Antimetabole: Inverse Repetition in Contrast

Antimetabole is the name of a quite common writing form the ancient Hebrews used to emphasize an idea by stating the idea once, then restating an antithetical idea in reverse order. The Oxford English Dictionary states that antimetabole is "a figure in which the same words or ideas are repeated in inverse order." Further, it is "a sentence inverst [sic], or turned back, or it is a form of speech which inverts a sentence by the contrary." Bullinger notes that "this figure repeats the word or words in a reverse order, for the purpose of opposing one thing to another, or of contrasting two or more things." In other words, antimetabole is antithetical chiasmus.

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An extract from Hugh W. Pinnock, Finding Biblical Hebrew and Other Ancient Literary Forms in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1999), 92.

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