Tindale uses the verb in Lk 19% ‘the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoyce, and to lawde God with a loude voyce’ ; and the subst. in 1 P 17 ‘that youre fayth . . . myght be founde unto lawde, glory, and honoure at the apperinge of Jesus Christ,’ and 2 ‘for the laude of them that do well.’
It is doubtful if even the verb can be used now without affectation ; but if it can, and the Revisers seem to have thought so, it is a pity it was not consistently used for ἐπαινέω (Lk 16°, Ro 154, 1 Co 11-17. 22), to distinguish it from the more common alvéw, to praise. J. HASTINGS.
LAUGHTER.—The laughter mentioned in the Bible is of three kinds, (1) loud laughter as opposed to demonstrative weeping, (2) wondering or in- credulous, and (3) derisive.
(1) Koheleth allows that there is a time to laugh as well as a time to weep (Ec 34), but he reckons sorrow better than laughter (7%), and calls laughter madness (29). Bildad offers Job the pro- spect, if he be really upright, of a time when God will fill his mouth with laughter (Job 831); the returning exiles enjoyed such a time (Ps 126? ‘Our mouth was then filled with loud laughter’—De Witt); and Jesus promises it definitely in the Restitution to those who weep now (Lk 6”). In every instance it is the Oriental loud laughter, which is rarely heard, and only upon occasion of the utmost glad surprise. Christ’s woe is pronounced on those who laugh now when no such surprise is possible (Lk 6%).
(2) More frequent is the laughter of wonder or incredulity. o Abraham (Gn 17!) and Sarah (18!) langhed when they heard the promise of a son. And even when the promise could not be doubted longer by themselves, they knew that all that heard would laugh at them (21°), they were so old.
RV retains in Gn 216 the AV translation ‘all that hear will laugh with me.’ But ὅσον" can mean only ‘ wil] laugh at me’; οἵ. Job 522 397.18. 22, Ps 698. Still it is not derisive laughter that Sarah fears; she does not fear the laughter at all; she only knows that when People hear of it they will laugh, it is so aston-
ishing as to be still almost incredible. ‘Laugh with me’ isthe rendering of the ancient versions and of all the English versions
LAVER
63
from Wyclif, except Tindale, ‘And Sara sayde, God hath made me a laughinge stocke, for all that heare, will laugh at me." Coverdale has even, ‘God hath prepared a joye for me, for who so ever heareth of it, wyll rejoyse with me,’ and is followed by the Geneva translators and the Bishops. Kalisch defends the AV tr., on the ground that ‘no other sense is adapted here but the smile of surprise and admiration.’ But Dillmann, Del, Kautzsch (iiber mich), Segond (de moi), and most modern com- mentators translate ‘will laugh at me’—meaning, however, to express surprise rather than derision.
; (3) But the most frequent occurrence of laughter is in derision. The feeling ranges in expression from the gentle mocking of Daniel (Bel 15) to the judicial laughter of Him that sitteth in the heavens (Ps 24).
There are three Heb. verbs translated ‘laugh,’ pny (except Jg 16% Ezk 2332, confined to Pent.), its later form pny, and ay). All three are occasionally rendered in AV ‘laugh to scorn,’ but esp. the last, which does not properly mean to laugh but to scoff at or scorn. In 2 Es 221 claudwm irridere noli is tro ‘laugh not a lame man to scorn,’ and the expression ‘laugh to scorn’ is found in the Gr. Apocr. as the tr. of χαταγελάῳ, Jth 1212, Sir 711 2017 (cf. also 1 Mac 1079 “1 am laughed to scorn for thy sake,’ ἐγὼ δὲ ἐγενήθην εἰς καταγίλωταν); ἐκγελάω, Wis 418; χαταμωκχάομαι, Sir 137; and χλιυάζω, 2 Mac 72); cf also Sir 64 ‘ Shall make him to be laughed to scorn of his enemier,” ἐπίχαρμα ἐχθρῶν ποιήσω αὐτόν. In NT χαταγελάω is so trd where it occurs (Mt 924|| Mk 640} Lk 853 at the ἘΞ of Jairus’ daughter), so that a distinction is maintained between the simple γελάω (only in Lk 621.2) and its more emphatic com-
ound, The phrase is due to Tindale in these places, who thus improved on Wyclif ‘thei scorneden hym.’ Tind. was fe,lowed by all the versions.
The phrases ‘laugh on’ and ‘laugh upon’ are now obsolete, though we retain the equivalent ‘smile upon.’ They occur once each, Job 29% ‘If I laughed on them, they believed it not’ (pnyx ombs, RVm ‘I smiled on them when they had no confidence’; the AV tr. comes from the Geneva Bible, which explains its meaning by the marg. note, ‘That is, thei thoght it not to bea jest, or thei thoght not that I wold condescend unto them’), 1 Es 4% ‘if she laughed upon him, he laughed also’ (ἐὰν προσγελάσῃ αὐτῷ, γελᾳ).
J. HASTINGS.
LAUNCH is now transitive only. In AV it occurs intransitively and only so. RV has changed the word into ‘set sail’ (Ac 217), ‘put to sea’ (Ac 27*:4), or simply ‘put’ (Lk 5*), and once has retained it (Lk 8*). e transitive use must be the older, as the verb is formed from ‘lance,’ and means primarily to ‘hurl a lance,’ and then to send (a ship) into the water. Spenser uses it fre- quently in the simple sense of ‘to pierce,’ almost as we now use ‘lance,’ as /'Q I. iv. 46, ‘ For since my brest was launcht with lovely dart.’ Shake- speare has the word only once, and it is transitive,