Wit and Humor of the Bible Part 5

This pa.s.sage from James may be placed side by side with the familiar story of aesop. His master, Xanthus, sent him to market to procure the best things it afforded. When the dinner hour arrived, Xanthus discovered that nothing but tongues had been provided. "What," he exclaimed in a rage, "did I not tell you to procure the best things the market afforded?" "And have I not obeyed your orders? Is there anything better than a tongue? Is it not the bond of civil society, the organ of truth and reason, the instrument of our praise and adoration of the G.o.ds?" The next day aesop was directed to go to the market and purchase the worst things it afforded. He did so and again purchased nothing but tongues. "What!" cried Xanthus, "tongues again?" "Certainly; for the tongue is surely the worst thing in the world; it is the instrument of all strife and contention, the inventor of law-suits, and the source of all division and wars; it is the organ of errors, of lies, of calumnies, and blasphemies."

"Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men who are made after the likeness of G.o.d; out of the same mouth cometh forth cursing and blessing."

_4. The Scold._

To return to the proverbs. Solomon had some unhappy domestic experiences, and such proverbs as these may have been the outcome: "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "A continual dropping in a very rainy day, and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her, hideth the wind." "It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman." "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." "It is better to dwell in the corner of a house top than with a brawling woman in a large house."

_5. The Power of Money._

The proverbialists had been close observers of human nature, and of the ways of the world. "h.e.l.l and destruction are never full, so the eyes of a man are never satisfied." "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things." "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." These wise men had seen much to justify the sharp arrows they shot at those "who crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning." "The poor is hated even of his own neighbor, but the rich hath many friends." "Many will entreat the favor of a prince, and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts." "A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men." There is an incident in the second Book of Kings, that exemplifies, with touches of humor, the truth of these proverbs. "And the king of a.s.syria found conspiracy in Hoshea, (king of Israel,) for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and _brought no present to the king of a.s.syria_, as he had done year by year." The king of a.s.syria is greatly shocked at this sign of disrespect. His feelings are outraged and wounded at receiving no present. It is suspicious, very suspicious! Let this Hoshea be looked to. The man who fails to bring the usual present is fit for "treasons, stratagems and spoils." There is no telling what evil he may be plotting. Surely there is "conspiracy in him." "Therefore, the king of a.s.syria shut him up and bound him in prison." Solomon was right--"A man's gift bringeth him before great men," but the absence of it bringeth him into prison as a traitor!

_6. Miscellaneous._

Many other examples of wit and wisdom might be given. Let us add a few miscellaneous ones. Solomon advises against making long calls. Busy men would do well to hang this motto up in their offices: "Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbor's house, lest he weary of thee and so hate thee." In Solomon's wide and varied experiences, there had evidently been occasional encounters with "bores."

It may sometimes be well to present a stern front to the slanderer: "The North wind driveth away rain, so doth an angry countenance a back-biting tongue."

Excellent advice this for those who indorse other people's notes: "Be not one of them that strike hands, or one of them that are sureties for debts; if thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?" "He that hateth suretys.h.i.+p is sure."

There were those in that day, as well as in our own, who tried to beat down the price of an article by depreciating its quality: "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he boasteth." Donald G. Mitch.e.l.l, in his charming book, _My Farm at Edgewood_, has a chapter on "d.i.c.kering" which is, in effect, an elaboration of the proverb last quoted. "Sometime or other, if a man enter upon farm life--and it holds in almost every kind of life--there will come to him a necessity for bargaining. It is a part of the curse, I think, entailed upon mankind at the expulsion from Eden, that they should sweat at a bargain. * * * If I were to take the opinions of my excellent friends, the purchasers, for truth, I should be painfully conscious of having possessed the most mangy hogs, the most aged cows, the scrubbiest veal, and the most diseased and stunted growth of chestnuts and oaks with which a country-liver was ever afflicted. For a time, in the early period of my novitiate, I was not a little disturbed by these damaging statements; but have been relieved by learning on further experience that the urgence of such lively falsehoods is only an ingenious mercenary device for the sharpening of a bargain."

II.--EPIGRAMMATIC SAYINGS FROM OTHER SOURCES.

The epigrammatic sayings of the Bible are not confined, as we have already seen, to the Book of Proverbs. We find them elsewhere. Hosea says of idolaters, "They have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Micah declared of the mercenary prophets, "He that putteth not into their mouth, they even declare war against him." At the same time princes and judges are so corrupt, that "the best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge."

Jeremiah charges against the people, "As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses of deceit." "Can the Ethiopian," he asks, "change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" and adds, "Then can ye also do right who are accustomed to do evil." This is equivalent to the proverb of another people: "Though you feed milk to a young snake, will it leave off its habit of creeping under the hedge?"

"Can a maid forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?" asks Jeremiah; "yet my people have forgotten me days without number." "Yea, the stork in the heavens knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." "As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the middle of his days, and at the end shall be a fool."

Isaiah admonishes the people, "Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it; so is Pharoah, king of Egypt, to all who trust in him,"--a saying which calls to mind the message Jesus sent to Herod, "Go, tell that fox." To those who trusted in the prowess of the Egyptians, Isaiah declares, "Now, the Egyptians are men and not G.o.d; and their horses are flesh and not spirit." He a.s.sures the people that the time will come when names shall be used with greater discrimination--"The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful."

Job says: "For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild a.s.s's colt." And it is Job who has given us the common expression, "I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."

David says of the hypocrite:--"The words of his mouth were smoother than b.u.t.ter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, but they were drawn swords." "Man that is in honor and understandeth not, is like the beasts which perish." "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no G.o.d." Of the wicked the psalmist exclaims: "Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely." Recalling an incident of Israel's journey through the wilderness, he gives his opinion of the transaction Aaron tried to disclaim: "They made a calf in h.o.r.eb and wors.h.i.+pped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth gra.s.s!" "Fools, because of their transgressions and because of their iniquities are afflicted." He says of those who gave him pain,--the "ploughers who ploughed upon his back and made long their furrows,"--"They shall be as the gra.s.s upon the house-tops which withereth before it groweth up; wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom."

Paul speaks of those "whose G.o.d is their belly, and whose glory is their shame;" and also of certain ones who "speak lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a red-hot iron." "Rulers," he says, "are not a terror to good works, but to evil." "If a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself."

The Book of James has already been quoted in this chapter; but there is another pa.s.sage of the proverbial or epigrammatic character that must not be omitted: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a gla.s.s; for he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." The Veman proverb is very like this: "Whatever he devoid of understanding may be reading, his virtue continues only so long as he is reading; even as a frog is dignified only so long as it is seated on a lotus leaf."

One of the best examples of the kind of wit we are now discussing is found in the account of King Asa's sickness and death. The writer of the Book of Chronicles says: "Yet in his disease he sought not unto the Lord, but to the Physicians;" and then adds with imperturbable gravity, "And Asa slept with his fathers." Referring to this pa.s.sage, Professor Matthews says:--"It looks like a sarcasm on the medical pract.i.tioners of Palestine." There is something similar to this in Ecclesiastes: "Wisdom is good--with an inheritance," an ancient instance of "the old flag--and an appropriation."

III.--THE SAYINGS OF JESUS.

To this chapter belong many of the sayings of Jesus. He spoke in proverbs as well as in parables.

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

"Many are called, but few are chosen."

"The first shall be last, and the last first."

"A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and among his friends."

"He that humbleth himself shall be exalted; he that exalteth himself shall be abased."

"Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

"Physician, heal thyself."

"Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on an hill can not be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house."

"Let the dead bury their dead."

"No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of G.o.d."

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" There are several proverbs in other literatures very like this. The Russian:--"A pig came up to a horse and said, Your feet are crooked, and your hair is worth nothing." The Bengal:--"The sieve said to the needle, You have a hole in your tail." The Chinese:--"Let every one sweep the snow before his own door, and not busy himself with the frost on his neighbor's tiles."

"Ye can not serve G.o.d and Mammon."

"A house divided against itself can not stand."

"Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know, them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"

"For unto every one that hath to him shall be given and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."

"Wheresoever the carca.s.s is, there are the vultures gathered together."

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn again and rend you." Similar proverbs may be gathered from other sources. The Persian says, "It is folly to give comfits to a cow;" the Veman, "Though you anoint an a.s.s all over with perfumes, it feels not your fondness, but will turn again and kick you;" the Telugu asks, "What can a pig do with a rose-bottle?" the Tamul says, "Like reading a portion of the Veda to a cow about to gore you;" and again, "Though religious instruction be whispered into the ear of an a.s.s, nothing will come of it but the accustomed braying."

"They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Such sayings of Jesus are true proverbs and instances of genuine wit.

Archbishop Trench says, "Any one who by after investigation, has sought to discover how much our rustic hearers carry away even from sermons to which they have attentively listened, will find it is hardly ever the course or tenor of the argument, supposing the discourse to have contained such; but if anything is uttered, as it used so often to be by the best Puritan preachers, tersely, pointedly and epigrammatically, this will have stayed by them while all the rest has pa.s.sed away. Great preachers to the people, such as have ever found their way to the universal heart of their fellows, have ever been great employers of proverbs." This principle helps to explain why, in the case of Jesus, "the common people heard him gladly."

VI. REPARTEE.

"He that can define, he that can answer a question so as to admit of no further answer, is the best man. Jesus spent his life conversing with humble people on life and duty, in giving wise answers, showing that he saw at a larger angle of vision, and at least silencing those who were not generous enough to accept his thoughts."--_Emerson._