I fully concur that David in Psalms 18 is employing a metaphoric apocalyptic idiom to describe his personal experience of deliverance; and that there is nothing cosmologically literal involved.Different text type for starters.
Different Context of Audience.
Different Context of Situation effecting the Psalmist only, as compared to an actual global event affecting all of humanity, all of animals and plant life.
As the Psalmist says The Lord is my Refuge and my Rock, protecting me from all my enemies. David uses hyperboles in his poetry and oratory, to emphasize, to evoke strong feelings, and to create strong impressions.
I think he achieves this quite eloquently, don't you think? given the text type we are dealing with
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis. In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and creates strong impressions.
Isaiah 13 is a completely different book, different text type, different context of audience, different context of situation.
When God declares something, there is no hyperbole or pun intended.
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.
12I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
more rare than the gold of Ophir.
Is that phrase a pun?
Which sane person wants to make a pun out of God's declaration?
Either God is for real or he is saying it as a joke, not to be taken seriously, so which one is it?
13Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger.
Unlike the Psalmist who uses hyperbole and play on words in his poetic mix, God is no joker.
How could one even make a one to one comparison between Psalm 18 and Isaiah 13.
However, a portion of that description includes phenomena which are global in scope, and not dissimilar from descriptions in portions of Isaiah 13.
Psalms 18
7 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.
9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.
Why are these global phenomena metaphoric in Psalms 18, but literal in Isaiah 13?
Upvote
0