While most treatments of biblical metaphor examine individual metaphors in isolation, Sarah J. Dille presents a model for interpretation based on their interaction with one another. Using Lakoff and Johnson's category of "metaphoric coherence," she argues that when nonconsistent or contradictory metaphors appear together in a literary unit, the areas of overlap (coherence) are highlighted in each.

Using the images of father and mother in Deutero-Isaiah as a starting point, she explores how these images interact with others: for example, the divine warrior, the redeeming kinsman, the...