(From the Adult Sunday School class, 9/18/2016)
Continuing in our study of the sayings of Proverbs 10, today we look at verse 23, which tells us about what wise people and foolish people do for fun.
The KJV reads, “It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: But a man of understanding hath wisdom.” The first half of this proverb is very well translated. I particularly like the word “mischief” as a translation for Hebrew zimmah, but I don’t think the second half is as successful as the first. So now I’m going to read a different translation that I think captures both halves pretty well. This is from a Jewish translation of the Old Testament, which the Jews call “the Bible”. This translation goes by JPS, or Jewish Publication Society. “It is as sport to a fool to do wickedness, And so is wisdom to a man of understanding.”
Proverbs 10:23 tells us that for fools doing wickedness is like a sport, it’s fun, it’s like a game. On the other hand, for wise people wisdom is a sport, it’s fun, it’s like a game. And as interesting as that is in itself, if we dig in and peel back the surface layers of this proverb, and if we reflect a while on it, which is loads of fun for me, there’s a lot of meat condensed in this little nugget.
So let’s start with the first word in this verse: kiśḥôq. This means “like a śǝḥôq”. What is a śǝḥôq? It comes from a verb śāḥaq which means “to laugh” or “to have fun.” It’s a variant form of the word that sits behind the name of Abraham’s son Isaac, which in Hebrew is yiṣḥaq. Remember that Isaac was called “Isaac” because in three different instances in the Abraham story Abraham or Sarah laughed in connection with the promise or birth of Isaac. The name Isaac has to do with laughter.
So the verb śāḥaq means “to laugh” or “to have fun”, and the noun form of it śǝḥôq means essentially something that causes or expresses fun or delight. Now the noun, like the verb, can have both a positive and negative connotation. The laughter or the game can be over something wholesome, or it can be over something wicked or hurtful. “Laughing” can connote joy and it can connote derision. “Having fun” can connote celebration and it can connote having fun at someone’s expense, or making fun of someone. So the moral content of śǝḥôq is dependent on the specific activity it is connected to. I think the English word “game” actually captures pretty well all of this semantic content, as well as this ambiguity within the word as to whether the fun is good or bad.
Now what this ambiguity does is it makes it possible for this one word to operate in two different ways at the same time. It ends up acting as a kind of pivot point for the whole verse. This word connects to both of the next two clauses. For a fool to do mischief is kiśḥôq, is like a game, and for a wise person wisdom is kiśḥôq, is like a game.
Now, before we continue with how this proverb is reflected in real life and in theology, I want to take a moment to help you appreciate the artistry of this proverb. See, the Hebrew proverbs were not thrown together, they were not hastily composed, and what made a proverb a proverb wasn’t just its content, but also its artistry. Proverbs were for the Hebrews like haiku for the Japanese samurai. They were an art form. Unfortunately, that artistry is often almost completely lost in translation, and I find a lot of commentaries on the book of Proverbs reflect that loss. A lot of commentaries seem to think that what they are supposed to do as “commenting” on these Proverbs is pretty much just paraphrase them. But that’s usually just telling me what’s already pretty obvious. It also misunderstands what we are intended to do with these proverbs. While they are repositories of practical wisdom, they are far more than that. They are power packed, densely packaged, exquisitely crafted works of art that capture the wisdom of real life far more effectively than pages and pages of dull prose could hope to do. They are poetry. And I think this is, in part, what this proverb is telling us. So, let’s take some time to have fun, to delight in wisdom and to appreciate its artistry.
This proverb has five units. We’ll call kiśḥôq (like a game) A, liksîl (to a fool) we’ll call B, ăśôt zimmâ (to do mischief) is C. wǝḥokmâ (and wisdom) is C’ because it is the thing that is like a game, just like doing mischief. Finally, lǝʾîš tǝbûnâ (to the man of understanding) is B’, because it is the person taking the enjoyment, the counterpart for the fool. So as far as content and syntax, what we have is a structure that looks like this: A B C C’ B’. This B C C’ B’ part here has what we call a concentric structure: the outer parts relate to each other and the inner parts relate to each other. Actually, in the Hebrew Bible you see this a lot, far more often than you would realize. And it can get very complex. We could have A-M and then M’-A’ or we could have a middle section that stands by itself, let’s say N, and then this would become a special kind of concentric structure called a chiasmus. Here, however, we have a basic but undeniable two part concentric structure: B C C’ B’.
Now if we examine the proverb for the way it sounds rather than just for its syntax and semantic content, a different kind of structure appears. Liksîl and wǝḥokmâ both are single words and feature a prominent ch sound in their middle. Similarly, ăśôt zimmâ and lǝʾîš tǝbûnâ are units made up of two words each both of which feature the letter sin or shin in the first word of each pair, as well as a kind of rhyming ending to the second words of each pair. Now this forms a different kinds of structure, a parallel structure: B C B’ C’. Is there theological significance here? Not necessarily, but I just wanted to point out the complex parallelism which is definitely intentional and which inevitably gets lost in translation.
Now, this kind of analysis you can do in a limited fashion even in English translations. While a structural analysis of the poetry isn’t likely to be accurate because English necessarily moves the words all around to make a good translation, what you can do is read the translation carefully, find the points of comparison, and really dig in to find what is being contrasted. Memorize the proverb and dwell on it for a while. For example, with today’s proverb, you can ask “how is wisdom like a sport?”, “what does it mean to do mischief?”, “how is doing mischief like a sport?”, “how does the world around me furnish examples of these two contrasting ways of life?”, and “how does my own life compare or contrast with either half of this proverb?”. Take some time to maybe write out your personalized elaboration or application of what you think the proverb is about. Talk about it with your friends and family. I would say don’t worry about which translation you’re reading. Just like last week, we saw that two different ways of translating one proverb both led to interesting and productive devotional insight. The important thing is to delight yourself in wisdom, to play with it, and to learn how to enjoy yourself.
This little parenthetical close reading lesson isn’t strictly bonus today. At the risk of sound self-affirming and even self-aggrandizing, I think this proverb is telling us that wise people do exactly this. And you get so much more out of the book of Proverbs when you study it this way rather than reading through it as fast as you can. However you read it, read it. But the more you can take time to savor it, the more you’ll come to appreciate it, love it, even have fun with it.
So let’s get back to the actual proverb. The fool thinks its fun to do mischief. What is a fool? Well, that’s what we’re learning throughout the book of Proverbs: what are the characteristics of the wise person versus the fool? What does wisdom look like and what does foolishness look like? What we learn here is that foolishness looks like the person who does wicked things for a laugh, or who thinks it is fun to do stupid or even malicious things. The word for “mischief” is Hebrew zimmâ, and at its core this word has to do with plans or designs. Typically, as here, it connotes evil or malicious plans. By itself this word can refer to evil plans or thoughts or ideas that are put into action, but the word that it’s paired with here, ăśôt which means “to do”, makes that activity element explicit. “To do mischief” is to enact wicked plans, to execute evil ideas.
So taken all together, what is the picture here? The fool is the one who thinks it’s harmless fun for young people to see if they can shoplift inexpensive. We see examples all around of us people who deface someone else’s property and snicker about. How funny. Or people who mock others for little or no reason, who think its fun to gang up on and make fun of the person with the weird feature or speech pattern or behavior. That person’s fatter than the rest of us, or they talk kind of funny. Let’s bully that person for fun. Bullying, in general, is a great example of this picture of foolishness in action. And it isn’t just the lead bully, but anyone who supports the bully by laughing at their bullying behavior. These are cowards who laugh and support the lead bully because they’re glad not to be on the receiving end. The world furnishes all sorts of examples of this kind of foolish behavior, and often presents it as harmless fun. But it is the fool who thinks getting profoundly drunk on the weekend is fun. Man, I had the best time Friday. I got so slammed, I woke up in bed with a girl and I had no idea who she was.
More and more, our culture is telling us that this kind of activity constitutes “a good time”, harmless good fun. “Who’s getting hurt?” Maybe you or the girl who contracts an STD. Or maybe you when your liver stops working right. Or maybe the bullied person who decides life just isn’t worth living if it means this kind of abuse. “Well, they just need to grow thicker skin.” No. Absolutely no. Do not concede to the world that abuse of any sort is harmless fun. The last thing we humans need to be doing right now is growing thicker skin. We’re already desensitized enough as it is. I know I harp on reality television, and I don’t want to judge you if you enjoy one of the shows I find utterly despicable. You and I both have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. But I want you to understand why I find so much “reality television” despicable. So much of it relies on the viewer actively enjoying human depravity: argument, harshness, plotting, betrayal. We allow ourselves to be fascinated by this stuff, to find a perverse kind of pleasure in watching someone else’s argument and heartbreak, someone else’s pain. Even though much so-called “reality television” is in fabricated, it presents itself as real, so the way we watch it is with a different mindset than the way we might watch a show that professes itself to be fiction. But either way, you have to on your guard when watching anything the world produces, because there are values and narratives embedded in these stories and representations of faux reality that profoundly contrast with the values of wisdom and of Christ-likeness. The world wants to teach you to enjoy wicked things.
But the wise person, the person who has understanding and discernment, this person will take pleasure in very different things. The man of understanding or discernment delights in wisdom. A wise person finds wisdom delightful and fun. It is like a game. A wise person loves to learn and enjoys diversions that are constructive or educational. For the wise person to take a wise saying, like a proverb, and memorize it, digest it, break it apart and analyze it – this is all like game. It’s tremendous fun! I also think it’s important to emphasize the outwardly expressive nature of kiśḥôq in relation to the wise person’s enjoyment of wisdom. What is depicted here isn’t simply a kind of quiet and passive subtle pleasure, but a passionate and active enjoyment of wisdom. The one who enjoys wisdom this way obsesses about it. He or she cannot stop talking about it. It causes laughing and clapping of hands. That’s śǝḥôq, “game” or “sport”.
Now, on its surface this proverb is about wisdom and foolishness, but clearly there’s more going on here. There is an explicit connection being made between foolishness and wickedness. Notice that it is a fool who enjoys doing wicked things rather than the “wicked person”. Certainly, Proverbs would tell us that a wicked person delights in wicked things, but here we are told instead that it is a fool who delights in wicked things. A fool is then, by logical deduction, a wicked person, as well. This also means that there is an implied connection being made between wisdom and righteousness. Delighting oneself in wisdom, having fun becoming wise – reading smart things, watching intelligent shows, talking about wisdom with wise people – is by implication morally upright. It is a characteristic of righteousness to delight in wisdom. Certainly, a righteous person doesn’t delight in hurting others.
While I can see the logical connection between foolishness and wickedness, sometimes it’s more difficult for me to see the logical connection between wisdom and righteousness. Yes, they are both good, but why would one necessarily entail the other. The book of Proverbs’ answer is that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”, which is certainly true. But Christians bring an additional dynamic to OT wisdom literature that fleshes out this connection even more fully, and that is the identification of Christ with the wisdom of God. Wisdom, Proverbs tells us, is the thing by which God made the cosmos. It works because it is the logic built into the world. This is what, we are told in the Gospel of John and Colossians, Jesus himself is: the Logos, the one in whom all things were created. Christian theology saw very early a connection between Jesus and wisdom. If we take that and read it into our proverb today, what happens? The delight of the wise person is to study wisdom, now fully realized in the person of Jesus Christ. The person who is wise will find in Jesus all that is delightful and good, and because of that faith in Jesus he or she will be justified before God and endowed with the Spirit of God himself for the purpose of not just being declared righteous, but actually being made righteous.
So this week let’s not allow ourselves to follow the lead of the world in laughing at wicked things. Instead, let’s play the game of righteousness – let’s study Jesus, the wisdom of God manifest for our salvation.
