The Psalms have to be read as poetry, but that begs the question ‘What is poetry?’ Poetry uses language in a condensed form to convey layers of meaning and is often meant to be read aloud, with the sound, rhythm and form important to its effectiveness. It’s very different to the prose style we are used to in newspapers, magazine articles and novels, and tends to convey emotion and feeling as well as fact, causing us to ponder and ‘enter in’ to its meaning.
English poetry uses metre and rhyme for effect, but Hebrew poetry tends to rely on parallelism (which links two ideas and either compares or contrasts these ideas, with the repetition helping the listener to remember the points being made) for effect. This explains why there seems to be a lot of repetition at times in the Psalms (see Ps 70:1, Ps 120:2, Ps 3:1 and Ps 93.) Sometimes ideas are contrasted in pithy couplets (see Ps 1:6, Ps 34:15-15, also Proverbs 10:1-9). Sometimes the psalmists use anaphora (repetition for dramatic effect, as in the refrain ‘His love endures for ever’ in Ps 136) and inclusio (where an idea is stated at the start and repeated at the end, see Ps 118:1 & 29).
Alphabet acrostics are also great favourites in the Psalms (see Ps 9, 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119 and 145). Each line or stanza begins with a different letter of the alphabet; in Ps 119, for example, there are 22 stanzas of 8 lines each, with each line in a particular stanza beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This signifies completion, but is also a great aid to memory!
Metaphor and simile, whereby two things are compared, are also a feature of poetry. Similes compare two things using ‘like’ or ‘as’ (see Ps 42:1, Ps 92:12), whereas metaphors compare two things by saying something is something else (see Ps 23:1, Ps 18:1-2). ‘Metaphor uses the language of sense experience to lead us into the world of the unseen.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Answering God’, P 73) By submerging us in the familiar world of things we see around us, the psalmist is able to help us to see the invisible God and understand more of His nature.
We can read the Psalms without any knowledge of poetic form and God can still speak to us and bless us. But so often, having some idea of these things can enhance our understanding of the Psalms. Instead of dismissing them as over-the-top or boring because they repeat ideas, we can see that this is deliberate and that the psalmists use language to teach us many things. We can also see how language is used to convey emotion, to express feelings, to convey a sense of awe and wonder and we are drawn into God’s wonderful world. After all, God spoke creation into being and Jesus is the Word (Jn 1:1), so words clearly have enormous value and worth!