Irony, overstatement, understatement, and multiplicity also diverge from the literal meaning and depend on the reader to realize this. Though perhaps complicated by metaphor and metonymy, these strategies also stand on their own. To this survey, I have added a note on the Hebrew and Greek languages followed by a close reading of Psalm 23.

9.1. Irony

In Isa 1:10, the prophet addresses the “rulers of Sodom” and the “people of Gomorrah.” Those two cities had been long destroyed because of their sin. The statement cannot be literal and must be metaphorical. Isaiah states that the rulers and people of Judah are like those of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, something else is going on. A reader must not only recognize the impossibility of the literal statement but must also know something of the infamy of these two cities. By identifying Judah with Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah is mocking them. The statement is incongruous. Judah is part of God’s chosen people. They are the “good guys” and not the “bad guys.” It is inappropriate to make this comparison, but Isaiah wants to attack and shock them.

A similar example can be found in Ps 58:1.

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge people fairly?

Literally, the verse addresses “you, gods,” but the second line provides the clue to its irony with the word “judge.” As the following verse makes clear, the psalmist sarcastically addresses unjust judges and calls down a violent judgment against them. The psalmist metaphorically asserts that these judges are like “gods” because of their power and what they should do, but with great irony, the psalmist condemns their unjust judgments.

Even so, metaphors are not necessarily ironic; something else is happening. Clarifying this, “something else” has occupied thinkers since the classical Greek period.

Carolyn J. Sharp, in Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (2009), surveys the complex discussion of irony in recent biblical and literary studies. Sharp’s definition of irony emphasizes the “aporetic, culturally disruptive, and invitational” force (24). By “aporetic,” she underlines the doubt created by irony when the audience recognizes that they should not trust the literal text. As a result, she argues, the text “invites” the audience to question their “cultural assumptions” about how they make sense of the world. Sharp sees irony as a way of undermining “the impressive capacity of the Israelites and all humans for self-deception” (240).

To Sharp’s analysis, I would add two typical features of irony: incongruity and hostility. The incongruity here is appropriate inappropriateness. Though comparing Judah’s rulers and people with Sodom and Gomorrah should be inappropriate, Isaiah does just that because of the blood on their hands (1:10-11). As here, the irony is often hostile; it goes after someone or is had at someone’s expense. Prophets often turn to irony to sting and provoke a change. Amos uses it in 8:4-6, where he goes after the unscrupulous business people who cheat and swindle people out of their lives. Amos does this by putting words into the mouths of merchants. They talk about how they cannot wait until the holy days are over so that they can get back to the business of cheating people with their false scales and selling people what they sweet up off the ground. Amos’ words are meant to sting. They are hostile and, at the same time, comic.

In his little book, The Jokes and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud argues that aside from verbal jokes like puns, humor is either sexual or hostile or both (Ch. 3). Whatever one may think of his psychic mechanics, his insight here touches a nerve. Those who doubt this can take their favorite joke and ask at whose expense the joke is made. The hostility of humor may run from playfully teasing through farce and parody to satire, mockery, and sarcasm. While it may make us laugh, comedy is never far from tragedy, and the tragic may be so tragic that we must rely on comedy to bring it to the surface.

Beyond the prophets, Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth begins with “Vanity of vanities” and offers easy examples. Too often, people think that the Scriptures must be “pious,” and they miss its irony and humor. When we do that, the joke is on us. Unless we can recognize the irony of the Scriptures, we will not be able to recognize that we too may be addressed by the prophets as “the rulers and people of Sodom and Gomorrah” or by the psalmist as “gods” who judge unjustly.

9.2. Overstatement or Hyperbole

Overstatement or hyperbole claims more than is reasonable; it is an exaggeration. In some contexts, this exaggeration may be a requirement to meet the cultural expectation of hospitality. In other contexts, it may be humorous. Ps 73:4-9 offers an exaggerated picture of the wicked who have pride for a necklace and violence as a garment; it is both ironic and comic.

Lovers everywhere embrace hyperbole, and in the Song of Songs 6:5, we find the groom saying:

Turn away your eyes from me,
for they overwhelm me!
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
moving down the slopes of Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of ewes,
that have come up from the washing;
all of them bear twins,
and not one among them is bereaved.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
behind your veil.

Since they are lovers, we do not begrudge them this indulgence in overstatement.

We could find other examples, and in each instance, we must ask: Why the overstatement? What purpose does it serve?

9.3. Understatement or Litotes

Understatement or litotes plays down the importance of an idea or situation to create a difference that brings freshness or emphasis. Denying the negative is not an uncommon example of understatement. The defamiliarization of saying too little shifts the perspective, if slightly, and gives us a new look at the familiar.

Understatement can also create strong emotion by hiding the actual depth of emotion. Erich Auerbach, in his classic work Mimesis, argues that understatement is a hallmark of biblical narrative (Ch. 1). Contrasting the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22) with Homer, he shows how the biblical story tells us nothing about the inner reaction of Abraham, and by this understatement, the Bible invites us to imagine what we, if not Abraham, would have felt. Homer, Auerbach argues, tells us everything. Though all biblical narrative does not fit this generalization, it is a perceptive and useful insight.

Psalm 88 gives us one of the great voices of despair in the psalms, but it opens with a standard plea for help. This ordinary petition belies the coming accusations against God, and the contrast heightens the emotion.

Similarly, Psalm 136 begins with a calm and matter-of-fact statement about exile in Babylon. Only the word “wept” points to the dammed-up emotions that vents themselves in the final stanza that calls for the enemy children to be dashed on the rocks. The understatement of the opening allows the poet to establish the context that will justify the strong emotion of the conclusion.

9.4. Multiplicity or Ambiguity

In his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, the famous Italian author, Italo Calvino, discusses “multiplicity” as a central literary value. Literary language, he argues, seeks to connect the many pieces of life, but in this quest, it also reveals “a sense of endless possibilities” (147). In the first half of the twentieth century, this idea went by the name of ambiguity, made famous by William Epson in The Seven Types of Ambiguity. He made it the hallmark of poetry because it made “room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language” (1). The last part of the twentieth century emphasized the subjectivity of the reader response and raise questions about the coherence of the text (deconstruction). All of these have insisted that we remain open to all the possibilities of the text.

At times, biblical scholarship has been too set on finding the one, correct meaning when it should have opened the doors of possibility. This desire for control is perhaps a reaction to the possibility that multiplicity or ambiguity is just endless chaos. I prefer to see it as a manifestation of mystery.

An important dimension of ambiguity cannot be seen in English because it belongs to the Hebrew language, and this ambiguity can be found at the level of both words and syntax. Though this book has focused on what can be seen in English, a few brief comments on the Hebrew and Greek are in order.

9.5. The Hebrew and Greek Languages: Some Brief Notes

The standard Hebrew lexicon by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner lists some 5,700 separate entries. The Greek New Testament, though a shorter text, has about the same number of words. While Greek words can have some range of meaning, ot possesses a large vocabulary with great nuance. Hebrew words often have several meanings, sometimes as the result of metonymy or metaphor. The Hebrew word ruaḥ can mean “wind, breath, spirit.” An English translator must decide which fits the context and leave the other two behind. The Hebrew word for “spirit” is also grammatically feminine, which provides another range of possibilities.

Greek multiplies words by adding a preposition to the root. The Greek verb akouo means “to hear” (acoustic), and Greek adds the preposition hupo to form hupoakouo meaning “to obey.” In Hebrew, the verb shema‘ means both “to hear” and “to obey.”

Both Greek and English are hypotactic languages; they subordinate ideas to the main idea. Hebrew is a paratactic language; it arranges ideas alongside each other by joining them with the simple conjunction “and.” Hebrew invites the hearer to discern the relationship between clauses. Compare the two translations of Ps 26:6 below; the NRSV reproduces the Hebrew literally with “and” while the NABRE provides the logical hypotactic connection with “so that.”

NRSV:
I wash my hands in innocence,
and go around your altar, O LORD,

NABRE:
I will wash my hands in innocence
so that I may process around your altar, LORD.

The two translations reflect different philosophies of translation.

Hebrew verbs indicate only whether the verb’s action is complete or incomplete. The verbs have no tense, which is very odd for English speakers. The two basic verb forms indicate whether the action is complete or incomplete. In the example above from Psalm 26, the verb is translated as a present in the NRSV and as a future in the NABRE because the verb form only indicates that the action is incomplete. In another context, the verb might be translated as “was washing” for an incompleted action in the past. The audient must determine the tense from the context. The verb forms for incomplete action can indicate what is factual: “he is rescuing”; or it may indicate what is possible: “he may rescue” or “he could rescue”; or it could signal a wish: “May he rescue.” Again, the audience must make decisions about what is said.

Classical Greek was capable of great nuance—as if painting with a very fine brush. Classical Hebrew was capable of great suggestion inviting us to imagine—as if painting with a wide brush. Therefore, it is not surprising to find some ambiguity even in the English translation.

Finally, the biblical text is often the product of several hands, sometimes added by different generations. As a result, it may not form a unified whole. The prophetic books, especially, offer challenging questions of composition, and historical critics have used the inconsistencies to identify different hands, sometimes widely separated by time and social context. While historical studies have an important role, this information does not always resolve the text’s inconsistencies. The multiplicity of meanings may instead be part of the gift. Ambiguity challenges us to look beyond our trite certainties and our narrow logic.

9.6. Exercises for Chapter 9

Vocabulary

• irony: a statement marked by incongruity and hostility. §9.1
• overstatement or hyperbole: a statement that claims more than is reasonable. §9.2
• understatement or litotes: a statement that presents something as less than it is. §9.3
• multiplicity or ambiguity: a statement with various possibilities. §9.4

Question

1. The following is an example of irony and overstatement from Micah 3:1-3. Explain how it is ironic and overstated.

Then I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—
² you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people,
and the flesh off their bones;
³ who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat in a kettle,
like flesh in a caldron.