Your name could be a factor in how much money you make. A study from TheLadders shows that shorter first names are correlated with salary, the shorter the better. For every additional letter in a name, salaries average about $3,600 less. So your parents may have determined your income level at the time you were born. Use of a shorter nickname (like my own use of Steve rather than Stephen) also appears to correlate with a higher income, though I can’t really give much personal evidence for that correlation.
One might conclude, therefore, that a “good name” is one that will help you get call backs from potential employers and make others feel more comfortable in using it, thus enhancing your earning potential. However, the first verse of Proverbs 22 explicitly disconnects a “good name” from wealth, telling us “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”
Of course, Proverbs is understanding “good name” in a sense totally other than the pragmatic view that what is good is what produces success and profit. We can see pretty easily that Proverbs 22:1 is concerned with reputation or “favor,” as in the second part of the verse, and values it more highly than ability to accumulate wealth.
In fact, much of the chapter has to do with proper attitudes toward wealth, and, as we see in verse 2, the relationship between rich and poor. Strangely enough, in verse 4, qualities which would seem to be part of a good reputation, “humility and fear of the Lord,” have as their reward “riches and honor and life.” But note how in that reward wealth is joined with “honor,” i.e., good reputation, and with “life,” presumably in contrast to early death, poor health, etc. So wealth by itself cannot stand alone as a good choice.
As I preach I will probably be suggesting that other sayings in this chapter offer advice on how to have a good name. I.e., be generous as in verse 9, seek a pure heart and gracious speech as in verse 11, raise your children well, with proper discipline as in verses 6 and 15.
In this chapter we also come to the end of the first large collection of sayings that began in chapter 10, the proverbs or sayings of Solomon. Proverbs 22:17 identifies what follows as “The words of the wise,” suggesting that these next proverbs are from wise people other than Solomon. Several modern translations read verse 20 to say that there are thirty of these sayings of the wise, “thirty things.” However, that translation is based on amending the text because of the twentieth century discovery of a thirty-chapter Egyptian collection of proverbs. The actual Hebrew word is difficult and may mean simply “former things” or confusingly and literally “3-day things.” The King James rendered it “excellent things,” making a connection with Proverbs 8:6.
The TNIV confidently identifies the thirty sayings with subheadings, but there is wide disagreement on such attempts, since any division into thirty of the section of the “sayings of the wise” (Proverbs 22:22 to 24:22) needs to count some proverbs together as one saying and some singly. It’s a doubtful enterprise.
What we can do is see this section of sayings of the wise and the remaining sections of Proverbs as a recapitulation and deepening of what has been learned so far. Several sayings are longer than the typical two-line proverbs we’ve seen so far, and many make application of wisdom to very specific situations like dining with a king.
In the closing verses of chapter 22, we are given a strong reason not to exploit the poor, based on God’s judgment, warned against entanglement with hot-tempered friends, and urged yet again not to “pledge surety,” i.e., not to co-sign on debts of others. Verse 28 adds a new proverbial thought regarding the importance of regard for ancient land rights. And in regard to the theme from the first verse, verse 29 ends the chapter suggesting that those who achieve a good reputation for skilled work will be given elevated employment.
There is lots of technical stuff in the above reflections on Proverbs 22, but perhaps we can still take away a desire to reflect on whether we are living in such a way as to develop a good name among our family, friends and co-workers. Even more, let us consider what sort of reputation we have before God!