THE USE OF RIDICULE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
“The oldest jibe in literature is the ridicule of false religion.”—Emerson.
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall hold them in derision.”—Psalms.
In the Bible, the elements of wit and humor are effectively employed in dealing with the sins of men. Evil doing, in its various motives and manifestations, is denounced, rendered repulsive, made ghastly and terrible, and when everything else has been done, it is exhibited as grotesque and ludicrous. Sin is the great absurdity of the universe. Were it not so tragic, it would shake the very heavens with laughter.
One of the old English poets has these lines:—
“He who does not tremble at the sword,
Who quails not with his head upon the block,
Turn but a jest against him, loses heart;
The shafts of wit slip thro’ the stoutest mail.
There is no man alive that can live down
The inextinguishable laughter of mankind.”
With this fact the writers of the Bible were quite as well acquainted as are the writers of modern times. They took advantage of it for the same purpose.
“Of this we may be sure,” says Hazlitt, “that ridicule fastens on the vulnerable points of a cause, and finds out the weak sides of an argument; if those who resort to it sometimes rely too much on its success, those who are chiefly annoyed by it almost always are so with reason, and can not be too much upon their guard against deserving it.”