: Hebrew Humor and Other Essays by Chotzner J Joseph - Hebrew wit and humor History and criticism

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HUMOUR OF THE BIBLE

The Hebrew Bible rightly deserves to be termed the Book of Books in the world of letters: it is distinguished from other literary productions by the richness of its sentences, its charm of style and diction, its pathos, and also by the flashes of genuine humour, which here and there illuminate its pages. Naturally its humour differs materially from the broad, rich humour of Sterne, Cervantes, Voltaire or Heine, but it has a stamp of its own, which is in some respects akin to that found in certain passages of the ancient classics. One or two examples will serve.

The extravagance, wantonness, and luxurious habits of the fair daughters of Zion, Isaiah denounces in the following drastic lines:--"Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet . . . it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be bad odour, and instead of a girdle a rent, and burning instead of beauty" . And just as Isaiah reproves the Hebrew women for their pride and arrogance, so he censures the cowardice and effeminate habits of the men of Zion, whose motto, he says, was "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die" .

With equal humour Isaiah makes merry over the false prophets of Israel, whom he compares to blind watchmen and to dumb dogs. "His watchmen," he says, "are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot even bark; they lie down as if dreaming, and are fond of slumber" .

Sometimes the butt of Isaiah's sarcasm were persons of high standing, who belonged to nationalities other than his own, such as the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Moabites, and others. Highly diverting is the sarcastic address which he directed to one of the Babylonian kings who, after making an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Palestine, had been ignominiously defeated in his own country. It is to be found in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, a short extract from which runs as follows:--"The whole earth is now at rest and quiet; people break forth into singing. Yea, even the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is astir at thy coming; it rouseth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? . . . how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

In an equally amusing and drastic manner is Babylon's fall described by Isaiah. "And Babylon," he says, "the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah . . . neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there, nor shall the shepherds make their fold in that place. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant places" .

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. Or, to quote Koheleth's own words: "Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all the labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for this alone is his portion" .

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