Most of us can remember taking a course in high school or college about English literature. In my experience, that was the course where I was first introduced to techniques used by writers beyond straightforward prose sentences. To be blunt, there are reasons why Shakespeare doesn’t sound like the newspaper. Fine literature like Shakespeare—and the Bible—is what it is because of deliberate techniques and strategies used by the writer.
The biblical writers use an amazing array of literary techniques. Some are familiar to us, like similes and metaphors, which are techniques that draw comparisons. Others, such as alliteration, are lost in translation. Alliteration is the intentional repetition of the same initial sound of nearby words. Familiar examples include “dead as a doornail” and “pretty as a picture.” The biblical writers use alliteration many times, but they do so in Hebrew and Greek.
Most literary techniques in the Bible, however, are easily discerned if one knows what to look for. The comment in 2 Chronicles 1:15 that “the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone” is a clear use of hyperbole, a deliberate exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Biblical writers frequently employ merism, a combining of opposite parts to signify a totality. The phrase “heaven and earth” (Ex. 31:17; Matt. 5:18), which signifies all of creation, is a well-known example. At times, biblical poetry is organized by an acrostic, a succession of lines that begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is a huge acrostic. The first eight lines begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second series of eight begin with the second letter, and so on through the entirety of the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119 wasn’t downloaded into the head of the writer; it took deliberate planning and creativity.
Two of the most common literary techniques are associated with prophetic messaging. Both Old and New Testament writers use symbols known broadly in the ancient world. The book of Daniel describes four beasts coming up out of the sea (Dan. 7:1–8). The beasts symbolize earthly empires. This technique is known from other ancient books outside the Bible that describe events related to an apocalypse. Biblical writers also employed typology. A type is basically a nonverbal prophecy—a person, event, or institution that foreshadows something to come. The classic example is the Passover lamb, which Paul tells us conceptually represented Christ (1 Cor. 5:7). Paul also sees Adam as a type, or foreshadowing, of Jesus (Rom. 5).
I don’t have the space to discuss all the literary devices used by biblical writers. It’s no exaggeration to say that every chapter in the Bible employs at least one. To better understand Scripture, we need to be alert to the strategies of communication the biblical writers employ. The more alert we are, the better we can follow their thinking.