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Quote of the Day: From the Book of Judges
. . . The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, “Reign over us.” But the olive tree said to them, “Shall I leave my abundance, by which gods and men are honored, and go hold sway over the trees?” And the trees said to the fig tree, “You come and reign over us.” But the fig tree said to them, “Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit and go hold sway over the trees?” And the trees said to the vine, “You come and reign over us.” But the vine said to them, “Shall I leave my wine that cheers God and men and go hold sway over the trees?” Then all the trees said to the bramble, “You come and reign over us.” And the bramble said to the trees, “If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade, but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.”
–Jotham, son of Gideon, protesting the murder of his brothers and the crowning of his brother Abimelech as king in Judges 9, ESV
There’s a lot of context that we should look at carefully if we want to try to get any theology out of this passage, or even any detailed conclusions about a theory of government.
But it’s an interesting illustration, isn’t it?
Who has time to be a ruler and isn’t already doing something more useful? It’s often the least useful people, whose elevation to greater power only leads to trouble.
Reminds me of that silly joke I found at Stupid.com back when Stupid.com was still a website: If con is the opposite of pro, what’s the opposite of progress?
Published in General
We want Congress to impede “progress.”
Don’t just do something; stand there.
Not that I would count Congress as the worst bit of government.
And not that every notion of “progress” is a correct one.
Indeed.
You beat me to it!
Not sure why, but your comments made me think of the Asimov short story “Franchise”, which I would have read in the anthology “Earth is Room Enough”.
“But if we have a president of one party and a congress of another, we’ll have gridlock.”
“Yes. Yes we will. It will be restful.”
What a wonderful surprise of a gift on this Mother’s Day.
Both the Biblical tale and the joke from stupid.com
Glad to hear it.
But I’m just enough of a jerk to go by my time zones. It’s Monday‘s quote of the day in Hong Kong.
Hm. Sounds pretty smart to me.
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Don’t just stand there; spend something.
For Congress, those two words are redundant.
I guess it’s been a while since I’ve read Judges. I don’t remember this at all! 😅 Makes me think of the song “The Trees” by Rush.