Proverbs 22:7 - John Trapp Complete Commentary

Bible Comments

The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower [is] servant to the lender.

Ver. 7. The rich ruleth over the poor.] And that with rigour, as Pharaoh did over Israel, as those imperious mammonists in St James's time that oppressed and subjugated their poorest brethren, trampling upon them with the feet of intolerable insolence and cruelty. Jam 2:6 "Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children," said those poor Jews in Nehemiah, who pleads their cause most effectually. Neh 5:7-13 Ubi quot verba, tot tela, quae nimirum animam divitum percellant, fodicent et lancinent, as one saith in another case, He sets upon them with irresistible rhetoric, and makes them restore - which yet rich oppressors are very hardly drawn to do. Every grain of riches hath a vermin of pride and ambition in it. 1Ti 6:17 See Trapp on " 1Ti 6:17 " Men's blood riseth together with their good, and they think that everything must be as they would have it. But especially if they have "drawn the poor into their nets" Psa 10:9 - that is, into their bonds, debts, mortgages, as Chrysostom expounds it; then they not only rob, but ravish them; to their cruelty they join dishonesty; there is neither equity nor mercy to be had at their hands.

Proverbs 22:7

7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.c