“With strong hand and with outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 4:34); “With outstretched hand and with strong arm” (Jeremiah 21:5): Chiasmus in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah

David Rolph Seely’s paper, “Chiasmus in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah: ‘With strong hand and with outstretched arm’ (Deuteronomy 4:34); ‘With outstretched hand and with strong arm’ (Jeremiah 21:5),” examines instances of chiasmus and inclusio—both of which deal with the principle of repetition—in the texts of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. Seely provides multiple examples of how these two literary techniques interplay in these scriptural texts. A famous example is in Deuteronomy, “with strong hand and with outstretched arm” (Deut 4:34), which is inverted, creating a chiasmus, in Jeremiah, “With outstretched hand and with strong arm” (Jer 21:5). Seely finds four distinctive categories of chiasmus in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah: “1. Chiasmus of the Speaker; 2. Chiasmus in the Position of Completing a Unit of Text; 3. Particles Create Semi-chiasmus in Middle Two Cola of 4-Cola Units; and 4. Occurrence of Rhetorical Questions in the Middle of a Chiasmus.” After presenting examples of these four categories in the Bible, Seely demonstrates the presence of the same four types of chiasms in the Book of Mormon, a text that can be read productively in conjunction with the words of Jeremiah.