Just Wait

WTW 2021
30 October
Proverbs 30

Just Weight
Living Within Proper Bounds

Today’s proverb mentions vanity and lies. Let’s take a closer look at these words.

Vanity & Lies
(Shav u’davar kasav)

This is a poetic Hebrew rhyme

Remove from me
ShAV u’davar kaSAV

That which is VAIN
and words which are
DECEITFUL

The Hebrew word shav here is exactly the same word used in the commandment we know so well

Thou shalt not take the name of YHVH your God in VAIN

Here is an application of this quick word study…

Just this morning, I was talking with my dad, and (as we often do) we talked for a little bit about some Dutch words. In every language, there are meanings–not only words, but actually meanings themselves–which do not exist in other languages. In Dutch, there are a series of related words which define a spectrum of that human quality we know as courage. In Dutch, this range of words exposes a range of courage from extremely low to extremely high and everything in between so that a person can have a deficit of courage all the way up to normal courage and then all the way up to an unhealthy extreme overabundance of courage.

Another way to look at this can be seen in what we call false humility.

Some people who are very gifted and or skilled in a certain area are known to either sell themselves short or knowingly minimize their gift or skill. In the worst cases, this can actually be recognized as an extremely unhealthy and even disgustingly false humility. At the other high end of the spectrum, there are people who go far beyond their gifting or skill in severe arrogance, over confidence and braggadocio. Both extremes are repulsive and dangerous.

We, however are not to do this.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. Romans 12:3

Today’s proverb BT mentioned gives us this Hebrew phrase

Shav u’davar kasav

Let us avoid all extremes and this will keep us from being “ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of God’s Kingdom” when we are neither

deficient nor ‘too much’

Neither

on E nor spilling all over

Not

VAIN in our hearts nor
DECEITFUL in our words

Rather, let this be our prayer and our aim by God’s grace:

Hatripeni lehem khuqqi

Give us this day our daily bread (lehem)
(as in Beth-lehem: house of bread)

“Feed me with food convenient for me.”

B’shem Yeshua, amen
In Jesus’ name, amen