Acrostics are invaluable to every Sunday School teacher and youth worker at one time or another. The same is true of some Bible writers. One author, E.W.Bullinger, claims there are thirteen such constructions in the scriptures. Once again I went to my high school English textbook for a definition but this time there was no listing. Instead, Merriam-Webster gave me this answer for “acrostic”:— “a composition usually in verse in which sets of letters (as the initial or final letters of the lines) taken in order form a word or phrase or a regular sequence of letters of the alphabet.”
It's a sad fact that acrostics don't carry over in translation so our English Bible doesn't show them. The greatest acrostic in the Old Testament is probably Psalm 119, but the only indication we get is the Hebrew letters before each section. The Hebrew alphabet (I'm told) has 22 letters. Psalm 119 has those 22 letters indicated in many Bibles, and each of those letters is followed by eight verses. Each of those eight verses in turn starts with the Hebrew letter at its heading, Aleph, Beth, Gimel, etc. Bullinger has attempted a demonstration like so:—
A
Ah! The happinesses of the perfect...
Ah! The happinesses of the keeper…
Assuredly they have…
As to Thy commandments…
Ah! Lord…
Ashamed, then I…
All my heart…
All Thy statutes…
B
By what means…
By every means…
Besides, I have…
Etc., etc.
An acrostic can serve at least three purposes— it can give a challenge to the “constructor”, it can give literary pleasure to the reader and it can show the completeness of the text. An acrostic is like a jigsaw puzzle—when a piece is missing, it's obvious. Psalm 145 is an acrostic. Again, each verse starts with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet but in the KJV, the letter Nun [“N”] is missing and so verse 13b is also missing. The NIV restores this verse, reading “The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made.”
Just to note a few other instances, Proverbs 31:10-31 is “a perfect alphabetical acrostic, marking and calling our attention to this song of praise of a virtuous woman.” Other Psalms have acrostics too, as well as the first four chapters of Lamentations. According to Bullinger, there may even be acrostics spelling out the name of the Lord in the book of Esther.
According to Unger's Bible Dictionary, “the most famous of all ancient acrostics is the one used by ancient Christians as a secret symbol of faith. This is the Greek word ichthus, fish, formed from the initial letters of five titles of our Lord, 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour.' ”
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