A poor man who oppresses the lowly is like a flooding rain that destroys the harvest.
An especially galling injustice receives its own mention in Proverbs 28:3: A poor man who oppresses the lowly is like a driving rain which leaves no food (v. 3). The picture is severe.
The verse is sharper than it first appears. The wicked rich oppressing the poor is sadly common. Solomon names the more wretched case: a man who is himself poor, yet uses what little power he has to harm those even more vulnerable than himself: A poor man who oppresses the lowly. He should know what poverty feels like. He has chosen to inflict it anyway.
Like a driving rain which leaves no food. Heavy rain that should bring crops instead floods them away. The land that needed water gets too much, and the harvest is lost. The poor man who oppresses people even poorer than himself is like that kind of destructive flood: someone whose presence among the lowly destroys what little they had. The verse condemns him with particular force because his behavior contradicts his own experience.
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Proverbs 28:3 meaning
An especially galling injustice receives its own mention in Proverbs 28:3: A poor man who oppresses the lowly is like a driving rain which leaves no food (v. 3). The picture is severe.
The verse is sharper than it first appears. The wicked rich oppressing the poor is sadly common. Solomon names the more wretched case: a man who is himself poor, yet uses what little power he has to harm those even more vulnerable than himself: A poor man who oppresses the lowly. He should know what poverty feels like. He has chosen to inflict it anyway.
Like a driving rain which leaves no food. Heavy rain that should bring crops instead floods them away. The land that needed water gets too much, and the harvest is lost. The poor man who oppresses people even poorer than himself is like that kind of destructive flood: someone whose presence among the lowly destroys what little they had. The verse condemns him with particular force because his behavior contradicts his own experience.