My perspective isn't the only one

(originally posted on 2016-10-18)

The fall semester is well under way. In fact, it’s midterm time already. I’m teaching “Morphology and Syntax 2”, an advanced grammar course, for Linguistics students at Tyndale University College. The program I teach for is a partnership between Tyndale and Wycliffe Canada’s training partner, Canada Institute of Linguistics.

With what time I have left over these days when I’m not teaching or preparing lesson plans, I’m consultant-checking a draft translation of 1 Kings into a minority language of East Asia. I’m glad I can stay involved in Bible translation work overseas alongside my work for Wycliffe in Toronto.

When I came to 1 Kings 5:14, I was reminded of how our perspectives on Scripture depend so much on ourselves and our own situations.

1 Kings 5:13-14 (NET) says “King Solomon conscripted work crews from throughout Israel, 30,000 men in all. He sent them to Lebanon in shifts of 10,000 men per month. They worked in Lebanon for one month, and then spent two months at home. ...”

When I read this, I thought about all the negative features of this forced labour. I thought, it’s unfair for the king to tell his people to go do his work. How much did he pay them? I assume he supplied their food and shelter while they worked, but would they have received any salary beyond that? And who would have worked their farmland, tended their animals, or took care of their businesses while they were away? I assume their friends and family would have stepped up and did what they could. But it would have been a difficult situation all around. What a bad king! Surely he could have hired people the way a civilized employer does!

But putting myself in the shoes of this translation’s audience, I realized that my perspective isn’t the only way to think about this situation. It is extremely common in their area for men and women to leave their homes and travel to larger, richer cities in search of work. They often end up working in factories, making goods for us in the West. Their work shifts are long; the working conditions are not as worker-friendly as here. Chances are, they live in small apartments or dormitories provided by their employers, and they probably get all their meals at their factory cafeterias. What salary they do receive, and it wouldn’t be much by our standards, they send back to their family in the village, to pay for relatives’ medical bills, or for their own children’s education. (It’s common for children to be left behind in the village to be raised by grandparents or other relatives.) Husbands and wives might not work in the same factories, or even in the same city as each other. There are three week-long holidays each year when they can travel home, if they can afford to. It’s a difficult life, but they make these choices to give their children a better future than they could provide as subsistence farmers at home.

What would stick out to this audience from this passage? I think they would notice that Solomon’s workers got two months at home after every month away at work. They might think, “What a good king! If only we could see our loved ones that often!”

I don’t know what the original audience of 1 Kings would have thought when they read these words. This is worth thinking carefully about. In any case, I’m glad for this reminder that the passage isn’t necessarily saying what I think it’s saying when I only consider it from my own perspective.