Pleonasm
Redundancy
Pleonasm is the figure in which more words are used than the grammar requires. What appears redundant in a sentence is, when used by the Holy Spirit, not idle or useless: the seeming “excess” sets forth the matter more fully, marks emphasis, intensifies feeling, or repeats what has just been said in other — sometimes opposite — terms in order to make the sense impossible to miss. The apparent superfluity is in truth needed to fill up the sense, which without it would be incomplete and imperfect.
Etymology
Greek πλεονασμός (pleonasmós), from πλεονάζειν (pleonazein, “to be more than enough”) — from πλέον (pléon) or πλεῖον (pleíon, “more”) and πλέος (pleos, “full”). The same Greek root supplies our English words complete, plenitude, and replete. The figure has no current Latin equivalent; Bullinger himself uses the English by-name Redundancy.
Definition
Pleonasm appears where a sentence would be grammatically complete without certain words — but by their addition the sentence becomes fuller or more emphatic. Bullinger arranges the figure in two main shapes:
- I. Pleonasm of words — a single word appears redundant: either a Hebrew-idiomatic key term (faces, mouth, sons, name, hand, midst, heart, word, voice, days, and it came to pass), or another pleonastic noun.
- II. Pleonasm of sentences — a whole sentence is repeated in other terms, either affirmatively (the same idea twice put positively; close kin to Synonymia), or negatively (first positive, then negative — or vice versa — so that the original statement is forcibly marked).
Where the apparently redundant noun functions adjectivally, the figure is not Pleonasm but Enallage. Where one part stands for the whole, the figure is Synecdoche. Pleonasm preserves the roundness of the expression itself.
Bible examples
I.1 Hebrew-idiomatic — faces (פָּנִים, pahneem):
- Gen. 1:2 — “And darkness was upon the face of the deep”: i.e. upon the deep. The pleonastic “face” makes the expression more forcible.
- Lev. 23:40 — “And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God”. Lit., “before the face of the Lord your God” — in His very presence.
- Luke 21:35 — “As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth”. The pleonasm emphasises the universal scope of the events of the Great Tribulation.
I.1 Hebrew-idiomatic — name (שֵׁם, shem):
- Ps. 113:1 — “Praise the name of the LORD”: i.e. “praise Jehovah Himself” — with greater emphasis than if “praise the LORD” stood plainly.
- Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:2 — “Hallowed be thy name”: i.e. “let thy holy majesty — thyself alone — be worshipped.”
- Rom. 10:13 — “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”: not whoever utters the name, but whoever truly worships God in Christ.
I.1 Hebrew-idiomatic — sons (בָּנִים, bahneem):
- Matt. 16:13 — “The Son of man”: an emphatic dispensational title of Christ, carrying the weight of Him as the promised Man, the seed of the woman, the appointed Judge (Acts 17:31).
- Ps. 127:4-5 — “children of the youth”: i.e. young children.
I.1 Hebrew-idiomatic — hand (יָד, yad):
- Ex. 4:13 — “O Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send”: i.e. by any agency except mine.
- 1 Kgs. 8:53 — “Thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant”: Jehovah was the speaker, Moses only the instrument.
I.2 Other words:
- Deut. 33:19 — “Treasures hid in the sand”. Lit., “hidden-things hidden of the sand” — the hidden things of the earth, set against the treasures of the sea.
- Rom. 1:23 — “unto a likeness of an image” — the pleonasm shows how deeply the glory of the incorruptible God was exchanged for an image of corruptible man.
- 2 Cor. 5:1 — “the earthly house of this tabernacle” — emphasising this mortal body in contrast to the heavenly.
- 1 Thess. 2:13 — “the word of God which ye heard of us”. Lit., “the word of hearing” (λόγος ἀκοῆς): what they heard was the Word of God.
- Rev. 16:19 — “the wine of the fierceness of his wrath”. Greek θυμὸς ὀργῆς (thumos orgēs): the two synonyms together — orgē the lasting heat, thumos the sudden bursting flame — paint “the fierceness of His wrath.”
II.1 Pleonasm of sentences — affirmative:
- John 1:22 — “Who art thou? […] What sayest thou of thyself?” The same question twice, fastening attention on John the Baptist.
- John 5:24 — “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Eternal life put three times in different terms.
- Acts 13:45 — “But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.” The pleonasm piles up the opposition.
II.2 Pleonasm of sentences — negative (positive + negative, or vice versa):
- Gen. 40:23 — “Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him”. The negative side weights the reproach: this was after the manner of man.
- Deut. 28:13 — “And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath”.
- 2 Kgs. 20:1 — “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live”: i.e. thou shalt surely die.
- Isa. 31:3 — “Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit”: that the people might see how easily Jehovah could destroy them.
- Isa. 45:22 — “I am God, and there is none else”: there is none who can save like Him.
- Ezek. 33:15 — “He shall surely live, he shall not die” (cf. Asyndeton).
- Hos. 11:9 — “I am God, and not man”.
- John 1:3 — “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made”.
- John 1:20 — “And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ”.
- John 3:15 — “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life”.
- 1 John 1:5 — “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all”.
- 1 John 1:8 — “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”.
Related figures
- synonymia — Wave B; affirmative Pleonasm of sentences is hardly distinguishable from Synonymia (cf. Ps. 29:1-2)
- asyndeton — Bullinger expressly cross-references Asyndeton at Ezek. 33:15-16
- zeugma — at 1 Cor. 3:2 and Eph. 4:23 Pleonasm and Zeugma operate together
- synecdoche — some Pleonasms fall under Synecdoche (e.g. Ps. 7:3, “in my hands” for “in me”)
- idiom — Wave C; many Pleonasms belong to Hebrew idiom
Source
E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), pp. 405-422.