The Versified Bible

7/30/2019 The Versified Bible

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The Whole Bible is Versified

..from the free commentary which you can download athttp://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary.

Summary: 'Chiasms' are 'crossover' paragraphs which repeat, in thesecond half, the initial thoughts, but in reverse order.

All the authors, and all the books, in both Old and New Testaments,show such structured versification, in all chapters, with some clever

variations.

When we don't easily recognise this unusual verse-structure, it

accounts for what we see as 'tedious repetition' in the Old Testament,and the notoriously 'long and complicated Pauline sentences', plus it

resolves the ambiguity of the prophecies, the chronology of events andthe meanings of words.

Needless to say, it speaks volumes about the coherence of the Bibleacross millennia, and of its quality.

Here is a minimal example of a 'crossover' construction:

Mat 6:34Be not therefore anxious

for the morrow:

for the morrowwill be anxious for itself.

The underlined ideas are repeated in the matching indents:

Here is a longer example, from the 'wisdom discourse' in the book of Job.It is in the form of twinned chiasms

-- the one matching the other, in mirrored fashion (e.g. 12-14 matches 20-22) --

with 15-19 housing another sub-pair.

Job 28:1 Surely there is a mine for silver,

And a place for gold which they refine.2 Iron is taken out of the earth,And copper is molten out of the stone.

3Man puts an end to darkness,And searches out, to its furthest bound,To findthe stones of obscurityand the treasures of thick darkness.

4 He breaks open a shaft


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away from where men sojourn;Their paths are unknown to the travellerThe miners hang afar from men,they swing to and fro.

5 As for the earth,

out of it comes bread;And underneath it is churned upas it were by fire.6 The stones thereof are the place of sapphires,And it has dust of gold.

7 That path, no bird of prey knows,Neither has the falcon's eye seen it:8 The proud beasts have not trodden it,Nor has the fierce lion passed thereby.

9 He [Man, 13]puts forth his hand upon the flinty rock;He overturns the mountains by the roots.

10 He cuts out channels among the rocks;And his eye sees every precious thing.11 He binds the streams that they trickle not;

And the thing that is hidhe brings forth to light.12 But where shall wisdom be found?And where is the place of understanding?13 Man knows not the price thereof;Neither is it found in the land of the living.14 The deep says, It is not in me;And the sea says, It is not with me.

15 It cannot be gotten for gold,Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

16 It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

17 Gold and glass cannot equal it,

Neither shall it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold.18 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal:Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies.

19 The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

20 From where then, comes wisdom?And where is the place of understanding?21 Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living,And kept close guardedfrom the birds of the heavens.22 Destruction and Death say,We have only heard a rumor thereof with our ears.

23 God understands the way thereof,And he knows the place thereof.


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24 For he looks to the ends of the earth,And sees under the whole heaven;

25 To make a weight for the wind:Yea, he metes out the waters by measure.26 When he made a decree for the rain,

And a way for the lightning of the thunder;27 Then did he see it,and declare it; [because He knows]He established it, yea,[because He alone is sure of understanding]

and searched it out. [3]28 And unto man he said, [13]

Behold, the fear of the Lord,that is wisdom;And to depart from evilis understanding.

Such ordering of thoughts makes it easier to memorise for recital, and allows forliterary devices such as delaying illuminating information until the matching thought.

This example also illustrates how the final line is often set aside for the punchline.

Chiasms can be overlapped with and inter-locked with an independent chiasm, orwith another sort of versification. They can be interleaved with and/or combined with

couplets and parallelisms. They can run on, across many chapters of similar material,using repetitive organisation.

Here is the Messianic Psalm 140 which has two parallel, matching halves,

evil man violent mandevise mischiefspoison is under their lipswicked; purposed to thrust aside my stepsset ginssalvation

the desires of the wickedhis evil devicemischief of their own lipsevil

hunt to overthrow himThe upright shall dwell in thy presence

..as follows...

Psa 140:1 Deliver me, O Jehovah,from the evil man;from the violent man:Preserve me


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2 Who devise mischiefsin their heart;Continually do they gather themselvestogether for war.

3 They have sharpened their tonguelike a serpent;Adders' poisonis under their lips. [11] Selah

4 Keep me, O Jehovah,from the hands of the wicked;from the violent man: [11]Preserve meWho have purposed tothrust aside my steps.

5 The proud havehid a snare for me,and cords;They have spreada net by the wayside;gins [traps]They have set for me. Selah[cf hunt to overthrow, 11]

6 I said unto Jehovah,Thou art my God:Give ear, O Jehovah.unto the voice of my supplications7 O Jehovah the Lord,the strength of my salvation,Thou hast covered my headin the day of battle.

8 Grant not, O Jehovah,the desires of the wicked;

[cf evil, violent]

his evil device,[cf devise mischief]Further notlestthey exalt themselves.Selah


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9 As for the headof those that compass me about,Let the mischief of their own lipscover them.[cf poison-tongue]

10 Let fall upon themburning coals:into the fire,Let them be castInto deep pits,whence they shall not rise.[cf wicked, violent]

11 An evil speakershall not be established in the earth:the violent manEvil shall hunt to overthrow him.[proud, snares, traps]

12 I know that Jehovahwill maintain the cause of the afflicted,And justice for the needy.

13 Surely the righteousshall give thanks unto thy name:The upright shall dwell in thy presence.

..but the second half is also reverse matchedwith the first, making it chiasmatic.

Psa 140:1 evil man; violent man:2 mischiefs, war.

3 tongue, lips. 4 wicked; violent5 snare for me, cords; a net, gins set

6 Jehovah, my supplications7 O Jehovah, strength, covered my head

8 Jehovah, the desires of the wicked; exalt themselves.9 head, cover

10 pits11 An evil speaker the violent man, Evil

12 the cause of the afflicted,13 righteous, upright

Note too that many of the verses are mini-chiasms in themselves:

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.


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Psa 140:1 Deliver me, O Jehovah,from the evil man;from the violent man:

Preserve me [for I am righteous, 13]

2 Who devise mischiefs [injustices, 12]in their heart; Continually do theygather themselves together

for war.

3 They have sharpened their tonguelike a serpent;Adders' poison

is under their lips. [11] Selah

4 Keep me, O Jehovah,from the hands of the wicked;from the violent man: [11]

Preserve me

Who have purposed tothrust aside my steps.

5 The proud havehid a snare for me,and cords;

They have spreada net by the wayside;

ginsThey have set for me. Selah[cf pits, 10]

6 I said unto Jehovah,You art my God:

Give ear, O Jehovah.unto the voice of my supplications

7 O Jehovah the Lord,the strength of my salvation,You hast covered my head

[with salvation;answered prayer; cf 9]in the day of battle.

8 Grant not, O Jehovah,the desires of the wicked;[= his supplications, cf 6]his evil device,

Further not


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lestthey exalt themselves.[due to answered prayers]Selah

9 As for the headof those that compass me about,

Let the mischief of their own lipscover them.

10 Let fall upon themburning coals:into the fire,

Let them be castInto deep pits, [pit-traps]whence they shall

not rise.

11 An evil speakershall not be established in the earth:

the violent manEvil

shall hunt to overthrow him.

12 I know that Jehovahwill maintain the cause of the afflicted,And justice for the needy.

[in times of war, 2, 7]

13 Surely the righteous

shall give thanks unto thy name:The upright

shall dwell in thy presence.

The chiasms of the books of Moses (1400BC) predate Homer (Iliad, Odyssey), Virgil

(Aeneid) and Aristotle (340BC).Chiasmatic arrangement is an ancient prophetic style.

To understand chiasms is almost like entering into the language patterns used by theHoly Spirit.

To miss them, is like removing all punctuation and paragraphs and setting out.

If you are not aware of chiasms it is easy to lose the thread of the argument throughthe apparent swapping of topics. The thoughts initially appear to be dis-jointed, but

when you appreciate the structure, you can see that things are very nicely arranged,

and even more carefully 'jointed' than you imagined. What appear to be twoseparate points are pleasingly connected into one idea. And the point is made doubly

clear.

Interpetation


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A most interesting thing about chiasms is that they make to be parallel, things

which you would not normally recognise as being the same, but when you see

the chiasm you cannot help but agree that they are the same.

E.g. You would not normally define 'heavens' as 'things invisible' and 'earth' as

'things visible', but you cannot disagree with the equivalence --

Col 1:16in the heavens and

upon the earth,thingsvisible

and things invisible,

The full commentary has many more examples laid out for you, and a longerdiscussion of the place of chiasms.

Here is an example of how helpful chiasms can be for interpretation:

Psalm 46 depends on imagery for its pairings. From verse 3= verse 6, we can seethat waters=nations, and that mountains=kingdoms, as in the rest of the Bible;

1 God is our refuge and strength,A very present help in trouble.

2 the earth changes2 mountains are shaken3 the waters thereof roar3 mountains tremble4 city of God

5 God is in the midst of her5 She shall not be moved6 The nations raged6 the kingdoms were moved6 the earth melted

7 Jehovah of hosts is with us;The God of Jacob is our refuge.

For those who just want a readable but accurate Bible...

One of the best reasons to recognise chiasms, is that once you see the blocks of

related thoughts as a paragraph, then the story requires little further

explanation. This is especially so in the history narratives, but is also helpful inthe difficult theological arguments.

The missing requirement is simply to visibly set out the chiasms in verse. The fullcommentary has done this for each chapter of the New Testament, and for most

of the Old Testament. A New Testament reading version is included.Soon a properly laid out separate version of the whole Bible, for reading

purposes, will be made available.


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This layout allows a melding of an easy to read rendition of the Bible, with aliterally accurate version -- The versified structure is easy to follow, even

pleasant to read, yet the stilted language of a literal version is broken up intomeaningful phrases, easy to digest.

For the Bible-students...

There are implications for those wanting to interpret syntax: Chiasms supply aphrase marking which is akin to case marking. Case-markers show which words

are tied to which words, such as an adjective and a noun, but chiasms show

which phrases match with which other phrases, such as the subject and a noun-phrase delimiting the subject.

Here the subject is made plain in verse 7 (it is not 'Melchizedek'):

5 So Christ alsoglorified nothimself

to be made a high priest,but he [appointed him]that spake unto him,You art my Son,This day have I begotten thee:

6 as he says also in anotherplace,You art a priest for everAfter the order of Melchizedek.

7 Who [=Christ, 5]in the days of his flesh,

having offered up [as priest]

prayers and supplicationswith strong crying and tears ...

Here is another example, which is easily misread, as 'the veil is his flesh' insteadof 'his sprinkled blood is from the sacrifice of his own flesh':

19 Having therefore, brethren,boldness to enter into the holy place

by the [sacrificial] blood of Jesus,20 by the way whichhe dedicated for us,a new and living way,

through the veil,[into the most holy place]

that is to say,his flesh; [sacrificed]

21 and having a great priestover the [holy] house of God;

The grammarian's dogma is that Greek word order is 'flexible', because each


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word 'carries its own case-marking', which is true enough; but the extra insightabout Biblical Greek syntax is that thephrase orderis tightly controlled, to

function within chiasms and parallelisms.Hebrew also has the same careful placement, but we expect that.

Chiasms explain why the Greek syntax seems so disorderlyto our ears, whereasactually, the phrases are grammatically marked by their placement.

Versification

When some people see that the Bible is versified, they will complain that it is

obviously a made-up story, 'because no-body could possibly talk in verse'. Butthis is not so. God is involved, after all.

When I see the versification of scripture, it adds to my respect for its inspiration,simply because most men of themselves would never speak like that.

Chiasms don't make prophecy, but prophecy is set to chiasms. It can also show

other structures.

The writers themselves were prophets, and inspired as they wrote, so that it may be

said that alltheir writing is set in the prophetic style -- in God's chosen style.

Some of the versification comes from the writing up of the story, since the narrative

explanation mixes freely with the direct speeches involved. The writer, or ratherthe original balladist, if it was orally transmitted, naturally has some latitude in

telling the story, to set it in memorisable chunks. If you think of God as theballadist, then He has given us the stories in a suitable style.

Some versification comes from the prophetic oracles themselves -- being inherentlyset to a pattern. Prophets are simply mouthing what God puts in their mouths.

There is no latitude for 'interpretation' into other words, when the originalwording is word-perfect to start with.

Even the simplest speeches in the Bible, can turn out to be inspired, with propheticmysteries embedded. That is why they are recorded.

In scripture we see many examples of unnamed people saying things which turnout to be prophecy, such as when the women blessed new wives, or when the

elders replied to the king, or when foreign kings spoke to Jews. We are reading abiassed selection of stories, of situations set up by God to accomplish His

miraculous purposes.

Because the Hebrews were the race of prophets, and had these versified scriptures,

then it may be surmised that this style was naturalised amongst them, so that it

became easy to think, speak, memorise, write, recite and prophesy, with such arunning lilt, with chiasms and parallelisms.

It simply wouldn't be right to say that nobody would really talk like that -- because

the Hebrew culture was imbued in prophecy, and in its style.Having studied the chiasms, I now prefer to think and talk in chiasmatic

order, rather than in Western logical or chronological order. The logic of itsimply seeps in, and I have concluded that it is a superior method of

presentation.


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It does all that a well-structured argument and paragraph should do, andmore.

It previews, emphasises and reviews; It gives two examples, andclarifies itself by elaboration and parallel expression; It buries the

details, and it headlines the points; It cues the beginning, and end;it is well-phrased, and is aurally pleasing, and its structure is recognisable.

It is orderly, consistent and flexible. It fits itself in to the ongoingdiscourse.

Chiasmatic style is an acquired taste, but its superiority is demonstrated

in that it has translated well into other languages, times and cultures. It has

lasted for millennia.

This has been supplied from the authors of the free commentary which

you can download athttp://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary.

(copy and paste this address into the address bar)

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