Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 18-21.
Like yesterday, I pulled out a few of these proverbs to focus on, but there are many more which are worth thought. The first two I want to look at are chapter 19:10-11.
The name of the Lord is a fortified tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe.
The wealth of the rich is their fortified city;
they imagine it a wall too high to scale.
It is easy to read these and overlook how they fit together because of the way so many of today’s proverbs are just little tidbits mostly independent of the one before and the one after. In fact, I had not realized before today that these two go together. There are numerous proverbs which refer to how the wealth of the rich protects them. But in this case, the proverb warns rather than declares. The righteous run to the name of the Lord and ARE SAFE. On the other hand, the rich IMAGINE their wealth a wall too high to scale. So, we are warned to put our trust in God, not in our wealth, no matter how much of it we have. I am tempted here to discuss how this applies to things which are going on in society around us, but instead want to focus on making it personal. I must not allow the wealth I accumulate, however limited it may be, to replace God in my life.
There were some other proverbs in this passage which I had pulled out to possibly write about., But I am going to include just one more:
There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan
that can succeed against the Lord.
I think this relates to my first paragraph. No matter how much wealth you accumulate, how wise you are, and how carefully you plan, only by doing as the Lord wills can you succeed.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.