If you’ve been in the Evangelical Christian community for more than 20 years, like me, you’ll remember a book called The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life, by Bruce Wilkinson, which essentially championed a form of the prosperity gospel–problematic for reasons I won’t get into here. In 1 Chronicles 4, two verses (9-10) are devoted to Jabez, who asks God for financial and other blessings, and God gives it to him. It seems like a spiritualization of the American Dream, endorsing the endeavor as spiritual or even godly. Ask and you shall receive, right? But since Jabez is mostly known from this book about his prayer, I felt it didn’t do his story justice.

A couple weeks ago I was reading in 1 Chronicles, and was so struck by his story. Come with me on this journey, and let’s take a look at Jabez from a socio-cultural perspective. Stay with me, because it will be easy to understand, even if it seems too academic.

First, we will examine the importance and meaning of honor in a collectivist society. Secondly, we will take a look at the importance of a mother’s wisdom in a child’s life, and Jabez’s mother in particular. And lastly, we will look at how the prayer of Jabez illustrates just how special a man he was.

Jabez’s story comes in the middle of TEN dense chapters of genealogies in Chronicles. (Chronicles is another retelling of the history of Israel and Judah.) So any extra column inches given to a character, especially in the midst of a list of names, shows just how significant and important Jabez was: writing space was precious, and the Bible avoids any unnecessary details to its main aims. 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 says

Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!” And God granted what he asked.

Honor and Collectivism

Jabez was more honored than his brothers (1 Chron 4:9a)

Two basic things to understand about the culture of the Bible, are the ideas of collectivism, and honor/shame. Western society in general, but American society in particular, tends to be concerned with what benefits the individual firstly, and not the community. In the US we say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. But in the UK and Ireland it’s a little bit different: we call this tall poppy syndrome. The tall poppy gets cut down: this means that to stand out too much is to threaten the wellbeing of the community.

Our heroines in American films tend to rebel against this kind of communal and kinship-oriented society, and they’re seen as heroic for breaking free of what is shown as an oppressive community. But this beautiful emphasis on the community, so important to a biblical ethic, can be summed up as love for neighbor. The highest value is not to look out for “number one” (myself), but for others.

Another interesting feature, that again I see more of in Irish society, is the idea of honor vs. shame. With social media now, it is not uncommon for people to feel the weight of collective shame when they make some sort of socio-cultural faux pas. There are Americans whose lives have been ruined forever after a racist rant is caught on video. They lose their jobs and can’t find new ones because of the social stigma.

Conversely, many people receive honor through social media, like when celebrities “use their platform” to comment on or contribute to the right causes: social justice, Black Lives Matter, LGBT rights, #MeToo… the list goes on. Our society is not a true honor/shame society, but this gives you an idea. If the community affirms you, you are an honorable person, and you can become more or less honorable based on your actions, and more is at stake depending on how high your status in society.

The key is this: in an honor/shame driven society, what gains a person more honor is not that they are an outstanding individual, but that their words and actions contribute to the good of the community, and thus mutual flourishing. This year especially, the ideas of mutual flourishing, of collective honor and efforts, and gaining honor among our peers, have become especially relevant. It is this same exact dynamic that is so important in the Bible.

The Wisdom of The Mother

And his mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” (1 Chron 4:9b)

My favorite Bible myth to dispel is that the Bible is only patriarchal and sometimes even misogynist. That’s hardly the case: I would argue that while there are some misogynistic characters, and certain parts that are patriarchal, this is not what the Bible promotes! And this idea is so empowering, because it makes Scripture relevant beyond just the spiritual life of believers, but also in secular society.

In an exciting conversation between two Hebrew Bible scholars, Jacob Wright of Emory University, and Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, taken from a class on Coursera called “The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future,” we learn a bit about the importance of the mother in society at the time. Proverbs 1:8 elevates the position of the mother as an important figure in a person’s life: “Hear, my child, your father’s instruction, (or discipline) and do not reject your mother’s teaching.”

The word in this verse for “teaching” is the word torah, which is the Hebrew name for the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible. This is the basis of the law and the teaching of Judaism, and our foundation as Christians: the Old Testament was the entire Bible for Jesus! (Lest we forget!) Dr. Eskenazi states that, “The only figures who dispense torah are God, Moses and the priests.” But in Proverbs, the mother dispenses torah; teaching, or divine wisdom. This is one reason why intermarriage was forbidden historically, because it was the mother who was in charge of the initial education of the children. Nehemiah shows his concern for this, because the children of Israel in the generations following exile no longer can speak Hebrew, because they are speaking the [foreign] language of their mothers, meaning they were also not taught in the ways of God. (See more here.)

I was a bit disappointed to find that Jabez’s mother doesn’t have a name, because I wanted to research who she was and what her name meant. But in some ways, perhaps Jabez’s mother could be anyone’s mother, and this is why I am so excited about this.

Jabez’s name means “he causes pain.” On first glance, it seems like Jabez’s birth was particularly painful, hence the name. But here is why I think Jabez’s mother was so wise. It says that she had other sons; we don’t know whether Jabez was the firstborn son, but if it warranted mention that he was more honorable than his brothers, this indicates something remarkable or perhaps unusual about him. Perhaps he is more honorable than even the firstborn son in his family. Whether Jabez was the firstborn son, and caused the greatest physical pain his mother had ever felt, whether she had had one or multiple miscarriages previously, or whether he was a particularly traumatic birth following his brothers, his mom knew that life is full of pain. She would’ve seen this same pain in the lives of the women around her, as I do in my own friends and family. If there is one thing we learn from Genesis, it’s that childbirth is painful (Gen. 3:16).

Therefore, this name is hardly a curse, as some might believe, but should be seen as rather a reflective and wise observation of the state of the world. What should’ve been a birth that brought greatest joy–a son!–instead was carefully marked with words that show the reality of life, of birth, of existence: “he brings pain.” This is the woman Jabez was raised by, and this, I argue, is why he was named as more honorable than his brothers: because he heeded his mother’s teaching. How do we know that? We know based on his prayer, which was not one of selfish or individualistic gain, but one which ultimately was about the community and the nation.

Jabez as a Credit to his Community

Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!” And God granted what he asked.

Jabez knew that he came from pain, he caused it. In the grander scheme of life, he must’ve understood that to exist means to inevitably cause pain, to oneself and to others. His life, like all of ours, was situated in the midst of pain. And by his prayer we see that he wanted something different to come from his life and his choices, something better.

This prayer of Jabez is not only for himself, it’s on behalf of his entire kinship group: his immediate family, extended family, his community, those he already employed on his lands. Before we hear his prayer, we hear that he was honorable, highly esteemed among the community.

So when God granted his prayer, it was because Jabez asked it in God’s name. His aim was to better his community, to bring prosperity, not just material prosperity, but full flourishing, wholeness: shalom. Just the expansion of Jabez’s lands would have meant that he would be able to employ more people to tend the land and the livestock, which in turn would lead to more economic prosperity and communal well-being, which would foster more and more stability and security, which meant more protection from harm by outsiders… He was asking for the flourishing of Israel, of Judah, for a really healthy society. God had already given him a portion of land, of stability, and he was asking God to increase it, for his Kingdom.

This is why I think Jabez interrupts the flow of the dull genealogies in 1 Chronicles. He’s there to teach us the same lesson that to live for God is to love our neighbor, and that starts with ourselves first and foremost. God truly blessed Jabez as he asked, far surpassing the amount that he could’ve imagined, because now Jabez has blessed me, and his increase has also blessed you as you read this.