Chiding

Chiding gathers the family of words by which scripture names the act of upbraiding another with words: striving, contending, quarrelling, murmuring, complaining, rebuking. The vocabulary slides between domains. A man chides his neighbor over a well; a wife's contention drips like rain through the roof; a congregation chides Moses for water and Yahweh for the manna; Jesus chides disciples whose faith fails in the boat. Behind every instance the same shape: a wrong, real or supposed, voiced as reproach. The UPDV records the pattern in Genesis household quarrels, in the wilderness murmurings, in proverbs about the contentious spirit, in Sirach's anatomy of strife, and in the gospels' steady catalogue of Jesus's reproof of his own.

Householders Chide Householders

The earliest chiding scenes in the UPDV are domestic. Pharaoh and Abimelech each rebuke a patriarch for the same sister-wife deception. Pharaoh's reproach to Abram is two questions stacked: "What is this that you have done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife?" (Gen 12:18). The pattern repeats with Isaac and Abimelech: "Look, certainly she's your wife. And how have you said, She's my sister?" and "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us" (Gen 26:9-10). The reproach in both cases is voiced by the wronged outsider, not the kinsman.

Within the family the same motion plays out. Sarah orders Abraham, "Cast out this slave and her son. For the son of this slave will not be heir with my son, even with Isaac" (Gen 21:10). Jacob, finally turning on Laban after the search of the tents, "was angry, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued after me?" (Gen 31:36). Laban had opened the same exchange: "What have you done, that you have stolen away unawares to me, and carried away my daughters as captives of the sword?" (Gen 31:26). The episode closes with Jacob's accounting of twenty years and the verdict that "God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night" (Gen 31:42). Jacob in turn rebukes his own sons after Shechem: "You⁺ have troubled me, to make me stink to the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites" (Gen 34:30). And Reuben, in Egypt, throws the old warning back at his brothers: "Didn't I speak to you⁺, saying, Don't sin against the child; and you⁺ would not hear? Therefore also, look, his blood is required" (Gen 42:22).

The herdsmen-quarrels in Genesis fix the same pattern at the level of property. "And there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle" (Gen 13:7). And later, "the herdsmen of Gerar strove with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, The water is ours. And he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him" (Gen 26:20). The well is named for the contention.

Israel Chides Moses

The wilderness sequence is the largest single block of chiding in the UPDV. The verb the text uses is mostly "murmur" and "strive."

At the Red Sea: "Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt thus with us, to bring us forth out of Egypt?" (Exod 14:11). At Marah: "And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?" (Exod 15:24). In the wilderness of Sin: "And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness" (Exod 16:2). At Rephidim: "And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our sons and our cattle with thirst?" (Exod 17:3). The place was named for the chiding that happened there: "And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the striving of the sons of Israel, and because they tried Yahweh, saying, Is Yahweh among us, or not?" (Exod 17:7).

The sequence continues into Numbers. "And the people were as murmurers, [speaking] evil in the ears of Yahweh: and when Yahweh heard it, his anger was kindled" (Num 11:1). Yahweh's verdict to Moses: "How long [shall I bear] with this evil congregation, that murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel, which they murmur against me" (Num 14:27). At Kadesh: "And the people strove with Moses, and spoke, saying, Oh that we had died when our brothers died before Yahweh!" (Num 20:3). And again: "And the people spoke against [the Speech of] God, and against Moses, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loathes this light bread" (Num 21:5). Moses himself uses the same vocabulary in his Deuteronomy retrospect: "How can I myself alone bear your⁺ cumbrance, and your⁺ burden, and your⁺ strife?" (Deut 1:12).

Jude carries the wilderness pattern forward into the New Testament's vocabulary for the same disposition: "These [men] are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own desires, and their mouth speaks great swelling [words], sweet talking so they can take advantage" (Jude 1:16). Paul names the same exemplar: "Neither murmur⁺, as some of them murmured, and perished by the destroyer" (1 Cor 10:10).

Chiding God

A second kind of chiding, distinct from the first, is the creature's reproach against the Creator. Cain begins it: "And Cain said to Yahweh, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Look, you have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; and from your face I will be hid; and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth" (Gen 4:13-14). Job, repeatedly, wrestles with whether such a chiding is even possible: "If he is pleased to contend with him, He can't answer him one of a thousand" (Job 9:3). "Why do you strive against him Because he doesn't give account of any of his matters?" (Job 33:13). And the demand laid back on Job himself: "Will he who criticizes contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it" (Job 40:2).

The wisdom-and-prophet vocabulary names this striving as folly. "The foolishness of man subverts his way; And his heart frets against Yahweh" (Prov 19:3). "Why does man complain, a living [noble] man for the punishment of his sins?" (Lam 3:39). Isaiah's clay-and-potter pronouncement is the most direct: "Woe to him who strives with his Maker! A potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! Will the clay say to him who fashions it, What do you make? Or your work, He has no hands?" (Isa 45:9). Paul reaches for the same image: "On the contrary, O man, who are you that reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me thus?" (Rom 9:20). And Isaiah's promise: "Those also who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will receive instruction" (Isa 29:24).

The complaint psalms hold a related but milder posture: complaint poured out before Yahweh rather than against him. "My soul is weary of my life; I will give free course to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul" (Job 10:1). "Even today is my complaint rebellious: My hand is heavy on my groaning" (Job 23:2). "Attend to me, and answer me: I am restless in my complaint, and moan" (Ps 55:2).

The Contentious Spirit

Proverbs and Sirach give the topic its sharpest portrait, naming the disposition that produces chiding rather than merely the events. The diagnostics are short and repeated. "Hatred stirs up strifes; But love covers all transgressions" (Prov 10:12). "By pride comes only contention; But with the well-advised is wisdom" (Prov 13:10). "A wrathful man stirs up contention; But he who is slow to anger appeases strife" (Prov 15:18). "He who loves transgression loves strife: He who raises his gate high seeks destruction" (Prov 17:19). "A fool's lips enter into contention, And his mouth calls for stripes" (Prov 18:6). "[As] coals are to hot embers, and wood to fire, So is a contentious man to inflame strife" (Prov 26:21). "An angry man stirs up strife, And a wrathful man abounds in transgression" (Prov 29:22).

The same proverbs also forbid the act. "Don't strive with man without cause, If he has done you no harm" (Prov 3:30). "The beginning of strife is [as] when one lets out water: Therefore leave off contention, before there is quarrelling" (Prov 17:14). "It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife; But every fool will be quarrelling" (Prov 20:3). "Don't hastily bring [it] to court, Or else what will you do in its end, When your fellow man has put you to shame" (Prov 25:8). "He who passes by, [and] is furious with strife not belonging to him, Is [like] one who takes a dog by the ears" (Prov 26:17).

Sirach reads the same dynamic and adds a spark-and-fuel anatomy. "Do not strive with a great man. Why should you fall into his hand?" (Sir 8:1). "Do not fight with a man of tongue; And you will not put wood on a fire" (Sir 8:3). "A shedding of blood is the strife of the proud, And their abuse is grievous to hear" (Sir 27:15). "Keep far from strife, and sins will keep far from you, For a passionate man kindles strife" (Sir 28:8). "And a sinful man troubles friends, And casts enmity in the midst of the peaceful" (Sir 28:9). "According to its fuel so does a fire burn, And according to the stubbornness of a strife so does it increase; And according to the power of a man so is his wrath, And according to his wealth so does he increase his wrath" (Sir 28:10). "Strife begun in haste kindles a fire, And a hasty quarrel leads to bloodshed" (Sir 28:11). "If you blow upon a spark it kindles, and if you spit upon it, it is quenched; And both come forth from your mouth" (Sir 28:12).

The psalmist's self-portrait sits alongside: "I am [for] peace: But when I speak, they are for war" (Ps 120:7); "Who devise mischiefs in their heart; Continually they gather themselves together for war" (Ps 140:2). Habakkuk names it as the prophet's complaint about his own land: "Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perverseness? For destruction and violence are before me; and there is strife, and contention rises up" (Hab 1:3). And Hosea forbids the people their own chiding-priest exchange: "Yet let no man strive, neither let any man reprove; for your people are as those who strive with the priest" (Hos 4:4).

Chiding in the House

Proverbs locates contention again in the household — specifically with the contentious wife and the family rupture. "A brother offended [is harder to be won] than a strong city; And [such] contentions are like the bars of a castle" (Prov 18:19). "A foolish son is the calamity of his father; And the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping" (Prov 19:13). "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, Than with a contentious woman in a wide house" (Prov 21:9). "It is better to dwell in a desert land, Than with a contentious and fretful woman" (Prov 21:19). "A continual dropping in a very rainy day And a contentious woman are alike" (Prov 27:15).

Peter's apostolic instruction reads against the same backdrop: "You⁺ husbands, in like manner, dwell with [your⁺ wives] according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman, as to the weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your⁺ prayers not be hindered" (1 Pet 3:7).

Chiding Inside Israel and the Church

Domestic strife scales up to tribal and ecclesial strife. The men of Israel and the men of Judah quarrel over the king's return: "We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more [right] in David than you⁺: why then did you⁺ despise us, that our advice should not be had first in bringing back our king? And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel" (2 Sam 19:43). David, hearing of Abner's death, lays a curse on Joab's house: "I and my kingdom are innocent before Yahweh forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner: let it fall on the head of Joab, and on all his father's house" (2 Sam 3:28-29). Joab, in turn, chides David for excessive grief over Absalom: "You have shamed this day the faces of all your slaves, who this day have saved your soul... in that you love those who hate you, and hate those who love you... Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably to your slaves; for I swear by Yahweh, if you don't go forth, there will not tarry a man with you this night" (2 Sam 19:5-7).

Deborah's epic carries the same vocabulary into a sung rebuke of the tribes who failed to muster: "Why did you sit among the sheepfolds, To hear the pipings for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, There were great searchings of heart. Gilead stayed beyond the Jordan: And Dan, why did he remain in ships? Asher sat still at the haven of the sea, And stayed by his creeks" (Judg 5:16-17), closing with "Curse⁺ Meroz, said the angel of Yahweh. Curse⁺ bitterly its inhabitants, Because they didn't come to the help of Yahweh, To the help of Yahweh against the mighty" (Judg 5:23).

The apostolic letters carry chiding-as-pastoral-rebuke into the church and forbid chiding-as-faction. Paul names the cause: a teacher "puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, from which comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings" (1 Tim 6:4). And the corollary: "Of these things put them in remembrance, charging [them] in the sight of God, that they are not to strive about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear" (2 Tim 2:14). "And the Lord's slave must not strive, but be gentle toward all, apt to teach, forbearing" (2 Tim 2:24). "[doing] nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting one another better than himself" (Phil 2:3). "Do all things without murmurings and questionings" (Phil 2:14). James locates it inside the heart: "But if you⁺ have bitter jealousy and faction in your⁺ heart, don't glory and don't lie against the truth" (Jas 3:14). "For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile action" (Jas 3:16). Jesus, addressing the murmuring crowd in Capernaum: "Do not murmur among yourselves" (John 6:43).

Jesus Chides His Disciples

The gospels record a recurring pattern of Jesus chiding his own. The pattern is distributed across multiple scenes but concentrates in the gospel rebuke-scenes catalogued below.

For unbelief, in the boat. "And he said to them, Why are you⁺ fearful? Have you⁺ not yet faith?" (Mark 4:40). The Lukan parallel: "And he said to them, Where is your⁺ faith? And being afraid they marveled, saying one to another, Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?" (Luke 8:25).

For slowness of heart, in the defilement controversy. "And he says to them, Are you⁺ so without understanding also? Don't you⁺ perceive, that whatever from outside goes into the man, [it] can't defile him" (Mark 7:18). And the gentle rebuke to Philip: "Have I been so long time with you⁺, and don't you know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how do you say, Show us the Father?" (John 14:9).

For forbidding the children. "But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, Allow the little children to come to me; don't forbid them: for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14). The Lukan parallel: "But Jesus called them to him, saying, Allow the little children to come to me, and don't forbid them: for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16).