How to Study the Bible III - Hebrew Poetry Patterns

We went through two weeks of figures of speech. Then last week, we looked at rhetorical writing, which often contains figures of speech. And for example, a rhetorical question is a figure of speech. And sometimes, by the way, can you have figures of speech and figures of speech? Yes, you can. In other words, if I have a figure of speech that's built into a rhetorical question, That's double layers of figures of speech. Symbolism, like in Revelation, will oftentimes have figures of speech built within the symbolism. For example, the Apostle John will say, this is like or as, as he's describing the symbol. So you'll have figures of speech within a larger figure of speech.

Here we have Hebrew poetry patterns, and those differ, by the way, from other poetic patterns which we'll cover next week. The Hebrews had particular ways in which they did their Hebrew poetry, and it is definitely different from ours, and there are reasons, I think, why the Lord selected that as something that would be in Scripture. So some of those examples you see in the four bullets there, restatement of the same and or similar words in parallel, rhyming and meaning.

What is the advantage or what are the advantages of having meanings rhyme instead of having sounds rhyme like we do with our songs of poetry? When you translate it, it doesn't get... Yeah, you translate it and you maintain the, with the meaning, you maintain the meaning. Once you translate it in your rhyming sounds like we do, then you lose the meaning rhyme. And so, for example, some years ago I was over in Germany at a church over there, and they were singing Mighty Fortress is Our God. It's the same melody, but the words don't have the same meaning. You can't just translate it over and sing it.

So that's one of them. Here's another one. Restatement of the same and or similar words in mirror image also rhyming meaning. So what they'll have is not only repeating in parallel, but mirror image. In other words, they'll have something that's kind of like a small chiasm. And we'll go over chiasms as well. The next one is restatement by negation of the opposite as contrast of meaning. OK, this and then we'll have not that, right?

And then stating the whole by putting together two halves, often with and between the two halves. And we'll talk about what that two halves makes a whole pattern. The quick example would be heaven and earth. That's the way that the Hebrews would talk about all of creation, heaven and earth, or the heavens and the earth. So they would refer to all of creation or the universe in that way, heaven and earth, put that together.

So one of the reasons why this is a particular advantage is because you can translate in different languages. So they translate, for example, the Book of Psalms in other languages and it still rhymes meaning even though in the other language it wouldn't rhyme sound-wise.

And so one of the other advantages we have here is restatement also emphasizes because you're repeating something or stating something similar. And then it also helps us with certainty of communication. In other words, let's say I had not a clear idea, okay, what was the first statement? The second or third statement might say, oh, okay, now I get it, right? So you get some confirmation of what was said.

So let's take a look at Psalm 6, which you have there. I've done something here to make it easier to recognize, and that's that I've kind of changed the formatting, and that's something you won't find. But it is a way to study the Bible, is to look at how do I match things up. So let's take a look there. One of the things I've done is to bold O Lord, where it shows up repeatedly.

It says, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath. What do you see there? It's a double statement. Rebuke me and chasten me, those match up in terms of a negative input. And then your anger and your wrath. Again, rhyming words. And so here's Psalm 6 as an example, a good example of this Hebrew poetry pattern, because it carries all the way through. So, O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath.

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am pining away. Heal me, for my bones are dismayed and my soul is greatly dismayed. So, what you see in the first part, be gracious to me and heal me. Those are the pleadings or positive statements, right? And then, O Lord, and then followed with, how am I doing with this? I am, the first line, pining away, my bones are dismayed, my soul is greatly dismayed.

Right below there in verse 3. Now what do you see when it says my bones and my soul? What's that telling you? Where are your bones? They're in the physical side, aren't they? Right? And then my soul is on the spiritual side. So part of what this is doing is saying I'm being impacted both physically and spiritually. Right? Both physically and spiritually.

But you, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, rescue my soul, save me because of your loving kindness. What's the you, O Lord, how long, what's that question for? Why is there a question there for Lord, how long? How long for what? But is that for him, or for how long for him to live? Yeah, for how long before you respond, right?

Does the Lord always answer all of our prayers immediately, right away with a yes? No, and so that's a common human experience, is we're here, we're out of the time tunnel, and it seems like, Lord, you know, you've got to do something, but when, you know? So return, O Lord, rescue my soul, save me, because of your loving-kindness.

For there is no mention of you in death, and Sheol, who will give you thanks." Now let's ask the question, what does he mean by that? What's Sheol, for example? This is the place of the dead, right? And does that mean that there's no afterlife? Is that what this is saying? When we have a memorial service, do we mention the Lord? We do, certainly. But there's no communication from the dead to us. No communication from the dead to us there. Now here's a very interesting set of figures of speech.

In verse 6, I am weary with my sighing. Every night I make my bed swim. Ever see a bed swim? And then I dissolve my couch with my tears. So what's verse 6 telling us? A lot of hurt. A lot of hurt, yeah. Great grief, right? Great grief. And the, I make my bed swim, what does that mean? That's an awfully curious figure of speech, right? So many tears. Yeah, lots and lots of tears. Lots and lots of tears. And then he says it more literally, I dissolve my couch with my tears. So many, many tears.

My eye has wasted away with grief, it has, so what has? My eye, right? My eye has become old because of all my adversaries." Notice another pattern here. He's switched over to my, my, my, my, my. Where above there he had you, you, you. He's looking at himself now, isn't he? And then, depart from me all you who do iniquity. He's been talking to the Lord, now who is he talking to?

Yeah, the adversaries now, he gives a word to them and he switches back to the Lord, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping, the Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer, so the my pattern again, all my enemies will be ashamed and greatly dismayed, they shall turn back and they will suddenly be ashamed.

So you see in the Hebrew poetry pattern, probably Psalm 6 is one of the earliest examples with lots of that Hebrew poetry pattern. Not all of the Psalms have as much as what you see here. Psalms is Israel's national hymn book, about 150 Psalms, some of them are short, some of them are almost unimaginably long, like Psalm 119 being an example. And we're going to be talking later about how do I study the Psalms?

Because it's Israel's national hymn book, collected over roughly a thousand year period of time. So it's quite a collection. But it's Israel's national hymn book, therefore what does that tell you? What did we conclude because it's Israel's national hymn book? Does everything in the Psalms directly apply to me? So we have to look at it and understand, okay, how does this apply to me as part of the reason for this elective.

Okay, let's take a look here, top of page 2. So as we said earlier, these Hebrew poetry patterns are not just found in the Old Testament. So here are some instances in Paul's writings where he clearly made this point in the Hebrew poetry pattern. So we have 2 Corinthians 4, 7-11 as one example.

So it says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. So what you see is there's a divide there, and on the right hand side you see kind of the negative outcome. Except there's a negation in it. In the earth and vessels, the power will be from God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not despaired. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.

So that's parallel. Pardon? That's parallel. Yeah, and that's parallel from one to the next. If you look underneath there, we have this treasure, the surpassing greatness of the power of thee of God, and then I put a break in there, verse 8, So we're afflicted, so here's the external thing happening.

We're afflicted, we're perplexed, we're persecuted, we're struck down, and then the negation, but it hasn't gotten to this point, right? But we're not crushed, we're not despairing, we're not forsaken, we're not destroyed. So we have this external pressure coming against us, but it hasn't come to some final destruction.

So then we see the next line there, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So what do you see that's just repeated verbatim there? Manifested an hour. Yep. And that just goes word for word exactly the same. And then at the end of that, what's rhyming? Body and mortal flesh. Body and mortal flesh at the end of that is rhyming. So he keeps part of the line the same and then has a rhyming body and mortal flesh. statement there. And how about this, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus and constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake.

So that's a restatement, isn't it? A parallel restatement. So here's Paul, he's writing to the Corinthians and he breaks off into this Hebrew poetry pattern. Why would he do that? Why would he break into this Hebrew poetry pattern when he's writing in Corinthians?

Aren't they all just a bunch of Greeks? There's a lot of Jews here. Significant Jewish population there. By the way, Paul didn't always encounter a significant Jewish population. Philippi was one that, you know, you need ten Jewish men in order to establish a synagogue and they didn't have that so they met out by the river. So, there isn't always a large Jewish population, but there was a significant group of Jews at Corinth.

Okay, so Hebrews 2, 19 through 22, and we'll be going through this a little more later to see the pattern through all of Ephesians 1 and 2. So this is just picking the end of it, which is a Hebrew poetry pattern. And by the way, we'll also look at why this is a Hebrew poetry pattern, and why does he use it here. So we'll be looking at that. But right now, we just want to look at it and recognize it.

So then you are, you Ephesians, are no longer strangers and aliens, and this is strangers and aliens would refer to the Gentiles, the majority among those at Ephesus, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household. So, no longer strangers and aliens, but, in contrast, your fellow citizens of the group of saints and are of God's household.

Okay, verse 20, having been built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and by the way, apostles and prophets is a set of words in that order that occurs three times in Ephesians, so it's significant. Here it's the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, and by the way, that also tells us something else. Do we have Apostles around now? And one of the clues, it's not the only one, one of the clues is that it's the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, those are the ones who found what is being built up, who start what's being built up. And just like this building, you don't keep building foundation, do you? You build a house, you don't just keep going up with foundation, foundation, foundation, and foundation. You, at some point, start building on top of the foundation, right?

And the same thing here. So, Vern? Yes. A fossil who promised, is that two halves of the whole? I suppose you could take a look at it that way. It's the apostles and essentially those who have the gift of prophecy and those who are their associates work with them. We're not intending to go into the study of spiritual gifts, and we could, but that's another study in itself. So that Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone.

So what they would do is they would dig down, typically with a large building or with city walls, they would go down to bedrock. So for example at Jerusalem. go down to bedrock and then build up from there. They wouldn't do, as is common around here, where you go and dig down and okay, two feet down is enough, you know, that's good enough and now it's built. They would go down to bedrock. What were some of the reasons for going down to bedrock?

It doesn't move. Yeah, it doesn't move. Support. Support, yeah, okay. For the city of Jerusalem, where it's a defensive wall, what's the advantage of going all the way down to bedrock? You can't go under mine, because that was a hazard. If you had a shallow foundation that they could dig under, then the whole wall would collapse and that would be the way they'd break through. So you go down to bedrock and this thing is solid.

It turns out that the perimeter wall, for example, the Temple Mount, They went down to bedrock and then they used at the bottom huge stones. The stones were so big that the Romans when they were trying to tear down the whole temple and the temple mount, they couldn't move them. As a matter of fact, even today we don't know how Herod's crews got those in there. The largest crane in Israel could lift the largest stone but not move it. So, even today, we really have no idea.

So anyway, they would go down to bedrock, and once down to bedrock, they would set a cornerstone, the major stone that everything else was built off of. Everything that's going to get set with respect to this stone. And so, here it says, Christ is the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets are the rest of the foundation. That's the word picture here.

And then we see in 21 and 22 is where it really drops into a Hebrew poetry pattern. "...in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord." Verse 22, "...in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." So you see, identical is in whom. and then the whole building matches up with you also are, and then being fitted together is repeated just verbatim twice. So we've got being fitted together in verse 21, being fitted together in verse 22.

Now, then we have is growing into a holy temple, and what is a temple? What's another definition for a temple? Yes, that's for us. In this case, what you see is, into a holy temple is into a dwelling of God. A temple is a place where God dwells, right?

And then in the Lord, not entirely equal to, but followed by in the Spirit. So you have a Hebrew poetry pattern in which, in whom, being fitted together, is copied exactly, and then you have beyond that some rhyming statements between those. Now something very interesting, we'll go into more about why Paul said this right here, the way he did, because we'll be looking at all of chapters 1 and 2 of Ephesians. But this one, very interesting, He's writing to Jews and Gentiles, and Ephesus had a significant number, though a minority, a significant number of Jews.

What was going on with the temple in Jerusalem when this was being written? They were still rebuilding it. In 20 BC, Herod the Not-So-Great began the building project. What his pattern was, by the way, is go out and do some horrendous slaughter and genocide, and then to distract himself by starting another building project. At 20 BC, he started the rebuilding of the temple.

But unlike previously, this was a temple in operation. So it gets complicated, right? And you can't have just any old craftsman coming in and doing some of the work on the inner temple. So they trained as many, over time, as many as 10,000 Levites who were allowed to work on the temple while it was working, right? In various crafts as they worked on the inner temple. And they had other non-Levites working on the other parts, right? But of course this all took money, and so there was heavy taxation. And then when they finally got the work done, about 63 AD, they laid off 18,000 men. And then there was a riot. Because they were suddenly out of work, right?

But the point being that he's talking about this temple, you know, being, God's building a temple, and it's in process, while the temple in Jerusalem is in process, right? And as we'll see as we go through here, he alternates through chapters 1 and chapter 2, talking to the Jews and talking to the Greeks, and talking to the Jews and talking to the Greeks, and talking to the Jews and talking to the Greeks, pulling them both in. And because right before this Hebrew poetry pattern here, about the temple being under construction, or the temple in Jerusalem being under construction, right before this, the Messiah takes out the law. And he's got to have the Jews be okay with that.

So we'll take a closer look at that larger pattern. I mean, it starts in Exodus with the meeting, etc. And it's always the temple. I mean, it's the dwelling of God, the relationship with God. Everything is. Here's where the tribes are with respect to that. Everything is defined by it. Here's this temple. And so now he's got to tell them, look, here's the Messiah who takes out the law. And here's the temple that's being under construction. Everything is defined by the temple. And so, that's where, you know, this is really key.

And he's got to be careful about how he builds his case and includes them and not just saying, hey, that's all a big Gentile thing and not having anything to do with that. Especially because the law is taken out of commission. It's like, what? He took the law out of commission? Yeah, the Messiah did it. And that's why we pointed out earlier, the Messiah is one of the best kept secrets of Ephesians. 23 times. The Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah. Okay, so let's take a look at another one. This is where both halves convey the whole.

So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it just so happens there are hundreds and hundreds, between the Old and New Testament, there are hundreds and hundreds of places where it's heaven and earth, or heavens and the earth, together in the same verse. Hundreds and hundreds of times in the Old Testament and in the New. So here we have Genesis 1-1, the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Why doesn't it just say the universe? Why not just say God created everything? God created the universe.

Is it like alpha and omega or on top? Yeah, it's a part, in other words, alpha and omega and from A to Z is the whole, right? So here they've got an expression, the heavens and the earth, and that's the way they say it. And matter of fact, you'll have a real hard time finding places in the Bible where it's talking about the universe where it doesn't use heavens and the earth. It's mostly in the New Testament. Isn't it also giving the priorities of the two? I mean, that's what it's all about, right? Yeah, that's a good point. Let's think about this.

When it says heavens, how many heavens are there in the Bible? There's three, right? There's the atmospheric heaven, The solar and stellar heaven is the second one, and the third one is the heaven of heavens, the third heaven, as Paul calls it, where God dwells. So there's three heavens. So when you say heavens, it's a reason for saying three, right? And so the heavens and the earth. But the third heaven, let's ask this question. Before there was a physical earth, and the physical universe, was there heaven?

Yes. At first, if you look at it, the physical realm comes entirely out of the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm is the origin of everything in the physical realm. By the way, that's in contrast to the Greek mindset. I'll talk to the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Their mindset was that the universe, in its matter, was eternal. And the gods could come and go. So the physical universe was the basis of everything. In the Greek mindset, in the Hebrew mindset, the physical universe is based on the spiritual.

So that's why in Acts 17, the Apostle Paul goes and first corrects the worldview before he starts talking about resurrection and gospel and things like that. The concept of God in the universe was wrong. And so he first goes and corrects that, and he uses Genesis 1-11.

Okay, so now, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, 1 Chronicles 16-31, let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. You see the Hebrew poetry pattern, and two halves make a whole, right? So let, in each one, the and then be glad and rejoice, those all rhyme, and then the heavens and the earth, those two halves make a whole.

Here's Job 35.11, and Job is written in a great degree in poetic form, right?

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth? Who makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens? Okay, what's similar and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens? What's similar between those two lines? Well, there's a teaching and then there's a source of knowledge. He teaches us and makes us wiser is a part of it, okay, and then he's got beasts and birds. How are those similar? Both created animals, right? But then the beasts relate to the earth because they're here and the birds are in the first heaven, right? So we have in there a kind of poetic form, a Hebrew poetry pattern, poetic form, and then the two halves make the whole, the earth and the heavens. So they would talk like that and write like that as common, and that's kind of the way they would think.

As Gentiles, we come to that, and we can see it. We can recognize it. But it isn't naturally the way we go about talking and thinking. But it helps to recognize, oh, that's a Hebrew poetry pattern. And even in some cases, why is there a Hebrew poetry pattern here? And especially in cases like that letter to the church at Ephesus. There's value in understanding why.

We'll go into that more as we look through chapters 1 and 2 and do a full analysis of chapters 1 and 2. Let's take a look at the top of page 3. So we could give a great many more examples. The Bible has the words heavens and earth or heaven and earth in the same verse more than 300 times. There's another pattern that contains heaven and earth, plus a more Gentile expression. We see this when the reading or listening audience is both Gentiles and Jews. So here's Colossians 1, 15 through 20.

He, referring to Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. All creation, is that a Hebrew way of saying things? It tends to be less so. So it communicates more with the Gentiles. For by him all things were created, and then in these switches, all things were created, in these switches, both in the heavens and on the earth.

So Paul will sometimes state things in a Gentile fashion and then repeat it, which is a Hebrew poetry pattern, right? so that it fits the Hebrew pattern of speech. And he'll switch back and forth. We'll see that. We'll go through Ephesians chapter 2, where it first uses, in 2, 1 through 3, it first uses walk, which is a Hebrew pattern, going back to Genesis. And then he talks about living, and the living is a Greek term, living interactively, which the Greeks would use. So he talks back and forth between the cultures. And it's very carefully considered. He's not just jumping back and forth. He's very carefully considering his words.

So now here go both the heavens and the earth, visible and invisible. So what we have here is the spiritual realm is the source of the physical realm, but is everything in the spiritual realm self-existent? Now, Katie was shaking her head no, but she's right. Because God is a spiritual being, correct? God is a spiritual being, but he also created spiritual beings.

And so far as we know, so far as has been revealed to us, that us human beings are spiritual beings and the angels are spiritual beings as well. So visible and invisible. So God created physical, visible things, tangible things, and he also created things which we can't see. And we're a hybrid. Because we are partly physical and partly spiritual.

So whether thrones or dominions or rulers and authorities, all things have been created through him and for him. All things have been created is more of a gentile way of speaking. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together, all things cohere and consist. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. By the way, we say He is the head of the body, the church, and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.

So what does that mean, He is the firstborn from the dead? Right, and by the way, when it says firstborn, why does he use the word firstborn? Is that going to link up to the Roman idea of the first son getting the benefit of? Yeah, if you look at it, he's the firstborn, he could have just said he's the first to rise from the dead, right? But he also says firstborn also indicates the preeminence. So that he himself will come to have first place in everything. So he restates that firstborn idea.

For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, And through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross, through him I say whether things on earth or things in heaven. So he finishes it off with the Hebrew expression, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Is there more than one Greek word for all? Or does all always mean all inclusive?

What you have to do is look at the context to see what he's saying. Because sometimes he'll say all, but then you say, wait a minute, he'll say all and what he means is only those who are saved. And in other contexts, it means all inclusions, no exceptions. So you have to look at the context. And it's not because he uses a different word for all, but the context indicates otherwise.

So what he's done here is he's used this heaven and earth pattern early on in Colossians 1.15-20 and then right there at the end. So here's the Apostle Paul. Think about it. Who is Paul? Let's think about his background and why he's able to address both of these groups. Where was he born? Where did it grow up?

Tarsus. Is Tarsus in Israel? No. It's up in what we call Turkey. It is not too far from Antioch. It is at a place where various armies as they're kind of moving down the Mediterranean would come through in that area closer to the coast. It's not a coastal city.

So Tarsus, he's Jewish. Is Tarsus a Jewish city? No, so it's Gentile. So he's a Jew in a Gentile city. As we talked about earlier, he was able, by his father's doing, to get a Roman citizenship. Tarsus is a university town, so there's a fair amount of educational sophistication. He's also trained under who?

Gamaliel. Gamaliel was one of the most well-respected and well-regarded rabbis of the first century. He had about a thousand disciples. He's quoted or referenced twice in the Book of Acts. That was Paul's rabbi, so here's Paul, and Paul claims to be a Pharisee. So here's Paul, he's a Pharisee, probably on path, had he continued, probably on path to be a member of the Sanhedrin. He would have been considered, having been trained by Gamaliel, he would have been considered a rabbi in his own right. So here's the Apostle Paul.

He's got premier qualifications in the Jewish realm. He also is well qualified in the secular realm. He probably reads and writes Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin. Probably those four. So you said he in his own right would have been qualified to be a rabbi, is that why he had the ability to go in and get letters to slaughter the Christians? He's probably at that point not quite old enough But he's well regarded, it's like he's on path. Had he continued he would be on path to be probably a member of the Sanhedrin. Along with the other Pharisees that were part of the Sanhedrin.

So you have here, here's Paul having a good deal of sophistication. He quotes poets and philosophers. from centuries past, and that probably comes from his university background at Tarsus. So he's able to do that. He writes more than any other New Testament author with three and sometimes four part compound words, and occasionally the three or four part compound words we can't find anywhere else in Greek literature. of the time. So this guy is writing with great sophistication.

Here's another instance here, we have the two halves make a whole, heaven and earth, now we have Jews and Gentiles. So here's Acts 14, 1-7, and this is written by Dr. Luke. Is Dr. Luke an apostle? No. He's not an apostle. He probably is a God-fearing Gentile who became a Christian believer. So he's already a God-fearing Gentile and Luke and Acts are probably written with that target audience in mind. A Gentile audience that has respect for the Jews and what the Jews have been taught. Yes? Where was Luke educated? Well, okay, that's another thing. He obviously had medical background, right? Luke the physician.

And so there are two primary candidates for that. One is Antioch. There was a medical school at Antioch, okay? So that was close to Tarsus, correct? Right. And so that's one possibility. There's another that I kind of lean towards and that's Philippi. There was also a medical school at Philippi. One of the reasons why I lean towards Philippi is because if you go through the book of Acts, you see Paul doing we and us as they go into Philippi. And then when it's time to take off, he's not with them. He sticks around. So it tells me he's probably got something to stick around for. And he also uses some kind of local terminology.

So Luke and Paul would have had more commonality than we When you first see it, you think Gentile Jew, but with Paul's background, his educational background, he and Luke probably had more in common educationally that they could have communicated and related on. It's amazing.

We'll go through more of this, but there was one city that was famous for mirrors. That's Corinth. You go to the British Museum, they've got Corinthian mirrors on display there. It's famous for its mirrors. And so Paul writes to all kinds of people, and the only two people where he includes some mention of a mirror is in both of the letters to the Corinthians. Each of them has, in 1 Corinthians 13, We look through a mirror dimly, right?

And then in 2 Corinthians 3.18, he uses the verb for looking into a mirror. We all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

So yeah, he's very knowledgeable about local character and history and amazing that the terms would, you know, he doesn't talk about adoption, which was a Roman law. begun with the adoption of Augustus Caesar by Julius. He doesn't talk about adoption except for those places, well, the Church of Rome, or with significant Roman influence. Galatia had five major cities. Two of them were Roman colonies. He writes to Ephesus, which had a Roman governor and 3,000 Roman soldiers. He doesn't use the word adoption for just any of them. He picks where he uses it. He very carefully fits the place he's writing to. Okay, so here's one. Jews and Gentiles, Acts 14. So this is the first missionary journey. This is in Galatia.

This is where five of the major cities are mentioned there, and two of them are Roman colonies. In Iconium, they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, which tells you they had more than 10 Jewish males to form the synagogue. and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both the Jews and Greeks, but the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and bittered them against the brethren. Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testified to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided, some side with the Jews and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat and stone them, they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lyconia, Lystra, and Derbe, and the surrounding region. And there they continued to preach the gospel. Which addresses another question.

Did the apostles pursue martyrdom? No. They did not. They did not pursue martyrdom. you know, hey, let's make ourselves famous and get killed. They instead postponed it as much as possible. Why? They realized they had a treasured and unique responsibility to carry out, an assignment to carry out, and that heading towards martyrdom would cut that short. So it would be contrary to their stewardship.

Romans 3, 27-30, where then is boasting it is excluded? By what kind of law? Of works? So these questions are what kind of questions? Rhetorical questions, right? Of works, no, but by a law, or rather principle, is what I put in there. There are places where nomos is translated law, and I think a better word is principle, because it gets us off on trying to think about the law of Moses and such.

For we maintain that a man is justified, declared righteous by God, by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. And by the way, what are the circumcised and uncircumcised? Who's the circumcised?

The Jews. And the Gentiles, right? And so it's another two halves make the whole. You've got the whole world, according to Jewish understanding, is there's Jews and there's Gentiles, and the two halves make the whole. If you say Jews and Gentiles, you could say circumcised and uncircumcised, then that's all people. You have it covered. Sometimes we'll observe that it is true that it has to equal the whole wording of Jews and Gentiles, but Jews and or Gentiles are represented by euphemisms such as Greeks, to call them Greeks as the majority or dominant Gentile population. Let's take a look at that. 1 Corinthians 1, 20-25.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. If indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews, a stumbling block into Gentiles' foolishness, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

So what you see here is Jews and Greeks, Jews and Gentiles, and then back to Jews and Greeks. So he alternates between those patterns. Here's another one, Land and Sea. We'll probably have to just mention it and call it good. Land and Sea, plus some more Hebrew poetry patterns.

Here is Psalm 95, 1-5. O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord, and let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. and whose hand are the depths of the earth and the peaks of the mountains are his also.

So the depths of the earth, one half is low, and the other half is the peaks of the mountains. So that's another part of He hath made the whole. First half we've got the low end and then we've got the high end. They have a different idea of what's a mountain over there in Israel, by the way. So then we have, and the sea is his, for it was he who made it, and his hands formed the dry land. So you've got the sea and the land, two halves make the whole.

So you'll see that pattern, and you'll see alternation in it, but you can look for it. I'm only going to mention the last one here, Jacob and Israel. You'll find often, in the Bible. If you were to look up in some of these electronic concordances where you put in Jacob and Israel, you put those in there, very often put together, and especially in the poetic patterns, they'll alternate between the two.

Why? Israel was the name given by God, right, after Jacob Russell, it means fighter with God. I'm just going to take a stab in the dark. Is it Jacob is Is the earthbound man Israel points to the spiritual that is going to be put in place? I just guessed. Well, actually analyzing that and what names are used where, it gets fairly complex because there's a lot built into that.

And often Jacob and Israel, both of those are used for the people of Israel, right? Not just the guy, but the people of Israel. And so it will talk about the people of Israel and use the word Jacob. And that's one reason it keeps being repeated even long after Jacob's dead, is that the people of Israel are referred to as Jacob and Israel, both. So at the very end there, verse 4, for a statute for Israel, an ordinance for the God of Jacob. So, statute, ordinance, rhyming, right? Israel and Jacob rhyming. Different names, but referring to the same one.

So anyway, those are patterns to look for, the Hebrew poetry patterns. We're going to be looking next week at poetic patterns that are not Hebrew in character. And Paul, especially writing to the Corinthians, used both. And you use both patterns fairly frequently, breaking out into poetic patterns, and sometimes into Hebrew poetry patterns. So we'll be looking through 1 and 2 Corinthians mostly for that.

Lord, we thank you that you have chosen to communicate your word. It is astounding to look at this book by 40 authors over a 1,500 year period of time, and yet There is so much of it that is a tightly woven fabric, and we see in that that you were the author, and you had it written because you love us, because you care for us, and we just thank you for that, for your amazing grace.