I received an insight today into the Book of Psalms that I had never thought about before. It came from our study guide.

I knew that the Psalms are poetry, and that in typical Hebrew poetic fashion, the art is expressed not in meter or rhyme, as in English poetry, but in parallelism ... where one line of thought is repeated or expanded upon by a second. "Praise the LORD, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!" (Psalm 117:1)

What I hadn't realized is this: The Hebrew Psalms have been translated into all modern languages. Had they been built on rhyme or meter, the poetic force would have become language-specific. It would have lost its force in translation. But because the Psalms are built around parallelism, their poetic beauty and spiritual insight is preserved.

When you think about it, that is what you would expect from a God who intends these poetic hymns to be used by people across the centuries and in every conceivable place and time. What a provision! What a gift!