Acrostics in the Hebrew Bible

One of the many interesting rhetorical features of the Hebrew Bible is its use of alphabetical acrostics. These acrostics are not "hidden codes" -- they are literary compositions in which the writer has used the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the initial letters for a sequence of verses. J.A. Motyer describes this feature as "a poetic way of saying that a total coverage of the subject was being offered."

In the common form of acrostic found in Old Testament Poetry, each line or stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order. This literary form may have been intended as an aid to memory, but more likely it was a poetic way of saying that a total coverage of the subject was being offered -- as we would say, 'from A to Z.' Acrostics occur in Psalms 111 and 112, where each letter begins a line; in Psalms 25, 34, and 145, where each letter begins a half-verse; in Psalm 37, Proverbs 31:10-31, and Lamentations 1, 2, and 4, where each letter begins a whole verse; and in Lamentations 3, where each letter begins three verses. Psalm 119 is the most elaborate demonstration of the acrostic method where, in each section of eight verses, the same opening letter is used, and the twenty-two sections of the psalm move through the Hebrew alphabet, letter after letter. --J.A. Motyer, "Acrostic," in The New International Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), p. 12.

We give below one example. In Proverbs 31:10-31 the initial letters of each verse go through the Hebrew alphabet in order. Hebrew is written from right to left, so the first letter on the right is the intial letter in each verse. (For correct display of the Hebrew text on this page you may need to download and install the SBL Hebrew font). In the English translation, we put in red the English word that represents the initial Hebrew word in each verse. Sometimes it is very helpful for the student to know that a certain word is used in the Hebrew text mainly for poetic reasons.

The Excellent Wife