A very frequent figure of speech that appears throughout the Bible is metonymy. The dictionary definition of metonymy is "a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated."
There are some examples we may be so familiar with that we don't even see the figure of speech anymore. For example, Deuteronomy 19:15 KJV says, "at the mouth of two witnesses, shall the matter be established." The physical mouth of the witness is not the important factor but the words that he says, or his testimony. A second example is Leviticus 26:6 NIV: "the sword will not pass through your country." Here it is not so much the physical sword as everything associated with fighting and war, misery and death. A final example from the Old Testament is 2 Samuel 14:19 NIV: "Isn't the hand of Joab with you in all this?" Again, it isn't Joab's physical hand but all his plans and arrangements.
For our last example, look at Luke 16:29 NIV: "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them." In fact, they didn't literally have "Moses" or "the Prophets", they had what these men had written.
A quote from my old grade eleven English textbook sums it up nicely: "The value of metonymy...lies in the fact that brevity is stronger than detail, that suggestion is greater than definiteness in stimulating the mind, and that the mind often grasps a part more easily than the whole."
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