What Jabez Asked

Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.

Then the list picks up where it left off. And Chelub the brother of Shuah begat Mehir. That is the whole of Jabez: two verses and no follow-up, in a chapter most people's eyes slide over.

Put the fence up before taking the promise out. The passage does not call the words a formula. They are not repeated anywhere else in Scripture and nobody in the Bible is told to pray them. It never says what the enlarged coast was for or what he did with it, and it says nothing whatever about money. Coast means territory, and the chapter around it is a land list, tribal ground recorded clan by clan, which is the only reason a request about borders is in the book.

What it does say is easier to walk past. His mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. She named her son after her own pain and he carried the word on him for a lifetime, and the thing he asks for last is to be kept from evil, that it may not grieve me. He is asking not to become what he was called.

And the answer he got is not a policy. Paul asked three times about one thing and was told no. What came back was My grace is sufficient for thee, which enlarged nobody's coast.

The truth to carry is smaller than what usually gets built on these two verses. A man with no achievement on record and a name that meant his mother's worst week prayed out of the middle of it, and God heard him. The text says he was granted what he requested and stops. It never says what arrived, or when.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 48 is The Heart Doctor (Psalm 147:3).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two