He’s thirty-two years old, and he rules the world. His net worth, as of April 2016, is $51.6 billion, making him the 6th richest man on the planet.
He’s not only a celebrity. His work directly impacts more than 1.6 billion people, every day.
He’s Mark Zuckerberg, the programmer/entrepreneur who founded Facebook.
She has 78 million twitter followers, the third highest of anyone on earth. Just one of her songs has been viewed 1.6 billion times, and she’s been top of the music charts for nearly a decade, even though she’s only 26 years old.
She’s country music sensation Taylor Swift.
Zuckerberg and Swift are a type of what ancient wisdom literature refers to as “young rulers,” people under thirty years old with extraordinary honor and power. Examples of young rulers in Hebrew-based literature (the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran) are Joseph and Daniel.
- Joseph was a Hebrew slave in Egypt around 1876 B.C., then, in a stunning turnaround, he rose to second in command over all of Egypt at the age of thirty.
- Another Hebrew phenom, Daniel, rose to rule Babylon around 590 B.C. under Nebuchadnezzar near the age of twenty.
Ancient Power Symbols: Gold Chains and Garland
When these ancient young rulers got their big breaks, they received a few specific gifts from their kings as symbols of power. These symbols were to the ancient world what a top spot in Time magazine’s The 100 Most Influential People issue would be today, or a top Twitter rank, or the most-viewed videos on YouTube, or the Forbes list of the Richest People.
Two of these gift-symbols are gold chains and garland.
- Gold chains. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, “put a gold chain around [Joseph’s] neck” to show the world he was the new ruler. In Daniel’s later years, Belshazzar the Babylonian king did the gold chain thing as well. “A gold chain was placed around [Daniel’s] neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”
- The Garland Crown. Unlike today, where anyone can put anything on their head, you couldn’t just walk around with a garland wreath or crown on your head in the ancient world, because the symbol was only for rulers. It would be like impersonating a police officer or driving around with police sirens and lights in the modern world. That stuff gets you put in jail today, and it would cost you your head in the ancient world.
These symbols (the gold chain, the garland crown) depict the penultimate wealth, honor, and power. They represent the biggest prize available in the ancient world. They stand for the pinnacle of success and fame and influence.
And they’re used sparingly in wisdom literature to make a couple of key points about what exactly leads to true honor and power. If the book of Proverbs, for example, were making lists of The Most Influential People, it would list a specific type of person, not the person themselves. It would show the qualities that lead to great honor and influence. It would use the symbols of the gold chain and the garland/crown to teach these qualities.
With this in mind, let’s look at references to these two power symbols in the book of Proverbs, to see what they teach us about ways to “rule in life.”
Power Principle #1: Respect Wisdom and Wise Instructors
In Proverbs 1, Solomon writes, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” Here we have two of the power symbols (the chain and the garland) to show that wise instruction is the way to the top. When a Hebrew son heard these lines, he’d know exactly what the chain and garland were, so he’d be keenly interested in what brings this incredible power into his life. The answer is, instruction from the wise.
Three chapters later, in Proverbs 4, Solomon personifies wisdom as a woman, writing, “Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown.” Wealth and power, according to Solomon, come from an appreciation of wisdom and the authority figures who teach wisdom. When we appreciate parents, teachers, and other authority figures, and listen carefully to their advice, we get a garland crown of power from the previous generation.
Power Principle #2: Expect Visible Rewards from Wise Living
In Proverbs 10, Solomon writes, “Blessings crown the head of the righteous.” Here’s the garland crown power symbol again. When we live right, our lives work better than when we don’t live right. Life hands us “blessings” in the form of more wealth, happiness, better health, and so on. “The wealth of the wise is their crown,” writes Solomon in Proverbs 14. As we seek wisdom, and live our lives with wisdom in view, we start receiving visible rewards from wiser choices.
Power Principle #3: Expect the Reward of Healthy Relationships
The rewards of wisdom are extremely visible in the quality of our relationships. When marriages are healthy and happy, when friendships are true and rewarding, people take notice. In Proverbs 12 Solomon writes, “A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones.” The same is true of husbands to wives, and friends to each other, and parents to children. When our vital relationships are right, everything else falls into place.
Power Principle #4: Expect the Reward of Long Life
In Proverbs 16 Solomon writes, “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.” When we live right, we usually live longer. Just compare the lives of those who abuse drugs and alcohol and tobacco with those who don’t. The difference is decades of additional life, and a lot better health along the way.
Power Principle #5: Expect the Reward of Legacy
In Proverbs 17 Solomon writes, “Children’s children are a crown to the aged.” When we live right and live longer, and when we not only get wisdom for ourselves, but we give it to the next generations. When we see the rewards of wisdom going to our children’s children, we find greater reward than all the money in the world. There’s nothing more rewarding or more meaningful than legacy.
