Studies in Life from Jewish Proverbs

CHAPTER XIII

Nature in the Proverbs

In comparison with the Greeks and those peoples who have inherited something of the Grecian genius for form and colour in the world, it may fairly be said that the Hebrews were inartistic. When, however, they are charged with being “unresponsive to Nature,” or “lacking the artistic sense,” it is time to protest. For the Hebrews were not unobservant of Nature or unsympathetic, and the writers of the Old Testament make many allusions to the scenes and processes of the visible world, and they recognise its beauties and its marvels. The artist’s proper quarrel with the Hebrews is that very seldom did they see Nature in and for itself, but almost always through the medium of its relationship to the mental or physical interests of Man—how far does Nature threaten or encourage his faith and aspirations? What does it teach him? The Psalmist does not tell you “what a glorious night it is” or that “the sunset is magnificent”; he says that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. We are bidden to lift our eyes to the hills, not to perceive the lights and shadows on their slopes, but because thence we may look to see the advent of our hope. Let us set two famous passages in contrast, the first from Greek literature, the second from the New Testament. In one of Pindar’s jewelled Odes, the poet—singing the praises of Iamos, a mortal born of the god Poseidon and a human mother—first paints in rich and glowing words a picture of the infant hero laid in a cradle among the rushes, “his soft body bedewed with light from the yellow and purple colours of the pansies,” and then goes on to show him, now grown to manhood and tasting the first fresh glory of his youth, “going down to the midst of the Alphæus stream, there to invoke the regard of his divine progenitor and to beseech of him the favour of a hero’s task—νυκτὸς, ὑπαίθρις, by night under the open sky.”[105] No one who has ever felt the magic of a star-filled night can miss the art that makes the passage culminate in those two words. Now compare this from the New Testament, of course in reference to the literary question only:— ... “So when he had dipped the sop, he taketh and giveth it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. And after the sop, then entered Satan into him. Jesus therefore saith to him, That thou doest, do quickly. Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus said unto him, Buy what things we have need of for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went out straightway: and it was night.”[106] Here also is art, the highest art—it needed the darkness to cover Judas and make possible his sin—but the art is unconscious. The words are given only as a detail of fact, an indication of time, added without a thought of their effect on our emotions. The writer of the Gospel is altogether absorbed in the agonising human interest of the scene.

No expectation therefore should be entertained that Nature in the Jewish proverbs will be presented with unusual beauty or close observation. Nothing very wonderful is remarked of the world outside the little world of man, and the allusions almost always are made in relation to human hopes and fears and habits. But Nature has not been expelled from the proverbs; she crops out now and then, and, if we bear in mind this warning against undue hopes, the subject seems worth a brief examination. Well then, the following proverbs are assembled solely on account of their references to natural phenomena. That is the one and only pretext for their collocation. Some perchance may say that the excuse is insufficient—but they forget that “a touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.”

Since tradition saith of Solomon that “he spake of trees from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes,” we can see where we ought to make a start.

We begin with the trees. The trees however will disappoint us. Wisdom, we are baldly told, is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her (Pr. 318), and it is said (Pr. 2718) Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof. Even if we get so far as to spy a little fruit upon a tree, and imagine that we have it safely gathered, lo! and behold! it rolls out of our fingers. For the famous proverb,

is pretty but elusive, the truth being that the vague phrasing of the English Version is due to nobody knowing what the Hebrew really means! The best passage is this from Ben Sirach, As the flower of roses in the time of new fruits, as lilies at the waterspring, as the shoot of Lebanon in time of summer, ... as an olive tree budding forth fruit, and as an oleaster with branches full of sap (E. 508-10).

Here are the birds in proverbs:

The beasts may be divided into the wild creatures untamed by man, and the domestic animals. Some of the latter are to be seen wandering most naturally through this picture of the wise farmer:

For the horse see Pr. 263, E. 308 and 336; of the dog, whom we shall meet again in the next chapter, there is a famous saying in Eccles. 94, Better a living dog than a dead lion.

Among the wild animals, the lion (Pr. 3030) and the bear enjoy the most fearsome reputation according to the proverbs—The king’s wrath is as the roaring of the lion (Pr. 1912)—As a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over a poor people (Pr. 2815). But there are worse things than either—Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly (Pr. 1712)—I will rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than keep house with a wicked woman (E. 2516). The references to conies, locusts, and lizards in Pr. 3026f may be remembered (see p. 47). Wine, said the Wise, goeth down smoothly, but (was there gout, or worse, in those days?) at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder (Pr. 2332), and the serpent’s elusive track across the rock is mentioned in Pr. 3019. Perhaps these references to snakes should have been placed at the head of a paragraph on creeping things. However that may be, one of the creeping things, being “exceeding wise” (Pr. 3024), received an immortality in Proverbs:

Cannot one see a Sage in some leisure hour, bending down to watch the busy energetic little creature hurrying about its toil? And then—“Aha!” said he, “behold a proper scourge for lazy bones”!

The one reference to fishes makes one wonder whether the days of yore, like our own times, had their sea-serpent season. Says Ben Sirach,

The proverbs may lack something as a text-book for young scientists; yet here is the very essence of the fact of gravitation observed and duly noted: He that casteth a stone on high casteth it on his own head (E. 2725).

Two or three features in what one may call civilised Nature, are worth recording here, although Man played the chief part in their appearing:—

A glimpse of a battlemented town:

Of great ships on the sea:

Of a prosperous dwelling-place:

Curiously enough, no reference to sun, moon or stars occurs in Proverbs[107], but there are several allusions in Ecclesiasticus, especially in one remarkable chapter of really poetic appreciation, which tells first of the wonder and the blazing intolerable heat of the sun (E. 431-5), and then celebrates the glories of moon and stars and rainbow—the moon increasing wonderfully in her changing, a beacon for the hosts on high, shineth forth in the firmament of heaven. The beauty of heaven is the glory of the stars, an array giving light in the highest heights of the Lord: at the word of the Holy One they stand in due order and sleep not in their watches. Look upon the rainbow and praise him that made it; exceeding beautiful in the brightness thereof. It compasseth the heaven round about with a circle of glory; the hands of the Most High have constructed it (E. 438-12). Again in a panegyric on the virtues of Simon, the son of Onias, the high-priest “great among his brethren, and the glory of his people,”[108] Ben Sirach says that, when the people gathered round him as he came forth out of the sanctuary, he was glorious

The elements and seasons, in one way or another, are referred to not infrequently. For instance, Pr. 2513, As the coolness of snow in time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him[109]: a proverb we might appreciate more fully if either we had to go harvesting under an eastern sun or if His Majesty’s postal system were suddenly abolished.

—how tantalising to see the precious moisture far overhead and drifting hopelessly out of reach, in a land where rain was desperately needed!

One passage from the poetical chapter of Ecclesiasticus mentioned above has something of the Grecian charm, combining as it does grace of expression with precise observation of Nature. Save in the spring-song of Canticles, in one or two Psalms and in some exquisite chapters (e.g., chapters 28 and 38) of Job, it has few, if any, rivals in ancient Jewish literature. Mark the skilful transition from the raging of the tempest to the stillness of the snows:—

Some of the simplest allusions to natural phenomena are among the most memorable of these “Nature” proverbs perhaps because it happens that the clear and simple image from the world without is linked to some equally clear and simple, yet poignant, experience of human life:—

CHAPTER XIV

Humour in the Proverbs

The Bible is on the whole a solemn book, but remember the nature of its subjects. British humour is plentiful enough; but you will seek it in the pages of Punch rather than in our volumes of jurisprudence or in official histories or in impassioned orations urging the redress of wrongs, or in The Book of Common Prayer, or in the hymnaries. It is not fair to expect that Hebrew humour will show itself to full advantage in the Scriptures. However, the least promising material has a way of supplying against its will one form of humour—the unintentional; we can all quote some examples from the hymn-book. Of this unconscious humour, the Bible has its share. Many no doubt will recall that stricken Assyrian army of whom it is naïvely said in the Authorised Version that “when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” So in the proverbs there are numerous sayings which to us are provocative of a laugh or a smile, or at least bring to memory certain amusing incidents of life, but which probably were uttered by their authors without a thought of anything comical in the words. Thus, the following, There is one that toileth and laboureth and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind (E. 1111), may be meant as a solemn inculcation of the doctrine “More haste, less speed,” but we conjure up a vision of our fussy friend and see the fun in it. Again the remark (Pr. 2617), He that passeth by and vexeth himself with strife not belonging to him is like one that taketh a dog by the ears (and then finds he dare not let go!), is to us amusing but to its author may have seemed merely a shrewd or apt comparison; and yet in this instance we may suspect the Sage also had a smile for the impulsive man’s predicament. Is the humour of this unconscious: Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord (Pr. 1914)? Far be it from a prudent man to say.

The question of Hebrew humour, however, goes much deeper. Doubtless there is a philosophy of laughter, and an ideal humour, possibly a standard joke to which all other jokes imperfectly conform; but what the definition of this perfect humour may be who dare yet say? At present the nations have each their own opinion and the divergencies are great. We must ask of the Hebrew no more than Hebraic humour, and it does not necessarily follow that his notion of fun will coincide with ours or even nearly resemble it. Was he humorous in an Eastern way?—nothing more can reasonably be required.

What then was the way of humour in the Semitic East? Fortunately life in Palestine has altered so little that modern observation can help us to an answer. “The first appearance of an Eastern”, writes Dr. Kelman[111], “is grave and solemn, with an element of contempt in it rather trying to the stranger. The Eastern does not understand chaff, his wildest outbreak of humour reaching no further than those solemn and laboured puns of which he has always been so fond.... Perhaps it is due to the ever-present remembrance of danger that the Eastern—especially if he be an Arab—so often assumes a show of superiority and bullying swagger, which seem to the uninitiated quite impervious to any thought of fun. But the mask is easily laid aside, and the gravest and most contemptuous Syrian will suddenly collapse into harsh laughter or forget himself in childish interest. Their notion of entertainment differs so much from ours that Eastern “festivities” may appear to us only wearisome or even ridiculous. On one occasion we arrived at our tents to find a ‘poet’ or improvisator, waiting for us. The minstrel seated himself on the ground, while we formed a wide circle round him, and the camp-servants stood behind. From a cloth-bag he produced an instrument which bore close resemblance to a domestic shovel, much the worse for wear and perforated with little irregular holes as if it had been shot. He began to play, and sang a selection which soon conquered any levity that may have greeted his beginning. He had but a few tunes and they all ended in the Minor doh si lah, the lah being prolonged, diminuendo and tremolo, in a long wail that had a sob in it. While the wail was dying away his head was thrown forward and his face uplifted, the upper lip quivering rapidly and the eyes rolling from side to side. Then just as he seemed to have reached silence, came a quick spasmodic outburst, very loud and clear, with vigorous accompaniment, which in its turn died off in the same long wail. All this must be imagined with a wonderful sunset of gold in a sky of indigo and grey, against which the figure of the Arab sat in dark silhouette.” A pleasure so ludicrously sad would certainly seem to imply a lack of humour in those who can enjoy it; but—“the minstrel whom we have described was quite open for joking when he had emerged from his ecstasy.... Often at night there is singing among the servants of the camp and outbursts of hilarity can be heard.... When a fantazia (to celebrate the gift of a fatted sheep) was held there was no possibility of mistake as to the mirth.” Thus there is good reason to mistrust appearances. And certainly it is inherently improbable that the Hebrews should have been devoid of humour; for, as Dr. Kelman goes on to insist, “the East is full of provocatives to mirth. Take the one instance of the camel. Much has been written about him from many points of view, but justice has never been done to the camel as a humorous animal. Yet he is the most humorous of all the inhabitants of the East. Beside him, with his sardonic pleasantry, the monkey is a mountebank and the donkey but a solemn little ass. He has been described as ‘the tall, simple, smiling camel’; but on closer acquaintance he turns out to be hardly as simple as he might be taken for, and if he smiles, he is generally smiling at you. The camels you meet in Syria are carrying barley with the air of kings and regarding their human companions with, at best, a contemptuous tolerance.” Dr. Kelman in conclusion comments on, and cites examples of the camel’s unsanctified capacity for conduct bearing a horrible resemblance to that abomination of human invention—the practical joke.

To sum up. Eastern humour is by no means non-existent, but being often deliberately concealed or restrained in the presence of strangers and being of a different temper from our own, it may easily fail to be observed by Western eyes. Generally speaking, it is apt to be of the most awkward Order of the Camel’s Hump, tending to other people’s disadvantage, fond of personalities, often coarse because primitive, and, it may be, cruel. This being so, it will now readily be understood that the Bible held for its contemporaries much more wit than we are wont to perceive in it. Thus to many a Hebrew the incidents of Jacob’s clever, and none too scrupulous, dealings narrated in Genesis would seem not only edifying but also extremely amusing. From this point of view such a saying as (Pr. 1712) Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly is a merry jest; other examples from the proverbs will be given below.

But however plentiful this fierce and bitter kind of fun, the sting of the original accusation is not drawn. After all, our conviction remains deep-rooted that there is only one real humour—our humour; and no other brand is genuine. What men miss, and complain of missing, is that fine impartial sense of the ludicrous which is just as ready to see the disproportionate in ourselves as in others. The humour we demand is that kindly, tolerant, variety which can laugh at our own folly with profit and enjoyment, and at our neighbour’s without malice. But is even this best of all humour absent from the Bible? Rare it may be; absent altogether it is not, and with a certain triumph we venture to claim its presence in not a few of the Wise-men’s sayings, to which may be added an occasional proverb from the Rabbinic literature.

Beginning, however, with examples of the dry or caustic type of wit, camel-humour, let us take some of the sayings on Woman to illustrate the point. Doubtless the ladies had a great deal to say in reply, but with the customary meanness of man their remarks have been suppressed by the Sages:

One saying there is on this topic, which comes nearer to our thought of humour, its bitterness being forgotten in the quaintness of the simile employed:

Some of the characters pictured in Chapter VII. lent themselves to sarcasm, particularly the Sluggard, and the Fool; but, if certain of the proverbs about them may seem too heavy-handed, touched with the camel brand of humour, others surely come near to being “the real thing.” Of the Sluggard the remark, He that is slack in his work is brother of him that is a destroyer (Pr. 189) is true, undeniably true, but a trifle icy in its wit. More amusing and much more genial were these sayings, which we may repeat from Chapter VII.: The sluggard saith, “There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets” (Pr. 2613)—The sluggard burieth his hand in the dish, it wearieth him to bring it again to his mouth (Pr. 2615)—and, above all, the Sluggard’s Anthem, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep (Pr. 2433). Of the Fool, some observations are almost savage, such as Pr. 1712 (quoted above), and this—Though thou bray a fool in a mortar ... yet will his folly not depart from him (Pr. 2722). The following are more subtle and on the whole more kind: The legs of the lame hang loose, so doth a story in the mouth of fools (Pr. 267)—The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth (Pr. 1724)—He that discourseth to a fool is as one discoursing to him that slumbereth; at the end of it he will say, “What is it?” (E. 228). But the Fool and Mr. Lazybones were ever an easy target: it needed a prettier wit to slay the Self-Advertiser with a word, but does not this saying despatch him neatly, It is not good to eat much honey; so for men to search out their own glory is not glory (Pr. 2527)?

Here is a pleasing pair of contrasts—to the disadvantage respectively of a would-be “silent Solomon,” and of a Chatterbox:

In conclusion we give some proverbs that seem to the present writer still more clearly to come within the category of modern humour, whether by reason of their sly shrewdness or some droll comparison, or even a frank intention to rouse our sense of fun:

Thy friend hath a friend, and thy friend’s friend hath a friend (C. 258)—a canny hint on Gossip.

If our predecessors were angels, we are human; if they were human, we are asses (C. 141)!

As for this last observation, it may have been well enough once upon a time, but of course one would not dream of asserting it now-a-days—as regards the present generation it would be, yes, altogether inappropriate. Well, let us not dispute the matter. Ancient and modern, East and West, we can all unite to enjoy the honest fun and good counsel of Ben Sirach’s advice (E. 1910) to that distracted individual the man with a secret:

Hast thou heard a word? Let it die with thee. Be of good courage, it will not burst thee!

CHAPTER XV

From Wisdom’s Treasury

Who is ignorant of it? As Bacon says in his essay on Friendship, “There is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery as the liberty of a friend.” And yet how rarely, in actual experience, have men the grace to appreciate, or tolerate, even the kindliest of their critics.

* * * * *

Have you tested the matter yet?

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

* * * * *

This is a very long chapter;

Think on these things.

CHAPTER XVI

The Body Politic

The art of hurling texts dies out of fashion, is almost dead, perhaps because it yielded the delight of victory so seldom, but for deeper reasons also. It was ever a game at which two could play; the Scriptures proving so rich a quarry that your skilled antagonist would quote you text for text. Both Socialist and Individualist have found therein ammunition in plenty for their long quarrel, by reason of the disconcerting manner in which the Bible preaches both doctrines and gives its sanction to neither. Thus it never so much as questions the propriety of individual ownership, yet on the other hand continually and with awe-inspiring vehemence it is found denouncing the wickedness of individual owners and the wrongs arising from their sins and negligences. So for the unreflecting text-hunter confusion was apt to grow worse confounded. The existence of this impasse, which in reality pointed only to an error in method, has helped to create the notion, characteristic of the present time, that the Bible having failed to settle the difficulty, we ought to consider our problems entirely without its aid. So completely are we now supposed to be the sole arbiters of our conduct that, even if the Bible had been found to enjoin (or forbid) explicitly and beyond all possibility of doubt certain socialistic measures, it would in no way follow that what may have been right in Jerusalem long ago is right now, or what was wrong then wrong now. Up to a point this attitude is sound: not to consider our duties for ourselves, as if our ancestors or any external authority could rightly determine them for us without our active consent, is to fall into a sin that, however innocently committed, sooner or later benumbs the conscience and, if historical experience has any lesson whatsoever to teach, paralyses social progress.

But the legitimate distrust which the modernist feels for mere text-hunting can be, and often is, pushed too far. To construe it as a mandate contemptuously to ignore the thinking and ideals of the past is to be guilty of as foolish a blunder as ever was involved in the old method of determining an issue by proof-texts; for the relation between even the Old Testament and the social affairs of any modern community is far too valuable to be disregarded with impunity; and on these three grounds at least. First, the experiences of the Israelitish people constitute incomparably the most amazing national career the world has witnessed; and the story of their fortunes testifies for all time that one nation, situated in no secluded and sheltered corner of the globe, but occupying a little land encircled by vast and jealous Empires and covered time and again by the surge of successive civilisations, prolonged its life and in all essential respects maintained its identity, not by bread alone, but by words that proceeded out of the mouth of God. For, undeniably, Israel has preserved its continuity not merely through the stormy fourteen hundred years of which the Biblical records tell, but subsequently throughout the Christian era, in virtue of distinctive moral and religious qualities; and whatever view a man may hold regarding the truth of religion and the validity of morals, no serious student of human affairs can afford to overlook their practical effect in the history of the Jews. Secondly, in the course of that history (limiting our attention to the Old Testament literature) there appeared certain great personalities, in particular the true prophets, whose insight into the problems of society, whose enthusiasm for the welfare of men, and whose burning invective against all forms of injustice and oppression, ought to be familiar to every man who feels within him the sense of social obligation. The example of the Prophets of Israel and also, though less brilliantly, of her Psalmists, her Law-makers and her Wise-men, is a magnificent incentive to duty, quickening the conscience, stimulating one’s resolution under difficulties, and encouraging to good hope. In the third place, the record of these men’s thoughts frequently deserves our intellectual consideration. Modern industrialism has created unsolved problems of organisation and production, upon which it would be idle to contend that the conditions of life in the Judæan highlands offer valuable comment; but since modern commerce, for all its marvellous development of wealth and resources, has signally failed to remove the vast inequalities between man and man, indeed has only accentuated them and made the contrast still more bitter for the unskilled, the weakly, and the unfortunate, it follows that from the standpoint of human happiness the social problem is in its essence unchanged: the poor, in fact, are still with us, with their great virtues and also their shortcomings, their pathetic lack of opportunity, and often their failure to profit when they might, and above all, with their capacity for joy and sorrow and aspiration, which things they share with the richest in the land. No wonder that he who reads the Old Testament with intelligence and sympathy will constantly feel its words on the social needs of men not merely pricking his conscience but holding and challenging the intellect—how wealth is made, how rightly used, how kept, how lost; what it feels like to be poor; of the duties of him that hath to him that hath not; by what things a city is preserved, and of the power we each possess to make or unmake one another’s joy in life.

On these and kindred subjects the Jewish proverbs have a vast deal to say that is worthy of attention, but an outline of their comments and pleadings has been given in the description of the Wise-men’s ideals (Chap. VIII.). It may be hoped that the foregoing remarks will help to make more clear the bearing on present social duty of the teaching there related in reference to a distant past. Here then follow only a few considerations which will suggest how the subject might be developed, and will at the same time give opportunity for the quotation of some fine proverbs not mentioned in Chapter VIII.

I. In dealing with the perplexities of organised society, we moderns possess the advantage of high and increasing skill in the use of classification, so that we are able to envisage our problems in abstract terms, analysing the population into reasonably exact groups, and considering the inter-relations of “classes” and the reconciliation of class interests one with another. This attempt, crude though it still may be, to employ scientific method in the treatment of humanity is all to the good; but if one thing more is forgotten, our best-laid schemes somehow refuse to work or are apt to work amiss. For—“the ‘masses’ and ‘the poor’ whom it is ‘our’ duty to keep are neither sycophants nor toadies nor sponges nor are all of them at the last gasp. They resent the control of their destinies by classes or persons who profess to know what is good for them. They will never become the passive instruments of anybody’s social theory. They will trust themselves only to those who love them. Individualists and socialists take note! Experts and doctrinaires, be warned in time!”[126] Now the Jewish proverbs, not of set purpose but by sound instinct, subtly and insistently remind us how personal all social questions ultimately prove to be. They think and speak with the individual in the foreground of the mind. They prefer the concrete to the abstract, with how great advantage! Contrast the effect of these two passages; the occasional, abstract type, Water will quench a flaming fire, and almsgiving will make atonement for sin (E. 330), with the much more frequent personal presentation: Incline thine ear to a poor man and answer him with peaceable words gently. Deliver him that is wronged from the hand of him that wronged him (E. 48, 9). We discuss “Capital and Labour”; but the Jewish proverb says (Pr. 222; cp. 2913)