Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. Ecclesiastes 5:19-20 (NIV)
I hate to confess this, but Ecclesiastes has always been my least favorite book of the Bible – all the depressing talk about the meaninglessness of life. Usually, I read through it pretty fast. But this time I was reined in by that phrase: occupied with gladness of heart (or occupied with joy in the ESV). I started looking at the original Hebrew, and it has been changing by life.
The New Living Testament translates verse 5:20 this way:
God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past. 5:20 (NLT)
"Brooding over the past" is familiar to me. It is something I have done a lot, whether I was aware of it or not. So much of our unconscious life is occupied with getting what we never had, trying to fix the brokenness. Filling the hole with stuff – wealth and possessions – is one way we do that. We can become slaves to it. Yet, this verse says that God can set me free from all that and keep me occupied instead with gladness, or joyfulness, of heart.
The word translated "[gives] the ability" in verse 19 - the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil - is a Hebrew word that means to be master of, empower, to be given power or mastery over, to have rule or dominion.1 It is also translated "given the power and ability" (Amplified), "empowered" (NASB), and "enables" (NRSV).
In other words, God gives us the ability to be the master and not the slave. To have dominion over the gifts and the lot given us in this life. He frees us from the slavery of the now, the striving for wealth and possessions, and from our past emotional and physical poverty and abuse. He gives us the grace to be master of both and therefore to be able to enjoy and accept and be thankful for our now – our lot in life. We stop looking for the stuff and the love we never had and surrender to what we have been given. And when that happens, when we take our energy and attention off things, and holes, we are free to focus on the Giver of all and to be occupied with the gladness of heart that comes in his Presence.
That sounds good, right? Yet, when I looked up the meaning of the word translated "occupied" in the NIV I found this astounding definition:
To be bowed down or afflicted. To humble someone or to humble oneself. Affliction as discipline by God (Deuteronomy 8:2). To mistreat or mishandle another person, as Sarai mistreated Hagar (Genesis 16:6). It means to hurt, defile, even violate, ravish (2 Samuel 13:14). And yet, it is also translated "gentleness," as in "... your gentleness made me great" (Psalm 18:35).
It is the same word as translated "afflicted" here:
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. Psalm 119:67
So, this verse in the Hebrew appears to be saying that God sets us free, gives us mastery over our circumstances and gifts and then humbles, afflicts, and "gentles" us with gladness of heart. Not only are we occupied, as to what we give our attention, but we are also occupied as by a conquering army, humbled by his gentle love, and ravished by his amazingness, wonderfulness, majesty and unending grace.
Doesn't this seem like an oxymoron? To set someone free from slavery, but at the same time occupy them as a conquering army? I was still stumbling around over these verses when I remembered John Donne's holy sonnet, Batter my heart, three-person'd God. It almost seems as if we were reading the same verses. As always, God is so different from us. His thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways. His love is not our love but "surpasses all understanding." By the way, one of the meanings of the word "enthralled," used in the last section of this poem, is "to hold in or reduce to slavery."2
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Yes! Batter my heart, three-person'd God; set me free from my slavery to the world and to self and let me be enslaved only with You and the joy of your Presence! Except you enthrall me Lord, I never shall be free.
You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. Isaiah 26:3 (AMPC)
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11 (ESV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him … Romans 15:13
1 All definitions from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance unless otherwise noted.
2Merriam-Webster
Photo by Sheila Bair
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