“Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contention?
Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause?
Who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine,
They that go to try mixed wine.
*****
Thine eyes shall behold strange things,
And thy heart shall utter froward things,
Yea thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,
Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.”
The poem closes with a terrible thrust. After the folly of the drunkard has been described, his physical and mental condition pointed out—the red eyes, the strange things seen in delirium, the incoherent babbling, the unsteady gait, the surrounding perils,—the devotee of strong drink is made to exclaim, “When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again!” Knowing its effects, suffering in mind and body from his potations, such is the incorrigible stupidity of the wine-bibber that he no sooner wakens from his drunken slumber than he goes forth to seek again the source of his wretchedness!
The Idolater.
Nowhere is the use of ridicule by the writers of the Old Testament displayed to better advantage than in their treatment of idolatry. Against this sin they brought to bear the most potent weapons of their wit. None of the resources of expression were left untried. Witness the withering irony with which Elijah mocked the frantic priests of Baal: “And it came to pass that at noon Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.” No finer bit of irony can be found in any literature. Indeed, we may regard it as the most perfect specimen extant of this species of wit.
Jeremiah exclaims, “As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes and their priests, and their prophets, saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.”
The Psalmist thus speaks of the gods of the heathen:
“They have mouths, but they speak not;
Eyes have they, but they see not;
Noses have they, but they smell not;
They have hands, but they handle not;
Feet have they, but they walk not;
Neither speak they thro’ their throat.”
Having thus described the senselessness and impotence of the gods of the heathen, he adds:
“They that make them are like unto them,
So is everyone that trusteth in them.”
In a similar vein Jeremiah ridicules the idols: “For the customs of the people are vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not; they must needs be borne, because they can not go. Be not afraid of them; for they can not do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. * * * The stock is a doctrine of vanities.”