To Cast Bread upon the Waters

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth.

-- Ecclesiastes 11: 1-2 (KJV)

As Ecclesiastes nears the end of his sermon on vanity, his writing becomes more lofty and poetic, and thus more obscure. These verses are a case in point: the business about giving a portion to seven and also to eight has left many a reader scratching his head.

I'll leave that one to the exegetes, who say the basic idea is that you should hedge your bets. A bit more manageable is the preceding verse: "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." Though the first half of the clause is often used now as a call for charity -- with "bread" standing, as in slang, for wealth and "waters" for an ocean of need -- Ecclesiastes had something more self-serving in mind.

Borrowing his imagery from Egyptian lore, he depicts the world of business as an ocean upon which your "bread" (again, wealth) may multiply, but only if you're willing to take the risk of tossing it out there and waiting for the profits to float back. (He may refer to trading grain by sea, but then again the Hebrews were never great merchant mariners.) Quite the opposite of charitable giving, in which nothing returns from the waters except perhaps gratitude, or inner satisfaction.

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!