Proverbs 8:21: “That I may cause those who love me to inherit substances and I will fill their treasures.”

 

“To give and not expect in return, that is what lies at the heart of love.”  Oscar Wilde

 

There is no way around it. To inherit substance means material wealth.  Every modern translation will use the word substance or wealth. This is the darling verse of prosperity teachers.  All you have to do is love God and you will get wealthy.

 

Solomon, however, is playing with us.  Remember how he gained his wealth?  God said he would give Solomon anything he wanted, he just had to ask. Rather than wealth and a full treasury, he asked for wisdom and God gave him wealth anyways, even though he did not ask for it.

 

The words inherit substance is one word in the Hebrew lehanechil. Now that is a word with a lot of substance.  It comes from the root word nachal which means to obtain or acquire a possession, property or an inheritance. What seems to be overlooked is that this verb is in a Hiphal form and is found as an infinitive construct.  In Hebrew an infinite is similar to the infinitive in English in that it is a verbal noun which has features similar to both verbs and nouns. When found in a construct state it is normally translated with a preposition, in this case the Lamed which indicates a direction.  Now you put that preposition to the Hiphal form and you find that causing factor is not directed to the wealth but to the person. In other words, God does not cause the wealth to happen, but he causes the person to accept the wealth.  This falls in lockstep with the person writing this passage.

 

Solomon did not initially desire wealth. Had he, he would have asked God for it.  God had to cause him to accept wealth.  It is a little hard for us to step into a Hebrew mindset on this issue, particularly in our materialistic Western Culture. I would be hard pressed to find any Americans who would not consider a sudden influx of wealth to be a blessing.  Yet in ancient Hebrew culture, wealth was not always considered a blessing, in many respects it was a curse. Yeah, I know, like Tevye said on Fiddler On The Roof: “A curse?  Might I be afflicted, and never recover.”

 

In Proverbs, we learn from Solomon that without the gift wealth is meaningless.  In other words it does no good to have wealth unless God gives you the ability to enjoy it.  Otherwise wealth is a curse.  You live in fear of losing it, in bitterness over those who try to take it from you and in depression as you learn it does not buy you happiness.

 

But soft, here is the real kicker, sort of a catch 22.  All you need to do to get this wealth from God is to love Him. Yet the word love here is ahav. The Septuagint renders this with the Greek word agapos which we recognize as an unconditional love.  Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright defined agapos very well by saying that love was to give and not expect in return.  Based upon this definition if you truly love God, you will not have any expectations such as wealth to result from this love. Any wealth He gives you, He will have to cause you to receive it. From the situation many of us are in, we could sure make God’s job of persuading us to accept wealth very easy.

 

The message that really strikes me in this passage is that God responds to those who truly love Him, but if we love Him because we desire a response then we don’t really love Him at all.  That is known as a double bind, a contradictory or self-defeating course of action.  True love, ahav or agapos says, I love you for better or for worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer. To truly love (ahav, agapos) God is to seek to love Him with no strings attached, with no expectations other than to just grow in that love with Him.

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