Riddles, veiled sayings, allegories, proverbs, and solemn utterances

The Hebrews had two words, Chidah, חיךאָ, and mashal,ﬦָשָׁל, which are used almost synonymously, cf. Ezech. 17:2; the former, however, more strictly signifies a riddle, the latter "a veiled saying," or one which requires thought in order to detect its full significance, cf. Ps. 77:2, quoted in Matthew 13:35. The term Mashal was the more common of the two and was applied to all parables, proverbs, similitudes, symbolic expressions, and solemn utterances in general. This fact explains the way in which, in the N.T., we find the term parable used both of a narrative intended to illustrate some spiritual truth, and also of what we should more correctly term a proverb, cf. Luke 4:23, and 12:16. Fable is to be distinguished from parable in that the former takes occasion from the material creation to teach lessons of human wisdom; the latter, on the contrary, is solely concerned with the spiritual lessons to be drawn from human life. In this sense, too, allegory, metaphor, solemn utterance, and symbolic actions, are all much akin.

As examples of riddles we have: Jud. 14:12, and with it we may group the symbolic actions of Ezechiel, of which the people complained, 20:49, that this man speaketh in parables, i.e., in mysteries, cf. Ezech. 4:1-3, 4-8, 9-12, 5:1-17, 12:1-16, 24:1-14, 15-27; cf. also Jer. 13:1-11, 18:1-10, 19:1-13, 27: 28:, 32:7-15. With these should be compared the mysterious marriage of Osee, 1, 2, 3.

Solemn Utterances, often dignified by the term Mashal, occur in Job 27:1, 29:1, Psalms 48:5, 13, 77:2. And with these may be classed the whole book of Proverbs as well as the Sententious sayings in Ecclesiasticus, though we should rather describe them as proverbs.

Allegories, in which, while one thing is spoken of, another is meant and clearly understood to be meant are not infrequent; cf. 2 Sam. xiy. 5-10, Ps. Ixxix. 9-16, Ezech. xvii. 1-10, xix. 1-14, xxiii. 1-49.

Parables properly so-called are perhaps non-existent in the O.T., though the beautiful allegory in Is. 5:1-7, is sometimes classed as such.

Proverbs outside the Sapiential Books are rare; we have what is perhaps a solitary example in 1 Samuel 10:21.

The student should compare such passages as Numbers 23:7, 23:18, 24:3, 24:15, 24:20, 24:23; also Numbers 21:18, in the Hebrew text, and 12:8, also 3 Kings 10:1, and Hab. 2:6, for various uses of the Hebrew expressions.


By Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture,
Member of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and
late Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the Collegio Angelico, Rome.