to describe how Kurylowicz’ approach differs from that of Sievers. By pay-
ing careful attention to the diacritical marks of the M asoretic accentual sys-
tem, Kutylowicz has devised a system of »Syntactic-Accentual M e t e r « I n
short, he counts syntactic units rather than individual words. Thus some
independent nouns and verbs lose their accent altogether when considered
from a metrical point of view.
A second approach to the study of Hebrew meter in vogue at the pres-
ent time focuses on the actual length of poetic lines in terms of counting

٦ Die Bücher Genesis-Exodus. Eine rhythmische Untersuchung, 1‫ و‬53 ‫ أ‬Die Bücher ]osua-
Richter-Ruth. Eine rhythmische Untersuchung, 1955‫ ؛‬Die Bücher Samuel. Eine rhyth-
nische Untersuchung, 1955‫ ؛‬and: Die Bücher Könige. Eine rhythmische Untersuchung,
955.
4 For a description of this approach see w. H. Cobb, A Criticism of Systems of Hebrew
Metre: An Elementary Treatise, 1905, 83 —107, 16 9 -8 4 .
5 ‫ ز‬Kurylowicz, Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics, 1973‫ ؛‬and: Metrik und Sprachge-
‫؛‬chichte, 1955.
6 ‫ ل‬Kurylowicz, Studies in Semitic Grammar and Metrics, 1973, 176.
7 ~he term used here is that of T. Longman, Bib 63 (1982), 238.
182 D uane L. Christensen, ?rose and Poetry in the B‫؛‬h)e

syllables®. Though this particular approach does produce interesting, and

often persuasive, insights into the prosodic structure ٠‫ ؛‬some texts‫ ؛‬the me-
thod itsel‫ ؛‬is in need of refinement*. Since counting syllables is essentially a
means of assessing the length of poetic lines rather than the rhythmical
m anner in which those same lines were spoken (or sung), there is no inhe-
rent reason to see the m ethod of syllable-counting as in opposition to th at
of stress-counting. The presence of »parallelism of members« in Hebrew
poetry does produce quantitative parallelism which can often be shown by
counting syllables, regardless of how the rhythmic stresses of that particu-
lar line were read. But since the Hebrew language makes a distinction be-
tween long and short vowels, there is a need to modify such an approach if
one hopes to assign m eaningful numbers to the relative length of particular
lines, especially if such num bers are to represent a measure of the length of
time used in speaking those lines in the m anner intended by the author.
The m ost useful approach to measuring the length of lines in Hebrew
poetry is th at of counting morae, i.e. the le n ^ h of time utilized in saying
the simplest syllable from a phonetic point of view. Though this particular
approach to scanning H ebrew poetry has been around a long time, it has
not been the subject of serious discussion in recent years, ft was a dom inant
approach in G erm an scholarship from the middle of the 17th to the early
19th centuries™. The m ost prevalent of the early advocates were j. Alting
(1608 —79) and ‫ر‬. A. Danz (1 6 5 4 -1 7 2 7 ) who gave their names to this ap-
proach, namely the »Alting-Danzian System« which survived into the 19th
centu^**. B. Spinoza (1677) was an advocate of this approach, as were
such scholars as H. B. Starke (1705), j. w. M einer (1748, 1757) and j. F.
H irt (177 ‫ ﻣﻘﻞ(ل‬N ineteenth century »Metriks« who counted m orae included
] ٠ Bellermann (1813), ] ٠ Saalschütz (1825) and H ubert Grimme (1897,

8 See T. Longman, ibid., 2 3 2 —38 for a convenient summary ٠٤ this approach which has :5een
associated primarily with F. M. Cross, D. N. Freedman and their students.
‫ و‬The most common objection to this method of scansion remains that of the fr è te n t enen-
dation of the text practiced by most adherents. Though continuing to count syllables,
Freedman has taken a stand against such emendation and has turned to statistic ap-
proaches to explore structural patterns with minimal alteration of the MT. See in parti:ular
his article in: The Bible World, Festschrift C. H. Gordon, 146 - 2 ‫و‬58 ‫ م‬. ,
10 For a brief discussion ٠٤ this period see B. Fick, The Study of Hebrew Among lew‫ ؛‬and
Christians, Bibliotheca Sacra 42 (1885), 491 .3 ‫م‬-‫و‬ am grateful to Walter Bodine ٤٠· this
reference.
11 The system was subse‫ ؟‬uently discredited by Vater and Gesenius.
12 B. Spinoza, Compend. grammat. hebr., 1677‫ ؛‬H. B. Starke, Lux grammat. hebr., 17 ‫م‬5 ‫ث‬j.
W. Meiner, Die wahren Figenschaften der hebr. Sprache, 1748‫ ؛‬and: Aufldsung del ٧٠٢‫־‬
nehmsten Schwierigkeiten der hebr. Sprache, 1757‫ ؛‬j. R. Hirt, Synt. observationem ‫ إم‬10‫ﻣﺎ‬
crit. ad linguam Vet. Test, pertinentium, 1771.
 Duane L. Christen$en, Prose and Poetry in the Bible 183

1903)13. The basic problem with these early approaches to counting m orae
is th a t the system was applied to the wrong ends and became much too
com plex and overly refined. There is no need to take into account the con-
sonants as such‫ ؛‬nor is there any reason to break dow n the possibilities into
the four categories commonly listed. As with sim ilar scanning devices in
other m odero languages where vowel length is significant, it is sufficient to
ascribe individual vowels to one of two categories — either phonetically
short o r long, assigning a count of one for the form er and tw o for the lat-
te r14.
T he system of counting morae is foundational to the present analysis,
it is by this means that the essential prosodic units were determ ined and the
boundaries bettveen the larger groupings of these b in a ^ units ascertained.
It is at this point that the s^tactic-accentual m ethod of Kurylowicz was
useful to determine the rhythmic meter as such. The tw o approaches were
found to complement each other. Together they comprise a system which is
the basis of a structural analysis of the entire book of D euteronom y which
is nearing com pletion13. The end result is rem arkable in th at the structural
patterns which emerge also provide a fresh glimpse into some of the theo-
logical concerns of the author(s) ٠‫ ؛‬the book of D euteronom y as reflected
in the architectural design of the »poetic com position« taken as a whole.

٠ ٠ ٠

Organization of the people for life in the prom ised land (Dtn 1,9 —18)16

I [5:5/5:5]
1,9 And I said to you / at THAT TIME / (saying)17: 19 3
»I am not able alone / to bear you. 2‫ث و‬ +

13 ‫ ر‬j. Bellermann, Versuch über die Metrik der Hebräer, 1813; j. L. Saalschütz, Von der
lorm der hebr. Poesie, 1825‫ ؛‬H. Grimme, ZDMG 50 (1896) 5 2 9 - 8 4 712 - 683(1897) 51 ‫؛‬
arid: Vierteljahrsschrift für Bibelkunde, 1903, 1 -1 4 .
14 ]imes Hoard, professor of linguistics at the University of Gregon, has described such a
s/stem fer scanning Japanese poetry (private communication). Por a similar counting sy-
t‫؛‬m based on mäträs (»instants«) with the same long vs. short vowel distinction, see V. p.
^atuk, »Poetics and Genre-typolo^ in Indian Polklore,« in: Studies in Indian Polk Tradi-
tons, 1979. 1 am grateful to Sue Clark for this reference.
15 My commentary on Deuteronomy is to appear in a new series. The Word Biblical Com-
nentary.
١٠ ‫ ظ‬scansion of each of the three strophes in terms of syntactic-accentual stresses is indicat-
ei in square brackets after the Roman numerals. The column to the for right of the transía-
ton lists the number of S)mtattic-accentual units for that line which, for the most part, are
founded by the disjunctive marks in the Masoretic accentual system. The boundary of such
184 Duane L. Christensen, ?rose and ?©etry in the Bible

YHWH your God / has multiplied you; 9+5 2

And behold you are TODAY / as the stars of the heavens 18 2
in number. 4 1
May YHWH / God of your fathers 14 2
increase you / as you are / a thousand times. 18 3
And may He bless you / as He said (He would) to you - 16 2
How can 1bear alone / your burdens ‫ئ‬, 15 2
your problems and your disputes? 8 1

metrical units within individual lines is marked by a slash. The ©ther c©lumn lists the m©ra-
c©unt of that particular line, which is simply the syllable‫־‬c©unt plus one additi©nal c©unt
‫©؛‬٢ each l©ng vowel in the Hebrew text. The horizontal lines in the two c©lumns indicate
the b©undaries ©‫ ؛‬larger groupings of metrical units which tend to fall into parallel sub-
groups in terms of either mora-count or syntactic-accentual meter.
17 The term le’mor is essentially e،}uivalent to the use of ‫ ؟‬uotation marks in Bnglish and often
best left untranslated. 1 have rendered it »saying« in parentheses to suggest that this open-
ing rubric is framed by a repetition of the same verbal root ٠tnr, »to say«. The phrase
THAT TIM£ is in capital letters here and elsewhere, as is the word TODAY in V. 10, to
suggest that these terms play a rhetorical function in the larger structure of the book of
Deuteronomy as a whole, ft seems best to highlight in a visual sense what surely was an
important aural signal to those who recited and heard this text in ancient Israel.
18 This verse is one of the few places in the book of Deuteronomy where there appears to be a
textual problem. As it stands the MT would scan as follows:
1.11 May Y H ^ / God of your fathers 14 2
i^rease ٣ ٧ / as you are / a tàousand times. 18 3
And may He bless you / as / He said (He would) to you - 16 3
1.12 How can 1 bear / alone 11 2
your problems and your burdens / and your disputes? 14 2
But such a reading is difficult to fit into any larger pattern as such, ft would appear that the
verse division is incorrect and has resulted in a seriesof unfortunateadjustments, ft is tetter
to see a single verse here and thus to remove boththesillûq at the end of V . 11 an¿ the
,atnäh in V . 12. This would enable us to remove the two occurrences of tiphä rephcing
them with conjunctive accents. £xchanging the order of the terms tarhakœm and mas-
sa^kæm not only improves the metrical balance in terms of mora-count; it also sha^ens
the parallelism with the corresponding line in ٧٠ ‫ و‬and improves the assonance h،re.
1,9 lo’-’úkal l'baddt se’et ,œtkœm
1.12 ,êkâ ,œssa ¡'bad¿¡ massa^hcsm
The fact that paired words are fre،}uently exchanged in transmission of poetic texts ii well
illustrated in the recent publication of a popular record by the singer ‫ ﺀةر‬1‫]ك‬ones, h his
rendition of the song, »£verything is Beautiful«, he sang the following two lines:
We shouldn’t care about the color of his hair,
٠٢ the length of his skin.
Here the exchange took place even when the end result was nonsense. When the seise is
not effected, exchange of parallel words is much more likely. The absence of the coijunc-
tion before massa^kæm in the Samaritan ?entateuch and some MSS traditions in LXX
offers at least minimal support for a variant textual tradition to that of the MT ‫؛‬t this
point.
 Duane L. Christensen, ?rose and ?©etty ‫؛‬٨ the Bible 185

4:5:4:5/2:2:21]
11
Ch©©se from am©ng you1,13 7
men who are wise and understanding‫؛‬
‫ س‬are know n/in your tribes 0 ‫؛‬ 11 2
‫دس‬ w i l l s t them /in eharge over you 1.» 12 2
And you answered/m e/and you said1,1415 :
worá is g o d which you said/w e should do<<^
.»
1,15 ‫ ط‬took 1/ ‫ﻃﺎ‬ heads of your tribes - 12 2
Men who were w ise/and known‫؛‬ 16 2
established them/(robe) heads 12 2
overyou : 4 1

Commanders of thousands / and commanders of hundreds‫؛‬ 18 2

A nd n f fifties / and c o m m a n d ers ٨ ‫ ؛‬tens - 19 2
A nd o fficers / th ro u g h o u t y o u r trib es
6 5+.

4]:‫ ه‬4 /4:‫ت‬

111 4:4 ‫ا‬
1.16 And !commanded 5 1
}rour ju d g s /a t THAT T1M£/saying: 16 3
»Hear ،‫ ط‬disputes between your brothers; 11 1
And judge fairly / between a man and his brother, 18 2
or an alien! 8 1
1.17 Do not stow ^rriality/in j udgment 2 15 ‫؛‬
Both ttasmall and th erea t/h ea r (alike)! 15 2

Do not be afraid/of any man, 8+6 2

For judgment/belongs ro God. 6+8 2
And the case/that is too hard for you, 12 2
Bring ro m e/an d ! will hear it.« 13 2
1.18 And I commanded you /a t THAT TIME 14 2
All the things (words) / which you are to do. 15 2

Before continuing with the discussion of the poetic features revealed in

the preceding analysis, it may be useful to summarize a number of rules for
counting both morae and s^ a c tic -a c c e n tu a l units, most of which are illus-
trated in the passage in (question.

Rules for Counting Morae

1. Short vowels which are counted as one mora include the standard short
vowels i e a o u and the reduced vowels, i.e. the vocal shewa and the
composite shewas ‘ ٠ ‫ﺀ‬.
2. Long vowels which are counted as two m orae include the unchangeable
long vowels i e o u and normally the changeable long vowels ë à Ö as

3. The furtive patah is counted, i. e. sämöa' in vs. 16 (5 morae).

186 D uane L. Christensen, ?rose and Poetry in the Bible

4. In propretonic position the changeable long Ö is considered short w hen

followed by a long vowel and is counted as one m ora‫ ؛‬i.e. soptêkxm in
V. 16 (4 morae).
5. ?ostaccentual qâmœs followed by hë (-äh) in nonverbal situations is
considered short and counted as one m om‫ ؛‬i.e. làylâ (2 morae) or m id-
bàrâ (4 morae).

Rules ^٠٢ C ounting Syntactic-Accentual Units

1. The boundaries ٠‫ ؛‬the S)mtactic‫־‬accentual units are normally marked by
the appearance ٠‫ ؛‬one of the 18 disjunctive accents (distinctive vel domi-
ni) as listed on the insert to Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.
2. At times the versification of the M T may be in error. In such cases the
tiphä governed by the silluq (or 5atnäh) may not be disjunctive‫ ؛‬i.e.
kaasœ r dibbœr lâkæm rather than ka'asœr / dibber lâkœm in V. 11.
3. Textual problem s alm ost inevitably result in a disturbance of the distri-
bution of the d is ju n c tiv e accents‫ ؛‬i.e. V. 12.
‫ﺀ‬ * ‫ﺀ‬

Inclusion
The phenom enon of inclusion may be described as parallelism at a dis-
tance. A com m on feature in Deuteronom y is the framing of strophic units
with repetition of specific words. Such framing devices are often »nested«
within other parallel frames producing concentric (or w hat some call chias-
tic) patterns. C oncentric structural patterns are characteristic of Deuteron-
omy and operate at various levels. In fact Dtn 1,9 —18 taken as a whole is
part of an elaborate concentric structure which may be outlined as follows:
1.1 —6a A —Sup<^scripti©n: Deuteronomy in Nuce
l,6 b - 8 B - Summons to £nter the ?romised Land
1,9—18 c —D r^ n i^ tio n of ‫؛‬Copie for L‫؛؛‬e in the Land
1,19-2,1 D - I s r a e l ’s Unholy War
2.2 —25 E —The March of C on gest
2 ,2 6-3,11 D ‫ ׳‬- THWH’s Holy War
3 ,1 2 -1 7 c ‫ ׳‬- Disttibution of the Land in Transjordan
3,18—22 B‫ ׳‬- Summons to Take the ?romised Land
3 ,2 3 -2 9 A‫ ׳‬- Transition: From Moses to loshua (Into, to ch. 31)

M ost of the phrases at the boundaries of these m ajor units have structtral
parallels which may be described in terms of inclusion. The opening rubric
in Dtn 1,9 thus functions as an inclusion with the first half of V. 18 to frane
the pericope as a whole:
»And 1 said to you, at THAT TIME« ( ٧. 9)
»And 1 commanded you, at THAT TIME« (٧٠ 18)
 Duane L. Christensen, Prose and Poetry in the Bible 187

The sec©nd half ٠‫ ؛‬V. 18 begins with the phrase kal haddebârîm (»all the
things«) which parallels the ©pening phrase ٠‫ ؛‬the book o£ Deuteronom y,
’ellœh haddebàrîm (»These are the words«).
It is interesting to note that each o£ the three m ajor sections o£ Dtn
1,9—18 are framed by similar inclusions. After the opening rubric in V. 9
the passage begins with the sentence lo ’-’ûkal lebaddî se’et ’œtkœm (»I am
not able alone to bear you«). In V. 12 we find the phrase ’êkâ ’¿essä’ lebaddî
. . . m a ssa akæm (»^ ٠١٧ can I bear alone your burdens«). The third section
(v. 1 6 —18) is similarly framed by a repetition o£ the phrase »And I com-
m anded (w ä >asawur1’) . . . at THAT TIM E (bäcet baht’). The same pheno-
m enon is present in the center section as well, though here the situation is a
bit m ore complex and will be discussed in greater detail below. In ٧. 13
Moses instructs the people to choose »men w ho are wise and . ٠. know n«‫؛‬
w h e r e a s in V. 15 Moses took »men who were wise and k n o w n « and estab-
lished them in leadership roles. The text then expands the list o£ leaders in
the second hal£ o£ V. 15 in terminology which is clearly military rather than
the judicial usage elsewhere in this passage.
A good example o£ »nesting« o£ terms w ithin a larger concentric de-
sign appears in the third section (v. 16 —18) as follows:
A - »And I commanded (‫؛‬w ä’asatvu ‫ ) م‬you!‫ ־‬judges at THAT TIME (bäcet babV)«
B - »Heat [sämoac) the disputes«
c - »Do not show partiality in judgment (1bammispät)
c‫» — ׳‬For judgment {bammispät) belongs to Cod«
B‫ ׳‬- »And I will hear it {ùsmactîw)
A' - »And 1 commanded {wä'asawuf) you at THAT TIME {bäcet babV)

Parallelism and Metrical Structure

Since the time ٠‫ ؛‬Bishop Eowth in the 18th century the concept of parallelism has been
cen:ral in the study of Hebrew poetry ٣ . And though Kurylowicz has made a strong case for
exc‫؛‬uding »parallelism of members« as such from the domain of Hebrew metrics, the case
ought not to be pressed too far. As is e^dent in this particular study, the groupings of syntac-
tic-accentual units tend to fall into binary, or parallel, patterns.
I /(5:5):(5:5)/
II /(‫رﻛﺘﻪ) ة( وﺗﻪ‬ 2:2:2)‫ر‬/+
III /(4:4:4):(4:4:4)/
Such an arrangement o£ foe text in parallel m etrical groupings may be con-
sifored an extension o£ the £amiliar concept o£ »parallelism o£ members«.
In the distribution o£ lines in terms o£ m ora-count a similar phenome-
non ‫ م‬£ binary or parallel groupings is characteristic, though foe picture is
complicated somewhat by foe appearance o£ w hat looks like »extra-m etri-

19 Cf. S. A. Ccllcr, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry, 1979; and j. Kugel, The Idea of Bibli-
C،1 Poetry: Parallelism and Its History, 1981.
188 Duane L. Christensen, ?rose and ?oetry in the Bible

cal« elements at the boundaries of strophic units. Thus in terms of moira‫־‬

count our passage scans as follows:
1 /[(33+32) + 4 = 69] : [(32+31) + 8 = 71]/
518+19+)
+ 6)(/+ 29
61
( +[=42+27
8])
(61
+: 2[=17)
‫ (؛‬+
7/]
14)
15+ ‫ﺀ‬+82
(12)
13+ +‫ل‬/(83
(14])
14+ : 15)
15+
[= (2111
26+
+7])( +5/

It should be noted that, strictly speaking, m ora-count is not a measure of

meter per se in foe sense of rhythmic stresses. Counting morae is simply a
means of measuring the relative length of units. The tendancy for both indi-
vidual lines, and elements within those lines, to fall into binary patterns is a
‫ ؟‬uantitative assessment of the phenom enon of parallelism operating at sev-
eral levels at foe same time. The so-called »extra-metrical« unit at foe
boundary of some strophes indicates that the parallelism as such does no t
carry over into the adjacent strophe.
The second strophic unit (v. 1 3 -1 5 ) presents an interesting situation
which may illustrate the phenom enon of parallelism on yet a higher level,
i.e. b e ^ e e n strophes. Though the m ajor part of this strophe consists of
two parallel sections in terms of both s t a t i c - a c c e n tu a l stresses, (4:5) :
(4:5), and m ora-count with a total of 61 morae in each case‫ ؛‬there is an
anom alous tacked-on element in the form of a triplet which scans 2:2:2 in
terms of syntactic-accentual stresses. If the same musical tune for the first
strophic unit (v. 9 —12) were repeated in the second strophe (v. 1 3 -1 5 ), it
would be necessary to pick up two additional s^tactic-accentual stress un-
its to complete the tune. The addition would then be the phrase »Com-
manders of thousands / and commanders of hundreds.« The total mora-
count for such a reading would then be /68 + 72 = 140/ which is virtually
identical to V. 9 —12 which scan /69 + 71 = 140/. The m ajor internal break
for such a reading would come after the term däbär (٧٠ 14) in the response
of foe people to M oses’ decision to select leaders »who are wise and under-
standing; who are known in your tribes«. Though there is no disjunctive
accent after the phrase tob haddäbär, such a reading is easy to understand
from a musical point of view. The m ê f k à used with tiphd would serve to tie
the two halves of the musical com position together — a bit like the close
connection between stanzas 3 and 4 in M artin Luther’s hymn »٨ Mighty
Fortress Is O ur God«, which curiously turns on the same term. In Luther’s
hymn the third stanza ends with the phrase, »One little w ord shall foil
him;« whereas the following stanza picks up immediately with the phrase,
»That w ord above all earthly powers«. In foe version of Luther’s hymn
copyrighted in 1976 by Faragon Associates, Inc. this close connection is
highlighted by foe use of a descant, »That word above all, abideth«, which
is to be sung at fois point.
ft is also interesting to note that up to the appearance of the »tacked-
٠٨ « element in V. 15b there is no explicit reference to m ilitary matters as
such. The leaders which Moses is choosing (v. 9 —13) and instructing (v.
 Duane L. Christensen, Prose and Poetry in the Bible 189

16—17) clearly have a judicial function. But here in V. 15b the leaders are
to b e »heads over you — commanders o f thousands, and commanders of
hundreds, and commanders of fifties, and commanders of tens; . . . officers
th ro u g h o u t your tribes.« In light of the subse‫ ؟‬uent discussion of »Israel's
U nholy W ar« (ch. 1 ,1 9 -2 :1 ), »The M arch of Conquest« (ch. 2 ,2 -2 5 ),
and »Y HW H’$ Holy War« (ch. 2 ,2 6 - 3 :1 1 ) this focus on military Ian-
guage is significant. Continued life in the Promised Land is dependent on
prior conquest of that land; and M oses’ successors must exercise both a
judicial and a m ilita ^ role in the life of Y H W H ’s people. The inherent ten-
sion between the demand for both justice and pow er on the part of M oses’
successors will be a dom inant theme in the D e u te ro n o m ic History.
Besides the parallelism at the level of metrical structure as shown in the
above analysis, Dtn 1 ,9 -1 8 also dem onstrates some of the more familiar
aspects of »parallelism of members« in the traditional sense. Lxamples of
such parallelism include the following:
1.10 YHWH your God has multiplied you;
And behold you are today as the stars o‫ ؛‬the heavens in number.
1.11 May YHWH, God of your fathers, increase you . ٠.
And may He bless you as He said He would.
1,13 Choose . . . men who are wise and understanding;
(Men) who are known in your tribes.
1.15 Commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds;
And commanders of fifties and commanders of tens —
1.16 Hear the disputes between your brothers;
And judge fairly bettveen a man and his brother or an alien!
1,1? Do not show partiality in judgment;
Both the small and the great hear alike.

Iu terms of word order, this last example also illustrates the use of inver-
sion, ٠٢ the chiastic A:B::B:A structure.
In short, a Hose reading of the H ebrew text of Dtn 1,9—18 reveals
poetic features at several levels of analysis. Inclusion, concentric framing
devices, and inversion serve to illustrate m ore familiar poetic features. At
the same time the passage is clearly w ritten in a metrical language which
displays studied parallelism at sfill higher levels of analysis. And yet, having
said all this, it remains clear that we have here a »prose« text in relation to
the lyric poetry of the Psalter. ٠٢should we say that »prose« in this context
is but a lower form of »heightened language« which might be more ade-
quately described as narrative poetry?

The »prose« text of Dtn 1 ,9 -1 8 is subjected to a system of prosodic analysis which

combines the counting of morae (units of length in rime) and syntactic-accentual units. The
end result is a remarkable symmetrical design of three »strophes« which display inclusion,
concentric framing devices, inversion and parallelism at various levels. And since the text is
cleatly written in a metrical language the analysis raises ‫ ؟‬uestions about the use of the terms
»prose« and »poet^« in narrative sections of the Hebrew Bible.
 ‫آلﻣﺂورلم؛‬

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