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Are Toys Mentioned in the Bible?

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Are Toys Mentioned in the Bible?

[Posted March 31, 2024]

Hi D____,

Thank you for your inquiry ~ “Are toys mentioned in the bible? If so, what does it mean/ [and] signify?” I can’t directly find the word “toy” in scripture; however, there is plenty of evidence of man entertaining himself throughout the Bible to attain joy that results from him ‘toying’ with a host of vehicles for entertainment.

Here are some thesaurus definitions for the word “toy.” From them, we can easily see the negative and positive effects of ‘toying’ with joy with various means of diversion or amplifying joy in everyday life.

Trifle, play, dally, fiddle, flirt/coquet, fool, game, amuse, sport, jest, mess with, banta, tease, wanton, frolic, contrivance, scheme, instrument, artifice, play, to name a limited few. From those terminologies springs all sorts of toyed inventions (Ecc 7:9).

While some of the apostles fished for a livelihood, others were tentmakers, builders, and many other common forms of creating a provision for their families and themselves; most people get some joy from their work. Ironically, the more money gained from any work, the greater the apparent (fleeting) ‘joy’.

Pro 23:5  Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? [things you lust for that the Lord hasn’t seen to provide] for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven [God in heaven owns all the gold]. 

Ecc 5:13  There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

Whatever one’s level of wealth, one of the most outstanding joys other than salvation is having more than enough wealth to be able to give some of it to others for their joy and for the giver to bathe in the recipient’s joy.

Ecc 5:14  But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
Ecc 5:15  As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. 
Ecc 5:16  And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?
Ecc 5:17  All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness. 
Ecc 5:18  Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion. 
Ecc 5:19  Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

What is that “power to eat thereof?” It is to have the wisdom to use his relative wealth, be it little or much, to the best righteous or unrighteous advantage.

Ecc 5:20  For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart. 

“He shall not much remember the days of his life” if he never receives trials resulting from his relative wealth. Trials are more often chastisements and are designed for us to remember the occasion. To an unrighteous person not casting his bread upon the water, God answers him according to the idols of his heart. He can receive much joy by building bigger barns and in this life never see much pain and suffering, but for the Elect of God, God, too, answers him for the joy of God’s pleasure and our ultimate joy from chastisement.

Mat 5:45  so that you may become sons of your Father in Heaven. For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Probably the greatest instrument that keeps us from keeping our eyes singularly focused on Christ is our quest for entertainment to lust for joy. Our quest for joy is insatiable, and is why people overindulge a joy and avoid the pain of trials.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens: it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

No man pursued joy and playing with virtual toys more than Solomon. He kept nothing from his hand to accentuate his joy of ‘toying’ with worldly items. His conclusion of the matter was that it all was vanity and chasing the wind.

Ecc 2:10  And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy [H8057]; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.
Ecc 2:11  Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

God particularly wants us to be filled with joy from our labors and everything to which we righteously put forth our mind, body and most singularly, spirit.

Ecc 9:7  Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
Ecc 9:8  Let thy garments be always white [and for this cause, play with your ‘toys’ righteously]; and let thy head lack no ointment.
Ecc 9:9  Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
Ecc 9:10  Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no [joy from…] work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

However, Solomon, with his one thousand wives, never found lasting joy in any of them since they couldn’t match his infinite wisdom and intellect to attain and amplify unity of mind and spirit. The result was his quest to design his wife in dreaming up the Shulamite’s perfection. Unwittingly to Solomon, he represented Christ, who caused him to use his God-given physical wisdom to ‘create’ the perfect wife to represent his future Bride in her spiritual wisdom that discombobulated his mind in the blackness of understanding ~ an utter insult to his profound God-given wisdom.

Ecc 7:27  Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account [… of not being able to find a wife who could be the perfect companion and ‘help-meet’]:
Ecc 7:28  Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man [unconsciously Christ/Solomon] among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
Ecc 7:29  Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man [men who should be upright, but superseded by Christ] upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

Son 6:13  Return, return, O Shulamite! Return, return, that we may look on you [to study what kind of wisdom you have (spiritual) that I don’t have!].

What will you see in the Shulamite? As it were the dance of two camps.

Solomon didn’t and couldn’t understand the spiritual, and even though he created the Shulamite in his poetic dreaming, he KNEW that something ‘black’ to his understanding other than fleshy decaying works had to come in the form of the Shulamite (Christ’s Bride in spirit and truth) that didn’t exist in his age.

Of course, while in Babylon, our ‘joy’ humiliatingly expanded most devilishly in gaining the upper hand over others to see them squirm in discomfort for our psychopathic joy seeing them put in their place having cut off their ears from hearing the Lord’s word. In that case, they were our ‘toys’ for spiritual abuse.

King Saul would have found demented joy in pinning David to the wall with a javelin; meanwhile, his disturbed spirit was calmed by David’s brilliant picking of the harp’s (“toy”) strings.

1Sa 16:23  And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

1Sa 19:9  And the evil spirit from the LORD was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand: and David played with his hand.
1Sa 19:10  And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.

Javelins, archery, sling shooting, racing horses, chariots and women are all instruments and figurative toys for joy as are men for women’s varied joys.

1Co 11:8  For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
1Co 11:9  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
1Co 11:10  For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

The woman, the Church, is made for Christ and for His good pleasure and reciprocal joy and He says,

3Jn 1:4  I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Jud 1:24  Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
Jud 1:25  To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Rev 4:11  Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

So, the mechanisms of ‘toys’ are everywhere in scripture. They are the ‘natural that comes before the spiritual’, as with every aspect of creation, and they have a spiritual correlation.

The greatest pleasure for a man is a wife who is in unity with him, as is the Bride with Christ, yet, and for now, in the flesh, even a wife and husband are to take a back seat compared to our focus on the spiritual.

1Co 7:29  But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; 
1Co 7:30  And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
1Co 7:31  And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.

From that perspective, ‘toys’ in the physical world are redundant as we move to the spiritual.

Your servant in Christ,

Grant

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