¹⁷          Let not your heart envy sinners,

                        but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day.

¹⁸          Surely there is a future,

                        and your hope will not be cut off. (Proverbs 23:17-18, English Standard Version)

“Minerva leaves at once for Envy’s home,                                                            
a filthy, black, corrupted place. The house,                                          
crouched in the lowest fissures of a cave,
with no sunlight, closed off from every wind,                                        1140
is depressing and filled with numbing cold,
always lacking fire, always in the dark.
When the fearful warrior goddess gets there,
she stops before the house (for she believes
it is not right to go beneath its roof)
and hammers on the doorpost with her spear.
The doors shake and then fly open. She sees
Envy inside the house eating the flesh
of vipers, which nurtures her corruption.
Minerva looks and turns her eyes away.                                              1150          [770]
But Envy gets up slowly from the ground,
leaving the bodies of half-eaten snakes,
shuffles forward, and peers out at the goddess,
at her lovely shape and splendid weapons.
Her face distorts. Then she groans and gives off
the heaviest sigh. There is a pallor
smeared across her face, her entire body
is gaunt, her eyesight squints at everything,
her teeth are mouldy with decay, her heart
is green with bile, and her tongue drips poison.                                    1160
She never laughs, except when she responds
to the sight of grieving, and never sleeps,
for gnawing cares keep her awake. She hates
to witness men’s success—the sight of it                                                             [780]
makes her waste away. She torments others
and, in that very moment, is tormented
and punishes herself.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book II)

One of the simplest rules for interpreting the Bible is this: If the Bible says, “Don’t!” it is because someone was.  Since the Bible says, “Don’t envy,” guess what?  Somebody was.  Envy is an ancient reality.  It is also a modern one.

Derek Kidner says some wise words concerning envy and its antidote: “24:1, 19 and Psalm 37:1, 8, etc., expose the simultaneous admiration and resentment which make up envy, springing from an undue preoccupation with oneself and with the present. The remedy is to look up (17b) and look ahead (18) (see also on 24:1).”^[1]

Hummmmm—”. . . an undue preoccupation with oneself and with the present.”  Yes, I would say that pretty well sums it up.

One of the antidotes for envy is a proper respect for God.  Conversely, any time that I envy, I am not respecting God as I should.

One of my twelve-step friends says that he is “. . . working on the very basic idea that [he] is enough and has enough.”  It seems to me that envy is a massive failure to recognize that because God is enough, I am enough.

I think I’ll choose to reverence God today.  No envy allowed in this space that is called “me!”

^[1]Derek Kidner, Proverbs: An Introduction and Commentary, TOTC 17; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1964), 144.  https://accordance.bible/link/read/Tyndale_Commentary#26650.