Global Warming

The whole global warming controversy
is based on actual temperature records from 1856-2005 (see chart). That's (hey, man, I said see chart - it's right THERE) a grand total of 149 years worth of data.

So let me get this straight - the same people who say the earth is 4.55 billion years old, think that homo sapiens (the highest pinnacle of evolution so far) are destroying the planet based on the last 0.0000033% of temperature records?

Look carefully at the years on the chart from 1942-1978. Based on those numbers, the Chicken Littles were predicting the next ice age.

I think people who try to wring meaning from records of an environment that's supposedly the result of meaningless random chance should not be allowed to interpret graphs.

Serpentine Healing

This is known as the Rod of Asclepius. It's an international symbol of healing.

You will find it on ambulances inside a blue, six-pointed geometric figure known as the Star of Life. A modified version of Hermes' messenger staff, with two snakes intertwined around it and wings on top (called the caduceus) is the symbol of the American Medical Association.

I think symbolism is cool. It's like, I dunno, taking a thousand words or so and boiling it down to one picture.

But why is a snake on a stick the symbol of healing? (Sounds like a Louisiana bayou delicacy, to me)

Asclepius was probably a primitive doctor (redundant, I know!), who the Greeks started worshipping as a god after their conquest of the world, circa 300 B.C.

Over 1,000 years before Asclepius, however, there was a snake on a stick that actually was the agent of healing.

Near the end of their wandering in the desert, the Israelites were complaining (again! - y'know, I personally prefer people who would honestly reject my gifts; rather than accept them, only to whine and moan about them), so fiery serpents were unleashed on them and Moses had to plead for them yet again. (Note: I found the linked article in Meridian Magazine, a Mormon publication of all things! Interesting information, though)

God told Moses to make a snake and put it up on a pole and whoever looked on it after they were bitten, would live (Numbers 21:6-9).

Way before that, while Moses was on the lam from Egypt after killing someone and just cooling his heels in the desert, the Lord spoke to him from a burning bush (Exodus 3). He was actually watching his father-in-law's sheep at the time, probably because his in-laws were busy metalworking. His father-in-law, whether named Reuel, Jethro, or Hobab (the Hebrew word translated father-in-law just means a relative by marriage) was not only a priest (this obviously was before Levitical law, a la Melchizedek) but a Kenite (Judges 1:16). Now, Kenites were a nomadic tribe of coppersmiths (there's quite a bit of copper and manganese in the Mt. Horeb area - they're the principal ingredients of brass, y'know). Moses begged them to accompany the Israelites, because of their desert-living experience (Numbers 10:29-31).

So (thanks for bearing with me, so far), Moses' relatives probably whipped together a brass snake with facility.

Everyone knows the account of the serpent in the Garden of Eden - it says the serpent was more crafty (or subtle or cunning or shrewd) than any other animal (Genesis 3:1), and if we couldn't figure out who that serpent was, the last book of the Bible (Revelation 12:9) dispels all doubt. Interestingly, the instructions Jesus gave when he sent out the Twelve were "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

Jesus referred to the event of the snake on a stick (thus imparting its true symbolism) when he talked to Nicodemus at night in the most quoted passage in the Bible, John 3:14-16:
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

So, the symbol of sin became the agent of healing. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

The ultimate fate of the brass serpent came 686 years after the original event, when Hezekiah became king of Judah. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) - 2 Kings 18:4.

Apparently, the Israelites were worshipping the thing. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - Romans 1:25.

Anyway, it comes as no surprise how the Greeks came up with their symbol for healing. Especially because it was only a couple hundred years since the brass serpent had been worshipped (and it must have had quite a bit of word-of-mouth currency). I mean, after 2,300 years, we're still calling it the Rod of Asclepius.

Why Are There Seven Days in a Week?

The simple answer is because God created everything in six literal days and rested on the seventh.

The Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue is:
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

There are some Christians who believe they have to try and manufacture "gap theories" and reinterpret terms like "days" in order to reconcile what the Bible says to the "scientific evidence" of a billions-of-years-old earth. However, the "evidence" they use originates from a faulty premise - a theory created to eliminate the need for God - and the only way to make it "feasible" is millions of years of random chance evolution. It takes a lot more "faith" to believe this implausible fairy story than the actual truth.

Truth is an absolute - any compromise with truth makes it untrue. If you know someone who's been honest with you the first ten times you've had dealings with him, but then he fudges the facts the eleventh time, he loses his credibility, doesn't he?

Take Ivory Soap, for example. It markets itself as 99 and 44/100% pure. To my mind, anything less than 100% pure isn't pure.

The Bible has been shown to be true 100% of the time when challenged, based on outside evidence - it doesn't need any help to make it agree with "science", and the stuff that can't be empirically proven, I'm willing to take on faith, since God hasn't lost credibility yet (and I'm betting eternity that He never will).

Here's an excellent article from the extremists over at Answers in Genesis on the length of the days of Creation.

Genesis 1:14-19
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the fourth day.

I will talk about how the sun, moon and stars could be created on the fourth day in a future post.
Isn't it interesting that from the point of view of someone on this planet, the sun and the moon are the same apparent size (just check out a picture of a total solar eclipse)?

Also, the stars are as reliable as clockwork (I enjoy watching Orion chase the seven sisters of the Pleiades across the sky every night). The planets, however, are a different story. They each seem to follow their individual agenda.

Check out this article on if the universe is so young, how can we see stars that are millions of light years away?

The Ancient Romans named the days after the five visible planets (which aren't part of the clockwork mechanism of the stars - the word planet means "wanderer") along with the sun and the moon. In fact, they also made up cool stories for the constellations, so they could "serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years".

The names they gave the days of the week still persist in "romance language" countries (romance is Latin for "in the Roman manner").

Latin: Dies Solis (sun), Lunae (moon), Martis (Mars), Mercurii (Mercury), Jovis (Jupiter), Veneris (Venus), Saturni (Saturn).

The English kept Saturday, Sunday, and Monday; but changed the rest to their more familiar Norse gods - Tiw replaced Mars, Woden - Mercury, Thor - Jupiter, and Freya - Venus.

Scots Rule!

It's pretty irrational to be proud of your heritage, since that is definitely one of the things over which you have no control.

I like to think of myself as a rational guy who enjoys discovering truth through logic, mathematics and information gleaned through investigation and study. Hence the name of this blog.
Theorem: An idea that has been demonstrated as true or is assumed to be so demonstrable.

However, I am proud of being Scottish. The Matheson clan crest is what you see over by my name on the right of the page. It bears the inscription Fac et Spera - Do and Hope, the clan motto. We even have a war cry, calculated to send even the stoutest foes into paroxysms of panic when they hear the blood-curdling shout, "The Field of the Two Declivities!" That should help explain the URL address of this blog.

Here are some, but not all, of the things invented or discovered by Scots:


golf
gas mask
kaleidoscope
capitalism
raincoats
cure for scurvy
Peter Pan
neon
video
postcards
geology
photocopier
Bank of England
writing paper
Toad of Toad Hall
steam engine
locomotive
suspenders
morphine
hypodermic syringe
decimal point
thermos flask
adhesive postage stamps
telephone
radar
artificial ice
insulin
telegraph
tarmac
interferon
theory of combustion
fountain pen
thermometer
antiseptics
electric light
alpha chip
traffic cone
whisky
cure for insomnia
marmalade
Buicks
pneumatic tire
curling
pedal bicycle
gardenias
buses
helium
fax machine
Long John Silver
tennis courts
Encyclopaedia Britannica
finger-printing
Auld Lang Syne
street lighting
Neptune
gravitating compass
anesthesia
color photographs
penicillin
Sherlock Holmes
Jekyll and Hyde
bowling green
blue lasers
Kelvin scale
Brownian motion
threshing machine
overdrafts
lawnmower
logarithms
prenatal clinics
documentary films
television

Yeah, Scots rule!

Me and Sam McGee

Didja see what I did there? I made a play on the title of the folk song Me & Bobby McGee, made popular by Janis Joplin (still the only one of her songs I can listen to) and written by Kris Kristofferson (of all people) - by combining it with one of my favorite poems, The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service.

Several Christmases ago, my parents took my brother, my sister, me and our respective spouses aside to talk about their will and their wishes concerning burial and other uplifting things appropriate to a joyous holiday celebration.
I remember the disdain in their voices when they spoke of my aunt, whose urn would be in the same burial plot since she insisted on being cremated.
Then I mentioned that's what I wanted done to my body.
Oh! The Horror!!
It's pretty much a blur, but there was talk of the Children of Israel bringing Joseph's bones out of Egypt with them and how fire is used as a method of judgment in the Bible, et.al.

I wish I'd had on the tip of my tongue then what I've thought of since:

God spoke to Moses from a burning bush.

God provided light at night to the wandering Israelites with a pillar of fire.

Elijah called down fire from heaven to defeat the priests of Baal.

Elijah did not die, but was caught up in a chariot of fire.

The fiery furnace didn't seem to upset Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego - in fact they were joined by a fourth that looked like the Son of God.

Paul told the Corinthians that "though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing", as if cremation was the most laudable thing in the world.

There are other references about gold being purified by fire, and of angels and of God himself, using fire and flames as descriptives.

Anyway, I anticipate a new body, so why should I care whether this one gets eaten, digested, and excreted by worms or reduced to ashes?

6 1/2 Billion

February 25,2006. The world's population is scheduled to hit 6,500,000,000 today.

It reached 3 billion the year I was born. That means, the population growth rate has averaged 1.75% every year for the past 45 years.

If the wacko fundamentalists who actually believe what the Bible says is true are right, then the earth was created as recently as 4004 B.C.

That means the flood would have occurred in 2349 B.C. and it was dry enough to leave the ark in 2348 B.C.

So, assuming a starting population of six (not counting Noah and his wife, since nothing is said of them having any more children) the growth rate would have to be only an average of 0.479% (or 3.65 times less than the current rate) to reach 6.5 billion by now.

But if Homo Sapiens made his appearance 190,000 years ago, and say the growth rate was 100 times less, or 0.0175%, the population would now be 556 trillion (556,290,685,112,816)! That's 85,583 times 6.5 billion! If a more reasonable rate is used, the numbers are truly astronomical. So, where are all the people, or if you say they didn't survive, where are all the bones?

Urim and Thummim

What were they?

They are only mentioned in the Bible together five times. Urim by itself, twice more. That's a total of seven references for something that has to do with priests' vestments (that's clothes, for those of you with a Living Bible) and were used to determine the Lord's will.

They could have been anything from dice to a Magic 8-Ball.

I think they were the rivets, because everyone knows that's how you can tell genuine Levites.

2006 Baseball Predictions - NL Central

Team W L GB
St. Louis 94 68 -
Milwaukee 83 79 11
Chicago 79 83 15
Houston 77 85 17
Cincinnati 75 87 19
Pittsburgh 72 90 22

Most Valuable Player: Albert Pujols (2nd in a long string)

Cy Young Award: Dontrelle Willis

Comeback Player of the Year: Scott Rolen

Why Is It Called February?

Named by the Romans in honor of the Etruscan god of purification, Februus. It was the last month of the Roman calendar, since they liked to start their year with Spring.

March, their first month, named for Mars, god of war.

April, from apero, meaning second.

May, for the goddess Maia, one of the Pleiades and daughter of Atlas.

June, for Juno, queen of the gods and goddess of marriage.

July, formerly known as Quintilis, fifth; renamed in honor of Julius Caesar.

August, was called Sextilis, sixth; renamed for the megalomaniac Octavian (Caesar Augustus), who supposedly took a day from February so his month wouldn't be shorter than Julius Caesar's.

September, October, November, December - you can probably figure out they mean seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth month, respectively.

January, named for Janus, god of doors and beginnings - it was Julius Caesar that decided to make the year start here (hence, the Julian Calendar).

Fun calendar stuff to know so you can amaze your friends:

The dates, 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, and 12/12 all fall on the same day of the week, which, in 2006 is Tuesday.

5/9 and 9/5 (think of the work day) also fall on that day.

7/11 and 11/7 (think Vegas) also fall on that same weekday.

In non-leap years, Valentine's Day and the first day of Spring also fall on that day.

Thought you'd like to know.

Adam Smith Was Right

In a vindication of Adam Smith's free trade theory, a "gentleman" purchased two shirts used in the cinematic tour de force, Brokeback Mountain on eBay.

Gay activist Tom Gregory's "winning" bid was $101,100.51. He says they are "the ruby slippers of our time" and plans to keep the shirts "as they were, on the hanger, entwined."

"I would never wear them, put them on, or separate them," he said. (Hey! We have someting in common!)

It just proves that something's worth whatever some idiot's willing to pay for it!

By the way, how does one reconcile a belief in evolution with homosexuality? Seems counterproductive to the propagation of a species. Or am I missing something?

Hypothetical - What Would You Do?

Suppose that you're on a reality show and the premise is that although you can't prove that the beautiful mansion you're in was designed by an intelligent being (all you have is logic, the evidence of your senses, and sheer common sense, after all), if there is an architect, he will show up in a year and award one million dollars to any player that believed there was one (say, Player 1). If there isn't, nothing happens - everything remains status quo ante reality show. On the other hand, if an architect appears and you didn't think he existed, one million dollars is extracted from you (Player 2).

So, Player 1 has a Best Case Scenario of gaining $1 million and a Worst Case Scenario of a neutral outcome.

Player 2 has a Best Case Scenario of nothing and a Worst Case Scenario of losing $1 million.

I don't think there's much of a decision to make. It's a no-brainer, really - I would hedge my bet by taking the position of Player 1.

But wait, there's more: the architect has left his blueprints (with his name on them) out for anyone to read, complete with a signed letter stating his intention to give you the money you've done nothing to deserve (in fact, at first you didn't really believe in an architect at all, since you've heard that the bricks and mortar, plumbing and electrical systems could have happened by chance given enough time).

The amazing thing is, Player 2 argues against an architect the whole year, stating that he knows he's right and even tries to get the game show rules changed to prohibit the mere mention of the possibility of a designer.

My question is, why would Player 2 do this? He's in a no-win situation. At best, the whole experience will be a meaningless waste of time (as most reality shows are). What level of hatred or ignorance could motivate him to this incredibly senseless course of action?

Franklin and Johnson

I'm currently reading a book by Henry Hitchings called Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr Johnson's Dictionary (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

Samuel Johnson, Ll.D. is one of the most interesting people in history. He is easily one of the ten people (not mentioned in the Bible) that I would like to have dinner with.

The List (in approximate alphabetical order):

Archimedes
Sir Winston Churchill
Michael Faraday
Benjamin Franklin
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Dr Johnson
Lord Kelvin
Abraham Lincoln
Sir Isaac Newton
William of Ockham

Johnson's dictionary entry for 'electricity' includes:
"The industry of the present age has discovered in electricity a multitude of philosophical wonders" and "The philosophers are now endeavouring to intercept the strokes of lightning," obviously referring to Franklin's contemporaneous kite-flying experiments.

In this book, I learned that Johnson actually met Ben Franklin exactly once - at a meeting of a charity called the Associates for Founding Clerical Libraries and Supporting Negro Schools. What passed between them, we sadly do not know, but I said all that, to say this:

Would've loved to have been there!

Hypocritic Oath

Michael Morales was scheduled to be executed yesterday for the rape and murder of 17-year-old Terri Winchell in 1981.

He's had plenty of chances to demonstrate his innocence: more than 20 appeals have been heard, all the way to the U.S. Sepreme Court. There have already been two stays of execution, and in a last-ditch effort to stop this one, his defense attorneys claimed last week that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment, barred by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

This prompted U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel to order prison officials to either alter the composition of the lethal chemicals used in the execution or make medical experts available to ensure unnecessary pain was not inflicted.

Of course, the two anesthesiologists selected for the task, demonstrating that the highest court in the land does not have the final say, refused to show up on "moral" grounds.

They sent this statement: "While we contemplated a positive role that might enable us to verify a humane execution protocol for Mr. Morales, what is being asked of us now is ethically unacceptable."

Dr. Priscilla Ray, chairwoman of the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, condemned the ruling requiring the anesthesiologists' presence in the following words:
"The use of a physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than promoting an individual's health and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of medicine -- first, do no harm. Requiring physicians to be involved in executions violates their oath to protect lives."

The oath she refers to is the Hippocratic Oath, which doctors solemnly swear to, or at least have a passing knowledge of, upon entering the medical profession.

Here is the original:

I swear by Apollo the physician, by Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.

To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.

Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.

Of course, doctors are apparently now free to pick and choose which parts of the oath are still valid and remain in force.

The abbreviated minutes of the AMA oath meeting:

That stuff about gods and goddesses - utter nonsense.

Share my goods - don't think so.

Do no harm - okay, that can stay. We can use it in sound bites!

Prescribe deadly drugs - old people, why not? rapists and murderers, no way!

No abortions - yeah, riiight!

Preserve purity of my life - that's nobody's business; of my art - but, of course.

House calls - you've gotta be kidding!

Doctor/patient privilege - now, that's something I can invoke!

Red Rubber Ball

As I was being driven to work this morning, I couldn't help but call to mind the lyrics of the appropriately "bouncy" song Red Rubber Ball by The Cyrkle -
And I think it's gonna be all right
yeah, the worst is over now
the mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball
That's exactly what it looked like.

Which brings us to the next event on the program - Music Trivia!

Red Rubber Ball was written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley (of the Seekers - remember Georgy Girl?)

The only American band managed by the Beatles' Brian Epstein, their name was changed from the Rhondells to the Cyrkle, supposedly at the suggestion of John Lennon (the quirky orthography a tribute to the Byrds).

On August 21, 1966 because of the threat of a looming thunderstorm in St. Louis, the Beatles went on early at brand new Busch Stadium in order to avoid a lightning strike. Thus, the more expendable Cyrkle became the only band for whom the Beatles opened in the U.S.

That reminds me of a thirty-something-year-old joke:
These two junior high school girls were at a record store (a place where the ancients sold hunks of pressed vinyl to customers for the purpose of rotating them at a specific speed while simultaneously scratching them with a needle in order to produce sounds - weird, huh? - even I have trouble believing that one!) and, whilst thumbing through the brightly-colored album covers, one says to the other, "Hey, Melanie! Look! Paul McCartney was in another band before Wings!"

Reconciled?

If Calvin and Arminius are in heaven, what do you suppose they talk about?

Do they make "friendly" wagers on sporting events?

At least they'd always pick different teams.

The Oxgoad of Shamgar

We need to be careful about reading too much into a passage where there's precious few details. We know that Jabez was a good guy, asked for God's blessing, and God granted his request. That's all.

Y'know, Shamgar is only mentioned once in the Bible:

• Judges 3:31
• After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

Now, an oxgoad is an implement used by farmers - usually eight feet long, sharpened to a point, and hardened in fire. I was thinking about capitalizing on this verse and writing a book on how to slay your enemies with ordinary garden tools. And, since we all know that Israel represents the modern evangelical church and a Philistine is an uncultured slob, faithfulness in repeating this action only once a day would eliminate 30 slobs a month, reaching our goal of 600 in only 20 months, thereby saving Christendom!

Since 9/11, however, I've decided to scale back on the "killing" rhetoric.

What drives me to distraction is Christians swallowing this codswallop as if it were manna - I've heard several people say something like "I just recited the Prayer of Jabez every day and it took a couple of years, but the Lord was faithful and answered." A friend of mine relates a sermon on prayer he heard where the preacher said, "There are three possible outcomes of prayer - things could get better, things could get worse, or thing could stay the way they are." Profound. That's very similar to what happens when you hop on one leg and sing the "hassenpfeffer woofentweeter song" or... when you do nothing.

Let's not reduce prayer, the most powerful communication tool in the universe - where we have direct access to God Himself! - to a trite, mindless ritual of rote recitation.

God's Word:

• 2 Timothy 2:16-17
• Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene.

From Jesus Himself:

• Matthew 6:7-8
• And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
  
  

The Prayer of Jabez

Good prayer.

The recent cultural phenomenon, however, has always struck me as a sort of mantra or a magical incantation that weak-minded Christians think will guarantee (worldly) success - a la the prayers to St. Jude that are always printed in the Classifieds.

• 1 Chronicles 4:9-10
• Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, "I gave birth to him in pain." Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

I don't think it was the form of the prayer that caused God to grant it (like Ali Baba stumbling upon "Open Sesame"), as if He was a genie in a bottle. I believe rather it was the heart attitude of the one praying.

• Romans 8:26-27
• In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

Examples from Scripture:

• James 5:16-18
• The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
• Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
• 
  2 Chronicles 1:7-12
• That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." Solomon answered God, "You have shown great kindness to David my father and have made me king in his place. Now, LORD God, let your promise to my father David be confirmed, for you have made me king over a people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth. Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?" God said to Solomon, "Since this is your heart's desire and you have not asked for wealth, riches or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you. And I will also give you wealth, riches and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have."

Notice, God Himself asked Solomon what he wanted. So then, why didn't he just quote the Prayer of Jabez? God was evidently pleased with his request, anyway, and even said "Since you have not asked for wealth, riches, etc., you're gonna get more than any that came before or will come after you" (Mathesonian Version, all rights reserved).