"Parallelism and balance are two distinctive features of biblical poetry, " writes Laverdierre. These will be the topic of the present article. By using examples from the poetic sections of the Bible, I will illustrate what parallelism is and how it contributes to poetic balance.
Parallelism refers to the external form that a listener or a reader perceives in a poem. It is not a technique that has been developed for a particular effect, but the external manifestation of an interiority that grasps reality in similarities and contrasts. Knowledge is gained by comparing and contrasting experiences that have something in common (the similar). When such experience is expressed as poetry, it may sound like this:
A wise son makes his father glad;
A foolish son is a grief to his mother
Prov. 10:1
What is expressed in these two lines is the observation that a son's wisdom or lack of it, will affect his parents. The poet has expressed it the way he did without making any abstractions, but calling forth the experience itself, he illustrates an aspect of reality capturing it in its similarities (son, parents) and contrasts (gladness-grief, wise-foolish).
We draw another example from the realm of prayer (Psalm 8):
4Whenever I gaze at the heavens the work of your fingers; the moon and the stars which your hands have fixed in their place; 5What is man that you should remember him? Son of man that you should keep him in mind?
This section of Psalm 8 is the beginning of the poet's cry of wonder and amazement at the place that he and the whole of humanity holds before God. In verse 4 we find the line "at the heavens, the work of your fingers" somehow repeated and expanded in "the moon and the stars which your hand have fixed in their place..."
Immediately following this is the cry of wonder in two lines that implicitly contrasts earth-bound humanity to the celestial bodies (v.5). Note however the structure: Man=Son of Man; You-Remember-Him=You-Keep-Him-In-Mind. Ideas in the first line are repeated in the second line with a bit more coloring. While you find this same phenomenon in v. 4 in the particularization of "heavens" into "moon and the stars", here one finds an intensification in the verbs used (zkr, "to remember" and pqd, "to visit") and in the meaning of the nouns employed ('nwsh, "man-in-general", bn-'adm, "son of Adam", "son of dust", "mortal man").
The poet expresses amazement at the experience of the contrast between God's heavenly children (the elohim in v.6, the moon and the stars in v.4) and the sons of Adam (v.5) and the grace (see note) that this latter has found in the eyes of God (vv.6-9).
What these two examples have shown is that what we call "parallelism" derives from the interior world of the poet who in the act of expression, captures reality in its similitudes and contrasts.
Balance on the other hand, is the harmonious coordination of the parallels in the poem. The artist achieves this with his/her sense of proportion. Balance is not a technique, but a by-product of parallelism. To illustrate this, we use the entirety of Psalm 1:
1Happy the man
who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
nor walks
in the way of sinners
nor sits
in the company of the insolent,
2But delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night. 3He is like
the tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season and whose leaves never fade. [Whatever he does prospers.]
4Not so the wicked, not so
They are like chaff which the wind drives away. 5In judgment, the wicked shall not stand nor shall sinners in the assembly of the just. 6For the Lord watches over the way of the just but the way of the wicked vanishes.
Psalm I is the latest addition to the collection of the Psalms. When the Psalms were included in the Wisdom Books category, this psalm was added to function like a preface to the whole collection. It is, by motivation and content, sapiential. As in all of Wisdom poetry, Psalm 1 contrasts the just and the wicked with an emphasis on their destiny, an emphasis that is observable in the first word of the psalm: 'ashry "Blessed", "Happy". If happiness is the goal of all human striving, then the just man has it proleptically, that is, in anticipation. Therefore he is called "Blessed", "Happy."
The NAB and some other modern translations divide the poem into two strophe: vv.1-3 and 4-6. The first strophe is about the man who has no part with wickedness, but takes as his pleasant delight the instructions of the Lord. He is compared with a tree that is ever fruitful and ever green because planted, fixed, established besides running water. The second strophe is about the wicked who are compared to chaff, driven here and there by the wind, not fixed, nor established, nor planted on solid ground. Their destiny is not to stand up (qum) in the assembly of the just. Understood here is the position of those destined to perish: cowering on the floor, face close to the ground. The strophe ends with a contrast between the way of the just and the way of the wicked. The way of the just is known by the Lord, while that of the wicked is not given any of his attention. The way of the wicked vanishes, perishes, leads to doom.
Note that the parallels exist not only between lines but also between strophe's as well. The whole of verses 1-3 is in contrast with vv. 4-5, with verse 6 summarizing the whole. The comparison made between the tree planted by running waters is balanced by the comparison with chaff (dry, lifeless) that in gleaning time, is separated from the wheat by the wind. The wealth of images (more like snapshots) and words referring the just in the first strophe, is in contrast with the paucity of images and words used for the wicked in the second strophe. After all, before the eyes of God, nothing much can be said about the wicked. They are destined for destruction anyway. Balance is perceived in the whole of a poem. When the relationships between parallel lines and strophes are understood, then one can also begin to appreciate the balance that is achieved through the coordination of images and words that the poem evokes.
Notes:
The word for "grace" does not appear in the Psalm, but it is understood. hen is that something in a person that draws another to do something good to him or her (as in Ruth 2:10).
