Grace & Peace: Proverbs 17:13

At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith” (Proverbs 15:16).

We should first address the teaching of this proverb, which is quite straightforward, and secondly, we should look at the method of reasoning.

A man should prefer to be poor and one who fears God, on the one hand, than to be a very rich man who has abundant wealth alongside abundant troubles. When God gives wealth for blessing, He gives the ability to enjoy that wealth alongside the wealth. When God grants wealth apart from the spiritual resources to enjoy it, the net result is not a blessing at all. “And he gave them their request; But sent leanness into their soul” (Psalm 106:15).

Think about it. What would you rather have? A world class chef, a high end kitchen, a full pantry, a huge rack of exotic spices, imported wines, and rich desserts . . . and no taste buds, or a bag of baby carrots and the ability to taste them?

As we have gone through the book of Proverbs, we have had occasion to remark many times on this distinctively biblical approach to keeping your priorities where they ought to be.

The method of reasoning is this: it is better to have X and not Y than to have not X and Y. This presents us with two options, even though we recognize that logically there are four options. You could have both X and Y, and you might miss out on both. But the way Proverbs presents the choice helps us to rank things the way we should.

It is better to be poor and good looking than to be rich and ugly. If we rush to say that what we really want is to be rich and good looking, we are missing the point of the lesson. And if people who reason that way wind up both poor and ugly . . . well, we tried to warn them.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“In the house of the righteous is much treasure: But in the revenues of the wicked is trouble” (Prov. 15:6).

This is a proverb that envisions the righteous and the wicked both having resources. But it is apparent that they have and hold them quite differently.

The way the contrast is set up, the righteous have “much treasure,” and this treasure is contained in the “house of the righteous.” When the contrast is made with the revenue of the wicked, which contains a bunch of “trouble,” we can see the point of comparison. The wicked have revenue and trouble, and the righteous have treasure, and it is treasure that is trouble-free. It is treasure all the way down.

We see this principle elsewhere in Proverbs:
“The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22).
Just as a liar has to have a very good memory because the tale gets more and more complicated as he goes on, so also the revenue of the wicked, dependent as it is upon shady deals, false weights and measures, not to mention various forms of ambiguity, is a rich reservoir of troubles.

Because the wicked are driven by an irrational lust, the troubles are thought to be the cost of doing business. Rather than give up the revenue, they will continue to budget for the troubles—and of course, blaming everybody else for them.

In contrast, the righteous are enabled by the grace of God to simply enjoy what they have, whether their treasures are large or small. Paul had learned the secret of contentment, whether full or hungry, whether abounding or going without. In this condition, whatever he had, it was good all the way to the bottom of the cup.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Much food is in the tillage of the poor: But there is that is destroyed for want of judgment” (Proverbs 13:23).
“Much food is in the fallow ground of the poor, and for lack of justice there is waste” (Proverbs 13:23, NKJV).
“The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice” (Proverbs 13:23, ESV).

There are two possible things going on with this proverb, and as we consider the way the world around us tends to go, I think that both of them are.

The bottom line is that there is plenty of food for those who are poor, but something interferes to take it away. Those two things I have in mind could be injustice perpetrated on the poor by the fat cats, on the one hand, or mismanagement of available resources by the poor themselves. In the former case, the want is the result of oppression, and in the latter case, the lack is the result of laziness or stupidity.

For the Marxist it would always be the former, and for the hippie-puncher it would always be the latter, along with a brusque admonition about the need to get a job. In the biblical world, it is either or both, depending on the circumstances.

James tells us about employers who are in a position to withhold wages from their day laborers, and so the Lord takes up the complaint of those laborers (James 5:4). In this case the distress has an external cause. But then Proverbs also has plenty to say about those whose own laziness brought the dearth down upon their own heads (Prov. 6:10-11; 24:33-34). Biblical Christians take care to avoid thinking just one way or the other.

At the same time, Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist, showed in his book The Mystery of Capital that in impoverished countries there is more than enough wealth above ground to take care of everyone. The problem is that in countries where envy is common, the wealth has to spend its time in hiding, and the results are very sad.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“A wicked messenger falleth into mischief: But a faithful ambassador is health” (Proverbs 13:17).

“A wicked messenger falls into trouble, but a faithful envoy brings healing” (Proverbs 13:17, ESV).

This proverb provides us with a true glimpse of the value of a faithful underling, a faithful employee.

The employer, the boss, the master, or the king, whatever position he holds, is dependent on “good help.” There have been more than a few rulers of a huge expansive empire who were incapable of getting anything done. He could order his lunch to be brought to him, and it would happen, but if he ordered reforms in a distant province, there was no telling what would happen.

An unfaithful messenger has his own ideas, and is playing his own game. He is told to deliver a message, and he modifies it according to his own purposes, tailoring it (perhaps) to flatter the recipient. Whatever his designs, this proverb says that it is not going to end well for him. He will fall into trouble. He will get entangled in his own bright ideas.

The faithful envoy is the one who honors the spirit and the letter of the message he was told to deliver. This means that the nation, or empire, or corporation, whatever it is, will run smoothly. There is consistency between what is ordered and what is done. When messages are delivered by wicked messengers, the body politic will be spastic and all out of joint. This hurts everyone, including the messenger who was being too clever by half.

An enormous amount of trouble is caused in the world because of unfaithful go-betweens. This includes delivering a message when nobody asked you to, or delivering a message that was just 5% off, or failing to deliver a message at all.

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