Whenever something bad happens to someone who has done bad things, we quite often hear the saying that their chickens have come home to roost. What a strange saying! On the surface wouldn’t you think that having your chickens, or any of your livestock coming home, is a good thing? Somewhere along the way, the idea of a curse returning back on the head of an evil doer became associated with chickens coming home to roost. Is this Biblical?
“Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.” – Susanna Moodie, Life in Canada, 1852
The origins and history of the quote “chickens coming home to roost” begins with Geoffrey Chaucer in The Parson’s Tale, written in 1390. It actually only refers to birds returning to their nest, and not chickens at all: “And ofte tyme swich cursynge wrongfully retorneth agayn to hym that curseth, as a bryd that retorneth agayn to his owene nest.”
Fast forward several hundred years and we find an adaptation of Chaucer’s quote by English poet Robert Southey. In his 1810 poem, The Curse of Kehama, he writes: “Curses are like young chicken: they always come home to roost.” We then see the more modern day version from English-born Canadian author Susanna Moodie who used the “home to roost” quote in two of her books. During the 19th century the saying started to become part of the American lexicon and during the 1900’s it became part of the pop culture showing up in the book “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell in 1936 (adapted for the classic movie Gone with the Wind in 1939).
Eventually, the “curses” portion was dropped and today we use the phrase “your chickens have come home to roost” as a way of telling a person that their bad deeds are now bringing retribution upon themselves.
In the Bible we see several verses that teach us that the deeds of our lives, whether good or bad, come back upon us.
He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.- Psalms 7:15
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. – Ecclesiastes 11:1
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. – Galatians 6:7
You can read more about the idea of God and karma in the article about how you reap what you sow, a concept we find in Galatians 6:7. From that, and the above verses, we can surmise that good things will happen to good people, and bad things will happen to bad people. At the same time we read in the Bible that it rains on the just and the unjust. So which is it? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment.