There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.
There is that maketh himself rich, yet (hath) nothing: (there is) that maketh himself poor, yet (hath) great riches - parallel, I think, to Proverbs 11:24, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." There are rich men who, by not using their riches to the glory of God and the good of man, have no real good out of their riches: there are also those who make themselves poor by spending to the glory of God and the good of man; yet they have all that is really good in riches, and are counted rich by God (cf. Revelation 2:9, "I know thy ... poverty (the church of Smyrna), but thou art rich;" Luke 12:21; 1 Timothy 6:18; James 2:5). Such a rich widow before God was that one that "of her penury" cast into the Lord's treasury "all the living that she had" (Luke 21:4). On the contrary, the church of Laodicea, "rich, and increased with goods" in her own esteem, was in God's esteem "wretched, and miserable, and poor." Gejer, (Grotius, etc., explain it, 'There are persons who make a show of being rich, while all the time they have nothing' (cf. note, Proverbs 12:9, end): poor and proud at once. 'And there are those who feign themselves poor, while all the while they have ample riches.'