THE WIND
The writer of Ecclesiastes provides us with many metaphors, and one of them is “chasing the wind.” The writer claims to “have seen everything done in this world, and I tell you, it is all useless. It is like chasing the wind.” (1.14)
Scientists talk about how to “harness the wind,” with enormous wind farms. Of course, we still have not caught the wind, but we have made it come to our generators and provide “power,”
The words for “wind” and “breath” are related in the Kewa language of PNG. When one catches one’s breath, it is the wind that is inhaled. And “chasing the wind” will take our breath away.
It was the winds that allowed explorers and sailors to sail across the seas as long ago as 3500-3000 BC. Their early vessels were basic wooden ones and used on rivers and near the coasts. They used square sails, but later it was the Austronesian explorers who built catamarans and outriggers with crab-claw sails to converse large parts of the ocean.
We still talk about large ships “sailing” although they have propellors, not sails, that churn the ocean and supply energy. Joice and I “sailed” from the U.S. to Australia on a large tourist ship in 1958 and (with stops at Vancouver, Hawaii, Fiji, and NZ) it took 21 days. Think of those early pioneers who sailed to the US from England and how long it took (and how sick some of them were) and we can imagine how important the wind was to their voyage.
The idiom “to take the wind out of someone’s sails” reveals how someone can suddenly lose their energy or confidence by information or interaction with other people. They will need to get their “second wind” to withstand the event and then test it to “know which way the wind blows.” They will certainly not want to “throw caution to the wind” when they “got wind of something.”
We generally don’t like to interact with “windbags,” people who talk without saying much of anything important. They are probably a “blowhard” or a “bag of wind.”
Musicians play “wind instruments” whose sound is heard when the player blows through a reed or tube that causes vibration. There are woodwinds, such as flutes, clarinets, oboes and the saxophone and brass instruments, such as trumpets and trombones. I played (not very well) the cornet, and my dad could play the trumpet and “triple tongue” with it.
In you travel to the Netherlands, you might expect to see their windmills. We did see some (very few) when we visited our friends, but windmills are more common on postcards and tea towels. The windmill uses the natural power of the wind to do mechanical work, such as pumping water. They demonstrate the fundamental power of the wind, which is provide energy, often in the form of electricity.
High speed winds have several names, depending on their speed, duration and their form. Gales are strong winds of speeds between 32 and 63 mph, while squalls are simply a sudden sharp increase in speed, but la only a minute or two.
If the wind is “harsh” we can say that the storm is biting, fierce, or severe. There are cold winds and hot winds and every kind in between.
Storm experts consult the Beauford wind force scale to classify the levels of storms. After a hurricane or tornado, the wind specialists can determine the speed of the winds by examining the damage to trees and other structures. Winds can be extremely destructive due to air pressure and speed.
There are permanent winds that blow throughout the year over various areas of the earth and there are seasonal winds that change their direction according to the time of the day or year.
Because winds are invisible, we judge them by their movement of objects, and it is not surprising that myths and legends have grown up about winds. The Greeks, for example, had four types of wind deities. They were personified by Anemol, a group of wind gods and goddesses. I wonder if Paul knew of such Greek images when he wrote of Jesus returning in the clouds, blown by the wind.
In my English Good News Bible there are 204 references to the wind. When Noah was in the ark during the flood it was God who cause a wind to blow so that the water started receding. And in the Joesph story there are seven heads of grain that sprout and are scorched by the desert wind.
It is the Lord who controls the wind and in the case of Moses he drove the sea back with a strong east wind. (Exodus 14.21) and in Leviticus 25.36 we read that he makes those in exile terrified at “the sound of a leaf blowing in the wind.”
We can have doubts in our prayers, and these are compared by James to having what we ask blow about by the wind (James 1.6). Shameless deeds are like “clouds carried along by the wind, but bringing no rain” (Jude 1.12) and evil people are “like straw that the wind blows away.” (Psalm 1.4)
Finally, and as the psalmist warns us, “every living being is no more than a puff of wind.“ That said, “it is better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 4.6)
Karl Franklin
