Bible Study • Hermeneutics • Figures of Speech
Why the Bible Sometimes Sounds Strange The Hidden Key to Understanding God’s Word
By Promise Ave |
Have you ever been reading the Bible quietly, minding your own business, when a verse suddenly stops you in your tracks? Not because it is particularly moving, but because it just does not quite make sense? You re-read it. Still puzzling. You check another translation. Still odd. So you move on, slightly unsettled, telling yourself you will figure it out later.
Most of us have been there more times than we would care to admit.
Here is what very few people ever tell you: a large number of those confusing moments share a common cause. Not poor translation (though that does happen), not theological complexity (though that too has its place), but something much simpler. Much older. And, once you understand it, genuinely thrilling.
The cause is figures of speech.
Now, please do not close this page. I know those words can sound like a secondary school grammar lesson, and nobody comes to a Bible study blog hoping to feel bored. But stay with me for just a moment, because what I am about to share with you is one of the most rewarding discoveries any serious student of Scripture can make. Understanding how God uses language is not a footnote to Bible study. For many passages, it is the whole key.
Why This Discovery Changes Everything
Think about the way you actually speak. Not the polished version you use in formal settings, but the real, everyday version. When you are exhausted, you might say, “I am absolutely dead on my feet.” When your team wins, you might say, “We destroyed them!” When something is brilliant, you might call it any number of words that technically mean something else entirely.
Nobody corrects you. Nobody rings a doctor because you said you were dead. Everyone understands that you are using language expressively, figuratively, to make your meaning stronger rather than weaker.
This is not a modern invention. Human beings have always spoken this way. And the Scriptures, given to us through human writers who were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), reflect this reality fully and richly. God chose to speak to us through the beauty and power of human language, with all its expressive range.
The ancient Greeks had a word for these deliberate patterns of expression: schema (which simply means “shape” or “form”). The Romans called them figura (meaning “figure” or “form”). Both terms point to the same idea: language being shaped in a particular way to achieve a particular effect. E. W. Bullinger, the nineteenth-century biblical scholar whose monumental work Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898) remains the most exhaustive treatment of the subject in English, catalogued well over two hundred distinct figures across both Testaments [Bullinger, 1898].
That is a staggering number. But here is the reassuring truth: you do not need to master all of them to benefit enormously from understanding the most important ones.
Ancient Greek and Hebrew terms for the major figures of speech encountered throughout Scripture
A Widespread and Costly Misunderstanding
Before we go any further, there is a very common mistake that needs to be addressed directly, because it shapes how millions of people approach their Bibles without realising it.
Many readers assume that if a passage is figurative, it is somehow less serious, less forceful, or less real than a literal statement. The reasoning goes: “If it is just a figure of speech, then it does not really mean what it says.” So figurative language becomes a way of softening difficult texts, or dismissing inconvenient ones.
This thinking is precisely backwards.
When a figure of speech appears in Scripture, its purpose is not to reduce emphasis. It is to increase it. The figure is there to make something stand out more prominently, not less. It is language under pressure, language straining to carry a weight of meaning that plain statement alone cannot bear. To treat it as less serious than literal language is like reading a word underlined in red and concluding it must be less important than the surrounding text. You have misread the signal entirely.
This misunderstanding has consequences. Real ones. Entire theological positions have been built on passages that were figurative being read as flatly literal, or on passages that were genuinely literal being explained away as “merely figurative.” Getting this right is not an academic exercise. It is pastoral. It affects what people believe about God, salvation, and how to live.
A Subject Nearly Lost to History
You might wonder: if figures of speech are this important, why is this not taught everywhere? Why do so many Bible readers, including many preachers, spend decades studying Scripture without ever engaging with it seriously?
The honest answer is that this knowledge was very nearly lost.
During the centuries of intellectual decline that followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the careful study of rhetoric and language fell away across much of Europe. By the time learning revived, other priorities took over, and biblical figures of speech remained a specialist topic at best, and a forgotten one at worst.
In 1875, the American scholar John Vilant Macbeth wrote that there was not a single adequate work on the subject in the English language, and that even educated people remained largely unaware of figures that had been standard knowledge in earlier centuries [Macbeth, 1875]. A German theologian of the seventeenth century, Solomon Glassius, had produced what was arguably the most thorough account of biblical figures ever written, in his work Philologia Sacra (first published 1623). But because it was written in Latin, it remained inaccessible to most English readers for a very long time [Glassius, 1623]. Another exception was Johann Albrecht Bengel, the eighteenth-century German biblical scholar, whose commentary Gnomon of the New Testament (1742) stood out because he took figures of speech seriously as an interpretive tool, making his work unusually precise and valuable [Bengel, 1742].
These bright spots aside, the subject lay largely dormant in English-speaking scholarship until Bullinger’s comprehensive work appeared in 1898. And even then, it never quite entered mainstream Bible teaching the way it deserved to.
Reading the Map Correctly
Understanding figures of speech is learning to read the map correctly — so you dig in the right place
Perhaps a simple picture will help here. Imagine you have been given a treasure map. The map is genuine. The treasure is real. But the map uses symbols, conventions, and shorthand that were perfectly clear to the person who drew it, even if they are not immediately obvious to you. If you do not understand those conventions, you might dig in entirely the wrong place. You might even conclude there is no treasure at all.
Understanding figures of speech is learning to read the map correctly. God did not hide truth from us. But He did communicate it through the full richness of human language, and that language has conventions we need to recognise. Once we do, passages that seemed opaque become clear. Apparent contradictions resolve themselves. And truths that seemed flat suddenly have depth and texture we had not noticed before.
Let us look at some of the most important figures in action.
Six of the most significant figures of speech encountered throughout Scripture
Ellipsis: The Eloquence of Leaving Things Out
The word ellipsis comes from the Greek elleipsis (meaning “omission” or “falling short”), and it refers to the deliberate leaving out of a word or words that the reader is expected to supply from context. Far from being a careless omission, it is a pointed rhetorical choice: by removing certain words, the writer focuses all attention on what remains.
A beautifully clear example appears in Matthew 14:19 (KJV). Jesus takes the loaves and fishes, blesses them, and “gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.” Read that carefully. He gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude? He did not give his disciples to the multitude as though they were food.
What is happening is that the verb “gave” is deliberately omitted the second time. The full sense is: “gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples [gave them] to the multitude.” But notice what the omission achieves. By suppressing the second verb, both clauses share the same action, and both point back to Jesus as the one doing the giving. The disciples are merely the channel. The source of the giving, in every sense that matters, is Christ alone. Had the verse written out both verbs explicitly, it would have read as two separate actions by two separate agents. The ellipsis keeps our eyes where they belong: on Him.
Zeugma: When One Word Does the Work of Two
The Greek word zeugma means “yoke,” the wooden frame used to join two working animals together. In language, a zeugma occurs when a single verb is “yoked” to two subjects or objects, even though it strictly fits only one of them. This mismatch is not a mistake. It is the point.
Paul uses this in 1 Corinthians 3:2 (KJV): “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat.” In the underlying Greek, the verb is one that means “to give to drink.” You can give milk to drink, but you cannot give meat to drink. That combination does not work grammatically. And yet Paul uses it deliberately. Why?
Because by yoking the same verb to both milk and meat, he shifts our attention away from the action of feeding or drinking, and focuses it entirely on the contrast between the two foods themselves. Milk represents introductory teaching. Meat represents theological depth. That contrast is Paul’s whole concern in the passage. The zeugma is the device that makes sure we stay focused on it.
Polysyndeton: When “And” Becomes Emphasis
The Greek polysyndeton means “many conjunctions” (literally, “many bindings together”). In standard English grammar, when you list items, you use “and” only before the last one. Using “and” before every item sounds awkward and unnatural. So when the Bible does exactly that, you can be sure it is doing so deliberately.
The effect is to slow the reader down and treat each item separately, as though each one deserves its own moment of attention.
Genesis 25:34 (KJV) describes what Esau did after selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew: “and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way.” Count the “ands.” Five separate actions, each given its own weight. Esau ate. And he drank. And he got up. And he walked away. And he was gone.
This rhythmic separation is significant. It tells us that Esau did not act in a moment of thoughtless, uncontrollable hunger. Each action was deliberate. The writer of Hebrews later calls him “profane” (Hebrews 12:16, KJV), from the Greek bebelos (meaning “unholy” or “worldly”), and the polysyndeton in Genesis shows us exactly why: the despising of his birthright was not a momentary lapse. It was a considered decision, made one deliberate step at a time.
Prosapodosis: Define Your Own Terms
The Greek prosapodosis (meaning “giving back to” or “returning to”) is a figure in which several topics are introduced together in a list, and then the writer circles back to define or explain each one individually. It is an extraordinarily useful device for precision, because it prevents readers from importing their own definitions and insists that the text itself supplies the meaning.
Jesus uses this masterfully in John 16:8–11 (KJV). He tells His disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes, He “will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” Three things: sin, righteousness, and judgment. Then He goes back:
“Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
This is not decorative repetition. It is definition. Jesus is telling us precisely what He means by each term in the context of the Spirit’s convicting work. Sin, in this framework, is not generic moral failure. It is specifically the rejection of Jesus Christ. That is the sin at the heart of condemnation. Had Jesus simply said “the Spirit will convict the world of sin” without the prosapodosis, readers would pour in their own definitions. The return to each term seals the meaning shut.
Antimereia: Swapping One Part of Speech for Another
The Greek antimereia (from anti, meaning “against” or “in place of,” and meros, meaning “part”) describes the use of one grammatical category in the place of another. The most frequent form involves a noun being used in the place of an adjective, typically through the construction “of.”
In English, the difference between “a powerful spirit” and “a spirit of power” is subtle but real. In the first phrase, the emphasis falls on “spirit.” In the second, it falls on “power.” The same idea, the same person, but a different weight. Scripture uses this device throughout to orient emphasis, drawing attention not simply to who or what is being described, but to a particular quality or characteristic that the writer considers most important.
Hendiadys: Two Words, One Idea
The Greek hendiadys literally means “one through two” (from hen, “one,” and dia duoin, “through two”). It occurs when two words are joined by “and,” but only one complete idea is being expressed. The second word does not introduce a separate concept; it amplifies and intensifies the first.
Luke 1:17 (KJV) says that John the Baptist would go before Jesus “in the spirit and power of Elias (Elijah).” This is hendiadys. The meaning is a single, intensified idea: the powerful spirit of Elijah. The addition of “power” deepens the description of the one element, the spirit, being described.
This figure matters enormously in one of the most debated verses in the New Testament. John 3:5 (KJV) records Jesus telling Nicodemus, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Hendiadys resolves the long-running debate. “Water and Spirit” is one compound expression: a Spirit-birth, truly and completely of the Spirit. Jesus is describing a single spiritual event, not a sequence of two. The “water” does not introduce a second process; it intensifies the character of the one birth Jesus has in view.
Similarly, John 1:17 (KJV) says: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Hendiadys again: “grace and truth” means “true grace” or “genuine grace.” The contrast is not between a graceless law and a gracious gospel. It is between a preparatory system and the real thing, the full and genuine grace that arrived in the person of Jesus Christ.
Synecdoche: Let the Part Speak for the Whole
The Greek synecdoche (meaning “taking together” or “understanding one thing with another”) occurs when a part of something is used to represent the whole, or when a general category stands for a specific instance.
This figure is particularly important when we encounter the word “all” in Scripture. Synecdoche of the genus can mean “all without distinction” rather than “all without exception.”
Consider 1 Timothy 2:4 (KJV): “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” What it teaches is that God’s desire for salvation extends to all kinds of people, all without distinction of race, status, or background. No group is excluded from His offer. The synecdoche of “all” is inclusive of every category, not a guarantee of every individual.
Genesis 3:19 (KJV) provides another example: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” The face, the visible and representative part of a person, stands here for the whole person labouring in toil and struggle.
Metonymy: When One Name Stands for Another
The Greek metonymia means “change of name” (from meta, “change,” and onoma, “name”). It is used when the name of one thing is substituted for another thing that is closely associated with it.
A straightforward example occurs in Luke 16:29 (KJV), where Abraham says to the rich man in the parable: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” He does not mean that Moses and the prophets are physically present. He means they have access to the writings of Moses and the prophets. The authors stand for their writings.
Metonymy also illuminates passages where the word “spirit” (with a lower-case “s”) appears. In such cases, “spirit” can, by metonymy, refer to the teaching or doctrine that the Holy Spirit produces and commends. Many translation discussions that focus on capitalisation sometimes miss this point entirely.
Idioms: When Translating the Words Misses the Point
Hebrew and Greek idioms throughout the New Testament demand careful cultural and linguistic sensitivity
An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be determined by taking each word at face value. Every language has them, and if you translate an idiom literally into another language, you will often produce nonsense, or produce something that sounds meaningful but means something entirely different from what was intended.
This becomes critically important in the New Testament, because although it is written in Greek, its authors were Hebrew thinkers, steeped in Hebrew patterns of thought and expression. The result is a Greek text full of Hebrew idioms, what scholars sometimes call Hebraisms. Recognising these is not optional for accurate interpretation; it is essential.
Verbs of Attempt
Sometimes an active verb does not describe a completed action but an attempt at one. Galatians 5:4 (KJV) reads: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.” But nobody is actually justified by the law; that is precisely what Paul argues is impossible throughout Galatians. The verb here is a verb of attempt. The meaning is: “whosoever of you seek to be justified by the law.” They are trying. They have not succeeded.
Verbs of Permission
This is one of the most pastorally significant idioms in Scripture. In Hebrew idiom, an active statement by God can express His permission or His allowing of something, rather than His direct causation of it. Exodus 4:21 (KJV) records God saying: “I will harden his heart.” This has troubled readers for centuries. Did God directly, intentionally cause Pharaoh to be hardened, as though Pharaoh had no choice and no responsibility?
The idiom of permission says otherwise. God presented Pharaoh with an unmistakable choice: obey the command to release Israel, or serve his own pride and political interest. Pharaoh chose, repeatedly and deliberately, to resist. That choice set in motion the spiritual law that Paul describes in Galatians 6:7 (KJV): “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Jesus made the underlying principle clear in Matthew 6:24 (KJV): “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.” Pharaoh chose his master. The hardening was the consequence of his own refusal, expressed in Hebrew idiom as God’s active doing. God permitted what Pharaoh’s own choices produced.
“Answered and Said”
Throughout the Gospels, you will encounter the phrase “answered and said.” In English, “answered” implies that a question was asked first. But this is a direct Hebrew idiom simply meaning “began to speak” or “spoke up.” Matthew 11:25 (KJV) says: “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth.” There is no prior question. Jesus is simply beginning to pray. The phrase is the Hebrew idiom for the opening of speech, nothing more.
Three Days and Three Nights
Matthew 12:40 (KJV) records Jesus saying: “For as Jonas (Jonah) was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Some readers struggle with a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection, calculating that you simply cannot fit seventy-two full hours between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.
But “three days and three nights” in Hebrew reckoning is an idiom, not a precise mathematical formula. It was understood to be satisfied by any portion of three separate days, each one counting as a full unit. Jesus died on Friday afternoon (day one), lay in the tomb through the Sabbath, Saturday (day two), and rose on Sunday morning (day three). Three days and three nights by Hebrew reckoning, fulfilled. The consistent New Testament testimony that He rose “on the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:4, KJV) confirms this: a literal seventy-two hours would have meant He rose on the fourth day, not the third.
Correspondence: The Architecture Beneath the Text
Beyond individual figures, there is a structural dimension to Scripture that deserves at least a brief mention, because it changes how we read entire passages rather than just individual verses.
The biblical writers frequently organised larger sections of text according to deliberate structural patterns. The most familiar of these is parallelism, particularly in the Psalms and Proverbs. But the patterns extend well beyond two-line parallelism to govern entire paragraphs, chapters, and in some cases whole books.
Alternation
Two themes or subjects that alternate back and forth across a passage (Theme A, Theme B, Theme A, Theme B). Each appearance of a theme develops it further.
Introversion (also known as Chiasmus)
Themes arranged in a mirror structure (Theme A, Theme B, Theme C, then C, B, A in reverse). The point of greatest emphasis is often at the centre.
Understanding these structures matters for interpretation, not just appreciation. A passage that seems obscure at one point often receives its explanation in the corresponding section of the structure. A famous example is 1 Peter 3:18–22, which contains the famously puzzling reference to “spirits in prison.” When the passage is read structurally, the corresponding section mentions “angels.” The architecture of the text points us to the disobedient angels of Noah’s era, providing a clarification that the structure itself supplies once we know to look for it.
What to Do With All of This
At this point, you might be feeling slightly overwhelmed. Two hundred figures of speech. Latin and Greek names. Hebrew idioms. Structural patterns. Is all of this really necessary just to read the Bible?
Let me be straightforward with you: no, you do not need to memorise every term or become a classical rhetoric scholar to study Scripture faithfully. But you do need to know that these things exist. You do need to develop the habit of pausing when something sounds unusual or unexpected, and asking a simple but powerful question: why is it said this way, rather than the obvious way?
That question, asked consistently and honestly, is the beginning of real interpretive sensitivity.
Because when God’s Word departs from ordinary expression, it does so for a reason. The departure is a signal. It is the text saying, in effect: “Pay attention. This matters. Do not skim over what I am doing here.”
E. W. Bullinger, in the preface to his Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, observed that the divine usage of figures is not decorative but definitive: these devices are the means by which the Holy Spirit emphasises what He intends to emphasise [Bullinger, 1898]. Miss the figure, and you miss the emphasis. Miss the emphasis, and you can miss the entire point of a passage.
The Adventure That Awaits You
Malachi 4:2 (KJV) speaks of “the Sun of righteousness” arising with healing in His wings. The light we need to read Scripture accurately is not generated by human learning alone, though human learning rightly applied is a gift. It comes from above, from the One who gave us His Word in the first place. The Holy Spirit, who inspired every word of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16, KJV), is also the One who illuminates it for us as we study with care and humility.
So here is an invitation, and it is a genuine one. Next time you are reading your Bible and a verse stops you because something about it sounds unexpected, do not simply move on. Do not explain it away. Sit with it. Ask why it is expressed as it is. Reach for a good commentary, a lexicon, or a study tool. Consider whether a figure of speech might be at work.
The rewards for this kind of attentive reading are remarkable. Verses that seemed contradictory reveal themselves to be perfectly consistent. Passages that seemed flat become vivid. Truths that felt distant become close and personal. The Bible is not a collection of fragments loosely assembled. It is a unified, crafted, gloriously rich communication from the God who speaks, and who speaks with intention, with precision, and with love.
Learning to read it as it was written is not a burden. It is, genuinely and without exaggeration, one of the great adventures available to any follower of Christ.
Welcome to it.
Psalm 119:105 (KJV) — “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path”
A Note on the Figures We Will Explore Further
Based on the classification in Bullinger’s Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), the figures found in Scripture fall into three broad divisions:
First Division: Figures Involving Omission
These include Ellipsis (omission of words), Zeugma (the unequal yoke), Asyndeton (absence of conjunctions), and figures of understatement such as Meiosis (a be-littling) and Tapeinosis (demeaning).
Second Division: Figures Involving Addition
These encompass patterns of repetition (such as Anaphora, Polysyndeton, and Epizeuxis), rhetorical amplification (such as Hyperbole, Pleonasm, and Periphrasis), descriptive figures (such as Hypotyposis and Prosopographia), and structural forms including Parallelism and Correspondence.
Third Division: Figures Involving Change
The most extensive division, including changes to the meaning of words (Metonymy, Synecdoche, Hendiadys, Antimereia), changes to word order (Chiasmus, Antithesis), and changes to the application of words (Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Irony, Idiom, Personification, and many more).
In future posts, we will work through the most significant of these in greater depth, with biblical examples that bring them to life. If you want to be notified when each new piece is published, make sure you are subscribed to the PromiseAve.org mailing list.
References
Bengel, J. A. (1742). Gnomon of the New Testament [Gnomon Novi Testamenti]. Tübingen: Heinrich Philipp Schramm.
Bullinger, E. W. (1898). Figures of Speech Used in the Bible: Explained and Illustrated. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Glassius, S. (1623). Philologia Sacra. Jena: Tobias Steinmann.
Macbeth, J. V. (1875). Analytical Rhetoric and the Figures of Speech. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company.
The Holy Bible, King James Version (KJV). (1611). London: Robert Barker.
Promise Ave writes to help ordinary believers engage deeply and confidently with the Scriptures, without compromising scholarly rigour.