Understanding Old Testament Poetic Prayers

Here a few things I learned about how to teach the Psalms at the Cornhill Summer School a few years ago.

1. Why are these poetic prayers in scripture?

Every human facit is touched and tainted with sin. Pslams are remadies for our tainted emotions, until we understand the Psalms we can not sing with enlightened emotion. Without God's word shaping our fallen emotions these emotions will fire off in all directions. The Psalms are there to shape our emotion. When we have finished teaching the Psalm we should be able to sing it.

1. Some Characteristics of Hebrew Poetry

• Density of expression
• Rhythm (but not usually rhyme)
• Parallelism
• Imagery
  

Parallelism is a major structure of Hebrew's potry
(a) roughly synonymous: pairs of statements saying the same thing but giving a kind of depth.

Psalm 83:2
See how your enemies are astir,

how your foes rear their heads.

(b) roughly opposite

Psalm 1:6

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish

(c) all the rest! The 2nd statement usual develops the 1st statement

Psalm 86:3

For great is your love toward me;

you have delivered me from the depths of the grave

Imagery: short similes and metaphors.

Psalm 2:9

You will rule them with an iron scepter;

you will dash them to pieces like pottery

Sustained imagery see Psalm 80:80-13

NB the idiom of using extremes to include everything in between.

Psalm 95:4-5

4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.

5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

Anyone want to add anything helpful?