We often attribute many of our frequently used phrases to Shakespeare. And that is certainly justified. However, I recently stumbled across this list of sayings that have become part of our everyday speech which originated in the Bible.
- A drop in the bucket
Meaning: something small and unimportant, one our of many
Source: Isaiah 40:15: “The nations are but a drop in a bucket, reckoned as dust on a balance.”
- Man does not live on bread alone
Meaning: humans need spiritual nourishment just as much as physical.
Source: Deuteronomy 8:3: “He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the LORD decrees.”
- A leopard can’t change his spots
Meaning: people or things are unable to change their basic, innate characteristics.
Source: God describes humanity’s sinful nature and maintains they are stuck in their ways and unable to change in Jeremiah 13:23 by making this comparison:
“Can the Cushite change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Just as much can you do good, who are practiced in doing evil!”
- Being at your wit’s end
Meaning: worried, confused, aggravated, exhausted by a difficult situation, or unsure what to do.
Source: Psalm 107:27 referring to sailors thrown around by a storm: “They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.”
- Like a lamb (or sheep) to the slaughter
Meaning: to be naïve or blissfully unaware to the dangers ahead; to innocently walk into a dangerous situation
Source: This phrase is found in two different places in the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible): Jeremiah 11:19: “For I was like a docile lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize that it was against me.”
Isaiah 53:7: “He was maltreated, yet he was submissive, He did not open his mouth;
Like a sheep being led to slaughter,
Like a ewe, dumb before those who shear her,
He did not open his mouth.”
- Nothing new under the sun
Meaning: used to express a monotony of life or tiredness at a lack of new ideas; everything has already been done or seen before.
Source: Ecclesiastes 1:9: “That which has been, it is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”
- How the mighty have fallen
Meaning: something or someone that was once great has been defeated or diminished in stature.
Source: 2 Samuel 1:25 and repeated again in 1:27, as David laments Israel’s defeat and the loss of his friend Jonathan in battle:
“How the mighty fallen
In the thick of battle—
Jonathan, slain on your heights!
[…]
How have the mighty fallen,
The weapons of war perished!”
- Put words in one’s mouth
Meaning: to twist someone’s words, or suggest someone said or meant something they did not say or mean.
Source: The original Biblical phrase just meant to tell someone what to say: Yo’av instructs a woman to lie to the kind in 2 Samuel 14:3:
“And come to the kind, and speak in this manner to him. So Yo’av put the words in her mouth.”
- Eat, drink and be merry
Meaning: to enjoy oneself and be in the moment.
Source: Ecclesiastes 8:15: “I therefore praised enjoyment. For the only good a man can have under the sun is to eat and drink and enjoy himself.”
(“Enjoy himself” has also been often translated as “be merry.”)
- To the ends of the earth
Meaning: to the most remote places in the world; figuratively, making an extreme effort and overcoming difficulties.
Source: Zechariah 9:10: “And I will cut off the chariot from Efrayim, and the horse from Yerushalayim, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace to the nations: and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.”
BONUS: This too shall pass
Meaning: nothing is permanent, an unpleasant or difficult situation is bound to eventually end.
Source: While not found in the Bible itself, jeish folklore attributes this wise saying to King Solomon. It is said that when a sultan asked him to provide a statement that would always be true in good times or bad, Solomon responded, “this too shall pass.”
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