20 The poor is disliked even by his neighbor,
but the rich has many friends.
21 Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner,
but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.
-Proverbs 14:20-21
It is unwise to read a single proverb at a time. Solomon often daisy chains two or three together to expand our understanding of the topic.
Here, the poor are first observed as annoying or disliked by their neighbors, while the opposite is true for the rich. And no wonder! The poor man is needy, while the rich man has something to give. The poor man might have bad habits or make unwise choices, while the rich man seems much more stable.
If that was all Solomon said, we might be left thinking that it is wiser to keep company with rich people. After all, it would make life more pleasant, we would have better opportunities to accrue our own wealth, and higher quality friends. But then he gives us another proverb that chastises such thinking. The poor are not disliked because they are unstable, unwise, or dirty; they are disliked because their neighbors who dislike them are selfish sinners. He follows this up by saying the generous are blessed, in connection with the rest of this passage.
The generous man is blessed, because he does not despise the poor. He moves past his normal sinful instinct towards partiality and contempt, and shows compassion on those less fortunate. The one who avoids the poor and embraces the rich is just going along with what sin tells him to do; the righteous man, fighting against his sin, learns to treat people the way God treats them.
SuperLutheran
npub14m…pcmt8
2025-08-11 12:15:26 UTC
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2025-08-11 12:15:26 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "20 The poor is disliked even by his neighbor,\n but the rich has many friends.\n21 Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner,\n but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.\n-Proverbs 14:20-21\n\nIt is unwise to read a single proverb at a time. Solomon often daisy chains two or three together to expand our understanding of the topic. \n\nHere, the poor are first observed as annoying or disliked by their neighbors, while the opposite is true for the rich. And no wonder! The poor man is needy, while the rich man has something to give. The poor man might have bad habits or make unwise choices, while the rich man seems much more stable. \n\nIf that was all Solomon said, we might be left thinking that it is wiser to keep company with rich people. After all, it would make life more pleasant, we would have better opportunities to accrue our own wealth, and higher quality friends. But then he gives us another proverb that chastises such thinking. The poor are not disliked because they are unstable, unwise, or dirty; they are disliked because their neighbors who dislike them are selfish sinners. He follows this up by saying the generous are blessed, in connection with the rest of this passage.\n\nThe generous man is blessed, because he does not despise the poor. He moves past his normal sinful instinct towards partiality and contempt, and shows compassion on those less fortunate. The one who avoids the poor and embraces the rich is just going along with what sin tells him to do; the righteous man, fighting against his sin, learns to treat people the way God treats them.",
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