Proverbs 28:3 - Exposition

A poor man that oppresseth the poor. The words rendered "poor" are different. The former is rash , "needy," the latter dal , "feeble" (see on Proverbs 10:15 ). Delitzsch notes that, in accordance with the accents in the Masoretic text, we should translate, "A poor man and an oppressor of the lowly—a sweeping rain without bringing bread," which would mean that a tyrant who oppresses the lowly bears the same relation to the poor that a devastating rain does to those whom it deprives of their food. But it is pretty certain that "the poor" and "the oppressor" designate the same person (though the vocalization is against it); hence the gnome refers to a usurper who, rising to power from poor estate, makes the very worst and most tyrannical ruler. Such a one has learned nothing from his former condition but callous indifference, and now seeks to exercise on others that power which once galled him. Thus among schoolboys it is found that the greatest bully is one who has himself been bullied; and needy revolutionists make the most rapacious and iniquitous demagogues. Of such tyrants the prophets complain (see Isaiah 5:8 , etc.; Micah 2:2 ). Wordsworth refers, as an illustration, to Catiline and his fellow conspirators, who were moved by selfish interests to overthrow the commonwealth. Many modern commentators ( e . g . Hitzig, Delitzsch, Nowack), in view of the present text, regarding the combination נבר רשׁ , and noting that elsewhere the oppressor and the poor are always introduced in opposition (comp. Proverbs 29:13 ), read ראֹשׁ , or consider רשׁ as equivalent to it— rosh , "the head," in the signification of "master," "ruler." The gnome thus becomes concinnous, the ruler who ought to benefit his dependents, but injures them, corresponding to the rain which, instead of fertilizing, devastates the crops. The LXX . had a different reading, as it readers, "A bold man in his impieties ( ἀνδρεῖος ἐν ἀσεβείαις ) calumniates the poor." Is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food; literally, and not bread . A violent storm coming at seed time and washing away soil and seed, or happening at harvest time and destroying the ripe corn. Vulgate, Similis est imbri vehementi, in quo paratur fames . Ewald supposes that such proverbs as these and the following belong to the time of Jeroboam II , when the prosperity of the people induced luxury and arrogance, and was accompanied with much moral evil, oppression, and perversion of justice ('Hist. of Israel,' 3.126, Eng. transl.). The Bengalee compares the relation of the rich oppressor to the poor, not with the rainstorm, but with that of the carving knife to the pumpkin.