Parables of the Old Testament – Part unknown

Riddles and Dark Sayings

In early Eastern literature, riddles play a considerable part, but they are not of frequent occurrence in the Old Testament. This is doubtless because the riddle form does not lend itself readily to becoming a means of spiritual expression. It has more of wit than of wisdom and consequently is generally too light to provide the highest form of teaching. Allied to the riddle is the enigma, or dark saying, and this offers more scope for moral counsel. In the Old Testament, riddles, dark sayings, hard questions and parables are to an extent linked together. Ezekiel calls his oracle of the eagles and the vine (ch. 17) a riddle and a parable; the Queen of Sheba plied Solomon with riddles or hard questions (I Kings 10-1; while the Psalms reveal a connection between parables and dark sayings (e.g. 49-4; 78-2). It is therefore, interesting to consider and compare examples of riddles or dark sayings from the Old Testament.

Lamech’s Parable

This fragment belongs to the earliest history, being found in the fourth chapter of Genesis. It is the first piece of metrical poetry in the Bible and is in the antithetical form of Hebrew verse, which takes the shape of couplets each containing parallel ideas;

Couplet 1.

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech;

Couplet 2.

For I have slain a man for wounding me;
And a young man for bruising me;

Couplet 3.

If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold Truly Lamech seventy-and-seven­fold.” (v. 23-24. R.V.)

The speech is clearly enigmatical and the information available for understanding it is scanty. Two facts about the dark saying and its context help us, however. First the reference to the mark of God branded upon the forehead of Cain as a protection after he had killed Able. (v. 15) Second, the linking of the parable with the discovery by Tubal Cain, i.e. Tubal the Smith, Lamech’s son, of the power of working in brass (copper) and iron. (v. 22).

It seems very probable that the explanation of Lamech’s speech lies in the fact that the scientific discoveries of Tubal Cain placed it within the power of men to make the weapons and that this was the inception of the practice, most assiduously followed ever since, of trying to adapt every mechanical invention to the manufacture of weapons of slaughter. Armed with the weapons forged for him by his son, Lamech could defend himself. He had already killed one who had attacked him and he felt that the security of his armament was worth much more than the protection which God afforded to Cain. Further, bragging before women was, and is, a characteristic of the Beduin. Thus, Lamech was the first of the arrogant men who carry their god in their right hands and worship the sword.

The parable introduces us to the darkness of the antediluvian world and speaks of the beginning of the reign of force which filled the world with violence and which could only be met by the flood, which swept away the ungodly. The violence of those early days was as nothing compared with the evils and inhumanities which are going forth from nation to nation at present. As then, so now, Divine intervention, leading to a new start, is the only permanent remedy and those who have the God of Noah for their refuge are longing for it.

Samson’s Riddle

Of all the judges of Israel, the strangest and most romantic is Samson. Half-barbaric, exulting in his immense strength and using it recklessly in the service of God, he yet seems to rouse in us the sympathy which we willingly accord to those who continue to struggle for the right without the moral force needed to attain full success. His conundrum is a riddle in the modern sense of the word and while it does not yield a great deal of moral instruction, it helps to make the surrounding circumstances vivid and alive and so adds greatly to the force of the narrative.

Samson went to Timnath with his parents and while wandering among the vineyards was menaced by a lion. Although he had no weapon he attacked the beast and in the strength of the Lord rent him as he would have done a kid. He did not tell his parents of his exploit. Later, he fell in love with a woman of Timnath and decided to marry her. When going to see her one day he passed by the lion’s carcass and found that a swarm of bees had settled there, leaving deposits of honey. He ate some of the honey and took some home to his parents, not telling them whence he had obtained it. When the wedding day arrived Samson made a feast and to it came thirty companions. The proceedings were very convivial and in the midst of the festivities Samson propounded his riddle. The stakes were thirty linen garments and thirty changes of raiment which were to be given to the winning party by the other side. It was an eastern custom, later referred to by Jesus when he said that it was unreasonable to expect the children of the bride chamber to fast while the bridegroom was with them, for the feast to be maintained for seven days and for the bridegroom’s friends or companions to remain with him for that period. So the end of the feast was fixed as the time limit for the reply to the riddle. The puzzle was:

“Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness”

Ignorant of Samson’s exploit with the lion, the companions found it difficult to frame an answer. After vainly racking their brains for some time, they decided that a subtler method must be tried. So they went to their fellow-countrywoman, the Philistine maiden, Samson’s wife, and urgently represented that Samson was trying to ruin them; begged her to use all her arts to beguile the answer form him; and finally threatened to set fire to her father’s house and to herself if she failed them. With pleadings and tears she importuned him. In vain he explained that he hadn’t even told his parents the answer. She pressed him so sorely that at length he gave way and told her.

At the appointed time the companions came to the bridegroom and delivered their reply;

“What is sweeter than honey?

And what is stronger than a lion?” Sadly he realized how they had tricked him and retorted —

“If ye had not plowed with my heifer ye had not found out my riddle”.

He was not beaten, for rising up in anger, he went down to Ashkelon and, single-handed, smote thirty of the Philistine enemies of his people. With the spoil which he took he paid his debt. He was still incensed against his wife and insulted her by leaving her and returning to his parents’ home. Her father retaliated by giving her to his best man and when Samson went back for her he found that he had lost her, a deprivation which he avenged many times in Philistine blood. The record sheds a vivid light on the lawlessness of the times and shows that even the Nazarite vow could not tame the fierce spirit of Samson. The riddle, too, couched in metrical parallelisms, falls pleasingly on the ear. But the moral power of the Old Testament parables, as a whole, is not found.

The Preacher’s Enigma

More scope for moral teaching is afforded by the “dark saying” preserved in the last chapter of Ecclesiastes. Here, in a graphic passage, the writer describes the advent of old age. The figures of speech are tellingly chosen and while some of them present difficulties of interpretation, the general trend of the argument, which has its own pathetic beauty, is easy to follow.

“Remember now thy creator in the
days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw
nigh, when thou shalt say, I have
no pleasure in them. While the
sun, or the light, or the moon, or
the stars be not darkened, nor the
clouds return after rain.

The decline of human powers in old age is first described by reference to its failure to appreciate fully the joys of warm sunshine and the beneficence of the light, or even the gentler night tones of the moon and the stars. Nor is the language literal only; it also symbolizes the tendency to gloom and apprehension which so often accompanies advancing years. The cessation of the rain is not the signal for the renewed clear shining of the son, but the prelude to further clouds and storms.

Next, the writer considers the human body as a house, the occupants of which are used to represent human organs and faculties. The failure of the various inmates to act is indicative of decay:

“In the day when the keepers of the house (the arms and the hands) shall tremble, and the strong man (the legs) shall bow themselves, and the grinders (the teeth) cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows (the eyes) be darkened,

And the doors (the lips) shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding (the teeth) is low, (this seems to refer to the falling in of the mouth when the teeth are lost) and it (the voice) shall rise into the twittering of the sparrow,* and all the daughters of music (the tones of the voice) shall be brought low,

Next, metaphor is abandoned and then reintroduced:

“Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, because man, goeth to his long home and the mourners go about in the streets”,

Old age shrinks from heights and dreads terrors even in the beaten path. The almond tree with its white blossoms is typical of the hoary head; the burdensome, or perhaps better, torpid grasshopper or locust, which stiffens before it dies, represents the loss of agility; whilst the failing of desire, or (R.V.) of the caper-berry, which was used to provoke relish for food, signifies loss of appetite. The result of all these successive losses is that man dies and enters his long home in the grave.

“Or even the silver cord be loosened, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern,

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.”

All these figures relate to the ending of life. The silver cord hanging from the ceiling supporting the golden lamp containing the oil of life gives way; the lamp crashes, and the life-light is extinguished. The broken pitcher and the smashed cistern wheel tell their sad story of usefulness brought to an end.

As the Preacher glances back over his word-picture of the progressive decay, he reflects on the futility of human life. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. Of many lives his words are true, but not of the lives of those who keep his initial counsel and remember their Creator whilst their faculties are not fatally impaired. For them, there are wise and acceptable words, sure as fixed nails, and given from the Good Shepherd who has said that of all that God has given him, he will lose nothing, but will raise it up again at the last day.

Whether we reflect upon the primitive exultation of Lamech in the power of his newly-found weapons; upon the wild sportiveness and glory in physical strength of Samson; upon the chastened and realistic wisdom of the preacher; or upon the effect of their discordant philosophies of life upon the world, we who now busily interweave day by day the warp and weft of our lives, can, by the grace of God, realize the truth of the preacher’s conclusion to the whole matter;

“Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”