How hard should you work to get rich? (23:4-5)
Do not weary yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration [lit., “understanding”] of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings, like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.
Wealth is a moving target: The more you get, the less you appreciate, and the more you want.
Wealth itself brings no lasting satisfaction; while it is a fine thing to be rich, this proverb warns us not to pursue wealth simply for its own sake.
Do not burn up your life in grabbing for riches, when infinitely finer ambitions are possible.
This proverb is one of the most important nuggets of financial wisdom in all of Proverbs. It puts a spike through the heart of the vulgar materialism that possesses our culture. So let’s begin by noting what the text does not say. Ready? It does not tells us to avoid hard work!
Translation: weary, labour
The Hebrew term employed in the expression, “do not weary yourself,” יגה (yā•ḡăh, pronounced “yah-gah”) points primarily at “working until one is worn and exhausted.” It is used twenty-five times in the Bible, but appears only once in Proverbs here. yā•ḡăh is first used in Joshua 7:3, when, following the conquest of Jericho, Joshua is advised against making his people toil up the hill to the city of Ai. The term emphasizes the bodily exhaustion and spiritual weariness of labour, becoming worn out physically and emotionally.
Translation: gain wealth
Hebrew uses one word for the expression “to gain wealth,” עשר (ʽā•šăr, pronounced “ah-shar”). ʽā•šăr appears seventeen times in the Bible, including six times in Proverbs, including 10:4, 10:22, 13:7, 21:17, and 28:20. It points to riches, material assets, and cash: Things, especially financial things. So the text here does not dismiss hard work for the sake of other goals. It’s similar to Proverbs 28:20, warning us against all “get rich quick” strategies.
Guidance in the Gaining of Wealth
When we join this text to the warning of Proverbs 28:20, we get this overall message: Do not work fast and furiously, just to get wealthy. Instead work consistently (10:4), without pretense (13:7) and without extravagance (21:17). There is nothing inherently wrong with wealth, or God would never give us riches as a blessing (10:22). But we should look to the LORD as the true source of real wealth, enjoying it free of any sour aftertaste.
Paradoxically, but truly, the text warns: “When you set your eyes on it, it is gone.” We become focused on acquiring more, so that the all wealth we don’t yet have, blinds us to the real wealth we do have. Very often we sense that we’re misguided, yet it seems like everyone does it. So we need to focus on something more than simple profit maximization by studying this text: How can you get God’s full reward?
Classic Comments
In his classic Commentary (1746), John Gill says that when wealth is our primary pursuit, it becomes an illusion:
Do not be always laying schemes, forming projects, inventing new things in order to get money… They [riches] are not lasting and durable; in a little time they will not be; they are perishing things, they have no substance or solidity in them; they are not satisfying; they do not make them happy; they are rather nonentities than realities; and therefore the eyes of the mind and the affections of the heart should not be set on them.
Contemporary commentator Charles Bridges makes a similar point: “The man who concentrates all his wisdom, talents, and energy, who sacrifices all his peace; will ’rise up early, to retire late (Psalm 127:2), in gaining riches, and he has often been at one stroke deprived of all, just when he supposed himself to have it all in his grasp.”
How Much is Enough?
Financial Advisor Ron Blue tells the story of a rich man who was asked, “How much money does a man need to be satisfied?” The answer? “Just a little bit more.” Even success can create the tragedy that there’s “never enough.” Thus this proverb: Wealth pursued remains out of reach. Riches fly ever higher. To learn more about a powerful solution to this difficult question, see: How much is enough?
Money Myopia
The second part of this proverb’s opening statement assumes we’re obsessively pre-occupied with pursuing wealth, so it tells us to STOP. Stop thinking about money all the time. The old saying put it rightly, “Poor is the man, whose only wealth is money.” And, as my good friend, John Flanagan once said, “There is nothing that bothers a rich man more, than to see a poor man who’s happy.” The following cartoon by Charles Schultz show’s what happens when people want more, more, more. “More stuff” is not “more life.” Often it’s “more death.”
- Memorize the text in your favourite Bible translation and think about it often.
- Accept wealth as a by-product for providing goods/services to others. Do not chase it as your primary goal. View wealth as a reward, not the reward.1
- Don’t take on a new job just for the money, no matter how much it pays.
- Identify the six goals which surpass wealth2. Pursue them with passion.
- Pay more attention to calculating your growth in righteousness than to your material worth, or as some people describe it: Your net worth.
Which of these steps, if any, does Jesus want you to take now? Ask Him.
Wealth is a moving target: The more you get, the less you appreciate, and the more you want.
Wealth itself brings no lasting satisfaction; while it is a fine thing to be rich, this proverb warns us not to pursue wealth simply for its own sake.
Do not burn up your life in grabbing for riches, when infinitely finer ambitions are possible.
This proverb is one of the most important nuggets of financial wisdom in all of Proverbs. It puts a spike through the heart of the vulgar materialism that possesses our culture. So let’s begin by noting what the text does not say. Ready? It does not tells us to avoid hard work!
Translation: weary, labour
The Hebrew term employed in the expression, “do not weary yourself,” יגה (yā•ḡăh, pronounced “yah-gah”) points primarily at “working until one is worn and exhausted.” It is used twenty-five times in the Bible, but appears only once in Proverbs here. yā•ḡăh is first used in Joshua 7:3, when, following the conquest of Jericho, Joshua is advised against making his people toil up the hill to the city of Ai. The term emphasizes the bodily exhaustion and spiritual weariness of labour, becoming worn out physically and emotionally.
Translation: gain wealth
Hebrew uses one word for the expression “to gain wealth,” עשר (ʽā•šăr, pronounced “ah-shar”). ʽā•šăr appears seventeen times in the Bible, including six times in Proverbs, including 10:4, 10:22, 13:7, 21:17, and 28:20. It points to riches, material assets, and cash: Things, especially financial things. So the text here does not dismiss hard work for the sake of other goals. It’s similar to Proverbs 28:20, warning us against all “get rich quick” strategies.
Guidance in the Gaining of Wealth
When we join this text to the warning of Proverbs 28:20, we get this overall message: Do not work fast and furiously, just to get wealthy. Instead work consistently (10:4), without pretense (13:7) and without extravagance (21:17). There is nothing inherently wrong with wealth, or God would never give us riches as a blessing (10:22). But we should look to the LORD as the true source of real wealth, enjoying it free of any sour aftertaste.
Paradoxically, but truly, the text warns: “When you set your eyes on it, it is gone.” We become focused on acquiring more, so that the all wealth we don’t yet have, blinds us to the real wealth we do have. Very often we sense that we’re misguided, yet it seems like everyone does it. So we need to focus on something more than simple profit maximization by studying this text: How can you get God’s full reward?
Classic Comments
In his classic Commentary (1746), John Gill says that when wealth is our primary pursuit, it becomes an illusion:
Do not be always laying schemes, forming projects, inventing new things in order to get money… They [riches] are not lasting and durable; in a little time they will not be; they are perishing things, they have no substance or solidity in them; they are not satisfying; they do not make them happy; they are rather nonentities than realities; and therefore the eyes of the mind and the affections of the heart should not be set on them.
Contemporary commentator Charles Bridges makes a similar point: “The man who concentrates all his wisdom, talents, and energy, who sacrifices all his peace; will ’rise up early, to retire late (Psalm 127:2), in gaining riches, and he has often been at one stroke deprived of all, just when he supposed himself to have it all in his grasp.”
How Much is Enough?
Financial Advisor Ron Blue tells the story of a rich man who was asked, “How much money does a man need to be satisfied?” The answer? “Just a little bit more.” Even success can create the tragedy that there’s “never enough.” Thus this proverb: Wealth pursued remains out of reach. Riches fly ever higher. To learn more about a powerful solution to this difficult question, see: How much is enough?
Money Myopia
The second part of this proverb’s opening statement assumes we’re obsessively pre-occupied with pursuing wealth, so it tells us to STOP. Stop thinking about money all the time. The old saying put it rightly, “Poor is the man, whose only wealth is money.” And, as my good friend, John Flanagan once said, “There is nothing that bothers a rich man more, than to see a poor man who’s happy.” The following cartoon by Charles Schultz show’s what happens when people want more, more, more. “More stuff” is not “more life.” Often it’s “more death.”