Poetry's appearance is subjective
Even well-known poetic passages like Psalm 23:4, often recognized as poetry due to its fame, can be read as prose without losing its meaning. This reinforces the idea that the distinction between poetry and prose in biblical texts is often a subjective aesthetic decision made by readers and editors, as the original texts did not always have distinct poetic formatting.
Summarized by AI · The Hebrew Bible: Exploring the Literature of Ancient Israel · Lecture 21: Psalms | The Poetry of the People (?) · watch the clip