Parenthesis
Parenthetic Addition
Parenthesis is the figure in which a word or sentence is inserted into the course of another statement which the grammar does not require, but which clearness and full sense do. What stands within the brackets — literal or imagined — is no idle digression: it carries the key or the explanation without which the main thought would go unread. Bullinger places the figure at the head of the six Interpositio-figures, which also include Parembole, Anaphonesis, Erotesis, and Anaeresis.
Etymology
Greek παρένθεσις (parénthesis), from παρά (pará, “beside”) and ἐντιθέναι (entithénai, “to put in”, “to place in”) — literally “a placing-in beside”, “an insertion”. The Latins rendered the figure as interpositio. Bullinger gives it the English subtitle Parenthetic Addition, by way of Explanation.
Definition
The grammatical sentence is complete without the inserted words — they even interrupt the regularity of the construction. But without that interruption the main thought would be unclear or unfinished. A true Parenthesis is not self-standing: it depends upon the context surrounding it. Where the inserted matter is complete in itself and can be read on its own, Bullinger calls it Parembole (q.v.). Some Parentheses are expressly marked in printed Bibles by brackets; many others are unmarked and must be discerned by the careful reader. A Parenthesis serves to give explanation, to sketch a background, to place a dispensational frame, or to suspend a thought so that it can be resumed with its full weight.
Bible examples
Heb. 2:9 — Parenthesis explaining Christ’s crowning:
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels (for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour); that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
The parenthesis shows that the Lord Jesus was made a little lower than the angels in order that He might die, and that He was crowned because of that suffering. Without the inserted clause the cause of both His humiliation and His crowning would go unseen.
2 Pet. 1:19 — Parenthesis distinguishing the prophetic light from the Morning Star:
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed (as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise) in your hearts.”
It is the prophetic word that shines as a light; Christ and His appearing are the Day-dawn and the Day-star. Without the parenthesis the text would read as though we are exhorted to take heed to the prophetic word until Christ is revealed in our hearts — which cannot be the meaning. With the parenthesis it reads aright: take heed in your hearts to this prophetic word, until the fulfilment comes in the appearing of Him who is called “the Morning Star.”
Related figures
- aposiopesis — also an Interpositio-figure, but Aposiopesis breaks off without resumption; Parenthesis resumes after the insertion
- tapeinosis — when Tapeinosis is performed within a parenthesis, Bullinger names it Anaeresis
- asyndeton — Bullinger’s alias Epitrochasmos names an Asyndeton operating parenthetically (quick-following members without “and”, inserted into the main sentence)
- ellipsis — cf. Heb. 2:9 with the Ellipsis treatment on p. 92; explanation-by-insertion often requires a supplied Ellipsis
Source
E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), pp. 470-481.