Proverbs 23:5
"When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens."
This is an interesting and important proverb that suggests what we want money to do, it will not do. And we must use money for some other purpose.
The LXX (Septuagint) version of this verse says, "If you place your vision or direction towards wealth, you will have no light in your life. For it equips itself with the wings of an eagle and turns back or flies out of the house of the one who sets it before them or makes it their goal."
Money, wealth, and possessions are always on the move. You may want to hoard them, but they are moving through your life. They are not a static commodity. You cannot keep them – either in this life or in death. This is the point that this proverb is trying to say. Don't make the acquisition of money the goal of your life.
You must decide that you will use it as it flows through your life. It is your use of money as it moves through your life that should be your concern. If your use of money is selfish, then you have not taken advantage of the power of this resource. I am amazed at how many people are trying to capture money and make a big pile of it, yet all the while they do not use money to deepen the relationships in their life. Money is a tool, when used properly, that can deepen and expand your relationships. When it becomes the goal of your life, then it makes itself the wings of an eagle and flies away.
It is not wrong to have a savings and to try and build up a decent retirement. That is not the point of this proverb. The point is that money flows through your life, and rather than making the collection of money the goal of your life, make the appropriate use of money one of the abiding principles of your life.
There is another perspective on this proverb that also bears development. Wealth – the allusive target of many people – is always on the move. Just when you think that you have enough to call yourself wealthy, you need a little bit more. The goal keeps moving. As a person collects more and more wealth, there are always people with more of it. It seems that whatever numerical amount of wealth that you might fix upon as that which will make you rich, it is never enough and you discover when you get to that number that "being wealthy" has moved.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz