Ecclesiastes 4:5: “The fool folded his hands together and eats his own flesh.”

This could sound a bit creepy if you read it literally.  Obviously this is a metaphor.  Most of our commentaries tend to agree that the writer is basically saying that there are people who feel the world owes them a living.   They sit back in their laziness and eat their own flesh, in other words they are self-tormentors, never really satisfied.  I can see that in this verse, but I believe that there is much more.

You may look at this verse and say, “Well, that does not apply to me, I am a hard worker,“ and then just move on.  Let’s back up a minute before you miss something. The first word in this verse is fool. This is kasal in Hebrew and does mean to be foolish but this is a foolishness which is bred from a refusal to look beyond your own understanding.  Now we are striking a little bit more at home.  The word is spelled Kap, Lamed and Samek.  The Kap speaks of  arrogance, willfulness, and becoming a tyrant.  The Samek  shows a blocking off or shutting down.  The Lamed could represent narrow mindedness and bookishness.  In other words, this fool is one who will not accept advice or counsel, he just shuts down and dwells on his own understanding of events.

He folds his hands.  Commentators say that this is an expression for laziness.  Here we are now getting a picture of a person going through a difficult time and giving up. This is someone who is so discouraged he will no longer lift a hand to get himself out of a situation.   He refuses to look at the positive side, he is totally pessimistic and convinced that disaster and tragedy lies ahead and will not raise a finger to do anything about it.   This really finds application in many other areas of our lives.  Someone may say: “It is no use, I can’t find a job (lose weight, give a speech, finish my education etc.), so I will just give up and not try.”  Such a person who gives up is also a  kasal or a fool.

Take a look at that last expression eats his own flesh.   Commentators say this means self tormenting,  Let’s say you are in a hurry for lunch so you run to the local fast food provider expecting fast food. You order a burger and you see it come up sitting in the hopper, wrapped, bagged and ready to go but that little girl behind the counter is busy getting another customer a cup of coffee, then that customer is digging in her purse for that extra two pennies, then she wants some cream and then you are indignant that the little girl does not just hand you your bag with the burger and suddenly  you start demanding your customer rights and you declare that the little girl at the counter is bad, the kitchen help is bad, the company is bad and the American Big Mac uses fake meat. You walk out grumbling, you are angry, and your whole day is ruined because you were forced to wait an extra minute. You are no longer hungry because you have been eating your own flesh. You have become a self-tormentor.

Yet, I wonder if self tormenting is all the writer had in mind.   The word for flesh is besar which speaks of your inward parts.  The word for eat is ’akal which means to consume, or devour.

Now  I am not opposed to commentaries and I use commentaries, but the danger is that we can limit ourselves to commentaries and not open ourselves up to further revelation by the Spirit of God.   For one thing commentators are people just like you and me.  Who is to say they have a final word on a passage of Scripture.  Who is to say that God will not allow for various shades of interpretations to fit our needs?

I feel God is speaking a message to me personally and just because it does not fit the commentator’s interpretation does not mean I can ignore that still small voice within side of me. If I am brave enough to step outside the box, perhaps I can hear God’s voice addressing a very root problem that I might have. As I look at that final phrase, eat their own flesh I find if I substitute the word consume or devour for eat and inward parts for flesh (all which are appropriate in the Hebrew), I begin to get a clear picture of myself.   This giving up is not so much just not doing anything at all, but allowing yourself to consume your inward parts.

Say I look at my personal situation and see only doom and gloom ahead.  No, I have not given up, I am still in the ring punching it out, but my heart and soul are no longer in the fight and that is pretty much the same as giving up only you just keep getting punched out.  I’ve already admitted defeat in my heart and I am just waiting for that knockout punch.  In the mean time I just continue to let the enemy beat up on me while I sit with my hands folded taking the beating or eating my own flesh.  I just sit back and worry and fret, letting my blood pressure rise and my stomach develop ulcers, in other words I am letting my inward parts consume themselves.

There is a word in the Hebrew, savar which is sometimes rendered as hope. It means to wait or spend time to examine something.  The word is spelled Shin Beth and Resh.  These letters and its order suggest that you have a practice of  being satisfied with the Holy spirit finding a home in your heart.  How easily we forget that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and if our boat sinks, He will be right in there treading water with us.  If we have the very living, loving life of Jesus Christ in us, the power of the Holy Spirit in us, what better definition  can we give for hope.

I researched the word imagination in the Old Testament and found that is it always used in a negative sense.   I personally believe that savar can also be translated as imagination but as a positive imagination.   Hope is the positive imagination.  Thus, Ecclesiastes 4:5 tells me that if I just fold my hands and dwell on the doom and gloom, then that is what I will get on a natural level.  But if I savar or imagine things positive, hope because of the God that lives inside of me, no matter what happens, I can rest assured that spiritually, only good things will take place.