Unlocking Scripture: The Power of Parallelism and Law

I remember reading a chapter in a volume in theology written by my mentor, Dr. G.C. Berkouwer, and the title of the chapter was, "The Biblical A Priori." Well an "a priori" is a principle that is so basic and so foundational that it ought never to be violated, and the point of Berkouwer's chapter was this: that the one basic axiom of Scripture is that we ought never, never, never, never to attribute in any other way -- in any way possible the doing of evil to God, and that it is a principle of Christianity that God is never the author of evil -- that He's utterly incapable of doing evil. [00:00:08]

To solve this problem is a simple matter if we are able to recognize the specific literary form in which that particular text comes to us. What we have here is an example of a particular kind of parallelism which is a form, a literary device, that is very commonplace to the Hebrew and found throughout the Scriptures, but we are not accustomed to it so readily in our language as the Jew was in antiquity, and so sometimes we don't recognize it when it appears, and we stumble and get caught up and run into all kinds of bear traps because of our inability to recognize a parallelism. [00:02:09]

Parallelism simply is what it suggests, where you have verses or stanzas of Scripture that are set in close proximity to each other in some form of parallel fashion. The trick, however, is that there are different kinds and different types of parallelisms; there are what we call synthetic parallelisms, synonymous parallelisms, antithetical parallelisms, and other types, and each one has its own rules for interpretation. [00:03:38]

A synonymous parallelism is a case in the text where your two lines or your two verses or your two stanzas say the same idea but in slightly different ways or slightly different forms of speech. Let's turn to the book of Proverbs, if we may, and let's go to Proverbs chapter nineteen where we can find an example of synonymous parallelism in verse five of Proverbs nineteen. We read as follows, "A false witness shall not be unpunished; and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." [00:04:28]

Let's look at a different kind of parallelism for a second, at what we call antithetic or contrasting types of parallelism, where the two lines contrast one idea with another. Let's look at Proverbs now, Proverbs thirteen, verse ten: "Only by pride comes contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom." That is, pride brings trouble; the well advised or the humble brings well-being, so that you have the contrast between good and evil set in parallel forms in a balanced form. [00:06:32]

Another form of parallelism is what we call synthetic parallelism, where the -- there is kind of a rising crescendo where statements build upon one another, and we'll look at that in Psalm ninety-two. Psalm ninety-two, verse nine: "For, lo, Thine enemies, O Lord, for, lo, Thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn, and I shall be anointed with fresh oil." [00:07:42]

But it's that recognition that when we see parallelism we know we're dealing with poetry, and a flag should go up in our head that is a poetic structure that we need to be careful that we don't misinterpret it. And not only that, particularly if we recognize parallelism and we don't know what a passage means, if we have two lines, for example, that are saying substantially the same thing, we're not clear what it says in the second part. If the first part is clear, the second part is clarified by the first part. [00:09:35]

In the Old Testament, there were many, many different words for evil and for that because the Jew understood evil in lots of different ways. A calamity that befalls a nation, an earthquake, a hurricane, a defeat in war -- that was bad. You come and you say, "I have for you today bad news. We're having a terrible storm. A hurricane's coming; it's going to wipe out the city." That's bad news, but that is not the same thing as talking about moral evil or what we call sin. [00:11:49]

Now that we have used, however, some of the poetic literature, some of the wisdom literature, some examples from Proverbs of biblical style, I need to say another word about how to interpret the Proverbs, and put it in a broader context of how we interpret biblical laws and principles and precepts. And the first rule, of course, is to be able to distinguish between different kinds of laws that we find in the Bible. [00:14:35]

Casuistic law is just a fancy word for case law, and the normal form in which it's found is the form of an example or an illustration, usually with the words, "if, then." If you go back in the Old Testament, you read the line that says, "If your ox tramples down your neighbors roses, then you must pay such-and-such indemnity towards your neighbor." Now the point of case law is to give you a model, a guideline for practical judgments in the law court. [00:15:34]

But there's another principle that comes in here that is often confusing, and that's the proverb. What do we do with the proverb? How do you interpret a proverb? How do you apply a proverb as a moral principle to your life? There can be real problems here. Let's look again at Proverbs chapter twenty-six -- someday I'm going to find out the books of the Bible in order -- chapter twenty-six, verse four: "Answer not a fool according to his folly lest you also be like him." [00:18:08]

But don't confuse the proverbs with moral absolutes; they were never intended to be read that way, they were never set forth for us as the Ten Commandments were, there is a difference in how we interpret those laws, and we need to recognize it. [00:25:05]