- All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt. -
Remember how this chapter began? Right, it was in regards of how to act before a king or ruler.
Who is the man who has power over another man to his hurt? It’s the king. If the king doesn’t like how you walked into his throne room, no one will stop him from punishing you.
We call unnecessarily cruel rulers tyrants. They exercise at minimum the most extreme punishments over the citizenry, possibly the strictest restrictions as well.
Today, we primarily call these individuals dictators. They destroy countries with their shortsightedness and pride.
There is another type of tyranny though. It is one in which there is no central force. You may call it a self-inflicted tyranny or one brought on by the nature of man.
Alexis de Tocqueville would give it a formal name in his book concerning America along with the founding fathers - The Tyranny of the Majority.
Believe it or not, but the Bible speaks about both of these tyrannies in the book of Exodus. The Pharaoh is a dictator, and the Wilderness is a tyranny of the majority.
Pharaoh exercises all kinds of horrible punishments on the weak Israelites, even killing infants which baffles the modern mind.
At least the modern mind that isn’t aware of the atrocities occurring in China, of which the Communist party is acutely feeling the consequences of those cruel actions.
The only way the Israelites are able to free themselves from the tyranny of Pharaoh is to turn to God. Through the plagues and their obedience and belief in Him, they are finally freed.
Freed to what? They are free to wander the wilderness, to walk in circles and serve any wrong God they desire.
What do they learn? They learn to live for God. They are given His commandments and instructions explaining how to both honor Him and run their society.
Until they learn this wisdom, they find themselves pulled along by whatever bad idea they cook up. The latest trend pulls them into some regrettable decision.
God brought us into this desert to starve. Sure, the manna is nice, but why doesn’t God send some meat. Moses sure has been up on that mountain for a while; why don’t we make a new golden god?
One of the brilliant things Chesterton said was that when men cease to believe in God, they gain the surprising defect of believing in anything.
How can this be? When you remove that which sets all value, you do not have a way to say something is more “right” than something else.
Lewis would call this being separated from the Way: the nature common to man in which appears everywhere despite man having no “proof” for its existence.
The Jews might call it what they discovered while in the wilderness.
What is left is our ideas and we are great at making moralizations in bewildering directions. Perhaps this is because we were given a moral nature?
The man who tyrannizes is the man who has power over another. This can be the dictator or the petty fool of social media.
What can we do to be free of these oppressors?
Worship God in both spirit and truth.
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