The best French rebus I've ever seen reads: "Ga." This means "I am very hungry." Here's how it works:
The French capital letter G is pronounced "G grand." And the French small letter a is pronounced "a petit." Putting these together you get:
J'ai grand appétit.
That is simply inspired. Today the rebus is largely forgotten except on license plates, one of my favorites being:
RUNVS.
My own conviction is that no play on words in language is ever without significance. Think of the famous Latin anagram that turns Pilate's "Quid est veritas?" ("What is truth?") into "Est vir qui adest" ("It is the man who is here"). A doctoral dissertation fairly begs to be written some day on all of the puns, riddles, and rebuses in the New Testament!