Eloquence and Isaiah: Parallelism, Synonymia, and Repetition in Isaiah 53:5

            Isaiah 53:5 states, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”  

Parallelism

             I noticed chiefly here that the majority of eloquence, beauty and pleasing manner of the verse occurred through parallelism.  I noticed through the parallelism that the structure goes for the first two clauses, “He was helping verb for our plural noun.”  Thus we have a classic clausal parallelism in two adjacent clauses. 

Synonymia             

Furthermore, we see synonymia, which is the use of several synonyms together to amplify or explain a given subject or term.  In this verse we understand that wounded and bruised, transgressions and iniquities, and chastisement and stripes are basically synonymous in this context.  The use of synonymia adds emotional force, repeating the horrible and amazing truth that the Savior was hurt for our sins.  Furthermore, it adds a type of intelligence to the verse.  It would be much simpler to say simple that Jesus died to forgive our sins, but by adding various synonyms for hurt, sins, and chastisement, we are compelled twice to analyze the meaning behind the words in a more intellectual manner than a more simple construction would yield.

Repetition

Repetition is the final stylistic idea that I thought was a major part of this verse that added to its eloquence.  Its anaphora (if we ignore the “but” at the beginning of the verse) of “he was” adds emphasis on Jesus and is pleasing and musical to the ear.  There is a certain rhythm overall to this verse and the repetition throughout of “he” throughout the verse adds a consistency and rhythm to the verse.  Clearly, Isaiah was aiming not only to instruct in this verse but to please through eloquence.  This verse is most definitely Middle Style.