Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 28:22

He that hasteth to be rich [hath] an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

22. He that hasteth &c. The order of subject and predicate should be reversed as in A.V. marg. and R.V.: He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches. After the manner of this Collection, we have three proverbs ( Pro 28:20-21) on the same subject brought together. Covetousness is a characteristic of a man who is untrustworthy, Pro 28:20, partial, Pro 28:21, and mean and grudging, Pro 28:22.

poverty ] Or, want, R.V. Because it is “the liberal soul” that “shall be made fat,” Pro 11:25. Comp. Isa 32:8.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The covetous temper leads not only to dishonesty, but to the evil eye of envy; and the temper of grudging, carking care, leads him to poverty.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Pro 28:20; Pro 28:22

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

Haste to be rich

Nowhere does the Bible denounce riches. It tells men very plainly what the dangers are. It denounces very strongly the conduct of rich men. But the motive to good conduct, in the Old Testament period, was the promise of secular prosperity–abundance. The Bible asserts that riches are a great blessing; and poverty a great misfortune. It is the method of Gods development and education of the race to bring men up to higher levels by those processes by which men develop larger means, various riches, and the comforts of life, and give to the household broader foundations, ampler powers. It goes against the educated religious feeling of men for one to say that the way of riches was meant to be the way of religion; yet it is true. All barbarous nations are poor. The Bible speaks the sentiment of universal mankind when it regards riches held in the hand of virtue as being an eminent blessing from God.

I. Riches may either be produced or collected. The foundation of all prosperity is production. He increases the riches of a society that applies his reason and skill to the raw material of the globe, or that brings it from inertness to positive service, and gives to matter the power of serving man. He produces wealth. Then comes the man who utilises it; creates it into garments, houses, utensils, etc. The foundation of all value is not what a thing costs in making it, but what is inherent in it of thought and skill. What part of man was used in producing it; and to what part of a man is such properly addressed? The man who produces wealth is the foundation man. It is the law of the production of wealth that a man should render an equivalent for every stage of value. Sudden wealth is not hasty wealth, necessarily.

II. The production of wealth connects itself with benevolence, with sympathy. The man who is developing property, as distinguished from money, is actually increasing the common wealth. It is a sad thing, but in the main true, that the producers of wealth are obliged to eat up the larger part of their product in order to have strength to work. But every man that is developing or producing riches is, at the same time, educating himself in morals, or should be. Patience is a moral quality; another name for self-control. The man who gets wealth legitimately is usually himself built up in inward riches fully as much as he builds up his estate in outward wealth.

III. Haste to be rich is a great danger to men, because it tempts them to employ illegitimate means. Sleights, crafts, disingenuous ways, greed, violations of honesty. Haste runs along the edge of so many dangers, that a mans head must be peculiarly well set on his shoulders, and his brain must be very solid and sober, if he does not topple over into them. A man that is making haste to be rich is tempted to ostentation. But ostentation is expensive, and men are easily tempted to devise schemes to maintain it. Men having sudden wealth are apt to become cruel through indifference to other mens rights. Haste is apt to change into idolatry. (H. W. Beecher.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Hath an evil eye; is uncharitable to persons in want, envious towards those who get any thing besides him, and covetous or greedy of getting riches by all ways possible, whether just or unjust. Thus an evil eye is taken, Pro 23:6; Mat 20:15, as a good eye notes the contrary disposition, Pro 22:9.

That poverty shall come upon him; and consequently that he shall need the pity and help of others, which he cannot expect either from God or men, who hath so hardened himself against others in misery.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

22. (Compare Pr28:20).

evil eyein the generalsense of Pr 23:6, here morespecific for covetousness (compare Pro 22:9;Mat 20:15).

poverty . . . himbyGod’s providence.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

He that hasteth to be rich,…. As every man that is eagerly desirous of riches is; he would be rich at once z, and cannot wait with any patience in the ordinary course of means:

[hath] an evil eye; on the substance of others, to get it, right or wrong; is an evil man, and takes evil methods to be rich a; see 1Ti 6:9; or an envious one; is an envious man; as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; he envies others, as the Vulgate Latin version, the riches of other men; he grudges everything that goes beside himself; and that makes him in haste to be rich, that he may be equal to or superior to others: or he is a sordid, avaricious, illiberal man, that will not part with anything for the relief, for others, and is greedy of everything to amass wealth to himself; an evil eye is opposed to a good or bountiful one, that is, to a man that is liberal and generous, Pr 22:9;

and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him; for wealth gotten hastily, and especially wrongfully, diminishes, wastes, and comes to nothing in the end; it sometimes flies away as fast as it comes; it has wings to do the one, as well as the other: this the man in haste to be rich does not consider, or he would have taken another method; since this is not the true way of getting and keeping riches, but of losing them, and coming to want; see Pr 13:11.

z “Nam dives qui fieri vult, et cito vult fieri”, Juvenal. Satyr. 14. v. 176. a “Sed quae reverentia legum? quis metus, ant pudor est unquam properantis avari?” Juvenal, ib.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

22 The man of an evil eye hasteneth after riches,

And knoweth not that want shall come upon him.

Hitzig renders ‘ the man of an evil eye as apos. of the subject; but in that case the phrase would have been (cf. e.g., Pro 29:1). (Pro 23:6) is the jealous, envious, grudging, and at the same time covetous man. It is certainly possible that an envious man consumes himself in ill-humour without quietness, as Hitzig objects; but as a rule there is connected with envy a passionate endeavour to raise oneself to an equal height of prosperity with the one who is the object of envy; and this zeal, proceeding from an impure motive, makes men blind to the fact that thereby they do not advance, but rather degrade themselves, for no blessing can rest on it; discontentedness loses, with that which God has assigned to us, deservedly also that which it has. The pret. , the expression of a fact; the part. , the expression of an habitual characteristic action; the word signifies praeceps ( qui praeceps fertur ), with the root-idea of one who is unbridled, who is not master of himself ( vid., under Psa 2:5, and above at Pro 20:21). The phrase wavers between (Kimchi, under ; and Norzi, after Codd. and old editions) and (thus, e.g., Cod. Jaman); only at Psa 30:8 stands unquestioned. [want] is recognised by Symmachus, Syr., and Jerome. To this, as the authentic reading, cf. its ingenious rendering of Bereschith Rabba, c. 58, to Gen 23:14. The lxx reads, from 22b, that a , , will finally seize the same riches, according to which Hitzig reads , disgrace, shame (cf. Pro 25:10).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

      22 He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

      Here again Solomon shows the sin and folly of those that will be rich; they are resolved that they will be so, per fas, per nefas—right or wrong; they will be so with all speed; they are getting hastily an estate. 1. They have no comfort in it: They have an evil eye, that is, they are always grieving at those that have more than they, and always grudging their necessary expenses, because they think the former keep them from seeming rich, the latter from being so, and between both they must needs be perpetually uneasy. 2. They have no assurance of the continuance of it, and yet take no thought to provide against the loss of it: Poverty shall come upon them, and the riches which they made wings for, that they might fly to them, will make themselves wings to fly from them; but they are secure and improvident, and do not consider this, that while they are making haste to be rich they are really making haste to be poor, else they would not trust to uncertain riches.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary