Wednesday Bible Study: A deep dig into Proverbs XV

This week we move into chapter 6 of Proverbs, and it folds neatly into three sections, of which I will do the first one this week.  This section we might subtitle, "the calamities you bring on yourself", and it also contains three sections.  First, Solomon makes a plea about being surety for someone else- and the absolute need to get out of it.  The second part is the famous, "Go to the ants, thou sluggard" passage on laziness; the third is an admonition to not become like the wicked, and share in their destruction.  I want to do this a little different this week.  Not that we can't apply these lessons to ourselves- any of us who've got burned by a debtor, watched a child refuse to develop a work ethic, or spent a night in jail for something stupid, realize that- but I keep seeing this as Solomon warning Rehoboam about the way he sees his son's life going, and I want to look at it, speculatively, from that angle.

So part one we're talking about losing your freedoms as a result of someone else's debt.  Solomon himself was speculated to be possibly the richest man who ever lived.  He poured enormous sums into building projects, ornaments for the Temple, and other projects.  So it always puzzled me that when Rehoboam asked advice from the elders, their first response was, "Cut your father's taxes."  Why would a man as rich as Solomon need to tax his people so much?

My guess:  He blew it all.  For a good share of his kingship, according to Ecclesiastes, he ceased to listen to the Holy Spirit/Wisdom and sought meaning in life from non-spiritual venues.  Is it too much to believe that he wasted so much money during those years- 40 years on the throne- that he was, by the time he came to his senses and returned to Wisdom, he was taxing his people to pay off his enormous debt?  Keep in mind that by today's prices, he'd have had to be blowing through somewhere near a BILLION AND A HALF of today's dollars per year!  But at any rate, being in debt was on his mind- and in the first section...

Pro 6:1  My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger, 
Pro 6:2  if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, 
Pro 6:3  then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor. 
Pro 6:4  Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; 
Pro 6:5  save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. 

...he may well have been pleading with Rehoboam not to make things any worse.  His buddies, however, were likely advising him that lower taxes= the end of their party lifestyle, which leads us into the next section...

Pro 6:6  Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 

Pro 6:7  Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 

Pro 6:8  she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 

Pro 6:9  How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 

Pro 6:10  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 

Pro 6:11  and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. 

Now keep in mind that, if Rehoboam was 42 when he became king, he watched his father's ENTIRE reign.  And this was a man that acquired a wife or concubine every TWO WEEKS on average.  How much, between the wives, the seeking pleasure, etc., did Solomon actually do himself?  His son had to be mainly watching dear old dad sit around passing out orders half the day, and excusing himself to the harem the other half for a good chunk of four decades.  So if Solomon was as late back to obedience to God as it seems, Rehoboam was prolly in his mid-30s and not of much mind to do much more than Dad did by the time Solomon started these lectures.  Solomon already saw the way this man, his son, had been trained up, and knew where it would lead him.  Which brings us to the third section...

Pro 6:12  A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, 

Pro 6:13  winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 

Pro 6:14  with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 

Pro 6:15  therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. 

Solomon likely saw this in Rehoboam; he likely saw it in the 'friends' Rehoboam associated with.  I wonder how much of Proverbs was written as a desperate attempt to put the train back together after the wreck.  That it was inspired by the Spirit, we can have no doubt, because of the many lessons we can learn from it without the same level of desperation.  So in the end, while we can learn from the lessons themselves, the greater lesson is this:  BE THE EXAMPLE before it grows too late.


By the way, the next 2 Wednesdays are Christmas and New Years, so study on your own, and be back in 3 weeks!