The Use Of Figures Of Speech In The Bible

By Michael E. Travers

[Michael E. Travers is Professor of English, Southeastern College at Wake Forest, Wake Forest, North Carolina.]

Figures of speech abound in the Bible. In the Old Testament the psalms use figures of speech to represent God as a warrior and a shepherd. The Book of Job includes many figures of speech, such as the sea being shut in with “doors” and clouds described as a “garment” (Job 38:8–9). Also the prophetic books often include figurative language, such as Nineveh being described as a ravaged lions’ den in Nahum 2:11–13. Poems in the Pentateuch use figurative language extensively, specifically those in Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32.

The New Testament has many figures of speech as well. In Luke’s nativity account the Te Deum (Luke 1:68–79) and the Nunc Dimittis (2:29–32) make extensive use of light and dark as figures of speech. Many of Jesus’ parables use figurative language. Also the Book of Revelation uses numerous figures of speech. How are figures of speech to be interpreted, and how do they contribute to theology?

More than a century ago Bullinger listed over two hundred kinds of figures of speech in the Bible.[1] He wrote that no other “branch of Bible study can be more important, or offer greater promise of substantial reward” than the study of its figures of speech.[2] An example of the significance of figures of speech in the Bible is seen in the bread and wine of the Last Supper. Interpretation is so important that disagreement over whether these words are figurative has separated denominations. Christ told His disciples that the bread was His body and the cup was His blood in the New Covenant (Matt. 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24; Luke 22:19–20). Obviously He could not have been speaking literally here, or a miraculous transformation in front of the disciples’ eyes would have occurred—and that did not happen. This metaphor and countless other figures of speech show how important it is to interpret figures of speech appropriately.

Scope And Nature Of Figures Of Speech

What is a figure of speech? This question may seem simple, but the history of the term is such that precise definition is difficult. Murfin and Ray define a figure of speech as “a literary device involving unusual use of language, often to associate or compare dissimilar things.”[3] This definition notes two elements: language and the comparison of dissimilar objects. Harmon and Holman note that scholars and rhetoricians traditionally have identified three categories of figures of speech: rhetorical figures (sometimes called figures of speech), figures of thought (sometimes called tropes), and figures of sound.[4] Rhetorical figures create an unexpected effect without significantly changing the words’ meanings, tropes change the meanings of words significantly, and figures of sound simply appeal to the eye or ear.[5] The problem with these traditional definitions is that the categories have undergone changes and even “direct reversals of meaning” over the years so that their use today may be confusing.[6] Today most scholars do not recognize figures of sound as a category of figures of speech.[7]

The problem is compounded further for biblical scholars because modern theorists do not treat figures of speech consistently. On the one hand Osborne sees a wide range of figures of speech, identifying six types—comparison, addition, incompleteness, contrast, personal figures, and association or relation.[8] Of these types the figures of comparison, the personal figures, and the figures of association or relation all involve comparisons of one sort or another, whereas the figures of addition, incompleteness, and contrast do not. Literary scholars, on the other hand, often include as figures of speech only those uses of language in which there is comparison. These writers speak of metaphor as the prototypical figure of speech and often use the term “metaphor” as a synonym for figures of speech in general.[9]

In view of this lack of agreement as to definitions it seems best to follow a common-sense approach that differentiates figures of speech in particular from figurative language in general. Using Harmon and Holman’s categories and following Murfin and Ray’s lead, the present author uses “figures of speech” as a generic term that includes rhetorical figures and tropes but excludes figures of sound. Further, the term “metaphor” is used for the specific device in which two objects are linked figuratively by the copula verb (as in “I am the Vine”). (When modern scholars use the term “metaphor” to refer to figures of speech in general, this usage will be noted). For the present study, then, figures of speech are to be understood as unusual uses of language in which comparison is either stated or implied.

How do figures of speech function and how do they make sense? Figures of speech have two “terms” or subjects, which are compared or brought into a relationship of similarity or contiguity. Richards calls the two terms the “vehicle” and the “tenor.”[10] Richards’s comments come from his two chapters on metaphor, but it is apparent that his observations on metaphor represent his view of how all figures of comparison work. The tenor in a figure of comparison is its underlying subject; the vehicle is the mode in which the tenor is expressed. In the familiar metaphor in Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd,” the tenor is the Lord and the vehicle is the shepherd. The primary subject of the metaphor is in fact the Lord, not the shepherd; the way (mode) in which the Lord is spoken of in the metaphor is the shepherd. To state it another way, the reader understands the subject (Lord, in this comparison) in the vocabulary of the mode (shepherd). The remainder of the psalm fills in the details of what it means that the Lord relates to the psalmist as a shepherd does to his sheep. The metaphor of the Lord as a shepherd represents a new way of understanding that applies the ideas and associations of one term (the vehicle) to the other term (the tenor). The new understanding comes from the “complete unit of tenor and vehicle;”[11] that is, it takes the combination, or “interpenetration,” of the two terms to make sense. The same can be said for all figures of speech that involve comparison.

Figures of speech may be subdivided into figures of contiguity and figures of similarity.[12] Figures of similarity are those in which there is no logical connection between the two terms of the comparison (the vehicle and tenor). To return to the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd,” there is no logical connection inherent in the comparison between the Lord and a shepherd. Figures of similarity include simile, metaphor, image, and symbol.

Figures of contiguity, on the other hand, are based on some kind of logical association between the two terms. The psalmists’ frequent uses of thrones, for instance, to represent God’s authority and majesty are figures of contiguity. A logical link exists between thrones on the one hand and authority and majesty on the other. Thrones “denote authority, power, majesty and splendor.”[13] In the psalmists’ use of the throne of God to represent His authority, one word (“throne”) is substituted for another (“authority”).

Specifically the substitution of one word for another with which it is logically connected is called metonymy—one of the figures of contiguity. The other common figure of contiguity is synecdoche, the substitution of a part for the whole. An example of a synecdoche is the clause “their feet run to evil” (Prov. 1:16). Obviously the synecdoche means that the whole person has chosen evil, not just his feet. The comparisons in figures of contiguity, then, turn on a logical connection that inheres between the vehicle and tenor of the figure of speech, while figures of similarity have no such logical connection between the terms. In both cases figures of speech ultimately associate two objects or ideas in ways they could not otherwise have been seen to have anything in common.

Theories Of Figures Of Speech

Several theories on the nature of figures of speech have been offerred in the philosophical literature on the subject. Of these theories three are particularly relevant to biblical figures of speech. These are the substitution theory, the emotive theory, and the incremental theory.[14] Authors who propound these theories speak of metaphor as the prototypical figure of speech, with emphasis on comparison of the terms involved. What these theories say of metaphor can also be said of other figures of speech in which comparisons are made.

The Substitution Theory

The substitution theory, offered first by Aristotle, considers metaphors as a deviation from normal language usage. “Metaphor,” he wrote, “consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else.”[15] That is, metaphors are a departure from normal meaning. “Metaphor, moreover, gives style, clearness, charm, and distinction as nothing else can.”[16] Metaphors are a matter of style and rhetoric, understood as suitable dress for communicating thought. The important point is that metaphors in this view are merely decorations in that they do not provide special cognitive thought; rather they simply illuminate or enhance the propositional ideas in the passage where they are found. “Throughout the history of Rhetoric, metaphor has been treated as a sort of happy extra trick with words, an opportunity to exploit the accidents of their versatility, something in place occasionally but requiring unusual skill and caution. In brief, [a metaphor is] a grace or ornament or added power of language.”[17] The identifying feature of the substitution theory of metaphors is the view that they do not add cognitive content to the passage in which they are found; instead they enhance or enliven it.

Advocates of the substitution theory understand the metaphor that compares the Lord to a shepherd tending sheep simply as decoration and then exegete the passage accordingly. Rather than interpreting the psalm in terms of its controlling metaphor of the shepherd, the interpreter sees through—or past—the shepherd language altogether, concentrating solely on the tenor and all but ignoring the vehicle that gives the tenor its meaning.[18] This theory holds that figures of speech add beauty to the text in which they are found but they do not add meaning. What results is a split view in which theology is on one side of the text and literary decoration on the other. This bifurcated view of language is in sharp antithesis, however, to the way figures of speech function in the Old and New Testaments.

The Emotive Theory

The emotive theory agrees with the substitution theory that metaphors have no special cognitive content. But in the emotive theory the only function of metaphor is affective or emotive. Metaphors and comparison figures of speech affect the reader’s emotions but have no significant bearing on his or her understanding. The important part of a figure of speech is its effect on the reader, not what it may be perceived to mean in the text. Traditional ancient theories of rhetoric propound an emotive view of metaphor, and modern psychological and psychoanalytical theories of metaphor fall under this rubric as well, in that they emphasize the impact of metaphors and other figures of speech on the reader. In this view the comparison of the Lord to a shepherd in Psalm 23 is reduced to a therapeutic encouragement to a beleaguered believer and offers no significant theology—a less-than-helpful understanding of how biblical figures of speech work.

The Incremental Theory

Twentieth-century theorists came to understand that figures of speech are more than rhetorical flourishes or emotive triggers. The incremental theory holds that there is special cognitive meaning in a figure of speech and that that meaning cannot be expressed exactly the same way in any other form of words—including a propositional statement of the same or similar idea. In other words figures of speech provide propositional understanding that is unique to their expression. Seen in this light, figures of speech have theological import and must be interpreted accordingly.

According to Richards all language is inherently “metaphorical” or figurative in that it draws together terms that were previously not associated.[19] He states that meaning in metaphor (by which he represents comparison figures of speech in general) comes from the “interaction” of the vehicle and tenor. This interaction of the two terms of the metaphor produces a new thought that is not the same as the thought of either the vehicle or tenor alone. Metaphor, he says, “is a borrowing between and intercourse of thoughts, a transaction between contexts.. .. Thought is metaphor, and proceeds by comparison, and metaphors of language derive therefrom.”[20] Earlier theorists said meaning is something metaphors point to outside of themselves, but as Richards states, all thinking is inherently metaphorical. Metaphors therefore are not something added to thought; rather they communicate thought in themselves.

Richards’s insights into how metaphors work led to a number of significant studies. Following his lead and seeking to make his analysis of metaphor more precise, Black developed the incremental or interaction theory further. Black concluded that while not all metaphors express unique thought, some metaphors do indeed express cognitive content. “Metaphorical thought and utterance sometimes embody insight expressible in no other fashion.”[21] Sometimes called “strong” metaphors, these help readers understand a concept in a new light. In turn this understanding cannot be reduced to the “sum of the parts” of the metaphor, for it is the interaction of the two terms that constitutes the new thought.

Hirsch agrees, stating that metaphor is the “making of a new identification never conceived before.”[22] Hirsch’s well-known insistence that meaning comes from authorial intention renders this statement about metaphor significant for biblical scholars, because it asserts that the principle of metaphor represents the nature of thinking as a whole and cannot be dismissed as ornament or emotion. “No metaphor,” Soskice writes, “is completely reducible to a literal equivalent without consequent loss of content.”[23] No modern theorist claims that all metaphors create new cognitive content; that is reserved for strong metaphors. Still the overwhelming conclusion of modern research on metaphor theory is that some metaphors express unique thought.

For understanding figures of speech in the Bible the incremental theory comes closest to the way biblical writers seem to have used significant (or “strong”) figures of speech. Figures of speech like Christ as the Lamb of God, Satan as a roaring lion, or the church as a body or a building of stones are not decorations (substitution theory), nor can they be reduced merely to their emotional affects on the readers (emotive theory). Rather, they state something about the nature of Christ, Satan, and the church, respectively. They are primarily theological in import, not essentially decorative or emotional. In the incremental view the metaphor of the Lord as shepherd in Psalm 23 expresses ideas of provision and protection (among other ideas in the psalm at large) in a unique way that is important for the theology of the psalm.

Figures Of Speech And Meaning

If figures of speech are not merely language decorations in the text or rhetorical flourishes to affect the reader’s emotions, how do they express meaning? What is the place of figures of speech in hermeneutics? The starting point for a proper hermeneutics of figures of speech is their relation to truth. Zuck states, “The figurative is a colorful vehicle for presenting literal truth.”[24] That is, figurative language does not conflict with propositional language in the sense that it is false whereas propositional language is true. Rather figurative language conveys literal truth in that the ideas in a biblical figure of speech are literally true. They refer in some way to cognitive thought. To remove the false dichotomy between figurative expressions on the one hand and truth on the other, Zuck calls the figurative use of language “figurative-literal” and propositional language “ordinary literal” language.[25] Both figurative and propositional forms of language communicate literal truth; figures of speech simply refer to literal truth in a figurative way. Figures of speech are a mode of expressing literal truth. “Figurative language then is not antithetical to literal interpretation; it is a part of it.”[26] In one respect figures of speech provide literal truth.

Figures of speech reflect the way analogies work in human thinking. Learning occurs when a new idea to be grasped is related significantly to something that is already known.

Thinking is essentially analogical. As Hirsch writes, “No one would ever invent or understand a new type of meaning unless he were capable of perceiving analogies.” All thinking is “the process of metaphor.”[27] Ryken states, “Metaphor and simile are not ‘poetic devices’; they are a new way of thinking and formulating reality.”[28] Literary critic Frye states flatly, “We clearly have to consider the possibility that metaphor is not an incidental ornament of Biblical language, but one of its controlling modes of thought.”[29] Metaphor and all comparison figures of speech can indeed communicate thought and often do so in the Bible.

The Shaping Role Of Context

Context—both the immediate discourse and the whole canon of Scripture—must be noted in interpreting figures of speech. An example of how context governs meaning is the parable of the tenants who killed the servants and then the master’s son (Matt. 21:33–45). Using two important Old Testament images—the vineyard and the cornerstone—Christ condemned the chief priests and Pharisees. They understood that He was speaking against them (v. 45), but how did they know that? It was because they understood the figurative meanings of the vineyard (God’s people; Isa. 5:1–2) and the stone (taken from Ps. 118:19–23), which were related to a righteousness they could not possess without the Messiah. Context provides the limits of valid interpretation and helps the reader select the appropriate meanings from within those limits. As Osborne notes, “Theology rarely stems from the metaphor itself but rather from the whole context of which it is a part.”[30]

The first and most obvious level at which context helps the reader understand metaphor and comparison figures of speech is syntax. In his comments on metaphor Aristotle did not appeal explicitly to context because, for him, metaphor consists of a relationship of two nouns (albeit different from normal meaning).[31] He named at least four kinds of implicit associations that might inhere between nouns that are in metaphorical relationship to each other, making context a necessity for discerning what the metaphor expresses.[32]

Osborne discusses figures of speech in his chapter on syntax and seems to allow that figures of speech may rely on larger contexts than the sentence alone to communicate meaning.[33] “Grammatical and semantic analysis [and] syntactical research will occur at several levels,” creating what he calls a “continuous spiral upward” in hermeneutics which includes figures of speech. The spiral of contexts includes “semotaxis, the influence of the surrounding ideas.”[34] This suggests that interpreting figures of speech may often depend on contexts larger than the immediate syntax.

Richards notes that “the rest of the discourse” around the metaphor often provides “hints” as to which interpretation is appropriate for any given metaphor.[35] By “discourse” Richards means context in a larger sense than the syntax of the sentence in which the metaphor is found.

Soskice states that meaning in figures of speech occurs at “the level of complete utterance, taking context into consideration.”[36] That is, the author’s intention regulates the meaning of the figures of speech he uses. To assert that Jesus’ statement “I am the bread of life” is false because there is no logical connection between the speaker and bread is to miss the point of the metaphor. Taken in its context of Christ’s teachings about who He is—that is, in the context of the “complete utterance”—it makes perfect sense. The context provides clues to the meaning of any figure of speech.

Figures Of Speech About God

Nowhere in the Bible is the significance of figures of speech greater than in its language about God. Readers who do not give the figures of speech about God their due attention limit their understanding of the attributes and actions of God.

In the Old Testament God is presented in various images and metaphors—as a warrior, a shepherd, a king, a husband. In the New Testament Christ spoke of Himself metaphorically as the good shepherd, the living water, the bread of life, the vine. And the Holy Spirit is referred to as a dove, fire, and water. In fact if there were no figures of speech in the Bible to represent the triune God, the Bible’s expression of who He is and what He has done would be narrowed and incomplete. Why are there so many images of God in the Bible? “The answer,” Longman writes, “may lie in God’s own nature.. .. Images, particularly metaphors, help to communicate the fact that God is so great and powerful and mighty that he can’t be exhaustively described. Metaphor. .. may be accurate, but is less precise than literal language. Metaphor preserves the mystery of God’s nature and being, while communicating to us about him and his love for us.”[37]

Figures of speech encourage humility in the reader because it is often difficult to determine the precise ideas they communicate. Propositional prose is linear and univocal—at least that is the ideal. The purpose of propositional prose is to minimize ambiguity and maximize clarity; it does so by allowing for only one interpretation. The statement, “Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone,” leaves little room for misunderstanding, even though not everyone accepts it as true. Figures of speech on the other hand open up the range of meanings, thereby requiring the reader to rely on context to determine the appropriate meaning of the utterance. It would be inappropriate for instance for a reader to elaborate on the details of scorpions in Revelation 9. Soskice says that figures of speech allow us to “depict” reality, but not “describe” it precisely.[38] That is, the Bible does not provide a comprehensive description of God; if it did, He would not be God. Rather, the Bible expresses certain truths about the reality of God in words and often in figures of speech. There are limits, then, to determining meaning in figures of speech, limits set by the comparison itself and, as noted earlier, by the contexts in which figures occur.

Psalm 18:1–19 As An Illustration Of Figures Of Speech In The Bible

Psalm 18:1–19 is rich with figures of speech and serves well as an illustration of how they work in context.[39] David commented on two primary subjects—his hopeless condition in the face of Saul’s attacks and the Lord’s rescue of him from what would have been certain death apart from divine intervention. The structure of these verses can be understood in this way.

1. The reason for the psalmist’s thankfulness (vv. 1–3)
2. The psalmist’s problem (vv. 4–5)
3. The Lord’s response to the psalmist’s cry for help (vv. 6–15)
4. The results of the Lord’s response (vv. 16–19)

In verses 4–5 and 16 David employed a number of figures of speech about himself and his condition. Then in verses 6–15 he used a number of figures of speech about the Lord. The psalmist spoke of himself as being “encompassed” in “the cords of death” and “terrified” by the “torrents of ungodliness” (v. 4). The vehicle in these images is the cords, and the tenor is death. The effect of the image is to suggest that possible imminent death had paralyzed the speaker—which is an example of litotes (an understatement), for if he were to be killed, he certainly could do nothing more to defend himself. The same effect is achieved in the subsequent images of the “cords of Sheol” that were surrounding the speaker, and the “snares of death” that “confronted” him (v. 5). The accumulation of these images of restraint and despair conveys the fact that David felt totally beleaguered by the enemies he faced. He felt he was trapped, restrained, and consigned to an imminent demise. His reference in verse 16 to “many waters,” echoes the “torrents of ungodliness” in verse 4. These “bookends” underscore the speaker’s complete inability to support and rescue himself. One thinks of the same imagery of “breakers and billows pass[ing] over” Jonah (Jon. 2:3), carried down by the water to “the roots of the mountains” (v. 6), even to Sheol (v. 2). Jonah and David were both at God’s mercy.

In sharp contrast to the figures of speech in Psalm 18 that communicate the speaker’s utter hopelessness are the figures about the Lord. Whereas the images relating to the speaker are clustered primarily in the second section of the psalm, the figures relating to the Lord are found throughout the psalm. In verses 1–3 and 6–16 the psalmist accumulated figures of speech about the Lord and then stated the thesis of the passage in verses 17–18. Coming after the many figures of speech about God, the propositional statement that God rescued him from his enemies (vv. 17–18) is almost anticlimactic, for the evidence in the preceding verses seems to make rescue a foregone conclusion.

After affirming his love for God David described Him as a “rock,” a “fortress,” a “deliverer,” “the horn of [his] salvation,” and a “stronghold” (v. 2). The fact that all these figures are presented in one verse emphasizes God’s ability to protect David, who could not protect himself. David saw God as his support (a rock and a stronghold) and his defense (a fortress and a shield). Significantly these declarations precede David’s lament in verses 4–5 about his own utter helplessness. This structure places the fears in verses 4–5 in a framework of God’s omnipotence. Overwhelming though his fears may have been, when he remembered the Lord, he was assured of comfort. In fact one reason the psalm was written was to express this confidence in God and to praise Him accordingly.

The metaphors about the Lord in the early part of the psalm all reflect stability and protection, for they are static. In these metaphors God is the same as He has always been, and the speaker’s approaching enemy could not change His attributes or love. A number of other figures of speech in the passage, however, are dynamic. In a common image of God based on His deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt in the Exodus, the “divine warrior” image presents God as a powerful warrior who fought on the side of the Israelites.[40] Based on the metonymy of the temple (v. 6), which portrays the Lord’s majesty and power, the metaphors that depict God as a warrior indicate that He came to David’s rescue (vv. 7–15). God’s awesome power is portrayed in the hyperboles of the earth’s shaking and quaking and the “foundations of the mountains. .. trembling” (v. 7). It is true that God’s power could do all this and more to the mountains and the earth, but these cataclysms are hyperboles because no such upheavals occurred in the psalmist’s own life. In an anthropopathism the mountains tremble because of God’s anger (v. 7). Verse 7 depicts God rousing Himself actively in defense of His anointed one. David spoke of the Lord in the imagery of a warrior coming in the clouds of the sky, awesome to behold (vv. 9–14). All of God’s omnipotence was marshaled in David’s defense, for He “bowed the heavens” and descended with “thick darkness under His feet” (v. 9). This portrays God as a powerful warrior rushing to battle, and within the imagery is the anthropomorphism of God’s “feet” subduing even the sky. God rides the cherubim, and in His great power He “sped upon the wings of the wind” (v. 10).

Next the psalmist turned to the visual imagery of light and darkness (vv. 11–12) and the auditory imagery of thunder (v. 13) to underscore God’s invincible power and strength. The Lord “thundered in the heavens” and His “voice” resounded throughout the earth. While it is true that God can create thunder and lightnings to announce His presence, as He did at Mount Sinai with Moses, here the thunder is “a symbol for the transcendent power of God.”[41] The historical record in the Pentateuch of the Sinai event and its many New Testament allusions create a context in which these images are all the more powerful to the reader. The anthropomorphism of God’s “voice” announces His presence and judgment. His “arrows,” which are lightning, are “scattered” (v. 14). As a warrior God has the arsenal of all creation at His disposal and directed against David’s enemies. The Lord was “on the move,” and His advance was inevitable and terrible.

The figures in Psalm 18:1–16 portray the sharpest of contrasts between the helpless and hopeless psalmist on the one hand, who saw himself under attack by a merciless enemy, and on the other hand the omnipotent Lord, a warrior who rushes to the psalmist’s rescue with an invincible arsenal. These figures of speech are clearly images, metaphors, anthropomorphisms, anthropopathism, metonymy, and hyperbole. The text itself bears witness to the fact that these are figures of speech, for they depict God’s presence in highly personal terms that related directly to the psalmist’s need. Their theology stems from the context in which they are found and points first to God’s power marshaled on behalf of His anointed one. The passage also indicates that the proper response to the God who delights in His children is one of love and praise, for the psalmist began with a declaration of his love for the Lord (v. 1), expressed praise in the entire passage, and concluded with a declaration of God’s love for him “because He delighted in me” (v. 19). This forms an inclusio of love in the passage. If the figures of speech were to be removed from this passage, it would be significantly shorter and it would express a more adumbrated theology.

How, then, are figures of speech to be interpreted? They are to be interpreted like the rest of Scripture—in their appropriate contexts and for their theology.

Notes

1. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible: Explained and Illustrated (1898; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), xix–xlvi.
2. Ibid., vi.
3. Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms (Boston: Bedford, 1997), 129.
4. William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996), 213.
5. Murfin and Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 129; and Harmon and Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 213.
6. Harmon and Holman, A Handbook to Literature, 213.
7. Murfin and Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 129.
8. Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991), 103–8.
9. I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1936), 92–93. Richards contrasts “metaphorical” with “literal,” rendering “metaphor” synonymous with “figurative” (ibid., 119). See also Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956), 186; and Ian Paul, “Metaphor,” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 507.
10. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 96–97.
11. Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 48.
12. Wellek and Warren, Theory of Literature, 194.
13. “Throne,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, ed. Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998), 868.
14. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 24.
15. Aristotle, “Poetics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2:2332.
16. Aristotle, “Rhetoric,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2:2240.
17. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 90 (italics his).
18. Ibid., 123.
19. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 92.
20. Ibid., 94 (italics his).
21. Max Black, “More about Metaphor,” in Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew Ortony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 34.
22. E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979), 105.
23. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 94–95.
24. Roy B. Zuck, Basic Bible Interpretation (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1991; reprint, Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 1996), 147.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, 105.
28. Leland Ryken, Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 169.
29. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1982), 54.
30. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, 188.
31. Aristotle, “Poetics,” 2332.
32. Ibid.
33. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, 100–109.
34. Ibid., 117.
35. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 126.
36. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 86.
37. Tremper Longman III, How to Read the Psalms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), 121.
38. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 141.
39. On figures of speech in the Book of Psalms see Michael E. Travers, Encountering God in the Psalms (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2003), 35–42.
40. “Divine Warrior,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 210. For a helpful study of the divine warrior motif in the Old and New Testaments see Tremper Longman III and Daniel G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). Longman and Reid present God’s fighting against Israel’s “flesh-and-blood enemies” as “Phase I” of a complex picture of the divine warrior image.
41. “Thunder,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 869.