Matthew Henry on Proverbs 28:22
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 wi…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 28:22
(Compare Pro 28:20).
evil eye--in the general sense of Pro 23:6, here more specific for covetousness (compare Pro 22:9; Mat 20:15).
poverty . . . him--by God's providence.
John Gill on Proverbs 28:22
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 1 Timothy 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…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 28:22
22 The man of an evil eye hasteneth after riches,
And knoweth not that want shall come upon him.
Hitzig renders 'אישׁ וגו the man of an evil eye as apos. of the subject; but in that case the phrase would have been אישׁ רע עין נבהל להון (cf. e.g., Pro 29:1). רע עין (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 th…
