“The Hebrew Poetic Form of Chiasmus”

Bryan Richards

In the book, King Benjamin's Speech: Made Simple, John W. Welch demonstrates that all of King Benjamin's speech is structured in some form of parallelism or chiasmus. He states:

"A stunning array of literary structures appears in Benjamin's speech, purposefully and skillfully organized. Benjamin's use of chiasmus, all types of parallelisms, and many other forms of repeating patterns adds focus and emphasis to the main messages and the persuasive qualities of this text…

"Chiasmus it's the literary technique of creating double structures in which the second half of a composition mirrors and balances the first half, but in reverse order. In general, the device is useful for several literary purposes, especially for concentrating attention on the main point of the passage by placing it at the central turning point rather than in a topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph, as is the trend with modern writers…
"The central chiasm found in 3:18-19 can be summarized and displayed as follows:

a) humble themselves

b) become as little children

c) salvation through the atoning blood of Christ the Lord

d) natural man

e) enemy to God

f) has been from the fall of Adam

f) will be forever and ever

e) yieldeth to the Holy Spirit

d) natural man

c) become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord

b) become as a child

a) submissive, meek, humble"

(John W. Welch, and Stephen D. Ricks, King Benjamin's Speech: Made Simple, pp. 225, 229, 259)

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