What Matters

You sons of man, how long will my ^[d]honor be treated as an insult?  How long will you love what is worthless and strive for a lie? Selah  Psalm 4:2  NASB

Worthless – “How long will you love what is worthless?” asks God.  What does He mean?  It’s rather important to know, don’t you think?  Don’t we all need a catalog of those things that we love but are worthless from God’s perspective?

Let’s start by noting that God does not say, “those things that aren’t useful.”  There are a lot of things are useful but perhaps not eternally important.  Our lives are often filled with these trivial but necessary items.  God isn’t condemning everything that isn’t super-spiritual.  He doesn’t expect monastic living.  But He does expect that we identify and discard what is rîq (worthless).  So, we’d better understand what rîq entails.

When we explore the uses of rîq in the Tanakh, we’re left a little discouraged.  Most of the time, it describes what is physically empty—a sack, a scabbard, a vessel.  We can find it in Proverbs 12:11 and 28:19 in the same context as this verse.  There it reads, “But he who pursues worthless things lacks sense,” and “But he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.”  It seems that rîq has very practical consequences.  It is the opposite of common sense.  William White adds this:

This noun developed from a root cognate to Akkadian rêqu. The noun, rîq, appears twelve times in the ot. The initial occurrence is Lev 26:16, “Sow your seed in vain.” However, it more often means “empty” (Isa 30:7). It is used repeatedly to describe the vanity of human plans and efforts in the face of God’s will (Ps 2:1). In Eccl the word used for “vanity, meaninglessness” is hebel, not rîq.^[1]

Psalm 2:1, cited by White, reads: “Why are the ^[a]nations restless and the peoples plotting in vain?” where the English word “vain” is the Hebrew rîq.  It’s worth adding the next verse in order to gain some insight: “The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and against His ^[b]Anointed.”  Apparently, rîq involves rejecting the authority of those whom God has placed in charge.  In other words, being rebellious is a worthless thing when God has elected the leader.  Korach might come to mind.  Clearly rîq has political overtones, but what about personal applications?

Since rîq seems to be about common sense, we should recognize that common sense isn’t always so common.  In fact, common sense is typically a cultural phenomenon.  What is common for the Greeks might not be common for Egyptians—or Jews.  That means that rîq functions within a culture.  It is not some universal set of rules.  Rîq is a biblically conditioned consciousness.  What is worthless is what God determines is worthless regardless of other cultural common assumptions, and this means that we can only understand what matters when we have thoroughly incorporated YHVH’s vision of existence into our own consciousness.  To put it bluntly, what is common sense is Torah sense.  Anything else, no matter how “rational,” might just be rîq.

This is hard for most Westerners to swallow.  We have been taught Greek ethical formulations.  We believe that our own intellects can come up with rational moral principles.  We chafe at the idea that God expects us to follow rules that seem nonsensical, like, for example, not eating those delicious shrimp.  We ask for “scientific” explanations, rejecting many ancient laws as culturally conditioned and antiquated.  Of course, that’s absolutely true.  Torah is filled with culturally conditioned, antiquated rules.  They just happen to be what God says.  That’s what matters.  And all the Western rationalization doesn’t.  Ouch!

Topical Index: rîq, worthless, common sense, politics, Psalm 2:1-2, Psalm 4:2

^[1] White, W. (1999). 2161 רִיק. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 846). Moody Press.