The Old Testament repeatedly breaks out into poetry. Even its narratives are graced, here and there, with a couplet or a longer sequence of verse to make some memorable point (cf. e.g., Genesis 2-4 in any modern version), and its prophecies predominantly take this form. While the Psalms are the main body of poems in Scripture, and were given (with Job and Proverbs) a distinctive system of accents by the Massoretes to mark the fact, they are, themselves, surrounded by poetry and rooted in a long and popular poetic tradition.
By its suppleness of form, Hebrew poetry lent itself well to this widespread use. A proverbial saying, a riddle, an orator’s appeal, a prayer, a thanksgiving, to mention only a few varieties of speech, could all slip into its rhythms almost effortlessly, for its metre was not parcelled out in “feet” or in a prescribed arrangement of strong and weak syllables, but heard in the sound of, say, three or four stresses in a short sentence or phrase, matched by an answering line of about the same length. The lighter syllables interspersed with the stronger were of no fixed number, and the tally of strong beats in a line could, itself, be varied, with some freedom, within a single poem. There was room, and to spare, for spontaneity.
From: Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary on Books I and II of the Psalms by Derek Kidner (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973), p. 1.
Kidner’s two-volume commentary on the Book of Psalms was published as part of the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries series (D. J. Wiseman, general editor). Kidner (born in 1913) was a tutor at Oak Hill College, in London (1951-1964) and then Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge (1964-1978). If the Lord wills, he will be 95 years old this coming September 22.
