Camels -- it has been said -- were horses made by a comittee. It is interesting to note how much they show up in the backdrop of this or that passage in the Bible. There are different kinds of camels, including dromedaries (called in Latin, "Camelus dromedarius"). These camels are fast. They were originally bred for racing and used by ancient armies. They typically live 25 to 50 years long -- very long compared to most animals.
The tougher sort -- and much slower -- is the bactrian camel, which was (and still is) used primarily as a beast of burden (Cf. Gen. 32:15 "milch camels"). These were the ancient moving vans. Abraham's caravan would have had these when he moved from Ur to the land of Canaan.
The Arabian (Dromedary) camels have one hump, while the Bactrian camels have two humps.
Camels are nearly always friendly and easy to domesticate. The modern -- really way too cute -- "Alpacas" (as seen on teevee) are cousins of the camels, but they live only in South America, unless you move them elsewhere (this is happening now since they are being sold and bred the world round. They are a great investment too).
Alpacas are extremely curious and will get into everything (hide the sandwiches), and are more docile than a puppy. Camels are not quite this people-oriented but act similarly when they are younger. But don't get your hopes up too high; they aren't the sharpest tacks in the packet.
In any case, wiki says that the dromedary camels "were originally native to western Asia and East Africa," and were likely introduced into Northern Africa sometime around the time of the Exodus (this is controversial). It is difficult to know if Solomons many camels were of the bactrian or dromedary types (or perhaps both) since he received exotic animals as gifts from visiting royalty from around the world.
2 Chronicles 9:1 confirms this, saying,
"And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem, with a very great company, and camels that bare spices, and gold in abundance, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart."
Many suppose she was of north African descent [Ethiopian]. This is quite plausible for even one of the deacons chosen by the apostles (Acts 7) was called "Simon the Nigerian" (Greek "Simon Niger"). If so these were almost certainly dromedary camels. Isaiah 60:6 prophecies that Sheba will bring gifts on --specifically -- "dromedaries" (KJV):
"The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD."
Yet they carried -- notice even gold (which is very heavy even in small quantities). This makes me suppose that not all the camels were of the same kind, but I cannot say for sure. Camels could be yoked together to magnify their strength after all (See Isaiah 21:7 where camels pull a chariot). But these ones weren't moving vans. They were jeeps.
Those which figure in the New Testament passages were probably dromedaries. As when the Lord said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
The passage I wish to focus on today (unsurprisingly) has to do with camels. The Lord Jesus roundly and sharply criticized the pharisees as delinquent in their duties because they heaped up burdens upon men (i.e. treated them like camels) and would not lift a finger to help them. He also said they had perversely inverted the priorities of justice -- saying to them -- You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
Now camel-swallowing is of course impossible -- unless you meet the task as we do cattle - one bite at at time. But no one was recommending camelburgers. Leviticus 11:4 says please do not eat the transportation (camels and horses). His point here was not that they had cooked the taxicabs, but that they had overlooked the weightier (not meatier) matters of the law in order to focus all their efforts on the lesser.
Today's study is not really about pharisees and I shall not beat a dead camel at this point. My point aims to highlight what surely would have been a HILARIOUS jab at the political and religious elite. Unpacking the precise "barb" with which the Lord levied his funny criticisms at them requires a little "hermeneutical unpacking." So Let's take one camel-step back to get the big picture. Here is the text, which is at once very serious and very funny.
Matthew 23: 23-24: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a [dromedary] camel.
The point, as you can see, was not that they should have ignored the lesser matters. Straining gnats out in the making of wine was commonplace in the Middle East (and esp Egypt where God had plagued the land with extraordinary numbers of them). They had to strain gnats from the wine to keep it "clean" since Leviticus 11:23 forbids the eating of creeping and flying things with four legs.
It says: "But all other flying, creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you." So straining at gnats to keep the wine palatable was ordinary enough. And wine could after ward be loaded onto camels for transportation. Observing this process may well be where the Lord got the idea for the contrast. This practice certainly would have made his point familiar to his audience.
The striking contrast -- of great irony because of the difference in size and mass between gnats on the one hand and camels on the other -- was heightened by a linguistic effect called "alliteration" not immediately apparent in English. It is however very obvious in the language in which Jesus delivered this sermon -- Aramaic.
In Aramaic -- which tongue the Jews learned while in captivity in Babylon (for Aramaic was the administrative and merchant language of the Babylonians) -- you say "camel" as "gamla" (GAM -luh, or as the plural "gamlea" = "camels") and you say "gnat" as "galma" (GALL-muh). So the Lord said to them, "Ye strain at a galma and yet swallow a gamla!!!
The picture is funny enough -- a deliberate exaggeration concerning an ordinary practice. The alliteration makes it doubly ironic since it makes them sound only slightly different (the view of the pharisees -- weighty "camel" matters are no different than "gnat" matters -- when they are in realilty enormously different.
Moreover, the man who cannot visually distinguish one from the other is humorously stupid -- he could only be a blind man. No one is that stupid. This makes the picture both doubly humorous and extremely insulting. The sharp contrast visually between the two critters and their near synonymous sound would have created (very likely) an uproar of laughter from the crowd at the pharisees expense.
The text does not say that anyone laughed at the pharisees. But the picture, given the images Jesus used and their exaggerated setting -- combined with the nearness in sound surely generated -- at the very minimum -- a host of snickers and would have seemed like prophetic heckling of the sort Micaiah was known for.
It was this surprisingly folksy kind of language (used most masterfully) that kept the people hanging on his every word. For the scripture does tells us that this is how people heard him. They could'nt wait to hear what he would say next. He feared no one, roundly upbraided people no one would dare upset, and spoke naturally and powerfully in the very language of the wisdom literature and the prophets.
It was as though the Bible could talk -- He often spoke in short aphorisms -- the language of the proverbs (see the Beatitudes), except these quotes were not verbatim from the Bible. His was paraphrased wisdom of the Bible applied to the social and theological problems of the day. In other words -- people would have noticed this immediately -- he spoke just like the God of the Old Testament. This would have been for Jews trained in the scriptures both fascinating and frightening.
Then what do you do when a prophet -- for He was at least that -- who is only supposed to say very serious things -- says something intentionally and thoroughly -- funny. The scathing language of Matthew 23 reads as when God reproved the worshipers of Baal, saying, "Where is your god now and his fire? Perhaps he is on vacation. Or else preoccupied in the restroom." Elijah spared no barb in making fun of Baal. This was at once humiliating for his followers and very funny if you were on the Lord's side.
This is how the Lord Jesus treated the Pharisees collectively. The galma, gamla switch was masterfully funny and it was supposed to be. In any case, here I have sought to unpack a situation not so apparently funny, to render it in terms more familiar -- against the backdrop of winemaking, camels, gnats (as unclean), so highlighting the social situation and the alliterative use of language native to Jesus's teaching.
The pharisees had become such an offence to God that Jesus told a cynical joke at their expense in the prophetic tradition of Micaiah and Elijah. This carried a reproving sting, and didactic purpose, but still formed a king of "prophetic heckling." None of this precludes a serious point. Remember, Elijah was deadly serious. So was Jesus. But it was still very funny. It's okay to laugh when you read it next.
Elijah was funny too. When a prophet does this, it makes it all the harder not to laugh -- like as when children laugh in a library (because it is forbidden, they laugh all the more when they try to stop). We all think of prophets as "above all that." The Jewish populace no doubt did as well. But they aren't. You just haven't noticed all the instances where it happens.
I encourage then this: do not strain out the humor to get the main point. Sometimes the humor IS the main point. Besides, camels are funny looking creatures to begin with (horse manufacturing gone wild). Now you can call them by a more digified name at least -- dromedaries. They form an interesting, inscripturated part of the biblical legacy. If you want to learn more about them be sure to visit wikipedia or some other good online encyclopedia.
If you like Aramaic word studies, you can keep yourself busy here:
http://www.alphadictionary.com/directory/Languages/Afro,045Asiatic/Aramaic/
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