Proverbs

Meditation #2 on the passage Proverbs 3:5-6

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (KJV)

As in the previous post, Trust and Lean Not (1), our focus will be on the middle phrase in the above instruction, and more specifically the words “unto thine own understanding.“

Let’s begin with the word translated “understanding” in the KJV and most other translations. The word stems from “under” and “stand” as in a place where I will make a stand, or claim. The “under” does not convey a spatial relationship, as in “underneath,” but that I am operating within or from a framework that I hold to be trustworthy and, so, a reliable guide for decision-making or reaching judgments. We have related phrases such as “I will take my stand” (sometimes expressed as “I’m prepared to die on this hill”) or, the converse, “you have no standing here” (meaning no right to impose your opinion in some present controversy).

The ancient Greek translation of the OT, the Septuagint (LXX), has the words “epi sos sophia,” where “sophia” is the important word from Greek culture that is here translated “understanding,” and “sos” meaning “you,” and “epi” meaning “upon.” Let’s drill down further.

Sophia (or sophos) was one of the most-important words of the ancient Greek culture, epitomized by the writings and influence of Socrates (ca. 400 B.C.), and his pupil Plato (who did all the writing of Socrates), and in turn his pupil Aristotle, and in a different way by Aristotle’s pupil Alexander the Great who spread such culture far and wide (ca. 320 B.C.). The influence of this chain of people was immense. It is still a widely-held dictum that all of Western Philosophy, to this day, is but a footnote to them (or specifically Plato, i.e. Socrates & Plato). Even in the context of Christian theology, it is said that Augustine ‘baptized’ Plato (hence, Socrates), and Thomas Aquinas likewise Aristotle, where ‘baptize’ means they extracted the truth(s) of God’s creation this ancient wise men discovered and unveiled it more fully, more accurately in the context of God’s acts of creation.

Well, what then was the significance of sophia? Whole libraries could not hold all the words that have been written to answer such question. Essentially, it means this: having sophia provide my full, fixed, apprehension corresponding to some reality, and usually a deep aspect of some particular reality, that we usually characterize as a full understanding. Let us consider perhaps the most-famous Greek allegory, that of Plato’s Cave. But first, let’s think about “caves.”

In the ancient world especially around bodies of water such as the Mediterranean Sea, caves were common, eroded out of limestone rock from rains and underground springs. They were important places of refuge, even long term residences, providing ‘shelter from the storm,’ and a place to protect oneself from marauders, human and animal. In recent times the caves known as the Qumran Caves, located near the Dead Sea in Israel, were found to be the location of massive collections of Hebrew Bible manuscripts dating to the time of the New Testament.

Inside caves, fires provided warmth and light, as well as a place for the cooking of food. So, it was well-known that looking away from fires at cave wall presents shadows on a wall of the cave of whatever between a fire and the wall, including shapes one might make with one’s hand and fingers. The idea of Plato’s Cave arises from this shadow phenomena in the following way. Plato asks us to imagine all of us somehow locked in a line only able to look at a cave wall before us. Behind us, there is some kind of fire that we cannot, or will not, turn to see. Between the fire and our backs is “reality;” one can think of people and things, but it would include an acting out of some kind of sequence of events, none of which do we directly apprehend (because we cannot look back and apprehend it directly). We see only the shadows on the cave wall we are chained to face. In such Platonic Cave, what do we “understand?” Well, it could be something, but it could never be the essence of “reality,” and it is likely to be completely false, though we are likely to believe that our beliefs are “true,” fully corresponding to the “reality” we cannot directly apprehend.

Ah, but all is not lost, because there are philosophers, such as Plato, who unchain themselves, turn and see the reality, or extending the metaphor more fully, walk out of the cave and see all of reality, who can then return to those who for whatever reason remain imprisoned to see only shadows, and explain the true realities. (The very word “philosophy,” is a junction of the Greek word philo, meaning “love,” and sophos, our word here; so “philosophy” means love of sophos).

So, the attainment of sophos was greatly important as a life’s work, and required the tutelage of a teacher / guide, who was commonly known as a sophist. But, still, what does one attain by such sophos? Let’s think of some simple everyday examples. When one transitioned from elementary or middle school to high school, one was dropped into a place that had a different reality than our prior experience. We may remember the hazing or confusion as students early in our first year as we tried to navigate this new world. A similar experience occurs in transitioning to college, or one’s first job, or any new job, or moving to a new city, or taking possession of a new vehicle (bike, car, boat, or as a passenger a subway passage or airplane flight). In each of these contexts we are like the ones chained in the cave who only have perceived the “reality” of such new context in shadows. We will, accordingly, ask for advice, research online, read signage or manuals, up to a point whereby we reach a comprehension, a sophos, that grasps the reality of the new environment / context.

Let’s pull on this a little further. The world is full of “facts.” Learning can be thought of as piling more and facts into one’s head,. Here’s one: the Nile River is the longest river in the world. Is sophos only a huge list of all such “facts?” No, not even close. Were it to be so, then computer storage, or the internet itself, would be the most sophos ‘being’ in existence. Grasping the ultimate reality of, say, the Nile River, entails something much more than knowing a factoid as to its length (which factoid now appears to be false, as it seems, alas, that the Amazon River is actually a little longer than the Nile). The prosperity of the ancient Egyptian people was critically dependent upon their sophos of the Nile, it’s seasonal rises and falls, its currents, its fish and reptilian life, etc., to be able to manage the fertility of the soils inundated by flooding, transportation along the nile, food and life threats by entering the river itself. Grasping full the reality of the Nile River requires many facts, but sophos is about the coherence of them in such correspondence to reality that one can “know” the Nile as one might known one’s alarm clock.

Now, at last, returning to our passage in Prov. 3, we are dealing with a sophia far bigger, far more significant, than the Nile River. In Prov. 3 we are dealing with the ultimate issues of our very lives. Again, let’s think of a parallel. Even a secular parent seeks to have its children gain a sophia of this life that is something beyond what is learned in school, or in one’s work or play. A parent wants their offspring to grasp “life” itself, what it is, how it ‘works,’ what is its essential nature. We think of someone who has reached a comprehensive level of such sophia as mature, a wise ‘old soul.’ And having such possession of sophia is having a great wealth apart from any consideration of money or goods or fame or degrees and honors.

So we have our phrase “lean not” “epi sos sophia” (upon your sophia). What??? After all this, we are being instructed here in Proverbs that our hard-won sophia (in the best of human endeavors) is not to be what we lean (rely) upon? How can this be?

We will consider “lean not” in a subsequent post that will answer this question more completely, but here let us look at the word “epi” (upon) and the particular form of sos sophia. To do that we need to consider a bit of grammar, specifically the dative case (hereafter DAT). DAT is part of speech, namely how words operate in a sentence, that tells us how something should be understood. DAT in Greek is rich in meaning, and plays multiple roles in the language. For our purposes here, we need only to note that the words sos sophia are DAT and, in my view, a particular type of DAT known as an “instrumental” DAT. An instrumental DAT is what it sounds like, namely the words in the DAT are the instrument by which something is done. There are many instrumental DAT examples in both the LXX and the NT. Here’s perhaps the most-significant, and shocking one:

We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. 1 John 5:19 (NKJV). We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (NASB).

Both these translations are expressing an instrumental DAT by the shown italicized words, namely: under the sway of (NKJV) and in the power of (NASB). Those words are italicized in their translations to show the reader that they do not occur in the Gr mss. Where then do they come from? They arise, and are an accurate translation, because “the evil one” in the Gr mss in an instrumental DAT. One really needs to pause and think about what God’s Word is saying here. The “whole word” is an instrument (under the sway / in the power of) of Satan! Just imagine yourself standing in the middle of a central intersection of a huge city, looking around you 360 degrees, from the ground (and even below the ground) to the highest point of the skies. It all is, to the extent that it is “the world” as Scripture uses the term, the instrument of God’s (and our) Enemy. That is astounding, shocking, and should cause us to be (humanly speaking) fearful and humble. And it is of course the reason we need to “trust in the Lord with all our heart” as it says here in Prov. 3 and many other parallel expressions of the idea, because we cannot trust in the world and, further, we cannon trust in sos sophia, namely your sophia which in this life naturally tends to reflect the world’s grasp of ultimate reality.

So, here, in this middle phrase of Prov. 3:5-6 we have likewise the instrumental DAT for the key words sos sophia. Further, we have the preposition “epi” before these two words, where epi further stresses the instrumental DAT by the idea of “upon” such sophia of yours.

In our Meditation 1 we looked back to Eve’s seeking to grasp the ultimate reality in the conflict of messages from God and the Serpent regarding the goodness of the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil. This may push the language too far, but in the Gr LXX, both the words sos and sophia are in the singular (meaning “you” alone, not ‘you-all’) and they are in the feminine gender. It is commonly taught, that feminine nouns and pronouns should not be viewed as female in any sense, and likewise that masculine nouns (or neuter nouns, which also occur in Gr) do not reflect maleness (or neuter inanimate objects). It is very tempting here to connect the feminine gender form of the word sophia (and necessarily the feminine form of the possessive pronoun “your,” namely sos), to Eve and her reasoning and ultimate choice.

In any case, what is not debatable is that we are being instructed in the text, right in the midst of our being told to trust the Lord and acknowledge Him (words we will turn to in a subsequent posting) that we have an instrument working within us in opposition to such proper trust that is within us, namely our natural sos sophia, the very ‘thing’ upon which we are warned not to lean (rely). In fact, as we will discuss in another posting, leaning on one’s sophia actually prevents one from trusting God. This is a hard reality to accept because we count on, and love deeply, our own sophia. But in the matter of ultimate and eternal reality we in our sophia are like the most-immature, and most-inexperienced teenager one could imagine seeking to impose one’s ultimate grasp of things instead of leaning on God’s own instruction which is often contrary to what we naturally believe to be wise and right.

Ah, humility. It is no random thought that the Scriptures say: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom (sophia!).” (Prov. 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Job 28:28; Isaiah 33:6).

Meditation on Proverbs 3:5-6:

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (KJV)

These special verses are given to us in the context of the instructions of a very wise father to his child. These brief words are simple to understand, easy to memorized and meditate upon, and yet are a most difficult, challenging instruction for us.

In this post, the first meditation on these verses, we will look at the five phrases of this instruction, and focus on the middle phrase–“lean not unto thy own understanding.” This middle phrase is God’s great warning of the poisonous, hidden, viper that derails us from the “trust” instruction (Phrase 1 and 2) to the acknowledging the Lord in all our ways (Phrase 4) leading to the promise of Phrase 5, namely that the Lord shall direct my paths.

Here are the five phrases of this instruction (KJV):

1. Trust in the Lord
2. With all thine heart
3. And lean not unto thine own understanding
4. In all thy ways acknowledge Him
5. And He shall direct thy paths.

It is easy to mis-memorize the above, either intentionally or by accident, to leave out Phrase #3, namely:

 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart;.  
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.

To grasp the importance of Phrase #3 let us go back to the mother of us all, Eve, the first person who did not grasp the ‘Apple’s terms and conditions’ (a little humor here).

The Garden of Eden story is familiar, but not commonly internalized as to its significance. God gave to Adam directly the instruction that of every tree in the Garden he (and, later, Eve) may eat except one, designated as “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” (Genesis 2:17). Subsequently an exceedingly “subtle” (Gen. 3:1 from the KJV translation) serpent appears and initiates a communication with Eve. We all know how that turned out, but let’s go slowly through the sequence of her descent.

1. The Serpent subtly, but crucially, distorts God’s instruction (3:1) by creating a focus on a life-walk boundary, namely that there exists in God’s rule of the Garden a boundary on the freedom of Adam and Eve.
2. Eve begins her catastrophic descent, first, by engaging with the Serpent, whose subtlety drew her into considering the question and providing an answer, which answer she gave was incorrect in perception and fact: God had given permission to eat from “all” of the trees in the Garden, except for the one, and gave no instruction about not touching that one. (Gen. 3:2-3) It should be recognized that questions are powerful tools in the hands of the crafty, and that not every question deserves an answer or even an acknowledgment let alone an engagement.
3. The subtle Serpent then replies that “death” would not be a consequence of eating from that one tree, in obvious direct opposition to God’s Word, and, further, the explanation for why this was so (no death) was that God’s was keeping Eve (and Adam) ‘down,’ by invoking such prohibition. So, the Serpent’s claim was that God’s command was given with an evil intent, namely confining Eve (and Adam) to being created beings though higher than all beings of creation but permanently bound from becoming “gods.” So, Serpent’s the claim was that his words were good, not evil, providing a path to self-sovereignty, throwing the yoke of the God of the prohibition against eating from that tree. (Gen. 3:4-5)
4. Now Eve is confronted with two mutually irreconcilable claims to reality: God’s or the Serpent’s. Such is always the consequence of engagement with the subtilely of the Evil One, which is why the Lord’s Prayer ends with our invoking the Lord’s mercy to prevent our similar engagement (Matt. 6:13, which should be translated “Evil One” not “evil” as the KJV has it).
5. Eve now feels compelled to resolve the unresolvable claims and ambiguity. She could go to Adam for help sorting this out. Or, of course, to God Himself, as pre-Fall the Lord God was directly apprehended by Adam and Eve in the Garden. Instead she chooses herself; but it isn’t a neutral self: she has been slanted by the subtlety of the Serpent, just as we all are all too easily. So, she decides to take data, by engaging with that which was clearly forbidden, that tree. The text tells us that she “saw” that the tree (1) was good for food, (2) pleasant to the eyes, and (3) desired to make one wise. (Gen. 3:6). From her 3-point test she undertook a 3-step act: she (1) took of the fruit, (2) did eat of it, and (3) then gave to Adam to eat. (Gen. 3:6)
6. Eating is an act we do so often and automatically that we can miss the significance of the above imagery. There are four penetrations of Eve in this passage. First there is the penetration of the words of the Serpent. We don’t often think of hearing words as being a kind of invasion into our internal being but they are. That which is spoken outside us is transformed by the wonders of our ear in signals that reach our mind’s processing of signals into thought. Next, Eve is penetration by the visual imagery of the tree and in particular its fruit. Again, through the amazing technology of our visual apparatus objects outside us become lodge in our mind as internalized images. Next, Eve was most-shrewdly penetrated to form her internal thoughts, reasonings, and judgments triggered by the sounds and images she had taken in. Finally, Eve now is penetrated by her ingesting the forbidden fruit bringing such physical object into her body–something beyond the prior penetration of the internal imageries of sound, sight, and reasoning–and which fruit then releases within her the poison of sin and death.

When one rereads this text, especially vs. 6, one wants to scream “NOOOO! Don’t do it! It’s a great deception that will ruin you, Adam, and all that and who will follow from you, Eve (including you and me)!”

We know from Scripture the fundamental mechanism of Eve’s descent into evil: Adam was not deceived, but the woman [Eve] being deceived was in [i.e., fell into] the transgression (1 Timothy 2:14 KJV).

Let’s look at Eve’s looking in Gen. 3:6. First she “saw” (concluded) that the forbidden tree was good for food. How could she “know” this? The text suggests that the appearance to her eyes was her basis of belief of ‘goodness’ and ‘gain’ (fruit as the means for experiencing physical joy and vitality). Second, her eyes were drawn, even locked, on the forbidden fruit because she was apprehended by its beauty. Third, and finally, was the lie she had already internalized that by her eating of it she could have the greater wisdom than that given by God, and that by eating she would ascend an order of being–going from the more limited being of a human creation to becoming a higher being, namely as gods–relying on the wisdom promised by the subtle Serpent from having eaten the forbidden fruit. This clinched her decision, from which she sought no further wisdom from either Adam or God, and freed her to act solitarily and impulsively, as one who was entitled to choose for oneself. (Was she the first to proclaim: “my body, myself”…?)

Again, if we can imagine ourself hovering over Eve, we would scream: “Do you not realize that you are making this decision of eternal, irreversible consequence in direct defiance of God’s revealed Word while standing in God’s very own Garden as a being of God’s creation, and are doing so on the basis of what…some third voice [after God and Adam] whose being is a mystery but whose motives are clearly antithetical to God’s?”

The key word in this entire chapter of Genesis 3, which I have repeated multiple times here, based on the KJV, is “subtle” and “subtlety.” In English, the word has a morally-neutral, benign sense: someone can be “subtle” in well-doing, or at least in well-meaning. Subtlety even sounds like a positive attribute in contrast to someone boorish, pushy, loud. Let’s look more closely.

In the Hebrew OT, the word translated by the KJV is aw·room. It is better translated by the word “crafty” as done in the ESV, NASB, and NIV or by “cunning” (NKJV), or “shrewd” (New English Translation, NET). In the ancient Greek OT (the Septuagint, LXX, widely used in the NT time period, and which LXX is commonly quoted in NT references to passages in the OT), the word is phronimos, which is translated by “wise.” This very Gr word occurs in the LXX in Prov. 3:7, the very next verse after our subject text:

Prov 3: ⁷ Do not be wise [phronimos] in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. [KJV]

So, we should understand that the Serpent was crafty / cunning / shrewd in the way of presenting what appears to be wisdom, which is how all con jobs, big and small, have worked in every place on earth and in every age. Great deceptions require the deceived one (1) to not know the true situation or motives of the deceiver, and (2) believe that that what is claimed is in fact true and wise. It is essential for such deception to ‘work,’ that the Serpent must be unrecognized as to his true being and motives. The Serpent has worked, from the time of Eve to this day, using his primary weapon of deception as to his own being as well as to his enticements / claims and the outcomes of following it.

Consider the OT Book of Job. We are given an amazing insight in Job Ch. 1 and 2 into a council occurring outside of Space-Time. ‘There’ God engages Satan (the Serpent, aka the Devil) about a particular man named Job who was “upright, just, feared God, and shunned evil” (Job 1:1 and 2:3). We learn that God grants Satan permission to inflict evil on Job in ways of Satan’s own choosing. Satan does this in concealment using armies (Sabbeans and Chaldeans) and the environment (fire and wind), Job 1:15-19, extreme biological disfigurement and pain (Job 2), and later (Job Ch 3ff) Job’s own close friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) and still later a representative of The Religion Industry (Elihu) all working by Satans hidden hand in his attempt to get Job to curse God. Never does Satan directly appear in Space-Time to be apprehended by Job. (See www.iDealmaking.net for a detail study of the Book of Job).

Returning now to our passage in Proverbs 3, and specifically the middle phrase “lean not unto your own understanding.” This phrase is the great warning to us, that the Serpent lies ever waiting for us, to disable us from both “trusting in the Lord with all our heart” and “in all our ways acknowledging Him.” Leaning on one’s own wisdom is the means by which an uplifting early morning meditation on this text, or others like it, can result in our becoming, just hours or even minutes later, ‘lost at sea’ in the stirrings of our self-thought and reasonings, often aided in some way by the corruptions ever present in our environment.

Lest we think that the “lean not” admonition is limited to this special case in Prov. 3, consider the entirety of the wise father’s instruction given in Ch 1-9 of Proverbs. The recurring theme is that God’s right way is always confronted by an alternative, contrary message / inclination. It is ever the way of this life. The Serpent and his minions, hates God, hates His creation, and is working 24 by 7 by 365 by century after century to steal and destroy (John 10:10); in some way we are ourselves the object of that hatred, and it comes to us by the deception of “our understanding,” meaning that it strikes us in the most damaging way by implanting error into what seems to be our own wisdom, self-deceiving us. Remember Eve.

Further, consider the opening two Psalms. Psalm 1 and 2 set the theme for the entire Book of Psalms. Note Psalm 1 below:

1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. [Psalm 1, KJV]

Immediately after the first words of the first Psalm–“Blessed is the man“–we are given three “nots,” which are inclinations / impulses to turn away from God and join those whose are characterized by and dedicated to being ungodly, sinners, and scornful.

Psalm 2 cautions us similarly but now in the context of the evil intent and inclinations of entire people groups and nations, as seen below:

2:1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
² The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
³ Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
⁴ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
⁵ Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
⁶ Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
⁷ I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
⁸ Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
⁹ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
¹⁰ Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
¹¹ Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
¹² Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. [Psalm 2, KJV]

Above we see a united war against God’s Sovereign rule in His Kingdom: rage and vanity; kings and rulers joined in counsel; with the intention to break bands and cords (any limits / boundaries on human freedom).

God gives to our new, born-again nature a desire to turn ‘homeward’ toward God. However, this desire is always, always, confronted in some time and way by a contrary voice that appears as our own understanding, namely that ‘wisdom’ that emerges from within us, often aided and supported by our worldly companions and environment. Killing this snake, making it powerless in its ‘death,’ is essential for us to move from Phrases 1 and 2 in our Proverbs 3 text, trust in the Lord with all you heart, to Phrases 4 and 5, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.

Our ‘understanding’ / ‘wisdom’ is our most intimate enemy in this progression to in all ways acknowledging Him, and ever always will be in this Space-Time.

In subsequent posts on this text of Prov. 3, we’ll look more closely at the words “lean” and “understanding,” and then onto the remaining four phrases.