ACROSTIC ə krôs’ tĭk (Gr. ἀκροστιχίς, from ἄκρος, top, extremity, and στίχος, line of verse.) A poem in which the first letters of consecutive lines or stanzas form words, or an alphabet.

The OT contains fourteen acrostic poems, in which the twenty-two letter Heb. alphabet appears, with slight variations, at the beginning of:

Each line, of 1 line vv. (Lam 3)

Each line, or each half of 2-line vv. (Pss 111, 112)

Each v.: every second line of 2 line vv. (Pss 25, 34, 119, 145; Prov 31:10-31; Lam 4).

Every second line, or each half of 4-line vv. (Nah 1:2-10)

Each v.: every third line of 3-line vv. (Lam 1, 2)

Every fourth line, or every two vv. of 2-line vv. (Pss 9, 10, 37)

A strophic arrangement, in which each letter begins three successive vv., appears in Lamentations 3 (total, 66 vv.); or eight successive vv., in Psalm 119 (total, 176 vv.).

The order of letters in the Sem. alphabet is now known to date back to Mosaic times (15th cent. b.c., Ugarit), confirming the possible antiquity of the acrostic Psalms 9, 25, 34, 37, 145 and their claim to Davidic authorship. Psalm 10 must then go with 9, since the two form one acrostic.

Acrostics aid in memorization. Awareness of acrostic structure has also assisted in the textual restoration of vv. such as Psalms 25:5, 19; 34:7; 37:28; and 145:13; the original text of Nahum, however, apparently incorporated only a portion of an acrostic in 1:2-10.

The NT contains no acrostics. Early Christians, however, used the fish as a symbol of Christ, because ̓ΙΧΘΥΣ, fish, is the acrostic of ̓Ιησοῦς Χριστὸ̀ς Θεοῦ ̓Υιὸ̀ς Σωτήρ, Jesus Christ God’s Son, Savior.

Bibliography R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the OT (1948), 544, 545, 630; N. K. Gottwald, Studies in the Book of Lamentations (1954), 23-32.