Makhashabah is a Hebrew word that can mean “plans” or “designs.” In modern Hebrew it can mean “patterns.” This website is the platform for Part 2 of an ongoing research and publishing project to discover and describe text patterns in the Old Testament narratives. More specifically it is about medium and large scale patterns that extend beyond a single sentence.
Part 1 is being published as a book titled Makhashabah: Patterns in Ruth. In the book, the Makhashabah framework is introduced and a variety of text patterns found in the Book of Ruth are described. Part 2, Makhashabah: Patterns in 1 Samuel is being published here on this website, as a blog. The analysis and discussions of patterns in 1 Samuel adhere to the Makhashabah framework so terminology from the framework is used extensively in the blog. Part 3, Makhashabah: Patterns in Genesis is still in the planning stage.
Several different kinds of patterns and combinations of patterns are described in Patterns in Ruth:
- chiasms
- story trellises
- compact trellises
- chiasms and trellises embedded in larger chiasms
- a chiasm and a story trellis superimposed on the same text
This blog will address the question as to whether the kinds of patterns found in Ruth can also be found in 1 Samuel, but also to describe kinds of patterns not discussed in Patterns in Ruth.
Makhashabah: Patterns in 1 Samuel 