Few Christians would dispute that the Psalms contain some of the most beautiful language in Scripture. Yet I dare say that a great many pass over much of the poetic language of the Psalms without understanding it. I know I have. Take, for example, Psalm 133: How good and pleasant it is / when brothers live together in unity! / It is like precious oil poured on the head, / running down on [Aaron’s] beard . . . Be honest now — how many of us have any idea what that means? Very few, I would guess. This is because poetry does not make simple propositional statements. It uses figurative language such as image, metaphor, and simile to cause the reader to enter into an experience with the author. That is what makes it poetry. We need to learn to identify and interpret these figures of speech. Using the example of Psalm 133, Leland Ryken gives us a lesson:
Image, metaphor, simile, and symbol are the “basics” of poetry, but there are other figures of speech that we also need to identify and interpret. One is allusion. An allusion is a reference to literature or history. As with metaphor and simile, we first need to identify the source of allusion and then interpret what aspects of that earlier situation are relevant to the context in which the allusion appears.
Psalm 133:1–2 provides a good example:
How good and pleasant is it
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
The fellowship the pilgrims experience en route to Jerusalem to worship God in the temple is like oil (simile), but not just any oil. It is specifically like the oil of Aaron (allusion). The passage to which this alludes is Exodus 30:22–33, where we learn that this oil was a “sacred anointing oil” that was only used only in connection with official worship at the tabernacle or temple. Having identified the source of the allusion, we can interpret it: the fellowship of the pilgrims is, like the anointing oil a holy thing and a preparation for worship at the temple.
—Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible as Literature (Zondervan, 1984), 97.
You can see, I hope, how rich this passage is when its poetry is understood, and how meaningless it is otherwise. So it is with all of the poetry of Scripture.
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Posted in: Bibliology · How to Read the Bible as Literature · Leland Ryken
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