Bible Lexicons

Bullinger's Figures of Speech Used in the BibleBullinger's Figures of Speech

Paradiastole; or Neithers and Nors

The Repetition of the Disjunctives Neither and Nor, or, Either and Or

Par´-a-di-as´-to-lee. Greek, παραδιαστολή, from παρἁ (para), beside or along, and στολή (stolee), a sending (from στέλλω (stello), to send). Hence a sending beside or along. It is a form of Anaphora, by which one word is repeated at the beginning of successive sentences. It differs from Polysyndeton, in that instead of a conjunction, the repeated word is a disjunctive, because it denotes a sending along, i.e., it separates and distinguishes. The words NEITHER and NOR, or EITHER and OR, are the words which are repeated in the figure of Paradiastole, causing the various items to be put together disjunctively instead of conjunctively.

Hence the Latins called it DISJUNCTIO, Disjunction.

Its use is to call our attention to, and to emphasize, that which is thus written for our learning.

Exodus 34:4.-"The diseased have ye not strengthened,

neither have ye healed that which was sick,

neither have ye bound up that which was broken,

neither have ye brought again that which was driven away,

neither have ye sought that which was lost."

Thus are the false shepherds indicted for their unfaithfulness and neglect.

Luke 18:29.-"And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you there is no man that hath left home,

or parents,

or brethren,

or wife,

or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting."

John 1:13.-"Which were born

not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh,

nor of the will of man, but of God."

Thus is emphasized the important doctrine that the new birth is entirely the work of the sovereign grace of God.

Romans 8:35.-"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation,

or distress,

or persecution,

or famine,

or nakedness,

or peril,

or sword?"

Thus is emphasized the blessed fact that our eternal security depends not on human "perseverance," but on Divine preservation, as the Lord Jesus said "This is the FATHER’S WILL which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing (John 6:39).

This is followed up by the wondrous answer to the question inverses 38 and 39. "I am persuaded that

neither death,

nor life,

nor angels,

nor principalities,

nor powers,

nor things present,

nor things to come,

nor height,

nor depth,

nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

1 Corinthians 3:21-22.-"All things are yours; whether Paul,

or Apollos,

or Cephas,

or the world,

or life,

or death,

or things present,

or things to come;

all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

Thus the riches of the glory of our inheritance in Christ is revealed and set forth and displayed before our eyes.

2 Thessalonians 2:2.-"That ye be

not quickly shaken from your mind,

nor yet be troubled,

neither by spirit,

nor by word,

nor by Epistle as from us as [though we had said] that the day of the Lord has set in."

Thus does the apostle emphasize his strong desire that nothing might loosen them (as a ship is loosed from its moorings) from the blessed hope of "our gathering together unto Him" when He shall "come forth" into the air "for" His people, who then shall be "caught up to meet Him," and thus be for ever with Him.

This he had taught them in the first epistle (4:13-18) for their comfort, but now some person or persons must have deceived them by asserting that the apostle had said, or written to say, that "the Day of the Lord had set in." If this were so, they might well be troubled, for he was proved to have deceived them and to have given them a false hope, for they had not been "gathered" to Christ to meet Him in the air before the day of the Lord. So he writes ὑπέρ (hyper), on behalf of, or in the interest of that blessed hope, in order to thus assure them that he had never said or written any such thing.

Nothing stands between the day of Christ and our ascension to meet Him in the air. Many things stand between that event and our coming "with" Him in "the Day of the Lord." The teaching of Paul by the Holy Ghost is very different from popular Christian teaching to-day. The popular teaching is that that shall not come till the world’s conversion comes: the truth here stated is that it cannot come till the apostacy shall have come!

Popular teaching is that the world is not yet good enough! The figure here points us to the fact that the world is not bad enough! There yet lacks the coming of the Apostacy and of Antichrist. See further under Ellipsis, page 14-17.