The poetry, imagery, speeches, and emotions readers encounter in texts like Job, Psalms, and Jeremiah are abundant resources for articulating the painful experiences of the human condition. These compositions are sacred scripts that normalize and articulate the anxiety, loneliness, and despair that mark life on earth. In Vast as the Sea, Samuel Hildebrandt presents an accessible, exegetical study of these scripts that demonstrates how the Bible's ancient poetry speaks today. In conversation with current psychological research, Hildebrandt's poetic analyses invite readers to discover the personal and expressive contours of the biblical text, as well as its liberating and healing potential. Vast as the Sea models an approach to the Old Testament that navigates a critical and creative balance between ancient contexts and contemporary life. Hildebrandt joins these two worlds together by maintaining a conscious focus on poetic language. By reflecting on individual words, engaging selected metaphors, and unpacking expressions and their underlying worldviews, Vast as the Sea gifts to its readers a reservoir of language for putting the pain of being human into words. The world, woe, and wonder of Old Testament poetry is a vast yet overlooked resource for readers who are left speechless by the tumults of life and who struggle to reconcile such experiences with their faith. Promoting emotional literacy and wrestling with the tensions between confession and experience, Vast as the Sea will become a long-held, treasured resource for scholars and everyday readers of the Bible, as well as for practitioners in psychology and pastoral counseling.
Samuel Hildebrandt holds a PhD in Hebrew and Old Testament studies from the University of Edinburgh. He currently teaches as a lecturer in biblical studies at Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, United Kingdom. Hildebrandt has published Interpreting Quoted Speech in Prophetic Literature: A Study of Jeremiah 2:1-3:5 and is coeditor of From Words to Meaning. His research appears regularly in academic and church-facing publications. Hildebrandt also has experience as an editorial consultant and translator. At home in Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom, he enjoys everyday life with his family and treasures every minute he spends on his bicycle.
Introduction Chapter 1 Living in a Restless World: The Chaos and Calm of Psalm 46 Chapter 2 The Lonely Bird on the Roof: Psalm 102 and the Reality of Life Alone Chapter 3 Words of Woe: Speaking of Despair in Jeremiah Chapter 4 When the World Comes Undone: Job 3 and the Language of Shattered Assumptions Chapter 5 Caught in the Flow of Time: Ecclesiastes and Human Mortality Chapter 6 Of Ants and Answers: The Human Condition in Proverbs 30 and Matthew 6 Conclusions
