When we finished (7) in this series, we had never heard the word ‘merism’, and even today it doesn’t show up in our Webster’s dictionary as a word in its own right. A search of Wikipedia indicates that the meaning is “the combination of two contrasting words, to refer to an entirety. For example, when we mean to say that someone searched thoroughly, everywhere, we often say that someone ‘searched high and low’. …Merisms also figure in a number of familiar English expressions. The phrase ‘lock, stock and barrel’ originally referred to the parts of a gun, by counting off several of its more conspicuous parts; it has come to refer to the whole of anything that has constituent parts. And we all know ‘hook, line, and sinker’! Basically, {the phrase} and everything in between— all-encompassing.”
“Merisms are conspicuous features of Biblical poetry. For example, in Genesis 1:1, when God creates ‘the heavens and the earth’, the two parts combine to indicate that God created the whole universe. Similarly, in Psalm 139:2, the psalmist declares that God knows ‘my downsitting and mine uprising’ , indicating that God knows all the psalmist's actions.’ [See Bruce Waltke (2007), A Commentary on Micah]
A few more examples include, ‘from Dan to Beersheba’ [1 Sam.3:20], ‘from the sole of the foot to the top of the head’ [Isa.1:6], ‘the Alpha and the Omega’ [Rev.1:8], ‘in him are yea and in him amen’ [2 Cor.1:20], ‘from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting’ [Isa.45:6], ‘there was evening and there was morning—the first day’ [Gen.1:5], ‘flowing with milk and honey’ [Ex.3:8], ‘head or tail’ [Isa.19:15], ‘the First and the Last’ [Rev.22:13], and ‘the Beginning and the End’ [Rev.22:13].
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