Proverbs Chapter 19 reads as follows from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible:

1. Better the poor walking in integrity, than one of perverse speech who is a fool, 2. Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who move to hurriedly misses the way. 3. One’s own folly leads to ruin, yet his heart rages against the Lord. 4. Wealth brings many friends, but the poor are left friendless. 5. A false witness will not go unpunished, and a liar will not escape. 6. Many seek the favor of the generous, and everyone is a friend to the giver of gifts. 7. If the poor are hated even by their kin, how much more are they shunned by their friends. 8. To get wisdom is to love oneself; to keep understanding is to prosper. 9. A false witness will not go unpunished, and the liar will perish. 10. It is not fitting for the fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes. 11. Those with good sense are slow to anger, and it is their glory to overlook an offense. 12. A kings anger is like he growling of a lion, but his favor is like the dew on the grass. 13. A stupid child is ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain. 14. House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. 15. Laziness brings on deep sleep; an idle person will suffer hunger. 16. Those who keep the commandment will live, those that are heedless of their ways will die. 17. Whoever is kind to the Lord lends to the poor and will be repaid in full. 18. Discipline your children while there is hope, do not set your heart on their destruction. 19. A violent tempered person will pay the penalty, if you effect a rescue, you will only have to do it again. 20. Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for the future. 21. The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established. 22. What is desirable in a person is loyalty, and it is better to be poor than a liar. 23. The fear of the Lord is life indeed, filled with it one rest secured and suffers no harm. 24. The lazy person buries a hand in the dish, and will not bring it back to the mouth. 25. Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence. 26. Those who do violence to their father and chase away their mother, are children who cause shame and bring reproach. 27. Cease straying, my child, from the words of knowledge, in order that you receive instruction. 28. A worthless witness mocks at justice, and the mouth of the wicked devours inequity. 29. Condemnation is ready for scoffers, and flogging for the backs of fools.

Verse 1- you can walk around as poor but keep your integrity, and keep your speech away from perversity which is a further compromise downward. Hopefully, the state of being poor will not be perpetual but it is can be dealt with without losing a godly path. Also, this is true for someone facing sudden poverty, maybe a natural disaster such as floods took away all their material possessions, there is still a godly path from there.

Verse 2- desire is something to be aware of and tap in too in some ways and is part of the means of determining where to proceed towards, but don’t get ahead of yourself in terms of the need to know, and you can run right past the opportunity. This could also refer to a working style where the push is towards volume and output rather than keen insights.

Verse 3- In some cases it might be your own fault that you are in the trouble you are in, yet the lashing out in your thinking is that the Lord wanted this to be this way, while if you hadn’t taken the misstep to the point of being foolish you would have had the what you wanted.

Verse 4– the catch is that wealth attracts so you might not know if the friendship has sincerity if you are attracting friends on that basis. The poor become to a degree outcasts in relation to their more wealthy counterparts. We of course see this not only on individual levels but on national and global levels.

Verse 5-a false witness is a particularly harsh thing, in that someone is falsely accused because of this lie, and this is something that will not go unpunished by the Lord who is watching over such things.

Verse 6- those that have the means and intent towards generosity will have takers, and this verse implies that they have favor to give, and it may not be only things that are material and monetary, it could be the spiritually generous, those that have varied gifts some of which can be spiritual. This verse has a little bit of everybody does it to it. It doesn’t say some, but it says everybody and that is interesting in and of itself, and if this is a guilty endeavor than everybody has a degree of guilt.

Verse 7- Yet another verse saying that poverty has a way of repelling even kin and relatives who have those ties and how it goes further against the ties of friendship, which tends to be more contingent.

Verse 8-part of loving yourself in the specifics is getting wisdom. The Bible says to love yourself, and getting wisdom according to this verse is part of loving yourself. Finding understanding and then keeping it in the forefront and holding on to the understanding is a critical component to finding and staying on the path to prosperity.

Verse 9- This is saying that the liar, especially in cases involving false witness might even perish. We see an example of this in the book of Daniel.

Verse 10- This verse goes into the idea of what is a good fit something that can be used in contemplation towards decision making. While fools do in fact live in luxury, in the wisdom of the times it was understood that luxury would be also for the wise, and someone also of lower estate wouldn’t be appropriate as someone who would rule over princes. From this verse, those that are in the lap of luxury but might have a twinge of guilt, should feel less guilty based on this verse where luxury is given correlation with being among the wise.

Verse 11- not going right into a rage or an argument in many cases might be the sensible thing to do and this is also a way of bypassing a situation rather than getting involved.

Verse 12=The kings anger has a real bite behind it potentially, when the nearby lion roars, he also might do more than that if he is an angry lion. The dew on the grass is symbolic of favor that actually permeates and is also something visible and therefore in the realm of the real. The kings favor is real favor and a favor that covers like the dew covers the grass.

Verse 13- in this verse the father has a double hit, a stupid child and a quarrelsome wife who doesn’t let up. Either situation and both together is not what is desirable.

Verse 14- the prudent husband or wife, is obtained as a direct confrontation with the grace of the Lord, while wealth and a house can be more of an something that is obtained from the outer environment and its resources for everybody.

Verse 15-there are approaches that can characterize as laziness, it could be nuances and fine lines, but applied effort is part of what in involved in getting there.

Verse 16-this refers to the commandments of the Lord, a good reason to keep them in mind is to save your own hide.

Verse 17-The kindness to the poor is a direct favor to the Lord in the spiritual realm and it will be repaid by the Lord in the here and now.

Verse 18- the discipline referred to here would refer to reigning in possible errant ways of children, ways that can ultimately push them into imminent danger and it would be better to be harsh with them if and where necessary in exercising a degree of sternness towards there objections.

Verse 19- an outburst of anger can and will have adverse consequences at times. The person, or enterprise who conducts bailouts, might get stuck having to do it again and again and this is something to consider when making the decision to do this.

Verse 20- if you can discern that you are getting good instructions, good advice, this is something that may involve you future, which can be better and brighter if you incorporate this advice and instruction.

Verse 21-This verse goes into the idea, you can make as many plans as you want, but the Lord is still ruling the day and the way.

Verse 22-Loyalty is a desirable trait if and where it is found in a person. But of course there is a need to be loyal to what is right and loyalty to for example ideas or ways of thinking can be depending on the issue and subject matter, subject to review and or further interpretation and investigation. When this verse says it is better to be poor than a liar, it is talking about any state that seems to be deficient and there are lies to cover it up. It is often better to just not to try and drum up what really just isn’t there and go with what you have at the moment and indeed that is all you have.

Verse 23- the fear of the Lord as a state is the place of security  that cannot otherwise be found. This is the only possible source for this level of security. There is a filling aspect to the Spirit of the Lord, where is a life giving force that fills the body, mind, soul or situation. Healing for example by the Spirit of God would involve a filling of healing, a filling presence for healing in maybe a specific area of the body.

Verse 24- this is perhaps referring more to the lazy rich, that become potentially so encumbered with riches and satiation, that it leads to that type of laziness, where they have had so much food and being waited on that they lose their own bearing that way. This verse contrasts to the poor lazy man who doesn’t get to this point because he is lazy in other ways, but there can also be the rich lazy man whose means can overwhelm him.

Verse 25- Sometimes the wise guy needs to be roughed up a bit as an example. The intelligent when corrected will take the correction as such.

Verse 26- This is an example of hostile children, to where they have the power to execute violence even against their own parents. Such is the situation of more trouble coming down the road and example of how far things can deteriorate.

Verse 27- waywardness in part also involves decreasing willingness to listen to wise speakers, wherever they may be found, and this has the effect of getting someone even lost further from the way to go. This verse the way its worded seems to say when addressing my child, a direct admonition for the Lord not to forgo wise instruction as this is a gift made available from the Lord and should be heeded as such.

Verse 28- someone who comes forth as a false or not appropriate witness but has designs on the outcomes, ultimately mocks the situation, and this is a person who is counted as overall worthless. The mockers of justice casts their lots elsewhere and they are like vultures that devour the words of evil and feast on the words of iniquity. They operate as outsiders when it comes to anything good.

Verse 29- This verse is more talking about not the foolhardy or the harmless fool, but the fool whose pursuits involve real damage and potential harm to others and this type of fool will find deep punishment.

by Joseph Jagde