Grace Theological
Journal 11.2 (1990) 187-204.
digitally prepared for use at
Gordon and
THE QUATRAIN IN
ISAIANIC POETRY*
JOHN E. WORGUL
Isaiah was a master of Hebrew poetry as well as a grand theo-
logian. He was fond of integrating couplets into various
four-lined
structures (i.e., quatrains) that fall into three basic categories.
This
integration was often achieved by sophisticated interplay on the gram-
matical, semantic, and rhetorical levels. What is of deeper significance,
however, is that Isaiah used these poetic forms to enhance his theologi-
cal meaning. By activating all levels of language, the prophet
was able
to impress God's word upon his hearers in compact, four-lined struc-
tures that would otherwise take many lines of prose to
communicate.
*
* *
ALTHOUGH
the pairing of lines by means of grammatical, semantic
and rhetorical parallelism to form couplets is the
basic feature of
Isaianic poetry, the pairing of couplets to form
quatrains is also a
distinctive device used by Isaiah.1 In
this article, we will differentiate
and categorize these structures, but will also see
how Isaiah uses them
to communicate his message by artfully blending
form with meaning.
Before we start with the analysis of
the quatrains, some preliminary
considerations are in order. Basic to
the goal stated above is the
position that a methodology of analyzing parallel
lines must be able to
account for both grammatical and semantic
parallelism, and the rhetor-
ical effect as well. It is
our intention to avoid stressing one aspect of
parallelism over another.2 The method
employed here, which was
*This
article is based on the results of an analysis of 529 lines of Isaianic verse in my
unpublished dissertation Parallelism in the Poetry
of Isaiah 1-18, written for the Dropsie
College, 1986.
l
Out of the 529 lines there were 208 units: 127 independent couplets, 42
quatrains,
29
triplets, 8 single lines and two possible hexastichs.
2 See S. Geller,
("Theory and Method in the study of Biblical Poetry," JQR LXXIII
No.1
[1986]) 65-77. With regard to the debate over which aspect
has primacy, A.
blood is helpful, for one is surely meaningless
without the other. See A. Berlin, The
dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1985)
23-25, 64.
188
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
adapted from Stephen Geller's Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry
(Missoula,
Montana: Scholars Press, 1979) is an attempt to account
for parallelism on these levels.3
Central to the method is a device called
a "schema," which will be explained
below.
The lines used in the analysis had
to meet certain criteria.4 The
first is that the lines analyzed should be regarded
as Isaianic by most
scholars.5 Secondly, the lines
must be "highly parallelistic" as opposed
to prose without any parallelistic
features (e.g., 7:1-6, 10-17 and 8:1-
4),
or prose that contains parallelistic features,
referred to here as
"parallelistic prose" (e.g.,
12).
What exactly constitutes "highly parallelistic" lines is a subject of
ongoing debate. For our purposes we have
delimited this category to
lines that display a basic grammatical and semantic
correspondence6
coupled with the limitation of line length,7
and the requirement that
the parallel lines are relatively equal in length.
The vast majority of
Isaianic lines fall in this highly parallelistic category. Finally, the lines
used had to be textually sound in the opinion of a
consensus of
scholars.8
Although the corpus was not subjected
to a metrical analysis,9
certain patterns of line length emerged. The
term "line pattern" denotes
the ratio of grammatical units in one line to
another. "Grammatical
unit" is a term used to denote a word that is
significant in the structure
of parallel verse (i.e., words that are objects of
parallelism). Some
words, such as particles (e.g., yKi and Mxi) are not used as objects
of
parallelism in the corpus and are therefore not
awarded the status of
"grammatical unit."10 For example, a couplet
with three grammatical
units in each line would be referred to as a
"3:3" line pattern. An
example would be 17:10A-B:
3 My debt to Stephen
Geller is evident throughout this article.
4 It was felt that a
minimum of 500 lines would offer an adequate representation of
Isaianic
parallelism.
5 Our corpus is based
upon what S. R. Driver, O. Eissfeldt, G. Foher, G. B. Gray and
J.
Skinner, among others, unanimously considered to be Isaianic.
This does not reflect
the present writer's opinion of Isaianic
authorship.
6 This excludes, for
example,
equal lines, they are all grammatically enjambed and semantically non-parallel.
7 Or "terse,"
cf. J. Kugel, The
Idea of Biblical Poetry (
Press, 1981) 85.
8 The passages ultimately
included were 1:2-27, 29-31, 2:7-8, 10-17, 19, 21, 3:1-5,
12C-26,
4:1, 5:1-28, 6:7B-D, 8B-C, 9-13B, 7:7B-9, 8:9-10, 13-15, 9:7-13, 15-17B,
19-20,
10:1-4,6-9, 13-15, 17:1, 2B-C, 3A-B, 4-6, 10-14, 18:1-2D, 3-6.
9 It is not denied that Isaianic poetry is "metrical" in some sense.
Rather, an in-depth
metrical analysis would confront many uncertainties
which would require a major study
of its own.
10 See Geller, p. 8.
WORGUL: THE QUATRAIN.IN ISAIANIC POETRY 189
Text of 17:10A-D
Translation
A. j`few;y; yhelox<
T;HakawA yKi For you have forgotten the God of
your salvation,
B. T;r;KAzA xlo j`z.efumA rUcv; and the rock of your
refuge you do
not remember.
In
this couplet we see that each of the three basic grammatical units in
the A line have a grammatical counterpart in the B
line (verb: T;HakawA
yKi
/
/ T;r;kazA
xlo and a direct object with a noun in construct: j`few;yi yhelox< / /
j`z.efumA
rUcv;), which are semantically parallel as well (the verbs are
synonymous and the direct objects are epithets in
that they give descrip-
tion one to another). Here
we should note that aside from a very few
instances of grammatical rearrangement, often done
for a rhetorical
effect (e.g.,
cal and semantic correspondence between units in
the parallel line
structures in Isaiah.11
Isaianic
quatrains, like the couplets,12 come in a
variety of line
patterns. Some, like 5:27A -D below, consist
predominantly of lines
with two grammatical units.13
Text of 5:27A-D
Translation
A. JyefA
Nyxe None is weary,
B.
C. MUnyA
xlo none slumbers,
D. NwAyyi
xlov; none sleeps.
It
may be objected, of course, that what we have here is really a 5:4
couplet rather than a 2:3:2:2 quatrain.14
Granted that it is not always
11 However, see the few
examples of the "semantic" quatrains below, which display
semantic parallelism with little or no
grammatical parallelism.
12 Among the couplets
alone there were 10 different line patterns: the 2:2, 2:3, 3:2,
3:3,
3:4,4:3, 4:2, 4:4, 5:3 and the 5:2. Of these, the 3:3 and the 3:2 were the most
common,
but there were a significant number of "short
lined" couplets (There were 27 occurrences
of the 2:2. For example, see 1:23A-B, 2:l0A-B,
5:3C-D, 7:9C-D, and 8:9C-D).
13 Some other examples of
quatrains with predominantly 2 unit lines are 1:18C-F,
1:19A-20B,
1:29A-D, 5:5C-F, 5:7E-H, 5:9B-E, 5:12D-G, 6:9B-E, 9:9A-D, 17:6C-G.
14 The negative
existential particle Nyxe is considered a
grammatical unit in the corpus
since it functions as the predicate of a noun
sentence throughout. The A line therefore
consists of two grammatical units and the B line
three units, for prepositions with
suffixes (e.g.,
with the negative particle xlo which usually functions as a proclitic
and forms a unit with
the following term (hence not an independent
grammatical unit, cf. T;r;cAzA
xlo, in 17:10B
above). In this instance, however, xlo, parallels Nyxe on the semantic level and occupies the
same emphatic position in the parallel line
structure. It is therefore given a grammatical
unit status in lines C and D.
190
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
easy to determine a couplet from a quatrain, two
facts tend to discount
understanding these lines as a couplet.
First, long lines (i.e., lines with
four or more units) without a caesura are relatively
uncommon in
Isaiah (see footnote 12 above). That is, Isaiah tends
to use shorter three
or two unit lines.15 Secondly there are
clear grammatical caesuras that
naturally break this text into four short, distinct
phrases. Indeed, in
this instance the brief, hurried line structure
enhances Isaiah's descrip-
tion of these swift,
relentless destroyers. As we shall see, this is not the
only place where Isaiah uses form to enhance his
meaning.
With this example we begin our study of the Isaianic quatrain. As
we mentioned at the outset, the quatrain is
essentially two couplets
bound together. This "binding" is done in a
variety of ways, and with
the help of a continuum we can see that three basic
quatrain patterns
emerge. On one end of the continuum there is what we
shall call the
"interlocked" quatrains in which the two sets of paired
lines are inter-
twined (hence "interlocked") in such a way
that the quatrain must be
viewed as one unit. This interlocking is the result of
alternating or
chiastic patterns in which parallel lines are
separated from each other
(ie.,
ABA'B', ABB'A').16 In the middle of the continuum there are the
"integrated" quatrains. Here the parallelism is usually
between the A
and B lines and between the C and D lines, but it is
obvious that all
four lines are parallel on the basis of grammatical,
semantic and
usually rhetorical similarities (ie., [A//A']//[A"//A"']). These
struc-
tures are not considered to
be as tightly bound as the "interlocked"
types, for they can be analyzed as two couplets
without obscuring the
overall structure of the quatrain. Finally, at
the end of the continuum
we have the "semantic" quatrains in which,
like the "integrated"
quatrains above, the primary parallelism is
between the A and B lines,
and between the C and D lines, but the parallelism
between the paired
couplets is basically semantic and/ or rhetorical,
with no grammatical
parallelism.17 Let us consider the
tightest quartrains on the one end of
the continuum, and proceed to the looser structures
at the other end.
15 Isaiah's use of the short, 2 unit line
in couplets, triplets, and quatrains (often in
association with 3 unit lines, e.g., a 3:2:2 triplet)
is a characteristic that sets him apart
from early Hebrew poetry. See Geller, pp. 282-84.
16 That is, the A line parallels the C line
and the B the D line in the alternating type,
and the A line parallels the D line and the B the C
line in the chiastic type.
17 This is a small category, for as noted
above, Isaiah tends to employ lines that are
parallel on both the grammatical and semantic
levels. These quatrains are considered the
"loosest" of the quatrains on the continuum because of
the lack of grammatical parallel-
ism. It should be emphasized again that grammar, although
an important aspect of
parallelism, is but one aspect, and the more aspects
implemented (i.e., grammar, seman-
tics, rhetorical devices), the "tighter"
the parallelism. There are no examples of quatrains
grammatically parallel with no
semantic parallelism.
WORGUL: THE QUATRAIN IN ISAIANIC POETRY 191
ALTERNATING AND CHIASTIC
STRUCTURES
Judging from the abundance of examples, the
alternating quatrain
must be considered a favorite Isaianic
device.18 In half of the examples
analyzed,19 the grammatical and
semantic correspondence is complete
between the alternating lines in that each unit,
or group of units (i.e.,
word compounds) is grammatically and semantically
parallel to its
corresponding unit. To gain a clear
and convenient view of the paral-
lelism between these units, we
employ what we term a "schema." This
is a purely heuristic device intended to display syntagmatic and para-
digmatic structures.20
It merely arranges the syntax (syntagmatic/
horizontal level) of the lines so that the parallel
units can be placed
vertically (paradigmatic level). By means of this
device, one may ob-
serve at a glance the grammatical and semantic
parallelism between the
parallel lines. 1:10A-D will allow us to
illustrate the use of the schema
as well as offer an example of
"complete" parallelism.
Text of
1:10A-D Translation
A.
hvAhy;-rbad; Ufm;wi Hear
the word of YHWH
B.
Mdos;
yneyciq; you rulers of
C.
Unyhelox<
traOt UnyzixEha Listen to the teaching of our God,
D.
hrAmofE Mfa you people of
Schema of 1:10A-D
A.
hvAhy; rbad; Ufmawi
B.
Mdos; yneyciq;
C. Unyhelox<
traOt UnyzixEha
D.
hrAmofE Mfa
The
imperatives and the direct objects of the A and C lines correspond
grammatically and semantically (Ufm;wi / / UnyzixEha: synonyms, rbad; / /
traOt: synonyms, hvAhy; / / Unyhelox<: epithet), as do the
subjects in the B and
18 See 1:10A-D, 1:15A-D, 1:18C-F,
1:19A-20B, 1:29A-D, 2:7A-D (a pentastich?),
5:5C-F,
5:7E-H, 5:9B-E, 5:10A-D, 5:11A-D, 5:12D-G, 6:9B-E, 9:9A-D, 17:6C-G,
17:12A-D.
19 Cf. 1:10A-D, 1:19A-20B, 1:29A-D, 2:7A-D
(a pentastich?), 5:5C-F, 5:12D-G,
6:9B-E,
9:9A-D.
20 Cf. S. Geller's
"reconstructed sentence," pp. 15-21.
192
GRACE
THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
D
lines (yneyciq; / / Mfa: part-whole,21 Mdos; / / hrAmofE: paradigmatic ).22 The
parallelism is therefore complete, and the quatrain,
by virtue of the
alternation (ABA'B'), must be considered as one unit
of four lines, and
cannot be analyzed as two couplets or as four single
lines.23 It is
therefore a very tight quatrain.
In the other half of the examples of alternating
quatrains, one
finds that a word that is in one line (usually the A
line) is deleted in its
parallel line (C line), but is nevertheless
understood in that line to
complete its meaning. On a deeper level of
linguistic analysis, however,
this parallelism does not really differ from the
complete parallelism in
the example above, for the deleted word is
necessary to the meaning of
the line. This phenomenon of word deletion,
referred to here as "ellip-
sis”24 is illustrated by the quatrain in
5:7E-H.
Text of 5:7E-H
Translation
A.
FPAw;mil; vqay;va and He looked for justice,
B.
HPAW;mi hn.ehiv; but behold, bloodshed;
C.
hqAdAc;li for
righteousness,
D.
hqAfAc;
hn.ehifv but
behold, a cry!25
Shema of 5:7 E-H
A.
FPAw;mil; vqay;va
B.
HPAW;mi hne.hiv;
C.
hqAdAc;li
D.
hqAfAc; hn.ehiv;
21 The yneyciq; may be considered a
part of the whole (Mfa), or the relationship
between
the two words may be described as a merism (i.e., establishing the two extremes
"rulers"
and "common people," and implying
everyone in between).
22 Words related paradigmatically belong to
the same semantic field in that they
denote a common concept, or in other words, are
related by an understood common
denominator. In this example, the stock word pair Mdos; and hrAmofE belong to the same
paradigm of "wicked cities."
23 The phenomenon of line parallelism,
whether involving 2, 3,4 or more lines, must
be considered normative for Isaianic
verse structure. This is so because the independent,
single line is rare and its very existence is
debatable (e.g., 1:15E; see footnote 1).
24 This phenomenon has also been referred
to as "gapping." See E. L. Greenstein
("Two
variations of Grammatical Parallelism in Canaanite Poetry and their Psycho-
linguistic Background," JANES of Columbia University, 6[1974])
94.
25 This quatrain is primarily an
alternating quatrain in that the A and C lines, and
the B and D lines are grammatically identical and
semantically parallel (even semantically
identical in the repetition of hne.hiv; in the Band D lines).
It is however, "integrated" as well
in that the A and B lines, and the C and D lines
are semantically and rhetorically parallel
WORGUL: THE QUATRAIN IN ISAIANIC POETRY 193
It
is obvious that vqay;va is understood with the prepositional phrase in the
C
line, for the C line would be incomplete without it. For all practical
purposes, therefore, we must conclude that there
is very little difference
between the alternating quatrains with ellipsis
and alternating quatrains
that are "completely" parallel, for the
grammatical and semantic paral-
lelism is complete in both,
even though one line may have an additional
grammatical unit that its parallel line does not
have.26
Rarely, Isaiah may vary the grammar of one line
to achieve a
certain poetic effect. The quatrain in
Text of 5:11A-D Translation
A. rq,Boba ymeyKiw;ma yOh Woe!27 those who rise early in the
morning,
B.
UpDor;yi
rkAwe that they may
run after beer,28
C.
Jw,n.,ba yreHExam; who tarry late in the
evening,
D.
Mqeylid;ya Nyiya till
wine inflames them.
Schema of 5:11A-D
A.
rq,Boba ymeyKiw;ma yOh
B.
UpDor;yi rkAwe
C.
Jw,n.,ba yreHExam;
D.
Mqeylid;ya Nyiya
Apart
from the interjection yOh, the A and C lines are
grammatically
identical (both having participles and
prepositional phrases) and
semantically parallel (merism). The yOh may be regarded as extrametri-
cal and applying to the quatrain as a whole, or as
a grammatical unit in
the A line that is understood elliptically (i.e.,
"gapped ") in the C line.
by means of the paranomasia
between HPAW;mi and FPAw;mi, and hqAdAc; and hqAfAc; (similar
sound but opposite meaning).
26 Ellipsis can occur in any line structure
whether they are couplets, triplets, or
quatrains with other types of parallel line patterns.
27 The yOh (as opposed to yOx, which almost always occurs with prepositions l, lfa, or
lx,) is understood by this
writer to be a pure interjection, most probably a cry of funerary
lamentation (the nuance being "woe!" or
"alas!" rather than "woe unto. . ."). Cf. H. W.
Wolff.
A Commentary on the Prophets Joel and
Amos (
1977) 242-45.
28 It is not evident how rkAwe differs from Nyiya, rkAwe almost always occurs
paired with Nyiya
and all but once precedes it. It probably is not
liquor (usually translated "strong drink"),
for there is no evidence of distillation in ancient
times. Here it is understood to be a
beer-perhaps a grain beer as opposed
to wine. Cf. R. L. Harris, Ed., Theological
Wordbook of the Old
Testament,
2 vols. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980).
194
GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
But
what is of immediate interest is that the grammar of the D line is
not what one would expect after having read the B
line. The reader,
having encountered a direct object and a transitive verb
in the B line, is
now surprised to find the noun as a subject in the
D line. This probably
was not done just for variation, but rather to set
up a pun on the verb
jld. This root has a double
meaning: that of "burn" or "inflame" (cf.
Ezek
24:10) and "hotly pursue" (cf. Gen 31:36). In this context, the
primary meaning is no doubt "inflame,"
but it must not be overlooked
that jld (in the Qal) is a synonym of Jdr in the B line, having
the latter
nuance of "pursuing.”29 The pun is
that the drinkers, making a fresh
start in the morning and in full control (they are
the subjects of UpDor;yi in
the B line), are pursuing beer in the first
couplet. However, by evening
the situation is reversed. Wine is now in control
(it is the subject of the
D
line) and is the pursuer in the second couplet. We see that the poet is
actually combining grammar and line structure
with the meaning
(semantic nuances jld and the morning-evening
merism) to impress
an image upon his hearers of these ambitious
fellows; they set out at
the first light of dawn to make bold conquests of
beer, but by evening
they are stumbling their way back home with wine,
the real victor in
the contest, hard at their heels. By such
synthesis, Isaiah is able to
communicate a profoundly effective caricature in four
short lines that
would take many more lines of prose to describe.
The chiastic quatrain is not so well represented
as the alternating
quatrain and must therefore be considered less
characteristic of Isaianic
quatrain devices. Out of the four possible examples
(1:11C-F, 5:6A-
D,
5:7 A-D and 6:11B-C), there are no line structures as clear as the
alternating line structures mentioned above. Be this
as it may, the
prophet will use chiasm as a device to tighten
other types of quatrains.
Perhaps
the tightest quatrain in Isaiah is the famous one in 1:18:
Text of 1:18C-F Translation
A.
Myniw.AKa
Mk,yxeFAHE Uyh;yi-Mxi If your sins are like
scarlet,
B. UnyBil;ya
gl,w.,Ka shall they be white as
snow?
C.
flAOTka
UmyDix;ya-Mxi If
they are red like crimson,
D.
Uyh;yi rm,c,.Ka shall they become like wool?
29 On a deep level an underlying
grammatical parallelism is evident if one rewrites
the Hiph singular imperfect Mqeylid;ya to the Qal plural imperfect Uql;d;yi (dropping the 3 m pl
suffix), with the second meaning of the verb's root
"pursue" understood. Both the B and
D
lines would then have nouns functioning as subjects of plural imperfect verbs.
For
such grammatical "transformations," see
Geller, pp. 21-29.
WORGUL: THE QUATRAIN IN ISAIANIC POETRY 195
Schema of 1:18C-F
A.
Myniw.AKa
Mk,yxeFAHE Uyh;yi-Mxi
B.
UnyBil;ya gl,w.,Ka
C.
flAOTka UmyDix;ya-Mxi
D.
Uyh;yi rm,c.,Ka
This
quatrain has a primarily alternating structure (note the ellipsis of
Mk,yxeFAHE, in the C line). However, chiasm can be
observed on two levels.
First,
there is the chiastic verb, prepositional phrase, prepositional
phrase, verb structure within both the AB couplet and
the CD couplet.
The
result is that the prepositional phrases take the central, or inside,
position in the overall structure of the
quatrain, while the verbs are at