Proverbs 13:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The paradoxes described here are intended to intrigue and entice the mind to explore what seems so contrary to expectation. Some understand the Hebrew verbs here to mean that the person pretends to be rich or pretends to be poor but is really otherwise, but others take it that he considers himself to be such. In the first case, the factitive stem of the verb is understood to mean that the person causes themselves to appear to be so, but in the second they cause themselves to actually be so, or at least to be so in their estimation – they consider themselves rich or poor. The latter view is more strictly what the verb means; the idea of pretence is not essential to the meaning of the stem. There is one who bends every sinew to the goal of obtaining earthly riches: he gets himself an education, he perhaps befriends people of influence, he makes himself an expert in his chosen line of business, and focuses his entire life on accumulating wealth in this world, and yet he has nothing. But here is another who seems to deliberately make himself poor, by neglecting those means which would acquire him wealth, and yet, says Solomon, he has great riches. What is the meaning of this enigma? It is that God and man have two different definitions of wealth, for what the world counts as riches God regards as worthless, and what the Lord greatly values the world rejects as of no consequence. Furthermore, the ways in which these two types of wealth are obtained are opposed to each other, so that those who accumulate one lose the other, and those who forsake the one for the sake of the kingdom of heaven gain the other. These riches are then very different in kind. One consists in gold and silver which can be spent on earth, and in all that these can buy, including lands, houses, security, reputation, power, and the service of men; the other consists in righteousness, integrity, kindness, faithfulness, and all the fruit of the Spirit. These cannot be bought with any amount of money, but are the gifts of God. The first belong to the earth and cannot be taken into the next life; the second are precious in this world and in the world to come. Does this mean that we have to think of ourselves as utter failures with nothing, no understanding, no integrity, no Christian character? No, we have been given spiritual faculties by God, but we cannot take credit for these and can maintain them only with the help of the Lord.