At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: But the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel”
Proverbs 20:15
At first glance this proverb might seem to be just a simple comparison—as much as to say it is better to have this than that. Now of course there is something to that, and we can take this proverb at its face value. It is better to be knowledgable and wise than to have great riches. A man should always prefer one of them over the other, and if he does so, then he has already embarked on the path of wisdom.
But I believe that if we look closely, we can detect another layer of meaning, and that would be the distinction between riches and wealth. Riches would be having the money on hand. Wealth would be found in the knowledge of what to do with the resources that you have on hand.
Put another way, we are not being told that riches are one thing and that knowledge is a completely different kind of thing, but a whole lot better. It would be more informative to see this as saying that knowledge is in itself “a precious jewel,” as the proverb expresses it.
There is a difference between a redneck who won 10 million dollars in the lottery, and a diligent and hard-working person who bootstrapped himself up from his paper route as a teenager to a 10 million dollar fortune and a chain of successful retail stores. The difference between them is not to be found in the 10 million dollars. They both have that. The difference is that the second person has knowledge.
So put in a way as to make my point here, riches are riches, sure enough, but knowledge is true wealth—the very best jewel. But of course, in order for knowledge to be true wealth, it needs to be true knowledge.
