“There is profit in the land in all things; he who is king serves the field.”

(Ecclesiastes 5:8 {5:9 in English Bibles})

I have a bumper-sticker that I keep on the back of my truck that reads: “No Farms — No Food.” And indeed, therein lies the interpretation of this verse. Everyone is indebted to the ones who work the land. Without the farm, we have very little we can put on our table and without food on the table, even the king will wither and die. In some of the Science-Fiction shows they depict man eating things that are little more than a processed tablet, but how appealing is that? Food is more than medicine for the body, but it is a tool that blesses fellowship as it brings people together around a table to partake of it.

So, here is the check and balance that we mentioned in the previous passage — there are overseers of the overseers, etc… yet, the king is indebted to the land (and to those who work the land) for his own survival. So here is meant to be one more motivation to ensure that justice is done to those who labor in the fields and on the farms. 

One of the often neglected parts of the American Dream is the idea that we can own our own land. When we own our land, not only do we have space to build a home, but we have something of real value on which we can also produce things to sustain our family and to trade with others. The family farms that dot the landscape of our nation is a testimony to this reality, but even those with smaller parcels of land can establish gardens or small family businesses on that land they own. Many people that I have known in the deep south have plots of land simply covered by evergreen trees, which they periodically log to sell the lumber. 

It is getting more and more difficult to make a sustainable living from the land in our culture today. When you join that with high taxes and regulation, the benefits of the American dream are diminishing and getting harder to attain. One day, they may sadly be out of reach even to the hardest working and most industrious citizen. Then, America as our forefathers knew it will cease to be. It will be a tragic day.

In our technical society, people often look down on the farmer. It is hard work and it is not glamorous work either. Yet, it is essential work. If you doubt that, the next time you sit down to a meal, ask yourself, “Where did this food come from?” In most every case, you will be forced to conclude that it came from a farm. Even the king is indebted to the land.