Sermon: A Lizard In The King’s Palace, Proverbs 20:24–28

By Daniel I. Block

24 Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise:
25 the ants are not a strong people, yet they store up their food in the summer;
26 hyraxes are not a mighty people, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;
27 locusts have no king, yet all of them march in ranks;
28 a lizard can be caught in your hands, yet it lives in kings’ palaces. (Prov 20:24–28, HCSB)

Introduction

Some things in life do not make sense, but this can be for many reasons. Sometimes the senselessness arises because there is no apparent connection between cause and effect. We have a saying for this: “There is no rhyme or reason” to account for the phenomenon. Sometimes things don’t make sense because they are incongruent; an element in a picture does not belong. You see, life is supposed to be regular, ordered, predictable. If an element is inserted into the picture that does not belong we are disturbed, puzzled, amused, or stimulated. Just before I sat down to write this sermon, what made the television news in Chicago was a pizza squirrel.[1] Responding to a previous report of a rat in New York that had carried off a slice of pizza, we saw images of this squirrel up in the tree eating his loot. There is something wrong with this picture: pizza is human food; pizza is not eaten up in the tree in the middle of apartment blocks; pizza is not actually healthy for humans or squirrels. How did this happen?

The Chicago Pizza Squirrel

When I was an undergraduate I took an introductory course on Physical Geography. Here I learned a new word: erratic. We often use this word of behavior that deviates from the normal, or of people who are eccentric. In geology the word is used of a boulder or rock that a glacier picks up and transports often hundreds of miles and deposits in an area where it stands out from the native bedrock. It does not take a rocket scientist or even a rock geologist to notice that there is something odd about this picture. And that is also the case with Prov 30:28: “A lizard can be caught in your hands, yet it lives in kings’ palaces.”

How Do Proverbs Like This Work?

I have an idea that the biblical author who penned Prov 30:24–28 was dealing with a puzzle like this. The author was obviously familiar with the court, for one day he apparently noticed a lizard in the king’s palace. That the observer was in the king’s palace should not surprise, because this text is found in the book of Proverbs, which has a royal flavor from beginning to end. Many scholars think the book itself is the product of the court, and that the sages (wise men and women) responsible for the collection of proverbs found here were officials in the court, which would explain Prov 25:1: “These too are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied.”

Indeed, the interest in the court is reflected in the entire book. The word “king/kings” (melek/mĕlākîm) occurs 34 times, to which we should add the verb “to be king” (mālak which appears in 8:15; 30:22), while the verb “to rule” (māšal) occurs 11 times. In the opening chapters we discover this remarkable ode to wisdom:

12I, Wisdom, share a home with shrewdness and have knowledge and discretion.
13To fear the Lord is to hate evil.
I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.
14I possess good advice and competence; I have understanding and strength.
15It is by me that kings reign and rulers enact just law;
16by me, princes lead, as do nobles and all righteous judges.
17I love those who love me, and those who search for me find me.
18With me are riches and honor, lasting wealth and righteousness.
19My fruit is better than solid gold, and my harvest than pure silver.
20I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice,
21giving wealth as an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.
(Prov 8:12–21)

The book also ends on a couple of royal notes, with the “words of King Lemuel” (31:1–9), and the alphabet acrostic, “In Praise of Feminine Nobility (ēšet ḥayil, 31:10–31; cf. Ruth 3:11). In his dissertation on this book, my doctoral student Christopher Ansberry (Be Wise, My Son, and Make My Heart Glad: An Exploration of the Courtly Nature of the Book of Proverbs, 2010) has argued convincingly that this book was cast as a manual to prepare a young man for responsible life in the court. So if the poet here notices a lizard in the king’s court, at least we know that the poet himself is not an erratic in this picture; he is quite at home here.

But what are we to make of the lizard in the king’s palace? I suppose we first need to explain what kind of reptile we are talking about. Verse 24 suggests the text is not talking about massive reptiles like the Komodo dragon from Indonesia (10 feet long and weighing up to 150 pounds), but a little creature that fits in a class with ants, hyraxes, and locusts. In fact, this is a little gecko that scientists identify as the hemidactylus turcicus, a species that is found all around the Mediterranean. It is known unscientifically as the “Moon Lizard,” because they come out in the evening. These are insectivores that rarely exceed six inches long. They are harmless to humans and often find their way into houses. So the sight the poet sees is not in itself rare, but it is odd. What is this little creature doing in the king’s palace? People normally enter the king’s house only by invitation or only on official business. He finds this curious, but lacking modern scientific research methods or instruments, he tries to get a handle on this puzzle by placing it alongside other puzzles involving little creatures.

An Israelite Lizard (Gecko) Hemidactylus turcicus

He casts his reflections in the form of what we call a climactic numerical proverb. Actually this chapter contains a whole series of these numerical proverbs (vv. 11–31). Most of these begin with parallel statements, “There are three things that are . . . Indeed, four that . . .” (vv. 15b, 18, 21, 24, 29).

1. That are never satisfied: Sheol, the barren womb, the earth, fire. None of these ever has enough (vv. 15b–16).
2. That are inexplicable: how an eagle flies, how a serpent walks without feet, how a ship makes its way on the sea, and the way of a man with maid (vv. 18–19).
3. That are intolerable: a slave becoming king, a fool with a full stomach, an unlovable woman who gets married, a maidservant who replaces her mistress (vv. 21–23).
4. That are small but amazingly efficient and effective—they achieve their goals: ants preparing food in summer; hyraxes making homes in rocks; locusts going out in force without a king; a lizard rising to the top of the human social ladder (vv. 24–28).
5. That walk proudly: lion, strutting cock, the billy goat, the king (vv. 29–31).

You will notice that these are all observations on natural phenomena. This is how the wisdom writers work. In Proverbs you never hear, “The word of the Lord came to me saying,” or “This is what the Lord God says.” No, assuming that all truth is God’s truth, sages observe events, whether human experience or the behavior of creatures and they arrive at conclusions about life (Prov 6:6–11):

6Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise.
7Without leader, administrator, or ruler,
8it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food during harvest.
9How long will you stay in bed, you slacker? When will you get up from your sleep?
10A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest,
11and your poverty will come like a robber, your need, like a bandit.

But there is another dimension to this. The sages assume that human beings are images of God, which means they have God-given responsibility to learn the order that governs the world and to govern it in keeping with and in support of that order. That’s why riddles like this are not only fun, they are also intellectually stimulating.

But think about the form of these sayings: “There are three, no four items in this category.” Noted Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad suggested that the form arises out of a riddle. In our case we can well imagine someone saying, “Name three kinds of creatures who are out of their league.” When we pose a riddle at our house, we still have a saying, “I’ll give you three guesses, the first two don’t count.” Of course in these numerical proverbs the big riddle is always the last one—that’s the real issue. The observer tries to “wrap his head around it” by putting it alongside other riddles. This does not ultimately solve the question, but it domesticates it, and makes it more manageable. This also works in the moral and ethical sphere. We have an example of this in Prov 6:16–19:

16Six things the Lord hates;
in fact, seven are detestable to Him:
17arrogant eyes, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
18a heart that plots wicked schemes,
feet eager to run to evil,
19a lying witness who gives false testimony,
and one who stirs up trouble (mĕšallēaḥ mĕdānîm, Greek epipempei kriseis)
among brothers.

These are all social evils, but the sermon on this text would need to focus on the last one. To the sage, the most egregious social sin is causing trouble within the community. This sounds like Paul in Gal: 5:19–21: “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife (eris), jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” In a list of fifteen sins, the seventh entry is strife. It sounds like Paul has been reading Proverbs.

But this sort of numerical saying also occurs in literature outside the Bible. In a north Canaanite (Ugaritic) mythological text from the thirteenth century BC, we read the following:

Now there are two kinds of feasts that Balu hates,
Three that Cloud-Rider [hates]:
An improper feast
A low-quality feast,
And a feast where the female servants misbehave.
There impropriety was certainly seen,
There misbehavior of the female servants [was certainly seen]. (COS 1.258)

What Does A Proverb Like This Mean?

But now we seem far afield from where we began. Let’s return to the lizard in the king’s palace. What are we to make of this curious fragment of Scripture—inspired by God and preserved for all time as canonical truth? I find several lessons in this text.

First, we should not take life so seriously that we fail to notice the incongruities and oddities of life. The sage is inviting us to loosen up and have a little fun. If God created the creatures, including leviathan (the sea monster) for his own entertainment, don’t you think it’s alright for us to find a little joy at what we observe. I love Psalm 104, a brilliant nature psalm. After describing how the Lord takes care of all his creatures the psalmist breaks out in a doxology of praise:

24How countless are Your works, Lord!
In wisdom You have made them all;
the earth is full of Your creatures.
25Here is the sea, vast and wide,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
26There the ships move about, and Leviathan,
which You formed to play there.
27All of them wait for You
to give them their food at the right time.
28When You give it to them, they gather it;
when You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good things.
29When You hide Your face, they are terrified;
when You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust.
30When You send Your breath, they are created,
and You renew the face of the earth.
31May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice (celebrate!) in His works.

I really believe that God is pleased when we notice what he has created so brilliantly, and that as his images, we participate with him in the delight of his creation. This is what “Wisdom” personified did according to Prov 8:27–31:

27I was there when He established the heavens,
when He laid out the horizon on the surface of the ocean,
28 when He placed the skies above,
when the fountains of the ocean gushed forth,
29when He set a limit for the sea
so that the waters would not violate His command,
when He laid out the foundations of the earth.
30I was a skilled craftsman beside Him.
I was His delight every day, always rejoicing before Him.
31I was rejoicing (celebrating) in His inhabited world,
delighting in the human race.

And this is what wise people do, that is, those who have recognized, “The fear (trusting awe) of the Lord is the first principle of wisdom” (Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Job 28:28; Ps 111:10). Observing the oddities in nature causes us to worship God.

Second, we should learn from this lizard and start celebrating the incongruities in our own life. If we are invited to learn from the ants (Prov 6:6–11), why should we not learn from lizards and geckos. The folks at Geico Auto Insurance company certainly think we can learn from these tiny reptiles. As a class, their commercials are among my favorites. They always make me smile. But let’s think for a moment about how this text fragment relates to life.

Can you imagine what the lizard was thinking when he found himself in the king’s palace? I can imagine a lot of questions he might have asked himself.

“What sort of box is this?”

“Is there anything here to eat?”

“How do I get out of here? Where’s the door?”

“Since I am stuck here, how do creatures behave in this place?”

“How did I get here? How did this happen?”

I am sure in the sage’s mind it was the last question that amused him. How do geckos land in the palaces of kings? Whatever the answer, a lowly creature found himself in the company of the highest official in the land.

Have you ever experienced this sort of serendipity, where you have found yourself in a totally unexpected situation? In our day, we inoculate ourselves against such surprises by sheer ambition and by scrupulous planning. For decades at our high school graduations we have sung or heard songs like Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Climb ev’ry Mountain,” written for The Sound of Music in 1959:

Climb every mountain, Search high and low
Follow every byway, Every path you know

Climb every mountain, Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, Till you find your dream

A dream that will need, All the love you can give
Every day of your life, For as long as you live.

These days college and graduate students are encouraged to set their sights high and then to establish specific plans to achieve those goals. For decades now we have been feeding our kids the notion that they are the best, and therefore the goals they set become virtual entitlements. And if the plans don’t materialize either it is someone else’s fault or we find ourselves in deep and dark valleys of depression. “How did this happen? They said I could do it, but I obviously could not.”

I am not hereby saying we should not dream, or that we should not plan carefully. I am simply saying that the more fixated we are on achieving our goals, the less we need to trust in God, and the more we close the doors to serendipities. How do you think Abraham would fare in this environment? O yes, the Lord granted him magnificent dreams of a homeland, of innumerable descendants, of a mission of being a blessing to the world. But the more he tried to control the means whereby these goals would be achieved, the more he floundered spiritually and in terms of his calling. The foundational motto of the sages of ancient Israel was not “You are somebody,” or “You can do it,” but “The fear (trusting awe) of the LORD is the first principle of wisdom.” Indeed, in Proverbs we read,

Commit your activities to the Lord
and your plans will be achieved. (16:3)

A man’s heart plans his way,
but the Lord determines his steps. (16:9)

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (19:21)

I am sure the gecko did not plan to invade the king’s palace; he just landed up there.

You know what, this kind of sums up my life. When I was young, my dream was to be a long-distance truck driver. As a total introvert, there could be nothing better than getting into that eighteen-wheeler in Halifax, on the east coast of Canada, and driving all the way to Vancouver, all by myself. What a dream! This is obviously not how my life turned out. No, my life has been one unexpected and unplanned for turn after another. How did I land up being the husband of Ellen? Wow! I certainly married up. How did I land up for a year of studies in Germany when I was an undergraduate? The Lord knew I would need German later. How did Rev. Henry Harder come to be the pastor of the church we were attending while I was university? He’s the one who excited me about the Old Testament. How did I get a teaching position at Providence College with only a Masters Degree in 1973? When I graduated from seminary I was ready to take a church. How did I become interested first in the book of Ezekiel, and then in Deuteronomy? How did I find myself lecturing in Cambridge, Athens, Moscow, Sydney, Medillin, Colombia, and Wheaton?

None of these images were on my radar screen when I was growing up in the sticks of northern Saskatchewan. I am number nine of fifteen children of an immigrant from Russia. We were dirt poor. In the farm house where I grew up, we had no central heating and no indoor plumbing. Our farm equipment was junk. How did this happen? I feel like a lizard in the king’s palace. My life has been full of surprises. This does not mean it has always been smooth or easy—it has not—but what an adventure! All praise be to God. How did I get here? It was all of God. He took a self-conscious and socially awkward lizard and thrust him into the palace of kings. Not literally, but I punch myself every day at the life I have had. No one could have planned this. I certainly did not. Our passage teaches us to be open to surprises, to let go and let God have his wonderful way in our lives.

But there is a third significance I see here. When you think biblically of living in the palace of the king, what sort of texts come to mind? I think immediately of Psalm 23:

5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

And then I link this text to John 14:1–3:

1Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 2In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. 3If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.

Wow! When I get there, I know I will ask, “How did this happen? How is it that I find myself in the palace of the heavenly king?” It certainly is not because I set this as my goal and I worked really hard to get there. On the contrary, as the psalmist says, the Lord has sent his hounds of heaven, called Goodness and Faithful Love after me. I was off doing my own thing getting lost, but he rescued me. And as the Gospel text declares, this grace is embodied in Christ, who through his sacrifice opened the door and ushered me in. Elsewhere Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). And of course, as in Psalm 23 and elsewhere in the First Testament, “shepherd” is a royal metaphor. The king lays down his life for the sheep (cf. Isaiah 53).

How did this happen? John answers this question as well: “The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14). This actually reverses Prov 30:28. Instead of a lizard finding himself in the king’s palace, the king has come to the lizard’s home! Paul will describe this amazing condescension in my favorite hymn in the New Testament, Phil 2:5–11:

5Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,
6who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.
7Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave,
taking on the likeness of men.
And when He had come as a man in His external form,
8He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
9For this reason God also highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name that is above every name,
10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow—
of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth--
11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus, who was enthroned in heaven, gave up the glories of his heavenly palace to live among lizards. Indeed, he took our place and died the most ignominious of deaths, that one day we might live in his eternal and glorious palace. Hallelujah, what a Savior! Hallelujah, what a king! Hallelujah, what a privilege is ours to be lizards in the king’s palace!

Notes

1. http://chicago.eater.com/2016/3/25/11306378/meet-chicagos-pizza-squirrel. Accessed March 25, 2016. 80