HYPERBOLE

This figure, in its representation of things or objects, either magnifies or diminishes them beyond or below their proper limits: it is common in all languages, and is of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures. Thus, things which are lofty are said to reach up to heaven, Deut. i, 28; ix, 1; Psalm cvii, 26. So things which are beyond the reach or capacity of man are said to be in “heaven,” in the “deep,” or “beyond the sea,” Deut. xxx, 12; Rom. x, 6, 7. So a great quantity or number is commonly expre ed by the “sand of the sea,” the “dust of the earth,” and the “stars of heaven,” Genesis xiii, 16; xli, 49; Judges vii, 12; 1 Sam. xiii, 5; 1 Kings iv, 29; 2 Chron. i, 9; Jer. xv, 8; Heb. xi, 12. In like manner we meet with “smaller than gra hoppers,” Num. xiii, 33, to denote extreme diminutivene ; “swifter than eagles,” 2 Sam. i, 23, to intimate extreme celerity; the “earth trembled,” the “mountains melted,” Judges v, 4, 5; the “earth rent,” 1 Kings i, 40. “I make my bed to swim;” “rivers of tears run down mine eyes.” So we read of “angels' food,” Psalm vi, 6; cxix, 136; lxxviii, 25; the “face of an angel,” Acts vi, 15; and the “tongue of an angel,” 1 Cor. xiii, 1. See also Gal. i, 8; iv, 14. We read “sigh with the breaking of thy loins,” Ezek. xxi, 6, that is, most deeply. So we read that “the stones would cry out,” and “they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another,” Luke xix, 40, 44; that is, there shall be a total desolation.