49. The Humorous Element in Scripture
The Humorous Element in Scripture
Chapter 48
Humor has its legitimate place, province, and office, even in sacred things. Being one of the faculties in man, it affords a medium and a channel of approach and appeal. Ridicule is sometimes a keener and more effective weapon than argument—the only answer which some assaults on truth or errors in teaching and practice deserve. But, like other sharp weapons, it requires careful handling, and it is one of the marks of perfection in the Word of God that we are instructed by example as to its proper uses and the avoidance of its abuses.
Biblical examples might be collated of every sort of weapon to be found in the whole armory of humor—wit, satire, irony, retort, ridicule, raillery, drollery, play on words—these and other forms of the ludicrous are employed by prophets, apostles, and some of them even by our Lord Himself, as means to rebuke and expose error and wrong and vindicate truth and right.
One man at least is evidently meant as an example of mischievous abuse of the ludicrous—Samson—who is the representative wag of scripture, in whom humor runs mad, the element of the ridiculous in this case being carried to the extreme, as if for warning. But in general the use of humor is carefully restrained and restricted within its lawful domain and province.
Samson after his slaughter of the Philistines celebrated his victory by a play on words—the original word for “ass” and “heaps” being nearly the same. Wordsworth reproduces the poetic paranomasia thus:
“With the jaw bone of an ass, a mass, two masses,” etc. A Jewish student suggests—“I ass-ass-inated them” as an approach to the witty original.
What awful sarcasm when Hezekiah, finding the children of Israel still burning incense to the brazen serpent, seven hundred and fifty years after it served its purpose, broke it in pieces and contemptuously called it “Nehushtan”—a mere piece of brass! (2 Kings 18:4), Ewald paraphrases it “the Brass God.” The Gileadites compelled the Ephraimites, at the fords of the Jordan, to pronounce a Hebrew word, “Shibboleth.” The Eastern tribe seems to have had a dialectical provincialism in the utterance of this word, and the Ephraimites could not bring their organs to pronounce it, but said “Sibboleth.” The former word means a “stream,” and the latter a “burden,” and the test word was naturally suggested by the locality of the stream. A Frenchman finds similar difficulty in pronouncing the diphthong “th” (Judges 12:6).
There seems here a designed reference to the paltry differences which often array men against each other and lead even to persecuting hatred. The word “Shibboleth” has passed into our language to indicate the test word, pet phrase, or trifling peculiarity which becomes the watchword of a party or the test of orthodoxy, and may give rise to bitter warfare between sects and persecuting bigotry and intolerance. The difference between the two words was that of a mere aspirate—the sound of “h,” and the inability to sound it doomed them to death. How like the controversies of the ages!
What a bitter irony is found in that sentence applied to the idolater: “He feedeth on ashes!” (Isaiah 44:19-20; Jeremiah 10:1-6).
He hews down a tree—cuts up a part of it for fuel for his fire, to warm himself and cook his food; and of the residue he carves a wooden god to worship—he does not see that he is trying to feed his soul on ashes—that the log he burns and turns to ashes is identical with the god he adores. Can a god be burnt upon a fire? or such a god feed the worshipper with anything better than the ashes which is all that remains of him? The Bible sometimes makes even History humorous—as in poetic retribution in which with all the tragedy there is a hint of comedy. Compare Judges 1:5-7, where Adonibezek who has made seventy captive kings with thumbs and great toes cut off, pick up food under his table like dogs, has his own hands and feet maimed in exactly the same fashion.
Or, far more signally, watch the irony of History, when Haman who built a gallows of great height to hang Mordecai, himself first swings from it with his ten sons! The reader can scarce suppress an outburst of laughter when, before the final catastrophe, this dastardly autocrat asks, “What shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honor?” Thinking himself the favorite, Haman lays out a royal program of distinction—not stopping short of the King’s own charger, apparel and crown, with a princely herald to go before and publicly proclaim his high estate. And then what a sharp turning point in his scheme when the monarch quickly replies—“Yes! that is the thing to do! carry out that very program—only let it be you that do it to Mordecai!” The writings of Solomon are full of subtle humor.
Proverbs 6:6-8. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. This is no error in Entomology. The Atta Providens, Atta Barbara and Atta Struct or are not carnivorous but herbivorous. They prepare the soil, plant seed, weed out the soil, reap and store the crop, and when the grain gets wet, bring it to the surface and dry it in the sun. The emphatic word is “sluggard”—and the ant is put before us as an example of industry and energy. Don’t lie abed and dream or fold your hands and mourn that you have not much brains. Neither has the ant, but what brain it has is all gray matter, and not putty. Get up and go to work. Make the most of what you have. What you need is the formic acid of a persistent effort. No matter if you are very small and black and live in an ant hill, if you have only grit. The ant is famous for industry, energy, ingenuity, economy; for division and combination of labor. Whether as masons, agriculturists, carpenters or carvers of wood they furnish examples for admiration and imitation. Where no oxen are the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox (Proverbs 14:4). The lesson is simple; if you keep no oxen you will have a clean crib—no fodder to furnish, no litter to clear away; but you cannot avail yourself of the strength of the ox, and the increase it brings.
Occupation is the ox. To do hard work costs something, but it also counts for something; it is easier to be lazy, but it is hard to go hungry. To do nothing gratifies indolence, but indolence has no reward in attainment or accomplishment. Better buy an ox and feed him than to have no ox when you have a field to plow or a load to pull. There is a life of contemplation that is in a sense cleaner than one of action; it keeps us away from the turmoil and dust of the field and street; but it forfeits the increase of work done in the world for the world’s good. A living dog is better than a dead lion (Ecclesiastes 9:4).
Founded on popular estimates of the dog and lion in the East, the dog, wild and wolfish, slave of beastly vices, being held very low—the lion, strong and majestic, ranked as king of beasts. A lower order of man, inspired by a purpose, is better than the highest in rank, unfitted with an aim. When ciphers precede the units they diminish their value; when they follow, they increase it.
Society is an inclined plane—down which the dead lions slide, and up which the living dogs climb, and they pass each other on the way. Down from the highest plane drop those who are inert and purposeless, who have not enough manhood to maintain themselves where God has placed them; up from the lowest level rise those whose innate nobleness and resolution are superior to their natural and social position.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war (Ecclesiastes 9:18). This is the conclusion of a little allegory (Ecclesiastes 9:14-18): the allegory of a little city, and a few men within it; and there came a great King against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it; and there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city. The little city is the family, the church, the state, or even the little city of the man’s own self. The great King with all his host is the Devil; and the poor man is simply a wise heart. The pen is mightier than the sword—brains stronger than brawn. One wise man offsets an army of mere fools—right is stronger than might. As Bacon said, knowledge is power. The man of talent and tact, who has insight to see what is needed, and the foresight to suggest the remedy, is the salvation of society. After nations have wasted millions in war, it is the sagacity and capacity of a few wise men that suggest the basis of a permanent peace, and the same counsels called in earlier might have saved war’s awful cost.
If the iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge then must he put to more strength (Ecclesiastes 10:10).
“A whet is no let.” Sharpness is a form of strength. The purpose of education is to whet the iron—not a dead mass of accumulations, but power to work with the brain. Arnold would have the boy study Latin “not for what he would do with the Latin, but for what the Latin would do with him.” Culture is a form of force. A sharp weapon enables us to do as much work with much less muscle.
Education whets and sharpens the dullest tools and helps the workmen to excel and surpass those who have more and better tools, but do not use the grindstone. The maxim of a heathen moralist is true that “Ridicule sometimes cuts deeper than severity,” and is amply illustrated in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
“A sluggard who dips his hand into the dish, will not so much as bring it to his mouth”; and “will not turn himself in bed but must be rolled over by others” like a door that cannot turn itself (Proverbs 26:14-15). This is biting sarcasm.
Again, among the four unendurable things, are instanced a servant who becomes a sovereign, and carries the servile spirit into his rule; and an ugly “woman who comes to be married” (Proverbs 30:21-23).
Again Solomon compares one who meddles with others’ strife to a man who grasps a dog by the ears—he can neither safely hold on or let go.
Paul often betrays a keen sense of humor, as for example in some of his paradoxes: “Idle tattlers and busy-bodies” (1 Timothy 5:13)—people at the same time idle, as to all that was good, and industrious about all that was evil—hands hanging down for want of work, but tongues always swinging with gossip—active in meddling and mischief making.
He refers to those who, loving fables more than facts, and having itching ears, “heap to themselves teachers,” etc.; the metaphor is amusing for it refers to swine that, having the scurvy, seek relief for itching ears by rubbing them against stone heaps.
Listen to an instance of divine sarcasm!
“The Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalms 2:4). His foes conspire to defeat His plans and burst the cords of His restraints and overturn His throne: but He only derides their impotence as though with a watering pot they would put out the stars, or seek to plant their shoulder against the burning orb of the midday sun and roll it back into night!
Again: “The Lord shall laugh at him: For He seeth that His day is coming” (Psalms 37:13).
He sees the wicked plotting to upset the foundations of justice, but He laughs at his folly and patiently waits the day of retribution when Righteousness shall triumph.
Isaiah 5:7 is a fine example of most exquisite use of play on words. Jehovah “looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.” No translation can convey the beauty of the original. He looked for meshpat but lo! mespach; for tsedakah but lo! tseakah.” Observe the point: He looked for cultivated grapes and found only wild grapes. The difference between the two is one of flavor not of appearance. Externally a close resemblance, but internally how unlike, and, to express this, in both cases two words are chosen, so similar in letters and sound as to be almost undistinguishable but meaning opposite things. We might convey some idea of this by a similar use of terms though not an equivalent; He looked for equity and lo, iniquity; for a scepter and lo, a specter.
What withering irony was that of our Lord!
Many good works have I shown you from My Father: For which of those works do ye stone Me? (John 10:32).
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch (Matthew 15:14). One has only to see Tissot’s picture to realize the awful irony of these words. It portrays a procession of blind men, each with his hands on the shoulders of the man before him, all stumbling forward over unseen obstacles, and the foremost just plunging into a deep ditch.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). What sarcasm that drove those accusers out one by one, self-convicted and condemned!
“Go ye and tell that fox”—Herod (Luke 13:32). In one word He described Herod—his cunning, subtlety, cruelty, and dissimulation. No animal is more famous for slyness and ingenuity both in artifices for obtaining prey and averting capture.