bible study skills: four figures of speech what’s a president? –the president is the chief...

Bible Study Skills: Four Figures of Speech

• What’s a president?

– The President is the chief executive branch of the United States government.

– The President is like the captain of a football team who decides what the team should do to get ahead.

• Comparison – Figures of Speech

• AIM: Learn to deal with figures of speech that make comparisons.

• POINT 1: Similes, metaphors, personifications, and anthropomorphisms make comparisons.

• Known to unknown – Strengthening understanding


• Simile: A comparison using “like” or “as”

– Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion” (Proverbs 11:22).

– For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield. (Psalm 5:12).


• Metaphor: A comparison without “like” or “as”, either stated directly using a form of the verb “to be,” or implied.

– You are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13).

• Direct Metaphor

– Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19).

• Implied Metaphor


• Personification: The attribution of human nature or character to non-human objects.

– All the trees of the field will clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12).

– I will make my arrows drunk with blood (Deuteronomy 32:42).

• Implied Metaphor• Personification


• Anthropomorphism: Comparing God with human beings, as if he had the body or emotions of a human being.

– [The Lord’s] own arm worked salvation for him (Isaiah 59:16).

– The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth (Genesis 6:6).


• POINT 2: To interpret comparisons properly, stick to the point of the comparison.

– When Sarah saw the grizzly bear, she took off like a shot.• Was it a gunpowder explosion?• She ran like a bullet – fast, quick

– Consider possible comparisons.– What meaning best fits context?


• We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6)– How are we like sheep?– Stick to point of comparison.

• By sinning we wander from God.


• He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)– What is the point of comparing Jesus to a

lamb?• Jesus did not complain when he was put to death



• The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. (Proverbs 13:14)– What figure of speech?

• Metaphor

– What is the point of comparing the teaching of the wise to a fountain of life?

• Like the fountain, the teaching gives life in abundance.

POINT 1: Similes, metaphors, personifications, and anthropomorphisms make comparisons.

POINT 2: To interpret comparisons properly, stick to the point of the comparison.


bible study skills: four figures of speech what’s a president? –the president is the chief...

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