October 25th, 2013

Psalm 14:1 — The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

Do you remember the old love song — I think Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davies Jr. both recorded it — “What kind of fool am I who never fell in love …”?

The Book of Proverbs identifies four kinds of fool. There’s the simple fool. Then there’s the hardened fool. There’s the arrogant fool. Finally, there’s the brutish fool.

The simple fool: “What kind of man is this? An empty shell – A lonely cell in which an empty heart must dwell”. This is how most of us start. The word in Proverbs 1:4 and other verses carries a sense of “being open”. Now being open minded, if it means teachable, is a good thing. Sadly, open minded sometimes translates as “empty headed” and as Eric Hoffer, the moral and social philosopher once remarked, “An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.” There is hope for the simple fool. He (or she, to be fair!) can be taught. In fact that’s what Proverbs 1:4 says that’s what proverbs are for — “To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.”

Sadly, a lot of simple fools just don’t learn. They turn into “hardened” fools: Proverbs describes them as “thick” (as in 10:22 and other places) and “stupid” (10:18, and many more references). This man had practiced stupidity! He makes foolish decisions, but he is not young or naive. He’s not going to listen to seven wise heads (26:16) — in fact doing wrong is like a sort of game to him (10:23)! You can’t even beat sense into a hardened fool. There was a Proverb in Rome — “verbum sapienti sat est”, a word to the wise is enough. But 100 stripes won’t cure a hardened fool (17:10).

There’s worse than the hardened fool, I think. There’s the arrogant fool. The “letz”, the scoffer. Perhaps the worse thing about this kind of fool is that he’s a trouble maker. Proverbs 22:10 says, “Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.”

Last of all, and worst of all, is the brutish fool. About him, Solomon says, “The father of a fool hath no joy.” (17:21). The word is “Nabal”. You might recognize the word. There’s a man called Nabal, who nearly gets killed after he insults King David (1 Samuel 25). He’s a perfect picture of the brute fool.
The brutish fool is the one of whom Psalm 14 says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”. (The exact words are repeated at the start of Psalm 53). Abigail, the wife of the Nabal who insulted King David said of her brute, “Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him:”. Belial is Hebrew word meaning “worthlessness” or “wickedness” — but in the New Testament becomes a name for satan. That says all that needs to be said about the brutish fool.

So what kind of fool am I? I’d prefer to think none — but Dear Lord, if I must be a fool, let me be the simple, teachable, kind — and thank You for not making me the kind of fool that never fell in love!
Amen.