Proverbs 10:22: “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.”
My study partner told me that this is a verse that people often use to prove that God wants us to be rich. In fact the NIV leads the way with: “The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, without painful toil for it.” What can be more plan than that. The blessings of the Lord brings wealth and you don’t even have to work for it. So take that all you who want to slam the prosperity preachers. Wait a minute, what am I saying, when it comes to slamming prosperity teaching I am usually leading the charge. So I will bet all you disciples of the prosperity movement are just waiting to see how I worm my way out of this one.
Well, first I have to admit that the Hebrew word for rich is ‘ashar and as much as it pains me I fear I have chock on that word and admit that, yes it does mean rich and wealthy. As much as I would like to change that word, I fear it is part of the inspired text and I am just going to have to eat it. ‘Ashar does mean to be rich and wealthy, to enrich oneself and just flat out be prosperous. Of course we are not talking Donald Trump type rich. I mean if everyone was a billionaire in our economy then why charge a dollar for a package of gum when you can a hundred dollars or maybe even a thousand dollars. You see our whole economic capitalistic system depends on a small amount of people being super rich and a small amount of people being super poor and the rest stuck right in the middle to keep prices evenly balanced so the working man, the unemployed and Donald Trump all pay the same for that package of gum, otherwise you have Germany of the 1930’s with their runaway inflation.
My point is that our lexicons and the back of Strong’s will tell you that ‘ashar means riches and wealth but what they don’t tell you is what someone with a PhD in Biblical Archeology well tell you. Wait, that’s me. Yep, I am going to be the Scrooge to throw a wrench into this whole interpretation of the verse.
You see, our English definition of rich is, and I quote Webster the authority on the English language, “rich – Having wealth or great possessions, abundantly supplied with resources, means, or funds; wealthy.” Now let me give you the ancient Semitic definition of rich, “having 100 sheep.” If you had only 99 sheep, you were poor, but if you had 100, welcome to the elite upper crust. I can show you the Semitic difference between wealth and poverty right in my home town. I can walk into the Englewood area of Chicago and immediately I am a wealthy man and if I get out alive I can go to Oakbrook Terrance and all of sudden I am a poor man being shown where to find the lawn mower and weed whacker. Riches and wealth is a very fluid word in English and can be very misleading when trying to plug this English square peg of a word into the round hole of an ancient Semitic word.
In ancient times you did not have an abundance of things like we have in modern times. You either had a crop providing enough food for you and your family and you were ‘ashar (rich) or your crops failed and you were ‘anav (poor). There was no middle class. The ones with the palaces, servants and whatever material luxuries that were available, and they were few, in ancient times belonged to kings and princes, to royalty.
In many parts of the world this cultural difference still exist. I remember my brother coming home on furlough from the mission field in Papua, New Guinea and Wycliffe Bible Translators gave him a Chrysler New Yorker that someone donated to the mission to drive around while he was in the States. He explained that in New Guinea they only had two words for automobiles, Toyota and Honda. If it was a really expensive car it was a Toyota and if it was a cheap car it was a Honda. So he said, “I guess I will have to tell the people back in the village that I drove a Toyota while I was in the States. From my brother’s description of the people in his village, who were very primitive, if they had to choose between the word ‘ashar (rich) or ‘anav (poor) to describe their situation, they would choose ‘ashar and would most likely be insulted if you suggest they were ‘anav. They had no electricity, no running water, no air conditioning, no refrigerators, no cars, etc, yet they were rich ‘ashar because they had enough to survive and live.
So, ok, I will admit Proverbs 10:22 is saying that God wants us to be rich, but I am afraid I cannot agree that the present day understanding of our English word rich fits our 21st Century Western, technological, materialistic, every man for himself, pay me top dollar, definition of rich. Or the short definition, Donald Trump. When I read this verse I see God saying He wants to bless me so that I will have enough to eat, keep a roof over my head and keep my dues to the Archeological Institute of America current.
But hey, catch that last phrase, my dues will be paid and he will not add any sorrow to it. That word sorrow is ‘etseb which means pain, hurt, toil and hardship. In its Semitic root it has the idea of hard labor, slave labor, labor that will break you. It does not mean you will have enough without any labor, but that it will come through labor that you will either enjoy or is not taxing on you physically and emotionally.
If you see this verse as God wanting you to bless you with wealth that will give you a candy apple red Porsche, a sixteen bedroom home in Oakbrook Terrace with a swimming pool and ‘anav’s mowing your lawn, then brother have at it. That mansion over the hilltop is not my dream. Give me a little one bedroom attic apartment with internet access and enough bookshelves and I am ‘ashar (rich) and blessed beyond all hope and imagination.
Yes, ‘ashar does mean rich and wealthy, but it is up to you to decide in your own spirit what rich and wealthy really means. Don’t try to point your finger at me as say that God does not want me living in an attic apartment that he wants me to live in Oakbrook Terrace because I don’t want to live in Oakbrook Terrace. To me I would quickly become an ‘anav. Not my cup of tea I am afraid. I have my definition, you have your definition, everybody happy, that is unless you present life style does not fit your definition, then I guess you are not blessed.
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