Go to the Ant

Crouch down. Closer. See that line of ants crossing the path? Each one carrying a seed bigger than its head. Nobody is shouting orders. Nobody is checking up on them. And yet, they never stop.

The book of Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings from ancient Israel. Many of them come from King Solomon, who lived nearly three thousand years ago, and others were gathered from wise teachers. Again and again, Proverbs sounds like a parent talking to a child: my son, listen. In a farming land, where a family's food for the winter depended on what they grew in the summer, laziness wasn't just annoying. It could mean going hungry. So Proverbs teaches about work using things anyone could see on a walk: a busy ant, and a neglected field. Let's imagine a father and his son taking that walk together.

It's harvest time. The wheat is being cut, and the air smells of dust and straw. The father stops and points to the ground. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” A sluggard is someone who is lazy, who always puts things off. Look at her, the father says. She has no captain, no supervisor, no ruler. Nobody makes her work. But in summer she gathers her food, and at harvest she stores it away. When winter comes, she'll be ready. The son watches the ants hurrying to and fro. Such a small creature, and such a big lesson. You don't need someone standing over you to do the right thing.

Then the father asks a question, the kind of question a parent asks at seven in the morning. “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” And he imitates the lazy person's answer, yawning: just a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Five more minutes. It sounds harmless. But Proverbs warns that poverty sneaks up like a robber on the road, and need comes like an armed man. One lazy morning doesn't ruin a life. But a habit of always saying later, later, slowly can.

They walk on, and come to a field by the road. Something is wrong. Another passage in Proverbs describes exactly this view, through the eyes of a wise teacher: “I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding.” It was all grown over with thorns. Nettles covered the ground. The stone wall that should have protected the vines had fallen down. The father and son stand and look for a long time. Nobody burned this field. No army trampled it. It simply wasn't looked after. And the teacher in Proverbs says, “Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction.” A field like that is a sermon without words. Then he repeats the warning: a little sleep, a little slumber, and poverty creeps in.

The land of Israel is home to harvester ants, which really do collect seeds and store them in chambers underground. Farmers noticed. The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish teaching written down around the year two hundred, even discusses who owns the grain found in ant holes in a farmer's field. The ants had gathered so well that people thought it worth digging up.

You'll find these lessons in Proverbs chapter six, verses six to eleven, and Proverbs twenty-four, verses thirty to thirty-four. A tiny ant, a tangled field, and a wise word about not putting things off. So here is a question to carry with you. What is one job you keep saying later to, that you could start today?