18. Chapter 18: His Imagery

Chapter 18 His Imagery From a recent book I quote the following:

“Dealing in likenesses, contrasts, and suggestions, figures flash word-pictures which vitalize all language, spoken or written, from conversation to poetry.

“The most forceful figures are consequently those based on imagery: simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, personification, apostrophe, and irony.” ^[1] [1] E. R. Musgrove,“Composition, and literature,”p. 142. This author discusses, In addition to these, allusion, allegory, parable, and hyperbole. This gives us a list of eleven figures of speech. If you are not already familiar with them, you can review them in any rhetoric, or even in an unabridged dictionary.

Now let us see what will happen if we inquire which of these figures Jesus used.

Simile. As the word, from the Latin, suggests, a simile says one thing is like another. “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not” (Matthew 23:37).

Metaphor. The metaphor is an abbreviated simile, omitting the word of comparison. “Go and say to that fox” (Herod), Luke 13:32.

Synecdoche. This figure puts a part for the whole, or a whole for the part: “I have meat [i.e. food] to eat that ye know not” (John 4:32). This is also metaphor.

Metonymy. This figure names a thing by one of its attributes or accompaniments: “I must preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also” [i.e. to their inhabitants] (Luke 4:43).

Personification. This figure endows things with personality: ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth” (John 3:8).

Apostrophe. This figure addresses the absent as present: “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida!” (Matthew 11:21.)

Irony. In this figure one means the opposite of what the words say: “‘Praiseworthy indeed?’ he added, ‘to set at nought God’s commandment in order to observe your own traditions’ ” (Mark 7:9, Weymouth).

Allusion. This figure is an indirect reference: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19).

Allegory. This figure is a sustained metaphor or simile: “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:1-10).

Parable. A brief story with a moral or religious meaning: The Sower, The Good Samaritan.

Hyperbole, or rhetorical overstatement: “Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!” (Matthew 23:24.) Thus we have found in the recorded words of Jesus examples of every figure of speech mentioned by a modern author.

What impression do you gain from this fact? Can you give additional illustrations of each of the figures so far discussed?

Let us turn to still other figures or forms of speech. I am not so particular that you should be able to name these, as that you. should feel their quality and sense the addition they make to spoken style.

“Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19).

“Let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22).

“The last shall be first and the first last” (Matthew 20:16).

“Whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall find it” (Mark 8:35).

“It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25).

“Ye know how to discern the signs of the heavens, but ye cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3).

“Thou art Peter [a stone] and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). What is the meaning of this?

“They that have authority over them [the Gentiles] are called Benefactors” (Luke 22:25).

“If a house be divided against itself that house cannot stand” (Mark 4:25).

“Thou hearest with one ear, but the other thou hast closed” (reputed saying).

“Can the blind lead the blind?” (Luke 6:39).

‘‘The rich man also died and was buried” (Luke 16:22).

“Neither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel” (Matthew 5:15). On this passage one writer[2] remarks: “The saying of our Lord is as picturesque as it is forcible. It gives us a glimpse into a Galilean home, where the commonest articles of furniture would he the lamp, the lampstand, the seah measure, and the couch. And who could fail to apprehend the force of the metaphor?”

[2] Alex. A. Duncan, Art. “Bushel,”in “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.”

“Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye” (Matthew 7:5).

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs” (Matthew 7:6).

“Do men gather grapes of thorns?” (Matthew 7:16.) “If he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:12.) “Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?” (Matthew 23:33.) “They that are whole have no need of a physician” (Mark 2:17).

“Many good works have I showed you from the Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” (John 10:32.) “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself” (Luke 18:11).

“It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27).

“If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?” (Luke 11:19.) “Sound not a trumpet before thee” (Matthew 6:2).

“Ye are like unto whited sepulchres” (Matthew 23:27).

“Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets and garnish the tombs of the righteous” (Matthew 23:29).

What are some other striking passages you would add to this list?

Name as many of the figures of speech as you can. Is there satire? sarcasm? wit? raillery? irony? the grotesque? humor? play on words? paradox? An unabridged dictionary or a book of synonyms will tell you the difference between some of these terms.

Historically, is language more forceful before or after grammarians have analyzed it? Of course it would take a psychological student of the history of literature to answer this question definitely. The suggestion contained in this question is that the language of Jesus is more forceful because he had studied the three books of Scripture, nature, and man, and not the science of language. Some one has said that the critic is the man who can’t. Not to confine your attention to striking isolated passages, read the discourse of Jesus on “The End of the World” in Matthew 24, 25, noting the wonderful imagery.

Imagery is the poetic element in prose. It adds a light and sparkling quality. This effect is due to emotion combined with imagination. It increases the pleasure of both listening and reading.

Really great teachers, especially teachers of ultimate things, must have a poetic cast of mind, to suggest to learners more than can be told about truth. Such a teacher’s mind can play with truth, it is not in bondage to literal facts. Could you name half a dozen such world teachers? But imagery easily leads to misunderstanding, if it is read as prose by prosaic minds. Jesus was not only a master of imagery, he also sensed the danger of its being misunderstood, and warned against it: “The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life” (John 6:63). “The letter killeth, the spirit maketh alive” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Imagery means not what it says, but what it means to say. The observance of this principle of exegesis would prevent many a dispute. The New Testament rewritten without imagery would be less subject to misunderstanding, but it would be stale and flat, even if such a rewriting were possible. Try to state the meaning without imagery of “Ye are the salt of the earth ... ye are the light of the world.” Such an effort reveals how Jesus saved words, packed words with meaning, feathered them with imagery, and set them flying on the winds of the world. He taught with emphatic seriousness: “And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36).

What does a study of the imagery of Jesus mean for us practically? What effect has it on our reading of the New Testament? If we could use imagery, how would it affect our utterance in teaching?