Field Tool 90
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Discern

Examine the Meaning

Reading According to Literary Intent

Interpreting Figurative Language

Figures of speech communicate truth through comparison, imagery, emphasis, and literary effect.

Figurative language is not less truthful than ordinary prose. It communicates meaning in a different way. The interpreter’s task is to recognize the figure, identify what it emphasizes, and explain the truth the author intended to convey.

Core Principle

Read literally according to literary form.

A faithful literal reading recognizes metaphor, poetry, symbolism, hyperbole, and other figures of speech. It seeks the author’s intended meaning rather than forcing every expression into wooden literalism.

A Five-Step Method

How to Interpret a Figure

  1. 1

    Identify the ordinary subject.

    What person, object, action, doctrine, or experience is being described?

  2. 2

    Recognize the image or comparison.

    What picture, object, action, or relationship communicates the meaning?

  3. 3

    Identify the point of resemblance.

    Which feature of the image applies? Do not press every detail.

  4. 4

    Consider the intended effect.

    Does the figure clarify, intensify, warn, comfort, provoke, or contrast?

  5. 5

    Restate the meaning plainly.

    Express the truth without losing the force or emphasis of the figure.

Slow Down and Examine

Questions to Ask

  • What clues indicate that the expression is figurative?
  • What would the original audience have understood?
  • Which features of the comparison are emphasized?
  • Which details should not be pressed for meaning?
  • How does the surrounding context control interpretation?
  • Does the author explain the figure elsewhere?
  • Is the image used consistently elsewhere in Scripture?
  • What response is the figure intended to produce?
D.I.G.G.E.R. Field Journal Interpreting Figurative Language 90A
Field Tool 90
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Discern

Examine the Meaning

Interpreting Figurative Language — Continued

Common Figures of Speech

Recognize the form, then ask what feature of the image carries the author’s point.

Simile

Explicit comparison

Compares one thing to another using like or as.

“He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water.”

Ask: What quality is emphasized?

Metaphor

Implied comparison

Describes one thing in terms of another without using like or as.

“The Lord is my shepherd.”

Ask: Which characteristics of the image apply?

Analogy

Extended comparison

Explains a truth by comparing relationships, processes, or patterns.

The body and its members illustrate the unity and diversity of the church.

Ask: Where does the comparison correspond—and stop?

Personification

Human qualities

Describes an object, place, idea, or creation as acting like a person.

Wisdom cries aloud in the street.

Ask: What activity or quality is vividly portrayed?

Hyperbole

Deliberate overstatement

Uses intentional exaggeration to emphasize seriousness, extent, urgency, or emotion.

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out.”

Ask: What truth is being intensified?

Idiom

Conventional expression

Uses a familiar phrase whose meaning is not determined by its individual words alone.

“Gird up the loins of your mind.”

Ask: What action did this expression communicate culturally?

D.I.G.G.E.R. Field Journal Interpreting Figurative Language 90B
Field Tool 90
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Discern

Examine the Meaning

Interpreting Figurative Language — Continued

Symbols, Types, and Apocalyptic Images

Symbol-rich passages require close attention to context, canonical background, and authorial explanation.

Symbol

Visible representation

Uses a person, object, action, or image to represent a larger reality.

Lampstands represent churches in Revelation 1.

Ask: Does the text identify or control the meaning?

Typology

Historical correspondence

Recognizes divinely intended patterns in persons, institutions, events, or offices that anticipate later fulfillment.

Adam is identified as a type of the One who was to come.

Ask: What textual or canonical evidence establishes the correspondence?

Metonymy

Associated term

Uses one related word or object to stand for another reality.

“The crown” may represent royal authority.

Ask: What associated reality is intended?

Synecdoche

Part for whole

Uses a part to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part.

“All flesh” may refer broadly to humanity.

Ask: What broader or narrower reality is intended?

Apocalyptic Imagery

Symbol-rich revelation

Uses vivid visions, cosmic disturbances, beasts, numbers, colors, and symbolic actions to unveil divine realities, judgments, conflicts, and triumphs.

Interpret the image within its immediate explanation, Old Testament background, literary structure, and theological purpose.

Ask: Which details are interpreted by the passage itself, and which echoes come from earlier Scripture?

Avoid Both Extremes

Interpretive Guardrails

Wooden Literalism

Fails to recognize ordinary figures of speech and treats an image as though the author intended a physical or technical description.

“The trees clap their hands” does not require literal hands on trees.

Uncontrolled Allegory

Assigns hidden meanings to details without textual, historical, or canonical warrant.

Not every object, number, color, or direction represents a separate doctrine.
D.I.G.G.E.R. Field Journal Interpreting Figurative Language 90C
Field Tool 90
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Discern

Examine the Meaning

Interpreting Figurative Language — Continued

Worked Examples and Quick Reference

Preserve both the truth a figure communicates and the force with which it communicates it.

Worked Example 1

“The Lord is my shepherd.”

Subject

The Lord’s relationship to his people

Image

A shepherd caring for sheep

Resemblance

Guidance, provision, protection, and personal care

Plain meaning

The Lord faithfully leads, supplies, and guards his people

Do not press every possible feature of shepherding into the metaphor. Psalm 23 determines which features are intended.

Worked Example 2

“He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water.”

Subject

The righteous person who delights in God’s law

Image

A well-watered, firmly planted tree

Resemblance

Stability, nourishment, fruitfulness, and endurance

Plain meaning

The righteous flourish because their lives are rooted in God’s instruction

At a Glance

Interpretive Checklist

1

Identify the subject.

2

Name the image or figure.

3

Locate the point of resemblance.

4

Let context limit the details.

5

Preserve the emotional force.

6

Restate the meaning plainly.