Proverbs 13:23

Proverbs 13:23 "Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment."

As with the previous proverb about leaving an inheritance for grandchildren and as with most of Solomon's proverbs, the subject matter of this proverb is not the emphasis.  Solomon was not any more an agricultural adviser than he was a financial advisor.  He wasn't offering farming tidbits any more than he was financial suggestions.  In this proverb, farming is the setting but virtue is the teaching.  A recently tilled field is the background of a lesson illustrating the devastating effects of lacking virtue.  Solomon used different pictures of everyday life to impress upon his son and readers the urgent need to obtain virtue.  This common scene in the life of the average Hebrew 3,000 years ago would effectively communicate that not all virtues are created equal and that the absence of any virtue has real consequences.  

Let's ask ourselves a few questions in an effort to pick up what Solomon is putting down. First, let's ask ourselves what is meant by the word, TILLAGE.  Tillage is the practice of preparing land for planting seeds and keeping the land clear of weeds.  This would include everything from fertilizing, plowing, cultivating and anything else that helped prepare the ground for seeds or that protected those seeds from weeds.  Tillage is a subject of much work.  Anything to do with tillage requires hard work.  Biblically, tillage is directly connected to the curse of the ground and the consequential sweat of the brow in Genesis 3.  The first job God gave man was "to dress and to keep" the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 but after the fall of man in chapter 3, God sent man out of the Garden "to TILL the ground from whence he was taken."  Tillage necessitates sweat and hard work because of the curse upon the ground.  Air-conditioned tractors may lessen the sweat for farmers but they still require hard-working operators for long hours.  The presence of tillage in this proverb indicates the clear presence of hard work, which is virtuous.  Hard work and diligence are generally synonymous.

Because tillage indicates the presence of diligent and industrious qualities, we must then ask ourselves how is it that the character of the proverb is described as being poor?  Doesn't hard work always pay off?  Isn't diligence the path to financial security?  Aren't we supposed to just put our head down and get to work?  Solomon is obviously suggesting that hard work alone is not enough to bring success within this world.  By putting a tilled field next to a house in shambles on the canvas of this proverb, the artist is sending a powerful message.  Hard-working people can easily be financially-broken people.  A farmer can get up early every day and fertilize the ground.  He can rise before the sun and plow that ground.  He can even plant his seed on time and in record fashion.  A hard-working farmer can then meticulously and relentlessly cultivate the ground to protect the precious plants from weeds.  But he can do all of that and still lose his entire crop and become poor.  Hard work on its own isn't enough to succeed in life.
 
Too many men pick up a shovel and start digging with ambitions to set the world on fire with their hard work but instead light the world on fire by digging ignorantly.  Too many women pick up the phone and start talking with ambitions to fix the world’s problems with their hard work but instead create more problems by talking ignorantly.  Muscle alone doesn't make money.  Tilling the ground is necessary to harvest anything out of the ground but diligent tilling without informed thinking will result in harvesting nothing out of the ground.  The lesson of this proverb is that judgment, or discernment is just as important as hard work.  Doing something properly is just as important as doing something diligently.  Knowing how to farm is just as important as being able to farm.  Discerning the ground is just as important as working the ground.  Knowing the soil is just as important as tilling the soil.  I have some friends who farm for a living and they often make light of the reputation of their profession by sarcastically calling themselves, "Dumb Farmers."  Solomon is essentially stating that there is no such thing as a successful "dumb farmer."  If a farmer has the character to till a field, then there is "much food" in that field but without the virtue of judgment, he won't know how to produce and ultimately harvest high yields from that field.  Crops get easily destroyed by the curse of this world through weather, wild beast, depleted soil and competing plants.  The ability to know right farming techniques from bad farming techniques is the most important quality for a farmer.  Sweat alone doesn't produce success.  Muscle character by itself and on its own doesn't produce long-lasting success.  Judgment, discernment, wisdom and understanding are the brains behind the muscle, grit, toughness and resolve that brings success in the fields of this world.
 
This then leads us to a final question:
How does this apply to us today since most of us don't do anything with farming but buy and consume the harvest from Tops or Wegmans?  The same principle applies to every other field of the world.  This truth applies to the social field of relationships for example.  Hard relational work is noble and necessary but if you don't possess judgment, you'll just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.  If you don't KNOW HOW to be a good spouse, the hard work of trying to be a good spouse will be in vain and it will only lead to relational poverty.  If you're getting up early in some relationship and plowing ground with cordial conversation, that's good.  If you're fertilizing that relationship or friendship with self-denial, that's excellent.  But if you can't read the relational room, you'll lose everything you've invested in.  If you don't have the discernment necessary to know what your spouse, child, parent or friend is trying to say silently, all of the hard work you've put it will be in vain.

This is true for the spiritual field of morality.  If you're fighting an inner struggle with some sin or the failure to do some good, discernment and judgment are necessary.  Daily self-denial is hard work and necessary in this field.  There is no hope of moral victory without the virtue of diligence.  That being said, if you don't have the virtues of judgment and discernment necessary to know yourself, you'll never enjoy the fruit of your labor.  If you don't have the insight necessary to know the deceitful condition of your own heart, all of the hard work will be in vain.  If you don't have the discernment to know who is really to blame for your bitterness and resentment, you'll never get victory over them.  If you don't have the judgment to know where your struggles truly stem from, your daily sweat will only produce long-term tears.  Hard work without good sense in the field of morality only results in low yields and lost victory.  

This principle can apply to every facet of our lives.  From our homes to our churches to our places of employment, hard work alone isn't enough to bring success.  From our marriages to our parenting to our friendships, muscle isn't enough to bring a harvest of happiness.  Far too many of us just put our head down and get to work not realizing that we're putting our head all the way down in the sand.  How many of us embark on some project and afterwards say to ourselves, "I should've done more research before I started?"  There is nothing more frustrating than putting forth serious effort in some aspect of life or in some relationship in life only to see it fail.  In most failures, it's not the effort that caused the failure, it's a flawed strategy of or a lack of strategy that caused the failure.  One simple design flaw in one tiny component can cause all of the hard and expensive work in building a commercial airplane to go up in notorious flames.  Don't underestimate the value of discernment and don't overvalue the virtue of diligence.  Don't underestimate the internal value of insight and don't overvalue the external benefits of being industrious.

Not all virtues are created equal but the absence of any virtue has serious consequences.  One virtue in one part of our life doesn’t make up for the lack of virtue in other parts of our life.  Success doesn't exist without diligence and it doesn't stay without judgment.  Working hard is always good but if we're not working wisely, it will produce nothing good.