this is not known to have occurred. Rather, inspiration suffices for speaking languages without any prior agreement. If this is called divine instruction, then let it be called divine instruction. Accordingly, anyone who claims that meanings were assigned before any of these categories of expressions were used has spoken without knowledge. What is known beyond doubt is usage itself.

These people then say that literal usage is distinguished from figurative usage by whether the expression alone is sufficient: if an expression conveys its meaning on its own, it is literal; if it conveys its meaning only with a contextual indication, it is figurative. Yet this concerns the use of an expression to convey a meaning, not any prior assignment of meaning.

Then it may be said (secondly): this division has no basis in reality. Those who distinguish between the two have no sound definition by which to tell one from the other. It is therefore clear that this division is invalid: it is a division made by people who do not properly conceive what they are saying, but instead speak without knowledge. They are thus innovators in religion who contradict reason. For they say:

“Literal usage” is the use of an expression for the meaning assigned to it, while “figurative usage” is its use for a meaning other than that assigned to it. They therefore need to establish an assignment of meaning that preceded usage, and this cannot be done.

They then divide literal usage into linguistic and customary usage. Most divide it into three categories: linguistic, scriptural, and customary. “Customary literal usage” is where an expression comes to signify a meaning through custom rather than through its linguistic designation. That meaning may be broader than its linguistic meaning, narrower than it, or distinct from it, though connected to it by an association that accounts for this usage.

The first is exemplified by words such as “neck” and “head”: they were used for the particular bodily part, then came to be used for the whole body. The second is exemplified by the word dābbah (“creature”) and similar words: it was used for anything that moved along the ground, but then came to be