Introduction

In the Bible there are books of moral and edifying content, which are usually called "didactic". In comparison with the books of Moses, which contain direct and obligatory commandments of God, the teaching books are written with the aim of disposing and encouraging a person to a pious way of life. They teach a person to build his life so that it is blessed by God, brings prosperity and peace of mind. This group includes the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach.

In their form, most of the Old Testament teaching books are poetic works written in the Hebrew original in verse. A feature of Hebrew versification, noticeable even in translations into other languages, is poetic parallelism. It consists in the fact that the writer's thought is expressed not in one sentence at once, but in several, mostly in two, which together reveal the thought by comparison or opposition, or justification. This is the so-called synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic parallelism. As examples of various poetic parallelisms, the following passages from the Psalter can be cited:

"When Israel came out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a foreign nation, Judah became His holiness, Israel became His possession"

(synonymous parallelism, Ps. 113:1-2).

"Some in chariots, some in horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord: they wavered and fell, but we got up and stood upright."