1 Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.
2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
3 If the clouds are full of rain,
they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
4 He who observes the wind will not sow,
and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Comment: I hear of bottles containing messages thrown in the ocean and later being found, occasionally even by the same person who threw it in! I assume the first of these proverbs means that if you don’t attempt you’ll never succeed. The second is a call to be socially aware and caring; the third a statement that what happens happens and I presume says something like ‘And there is no point in getting your knickers in a knot’.
For a farmer understanding the weather is important, and knowing affects what and when they do things. For those of us who are not farmers the proverb is still relevant advising us to be knowledgable and thoughtful about how to act. I would also add to be prayerful, for God is prepared to give wisdom to those who ask.
And at the end we are reminded that babies (and thus people) are not just a mass of cells, evolved into some degree of usefulness, but God breathes ‘spirit’ into them, That makes them special, But God, Solomon says, is involved in everything and I think he means for us to remember that truth. I’m a bit surprised that at the end he didn’t add everything ‘under the son,’ which appears to be one of his favourite phrases.
Prayer: We need to be fitted for successful living. Thank You that Your Word gives us good instruction and help!
As I read it! 