Proverbs 22:22 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Proverbs 22:22

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Well it does happen. The Hebrew for ‘rob’ is from the verb to pluck, pluck off the poor, in other words, take the last feather, as it were, strip the poor completely. You can imagine that a man has a small holding, as they all had in those days in that agrarian society. But for some reason, he has fallen on hard times. Let us not suppose he has been foolish, but it has been difficult and the weather has not been favourable, and he cannot afford the seed or the fodder or whatever he needs, and so the rich, the local squire in old fashioned British terms, takes advantage of him and charges him very high prices until he owes a large amount of money. He wants to seize his land for himself. ‘He is a poor man. He cannot afford much, therefore I will drive him completely into the ground, and he will owe me so much I will be able to take over his tract of land, and then I shall own everything from Land’s End to John-O-Groats. I am frustrated because I have got all this land but there is still somebody holding out against me, and I shall exploit any disadvantage or hindrance that they suffer to get it.’ Well, there are people who do that in all walks of life. Somebody is reduced to near-begging, and he is going to have the last ounce of anything they have and are worth squeezed out of them. But it goes beyond. The believer will never be like that. What this illustrates – and this then applies to us all – is a kind of relentlessness. Some of the rich or the wealthy are just utterly heartless and relentless in their pursuit of gain. They will pursue people really so as to break them if necessary.‘Neither oppress the afflicted’, and the word means, do not crush them in pieces. In the New Testament in 2 Timothy 3 the apostle Paul uses a word which our King James translators render as truce breakers, or truceless. They are implacable people, relentless people, who go to the very limits to get what they want, but this is a fallen human passion. It can happen and does happen even among Christians. It may have affected you or me, and we have to be so careful.

Application

You may have seen it in a child. In many families there is often one child who has got a particularly strong will. If he or she needs something, or wants something, or feels offended, or imagines he or she has a wrong to be put right, they will not give it up. You will not hear the last of it. They must have their way or their retribution. Most children seem to grow out of it, but some parents say, ‘Oh I have to really negotiate with my child and he is impossible.’ Will he always be as strong-willed as this? Hopefully not. Hopefully it will give way to wholesome determination which he can control and apply to the right things. But sometimes people keep hold of this and they will not forgive, they will not give up in an argument. There is something which cannot be settled even between husband and wife, and there is a perfectly reasonable solution but one of the parties will not let go. You sometimes used to see it in public life. I think of a certain thwarted Tory party leader, who never gave up the pursuit of his indignation at having a lost an election for the leadership for the rest of his life, and was always attacking or criticising the person who had the victory over him. What a shame he spoiled himself and his public reputation. Pride is behind it. I cannot be wrong. I cannot be contradicted. What a shame if that gets into a believer. This can affect the husband who rather misinterprets his headship of the home, and thinks it means he can never be wrong, and should never yield or give way or see another point of view.

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Proverbs 22:22 Commentary and Bible Study