A Lesson in Hermeneutics

In case you missed it (like I did), the band The Oh Hellos released an album in 2016 titled Dear Wormwood. Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Dear Wormwood is a musical response to an abusive relationship. Many of the songs address and process this abusive relationship in direct ways, but one song in particular has attracted a lot of commentary and interpretation: “Soldier, Poet, King.”

There will come a soldier
Who carries a mighty sword
He will tear your city down, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord
Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord
He will tear your city down, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord

There will come a poet
Whose weapon is His word
He will slay you with His tongue, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord
Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord
He will slay you with His tongue, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord

There will come a ruler
Whose brow is laid in thorn
Smeared with oil like David's boy, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord
Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord
Smeared with oil like David's boy, oh lei-oh lai-oh Lord
Oh lei, oh lai, oh lei, oh Lord
He will tear your city down, oh lei-oh lai... oh

This song is clearly drawing upon imagery from Revelation, especially chapter 19, and presents Jesus as the rider on the white horse with a sword for a tongue and as the slaughtered lamb. Readers of Revelation will quickly read these lyrics and correlate the city with the metaphorical Babylon, and as such can appreciate the song’s presentation of the themes of Revelation.

But if you google this song and its interpretation you will find a completely different story. Since the album as a whole attempts to address abuse, abuse then becomes the filter through which each individual song is received. As such, many interpreters take these images of Jesus and find abuse in them. The soldier metaphor of Jesus on the white horse is now a metaphor of physical abuse. The poet metaphor of Jesus with a sword tongue is now a metaphor of verbal abuse, and the king with the crown of thorns is now a metaphor of psychological abuse from an egotistical narcissist. What was originally imagery of triumph, victory, and salvation has now become a symbol of abuse.

This is the power of hermeneutics. Readers of Scripture are inherently also interpreters of Scripture, and if we are not careful with our interpretation, or if we are ignorant of how we interpret, then we can dangerously warp and misuse Scripture. Such is the case here with “Soldier, Poet, King” and its hermeneutical lens of abuse. If we are not intentional and careful with our interpretation, we can manipulate a text of salvation into the image of an abusive God. But if we are careful and intentional, we can perhaps still keep in harmony the lens of abuse intended by the artist and the savior of Revelation. If we acknowledge the abusive nature of Babylon as laid out in Revelation, then we can read Revelation and “Soldier, Poet, King” as a song of triumph as Jesus saves us from abuse and oppression. It all comes down to hermeneutics – how we read and interpret. Let us always remember that reading Scripture requires interpreting Scripture, and let us always interpret carefully and intentionally.