Didactic, Rhetorical and Literary Devices

"all flesh is grass"

. . . any narrative may be . . .  in part literally true, in part true in other senses. There is very little literature that belongs wholly to one category or the other. What appears from a superficial reading as literal only, usually turns out on deeper inspection to have its share of metaphor and other forms of figurative language . . .  literally . . .  untrue . . . 

— Wilfred Lambert on a Literal Reading of Genesis 1-2

Literary devices

All language is symbolic: it uses words as symbols of concepts. The Bible's message is conveyed in its choice and arrangement of words and phrases, as well as in its choice of genre (history, poetry, oratory, etc).

Didactic devices

i.e. teaching devices: structures and other features of the Bible's language that help learning.

Rhetorical devices

• See at Fiat Creation — especially the reference to Psalm 68, which is not to be understood literally.
• Genesis 1:9-13 — trees coming into fruit in season on a single day is an evocative image within the rhetorical — and didactic — device of a seven-day week. As a literal historical event it would be confusion.
• Have ye never read? — an insulting rhetorical question