Page 8 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

We might well wonder how Israel used this and other songs later in their travels or after they entered
the Promised Land. Did they occasionally sing the song as they walked through the wilderness? Or as
they prepared their children for bed at night? Or on the morning of a great battle? One of the last jobs
God gave Moses before his death was to sing a song for all the people summarizing God’s work in their
lives from before the time he brought them out of Egypt to the distant future (Deut. 32:1-44).

We know also of David, “Israel’s singer of songs” (2 Sam. 23:1). As the titles of the Psalms indicate,
others like the “sons of Korah” (Ps. 42) or Asaph (Ps. 82) wrote expressions of praise and prayer to God.
Some poems were collected together for specific times. The Psalms of Ascent seem to have been used
when Israel went up to Jerusalem to worship (Ps. 120-134). Whether in collections or individual poems,
they all speak the emotions and thoughts of God’s people as they live in connection with him.

Yet songs are just one form of poetry. Psalms and the Song of Songs by their titles are obviously intended
to be read in a different way than narratives. Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are all printed as poetry.
They are written in parallel form. They use many figures of speech. Their authors expect us to read with
a different understanding. In narrative we expect mostly literal speech. In poetry we are alert to word
pictures that have a literal point communicated in non-literal fashion. Exodus 15:8 does not suggest that
God literally has nostrils.

When Jewish scholars finalized the Hebrew OT, they organized it into three divisions: 1. Torah
(Pentateuch), 2. Prophets, both the former (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) and latter (Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets), and 3. Writings. The poetical books were placed in the third division of
the Hebrew Bible. Job, Proverbs, and Psalms were a sub-division called “The Book of Truth” because in
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Hebrew the first letter of each of these books taken together spelled ‘emeth (truth). The Jewish scholars
thought of poetry as truth, despite the imagery contained in the books.

The first poetical book in the Hebrew Bible is Psalms and stands for the entire collection of Writings.
Jesus instructed his disciples after the resurrection about passages in the OT about him. “This is what I
told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of
Moses, the prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).” Psalms headed the list of Writings, suggesting that
Jesus worked through the poetical books with his disciples pointing out to them passages about himself.
Our study will do the same, following the artistry and thought flow of the poetry and expecting to find
the Messiah. He is the heart of the poetry in the OT as well as all the other books.

The poetical books are also considered as wisdom literature.
It was written by those with hm'k.x -- hokm -- wisdom a particular skill in looking at the
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world and in writing down their conclusions. They were like
people with skills in weaving or carpentry or stone work (Exodus 31:3-5). The average person might be
able to figure out some principles for a successful life, but the wise man or woman had a special ability.
Their practical writings were “based upon a canny observation of the laws of human nature and the rules
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for success in social, business, and political life.” Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs have the greatest
concentration of what is generally called wisdom material.

7 Bullock, 20-21.
8 Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1974), 437.
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