What are some examples of simile in the Bible?

1884 28 Of the numerous kinds of figures used in Scripture there are four most frequent, of which the characteristics should be remembered. The simile is any case where a resemblance is drawn between two objects; as "the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." The metaphor is the putting of one thing, because of its analogy, to express another, as "Ephraim is a cake not turned." The symbol is the designed use of one object to represent some other object or thought to which it has an affinity, as baptism to represent death and resurrection. And the type is the same as the symbol, except that the type relates to some future thing (called the antitype), whereas the symbol relates to something past or present. There are about a dozen others figures: but I think most of them explain themselves, and the distinction between them (metonymy, synecdoche, and so forth) are chiefly of interest to grammarians and rhetoricians.

"I have compared thee, O my love, to a steed (N.T.) in Pharaoh's chariots."

Again, some strangely misunderstand the bold figures of the prophets, as if employed to cast their subjects into an enigmatic, if not ambiguous, mould. This is a great error. For they are meant, not so much to throw a cloud over things, as to give emphasis and energy. Many, whose object is to deter Christians from reading the prophecies, talk much of these tropes, as if their presence was evidence enough to show that the meaning is doubtful. Nothing can be more contrary to the fact; for in the inspired writings, as in others, figures are used, by a kind of understood license, to illustrate, adorn, and enforce the sense, and in no case to mystify. Figures and even symbols are quite as definite as plain or literal terms, and are meant to be only more forcible. The very speech of ordinary life abounds in metaphor and simile; but, of course, the poetical language of the prophecies gives occasion to their more frequent usage therein.

The word rendered "examples" in the first of these scriptures is really "types," and that given in the second as "figures" is more exactly "antitypes." Attention to the teaching of each will readily enable us to understand the difference. The journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness, divinely sustained as they were by the manna from heaven and by the water which flowed out of the smitten rock, was typical of, and shadowed out, the Christian's passage through this world, which has become morally a wilderness to him, because his home is in the Father's house, where Christ has gone to prepare a place for him. A type therefore is a thing, an event, which is taken up by the Spirit of God to adumbrate something in the future. And there are typical personages, such as Isaac, Joseph, Benjamin, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon, who are selected to prefigure Christ in some special character or office. An "antitype," as in the second scripture, is a correspondence with something already existing. Thus the tabernacle, a figure (image) for the time then present, made after the pattern shown to. Moses in the mount, was a revelation of heavenly things. It was not intended so much to point to the future, although it be true that it is only in Christianity that the things revealed by the tabernacle can be understood and inherited, as to display what belonged to heaven. Hence the apostle says: "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands" (that is, into the holy places of the tabernacle, where only the priests could enter), which are the figures (the antitypes) of the true, "but into heaven itself," etc.; for indeed it was "heaven itself," of which the "holy places" were the antitypes. A symbol again is different. For example, the sun, moon and stars, in Matt. 24, as also in Revelation, are used in a symbolic sense, as symbolizing governing authorities - the sun as supreme, the moon as derived (she receives her light from the sun), and the stars as subordinate, authority. So the new moon was, to borrow language, "the symbol of the reappearance of Israel in the sun's light, hailed with joy by the people, and connected with redemption in the thought of faith." Then also there are figures and illustrations. When, for instance, our blessed Lord says, "I am the door," He uses a figure to teach that it is through Him we enter into the possession and enjoyment of heavenly things. The spiritual mind, guided by the Holy Spirit, will have but little difficulty in comprehending these distinctions, and in seizing their significance, when studying the Scriptures.

Jülicher: (α) Strict, simple similitudes or comparisons, as in Luke 14:28-33, the man intending to build a tower, and the king going to make war against another; (β) amplified comparisons (parables proper), as the visit, to a friend at midnight, Luke 11:5-8; (γ) exemplary narratives, as that of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:30 ff.

How would you explain to a pigmy in the Equatorial Rain Forest – who has never seen an aeroplane – what an aeroplane is? No doubt you would use a picture, e.g. saying that an aeroplane is like a large bird, but made of metal, it cannot land on trees, and drinks petrol, etc. This would convey an idea to the pigmy of what a plane is like. In the same way God used items we are familiar with (body, bride, house) to explain to us what the church is like.

The Apostle is going to speak to us very plainly about our tongues, and he uses two very expressive figures of speech: first the bridle or bit used for the direction of the horse; second the rudder which is used for the steering of a ship.

There are beautiful details of Christ - what you see in His life: somewhat like a great picture fill of people, where they give you a little outline of the heads of them all, to say who they are. For these sacrifices are very like that.

A symbol is more than a figure, though in its nature it is figurative.

A figure is simply the use of some known fact or object in nature, or some material act, to represent, and present sensibly, what is moral or mental. It runs into every part of language, and is used unconsciously, e.g., he drew a lovely picture of virtue - "drawing a lovely picture" is a mere figure, at once intelligible, and hardly felt to be a figure and so of almost every sentence we use, which is not simply speaking of material things - "he dragged me into an argument" - "hammered away at his subject."

Now it is hardly conceivable that our author is unaware of the common danger of confusing the sign with the thing signified. He surely knows also that it is a frequent and well-understood practice to compare an object in two perfectly dissimilar ways, for the purpose of illustrating two distinct qualities of that object.

We will give an example of this to make our point quite clear. Let us suppose that an impatient reader, referring to a treatise of inconsequential ideas and vain fancies, alludes to its author as "a goose," and subsequently as "a mule." By the first figure he would probably wish to convey the general vacuity of thought characteristic of the writer, and by the second his stubborn persistence in wrong notions. And though the figures might perhaps be more forcible than elegant, they would be perfectly admissible. But Dr. B. would contend that they must refer to two different persons. For, he would say, if a man is a goose how can he be a mule? One is a biped, the other a quadruped. One cackles, but the other kicks; and so on with other dissimilarities. But does he not forget that though a goose cannot be a mule, a man may be both a goose and a mule at the same time, inasmuch as it is quite possible for him to be not only foolish but obstinate as well?