16 surprising Bible verses that almost never reach the pulpit
Written by Raphael Navarro Schmitt · Reviewed by Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt ·
Short answer
The Bible holds scenes that almost never reach a pulpit: a hand on its own writing on a wall in Daniel 5, an axe head that floats in 2 Kings 6, a young man who falls asleep during Paul’s sermon in Acts 20. Canonical texts, and each is there for a reason.
Almost everybody knows the Bible through the same forty verses. They are the ones on the card, in the post, on the living-room wall. The rest — most of it — is a library written over more than a thousand years, by people of different trades and centuries, and it has room for scenes nobody would choose for a poster.
Surprising here does not mean funny. Much of what sounds strange to us was serious to the people who wrote it: a corpse that stands up on touching a prophet’s bones, a people sending back gold figures to be rid of a plague, a priest consulting a woman about the future of a kingdom. The strangeness is ours, not the text’s — and that is exactly where it becomes interesting.
The list runs from the Old Testament to the New, in the order of the books. Each comment explains where the scene happens and why it is there, because a curious passage without context turns into an anecdote, and an anecdote is the opposite of reading.
All 16 verses, one by one
25Likewise, Methuselah lived for one hundred and eighty-seven years, and then he conceived Lamech.
26And after he conceived Lamech, Methuselah lived for seven hundred and eighty-two years, and he conceived sons and daughters.
27And all the days of Methuselah that passed were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and then he died.
Methuselah dies at 969 and holds the Bible’s record. The detail the genealogy does not comment on: add up the ages Genesis itself records and he dies in the year of the flood.
Read the chapter19not for one day, nor for two, nor for five, nor for ten, nor even for twenty,
20but for up to a month of days, until it exits from your nostrils, and until it turns into nausea for you, because you have slipped away from the Lord, who is in your midst, and because you have wept before him, saying: ‘Why did we go forth out of Egypt?’ ”
The people complained that they missed the meat of Egypt. The answer is neither a refusal nor a telling-off: it is meat for a whole month, until it turns into nausea. This is the Bible describing the worst kind of answered prayer.
Read the chapter3And when the Ashdodites had risen up at first light on the next day, behold, Dagon was lying prone on the ground before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and they set him again in his place.
4And again, on the next day, rising up in the morning, they found Dagon lying on his face upon the ground, before the ark of the Lord. But the head of Dagon, and both palms of his hands had been cut off upon the threshold.
The Philistines capture the ark and set it in the temple of their own god, as a trophy. Two mornings later the statue of Dagon is face down and mutilated. The narrator tells it without a single comment, and the silence is the joke.
Read the chapter4And they said, “What is it that we ought to repay to him because of transgression?” And they responded:
5“In accord with the number of the provinces of the Philistines, you shall fashion five gold cysts and five gold mice. For the same plague has been upon all of you and your princes. And you shall fashion a likeness of your cysts and a likeness of the mice, which have destroyed the land. And so shall you give glory to the God of Israel, so that perhaps he may lift off his hand from you, and from your gods, and from your land.
To send the ark back, the Philistines include five gold mice and five gold likenesses of their own tumours. It is a guilt offering made by people from outside Israel, in the form their religion understood — and the text does not correct them.
Read the chapterAnd when it was now midday, Elijah ridiculed them, saying: “Cry out with a louder voice. For he is a god, and perhaps he is talking, or at an inn, or on a journey, or certainly he may be asleep, and must be awakened.”
On top of Carmel, Elijah suggests that Baal may be talking, or at an inn, or on a journey, or asleep. It is open sarcasm from an Old Testament prophet — and some older translations soften the irony because it makes them uncomfortable.
Read the chapter5Then it happened that, while someone was cutting timber, the iron of the ax fell into the water. And he cried out and said: “Alas, alas, alas, my lord! For this thing was borrowed.”
6Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” And he indicated to him the place. Then he cut off a piece of wood, and he threw it in. And the iron floated up.
A borrowed axe head falls in the river and its user panics. The miracle saves no life and no kingdom: it settles a small debt for a poor man. It is the most domestic miracle in the Bible.
Read the chapter20Then Elisha died, and they buried him. And the robbers from Moab came into the land in the same year.
21But certain ones who were burying a man saw the robbers, and they cast the dead body into the sepulcher of Elisha. But when it had touched the bones of Elisha, the man revived, and he stood upon his feet.
A burial interrupted by raiders, a body thrown into the nearest grave, and the dead man stands up on touching Elisha’s bones. The scene lasts one verse and is never mentioned again anywhere.
Read the chapter24Four things are least upon the earth, and they are wiser than the wise:
25the ants, an infirm people who provide food for themselves at the harvest,
26the rabbit, a sickened people who make their bed upon the rock.
27The locust has no king, but they all depart by their troops.
28The lizard supports itself on hands and dwells in the buildings of kings.
Ants, rabbits, locusts and lizards enter as examples of wisdom — not one of them strong, not one of them impressive. It is the closest thing in the Bible to a case study on winning without power.
Read the chapter15And as I beheld the living creatures, there appeared above the earth, next to the living creatures, one wheel having four faces.
16And the appearance of the wheels and their work was like the appearance of the sea. And each of the four were similar to one another. And their appearance and work was like a wheel in the center of a wheel.
Notice that Ezekiel does not describe, he compares: every element arrives as the likeness of something else. He is trying to record what will not fit in words, and the strangeness of the text is the record of that attempt.
Read the chapterIn the same hour, there appeared fingers, as of the hand of a man, writing on the surface of the wall, opposite the candlestick, in the king’s palace. And the king observed the part of the hand that wrote.
The origin of the phrase about the writing on the wall. Notice what the text highlights: the king sees no angel and hears no voice. He sees a hand, on its own, writing.
Read the chapter23And taking the blind man by the hand, he led him beyond the village. And putting spit on his eyes, laying his hands on him, he asked him if he could see anything.
24And looking up, he said, “I see men but they are like walking trees.”
The only healing of Jesus that happens in two stages. In between, the man describes what he sees with an image nobody forgets — and Mark preserves the line instead of summarising the miracle.
Read the chapter13Then, as he knocked at the door of the gate, a girl went out to answer, whose name was Rhoda.
14And when she recognized the voice of Peter, out of joy, she did not open the gate, but instead, running in, she reported that Peter stood before the gate.
15But they said to her, “You are crazy.” But she reaffirmed that this was so. Then they were saying, “It is his angel.”
16But Peter was persevering in knocking. And when they had opened, they saw him and were astonished.
The church is gathered praying for Peter’s release. Peter arrives, and out of sheer joy the girl forgets to open the gate — and nobody believes her. Luke records it without smoothing it over: the people praying for the miracle were the last to accept it.
Read the chapter11And God was accomplishing powerful and uncommon miracles by the hand of Paul,
12so much so that even when small cloths and wrappings were brought from his body to the sick, the illnesses withdrew from them and the wicked spirits departed.
Cloths and wrappings used by Paul were carried to the sick. Luke himself marks the case as uncommon rather than as a method: it is the narrator’s way of saying that this was out of the ordinary even by his standards.
Read the chapter9And a certain adolescent named Eutychus, sitting on the window sill, was being weighed down by a heavy drowsiness (for Paul was preaching at length). Then, as he went to sleep, he fell from the third floor room downward. And when he was lifted up, he was dead.
10When Paul had gone down to him, he laid himself over him and, embracing him, said, “Do not worry, for his soul is still within him.”
The young man falls asleep during the sermon, drops from the third floor and dies. The narrator takes care to record that Paul had been preaching at length — and nobody edited that detail out of the text afterwards.
Read the chapterDo not continue to drink only water, but make use of a little wine, for the sake of your stomach and your frequent infirmities.
In the middle of instructions about elders and widows, Paul gives Timothy advice about his digestion. A useful reminder: these letters were written to people with stomach trouble, not drafted for posterity.
Read the chapterAnd when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
Half an hour of silence in a book made of trumpets, earthquakes and shouting. It is the only interval in Revelation — and it comes timed, which is more unsettling still.
Read the chapter
Frequently asked questions
Are there funny verses in the Bible?
There are passages with deliberate humour. Acts 12:13-16 shows the church praying for Peter’s release and refusing to believe it when he knocks, and 1 Kings 18:27 has Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal. In neither case is the humour in the modern reader: it is in the author.
What is the strangest passage in the Bible?
Ezekiel 1:15-16 usually tops the lists: the prophet does not describe, he compares — a wheel in the middle of a wheel, the likeness of something else. 2 Kings 13:21 competes for the title, with a man who revives on touching Elisha’s bones. Neither gets an explanation in the text.
Why does the Bible contain such strange passages?
Because it is not one book but a collection written over more than a thousand years, by authors from different cultures and trades. What sounds bizarre is almost always cultural distance: gold offerings in 1 Samuel 6, a list of wise small animals in Proverbs 30, advice about digestion in 1 Timothy 5.
Does the Bible quote books that are not in the Bible?
Yes. Several passages mention records of kings and prophets that have not survived, cited as sources by the biblical authors themselves. It shows that they worked from documents, not only from memory — and that the Bible took shape inside a library larger than itself.
Is reading curious verses disrespectful to the Bible?
No, so long as the context comes with them. The disrespect starts when a passage is used as a loose joke, cut off from what it is telling. Read whole, each of these scenes says something about the world it was written in — and about what the authors thought worth recording.
A prayer to take with you
Lord, take from me the habit of only reading what I already know. Let the strangeness of what I do not understand not push me away, but make me ask better questions. Give me curiosity without arrogance in front of your Word. Amen.