Canter Bridge

A life that unfolds in the presence of YHWH is dynamic rather than static. Its investments are fruitful according to catalytic rather than summative patterns. Tit for tat and quid pro quo lose their explanatory power.

One gives, and then finds that she’s received more than she’s given. This latter observation is perhaps the most frequently declared testimony of those who have purposed to follow the LORD’s coaxing onto uncertain terrain.

The book of proverbs from time to time captures this reality, though certainly with its customary subtlety.

Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor. (Proverbs 21:21 ESV)

In the doorway of the interpretation I am pursuing, there swings a double door.

The first is the recognition that one pursues two things, but finds three: righteousness and kindness, on the pursuing side; and life, righteousness, and honor, on the side of finding.

Now rarely is Hebrew poetry haphazard. We should suspect that this modest imbalance in the description of a purposeful life is intentional and says something.

The second panel of this door consist of the five qualities that are mentioned, first as objects of pursuit and then as things discovered. They are righteousness (צדקה) and kindness (חסד) in the first instance; life (חיים), righteousness again (צדקה), and honor (כבוד) in the second.

One can imagine righteousness and kindness as perfectly appropriate objects of pursuit for the young man or woman who purposes to become wise. They are personal qualities that with vigorous focus—thus, ‘whoever pursues‘—one can integrate into one’s way with the world and the people with whom one shares that world. We’d hope to live next door to someone like that. We’d consider ourselves fortunate.

It’s less clear from the optic of the Bible’s wisdom literature that pursuing honor is an equally admirable thing. Rather, honor is what is given to someone who has lived well, and with his community always in view.

Here, honor is one of three things given—or, more precisely, discovered—by the one who lives righteously and with kindness. The others are life, and then righteousness itself, this time presumably not as the thing I offer to others but rather as the blessing that others extend to me!

It must be admitted that some highly competent English translations take another path, choosing to render צדקה differently in each of its two appearances. The JPS is an example:

He who strives to do good and kind deeds Attains life, success, and honor. (Proverbs 21:21 JPS)

Or, slightly more literally, the NIV:

He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor. (Proverbs 21:21 NIV)

Yet the artistry of the proverbialist, it seems to me, extends behind vocabulary to the maxim’s very structure, offering here a picture of the wise life in which one ends up getting much more than he has given. More precisely, the wise person gets back what she has given, and so much more than that.

So does gratitude find its place in wisdom’s rich inventory of quiet virtues.