Our Creator gave us sense of humour to lighten up our experience on this realm and laughing can be quite healthy, so why not? Here are my favourite funny passages in the Bible:
1) Yahuah knows that Sarah laughed (Genesis 18)
Imagine you are a woman approaching 90 years old and Yahuah visits you to tell you that you will have your firstborn son. Sarah heard it and laughed in her heart, meaning she did not laugh externally – but in her heart she did not really think it was serious.
Yahuah asks her ‘Why do you laugh in your heart? do you think there is anything too difficult for Yahuah?’
Sarah did not laugh externally, so she answers that she didn’t laugh and Yahuah corrects her ‘but you did laugh’. Abraham also found it funny when Yahuah told him he would be a father in such old age and Yitchak, or in English Isaac, in Hebrew means ‘the one who makes laugh’.
This passage is one of my favourite in the Book for it always makes me smile, just as Issac!
And Sarah said, Yahuah hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
(Genesis 21:6)
2) Ezekiel's infamous bread (Ezekiel 4:9-16)
Many people find this story overkill, for they might think Yahuah asked his prophet to eat poo and though the toilet humour lovers may find this amusing, Ezekiel probably did not actually ate dung. Nevertheless, the symbolic meaning was to show Yashar’el where their apostasy was taking them.
In the book of Ezequiel, the prophet is instructed to make cakes and bake them using human poo as fuel and eat the cakes in front of the people to show that their spiritual adultery would eventually scatter the people where they would have to live like heathens, eating defiled things (bacon anyone?). The prophet prays to Yahuah for mercy, for the excrement of humans defiles the food. Most graciously, Yahuah accepts the prophet’s wish and instead of human dung, Ezekiel is authorized to bake the cakes with cow dung.
So even if the prophet did not actually eat shit, the oven definitely did not smell very good.
3) The bald prophet: best example of **** around and find out (2Kings 2:23-25)
Being bald in Yashar'el was not a reason to be exactly proud. A fully haired head and full beard was considered a gift from the Father so to be bald was a sign of mourning or curse. Still, it is a condition that can happen to some men and Elisha, being bald and freshly gifted the Ruach (spirit) of Elijah, walked back from the wilderness just to find himself mocked for being a man of Yahuah (and bald).
The prophet, feeling confident after receiving the Prophet Elijah’s holy spirit and mission, turned around and cursed them in the name of Yahuah and two bears came and killed all the mockers. While this story is normally used to teach children that they should respect the elders, the real meaning behind this story can be deeper than that. The translations available tells us that the mockers were children, but were they? Check this article and come to your own conclusion.
4) Justice system in Sodom (Book of Jasher/Yashar, chapter 19)
The apocryphal book of Yasher has a story that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.
Abraham’s servant called Eliezer goes to Sodom to do an errand and is hit in the forehead with a stone by a Sodomite after a fight. The Sodomite did not apologize but took the servant to the judge because he said that when the servant’s blood was spilled, the Sodomite had made him a favour by releasing his forehead of the bad blood and the local law required that the Sodomite be paid accordingly for the ‘work’ he provided.
For the servant’s surprise, the judge confirmed the Sodomite’s plea and asked Abraham’s servant to pay the hire. Eliezer then throws a rock in the judge’s head, making it also bleed and tells him: ‘now you take the money you owe me and pay the Sodomite!’. Brilliant! :D
5) Balaam Peor can’t curse Israel (Numbers 22-24)
This one will also make you chuckle. Balaam Peor was a pagan priest fully informed of Yahuah's power. He is hired by the king of Moab Balak to curse Yahuah’s people, but as soon as he opens his mouth, all he can do is bless Yashar’el. He tries several times and, in all directions, still when he speaks, he prophesies and blesses the enemies of Moab. The king who hired him is left mesmerized in this priceless sequence that could easily be part of a good comedy movie.
6) The worst advise of all time (Job 2:9)
In the book of Job, we read about his tragedy, how a man of Yahuah loses his ten children, wealth and ends up also with a skin disease.
By the time Job gets afflicted in the skin, his wife turns to him and says: ‘Why don’t you curse Yahuah and die?’. Well, had Job considered his wife’s suggestion, we know that Satan would have won his bet with Yahuah, but Job did not succumb.
7) Other chuckle-worthy passages:
- 1Kings 18: Elijah makes 400 men behave like idiots screaming and cutting themselves to call to Baal, who never shows up. 'maybe he is asleep, scream louder'. LOL
- Gospel of John 20: 'the Apostle whom Yahusha loves', will not miss the chance to let us know that he reached the sepulchre before Peter.
I hope this has brought a smile to your face, Shalom!