Mocking
Mocking in the UPDV runs in two directions. The umbrella collects the episodes — Ishmael laughing at Sarah's son, Elijah jeering at the priests of Baal, the boys at Beth-el shouting at Elisha, Job's friends and the younger generation, the Ammonites and Tyre saying "Aha" against Jerusalem, the soldiers and chief priests around the cross, and the mockers prophesied for the last days. The wisdom tradition runs the other direction: it draws the scoffer as a settled type, names the damage he does to a city and a household, and warns the wise against him. The two threads meet in two pivots — the Psalm 22 portrait of the Sufferer surrounded by mockery, and the proverb that turns the act back on its agent: "Surely he scoffs at the scoffers; But he gives grace to the lowly" (Pr 3:34). For the wisdom catalogue of the scoffer as a moral type — closed ears, contention, judgment in store — see also Scoffing.
Mocking in the Patriarchal and Prophetic Histories
The act enters the narrative early. Sarah sees Hagar's son "mocking" at the weaning feast: "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking" (Ge 21:9). Mockery sits at the seam between the two sons and triggers the household separation that follows.
In the prophetic histories the act is double-edged. On Carmel, Elijah turns mockery into prophetic theatre against the priests of Baal: "And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud; for he is a god: either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened" (1Ki 18:27). The prophet's mockery is aimed at the impotent god, and the verse that follows ratifies it with fire.
A chapter and a book later, the direction reverses. The court prophet Zedekiah son of Chenaanah strikes Micaiah and mocks his message: "Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and struck Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way did the Spirit of Yahweh go from me to speak to you?" (1Ki 22:24). On Elisha's road from Jericho the mockery takes a juvenile form: "And he went up from there to Beth-el; and as he was going up by the way, there came forth young lads out of the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead" (2Ki 2:23).
The pre-exilic record is sealed in a single sentence. The Chronicler explains the fall of Jerusalem in terms of mockery refusing the prophetic word: "but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against his people, until there was no remedy" (2Ch 36:16). The same chronicler shows the same mockery a few generations earlier, when Hezekiah's couriers go out with the Passover invitation: "So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them" (2Ch 30:10). The post-exilic counterpart appears at the wall: "But it came to pass that, when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews" (Ne 4:1).
The Sufferer Mocked
The book of Job places the same act in private speech. Eliphaz reads Job's complaint as scoffing — "Why does your heart carry you away? And why do your eyes flash" (Job 15:12) — and Job, in the chapters where he turns from his friends to the public, describes the social inversion as mockery from those beneath him: "But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock" (Job 30:1).
Psalm 22 is the textual home of the gestures. The Sufferer, surrounded, sees the same lip-and-head movements that Sirach later traces in the rich exploiter: "All those who see me laugh me to scorn: They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, [saying,]" (Ps 22:7); "And then he will see you and be furious with you; And he will wag his head at you" (Sir 13:7). Isaiah names the same gestures as the indictment of God's children: "Against whom do you⁺ sport yourselves? Against whom do you⁺ make a wide mouth, and put out the tongue? Are you⁺ not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood" (Is 57:4).
Mocking the Christ
The Passion narratives draw the Psalm 22 portrait into the Gospel. Jesus' own prediction holds the verb fixed at the centre of the catalogue of indignities: "and they will mock him, and will spit on him, and will scourge him, and will kill him; and after three days he will rise again" (Mark 10:34). The Sanhedrin scene executes part of the prediction: "And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say to him, Prophesy: and the attendants received him with blows of their hands" (Mark 14:65).
The Roman soldiers stage a mock-coronation. Mark's narrative is the fullest: "And they clothe him with purple, and platting a crown of thorns, they put it on him; and they began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck his head with a reed, and spat on him, and bowing their knees worshiped him. And when they had mocked him, they took off from him the purple, and put on him his garments. And they lead him out to crucify him" (Mark 15:17-20). John's parallel preserves the same items in the praetorium: "And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple garment; and they came to him, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they struck him with their hands" (Joh 19:2-3).
At the cross the gestures of Psalm 22 reappear in three voices — the passers-by, the chief priests, and those crucified with him. "And those who passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha! You who destroys the temple, and builds it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking [him] among themselves with the scribes said, He saved others; himself he can't save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. And those who were crucified with him reproached him" (Mark 15:29-32). The apostolic comment keeps the verbal frame and adds the response: "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, did not threaten; but delivered [himself] to him who judges righteously" (1Pe 2:23). The same thread that gathered the OT mockings names the Christian inheritance of them: "and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, moreover of bonds and imprisonment" (He 11:36). Maccabean precedent is in the same key: of Nicanor it is written, "But he mocked and despised them, and abused them: and he spoke proudly" (1Ma 7:34).
Mocking God and His Sanctuary
A second strand of the umbrella is mockery aimed at Yahweh and the sanctuary, voiced through the gloating of the surrounding nations and through the boast of Israel's own hardened. Ezekiel records the Ammonite gloat: "Because you said, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity" (Eze 25:3). Tyre takes up the same syllable for commercial reasons: "because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken [that was] the gate of the peoples; she has turned to me; I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste" (Eze 26:2).
Within the city, Isaiah's drunken rulers mock the prophetic word with a boast of immunity: "Because you⁺ have said, We have made a covenant with death, and we are at agreement with Sheol; when the overflowing scourge will pass through, it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hid ourselves" (Is 28:15). The prophet answers in the imperative: "Now therefore don't be⁺ scoffers, or else your⁺ bonds will be made strong; for a decree of destruction I have heard from the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, on the whole earth" (Is 28:22).
Mocking in the Last Days
The New Testament closes the catalogue forward in time. Two apostolic writers name the same figure under the heading of the last days. "knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come with mockery, walking after their own desires" (2Pe 3:3); "that they said to you⁺ in the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly desires" (Jud 1:18). The verb is the same the Gospels used at the cross, and the temporal horizon stretches it from Jerusalem in the first century to the church awaiting its Lord.
Mocking the Poor and the Parent
Where the umbrella files the social act under a "general references" heading, the wisdom tradition gives it two specific targets. The poor stand under the protection of their Maker: "Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker; [And] he who is glad at calamity will not be unpunished" (Pr 17:5). Sirach repeats the rule and ties it to the unsearchable work of Yahweh: "Do not mock at one who wears [only] a loincloth; And do not scorn at a bitter day. For the works of Yahweh are wonderful things; And his work has been hid from man" (Sir 11:4). The parent stands under the same reach. "The eye that mocks at his father, And despises to obey his mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it" (Pr 30:17). The act has a known root: "Mockery and reproach [come] from the proud, And vengeance, like a lion, lies in wait for them" (Sir 27:28). And it has a known posture toward the wise word: "If an understanding man hears a wise word, He commends it, and adds to it; If a foolish man hears it, he mocks it, And he casts it behind his back" (Sir 21:15).
The Scoffer as a Moral Type
Beyond the act the wisdom tradition names a person — the scoffer — and treats him as a settled type alongside the simple, the fool, and the wise. He does not mock occasionally; he loves the posture. "How long, you⁺ simple ones, will you⁺ love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, And fools hate knowledge?" (Pr 1:22). His trait is closed ears: "A wise son [hears] his father's instruction; But a scoffer does not hear rebuke" (Pr 13:1). Wisdom does not come to him: "A scoffer seeks wisdom, and it is not [found]; But knowledge is easy to him who has understanding" (Pr 14:6). She keeps her distance: "She is far from scoffers; And liars will not remember her" (Sir 15:8). Sirach calls the wound itself untreatable: "The wound of a scoffer, there are no healings for it, For his plant is of an evil plant" (Sir 3:28).
The wisdom tradition counsels three responses. First, separation — "He who touches pitch, it will stick to his hand; And he who joins with a scoffer will learn his way" (Sir 13:1); "Do not move away from before the scoffer To set him as an ambusher before you" (Sir 8:11). Second, expulsion — "Cast out the scoffer, and contention will go out; Yes, strife and ignominy will cease" (Pr 22:10), because on a civic scale the damage is large: "Scoffers set a city in a flame; But wise men turn away wrath" (Pr 29:8). Third, the cup that uncovers the disposition: "Like a furnace which tries the work of the blacksmith, So is wine in the quarrelling of scorners" (Sir 31:26). Judgment, the tradition is explicit, is reserved: "Judgments are prepared for scoffers, And stripes for the back of fools" (Pr 19:29).
Yahweh Mocks the Mockers
The umbrella closes where Proverbs closes: with the act turned back on the agent. The same wisdom that warns against mockery names a divine counter-mockery. "Surely he scoffs at the scoffers; But he gives grace to the lowly" (Pr 3:34). Wisdom personified speaks the same way: "I also will laugh in [the day of] your⁺ calamity; I will mock when your⁺ fear comes" (Pr 1:26). The scoffer's gesture is not durable; the impenitent boast meets, in the day of fear, the laughter and mockery it had practised on others.