Category: Solomon Says

Proverbs begins with a promise of, and praise for, the value of wisdom. Verse 7 warns that fools despise it and/or despise being instructed in it.

Then we come to the first specific warning Proverbs:

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.

My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
let us ambush the innocent without reason;
like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse”—
my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird,
but these men lie in wait for their own blood;
they set an ambush for their own lives.
Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors. (Proverbs 1:8-19, ESV)

So of all the sins Solomon could have described and warned against, why is this temptation the first concern of wisdom? Notice that the warning is not against “hate” or some other direct sin that gets pleasure from hurting other people. Violence is a means to an end–an end that Solomon does not think is wrong in itself. People need material wealth to survive and thrive in the world and so young men are tempted to band together and take wealth from other people. In a sense, the possibility of becoming a sadistic sociopath is a warning to the “son.” If he tries to provide for himself by robbery he will become one of those whose “feet run to evil” and who “make haste to shed blood.”

Solomon often seems concerned with how people drift into sin–how they start down a wrong path. In this case, a person who decides to live by robbing others is going against the reason God created humanity. The first recorded command in the Bible is to embrace a life of productivity. God gave this command when he created humanity:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28, ESV)

So what is the alternative? If you don’t want to take dominion over the world, you survive and attempt to thrive by taking dominion over other people. If you don’t live by being fruitful, you find those who have done so and cut them off, stealing the fruits of their lives and labors.

Notice how rejecting God’s ways are parasitic. Someone has to work the land and produce good things by labor and exchange. Without such people, human life is impossible. But some find it tempting to let others do the work, and then take a shortcut by using violence to plunder such people.

One implication of all this which I believe Proverbs repeatedly addresses, is that one can’t repudiate plunder without adopting the opposite way of life. Knowing you should not steal or rob is insufficient. You have to embrace as best you can a life of work and savings and investment. Otherwise, you will always find yourself tempted to resort to the other means of acquisition. In fact, by failing to work, you’ve taken the first step toward theft.

Proverbs consists of several books. Notice how the second book in Proverbs, which begins with chapter 10, shows the same concerns:

The proverbs of Solomon.

A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame. (Proverbs 10:1-5; ESV)

So the first temptation is the life of plunder because it will derail you from the life of productivity that God calls you to. And if you want to reject the temptation to live by plunder, the best way to guard yourself is to learn to be productive.

Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these days?” for it is not wise to ask that. — Ecclesiastes 7.10

How can Solomon make such a blanket statement?

The past almost always produces in our perceptions the illusion of stability. But what if every age is an age of transition?

If every age is an age of transition, the transition of the immediate present will always seems so difficult that every age in the past will be remembered as an age of stability. For one thing, other people dealt with past transitions. We the living are dealing with our own perceived disruptions. Actual experience and stress is always more vivid than records of the trials of other people who have long departed. Also, the perceived heritage of the past is perceived as a given that we are accustomed to, while the future is indeterminate and therefore threatening.

Egypt is always remembered as easy.

Thus the trap of trying to go back to a better time.

The common delusions of remembered youth may also be a factor here. About the time you start to get really aware of how life works life has changed from what it was when you were younger. But when you were younger you were protected from much of how life worked. So you think, always, of a past that was more stable than the future.

Time is real and it only goes in one direction. God wants you to trust him for it. The next year is always supposed to be better.