Background / Structure

Before we actual “dig into” our study of the Beatitudes, it will be very helpful to understand some of the basics of reading Hebrew literature, in general, and some specific insight regarding the structure of the verses from Matthew 5 that we have come to know as “The Beatitudes.”

When one refers to “poetry,” many of us think immediately of rhyming verse. Hebrew poetry, conversely, is more about conveying visceral images that excite the senses and involve the reader by “drawing one into” the experience being conveyed. Hebrew poetry also focuses more on inviting one into a conceptual declaration or dialogue that engages the mind as well as the five senses thus making the experience one that absorbs the reader and involves him/her completely ~ a participant rather than an observer ~ an act of worship, celebration, or mourning, et. al., as the case may be, rather than offering a mere form of entertainment.

To this end, the Hebrew authors of our Bible employed repetition as the main instrument of emphasis. Technically this is dubbed parallelism. This technique is easy to appreciate, because it reinforces our natural tendency to repeat back what we have just heard, thought, or spoken when that in which we have just been engaged is of real importance to us. For example, if my friend Rachel had designs on a young man named Tom, and if Rachel asked me if I had seen Tom lately, and I replied to her, “Yes! As a matter of fact, I just spoke with Tom last night after he and Susan returned from Vegas. They apparently have just eloped and gotten married!” It would be very natural for Rachel to respond, “What!?! Tom and Susan eloped to Las Vegas and got married?!” I would not chastise her and say, “Well, that is what I just said, isn’t it?” No. I would understand Rachel’s mental processing, and I would reply, “Yes ~ it’s true! I saw their wedding rings, and Tom and Susan showed me the pictures they had taken in the Chapel in Las Vegas where they were wed!”

Once again, if one of my students heard me say from the front of the classroom, “Don’t forget, folks, on the Test tomorrow, it is imperative that you know all Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 in the order written, it would not be uncommon at all for me to hear mutters from around the classroom, as students scrambled to get pen and paper to write this key point of information, “Ten Commandments . . . Exodus 20 . . . in order!” ~ and them hear several or many of them repeat those words more than once as they are writing it down.

Yes, repetition is a key to learning, and repetition is even more valuable and is wisely employed with more intentionality when the information to be remembered is important to us. The specific style of repetition used in the Bible is the employment of “couplets,” sometimes “triplets” of thought wherein the idea being conveyed is repeated using different words. For example, Psalm 119:105 reads, “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my pathway.” The phrase “a light unto my pathway” repeats the concept of “a lamp unto my feet” using different words to convey the same visual image for the mind to “see” and to remember.

This repetition also creates a rhythmic cadence that enhances memory retention. This same principle helps to explain why we can remember so easily the tunes or “jingles” that we hear and sing. The advertising professionals who create the little jingles for radio and TV to promote their particular product brand know this and employ it to their maximum advantage; and remember also, please, that the psalms are songs that the people of Israel sang.

Occasionally, a “triplet” is used. For example, in Psalm 1:1 we read: “Blessed is the man who (1)does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly,
(2) nor stands in the path of sinners, (3) nor sits in the seat of the scornful, . . .
However, the most consistent pattern we find is with the use of couplets that are then arranged together with other couplets.

For example, Psalm 119, the longest psalm, and the longest chapter, in the Bible is an extended litany of praise to God’s Word comprised of couplets, built together in sets of eight couplets each, as an acrostic to declare the glory of G-d’s Word from “a to z.” An acrostic is the use of letters of an alphabet employed at the beginning of each line to form a specific pattern.

(To Be Continued . . . . )