Week 26 Proverbs
Last day of June; halfway through ‘21.
I finished two books today. Lamentations & Proverbs.
The last two chapters of Proverbs weren’t written by Solomon – chapter 30 was written by Agur son of Jakeh.
One thing Agur said was that there were four circumstances-situations-developments that – generally speaking – would turn out badly:
A slave who becomes a king
An overbearing fool who prospers
A bitter woman who finally gets a husband
A servant girl who supplants her mistress.
A question I sometimes ask myself is: is this verse really true? So, here for example – what about a slave like Spartacus? What about Cinderella? What about exceptions to Agur’s proverb?
For a minute I wonder if exceptions disprove Agur’s general rule? But not for very long; not seriously. If I said over-eating means you’ll gain weight and a guy argued wait-a-second what about this woman in Uzbekistan who eats 8000 calories a day and doesn’t gain a gram of weight? Fair enough. I still say that over-eating = weight gain.
Agur is saying that by-and-large a slave or a servant who gains power by some lucky circumstance won’t be able to manage it well. When an overbearing or bitter peasant gets a social boost he’ll usually stay an overbearing or bitter person, but with more status.
I carry who I am and what I am with me into my future. Winning the lottery will definitely change my circumstances. It won’t change me.
Note: quote from Proverbs 30:22-23 (NLT). End-of-June reading progress: 62% done.