Enjambment as a syntactic phenomenon and poetic technique in the Psalms of Ascent

Abstract

The criteria for determining whether a biblical text is poetry or prose have long been debated, but there is widespread consensus that lineation is a key criterion. ‘Enjambment’ refers to the continuation of a syntactic unit across a line boundary without a major juncture or pause. This paper argues that correct identification of enjambment as a syntactic phenomenon can only take place if the line boundaries themselves have been determined according to syntactic criteria. To that end, this paper uses the syntactic criteria laid out in the Revised and Extended Hebrew Verse Structure (REHVS) model first to determine the line boundaries in the ascent psalms (Psalms 120–134), and then to identify all instances of enjambment within that corpus. This is followed by an exploration of the effects of enjambment as a poetic technique in the ascent psalms in light of the appositive style of biblical Hebrew poetry.