(Part 1)

JBTM Jeffrey G. Audirsch
36
Israel his dominion.
3
The sea looked and fled;
Jordan turned back.
4
The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills like lambs.
5
What ails you, O sea, that you flee?
O Jordan, that you turn back?
6
O mountains, that you skip like rams?
O hills, like lambs?
7
Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8
who turns the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a spring of water.
In the verses above, the underlined portions represent the words that are stated in the first
line of poetry and, yet, repeated in different terms in the second line. 21
The second form, antithetic parallelism, is somewhat self-explanatory—the second
line of poetry is contrasted/opposed to the first. This form of parallelism does not follow
any particular form or style. The contrasts and opposites between lines can be broad as
thematic points (i.e., sentence level) or as acute as words (e.g., Prov 15:18). 22 One of the
most famous examples of antithetical parallelism is Ps 1.
1
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
21
Due to its prevalence, synonymous parallelism contains various forms: the second line might
reiterate the former line (e.g., Nahum 1:2); the second line can repeat a key element from the first line
(e.g., Ps 105:20); the second line answers part or all of the first line (e.g., Isa 60:1); and sometimes the
literary movement is from general to specific or vice-versa (e.g., Ps 51:9). This list is not exhaustive,
but it does include some of the more prominent forms of synonymous parallelism. For the complete
list, see Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry, 154–61.
22
Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry, 161–62. More recently, Bullock defines antithetic parallelism
as a “method of saying contrasting things in different lines and in different ways.” See C. Hassell
Bullock, Encountering the Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 38.