Proverbs 13:23

Proverbs THE TILLAGE OF THE POORProverbs 13:23 . Palestine was a land of small peasant proprietors, and the institution of the Jubilee was intended to prevent the acquisition of large estates by any Israelite. The consequence, as intended, was a level of modest prosperity. It was ‘the tillage of the poor,’ the careful, diligent husbandry of the man who had only a little patch of land to look after, that filled the storehouses of the Holy Land. Hence the proverb of our text arose. It preserves the picture of the economical conditions in which it originated, and it is capable of, and is intended to have, an application to all forms and fields of work. In all it is true that the bulk of the harvested results are due, not to the large labours of the few, but to the minute, unnoticed toils of the many. Small service is true service, and the aggregate of such produces large crops. Spade husbandry gets most out of the ground. The labourer’s allotment of half an acre is generally more prolific than the average of the squire’s estate. Much may be made of slender gifts, small resources, and limited opportunities if carefully cultivated, as they should be, and as their very slenderness should stimulate their being. One of the psalms accuses ‘the children of Ephraim’ because, ‘being armed and carrying bows, they turned back in the day of battle.’ That saying deduces obligation from equipment, and preaches a stringent code of duty to those who are in any direction largely gifted.

Power to its last particle is duty, and not small is the crime of those who, with great capacities, have small desire to use them, and leave the brunt of the battle to half-trained soldiers, badly armed. But the imagery of the fight is not sufficient to include all aspects of Christian effort. The peaceful toil of the ‘husbandman that labours’ stands, in one of Paul’s letters, side by side with the heroism of the ‘man that warreth.’ Our text gives us the former image, and so supplements that other. It completes the lesson of the psalm in another respect, as insisting on the importance, not of the well endowed, but of the slenderly furnished, who are immensely in the majority. This text is a message to ordinary, mediocre people, without much ability or influence. I. It teaches, first, the responsibility of small gifts. It is no mere accident that in our Lord’s great parable He represents the man with the one talent as the hider of his gift. There is a certain pleasure in doing what we can do, or fancy we can do, well. There is a certain pleasure in the exercise of any kind of gift, be it of body or mind; but when we know that we are but very slightly gifted by Him, there is a temptation to say, ‘Oh! it does not matter much whether I contribute my share to this, that, or the other work or no. I am but a poor man. My half-crown will make but a small difference in the total. I am possessed of very little leisure.

Proverbs 13:23 . Much food is in the tillage of the poor — A poor man many times, through God’s blessing upon his endeavours, makes a plentiful provision for himself and family out of a few acres of land, which he manages judiciously and honestly; but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment — There are some whose far larger estates are wasted for want of skill, care, industry, and the divine blessing upon their labours. This is the other sentence of this chapter, (see on Proverbs 13:10 ,) which Melancthon selected for the observation of his scholars; “the latter part of which,” says Bishop Patrick, “he renders differently from all that I have read: (namely, thus:) There is much food in the furrows of the poor, and others heap up without any measure, that is, to no purpose, when a little will suffice; which is a wise saying, but not agreeable to the Hebrew text.”

23 . for want of judgment ] Rather, by reason of injustice , R.V. The contrast is between substance gained by honest toil and substance lost by injustice: a poor man by hard labour makes his newly cultivated field yield him much; but you may see a rich man brought to ruin by dishonest practices. Comp. James 5:1-6 .