When King Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs, it is clear that God was inspiring, and directing him, to focus his attention on wisdom. Proverbs contains many scriptures revealing the wisdom of God, and how we can apply it in our daily lives. The best choices we can make will always be based on what we find in scripture, Gods’ word. There is nobody wiser than our Creator, so his advice is the best we can ever be given.
In the book of Proverbs, there is one particular wise creature that God wanted to highlight in the scriptures; the ant. These tough little insects are amazing, and studying them is fascinating, but even so, why did God want Solomon to write about such tiny creatures when he could have instead looked at the Lion or other larger and more powerful creations? Considering the ant seems strange, considering its size.
Ants may be small, but they are very hard working social creatures, able to demonstrate abilities that make them very interesting to study. God describes ants as not being lazy at all, and He explains why they are rewarded for their efforts and hard work. His point is, ants will always do well due to their organised laboring, unlike the lazy person who will end up poor: Proverbs 9-11 How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep—11 So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, And your need like an armed man. Along with poverty mentioned in this scripture, inactivity has many negative impacts on health, long term lazing around can create weight gain which leads to further issues, being lazy and unfit is not good for long term health.
The ant demonstrates the complete opposite attitude described in the verse above. These creatures avoid the outcome for the human sluggard described above because they don’t sit around all day long. God tells us they work hard to ensure their food is ready in the harvest: Proverbs 6-8 Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, 7 Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler, 8 Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest. God is telling not only Solomon to consider her ways and be wise; He’s telling us today that we need also to consider the same, and if that we need to avoid being lazy, in contrast to the ant he warns us about not being productive.
Apart from the words of wisdom offered from God in this passage of scripture, a very interesting word appears twice in Proverbs 6-8; it describes the ant as ‘her’. Why would God inspire Solomon to write the word her when describing the ant? Surely it doesn’t matter if it was are male or female, or not even a description of its sex at all. Interestingly, all worker ants are female, and not one known species has male workers; exactly what Solomon wrote around 2,700 years ago when he described the hard working ant as ‘her’.
This scripture actually confirms science well in advance of modern day entomologists interested in Myrmecology (the scientific study of ants). At the time or writing Proverbs, it’s unlikely that Solomon, even with his immense wealth, had the resources, or the time, to find out if it’s a scientific fact that all worker ants are indeed female (‘her‘).
King Solomon was extremely wealthy, and his net worth value if he was here today is estimated to be in the trillions of $US Dollars, making the current richest man on earth look poor in comparison. Yet, even with all his vast sums of money and resources, it was impossible for Solomon to visit every country to examine (for confirmation, or not) all colonies of ants. Even if he sent out multiple teams of scientists to conduct this research, there is every chance they would not have located many of the various kinds of ants that were, until now, possibly undiscovered around that time.
To undertake such a massive task, and have enough time spent trying find all kinds of known ant species, then study and examine them long enough to realise that all their workers are female, would have taken years, and still left them without a definite answer regarding sex of worker ants. Solomon, and his teams (if he’s taken this approach) would have to visit every country on earth and comb 58 Million square miles of the earth’s dry land surface, let alone find all the ants to study. King Solomon would have been wasting his time especially if he’d traveled very far south; interestingly ants are found on every continent except for one, and strangely enough the first three letters of its name spells the name of these insects; ANTartica.
God clearly makes certain that well in advance of modern-day scientist, His words confirm what we have only recently discovered, and that we still have much to learn. Proverbs chapter 6 is just one example of where He has passed down his knowledge and wisdom, so that even centuries later, His words prove scientifically that scripture could have only been inspired by the Creator who knows everything.
Some interesting ant facts:
They don’t just ruin a picnic, raid the cupboards in your kitchen, or get into your pants in the proverbial sense; not all of their habits are bad. They may be tiny, and considered a pest by some, but they are actually highly beneficial to the health of our ecosystem. Being extremely strong, they can typically lift 10 – 50 times their body weight, maybe more.
There are more than 12,000 different kinds of ants, some you can eat (the honeypot ant is a delicacy), and some you would want to avoid; many can deliver a very painful bite and sting (Fire Ants are notorious for this). Sizes of ants range from eight-tenths of a millimeter to 3-4 centimeters long. They can run at extremely high speed (108 times their body length per second), a human-sized equivalent would be capable of 360 miles per hour!
Only virgin queen ants and males (drones) can fly, the female workers don’t ever grow wings. The males mate with the queen during flight, this is known as the ‘Nuptial Flight’, an annual swarming vent that takes place one a year.
With just a few interesting facts about ants, it’s clear that God possesses such amazing wisdom and power to create such wonderful insects. There is so much more information about ants to amaze you, it’s worth doing some research into them; when doing so you may wonder how evolution claims they are a result of pure random chance.
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