Read Psalm 53:1-3 …
Perhaps on a visit to a restaurant a friend might say, “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!” Or maybe it’s been a long day, maybe longer than most, and the remark is made, “I could sleep for a week!” For the most part when these types of statements are made, it is almost instinctively understood as someone being overly dramatic or just exaggerating the situation. In fact, one writer tells us that, regarding this type of exaggeration, there really does not need to be a rule of interpretation, but only to keep in “mind the purpose of the author, and the language will interpret itself.”[i] Statements like this, either spoken or written, have a few different names but the name most would recognize is hyperbole. The basic idea behind hyperbole is that an author or speaker exaggerates “in order to drive home a truth.”[ii] What this means is that when one encounters this type of over exaggeration, one should not determine the Scriptures are trying to misrepresent the facts of a case, or that an unnecessary or unobtainable command is being given.
Consider Psalm 53:1-3, David is writing this Psalm (or rewriting since Psa. 53 is a near perfect echo of Psa. 14) and starts by saying that, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God” (53:1). David takes it as a truth that by denying the existence of God, someone that would make such a declaration is fooling themselves into a false sense of security. But David does not stop there, he continues and makes the statement, “There is none who does good, No, not one” (53:3). On the face of it, this would seem to express that David, very similar to Noah in his time, was the only one that did good, the only one of his days that would be considered not a fool. Should we interpret this to be the case, or do we recognize that David is using hyperbole to drive home the point that pride and self-absorption seem characteristic of those that do not recognize a responsibility to a higher truth?
Or consider the words of Jesus in what is typically considered one of the most obvious instructions that is seen as hyperbole. “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you … And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you” (Matt. 5:29-30). The conclusion that Jesus presents in both places is that it’s better for a person to lose a part of their physical body in this life than to keep a source of sin which ensures the condemnation of the soul. No responsible teacher would encourage a person to gouge out their own eye, or sever their own hand, but like Jesus they might use this type of hyperbole to impress on the mind of a student the lasting and permanent effects of sin.
Another example to consider is Paul’s statement to Timothy, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). There is little doubt that Paul remembered his days as a persecutor of the Church, for during his impromptu defense in Acts 22 he makes mention of persecuting those of the “Way,” even to their death (22:4). In his own mind Paul saw himself as a person that performed a sin that was soundly condemned, the shedding of innocent blood (Deut. 19:10; Prov. 16:16-18). Paul also knew himself to be a blasphemer against God (1 Tim. 1:13). When we notice that Paul is writing in the present tense – he is the chief, he is the foremost – we see a man that is exaggerating his own sins to identify with all those that need the saving message of the Gospel.
When David says he looks around and sees no one “who does good,” we recognize that he is using hyperbole to not only identify a problem, but to also beg for the solution from God, “Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!” (Psa. 53:6) When Jesus uses such stark and graphic language, to the point of suggesting self-mutilation, He is using one extreme to highlight another … as bad as losing one’s eye or hand seems to be, it is not as bad as losing one’s soul. When Paul uses exaggerated language identifying himself as the “chief sinner,” he uses this as a jumping off point to show that anyone, even someone with a past like Paul’s, was not beyond redemption by the blood of Christ.
Hyperbole, as a figure of speech, is useful because it gives a “clearness to, and intensifies the meaning of, that which is taught without a figure.”[iii] In each of the above cases a truth is taught that, because of the over-exaggeration, becomes firmly entrenched in the mind of the reader.
[i] D. R. Dungan, Hermeneutics: A Text-Book (1888; repr., Delight: Gospel Light Publishing Company, n.d.), 320.
[ii] Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 106.
[iii] James Stanford Lamar, The Organon of Scripture, or The Inductive Method of Biblical Interpretation (1860; repr., London: FB &c Ltd, 2018), 109.
the odd weekend preacher 