Biblical Allusion in Bob Dylan's Lyrics--Part III

Love is Just a Four Letter Word

• "After waking enough times to think I see
  The holy Kiss that's supposed to last eternity
  Blow up in smoke, its destiny
  Falls on strangers, travels free."
  Romans 16:16: "Salute one another with an holy kiss."

Tombstone Blues

• "Well John the Baptist after torturing a thief
  Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
  Saying, 'Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
  Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"
  Well, we all know who John the Baptist is.  But does anyone have a clue what this verse means? Why is he torturing a thief? And is the Commander-in-Chief Christ? Or does Dylan just throw a bunch of senseless words together, as he is sometimes wont to do? For a good answer, see Dan's comment under Highway 61 farther down this page.
• "The king of the Philistines his soldiers to save
  Put jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves."
  Jawbones and Philistines are associated in Judges 15, when, with "a jawbone of and ass," Samson slaughters a thousand Philistines. But this fact does not shed any light on Dylan's lines.
• "The geometry of innocence flesh on the bone
  Causes Gallileo's math book to get thrown
  At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone
  But the tears on her cheeks are form laughter""
  Judges 16:18-21: "And when Delilah saw that [Samson] had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once . . . Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand. And she made [Samson] sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she cause him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson, And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed form him. But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza..." Delilah is alone when Samson is taken from her, but she has her object: money.  Delilah, trying to discover Samson's secret, has played a game with him many times.  Perhaps now she is laughing to have won it.

Queen Jane Approximately

• "Now when all the bandits that you turned your other cheek to
  All lay down their bandanas and complain . . . "

Matthew 5:39:  "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Highway 61

• The first stanza is Dylan's version (or inversion) of the Genesis story in which Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac. 
• A website visitor, Dan, insightfully comments: "The first verse 'God said to Abraham...' is more of an inversion of the tale then a retelling. On HWY 61 even Abraham disobeys God. Hwy 61 is of course a Hwy that runs from Minnesota to the gulf of Mexico, clear across the width of the USA. There was a Popular old Blues song called HWY No. 61 Blues, that just plaintively tells of journeying past this town...on...travels up and down HWY 61. Dylan REVISITS in order to juxtapos[e] the current view from the Hwy against the old. No one in the old Blues song veiwed anyone selling red, white, and Blue shoestrings and a thousand telephones that won't ring. I think HWY 61 Revisited as an album is a very tightly woven criticism of the absurd state of modern affairs and the whole album could take place on one off ramp or another as veiwed from a buick 6. Maybe the John The Baptist line in Tombstone Blues that you posed the question about functions in the same context as the 'God Said to Abraham...' verse. John like many others on the album is lost on/in/under HWY 61. While here John is not turning the other cheek while he is obeying the orders of the commander and chief (man's law not God's) and it leaves him ill at ease, looking for a hole to get sick in. John and Abraham both falling short of their past Biblical selves during their stay here on Desolation Row represent modern man's lack of spiritual grounding, a drift like Queen Jane who's familial ties are breaking down, a drift with no direction home like a rolling stone."

Desolation Row

• "All except for Cain and Abel . . . "
  Genesis 4:8
• "And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
  He's getting ready for the show"
  Luke 10:33
• "And though her eyes are fixed upon
  Noah's great rainbow
  She spends her time peeking
  Into Desolation Row."
  Genesis 9:13: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh."

Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?

• "While his . . . friends rearrange / Their religion of the little ten women"
  In 2 Samuel 15:16, when David flees in the face of his rebelling son Absalom, he leaves "ten women, which were concubines, to keep the house." Later, when he returns, he takes the ten women and puts them in a ward and feeds them but does not go into them.  "They were shut up unto the day of their death, in living widowhood" (2 Samuel 20:3).  David, at the time when he returns and shuts off his concubines is "preoccupied with his vengeance," because now Sheba has also rebelled against him.  "Pursue after him," David says, "lest he . . . escape us" (2 Samuel 20:6).  The imagery, both in the Bible and in this song, is that of women who are not being sought after sexually: "I'm sure that he has no intentions / Of looking your way . . . " Dylan may not have intended this allusion at all, but if he did not, it is rather an interesting coincidence how well it complements the theme and imagery of the song.

Visions of Johanna:

• "And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it"
  No doubt an enormous stretch, but here goes:  When Elijah goes to the top of Carmel, he tells his servant to go up and look toward the sea, but the servant sees nothing.  Elijah keeps sending him back, until the seventh time, he sees arising out of the sea a little cloud of rain, like a man's hand. (I Kings 18:42-44). Despite the great rain, Elijah defies the storm and runs on before Ahab.
• "He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed"
  Does this "owing" have anything to do with man's debt to God?  "O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all thy debt..." (Matthew 18:32)

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland:

• "The Kings of Tyrus with their convict list"
  In scripture, Tyrus is an enemy of the Jews.  Jermiah prophecies that "all the kings of Tyrus," along with the kings of the other nations, will be forced to drink the cup of God's wrath, and they shall "be drunken, and spur, and fall, and rise no more." (Jermiah 25:22-27).  In Ezekiel, Tyrus says of Jerusalem, "Aha, she is broken...she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste" (26:2).  If there is a connections (and I would not insist on one), then the point is that Tyrus seeks to consume, not "just to kiss."   In many interpretaions of later passages of Ezekiel, the prince of Tryus is associated with Satan.

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