EUPHEMISMS IN THE BIBLE

We are all acquainted with the concept of a euphemism. It is a way to get around saying or writing a word that is considered too crude or vulgar to use in polite society. In the case of euphemisms in English, the impolite words are generally those four-letter words originally coming from the Germanic languages while the polite words are those multi-syllabic words that can be traced back to Latin roots. And if even those are not delicate enough, we will find indirect ways to express the same ideas. This post will not be R-rated since I will refrain from utilizing any four-letter words.

The most common types of euphemisms in any language are those referring to certain body parts or functions. Thus, Hubbard states, “As is well known, the term 'feet' could be used as a euphemism for sexual organs (male: Exod. 4:25; Judg. 3:24; I Sam. 24:3; female: Deut. 28:57; Ezek. 16:25, etc.).” But since the word can also just mean “feet” in our sense of the word, there is some ambiguity in the Bible in places such as Ruth 3:4 where Ruth is told by Naomi to uncover Boaz' feet as he is sleeping and lie down beside him. Thus, Hubbard feels in that particular passage it is not demonstrably used as a euphemism although “it may have been chosen to add to the scene's overtones.” Other commentators on this passage such as Campbell go further and point out additional words such as “know,” “lie with,” and “uncover” which usually occur in sexually charged connotations.

One of the phrases mentioned above “uncover,” is especially interesting since it appears over and over again in the regulations in Leviticus 18 and 20 in the context of prohibitions against “uncovering the nakedness” of close relatives. As Wenham and most other scholars agree, the phrase is in fact a euphemism referring to sexual intercourse. Thus, when we come to the drunken Noah and his son Ham in Genesis 9, there is a real possibility that Ham did more to Noah than merely see him without any clothes on. And, if so, that would (a) make Noah's subsequent curse on his son more understandable and (b) would provide an even closer parallel to Lot's daughters taking advantage of him while he was drunk.

Speaking of Lot, as I have mentioned in another post, those who feel that the men of Sodom merely wanted to “know,” i.e. “become better acquainted with” the visiting angels in Lot's house (as some commentators insist) are completely ignoring his subsequent offer to the men of his two daughters “who had not yet known a man” (same Hebrew word).

The Hebrew euphemism “to lie with” someone hardly needs explanation since we use the same phrase today to refer to the same activity. As just one example in the Bible, look at Ammon's request of his half-sister Tamar that she lie with him (II Samuel 11). From subsequent events, it becomes obvious that he has something more than just cuddling in mind.

Another ambiguous Hebrew word appears in Genesis. It is translated as “mock or play with” in Genesis 21:9 where Sarah sees her son Isaac with Ishmael and becomes irate. The cause of her anger perhaps becomes more obvious when one compares the use of the same word in Genesis 26:8 to describe what Isaac was doing to his wife Rebecca when King Abimelech happens to observe them and realizes that they must be more than just brother and sister. This whole later episode only makes sense if they were doing something more than just playing a harmless game together. In that passage, NRSV translates the word as “fondling.” But again we have some ambiguity involved in the case of Genesis 26:8.

A good way of closing this portion of the brief discussion on ambiguous meanings is to say, as Freud replied to a friend who had made fun of his cigar smoking habit, knowing that Freud tended to see sexual imagery everywhere: “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

I will only make a few additional references concerning body parts and bodily functions:

When it says in the early portion of Genesis that God formed Eve out of Adam's “rib,” that is no doubt exactly what the passage means to convey. But you may be surprised to learn that at least one Hebrew scholar writing in Biblical Archaeology Today proposes that in fact this is an etiological story (one told in order to explain the origin of a current fact) to show why men do not possess penis-bones as do some animals.

The Song of Songs is filled with elaborate imagery, especially those relating to the physical attributes of the hero and heroine. In 4:1-7 the woman is described beginning with her hair and moving downward. Each of the body parts is specifically named down to the breasts, but going south from there the identification is strictly in metaphors. And in 4:12, we read of her “locked garden and sealed fountain.” Similarly, in 7:2 her “navel” is mentioned, but some commentators note that this is probably a euphemism.

Lastly, there are the euphemisms for going to the bathroom, which is itself a euphemism. The regulations in Deuteronomy 23:12-13 for setting up camp latrines use the indirect statement “as you go outside” in the same manner as our euphemism for relieving oneself, yet another English euphemism. But the strangest euphemism of all for the same bodily function appears in Judges 3:24, the story of Ehud assassinating King Eglon while they were in the royal privy. The guards outside wonder why Eglon is so long in coming out but figure that he is just “burying his feet.”

But interestingly, the translators in King James' day were not so squeamish as we are today when it came to the language they employed. For example, in I Samuel 25:22, 34; I Kings 16:11; 21:21; and II Kings 4:8, threats, or actual cases of violence, were employed by one group on another against “all who pisseth against the wall.” I said that I wouldn't use any four-letter Anglo-Saxon words in this post, but “pisseth” has seven letters in it. In fact, the people uttering the threats were not angry because their city walls were being defaced, the phrase simply refers to “all males,” or “every mother's sons” (NEB).

So surprisingly, KJV is quite literal while modern translations are the ones resorting to euphemisms.

There is a final category of biblical euphemism, and this is one which we may not be quite as familiar. When we say “heaven knows” or “gosh darn,” “gee whiz,” or even “dear me” (dio mio = O my God), in fact we are utilizing religious euphemisms in order to avoid speaking the Holy Name in vain. The Jews did the same thing and even took it to further extremes:

To avoid using God's personal name YHWH, probably pronounced “Yahweh,” they wrote it using the vowels for adonay (“lord”) instead. In that way the reader would know to say “adonay” whenever YaHoWaH appeared in the Bible. In that manner we get the English word “Jehovah,” which really never existed at all. This proves to be a bit of an embarrassment for the Jehovah Witnesses, who make a big deal of us always needing to use God's real name. Thus, they usually don't buy the standard scholarly explanation that I have just related.

One spiritual euphemism that we have in common with the Jews is to use the circumlocution “heaven” in place of “God.” This euphemism explains why Matthew, writing mainly for his fellow Jews, uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” in the same passages where Mark and Luke usually write “Kingdom of God.”

For a Jew to even contemplate the phrase “curse God” was beyond them, and so in passages such as Job 1:9 where we read Job's wife as saying “Curse God and die!,” the original Hebrew actually reads “Bless God and die,” another euphemism.

And finally, there is another possible extreme case of spiritual euphemism seen in comparing the parallel passages of II Samuel 24:1 and I Chronicles 21:1, involving David numbering the people. II Samuel says that it was God who tempted David to do it while I Chronicles says that it was Satan instead. Most scholars agree that the Books of Samuel were written before Chronicles, so there is every possibility that the later author could not abide the fact that God would tempt anyone. Thus, he changed the identity of the tempter to Satan to avoid any theological questions from arising. In fact, that is just what the editor of The Daily Bible did by simply ignoring the II Samuel account entirely in favor of I Chronicles.  There are other ways less drastic and more acceptable in dealing with difficult passages. For example, in this case I see nothing wrong with taking both accounts at face value since the “cooperation” of God and Satan can also be evidenced in Job 1-2.