Rabbi Nico here.
I was reading Proverbs 27 and found the first verse particularly interesting:
“Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
It seems to have a fairly easy interpretation on the surface. We don’t know what the future holds, so we cannot boast about what we are going to do in the near future. Certainly, last Monday, I did not know that I and 49 other people at my company were about to be laid off. That changed my plans quite a bit.
But, I wondered if there was more to this verse than the basic translation so, as always, I did a little digging.
The root word for “boast” here is “halal,” which means, “To shine.” At Genesis 12:15 and Judges 16:24, 2 Samuel 14:25, 2 Samuel 22:4, and 1 Chronicles 16:4 it is translated to “praise.” At 1 Chronicles 16:10, it is translated to “Glory.” In several other places, it is translated to “boast” as well. We can see the connection. To praise one’s self or to bring glory to one’s self is to boast.
However, this makes me see the verse in a different light, for it seems to say, “Do not praise tomorrow.”
Let’s keep looking.
The root words translated to “tomorrow” are “yom machar,” which more accurately translate to “day to come.” Tomorrow falls under this definition, but so does any other day in the future.
So, it seems that this verse more accurately says, “Do not praise the day to come, for you do not know what the days will bring.” I do feel that we often praise the future, and talk about how much better things will be.
When I was in college, sometimes I’d talk about how much better my life would be once I graduated. One person told me that once I graduated, my life would be smooth sailing. At the time, I was working for Wal-Mart to afford school. I often told myself, “This is just until I graduate.” After graduating, I worked for Wal-Mart an additional three years before I finally landed an office job.
I can imagine the same sort of thing happens to farmers sometimes. They plant many seeds in the planting season and say, “When harvest season comes, I will have a great harvest.” Then harvest season comes, and not every seed grew as it should have. Maybe something went wrong with a lot of them, and now there’s nowhere near the harvest the farmer was expecting.
And, of course, we get people who work the stock market, who are so sure that their day is coming soon when their investments will pay off, but they do not know.
Let us not have faith in the future or in the fruits of our own labors. Let us only have faith in the L’rd and His love and provision for us. Because when the Children of Israel could not plant or sow in the wilderness, He caused food to fall from the sky for them. He will provide for His sheep.