Israelite Poetry

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Israelite Characteristic of the Psalms as an Israelite Poetry:

The book of Psalms is the largest single collection of ancient Hebrew poetry. It has quite a unique different genre of literature from most of the Old Testament books. In 73 instances David is listed to be author of the book and not the entire collection. This book is the longest in the bible having 150 individual psalms is a diverse bible. Some of the subjects that have been addressed in the book are; God and His creation, war, worship, wisdom, sin and evil, judgment, justice and the wonderful gift of the coming messiah. The book of psalms can be divided into five poetry categories that have been compiled as a book in the Holy Bible. Looking at the psalms as a hymnbook of the Israelites can be credited to the fact that it is a collection of Israelite poems (Johnson, 2011).

The book of Psalms has the following characteristics that justify that it is an Israelite poetry. The Israelite poetry related the people in the collective manner. This is evident in the book of Psalms where in the first 41 chapters, the themes show man as an anointed being that is blessed by a God in a collective manner. The book does not use the first person approach in communicating the message since the Israelite poetry did not entail that act of composition. The poetry used in the psalms is an elevated language that not everyone could easily understand. The use of an elevated language to communicate a message is a significant characteristic of the Israelite poetry " for they got not the land in possession by their own sword....." are words that are used in the book of psalms stating that God will provide the Israelites a divine home which will be a place of salvation (Perdue, n.d).

In the book of psalms, the acrostic form of Israelite composition is used in some chapters. Semantic parallelism that is evidenced in the book of psalms is one ...