Forgotten Heroes

Are they really gone but not forgotten? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We read this in Ecclesiastes 9:13-16:

¹³ I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me. ¹⁴ There was a little city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and besieged it, building great siegeworks against it. ¹⁵ But there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. ¹⁶ But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard.

When I wrote about this I said that:

In the penultimate under the sun, the Teacher praises wisdom that he sees. A small city gets besieged by a powerful king who built siege works against it. An ancient reader seeing this would think that a small city with few people will die, especially since the king can build siege works, meaning he has the resources to wait the people out and let them starve. No reason shows up in the text for why the king sieges the city, yet that does not change the reality. In this hopeless situation, there lived a man who had wisdom and by his wisdom, he saved the town, overturning the strength of even the king. The Teacher praises this, but eventually no one remembered that man and ignored his words. The Teacher still concludes that wisdom outranks strength. Perhaps going back to Moses, the Teacher has in mind someone like Joseph who saved Egypt by his wisdom, but then years later a Pharaoh rose up who did not know Joseph. No one reminded Pharaoh of the impact Joseph had. This matches with one sinner destroys much good since Pharaoh’s pride to not let the people go ruined Egypt.

Unfortunately, people do have a tendency to forget the heroes of the past. There are a lot of younger people today who will scream about the evils of Hitler, but I wonder how many of them know any of the names of the soldiers who fought against him? We have schools and hospitals and other buildings named after people that many of us do not know who they are.

The Teacher made sure to say that what he saw was a great example of wisdom. Indeed, but the tragedy in the story is as great as that wisdom was, the teacher does not know the name of the man. Wisdom is still greater than strength, but it does not give one the power to be immortal in the memories of men. Not only are heroes often forgotten, but we fail to learn from their wisdom.

Today, many people think they are for all intents and purposes the first generation on Earth. What happened before them is irrelevant. It is a great error. We need to remind ourselves who our heroes were in the past in politics, history, and even in our faith.

Our heroes can go. To forget them is our choice.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)