Unskippable Repetition
By Anthony Casperson
4-11-26

Sometimes authors go a little overboard on repetition in their writing.

Why are you looking at me?

And few induce as much eye rolling in the audience as Robert Jordan in his Wheel of Time series when he constantly speaks of Nynaeve al’Meara tugging on her braid. (He also has a tendency to have numerous female characters repeat a particular action, but we’ll stick with the braid tugging. It’s easier to talk about in our context.)

The point of Nynaeve’s personal tic is to show her internal doubts and fears in an external way. Audience members can tell that she’s struggling with her thoughts whenever we see her take this unconscious reaction.

But the problem is that we also often see her doubts and fears from the inside, because she’s one of the many perspective characters throughout the lengthy book series. So, the repetition becomes less about being a subtle hint of her thoughts, and more about being a bludgeon reminding readers that she’s overthinking things. Again. And then it smacks us in the face for trying to forget that fact for even one second.

Examples like this are among the reasons why writers often get advice to not be overly repetitious. If a reader needs to take a second attempt at a section of the writing, they can just go back and read it again. Just like how film viewers can hit the rewind button, or YouTube watchers can do the 10-second skip backward.

Thus, the writerly advice states that if you are going to repeat something, it should build on the previous aspects, or at least give some new aspect to what is being repeated. Rote repetition tends to end up annoying the reader, like Nynaeve’s braid tugging.

However, I would add to this advice that sometimes audiences don’t always have the perspective needed to realize that this repetition has a purpose greater than just rote reiteration. Yes, authors and storytellers should do their best to provide that perspective to their audiences. But even then, audience members can be a bit dense.

I’d found myself in this unflattering category of audience member recently.

During my morning devotional time with God, I’ve been reading through Exodus. And while I’ve gone through the more exciting passages of Moses’ early life, his commission by God through a burning bush, the ten plagues, the Passover event, Israel’s flight from Egypt, and the people standing before God who spoke from the mountain, I hit a few days of those “can’t we get back to the good stuff?” in the past couple of weeks.

And this especially hit me this past week when I not only had to read about the number of rings that needed to be made for each side of the tabernacle’s tent flaps, but read it a second time a few chapters later. We’re not even talking about a quick recap either. Moses could’ve hit copy and paste, for how similar the wording was.

While that might not sound like too much repetition, let’s not forget that the text covers the tabernacle’s tent proper, its brackets and bracings, and other ornamentation. As well, there are the items inside the temple to make, like the Ark of the Covenant, the table for the showbread, the altar of incense, the altar for sacrifice, and the washing laver. Oh, and also the priests’ garments, from tunic to turban—including their undergarments.

But that’s just God’s commanded design, as can be seen in Exodus 25-30.

Then, in chapters 35-39, Moses writes—in exacting detail—how the Israelites built the tabernacle and its furnishings. Exactly as described in chapters 25-30. It’s not even like there had been that big of a break between the design God commanded and the physical action of making the items.

Part of me wanted to ask Moses if he was getting paid by the word. Why not just say, “The Israelites built the tabernacle and its furnishings exactly as the Lord their God commanded,” in stead of repeating it, almost verbatim?

When I reached chapter 35 in my morning devotional time, I sighed. And considered skipping the repetition. But something—I assume it was the Holy Spirit’s prompting—told me to stop being ridiculous and read the passage as it had been written.

And during the days of reading the repetition, I started to think about the reason for its inclusion. This wasn’t bad writing; I was being a poor audience.

You’ll notice that there had been part of the narrative between God’s commanded design, and the fulfillment of that design. And this is where Moses’ preparation for the audience kicks in.

Specifically in chapters 32-33, readers witness the impatience of the Israelite people. Moses had been gone on a mountain for over a month. And they were getting antsy. They wanted to celebrate and worship. They’d been freed from slavery in Egypt, and had been set free. It was only right for them to want to rejoice.

The problem was that they didn’t do the worship correctly. Whether they were trying to craft their own god, or some faulty representation of Yahweh, they still failed when they made the golden calf. About a month previous to this, they’d stood in front of the mountain of God when he literally told them—in as direct a manner as possible—not to have any other gods than Yahweh, and also to not worship any image.

Yet, here they were, doing one or the other of those things. And also partying in a reckless manner that harkened back to the worship from Egypt, rather than the little bit of Yahweh’s worship that they’d understood before telling Moses to go get the rest of it for them.

In those chapters, we also see the people of Israel need to repent from this incorrect worship of their God. And Yahweh basically has to start over at square one again, with Moses bringing up his own version of the tablets that he had previously smashed.

So, why do chapters 35-39 repeat, almost verbatim, the design of God from earlier chapters? Because it shows that the people of Israel had chosen to worship Yahweh the right way this time. Their choice to do things right, after their previous failure, is not just fluffy reiteration for the sake of word count.

It’s part of the repentance for the mistake that happened between God’s command, and their obedience.

And we should never wish to minimize obedience after failure. The eventual action performed in the right way is the call for every act of repentance. It’s what the whole point of repentance is. We’re not just saying that we’re sorry and then rushing off to the next thing. No, we should grow from the mistake and act in the righteous manner commanded of us from God.

Repent, and then obey. No matter how many times we have to do it.

As far as the Exodus passage goes, the repetition has a purpose. One I almost skipped past with a sigh. And that purpose is as much for us as it was for the people of Israel during the events.

It reminds us of two things. One, that God isn’t done with us just because of our failures. He’s willing to go over it all again, if we actually do repent of our failings. And two, our repentance includes obedience that meets God’s commands in as close a way as possible. Hopefully, verbatim. An apology without actual change is meaningless.

And as far as this blog goes, let’s remember that God’s word has purpose. Even the parts that sound boring or repetitious to us. There’s a reason that he included it in his word. And part of learning from and trusting him is discovering what his purpose was.

We just need to pay attention to the author’s perspective.