In the English-speaking world, we often speak of having either “good eyes” or “bad eyes.” A person who has made it into their fifties without needing glasses might say, “I was blessed with good eyes.” Someone like me, on the other hand, might note my rare eye disease (retinitis pigmentosa) and my consequent extreme tunnel vision and say, “I have bad eyes.” Obviously, one set of eyes is preferable to the other – thus they are ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
In the Hebrew language of your Old Testament, there are also ‘good eyes’ and ‘bad eyes.’ Unfortunately, this fact tends to get lost in translation. In the book of Proverbs, for instance, we have three references to either ‘good’ or ‘bad eyes.’ Here they are:
Proverbs 22:9: Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.
Proverbs 23:6-7: Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies, for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. ‘East and drink!’ he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
Proverbs 28:22 A stingy man hastens after wealth and does not know that poverty will come upon him.”
No pun intended, but its kind of hard to see the eye references, isn’t it! The first one is easy: the “bountiful eye” in our first proverb is most easily translated ‘good eye;’ in the Hebrew it is ‘ayin tov. But in the last two proverbs it is less clear. That is because the Hebrew words ‘ayin ra’ (bad eye, or evil eye) are translated as ‘stingy man.’ Why in the world is that the translation!
It is interesting to note that in some English translations of the Bible, Proverbs 22:9 does not read ‘bountiful’ or ‘good’ eye;’ instead we read about a ‘generous man.’ The translation I read as a teenager (NIV) reads: “A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.”
Why is it that the man with the good eye is ‘generous’ and the man with the bad eye is ‘stingy?’ This is the very type of question that the Hebrew proverbs require us to contemplate! And reflecting on this question should lead us to think differently about such things as generosity and stinginess – and good vision.
In our culture, to say that one has good eyes is generally a reference to how well one sees – can we read highway signs before it is too late to catch our exit? Can we distinguish individual leaves on the tree in our backyard? Can we read without glasses? These are the types of things that good eyes can do.
In the ancient world of your Old Testament, having good eyes or bad eyes is not a verdict concerning one’s physical vision; it is instead a moral and spiritual matter. Consider the man of Proverbs 23:6-7. That man with a ‘bad eye’ is inwardly calculating – wishing you were not eating his food even though it appears he has offered it (note that you are exhorted not to eat it!). In Proverbs 28:22 the stingy man – the man with a ‘bad eye,’ is focused on his personal wealth. The man with the ‘good eye’ in Proverbs 22:9, in contrast, is actively sharing rather than begrudgingly offering.
What a difference. The man with a good eye saw someone who was hungry, they saw that they had enough food, and they saw an opportunity to share. The man with the bad eye, in the same circumstance, instead sees someone who is hungry, sees that he has a limited supply of resources from which to meet his own needs, and appears to merely go through the socially expected motions of offering food. The good eye is indeed ‘bountiful:’ it sees how much it has, it sees the needs around it, and gladly shares with others. The bad eye is indeed evil – it squints at the world around it and constantly calculates the personal cost of helping others; its begrudged hospitality is a charade.
How are your eyes? What do you see when you look out at the world around you? Do you see how much God has blessed you with? How great the needs are all around you? And how you can be a blessing with the gifts and graces God has entrusted to your care? Let’s pray for good eyes!
Your Pastor,
Bob Bjerkaas
N.B. The image is cropped from Vincent Van Gogh’s 1887 oil on canvas Self Portrait with a Straw Hat, graciously made digitally available by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 67.187.70a.