"A man with an evil eye hastens after wealth and does not know that want will come upon him"
This proverb is about not becoming a person with an evil eye and about an explanation for why bad things happen to this type of person.
The idea of an evil eye is: Where is your focus? The two words are literally evil and eye, but it means that you are focused on that which is outside of the Ten Commandments. You are focused on malicious selfishness. In other words, you want what you want and you do not care how many other people have to lose in order for you to win. The core truth of sin or evil is selfishness.
This person who is so fixated on what he/she wants that nothing else matters is a person with an evil eye. I think about the rock stars and actors who destroyed their families to get what they wanted.
Jesus speaks to this same condition when He says that if your eye is bad, then your whole body is full of darkness. If your focus is on selfishness, then your direction will be wandering and never getting out of the darkness.
The word want is the Hebrew word heser, which means poverty, need, lacking.
Solomon notes that if you give into selfishness so that you do not care who you have to hurt to get it, then you will have a constant neediness jump up on you. He is saying that you begin a race with no finish line when you go after money with selfishness. Even if you get a significant amount, it will not be enough and most likely money will pour through you like water through a sieve.
You do not gain by selfishly pursuing what you want; that is not the way of wisdom. You gain by using wisdom to find the way to win while glorifying God and causing others to win.
While going after what you want seems like the shortest way to happiness, it is not. Becoming a selfish person destroys your soul.
Work hard to deny selfishness its desired place in your heart. Be wise. Don't let your focus in life be on what you want to the exclusion of others. Pursue those goals that allow others to win along with you.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz