Aposiopesis
Sudden-Silence
Aposiopesis is a rhetorical figure in which a speaker or writer breaks off their sentence abruptly, so that the unspoken portion speaks more forcefully than any completed formulation could. Bullinger places it among the figures of omission because the effect rests on a deliberate lacuna: not the legible sentence but the silence that follows carries the weight. The reader is compelled to supply what is missing — and that act of imaginative completion strikes deeper than a direct utterance would have.
Etymology
Greek ἀποσιώπησις (aposiôpêsis), “a becoming silent”, from the verb ἀποσιωπάω (aposiôpaô), literally “to be silent after speaking” or “to observe a deliberate silence”. The Romans called the figure reticentia, with the same core meaning. Bullinger renders the English equivalent as SUDDEN-SILENCE.
Definition
The figure operates by abruptly cutting off what is being said — not from inability to speak, but from the conviction that words fall short. The effect is twofold: the reader’s attention is fixed on the moment of rupture, and the unspoken content acquires, by its very absence, an exalted weight. Bullinger arranges his examples under four subjective drives: promise, anger and threatening, grief and complaint, and enquiry and deprecation.
Biblical Examples
1. Promise (something too great to be conveyed in words):
- Exod. 32:31-32 — Moses’ unfinished intercession: “…forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book”. The pause itself bears his deepest self-offering.
- 2 Sam. 5:8 — David’s half-finished saying “Whosoever getteth up to the gutter —”; the fulfilment becomes clear only in 1 Chr. 11:6 (in Joab).
- 1 Chr. 4:10 — Jabez breaks off his prayer “that it may not grieve me —”, and God answers without waiting for the words to finish.
- Dan. 3:15 — Nebuchadnezzar threatens but is careful to promise nothing: “…ye fall down and worship the image which I have made —; but if ye worship not”.
- Luke 13:9 — The vine-dresser: “And if it bear fruit —”; where the A.V. supplies “well!”, the Greek leaves the silence open.
2. Anger and Threatening (too dreadful to utter):
- Gen. 3:22 — “…lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever —“. The unspoken consequence leaves the reader in the same darkness in which the Fall placed us.
- Gen. 20:3 — “Behold, thou art but a dead man — for the woman which thou hast taken”. What is missing: “if thou dost not restore her” (cf. v. 7).
- Jas. 3:1 — “…we shall receive the greater condemnation —“. What that condemnation entails is left unspoken.
3. Grief and Complaint (overwhelmed by sorrow):
- Gen. 25:22 — Rebekah’s “If it be so, why am I thus —?“. The complaint is choked off before it can emerge.
- Judg. 5:29-30 — Sisera’s mother repeats words to herself, and her soliloquy is silenced just before the song of triumph erupts (see also homoeopropheron).
- Ps. 6:3 — “…but thou, O Lord, how long —?“. The words drown in grief.
- Luke 15:21 — The prodigal son collapses mid-confession: “…am no more worthy to be called thy son —“. Or: the Father will not let him finish (see also polysyndeton).
- Luke 19:42 — Jesus over Jerusalem: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace —! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”
4. Enquiry and Deprecation (the inconceivable):
- Hos. 9:14 — “Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give —?“. The prophet cannot complete his own question.
- John 6:62 — “And if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before —?“. No specific completion can convey what is implied.
- Acts 23:9 — “We find no evil in this man: but, if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him —“. Later copyists tried to fill the silence with μὴ θεομαχῶμεν (mê theomachômen, “let us not fight against God”), but the Greek original preserves the silence.
Related Figures
- ellipsis — grammatical omission; Aposiopesis is its rhetorical counterpart, in which not a word but a whole line of thought is cut off
- polysyndeton — see Luke 15:21
- homoeopropheron — see Judg. 5:29-30
Source
E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), pp. 151-153.