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1. Investigating Structure 33
2. The examples are not really all of the same type. They vary in
the type of words compared, in the positions of those words in the
strophe, in the relationship of the words to other parts of the context.
This weakens the cumulative effect of the argument.
3. It may well be the case that Hebrew writers deliberately used the
abcb pattern, but the five writers who have claimed to find it have not
proved that this is so. They have simply shown that, if one looks at the
text in a certain way, this pattern can be seen—or imagined. In other
words, there is a subjective apprehension of something that may have
had no place in the writer's thoughts, and, in that case, would probably
not be significant for the meaning of the text.
A fuller discussion of some of the principles involved in deciding
whether a pattern is intended or accidental is to be found below.
I conclude that this article confirms what I asserted above, that the
study has been carried out without due regard to the legitimacy of the
criteria employed or to possible alternative suggestions that might be
made. We go on to consider a rather larger unit: Amos 5.1-17.
2. /. de Waard, 'The Chiastic Structure of Amos 5.1-17' 1
De Waard's article is a good attempt to utilize the methods and results
of Old Testament scholarship, and to build on these by giving attention
to structure. He thus represents 'rhetorical criticism' as defined
by James Muilenburg. The article is particularly suitable for our purposes
since his work has been endorsed by several scholars working in
the field of prophecy. 2
v. 1 "arm (##2,3); rod (##8,10)
v. 2 •?*'-« (##2,8); nrvm (##3,6); mm/h (##4,5) (This forms a very tight
chiasmus)
v. 3 •\ f 70 3X; first person singular perfect 3x
v. 5 rrn (##1,10) cf. vv. 4, 7, 8; pan constr. (##4,8) cf. v. 7.
With so many repeated words and such a variety of patterns, which may or may
not have been intended by the author, it is not surprising that we find an abcb
sequence here.
1. VT 25 (1977), pp. 170-77.
2. For example, de Waard's position is accepted without question by
N.J. Tromp, 'Amos 5.1-17: Towards a Stylistic and Rhetorical Analysis', OTS 23
(1982), pp. 56-84. R.B. Coote also accepts that de Waard discovered the chiastic
pattern in Amos 5.4-15. Coote also knows why the writer used this form here: it is at
the centre of the centre section of the 'B-stage document' of his theory of redaction
(Amos among the Prophets [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981], pp. 78-84).